Tag: film

Iron Butterfly Effect: Taxi Driver with Jeff Bridges

The brainchild of three men at the top of their cinematic peeks Robert De Niro, Martin Scorsese, and Paul Schrader, Taxi Driver became a symbol of rage, isolation, and unrequited love. It won the Cannes Film Festival’s Palm D’or prize (Lost to Rocky at the Academy Awards for Best Picture) and influenced countless films which soon followed. So let’s dum-dum some bullets, reconfigure a desk drawer, and tape a knife to our boot.

I should have purchased that piece of Errol Flynn’s bathtub.

The Set-Up

Paul Schrader had studied film criticism before he co-wrote, with his brother Leonard, the film The Yakuza, which at the time was sold for a record $300,000. While he wrote the script for Taxi Driver, he had been reading the diaries of Arthur Bremer and was influenced by Dostoevsky’s Notes from the Underground, as well as dealing with his own isolation living out of his car in LA, and visiting a lot of porno theaters. Reportedly, he kept a loaded gun on his desk the whole time he wrote the script for inspiration. Most important, he had pictured Jeff Bridges while writing the part of Travis Bickle.

Brian De Palma had originally been lined up for the directing job, but Scorsese was eventually tabbed if he could get De Niro to play the lead. De Niro at the time had already made Mean Streets with Scorsese and had been nominated, and then won, the Academy Award for The Godfather Part 2. Reportedly, he was also shooting 1900 in Italy during pre-production for Taxi Driver, he would commute back and forth from Italy to the US, shooting/doing research driving a taxi.

The Execution

This is my favorite film, one of the best all-time. To suggest anyone would do a better job in the role of Travis Bickle, than De Niro, is insane. However, it would be interesting to contemplate how a young Bridges would have played the part. Whereas the rage is always lurking right beneath the surface with De Niro, I feel Bridges’ Bickle would have been much more of a slow build toward the violent showdown with Sport. De Niro’s look and portrayal are physically intimidating (You get the sense he could snap at any moment), whereas Bridges’ boy next door look might have been more disarming. Still, nothing beats De Niro in this part.


What might have been

If De Niro doesn’t make Taxi Driver, let’s say it affects what is in the process of becoming a fruitful working relationship with Scorsese. Perhaps he simply continues on with no changes, they make New York, New York, and ultimately he brings the autobiography of Jake LaMotta to Scorsese and they still make Raging Bull. But, what if they simply make Mean Streets together and go their separate ways?

Bridges had already been in The Last Picture Show, Fat City, Bad Company, The Last American Hero, The Iceman Cometh, and Thunderbolt and Lightfoot. While he is still early in his process, his resume is not exactly dull. Those are some solid credentials, working with directors such as John Huston, Peter Bogdanovich, Robert Benton, John Frankenheimer, and Michael Cimino. If he’s cast as Travis Bickle, he doesn’t make Stay Hungry (One of Schwarzenegger’s breakthrough films) directed by Bob Rafelson or plays the lead role in the Dino DeLaurentis remake of King Kong which put Jessica Lange on the map. Does he end up making Tron, Heaven’s Gate, Against All Odds, and Starman? Or, does he take a series of more violent and dangerous roles? In some co-existing reality in the multiverse, Jeff Bridges’ turn as Travis Bickle is still being talked about.

The rug really tied the room together Sport.

Iron Butterfly Effect: Boogie Nights with Leonardo DiCaprio

Let’s just pause for a moment and take note of the fact that Boogie Nights was not nominated for Best Picture. On the list that year were: Titanic, Good Will Hunting, The Full Monty, LA Confidential, and As Good As It Gets… But we’re not here to discuss that. Instead, let’s imagine what would have happened had Leonardo DiCaprio chosen to make Boogie Nights. Excuse me while I set up the typewriter for the Colonel.

Start down low with a 350 cube, three and a quarter horsepower, 4-speed, 4:10 gears, ten coats of competition orange, hand-rubbed lacquer with a huplane manifold, full fuckin’ race cams. Whoo!

