Friday, May 17, 2002
What the networks couldn’t touch - THE COMMENTARY
By Joseph Planta
VANCOUVER -- Cable television. I know not everyone is a subscriber, but there are a couple of recent watches of mine that I ought to discuss in this space.
The Osbournes is that good, that it will receive its own column sometime in the near future.
First, is a recent Showtime picture called Strange Relations. It’s a good film that stars former Mad About You actor and producer Paul Reiser. Here, Reiser is a biting and tad funny shrink from New York. He pals around with Cheers’ George Wendt, and his Mum is Olympia Dukakis. Reiser is struck with leukaemia and is in need of a bone marrow transplant. He commiserates with Dukakis, as he’s the only child, and siblings happen to be the best donors for bone marrow. Dukakis drops a bombshell that she is in fact, not Reiser’s Mum and that his real mother is some woman in England. Seems Dukakis couldn’t have kids and so adopted from Britain. Now, Reiser is sent packing to Blighty to find a birth Mum he’s never known and -- fingers crossed -- a sibling perhaps, if any. Birth Mum is played by the wonderful Julie Walters who was last seen garnering an Oscar nomination for Billy Elliot. Reiser gets to England and discovers two other brothers, but due to complications that’d give subsequent plot developments away, it turns out they don’t make good bone marrow matches. A good portion of the film happens in Liverpool, where Walters resides, scraping by on a menial job. Reiser goes on to fall for his brother’s wife, and before I give anything more away, let me say Strange Relations is a decent film that melds Reiser’s oh so New York self with Blighty. It seems impossible that the Jewish Reiser was born of a lower middle class Brit. It pulls it off nicely and makes for a good telefilm. I’ll admit to my eyes being a tad wet by the roll of the credits.
Another good watch is the co-production between the Beeb (as the BBC is affectionately known) and HBO, The Gathering Storm. It’s co-produced by Ridley Scott who was recently Oscar nominated for Gladiator and Black Hawk Down. The Gathering Storm dramatises the life of Sir Winston Churchill prior to the start of World War II. Churchill, played ably by Oscar nominee Albert Finney, is out of power and thought to be in the “evening of his days.” He’s holed up at his beloved Chartwell arguing against Ghandi in India and Hitler in Germany. His arguments are falling on deaf ears except those of his beloved Clementine, played remarkably well by Oscar winner Vanessa Redgrave. Both Finney and Redgrave look remarkably like the people they’re playing, but beyond that their acting is supreme. I no doubt believe that come Emmy time they will be up for numerous Emmy’s.
What really struck me with The Gathering Storm is not how it works to idolise Churchill, but how it is an honest portrayal of how complex Churchill was. This complexity however doesn’t delude the viewer to agree that Churchill was a great man. The viewer comes to that conclusion on his own, because it is such a frank portrayal.
These two projects are ones that I doubt network television would have the audacity do. Swearing aside, these are ambitious projects that are worthy of the big screen. One could assume seeing either Strange Relations or The Gathering Storm at the local art house cinema. And they probably will, as HBO for one, is at Cannes as we speak promoting their projects for cinematic release in foreign countries.
The major networks -- ABC, CBS, NBC or FOX -- wouldn’t dare touch these projects because for one, mainstream audiences have no taste for sheer quality. Cable outlets like HBO and Showtime prove braver and bless ‘em for it. HBO for one is being lauded by those in Britain, because it has been willing to take risks as the Beeb would. Quality is of the essence, and you never see any giving in to the pursuit of ratings.
Projects that we see on cable, such as the upcoming Alec Baldwin starrer on Lyndon Johnson, are brave projects that go for realism rather than sanitised nonsense that insults the intelligence of the viewer. The West Wing is a good show, but I’m sure some White House staffers have sworn at one point or another. The world is often too bloody real that we need visual escapes. That’s why The Osbournes is doing stupendously well, and why Six Feet Under and The Sopranos are practically television history. America, the land of the free and Baywatch, oddly enough hasn’t had the audacity to say the average four-letter word on television. In Canada you can. Too bad for the Yanks that cable is their only oasis for some semblance of reality.
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An archive of Joseph Planta's previous columns can be found by clicking HERE .