Masterpieces in Camp

Do I really have to explain with Camp is, I don't really feel like it, read Susan Sontag's 'Notes on Camp', I'll just really quickly note that according to Michael Musto (renowned raconteur, gay icon, and Village Voice critic for like a million years and counting) classifies Camp as something that is so ridiculous that you can't possibly believe it's meant to be taken seriously. Usually, Camp is applied to Queer Cinema, trash  films, and Kenneth Anger. The Drag Queen is the perfect example of a Camp entity. The exaggerated make up, hair, and clothing give credence to the idea that Camp is an exercise in the abnormal. It is trying to stretch aesthetic the furthest from the serious and the real as possible. Thus the confluence of this is usually cult comedies and trash films from the likes of John Waters (arguably the most recognizable Camp filmmaker). Camp is an absolute favorite of mine, I learned a long time ago not to take anything too seriously, particularly film. I used to be a Hitchcock/Welles/Renoir junky until I discovered that Paul Verhoeven, Jack Smith, John Waters, and Andy Warhol were creating a certain subjective attitude that reflected itself in films as pure gaudy, filthy, and amazingly fun nonsense. I want to pay homage not only to those filmmakers (which I will exempt from this post considering they are all pretty obvious) but to some of those films that have been called everything from irredeemably filth to disgusting trash. To me, these are in fact positive critiques. Who says that every film has to be a calculated meticulous opus of life, love, and death? And who says that those subjects aren't fair game for satire, glitter, and fun? I am leaving the following a few this list because I've either blogged about them in the past, or are the work of John Waters who's entire body of work is purely Camp. I know I need more examples, this is what I have so far, i'm pretty busy right now. More to come (no pun intended, or maybe intended). 

Valley of the Dolls (Mark Robson, 1967). Based on the seminal camp novel by Jacqueline Susann and her experience in show business, her obsession with Judy Garland, and her penchant for pill popping, this film was an amazingly accurate adaptation. It details the lives of three women all struggling in their own way to find their niche in what they are passionate about. Neely O'Hara (Patty Duke) is the star of the film. She symbolizes every actress from old Hollywood that was horribly misguided and destroyed by fame, in a most outlandish and comic manner. She opens her bottle of dolls (pills) and chugs it like a Gatorade saying that she's expected to 'Sparkle Neeley, Sparkle!'. 

FAVORITE QUOTES: 

Helen Lawson: They drummed you out of Hollywood, so you come crawling back to Broadway. But Broadway doesn't go for booze and dope. Now get out of my way, I've got a man waiting for me.  


Anne Welles: Neely, you know it's bad to take liquor with those pills. 
Neely O'Hara: They work faster. 


Anne Welles: You've got to climb Mount Everest to reach the Valley of the Dolls. 

Velvet Goldmine (Todd Haynes, 1998). Most of the dialogue in this film are taken directly from the writings of Oscar Wilde. This film was almost universally shunned, and wrongfully so, because closed-minded critics couldn't see the proverbial tragicomedy forrest for the trees. Loosely based on the life of David Bowie and to a lesser extent T. Rex's Marc Bolan, this flashy and ironic musical is Camp while being tragic. It follows the life of Brian Slade who later reinvents himself Maxwell Deamon, a seminal force in Glam Rock and bisexuality who's own ego is the foundation for his own destruction. This is Citizen Kane bedazzled. The narrative is the same as Kane, where a journalist must discover the mystery behind his idol's identity and disappearance and subsequently travels back in time to when platform shoes, orgies, and glam rock were all the rage, pumping life back into dreary and cloudy London. 

FAVORITE QUOTES: 


Reporter: Tell us, Brian, are the rumors true when they say you and Curt Wild have some sort of plans up your sleeve? 

Brian Slade: Oh yes. Quite soon we actually plan to take over the world! 

Brian Slade: Ha! Nothing makes one so vain as being told one is a sinner!  


Cecil: According to legend, when Curt was 13 he was discovered in the family loo at the service of his older brother, and was promptly sent off for eighteen months of electric shock treatment. It was guaranteed the treatment would fry the fairy clean out of him, but all it did was make him go bonkers whenever he heard an electric guitar.  


