Well, I think they do have similar tones, and they all have meandering structures, even if some are more wanderlusty than others.
I'd say they have more-or-less structure in (approximately): Strangelove (1), Wolf of Wall Street (2), Animal House (3), and MASH (4) - which, yes, has almost no structure. They go to Japan at one point, for crying out loud.
Beyond the episodic quality, I'd agree with you on the notion that they're all this frat-jock type comedy, again, more-or-less with Animal House leading the pack in terms of fratness. (I think pretty obviously).
I'll level: I haven't seen all of Wolf of Wall Street. I didn't really like it that much, so I'm not much of an expert here.
All but Wolf of Wall Street were made between 64 and 78, almost split in the middle by MASH. Those years are still being strongly influenced by certain kinds of cinema. They're all influenced by Vietnam, hippies, rock 'n' roll, cinema verite, and foreign films which could be very disjointed as they tried to capture "real life". Kubrick was inventing the wheel in a lot of ways, but MASH would have been drawing on that mindset.
So, what about Wolf? Well, it's Scorsese. He's also influenced heavily by that stuff, and though he's making movies today, his mentality and style came out of that same era, so naturally, even his new pictures are going to have that tinge. I'm not saying he's stale, he's still fresh as ever (The Irishman! Holy cats is it great!) but that he's one of the '70s cinema gods with Taxi Driver, Raging Bull (okay, 1980...close enough) and others.
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ecarle (14979)
5 years ago
Well, I think they do have similar tones, and they all have meandering structures, even if some are more wanderlusty than others.
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It took me awhile to "develop" the continuum from Strangelove to MASH to Animal House...and all the way to Wolf of Wall Street. But its there.
Recall that Donald Sutherland, one of the two leads of MASH(Elliott Gould was the other) took a small role as the only "name" star in Animal House...and that was on purpose, to link the two movies. But it was clear that America in Post-Vietnam 1978 was a less horrific time than 1970 when Vietnam was raging and the assassinations and riots of 1968 were recent -- hence, MASH the movie is a MUCH more violent and mean movie than the more amiable Animal House. All it took was 8 years for America to "calm down, relax and have fun" but...frat boy humor never really went away(even if, for a few years in the 70's, frats DID go away...banned on many campuses or toned down.)
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ecarle (14979)
5 years ago
I'd say they have more-or-less structure in (approximately): Strangelove (1), Wolf of Wall Street (2), Animal House (3), and MASH (4) - which, yes, has almost no structure. They go to Japan at one point, for crying out loud.
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That's a good continuum -- most to least -- of structure. MASH is almost insanely arbitrary in its sequencing of scenes --the Japan trip comes out of nowhere(with that great cut to Bobby Troup as the jeep driver griping "goddamm Army" -- a shot and line that finishes MASH again at the very end.) And equally arbitrary is the whole bit about giving Painless the dentist a "last supper and suicide pill." Why? Because he was impotent with a woman and he thinks he may be gay. THAT storyline would not be filmed today. Except its not taken seriously(and you do have the men AND the woman on base lining up to see Painless's famously huge member in the shower, which is rather bi-sexual, you ask me.)
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Beyond the episodic quality, I'd agree with you on the notion that they're all this frat-jock type comedy, again, more-or-less with Animal House leading the pack in terms of fratness. (I think pretty obviously).
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Yes, hah, Animal House is the most "spot on" on the idea of frat pack mentality. I'd mention again that frats were out of favor for much of the 70s and Animal House was sort of a "nostalgic look back"(set in the American Graffiti lost innocence year of 1962)...that brought frats BACK. The film also posited two kinds of frats -- '"the snobs versus the slobs." The slobs(Animal House) were mean but they took in "lesser" men(Flounder and Pinto, for two) that the snobs would not accept. Animal House also posited some "willing" women as a matter of sex, but that's a true story....(alas, Bluto's voyeuristic spying was, well...at least the women he was watching were enjoying themselves.)
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ecarle (14979)
5 years ago
I'll level: I haven't seen all of Wolf of Wall Street. I didn't really like it that much, so I'm not much of an expert here.
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I saw it and liked it very much, but it is an acquired taste.
One of the reasons I connected WOWS to the earlier episodic "guy comedies" was that after seeing it in the theater, I bought the DVD and took to showing just SELECTED scenes at parties and get togethers(with guys.) The laughs were plentiful...and I recalled having shown Animal House and MASH the same way. I made the connection almost immediately.
