Upon Gabriel’s recovery, he breaks into Richard and Olive’s home. She is in the bathtub. Gabriel prowls around and eventually attacks her, with his bizarre appearance (combining a fur hat with stocking stretched over his face) a precursor to the horror-slasher mask or Leatherface/chainsaw attacker idiom. Having him release her pet birds and making the lights go on and off creates a beneficial hook device that’s all the more scary because there is no reason or motivation for Gabriel’s actions.
When Margotta chases Black and attempts to rape her, she fights back with a mannequin’s head, as in Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, making for another Jack connection.
The most memorable scene and climax of Drive, He Said occurs when Gabriel forces his way into the university lab and sets the collection of creatures free. Margotta points out, “It was originally very different. The character, fully dressed, breaks into the lab, they catch him, put him into a straitjacket, give him an injection, put him into a cage, and take him away. [Instead,] it was decided: no clothes, no injection, and I would go of my own volition.”
Michael Margotta, as Gabriel, plays a man lost, just as devoid of personality or direction as he is of clothing or any other societal norms. Shooting this sequence turned out to be as histrionic and daring as anything Gabriel was doing. The actor explained how the streak across campus “was going to be the last shot. It was too risky,” because it was going against the contract between Columbia and the University of Oregon.
The intrigue involved getting a secret phone call which came on a Sunday at six a.m. as go-ahead to drive to the site. Margotta remembered,
I sat in the car with Jack and Fred [Roos, the casting director] while the other guys set the camera and tripod up. I took off my clothes and wrapped myself in a blanket. The idea was that as soon as the camera was ready, we would drive to another location, and when we received a signal, I would get out and run and Fred would get out and walk in the background as an extra and Jack would drive back, and we would scramble.
Margotta continued his play-by-play of nakedness by noting that it all had to be accomplished in one take. “I got the signal. I started running and when I reached the building, I bolted up the stairs, grabbed the handle on the glass door and it wouldn’t open. Immediately, a guy on the inside rolled around in front of the door holding a walkie-talkie, and through the door said, ‘Don’t move. You are under arrest.’ I turned and ran down the stairs, the car was back, they were rushing to get the camera, the tripod, the film into the car.”10
Gabriel’s lingering nude scene inside the laboratory disconcertingly juxtaposes weird snakes, bugs, centipedes, a mouse, a turtle and a lizard with a completely vulnerable man in a modernized Buñuelian-Dalíesque waking nightmare. The snake-plus-penis imagery wasn’t exactly subtle, though understandable given the importance to Nicholson of featuring male full-frontal nudity.
Margotta remembers that no preparation took place for that scene and that Nicholson asked him to say, “Too late, Kālī” (a reference to the Hindu goddess of time and change) when he picks up a human skull. “And with all these little guys running around, things easily became impromptu. The iguana had to be kept cold or otherwise he would be too frenetic. When they are kept at a cold temperature, they become immobile.” He added a personal viewpoint that enriched the sequence, “I always hated zoos, so it fulfilled a fantasy of letting the little guys go free.”11
My overall impression of the film has altered dramatically. Seeing the intended work by seeing the film in a higher resolution than my original bootleg revealed what the filmmaker intended, Drive, He Said somehow seemed like a much better piece of work that was more coherent and less flawed, less dated, and more relevant. Nicholson’s direction came across with a greater emotional connection that’s more immediate and meaningful.
This revelation formed an understandable hope for a further exploration into Nicholson’s filmmaking, hope which Goin’ South and The Two Jakes did not enliven. As Gary Kent put it, recalling Nicholson’s confession about wanting to direct,
I thought Drive, He Said was going to be his debut, and Jack was going to be off as director, but he wasn’t. [Drive, He Said] sort of disappeared and is seldom mentioned in connection to Jack. I would venture that many of his fans don’t even know that he directed it, or that that film was even made. I was surprised, because I heard he was directing it, and I thought, “Good for Jack. He’s taken off and got his shot,” and I thought we were going to see many more Jack Nicholson–directed films, and it just didn’t happen.12
What did happen were two films, separated by a dozen years and a dozen roles, neither of which shared the exploratory magic, intensive artistry or singular thumbprint seen—though in imperfect form—in that debut. It could simply be that Nicholson put all of his energy into directing Drive rather than splitting it, as he did when both directing and starring in the latter two films.
