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      Twenty Years Later, ‘Irreversible’ Still Shocks

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      A look back at Gaspar Noé’s brutal told-in-reverse drama, which has been rereleased in a “Straight Cut” version.In bed with her lover, Alex (Monica Bellucci) recounts a dream: “I was in a tunnel. All red. And then the tunnel broke in half.” In any other thriller, this uncanny vision would play like a warning for things to come. But in “Irreversible,” the moment arrives toward the end, well after Alex enters the red tunnel and is brutalized by a random man — an indelible scene at the heart of Gaspar Noé’s infamous rape-revenge film, released 20 years ago this week.“Irreversible” envisions the night of Alex’s assault in reverse chronological order. First, her boyfriend, Marcus (Vincent Cassel), goes on a rampage through the streets of Paris in search of the culprit. Then the tunnel. Then the party that Alex will decide to leave by herself. Then the couple’s cozy, Edenlike apartment — a space that will never be the same.“By reversing the formula, ‘Irreversible’ strips away the unspoken logic that dominates these kinds of films. It forces us to question the entire relationship between rape and revenge,” Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, a critic and the author of numerous books on rape-revenge movies, wrote in an email.Though the film was always conceived as a story in reverse, it was shot chronologically, which allowed Noé to assemble a new version, the “Straight Cut,” that flips the order of events into linear time. “Irreversible: Straight Cut” is currently playing in theaters in the United States, and will be released, along with the original cut, on Blu-ray in July thanks to the cult distributor Altered Innocence. “In a way, the new version is both more sentimental and darker,” Noé said in a video interview, explaining that it emphasizes the pointlessness of Marcus’s vengeance-seeking.When “Irreversible” came out in 2003, Noé had already made a name for himself as a provocateur who liked his films mean and loud. His debut feature, “I Stand Alone” (1998), revolves around an incestuous horse-meat butcher with a murderous streak. Noé’s films — like “Enter the Void” (2010) or “Climax” (2019) — are descents into gruesome hells featuring extreme body horror, abrasive techno-tunes, and delirious whirligig camera movements.The Projectionist Chronicles the Awards SeasonThe Oscars aren’t until March, but the campaigns have begun. Kyle Buchanan is covering the films, personalities and events along the way.The Tom Cruise Factor: Stars were starstruck when the “Top Gun: Maverick” headliner showed up at the Oscar nominees luncheon.An Andrea Riseborough FAQ: Confused about the brouhaha surrounding the best actress nominee? We explain why her nod was controversial.Sundance and the Oscars: Which films from the festival could follow “CODA” to the 2024 Academy Awards.A Supporting-Actress Underdog: In “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” don’t discount the pivotal presence of Stephanie Hsu.With “Irreversible,” Noé took several of his formative influences — taboo titles like “Deliverance” and “Taxi Driver,” which hinge on the male crusade for retribution — and cranked them up to match the immersive feel of reality-bending epics like “2001: A Space Odyssey.” For Noé, some acts of violence are as equally capable of shattering worlds as glitches in the space-time continuum.Vincent Cassel in “Irreversible: Straight Cut.” A wild-eyed, macho intensity — the actor’s trademark — is on full display in the film.Emily De La Hosseray/Altered InnocenceSet in then-modern-day Paris, the film also starred some of the country’s biggest talents. Bellucci and Cassel, a couple at the time, were like the French equivalent of Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman; Albert Dupontel — who plays Pierre, Alex’s bookish ex-boyfriend, witness to Marcus’s spiraling rage — was beloved for his popular comedies. Without their involvement, Noé noted, the film wouldn’t have received funding.Plus, their participation bolstered the movie’s shocks — who could imagine the steely Italian supermodel-turned-actress so graphically pulverized? Dupontel snapping and beating a man to a pulp? Cassel — well, his unhinged Marcus made sense. In “La Haine” (1996), the modern classic about police brutality in the Parisian banlieues, Cassel played a wannabe gangster, in one scene pointing a finger-gun at himself in the mirror à la Travis Bickle in “Taxi Driver.” This same wild-eyed, macho intensity — the actor’s trademark — is on full display in “Irreversible.”“The film is testosterone-phobic. It shows men as beasts,” Noé said. Indeed, the world of “Irreversible” is one of primitive brutes. In one scene, Marcus enters Rectum, a hardcore gay club, tumbling down a crimson rabbit hole filled with leather-clad men, bondage swings and chain restraints, maniacally searching for the assailant. His madness is infectious, inciting Pierre into action, which results in an innocent man’s face turned to bloody mush. They’re in a B.D.S.M. club — a real one whose clients served as extras — so the onlookers watch in fascination and shout excitedly as the two men attack. It’s an unforgettably sinister moment, one that the director Damien Chazelle pays homage to in his latest film, “Babylon,” when Tobey Maguire’s drug-addled criminal kingpin leads a tour through a cave of depravities. “He told me he needed to meet me because he copied me!” Noé said, referring to an encounter with Chazelle in Paris.But for many people, nothing in “Irreversible” surpasses the horrors of its most talked-about scene. Shot on location in a real underpass frequented by prostitutes at the outskirts of Paris (the passage has since been demolished), the rape sequence is like the eye of a storm in a film distinguished by its frenzied visuals. “Moving the camera around would have felt like it was participating in the violence, like it was the ghost of some other complicit man,” Noé said. The rapist (Jo Prestia) puts a knife to Alex’s throat, forcing her to comply over the course of nine excruciatingly long minutes. The mostly static camera makes us hyper-aware of our passivity as spectators; but unlike the faceless figure in the distance whom we briefly see stumbling upon the rape and choosing to walk away, we’re forced to watch.No intimacy coordinators were involved on set — in the early 2000s, the profession was nonexistent — but the scene was actively rehearsed, with all the actors’ movements mapped out to create the illusion of a beating. “It was kind of like a dance,” Bellucci said over the phone, emphasizing how empowering it felt for her to be able to enact the experience from a place of total control.The cinema of toxic masculinity long precedes the current era, though discourses around gender and the various institutional reckonings with sexual violence allows us to consider films like “Taxi Driver,” and, indeed, “Irreversible,” with fresh eyes. Recent films like “The Northman” — a brutal Viking thriller keenly aware of the delusions that underpin the hero’s quest for vengeance, and Patricia Mazuy’s “Saturn Bowling,” a serial-killer movie in which femicide is treated like a sport — seem to have taken up the mantle, critiquing the patriarchy by presenting it at its most monstrous.“I couldn’t make ‘Irreversible’ today,” Noé said, adding that he believes financiers are more inclined to support movies about sexual violence by women filmmakers. Noé praised up-and-comers in the art of subversion, namely the Swedish director Isabella Ekloff. Her film “Holiday” is an unconventional rape-revenge film itself, its centerpiece also a disturbingly lengthy assault.“I grew up watching transgressive movies because I saw them as a challenge from men to see if I was tough enough,” Heller-Nicholas wrote. “Now, I’m blown away by the number of sexual assault survivors I’ve encountered who find these movies cathartic.”Rape-revenge movies like “Irreversible” show that there can be more to the depiction of gendered violence than the easy thrill of looking at brutalized female bodies. Nothing about the “Irreversible” rape scene feels exciting or titillating; and nothing about Marcus’s actions feels powerful or heroic.“Today, the new generation feels more comfortable talking about issues like rape and violence,” Bellucci said, adding that her days of acting in transgressive movies are behind her now that she’s a mother. “‘Irreversible’ is about our reality in a very painful way, and you don’t have to like it, but like the best films, you watch it and you come out a different person.” More

