10/23/2002 - Updated 09:06 PM ET - USA Today
'Charlie' has a tough act to follow By Suzanne Ely, special for
USA TODAY
Academy Award-winning director Jonathan Demme has good reason to have
his fingers crossed Friday when his The Truth About Charlie opens. After
all, the updated reworking of the 1963 classic romantic thriller Charade
has Mark Wahlberg stepping into Cary Grant's revered shoes and Thandie
Newton reprising Audrey Hepburn's likable expatriate in Paris.
Following critical and box office disappointments of recent remakes
—Swept Away has brought in only $553,102 since opening Oct. 11 and The
Four Feathers has grossed only $17.8 million since its release Sept. 20
— the pressure to succeed is definitely on for Charlie. And for its stars
and directors.
"Neither Wahlberg nor Demme's last films were hits, and the trick is
to have some hits mixed in there," says Paul Dergarabedian, president of
box office tracking firm Exhibitor Relations Co. Inc.
Demme's last film, 1998's Beloved, made a meager $22.8 million. Wahlberg's
most recent film, Rock Star, didn't sing, pulling in just $17 million.
Dergarabedian says: "As for Thandie Newton (Beloved), she hasn't had a
hit of her own, so this film could be the one she's looking for. All three
have a lot at stake.
Hollywood persists in remaking classics, despite mixed results. It's
a "reflex of laziness," says Andrew Sarris, film critic, author and film
professor at New York's Columbia University.
"You can't bring back Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn. Even with those
two, the plot of Charade was just serviceable. Charade wasn't great, it
was sort of low-grade Hitchcock," he says.
Early buzz has not been promising. "I don't think interest is all that
high for the film," Gitesh Pandya of Boxofficeguru.com says.
Charlie's journey to the big screen has been a long time coming. Demme,
who won an Oscar for The Silence of the Lambs, originally wanted Will Smith
in the Grant role. But by the time the script was completed, Smith was
committed to Ali. Demme always wanted Newton as the Hepburn stand-in.
Besides casting setbacks, rewriting and updating the script was problematic.
Jessica Bendinger, who scripted the teen comedy Bring It On, was originally
brought in by Universal, the studio releasing the film. But another of
the credited Charlie screenwriters, Steve Schmidt, acknowledges that the
Bendinger/Demme teaming "was a collaboration not to Jonathan's liking."
Further raising suspicions is a credited writer named Peter Joshua,
which also happens to be one of the aliases Grant used in the original.
Demme says, "Peter Joshua is Peter Stone (screenwriter of Charade), who
was too modest to have his name appear twice in the credits." However,
other Charlie insiders say that 72-year-old Stone's supposed modesty was
more a case of embarrassment in being associated with the update.
At a few early screenings, some moviegoers have erupted in laughter
during dramatic moments. "Much of the dialogue seemed out of place, with
a '50s or '60s flair, but doesn't work in a film with a contemporary setting,"
says Michael Kyrioglou, 39, who attended a Charlie screening last month
in Washington, D.C.
"This is a movie that is supposed to be fun in every way, including
watching Mark Wahlberg as a fish out of water," Demme says. "It took me
a while to realize how funny it is because it's not really a comedy, but
the movie really has an aggressive sense of humor."
Still, the final judgment will come from audiences who, says Dergarabedian,
might be ready for Charlie. "There is a place for this film. People who
have seen the trailer are interested, and it's different enough from anything
else out there. Wahlberg can pull in an audience; young women come in droves
for him. Planet of the Apes wasn't loved by critics, but it had a huge
opening."
Posted on Thu, Oct. 24, 2002
- Dallas Star-Telegram
The truth about Jonathan Demme
Whether or not he admits it, 'Lambs' director influences a new wave
of filmmakers By Christopher Kelly
AUSTIN - When you interview Jonathan Demme, the Oscar-winning director
of The Silence of the Lambs will offer you a snack from a hotel tray of
fruit and cookies. He will politely answer your film-geek questions about
the sound effects in his films. He will jot down notes when you raise a
point that interests him.
The one thing Demme will not do is agree when you suggest that he's
among the most influential American filmmakers working today.