The Setup

At the time Paul Thomas Anderson had made two short films The Dirk Diggler Story, which would serve as source material for Boogie Nights, and Cigarettes & Coffee1 after which he’d be invited to the Sundance Lab to write The Hard Eight (also known as Sydney). His next project would be a scathing look at the LA Porn Industry in the ’70s and ’80s. With a few hundred page script, he set about to cast his project, under the guidance of the House that Freddy Built2. The casting process was an interesting one: Warren Beatty and Sydney Pollack were offered the part of Jack Horner (Pollack later regretted passing) and Samuel L. Jackson was considered for the role of Buck Swope. Almost everyone read for Rollergirl. However, the most interesting is the role of Eddie Adams from Torrence which was offered to Joaquin Phoenix and Leonardo Dicaprio. Dicaprio at the time had played mostly eccentric parts up until then such as Arnie Grape or Arthur Rimbaud, then, of course, made Romeo and Juliet which caused millions of girls to enter puberty. He passed on Boogie Nights, to do another film, but recommended his co-star Mark Wahlberg, and the rest is history.

The Execution.

Wahlberg played the role of Eddie/Dirk to perfect, so it’s tough whether or not anyone lost out. Marky Mark went on to make a slew of bad movies over the next few years (minus Three Kings) but was on his way to becoming a movie star. Dicaprio went on to make Titanic and became an international superstar whose very name once uttered could drive young girls into hysterics. Ultimately though, he regretted his turn in Titanic and would have done Boogie Nights had he had the choice again. He tried to hide over the next four years, appearing in supporting roles and an indie film The Beach.

What Might Have Been

Dicaprio does Boogie Nights, and the movie is pretty much the same, although the character of Diggler doesn’t have the same pizzazz. Dicaprio gains a reputation as an edgy actor willing to take on challenging roles, though it takes him much longer to get the stardom which allowed him to be the global force he is now. Wahlberg stays in music for much longer, continuing to take smaller and supporting roles along the way. The world is robbed of him talking to a plant in The Happening. The biggest group affected by this is teenage girls, who lose out big time because the other people considered for Titanic opposite Kate Winslet are: Billy Crudup, Stephen Dorff, and Mathew McConaughey…

Yeah, well, listen. You ought to ditch the two geeks you’re on the boat with now and get in with us. But that’s all right, we’ll worry about that later. I will see you there. All right?

1 not to be confused with Jarmusch’s Coffee and Cigarettes
2 I used to watch A Nightmare on Elm St. 3 every day when I was in middle school. This explains a lot.

Iron Butterfly Effect: Apocalypse Now with Harvey Keitel

There have been many stories told about the making of Apocalypse Now… Martin Sheen’s heart attack, the Typhoon, Brando showing up overweight without having read the script, Dennis Hopper high on everything, The helicopters being called away to fight insurgents in the middle of filming. However, I’m going to focus solely on what would have happened had Harvey Keitel remained as Captain Ben Willard.

The Setup

Fresh off of The Godfather Part 2 and The Conversation, Francis Ford Coppola attempts to make an adaptation of Heart of Darkness, set against the backdrop of the Vietnam War. He chooses to shoot in the Philippines and plans on a four-month shoot. After offering the lead role to Steve McQueen and Al Pacino, who both passed, Nicholson, Redford, and Caan were all offered parts of either Kurtz or Willard. When they passed, Coppola’s first choice for the role of Captain Willard is Martin Sheen (who’d originally auditioned for the role of Michael Corleone in The Godfather) but he’d been attached to another project, so they cast Harvey Keitel in the role, based on his work in Mean Streets.

The Execution

Coppola shot for a few weeks with Keitel but didn’t like the way that Keitel was playing the part. He felt that Willard’s role should be more of a passive onlooker, and Keitel had not been playing it that way. (I believe on Inside the Actor’s Studio, Keitel mentioned that he and Coppola had friction over this point because Keitel had been in the Marine Corps and felt the part should be played a certain way). Differences in the film would have been the scene where Keitel steals Duvall’s surfboard and brains him with it. Also different, the scene where he bash’s Kurtz’s nose with the butt of his gun then begins cutting off his fingers starting with the little one. He was let go, and Sheen came aboard to take the part of Willard.

What Might Have Been

The change of one Willard to the next didn’t really do much, as the film itself is really the star. Sheen’s stock didn’t soar with the release of the film in terms of catapulting him to leading man status, and he continued to work throughout the years with memorable turns in the films The Dead Zone, Wall Street, and The American President, before putting in a performance as the President on The West Wing. In a twist, Keitel’s career is probably elevated by not continuing as Willard. Instead of having to spend a whole year shooting in the Philippines. (Filming started in March of ’76 and concluded in May of ’77, and wasn’t released to theaters until August of ’79) he is able to shoot and release: The Duellists, Blue Collar, and Fingers, all great films which help advance his career.

