Written by Ahem
(Views expressed by Ahem are not necessarily shared by GandalfDC)
Richard Lester. To film historians and theorists he is
regarded as the most stylistically groundbreaking practitioner since Orson Welles. To
die-hard Superman The Movie fans however, he is the man who destroyed Richard Donner's
tragic sequel. Whatever is said, the truth remains that Lester is the most high profile
director associated with the Superman franchise.
Worked with the best comedians
Born in Philadelphia, Richard Lester attended university
aged 15. He then entered the medium of television in the early 1950s, working for CBS. He
was a music editor, assistant director and eventually a director. In 1955 he moved to
London to work for the newly established ITV. He was a director and a composer. He also
shot numerous television commercials where he further developed post production and
editing techniques. Here he became associated with the notorious 'Goon' show, the anarchic
comedy series beginning his friendship with comedian Peter Sellers. This eventually lead
to the groundbreaking 11 minute short 'The Running, Jumping and Standing Still Film'.
Although nothing more than a silent home movie, Lester energetically lensed Sellers, Leo
McKern and Spike Milligan from every angle while never restricting their creativity, no
matter how daring their ideas were. The film was eventually shown on British television
where it's immediate popularity prompted it's appearances at film festivals, the Cannes
film festival and eventually the Oscars where it was nominated.
Beatlemania
Later on in the mid 1960s one of pop
cultures greatest influences had arrived; Beatlemania. Lester at the request of the fab
four, (all of whom were great fans of his work with Sellers), was commissioned to direct a
day in the life of' film to cash in on the Beatle's popularity. 'A Hard Day's Night'
and more so it's follow up, 'Help!' show how Lester revolutionised sound in film.
Up until that time, films containing popular music had always been, as Bob Neaverson
explains:
'Song performance derived from the classic Hollywood musical,
with lip-synched performances and minimal on-screen backing sources to give illusion of
performance. Lester used pop music as the incidental music' additionally,
Lester experimented with the images too, using his television commercial techniques for
these sequences. As described by James Monaco:
'What Lester did was break the 'grammatical' convention. He
introduced a 'frenetic' editing style using jump cuts'
Lester obliterated the cinematic continuity, with images slowed down
and sped up, often with images running into each other. Essentially this captured the
essence of the Beatle's place in 60s pop culture through the synergy of image and sound.
In the 'Ticket To Ride' sequence from 'Help!' Lester had the Liverpudlian lads involved in
a skiing scene in the Alps. He got two cameras and randomly shot them going about their
leisurely activity. Later on in the editing suite, aided by his new friend John Victor
Smith, Lester 'frenetically' juxtaposed the images together in no logical order. The
result was perfection, and years later MTV no less pointed out that Lester was the
'Godfather' of the music video. One 1965 UCLA film student was particularly inspired by
such innovations, the young George Lucas, and Lester's influence is apparent in his
student films.
From The Knack to the
Musketeers
In 1965 Lester also made the 'mod' cool Britannia
film 'The Knack', based on Ann Jellicoe's play. The film
has very much influenced retro sixties fads such as 'Austin Powers' and video game 'Grand
Theft Auto London'. A year later he directed the film version of the Broadway musical 'A
Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum'. A musical farce co-starring silent era
comedy icon Buster Keaton and Phil 'Sgt Bilko' Silvers, the film is held by many critics
as one of the most successful stage musicals translated for the screen. It's here that
Lester excelled in slapstick, off beat humour and skilful physical comedy. It was also the
film that united him with his composer collaborator, Ken Thorne. Thorne's adaptation of
the music for the film was so good in fact that the composer won the 1966 Academy Award
for best score.
'Petulia' in 1967 saw Lester return to the USA for the first
time in fifteen years to look at the hip society of sixties San Fransisco from an
alternative, alien perspective. Photographed by British DP Nicolas Roeg, 'Petulia' is used
by many film connoisseurs as the ultimate historical document summarising modern sixties
America.
