The New Biographical Dictionary of Film: Completely Updated and Expanded (297 page)

a rebelliousness that affects people. An ability to say things that you wish you could say. He’s someone who is in charge of his own life—and I’m talking about the portrayal, not the person. He doesn’t need anything from anyone. He’s a person who is really an off-center character, but very likeable, very identifiable.

And what’s most amazing, he totally crosses all color lines and all ethnic lines internationally, not just American, which is unheard of. I’m always amazed by the international aspect of it because American black actors have never made it internationally, and so much of that appeal is based on verbalization, and yet it doesn’t seem to make any difference. There is an attractiveness to him as a bad boy …

And this, from Murphy himself: “A very militant black woman said to me, ‘How come no serious black actors get the same kind of deals you get or Richard Pryor gets? How come it’s always a comic?’ I said because America is still a racist society.”

The idea of an essentially angry man who cannot resist being made into a lucrative clown, and whose anger becomes the more reckless, cynical, and self-destructive … this is a great subject for an Eddie Murphy film. Certainly, it is more promising than the increasingly feeble and/or nasty material that has been generated for him. “Generated” is most apposite, for as the case of
Coming to America
and the book
Fatal Subtraction
make evident, Eddie Murphy is a cow that gives rich cream.

Not that Murphy makes himself available for sympathy. His grasp on gross receipts is matched by an instinct for gross or raw behavior. Then he makes himself out to be a kind of hip outlaw, womanizer and misogynist, gay-basher, vulgarian … anything that may offend. He surely knows how far his act, his wealth, his power, and his offense have stirred up vengeance.

Whereas, his talent is at best immediate, spur of the moment, cheeky, and reactive. He is, among all the other things, a stand-up comic trying to find full-length films that don’t seem like unsuitable garb.

From
Saturday Night Live
in the early 1980s, he has gone on through hits and abject pictures, by way of $8 million a shot, entourages, bodyguards, etc., absolutely confident in his exploitation of the system and of his fans’ hopes that he is himself used, screwed, and abused. It is a vicious cycle that seems to offer no way out:
48 Hrs
. (82, Walter Hill);
Trading Places
(83, John Landis);
Best Defense
(84, Willard Huyck); at his best in
Beverly Hills Cop
(84, Martin Brest);
The Golden Child
(86, Michael Ritchie);
Beverly Hills Cop II
(87, Tony Scott), on which he also has a story credit;
Eddie Murphy Raw
(87, Robert Townsend), a concert film;
Coming to America
(88, Landis);
Harlem Nights
(89), which he directed himself;
Another 48 Hrs
. (90, Hill);
Boomerang
(92, Reginald Hudlin);
Distinguished Gentleman
(92, Jonathan Lynn); and
Beverly Hills Cop III
(94, Landis).

If anything, Eddie Murphy has become even more successful—and he is by now a black movie star who has retained his position for twenty years. What that means is that he has no peers. At the same time, I regret the directions he has taken in the last ten years or so, for he has concentrated on two franchises (full of brilliance—especially in their makeup, by Rick Baker and others) but also increasingly likely to leave America as a whole with the opinion that blacks are stupid, low, and dirty-minded. The old Eddie Murphy has sold out—not that we ever feel that the malice and sourness have gone. It’s not a simple matter, for Murphy is very funny; but I fear the new ghetto of his commercial cashing-in. It seems a drab way for his energy to go:
Vampire in Brooklyn
(95, Wes Craven);
The Nutty Professor
(96, Tom Shadyac);
Metro
(97, Thomas Carr);
Dr. Dolittle
(98, Betty Thomas);
Holy Man
(98, Stephen Herek);
Life
(99, Ted Demme);
Bowfinger
(99, Frank Oz)—his best recent film;
The Nutty Professor II: The Klumps
(00, Peter Segal); a very funny voice in
Shrek
(01, Andrew Adamson and Vicki Jenson);
Dr. Dolittle 2
(01, Steve Carr);
Showtime
(02, Tom Dey);
The Adventures of Pluto Nash
(02, Ron Underwood);
I Spy
(02, Thomas);
Daddy Day
Care
(03, Steve Carr);
The Haunted Mansion
(03, Rob Minkoff), plus the donkey on every version of
Shrek
.