"It's weird enough to me that I actually make movies for a living,"
he says during a recent stop in Austin for a benefit screening of his latest
film, The Truth About Charlie. "But to see my work as influencing others,
or in the context of other filmmakers' works, that's too abstract."
Fair enough. But hasn't Demme noticed, for instance, how the films of
Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights, Punch-Drunk Love) mix up the violent
but deeply humanist comedy of Demme's Something Wild with the fluky pop
mythmaking of Melvin and Howard? Doesn't he see his own style emulated
in the works of Alexander Payne (Election), Miguel Arteta (The Good Girl)
and Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich)?
"I watch these movies as a consumer and I think they're great," he says.
"But it's hard for me to abstract myself."
Let's put it another way. Jonathan Demme -- the man who got his start
making exploitation movies for Roger Corman and who went on to make the
alternative-culture classic Stop Making Sense -- has become an eminence
grise of the American cinema. Even though he would still prefer to see
himself not as the powerful old man but as the wide-eyed young hipster.
His youthful energy has never been more evident than in The Truth About
Charlie, which opens Friday. It's a remake of the 1963 Stanley Donen classic
Charade. Demme stuck close to the plot of the original, in which a beautiful
woman (Thandie Newton in the Audrey Hepburn part) whose husband has just
been murdered falls in love with a mysterious man (Mark Wahlberg taking
over for Cary Grant) who may or may not be trying to harm her.
But viewers expecting a straight-up romantic thriller are going to be
surprised. Demme has jettisoned Donen's highly polished, realist approach
for a bouncy, occasionally surreal ode to the French new-wave cinema of
the 1950s and 1960s.
"It's a conceit," Demme explains. "This idea that, when Stanley Donen
was in Paris shooting this high-style, elegant, Hollywood glossy romantic
thriller, on exactly the same days you might have also had Agnes Varda
or Francois Truffaut or Jean-Luc Godard out there, with their hand-held
cameras."
In The Truth About Charlie, Demme actualizes that conceit -- by having
the star of Truffaut's Shoot the Piano Player, Charles Aznavour, suddenly
appear onscreen, entirely unexplained, sitting at a piano in a hotel room,
crooning a song. Or by having the movie stop cold so that we can observe
the nightclub act of Anna Karina, the star of Godard's A Woman Is a Woman.
All the people who epitomized Paris' youth culture in the early 1960s seem
to have wound their way into the same movie 40 years later -- a movie done
in the same style (jump-cut editing, hand-held camerawork, bizarre flashbacks
and fantasy sequences) as French new-wave pictures like Breathless or Band
of Outsiders.
It's the sort of work you might expect a young man to make -- one just
out of film school and determined to pay tribute to every movie on his
Film History 101 syllabus. Indeed, perhaps one of the reasons Demme has
a hard time acknowledging his influence upon others is that he's too busy
acknowledging the influence of others on him. He says that Martin Scorsese's
1973 film Mean Streets still inspires him. As do a whole new generation
of international filmmakers.
"You look at the movies by Wong Kar-wai [In the Mood for Love] and Lars
von Trier [Dancer in the Dark.] Here are people making great pictures,
and they are breaking all the rules again. They're taking us right back
to Godard."
Born on Long Island in 1944, Demme grew up in Miami. Living in London
in the late 1960s, he earned money as the "London correspondent" for an
American music magazine called Fusion. His break in the movies came through
Roger Corman, for whom he eventually directed films like Caged Heat and
Fighting Mad. Those twin influences -- music and exploitation cinema --
would reveal themselves in so many of his successive works.
He is, for one thing, widely regarded as one of the most inventive users
of popular music in American movies -- someone who often scores entire
sequences to the most unexpected of songs. "I just know that's my favorite
part of the process," Demme says, "figuring out what songs might work."
His experience directing exploitation thrillers paid off in an even more
unusual way. In The Silence of the Lambs, his masterpiece, he raised pulp
fiction to profound heights; it won five Oscars, including a Best Director
prize for Demme.
If there's one thing that links all of Demme's works, it's his gentle,
humanist touch -- his love for oddballs and outcasts. "Humanist" is a label
that Demme is comfortable with. "I prefer a humanist culture," he says.