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      Two Histories of the Scandal-Soaked Academy Awards

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      On the eve of Hollywood’s big, if diminished, night, two deeply researched books dig into the scandal-soaked history of the Academy Awards.Are the Oscars history?What else to conclude from the recent publication of two erudite if waggish books about this somewhat deflated annual pageant: Michael Schulman’s OSCAR WARS: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat, and Tears (Harper, 589 pp., $40) and Bruce Davis’s THE ACADEMY AND THE AWARD (Brandeis University, 485 pp., $40)? Pile these on the even fatter “Hollywood: The Oral History,” by Jeanine Basinger and Sam Wasson (Harper, 748 pages), and you’ll have jury-rigged something like a Norton Anthology of American Moviedom.There have been plenty of Academy annals before, of course: detailed compendiums, official and not; glossy adornments for the coffee table; and at least one prose investigation of its increasingly byzantine fashion system. But these often felt like sideshows, guidebooks: boosterish accessories to a main event that is now struggling to regain and maintain its centrality in international culture.With fewer than 10 million people in 2021 watching a telecast that once commanded five times that (a few more did tune in last year; viewership spiking after The Slap), and the box office for art films hardly afire, the new books land more like crisis management briefings.Things in the film industry have been bad before, they remind, and might yet get better again.There was, for example, 1934. In the middle of the Depression, reports Davis (a former Academy executive director who retired in 2011 and promptly plunged into its archives), the organization was forced to take up a collection from members, as if passing the plate in a church pew, so that the ceremony could go on.The Run-Up to the 2023 OscarsThe 95th Academy Awards will be presented on March 12 in Los Angeles.Asian Actors: A record number of actors of Asian ancestry were recognized with Oscar nominations this year. But historically, Asian stars have rarely been part of the awards.Hong Chau Interview: In a conversation with The Times, the actress, who is nominated for her supporting role in “The Whale,” says she still feels like an underdog.Andrea Riseborough Controversy: Confused about the brouhaha surrounding the best actress nominee? We explain why the “To Leslie” star’s nod was controversial.The Making of ‘Naatu Naatu’: The composers and choreographer from the Indian blockbuster “RRR” explain how they created the propulsive sequence that is nominated for best song.Or 1989, widely and unfairly remembered as the Worst Oscars Ever, which Schulman, a staff writer for The New Yorker, dissects like a forensic pathologist hovering over an overdressed corpse.The ceremony had become “a big, embarrassing yawn,” and Allan Carr, the caftan-wearing producer of “Grease” known as “Glittermeister, ” was hired to zhuzh it up, which he did with a caroming live-action Snow White — uncleared with Disney — singing “Proud Mary” with her Prince Charming, played by Rob Lowe, then a leader of the Brat Pack. The gaudy opening number, with stars ducking for cover as Snow roamed the aisles, ruined Carr’s career and possibly his life. The unfortunate actress, Eileen Bowman, was coerced into signing a nondisclosure agreement that forbade her to talk about the Oscars for 13 years.“Never trust a man in a caftan,” Lowe had, in fairness, warned her.Davis, whose book is subtitled “The Coming of Age of Oscar and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences,” focuses on the organization’s formative years, “an early life that deserves a bildungsroman.”But he is less Thomas Mann than diligent mythbuster, calling, for example, Susan Orlean’s assertion in her biography of Rin-Tin-Tin that the dog got more votes than any other male actor at the first Awards (repeated in this newspaper) “nonsense of a high order, now inserted into the historical record utterly without evidence.” In the ballot box Davis uncovered at the Margaret Herrick Library, there were no votes for the pooch.Davis also dispels the belief that the statuette was originally nicknamed by Bette Davis — no relation — because its backside resembled that of her then-husband Harman Oscar Nelson. He makes the case rather to credit a secretary of Norwegian descent, Eleanore Lilleberg, who was tired of referring to the “gold knights in her care” as “doodads, thingamajigs, hoozits and gadgets” and mentally conjured a military veteran with dignified bearing she’d known as a girl.This version of events, if true, is apt, for in Schulman’s framing, the Oscars have long been no mere contest but brutal hand-to-hand combat. He chronicles the 1951 best actress race between Davis (for “All About Eve”) and Gloria Swanson (for “Sunset Boulevard”); they lost to Judy Holliday (“Born Yesterday”) but the first two performances both proved more enduring, show business loving no subject better than itself.He retraces the long exile of the screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, perhaps the most prominent of the Hollywood Ten, blacklisted and driven behind pseudonyms for defying the House Un-American Activities Committee; credited and awarded for “Roman Holiday” only posthumously (his widow’s cat, satisfyingly, scratched up the thingamajig’s head).And no book called “Oscar Wars” could neglect how Harvey Weinstein, currently facing life in prison for his sex crimes, made the campaign nuclear in 1999 with “Shakespeare in Love.” The reign of this titan (and his eventual topple) was for the nation-state of Hollywood as consequential as Nixon’s for the U.S. government.He “made the Oscars dirty,” Schulman writes, using tricks like buying ads suggesting Miramax’s “The Piano” had won best picture at the preliminary critics’ awards (with “runner-up” in tiny print); relentlessly wooing senior citizens; parties, swag, ballot-commandeering and bad-mouthing his opponents. He even brought Daniel Day-Lewis to Washington to help get the American With Disabilities Act passed as a boost for “My Left Foot.”Along with the envelope, some context, please: Scandal has always beset Hollywood. Indeed, both authors note that the Academy was founded to raise the tone after a series of them, most notoriously the arrest of the Paramount actor Fatty Arbuckle after a starlet died in his hotel room following an orgy. Both in their own way document the race and gender inequity endemic to the institution, and its often ham-handed attempts to course-correct.And both conjure how exciting and special this event used to feel, with all its warts and overlength, like Christmas and New Year’s rolled into one.Now, as Oscar totters toward his 95th birthday, in a ceremony to be aired Sunday, March 12, going to a theater to see something screened feels fun but increasingly antique, like hopping on a wooden roller coaster (when I suggest it as a recreational activity to my teenagers, they look at me like I’m the MGM lion).It’s not just the pictures that have gotten small, as Swanson playing Norma Desmond declared — they’ve gotten really small, as we’re all Ernst Lubitsches now with cameras and flattering filters in our back pockets. The ceremony to commemorate them has shrunk as well.“I’m not sure I see a way to re-establish the Academy Awards as an experience for a wide swath of the country’s, or the world’s, population,” Davis writes. “It isn’t hard to see the Oscars on a track to becoming something like the National Book Awards” — heaven forfend! — “with way more glamorous presenters.” More

