When film critics act: a selective survey

In commemoration of tonight's Tribeca Film Festival premiere of Steven Soderbergh's The Girlfriend Experience, in which your humble servant plays the role of an exceedingly reprehensible character known (to himself, mostly, is my theory) as "The Erotic Connoisseur," I here pay homage to the pioneers who paved the way for me: the rare film critics who put themselves in the shoes of the performers they analyze and appraise.

There have been more than a few critics/reviewers who have played themselves in films—Leonard Maltin, Stewart Klein, Roger Ebert—and they don't count. I'm only looking at critics who have actually acted. To wit: Steven's claim that what I do in Girlfriend is "just Glenn being Glenn" notwithstanding, I am not playing myself in the film, for my mother raised me better than that. Rather, I am portraying someone with my vocabulary, and an attitude that's not entirely foreign to me. This no doubt holds true for a number of the critics below.

Eugene Archer as Sam in La Collectioneusse, Eric Rohmer, !967

Archer is one of the unsung heroes of the auteur theory in America. The New York Times writer traveled to France on a Fulbright scholarship in 1957 and quickly fell in with the Cahiers du Cinema crowd, who introduced him to a new way of looking at movies, and to some directors heretofore unknown to him as well. "Who the hell is Howard Hawks?" Archer asked of his acolyte Andrew Sarris in a letter to that then-young critic. They both soon found out. The critical groundswell these discoveries touched off changed the way all of us look at movies. Without Archer, we might not be sitting here amiably chatting about, say, El Dorado every now and again. 

The writer's performance in Rohmer's La Collectioneusse is, I think, my favorite of any such turns. The film, which might just as well be titled I Could Have Gotten Laid, But... focuses on Patrick Bauchau's hilariously pompous art gallery manager Adrian as, on a self-imposed vacation in the south of France, he lords it over Haydée (Haydée Politoff),a gorgeous and free-spirited housemate (whom he dubs a "collector" of men), before he decides that she just might warrant his amorous attentions after all. Archer's Sam is a supremely ironic, supremely sardonic American antique expert who can barely contain his sour amusement as Adrien dangles Haydée before him, believing Sam to be complicit in whatever game he's playing. Adrien and Sam's little exchanges of (very male) one-upsmanship culminate in a conversation wherein Sam absolutely eviscerates Adrien, albeit in the most overtly polite way possible. 

Archer went on to contribute to the screenplays of Barbet Schroeder's More and Claude Chabrol's Ten Day Wonder. There is next to no biographical information on the man available on the internet as far as I can find; I seem to recall that he died in the early '70s. Both he and Bauchau are thanked in the acknowledgements of Andrew Sarris' seminal The American Cinema. 

Rex Reed as Myron in Myra Breckinridge, Michael Sarne, 1970

Let's give him this: the guy had...what's the word?...oh yes, balls. Would any of you all out there ever do a scene in which you had to grab frantically at your chest and shriek "Where are my tits?"

It was quite a big deal when the young celeb profiler and critic Reed, whose kinda-sorta matinee idol looks earned him the nickname "Sexy Rexy," was tapped for the role of the male half of Gore Vidal's Hollywood-obsessed pan-tran-sexual creation. Directed by a former British pop singer whose main claim to fame at the time was having been a boyfriend of Brigitte Bardot's, Myra Breckinridge is still one of the most magnificent disasters that a then struggling-to-be-hip American film industry has ever produced, and a terrible wonder to behold today. 

But give Reed credit: he was quite game (even though he apparently had to be forcefully coaxed into delivering the above cited query concerning mammary gland location). He does a little soft-shoe in the opening sequence. He simulates getting head from Raquel Welch, and enjoying it. And so on. But still—he's terrible. His line readings are flat throughout, and not in a good way. The nadir comes when his Myron is strolling through an orgy and a nude woman asks him, "What movie am I?" He looks down at her pubic area and, not even bothering to work up the tone of indolent contempt that was, and still is, a trademark of his, drawls, "How Green Was My Valley." Ugh. 

Naturally, Reed's participation in this debacle provided a rich opportunity for many he had wounded with his oft-poison pen to avenge their honor. Not to mention making him an even riper target for those who just didn't like him. "Any movie that opens with John Carradine as a doctor surgically removing Rex Reed's cock has got the right idea even if it did go wrong," notes The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film. Again, to his everlasting credit, Reed took it all in stride, and even went on portray parodies of himself in '78's Superman and '84's Irreconcilable Differences. In 1981 he took on another actual acting role, in another notorious flop, the Sun-Myung Moon financed Inchon, but his scenes were deleted. Which is a shame, if you ask me. Reed still covers film for The New York Observer, playing a more urbane cousin of Abe Simpson. 

