The New Biographical Dictionary of Film: Completely Updated and Expanded (170 page)

None But the Lonely Heart
(44, Clifford Odets) was close to Grant’s guarded heart: it described a mother-son relationship that reminded him of his own (Ethel Barrymore was very good as the mother); and Odets was a friend. But the film was received as a gloomy failure, something that betrayed or wasted the usual Grant, no matter that the Cockney drifter he played said a lot about Grant’s uneasiness. But the failure frightened him away from further interest in production. His Cole Porter in
Night and Day
(46, Michael Curtiz), therefore, was a business-as-usual travesty biopic, no matter that Grant knew the real Porter quite well.

Notorious
may be the darkest Grant ever offered for popular approval. He was urbanity at the end of its comic tether in
The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer
(47, Irving Reis) and
Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House
(48, H. C. Potter), with Myrna Loy as his partner in both. He made
Every Girl Should Be Married
(48, Don Hartman), with Betsy Drake—and soon they were married. In
I Was a Male War Bride
, Ann Sheridan seems sometimes helpless with laughter. On
Crisis
(50), it was Grant’s say-so that gave Richard Brooks his directorial debut.
People Will Talk
(51, Joseph L. Mankiewicz) was well suited to his aloof, almost pained intelligence.
Dream Wife
(53, Sidney Sheldon) was a dud. In
To Catch a Thief
(55, Hitchcock), it was just conceivable that he was a cat burglar, yet his fine moral discrimination hesitated when Grace Kelly offered him a leg or a breast. He had such a thing for Sophia Loren that he made two foolish pictures with her
—The Pride and the Passion
(57, Stanley Kramer) and
Houseboat
(58, Melville Shavelson). He was far better with Deborah Kerr in
An Affair to Remember
(57, Leo McCarey) and with Ingrid Bergman in
Indiscreet
(58, Stanley Donen).

Apart from
North by Northwest
, the final films were no more than modest exercise for Grant. Retirement recognized the real onset of age, but perhaps he was a little bored by
Kiss Them for Me
(57, Donen);
Operation Petticoat
(59, Blake Edwards);
The Grass Is Greener
(60, Donen);
That Touch of Mink
(62, Delbert Mann);
Charade
(65, Donen); and
Walk, Don’t Run
(66, Charles Walters).

Grant made bad or dull films along the way, to be sure
—Born to Be Bad; Big Brown Eyes
(36, Raoul Walsh);
The Toast of New York
(37, Rowland V. Lee);
The Howards of Virginia
(40, Frank Lloyd);
Destination Tokyo
(43, Delmer Daves);
Mr. Lucky
(43, Potter);
Arsenic and Old Lace
(44, Frank Capra);
Dream Wife;
and
The Pride and the Passion
. He was rather cheap, and too suspicious—so he missed being in
The Third Man
and opposite Garland in
A Star Is Born
. He was, very likely, a hopeless fusspot as man, husband, and even father. How could anyone
be
“Cary Grant”? But how can anyone, ever after, not consider the attempt?

Hugh Grant
, b. London, 1962
With his drooping chin and pouty lips, his quaff of hair and dithery manner, Hugh Grant seems like a refugee from 1930s theatre—or an incipient sneeze looking for a vacant nose. That he gets away with it—or has done so far—attests to the special American sentimentality for soft toffee in Brits. Of course, it is no small part of this that his successful romantic comedies all give up the ghost before they’re over, as if succumbing to the itchy mannerisms that pass for acting in Grant.

