‘Leatherheads’ fails as a homage film
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By MELISSA OLSON
Thursday, April 10, 2008 4:12 PM CDT
For the Herald
Every great era in film has its own original genre, the one type of film that is not only invented during that period, but will forever be synonymous with any mention of it. The early years of film were defined by the great silent clowns — Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton.
In the 1940s we had the birth of film noir, those great black and white detective stories, and in the 1950s Hollywood was heavily censored, and forced to find new ways to be creative — hence the squeaky-clean Hollywood musical.
I could go on, but you get the idea — as far back as we’ve had movies, each generation has had a creative breakthrough that would forever define it. Which really makes me wonder what kind of movies will end up defining this era.
It would be easy, of course, to cynically suggest that in 2008 we have no essential genre — all the good ideas have been had already, and the whole future of film will just be finding more ways to recycle them. But I do believe modern filmmakers will make their mark on history, too. We’ll just have to get a little distance before we know what that mark will be.
In the meantime, though, something interesting has been happening in the last few years: certain filmmakers have been making their own version of classic genres. I’m not talking about parodies, like the “Scary Movie” franchise, or remakes of movies like “Psycho” and “The Poseidon Adventure.”
I’m talking about non-ironic movies that genuinely try to fit into the cannon of another generation. And, strangely enough, these “homage” movies have sort of become a genre all their own.
The great and inimitable master of this is, of course, Quentin Tarantino, who almost exclusively creates love letters to forgotten genres: the Japanese samurai film, the blaxploitation movies of the 1970s, the “Grindhouse” horror flicks, and so on.
But he’s not alone: in 2002 Todd Haynes directed “Far From Heaven,” inspired by the soapy social dramas that director Douglas Sirk made in the 1950s. Just a year later Renee Zellweger and Ewan McGregor starred in “Down With Love,” a modern take on the Doris Day sex comedies of the ‘60s.
In 2006 George Clooney starred in “The Good German,” a “Casablanca”-esque black and white drama about love in the time of war.
And now, of course, we have “Leatherheads,” a movie that would like to be considered one of the screwball comedies of the 1940s, a reference to films like “His Girl Friday,” “Bringing Up Baby,” and “It Happened One Night.”
With the exception of “Leatherheads, which just opened, these movies have more in common than just their stylistic tendencies — none of them have made very much money. “Down With Love” managed to squeak out $20 million, the highest of the non-Tarantino entries, but even those haven’t done all that well. So, if none of these movies are exactly raking in the cash, the obvious question is: why do we keep making them?
An argument could be made, of course, that these movies are just an attempt to cash in on nostalgia, but I don’t think that’s true, either. These movies act as a milestone, a way to hold our time up to another and see what has changed, and what has not.
When we watch “Far From Heaven,” an exploration of race and sexuality in the 1950s, we get to examine just how much more tolerant our society has grown — or if it has much at all. By acting as a touchstone for the past, these homage movies can have great value, but only under one very important condition: that they don’t break character. And that is where “Leatherheads” fails miserably.
The comedy, about the moment in history when professional football first became popular, should have been a great entry into this new “homage genre.” But despite starring two experienced homage actors, Zellweger and Clooney, “Leatherheads” loses its nerve, and inserts two rather modern plotlines into a classical story.
There’s a whole subplot about a young football star (John Krakinski of “The Office”) who may have lied about his war record, and an attempted commentary along the lines of “when football got popular, it was ruined.”
Both subplots are interesting, and both would be worthy in another context, but while trying to stay in character as a screwball comedy, “Leatherheads” director Clooney is unable to resist the urge to inject modern storylines. And that breaks the spell, shattering our ability to be transported into a different time and leaving us with a confused, overcrowded film that had the potential to be great.
But, to end on a happier note, while “Leatherheads” should have been much better, I am glad that these “homage” films are still getting made. After all, if we learn history in order to avoid remaking our mistakes, I can’t find any fault in also trying to repeat our successes. At least until we can truly define a success of our own.
A Chippewa Falls native, Melissa Olson graduated from the University of Southern California with a degree in film. She works in Madison for the television program Discover Wisconsin. E-mail comments and questions to Melissa at mfo.usc@gmail.com.
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