The Player (1992)

QFS No. 123 - The invitation for October 4, 2023
The Player will be our first selection from the works of master Robert Altman since way back in 2000 with one of our early QFS selections, McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971, QFS No. 11). Unlike the Western setting of that film, The Player storyline takes place and is set in Hollywood.

 I know the basic setting and concept only from people who have told me about the movie because … I have never seen this film. This admission is usually met with the following response: What – but you work in the film industry! Yes, dingbat, I know that and yes, you’re right, it’s borderline shameful I haven’t seen it. I have no excuse, though I have attempted but failed over the years to remedy this problem by finally seeing it, including at numerous local theatrical screenings that I’ve missed for one reason or another.

Which is why I’m excited to see this now and discuss with you! I’m also curious to know what 1990s Hollywood thought about working in 1990s Hollywood and what it’s like to be working in that same industry 33 years later. I remain a big fan of Mr. Altman’s filmmaking and this is a major gap in my knowledge of his work that will soon be addressed.

The Player (1992) Directed by Robert Altman

Reactions and Analyses:
As someone who works in the film business - as do most people in the QFS discussion group - I was struck how deeply cynical The Player (1992) is. I shouldn’t have been; the spirit of the film reflects what was almost certainly Robert Altman’s perception of the industry at this point in his career.

Altman comes to prominence in the 1970s with the great wave of American auteurs and finds critical acclaim for his films, especially Nashville (1975), MASH (1970), The Long Goodbye (1973) and McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971). These films all feature his voice as a filmmaker, with long fluid camera movement and at times a documentary-type approach to dialogue and interaction between the characters in the film.

But then, in 1980, he directs Popeye (1980) which utterly bombs in the box office. You could see the aftershocks int he 1980s - Altman has a long string of unremarkable films. Or at least films that have not endured the way his other films have. While other ’70s auteurs, like Martin Scorsese, Alan Pakula, Francis Ford Coppola, Brian De Palma find their way with bigger budgets and films - not to mention George Lucas and Steven Spielberg - it’s Altman who is likely up against forces attempting to curtain his maverick spirit. He’s coming up against corporate filmmaking and isn’t really able to break through.

Until he makes The Player, ironically, in 1992. His scathing indictment of the Hollywood system is the film that actually brings him back into the Hollywood fold. As one member of the QFS discussion group posited - this is a really bad movie about making really bad movies.

Personally, I don’t think it’s a really bad movie but it’s definitely a movie that skewers movie conventions. It’s spoofs crime movies, romance movies, thrillers, and of course - the repeated take down of the long-standing complaint of filmmakers everywhere: Hollywood’s desire for a happy ending. The nearly eight-minute opening shot is of course often discussed - a continuous tracking shot complete with zooms gives allows us to spy. We listen in through windows or walk-and-talking conversations about movies, film gossip, and truly terrible script pitches. The Graduate 2, pitched by the writer of The Graduate (1968), Buck Henry, is straight-up genius. It sets up the gossipy world we’re about to enter and is reminiscent of the terrific camera work that’s a hallmark of all Altman’s films. I was particularly reminded of Nashville, another exploration of an entertainment industry but with a less acerbic tone.

Part of the nearly eight-minute long opening shot from The Player (1992) Directed by Robert Altman

But back to Hollywood’s ubiquitous desire for happy endings - this is probably Altman’s biggest gripe and obviously the thing he never really does in his films. They usually end with something ambiguous or even tragic, as in McCabe & Mrs. Miller or bittersweet and off-kilter as in The Long Goodbye. Here, to achieve his happy ending, it’s all satire. Tim Robbins as “Griffin Mill” is struggling to keep his prominence in the studio, fighting the upstart Peter Gallagher (“Larry Levy”). He’s being stalked, then kills someone. He’s then suspected of murder. Then runs from the law. Then is caught. But then a year later, he’s running the studio. And gets the girl. It’s searing and brutal what Altman is saying here - immoral psychopaths run the film business. Altman has claimed this is light satire, but this feels more like a brutal takedown and indictment.

The fascinating thing about this movie is the abundance of cameos. It features the most amount of Oscar nominees in a single film - because they’re all playing themselves. Except then you get Whoopie Goldberg (“Detective Susan Avery”) who shows up and is holding an Oscar in her first scene - but she’s not playing herself, an Oscar winner and former host. It’s just on the edge of being too cute for its own good.

Flowers and the perfect life crowd the frame in the final shot of The Player (1992), a parody of Hollywood’s desire for happy endings.