He went to Oxford and worked on stage. His first movie—as Hughie Grant—was the Oxford-based
Privileged
(82, Michael Hoffman), as “Lord Adrian.” He also played Apsley Cherry-Garrard in a TV version of
The Last Place on Earth
(85, Ferdinand Fairfax). His screen career began properly a few years later:
Maurice
(87, James Ivory);
White Mischief
(88, Michael Radford);
The Lair of the White Worm
(88, Ken Russell); as Byron in
Rowing with the Wind
(89, Gonzalo Suárez); as Chopin in
Impromptu
(90, James Lapine);
Crossing the Line
(91, David Leland);
Bitter Moon
(92, Roman Polanski); a breakthrough in
Four Weddings and a Funeral
(94, Mike Newell);
Night Train to Venice
(95, Carlo U. Quinterio);
Sirens
(94, John Duigan);
An Awfully Big Adventure
(95, Newell);
The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill but Came Down a Mountain
(95, Christopher Monger);
Nine Months
(95, Chris Columbus);
Restoration
(95, Hoffman);
Sense and Sensibility
(95, Ang Lee);
Extreme Measures
(96, Michael Apted)—which was produced by Elizabeth Hurley, his then-companion (when he wasn’t availing himself of Hollywood prostitutes, and getting caught—the homeless sneeze syndrome); allegedly breathing the same air as Julia Roberts in
Notting Hill
(99, Roger Michell);
Mickey Blue Eyes
(99, Kelly Makin);
Small Time Crooks
(00, Woody Allen);
Bridget Jones’s Diary
(01, Sharon Maguire);
About a Boy
(02, Paul Weitz and Chris Weitz);
Two Weeks Notice
(02, Marc Lawrence); as the prime minister in
Love Actually
(03, Richard Curtis);
Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason
(04, Beeban Kidron);
American Dreamz
(06, Weitz);
Music and Lyrics
(07, Lawrence)—with Drew Barrymore;
Did You Hear About the Morgans?
(09, Lawrence)—with Sarah Jessica Parker.

James Gray
, b. New York, 1969
1994:
Little Odessa
. 2000:
The Yards
. 2007:
We Own the Night
. 2008:
Two Lovers
. 2010:
The Lost City of Z
.

From film school at the University of Southern California, James Gray made a terrific noir debut with
Little Odessa
. Far more than his English name, the film exposed Gray’s Russian origins (his parents were immigrants) and his steady subject—that of fraternal and familial ties put to the test by a life of crime and law enforcement. So in
Little Odessa
, Tim Roth is a hired killer who has to do something with the hero-worship of his brother, Edward Furlong.

There was a significant hiatus, but then
The Yards
had Mark Wahlberg and Joaquin Phoenix as friends drawn into crime for Phoenix’s family. And then in
We Own the Night
, Wahlberg and Phoenix are brothers again in a fatal situation where the Russian family is rooted in crime and corruption. These films are slow, tough, dark, and without much comfort. Women are usually gloomy onlookers. Older people are soured. The darkness closes in, fate’s contract delivers no rewards. It’s very unusual for a young director to insist on pursuing the same world and in a repeating story with persistence, and there were some eager to see Gray spread his wings. But the films are unmistakable and first-rate. Moreover,
Two Lovers
was a departure: Phoenix more or less in love with two different women, Vinessa Shaw and Gwyneth Paltrow. The film did not seem to do very well, but abandoning noir codes can be risky for tough, young, male directors.

In short, Gray is very accomplished, amply determined, and probably capable of much better work.
The Lost City of Z
is very promising—the search for a city in the South American jungle. It may end up looking like
We Own the Night
. But don’t be surprised if it leaves you remembering it.

Guy Green
, b. Somerset, England, 1913
1953:
River Boat
. 1955:
Portrait of Allison; Lost
. 1956:
House of Secrets
. 1958:
The Snorkel; Sea of Sand
. 1959:
S.O.S. Pacific
. 1960:
The Angry Silence
. 1961:
The Mark
. 1962:
Light in the Piazza; Diamond Head
. 1965:
A Patch of Blue
. 1967:
Pretty Polly
. 1968:
The Magus
. 1969:
A Walk in the Spring Rain
. 1973:
Luther
. 1974:
Jacqueline Susann’s Once Is Not Enough
. 1977:
Der Teufels Advokat/The Devil’s Advocate
. 1979:
The Incredible Journey of Doctor Meg Laurel
(TV);
Jennifer: A Woman’s Story
(TV). 1980:
Jimmy B. and Andre
(TV). 1981:
Isabel’s Choice
(TV). 1987:
Strong Medicine
.

