Christopher Guest had lifelong cult status assured from the moment that he
strode across the screen in leather trousers so tight that they squeaked for
mercy with every step. As Nigel Tufnell in This is Spinal Tap , he
spawned a thousand rock nonsense catchphrases. The man who came up with the
concept of an amplifier that went “one louder” could have retired at that
moment with his comedy legacy assured.
Fortunately, Guest brought his knack for generating endlessly quotable lines
to a series of later films that he both directed and, as part of a regular
repertory group, appeared in. Pictures such as Best in Show, A Mighty Wind
and the forthcoming For Your Consideration command a loyal fan base,
which grows more dedicated with each new movie.
It’s curious then that one of Guest’s most acclaimed comedies, the one in
which he honed the largely improvised mockumentary technique of the later
films, never got a release in Britain.
The story of the temperamental off-off-off-off-off Broadway producer Corky St
Clair and the provincial amateur dramatics troupe that he takes in hand, Waiting
for Guffman (1996), is regarded as a comedy masterpiece by those in the
know. Kate Wins-let recently confessed that she and husband Sam Mendes are
“obsessed” with the film, saying: “I drive Sam mad because I do all the
dialogue, all the songs, do all the dance moves.”
So why did the film never make it to British cinemas? It seems likely that a
combination of reasons conspired against the film, not least the fact that
on its initial American release Waiting For Guffman did rather
poorly, failing to recoup even its comparatively modest budget.
Unfortunately, the nonrelease of Guffman in Britain is by no means an
isolated incident. Although the weekly British release schedules are crammed
with mediocre movies, plenty of other films that would seem likely to appeal
to British cinemagoers are never given that chance. Take Steven Soderbergh’s
low- budget experimental Mid-western mystery Bubble , or the actor
Steven Buscemi’s comedy drama Lonesome Jim , both of which
appeared to fall victim to the curse of indifferent box-office performance
in America. However, since both were released on a handful of screens — Bubble
had a maximum of 32, Lonesome Jim just 16 — their chances of scoring
decent returns were severely limited from the outset.
Therein lies another problem for small American films. All too frequently the
distributor or studio decides preemptively that there’s no box-office
potential and subsequently buries the movie on release, killing the momen-
tum that could have taken the film to audiences abroad. A recent example is Idiocracy
, a dark and by all accounts hilarious satire written and directed by Mike
Judge (the man behind King of the Hill and Beavis and Butthead
).
The premise is deliciously sardonic — an average Joe serviceman volunteers to
be cryogenically stored for six months. But a mishap sees him woken 500
years in the future into a society that has dumbed down to such an extent
that Joe is now officially the most intelligent man on the planet. The
population gorges itself on buckets of lard while grunting its appreciation
of the output of the Masturbation Network, the Violence Channel and, taking
an audacious bite out of the hand that signed the production cheques, Fox
News. The distributor, Twentieth Century Fox, released the film without
advertising on the minimum number of screens it could contractually get away
with. Not surprisingly, there’s no sign of Idiocracy on this
year’s British release schedules.
It’s not only American cinema’s small fry and studio rejects that don’t make
it to British screens. Big hitters in arthouse cinema can also slip through
the net. Geoff An-drew, the head of programming at the National Film
Theatre, reels off a list that includes Michael Haneke’s 71
Fragments in a Chronology of Chance ; The Tree, the Mayor and the
Mediatheque by Eric Rohmer; Theo Angelopou-los’s Reconstruction
; and Land of Silence and Darkness by Werner Herzog.
However, it’s the smaller, less established names that are most likely to miss
out. Talk to people who spend a considerable part of their life scouring the
smaller film festivals of the world, and they will all have a personal
favourite that they are desperate to bring to a wider audience. The Variety
critic Leslie Felp-erin cites a Polish feature titled Jestem ( I Am
) and an uproariously funny Spanish slacker comedy called Isolated ( Aislados
). “This ultra-ultra-low-budget movie about two Spanish guys shooting the
s*** while they hang out at an Ibizan villa was a total hoot, and completely
charms audiences whenever it’s shown at festivals.”
Ed Fletcher, the managing director of the independent distributor Soda
Pictures, describes agonising over a Norwegian film called Reprise
last year before regretfully deciding not to pick it up for release. The
film was finally bought last week by the new British distributor Diffusion.
My personal favourite is a gorgeous, bittersweet Czech film called Something
Like Happiness , which plays like first-rate Mike Leigh with a
melancholic Eastern European flavour. I harangued every distributor I know
about this film, to no avail. But as Fletcher observes: “When you see
something that touches you personally, it’s hard not to go on a crusade.”