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      ‘Tár’ | Anatomy of a Scene

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      Film directors walk viewers through one scene of their movies, showing the magic, motives and the mistakes from behind the camera.Film directors walk viewers through one scene of their movies, showing the magic, motives and the mistakes from behind the camera. More

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      What’s on TV This Week: ‘Perry Mason’ and The Oscars

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      The HBO legal drama, starring Matthew Rhys, returns, and ABC airs the 95th Academy Awards.Between network, cable and streaming, the modern television landscape is a vast one. Here are some of the shows, specials and movies coming to TV this week, Mar. 6-12. Details and times are subject to change.MondayTHE VOICE 8 p.m. on NBC. The singing-competition show that discovered Cassadee Pope and Morgan Wallen is back, and one of the judges, Blake Shelton, is gearing up for his 23rd and last season. Niall Horan, Kelly Clarkson and Chance the Rapper are joining him in the memorable red-spinning chairs as judges. The series starts with a “blind audition” round, as always.10 THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU (1999) 8 p.m. on Freeform. This teen romantic comedy is Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew,” if it took place in the late 1990s. Julia Stiles plays Kat Stratford, a girl who tends to scare off any male suitors with her bad attitude. Because her younger sister cannot date until Kat does, a mission is set forth — get Kat a date. Enter the very handsome Patrick Verona, played by Heath Ledger, who might be the solution to Kat’s dating problem.PERRY MASON 9 p.m. on HBO. Set in 1932 Los Angeles, this legal drama is based on stories by Erle Stanley Gardner, and follows the titular defense lawyer during the Great Depression. This second season will likely be a little different from the first because Jack Amiel and Michael Begler replaced the Season 1 showrunners Rolin Jones and Ron Fitzgerald. The series stars Matthew Rhys as Perry Mason alongside Shea Whigham and Eric Lange.TuesdayFrom left: Julia Michaels, Kelsea Ballerini, Jimmy Fallon, Nicole Scherzinger and Jason Derulo on “That’s My Jam.”Evan Vestal Ward/NBCTHAT’S MY JAM 10 p.m. on NBC. If you were not able to score Kelsea Ballerini tour tickets, you can see the singer team up with Julia Michaels against Nicole Scherzinger and Jason Derulo in musical games like Air Guitar and Launch the Mic in this competition show, hosted by Jimmy Fallon for a second season.WednesdayTHE CHALLENGE 8 p.m. on MTV. In the “World Champions” edition of this long-running reality competition show, winners and MVPs from Argentina, Australia, the U.K. and the U.S. are paired together for the opportunity to win $500,000.ThursdayLES MISERABLES: THE STAGED CONCERT 8 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). Before Anne Hathaway sang “I Dreamed A Dream” or Hugh Jackman stole bread in the film version of “Les Miserables,” the popular musical, set in 19th-century France, had been staged in London’s West End since the mid-1980s. To celebrate, a filmed 2019 performance from the Gielgud Theater is airing on Thursday.TOP CHEF 9 p.m. on Bravo. The chopping, sautéing and seasoning we see on this cooking-competition show might be more impressive than usual this year. For its 20th season, the host Padma Lakshmi is bringing back “Top Chef” all-stars from all over the world. The head judges Tom Colicchio and Gail Simmons will be joined each week with guest chefs.FridayTHE 12TH VICTIM 8 p.m. on Showtime. In late January of 1958, the 19-year-old Charles Starkweather and his 14-year-old girlfriend, Caril Ann Fugate, went on a killing spree that left 10 people dead. This four-part documentary series with archival footage looks at the events that transpired and how the justice system has changed since then, through the lens of Fugate’s guilty verdict: She is the youngest female in U.S. history to have been tried and convicted of first degree murder.SaturdayRichard Beymer and Natalie Wood in “West Side Story.”Everett CollectionWEST SIDE STORY (1961) 10 p.m. on TCM. It’s a two-for-one modern adaptation of Shakespeare week: a 1960s version of “Romeo and Juliet” set in New York City. Tony (Richard Beymer), a member of the Jets gang, falls for Maria (Natalie Wood), the younger sister of the leader of the opposing Sharks. Chaos, romance and musical numbers ensue.SundayTHE OSCARS 8 p.m. on ABC. The 95th Academy Awards are back this Sunday at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles and will be broadcast live. The sci-fi movie directed by Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan, “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” is up for the most awards with 11 nominations. “The Banshees of Inisherin” and “All Quiet on the Western Front” are tied for second with nine nominations each. See a full list of nominees here and follow along live with our culture reporters on Oscars Sunday.Scott Shepherd and Bella Ramsey in “The Last of Us.”Liane Hentscher/HBOTHE LAST OF US 9 p.m. on HBO. This post-apocalyptic show, based on the video game of the same name, might hit a little close to home as we enter yet another year of the pandemic — but that hasn’t stopped it from being a hit. In the show, a fungal infection turns people into quasi-zombies. This Sunday’s episode will wrap up the first season (HBO just greenlit Season 2), so it is likely that some of the loose ends won’t tie up until next season. More