I can tell you with Strangelove that back in my college years, they would show that on campus and huge crowds would show up, pretty much to mouth the famous lines along with the characters. The episodic nature of that plot -- even as it WAS heavilyi plotted -- made for a great public screening.
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All but Wolf of Wall Street were made between 64 and 78, almost split in the middle by MASH.
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And that's what makes Wolf of Wall Street pretty special to me. Rather like Quentin Tarantino movies, WOWS brought back those years in which "anything went" at the movies, and humor could be pretty bawdy and charcacters could be pretty un-PC.
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ecarle (14979)
5 years ago
All but Wolf of Wall Street were made between 64 and 78, almost split in the middle by MASH. Those years are still being strongly influenced by certain kinds of cinema. They're all influenced by Vietnam, hippies, rock 'n' roll, cinema verite, and foreign films which could be very disjointed as they tried to capture "real life". Kubrick was inventing the wheel in a lot of ways, but MASH would have been drawing on that mindset.
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That's true. Consider that Dr. Strangelove was famous for being at least partially written by a "countercultural writer" named Terry Southern, who would leverage Strangelove into a later career that rather peaked in those years you are talking about. His books Candy and The Magic Christian became cult movies in the late sixties(yielding movies not nearly as good as Strangelove) but...one era led to another.
The foreign film/cinema verite movement sounds most in MASH...and Altman would take its techniques on to a full career of movies like that(though, alas, I believe that only MASH and Nashville were hits for him.)
And of course, the full title of Animal House is "National Lampoon's Animal House" in an ode to the countercultural Ivy League humorists who lived it and birthed the movie.
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ecarle (14979)
5 years ago
So, what about Wolf? Well, it's Scorsese. He's also influenced heavily by that stuff, and though he's making movies today, his mentality and style came out of that same era, so naturally, even his new pictures are going to have that tinge. I'm not saying he's stale, he's still fresh as ever (The Irishman! Holy cats is it great!) but that he's one of the '70s cinema gods with Taxi Driver, Raging Bull (okay, 1980...close enough) and others.
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Scorsese is one of the greats -- he proves to have well outdistanced most of his fellow "70s pack of filmmakers" -- Bogdanovich, Friedkin, Coppola, DePalma -- and he makes very successful films today. (Spielberg is still a biggie, but he seems almost an "invisible" maker of middlebrow movies, now). The Irishman IS great, but it is sure more stately and measured than WOWS.
That was part of what was so exciting to me ABOUT Wolf of Wall Street. The movie comes roaring out of the gate and has narrator Leo state his terms: he's rich(that's my mansion, that's my yacht, that's my fast car -- and get the color right!) he's oversexed(that's my gorgeous wife and THOSE are my hookers) and he's high on just about every drug extant, which he details to us(this to take the edge off, this to wake me up, this to calm me down and morphine because...). Typical Scorsese 50s/60s blues plays in the background(Scrosese remains loyal to the MUSIC of his youth...Rolling Stones included) and the opening FEELS like GoodFellas or Casino but...wait a minute. THIS one is about young guys, off-Wall Street con men, and sex and drugs are the order of the day?
The Wolf of Wall Street was quite the surprise. and it got the requisite number of "outraged" pan reviews...which I thought was just a wonderful reaction for the movie to get. That meant it WORKED.
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ecarle (14979)
5 years ago
A side note: in linking these four movies, I'm also singling them out.
For there have been plenty of "guy comedies"(Caddyshack, Stripes, Ghostbusters) and buddy movies(Butch Cassidy, The Sting) and R-rated comedies(Blazing Saddles uber alles) but...
...these four play out at a more serious level, to me. Artists of varying stripes made three of them -- Kubrick, Altman, Scorsese -- and the fourth(Animal House) was made by an ill-fated director(John Twilight Zone Landis) who nonetheless showed expert comedy staging chops on a blockbuster scale this one time(key to me: the flying beer bottles that set the tempo of many scenes.)
And you wanna talk serious? Strangelove, for all it laughs, was about nucliear panic at a time when there WAS nuclear panic(the world is going to end; we're all going to die) and MASH had all those bloody operating table scenes to remind us just how savage war(as a function of politics) can be.
By the time Animal House was made, Vietnam was over, the draft was gone( a MAJOR change in American lifestyle for young men) and nuclear fears had considerably lessened. But this one felt far more richly textured than Caddyshack(with Ted Knight's old guy comedy and too much stuff about the caddies) Ghostbusters(for kids), etc. Even the bawdy Blazing Saddles seemed more tied to TV sitcoms(how it looked) and borscht belt humor(the Mel Brooks angle) than these more meaty films.