The problem for distributors, says Fletcher, is that the number of screens
prepared to show foreign language and arthouse fare has fallen, with cinemas
less inclined to make the commitment to keep a film showing for more than a
week to build word of mouth. And increasingly, theatres formerly committed
to more adventurous programming are falling prey to Hollywood fodder.
Fletcher admits that programming decisions are probably a direct response to
market pressures but likens it to the plight of modern televi-sion. “If you
show reality TV rather than quality documentaries, the audiences might go
up, but at what cost?”
As the director of the City Screen cinema chain, Claire Binns has considerable
influence on which films finally make it to our screens. “The pressures we
have are based on the amount of films that are released each week.
There are more and more films, and although there are more screens, the
multiplexes are crammed with screens showing the same film. For us the
decisions are made on the quality of the film, the quality of the
distributor, the number of prints it’s going out on. But there are just so
many films released each week.”
She describes recent changes in audience attitudes as massive. “They’re much
less willing to go to the cinema and take a chance. They don’t go to cinema
for a voyage of exploration,” she says.
So what’s the answer for movie buffs keen to track down the gems that slip
through the net? A multi-region DVD player and a few hours scouring the
internet will unearth many treasures. But Fletcher places hope in the idea
of customers downloading films directly from the distributor. He’s planning
an online “Soda Cinema” with three virtual screens that will combine the
concept of cinematic programming with the immediacy and accessibility of
internet downloading.
Although it would seem to take business away from the cinemas, Binns too sees
downloading as a cause for cautious optimism. “I’m in the commercial
business, our cinemas are run for a profit. But also we have a cultural
agenda. We’re in the business of putting in intelligent films for an
audience that does want to think and be entertained. The different means
people have for seeing films are no bad thing, if it means we can encourage
them to take a chance. Maybe if they download stuff, they’ll then want to
come and watch something different in our cinemas.”
Release these films says Wendy Ide...
Vengo (2000) A compelling mix of live music and melodrama from the
French-Algerian director Tony Gatlif ( Gadjo Dilo; Exils).
Something Like Happiness (2005) Bohdan Sláma’s lovely film tells of
hard lives, lived with hope and humour.
The Great Happiness Space: Tale of an Osaka Love Thief (2006) Jake
Clennell’s documentary about the Japanese “host bars”, where geisha boys
entertain wealthy women. An abridged version will be shown on More 4.
WWW: What a Wonderful World (2006) Faouzi Bensaidi’s playfully
cine-literate love letter to Sixties spy capers and to modern-day
Casablanca.
Syndromes and a Century (2006) Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s follow-up to Tropical
Malady is dreamlike and unsettling. The setting is a hospital, the
snippets of story have no resolution and seemingly no point. A confounding
but compelling experiment.
... and these, says James Christopher ...
The Beaver Trilogy (2001) Trent Harris’s extraordinary encounter with a
stranger in a car park in 1979 inspired him to remake the moment in 1981
with Sean Penn, and again in 1985 with Crispin Glover. A piece of genius.
Crust (2001) Touching love story by Mark Locke about a boxing coach
(Kevin McNally) and a 7ft lobster with world title hopes. I cried real
tears.
Chromophobia (2005) A subtle and scathing portrait of class, and the
closing-night film of the 58th Cannes festival. Martha Fiennes directed a
who’s who of British actors, but the film was crucified by a weary press.
The Isle of Lesbos (1997) Jeff B. Harmon’s outrageous satire on sexual
and political hypocrisy was presented like a Technicolor musical pastiche of Oklahoma!
A cult masterpiece murdered by the American censors.
Men, Heroes and Gay Nazis (2005) Rose von Praunheim’s German
documentary about militant gay neo-Nazis. Footage of naked skinheads
sexually aroused by Mein Kampf frightened distributors.
.. and don’t forget these, says Kevin Maher
Whassup Rockers (2005) Larry Clark’s giddy and rambunctious portrait
of seven Hispanic skateboarders in LA is an unusually sensitive and sweet
work, and easily Clark’s best movie to date.
Jiminy Glick in Lalawood (2004) Vadim Jean’s smart, star-filled and
occasionally savage parody of modern entertainment journalism courtesy of
Martin Short in a fat suit.
DarkBlueAlmostBlack (2006) A Spanish erotic thriller involving prison,
pregnancies and umpteen delicious plot twists from Daniel Sánchez Arévalo.
Public Access (1993) Bryan Singer’s Hitchcockian debut about a radio
DJ whose gossipy broadcasts turn a strait-laced American town on its head.
Double Whammy (2001) Zany comedy from Tom DiCillo, the director of
Living in Oblivion, and the writer Carl Hiaasen features Denis Leary and
Steve Buscemi as jaded Manhattan policemen. Liz Hurley co-stars. But that’s
not a good enough reason to can it.
