A Movie a Day, Day 27: Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work

As she keeps pointing out in this clear-eyed documentary, Joan Rivers is 75, but she's as driven as ever. Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work shows its subject running after the electric rabbit of fame, with insecurity, resentment, and an insatiable need for acceptance nipping at her heels. It would be a tragedy if she weren't so damn funny.

Surprisingly funny, in fact—and surprisingly angry. If you've only seen her on network TV, A Piece of Work has news for you: Rivers can swear like Richard Pryor, her live act includes jokes about anal sex, and when a heckler attacks her, she rips him to shreds. Talking about her early career, she tells filmmakers Ricki Stern and Ann Sundberg how transgressive she was for the times in the '60s. What she doesn't have to say, since the film says it for her, is that she still has the power to shock, and Lord knows that's not easy to do these days.

This movie made me think about Comedian, a documentary about Jerry Seinfeld that apparently reflected its subject's personality as neatly as this one reflects Rivers's. The Seinfeld of Comedian was part of a neurotic, intensely competitive, but close-knit community of comedians who, like cops, had far more in common with each other than with regular folk. In contrast, Rivers is usually alone in A Piece of Work, though she's sometimes attended by somebody whose main focus is her needs: her patient daughter, Melissa; her New York or L.A. personal assistant; the couple that keeps her ludicrously opulent Upper East Side apartment running; or her manager of many years, who she parts with during the filming of the movie.

She feels sorry for herself for being so lonely (Rivers cries a lot in this movie, always for herself), but Melissa points out that her mother brings on the isolation herself, making no effort to reach out to other people and burying herself in her Blackberry in public places. And sure enough, even when she's talking to one of her most ardent fans, Rivers seems withdrawn, her face generally averted and her side of the conversation limited to a happy murmur or a "Thank you." Maybe it's partly embarrassment about her angry-doll face, which is so distorted by her compulsion for plastic surgery that it's messed up even her relationship with the cameras she craves. ("Be nice," she says to one set of photographers. "Not too close.")

True to his public persona, Seinfeld revealed almost nothing of his private life in his movie, but Rivers happily fillets herself here, analyzing the anger that fuels her comedy, her relationships with Melissa and her husband Edgar, and her bottomless need to be on top. She's always funny, except when she starts feeling sorry for herself, and the more clearly her toxic mix of self-pity and self-loathing and the black hole of insecurity and rage at her center come into focus, the more impressive it is that she can extract so much humor from them.

Rivers has always struck me as the kind of woman who appeals more to a certain type of gay man than to women like me, with all that bitchy competitiveness, how far she'll go to look the way women are "supposed" to look, and the contempt she rains down on women—most famously Liz Tayor—who violate that code and "let themselves go." A Piece of Work didn't turn me into a fan, but that's not what it's after. Instead, and much more interestingly, it showed me what drives this old greyhound, and why she can't bear the thought of leaving the track.

Written for The House Next Door

Interview: Amy Heckerling

Fresh out of film school, director Amy Heckerling hit the ground running in the early '80s. Her first feature, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, remains a classic for its delicate balance of absurdity and pathos and the way it treats its characters with bemused-older-sibling affection laced with comic incredulity. Her next few features were more uneven, the humor generally broader and the emotional stakes often less engaging, but they also had their moments, reflecting the director's quick wit and love of larger-than-life characters, and they never sold their female characters short. In 1996, Heckerling returned to form with Clueless, another brilliant high school comedy—this one written as well as directed by her—that deeply respects and understands its female characters at the same time that it laughs at their, well, cluelessness. This week, I had a chance to speak with Heckerling, who was promoting a retrospective of four of her films by the Metrograph theater in the Lower East Side. Quick to laugh, with a sense of mischief and a lack of interest in mincing words that may explain why she's so drawn to young characters, the filmmaker discussed gender inequality in Hollywood and what movies have in common with the economy.

Fast Times and Clueless are great in so many ways, but what I especially love about them is how well they get American teenage girls, and in such a fun away.
In a fun way is the different thing. There were so many movies about teenage girls. It's a scary, depressing time for a lot of people, and a lot of movies capture that brilliantly. But they may not be as happy. When we came out [with Clueless], there was this movie Kids...

The Larry Clark one?
Yeah. And people were saying, “Oh, you've captured American kids,” and I'm going, “Well, that one did too. It's just, I chose those kids.” [laughs] There are a million stories in the naked city, and I gravitated to the happiest one.

Getting Ready for Oscar

There are less than 50 days left to catch the nominated films before the Oscars air on the last Sunday in February, so here's a rundown of movies I expect to see nominated in a couple of weeks. Even if they don’t get any love from Oscar, most are all well worth watching.

