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Boston Globe
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Well, nobody's perfect! A tribute to Jack Lemmon
After Isaac watched a few other films, he asked me: 'Does Jack Lemmon play the same kind of character in all of his movies?' 'Well, yes and no,' I began. I was about to support my answer, but we were interrupted. I never finished my explanation, so this critic's notebook is my full response to Isaac. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Jack Lemmon pictured in 2000 with his award for outstanding lead actor in a miniseries or movie for "Tuesdays with Maury" at the 52nd annual Primetime Emmy Awards at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. Kevin Winter/ImageDirect via Getty Images Advertisement It's perfect timing, as Jack Lemmon's centennial is this year. To celebrate, here are some movies that showcase his unmatched skill at both comedy and drama. While he definitely had a familiar onscreen persona, he was willing to step away from it when necessary. Let's start with Isaac's fave: 'The Apartment' (1960) 'The Apartment' won the best picture Oscar back in 1961 and, based on an impromptu Bluesky poll I conducted, it's a favorite among Lemmon fans. The role of C.C. Baxter cemented the fussy, nebbishy Lemmon persona that Isaac saw in the movies he watched. Baxter rents out his apartment to higher-ups for their adulterous trysts. In exchange, he works his way up the corporate ladder. Advertisement Unfortunately, Baxter falls for his office's elevator operator, Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine, in her greatest performance). She's been to his apartment more than once when he wasn't home; she's the mistress of Baxter's evil boss, Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray). 'When you're in love with a married man, you shouldn't wear mascara,' advises Kubelik in one of many memorable lines scripted by Wilder and his screenwriting partner, I.A.L. Diamond. Speaking of great lines, the one that ends this movie is the second greatest last line in cinema history. Stay tuned for the only one that bests it. (Available on Tubi, Kanopy) 'Days of Wine and Roses' (1962) Playing against type, Lemmon earned an Oscar nomination for this often harrowing drama — it's his version of 'The Lost Weekend.' Lemmon and fellow Oscar nominee Lee Remick play a couple whose brutal descent into alcoholism is depicted with minimal melodrama. Director Blake Edwards made the two best films of his career in 1962, this and the gorgeous widescreen black and white neo-noir, 'Experiment in Terror.' (Available on Tubi) Jack Lemmon (right) with James Cagney in "Mr. Roberts." Getty Images 'Mister Roberts' (1955) A staple on NYC's Channel 5 when I was a kid, this fun CinemaScope comedy was my introduction to Lemmon. Jimmy Cagney costars with William Powell and Jason Voorhees's killer Mom herself, Betsy Palmer. Leading the cast is Henry Fonda who, back in 1948, played the titular character on Broadway for over 1,000 performances. Fonda got a best actor Tony for his troubles. As Ensign Pulver, the movie's version of the play's comedy relief character, Jack Lemmon also got an award for his troubles: the best supporting actor Oscar. (Available on AppleTV) Advertisement 'The China Syndrome' (1979) Lemmon won best actor at Cannes for teaming up here with Michael Douglas, and Fonda's daughter Jane. The title refers to a nuclear meltdown. It became an unlikely hit when, 12 days after its release, Three Mile Island's nuclear accident happened. Full disclosure: My parents took me to the drive-in to see this — and I fell asleep. I put it on here so you can guilt me into watching it. (Available on Prime) Jack Lemmon with Tony Curtis in "Some Like It Hot." Getty Images 'Some Like It Hot' (1959) I revisited this hilarious classic last week as part of the Lemmon retrospective at NYC's Film Forum, and it played like gangbusters. Lemmon's son, Chris, and several of his family members were on hand to tell stories about their beloved relative. Director Billy Wilder and his co-writer, I.A.L. Diamond, made Lemmon a star by putting him in drag alongside a similarly clad Tony Curtis. After witnessing the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, this disguised duo go on the run from gangster George Raft (who hilariously mocks his trademark coin-flipping here). Marilyn Monroe sings, shimmies, and falls in love with Curtis in her second pairing with Wilder. And lest I forget, this film has the greatest last line in cinema history. (Available on Tubi, Kanopy) 'Save the Tiger' (1973) The sleaziest film on this list won Lemmon a best actor Oscar over Al Pacino ('Serpico'), Jack Nicholson ('The Last Detail'), and Marlon Brando ('Last Tango in Paris'). Lemmon plays Harry Stoner, a WWII vet suffering from PTSD and contemplating whether to torch his failing apparel factory for the insurance money. It's