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Peter Bogdanovich's Death Mask

Started by dissolute ocelot, January 06, 2022, 09:52:30 PM

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dissolute ocelot

Peter Bogdanovich, director, John Ford fan, occasional actor, and natty dresser, is pushing up the Daisy Millers now (dead).

He gave the world The Last Picture Show, which is either an elegiac masterpiece or pretty but dull. There is also some speculation over how much of his early talent belonged to his then-wife Polly Platt, whom he replaced with Cybill Shepard to the delight of gossip-mongers everywhere. Also on the debit side, he wore an ascot and made far too many movies in black and white.

But he also helmed The Wild Angels, Mask, Paper Moon, and in 1996 he directed To Sir, With Love II starring Sidney Poitier. Not the most precipitous descent of New Hollywood directors, but not what you'd call a unified oeuvre. It's a funny career, and one I've barely explored. Which of his movies do you rate or rate 0/10?

selectivememory

Not sure if I've seen any of his films, but he was good in The Sopranos.

kalowski

I've only seen The Last Picture Show, but I did think it was great.

Elderly Sumo Prophecy


holyzombiejesus

TLPS is in my top 5 films, will never forget watching it on my old portable tv when it was shown on Moviedrome. Should really read Easy Riders, Raging Bulls one of these days.

privatefriend

Bad week for Bogdan's, with the Bogdanoff's off as well.

zomgmouse

What's Up Doc? The Daisies He's Pushing

what an incredible cinephile he was. The Last Picture Show is also the only one of his I've seen but it's a 5-star masterpiece. A 5-starstepiece.

Egyptian Feast

I love his debut film Targets, one of Boris Karloff's last pictures, where he plays a thinly fictionalised version of himself (Byron Orlok) alongside a young Bogdanovich. The theme of the aging monster facing up to the newfangled modern horror of the mass shooter was very timely following the Charles Whitman killings and depressingly ever relevant since.

I don't think I've seen anything he did after What's Up Doc? other than whatever episode of The Sopranos he did. I'm curious about his Cybill Shepherd megaflops from later in the 70s, but probably not enough to seek them out.

Is Nickelodeon worth seeking out? The subject matter is right up my alley but I've not heard much about it other than it was the bomb that finally finished him as an A-list director.

zomgmouse

i have They All Laughed lined up for today to watch with a friend in honour

scarecrow

Quote from: Egyptian Feast on January 07, 2022, 12:55:33 AMIs Nickelodeon worth seeking out? The subject matter is right up my alley but I've not heard much about it other than it was the bomb that finally finished him as an A-list director.
I really enjoyed it. It's a film which definitely didn't deserve to flop, but isn't quite amazing or notorious enough to warrant a re-evaluation.

My favourite is Saint Jack, which has a great turn from Ben Gazzara and sees the director reign in his screwball tendencies.

zomgmouse

Quote from: zomgmouse on January 07, 2022, 01:09:58 AMi have They All Laughed lined up for today to watch with a friend in honour

sadly not amazing. begins with a bang which it just does not sustain. but his heart was in it that's for sure

beanheadmcginty


kalowski

Quote from: Egyptian Feast on January 07, 2022, 12:55:33 AMI love his debut film Targets, one of Boris Karloff's last pictures, where he plays a thinly fictionalised version of himself (Byron Orlok) alongside a young Bogdanovich. The theme of the aging monster facing up to the newfangled modern horror of the mass shooter was very timely following the Charles Whitman killings and depressingly ever relevant since.
Oh, he made Targets?! That's a great little movie.

phantom_power

I love Targets and Paper Moon and really need to see Last Picture Show. Looking at his filmography he really did burn out early didn't he

Magnum Valentino

Targets is ace and due on Blu-ray later this year. His interview with David Chase on one of the early Sopranos DVDs was always worth a watch too.

SteveDave

"The Last Picture Show" is the sexiest non-sex film I've ever seen and, after seeing it for the first time last year, "Paper Moon" is in my top ten films ever.

Small Man Big Horse

Count me in as a fan of his early work, Targets, The Last Picture Show, Paper Moon and What's Up Doc? are all movies I'm incredibly fond of. And I plan to watch At Long Last Love at some point soon, though to be honest I didn't even realise it was directed by him until today, I just downloaded because it's a musical and Madeline Kahn's in it, the reviews aren't great but I'm hoping it'll be watchable at the very least.

EOLAN

Well if ever there was a week to watch: 'To Sir, With Love 2' this seems to be it with Sidney Poitier also passing away. Hopefully Christian Payton can survive the weekend.

Rizla

Quote from: privatefriend on January 06, 2022, 11:24:47 PMBad week for Bogdan's, with the Bogdanoff's off as well.
Hmm, haven't seen my fucking cunt of a neighbour in a while...#prayforbog

peanutbutter

At various points in my life Paper Moon, What's Up Doc and Saint Jack could've easily made a list of my favourite films and I imagine they all hold up incredibly well too. And The Last Picture Show is obviously a stone cold classic.

Really need to see Targets and They All Laughed. Haven't heard enough positive about Nickelodeon and a few of the other more contentious ones to ever bother revisiting them and everything I've read suggests everything after They All Laughed lacks the same kind of enthusiasm he obviously had.


Super important historian too, was willing to divert a decent amount of effort into that side of things at the absolute peak of his career when he had the access.

amputeeporn

At least four classics, which is better than most.

Saint Jack's a hidden gem if you want an American expat bar owner on the very edge of the intelligence community in Singapore. Ben Gazzara (porn producer Jackie Treehorn in The Big Lebowski) is perfect in the lead role, and it has a nice, drifty atmosphere to it, based on the novel by Paul Theroux.