Curt Wild: Excuse me, fellas, while I raise my glass to the loveliest man in Europe. 
Brian Slade: And they tell you it's not natural.  

Showgirls (Paul Verhoeven) 1995. What has often been accurately described as All About Eve in a thong has evolved into a cult juggernaut. Talk about being universally panned. If we're comparing stuff, we could just as easily say that Black Swan (2010) is All About Eve in a tutu. Only this film is so much more than just a stripper version of the Bette Davis classic from 1950. Elizabeth Berkeley known as the neurotic goody-two-shoes Jesse Spano on the pseudo-crappy show Saved by the Bell, totally surprised everyone appearing on screen 80 percent of the time naked in this Paul Verhoeven classic. And yes, it is at this point just as bona fide a classic as All About Eve. Verhoeven isn't necessarily a camp filmmaker, but his exquisite wit and sarcasm transpires into films of every genre that make fun of not only themselves but of films that we think of as 'definitive' of their respective genres like his awesome Sci-Fi extravaganza complete with comically large cockroaches called Starship Troopers. Back to Showgirls though, it pretty much spells out all of our secret guilty pleasures as cinema spectators. All we really want is T&A, choreography, and cat fights, and this film covers all bases brilliantly, sprinkles them with gold glitter, and shoves them down our pretentious serious throats. I defy anyone to say that they see nothing redeeming in Showgirls or that you've never watched it. We all have, and it's better to just admit that it's amazing and throw an ironic Showgirls themed party where everyone dresses up as different costumes of Nomi Malone. My favorite is the bright pink fringe number, and of course the black and sleek 'Versayse'. 

FAVORITE QUOTES: 

Tony Moss: Can you MGM backwards? I bet you can't. 
Spelling Dancer: MGM 
Tony Moss: I'm impressed!  

Nomi Malone: Don't they have brown rice and vegetables? 
Cristal Connors: Do you like brown rice and vegetables? 
Nomi Malone: Yeah. 
Cristal Connors: You do? 
Nomi Malone: Sort of. 
Cristal Connors: Really? 
Nomi Malone: It's worse than dog food.
Nomi Malone: It is! 
Cristal Connors: I've had dog food. 
Nomi Malone: You have? 
Cristal Connors: Mmm-hmmm. Long time ago. Doggy Chow. I used to love Doggy Chow.
Nomi Malone: I used to love Doggy Chow, too! 

Zack Carey: Are you afraid? Don't be. 
Nomi Malone: I'm not. I liked it when you came. I liked your eyes.  

Men with Pipes: Symbolic Organs.

It's pretty simple. The title is self-explanatory. I thought about who I was sexually attracted to when I first started having film crushes, and unlike the requisite DiCaprio-Pine-Pattinson hysteria, I was always the weird one who rented VHS copies of films from the 30's so I could fantasize about English sophisticated types donning cravats, 6-piece suits, pinky rings, and smoking pipes with a curiously flirty look on their faces. They spoke politely and with rhythmic intelligence, smirking sarcastically as they took a sip of their champagne and pumped on their pipe some more. They always looked ridiculously put together, walking around so composed and yet giving the sense that once they got you into the bedroom, they would tear your clothes off with violent and feral efficiency then throw you on the bed with brut force and have their way with you. I'd like to look at a few examples. The best one I can think of is Leslie Howard who couldn't look more British if he tried, even when playing Southern gentleman Ashley Wilkes in Gone With The Wind (1939). He was raised in London, born into an affluent and well-to-do Jewish family. After serving in the Army during WWI he developed PTSD that he treated with acting lessons. By 1931 he was in Hollywood playing weak, snarky, and intellectual types opposite the likes of Bette Davis, Clark Gable, and Humphrey Bogart. He always seemed like the feeble romantic who talks more than he acts, and is completely emasculated by any actor around him (male or female) who in contrast is opinionated, fierce, and dominant. His British-ness came to a climax when he played the definitive British man; Henry Higgins in Pygmalion (1939). 

He was the sarcastic, sexually ambiguous professor of linguistics who huffs at an ever-present pipe and wears comically round glasses as to accentuate his intellectual superiority. Actors like Howard were typecast as the 'proper' straight-man to everyone else's shenanigans and unpredictability. When the world is going to hell, there's bullets flying, and Atlanta is burning, you'll always find Leslie in the corner quietly smoking his pipe, checking his chain watch, and muttering a snide comment about the ridiculousness of the world. 