the actor's most nakedly desperate portrayal of a loser until his turn as Shelly 'The Machine' Levene in the equally sleazy ' ('Tiger' available on Kanopy, AppleTV; 'Ross' on Prime) Advertisement 'Missing' (1982) This horrifying true story mystery, about a man who goes missing during the 1973 coup d'état in Chile, was my introduction to the films of director Costa-Gavras ('Z,' 'Music Box'). It's my pick for Lemmon's best dramatic performance. Cannes thought so, too; they gave Lemmon his second Cannes best actor award and the film the Palme D'Or. Lemmon lost the best actor Oscar, though. Sissy Spacek is also excellent as his daughter-in-law. (Available on WatchTCM) Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau in "Grumpier Old Men." Liaison Agency via Getty Images 'The Odd Couple' (1968) Wilder paired Lemmon with Walter Matthau in 1966's 'The Fortune Cookie,' the first of 10 movies they did together. This is their most beloved (though lovers of 'Grumpier Old Men' may protest this statement). In one of the few tolerable (Available on Apple TV+) 'The Front Page' (1974) This Matthau-Lemmon-Wilder collaboration was a hit despite being a lousy take on the famous 1928 play by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur. It's the first movie adaptation to use the play's 'son of a bitch stole my watch,' which the censors of old Hollywood wouldn't allow. That old-timey censorship makes me mad, but not as mad as I am at this movie. You see, 'The Front Page' convinced me that a job at the newspaper would be full of booze and brawls, typewriters, cigarettes, and shouted demands to 'Stop the presses!' We don't have any of that stuff here! I was livid when I found this out. In fact, I'm still livid. (Unavailable for streaming as of now) Advertisement Odie Henderson is the Boston Globe's film critic.
New York Times
21-03-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
How ‘Severance' Uses Old Tricks to Make Its Office Hell
Contains spoilers about past episodes but not the Season 2 finale. In 'Severance,' the Apple TV+ series about a shadowy company where some employees have their consciousness split into two parts, with the 'innie' doing all the work and the 'outie' remembering none of it, the office is sparse and lifeless. The show reinforces that theme with its cinematography and production design. Here are some of the ways 'Severance' invokes and inverts classic film tricks to create its corporate hell. Repetition Removes Individuality From the earliest days of moving images, filmmakers have used the rigid geometry of desks and cubicles and dense repetition to create images of people together, yet isolated, trapped and stripped of identity by corporate bosses. Films like 'The Apartment,' from 1960 (below, top left), and even Pixar's 2004 animated movie 'The Incredibles' (top right) use these repetitive shots to suggest a corporate mass that takes away individual identities to instead create 'company men,' said Jill Levinson, a professor at Babson College and the author of 'The American Success Myth on Film.' Grids fill the screen in those movies and others, including in shots of the oppressive call center of the 2018 satire 'Sorry to Bother You' (above left) and the lifeless corporate floor of Mattel in 'Barbie,' from 2023 (above right), creating a claustrophobic sense of confinement. One of the earliest examples of this image on film came in King Vidor's 1928 silent movie 'The Crowd': In Jacques Tati's 'Playtime,' from 1967, Tati's recurring character, Monsieur Hulot, finds himself out of sync with the impersonal settings of midcentury Paris: 'Severance' uses some of the same approach. The Lumon Industries office was inspired by the workplaces of the 1960s, Jeremy Hindle, the show's production designer, told the architecture magazine Dezeen. Back then most offices were very clearly places to work, creating a strict separation between office and domestic life, he said. 'I find workplaces now kind of 'fake' workplaces — they're home-ish.' The opening sequence modifies the multitudinous office shot to reflect the show's splintering identities, with a grid of desks that has the same worker in every cubicle: the innie Mark S, played by Adam Scott: In other ways, Levinson said, 'Severance' bucks office-film convention. Instead of leaning on multiples, it most commonly isolates its workers in unnervingly large rooms. Office Fixtures Trap Workers The concept of confinement is central to 'Severance.' While many characters chafe against the limits of their roles in life, for the innies the imprisonment is literal: They are effectively trapped on the severed floor, only perceiving life in the workplace. The sense of restriction is reinforced by the low ceilings in 'Severance,' including in the hallways and the offices themselves, Levinson noted. Low ceilings trap characters and are useful tools particularly in horror movies, like in the claustrophobic corporate