IN memoriam, by Chris Derrick – Sympathy for the Devil #9

February 19, 2012 Chris Derrick 0 Comments

It’s not news that fabled singer Whitney Houston died over the past weekend getting ready for Clive Davies’ pre-Grammy Party (her funeral is taking place as I write this). However, it might not be so widely known that she had a role in the remake of the 70s film SPARKLE (incidentally, I’ve heard that Whitney’s great star turn THE BODYGUARD is up for being remade, which also had its roots in the 70s… what’s up with that decade?!!?). I’m pretty sure that the film is wrapped and that they’re in post production. However, Whitney’s tragic and untimely death has me thinking about posthumous performances.

The posthumous screen performance brings a certain amount of wistful thinking appreciation for it. A few years ago I was working at a completion bond company (the insurance that movies take out to guarantee that the movie gets completed and delivered) and my company bonded Terry Gilliam’s latest film, which happened to be the final screen performance of Heath Ledger.  Ledger died smack dab in the middle of the production (during a break as the

production moved from London to soundstages in Canada), and the film almost nearly completely fell apart (he was listed as an essential element in the contracts, thus the film’s distributors could reject the film outright since he was no longer in the project). Gilliam and my boss concocted a scheme of grand proportions that enabled the project to see its way to the finish line by enlisting three other actors to play the chameleon roll that Ledger initiated (Johnny Depp, Colin Farrel and Jude Law). That film, the Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, eventually came out and was just a minor curio… one of Gilliam’s exuberant flights of fancy that never seem to have enough to fully realize the director’s unique vision, and it came out nearly two years after Ledger’s death. More importantly Ledger’s most indelible screen performance had already been seared into our brains, his penultimate performance as The Joker in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, in which Ledger re-invented The Joker for the screen and won a posthumous Academy Award (not the first to do so, by the way). He was magical as the Clown Prince of Crime, and he gave the film as certain amount of electricity that many films just don’t have – especially comic book films.

Over the years there have been some interesting posthumous performances of stellar quality, and some not so much. Peter Finch also won a posthumous Oscar for his riveting and maniacal performance as Howard Beale in Sidney Lumet’s scorching execution of Paddy Chayefsky’s prophetic and still relevant NETWORK. More recently, in Ridley Scott’s GLADIATOR, the great and charismatic Oliver Reed died during the production and his face was digitally added to a double to complete some scenes. Reed’s role as Proximo was quite strong and it’s sad that he never lived to see it/benefit from it; it might have reignited his career (in Hollywood at least). Even as far back as the early 90s, Bruce Lee’s son Brandon died during the making of THE CROW, and digital magic was first used to texture map someone’s face onto another person’s body in an attempt to “honor” the legacy of the expired performer.

I guess these posthumous performances are quite interesting to witness, but I wonder how kind audiences and critics will be to Whitney’s final screen work when SPARKLE does get released (which I think is later this year, probably in time for Oscar consideration). Who’s to say? The filmmakers have shown great promise with their earlier film, so hopefully this work will be a gem capstone to Whitney’s ultimately troubled and tragic career.

There definitely is a desire to see the final work of someone who thrilled us so much (is the magic still there? how odd is it knowing the person was cut down before the film was “completed” and released?). But it’s always a sort of double-edge sword. Recently, I’ve read that, through digital magic, River Phoenix’s last film – DARK BLOOD – might finally get completed and be released (on video, at least, no doubt). Is that even respecting the legacy of the performer, though? How is that going to work, if at all?

I believe Stanley Kubrick’s final film EYES WIDE SHUT is one of the only films in which a director died before the film was completed and released (haven’t done the research to know… would someone?). And there was much controversy about that film, since it was digital altered to comply with a soft R-Rating (at least in the US, the European version is uncensored and definitely a more interesting film).

It’s the tragedy of knowing that we’ll never see the person again, and when the role was riveting (particular in Ledger’s case) all the more so as we are forever wondering “what if?”