From the mid-1930s, Green was a camera operator:
One of Our Aircraft Is Missing
(42, Michael Powell) and
In Which We Serve
(42, Noel Coward and David Lean). He went on to be lighting cameraman on
The Way Ahead
(44, Carol Reed);
Great Expectations
(46, Lean);
Take My Life
(47, Ronald Neame);
Oliver Twist
(48, Lean);
Captain Horatio Hornblower
(51, Raoul Walsh);
The Beggar’s Opera
(53, Peter Brook); and
Rob Roy
(53, Harold French). His early work as a director was neat and promising:
House of Secrets
and
The Snorkel
are ingenious and entertaining thrillers. But
The Angry Silence
, supposedly a breakthrough, encouraged his flashiness into the open. As a director of larger projects he has only exposed himself.
The Mark
was solemnly pretentious,
A Patch of Blue
strictly sentimental, and
The Magus
completely bewildered.

Peter Greenaway
, b. London, 1942
1966:
Train
(s);
Tree
(s). 1967:
Revolution
(s);
Five Postcards from Capital Cities
(s). 1969:
Intervals
(s). 1971:
Erosion
(s). 1973:
H Is for House
(s). 1974:
Windows
(s);
Water
(s). 1975:
Water Wrackets
(s). 1976:
Goole by Numbers
(s). 1977:
Dear Phone
(s). 1978:
1–1000
(s);
A Walk Through H
(s);
Vertical Features Remake
(s). 1979:
Zandra Rhodes
(s). 1980:
The Falls
. 1981:
Act of God
(s). 1982:
The Draughtsman’s Contract
. 1983:
Four American Composers
(d). 1984:
Making a Splash
(s);
A TV Dante—Canto 5
(s). 1985:
Inside Rooms—26 Bathrooms
(s);
A Zed and Two Noughts
. 1986:
Belly of an Architect
. 1987:
Fear of Drowning
(s). 1988:
Drowning by Numbers; A TV Dante—Cantos 1–8
(s). 1989:
The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover; Death in the Seine
(s). 1991:
Prospero’s Books
. 1993:
The Baby of Macon; Darwin
(TV). 1995:
Stairs 1 Geneva
(d). 1996:
The Pillow Book
. 1999:
8½ Women; The Death of a Composer: Rosa, a Horse Drama
. 2001:
The Man in the Bath
. 2003:
The Tulse Luper Suitcases: The Moab Story; The Tulse Luper Suitcases: Vaux to the Sea; The Tulse Luper Suitcases: From Sark to the Finish
. 2007:
Nightwatching
.

Greenaway is not to everyone’s taste—but he does not claim to be. “I have often thought it was very arrogant to suppose you could make a film for anybody but yourself.” Which doesn’t mean that the lone, self-sufficient artist may not also be marked by arrogance. Greenaway is a filmmaker as one might be a modern painter or an experimental novelist. Despite the considerable art-house success of both
The Draughtsman’s Contract
and
The Cook, the Thief …
, he is not just a confessed intellectual, but someone fascinated by games, number theory, structuralist principles, and unmitigated aesthetics. “… I am arguing for cinema for its own sake, and for its ability to hold thought and ideas without necessarily demanding that an audience should be battered into suspending disbelief or that such a thing is cinema’s sole function.”

As a young child, Greenaway and his family moved to London where he would study at Walthamstow College of Art. He failed to get into the Royal College of Art film school, but as he began painting so his obsession with film grew. He found work with the British Film Institute, where he was able to see many of the classic experimental films. He became an editor, at the Central Office of Information. But he had purchased a 16mm Bolex and so—with his own money—he began to make short films. In time, his formalism would become a beneficiary of patronage from the B.F.I. Production Fund, Channel 4, and European television. Yet, by now,
The Cook, the Thief …
has earned close to $10 million in America, and Greenaway has grown warily into some taste for actors and melodrama.

The Draughtsman’s Contract
had an air of erotic thriller that was made more piquant by its mixture of cinematic stringency and baroque lushness. But in
The Cook, the Thief…
the celebration of form only made the cruelty in the material more excruciating, and vacant. John Boorman (by no means a happy sailor in midstream) has gone into print to speak of the cruelty, the coldness, and the awesome, sterile certainty in Greenaway. Those are valid criticisms of a man who admires
The Seventh Seal
and
Blue Velvet
but who has rarely captured their humanity. Whereas
Belly of an Architect
was probably changed for the better by Brian Dennehy’s bulky warmth,
Prospero’s Books
is an unkindness not just to Shakespeare but to John Gielgud, too.