Nathan: I'd like to start off with a big concession. I watched Knocked Up this weekend, and it was fucking awesome. I came in with almost prohibitively high expectations, and it more than met them. I have little doubt that smart, funny improvisation was a big part of the film's shaggy, ramshackle charm. I wish every studio comedy was even half as sweet, funny, or humane as Knocked Up, or 2005's similarly winning, similarly improv-heavy Judd Apatow sleeper, The 40-Year-Old Virgin.
But I feel like those are the exceptions rather than the rule. When employed correctly, improvisation can be a glorious thing, but I feel like it's increasingly used as a crutch for lazy filmmakers. Ideally, filmmakers start with a strong script and improve it through improvisation. But more often, it feels like the studio starts off with a really weak script that they figure an Owen Wilson or Will Ferrell can single-handedly save via improvisation. The result is an endless parade of half-assed, kinda-okay movies with a smattering of good ideas and funny scenes that would benefit greatly from a few more drafts and a lot more discipline. Instead of Knocked Up, we get a lot of films like Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story or The Ex, where a dream team of great improvisers utterly fail to redeem a worthless script.
I'm not arguing that improvisation is to blame for screenwriters' sad position in Hollywood. Screenwriters have historically wielded little power or influence, but I think the rise of an entire generation of comedy superstars with improv backgrounds (Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Jack Black, Will Ferrell, Vince Vaughan, Steve Carell) has further corroded the already-shaky status of the screenwriter. Audiences expect guys like Wilson and Ferrell to make up much of their dialogue anyway, so why obsess over perfecting a screenplay that'll probably just get ignored?
Then there's an older generation of comedy superstars, like Jim Carrey and Robin Williams, who get encouraged to improvise when they should be reined in as tightly as possible. And at the micro-budgeted end of the spectrum, we're seeing a slew of cheaply shot, largely improvised comedies in the tradition of The Office and Christopher Guest.
Now, I have a certain affection for movies like Chalk and Blackballed: The Bobby Dukes Story, and though they're likeable and amusing and watchable enough, they don't really feel like movies to me. Just as the rise of digital video made it possible for the staggeringly talentless to make movies way too easily, the surging popularity of improvisation has led Johnny Wannabe to think all he needs to make his breakthrough film is a rough outline and some buddies who've taken some improv classes at the local adult-education center. Can you genuinely say you get excited when you find out that some micro-budgeted digitally shot indie you're assigned to review is the product of improvisation? I personally steel myself for the worst.
Then there's Christopher Guest himself, one of the godfathers of the big improv boom. For me, For Your Consideration felt like the last gasp of a man desperately in need of a new direction. Why bother with second-rate Christopher Guest knockoffs like the wholly underwhelming Confetti when the man himself is making second-rate Christopher Guest movies these days?
Improvisation can be a wonderful tool, but it increasingly seems to be viewed as an end unto itself, and that worries me. I love Robert Altman and Judd Apatow's comedies, and some of my favorite movies and television shows are heavily rooted in improvisation, but I feel like improvisation's overall impact on comedy these days is negative and getting worse.
What sayeth you, oh formidable opponent?
Scott: You say that Judd Apatow's comedies are the exception that proves the rule. I say they're the exception that's becoming the rule. Earlier this week, the L.A. online gossip rag Defamer had a great headline: "Judd Apatow Steadily Consolidating Means Of Comedy Production." And it's true: Apatow has been nurturing an ever-growing troupe of comedy writers and actors (and actor-writers) for years, and now that he's found the success he's long deserved, his empire is expanding at an astounding rate. As a producer, he currently has his fingers in the following delicious-sounding pies: Superbad, a promising comedy with Apatow discovery Jonah Hill and Arrested Development's Michael Cera, due later this summer; a Harold Ramis-directed comedy starring Jack Black called Year One; Walk Hard, a biopic send-up starring a singing John C. Reilly; the Jason Segal-scripted Forgetting Sarah Marshall; and The Pineapple Express, co-written and starring Seth Rogen and directed by David Gordon Green, who's an inspired choice, to say the least.
That's a lot of output from one source, but Apatow is at the vanguard of a much larger movement in film comedy, which we agree has been moving toward improv-based, sketch-comedy traditions, and away from the screenwriter. You're clearly on the glass-half-full (or nearly empty) side of this argument, but I'm feeling increasingly optimistic that once this improv-based style gets through some growing pains, movies may come out funnier on the other side. What's missing from improv is the shape and refinement of a well-orchestrated screenplay, and that's something Apatow hasn't quite mastered yet: The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up both crest the two-hour mark, which doesn't exactly make them "tight." So far, Apatow has gotten away with it (particularly in Knocked Up), because he's exceedingly generous to his ensemble casts, and they return the favor by keeping interest from flagging. I'm sure Knocked Up could have been trimmed into a 100-minute comedy, but that would probably involve losing some of the extraneous material (the Rogen gang's shenanigans, the Rudd/Mann marriage) that help makes the movie special.
In any case, I think now's a good time to point out what's good about improv-based comedy before getting to the caveats:
1. Spontaneity. My favorite moment in the '80s comedy Splash is when Tom Hanks, playing a fruit wholesaler, strolls into work singing "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah," picks up a fruit from a crate, and improvises the lyric "Mr. Mango on my shoulder…" It's just such a whimsical touch, and there's no way it could come from the screenplay. The element of surprise is what makes great improvisers like Seth Rogen, Will Ferrell, and Owen Wilson so much fun to watch, because their best lines never seem canned. They're the ones doodling in the margins of a screenplay and finding ways to keep things from going stale.