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      ‘Everything Everywhere’ Wins Writers Guild Award, Sweeping Major Guilds

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      The victory for Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan cements the film’s front-runner status. Sarah Polley’s “Women Talking” takes the adaptation prize.The sci-fi smash “Everything Everywhere All at Once” won the original-screenplay trophy at the Writers Guild Awards on Sunday night, completing a thorough sweep of the top prizes from Hollywood’s major guilds. Only four other films have also triumphed with the Directors Guild, Producers Guild, Writers Guild and Screen Actors Guild: “Argo,” “No Country for Old Men,” “Slumdog Millionaire” and “American Beauty.” All went on to win the best picture Oscar.“Writing is confusing and hard, and we felt so lost so often,” said Daniel Scheinert, who co-wrote and co-directed the twisty “Everything Everywhere” with Daniel Kwan. Scheinert praised everyone who had read an early draft of the screenplay, then added, “Thank you to our therapists.”Meanwhile, “Women Talking” prevailed in the adapted-screenplay race, topping competition that included “Top Gun: Maverick” and “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.”The “Woman Talking” writer-director, Sarah Polley, praised her representatives for standing by her as she segued from an acting career that included films like “The Sweet Hereafter” and “Dawn of the Dead.” Polley said with a laugh, “They signed me thinking I was going to be a really big movie star. Whoops!”What she really wanted to do was write, Polley explained, and her adaptation of the Miriam Toews novel about assaults in a Mennonite community has now brought her a second WGA honor (her first, for a documentary screenplay, came in 2014 for “Stories We Tell,” which she also directed.)“To be taken seriously in this way, in this room of so many amazing writers, I really can’t tell you what that means to me,” she said.The path to a best picture Oscar typically requires a screenplay win along the way, so the WGA victory for “Everything Everywhere” should only further strengthen the film’s front-runner status. Still, it wasn’t exactly a fair fight: Though the original-screenplay category on Oscar night is expected to be a two-way race between “Everything Everywhere” and Martin McDonagh’s “The Banshees of Inisherin,” the latter was ineligible for the WGA prize because, like many international films, it was not written under a bargaining agreement with the WGA or its sister guilds.That stipulation also kept surging BAFTA winner “All Quiet on the Western Front” out of the WGA race for adapted screenplay, clearing a safe path to victory for “Women Talking.” So while “Everything Everywhere” and “Women Talking” are coming out of the WGA ceremony with momentum, the real battle is still to come at the Oscars, and surprises may be in store.Here are the major WGA winners. For a complete list, go to wga.org.Original screenplay: “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” Daniel Kwan and Daniel ScheinertAdapted screenplay: “Women Talking,” Sarah PolleyDocumentary screenplay: “Moonage Daydream,” Brett MorgenDrama series: “Severance”Comedy series: “The Bear”Limited series: “The White Lotus”New series: “Severance” More

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      Ricou Browning, Who Made the Black Lagoon Scary, Dies at 93