In
Dreamgirls
(06, Bill Condon), he showed how much ability he had and he was nominated for an Oscar. But then he went back to
Norbit
(07, Brian Robbins);
Shrek the Third
(07, Chris Miller and Raman Hui);
Meet Dave
(08, Robbins);
Imagine That
(07, Karey Kirkpatrick).

Bill Murray
, b. Wilmette, Illinois, 1950
Of all the people who made their reputation with
Saturday Night Live
in the late 1970s, Murray has worked hardest with a movie career, and seemed the most open to the challenge of acting. Not that he is unfunny: indeed, as so often in film, it is those who are merely inhabiting a difficult position (up a tree or at the dead end of argument) who have the best chance of being funny. Murray is ambitious and adventurous, and he seems set on perseverance with less and less stress on mannerism or mania.

He was a founding member of the Second City team in Chicago before he made it on
Saturday Night Live
. He did a voice on
Shame of the Jungle
(75, Picha and Boris Szulzinger) before he appeared in
Meatballs
(79, Ivan Reitman);
Caddyshack
(80, Harold Ramis);
Where the Buffalo Roam
(80, Art Linson);
Loose Shoes
(80, Ira Miller); in the army in
Stripes
(81, Reitman);
Nothing Lasts Forever
(82, Tom Schiller); very funny as the friend in
Tootsie
(82, Sydney Pollack); with a huge hit in
Ghostbusters
(84, Reitman); acting in and coscreenwriter on the listless
The Razor’s Edge
(84, John Byrum)—a sudden revelation of disquiet;
Little Shop of Horrors
(86, Frank Oz);
Scrooged
(88, Richard Donner);
Ghostbusters II
(89, Reitman);
Quick Change
(90, Howard Franklin and Murray), a failure, yet a promising debut;
What About Bob?
(91, Oz); maybe his best work yet
—Groundhog Day
(93, Ramis); and standing up to De Niro as the gangster in
Mad Dog and Glory
(93, John McNaughton).

An intriguing pattern began to emerge—give him a big, obvious comedy, with himself in the lead, and it was likely to flop:
Larger Than Life
(96, Howard Franklin);
The Man Who Knew Too Little
(97, Jon Amiel)—but put him in a modest role, here or there, and invariably you wondered why no one really gives Bill Murray his head:
Ed Wood
(94, Tim Burton);
Kingpin
(96, Bobby and Peter Farrelly);
Wild Things
(98, McNaughton);
Rushmore
(98, Wes Anderson). Is there really something in the man that hates to be exposed? Will any big movie ever trap him? He gives chances:
With Friends Like These
(98, Philip F. Messina);
Cradle Will Rock
(99, Tim Robbins);
Scout’s Honor
(99, Neil Leifer); Polonius in
Hamlet
(00, Michael Almereyda);
Charlie’s Angels
(00, McG);
Osmosis Jones
(01, Farrelly);
The Royal Tenenbaums
(01, Anderson);
Speaking of Sex
(01, John McNaughton); enchanting and “discovered” in
Lost in Translation
(03, Sofia Coppola); the voice of
Garfield
(04, Peter Hewitt).

He acts in pictures still, but in the most absentminded way:
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
(04, Anderson);
Broken Flowers
(05, Jim Jarmusch);
The Lost City
(05, Andy Garcia);
The Darjeeling Limited
(07, Anderson);
Get Smart
(08, Peter Segal);
City of Ember
(08, Gil Kenan);
The Limits of Control
(09, Jarmusch);
Fantastic Mr. Fox
(09, Anderson);
Get Low
(09, Aaron Schneider); playing himself in
Zombieland
(09, Ruben Fleischer).

Mike Myers
, b. Scarborough, Ontario, Canada, 1963
Mike Myers is a phenomenon (isn’t he?), he is this age’s Chaplin, he is—oh, behave! Put it another way: in 1992, when Myers and Dana Carvey slipped over from
Saturday Night Live
to make
Wayne’s World
(92, Penelope Spheeris), he received $1 million up front. Ten years later, for
Austin Powers in Goldmember
(02, Jay Roach), he got $25 million against 21 percent of the gross take. That is Chaplinesque, and it’s a fair recognition of the way Austin Powers has entered into the bloodstream of children like sugar. I don’t know if it’s possible to address the sugar’s additives—the plodding dirty-mindedness, the deterioration of invention, the belittling of women—without sounding pompous. But that only means that the proper defense of children has become an antique pursuit. It’s as if we had no answer to the question, why should kids be spared the dross that washes over us?

