| Modern stage drama has taken both directions
of a very divergent fork in the past twenty-five. The renewed
fascination with Broadway and the West End has awakened a
theater more intimate and accessible with the emotions to
the audience. And with the license of this accessibility has
created the ability for more epic works (like Tony Kushsner's
Angels in America) that transcend the stage and place
drama within the same scope as the musical genre. The other
fork of this new popularity is the audience's acceptance of
anything audacious to avoid looking square or out of vogue.
David Mamet is the most obvious example of the popular yet
nonsensical drama. His work is considered "dark"
and "hard as nails" but never rises above the level
of vulgar cynicism. Since Mamet exclusively writes about profane
crooks and lowlifes, his subject matter normally takes precedence
over its static tone. People forgive the nasty demeanor of
the play simply as an off-shoot of the subject. And anytime
Mamet needs to express anger or frustration, why just drop
the f-bomb. Or the c-bomb (either the boy or girl version).
Or shit or goddamn or whatever. I don't object to these words
as a form of prudence. I object because this indicates laziness
on the part of the writer. Perhaps the worst of a Mamet or
a Mamet-esque experience is the rhythm of the words. You know:
the sharp pronunciation, the overly dramatic pauses, and the
repetitive line reading. "Yes, I know. (pause) I know.
Yes, I know. (quick break) Go to lunch!" With my minimal
experience in acting, multiple people have explained to me
the Mamet meter and its poetry. Fine. I'm sure you could set
an egg-timer to those words but that's doesn't make them sound
any less stagy. Perhaps a good defense is that Mamet's stage
directions were overdone once and this stuck. Then again,
he used to direct all of his stuff. Sometimes it works (Oleanna,
Glenngary Glen Ross) and sometimes it does not. (American
Buffalo, et al.) And it's worked for me just fine as
a high school theater nerd. If you want to advance in Drama
competitions around SW Missouri, nothing gets you more points
from liberal, fine arts judge than throwing "fuck"
aroundThe past few decades have proven that - within the bowels
of theater departments and M.F.A. programs all over the country
- Mamet is the definitive playwright and conforming to his
style is paramount in importance.
Based on the language and style of his play Closer, Patrick
Marber has taken this lesson to heart. I've skimmed the book
of the play, and not much has been lost in Mike Nichol's film
adaptation. Closer is a GRITTY HUMAN DRAMA which,
in modern terms, means that drama is really just another word
for cynical and depraved. Emotions are telegraphed not through
expression, but through profanity and graphic yet sophomoric
depictions of sexual acts. There are four characters but only
two actors are up to the task of making the characters interesting.
Because, on paper, the characters are only skin deep. But
their shallowness is skin deep. But listen to how Marber's
description's clues the audience into their emotional conditions.
Larry (Clive Owen, reprising his association from the stage.
He played Dan in London.) is a SKIN DOCTOR. Just skin deep,
remember. Alice (Natalie Portman) is a STRIPPER who BARES
ALL. Dan (Jude Law) WRITES OBITUARIES. It's like he's dead
already. Anna (Julia Roberts) is a PHOTOGRAPHER ONLY INTERESTED
IN EXTERNAL BEAUTY. Got all that? Good, because that's all
you'll get to know about these characters over an hour and
fifty minutes. Except for the fact they're disgusting and
like to hurt one another. The setting is London. Both men
are British and both women are American. I thought this would
merit some observation from Nichols, like being female is
like being an ugly American or that gender defines someone
more that their culture. But this must have more interest
to me than Nichols because the point is ignored. Dan meets
Anna when she gets hit by a taxi. They move in together. Dan
flirts with Alice and she rejects him. In retaliation from
the rejection, Dan pretends to be Alice in a sex chat room
on the Internet. "Alice" meets Larry and - after
some naughty word play - decides to meet up at the local aquarium.
This is the introduction of the aquarium in the film, a visual
metaphor used several times because THESE CHARACTERS LIVE
IN A FISH BOWL. (Apparently, the KU freshman
theater major took four aquarium references to figure out
that it meant something based on his proclamation of joy that
howled from the row behind me. No word if he figured out what
it meant.) Anyway, Larry bumps into the real Alice at her
aquarium hangout and the prank is slowly unraveled. But instead
of being repulsed by this chat-room sex creature, Alice is
smitten and they begin to date. This perhaps could be the
Dumbest Plot Point of the Year. If you were a successful celebrity
photographer,would you be attracted by a computer perv who
mistook you for a sexual leech from the Web? Once the script
establishes the relationships, Closer falls into
a predictable and "shocking" set of repetitive scenes
where couples deceive one another. Each scene has the same
tone - nasty - and the same type of content. I'll give you
an example:
INT: SOME FANCY, WELL-DECORATED LONDON APARTMENT
MALE CHARACTER (May be interchanged with
female character) enters room with purpose and pained expression
on their face. FEMALE CHARACTER (May be interchanged
with male character) is sitting around living room, looking
bored, and wearing underwear/pajamas.