Another one who uses his pipe as an indelible symbol of his manhood is gentle British soul Basil Rathbone known primarily for his work as Sherlock Holmes. Of course in this case, the pipe is part of the deal, you can't see Sherlock Holmes on the screen without his pipe, it's one of his most recognizable characteristics. He has a very sexual face. His eyes kind of droop in a stoic manner, and his facial hair just barely touches his supple lips when he speaks. He's got an amazingly arousing tone and even when talking about broken vases, curious dirt marks, and cracked tea cups is somehow still making love to the camera. 

He could read the numbers of Pi to me over and over again, it would still sound like pillow talk. Trevor Howard is another perfect example of a pipe-smoking cynic who though is not the 'strong-man' of the plot, is still able to draw sexual desire from the audience. I absolutely fell in love with him in The Third Man (1949), and next to Joseph Cotton in his prime, that's saying a lot. The way he spoke, held himself, and used his body to connote his powerful stature got immediately under my skin. Men who are emasculated in a film plot require a device that gives them their manhood back, sometimes rather literally, and none is more obvious than a swanky looking pipe that not only serves as a surrogate for their penis, but also draws attention to their mouths and how they use them to delicately and slowly puff smoke into their bodies between lines. It's a subconscious sex invite, subtle but unequivocal. Unfortunately, you have to be British to have a pipe, if you're American, you better stick to an old hand rolled cigarette a filmic ploy to illustrate a character's working class status. I just thought I'd salute a few of those who don't normally get female adoration and obsession and uneasily hover between 'character actor' and 'matinee idol'. 

This is a type that definitely does it for me, and hits on all sensual cylinders. They show actors don't have to be ripped and jacked, having their chests sprayed with olive oil between every take, and their hair tossled to give the impression of aggressiveness. Desire can come in a neat, tailored, and sarcastic package, that's both proper and animalistic, always complete with a nice shiny pipe. 

Top Ten: Sexy (Ugly) Beasts

While most of the film and tv viewing public would like to put the following selection into the 'character actor' category which is just a nice way of saying, their talented but totally gross, I have strange tastes and imagine some of you will agree with me for picking certain actors who may not be pretty boys or Cary Grant clones (George Clooney, Chris Pine, Matt Damon etc.) and have a strange fondness and sexual attraction to those that are how shall I put this delicately...unconventional. Pretty boys are pretty boring. Too symmetrical, and usually totally aware of their all of their perfections making them annoyingly arrogant. Argue with me all you want, but I think it clearly translates into their films on a subconscious level. They don't usually ask their director if they can do a shirtless scene (unless its Matthew Mcconaughey) but they do walk around the frame like they're 10 feet tall with a 12 inch dick. So here's a salute to those who make us cry, make us laugh, win Oscars without having to have a make-under, and make us question our sexual inclinations. They might not win the cover of People's Sexiest Man Alive, but c'mon, who really wants to? So that they can join the ranks of Mel Gibson, Johnny Depp, and Tom Cruise? Jew-hating wife-beater, king of the douche-bags, and certifiably cuckoo brains? No thanks. 

Stanley Tucci (Age 50)
This has to be my favorite one. In fact, I don't think he's ugly at all, and he was just so devastatingly charming opposite Meryl Streep in Julie & Julia (2009) that I told my mom I wanted a man just like that. He's very versatile, and can play both villains and romantics with subtle perfection. Perhaps it doesn't matter that he never gets or will get a romantic lead. If you're someone that can be Oscar nominated as a child-molesting murderer in The Lovely Bones (2008) and a year later play the loving supportive husband to Julia Child, you are winning sir. 

John Hawkes (Age 51)
If nothing else I hope this generates more google searches for John Hawkes. He was nominated last year for his heartbreaking and unforgiving performance in Winter's Bone (2010). He's also made a few appearances in the flawed last season of Lost, looking so much like John Lennon that his character's name was actually billed as 'Lennon'. He cleans up nice for the Oscars, believe me.

