Harry Shearer – Movie Musings

Patriotic heroism subtly retold as shrewd satire – no wonder the film bombed

Director: Philip Kaufman

Cast: Sam Shepard (Chuck Yeager), Scott Glenn (Alan Shepard), Ed Harris (John Glenn), Dennis Quaid (Gordon Cooper), Fred Ward (Gus Grissom), Barbara Hershey (Glennis Yeager), Kim Stanley (Pancho Barnes), Veronica Cartwright (Betty Grissom), Scott Paulin (Deke Slayton), Charles Frank (Scott Carpenter), Lance Henriksen (Wally Schirra), Donald Moffat (Lyndon B Johnson), Levon Helm (Jack Ridley), Mary Jo Deschanel (Annie Glenn), Scott Wilson (Scott Crossfield), Kathy Baker (Louise Shepard), David Clennon (Liaison man), Jeff Goldblum (Recruiter), Harry Shearer (Recruiter)

During the Cold War, the US and Russia had to fight with something – from proxy wars to chess, but most famously with Space: the competition to go further, faster and higher among the stars. The Right Stuff focuses on the Mercury Seven pilots at the centre of the US response to Soviet success including Alan Shepard (Scott Glenn), John Glenn (Ed Harris), Gus Grissom (Fred Ward) and Gordon Cooper (Dennis Quaid), a mix of the cocksure and the confident. But in a space programme where a monkey is an acceptable “pilot” for this human cannonball, do any of them have “the right stuff”? Could any of them match the skill of legendary test pilot Chuck Yeager (Sam Shepard) – one of the guys who scorned this astronaut programme for being “spam in a can”?

The Right Stuff, adapted from Tom Wolfe’s book, seemed destined to become a patriotic smash-hit. Despite its eight Oscar nominations (and four wins) it was, in fact, a catastrophic bomb. Perhaps that was because it subverted its patriotism so well. The Right Stuff is, in fact, a subtle, anti-heroic satire (told at huge length) masquerading as a patriotic yarn. It’s marketing avoided that meaning those most likely to enjoy didn’t go and see it, and those who went for that felt alienated. While largely respecting the astronauts, it suggests space race triumphalism was a sort of mass hysteria, with limited results, inflated into something mythic by political expediency, media spin and industrial might. Not the happy, flag-waving message Reaganite America expected or wanted.

Kaufman’s sympathy instead lies with an older, “truer” America. The Right Stuff is an intensely nostalgic film: but for a completely different time. It is in love with Frontier America, where men-were-men and the daring proved themselves in taming the frontier, in this case the sky itself. Our tamer is Chuck Yeager, played with a monosyllabic Gary-Cooper-charisma by Sam Shepard. Yeager is the last of the cowboys (even introduced riding a horse in the desert), taking to the skies like an old frontiersman hunting down that “demon” who lives at the sound barrier.

This is the sort of America The Right Stuff celebrates, and Yeager is the guy who has it. Unlike the Mercury programme, Yeager isn’t interested in showbiz and self-promotion (his reward for breaking the sound barrier? A free steak and a press embargo), just the quiet satisfaction of having done it. It’s the old, unflappable, quietly masculine confidence of a certain kind of American tradition and it’s totally out of step with the world the media is now celebrating with the astronauts. Instead, these effective passengers in the rocket will be hailed as the great pilots.

Kaufman’s film is a long, carefully disguised, quiet ridicule of many of the aspects of the Mercury programme. It’s conceived, in a darkened room, by a group of politicians so clumsy they can’t even work a projector. It’s head, Lyndon B Johnson (Donald Moffat on panto form) is a ludicrous figure, at one point reduced to an impotent tantrum in a car when he doesn’t get his way. The NASA recruiters are a comedy double act – Goldblum and Shearer sparking wonderfully off each other – who first suggest (in all seriousness) circus acrobats as pilots and then fail to identify Yuri Gargarin. The programme begins with a series of failed launches that travel tiny distances before exploding, culminating in one attempt ending with an impotent pop of the cap at the top of the rocket.

NASA is slightly ramshackle and clueless throughout. Far from the best and brightest, Kaufman is keen for us to remember that many of the scientists fought for the Germans in the war, that decisions were often made entirely based on what the Russians have just done, that the astronaut recruitment tests are a parade of bizarre physical tests because no one has a clue what to test for, and that the final seven selected aren’t even the best just the ones who persevered through the tests and (crucially) were small enough to fit in the capsule. That doesn’t stop the media – played by a San Francisco physical comedy troop – from turning them overnight from jobbing pilots to superstars.

