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| A Criminal History: Elaina B. Archer on “Gangland” |
Elaina B. Archer as she edits her previous documentary, Rita. |
by Dan Lybarger
Producer-director Elaina B. Archer seems an odd choice to be making a documentary about gangster movies.
In the time that I’ve known her, she’s managed the Mary Pickford Library and having worked on documentaries about glamorous screen stars Clara Bow, Rita Hayworth and Marion Davies.
But having discovered Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather when she was 12, Archer has always had a fascination with movie heroes who aren’t so heroic. Her new documentary, Gangland: Bullets Over Hollywood covers a century of movies about wise guys, from Raoul Walsh’s 1915 Regeneration to Reservoir Dogs and beyond.
She and her producing and editing partner Todd Friedrichsen chronicle how real life crime figures found their way into Hollywood storylines and how history shaped the genre.
Archer also assembled a wide array of filmmakers from legendary director Roger Corman ( The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre) to Godfather stars James Caan and Talia Shire. She also enlisted real life GoodFella Henry Hill and the prosecutor who put him under witness protection (Ed McDonald) to explain how crime both on and off screen could be so seductive.
Archer even got GoodFellas star Paul Sorvino to not only narrate the documentary but also got him to perform some Italian opera selections for the soundtrack. Gangland: Bullets Over Hollywood received glowing notices (Tony Perry of the Los Angeles Times declared, “’Bullets Over Hollywood’ is an offer that can't be refused.”)
If you weren’t able to catch the December 6 broadcast on Encore, the film has just been released on DVD from Image Entertainment and Hugh M. Hefner’s Alta Loma Entertainment.
Hefner has been a consistent supporter of Archer’s Hollywood histories, and has also backed her upcoming project Why Be Good? Sexuality and Censorship in Early Cinema. In both projects, Archer, who was contacted at her office in Los Angeles, examines how our wild and wooly past has led to our present.
Dan Lybarger: What made you want to look into gangster movies?
Elaina B. Archer: I’ve always loved gangster films and so has my partner (Friedrichsen). We were looking through our interests in films that we both enjoyed for a long span of time. We both agreed and discussed the fact that gangster films have had a fascination for us from an early age because there’s something menacing and charming. It’s menacing underneath but very charming on the outside.
It’s something that is very usable in the film medium because you have a character that can be really dynamic even though he’s really evil. People are always attracted to evil characters, especially if you polish them up and make them handsome.
DL: It’s interesting because you show how the genre evolved over time.
EA: It happened with the time, which is so interesting about doing a hundred year study because basically you’re putting a mirror up and showing fact and fiction and how they reflect one another. You’re showing how fact affects fiction and vice versa because basically you see a film genre that’s changing with the times.
We discussed the McCarthy era, and we discussed pre-Code (before the Production Code of 1934 took effect), and we discussed the Depression. We discussed the attitude of the times all the time. And we also show the attitudes changing in the film industry itself.
After the fear of the McCarthy era and somewhat boring time period for this genre in the 50s and early 60s, in order to compete with the interesting cinema of Europe, we had to change the way we hired directors and the way we make films. This is an interest genre to look into many decades of film because it reflects the changing of the times and all the sociological implications of each era, which is what makes this fun.
Because then you get all this stock footage, which is incredible. You get New York in color in the 1940s, or Hollywood in the 1930s, in color again, premieres. The stock footage in this show is astounding, hours and hours of tape that came in. It is amazing to try to trim it down to the time period that we had, but when you do documentaries like this and have you a subject like this, it allows for a lot of factual footage to be able to pick the fictional footage that reflects the time period, too.
We showed the actual (John) Dillinger. We discussed Dillinger, and then when we show him on film, what it was really all about. And then we show someone who was playing Dillinger, only Hollywood wouldn’t admit that yet. So you see different variations on a theme.
DL: Of course that later works into On the Waterfront.
EA: And we had Harry Lewis discuss how he remembers the unions. He remembers the strikes that were going in Hollywood. Mobsters back the strikes. And you had these unions: some against the mob and some involved in the mob. And it basically opened the door to expose the mob in Hollywood. And along comes “Bugsy” Siegel.
