Two Doc Reviews – Crazy Horse & Paul Williams Still Alive
One film is by Frederick Wiseman, 81, director of 40 docs in the last 44 years, triple Emmy winner (and amazingly, never Oscar nominated), and industry legend.
The other is by Stephen Kessler, age unknown, director of no docs before this, though he is an Oscar winning (in 1991, for a short called Birch Street Gym), and best remembered in the industry for directing Vegas Vacation.
One is classic documentary form… no voice over… no director in the movie… beautifully shot and edited reality about an interesting subject. The premise of the other is that the director thought Paul Williams was dead, found out otherwise, and decided to make a movie about Williams still being alive and kicking, essentially diving in with the camera running, becoming a part of his subject’s life.
These couldn’t be two more different films on the surface. But dig a little deeper and you realize that both films are about show business and both films are, greatly, about the banality of glamour’s workings and the power of the facade.
The Crazy Horse is the legendary Paris nude performance club… not a strip club, but high-style buck naked burlesque. Wiseman’s work is impeccable. The movie flips between two different kinds of subjects. One is the performances themselves. Wiseman and longtime cinematographer John Davey make strong, distinct choices about how to shoot each act. Sometimes, it’s so close that the viewer’s eye has no choice but to watch the detail that the act is designed around. Sometimes, we are watching as though in the club. Most often, it is somewhere in between.
The other subject is the inner workings of the Crazy Horse (or “The Crazy,” as it is often referred to by staff). The film is built around the effort to breath new life into the then 57-year-old show by Philippe Decouflé, an acclaimed choreographer/artist in France… though you wouldn’t know much about Decouflé via the film, which doesn’t have anyone directly explaining anything. We are there, in the midst of the last weeks of pushing to the finish line, so we get a sense of what is going on, we get some info about the players based on their behaviors, but the voice of God stays out of things.
Interestingly, the women of the Crazy Horse are side characters in this piece. Their bodies are in virtually constant display. But whether is because they won’t talk or because they have nothing to say or because Wiseman just isn’t interested in their stories, they are, with the exception of a couple of scenes, the same as the lights or the costumes or the set themselves. Which is to say that they are treated like objects, but they are not really objectified as such. Wiseman’s camera is not judging them at all. They just are.
Crazy Horse is simply a well-crafted piece that feels like it does exactly what it sets out to do. If it had other goals, it would be a different film. And you could make that film too. But the genius of Wiseman, as others, is that he truly takes a slice of life and offers it too us. Of course, he makes choices. Of course, there are days of footage left behind. But you get to be a fly in the room and to experience life as it breathes in that space… no faking… no spin… no bullshit, aside from the natural bullshit to which we are all prone on this earth.
Kessler is a joker. And I mean this in a good way. But here is a guy who opens his doc with a voice over about how sad it is that Paul Williams is dead… he did such great stuff… but of course, he is alive… and more to the point, the movie is titled, “Paul Williams Still Alive!”
That kind of defines the entire tone of the movie. It’s a doc, for sure. But in some ways, it’s a story about Kessler’s search for and then search for intimacy with Williams. But it’s also a great look back at the remarkable life and career of Williams. But it’s also a rollercoaster ride about Williams’ current life, which is loaded with work, even if it’s not the A-List on which he was once a charter member.
It’s all of this. And Kessler has a good instinct about not crossing the line into hagiography or self-promotion. It’s like he’s walking a weird tightrope the whole time and you think he’s falling off… and you are rooting for him not to, because the pleasure of remembering and rediscovering Paul Williams is so much fun… and then, he rights himself and you are ready to keep going.
I have to say, I feel better about this movie than I think about this movie. The visuals are all over the place, there is a ton of activity but not much progress in storytelling, and when the moment comes to push Williams to really discuss the pain of getting lost in the stuff of his famous life, Williams, game about joking about it and himself often in the film, really doesn’t want to get down to it. There is none of the self-serving bravado of, say, Robert Evans, in telling his tale. (Which was brilliant in a very different way.) But there is not “The Answer.”
Yet, somehow, it fits.
This film belongs in the box set with the Joan Rivers doc, the Don Rickles doc, and even the Elmo doc that will soon be coming out theatrically. Both of those were straighter docs. But the spirit of people who worked their asses off, found a way, got up and then down and the up the mountain… all there. And there is something about Paul Williams… maybe the height thing… maybe the raw power of his music (one forgets how hard so much of it hit emotionally)… but there is something that makes the kink of what this film is feel even more appropriate.
I kinda loved Paul Williams Still Alive. And I really enjoyed every minute, even the languid ones, of Wiseman’s doc. Kessler has a protagonist. Wiseman doesn’t, really. Kessler captured the in-between world where a star lives when they are no longer the star they were, but are still in demand and working a lot (and agism in this business often precludes that), just differently. Wiseman took me behind the scenes where a skirt is defined by the shape that the ass appears to be on stage, where nudity is the starting point but precision artistry that includes the nudity is really the job, and where change is in the air, but history is the extra character that we never really see, but is larger than life.
