Episode 76 – 'For Madmen Only: The Stories of Del Close' w/ Director Heather Ross & Co-Editor George Mandl

Del Close was an early member of the Compass Player (later Second City), an early proponent of “Yes, and” improv method, the “Harold” longform improv format, and an unironic “guru” of almost every major comedy player who came out of Chicago into Saturday Night Live into your favorite comedies of the last 40 years. Yet, why isn’t he known to many, or all, and why do those who did knew him personally describe him as a “madman”? On this episode is Heather Ross, director and co-writer of the new Close documentary For Madmen Only, along with her co-producer and -editor George Mandl, and former Chicago improv student Dustin Levell. We discuss:

• How Ross’s doc work with women in Chicago kept her hearing stories about this “Close guy with a needle hanging out of his arm” who trained all her favorite comedians;

• the closest Close had to an autobiography, the late-’80s pre-Vertigo comic Wasteland, and how its visual narrative contributed to the doc;

• his degree of shock-seeking and self-mythologizing;

• and why Chicago improvers from Mike Myers to Bill Murray have wanted to make a biopic out of Close’s life;

Also:

• the difference between the ‘60s San Franciscan Harold versus the “Teaching” Harold;

• the influence of the book Close’s tri-authored book Truth in Comedy and its profound wisdom, both personally and artistically;

• the ambivalent nature of being a great “guru” and having one’s students surpass in levels of fame;

• and why the 4-20% of genuine good improv is ephemerally like the being around your funniest friends at the lunch table in high school — you had to be there, and it can never be recreated.

Heather Ross is an Emmy-Ward winning documentarian for her film Girls on the the Wall, along with producing on the genealogy series Who Do You Think You Are. She also directed several shorts in the “It Gets Better” series of advocacy films.

George Mandl is a film editor based out of Los Angeles. He and his work can be found at his website.

Dustin Levell is a Chicago-based comedy writer, performer, and stage director who trained at Second City and Improv Olympic.

For Madmen Only: The Stories of Del Close is currently available to rent or buy on VOD. And, also, on Kanopy.

Episode 60 – 'Two-Lane Blacktop' & 'Getting Straight'

Two filmmakers’ filmmakers, ones who both honed their craft in ’60s low-budget B drive-thru movies before achieving gradual and undeniable acclaim, died this past week: Monte Hellman and Richard Rush. I’m joined by Ted Haycraft to discuss Hellman’s most celebrated film and, arguably, Rush’s most interesting one. On this episode we discuss:

• how Two-Lane was greenlit in the wake of Easy Rider, only to be abandoned by the studio on release and for decades after;

• its European vibe as a race movie where no one wants to win;

• the chiseled minimalism of its screenplay by Rudy Wulitzer;

• Warren Oates’ rambling, engaged performance;

• and Hellman’s varied resume, including everything from RoboCop to Head to Reservoir Dogs to an added prologue for the network television premiere of A Fistful of Dollars in 1977.

Also:

• If Richard Rush invented the technique of racking focus;

• how Getting Straight is depressingly still relevant today;

• my seesawing views on this admittedly literate film over repeated viewings;

• and whether or not the movie is speaking for itself through Harry (Elliott Gould) when he’s yelling at women who talk back to him.

Ted Haycraft is film critic for Evansville’s WFIE-14 and co-hosts Cinema Chat on its Midday show. He can also be found on Cinema Chat’s Facebook page.

Two-Lane Blacktop is not currently streaming or available on VOD. Physical media is available from Criterion.

Getting Straight is available on VOD, with physical media is available from Sony.

Episode 53 – Mike Nichols' Audio Commentaries

The best way we thought to celebrate the great writer Mark Harris’s new book Mike Nichols: A Biography, a book about the famed director filled with the instructive anecdotes he used as tools for directing actors, was to find the best examples the public has to those anecdotes in Nichols’ own voice. In the DVD audio commentaries for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Graduate, and Catch-22, all conducted by audio commentary-innovator Steven Soderbergh, Nichols masterclasses his way through his celebrated first three films as director. On today’s episode, Ted Haycraft is back to discuss:

• how innovative it was for a commentary to have Nichols to discuss his perceived failures on Catch-22;

• if these first three films were indeed his peak, his reputation on New York stage and on film as the “Michael Jordan” of directing actors;

• how he runs a rehearsal;

• and what particular directing questions and techniques he reveals in these commentaries.

Also:

• Last year’s oral-history biography Life Isn’t Everything: Mike Nichols, as Remembered by 150 of His Closest Friends by Ash Carter and Sam Kashner;

• Nichols’s editor Sam O’Steen’s great book on editing Cut to the Chase: Forty-Five Years of Editing America’s Favorite Movies;

• Soderbergh’s other incisive commentaries for his and others’ films;

• how Elizabeth Taylor inspired a scene on a toilet in Catch-22;

• if The Graduate is the Citizen Kane of the American New Wave;

• and where Nichols stands among that New Wave.

Ted Haycraft is film critic for Evansville’s WFIE-14 and co-hosts Cinema Chat on its Midday show. He can also be found on Cinema Chat’s Facebook page.

The Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? commentary is available on Blu-ray from Warner Archive. The Graduate commentary is available from Criterion on DVD and Blu-ray. Catch-22’s commentary is available from Paramount on DVD.