Shampoo. (15.)
Directed by Hal Ashby. 1975.
Starring Warren Beatty, Julie Christie, Goldie Hawn, Lee Grant, Tony Bill, Carrie Fisher and Jack Warden. 112 mins. Released on Blu-ray on November 5th as part of the Criterion Collection.
Is Shampoo a shallow, narcissistic, self-portrait that gullible people take as a deep and penetrating look at America's spiritual and political rot setting in? Or, is it a shallow, narcissistic, self-portrait that gullible people can't see past to appreciate how it works as a deep and penetrating look at America's spiritual and political rot setting in. Damned if I know. Still Warren Beatty eh? He's so vain he thinks the spiritual and political decline is all about him.
When Burt Reynolds died - a few weeks ago in my now, Who? for you in your now – I was immediately struck by two consecutive thoughts. One, Ah Burt Reynolds, he was great. Secondly, what was he in again? Smokey and the Bandits and Cannonball Runs gives you 5, though I don't know how many of them I actually saw. Then there was Mean Machine; Gator; an Elmore Leonard adaptation with Sharkey in the title and the film where Lesley Anne Down takes her top off while he is on the phone. Oh, and the stuntman film. But all he's really got to take with him into eternity is Deliverance and Boogie Nights.
And people loved Reynolds. Audience and reviewers were charmed by him. Outside of close friends and family, I doubt many people loved Beatty. For around four decades he was a Hollywood fixture, while somehow keeping himself at a distance. But outside of Bonnie and Clyde, what will he leave behind?
Shampoo should be one of his keepers. According to its admirers, it's a fin-de-siecle sex farce, held to be the La Regle Du Jeu of the Hollywood Hills. Beatty plays a hairdresser who wants to run his own shop. His love life involves having model Goldie Hawn as a girlfriend, sleeping with Grant, the wife of rich financier Warden, who is having an affair with Christie, an old flame that Beatty still pines for. It all takes place on the two days either side of Nixon getting elected in 1968. Beatty rides around on his motorbike, trying to keep everybody happy and everything comes together at a series of parties on election night. Nixon features in newscasts everywhere that nobody watches, the war is alluded to occasionally.
Aside from the cast, Shampoo also brought together scriptwriter Robert Towne, fresh from Chinatown, and director Hal Ashby whose other 70s films were Harold and Maude, The Last Detail, Bound for Glory, Coming Home and Being There. You can feel the quality, and you can feel the authenticity. This is the real unglamourous, Los Angeles, one big sprawling suburbia. There are some magical touches – the tennis coach aimlessly hitting balls over the net to nobody because her student (Fisher) has no interest.
Beatty's hairdresser is pure self-portrait, and a Poor Me self-portrait at that. He has fingers in many pies, is scatty, seems to be on the move and but never gets anywhere. His fear of commitment is so total he leaves every job unfinished. The film though sees him as basically benign, the true spirit of 60s freedom betrayed by cold materialism that surrounds him. In a film made up of shallow people, we should admire him because his shallowness is motivated by fun rather than greed. He's a shagger and a philanderer, but a noble-hearted shagger and philanderer.
Honestly, I really don't know whether Shampoo is masterly or flimsy. It's like that painting that you can see either Sigmund Freud or a naked woman in. Both interpretations are equally valid. Apparently, it had audience roaring in the 70s, when it was a big hit, but I doubt it will raise much of a titter now. Much of the cast is a little whatever-did-we-see-in-them disappointing. If you scrutinise Hawn's face you may realise that she basically has the same face as Emma Bunton, but uses it to slightly more effect.
The stand out is Jack Warden. When I was a lad he seemed to be in the supporting cast of every Hollywood film going, and was always quality. He's especially good here playing a venal, ruthless businessman who can't quite believe he is so venal and ruthless but is very pleased with how it has all turned out for him.
Extras
New conversation between critics Mark Harris and Frank Rich
Directed by Hal Ashby. 1975.
