sort of Blake Edwards Sometime in 2001, then spend your life fighting depressionDecided to slit her wrists while looking out at the ocean from the coast of Malibu (California). He was holding a double-edged razor in his hand when the Great Dane began to lick his ear and the hound simultaneously dropped the ball between his teeth into his lap. His shoulder came off as he tossed it to keep the animals away. And while he was trying to save the fallen knife with a sudden movement, he stepped on it. Blood pouring from the sole of his foot, he told himself that this was not a good day to take his life and chose to go to the emergency room immediately.
The anecdote works as a perfect metaphor for the creative method Edwards developed in most of his television work and 36 feature films. The director, who will turn 100 this Tuesday, He was of the opinion that there was almost no difference between laughter and pain, humor and terror.. The protagonists of their fiction seem to wander in a cold and cruel world, whose seductive surface hides the ever-present threat of disaster and calamity, and our amusement passes through their misfortunes. This gave the filmmaker a certain reputation as a sadist, and perhaps in the long run. Despite his unique sense of timing, masterful handling of dialogue, and ability to tell stories through camera movement and framing, he would never have been included in the pantheon of great directors.
Of course there are more reasons. From the outset, Edwards’ catalog has included several magnificent films, but it is undeniably a masterpiece, something many ascribe to the complacency that Edwards displayed as he insisted on continuing to direct new sequels. ‘The Pink Panther’ (1963) instead of focusing its efforts on more valuable companies. And this is a surprisingly inconsistent filmography, which not only combines genres.blackmailing woman (1962) a thriller, ‘Two men against the West’ (1971) a westerner, ‘Tamarind Seed’ (1974) is a melodrama, ‘Victor or Victoria’ (1982) is a musical—but more so they collide and annihilate each other; take an example ‘Race of the century’ (1965), a complete parodic dictionary of film genres.
Also, Edwards devoted a large part of his comic appearance to detailing. ‘gags’ about rude, miserable and wrong long before this kind of humor was generally accepted. Old women farting, gentlemen who urgently need to pee but can’t, pass through the cinema of rotting corpses in the face of people’s indifference. He likes to use exaggerated accents and racial stereotypes; the movie that introduces him ‘Breakfast with diamonds’ (1961), adopted xenophobic for scenes involving the actor mickey rooney, It is characterized as a Japanese character and provides a sampler of offensive stereotypes.
creative differences
Finally, we must not forget that Edwards’ artistic maturation coincided with the collapse of classic Hollywood, and this explains the high-profile disputes he has against major studios for creative control of his films. ‘Dear Lily’ (1970), the spy stereo that marks the first of seven collaborations with the actress in the First World War Julie Andrews – married him in 1969-, it was a huge box office failure, and the director blamed it on the producers’ constant interference during filming; and the next two movies, ‘Two Men Against the West’ and ‘Diagnose: Murder’ (1974), republished without consent. Disenchanted, Edwards traveled from the United States to Gstaad, Switzerland, and remained there until then. ’10, the perfect woman’ (1979) gave her a triumphant return. Later, his battles with the ‘establishment’ inspired him. ‘SOB: You are honest thugs‘ (1981), a savage satire on the hypocrisy and evil that reigns in the film industry.
He had already criticized Hollywood. amazing comedy ‘El guateque’ (1968), and later did it again ‘Murder in Beverly Hills’ (1988). It was a subject he knew very well because, in a way, he was born in Hollywood. His stepfather, Jack McEdward, had a long career as an assistant director, and his grandfather, J. Gordon Edwards, had had considerable success directing films in the silent era; maybe he was the one who transmitted it then the taste of ‘joke’a tendency to portray characters who spend their lives falling from stairs, balconies, or holes, or tumbling through a long shot like a fly through a closed window, or inflicting some other form of bodily harm as the camera relentlessly watches them. . He would, in any case, make other quotations references -Leo McCarey, Howard Hawks, Ernest Lubitsch– to explain his interest in exploring the anxieties and heartaches caused by love, marriage, work, and the war between the sexes.
In any case, as time went on, Edwards’ cinema increasingly proved another influence: psychoanalysis sessions to which he has been exposed for decades; In this sense, the director’s ’10, perfect women’, My problems with women‘ (1983) – ‘remake’ of ‘Love’s Lover’ (1977) by François Truffaut, ‘Micky and Maude’ (1984) and ‘This is life!’ (1986), psychologist Dr. An impressive study of depression co-authored with Milton Wexler. Regardless of its defenders, this was his last truly remarkable film. ‘Blind Date’ (1987). His age and that chronic fatigue he claims to suffer from has damaged his comical sense of smell, and there’s no better proof of that than the last movie he directed. ‘Son of the Pink Panther’ (1993), with The saga has ended magnificently. This had conditioned his career so much. In any case, he still had a big ‘gag’ on his hands: when the Hollywood Academy gave him the honorary Oscar (the only Oscar he’d ever had in his lifetime) in 2004, he went into full swing in a wheelchair and then snatched the statuette from Jim Carrey’s hand and crashed into the wall on stage. . Of course, laughter and pain, humor and terror. Edwards method.