"Death Takes a Holiday" (1934)
Directed by Mitchell Leisen, with Frederic March, Sir Guy
Standing, and Evelyn Venable. 78 minutes.
"Meet Joe Black" (1998) Directed by
Martin Brest, with Brad Pitt, Anthony Hopkins, and Claire
Forlani, 180 minutes!!!!!!!!!
That pretty much says it all, no?
Well, there's more (and more and MORE and, well
you get the picture)
Actually this isn't a remake of "Death
Takes a Holiday" so much as it's a remake of "Being
There."
SPOILERS!
Brad Pitt plays a nice young lughead who talks
up Claire Forlani in a coffee shop only to go out and get hit by
a car ( a very nice, and obvioulsy expensive digital effect)Death
takes over his body in order to experience Life as he comes to
collectForlani's father (Hopkins) the Nicest, Sweetest, Wisest,
and Most Moral Corporate CEO in the History of of the World.
Hey -- it's a fantasy.
So Death hangs around, helps the CEO, woos the
daughter, takes off (death has washboard abs!) and even does the
deed (talk about your "dick of death"!) But he's such a
sweet, lost soul (here comes the "Being There" part)
who Doesn't Know What Life is Like -- and all that drivel.
(continued)
If you're "into" Brad Pitt, this is a
perfect fantasy of what it would be like to spend a nice,
mindless few days with him -- to have him as a huggy-bear
boyfriend to cuddle up in bed and lick "Laura Scudders"
right out of the jar. Talk about "Product placement"!
I'm waiting for the new ads "Laura Scudders -- The Peanut
Butter of Death." (It's Death's favorite food doncha know.
Isn't that cute. Doncha you wanna frow up?)
A sleek, expensive, bittersweet romantic
fantasy.
And it's 180 minutes long!
You see, Martin Brest isn't content with
romantic and sweet. He wants "important." Leisen's film
was a silvery black and white piece of 30's romantic fluff. This
fluff weighs a ton. All tech credits pro, with Thomas Pasatieri's
orchestrations (see the Acknowlegements page of "Open
Secret") doing wonders for Thomas Newman's score.
Hopkins is a pro.
Brad's a Babe.
And Claire Forlani is anorexic.
What makes "Meet Joe Black" truly
clueless is the screenwriters' (so many I can't count) notion
that we all want to hear about how deep, profound and *moral*
corporate CEO's are. Yeah, right. Brest should have read what the
Fray has had to say about Bill Gates! In Leisen's "Death
Takes a Holiday," he does so because he wants to find out
why humans fear him so much. Having been around this long, he
thinks they should have gotten used to him. Because of this
holiday, nothing dies. Death is encouraged to get back to work by
the story's mortals because they come to realize Death's
importance as part of the natural process of life. This doesn't
come up at all in "Meet Joe Black." Death has no real
knowlege of humans -- though he does know how to speak in a
Jamaican accent! (And a regional Jamaican accent at that, btw)
Why does Brest's death take a holiday? No particular reason.
Bored, I guess. Some heavyweight dramatic logic there, boy!