So it was interesting to take any political point of view with what’s going on at the time and to show the differences with the films that are being made like Key Largo. It was a direct comparison to “Lucky” Luciano leaving to be deported back to Italy.
Then you look at it in another point of view, and I found this interesting, I've always loved James Cagney. And everybody takes for granted that you're going to love Bogart because he’s known as one of the geniuses of film.
But I had never been given the opportunity to notice Edward G. Robinson. And when you're researching his films and watching them over and over again, he was astounding.
He was playing a very powerful figure who in real life was assisting the troops, too, even though he's being deported and arrested in this country.
And then you show Edward G. Robinson. Every time he's on the screen, even with Lionel Barrymore and Humphrey Bogart, he commands the whole film, I think.
He takes the whole film and everything he's in. I think he's the one who's most forgotten, and so in delving into this study, on this particular mobster, you discover the actor within. Even though he played all lots of different types of roles and tried to get away from being typecast in Hollywood, sometimes it works for you.
DL: In Key Largo, his screen time is relatively scant.
EA: It doesn't matter. You’re just waiting for him to return. You really are.
DL: You worked on the documentary about Clara Bow, where you had interviewed screenwriter Budd Schullberg. Did you try to get a hold of him for On the Waterfront?
EA: No, we actually didn't. To be honest, due to certain budget constraints and also licensing roadblocks, so to speak, there are certain films you can’t license. I wasn’t intending to focus so heavily on On the Waterfront. And then when you get into the story and the structure of the story and the arc of how this reflective thematic study comes to play, then you realize certain titles you’re going to discuss.
We hadn’t planned to interview Budd Schullberg about On the Waterfront. To be honest, a lot of our focus at the beginning—we must have sent out at least 50 presentation packages for interviews. And a lot of these people who were really interested in giving interviews, but they just weren’t able to schedule.
A lot of our time was focusing on these A-list actors we were trying to interview: Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, even Martin Scorsese.
I’d have to say, the people we did get were really powerful. Of the 13 interviews we did that made it into this program, I thought they all had something to say.
DL: Oh, yeah. Roger Corman brought in a lot of historical background.
EA: And also Fred Williamson. They talk about the same era and in a very intelligent way. They play off each other quite well.
DL: It was also interesting to hear James Caan’s take on playing Sonny Corleone.
EA: I loved meeting him. I thought (The Godfather) was the most perfect thing I had ever seen. Before that, it was Chaplin, but then you get into different things and different elements of film in different stages of your life. And I just saw something that came together.
It was the acting, the directing, the cinematography, the script, the music, the writing. Everything was perfect.
You see very few films with that kind of synergy. My father would say, “What are you doing? These people are animals! They’re killers.”
But look at this film! It’s so beautiful. And that was the point of this piece. At the beginning, when Michael Madsen says, “Why do we like this? Why?”
And then in a really interesting autobiographical sense, he says at the end, “We always try to get out of being killed in these films.”
I thought that was one of the more interesting spontaneous comments that were made in the interviews. He just stepped outside himself to say, “Deep down, psychologically, you try to get out of being killed.” You’re playing a mobster, and he also comments, “Where are you going to go? Where are you going to hide?” I thought he was a very good interview for this piece.
DL: I thought it was cool that you had Regeneration, Donnie Brasco and Black Caesar. I almost wish you could have gotten into New Jack City.
EA: That was a licensing decision. We had New Jack City up in the editing room, and we got to the point where we had a certain budget for licensing. And that’s something you have to face and discuss in documentaries. Certain studios were extremely generous, and a lot of other studios have standard policies, and that’s what you pay.
And then you have to play for a lot of beautiful stock footage. You have to lose some of your favorites, unfortunately, in the editing room. Limited budgets would be a fantastic subject for a documentary.
DL: You threw in people like FBI agent Joe Pistone (whose life inspired Donnie Brasco), prosecutor Edward McDonald and gangster-turned-informant Henry Hill.
