Generations of audiences were first introduced to Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka, and director Ron Frank thinks it’s a great way to do it with a new documentary about the beloved actor. starting point.
The shimmering melody of “Pure Imagination” kicks off the soulful “In Memory of Gene Wilder,” taking the audience back to fond memories of Candyman’s immortal introduction: crutch in hand, limping Coming out to greet his adoring public, he teetered a little, started to stumble, and then somersaulted himself into an upright position. Like many of Wilder’s best moments, he came out of nowhere during filming, an instinctive improvisation that was a measure of his versatility as a performer. He could wring humor out of tension, irritation or anxiety, but his desire to keep the public on its toes always gave way to a warm friendliness in his art and life.
Yet in examining the broad outlines of Wilder’s biography, Frank’s film acknowledges that his talent often presented challenges for which America was not prepared. Roald Dahl’s acerbic rendition of the famous chocolatier so captivated Roger Ebert that his four-star review declared the adaptation the best children’s film since “The Wizard of Oz.” But the parents were angry at Wonka, a capricious weirdo who always liked bad things to happen to bad apples. “when [Willy Wonka] When it was published in the 1970s, they thought the effect on children – which Gene outlines in his own book – was cruel,” Frank told the Guardian from his home in Connecticut. “One child disappeared into a chocolate tube, another exploded, and one shrank. Mothers thought it was bad for their children, so it bombed at the box office. It was revived with home video sales.”
Starting in childhood, the comic and the serious coexisted in an unsettling partnership in Wilder’s work that was not always receptive to the public. He often replays a childhood memory of being told by a doctor that because of his mother’s heart condition, he had to make her laugh rather than make her angry or she might die. Wilder grew up on the premise that comedy and pain were close cousins, which is evident in the development of his screen persona that constantly teeters on the edge of collapse. (“He played the ‘Why did this happen to me?’ guy so well,” Frank said.) As Wilder followed his sister for New York’s footsteps, family both fueled his passion and It stirred his nerves. “He was 11 years old when he first saw his sister perform, and she was singing a solo on stage,” Frank said. “The lights dimmed, the audience applauded, she commanded the stage, and Gene was blown away by it all. He was thrilled to see that he was there, too.”
He entered showbiz just as neurotic hilarity was exploding from the stand-up comedy scene of the Borscht Belt into the mainstream, and his combination of eccentricity and personal dysfunction caused a stir in America’s forays into therapy and pop psychology. After rising to prominence on and off Broadway, he landed his first film role in “Bonnie and Clyde,” playing a hostage who becomes ill in record time before his captors can Stockholm Syndrome. He played a doctor who falls in love with a sheep to the grumpy Woody Allen in Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex* (But Were Afraid to Ask). At the same time, underneath the fanaticism, “he had a very genuine gentle quality,” Frank said.
Wilder showed himself both sides of the ball with his titular role in The Producers, his first collaboration with regular director and lifelong friend Mel Brooks. Frank structures his film using Wilder as a narrator, providing voiceover from beyond the grave via an audiobook of his memoirs. “I don’t want to watch any more Gene interview movies,” he said. “He died in 2016, so we didn’t even have that option. We let him tell his story in the first person.” In one such anecdote, Embassy Films head Joseph Levine ordered Brooks to fire Wilder, Because Wilder was considered obnoxious and not famous enough. “You bet,” Brooks replied, simply continuing to shoot with Wilder until they had so much footage it was impossible to start over. “That’s how Mel works,” Frank said with a laugh. “He would listen to the producers, nod his head and then not do anything they said.”
In addition to sharing a love of French wine, Wilder and Brooks gave the world some of the most indelible comedy that defined a bawdy, subversive era. “Young Frankenstein” – brought together by Wilder’s agent to cast his only three clients in leading roles – allows both men to indulge in their love of old Hollywood through a meticulous recreation of it , the studio set was persuaded to allow black and white cinematography. Blazing Saddles looks to the future while also pointing to a different part of the past, its satire of race relations and Westerns, and its use of now-outdated language to present progressive ideas about prejudice. “A lot of people asked me if they could do Blazing Saddles today,” Frank said. “I think it depends more on who the audience is. Some tastes and sensibilities are so different now, although that’s interesting When it comes to racism, there is a risk of not being viewed that way. “
Wilder’s friendship with co-star Cleavon Little on “Blazing Saddles” foreshadows the next one with the film’s co-writer and original star Richard Pryor The collaboration would shape his career. (Warner Bros. executives declared him uninsurable and insisted on a replacement.) Over the course of four movies together, they developed a close friendship, despite Pryor’s battle with drug addiction, which often posed a strain on the production process. trouble. Wilder’s humanitarianism also influenced the way he chose his roles, as in their third film together, the crime drama See No Evil, Hear No Evil. He worked closely with the New York Alliance for the Hearing Impaired, portraying an honest and sensitive deaf man who found his fourth wife in lip-reading coach Karen Weber. “[His work] It’s an extension of his character,” Frank said. “He was a gentle soul. According to Karen, he wouldn’t hurt a fly – literally. He got along really well with people, even those who were considered difficult to get along with.”
Wilder’s final collaboration with Pryor in the outright-rejected “Another You” also marked his final film appearance, and his later years were filled with less ambitious projects. He created a short-lived sitcom called “Something Wilder” and filmed two episodes of “Will & Grace,” but he didn’t enjoy doing television much because he found the filming pace faster than what he was doing in improv. Get used to it quickly. His friends. He found joy in writing memoirs and novels, painting, playing music, and returning to his theater roots. He was never much of a Hollywood guy – he never received a star on the Walk of Fame – and before his death he lived with his wife in an old Connecticut farmhouse where he felt more suited to himself. Frank’s documentary shows that acting proved most valuable to Wilder because it was a way to connect with his fellow humans, both on set and through the screen.
“When we were talking to Alan Alda, he shared a story about how before a movie he directed came out, he was worried about what critics might say,” Frank recalled. “He expressed sympathy to Gene, who told him, ‘What difference does it make? If they panned the movie, so what? Big deal! You did it, it’s done, it’s over. Be proud of it.’ Him and him That comfort was shared. Gene knew how to live life well.”
