The Wachowskis… Unleashed!

Speed Racer. Two things struck me while I was watching this movie; first… I liked it. Quite a bit. I thought it was an incredible technical accomplishment and a psychedelic freakout that nobody has seen the likes of before. Corny script and plot points one can see a mile away sure, but if you submit to the fact that its really not the story that’s sucking you in its a helluva mind trip through the rest of the movie.

The second thing I thought of was who on God’s green earth ever thought this movie would make money? Who thought pouring [a reported] $250-300 million into producing and marketing a movie that numbed its audience quite like this? Who thought nearly two and a half hours of hyper color madness like this could appeal to a mass audience? Have the Wachowski’s gone so far into madness that they thought their fluke success with the first Matrix movie would parlay into two Matrix sequels and Speed Racer being such stylistic cultural landmarks? Ok thats more than two things I thought, but its all on one center thread.

Let me therefore thank Speed Racer’s knuckle-headed producers into torching so much money into making a massively budgeted indie-movie, one that could be appreciated by a smaller audience who appreciate mind-bending style-heaps like this. This is a rare treat to see something made so large for so few.

Incidentally, I had just finished a long awaited rewatching of Gone With the Wind before heading off to the theater. That is, I went from the greatest financial and critical success ever to what may end up being the largest financial disaster of all time. The core principal dividing the two? Gone with the Wind was driven by the Mad Producer (David O’Selznick) while Speed Racer was driven (not to mix puns) by the Mad Director (The Wachowski Brothers).

The Mad Director has a much higher disaster rate by bending the rules and allowing their “great” visions run amok,. Often convinced a previous success has been such an artistic and cultural breakthrough, they insist on being bolder and more wreckless with a new project that it spirals away from any practical sense of what will appeal to a mass audience. They begin to believe they’re Stanley Kubrick working on 2001: A Space Odyssey. Not everyone can be Kubrick. Even Kubrick was barely able to be Kubrick. His madness ended up consuming his life and his work until they were only shadows of former greatness. Mad Directors are ones blessed with remarkable talent only to waste them by refusing to play by any rules whatsoever and cannot co-exist with any creative talent outside his own. Terry Gilliam is perhaps the best living example. Orson Welles was the all-time heavyweight champ.

The Mad Producer however has the kind of sense to know what audience’s will like and, therefore, make money. Gone With the Wind has all the right pieces in a finely executed, lavish spectacle that’s as easy on the eyes as much as it is on the ears. The script is well polished, the characters are rich and interesting, the actors are inspired casting choices with all the right movie star appeal. The sets, costumes, photography, music, all perfectly large and expensive and balanced so nothing overshadows anything else and the result is a movie that continues to enrapture audiences even after nearly 70 years.

That’s not to say the Mad Producer can also swan-dive into disaster. Robert Evans burnt himself out after the 70’s and continued to put together bloated, overweight period movies or uninteresting “concept movies.” Edward Zwick convinced himself he could also direct and has made dull, sappy movies for 20 years now, his biggest successes coming when he is listed only as producer (Traffic, Shakespeare In love, Dangerous Beauty). Martin and Michael Bregman saw their big league career end when they put together The Adventures of Pluto Nash which lost 95% of its very expensive cost. Nonetheless, any ambitious producer knows that the only way to see tomorrow is to make a picture that makes money. Follow certain rules and you’re bound to at least recoup costs.

The Wachowskis have talent, that much can’t be argued. They obviously have some sort of vision, but they need a leash. They’re not changing the world quite yet and some producer who knows what he’s doing should step in and slap them around a little. But then, when more than $200 million goes away and doesn’t come back, they’re likely not to have a job in the morning. Should the Wachowskis be allowed to make another film ever, it should prove interesting to see what they come up with. Then again, we’re still waiting for the triumphant return of Michael Cimino.