The astronauts status is frequently punctured. Scott Glenn’s granite-faced Shepard is strapped into the cockpit for hours on his first flight, until finally he begs to pee (followed by a montage of coffee being slurped, hose pipes blasting and taps dripping) before being instructed to release his bladder into his suit, meaning he heads into space sitting in a puddle of his own piss. Dennis Quaid’s cocksure Cooper has an over-inflated idea of his skills and is prone to dumb, blow-hard statements (arriving at Yeager’s Air Force base he non-ironically states he’ll soon have his picture up on the deceased pilot’s memorial wall). Fred Ward’s Gus Grissom is a slightly sleazy chancer – controversially The Right Stuff presents him as panicking on re-entry from his first mission, blowing his hatch and sinking his ship, something he categorically denied (and was later proved not to have done).

Even John Glenn, played with a sincerity and decency by Ed Harris (if this had been a hit, Harris’ career of playing hard-heard would have been totally different), is subtly lampooned. So straight-laced he literally can’t swear (his attempt to say ‘fuck’ never gets past a strained Ffff), he’s introduced via a ludicrous TV quiz show and his square-jawed morals frequently tip into puritan self-importance. Undergoing physical tests, Kaufman even cuts from his grimacing face to a grinning chimp on the same test (and who will beat him into space). Compared to Yeager, who can correct a plane on a desperate nose dive and beat the skies into submission (and has the only outright heroic refrain in Bill Conti’s Oscar-winning score), none of them have that right stuff.

Do they get it? In a way: but their triumph is establishing their character, not their skills. Kaufman uses Yeager to point us towards this (his seal of approval is vital for the film): after Grissom’s debacle, he defends him in the bar and praises their courage in essentially sitting on top of a massive bomb.
Tellingly, the astronauts’ most courageous moment in the film isn’t in the cockpit at all: it’s Glenn supporting his stammering wife’s refusal to go on air with LBJ, despite the pressure from NASA bigwigs – and the other astronauts uniting in fury when Glenn is threatened with being dumped from the next flight. The others become more noble through maturing and casting aside fame’s temptations.

In a way they prove their spurs, even if Kaufman’s film makes clear none of them can match Yeager’s traditional values. The film ends with Yeager, maverick to the last, undertaking an unauthorised test flight in a desperate attempt to keep funding for his jet programme going. Even with this final flight – dressed in a bastardised version of a space suit – Yeager shows he’s not lost it, a man so undeniably superhuman in his American resilience that even a bit of fire won’t slow him down.

The Right Stuff celebrates Yeager, but he’s the B-story – and the film frames him as a forgotten figure, left behind by a world obsessed with the bright and shiny. The Right Stuff has to centre the astronauts but it doesn’t focus on the missions (which, apart from Glenn’s, barely receive any screen time – certainly not compared to the time given to Yeager’s flights) or the glory, only quietly implies there was a slight air of pointlessness about the whole thing – that the space race was perhaps just a dick-waggling competition between superpowers. It makes for interesting – if overlong – viewing, but as punch-the-air entertainment, no sir. No wonder it bombed.

Jim Carrey starts to wonder if there is more to his life than meets the eye in The Truman Show

Director: Peter Weir

Cast: Jim Carrey (Truman Burbank), Ed Harris (Christof), Laura Linney (Hannah Gill/Meryl Burbank), Noah Emmerich (Louis Coltrane/Marlon), Natascha McElhone (Sylvia/Lauren Garland), Holland Taylor (Alanis Montclair/Angela Burbank), Brian Delate (Walter Moore/Kirk Burbank), Paul Giamatti (Simeon), Peter Krause (Truman’s boss), Harry Shearer (Mike Michaelson), Philip Baker Hall (Network executive), John Pleshette (Network executive)

Have you ever fantasised that your whole life was a movie? It would be great wouldn’t it? You’re the star of every scene, the story lines always have a happy ending and you always emerge as the hero. But what if your life really was a massive TV series? What if everyone you had ever met was an actor playing a role? What if every experience in your life had been carefully scripted? What if nothing you knew was a real or even remotely true? That’s no-where near as fun.

Of course the odd thing today is that I suspect there are more than a few people out there who would still consider that a decent pay-off – even if they couldn’t know that they were on television, at least they would be on it. The Truman Show predated much of the surge of reality TV that was to come in the 00s, when shows like Big Brother made putting everyday (at least at first) people into situations and simply watching what happens became TV gold. Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey) is approaching his 30^thbirthday. Little does he know that his entire life he’s been at the centre of an elaborate TV show and that the hometown he has never left is a giant self-contained film studio. But as incidents begin to pile up, Truman suddenly questions his reality – while the show’s cast and production team work to keep him in ignorance. After all, we can’t let this ratings cash cow die!