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      He helped bring “Flipper” to the movies and TV but was best known for his plunge in a monster suit in “Creature From the Black Lagoon.”Ricou Browning, who played the title character, or at least the underwater version of it, in one of the most enduring creature features of the 1950s, “Creature From the Black Lagoon,” died on Feb. 27 at his home in Southwest Ranches, Fla., northwest of Miami. He was 93.His daughter Renee Le Feuvre confirmed the death.Mr. Browning was 23 when Newt Perry, a promoter of various Florida attractions for whom he had worked as a teenager, asked him to show some Hollywood visitors around Wakulla Springs, a picturesque spot near Tallahassee. The entourage — which, as Mr. Browning told the story later, included Jack Arnold, the film’s director, and the cameraman Scotty Welbourne — was scouting locations for a planned movie about an underwater monster.“Scotty had his underwater camera,” Mr. Browning recalled in an interview recorded in “The Creature Chronicles: Exploring the Black Lagoon Trilogy,” a 2014 book by Tom Weaver (with David Schecter and Steve Kronenberg), “and he asked me if I would get in the water with him and swim in front of the camera so they could get some perspective.”Mr. Arnold not only liked the location; he also liked Mr. Browning. He called him days later and asked if he would want to play the creature for the underwater scenes to be shot in Florida. (An actor named Ben Chapman portrayed the monster in the scenes on land, which were filmed in California.)“We’ve tested a lot of people for this part,” Mr. Browning recalled Mr. Arnold telling him, “but I’d like to have you play the creature — I like your swimming.”Mr. Browning in a scene from “Creature From the Black Lagoon,” the first of three movies in which he played the title character. “I’d like to have you play the creature,” he recalled the film’s director telling him — “I like your swimming.”Silver Screen Collection/Getty ImagesIn August 1953 he was brought to California to be fitted for the suit that would turn him into the Gill Man, and six months later “Creature From the Black Lagoon” was released. It was the latest in a tradition of monster movies from Universal Studios that included “The Mummy” (1932) and “The Wolf Man” (1941), and it took its place in monster movie lore.In the film, which was released in 3-D, scientists working in the Amazon discover a creature in a lagoon that takes a shine to a female member of the party, Kay (played by Julie Adams). About 28 minutes into the film, Kay decides to go for a swim in the lagoon, and the creature, still undiscovered by the research party, swims beneath her like an underwater stalker, a scene both creepy and oddly poignant.“This scene turned it from a regular old monster movie to a ‘Beauty and the Beast’ thing,” Mr. Weaver said by email, “a big reason for the movie’s ongoing popularity.”Some critics weren’t impressed by the movie.“The proceedings above and under water were filmed in 3-D to impart an illusion of depth when viewed through polarized glasses,” A.H. Weiler wrote in The New York Times. “This adventure has no depth.”Yet the movie did decently at the box office and became a sort of cultural reference point. Mr. Browning, who had the ability to hold his breath underwater for minutes at a time, played the swimming version of the creature in two sequels, “Revenge of the Creature” (1955) and “The Creature Walks Among Us” (1956).He went on to share a story-writing credit on the 1963 film “Flipper,” about a boy who becomes friends with a dolphin, and then, the next year, was a creator of the television series of the same name and directed and helped write a number of its episodes during its three seasons. He also did some of the underwater stunt work.In an introductory essay in Mr. Weaver’s book, Ms. Adams, whose “Black Lagoon” character was played by Ginger Stanley in the underwater scenes, recalled waiting eagerly in California to see the “dailies” — footage from the day’s shooting — coming out of Florida.“The dailies were long, silent takes of him and Ginger Stanley deep in the crystal clear water of Wakulla Springs,” she wrote. “They’d swim for a while, get some air from an air hose, and then go back and resume their action. It was so exciting to see the Gill Man brought to life by Ricou’s unique swimming style, and I was captivated.”Ms. Stanley, Mr. Browning’s underwater partner in that eerie scene that helped define the film, died in January in Orlando, Fla., at 91.Ricou Ren Browning was born on Feb. 16, 1930, in Fort Pierce, Fla. His father, Clement, worked construction in the Navy, and his mother, Inez (Ricou) Browning, was a bookkeeper.He first saw Wakulla Springs as a teenager and earned some money by swimming deep in the water for the benefit of tourists in glass-bottomed boats, who would watch him plunge to depths of 80 feet and leave tips.“Some of us kids would earn 30, 40 dollars a day,” he told Mr. Weaver for his book, “and that was big, big money.”In the 1940s he also got his first taste of the movie business, appearing in several short films made in the area by Grantland Rice, who was better known as a sportswriter. In one, according to Mr. Weaver’s book, Mr. Browning is among the teenagers packed into a Model T Ford that drives into the waters of Wakulla Springs.After serving in the Air Force from 1947 to 1950, Mr. Browning returned to Florida. He was the underwater double for Forrest Tucker in “Crosswinds” (1951), an adventure story about an effort to recover gold from a sunken plane, which was filmed in Florida. He was performing in Mr. Perry’s underwater shows at Weeki Wachee, another Florida attraction, and studying physical education at Florida State University when he was recruited for “Creature From the Black Lagoon.”In his book, Mr. Weaver recounts the hit-or-miss process of coming up with the right creature costume, and the difficulties Mr. Browning had to deal with once the right look was found. One problem was that the costume was made of foam rubber, which floats.“I wore a chest plate that was thin lead,” Mr. Browning told him, as well as thigh and ankle weights.Another problem, Mr. Weaver said, was that Mr. Chapman, the actor playing the on-land version of the creature, was quite tall; in Florida, Mr. Browning had scenes with Ms. Stanley and several other stand-ins.“Ricou was average height,” Mr. Weaver said, “so short people were hired to play the hero-heroine-bad guy so that Ricou would look comparatively king-sized.”Mr. Browning’s later film work included directing the comedy “Salty” (1973), about a sea lion, and the crime drama “Mr. No Legs” (1978), about a mob enforcer who is a double amputee, as well as doing stunt work in several movies, including serving as Jerry Lewis’s underwater double in the 1959 comedy “Don’t Give Up the Ship.”Mr. Browning’s first marriage, to Margaret Kelly in 1951, ended in divorce. His second wife, Fran Ravelo, whom he married in 1977, died in 2020. In addition to his daughter Renee, he is survived by three other children from his first marriage, his sons, Kelly and Ricou Jr., and his daughter Kim Browning; 10 grandchildren; and 11 great-grandchildren.Mr. Weaver noted that all of the other actors who portrayed monsters in the classic Universal films died some time ago.“Ricou,” he said, “had the distinction of being the last man standing.” More

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      Ricardo Darín es la cábala de Argentina en los Oscar

