Nickelodeon (film)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Nickelodeon |
| Original title | Nickelodeon |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1976 |
| length | 122 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 6 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Peter Bogdanovich |
| script | Peter Bogdanovich, WD Richter |
| production |
Robert Chartoff , Frank Marshall , Irwin Winkler |
| music | Richard Hazard |
| camera | László Kovács |
| cut | William C. Carruth |
| occupation | |
| |
Nickelodeon is an American comedy film directed by Peter Bogdanovich . It dates back to 1976 and is the third collaboration between lead actor Ryan O'Neal and Bogdanovich. Tatum O'Neal starred in this project for the second time after Paper Moon (1973) with her father under Bogdanovich's direction. Burt Reynolds can be seen in another leading role .
The film tells the story of a group of young filmmakers in the early years of cinema and ironically follows the development of the film industry between 1910 and 1915. The focus is on the production of short films that could be seen at the time of the film in so-called " Nickelodeons " (in Germany also "shop cinemas" or " Kintopps "), from which the film title is derived. In the distribution of the GDR he was not "Germanized" in biting rattlesnakes .
Columbia Pictures sponsored the film and released it in US theaters on December 21, 1976. In Germany it ran in June 1977 at the Berlinale 1977 in the competition for the Golden Bear .
action
Chicago , 1910: In the pioneering years of film, the unsuccessful attorney Leo Harrigan is hired by producer H. H. Cobb to write short scenes in silent films . In his work as an independent filmmaker, Cobb wages a guerrilla war with the Motion Picture Patents Company , which claims the use of film cameras as their monopoly and regularly sabotages Cobb's film projects. When one of Cobb's directors fails, Harrigan is sent to Cucamonga to replace him. The film crew welcomes him in a friendly manner; Harrigan meets cameraman Frank and the attractive actress Marty. On the first day of shooting, there was a riot when the film camera was shot. The shooter is Tom Greenway, known as “Buck”, who was discovered by the patent company by chance and is commissioned by them to prevent the filming. After a boxing match with Harrigan, the two men become friends and Buck changes sides. As the new lead actor, he is now shooting at Marty's side.
A year later, the team is already working together routinely and filming mostly comical scenes with a slapstick character, which are not yet based on worked out scripts . Kathleen Cooke, who had briefly met both Harrigan and Buck some time before, unintentionally ensures a particularly successful romantic film recording through a mishap, in which she and Buck fly away in a hot air balloon and finally land on a train. Alice, the only minor member of the ensemble who regularly provides the best suggestions for the storyline of the short films, invents a storyline based on Romeo and Juliet so that the random scene can be used in the new film.
Harrigan develops a certain jealousy of Buck, who like him adores Kathleen and eventually marries her. Nevertheless, the family constellation of the filmmakers remains for the time being. When they went to a cinema together in Los Angeles on Christmas Eve 1913 , they had a nasty surprise: Cobb cut the scenes they shot for completely different films in random order in order to attract more audiences with this selection of particularly comical parts. When Harrigan complains on behalf of his employees at Cobb and wants to sue for some kind of copyright for his works, the whole group is dismissed without further ado. However, Marty is ready to continue working under the old conditions and leaves her colleagues to return to Cobb.
The other artists don't stay out of work for long because they are signed by Atlantic Pictures and move to Hollywood . They will be shooting their first studio films there over the next few months, but are dissatisfied with the new working conditions. Harrigan cannot handle film scripts, increasingly succumbs to alcohol and is fired again along with his cronies. The group refuses to put up with that and breaks into the studio premises at night. By working together skillfully, they manage to steal enough equipment to be able to make their own films independently again in the future.
New conflicts arise when Buck feels exploited by Harrigan. Again and again he is brought into dangerous situations during filming or made ridiculous. Angry, he leaves his long-term colleagues and friends, including Kathleen. When he returned ruefully to his wife at night, he found Harrigan with her and believed that they had both been betrayed. Kathleen, who is not in love with Harrigan, makes up with Buck. The colleagues split up. The Greenway couple remain friends with Frank; Alice decides to stay by Harrigan's side and gives him courage when he has lost all his property after an act of sabotage by the patent company.
