Auteurs pandering to the lowest common denominator. Today, with Inside Man, Spike Lee. Yesterday, with The Stranger,Orson Welles.
I groaned when I saw the ads: another one of those thrill-a-minute action flicks, and then, if you looked closely at the lightning-fast credits while the announcer boomed 'Coming Soon,' little white letters that read, 'directed by Spike Lee.' Oh no, I sighed, not another one.
This past decade alone has seen such auteurs as The Coens, Terry Gilliam, and John Singleton worship at it: the idol known as The Lowest Common Denominator.
To what can we attribute the conversion? A decline in core audience, yes, but you can take the hit even if your fans still love you. If you're cult, or a critics' darling, or can do no wrong in Europe, them's fightin' words to those who can secure you wide American release. Combine that with a little too much self-indulgence and/or a few unfinished projects, and there you are, promising to be a good boy for some suit at Universal, B.S.'ing to the press that this is just a continuation of what you've always done, experimentation, in this case, the challenge of seeing if you can do something with a sow's ear for a script.
Whatever the reasons, you're in good company.
After the bravura debacles of Citizen Kane','The Magnificent Ambersons,'and an aborted doc, Orson Welles put his name on a contract guaranteeing that in the wake of any production problems, he would pay International Studios any money he earned, from any source, beyond $50,000 per annum - a heck of a promise for a guy still busy in radio, theatre and print. He also agreed that in the event of any dispute, to the victor - the studio - would go the spoils.
Welles stayed true to the contract, but, thankfully for we film buffs, found it hard to keep all of his old tricks in his magician's trunk. The Stranger (1945), while thin, has a lot to recommend in it: the opening sequence on the boat, all shadows and low angles (all that's left of a studio-cut chase scene through South America,) the cheeky checkers scenes between Edward G. Robinson and Billy House, and the dramatic death upon the town clock.
Did Welles redux restore his reputation? No. The Stranger came and went, leaving nary a ripple. In art as in reality, Welles, a larger-than-life figure, could not reduce himself to size. For him, as for The Coens, Gilliam, Singleton and probably Spike, there was no "inside man."