So different. So much alike. Two filmmakers finding their way into their subject… doing more than just turning a camera on to watch something/someone interesting and yet, not making those choices too obvious. (Kessler does make his journey a part of the film, but after a while, I’m guessing much of his exposition is there to create structure, not echo reality.) This is why doc is such a great form. It can be anything. And anything can be thrilling.
I’m one of those people who loved seeing Paul Williams on talk shows and in the Bandit movies back in the late 70s/early 80s and..I thought Paul Williams was dead too. I feel bad about that, but y’know, once Costas stopped doing “Later” and Tom Snyder called it quits, there really wasn’t a place in the mainstream for him to re-emerge from time to time and tell his stories and remind people he didn’t evaporate off the face of the earth (like Robert Blake was doing before HE evaporated somebody off the face the earth).
I discovered that Paul Williams was alive when I walked into my former boss’ kitchen one day a few years ago and found him standing there making waffles.
On the other hand, I had to Google The Crazy Horse after reading this blog post to find out what and where it is.
Oh well, back to packing for Toronto.
Wow… good point. Added a line about the Crazy Horse…
I went to a Crazy Horse show last year with my wife during a long weekend in Paris.
Super expensive (70$ for a glass of coca-cola?…I’ll pass, thanks) but a lot of fun. Curiously non-erotic considering all the beautiful naked bodies.
Just rooted in my closet to confirm what I suspected: I still have two — count ’em, two — Paul Williams albums on their original vinyl — “Just an Old-Fashioned Love Song” and “Life Goes On.”
i went to a small party several years ago where paul williams and his pal pat mc cormack played off each other like a seasoned comedy team…they could’ve taken the act on the road (also there were charles bragg and robert altman)….
i always loved that williams played the little kid in ‘the loved one’ (what a great cast the mess of a movie had)…
It’s funny to think that a lot of folks may know of Paul Williams only for his appearances in the Smokey and the Bandit movies.
That’s the only place I know him. Loved those fucking bandit movies, the first two anyway. I’m shocked nobody’s tried to pull off a remake.
True, Bitplayer. Matthew McConaughey IS the Bandit! Maybe John Goodman as Smokey?
I wonder if there’s any way to update/translate something that was so much of its time as Smokey and the Bandit? Maybe that is what has stumped anyone who’s thought about a remake.
Yeah, smuggling Coors across state borders ain’t much of a deal nowadays…
Really? How can the coyote chasing the road runner ever get old?
Try watching some of the post-Jones/Maltese Road Runners and you’ll get your answer.
Well, that’s kinda the point.
Make a good 2011 version of Smokey & The Bandit, with GPS instead of CBs, and it would still work like crazy. They are character pieces.
Can’t say I agree, David. Smokey and the bandit was very much a movie of its time — people pissed about newly imposed highway speed limits, the romance of neo-cowboy truckers, the novelty of CDs, etc. In his way, Smokey was sort of the redneck Easy Rider, the free spirit rebelling against authority. I’ve actually shown Smokey and the Bandit in a Social Aspects of Film course about the New Hollywood era — and students, believe it or not, have no trouble connecting the dots between Peter Fonda (who, if you recall, made a few of these redneck chase/revenge movies himself in the ’70s) and Burt Reynolds. Yes, you could easily make another chase movie titled Smokey and the Bandit. But would it have anything like the same impact? Remember: The original was the second-highest grossing movie of 1977, after Star Wars.
Unless the Bandit is Will Smith and he is being chased by aliens, obviously not a billion dollar movie. But with a clever script and smart casting, there is no reason why this is not a $150m domestic idea.
Cooling summer drinks will always work. Road Runner vs Wile E. Coyote will always work.
I think, on one hand, a SMOKEY remake is pointless because it’s such a product of that time and it depends so heavily on Reynolds’ towering charisma and likeability. It’s also very easy to imagine it turning into something putrid like the S&TB inspired DUKES movie.
But on the other hand I think giving it to a specfic, appropriate and singular filmmaker like Richard Linklater, David Gordon Green or Jody Hill could have really interesting results.
Again: I can’t help wondering why such an obvious project — a Smokey and the Bandit remake — hasn’t been made, other than the obvious reason: People have considered it, and then discarded the idea as unworkable. Or irrelevant. I mean — not that I want to give anybody any ideas, but why haven’t we seen a Love Story remake? A good tearjerker will always sell, right?
A “good” SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT? David, how many remakes of any sort have been good lately? And even if it is good, that doesn’t spell B.O. success, as Harvey Weinstein learned to his sorrow when he financed his own ’70s drive-in movie “remake.”
This has turned out to be one of the most civilized and thoughtful threads we’ve had lately. I think I owe Paul Williams a debt of thanks.
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I like Truex and think he should stay where he is. I believe EGR will get out of this slump (if you can really call it that, they have had some bad luck) and will be a better team by the end of this year and compete. EGR, well DEI, is still recovering for the Dale Jr backlash and I think once they ride themselves of this they will be better off. I’m happy that Dale jr switching teams hasn’t improved his performance, looking back at his past performances, he was better when at DEI.