Lester reunited with Beatle John Lennon on 'How I Won The
War', a personal, surreal anti-war film. Along with his follow up film 'The Bedsitting
Room', this is one of the few English language films to successfully apply Brechtian
conventions such as alienation ( a convention used to prevent the audience empathising
with the characters).
After a five year hiatus, (due to his notoriety as a box
office unfriendly innovator) Lester conformed to commercially safe blockbuster fodder.
1974 saw Alexander Salkind's lavish production of 'The Three Musketeers' followed by it's
sequel in 1975. Filmed as originally as one separate film, but split in half with new
scenes added to consist of two (to the all star cast's disgust) they are both valued as
the definitive filmed versions of the Dumas classic.
Marrying sincere adventure, slapstick comedy and remarkable
period detail (Lester insisted that all actresses wear tight corsets in front of the
camera), this all added up to a winning formula. Lester then discovered character
development and emotional depth in the depressing and highly unnecessary 'Robin and
Marian' and 'Butch and Sundance: The early Years'.
Lester on Superman
As far as
Superman was concerned, for Lester this was once again mere blockbuster fodder. Richard
Donner's 'Superman' had been a labour of love, one of which lead to the producers firing
him while he was preparing the sequel. The Salkinds had always aspired to be producers
like the Broccolis with a Bond style franchise: A theme park atmosphere, global
popularity, a simple formula that could always bring in the masses. Richard Donner had
other plans, ones to challenge the character, his ethics, and to show Superman in a
sensitive picture or pictures detailing the mythos of pure American heritage. Superman to
Donner was a Christ like allegory, a saviour, a God. His films were to be a shrine to the
legend.
But Superman had become a piece of pop culture much like
Beatlemania in the mid sixties. Donner's film had immortalised Christopher Reeve's
Superman as an established celebrity, just as record sales had done it for John, Ringo,
Paul and George. When Lester has Superman stand amongst the product placement of 'Superman
II' spectacular times square battle, our hero is as much a fashionable product as either
Gucci or Coca-Cola. The series had gone down market from being the comic book equivalent
of the Godfather series to that of the James Bond series. But also, like James Bond, the
series was damage proof, with built in global popularity.
All of Lester's previous films had one thing in common; their
source was already established material. The Beatles were musicians and celebrities, 'The
Knack' was an Ann Jellicoe play, 'A Funny Thing...' was a Broadway musical, Butch and
Sundance was an established western, Robin Hood was a legend. Lester's talent is being
able to develop his own unconventional style out of established material. In 'The Three
Musketeers' he constructed an accurate period atmosphere and social reality, which he was
then able to go and interpret in his own idiosyncratic style. His attention for detail was
of an incredibly high standard, looking and sounding entirely authentic. He took the
essence of what Dumas had written the books as originally, which was a period
swashbuckler. Likewise with Superman he took the essence of the source material, the comic
book, and made it entirely authentic. Cinematography, art direction, framing of the shots
and overall mise en scene looked identical to the panels of a comic book, more so than
Donner's original had. Donner's storytelling for part one and his portions already shot
for part two provided the through line for Lester's film, the foundation for Lester to
work on.
Dick Lester came aboard Superman The Movie when relations
between Donner and the Salkinds deteriorated. Lester acted as an intermediary between the
2 parties. Since the Salkind's owed him money, this was a way of getting it, as an
uncredited producer. He wanted no part in the direction of the film and would only come on
the set if asked by the director. During the production, Lester asked Donner that he
should put all efforts into the first film, Lester's thinking was that "Who would
want to see the sequel if the first film wasn't good?" Donner agreed. He shot all the
remaining scenes with Hackman, Perrine and Beatty (They didn't return for any extra
shooting under Lester in S2) and finished off some other scenes, then all work was
concentrated on the first picture. Lester also help convince Donner that the finale of
Superman needed emotional impact, thus we have the death of Lois etc.