2. It empowers actors. I'm not ready to christen Apatow the next Robert Altman or Mike Leigh or anything, but he clearly recognizes that his cast can bring a lot to the table when they aren't shackled to the page. Though it's hard to speculate where Apatow's scripts end and his actors begin, it's safe to say that the actors are given a lot of freedom to create their own characters. In my review for Knocked Up, I said "no one writes for ensembles better than Apatow," but I probably should have modified that to say that few get more out of ensembles than he does. It's unreasonable to expect one man to realize a dozen or more characters in all their particulars without help from his cast, but the players in Knocked Up, Virgin, Undeclared, and Freaks And Geeks are all vividly drawn. Then you look at a show like The Office, which employs several writer-actors (B.J. Novak, Mindy Kaling, Paul Lieberstein), and clearly there can be a positive shift in power to the people in front of the camera.
3. Other options are limited. This harks back to an earlier Crosstalk I had with Keith about the waning significance of screenwriters, but can you think of a single screenwriter besides Charlie Kaufman who has a distinctive comedic sensibility and who doesn't also direct his movies? (And even Kaufman, who's currently in production on his directorial debut, will no longer be that lone voice in the wilderness.) It's possible that the cult of the comedy superstar has wrested power from the talented screenwriters who could make better movies, but I'm doubtful that Hollywood is filled with Ruth Gordon/Garson Kanin tandems just waiting to emerge from the underbrush. Comedy is the work of auteurs these days, whether they're writer-directors like Wes Anderson or Noah Baumbach, or actors who carry flimsy, formulaic comedies across on the force of their improvisational skill.
Of course, there's a downside to this movement. and I agree with you about the many pitfalls of relying too heavily on improvisation. The biggest problem for me is shapelessness: Having a bunch of random shit happen in a movie doesn't a great comedy make. To me, Dodgeball is an excellent example of that phenomenon. For every inspired bit of randomness, like having Rip Torn throw wrenches at people, or pairing Gary Cole and Jason Bateman as announcers for ESPN8 ("The Ocho"), there's Ben Stiller flailing wildly as a pumped-up gym owner, or the dude acting like a pirate for some reason. You exit the theater having laughed a lot, yet you still feel vaguely dissatisfied, because all those haphazard gags add up to very little.
But I'm trying to stay positive for the time being, and maybe persuade you to do the same. Do you have any hope for the long-term viability of improv-based comedies? And if not, are there screenwriters or writer-directors out there that can rescue comedy from the improvisers?
Nathan: I share your excitement over the slew of incredibly exciting-looking projects Apatow has in development, but let's look at some other recent titles with Apatow's name attached to them: Fun With Dick And Jane, Kicking & Screaming, and Talladega Nights. Did Jim Carrey or Will Ferrell's manic improvisation in those films save them, or merely underline the desperation and lack of focus behind them?
For me, Talladega Nights, the strongest of the aforementioned bunch, embodies a lot of the problems I have with improv-heavy comedies. In my estimation, Talladega Nights is nothing but a bunch of intermittently funny, random shit that fails to cohere into a satisfying film, unlike Anchorman, which is a bunch of intermittently funny, random shit that does cohere into a satisfying film. My problem is that studios think they can throw a Ferrell and/or an Apatow at a terrible script and instantly make their problems disappear, but there's only so much either man can do.
Don't you worry about Apatow or Ferrell burning themselves out, especially considering their apparent workahol addiction? Remember those halcyon days when we critic types actually looked forward to movies from guys like Ben Stiller? My problem with the films of Stiller, Ferrell, Wilson, Black, and the like is that they're almost always good enough without ever being particularly good.
How many Owen Wilson movies not directed by Wes Anderson are legitimately good rather than "kinda fun" or "okay enough"? I think if studios didn't view Wilson as a veritable Captain Save-A-Weak-Script, his output wouldn't be so consistently half-assed and spotty.
I was watching John Patrick Shanley's Joe Versus The Volcano yesterday, and part of what I loved about it was that it was such a writerly film, full of the kind of beautifully turned phrases and casual poetry you don't see much in comedies these days. I admire the same thing about many of Wes Anderson's films, or films written by Tom McGuane, that sense that there's a single supreme intelligence behind a film, not just a bunch of funny, crazily overcompensated people throwing around jokes.
Writers with distinctive personalities generally get a chance to direct, sooner rather than later. Cases in point: Shanley, Shane Black, Mike White, Kaufman. Heck, even Paul Rudnick has a distinctive sensibility, even if it isn't one you or I have much affection for. Marci X, Isn't She Great, and Stepford Wives certainly owe much more to Rudnick than their directors.
You write about "actors who carry flimsy, formulaic comedies across on the force of their improvisational skill," but are they really making flimsy, formulaic comedies good, or merely palatable? Wilson and Ferrell's shtick has gotten fairly stale for me, in spite of all the funky shit they improvise. For me, the big superstars aren't scribbling in the margins as much as they're being asked to make the hilarity happen pretty much from scratch, which is a tall order even for the quickest, funniest minds on the planet.
I wish I could share your faith that comedy is evolving to a higher state even while the rest of pop culture devolves at an alarming rate. But I fear that the growth stage, as you put it, will never end, and that halcyon day when improvisation saves and revitalizes comedy will never truly arrive. I hope I'm wrong, but my pessimism about popular culture has seldom led me astray.
- Comments