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ecarle (14979)
5 years ago
War and the end of the world aren't part of the Wolf of Wall Street's world...but a breakdown in financial morality and the destructive tempations of the "good life" are. And this little "hidden element": when Matthew McConaghey briefs young Leo on the need to pretty much cheat all clients to make money for yourself, while getting high on drugs and hookers in the meantime...that little chat is taking place high atop one of the World Trade Center towers(it isn't said, but it is implied, and Scorsese confirmed it.) A reminder that a few not-so-nice people died in those towers...I'm certainly not justifying the terror, but noting that those buildings were targeted for a reason...
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Ace_Spade (9544)
5 years ago
Sorry about the long wait to reply. I wanted to read your response a couple of times because you've got a LOT to unpack and it's great stuff and I wanted to give it the weight it deserves.
Frat humour, yes, but comedy in general is on the out from the mainstream of cinema. People still crave it, need it even, but it isn't PC, and with the PC movement gaining exponentially more steam (on campuses, for instance) comedy isn't popular. But look at Chapelle's latest special...people love that thing...
Are there other films that exist on this continuity? Are there any other films you can think of that replicate this episodic, counter-culture cinema?
I'd probably add the Python films, don't you think? They have a lot of what you're talking about: they're episodic (although Life of Brian has a bit of a plot, but Meaning of Life is basically just a hyper version of their TV programme), they feature jock humour (maybe not in every sense, but they are no more nor less "jock" than, say, MASH or Strangelove), and they are certainly beloved by the hippy counter-culture types.
I found that an interesting phrase that came up in your posts: counter-culture. It got me thinking about the underground art movements at those times, like Python, the Stones, Robert Crumb, and stuff like that. There's a lot of his humour, the random element of episodic plotting and so forth that comes through in the counter-culture movements of the '60s and '70s, which is the germination point for these films.
(Harrison funded Python, for goodness' sake!)
It also highlights a divide between us now and them then. Our campus rebels are calling for more repression, it seems. Berkeley alone, for crying out loud, was the BIRTHPLACE of the free speech movement and now they're de-platforming speakers!
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Ace_Spade (9544)
5 years ago
I think a lot of the episodic qualities probably come from the stream of consciousness stuff that we see in European cinema of that time and just before, as well as in some of the Beat generation, especially the poets like Ginsberg.
Or, if you consider Bob Dylan, for instance, he's got this free-association stuff that he does in his work. All that was probably influenced by the Dadaists of the 10s and 20s, too.
I'm also curious how much stuff fits into this category, too, just in terms of other media.
Robert Crumb, I mentioned, and his work or the work of Bakshi (Fritz the Cat) certainly applies, I think.
But what about books or plays?
And does this tradition exist before these eras? Or was it specific to the hippies? Are the Marx Brothers in on this joke?
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ecarle (14979)
5 years ago
Sorry about the long wait to reply. I wanted to read your response a couple of times because you've got a LOT to unpack and it's great stuff and I wanted to give it the weight it deserves.
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And I'm sorry about the long wait to reply in return...thank you for reading and considering these thoughts. It took literally decades to develop them -- in terms of seeing these four films originally and then re-watching them over time, with the most recent, by far(Wolf of Wall Street) sort of "re-kindling" the idea of the male-based, serious-but-funny, "offensive" and perhaps above all EPISODIC movie. And these four are among "the best of the best." Strangelove, MASH, WOWS all got Best Picture Oscar noms; Animal House was the biggest hit comedy to its time...a true blockbuster that entered the culture.
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Frat humour, yes, but comedy in general is on the out from the mainstream of cinema. People still crave it, need it even, but it isn't PC, and with the PC movement gaining exponentially more steam (on campuses, for instance) comedy isn't popular. But look at Chapelle's latest special...people love that thing...
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Well, Chapelle and one or two others have "pushed back" but been "pushed back in return." Still, these comics aren't going to jail over the un PC humor, and perhaps as time goes on, a bit of offensiveness will be allowed to return(it got in, in Wolf of Wall Street, because the white male purveyors were "the villains" and so we weren't asked to support their position.)
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ecarle (14979)
5 years ago
Are there other films that exist on this continuity? Are there any other films you can think of that replicate this episodic, counter-culture cinema?
I'd probably add the Python films, don't you think? They have a lot of what you're talking about: they're episodic (although Life of Brian has a bit of a plot, but Meaning of Life is basically just a hyper version of their TV programme), they feature jock humour (maybe not in every sense, but they are no more nor less "jock" than, say, MASH or Strangelove), and they are certainly beloved by the hippy counter-culture types.