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      El actor ha protagonizado las cuatro películas por las que su país ha sido nominado este siglo, pero él cree que más que su talento, su mayor suerte es la confianza que otros han tenido en él.WEST HOLLYWOOD, California — Hace tiempo que la fortuna favorece a Ricardo Darín. Más que al concepto subjetivo de talento, es a la providencia, expresada como la confianza inquebrantable que tienen los demás en sus capacidades, a lo que el actor atribuye su galardonada carrera como la estrella de cine argentina más célebre en el mundo.“He tenido toda la suerte que mis padres no tuvieron como actores”, comentó durante una entrevista reciente en el hotel Sunset Tower. “Muchas veces me han valorado mucho más de lo que yo mismo me valoro, y luego yo pienso, ‘¿Será que me merezco tanto?’”.El último ejemplo de su relación con la suerte es su papel como el fiscal Julio Strassera en Argentina, 1985, un drama judicial histórico sobre el juicio a las Juntas, cuando los líderes militares fueron procesados por violaciones de los derechos humanos durante la anterior dictadura. Dirigida por Santiago Mitre, le valió a Argentina una nominación al Oscar como mejor largometraje internacional.Darín parece ser el amuleto de la suerte de su país cuando se trata de los premios de la Academia. Ha protagonizado las cuatro películas por las que Argentina ha sido nominada este siglo: El hijo de la novia, Relatos salvajes y El secreto de sus ojos, que se llevó la estatuilla en 2010. A lo largo de los años, Argentina ha postulado a la Academia otras producciones estelarizadas por Darín, lo que significa que, aunque no todas fueron nominadas, las películas en las que aparece son casi sinónimo de lo mejor del cine argentino.Desde el primer apretón de manos, Darín, de 66 años, irradia un aura acogedora. Vestido de manera informal con jeans y una camiseta color azul marino, habla con una calidez y franqueza que la mayoría de la gente reserva para sus amigos más íntimos. Ese temperamento se traduce en la pantalla.“Ricardo tiene un inmenso poder de empatía con la audiencia, y eso es raro”, afirmó el director Juan José Campanella, colaborador de Darín en cuatro largometrajes.“Ricardo tiene un inmenso poder de empatía con la audiencia, y eso es raro”, dijo el director Juan José Campanella.David Billet para The New York TimesAunque la pasión por la interpretación la heredó de sus padres, que trabajaban como actores en Buenos Aires, ninguno de los dos estaba entusiasmado con que continuara el oficio familiar. “No me pelearon, pero tampoco me ponían fichas para que lo hiciera”, recordó.Darín considera que su camino está predestinado. Durante su infancia, visitaba con regularidad platós de cine y televisión, y escenarios teatrales, y actuó profesionalmente por primera vez a los 3 años en la serie de 1960 Soledad Monsalvo. A los 10, debutó en el escenario junto a sus padres. A los 14, cuando asistió a su primer taller de teatro, Darín ya se sentía un veterano que había experimentado de primera mano muchas facetas del oficio.Durante un tiempo, en la adolescencia, se planteó ser veterinario, psicólogo o incluso abogado. Pero al final, el mundo con el que siempre había estado familiarizado le convenció para quedarse. Las puertas se le abrían con facilidad, con frecuentes invitaciones a participar en diversos proyectos.Esa confianza de gente notable del sector es lo que él llama fortuna. Darín guarda un entrañable recuerdo de la directora de televisión Diana Álvarez, que se peleó con una cadena en 1982 para que él formara parte del programa Nosotros y los miedos. Ella vio en él un potencial que otros no pudieron.“La suerte en nuestro oficio es muy importante”, dice Darín. “Hay una gran cantidad de gente talentosa allá afuera con mucho que contar que no encuentran oportunidades”.En la década de 1990, Darín tuvo un gran éxito en la comedia televisiva Mi cuñado, en la que interpretaba a un torpe impertinente pero encantador. Su contrato le impedía participar en otros proyectos televisivos, pero le permitió dedicarse al cine. Entre sus papeles filmográficos está su primera película con Campanella, El mismo amor, la misma lluvia (1999), que ayudó a otros directores a ver más allá de su personaje en la televisión.Las películas de Darín nominadas por la Academia, en el sentido de las agujas del reloj desde arriba a la izquierda: Argentina, 1985, El hijo de la novia, El secreto de sus ojos y Relatos salvajes.Amazon Prime; Sony Pictures Classics; Sony Pictures Classics; María Antolini/Sony Pictures Classics.Uno de ellos, Fabián Bielinsky, le dio el papel de estafador ruin en el filme de suspenso Nueve reinas, estrenado en Argentina en 2000.