Leonard Harris as Senator Charles Palantine in Taxi Driver, Martin Scorsese, 1976

Harris was the Arts Editor of New York's WCBS TV news operation back in the '70s. As I recall, he was both tonier and more discerning than the dippy film reviewers on New York's local news these days. Impressed with his formal bearing, director Martin Scorsese cast him as an enigmatic, borderline-sinister presidential candidate who becomes, briefly, an assassination target for the film's amiable, slightly troubled protagonist, Travis Bickle (Robert DeNiro).

In relatively little screen time, Harris proves extremely adept at evoking the fatuousness that's endemic to pretty much every campaigning politician. When Palantine and some aides coincidentally get a ride in Bickle's cab, the way Harris intones, "You know, I've learned more about America from riding in cabs..." is devastating in its patrician unctuousness. A later scene, Bickle watches a Palantine television interview, is even more troubling, as the Senator blathers on about "the people rising to the demands I have made of them." Nice intimations of fascism there, buddy!

Harris went on to play the role of a mayor in the 1980 John Ritter vehicle Hero At Large, and then seemed to disappear off the face of the earth. 

Joseph McBride as Unnamed School Board Member in Rock 'n' Roll High School, Allan Arkush, 1979

Critic and scholar McBride knows who the hell Howard Hawks was—in 1982 he produced the still-essential (albeit best consumed with a salt lick) interview book Hawks on Hawks. Prior to that, when he wasn't writing critical and scholarly stuff, he was hanging out with his Roger-Corman-employed buddies Arkush and Joe Dante, who solicited his writing skills for this latter-day B classic, and gave him bit parts in this and several other pictures. It's still shocking to see him participate in a crass-even-by-the-standards-of-its-time rape joke in the otherwise quite entertaining Hollywood Boulevard, and I imagine he doesn't like to be reminded of it himself. Here we see him doing an excellent job of looking stiff and officious while old-school comedy player Grady Sutton (you may recall him from The Bank Dick...and whaddya know, he's in Myra Breckinridge too!) introduces the fearsome Miss Togar (Mary Woronov) to Vince Lombardi High.

McBride's most significant film role is in a picture we haven't seen, but may get a look at some time soon, God and Peter Bogdanovich and whoever willing: Orson Welles' uncompleted The Other Side of the Wind, in which McBride plays a journalist with the amusing moniker Mr. Pister. McBride chronicles his work on the film, and relationship with Welles, in yet another indispensable book, Whatever Happened To Orson Welles?

Chuck Stephens as Peter/Andre in Mah nakorn (Citizen Dog), Wisit Sasanatieng, 2004

The extremely knowledgeable and sometimes combative Film Comment contributor lived in Bangkok, first part-time and then full-time, for a substantial portion of this first decade of the 'oughts. There he befriended Tears of the Black Tiger director Wisit Sasanatieng, who concocted a small but significant role for Stephens in this very eccentric quasi-musical fantasy, whose delights include a talking, smoking teddy bear and a literal mountain of plastic water bottles. Stephens plays a Western pamphleteer who's on the receiving end of a bizarre fixation—heroine Muay (Phasin Maloyaphan)  heroine Jin (Saengthong Gate-Uthong) (thanks for the correction, Mr. S—I'd gotten my notes mixed up) believes he is the only one who can decipher the contents of a mysterious white book she's happened upon. She also believes his name is Peter. Her attentions irritate the hell out of Stephens' character, who assures her that his real name is Andre, and tries to convince her to leave him alone. Stephens' gesticulations and facial muggings (not to mention his facial hair) are, objectively speaking, broad and cartoonish, but they're also perfectly in keeping with this film's crazy oddball tone. Stephens' diary of working on the film can be found here. 

Mark Peranson as Joseph in El cant dells ocells (Bird Song), Albert Cerra, 2008 

Another feisty customer, Canadian writer Peranson is the editor of the exciting and exacting Cinema Scope, a film magazine that's sometimes as attitudinal as it is intelligent. An insistent champion of the likes of Pedro Costa and Ulrich Seidl, Peranson got to represent for the art film in a heretofore untried manner when the Catalan director Albert Cerra asked him to play the role of Joseph—yes, the biblical Joseph, Jesus's stepdad—in Cerra's very idiosyncratic telling of the Magi's journey to visit the Christ child. 

Said Magi are often rather like a heavily sedated version of the Three Stooges in Cerra's droll but strangely reverent (and often utterly mesmerizing) vision, shot in thoroughly ravishing black and white (the above shot of Peranson is a production still). Peranson, speaking his dialogue in bar-mitzvah Hebrew, plays Joseph as a slightly befuddled and distracted fellow; he and his Mary (Montse Triola) scarcely have a clue of what to make of The Kid. "He peed on me," Mary complains at one point; Joseph can barely summon a shrug. Given what an animated presence Peranson is at Cannes, I'm impressed with his abilities to dial himself down here. "The couple resemble a pair of zonked hippies," J. Hoberman noted. 

