Thunder in Paris
Movies Mashed: Tropic Thunder (2008) and An American in Paris (1951)
So, we’ve got two movies here about Americans and their adventures in foreign lands. The earlier of the two, 1951’s An American in Paris, tells the take of an ex-soldier in postwar Paris. Jerry Mulligan (Gene Kelly) is a starving artist hoping to eventually make a living off his painting. The movie goes out of its way to make Kelly a painter rather than another kind of artist – say, a dancer – which seems odd until you realize just how impossible is would be to sell the idea of Gene Kelly as an unsuccessful dancer. The dude could move. He also looked good doing it.
An American in Paris is not just a vehicle for Kelly’s dance breaks, however. There is a plot, a sort of love-quadrangle involving two young lovers (Kelly and Leslie Caron) as well as their older lovers, the cougary Milo (Nina Foch) and Henri (Georges Guetary), respectively. Kelly falls in love with Lise (Caron) but feels compelled to keep his sponsor/would-be lover happy so he can get his gallery show to happen. In the mean time, Lise must decide between the young American and the older, richer, Frencher Henri, who she feels compelled to marry because he hid in a safe house during WWII. Can we say guilt trip? Yes, we can.
The plot is not really important however. What’s important is how our characters manage to crowbar Gershwin songs, ballet, and tap into the story. This is where it’s useful to have a supporting character – the spectacularly cranky pianist Adam (played by the super-awesome Oscar Levant) – to play the role of confidante to both male leads, as well as any grand piano in sight. And the songs are incredible. These scenes are why An American in Paris is consistently listed in the top 100 films of all time. Don’t think about it, George and Ira whisper, just let it roll over you. Just let the man dance.
Tropic Thunder is unlikely to ever break into the top 100 films of all time, but it’s better than a lot of the recent offerings out there. Tropic Thunder, like An American in Paris, is about Americans cavorting in foreign countries, except that instead of being ex-soldiers aspiring to be artists, these guys are artists (okay, actors) pretending to be soldiers. In Tropic, Ben Stiller plays a washed-up action star hoping to film one more hit movie. But everything is going wrong, and that’s just in the first ten minutes.
The plot of Tropic Thunder is even less relevant to the movie as a whole than that of An American in Paris. The movie relies solely on the charisma of its actors and their repartee. Which is fine, because it’s entertaining on that level alone. While there’s no dancing, there are a lot of explosions, absurd levels of blood and gore, and numerous affronts to political correctness (racial, environmental, sexual… take your pick!).
The movie isn’t going to get a lot of analysis here, because it really doesn’t warrant much. The only thing I wonder about is how it will be viewed in, say, twenty years. Well after the 8-year presidency of Barack Obama, and after the country has finally silenced the hawks that claim bombs are the best way to deal with diplomatic issues, how will people view the comic use of black-face, or of exploiting heroin-addiction for laughs, or of reducing the international drug trade to a comic motif? The movie sort of damps its own squibs by actually discussing in the movie that the creators made controversial decisions in the making of the movie (ooh, meta!). But the fact remains that a lot the edgy humor (in addition to being damn funny) has a half-life, and that the film won’t age well. Granted, Stiller et al do not care if it ages well (or at all). They’ve made their money. But the film exists, and in 57 years or so, we have to assume that someone might watch it.
At 57 year old, An American in Paris is fantastically dated (or, more pretentiously: vintage). But its weirdness is so deeply weird as to be timeless. For example, the long set ballet at the end of the movie (no spoilers!) is largely art-for-art’s-sake, an opportunity to use the talents of Gene Kelly and George Gershwin on MGM’s dime. If Tropic Thunder’s weirdness (for instance, Stiller’s panda encounter) ever earns the badge of timelessness, it won’t be for the artistic values it embodies.
Watchability:
An American in Paris 7
Tropic Thunder 7
Weirdability:
An American in Paris 9
Tropic Thunder 4