Spoiler Alert: These essays are ideally to be read after viewing the respective films.

Sunday, September 23, 2018

De-Lovely

Cole Porter (1891-1964), an American composer and songwriter, is the centerpiece of the film, De-Lovely (2004). The film begins when he meets Linda, who would become his wife. Their relationship is at the center of the story, as well as Porter’s love songs sung throughout the film. Although the complicated nature of the relationship takes center stage, the film can be viewed as a moving snapshot of the first half of the twentieth century, when film made inroads that would dwarf the stage.


The message is clear: quality (e.g. clever humor) was be sacrificed, or “dumbed down,” to be attractive to the much larger movie-market. In other words, entertainment would have to become virtual eye-candy to be attractive to the ordinary American. In the film, Porter’s “Be a Clown” is meant as a swipe at J.B. Meyer even as the eye-candy visuals were deployed to tickle his ribs so he would be oblivious to the insult being leveled at his industry, and thus himself.
Linda Porter is more direct at the film’s party at the set, likening Hollywood to being deep down in an ocean—suggestive of the bisexual activities of Cole having found ready outlets in L.A.—rather than being in warm and sunny southern California. No opening after-party on Broadway would take place literally on a stage. How low class that would be!
Lastly, after watching a private screening of Night and Day (1946), in which Cary Grant is implausibly cast to play Cole Porter, neither Cole nor Linda is impressed. Looking at the attempt to capture Cole’s life in film, the couple could be concluding, moreover, that the ascendancy of film would result in a new decadence—a new low—in American entertainment.
Had they been around, the Porters would have stayed home rather than see the slew of disaster sans narrative films, such as Earthquake (1974), The Day After Tomorrow (2004), and San Andreas (2015).  An interesting question is how Cole Porter viewed the decline in the number of Hollywood musicals beginning in the 1950s as the studio system started to come apart. He likely did not appreciate the dollar argument wherein what is produced should be what will maximize revenue, even if Porter benefitted financially from higher ticket sales of his films. It seems to me that the film medium is not to blame, for the film, Amadeus (1984), shows the existence of low theatre in the eighteenth century, before cinema would come into being.
Both theatre and film can go to the most base in terms of humor and narrative to titillate certain market-segments, while producing truly astonishing quality. Hence, films like Dumb and Dumber (1994) have not been made with an eye to getting an Academy Award, whereas films like The Iron Lady (2011) and Lincoln (2012) likely were. Astonishingly, actors like Meryl Streep can play in both camps, such as in starring in films like The Iron Lady and The Devil Wears Prada (2006) and yet also films like Mamma Mia! (2008) and Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (2018). I am not saying that the latter films cannot or should not be taken to be entertaining; rather, I am pointing to the sheer distance between such films and those that receive best picture and acting nominations at the Academy of Motion Pictures. The existence of films such as Dumb and Dumber does not negate the high art of the films that are nominated (and win) Academy awards.