Where has the great American middlebrow gone? That certain type of film – prevalent throughout the ’90s – that falls somewhere between the poles of low-brow mass commercialism and high art has gone the way of cassette tapes and has become increasingly rare in an age when multiplexes prey to the hormonal whims of teenagers and tweens.
Sean McGinly (Brothers), director of The Great Buck Howard and a Virginia native, wished to change that and bring back an old kind of pop art. To do that, he made a small, somewhat autobiographical film about another dwindling species: The classic entertainer, the consummate Tonight Show guest.
“I think Buck could’ve just as easily been a stand up comic or a ventriloquist or anything else,” McGinly said in an interview with The Diamondback. “It’s more about art and creativity and about somebody who at one point was in favor and the thing was at one point more appreciated than it is now.”
In this case, the magician Buck Howard is played by John Malkovich (Changeling) with arrogance and occasional bursts of true spite. Howard is the type of person who insists on being addressed as a “mentalist,” choreographs his routine with obsessive exactitude and plows over anyone else in his way.
The character standing in for McGinly as the impoverished Los Angeles writer is Troy Gabel (Colin Hanks, W.). After responding to a classified and undergoing a pompous, elaborate meeting with Howard, Gabel takes the job of being Howard’s road manager, confidant and only friend. The film quickly establishes Hanks as the straight man to the blustering Malkovich, whose fits and tantrums consume each scene.
Of course, McGinly did smudge the truth and blow up his experiences as road manager for the Amazing Kreskin for the big screen.
“He’s embellished. We changed a lot of things to make it funnier,” McGinly said. “John Malkovich is such a creative guy. He came up with lots of stuff, too, just because he thought it would be funnier and more entertaining.”
It is with those elements that the film jangles along, settling into a comfortable pace. There is an easy, room temperature combination of comedy and drama – not too much, not too little. Just when Malkovich spits out every sneer he can summon, a nice foothold of humanistic empathy prevents the slide into caricature.
“John’s kind of feeling was, you know, let’s just go for it. Let’s just be as goofy and funny as we feel like being,” McGinly said. “I didn’t direct John much, just because he’s just so good. The only things I did find myself saying to him a lot was, ‘Let’s just pull this back a little, let’s not be quite so over the top.'”
Everything about the film’s production is assured, with little tentativeness or wavering evident in its construction. McGinly knew exactly the look he wanted to achieve, and set about coating the action with a nostalgic hue.
“I wanted to do a film … that kind of felt like stylistically like Buck Howard’s world,” McGinly said. “I think that’s something I’m proud of, that we were able to do that. I also give a lot of the credit for that to my cinematographer Tak Fujimoto.”
Of course, nostalgia is a double-edged sword. Simply put, there is nothing terribly compelling about a filmmaker reviving forms thousands before him have mastered unless there is a new angle on it, something to save the film from devolving into dull formalism.
Unfortunately for Howard, making a movie exactly in the style of the good old days is sometimes not enough. The mixed reception to Steven Soderbergh’s The Good German, shot using antiquated lenses, should be enough warning to filmmakers who consider covering versions of past films and eras.
Still, Howard does buck a new convention of sorts. Nowadays, it would be far too easy to tread the path of The Wrestler, giving Howard a daughter, a drinking problem and an acoustic soundtrack to all but guarantee Malkovich an Oscar nomination.
Upon further consideration, McGinly’s approach – devoid of solemn auterist posing – is actually quite refreshing and … new.
“On one level, I just wanted to tell an entertaining story that was kind of about a time in my life,” McGinly said “And I always kind of thought it was funny. So I thought it would be a funny, entertaining way to spend an hour and a half.”
vmain13@umd.edu
RATING: 3 out of 5 Stars