Margotta related that Nicholson “understands the medium from both sides. He knows what it takes to do both, acting and directing, and how difficult it is to do both at the same time. Like John Huston and Roman Polanski (both of whom directed and acted with Nicholson).” Margotta then drew the key distinction between Nicholson’s directorial efforts: “The industry itself defines some of the rules. And the public decides in the end. Jack has always had to add his name value as an actor to directing, with the exception of Drive. He has had to appear in what he directed. Not easy.”13
* * *
Goin’ South dramatically shows this difficulty. For an actor known for his research about and immersion into a role, how can it reasonably be expected to apply the same level of preparation to overseeing the entire movie—including directing a famous movie star by the name of Jack Nicholson?
The answer is, not well in either accounting. Dividing energies strained his efforts on both. Nicholson the director became less experimental and less experiential, turning in a product more serviceable than volatile. Nicholson the actor lost sight of self-restraint, as if rebelling from under the control of his executive alter ego.
Here, the director relies on a stock company of sorts, collecting Cuckoo’s Nest patients Christopher Lloyd and Danny DeVito; friends Jeff Morris, B.J. Merholz and the criminally overlooked actress Luana Anders; as well as collaborators John Herman Shaner, Harry Gittes, Harold Schneider and Toby Carr Rafelson.
The crew under Nicholson’s direction consisted of many veterans, some from the 1950s and even the ’40s, along with natives from the Southwestern U.S.–Mexican geography. Meanwhile, both Mary Steenburgen and John Belushi were making their film debuts under a sophomore director.
The movie presents a rocky counterbalance between broad comedy and sentimental romance. Jack’s Henry Moon is “Gabby” Hayes to his outlaw gang, much more in debt to the Bowery Boys and Abbott and Costello than Ernst Lubitsch or George Cukor.
As a lover of film, particularly foreign art-house cinema, Nicholson had the prescience to choose Néstor Almendros, known for Eric Rohmer’s Love in the Afternoon and Francois Truffaut’s The Story of Adele H. Almendros could have been recommended by Monte Hellman (who worked with Nicholson on several films and used Almendros as cinematographer on Cockfighter) and/or Terrence Malick (the lenser won the Best Cinematography Oscar for Malick’s Days of Heaven, released the same year, though shot two years earlier under producers Bert and Harold Schneider). Hellman, however, told me that it was “probably neither. Jack would have been aware of Néstor from Days of Heaven, not so much because of Terry, but because of Bert Schneider. Of course, Jack was a fan of Cockfighter as well.”14
Ed Begley Jr., who played Moon Gang member Whitey, called Nicholson a great actor-director. “He was a force to be reckoned with,” elaborating that as director, Nicholson didn’t see himself as the actor. “He was bright. He knew exactly what he wanted. He had his video playback, which was very unusual for that time, in 1977.”15
Another gang member, Tracey Walter, said, “It was the first time I had seen the
use of a monitor and playback. And so we were sitting around watching the monitor.”16
Thirty-six years after the film’s release, co-producer Harry Gittes’ original Goin’ South script was offered for sale without the knowledge of Nicholson’s friend and colleague. At that time, the title on the bright red cover still read “THE CONJUGAL RIGHTS OF HENRY MOON/A Romantic Comedy/by John Shaner & Al Ramus” (two other screenwriters would do whatever they did after this draft). The title page includes alternate titles in Gittes’ own hand, The Ball and Chain of Henry Moon, Irreverent Moon and Going South, Going East.17
In several instances throughout the script, the producer worried that Henry’s gang was getting lost in the action. In the opening, he writes “INVOLVE GANG IN THIS,”18 asking whether they are at the hanging “watching.” He makes almost the same note in a later scene (page 104) when three ladies show up at Henry and Julia’s home and interrupt their chicken dinner, asking, “Where did the gang go?”19
Gittes knew that the gang was a better source for humor than Moon alone, but that was not his sole area of concern. Showing a producer’s keen eye for plot and continuity, he wonders about the motivation for Deputy Towfield (Christopher Lloyd), inquiring, “What has he got against Moon early in story?”20
As the film shifts toward the more personal romantic comedy, Gittes becomes more concerned about the strength of the narrative. His handwritten notes include: “NO THEMES,” “MAGNIFY THE DIFFERENCES” and “Who are they? What do they want?”21 Later, when the Henry and Julia marriage turns into an old-fashioned courtship, he remarks, “He thinks she’s a virgin. She lets him.”22
There are breakout moments here and there that connect to Jack as art film enthusiast. In an early scene featuring Henry and Moon’s gang in jail, Nicholson and Almendros skillfully move the actors’ faces in and out of the light for an effect of heightened reality.
