I recently watched Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid, then read the screenplay.
There were a couple of scenes which took me out of the story and I was interested to find in his Hollywood memoir, Adventures In The Screen Trade, that screenwriter William Goldman felt the same. Says if he were writing Butch today, a few of those scenes would probably be out. Audiences today are much savvier and the scenes in question hampered the flow of the story.
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter.
Director George Roy Hill got to the heart of Goldman’s unusual script and translated it flawlessly to screen. The chemistry between Paul Newman and Robert Redford was so infectious, I would have followed them anywhere. And the ending. Oh Boy…
Here’s the end of the final scene – Butch and Sundance have been hiding all day, wounded, in a room of a Bolivian village surrounded by local policeman. They decide to shoot their way out and make a final dash for their horses. What they don’t know is that the Bolivian Calvary has arrived and awaits them…
BUTCH AND SUNDANCE on their feet. Slowly, they move toward the door as we
CUT TO
MORE AND MORE SOLDIERS vaulting the wall
CUT TO
BUTCH AND SUNDANCE into the last of the sunlight and then comes the first of a painfully loud burst of rifle fire and as the sound explodes–
THE CAMERA FREEZES BUTCH AND SUNDANCE.
Another terrible barrage. Louder. BUTCH AND SUNDANCE remain FROZEN. Somehow the sound of the rifles manages to build even more. BUTCH AND SUNDANCE stay FROZEN. Then the sound begins to diminish.
And as the sound diminishes, so does the color, and slowly, the faces of BUTCH AND SUNDANCE begin to change. The song from the New York sequence begins. The faces of BUTCH and SUNDANCE continue to change, from color to the grainy black and white that began their story. The rifle fire is popgun soft now as it blows them back into history.
THE END
George Roy Hill directed the film exactly as written. When the rifle fire blows Butch and Sundance “back into history”? I was blown away. Scenes that didn’t belong, smarty-pants dialogue, jerky momentum… All forgiven.
That’s great but what, you ask, has this to do with Nora Ephron’s latest film? A story about two women – culinary pioneer and TV chef, Julia Child (Meryl Streep), and internet celebrity Julie Powell (Amy Adams), whose blog about her preparation of all 524 recipes in Julia’s 1961 bestseller Mastering the Art of French Cooking turned Powell into a published author?
Well, I’ll tell you.
Julie and Julia was the first Ephron film I enjoyed at the theater since When Harry Met Sally (written by Ephron, directed by Rob Reiner), one of my favorite romantic comedies of all time.
Films like Sleepless In Seattle, You’ve Got Mail, Hanging Up, I found formulaic at best. More often than not, with an Ephron film, I have come to expect the following: the stories will run in parallel, the music will be nostalgic, and our protagonists will kiss and/or meet right at the very end, upon which the camera will soar into the heavens as we cue for the final time, that nostalgic music.
With Julie & Julia I found myself in similar terrain.
The story hopped from Julia – in Post WWII Paris, the restless wife of U.S. diplomat Paul Child (Stanley Tucci) – whose passion for eating leads to a pursuit of mastering French cuisine, and Julie – in post 9/11 New York – whose dreary job and dreams of becoming a writer, propels her to start a blog and pay literal homage to her idol, Julia.
This time round, the tried and trusty Ephron formula felt a touch fresher, less complacent.
Thanks largely to the Julia half of the story – drawn from her memoir My Life In France, written with her great-nephew, Alex Prud’homme. Meryl Streep’s incarnation of Julia, executed with the greatest of ease and wit, is nothing short of amazing. What more is there to say about Streep who by virtue of exceeding herself, has gone and done it again. All one can really do is sit back, enjoy the ride.
Just when you think it can’t get better, in steps Tucci.
Last seen together in The Devil Wears Prada, Streepe and Tucci make magic. It’s subtle, quiet, mature, but magic nevertheless. The atypical chemistry between Julia and Paul would be enough to sustain an entire movie. Whether it’s watching them savor a sole meunière or publicly toast their love for each other (Paul: “You are the butter on my bread”), the couple’s moments together are as pleasurable to watch as Julia’s journey from lost housewife to career woman extraordinare.
Which brings me to another thing I liked about Julie and Julia. Finally, a comedy about women who are NOT looking for love or the perfect man.
Both women have found love and husbands supportive of their talents. Both women derive comfort from food. Both women strive to attain their goals and ultimately achieve the recognition they deserve.
And if by this stage you are tearing your hair out and yelling, but what the hell does this have to do with Butch and Sundance? Well, I’m almost there.
Now we get to the weaker half of the film…
Julie’s story. Without subtracting from Julie Powell’s writing (have yet to read her memoir, Julie & Julia, but I do enjoy her blog – http://juliepowell.blogspot.com) or Adams’ amiable performance (to compare her with Streep would be cruel and unjust), the Julie part of the film is no match for its counterpart.
From the quaint and authentic streets of Paris, to a dingy apartment above a pizza shop in Queens. From an unconventional marriage and a character larger than life itself, to a young couple who are finding themselves let alone each other, and a character so forgetful, she almost blends into the dreariness of her surroundings… There is just no comparison.
But still, there’s a save.
This uneven journey is worth subjecting oneself to on one condition – that they meet at the very end and that the nature of their meeting is something unique, authentic.
Seeing as this is an Ephron film, I have no doubt they will.
But they don’t. Julie and Julia never meet. Julie gets word that Julia doesn’t like her and that is the extent of it.
Here’s what Julie Powell has to say about it in her blog:
“A lot of people have been asking whether it’s true that Julia Child wasn’t a big fan of Julie Powell, and whether she and I really didn’t meet. Both of those things are true – Julia, I think, from what I gather, was less irritated than simply uninterested.”
Okay, so they didn’t meet in real life. So what?
It is more than likely that Butch and Sundance returned to the United States and spent the rest of their lives retiring in peace. But Goldman knew that would make a shitty ending, so he resorted to something dramatic and befitting of his heroes’ journey on the screen.
A stronger Julie story might have improved the film, though even with that, I believe the film would have suffered the same fate given the same ending.
What sustained me was the anticipation of an answer to what I assumed was the dramatic question of the story – what will happen when they meet? I assumed they would meet or it would defeat the purpose of all that to-ing and fro-ing.
Even in that dreadful bore of a film, The Hours, the characters were linked at the end, which provided for some much-needed context.
To leave a connection between two characters with something as nebulous as a blog is unsatisfying to say the very least.
As Goldman said in Adventures In The Screen Trade, “The most important minutes of any screenplay are the first fifteen – just as the most important minutes of any film are the last fifteen.”
And so, despite the marvelous treatment of Julia Child’s story, Streep’s tour de force performance, and the best on-screen chemistry of the year between Streep and Tucci, the last fifteen minutes let me down like a deflated souffle and thus was I unable to fully embrace Julie & Julia.
A family shrine of Josef Cruikshank at his home.
Associated Press Photo/New Zealand Herald, Brett Phibbs