“Me dijo, ‘Yo no había pensado en vos para este personaje. Porque vos sos demasiado simpático. Y yo no quiero que la audiencia tenga ningún tipo de empatía con él’”, relató Darín.En opinión de Campanella, “hay una sola cosa que Ricardo no puede ser, y eso es antipático. El testimonio más claro de esto es Nueve reinas, donde él hace de un estafador amoral, y aun así estamos de su lado”.Al año siguiente, llegó la conmovedora El hijo de la novia, de Campanella, que aprovechó la sensibilidad cómica de Darín para darle la vida al papel del dueño de un restaurante que se ocupa de sus padres ancianos.“Una vez un crítico lo llamó ‘nuestro Henry Fonda’ porque proyecta entereza”, señaló Campanella. “Pero tiene una cosa que Fonda no tenía, lo cual es un gran sentido del humor”.Darín sostiene que fue el estreno consecutivo de Nueve reinas y El hijo de la novia lo que cimentó su carrera cinematográfica.“Fue como una muy buena carta de presentación para un actor tener la posibilidad de mostrar dos facetas absolutamente opuestas casi al mismo tiempo”, asegura Darín. “A pesar de que yo ya era muy conocido por cuestiones televisivas y en teatro, ahí yo empecé a sentir que mis colegas me empezaron a considerar un poco mejor”.Desde entonces, el actor ha disfrutado con los papeles que eligió, incluida la aclamada El secreto de sus ojos, de Campanella, en la que interpretó a un investigador atormentado por un espantoso caso sin resolver.Otro de los papeles favoritos de Darín es la comedia dramática Truman (2017), centrada en un enfermo terminal que pasa sus últimos días junto a sus mejores amigos, uno humano y otro canino. Su personaje sarcástico le recordó a Darín a su difunto padre, también llamado Ricardo Darín, a quien describió como un peculiar hombre del Renacimiento con un sentido del humor mordaz e ideas descabelladas que a otros les resultaban difíciles de digerir.Hollywood le ha tendido la mano un puñado de veces, pero él la ha rechazado, sobre todo porque lo más difícil para un actor es pensar en otro idioma, afirmó, y añadió que los primeros planos revelan cuando alguien está recitando de memoria en lugar de habitar una emoción.“Siempre he confiado mucho en mi estómago, más que en mi corazón o mi cabeza”, explicó Darín, y luego añadió, señalando su vientre: “Confío en cómo el material me pega aquí”.Hollywood lo ha buscado, pero Darín no está muy interesado porque, según dice, pensar en otro idioma es lo más difícil para un actor.David Billet para The New York TimesEn Argentina, su papel en Relatos salvajes (estrenada en Estados Unidos en 2015), de Damián Szifron, como un ciudadano frustrado que lucha contra la opresiva burocracia, fue muy bien acogido por el público. “Ricardo tiene una mirada lúcida sobre las realidades que afectan a su país”, aseguró Szifron. “Es una figura popular y, al mismo tiempo, un actor sofisticado”.Para Argentina, 1985, Mitre y Darín acordaron no imitar la voz ni los gestos exactos del Strassera real, sino que se tomaron cierta libertad artística en su recreación.Mitre, que había dirigido a Darín como un presidente argentino ficticio en la saga política de 2017 La cordillera, dijo que admiraba cómo el actor produce una interpretación veraz a través de una síntesis de sus propias sensibilidades y las del personaje.“Es como si la cámara lo pudiera mostrar por completo, mostrarlo en toda su complejidad”, comentó Mitre. “Siempre que ves a Ricardo actuar, sabés que va a haber gran honestidad en la pantalla”.Más allá de la positiva recepción crítica de Argentina, 1985” —y de su triunfo en los Globos de Oro—, Darín dijo que el efecto más significativo de la película fue concienciar a una generación más joven sobre un capítulo doloroso de la historia del país.“No podemos olvidar que detrás de esta recuperación del evento histórico que nos ha traído tantos elogios y felicidad, hay una historia de mucho dolor, de esa clase de dolor que no tiene bálsamo”, señaló Darín con expresión solemne.Su hijo Chino Darín, con el que ha creado una productora, continúa la tradición interpretativa de su familia. Ambos protagonizan y producen la comedia de 2019 La odisea de los giles. Darín nunca se opuso a que su hijo se interesara por el oficio, solo le aconsejaba que siguiera el camino que le diera más satisfacciones.“Soy de los que creen que lo más importante en la vida es tratar de ser feliz”, dijo Darín. “Entre más cerca está uno de su vocación, tiene más chance de ser feliz”. More