With a precise, sharp and intelligent script by Andrew Niccol, Peter Weir’s film is a triumph. It’s partway between drama and satire, but never lets the one compromise another. It could have become a lumpen message film about the intrusion of media into our lives. Instead it’s an acute satire of TV gone mad, with a very real, sympathetic character who we invest in. Effectively the movie works on the same premise as the fictional TV show: the viewers know the world they are seeing is larger than life, but they know the character of Truman is grounded and true. It works as it bases its satirical attacks around a heartfelt story of a man (unwittingly at first) on a quest for freedom.

It’s two horses the film rides extraordinarily well – and even effectively comments on. Throughout the action we cut to the same regular joes watching the show: people in a bar, security cops, a pair of old ladies on a sofa. These people are aware they are watching a show – and watching a man effectively imprisoned – but have their emotions manipulated with ease, first by the producers then by the excitement of Truman’s very real quest. As they gasp and cheer as Truman works his way out of his prison, there is not a shred of acknowledgement to them that buy ‘booing’ the TV network they should also be booing themselves for watching in the first place. Instead they treat it just as another episode of their favourite show, the celebrations as transient and hollow as their tears of joy as the producers reintroducing Truman’s long-lost father in an attempt to ‘explain’ the strange circumstances he’s seen.

The Truman Show itself takes place in a perfect, unintimidating slice of 50’s inspired nostalgia. It’s a perfect picture of Americana – and its conservatism is itself a satire. Of course the producers set the show in the most cosy, comforting setting they could imagine. The rose-tinted past is always something we turn to for comfort viewing (take a look at the success of Downton Abbey). Alongside that, it’s a world run by advertising: Truman’s wife frequently stops to deliver scripted adverts, singing the praises of household products; a pair of old buffers have the job of pushing Truman up against a different advert hoarding every day; Truman’s friend Marlon praises their beer with every sip.

And in the sky: we have the studio itself, run by the shows creator Christof. Superbly played by Ed Harris, as part hipster artist, part messianic genius (“I am the creator” he tells Truman near the end, his voice coming through a beam of skylight, adding after a half-beat “of a television show”), Christof has carefully plotted Truman’s entire life from birth. He partly sees himself as Truman’s father – but he as much sees Truman as a tool he can manipulate for his own ends. A hands-on show-runner, Christof believes himself a genius whose will cannot be questioned. This softly-spoken dictator is a terrifying insight into what happens when self-appointed artistic geniuses can explore their ideas with no regard for morality and no restraints.

Truman himself is a charming, sweet, decent fellow – I suppose if nothing else Christof has done a superb job of bringing him up. But his entire life is a manipulated lie. The whole town is full of subconscious messages encouraging him to stay – as is the advice from his wife and best friend. Most cruelly of all, he has been deliberately traumatised into a terror of water by being made to feel responsible as a boy for the drowning of his father. Christof even boasts of his ingenuity in this “plot line” to help insure Truman would be too scared to ever consider leaving his home.

Jim Carrey was a revelation as Truman – Weir was the first director to refocus his comic mania into something more intimate and true. The part still makes a lot of hay from Carrey’s rubbery comedic chops – its part of Truman’s charm – but he matches it with a Jimmy Stewartish decency and earnestness. As the illusion begins to crack, his bemusement turns to something between disbelief and anger, but never compromises his humanity. You can see why billions of people watched him – and also understand why a man so accommodating and decent has not questioned his life before. Witty, gentle and human it’s a great performance.

But perhaps the film’s greatest strength is Weir’s sharp, clear-eyed, largely unobtrusive direction. The film makes nifty use of all the thousands of cameras contained in Truman’s world – with shots taken from button cams, CCTV, dashboards and all sorts. Its intermixed with normal camera angles, but gives us a beautiful sense of Truman’s world, and the TV world coming together throughout. The pace of the film is perfect and its slow reveal of information delicately done. Weir’s intercutting between ‘fictional’ and real world is superbly judged and the film wears its satire very lightly as well superbly mixing what could have been a dark film of imprisonment and abuse with a lightness and charm. Above all, it manages to both be a compelling story with a sympathetic hero and a sharp-pronged criticism of the shallowness of media and its viewing public.

It might well have been far too ahead of its time when it was released. It looks smarter and smarter each passing year. Truman’s world is an Instagram paradise, and with social media we’ve got even more used to spending our leisure time looking through other people’s lives rather than our own. It’s all part of what helps make Niccol’s script so sharp and prescient. Directed superbly by Weir and wonderfully acted – perhaps most of all by Harris’ Warhol turned dictator – it keeps you entertained, invested and leaves you cheering. Just like the viewers watching Truman being manipulated. Which makes you realise: is the film attacking its audience as much as anyone else? After all, we’d all watch this stuff in real life: look at how we rubberneck at accidents. What’s wrong with us eh?