Anyway, as I may have said in a previous post, the story is about a mother who works her fingers to the bone to give her daughter a highbrow education, then the daughter rejects her for being low class. It doesn't sound like much, but the screenplay is terrific and James Cain, who wrote the novel the film is based on, is a really significant writer who even now is underappreciated. Maybe that's because some of his books are so flawed.
I read "Double Indemnity" and was amazed to see to see that Cain gave his brilliantly-conceived characters the short shrift and spent most of his time on trivial details of the crime. I also read the novel of "Mildred Pierce", and that had the same problem. Once again the characters and situation were brilliant, but Cain didn't know what to do with them. That's OK. He was still a brilliant writer.
Jerry Wald, who produced the film, wanted to flesh out the talky Cain story and add a murder. He'd just seen "Double Indemnity", which was a wildly successful Cain adaption, and since that had a murder in it , Wald figured Mildred should have one too. He also had the notion that you can combine women's melodrama with noir crime, something no one else had done before (though D. Indemnity and "Laura" came close). Wald was trying to create a new genre.
He had six famous writers (one of the was Faulkner) take a shot at it before he got what he wanted. It was frustrating because combining two separate genres isn't easy and he didn't know how to go about it. He just had a feeling that he'd know it when he saw it.
Sometimes he had three writers working simultaneously and completely separately on the same project, a practice that makes writers furious. One writer "broke the spine" of the improved story, but was too slavish to the book in the details. Two others added too many fantastic and implausible elements, and made the story too long. One made the story too violent. Wald believed melodrama couldn't support too much violence. One murder was enough.
Finally he had enough interesting scenes to make a good story. Every writer contributed something of value, but it was still too long. With the shooting date approaching he took the bold step of getting a radio writer to condense the story. Radio people were experts at telling long stories in short formats. The radio guy, Ranald MacDougal, accomplished miracles and tied it all together deftly.
At one point in the story Mildred marries a guy and one minute later -- one minute! -- she decides to divorce him...and it works! Now that's compression! MacDougal did it by making the audience hate the guy and want to see Mildred divorce him. We're actually impatient to see Mildred dump him and when she does it, after only a minute of screentime, our only reaction is "Well, it's about time!" MacDougal actually makes the guy appealing in certain other parts of the film, he just emphasized the negatives in this section to smoothe over the story compression. Wow! Is that expert writing or what!?
I forgot to add that Wald hired Curtiz to direct the film, which was a brilliant choice. Curtiz injected humor into the story to smooth over the sometimes fuzzy logic, and it worked beautifully.
I'm not aware that Jerry Wald did anything else that was particularly distinguished, but in 1944-5, when Mildred was made, he was definitely cooking with gas. The womans' film/noir synthesis he created is now one of the most common types of film.
48 comments:
I smell Aspergers!
Fasinating!
This is another reason why I love reading blogs', especially yours, Ed. I can learn so much from what other people love, and why they enjoyed it.
I simply cannot WAIT to go on vacation in L.A., next year. It would certanly be an honour to meet all of the funny men/women you know and work with.
interesting that you have so many positive things to say about this film, Eddie. Sounds to me like too many cooks on this film. but i'll check it out, using my millenial magic to download it from the internet.
another mildred pierce post when youre long overdue on a kliban one???
Anon: I love Kliban but I don't have too many examples of his work. Why don't you do a post about him and if it's good I'll link to it!
You can find tons of copies of his books on ebay and heres a few sites to get you started for examples of his work
http://www.coldbacon.com/kliban2.html
http://www.blackjelly.com/Mag/gallery/klibanhome.htm
I expect a post within 72 hours
...Two others added too many fantastic and implausible elements, and made the story too long.
Today's producers would say, "it's PERFECT!"
Sounds to me like too many cooks on this film...
Sequential cooks is a lot different than paralell cooks, just as quality supervision is different from meddlesome opinionation.
also any anecdotes about Kliban you could provide would be great. All ive been able to find are standard boilerplate biographical paragraphs. Also even if you never met him you know ralph bashki right? give him a call tonight and see if he can give you any!