Alfred Molina (Age 57)
Ok, we need someone to play perhaps the ugliest artist of the 20th century besides Warhol, opposite devistatingly hot Salma Hayek in Frida (2002). They chose Alfred Molina who didn't look anything like Diego Rivera, except for putting on a considerable few pounds. I've always had a soft spot for this very talented method actor. Since I saw him in Species (1995) as a hopeless romantic who gets an alien's tongue through the back of his head. Poor guy. 

Paul Giamatti (Age 43)
Talk about a guy who made his career playing the annoyed, cynical, and sarcastic observer who never gets the girl, culminating in his performance as underground comic book icon Harvey Pekar in American Splendor (2003). He totally reinvented himself by shaving that scruff (as well as his head) practicing a British Accent and taking the titular role in the HBO mini-series, John Adams (2008). I saw him on the subway once. He looked exactly like he does in every film he's been in, casually distracted, with a despondent look on his face. It took all of my self control not to go over and talk to him because I find him very attractive. I like cynics. 

Steve Buscemi (Age 53)
He is perhaps the pièce de résistance of this whole list. Everyone I know has at one time or another acknowledged that they carry a hard on for Steve Buscemi whether it's from awkward Seymour the record collector in Ghost World (2001) or as he is now as the womanizing (operative word) powerful, and self absorbed Nucky Thompson in HBO's Boardwalk Empire. Someone thought that he could pass as a person upon whom women were throwing themselves. They thought right. 

Jared Harris (Age 49)
I love Jared Harris. Not only has he reinvented himself in not one but two successful television shows (Mad Men and Fringe) he is the spawn of ridiculously handsome and Kirk Douglas doppleganger, actor Richard Harris. As sexually frustrated and demure Layne Pryce on Mad Men, there is even an instance when the other executives at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce joke about how ugly he is. Maybe for American closed-minded alcoholic upper-crust CEO's in the 60's, but not for me. And he's played Warhol. Awesome. 

Philip Seymour Hoffman (Age 43)
Here's another favorite. I met him as well (well not met, i gazed tipsily at his magnificent self while he was chain-smoking drunk outside the National Board of Review Awards that I went to in 2005) Sorry, I know I'm kind of showing off here. My bad. He is perhaps the biggest chameleon in the bunch. He's played romantic, but never a lead, always the hopeless romantic. My personal favorite was when he played tortured and disaffected playwright rather comically in David Mamet's State and Main (2000). Lest we forget his incomparable interpretation of Truman Capote for which he won an Oscar. Much deserved. 

Tommy Flanagan (Age 45)
Go ahead, look this one up. This Scotch actor has appeared as well, a Scot in most films until he was cast as Chibs in the highly acclaimed TV drama series Sons of Anarchy. His face adorns the infamous Glasgow Smile scars since he was accosted in Glasgow in his 20's. He used this 'handicap' to his benefit, and I don't think it takes away from his appeal at all, if anything I think it adds to it. 

David Cross (Age 47)
For you who are awesome, you know this hilarious actor and comic from the best show that has ever been on television (Arrested Development) as Dr. Tobias Funke, analrapist, actor, and never-nude. But get this, he's dating 20-something sex kitten Amber Tamblyn. He is very appealing, not only because he's ridiculously funny, but because he is able to somehow 'connect'. I have always loved this somewhat quirky and eccentric actor, especially after his spread in the infamous 'I'd Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur' PETA campaign. 

Willen Dafoe (Age 55)
Wow, I just realize that's i've seen a lot of these guys in New York (again,  i'm sorry) Me and my mom treated ourselves to a ridiculously expensive coffee and desert at a posh West Village patisserie when he walked right by me. Like most actors you ever see on the streets or subway in New York, he's a lot shorter than I expected. The first film I saw him in was Shadow of the Vampire (2000), a highly imaginative and surreal recreation of the making of F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror in 1922. Now, the actor Max Shreck who plays the original Nosferatu the Vampire was actually a very serious actor whom you wouldn't have recognized without his vampire make-up. Dafoe plays the character as though he was actually a vampire and appears to always look like a blood-sucking, undead, deamon, with pale white skin, chisel sharp teeth, and gaping empty eyes. Only he could do this. And yet we can still consider him sexually appealing and rather handsome, weird face aside, or perhaps because of.