The Social Network's combination of first-class filmmaking and social significance is catnip to the Oscars, as it has been to just about every other awards program this year, so I’m betting it’ll be nominated for best picture, director, and screenplay and for at least one acting award. All three of its leads (Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, and Justin Timberlake) deserve the statue, but Garfield has gotten most of the awards so far, maybe because his character was the only one of the three you can actually relate to.

The King’s Speech is another kind of Oscar candy, a beautifully acted historical drama with snob appeal (we Yanks just can’t get enough of those royals) and a strong populist streak (the king’s quirky self-taught therapist treats his crippling stutter by daring to treat him as a friend). The movie is likely to be nominated for an Oscar, and Colin Firth is almost sure to get a best actor nod for his buttoned-down yet emotionally flayed portrayal of King George VI, a very private man forced to assume a very public role.

Black Swan is all but certain to be nominated for best picture, best director (Darren Aronofsky), and/or best actress (Natalie Portman as prima ballerina Nina Sayers in the title role that slowly drives her mad – and, of course, as her choreographer incessantly reminds us, in the white swan role Nina inhabits so effortlessly).

Inception, 127 Hours, and The Town are all likely contenders for best picture and/or director too, and James Franco should get a best actor nod for his impressive physical and emotional work in 127 Hours. True Grit, The Fighter, The Kids Are All Right, Winter’s Bone, and Blue Valentine are also likely to get best picture or screenplay nominations and almost sure to nab some in acting. I thought Mark Wahlberg’s unshowy but rock-solid performance in The Fighter was the best work he’s done since Boogie Nights, but he’ll probably be passed over by the Academy as his character was in real life, overshadowed by his crack-addicted brother Dicky (Christian Bale), whose motor mouth alpha-dog antics are just the sort of thing that wins trophies. That said, Bale has earned whatever accolades he gets for his Dicky, a volatile antihero with electric eyes, a hungry stride, and a comically outsized ego that might actually be almost justified.

Jeff Bridges will probably earn another richly deserved nomination for his laconic Rooster Cogburn, an outlaw disguised as a lawman in True Grit, the Coen brothers’ pitch-perfect adaptation of Charles Portis’ martini-dry Western satire. Bridges’ teenage costar Hailee Steinfleld may get some love in the supporting actress category for nailing 14-year-old Mattie’s humorless self-righteousness and unbending backbone. I’d like to see Matt Damon recognized too, since he’s very funny as a preening Texas Ranger who turns out not to be as useless as you’d expect, but I think Oscar prefers Damon as a more conventional hero.

And The Kids are All Right may well earn a supporting actress nomination for the amazingly intelligent, emotionally transparent Annette Bening. Bening turned in a standout performance last year in the tasteful tearjerker Mother and Child, but I liked her even better in the funny and warmhearted Kids, which takes the temperature of family life in a particular place and time in American history as precisely as a John Updike novel.

Melissa Leo in The Fighter, Jacki Weaver in Animal Kingdom, and John Hawkes in Winter’s Bone could all win best supporting actor or actress nominations for their work in much darker family stories (Jennifer Lawrence may also get a best actress nomination for her real-as-dirt work as Winter’s Bone’s Ree Dolly). Hawkes’ Uncle Teardrop is the closest thing Ree can find to an ally while scouring her fist-tight and lethal Ozarks community in search of her missing father. Leo and Weaver both portray toxic moms, though Leo’s is all head-tossing sound and fury while Weaver’s coyly aging “Grandma Smurf” is a piranha disguised as a goldfish.

Other possible nominees worth catching include:

• Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling for their exquisite acting in Blue Valentine, a realistic domestic downer about the birth and death of a love affair;
  
• Likely best foreign film nominees Mother, A Prophet, Biutiful, and Carlos;
  
• Best documentary candidates Exit Through the Gift Shop, Inside Job, A Film Unfinished, Marwencol, Last Train Home, The Tillman Story, and Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work;
  
• Toy Story 3, which is almost sure to win Best Animated Feature, and Despicable Me, The Illusionist, and Megamind, which may also get nominated; and
  
• The excellent ensemble casts of Mike Leigh’s Another Year (Lesley Manville is a likely supporting actress nominee), Rabbit Hole (Nicole Kidman could nab a best actress spot for this one), Please Give (Catherine Keener is a long shot for best actress) and Greenberg (mumblecore queen Greta Gerwig was widely and deservedly praised for her sort-of-mainstream debut in this one).

Written for TimeOFF