Also what do you think of those top 100 lists by pretensious rags like the comics journal and morons like wc harvey? Guys like Kliban and Don martin are nowhere to be found and Peter Arnos number 5!?
rc harvey i meant, hate that guy
gene weingartens an ass too, You and Johnk anc co. are fantastic though an oasis in the desert of cartooning commentary
Anon: Thanks for the addresses! Now get going and do that post!
im not doing it, with a few obvious exceptions blogs are for losers and im not starting one just for a kliban post
this blog seems to keep out the riffraff but if you read the comments on johnk's blog its a freaking leper colony
what does johnk think of kliban eddie?
you agree mike peters is a hack right eddie?
Eddie, Can you recommend a good book/essay on Mildred Pierce (the movie)? I didn't know any of the stuff you are saying here, so I'm very curious. It sounds like I had a higher opinion of Jim Cain's novel than you did. It's true there is a rather strong focus on the details of the restaurant business in the book but for me it worked: it made it very convincing. Cain achieves an effect that many literary realists try for but few or none ever come close to achieving: he gives the reader a sense of seeing the world through the eyes of someone with no illusions at all, who sees things just exactly as they are. I think Double Indemnity was a different sort of thing: it was not intended to be a book, just a magazine series. I think it was only published in book form because the movie was such a success. Now in that case, the movie is indeed quite a bit better than the book.
Jerry Wald also produced "Young Man With A Horn" one of Kirk Douglas's early triumphs. Jack Warner is said to have been somewhat jealous of Wald.
THANKYOUTHANKKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU!!!!
PLEASE add the drawings
Rogelio: Thanks! I really enjoy Kliban, even tho I haven't seen too much. That article was great.
he slammed doonesbury haha
Perry bible fellowship is the only interesting cartoon out there right now.
I really think some of the people who post on this blog could make some amazing cartoons. I hate to think of so many talented artists toiling away in advertising and doing rote work on animated kids shows
Eddie--
i wanted to ask you if you've ever read a book called AUDITION, by Michael Schurtlieff.
It's from the 1970's and the author was a professional "audition" coach for stage actors in New York but his advice is excellent also for writers, animators, filmmakers and really anybody creative who wants to entertain and make memorable characters (like Mildred and Vida).
One of the things he talks about is how often beginning actor's limit themselves out of great choices by often defining a character mostly by what they wouldn't do. He has a lot of composite dialogs with such actors and points out traps that end up cheating themselves out of the most entertaining choices... There's also a lot of good stuff in there about playing for contrast in the subtext of a scene to create subliminal tension...
you mentioned you were writing and i thought you might find this book interesting--it isn't ethereal "method" stuff either--very practical.
it's back in print as an inexpensive paperback if you're interested. a very thought-provoking read.
like how he rips on cartoonists that rip him off, I think hes talking more about the cat stuff though than Gary Larson who I think had his own thing going and although he was obviously influenced by kliban the people who rant about how he "homogonized klibans work for the masses" are morons.
Andysinger.com this guy is the most blatant kliban ripoff ive seen among todays hacks
http://andysinger.com/sample13.html Half of this guys cartoons are like this and they arent funny.
Syndicated comics are even worse since theyre basically farside fan fiction
Theres nothing funnier/sadder than a guy whos been self syndicating a bad cartoon since 1992 and seems to take what they do very seriously
AMAZING! Kliban is what cartooning is all about.
I dont want to sound like i dislike any cartoonists that are influenced by the guy its just that most "gag cartoonists" seem to have a preset formula for writing cartoons that precludes them from having to use any form of abstract thought.
You can really tell that the guy just sat down for hours at a desk letting his mind wander twisting ideas this way and that till he struck gold.
When you see work by geniuses by Kliban its beyond depressing to go to sites like cartoonstock.com and see literally 90,000 examples of joyless hackwork. The ultimate calling card of a hack cartoonist is one of an ant bringing home an aardvark to his anthill and telling his parents "he followed me home, can we keep him?!' its in literally every portfolio out there.
Randy Glasbergen gets my vote for ultimate hack gag cartoonist
page 25 is the best of that bunch id say. Hes basically taking the generic "they laughed at the wright brothers, Edison, etc." cliche and coming up with his own version thats beyond fucked up.
These cartoons fly in the face of advice most syndicated cartoonists will give you which is basically "is the subject matter too esoteric for most people? Youre writing for a mass audience so remember that whats funny to you might not be funny to everyone else. Try to write about situations common to everyone such as "standing in line at the bank" "asking the boss for a promotion" "getting husbands to do housework"
Remember that unless you treat this as a BUSINESS first and foremost and as a way of satisfying your creative muse second you wont end up just another starving cartoonist."