spaceship in 'Alien' (1979) or the tight architecture of the Overlook Hotel in 'The Shining' (1980). The corridors in 'Severance' recall an extreme example of low office ceilings: the 7 ½ floor in 'Being John Malkovich,' where employees have to physically hunch over as they exit the elevator: The work itself can also be the cage. In one scene in the first season of 'Severance,' Dylan G.'s (Zach Cherry) screen resembles a shot from the 1996 movie 'American Beauty,' with both characters looking at their reflections trapped behind the work on their screens: If the spaces or the work itself form the prisons of office life, the wardens are the clocks. Shots of them are another visual trope in workplace movies, one that calls back to the symbolic clocks in old German Expressionist films: Employees repeatedly glance at the time, waiting to be free. (Levinson shows her students a montage of similar shots across decades.) It happens in the 2002 movie 'About Schmidt,' as Jack Nicholson, as a retiring insurance man, stares at the clock waiting for his final day of work to end … … and in the aptly titled 1997 comedy 'Clockwatchers,' about four young women working in a soul-sucking office: Because innies exist only on the severed floor, there is little reason for one to look forward to heading home. In the second season, when Mark S. looks at the clock as the workday winds down, it is a sign that risky reintegration surgery to combine his severed halves is starting to work. The Boss's Throne In 'Severance,' the managers on the severed floor exert quiet corporate power from behind the desks in their private offices. Severed workers stand before the seated supervisor, waiting to speak as in a royal court. The filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen often use that image of 'the man behind the desk' in their films, including, clockwise from top left, 'The Big Lebowski,' 'The Hudsucker Proxy,' 'Fargo' and 'Barton Fink.' The boss's desk is a barrier between the protagonist and real power: Employees' desks are, by contrast, vulnerable. Their cubicles make them easy targets for bosses 'just swinging by,' like in the 1999 workplace malaise movie 'Office Space' … … or the accommodations could be absurdly ineffective, as in the 1985 sci-fi black comedy 'Brazil.' One desk is divided by a wall and split between two employees who must play tug of war for the work surface: The boss's desk and its power are consistent, even if the person behind it isn't. Between the two seasons of 'Severance,' the supervisor Harmony Cobel (Patricia Arquette) is replaced by her subordinate Seth Milchick (Tramell Tillman); he takes her place both at the desk and in the same shots she occupied. Elevators as Symbolic Portals In 'Severance,' the office elevator is a site of transformation between a severed worker's two identities. As it nears the severed floor, the elevator acts as a breaker switch between the innie and outie identity, with the innies waking up on the office floor, locked away from the outside world. In the 1957 drama 'A Face in the Crowd,' the main character's fall from grace is made literal as he goes down the network television company's elevator, watching the buttons tick to lower floors: By contrast in 'The Hudsucker Proxy,' the inventor turned executive played by Tim Robbins is crammed into the back of an elevator until the operator realizes he is important and goes express to the top floor. The doors close behind him as he looks uneasy with his ascent: The other pivotal elevator in 'Severance' is at the end of a pitch black corridor. It goes to the mysterious testing floor, and it haunts one character so much that he repeatedly paints it in gobs of black oil paint without knowing what it is. That elevator is all descent. Infantilizing Perks Lumon Industries emphasizes its workplace perks for innies, which create brief spots of color within the office's otherwise drab environs. In 'Severance,' employees strive for melon bars, finger traps and Music Dance Experiences as rewards for their hard work, supposed morale boosts that are infantilizing and ultimately — and laughably — ineffective. Other shows, like 'Silicon Valley' and 'Broad City,' have also memorably used moments of forced fun to emphasize the awkward sterility of office life: In 'The Office,' a sad celebration features a depressing fruit tray … … a forebear of the various melon-based functions in 'Severance.' 'Office Space' includes an even sadder birthday scene, in which the downtrodden employee Milton is passed over for a slice like the most unpopular kid at a party: It's a deeply uncomfortable moment for Milton, but is it any more awkward than other petty workplace slights? It's yet another office indignity most workers would like to forget, the kind that 'Severance' visually aggregates in order to build its humiliating hell for innies — and spare the outies. It all may make severed life seem not so bad.