"That sounds highfalutin. But a lot of what we're sold is anti-human. The
excessive gore, the excessive bathroom humor. That's anti-human."
This attitude also probably accounts for the most high-profile decision
he has made in recent years -- to not direct Hannibal, after reading Thomas
Harris' grotesque novel.
"I stepped away, because -- as is often the case with a writer of Thomas
Harris' originality -- he has his own vision," Demme explains. "And he
took the character that I loved, Clarice Starling, in a direction that
really broke my heart." (Demme says he hasn't seen either Hannibal or the
recent Red Dragon and doesn't plan to.)
The Truth About Charlie only Demme's third feature film in the last
decade. (His daring, but very flawed, adaptation of Toni Morrison's Beloved
was a critical and box-office disappointment in 1998). What has he been
doing all this time? Playing the part of eminence grise. He wanted to spend
more time with his children, now ages 14, 12 and 7. To keep the cash coming
in, he started a production company, which wouldn't require his constant
presence on the set. He began producing other directors' films -- including
Tom Hanks' That Thing You Do and Spike Jonze's upcoming Adaptation.
Now Demme says he's eager to step up his own creative output. He has
already finished shooting a documentary -- titled The Agronomist, about
the assassination of Haitian radio journalist Jean Dominique -- that will
likely premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January.
And he will continue to resist the impulse to get serious and grow up.
"Maybe it's because the work that I've been doing, in The Silence of the
Lambs and Philadelphia and Beloved, was so serious," he says. "I realize
I'd been developing more and more of an itch to break away from that. The
Truth About Charlie is the most playful movie that I've made."
Some Demme winners
Jonathan Demme is responsible for some of the most original American
movies of the past 25 years, though most moviegoers are familiar with only
his box-office successes, The Silence of the Lambs and Philadelphia. Here's
a guide to the other gems in his canon:
Handle With Care (1977) -- An ensemble comedy centered around the phenomenon
of CB radios, it plays kind of like a junior version of Robert Altman's
Nashville. Worth seeking out, even if it has become somewhat dated.
Melvin and Howard (1980) -- A half-whim-sical/half-melancholy tour of
recent American pop history, this fact-based film tells the story of Melvin
Dummar (Paul Le Mat), who claimed to be the heir to the fortune of Howard
Hughes (Jason Robards). It won Oscars for Best Screenplay and Best Supporting
Actress (Mary Steenburgen).
Stop Making Sense (1984) -- Simply put, it's the greatest rock 'n' roll
concert movie ever made: a transfixing, transporting portrait of the Talking
Heads in performance. Pay particular attention to David Byrne's dance with
a lamp during Naive Melody; rarely have image and sound combined so exquisitely
in a film.
Something Wild (1986) -- This story of a free-spirited woman (Melanie
Griffith) who kidnaps a repressed yuppie (Jeff Daniels) and takes him to
her high school reunion begins as a screwball comedy. Then it abruptly
turns into a brutal and terrifying thriller before finally arriving at
a place of heartbreaking transcendence. Greeted with perplexity by critics
and indifference by audiences, it has since taken its rightful place on
the short list of great American movies of the 1980s.
Married to the Mob (1988) -- An off-the-wall mobster spoof, this is
probably the slightest movie Demme has made. But Michelle Pfeiffer has
never been more relaxed and accessible on-screen, and the supporting cast
-- Mercedes Ruehl, Dean Stockwell and Allec Baldwin (as Frank "The Cucumber"
DeMarco) -- is a hoot.
October 22, 2002 - FilmForce
An Interview with Jonathan Demme
The Oscar-winning director of The Silence of the Lambs tells us The
Truth About Charlie. By Scott B
"I like the idea of remakes," says director Jonathan Demme, speaking
recently at a roundtable interview in Los Angeles about his new film, The
Truth About Charlie, which is a remake of the Aundrey Hepburn/Cary Grant
1963 classic Charade.
The Oscar-winning director came to this project after a commercial bomb
(1998's Beloved), as well as turning down the chance to direct the sequel
to his biggest hit, The Silence of the Lambs: "I didn't do Hannibal because
I'm too in love with the character of Clarice Starling, and when I saw
this extraordinarily bold direction that Thomas Harris took my girl – even
as I kind of applaud his audacity – I was heartbroken. I didn't want to
tell that story."