Paper Moon I've only seen recently and once, but it became an instant favourite. A low-level conman gets stuck with a precocious, parentless little girl in 30s America. So wonderful, because it has a 70s mindset but looks convincingly like an old black and white movie (as opposed to some of Bogdanovich's movies that were filmed in black and white seemingly on a whim). Flirts with melancholy, but is hilarious and ultimately leaves you feeling good.

Really enjoyed What's Up Doc as well, and of course The Last Picture Show. There are many I haven't seen - and I've heard that there's a director's cut or two of his later work that really improves upon the theatrical versions - but all of the above do completely different things from each other and are still great.

I recently heard that his Tom Petty doc is pretty good, too (and that he'd never heard of Petty before being asked to make it!)

Small Man Big Horse

At Long Last Love (1975) - Jukebox romcom where  Burt Reynolds, Cybill Shepherd, Madeline Kahn, and Duilio Del Prete have sex a lot, swapping partners every so often. This got an absolute kicking upon release, especially as not all the cast have the best voices and the songs were recorded live on set, but I think that's part of it's charm, Cybill and co are all extremely game and give it there all, the songs are superb, the script is witty, and this is a light, enticing movie that I'm sure would appeal to most musical fans. 8.1/10

peanutbutter

Quote from: amputeeporn on January 07, 2022, 10:41:05 PMI recently heard that his Tom Petty doc is pretty good, too (and that he'd never heard of Petty before being asked to make it!)
I saw this a couple of years ago purely because of Bogdonavich and it was extremely forgettable.

Dex Sawash


I Tatum O'Neal smoking in her underwear made me feel really funny.

Spoiler alert
when I was 8
[close]

steveh

Bogdanovich's first wife Polly Platt is perhaps just as interesting. Major contributions to Targets, The Last Picture Show, What's Up Doc? and Paper Moon - almost as a co-director according to some people. Co-wrote Targets, Pretty Baby and A Map of the World. Later production design on The Bad News Bears, The Man with Two Brains and The Witches of Eastwick. Producer on The War of the Roses and Broadcast News. EVP at Gracie Films where she brought in Matt Groening for The Simpsons.

There's a podcast season on her: https://www.youmustrememberthispodcast.com/episodes/category/Polly%20Platt.

George White

Saint Jack is underrated.
Also notable for having Rodney Bewes in it. Billed above George Lazenby too.

Small Man Big Horse

Daisy Miller (1974) - Based on the Henry James novella, Daisy Miller (Cybil Shepherd) travels around Europe flaunting the conventions of high society, going for walks with a variety of men and never, ever shutting the fuck up. I wasn't sure if we were supposed to find her charming or irritating but apparently it's the former, which for my money means either Shepherd was miscast or poorly directed, and given that I really rate her elsewhere I think it might be the latter. The rest of the cast are great at least, Barry Brown especially, but it's a curious piece and though Bogdanovich makes everything look beautiful it lacks the substance it desperately needed. 5.4/10

Ant Farm Keyboard

The money from Paper Moon bankrolled The Conversation.

As they had all hits at the box-office, Paramount brought together Francis Ford Coppola, William Friedkin and Peter Bogdanovich to a production company called The Directors Company. It was supposed to handle small budget pictures with total artistic freedom to the three auteurs, with the possibility for them to bring outsiders if they limited themselves to half the maximum budget ($3M) possible for the three main guys. They started with Paper Moon, which was a big hit, then with The Conversation (which Friedkin didn't like) and the failure of Daisy Miller brought it down. Friedkin didn't really commit there to any project, and both Bogdanovich and Friedkin vetoed a script written by one of Coppola's protégés, Star Wars by George Lucas.

From the Biskind book and his own recollections, Bogdanovich was raised in one weird family, as they never mentioned his elder brother (who had died at 18 months from getting boiling soup over him) and his father would let nobody touch his hair (he cut it himself and kept it in a drawer). Peter was quite plagued with OCD.

As a director, he had some bad tendencies as he would get mostly interested in a project if it could be his "Ford film" (The Last Picture Show) or his "Hawks film" (What's Up, Doc?). After he had three hits in a row, he also became particularly insufferable, especially because of the name-dropping. I'm not sure that Polly Platt was the true talent of the pair. She was obviously very gifted and the best thing to come out of Biskind's book was renewed recognition for her and Hal Ashby, but her main influence on Bogdanovich was knowing what was best for him and curbing down his worst instincts (which were very obviously on display later on).

Anyway, his John Ford documentary is good. His final film, She's Funny That Way, was quite rubbish, because of a script that's far too much mechanical even for a screwball comedy. There's a stellar cast (Kathryn Hahn, Will Forte, Richard Lewis, Owen Wilson, etc.) but Imogen Poots as an hard-as-nails New Jersey call girl with a heart of gold is completely miscast (it was originally supposed to be Brie Larson) and her accent was rubbish even to a French guy like me.

I'd like to see Texasville, his sequel to The Last Picture Show, featuring most of the original cast and based on another novel by Larry McMurtry, and I have no idea if it was poorly received because of the studio theatrical cut or because of Bogdanovich's declining knack as a director.

Small Man Big Horse

Quote from: Ant Farm Keyboard on January 15, 2022, 10:27:05 PMI'd like to see Texasville, his sequel to The Last Picture Show, featuring most of the original cast and based on another novel by Larry McMurtry, and I have no idea if it was poorly received because of the studio theatrical cut or because of Bogdanovich's declining knack as a director.

This is only a very vague memory but I think Texasville was well received in some areas, and I think (but could be wrong) that Empire were positive about it as I was heavily influenced by them at the time and watched it when it came out on video. I remember quite liking it too, but I was 16 or 17 at the time and my views on films back then often can't be trusted.