Yes, Myers is often very funny, and I see no reason to regard him as other than well-intentioned, or good-natured. At the same time,
The Cat in the Hat
(03, Bo Welch) is a small masterpiece of children’s literature, and the film is a travesty. Myers only acts in the film—he writes and produces the Austin Powers films—but no one can doubt that he has the power to do much as he likes. Of course, the craze for him will pass, and
The Cat in the Hat
shows how lame he may seem without Austinism. But who is to say that his successors won’t be more coarse, more deadly, and more boring?

Myers is Canadian, but his parents were both English (born in Liverpool), and he has claimed to have been inspired by such British comedy acts as Monty Python and Dudley Moore and Peter Cook. Maybe, but who can rule out Benny Hill as a more profound influence? Or argue that Hill was not more personal and more interesting in his autorepressive spasms?

Myers went to Toronto, where he joined the Second City comedy group before doing six years as one of the great hits on
Saturday Night
Live
. After
Wayne’s World
, he played two parts in
So I Married an Axe Murderer
(93, Thomas Schlamme)—he is plainly drawn to impersonation, but with so much less wit than Will Ferrell shows;
Wayne’s World 2
(93, Stephen Surjik);
Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery
(97, Roach); good as Steve Rubell in
54
(98, Mark Christopher);
Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
(99, Roach);
Mystery, Alaska
(99, Roach); the voice of
Shrek
(01, Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson);
View from the Top
(03, Bruno Barreto). He has done Shrek in three other films;
The Love Guru
(08, Mario Schnabel);
Inglourious Basterds
(09, Quentin Tarantino).

N

Mira Nair
, b. 1957, Bhubaneshwar, Orissa, India
1979:
Jama Masjid Journal
(s). 1983:
So Far from India
(d). 1985:
India Cabaret
(TV). 1987:
Children of a Desired Sex
(d). 1988:
Salaam Bombay!
1991:
Mississippi Masala
. 1993:
The Day the Mercedes Became a Hat
(s). 1995:
The Perez Family
. 1996:
Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love
. 1998:
My Own Country
(d). 1999:
The Laughing Club of India
(TV). 2001:
Monsoon Wedding
. 2002:
Hysterical Blindness
(TV); “India,” an episode from 11′09″01. 2004:
Vanity Fair
. 2006:
The Namesake
. 2007:
Migration
(d). 2008: “How Can It Be?” episode from
8
. 2009: an episode from
New York, I Love You; Amelia
.

For a couple of decades, it was hard to say that Mira Nair’s films were often pretty and intriguing but boring and prettified. She was uncommon (an Indian woman offering herself as an international director), and she was clearly smart—she had been educated at Harvard. She was versatile and there was no question about her desire to tell a new kind of multicultural story.
Mississippi Masala
had Denzel Washington in love with Sarita Choudhury in a country town in Mississippi, and it was a small hit, but it never escaped the polite bonds of melodrama. Even
Kama Sutra
had a sedate air to it, a genteel slowness that felt arch and superior but that actually missed the danger and the humor within the subject. Her
Vanity Fair
felt impersonal and
Masterpiece Theatre
-like. But
Hysterical Blindness
—made for HBO and set in provincial New Jersey—was the first film that felt real or other than pureed.

But if this was a promising career (and I’m not sure it was), progress was stopped dead in its tracks by
Amelia
. No one had thought to determine the story arc to pursue. No one had found a love story or a pressing human need. Hilary Swank’s Earhart seemed like a fashion model in a movie that was far too easily seduced by the look of the 1930s.
Amelia
opened as a serious Oscar candidate, but long before the end of 2009 the film had vanished and the ocean was horribly minus any sign of human interest or Howland Island. I’m sure Mira Nair will make other films, but the failure of
Amelia
was crushing and decisive. It was a film fatally about clothes and décor, and it led us back to see that Nair’s eye for prettiness had always missed story.