EA: You have to have that if you want to show the heart of the story, the facts behind the story created on film.
We wanted every facet: the gangsters, the cops—so to speak, the undercover cop who was portrayed on film, and here’s the film. You bring it full circle that way.
You bring in the producer and the actor in the film, and you bring somebody who can comment on the lifestyle in an objective point of view. When you’re making a documentary, you’re really not trying to form an opinion. It’s supposed to be a study.
If it’s a person’s life story, then it’s supposed to be the story of their whole life. And you throw out the facts and show how it’s evolved.
And if you’re doing a thematic story, you have to find an arc. And it’s nice when you are filling that arc to be filling it with fact and fiction, to be able to film people who lived the life and then people who have been part of portrayal of the life on the screen.
Chazz Palmintieri is one great example of our "through the looking glass" approach to this film study. He lived among the lifestyle, yet he made a choice to become an actor rather than a gangster/outlaw.
DL: You had a pretty hairy experience working with Henry Hill. Is that correct?
EA: Henry’s Henry. His life is up on the screen. It’s one of the most beautiful cinematic triumphs. GoodFellas is a gorgeous, gorgeous film.
And we saw a side of Henry when we were with him a couple of times and out in public. We were at a GoodFellas DVD party talking to different people at the party. You’d see Ray Liotta at dinner and behind him was Henry Hill and behind him on the screen you see Henry basically beating someone to death. It was very surreal, I must say.
It’s interesting. We interviewed Henry and Marc Lawrence at the same place on the same day in Palm Desert. And Henry was very polite to Marc Lawrence. He was extremely impressed with him.
You know, Marc Lawrence wasn’t impressed with anybody. He was very charming, though. Henry wanted to pose for pictures with him. He was playing Henry Hill as if he was playing Ray Liotta playing Henry Hill.
Henry said at the end, “At least with Hollywood, you know where it’s coming from.”
DL: You were going back to D.W. Griffith and The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912).
EA: Of course! If you’re talking about a genre of cinema, you’re talking about the beginnings of the genre all the way till now. And it starts with Griffith and Musketeers of Pig Alley, absolutely.
You’ve got some very realistic characters. You also have real gangsters who played extras in the film. And so you can’t get more real than that. But when I first started studying and focusing on silent cinema, I was always amazed and absolutely flabbergasted by the fact that I could peek into the past, that I could watch these Edison films, these Biograph films, any of the (Thomas) Ince films.
Any of these early films was the first time we could see life and movement and preserve it for time. For me that was one of the most important parts of this piece is that we constantly preserve and restore these films so that we get to see them. And we get to study from them and learn from them.
And Griffith invented so much, and you have to pay to tribute to the entire genre.
DL: I got a kick out of seeing how you contrasted the 1934 Production Code movies and the pre-Code movies.
EA: It’s an important time period to study. After the Depression, Hollywood had been trying to put the reins on the films and the stars for a long time because they wanted to censor themselves rather than be censored by the government.
Censorship had been going on for 30 years. There was a lot of hypocrisy behind the people who were enforcing these codes of honor and these codes of morality on others.
But then it all comes to a head because I guess the lesser of the two evils was Will Hays (head of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, Inc.).
And when the talkies come in, and you see that the films are going to be more racy and more enticing and more exciting to draw people who can’t afford to go to the movies. But eventually the code comes in, and it’s like a big hammer coming down on not only the film industry as far as making the films and creating the films, but with the fans it’s going to affect the stories that they’re going to pay to see.
The Code is a very fascinating study in itself.
Also, I forgot to mention the fact that we set out to prove that Al Capone is the strongest icon of this genre, both in a historic sense, and in cinema. He has the most longevity of any subject within the genre. We open with him, and we close with Capone—"Thanks for the mythology.”
Additional Links
A&F Productions
The book Bullets Over Hollywood: The American Gangster Picture from the Silents to the "The Sopranos"
link directly to this feature at http://www.efilmcritic.com/feature.php?feature=2027
originally posted: 12/05/06 14:26:58
last updated: 12/05/06 14:32:00
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