Oeuvre: Mel Brooks Retrospective

As I said in my first review, the Oeuvre project was just something that I started with a friend to keep in touch, as well as keeping our critical minds sharp, and to give us a chance to explore and revisit films we might never have watched otherwise.  

For the past month and a half or so, I've been watching and reviewing the films of Mel Brooks.  I had heard of almost all of his work but I had never seen most of them and exploring unknown decades of his career was intriguing.

Its always interesting to watch a director change over time.  Whether they evolve or stagnate.  As long as I've known about Mel Brooks, I've known him as a comic legend.  The common man equivalent to Woody Allen.  There was even a debate over which of these New York Jewish comedians was "better" on 'Siskel and Ebert.'  (http://siskelandebert.org/video/8R52X9UUUHXO/Sneak-Previews--Mel-Brooks-or-Woody-Allen-1980)

Is that reputation justified?  Somewhat.  Do I think he's worthy of his iconic status?  Sort of.  After watching all of his films, I can definitively say, he's more visual than Allen.  In fact, his visual flair may be Brooks' greatest asset.  He's not a auteur but he has an eye for the sight gag and his passion for meta humor must have been revolutionary.  He had a talent for surrounding himself with and reusing talented performers such as Gene Wilder, Madeline Kahn, Cloris Leachman, Harvey Korman, Marty Feldman, and Dom DeLuise.  These casting favorites, along with a long career as a parodist gave Brooks a brand he would live by for the rest of his career.  I don't think he integrated himself as a star of his own films as successfully as Allen, in fact I think it was often a detriment to his material.  Perhaps his films would have been stronger with someone else in front of the camera.  And unfortunately, that self-imposed label as a parodist would haunt him.  I firmly believe that the only reason 'Life Stinks' is treated with such vehement disregard is because it is such a radical departure for him. 

When I think of Mel Brooks at his best, I think of self-referential comedy, broad slapstick, gross-out jokes, social commentary, and a love of the absurd.  Of all his films, I think 'Blazing Saddles' is the one that best encapsulates his career.  It deftly blends satire of the Western genre with an undercurrent of racisms and general prejudice.  Its climax is the most self-aware Mel Brooks has ever gotten without tripping over himself, and the screenplay sparkles with line after line of quotable material.

Its hard to watch his career from beginning to end without thinking about his influence but also about how time seemed to pass him by.  While he was making 'High Anxiety', the Zucker Brothers were about to hit it big with the absurdist parody 'Airplane!'  A year after he retired with 'Dracula: Dead and Loving It', Wes Craven released one of my favorite horror/self-aware comedies, 'Scream' and only a few years after that, Keenen Wayans released 'Scary Movie' which itself felt like a Brooks style parody of Scream.  We reached a whirlpool of parody circling parody, a snake eating its own tale.  I can't help but think of Brooks as one of the grandfathers of that style of comedy.

Brooks had a legendary rise to stardom as a comedic filmmaker with The Producers, winning best original screenplay for his first film.  How many can claim that?  Diablo Cody is the only name that comes to mind.  Though his star dwindled and faded away with flops towards the end, its clear how numerous films of his wind up on multiple Greatest Comedies of All Time lists.

For good or ill, hilarious or mind-numbingly terrible, his films were consistently his.  And that's one of the greatest compliments I can pay any director.

***

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The Director's Oeuvre: Mel Brooks - Blazing Saddles

In every sense, 'Blazing Saddles' feels like the movie Mel Brooks should have made after 'The Producers.'  With newfound confidence in his script, a strong cast, and a bigger budget, Brooks swings for the fences with this satirical western that shocks as often as it enthralls.

The story is about Bart, a black railroad worker who is appointed Sheriff of the small hick town of Rock Ridge by a conniving State Attorney General with hopes that he will insight unrest and run out the townspeople so he can buy the land cheap and build a railroad.  Its honestly not as complicated as it reads.

Cleavon Little plays Bart and he is as charming, charismatic, and likable as can be.  He takes the town's racism with good cheer and a smile that says "I get it. You're all bigots. And that's just the way things are."  The role requires someone eternally hopeful in a hopeless situation and Little absolutely nails it.

While the movie starts off a little rocky, one-note, and goofy for goofy's sake, the story picks up quite a bit when Gene Wilder appears as Jim, the fastest, drunkest hands in the West.  Wilder is effortlessly funny and his unassuming mug makes his speed all the more surprising.  The camaraderie between Jim and Bart is one of the highlights of the movie.

Madeline Kahn is decent as Lili Von Shtupp.  I honestly can't tell if she's trying or not.  She does get some classic one-liners in though.  "They're always coming and going and going and coming and always too soon."  I must confess that my disappointment in her role is entirely on me.  Lili is constantly referred to as one of the great comedy characters and I'm not sure why.  She's not as big a part as history would like to remember.  She's just another adversary for Bart to convert, nothing special.  I just hope you think that lisp humor is hiwawious.

But the real star of the movie is Harvey Korman as Hedey, sorry, Hedley Lamarr.  He plays the conniving State Attorney General who is continually frustrated by Bart's success in Rock Ridge.  His seething anger and dastardly villainy is a thing of wonder.

Mel Brooks is the weakest part of the movie as a cross-eyed moron, Governor William J Lepetomane, a role that exists solely so Brooks can have a part in his own movie.  I wonder if his check from the paddleball people cleared.

I can't stress how shocking this movie is.  The original title of the film was 'TEX X', "dock that chink a day's pay for nappin' on the job!" is one of the opening lines of the film, and the use of the N-word alone would make Quentin Tarantino blush.  There is a boldness present we haven't seen from Brooks before.  And yet, the film is more than just a shock fest/satire of Western tropes.  Its also a pointed criticism about the way minorities of all sorts were exploited, including African Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and large-breasted secretaries.

The Looney Tunes humor feels a little tacked on, as though they didn't know what joke to put there but they knew they had to have one.  But this movie is shooting from the hip with a new joke or gag every 10 seconds.  If one of them doesn't work, and many of them don't, there will be a new one shortly.

The last act of the movie pushes meta humor, an element that will define Mel Brooks' career, to its limits with a twist so extreme even M Night Shyamalan wouldn't dare try it.  I won't spoil it here.  I'm sure at the time this was an unparalleled example of self-referential comedy but it goes on far too long as though Brooks made a list of every gag he could think of and then filmed them regardless of how long funny it was.

A recurring element in Mel Brooks' filmography is that even if you haven't seen his stuff, you've seen it referenced.  This holds true for Blazing Saddles more than any other film in his career thus far, and for good reason.  It's just that funny.