When Peranson wasn't acting, he was shooting footage for his film about the making of Bird Song, entitled Waiting For Sancho. According to its Cinema Scope webpage, Sancho is "an ontological investigation into a place where cinema becomes something more than cinema." It is not entirely surprising that the film is actually longer than Bird Song itself. 

A Sidebar On The French

Yes, yes, I know—what about Godard, Truffaut, Rohmer, all of whom were critics and then acted in films? Well, yes, they did, but they did it after they made the transitions from critics to directors. Okay, Godard's a borderline, or arguable, case as far as that's concerned. And he's always a damn entertaining screen presence, as in the above screencap, playing a particularly anti-social party guest in Rohmer's delightful first feature Le Signe du Lion. But still, rules are rules.

Researching this piece, I noticed that, with the exception of Peranson's Joseph, all of the characters played by the critics are of vexatious, unpleasant, and/or just downright villanous bearing. I can't imagine why this is the case. 

Comments

[Escher]

You've omitted the excellent, and extremely witty Hong Kong critic Paul Fonoroff, long of the South China Morning Post (and also author of 2 great books on HK Cinema), who has been pressed into service as various gwailo characters in numerous HK productions, including films by Tsui Hark and Stephen Chow, since the 1980s.

[Pete Segall]

What about Amy Taubin in Wavelength?

[c mason wells]

There's also Jonathan Rosenbaum in Raynal's HOTEL NEW YORK, which, coincidentally, is screening tonight at FIAF (for those without tix to GFE, of course).

[Matt Prigge]

Eric Rohmer is hilarious in his scene with Jean-Pierre Léaud in Out 1.

[Herman Scobie]

Once a critic, as Shirley Temple can attest, Graham Greene is memorable as the insurance agent in DAY FOR NIGHT.

[Preston]

Thanks for this post, Glenn (and the comments!)I've been, er, interested, in this sort of thing of late and here you've layed it all out. Looking VERY forward to seeing your turn in GFE.

[Monroe Hawkins]

Gene Shalit was in Behind the Green Door. He was the guy in the corner wearing only a pair of black socks and sock garters during the gangbang scene.

[Arthur S.]

Rohmer is also terrific in Luc Moullet's BRIGITTE ET BRIGITTE where he plays a stuffy sociology professor insisting that his students attack the violence in American movies.

I don't believe Godard was a film-maker when he shot the cameo for Rivette's PARIS NOUS APPRTIENT. He steals the entire film in his hilarious cameo in that film, looking uber-cool in those goggles while laying back on a sidewalk cafe.

[Sean Means]

I was an accidental extra in "Plan 10 From Outer Space," the underground sci-fi film (and Sundance 1995 "Park City at Midnight" entry) by Utah filmmaker Trent Harris. I was reporting about the making of the movie, in the middle of downtown Salt Lake City on a Sunday afternoon (when it's deserted), when Trent yelled, "Hey, Sean, you been in a shot yet?" So I became one of the dozens of people running away in terror from the beehive-shaped flying saucers.
Sincerely,
Sean Means, movie critic, The Salt Lake Tribune

[D Cairns]

British broadsheet journalist Peter Bradshaw (of The Guardian, I think), co-starred in a sitcom. I actually had to think about that pretty hard to be sure I didn't just dream it. I think he was the co-author, so it's easy to see how it could have come about, really. The comedy-writing gig is harder to account for.

[Jake Wilson]

Here in Australia, the noted critic John Flaus for many years sustained a prolific career as a character actor in film and TV. Now semi-retired, he still does voiceovers for a lot of political campaign ads, and I once saw him onstage in a fine production of Krapp’s Last Tape.

Another Australian critic/actor is Frank Bren, author of Hong Kong Cinema: A Cross-Cultural View. His most prominent film role may be in Sensitive New Age Killer.

[Jason M.]

Speaking of the Erotic Connoisseur, Glenn, according to Hoberman, sounds like you're now responsible for The Girlfriend Experience's "most shocking bit of prose."

http://www.villagevoice.com/2009-04-29/film/soderbergh-s-girlfriend-experience-porn-star-is-a-true-character/

Nice.

[Julian]

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http://www.upcoming-movies-trailers.com

[Duggan]

Mr "Bomb to 4 Stars" Leonard Maltin being attacked in Gremlins 2. Justice is finally served for dumbing down film reviews to 3 lines in a thick blue book.

[Peter Debruge]

Your role in The Girlfriend Experience caught me completely by surprise and earned a big laugh of recognition at Sundance.

The last time I remember being blindsided by a film critic cameo was in Henry Jaglom's Hollywood Dreams (which I suspect no one saw), when F.X. Feeney turned up to interview the movie star within the movie.

Meanwhile, I'm growing accustomed to seeing my "junketeer" friends (the journalists who attend press days and set visits for movies on the studio's dime) pop up in cameos. Seems there's a trend afoot to use them as extras while on set doing their stories.