Like a Rhinestone Cowboy…

So, let’s say that Keitel doesn’t get fired. Instead, Stallone, deciding he doesn’t want to continue the Rocky franchise, branches out and gets the lead role in Fingers. This precludes him from writing, directing, and starring in Paradise Alley, and the world never gets to hear Terry Funk as Frankie the Thumper tells Lee Canalito: SHUT YOUR HOLE PUKE. That would have been a tragedy.


Also great is when Terry Funk tells Sam Elliott “Mind your own business dad.” In Roadhouse

Iron Butterfly Effect: Back to the Future with Eric Stoltz

In honor of my friends former blog titled: Alternate 1985, I’m going to have the inaugural post discuss what would have happened to the movie Back to the Future had Eric Stoltz been kept as Marty McFly.

Also, here is a short story I wrote. It’s another take had a director other than Robert Zemekis been at the helm: http://www.decompmagazine.com/alternate85.htm

You’re not thinking 4th dimensionally motherf%$ker

The Setup
Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis had written Back to the Future, and were greenlit by Sid Sheinberg, with Steven Spielberg producing. Originally, they wanted Michael J. Fox for the role of Marty McFly, but Gary David Goldberg, the showrunner of Family Ties, wouldn’t allow Fox to take the part. The next two choices for the role were C. Thomas Howell1 and Eric Stoltz. Based on the strength of his ability in the film Mask, which hadn’t been released, they chose Stoltz.

The Execution

They shot for four weeks with Stoltz as Marty McFly, when Zemeckis realized he was miscast. The consensus is that he was giving too dramatic of a performance, and was unlike the character, whereas Fox simply was McFly. Similarly, Stoltz was uncomfortable riding a skateboard, and Fox was not. At one point Stoltz spoke to Peter Bogdanovich and said that he feared he was miscast and thought his time on the movie was short2. His foresight proved correct as Zemekis made the bold move to fire Stoltz and made a plea to get Fox again, knowing that it would add another few million to an already stretched budget. This time around Goldberg relented, and Fox would do film Family Ties and Back to the Future at the same time.

What might have been?

A lot of people were affected by this. First of all, the film would have had a darker overtone, centered more on the oedipal relationship between Lea Thompson and Eric Stoltz3. Similarly, the skateboard craze of the eighties would have taken a hit, because, after much deliberation, it was decided to scrap the skateboarding scenes altogether due to them not working. Fox would have remained in television since Back to the Future was what propelled him into superstardom as a film actor. Teen Wolf, The Secret of my Success, Casualties of War4, and Bright Lights, Big City would have been dealt out to members of the brat pack.

“When Penn demands his two dollars… it’s breathtaking” – NY Times review

Stoltz would have joined the A-list and been seen as a go-to guy from the brat pack, although the film itself wouldn’t have been the hit that it was. Stoltz would have carved himself out a nice little niche as a reliable lead actor. His trajectory may not have suffered as much as it could have.

Most importantly, J.J. Cohen was initially cast as Biff but wasn’t intimidating enough to Stoltz since they were the same size. Therefore, Biff was recast with Thomas F. Wilson. However, if Fox had been cast, J.J. Cohen would have remained Biff and gone on to play Benjamin Bratt’s partner in Blood In, Blood Out: Bound By Honor… he’s the biggest casualty in this case.

1955 Zabka fingerless gloves: .35¢

1 Ponyboy would not stay gold this time.
2 A similar thing would happen when Gene Hackman was cast as Mr. Robinson in The Graduate and predicated to Dustin Hoffman that he’d get fired any day. He was right, but was quickly cast as Buck Barrow in Bonnie and Clyde and went on to be one of the greatest actors of his generation
3 Some kind of Wonderful territory… “This is what my girlfriend would look like with no skin.”
4 Cusack does Casualties of War, in an effort to do more serious roles… he misses the chance to be Lloyd Dobler and affects the lives of millions of young women everywhere. Kirk Cameron gets the part instead and Lloyd plays The Brooklyn Tabernacle Choirs “We Are Rejoicing” on the boom box.

Some information in the post acquired from: “The making of Back to the Future”. Ian Freer (January 2003. pp. 183–187.)