Shameless people who will suffer no consequences - if this ever was a film for the #metoo era, or to show the conditions that bring about people who act without fear of repercussions, this is it. It was particularly unnerving to watch this during the WGA strike - not only does a studio executive actually murder someone, but there is another studio executive (Larry Levy) who comes up with a story idea just by reading the paper and says writers can be eliminated. Despite being definitely a product of the early 1990s - as evidenced by the phones and in-car fax - it is more than relevant for today in that respect.

The entire film is worth it to see the payoff of Habeas Corpus coming together and basically doing all the things that the director claimed they wouldn’t do - sell out and make it commercial. The fact that they have Bruce Willis, who is probably in the top 3 greatest action stars in the world at this time along with rising star Julia Roberts in this fake movie within the movie is truly fantastic. And the movie is so bad that it’s perfect for the “light satire” Altman wants to portray here.

The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek (1943)

QFS No. 3 - The invitation for May 13, 2020
Preston Sturges is one of my favorite American filmmakers of the pre- and early post-war era. His Sullivan’s Travels (1941) and Hail The Conquering Hero (1944) are exceptional works of writing and subtle-to-overt social criticism through satire – especially during the studio system era. A handful of us were fortunate to catch Hail The Conquering Hero in the theater here in LA for our predecessor Wednesday Night Film Society get together at the New Beverly Cinema several years ago.

The Miracle at Morgan’s Creek has been on my “to watch” list for some time, so I figured let me use this opportunity in quarantine to encourage everyone to embrace their primal love of black and white cinema. Also this is probably the exact opposite type of film than the previous week. (We’re going to swing back and forth a lot with these selections!)

Join us if you can – details to follow.

The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek (1943) Directed by Preston Sturges

Reactions and Analyses:
The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek (1943) is a surprisingly subversive film. At the center of the story is Trudy (Betty Hutton) who is pregnant and doesn’t know who the father is. But she knows it’s a soldier because she was at a wild farewell party for a group of soldiers heading off to fight in World War II and had hit her head on a chandelier. She believes she married a soldier but doesn’t even know his last name for sure so they can’t find him.

Just stopping there - this is extraordinary. Think about 1943 and 1944 when this film is released by Paramount Pictures. How could a major movie studio release a film with this borderline blasphemous plot during the height of World War II when the nation was mobilized in unwavering support for the war effort and American soldiers conscripted to fight overseas? The premise suggests that a woman was so blackout drunk at a party with soldiers, enjoying the company of one or more of them, then got pregnant and has to figure out what to do now.

Throw in the hapless Norval (Eddie Bracken) who throws on a uniform as if to solve the problem as they fake a marriage, where things continue to go awry, and you take it from tragedy to comedy really quickly, with moral questions at its center.

The only filmmaker of that time - especially for a comedy - who could credibly pull this off is Preston Sturges. A true auteur before the word ever came into being even in France, Sturges was writing and directing his own films with his own unique voice. You can look no further than the terrific Hail the Conquering Hero (1944) from this same year (also starring Eddie Bracken) which skewers the idea of war heroism. There, Eddie Bracken’s “Woodrow” is discharged from the military after only a month, but a small lie - that he fought abroad - spirals out of control as everyone treats him as a returning hero. He’s suddenly the toast of his home town, rekindling an old love, even picked to run for mayor.

Here, in The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek, there’s a similar theme - this idea that soldiers are unassailable demigods and not fallible humans. That war and military service is the measure of greatness.

By the end of the film, Trudy gives birth to six boys in a truly wild delivery room sequence that features a harried Norval and a frantic doctor. The news makes it around the world - both the fact that someone gave birth to six children but also that they were all, miraculously, boys. This is portrayed as a sign of American virility and prowess, of American might and righteousness. It’s wacky, it’s nonsensical, and the time frame of it all makes no sense. But it’s the perfect conclusion to a Sturges film.

One QFSer brought up that this is all tongue-in-cheek. Sturges is saying that all of this American moral superiority is nonsense and deserving of ridicule. Or at the very least, deserving of at least a mirror to show ourselves how shallow and self-delusional it all really is. Sturges’ tone borders on sarcastic, but it’s not sarcasm exactly. It’s farce - social criticism covered up by farce. Whether it worked on that level for audiences at the time is perhaps unclear now, but it certainly clear upon watching in 2020. The brilliance of Sturges here, and in all his work, is how it endures even though it was meant to probe the cultural and social norms of the time.