Starring Warren Beatty, Julie Christie, Goldie Hawn, Lee Grant, Tony Bill, Carrie Fisher and Jack Warden. 112 mins. Released on Blu-ray on November 5th as part of the Criterion Collection.
Is Shampoo a shallow, narcissistic, self-portrait that gullible people take as a deep and penetrating look at America's spiritual and political rot setting in? Or, is it a shallow, narcissistic, self-portrait that gullible people can't see past to appreciate how it works as a deep and penetrating look at America's spiritual and political rot setting in. Damned if I know. Still Warren Beatty eh? He's so vain he thinks the spiritual and political decline is all about him.
When Burt Reynolds died - a few weeks ago in my now, Who? for you in your now – I was immediately struck by two consecutive thoughts. One, Ah Burt Reynolds, he was great. Secondly, what was he in again? Smokey and the Bandits and Cannonball Runs gives you 5, though I don't know how many of them I actually saw. Then there was Mean Machine; Gator; an Elmore Leonard adaptation with Sharkey in the title and the film where Lesley Anne Down takes her top off while he is on the phone. Oh, and the stuntman film. But all he's really got to take with him into eternity is Deliverance and Boogie Nights.
And people loved Reynolds. Audience and reviewers were charmed by him. Outside of close friends and family, I doubt many people loved Beatty. For around four decades he was a Hollywood fixture, while somehow keeping himself at a distance. But outside of Bonnie and Clyde, what will he leave behind?
Shampoo should be one of his keepers. According to its admirers, it's a fin-de-siecle sex farce, held to be the La Regle Du Jeu of the Hollywood Hills. Beatty plays a hairdresser who wants to run his own shop. His love life involves having model Goldie Hawn as a girlfriend, sleeping with Grant, the wife of rich financier Warden, who is having an affair with Christie, an old flame that Beatty still pines for. It all takes place on the two days either side of Nixon getting elected in 1968. Beatty rides around on his motorbike, trying to keep everybody happy and everything comes together at a series of parties on election night. Nixon features in newscasts everywhere that nobody watches, the war is alluded to occasionally.
Aside from the cast, Shampoo also brought together scriptwriter Robert Towne, fresh from Chinatown, and director Hal Ashby whose other 70s films were Harold and Maude, The Last Detail, Bound for Glory, Coming Home and Being There. You can feel the quality, and you can feel the authenticity. This is the real unglamourous, Los Angeles, one big sprawling suburbia. There are some magical touches – the tennis coach aimlessly hitting balls over the net to nobody because her student (Fisher) has no interest.
Beatty's hairdresser is pure self-portrait, and a Poor Me self-portrait at that. He has fingers in many pies, is scatty, seems to be on the move and but never gets anywhere. His fear of commitment is so total he leaves every job unfinished. The film though sees him as basically benign, the true spirit of 60s freedom betrayed by cold materialism that surrounds him. In a film made up of shallow people, we should admire him because his shallowness is motivated by fun rather than greed. He's a shagger and a philanderer, but a noble-hearted shagger and philanderer.
Honestly, I really don't know whether Shampoo is masterly or flimsy. It's like that painting that you can see either Sigmund Freud or a naked woman in. Both interpretations are equally valid. Apparently, it had audience roaring in the 70s, when it was a big hit, but I doubt it will raise much of a titter now. Much of the cast is a little whatever-did-we-see-in-them disappointing. If you scrutinise Hawn's face you may realise that she basically has the same face as Emma Bunton, but uses it to slightly more effect.
The stand out is Jack Warden. When I was a lad he seemed to be in the supporting cast of every Hollywood film going, and was always quality. He's especially good here playing a venal, ruthless businessman who can't quite believe he is so venal and ruthless but is very pleased with how it has all turned out for him.
Extras
New conversation between critics Mark Harris and Frank Rich
- Excerpt from a 1998 appearance by producer, co-writer, and actor Warren Beatty on The South Bank Show