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      Movie Tickets Veer Away From One-Price-Fits-All

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      Anyone buying a ticket for a concert, baseball game, Broadway play or flight has experienced it: Seats are now priced with dizzying complexity, with costs in some instances changing minute by minute, based on demand.But movie theaters? In many ways, they have been trapped in pricing amber. A seat has cost the same no matter where it is or when it is bought.No more.As they struggle in a fast-changing business, multiplex operators — some carrying astounding debt because of pandemic shutdowns — have started to experiment with pricing in ways that have startled moviegoers. AMC Entertainment, the world’s largest cinema chain, is testing “sightline” pricing, giving seats at evening screenings different costs depending on their location. (Discounts of $1 to $2 for the neck-craning front row, increases of $1 to $2 for the center middle, status quo for the rest.) Chains have also started to charge more on opening weekends for expected blockbusters like “The Batman” and “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” with plans to ramp up the practice.“It’s a taste of what’s coming,” said Stacy Spikes, who co-founded the subscription ticketing service MoviePass, which he plans to reintroduce nationwide this summer. “The big theater chains are gaining the technology to implement variable pricing on a wide scale. This may have near-term financial benefits, but it may also reduce attendance of younger customers who are more price sensitive and key to future growth.”Increasingly, theaters have been pushing customers toward premium-priced specialty tickets. On Saturday evening at AMC Lincoln Square in New York, for instance, patrons interested in the boxing drama “Creed III” could choose from three IMAX screenings (a $7 to $11 surcharge, depending on seat location), three screenings with Dolby audio and visual technology and reclining chairs ($8 to $12 more), and two standard screenings ($18 for a regular adult ticket).“I’m going to go, no matter what, because I love it, but sorting through all the options is starting to feel like a nuisance,” said Chris Ordal, a tech executive in Los Angeles. “I understand why chains are doing this, but they’re not doing a good job of communicating how it helps the consumer.”Theaters have increasingly been pushing premium-priced specialty tickets for movies like “Creed III.”Eli Ade/MGM, via Associated PressThe move toward pricing complexity adds risk as theater owners look for ways to get people back into the ticket-buying habit after three pandemic-battered years. IMAX has been experimenting with live events, including concert simulcasts. Fathom Events has premiered episodes of a religious TV show, “The Chosen,” in theaters; episodes have generated $20 million at the box office since November, despite being available free online.Prices may actually be going down for certain types of movies — ones that have struggled to attract ticket buyers in the streaming age, including comedies, conventional dramas and art films. Last month, theaters lowered opening-weekend prices for the octogenarian comedy “80 for Brady” to attract value-sensitive older customers. Tickets for evening screenings cost the same as a matinee, a discount of up to 30 percent, depending on the location. Some theaters offered the same deal for “A Man Called Otto,” starring Tom Hanks.“In a business where the only innovation in pricing has been to go up, this is a good first step,” said Chris Aronson, the president of domestic distribution at Paramount Pictures, which released “80 for Brady” and urged theaters to lower prices.Inside the Media IndustryRupert Murdoch: The conservative media mogul acknowledged in a deposition in a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit that several Fox News hosts promoted the false narrative that the 2020 election was stolen.Dropping ‘Dilbert’: Hundreds of newspapers across the country will stop running the comic strip after its creator, Scott Adams, said that Black people were “a hate group.”Carlos Watson: The founder of the troubled digital start-up Ozy Media was arrested on fraud charges, punctuating one of the more precipitous falls in the annals of online journalism.Vice Media: The departure of Nancy Dubuc, the chief executive of Vice, highlights the fallen fortunes of a group of digital media companies that not long ago was talked about as the future of the industry.“We’re hopeful that others will follow,” Mr. Aronson added, “and that this is hopefully the beginning of alternative ways of looking at pricing.” (Antitrust rules prevent studios from setting ticket prices themselves.)Theaters offered lower ticket prices for “80 for Brady,” hoping to attract value-conscious older customers.Scott Garfield/Paramount PicturesParamount spent about $28 million to make “80 for Brady,” which has so far collected about $40 million. Roughly 15 percent of the film’s target audience, women over 50, had not been to a theater in more than a year, according to exit surveys.Charging less for certain kinds of movies and more for others has long been a Hollywood third rail, with filmmakers panicking that it will send a message about quality. Just try telling Martin Scorsese that tickets for his next prestige drama will cost less than ones for “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.”The difference now is that the theatrical marketplace has become so difficult for certain genres that many filmmakers may have no choice. Do you want your film to be seen in theaters? Or are you fine with it going straight to streaming, where it could get lost in the digital maw? If the answer is theaters, you may have to accept a discounted price.The average movie ticket cost $11.75 in 2022, according to EntTelligence, a research firm. In New York, prices reach $28, depending on the format. A small popcorn at AMC Lincoln Square costs $10 with tax. (Fun fact: The average movie ticket price in 1969 was $1.42, according to the National Association of Theatre Owners. Adjusted for inflation, that ticket would cost $11.93 today.)Because multiplex chains make most of their money from popcorn and soda, it is in their economic interest to keep ticket prices low; concession counters rely on foot traffic. But there isn’t much room to raise the price of popcorn anymore, prompting some operators to look at “creative” ticket pricing for growth.It has been a tough stretch for theaters. More than 500 movie screens have closed since the start of the pandemic.Philip Cheung for The New York TimesCinema attendance had been declining for decades, with people citing a variety of reasons for going less often: 50-inch TVs at home, streaming services, rude patrons who text on their phones when the lights go down. But the pandemic caused ticket sales to collapse in 2020 and 2021. More than 500 movie screens have closed since the start of the pandemic. Cineworld, the world’s No. 2 chain, filed for bankruptcy in September, and dozens of its Regal multiplexes in the United States have closed.A recovery has been slower than expected. Cinemas in North America sold $7.5 billion in tickets in 2022, a 34 percent decrease from 2019, according to EntTelligence. This year, domestic ticket sales are running 24 percent behind the same period in 2019, according to Comscore.The gap is expected to narrow this summer, largely because the flow of new movies is normalizing. Movies delayed by pandemic bottlenecks are finally ready. Studios are also rerouting fewer movies to streaming services. Twelve movies costing at least $100 million to make will arrive in theaters from May to July, up from six during that period last year.“If you squint hard enough, it is possible now to see a return to the better days,” Robert Fishman, an analyst at SVB MoffettNathanson who follows the Cinemark multiplex chain.Cinemark has comparatively little debt, but the hole for other theater companies is deep. AMC, which according to security filings has more than $5 billion in debt, said last week that it generated $990 million in the fourth quarter of last year, a 15 percent decline from 2021, and lost about $288 million.To shore itself up, AMC has offered $5 movie tickets on Tuesdays, introduced home popcorn products in partnership with Walmart, enhanced its Stubs loyalty program, announced plans to turn some theaters into Zoom conference rooms for corporate events and invested in a struggling Nevada gold mine. (Yes, really.) Last month, AMC announced its pricing experiment with seat location, which it calls Sightline.Adam Aron, AMC’s chief executive, characterized that move — charging a bit more for the best seats — as less a moneymaking gambit than a way to avoid broader price increases.“In these inflationary times, we are coming under pressure to raise prices,” Mr. Aron said in an interview. “We could have raised prices on every seat in the house. Instead, we are holding the line on 75 percent of the seats in the house.” (Also, subscribers to AMC’s premium loyalty program, Stubs A-List, can book a “preferred” seat at no extra charge.)Wall Street responded favorably. But cinephiles had a conniption. In a column, The Chicago Tribune’s film critic, Michael Phillips, called Sightline “a bush-league pickpocket move” and “the latest tiny nail getting tap-tap-tapped into the coffin currently under construction for an entire era of filmgoing.”AMC has pushed back, noting that some European cinemas have charged a premium for prime seats for years. Yes, prices are high in New York and Los Angeles, Mr. Aron acknowledged. But he said 30 percent of AMC customers paid less than $8 a ticket.“When you change the way an industry has priced itself for 100 years, it is not surprising that there is going to be lots of reaction,” Mr. Aron said. “It is our expectation that consumers will adjust to this very quickly.” More