That is literally the advice youll get if you ask a hack for advice.
There seems to be an inverse relation to how talented someone is and their attitude towards success.
Most hack cartoonists go on and on about marketing yourself, developing good relationships with editors, finding out what people want and writing towards that and almost nothing about creativity,
whereas Kliban was completely indifferent towards success "beats working at the post office" and all he talked about was art and the creative process.
Have you ever considered giving magazine style cartooning a go eddie? Your already miles ahead of anyone out there
Ive heard a lot of praise for Glen Baxter (glenbaxter.com) but his stuff doesnt really do it for me. Its basically the same gag over and over. What he does is take a cliched scene from Westerns, Medieval literature, Pulp Sci Fi etc. And juxtaposes something from high art.
Like youll have a western shootout scene but one guy is holding a frame and his adversary tells him "you best drop that kandinsky print if you know whats best for ya"
Of course the new yorker eats his stuff up
Klibans stuff actually got outright rejected at the new yorker for most of his career, dont know the details though
My favorite part was about how he wishes Davinci had painted a venus de milo with a fake nose and duck feet just to give "art historians" fits.
His observation about how the art world wont accept anything remotely humorous (with the possible exception of postmodern injokes) as art bears a strong resemblance to todays ultra serious "graphic novel" comix not comics Art Spiegalman Scott Mcloud "comic historian" scene.
These guys claim to worship old cartoons like popeye but its basically illegal to make something like that today and be genuine about it. The only way you can get away with stuff like that is if youre doing a "postmodern reinvention" of the genre.
Steve Martin said that "I believe entertainment can aspire to be art, and can become art, but if you set out to make art you're an idiot."
Eddie, Don't worry too much about talking about something the average commenter is not interested in. If you do, they'll just talk about something else. I guess that's the moral of this!
I like how hist styled evolved from the generic magazine cartoonist style in no 15 to his own way of drawing in the later ones
sorry if i'm a little bit dense, but what other films are noir/womens movie crossovers?
A mother and son at a dinosaur exhibit with the caption "see what happens when you dont eat your greens!" is another litmus test for panel cartooning hackery.
Also any cartoon with santa claus, space alien, ghost etc. receiving an award and saying "Id like to thank everyone who believed in me"
may as well add every dog/psychiatrist gag for good measure.
"they moved my bowl" "you shouldnt feel guilty about sitting on that couch"
'Can't type now! I'll have to answer tomorrow!
Christ! Where's the filter button on this thing? That anon guy is obsessive and psychotic. Look at all his posts with dialog to himself. He sounds like a nut job stalker.
"Anonymous"... take your Ritalin, calm down and take a nap.
There's always tommorrow for you to continue your bonor for Kliban and the sound of your own voice.
25 plus posts on this subject in a matter of hours is enough. May I respectfully suggest you try getting out of the basement more... perhaps try dating? Whatever you choose to do, just MOVE ON with your life.
Good luck
hahahah thats aspergers for you!
Please dont call us psychotic though thats a pretty huge pet peeve in the community
wald also produced an important fritz lang film with robert ryan and barbara stanwyck, "clash by night," which could fit into your women's melodrama/noir hybrid.
Eddie, I hope I didn't irritate you by posting that stuff. I was just trying to get anon of your back for a little while.
Oh well.
Lester: I really liked the book, I just liked the the film even better.
Rogelio: Thanks for the additional Kliban links! Great stuff!
It's better to see the film of MP first, before reading the book.
Anon: Holy Cow! You put up a lot and I don't have time to do justice to it all. Thanks much for the Kliban links and some names I had to look up, but I'm glad I did.
I've tried to sell newspaper strips and book ideas but haven't gotten more than form letters in reply. It's a tough business!
Will: I have read that book and I loved it! I particularly liked the advice he gave to the girl who said she couldn't play a her role dynamically because she was playing a wallflower!
KTS, Whit: Wow! Wald did Young Man With a Horn and Clash by Night!? Those are great films!!! Sorry I undersestimated Wald and thanks much for the info!
Will: I reread your comment and I can see that I'll have to read tat book again! Thanks for reminding me of it!
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