I am feeling a bit grumpy at the moment so I am going to revisit the subject of my first post -- that of a director pilfering through their own material. There are a number of excellent examples of this but I am going to limit myself to two directors. The reason for this is that both of these men, Robert Rodriguez and Kevin Smith have had a very large impact on me. My current career path has been shaped largely by these directors which is why their transgressions pain me so.
First, Mr. Smith.
Once upon a time there was a directory who made a crappy (production-wise) little movie called Clerks. It is not a pretty movie nor is it an interesting-looking film. Clerks has very few merits except the fact that it is quite funny and original and it somehow manages to convey the joy and exuberence of it's creator. There is a quality to Clerks, a "I just wanted to make a movie" attitude that is infectious. This film feels to me to emboy the very spirit of Charles Foster Kane in Citizen Kane (1941) when he decides that it would be fun to run a paper.
Now we flash forward to 2007. Nevermind the fact that Mr. Smith has made only one movie since this first one that has not relied heavily on the strange universe he created or his two uninpsired characters, Jay and Silent Bob. Arguments can be made for Chasing Amy, Dogma and even Mallrats as being steps away from Clerks. What I want to talk about is Jersey Girl, how it did not do well and what came next.
I very much enjoyed Jersey Girland I was proud of Mr. Smith for taking his work in a different direction. Would this film have done better with a different actor as the lead? Was it just poor timing that the world at large became sick of Mr. Affleck when this film was released? Who knows. What I do know is everyone other than Mr. Smith was not shocked when his fanbase, by and large, did not take to this movie. You mean the 30 year-old stoner didn't like this movie? How can this be?
So then we arrive at Clerks 2. Say what you will about any other movie Mr. Smith has done, this one can be seen as nothing other than a retreat to a proven formula because his last attempt was stomped by everyone. To say that Clerks 2 made me sad in my heart is like saying that what is bad for Mexico is bad for Mexicans. Clerks 2 isn't just a rehashing of past material, it is one of those dreadful sequels where the main characters appear to have forgotten everything that has happened in the previous installment. The shining example of this is Dante being torn between two women (again) only this time he is involved with both of them. Poor Dante, apparently the lessons learned in the first movie were forgotten during the ten year period these poor sould were left on their own.
Then we have Mr. Rodriguez. Once upon a time he was the ambitious young filmmaker who decided he could make a movie with a crew of one. And what a movie he made. Originally intended for the spanish home video market El Mariachi is a highly inventive and unusual film. Slightly campy but containing a big heart El Mariachi delivers as a comedy and action film.
Apparently this movie did not make enough money or receive enough attention to dissuade Mr. Rodriguez and others when it came time for making his next movie.Desperado. (I am not forgetting the movie Road Racers here, I think the number of people who have seen this film is still very small)
Somehow this movie was conceived as a sequel to Mariachi, which is odd because the lead actor has changed and because this film is now all about killing, explosions and drugs. Perhaps I am just a bit think and taking the whole matter too literally.
Desperado works because the two lead actors are wonderful actors and play together nicely. The plot is a bit strange to me (again perhaps I am too literal) because the man who shoots the El's hand in the first movie is not the same man who does in Desperado. Couple that with dream sequences that contain the dreaded Mocho (the spelling may be wrong on this one) who I think has morphed somehow into the new bad guy (who now seems to have ties to our hero which he did not in Mariachi).
All of this could be forgiven, in fact I think most viewers were fine with this oddness, until Once upon a Time in Mexico was released. To be very brief -- the movie is meant to be the fourth film in this series (the third was never made but the important bits are relayed to the audience through flashbacks and dreams). This time around our hero is not the only lead actor and to further add to the confusion actors who were in the first and second movie (and died) appear as different characters in this film.
Mr. Rodriguez had just discovered the joys of HD before beginning this project and his work as a musician on Tarantino's Kill Bill movies led him to score this film as well. The idea, so the film's commentary says, was to make this move on an epic scale, much like another film with a similar title, Once upon a Time in the West.
Since this entry is really meant to be a personal gripe I'll just get on with my grumble and end this entry. What makes this particular film (for those of you having a hard time keeping up I am refering to Once upon a Time in Mexico now) so disappointing to me is that much like Clerks 2 this movie felt like a retreat to safe ground. From the story, which admittedly departs from previous works of Mr. Rodriguez, to the low-budget feel of the movie I can't help but feel this picture was made because it was safe.
What made both Clerks and El Mariachi such appealing films was that both of them involved a fair amount of risk to their creators and that this risk was reflected in the movie itself. These two films truly feel like independent films in the sense that there is little that is formulaic or predictable about them.
I am tempted to start listing examples from both movies but chances are if you are reading this you can think of them already. I recognize the fact that both of these directors have been very successful and what they did for their first films would undoubtedly not work now. My frustration stems from them attempting to steal from these early films, but oddly enough, lifting the banal parts or simply ignoring crucial story elements and hoping that everyone will go along. If you read the reviews for the later films from both directors it seems as though this is what happened too...