Instead, Demme wanted to do a light, playful romantic thriller – and
found in the original Charade the perfect vehicle, even though it meant
remaking a film by one of his idols, director Stanley Donen. "I didn't
meet with him – I called him up on the telephone, [and] it was a very weird
phone call," Demme recalls. "I'm calling one of my heroes, one of the great
cinema masters, to find out if it's okay to remake one of his classics.
But he made it very easy. It was a two-minute phone call."
Once he had Donen's blessing, Demme launched into a take on the storyline
that was inspired by the films of the French New Wave (Nouvelle Vague),
a longtime love of the director's. What is it about the films of the New
Wave that inspired Demme so much? "Shoot the Piano Player, which I actually
get to salute in this picture, is the one that really opened the door for
me. That was the first New Wave movie I saw. I was very young, one of those
tragic kids who spends more time in movie theaters than on the football
field, and I'd seen foreign films. And I understood that it was like an
American gangster movie, except it was set in France. Then this moment
occurs, where the gangster says to the policeman: 'I swear to God I'm telling
the truth – if I'm lying, may my mother drop dead.' And in this deeply
serious movie, it cuts to a room and there's this old lady and she clutches
her chest and she crashes to the floor! Then it cuts back and the cop says,
'Okay, you can go.' And I was like, 'What just happened there?!' That excited
me a lot."
Demme also admits that he was "stimulated and excited by non-traditional
visual approaches in movies that have been influenced by the Nouvelle Vague
like Wong-Kar Wei's films and even Doug Liman's Go and, thirty years ago,
Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets."
As well, tackling a remake of Charade gave him the chance to play with
the iconic pairing of Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant by casting Thandie
Newton (with whom Demme had previously worked in Beloved) and Mark Wahlberg.
"I saw a great vehicle for Thandie Newton that could really introduce
this incredible young actress who can hold her own with any actress out
there," says Demme. "There was never any question of anyone else playing
the part." As for Wahlberg, Demme recalls with a laugh: "I had a T-shirt
that had a picture of Cary Grant and a big red circle with a line through
his face! I told him to forget Cary Grant. I referred to Mark as the 'Anti-Cary
Grant.' People said, 'This would be great for George Clooney,' and I was
like, 'Well, yeah, if you want to get into a contest' – you know, can Clooney
do Cary Grant? But that didn't interest me – as a consumer it would interest
me to see that, but as a filmmaker I didn't want to do that."
Although Demme is ready for natural comparisons between Charade and
The Truth About Charlie, he sums up by saying, "There's nothing blasphemous
or sacred in remakes. I've only seen Dr. Lecter in Silence of the Lambs,
but if I ever decide to see Dr. Lecter movies, I'd love to see a double
feature of Manhunter and Red Dragon.
"We were talking about remakes not too long ago," Demme concludes, "and
whether something was too sacred to ever be remade. Someone said, 'Citizen
Kane!' And then the next second, I have to tell you, I thought to myself,
'Oh yeah? You wouldn't want to see Spike Lee's Citizen Kane? Okay. But
I do!'"
October 25, 2002 - El Paso
Times/Gannett News Service
A stylish romp through Paris Exuberant 'Truth About Charlie' pays homage
to all things French By Jack Garner
"The Truth About Charlie" is that people are either going to love it
or hate it.
No one will take a middle position - the film is too extreme in its
approach. It may simply be too hip for the house.
At its core, Jonathan Demme has remade 1963's mystery-romance, "Charade,"
with Thandie Newton and Mark Wahlberg in the roles originally played by
Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant.
Newton is Regina Lambert, who discovers at the start that her husband
has been murdered. She soon learns he led a double life, entangled with
mercenaries, spies and missing millions in ill-gotten money.
Now those mercenaries are after Regina, convinced she holds the cash.
Wahlberg plays Joshua, who comes to Regina's rescue. Or does he?
The lovely Newton brings a perfect balance of innocence and sophistication
as the determined Regina. It's a performance that alternately echoes and
distances itself from Hepburn's. The rough-hewn but appealing Wahlberg
offers quite a different Joshua than Grant, but it's just as effective.
