Thursday, May 22, 2008
The director of "The Cat's Meow" discusses the truth about "Citizen Kane," the philanderings of Charlie Chaplin and the lies Hollywood tells us about death and dying.
Apr 19, 2002 | Sneering at Peter Bogdanovich's name has been an art form in some circles for so long that when you meet the man, you expect the insufferable popinjay whom writers still have a field day skewering. This is the man who, according to the Los Angeles Times, sported $323 blue leather clogs in court just prior to filing bankruptcy in 1997. The man who married (and later divorced) his lover Dorothy Stratten's half-sister Louise several years after Stratten was brutally murdered by her jealous husband. The man who stole Truffaut's shtick by going from film scribe to filmmaker, and so on.
Even if some critics hailed early flicks like "The Last Picture Show" and "Paper Moon," by the early '80s most seemed to agree with John Simon's acerbic assessment that Bogdanovich's "entire filmmaking prowess is not much more than a mnemonic feat." Whatever; in person, the 62-year-old is thoroughly charming, and lacks the pretense so often ascribed to him by caricaturists. Can a guy who schleps his own water around with him in a tote bag be all bad?
Moreover, his latest picture, "The Cat's Meow," is an elegant, entertaining little film detailing the famously puzzling 1924 cruise aboard William Randolph Hearst's yacht, the Oneida; just a few days after, one of the passengers died mysteriously. Among those who were onboard: Hearst (Edward Herrmann); his paramour Marion Davies (Kirsten Dunst); her aspiring paramour Charlie Chaplin (Eddie Izzard); and the fly in the ointment, conniving producer Thomas Ince (Cary Elwes). Gossip maven Louella Parsons (Jennifer Tilly) and novelist Elinor Glyn (Joanna Lumley) round out the ship's manifest. And Bogdanovich plays them all like a sly maestro. "Citizen Kane" it ain't, but it's fun to watch. Give the devil his due.
Do you think your old friend Orson Welles would have liked the film?
I hope so. I certainly felt his spirit around when we made it, watching. I don't know about guiding me, but I think he was on our side. He was the one who told me the story in the first place. He told it to me over 30 years ago as an example of how different Hearst was from Charles Foster Kane. The general misunderstanding about "Citizen Kane" is that it was supposed to be about Hearst, but it wasn't.
Charles Foster Kane was a composite character based on three or four press lords including a famous one in Chicago named McCormick, who built the Chicago Opera House for his girlfriend, who was a singer. That whole aspect of Kane had nothing to do with Hearst. And Orson didn't play it like Hearst. Hearst was a kind of pear-shaped fellow who had a high voice and whose hair fell down over his forehead. He looked a lot like Edward Herrmann, but not as handsome.
How did Mr. Welles come to tell you the story?
I was interviewing him for the book we did, "This Is Orson Welles," but we didn't use it in the book because at the time, it seemed a bit incendiary. Interestingly enough, he heard the story from a member of Hearst's inner circle -- Marion Davies' nephew Charles Lederer, the screenwriter. I talked to Charlie Lederer a few years later and he confirmed it. Charlie had known it since he was 12. That's about how old he was when it happened. He confirmed this as fact, that there was this "accident" during the cruise.
How ironic that after Welles told you that story so long ago, you wound up directing this picture.
Yes, it was ironic. The script arrived on my desk 30 years later and neither the writer nor the producer had any idea that I knew anything about it ... I don't know if I would have read it with as much interest if Orson hadn't told me. I often don't read scripts that are sent to me, I have someone read them for me. This one I read on my own. I saw these characters in it and I thought, "My God, it's that story." So I owe it to Orson. If it hadn't been for him, I might not have done it.
Your Hearst seems rather likable in some ways.
Actually, he's pretty ruthless. But he's human. It's the humanity, I think, that makes you understand him. When you understand someone, it's hard to hate them. If you get to know anybody, I suppose, you discover that people are good and bad and all the shades in between. Nobody's all one thing.
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