Time - Man of the Year/Time_Man_of_the_Year_Compact_Publishing_3YX-Disc-1_Compact_Publishing_1993.iso/moy/041392/0413420.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 4KB | 84 lines

                                                                                CINEMA, Page 70

Critic Picks Slick Flick Pic


By RICHARD CORLISS

THE PLAYER
Directed by Robert Altman
Screenplay by Michael Tolkin


    Was Citizen Kane a box-office blockbuster? Did Jean Renoir
get gross profit points on La Grande Illusion? And Fellini, did
he go way over budget on 8 1/2?

    The answers are No, No, and Who cares. Generations of
directors, on Hollywood's movie-factory treadmill and in
Europe's atelier system, made movies without having to fret that
$100 million was riding on the outcome. And generations of
moviegoers were privileged to sit in the innocence of a dark
theater without having to study the list of weekend grosses like
a tout sheet. Who knew, back then, what pictures hit and what
flopped?

    Griffin Mill, the hero of the delicate and corrosive new
movie The Player, knows and cares. Mill (Tim Robbins) is the
Vice President in Charge of Abusing Writers at a Hollywood
studio. He knows the game, and his bosses know he knows it; he
is, in the parlance, a player. And when Mill receives
threatening notes from one of his writers, he can play rough.
He tracks down a suspect (Vincent D'Onofrio) and puts him in
turnaround. He immediately woos the writer's tawny girlfriend
(Greta Scacchi) and dumps his own. No screaming, no remorse.
Business.

    In the movie business, perception is reality because "all
rumors are true." An executive will go to A.A. meetings not
because he is an alcoholic but because "that's where all the
deals are being made." Michael Tolkin's script abounds in such
cynical wisdom, but it never loses an appreciation for the grace
with which these snakes consume their victims. Robert Altman,
whom Hollywood has both favored (in his M*A*S*H days) and
dismissed (over the past decade), directs the bright carnage
with an assurance that only a hard-hided survivor can provide.
He is like St. Sebastian, plucking the arrows from his body and
flinging them back, like gentle javelins, at the infidels.

    The Player has already caused a stir in Hollywood, thanks
to its smart tone, its veiled references to industry figures
and its imposing cast of walk-on stars (dozens, and big ones).
Will this all seem too insidey to the public? Maybe not. The
decade-long spotlighting of the movie industry -- on
Entertainment Tonight, in newspapers and best sellers -- has
taught the mass audience that film production is a spectator
sport. Like any other modern sport, it trades in money and
celebrity, scandal and sex appeal; it has big winners and
losers, all playing for high stakes, which they are happy to
drive into their opponents' little black hearts. To them,
Griffin Mill is not a parody; he is a patron saint.

    But to speculate on whether Altman's movie will be a hit
is to surrender to the players' game: to judge a film's success
by its grosses. It is this fascination with the B.O. bull's-eye
that strikes timidity in so many directors. In every frame of
their work you can smell the fear of failure, the anxiety of
losing for even a moment the rooting interest of the moviegoing
mob.

    Altman is beyond all that. His view is Olympian. His
camera, prowling like a house dick on roller skates, challenges
you to find the crucial detail in each corner of an
eight-minute opening shot. Pay attention, he says; be an adult.
Watch the gorgeous gargoyles in the fun-house mirror, and you'll
see more than the people who make movies stink. You might catch
a glimpse of your own compromised self. Hey, babe, these days
we're all players.