In recounting the story, Demme sidesteps any conventional clone-like
remake and pulls out all the imagination stops.
Instead of aping the glossy Hitchcockian style of original director
Stanley Donan, Demme uses "The Truth About Charlie" and its Parisian setting
as the perfect opportunity to pay homage to all things French. That includes
the New Wave, the innovative Gallic filmmakers of the '50s who were such
an influence on Demme's generation.
The homage is found in both technique (the energetic, almost-dizzying
hand-held camera movement, the use of bright primary colors, and the fast-paced
editing) and in personnel.
"Charlie" is peppered with more French film icons than Paris has champagne
corks.
Charles Aznavour ("Shoot the Piano Player") and Anna Karina (the films
of Jean-Luc Godard) each show up at different times to sing songs in on-screen
cameos. Aznavour's appearance is positively mythic.
Agnes Varda ("Vagabonds") and Magali Noel ("Rififi") also make brief
appearances. And the film's final shot - after the end credits - is the
grave of the New Wave's greatest director, Francois Truffaut.
So, the first hint you may not enjoy "Charlie" is if you don't know
who Truffaut is, or if you think the French New Wave is a hairstyle, or
if you're not adventurous as a filmgoer.
Actually, Demme gave a hint early in his career that he might one day
emulate the New Wave. His offbeat 1986 comedy "Something Wild" foreshadows
"Charlie's" Gallic style.
But Demme also emulates more modern film styles - including those found
in "Run Lola Run" - and showcases today's modern and multi-ethnic Paris.
There's a French-Algerian cop, and a racial mix on the streets, in the
shops and in his central love story.
Flavoring the narrative is the best world music soundtrack ever heard,
mingling sounds of North Africa, with Parisian cafes and dance halls.
Maybe I enjoyed "The Truth About Charlie" simply because I sensed the
exuberance of its creators.
Truffaut once wrote, "I demand that a film express either the joy of
making cinema or the agony of making cinema. I'm not interested in all
those films that do not pulse."
"The Truth About Charlie" pulses like crazy.
Friday, October 25, 2002 - Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette
The Truth About Charlie By Ron Weiskind Post-Gazette Movie Editor
"The Truth About Charlie" is all style, no substance -- but, oh, what
style!
How could it be otherwise? The movie is, in director Jonathan Demme's
words, "the loving stepchild" of the 1963 Cary Grant-Audrey Hepburn charmer
"Charade," which traded in large part upon the charm of its stars.
Demme's motivations had to do with everything but story -- a light vehicle
to showcase the gorgeous Thandie Newton, a chance to film in Paris, a desire
to merge French New Wave sensibilities with the frenetic modern style of
filmmaking practiced by Tom Tykwer, Wong Kar-wai and others.
The movie follows the plot line of its predecessor but plays with the
relationships. Newton is Regina Lambert, who returns from vacation to find
her Paris apartment ransacked and to learn that her husband, Charlie (Stephen
Dillane, seen primarily in flashbacks), has been murdered.
A portentous American official, Mr. Bartholomew (Tim Robbins), tells
her what she didn't know about her husband and about how some of the dead
man's former colleagues (played by Ted Levine, Joong-Hoon Park and Lisa
Gay Hamilton) are searching for a large amount of money that they believe
he owed them. They're sure Regina must know something about it.
Taking it upon himself to protect her is Joshua Peters (Mark Wahlberg),
whom she met supposedly by chance while on vacation and who, like her,
happens to live in Paris and happens to bump into her just when she needs
him.
Obviously, he's not telling her everything. In fact, Regina is one of
the few people in the film who turns out to be just whom she says she is.
The story goes through its twists and turns -- some of them clever, some
of them confusing. One key difference from "Charade": In that one, Hepburn
fell head over heels for Grant. In this one, Wahlberg goes goo-goo for
Newton -- and who can blame him?
Newton has the grace, beauty and elegance to essay a Hepburn role, but
Mark Wahlberg, you're no Cary Grant. Neither is anyone else. Wahlberg may
look silly in a beret, but I grew to think of him not as Grant but as an
American B-movie baby-faced tough-guy type of the 1940s or '50s -- Elisha
Cook Jr. crossed with Richard Jaeckel. That comparison is easier to swallow.
