The New Biographical Dictionary of Film: Completely Updated and Expanded (225 page)

I suppose television is today’s version of tablets of stone, and so in 1988, Kieślowski undertook to deliver a modern accounting of the great truths by way of Polish television as ten hour-long fictions. Of course, it would be truer to today for the tablets to come on a more interactive form of TV, so that we could purchase or rank our top ten. Not that there is any arguing with Kieślowski. He has a masterly, but austere, manner. There is no doubting his feeling for things seen and heard; there is no question but that he is a filmmaker, and one following in the steps of Bresson.

But, for me, Kieślowski frequently runs the risk of being precious, mannered, and so cold as to forbid touching. I have seen only two of the
Dekalogs
, the short films about love and killing (the rest have only been shown at film festivals in America). While admiring the plan to see all the rules demonstrated in the mundane lives in a Warsaw housing complex, I did find the two spoiled by a rather sanctimonious tidiness. Life doesn’t quite breathe in those films. The superb style is so anxious for rules.

Consider, further, the hugely accomplished and beautiful
Blue
. Kieślowski has said it is a film about liberty: “If one loves, one stops being free. You become dependent on the person you love. When you love someone, you live your life and see your values differently, through the eyes of the person you love.”

That is an interesting basis for a film, yet I cannot find it at work in
Blue
. Rather, Kieślowski—with the very passive beauty of Juliette Binoche—seems to be glorying in the spoiled stasis of grief, as if loss brought one closer to resignation and a waiting emptiness. Do we really know this woman, or do we only feel her extraordinarily sensitive hesitation? Why is there so little about the child? The sensibility is very Catholic, yet the movie is nearly crushing in its pride and humorlessness.

I am a little uneasy saying this, for Kieślowski was clearly so good a filmmaker. In addition, I very much enjoy the notion, explored in
Blue
and
Veronique
, of all our lives receding into an infinity of other lives—a distance that alters meaning. But to see a Kieślowski film for me requires a steeling, as if I were going into torture or church. Those films seem to think they’re perfect, and I want to scream.

Val Kilmer
, b. Los Angeles, 1959
By the shore of
The Salton Sea
they sat down and wept—the nomadic cult whose duty it was to believe that Val Kilmer was the once and future greatest actor of them all, instead of a meteor streaking across the night skies, illuminating performances that leave you uncertain whether to laugh or cry. You hear that the boy is strange or troubled, or both: I met his motherin-law once at a New Year’s Eve party in London (and Val was born
on
December 31)—he was married to the amazingly beautiful Joanne Whalley for a time—and she threw up her arms and eyes (the motherin-law) with sorrow and awe, but with fondness, too, as if to say what a creature, what a creation!

He studied at Juilliard and was famous when very young for an audacious Hamlet. But his tumescent physical beauty was made for the movies, and very soon, the legend was growing that he was not like others:
Top Secret!
(84, Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker);
Real Genius
(85, Martha Coolidge); as Iceman in
Top Gun
(86, Tony Scott);
Willow
(88, Ron Howard), with Joanne; as
Billy the Kid
(89, William A. Graham) in the Gore Vidal version;
Kill Me Again
(89, John Dahl); and then, an astonishing and alarming impersonation—as Jim Morrison—in
The Doors
(91, Oliver Stone). Kilmer was doing his own singing, his own sex?, his own thinking!

He was an Oglala Sioux FBI agent in
Thunderheart
(92, Michael Apted);
The Real McCoy
(93, Russell Mulcahy); a feral whiplash Doc Holliday in
Tombstone
(93, George Pan Cosmatos);
True Romance
(93, Scott);
Wings of Courage
(95, Jean-Jacques Annaud); a somber
Batman Forever
(95, Joel Schumacher);
Heat
(95, Michael Mann); with Brando in
The Island of Dr. Moreau
(96, John Frankenheimer), picking up so many playful habits;
The Ghost and the Darkness
(96, Stephen Hopkins); as
The Saint
(97, Phillip Noyce); as the voice of Moses in
The Prince of Egypt
(98, Brenda Chapman, Steve Hickner, Simon Wells); as the blind man in
At First Sight
(99, Irwin Winkler);
Joe the King
(99, Frank Whaley).

