Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989)
When I started this project, I assumed that I would watch his movies in order. Due to his second and third movies being unavailable to me (among a couple others), I was stuck until I realized I did not need to watch his movies in order. So I decided to watch his last movie after his first movie. Of course by the time I have actually posted this thing, this is no longer his last movie. But it was at the time of this writing to give you an idea how long ago I wrote this.
Behind the Candelabra is a biopic TV movie, but to define it as a TV movie is slightly inaccurate. For all intents and purposes, it's a movie that came out in theaters. I only mention that because a TV movie conspires images of shoddy production values, second-rate actors, and forgettable fare. The slogan "It's not TV, it's HBO" is mostly accurate. HBO Films has released a few interesting biopics in the past few years (Bessie, Get on Up) and Behind the Candelabra is one of them.
If I wasn't doing this project, I would never have watched this movie. In order to watch a biopic, you either need to find the main subject compelling or you do it for the performances. That's pretty much it. I am not altogether that interested in Liberace's life. I didn't see him play - he died before I was even born. I don't listen to his music or watch his TV appearances or whatever else he did to become famous.
Soderbergh set out to not make the typical biopic film when he made Behind the Candelabra. He was in talks with Douglas back when he was making Traffic in 2000, but couldn't find an appropriate angle. In 2008, he decided to adapt the book by Scott Thorson as an angle for the movie and tapped Richard LaGravenese to write the screenplay. LaGravenese was a seasoned veteran of writing movies, having written 13 movies by that point. He doesn't seem to be a particularly good writer. He doesn't seem bad either. But his filmography is full of mediocre movies or worse. So I'm intrigued by that choice. Admirably, both Douglas and Damon signed on quickly and stuck with the movie as Soderbergh struggled to get it made over the next five years (because it was "too gay"). HBO Films picked it up and they made it for $23 million over a 30-day period.
To Soderbergh's credit, this isn't really a biopic film. It is and it isn't. It's about the relationship between Liberace and his much, much younger companion of about five years. This film was clearly made with a love for Liberace. There are a few scenes of just Liberace playing in front of a crowd. It's what drew Scott into his feelings for Liberace in the first place.
The true stars of this movie are the people behind the makeup department. Making a 44-year-old Matt Damon look not ridiculous as a 17-year-old is truly impressive work. It's not explicitly stated that he's 17 which probably helps. He definitely looks noticeably younger than normal and with certain mannerisms, Damon is convincing as at least being naive and young, which is basically all that is needed. Scott also gets plastic surgery which had the effect of making him look much older and the age differential is much less distracting. Douglas also had considerable makeup put on him throughout the film to make him credible as the Liberace. More than most films, makeup was especially important for believability.
If you're not interested in Liberace - and he's a colorful, larger-than-life character so I imagine I might be in the minority in my disinterest - then the performances are enough to make it worth watching. I did not know Douglas was capable of the performance he gives here. It's not that I thought he was a bad actor. He kind of reminded me of Tom Cruise in that he gives good performances but you never forget he's Michael Douglas. But I have only seen a small portion of his films so that preconception was clearly inaccurate. Much like Damon needed the mannerisms to make himself believable as a young guy, Douglas had the arguably much more difficult task of needing to have the mannerisms of a legend. Put it this way: if you told me before this movie that Damon was playing a teenager for most of the movie and Douglas was playing Liberace, I would never have believed it would have worked. But it does because of the makeup and the acting.
Basing this off only two films (and the other four I've seen), I really appreciate just how competent of a filmmaker Soderbergh is. He has two essential traits that typically are underrated in a director: as a storyteller and the performances. I guess I just appreciated the storytelling aspect more because sometimes a director can get lost when covering a large period of time, but the story here is coherent and makes sense. He makes good decisions on what to keep, what to leave out, and how much time to spend on it. Also, directors don't quite get enough credit for getting good performances out of their actors. It's why good actors sometimes give bad performances in certain movies: bad direction. Everyone in Sex, Lies, and Videotape gave a great performance and the same holds true here.
The movie begins with a director's touch. The screen is blurry, and you can make out a bar scene. It gradually focuses and becomes clear as you see Bob Black across the bar. Scott's eyes - and our eyes - are opened to a whole new world of possibilities and he conveys that with that shot. Soderbergh also has a few extended scenes of Liberace playing the piano and the audience reaction. Soderbergh is clearly a fan. These scenes effectively mesmerize the audience as they presumably mesmerized his live audiences back in 1977. He goes to quick cuts while the music reaches a crescendo, planting in your mind an amazement each time his piano strikes a new chord. There's no need to understand why Scott was drawn to Liberace in those moments.
Soderbergh also effectively hides the low budget that he was given. At least, for a guy with as much opulence and wealth as Liberace, it might be kind of difficult to show that with a moderately low budget (Douglas and Damon had to have taken a fraction of what they usually cost for this movie). Two examples are when he shows a jet flying in the air and the montage of Scott getting a bunch of expensive things. The former was shot like it was in a cloud, which made it easier to blur the fact that he couldn't afford an aerial shot of a jet. There's nothing noticeable about the latter (except a cool diagonal-from-the-ground shot of the front of an expensive white car with Las Vegas buildings in the background) except that it probably wasn't easy to portray a lavish lifestyle with the budget he had. I will give particular due to the location scout who picked out the house where most of this movie is set.
Lastly, he shot the "Scott is high out of his mind" sequences on handheld, jarring the viewer into Scott's state of mind. Shaky cam isn't my favorite filming technique, but when done with a purpose, it's extremely effective. Speaking of drugs, Rob Lowe is in this and he is fucking HILARIOUS. His character is the plastic surgeon who operates on both Scott and Liberace, and he plays all of his scenes like he is high out of his mind. The makeup team once again does excellent work as his mere appearance creates laughs on its own.
Well that was more words than I planned to write. I really wasn't expecting to go into this much detail with these posts. I can't guarantee that will continue as I'm sort of beholden to where the words take me. I'm not going to stretch these posts out if I have nothing more to say. Behind the Candelabra is a good film with good performances. If you're interested in seeing Douglas play Liberace - and that's honestly a good hook - you'll probably enjoy this film.
2.5/4 stars
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