But Demme compensates for the deficiency in savoir-faire from his leading
man by putting the sizzle into the look and sound of the film. The movie
adores Paris, but not so much the picture-postcard version of the city
as its grittier, more intriguing corners. Cinematographer Tak Fujimoto
often uses hand-held cameras bulling through scenes as if on amphetamines
and infuses the film with energy.
But the references to French New Wave exist not just in cutting techniques
but also in homage form. Charles Aznavour, the world-weary crooner who
starred in Francois Truffaut's "Shoot the Piano Player," pops up from time
to time as if to comment on the action in song. Other icons of the movement
-- actress Anna Karina, director Agnes VVarda among them -- get cameos that
often have no other purpose but to add atmosphere and offer a salute to
the influence of the New Wave.
In other words, "The Truth About Charlie" revels in the pure joy of
filmmaking, inviting the audience to enjoy the ride and not worry too much
about the mechanics. Sounds good -- and looks good -- to me.
October 25, 2001 - Dallas Morning
News
The Truth About Charlie By PHILIP WUNTCH / The Dallas Morning News
The cinematic glass of champagne called The Truth About Charlie falls
into the half-full, half-empty category.
The ferociously talented Thandie Newton is responsible for the film's
satisfying fullness. Its emptiness is largely due to a wan Mark Wahlberg.
Directed by Jonathan Demme, The Truth About Charlie is a remake of one
of Mr. Demme's personal favorites, 1963's effervescent Charade, which was
directed by Stanley Donen and featured Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn at
the peak of their star power. The 39-year-old original is shown regularly
on cable networks, so it's inevitable that the new film's most receptive
viewers will be those who don't know Audrey H. from Katharine H.
Working with Charade screenwriter Peter Stone, Mr. Demme strips some
of the banter away from the original. The result is a darker movie, with
more dangerous undercurrents than were found in the '63 version.
The basic plot remains the same: Ms. Newton plays a young widow suspected
of knowing the whereabouts of an ill-gotten fortune hidden by her murdered
husband. She doesn't know whom to trust, and the mysterious stranger played
by Mr. Wahlberg could be either hero or villain.
Director Demme (The Silence of the Lambs, Philadelphia) spins this tale
in the style of the French New Wave that re-invented international filmmaking
in the 1960s. The movie is a visual symphony of twirling cameras, fast
editing and unexpected camera angles. The script pays homage to mystery
capers that both preceded and followed the New Wave, and such French icons
as Charles Aznavour and Anna Karina make welcome appearances. For Mr. Demme
as well as many moviegoers, the film's persistent visual flair represents
a joyous exercise. For others, it may more closely resemble an endurance
test.
Probably no actress could duplicate the elfin glamour of Audrey Hepburn,
but for Ms. Newton, playing the same role is not such an impossible mission.
For starters, she shares with Audrey a mixture of cool elegance and warm
vulnerability. She also brings an intuitive intelligence to the table.
As in two unjustly neglected films, 1998's Besieged and 1996's The Leading
Man, she is required to register many silent reactions. Just watching her
think is a delightful experience.
Mr. Wahlberg, sad to say, seems incapable of thought. Mr. Demme and
his teammates wisely alternated the dynamics of Charade's leading duo.
In the original, Ms. Hepburn was in constant pursuit of suave Mr. Grant.
In The Truth About Charlie, Mr. Wahlberg tries to woo the wary Ms. Newton.
But being a convincing lover requires the shedding of abundant self-absorption
– a difficult task for any actor and maybe an impossible one for Mr. Wahlberg.
The promise of Boogie Nights has yet to be fulfilled.
Otherwise, Tim Robbins does an inspired deadpan turn as a slick official,
and Christine Boisson delivers a crisp, sympathetic performance as a humane
police commandant.
The Truth About Charlie occupies a Paris not usually captured in cinema.
It's a wintry, rainy Paris with only a few token nods to points of tourist
interest. Like the film itself, this approach works more often than not,
but never as completely as hoped. |