In 1915, the former group members meet again at the world premiere of DW Griffith's film The Birth of a Nation . Unexpectedly, Cobb, who is now married to Marty, also appears there and signs the former colleagues together again. They are supposed to make a war film for him to prove that independent film production has not yet lost to the studio industry. Cobb also foresees a new international means of communication in the rapidly developing medium of film and is beginning to think about film art as such over the commercial aspect. He'll pay his employees better in the future.
Harrigan and Buck in particular are unsure whether they want to work together again. Harrigan believes that The Birth of a Nation can not be surpassed by any other film anyway, and Buck feels too old for the film projects of the future. Alice ends the pessimistic conversation abruptly and the group drives off together in the car.
background
occupation
Cybill Shepherd reports in her autobiography that she turned down the role of Kathleen Cooke before Jane Hitchcock was accepted. For Hitchcock, however, the film was not the breakthrough; apart from Nickelodeon , only one television film is known in which she appeared again as an actress. Burt Reynolds shot with Bogdanovich for the second time after At Long Last Love from the previous year. In a supporting role, Harry Carey Jr. was cast as Dobie (his real life nickname), whose father, Harry Carey Sr., was one of the leading stars of the silent movie western.
style
At the time, Peter Bogdanovich was convinced by his friend Orson Welles to shoot Paper Moon in black and white , not least based on the early film era, in which the film plot is set. His attempt to use this stylistic device at Nickelodeon , however, was not approved by the film producers. It was not until 2009 that Bogdanovich was able to create a black and white version as Director's Cut for the American DVD release .
The design of Nickelodeon is clearly intended as an homage to the silent film era . The story is regularly interrupted by subtitles , which also gives the impression of a film reel being changed. Individual episodes end with the classic closing of the iris diaphragm . A dramatic climax cannot necessarily be discerned in the narrative; rather, the plot is mostly composed of juxtaposed gags. The effort to make the audience laugh with mostly slapstick is also a central element of the film in Harrigan and especially Cobb. Furthermore, a piano serves as the only background music (in addition to the occasional harmonica ) for the film, just like silent films were accompanied live by piano players in the early years . In some passages even short “jumps” are noticeable in order to be in sync with the faster moving image track .
reception
Financial success
Despite prominent leading actors, Peter Bogdanovich could not build on earlier successes with Nickelodeon . After the unsuccessful 1974 film adaptation of Daisy Miller and his biggest failure, At Long Last Love , which caused 20th Century Fox to lose about four and a half million US dollars in 1975, the film was his third flop in a row and caused one for the time being End of the Bogdanovich era.
Reviews
The lexicon of international films describes Nickelodeon as “entertaining fun”, but criticizes the fact that the comedy “despite ingenuity and good performance” does not achieve its intended joke due to “stylistic uncertainty”.
In the New York Times Richard Eder criticized at the time that too many slapstick elements in the film are obvious allusions to classics of the genre and that this realization suppresses the impulse to laugh.
Roger Ebert concluded that while Nickelodeon works “like clockwork”, it doesn't feel like anything. Neither the laughs nor the actors could really convince.
Web links
- Nickelodeon in the Internet Movie Database (English)
swell
- ↑ a b IMDb : Trivia for “Nickelodeon”
- ↑ filmsite.org: "At Long Last Love" (1975)
- ↑ series-80.net: Cybill Shepherd - Biography , July 1, 2003
- ↑ Nickelodeon in the Lexicon of International Films , accessed April 17, 2012
- ^ The New York Times : "Nickelodeon": Not Much Movie for the Money - by Richard Eder , December 22, 1976
- ↑ Chicago Sun-Times : “Nickelodeon” - by Roger Ebert , December 27, 1976