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Yep, I'd go right to supporting the Monty Python films as "episodic." I recall with Holy Grail , that I've never quite been able to remember the order of the sequences(the knight who gets his arms and legs chopped off but claims "Its only a flesh wound!" Michael Palin being "rescued" from a castle filled with women who offer oral sex: "Well," he says to the camera, "I could stay a BIT longer!"(I have been using this phrase for decades, alongside "You f'ed up...you trusted us!" from Animal House.)
And of course, "That rabbit's dynamite! Look at the BONES!"
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ecarle (14979)
5 years ago
I found that an interesting phrase that came up in your posts: counter-culture. It got me thinking about the underground art movements at those times, like Python, the Stones, Robert Crumb, and stuff like that. There's a lot of his humour, the random element of episodic plotting and so forth that comes through in the counter-culture movements of the '60s and '70s, which is the germination point for these films.
(Harrison funded Python, for goodness' sake!)
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Well, by the sixties, a fair number of the comics of the 40s and 50's were prominent, but old hat -- I'm thinking Milton Berle, Red Skelton, Sid Caesar -- it was rather brutal how quickly the comedy "turned." A Groucho Marx revival hit in the 70's(Marx Brothers in general, but Groucho as an icon -- and he was still alive among the brothers)...but HIS comedy was rather countercultural, too.
A 90's documentary on Robert Crumb demonstrated that he was from a very dysfunctional family, with very dysfunctional(mentally ill) brothers -- but Robert rather transformed HIS dysfunction into very weird, strange and sexual-based comic(commix) that fairly reeked of the California/SF/Berkeley counterculture.
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It also highlights a divide between us now and them then. Our campus rebels are calling for more repression, it seems. Berkeley alone, for crying out loud, was the BIRTHPLACE of the free speech movement and now they're de-platforming speakers!
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Its distressing. None other than the old-time comedy director Frank Capra wrote in the 70's that "extreme right wingers and extreme left wingers share one thing in common: no sense of humor. They never laugh about anything. They CAN'T." The right-wingers had their turn at repression(often backed by religion), but now that they are on the fade, the left wingers are stepping in to step on the fun.
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ecarle (14979)
5 years ago
The good news is there are a lot of outsiders who can still laugh. And THEY will save the world in the end.
The Way We Were(1973) is known as a rather soapy love story with superstars Streisand and Redford, but I always rather liked the Redford character's cynicism about "serious" politics.
Streisand: You think Franco's funny?
Redford: (Mockingly) What? Is HE here?
Streisand: You like to make fun of all politicians?
Redford: Sure. You make fun of politicians. I mean, what ELSE can you do with them?
Yet, elsewhere in the film, Streisand on a speakers stage is mocked and screams "Ya FASCISTS!" to the crowd in return.
Our culture used to be Redford. Now its Streisand.
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ecarle (14979)
5 years ago
But what about books or plays?
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Plays, I think: not so much. Rather hard to maintain a 'wild, manic tone" to a stage play -- you lack the tools of the motion picture.
Books, yes, a lot. On the printed page, the jokes can fly fast and furious while maintaining outrage. I'm thinking Catch-22(the novel); Terry Southern(Candy); Hunter S. Thompson(Fear and Loathing...lots of places.)
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And does this tradition exist before these eras? Or was it specific to the hippies? Are the Marx Brothers in on this joke?
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Oh, I think the Marx Brothers were definitely in on the joke. Its too bad so many of their movies required bad actors and singers doing stuff while keeping the Brothers off-screen. I believe Duck Soup has none of that -- just a pure dose of "the Bros," and it just might be the funniest.
And let's not forget Chuck Jones in his fifties/early sixties heyday. The Bugs Bunny/Daffy Duck/Porky Pig cartoons were famous for their ultra-violence and a certain mean and mocking tone. Road Runner vs. Coyote. Pepe Le Pew. These cartoons had a definite "edge" and Bugs was Groucho-esque.
And recall the one where a sheepdog and a wolf would meet each morning, say "good morning," punch in time cards -- and spend the rest of the day trying to kill each other(the wolf wants the sheepdog's sheep), and then they would punch their time cards at the end of the day and say "good night, see you tomorrow" -- a perfect analogy to how, in modern life, its a dog-eat-dog world at work but..."its just business, nothing personal."
Speaking of counterculture humor, I would note that MASH the movie had two stars straight out of liberal politics and the counterculture: Donald Sutherland and Elliott Gould(Mr. Babs Streisand for awhile.) Nobody would call either of those guys "Republicans" and yet the humor in MASH the movie is rather conservative and anti-female (and anti-authority, a trait shared by iconoclasts on the left AND the right.)