This was the first direct sequel Lester had made and the
first time for which he hadn't directed part one. Hard core fans expected subtle
integration between Donner and Lester's work. Lester, rightly in fear of challenging
Donner's work applied no integration skills, neglecting the experimental epic look for the
less pretentious comic book flavour. Instead of continuity between the bookends of part
one and two, Lester's footage is knowing graffiti, spraypainting the essence of comic book
across Donner's legend.
The best example of this is in the Mount Rushmore scene in 'Superman II'. Donner
had the original scene shot for his sequel with Ursa defacing the national monument. and
creating and three Kryptonians faces using her heat vision. Lester took the footage and superimposed
the faces of the three Kryptonians across the ruins in true witty fashion. Note also the
opening alleyway transformation sequence of part two, spraypainted across the brickwall is
a crude, bright yellow graffiti version of Superman's 'S' emblem.
Stylistically Lester succeeds in preserving the product, as
does 'Superman III's junkyard battle, where an unhealthy man of steel challenges himself
against a backdrop of decaying metal, but this is strictly popcorn, not art. It also
humorous to see the mighty Kryptonians underwhelmed by the authentically comic book
Houston community, paying homage to the B-movies of the 1950s where small towns were wiped
out (incidentally, another medium with it's origins in comic books). These towns folk are
certainly not intended 'stereotypes', and are obviously not used to represent different
social groups. Lester isn't viewing the US from an alien perspective as he had done in
'Petulia', as his Houston is entirely fictional, played for laughs with comic caricatures
and cartoon violence. This is just harmless, superficial, theme park fun, doing for comic
book what the Musketeers had done for period swashbucklers.
The James Bond element is further apparent in part two, with
glamorous location work, as Lester starts the sequel in Paris, the city he had first met
the Beatles in. Paris, considered to be the most romantic city in the world did suit the
romance theme in part two, but is instead used an action set piece and plot device to
excite the audience and free the villains. He also takes us to the lucious St. Lucia, not
to develop the character, but to impress us with the scenery.
Where Lester's part two is exciting is in it's character
and emotional development. For Lester this area
of filmmaking was still uncharted territory. 'Robin and Marian' and 'Butch and Sundance:
The Early Years' both proved him capable of decent emotional performances, but the films
were depressing and an audience endurance test. The love scenes of part two are made
believable by both Margot Kidder and Christopher Reeve's performances, monitored by
Lester's three camera set-up, which bravely chose to linger on their subtle performances.
In 'Superman III', just as Lester had revisited the USA in
'Petulia', he returned to Donner's Smallville established in part one. Again the stylistic
attention to detail is high, with the redneck atmosphere of Canada's Alberta heightened by
the twanging sound of Roger Miller's country and Western music. The Lana Lang and Brad
subplot was the most emotionally involving intriguing aspect of 'III'. It is with these
scenes that Lester is as true to the origins of Superman as Donner had been, and both
Annette O'toole and Gavan O'Herihly gave true and believable performances. These are
however, marred by their superficiality, only choosing to skim the surface of Clark Kent's
home town romance. To be commercially safer, part 'III' prioritises itself as a
fashionable 'National Lampoons' comedy. The occasionally heavy handed preaching suffered
in Donner's Fortress of Solitude scenes in parts one and two are happily absent in 'III',
but Lester finds a new foundation to use as a through line: Gus Gorman.
Played by popular comedian Richard Pryor, who is hardly the computer
technician everyman the story describes him as, he is just star attraction used to pull in
the crowds. Lester films Pryor as an established celebrity, genre crossing frequently into
comedy. In one skilfully orchestrated piece of physical comedy, Pryor's Gorman falls from
a skyscraper dressed in a pink table cloth, survives the fall and looks startled at the
camera (known as 'Sprung Tempo Rhythm'). The audience laughs not at Gus Gorman, but at
Richard Pryor. The through line of 'III' should have been the Smallvillle triangle, but
the tasteless 1980s comedy aspect did favour the film at the box office. As a comedy
farce, it's pure John Landis 'National Lampoons', so much so that there is even a cameo by
Frank Oz as a surgeon ( the film was also lit by Landis DP Bob Paynter at his height of
popularity). Like 'Ghostbusters', 'Trading Places' and other Reagan era comedies, it
proved successful, and as with part one it resembled a detailed comic book. The action
sequences, with Reeve as Superman carried out Donner's rule of verisimilitude, thrilling
and fast paced, albeit detached from the character development. One exception to this is
the junkyard fight, where Reeve's virtuoso performance as both Kent and Superman was
obviously an inspiring challenge for the director, and the onscreen result justifies this.
