Berlin

BERLIN 66 Reviews by Alex. Panorama.

"The Fabulous Baker Boys" 1989, by one shot director Steve Kloves who later made the Harry Potter films. Seen as part of a retrospective  of the films of famed Berlin born DOP, Michael Ballhaus, Now 82, who gets a Silver Bear this year for his prodigious life's work as an ever dependable Hollywood cinematographer.

Film features the real life brothers Beau and Jeff Bridges as two fictional Brothers, Frank and Jack Baker, who are not particularly fabulous but play dual back-to-back jazzy piano gigs at cheap night spots in Seattle. Whe the jobs get slim they decide that they need a female singer to liven up their fading act. After many hopeless auditions guess who turns up -- an incredibly scruffed down Michelle Pfeiffer who happens to have a knockout voice like a white Billie Holiday and a very come hither stage presentation. Her dynamic style injects new life into the Baker Boys act with a highlight reached when she drapes  herself all over the piano as if copulating with the instrument during a sensational singing number -- the memorable high point of a basically forgettable picture.

Unfortunately, for the rest of the film, although she has become pianist Jeff Bridges' lover and there are extended groping and snuggling scenes between them -- there is, oddly enough, no screen Chemistry between them -- zilch -- and the film dies a slow death from there. Whether it was the direction or some kind of real disattraction is hard to say, but despite the fact that both Jeff and Michele are at the height of their early screen  attractiveness what one sees on screen is sheer mechanical sham. One device overly used in the Film is Jeff constantly with a lit cigarette in his mouth as if he were supposed to be Bogart in Casablanca or Gainsbourg in Paris. It just doesn't fit his look or personality and everything else in the picture including Pfeiffer's overdone raggedness is out of kilter. Even the Ballhaus cinematography is nothing to write hime about. The brothers end up hassling each other heavily for no good dramatic reason and in the end Bridges rejects Pfeiffer, or was it the other way around?  Anyway, she walks off into driflessness as the picture finally ends. I normally like Bridges movies but this was a surprising disappointment from every angle considering the promising cast. One down and many more to go in a packed festival week.

USA 1989, 114 min

English

Rating R12

by

Steve Kloves

with

Jeff Bridges
Michelle Pfeiffer
Beau Bridges
Ellie Raab
Xander Berkeley

Synopsis

It’s been a while since life was “fabulous” for Jack and Frank Baker. The once successful piano duo has long since been reduced to playing small time gigs in Seattle’s second and third rate bars. But when the two brothers hire former call girl Susie Diamond as a singer, business begins to pick up, and not just because of her mellow voice. But when Jack and the attractive blond front woman start an affair, it leads to powerful discord among all three … For Steve Kloves’ directorial debut, Michael Ballhaus was responsible not only for the camera and lights, but also helped determine the actors’ blocking. One magical sequence has gone down in film history, when Michelle Pfeiffer sings “Makin’ Whoopee” while lounging atop Jack’s piano in a red dress. As scruffy and cheap as Susie might have looked previously, she emerges that much more glamorous under the camera’s sensitive eye here in the centre of Ballhaus’ “circular” shot. This and other sophisticated cinematographic choreography, such as an overhead shot of a dance floor, brought Ballhaus his second Oscar nomination (following one for Broadcast News by James L. Brooks in 1987)

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