The director appears to have learned from mentor Roger Corman, employing camera motion, plus tight shooting that’s slightly out of focus, to enhance the immediacy of the action. As the movie shifts its focus from the caricatures of Moon and his gang to Moon and the wife he must win as his love, we see a pivotal transitional composition of Henry Lloyd Moon and Julia Tate Moon in which Nicholson rides on a porch swing, in side view from the perspective of Mary Steenburgen, moving toward and away from the camera as if on a pendulum. This perfectly represents the negotiation of love that takes place between the characters.
Henry is saved from hanging by Julia by a Civil War–era law that allows the condemned to be redeemed by an unmarried woman who claims the noose-naysayer as her own responsibility. Julia takes her awfully wedded husband merely as gold mine laborer, only to eventually swing toward affection, back toward boss, then toward suitor, and finally toward lover and true spouse—as both life partner and business partner.
Conflict during this emotional growth occurs when Hermine (Veronica Cartwright) from the old gang and the guys show up at his new homestead, blithely looking to pick up with Henry where they left off and jump Moon after howling at the moon (yes, that’s what actually happens). It’s shot with an out-of-focus sense of placing the viewer as intruder. As elsewhere, a narrow focus is chosen to capture the moment’s intimacy.
Cartwright impressed the director enough to play key supporting roles both in The Witches of Eastwick and Man Trouble. The former child actress (The Birds and The Twilight Zone) related that Nicholson chose her for the role of his old flame:
Actually it was funny, because my first interview for it, I went to Paramount Studios to meet Jack, and I had done a movie called Inserts with Richard Dreyfuss (originally X-rated, the film dealt with pornography and heroin addiction in the 1930s). So he comes out with this jean jacket on, and says, “Come back into my office,” and of course we’d all heard stories. And as I’m walking, and he lets me lead the way, and he goes, “I just loved you in Inserts,” at which point I turned beet red. He said, “I love a woman who blushes.” And this was from behind! He’s terrible, he’s so great!23
Tracey Walter had an equally unusual anecdote about how he landed his role as Coogan. “When I met Jack, he’s sitting behind a desk at the height of his career. I’m sitting at the other side of the desk. I didn’t plan if out, but we were talking about doing something like re-reading a book that you once loved and things are different and you dare read it again. You want to make sure you love it as much.” Not at all calculated, Walter brought up Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye, and that “his most burning question was, ‘Where do the ducks in the pond in Central Park go in the wintertime?’ And with that, Jack leaned over the desk and said, ‘Trace … they’re goin’ south.’” A couple of days later, Tracey got his part in Goin’ South. As a nice postscript, when his director found out what the actor was getting paid, he doubled his salary.24
When the married couple later become more engaged in their mining venture and a structural collapse separates husband from wife with tons of stone and miles of panic, Nicholson moves the camera with the character, handheld to search along with Moon as he looks for his trapped wife. Almendros’ camera does not observe, but becomes part of the action.