But as far as the producers were concerned, the masses
flocked to see Superman for it's value for money action, and it's here that Lester
preserved the product. 'Superman III' along with 'Return of The Jedi' and 'Wargames' was
one of 1983s highest grossing films. Critics found the charm of 'III' in it's existence as
an unpretentious blockbuster. Ken Thorne's music also highlighted the blockbuster nature,
as he had directly adapted the music of 'A Funny Thing...' s stage music for Lester's
Roman farce, for Superman he rearranged John William's original material. The producers
had with the title theme the most recognisable eight bar tune in the world, so Thorne's
job was to exploit and preserve it with pride (just as recently Hans Zimmer preserved Lalo
Schrifin's theme for Mission Impossible 2). Any original compositions by Thorne were light
comedic such as 'Honeymoon Haven' and 'Streets of Metropolis', resembling Henry Mancinis
'Pink Panther incidental tunes.
The advent of Giorgio Moroder in part 'III' (who ironically had
beaten John Williams Superman score for the 1978 Oscar with 'Midnight Express') also
brought Superman hands on with popular music.The popularity of Superman was in fact so
bankable, that audiences expecting the man of steel refused to see his cousin Supergirl in
the 1984 film.
Dick Lester was doing a strictly auto pilot job for producers who
owed him money. Preserving the product with consistent, world-wide exposure. The series
was virtually damage proof with a built in global popularity, and it wasn't until 1987
that the franchise became vulnerable.
'Superman IV' was a disaster, promising it's audience a Superman
worthy of challenging human ethics, the most ambitious storytelling since part one, but
deteriorating into an offensive children's film. It's biggest flaw is that it avoided the
theme park atmosphere of it's predecessors and the sensitive nuclear arms theme, in favour
of desperately rehashing precious moments from the first three films.
Further insult to injury was that the wilting cast members
(Christopher Reeve, Margot Kidder, Marc McClure and Jackie Cooper) personally depended on
it being a success as they had become typecast as their characters. Superman had always
been a guaranteed success, and had allowed the actors to have a career reboost every
couple of years, confident that their popularity was solid. Here they just faded into the
unknown.
For Richard Donner, the state of this awful sequel had hurt
an American legend. Had Donner returned to the character directly after 'III' he could
have brought the legend to new levels. Donner's obvious passion for the material shown in
part one, linked with the controversial nuclear arms race subject matter could have
returned some genuine substance to the series.
For Lester, what once was a winning formula had now turned into a
tired failure. Had Lester directed 'IV' the focus would have again been on preserving the
style and action sequences, leaving us with another box office friendly, if highly
superficial piece of pop culture. There is no comparison between Donner and Lester within
the Superman universe, as one cared for the legend as art, while the other merely
preserved the product. The way Lester did preserve it though, did create some of the most
inventive, original, unconventional, exciting and utterly unpretentious imagery seen in
cinema. The spire of the Empire State Building returning itself to the top of the
skyscraper, the Coca Cola sign fizzing in a shower of neon are just some of the examples
that provided crowd pleasing entertainment for audience everywhere.
FOOT NOTES
*Superman had originally been written as spoof parody written
with cameos by famous celebrities. It would have been for Superman what 'Casino
Royale' was for James Bond. Incidentally, Lester turned BOTH films down when asked
to direct them.
*Clifton James appears in 'Superman II' as the Sheriff he
played in Bond films 'Live and Let Die' and 'The Man With The Golden Gun'. The part was
written for Bond in the 1970s by non other than Superman's very own Tom Mankiewicz.