MC: You know (pause)... I love you.
FC: Yes, I know you (pause)...love me.
MC: Something seems wrong.
FC: Nothing is...
MC: ...wrong. That is what you say.
FC: (now angry) That is what I mean.
MC: Are you cheating on me?
FC: Am...(pause)...I cheating on you?
MC: Fuck!Yes. That is what I'm...
FC: ...asking. I know. Yes, I've been seeing
the OTHER MALE CHARACTER for some time.
MC: The other male character. Have you fucked
him ?
FC: Yes, we've...
MC: (sneering) fucked. I knew it! Do you
two...
What follows is some angry diatribe where the accusatory
character says dialogue that mixes these terms: fuck, cum,
twat, wanker,moan, bitch, whore, asshole, orgasm, cunt, dick,
and any other salacious swear word one could imagine.
FC: Yes, we did all that.
MC: I want you to die. You bitch! (MC lifts
hand in the air as though to strike.)
FC: I (pause) love (pause) him(pause).
MC: (now crying) But you said you loved
me! I'm dyyyyyiiiiiiinnnngggg!
FC: I changed my mind. Just...now. I'm leaving
you. For him.
MC: Don't...
FC: ...don't go? I'm going.
MC: I need you. Don't leave (Blocks the
door.Stll crying.)
FC: Goodbye. Oh, and I never loved you.
And by the way, (super long pause) his dick yogurt tastes
better than yours!(Female Character leaves, still in underwear/pajamas)
MC screams in pain.
FADE INTO NEXT SCENE. RINSE. REPEAT.
I hardly exaggerated. The whole damn thing goes like this
again and again and again between the characters. Closer
thinks this cyclical pattern is making some point about
the repetitive nature of human interaction. But this is predictable.
And when something becomes predictable, then it loses all
tension and drama. Tension and drama - like other formats
in art - rely on an audience being surprised by something
happening and the reaction it garners. Closer attempts
to make up for its story's boring and predictable pattern
by SHOCKING the audience with sexually graphic and filthy
dialogue. But this shock is too manufactured and mockish for
any impact. Is thw audience really going to coil in horror
when two heterosexual characters engage in a conversation
about orgasm? Because this film seems to think that the mere
mention of the word "cum" is enough for us to run
out of the theater, hop in our SUV, and drive back to the
suburbs for a rerun of Desperate Housewives. Marber
and Nichols think there might some greater meaning
behind this dirty talk because that represents these characters
testing one another's humanity. But these characters - by
the way they are developed and the way their dialogue is written-
don't seem like regular human beings. They pause like they're
in a Pinter play. (Forget about Mamet. Pinter nearly invented
the "pregnant pause.") They talk sharply and pointedly,
like actors doing warm-up exercises. One can almost hear the
actor saying: E-Nun-Ci-Ate! Other playwrights test the level
of their characters humanity the same way Marber aspires to
attempt. Neil LaBute and Kenneth Lonnergan are two names that
come to mind. But their style of writing is much more organic
and believable. Closer just feels staged. The film's
shock and emotion plays like a class exercise.
And the cast feels wasted or simply useless, depending on
the actor. Portman and Owen get by the best. As being more
familiar with the stage, these two do quite a bit of emoting
to make up for the weak material. Owen is particularly effective;
connecting Larry's dirty computer talk with his inquiries
about his lover's affairs. And I may just be burnt out on
Law, but is he now just relying on facial stubble and dead
stares instead of actually acting? Sorry, I like Jude but
this is my third time seeing in a film the past two months
( I even missed Alfie!) so I might just need a break
until his brief turn as Errol Flynn in The Aviator. And
then there's Julia. I heard from the grapevine that she's
a new mom so I'll go a little easy on her. No I won't. She
sucks. She can't act. I resent the fact that she gets paid
for her lame version of "acting." Her range consists
of two facial expressions: smiling and blank. She sounds like
a bitch when she's supposed to act sweet and sounds like a
cartoon when she's supposed to be "tough". There's
a moment near the end of the film where she must deliver some
bad news to Larry. Julia seems to reacts in mock horror as
though she is taking some cynical joy in what she's said.
But, as the scene goes along, you realize she really is supposed
to be horrified. How do I know? She had to deliver a line
indicating she was horrified! Geezus! Please take a break
from acting and never come back. Except for Ocean's Twelve.
The material of Closer can barely stand up anyway.
Julia is no help. One imagines Nichols cast her because mainstream
audiences would be even more SHOCKED to hear Julia compare
the taste of two men's cum. But I must admit taking pleasure
in watching all the dates who rolled in to this film expecting
another Julia-approved Romantic Comedy reel in terror by this
material. I chuckled as some of them stormed out of the auditorium
or began to argue with each other as the credits rolled. Yes,
these moments did play into my nasty, cynical side. Closer
may be phony and disingenuous, but the reaction it provoked
among Johnson County couples was not. Hell, Mamet can't even
pull that off. But still, watching Closer is like
taking it on the chin. Pass the towel, please.
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