It all rather mixes and matches in ways that defy the usual labels. Which is a good thing.
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Ace_Spade (9544)
5 years ago
The stand-ups (Chapelle) are proving to me something very important: those who want to laugh will find the comedians and we will prop them up. It doesn't matter how much the authorities, the mob (whoever) try to stamp them out, we'll always be here, in the fringes, laughing our buns off.
You highlighted this for me by bringing up Groucho's counter-cultural leanings, then speaking about Crumb. Basically, I'm thinking all comedy is counter-culture, it's always been that way, and stuffed shirts never get it.
The Capra quote is bang-on. Comedy is on a different axis - neither right nor left wing - and it just mocks, lampoons, teases, satirises, and gets giggles out of anything it can. It's the jester in the King's Court - impervious to attack by virtue of his professed foolery. "Oh, I'm an idiot? Sure. Yeah. Whatever..."
That's got to be the reason why these movies, books, etc., keep showing up. They can be rejected by the mainstream, but that counter-culture is always there, standing around, snickering a bit.
GREAT call with Jones/Bugs Bunny.
Your thoughts are very insightful as to the evolution/continuity on this stuff, as well as the links between these oasis of hilarity (especially this brand of comic zaniness).
I can think of a couple plays that might fit into the category properly. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) is pretty madcap, despite existing purely on a stage. And I've seen some small, unpublished, indie stuff that gets pretty wacky.
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ecarle (14979)
5 years ago
The stand-ups (Chapelle) are proving to me something very important: those who want to laugh will find the comedians and we will prop them up. It doesn't matter how much the authorities, the mob (whoever) try to stamp them out, we'll always be here, in the fringes, laughing our buns off.
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Well, we have 1150 outlets on TV now for "content" and things can slip through. It is perhaps mainly "mainstream studio movies" which are so controlled by timid "greenlighters" that the likes of Blazing Saddles and MASH the movie will never be seen again.
I write this, BTW, on the day of Eddie Murphy's return to SNL after decades away. How will he do?
You highlighted this for me by bringing up Groucho's counter-cultural leanings, then speaking about Crumb. Basically, I'm thinking all comedy is counter-culture, it's always been that way, and stuffed shirts never get it.
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I think so. There's a lot to laugh about in this world.
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ecarle (14979)
5 years ago
The Capra quote is bang-on.
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Yes. A lack of humor is a bellweather of very dangerous social structures.
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Comedy is on a different axis - neither right nor left wing - and it just mocks, lampoons, teases, satirises, and gets giggles out of anything it can. It's the jester in the King's Court - impervious to attack by virtue of his professed foolery. "Oh, I'm an idiot? Sure. Yeah. Whatever..."
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Yep. Again...there's a lot to laugh about.
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That's got to be the reason why these movies, books, etc., keep showing up. They can be rejected by the mainstream, but that counter-culture is always there, standing around, snickering a bit.
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Yes. Its funny, I don't talk politics...but if I WERE to talk politics, it would be about how hilarious politics now is. To avoid it, we find our humor elsewhere.
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ecarle (14979)
5 years ago
GREAT call with Jones/Bugs Bunny.
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Thank you. I recall reading somewhere, sometime, that old Bugs Bunny/Jones cartoons were having the "violence edited out of them" -- as if they were Bonnie and Clyde or something. I mean, so Daffy Duck's head explodes and his beak falls off -- that's VIOLENT? Naw.
And while I'm at it: while "Bugs Bunny" is perhaps the main identifier of the Chuck Jones universe, it is so much MORE than Bugs, and includes both the "genre" of The Road Runner and the stand-alone greatness(for MGM rather than for Jone's home of Warners) of the greatest "Grinch" ever made. Not to mention the symbolic greatness of "One Froggy Evening."
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I can think of a couple plays that might fit into the category properly. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) is pretty madcap, despite existing purely on a stage.
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I'm never on good footing with Shakespeare. I mean I know his work and I've seen some(not all) of his plays on stage and screen. But...yeah...certainly he had his comedies.
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And I've seen some small, unpublished, indie stuff that gets pretty wacky
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I'm out of my depth on plays but I'll mention one that I saw on stage and that made a pretty funny movie: "Noises Off," which takes place on both sides of a stage set and accelerates into slapstick madness. Peter Bogdanovich ALMOST got a comeback with the movie, cuz he had such comedy talents as Carol Burnett, Michael Caine, and John Ritter leading the way.
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