At this point, Val Kilmer was still—in theory—a young actor in pursuit of lead parts. But as the new century dawned, it became clearer that he was an escaped force in pursuit of himself: as De Kooning in
Pollock
(00, Ed Harris);
Red Planet
(00, Antony Hoffman);
The Salton Sea
(02, D. J. Caruso);
Masked and Anonymous
(03, Larry Charles); as porn star John Holmes in
Wonderland
(03, James Cox); almost unrecognizable in
The Missing
(03, Howard); in the barely released
Blind Horizon
(03, Michael Haussman);
Spartan
(04, David Mamet); hilarious in
Stateside
(04, Reverge Anselmo);
Mindhunters
(04, Renny Harlin); as Philip in
Alexander
(04, Stone);
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
(05, Shane Black); several films that got no release; a small part in
Déjà Vu
(06, Scott);
Have Dreams, Will Travel/West Texas Lullaby
(07, Brad Isaacs);
Conspiracy
(08, Adam Marcus);
Felon
(08, Ric Roman Waugh); a voice role in the TV series
Knight Rider; Streets of Blood
(09, Charles Winkler);
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call—New Orleans
(09, Werner Herzog).

He has announced a plan to write, direct, and act in
Mark Twain and Mary Baker Eddy
—though he hasn’t said which part.

Henry King
(1888–1982), b. Christianburg, Virginia
1916:
Who Pays
. 1917:
Southern Pride; A Game of Wits; The Mate of the Sally Ann
. 1918:
Beauty and the Rogue; Powers That Pray; Hearts or Diamonds; The Locked Heart; When a Man Rides Alone; Hobbs in a Hurry; All the World to Nothing
. 1919:
Brass Buttons; Some Liar; Where the West Begins; Sporting Chance; This Hero Stuff; Six Feet Four; 23½ Hours Leave; A Fugitive from Matrimony; Haunting Shadows
. 1920:
The White Dove; Uncharted Channels; One Hour Before Dawn; Help Wanted—Male; Dice of Destiny
. 1921:
When We Were 21; Mistress of Shenstone; Salvage; The Sting of the Lash; Tol’able David
. 1922:
The Seventh Day; Sonny; The Bond Boy
. 1923:
Fury; The White Sister
. 1924:
Romola
. 1925:
Sackcloth and Scarlet; Any Woman; Stella Dallas
. 1926:
Partners Again; The Winning of Barbara Worth
. 1927:
The Magic Flame
. 1928:
The Woman Disputed
(codirected with Sam Taylor). 1929:
She Goes to War; Hell’s Harbor
. 1930:
Lightnin’; The Eyes of the World
. 1931:
Merely Mary Ann; Over the Hill
. 1932:
The Woman in Room 13
. 1933:
State Fair; I Loved You Wednesday
(codirected with William Cameron Menzies). 1934:
Carolina; Marie Galante
. 1935:
One More Spring; Way Down East
. 1936:
The Country Doctor; Lloyds of London; Ramona
. 1937:
Seventh Heaven
. 1938:
In Old Chicago; Alexander’s Ragtime Band
. 1939:
Jesse James; Stanley and Livingstone
. 1940:
Little Old New York; Maryland; Chad Hanna
. 1941:
A Yank in the RAF; Remember the Day
. 1942:
The Black Swan
. 1943:
The Song of Bernadette
. 1944:
Wilson
. 1945:
A Bell for Adano
. 1946:
Margie
. 1947:
Captain from Castile
. 1948:
Deep Waters
. 1949:
Twelve O’Clock High; Prince of Foxes
. 1950:
The Gunfighter
. 1951:
I’d Climb the Highest Mountain; David and Bathsheba
. 1952:
Wait Till the Sun Shines, Nellie; The Snows of Kilimanjaro;
“The Gift of the Magi,” episode from
O. Henry’s Full House
. 1953:
King of the Khyber Rifles
. 1954:
Untamed
. 1955:
Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing
. 1956:
Carousel
. 1957:
The Sun Also Rises
. 1958:
The Bravados
. 1959:
This Earth Is Mine; Beloved Infidel
. 1962:
Tender Is the Night
.

