The New Biographical Dictionary of Film: Completely Updated and Expanded by David Thomson
Author:David Thomson [Thomson, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Performing Arts, Film & Video, General
ISBN: 9780307594617
Google: Z98sljS0AHIC
Amazon: 0307271749
Publisher: Knopf
Published: 2002-01-01T11:00:00+00:00
L
Neil LaBute, b. Detroit, Michigan, 1963
1997: In the Company of Men. 1998: Your Friends & Neighbors. 2000: Nurse Betty; Bash: Latterday Plays (TV). 2002: Possession. 2003: The Shape of Things. 2006: The Wicker Man. 2008: Lakeview Terrace. 2010: Death at a Funeral.
The titles of Neil LaBute’s first two films were sometimes assaulted as cunning, or poker-faced, tricks to lure innocent viewers into his uniquely chilling way of observing a group. As if there were innocent viewers any longer! Some shrank from LaBute (it was pointed out with horror that he was a graduate of Brigham Young University and therefore … a Mormon?). A few others observed that the misanthropy went with a very cool directorial hand, observant writing, and fine playing. It made one wonder what Fritz Lang might have done with Friends.
LaBute is first of all a writer: he absorbs talk (like someone released from deafness) and the helpless ways it betrays us. He also seems to see everyone as a helpless, unpaid actor. His pose as a director is what is special: the detachment; the unwillingness to scold malice, wickedness, or unkindness; and the subsequent, quite casual suggestion that we sort it out. There is also a steady development in his work—after all, who could have guessed that the “nasty” setup in In the Company of Men would lead to the good-natured panorama of Nurse Betty?
Your Friends and Neighbors rose to nearly intolerable heights (in the Jason Patric performance—which was bravura but actually rather blunter than LaBute usually permits). I think there is a big future here, and I find it startling and exciting that he is now doing A. S. Byatt’s novel Possession. Not suitable? Maybe. But suppose that LaBute is learning who he is slowly, at a pace he recommends to us?
LaBute’s Wicker Man was a straw man and a big letdown. But Lakeview Terrace had much more mood and promise, and a hint of the demon in Samuel L. Jackson.
Gregory La Cava (1892–1952), b. Towanda, Pennsylvania
1921: His Nibs. 1924: The New School Teacher; Restless Wives. 1925: Womanhandled. 1926: Let’s Get Married; Say It Again; So’s Your Old Man. 1927: The Gay Defender; Paradise for Two; Running Wild; Tell It to Sweeney. 1928: Feel My Pulse; Half a Bride. 1929: Big News; Saturday’s Children. 1930: His First Command. 1931: Laugh and Get Rich; Smart Woman. 1932: Symphony of Six Million; The Age of Consent; The Half-Naked Truth. 1933: Gabriel Over the White House; Bed of Roses; Gallant Lady. 1934: The Affairs of Cellini; What Every Woman Knows. 1935: Private Worlds; She Married Her Boss. 1936: My Man Godfrey. 1937: Stage Door. 1939: Fifth Avenue Girl. 1940: Primrose Path. 1941: Unfinished Business. 1942: Lady in a Jam. 1947: Living in a Big Way.
Trained as a political cartoonist, La Cava wrote scripts for comedy shorts before being given the chance to direct. Most of his silent pictures were made at Paramount, including five Richard Dix films and two W. C. Fields pictures—So’s Your Old Man and Running Wild (Fields and La Cava were drinking buddies).
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