These moments of cinematic mastery are fleeting, making Goin’ South more workaday than wondrous. Scenes connect, lines touch, images shine and feelings move. But overall, the film falls in equal proportion to Nicholson’s rambunctious overreach in his portrayal. He is over the Moon, too far over the top to overcome a slight but promising storyline typified by uneven and insubstantial storytelling.
The comedy was also shaky, as evidenced by several hand notations in the script of co-producer Harry Gittes, including “need punchline,” “reprise joke,” “never work” and “too contrived.”25
However, he celebrates the climax of the film, explaining how Julia sacrifices the material for the sentimental: “[S]he gives up her gold to save his life.”26 That is a love story, though one the movie did not share as movingly as it could have.
It’s no surprise that Nicholson would have a more positive view of the film, not unlike a parent seeing only the good in the child. “Before I directed Two Jakes, I thought I should watch the other ones I’d directed,” he recalled. “It was good seeing Goin’ South … the movie wasn’t very successful, but I love it. And I love people who love it.”27
That sentiment is understandable. Nicholson put all he had into the movie, according to Ed Begley, Jr., pushing himself before, during and even after the production.28 Barry Dennen, who worked with Nicholson on The Shining, talked about Nicholson’s filmmaking multitasking. “When he was working, he was working. When he wasn’t on camera, Jack was editing a movie down the hall—Goin’ South with Mary Steenburgen, I believe.”29
* * *
Between Goin’ South and The Two Jakes, Nicholson won an Oscar (Best Actor in a Supporting Role) for Terms of Endearment and was Oscar-nominated for Reds; was nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role for Prizzi’s Honor and Ironweed; and starred in the classics The Shining, The Postman Always Rings Twice, The Border and Batman.
When Nicholson acted in his sequel to Polanski’s Chinatown, as one of the two titular Jakes, his acting turned out to be less than memorable and his directing less than formidable. From an observer’s standpoint, attempting to follow up a work as monumental as Chinatown can only be seen as a frustrating folly.
The crazy history of the making of this film might be more interesting and entertaining than the movie itself. A conflict between three important colleagues—Nicholson (the original Gittes), Towne (the writer) and Robert Evans (the studio wunderkind who was originally slated to make his acting comeback as the second Jake, only to be replaced by Harvey Keitel)—becomes a center to the story that’s stranger and more intriguing than that of J.J. Gittes and his search for the daughter of Evelyn Mulwray.
Nicholson took the job as director, not as champion of his vision like with Drive, He Said, nor as the center of the action, as in Goin’ South. Here, it’s as if he
loses a bet or draws the shortest straw, taking the gig as a contractual obligation or to repay a financial debt. He’s stuck, and the movie looks it.
The Two Jakes presents a sadly slight treatment of the original character and a disappointingly bland neutralization of the inspiration for the original story. Evans was uncharacteristically understated when offering, “Robert [Towne] didn’t quite keep up his end of the bargain, because the script was 80 percent complete,” and that at the time of the release of his autobiography The Kid Stays in the Picture, “it remains 80 percent complete!”30
Goin’ South (1978) was Jack’s second directorial effort, but his first in the dual role as star. A monitor system helped him navigate his split duties. Looking back, Nicholson said, “The movie wasn’t very successful, but I love it. And I love people who love it.”
Voiceover narration is part of the film noir convention, but here it’s a bad sign, not spicing up the story or providing a spoken form of potboiler literature as complement to its pulp fiction narrative. No, the Jake Gittes voiceover is a stagnant yet overwritten cue that the story’s not clear enough, for a string of self-conscious lines of puffery that exists solely for cleaning up and for adding clarity.
What happens to an interesting character first woven into an absorbing plot with the intensity of a classic? Reduced to a tired sequel, executed more because too much time and money had already been invested to abandon the project—not much.
Quick: Mention the movie Chinatown to someone and you get a visceral response. Mention The Two Jakes, and even bolster its aided awareness by adding that it’s the motion picture follow-up to Chinatown, and you get as much of a response as the movie itself did in comparison to its antecedent.
Quintessential Jack Page 34