Having begun as an actor in local stock, King became a stage director in Chicago before the First World War. He went into films originally as an actor but by 1916 he was directing for Pathé. Thomas Ince hired him to make
23½ Hours Leave
and King became a prominent director of the silent era. In 1921, with Richard Barthelmess and Charles Duell, he formed the Inspiration Company to make
Tol’able David
and many others. That tone of rural virtuousness was picked up later in
Chad Hanna
and
I’d Climb the Highest Mountain
. It shows how far his own taste was for simplicity. King was also responsible for lavish emotional films such as
The White Sister, Romola
, and
Stella Dallas
, but in the sound era he was always an artisan unable to infuse narrative with life or any recognizable style.

His long period at Fox suffered from all the defects of that studio: routine material based on mediocre players, with an emphasis on detail in settings that never escaped the neat hand of the art department. Despite a fatal slowness and no real ability with action, King regularly made adventure pictures—some, like
Captain from Castile
, a severe test on one’s patience. He is happier with more intimate, period subjects like
Margie
, and with solid biopics, such as
Stanley and Livingstone
and
Wilson
. The former has Tracy and Cedric Hardwicke; the latter profits from Alexander Knox’s resemblance to Woodrow Wilson and from Leon Shamroy’s creation of Washington interiors.

King seldom seemed to notice theme or to be sympathetic to actors. He labored time and again with Tyrone Power, but made two startlingly good films with Gregory Peck—
Twelve O’Clock High
and
The Gunfighter
. His retirement came at least ten years late and his dealings with Hemingway and Scott Fitzgerald are disastrous. Only
Love Is a Many Splendored Thing
has any romantic consistency. (He was one of the few directors Jennifer Jones trusted.)
Sir Ben Kingsley
(Krishna Pandit Banji), b. Scarborough, Yorkshire, England, 1943
Though raised in the north of England, Kingsley’s roots are Indian and Russian Jewish—hence the genetic credentials for Gandhi and Meyer Lansky, the epitome of versatility. Despite the Oscar for
Gandhi
(82, Richard Attenborough), his is a career without fluency or character. Indeed, he seems bound to settle for being an available exotic:
Fear Is the Key
(72, Michael Tuchman);
Betrayal
(83, David Jones);
Harem
(85, Arthur Joffe), as an Arab prince;
Turtle Diary
(85, John Irvin);
Sleeps Six
(86, James Cellan Jones), playing a movie producer, as written by Frederic Raphael;
Maurice
(87, James Ivory); as Shostakovich in
Testimony
(87, Tony Palmer); Turkish in
Pascali’s Island
(88, James Dearden); as Dr. Watson in
Without a Clue
(88, Thom Eberhardt);
Slipstream
(89, Steven M. Lisberger);
The Children
(90, Palmer);
Bugsy
(91, Barry Levinson);
Sneakers
(92, Phil Alden Robinson);
Dave
(93, Ivan Reitman); and in
Schindler’s List
(93, Steven Spielberg), where he is actually the center of the film.

In his fifties, Kingsley took wing: the teacher in
Searching for Bobby Fischer
(93, Steven Zaillian);
Death and the Maiden
(94, Roman Polanski);
Species
(95, Roger Donaldson);
The Lost Portrait
(95, Chris Grandlund); Potiphar in
Joseph
(95, Roger Young); as
Moses
(96, Young); as Feste in
Twelfth Night
(96, Trevor Nunn); as a Ted Turner figure in
Weapons of Mass Distraction
(97, Steve Surjik);
The Assignment
(97, Christian Duguay);
Photographing Fairies
(97, Nick Willing);
War Symphonies—Sjostakovitsj
(97, Larry Weinstein); as the barber in
The Tale of Sweeney Todd
(97, John Schlesinger); as Porfiry in
Crime and Punishment
(98, Joseph Sargent);
Parting Shots
(98, Michael Winner);
The Confession
(99, David Hugh Jones); the Caterpillar in
Alice in Wonderland
(99, Willing);
Spooky House
(99, William Sachs);
What Planet Are You From?
(00, Mike Nichols);
Rules of Engagement
(00, William Friedkin); brilliant in the talk of
Sexy Beast
(00, Jonathan Glazer); the father in
Anne Frank
(01, Robert Dornhelm); the narrator in
A.I
. (01, Spielberg);
The Triumph of Love
(02, Clare Peploe);
Tuck Everlasting
(02, Jay Russell).