Sunday, November 18, 2007
Commerce and Compromise
Your life won't be changed with a viewing of The TV Set, but if you appreciate your satire medium well done with subtle seasonings similar to the kind of flavor that David Mamet provided in State and Main, you will find this far more enjoyable than, well, almost anything one can find on television itself.
The performances by David Duchovny and Sigourney Weaver as TV pilot writer-developer and network executive are fueled by smart and funny scripting of Jake Kasden, a veteran of the scorched earth of television production itself. There is a sense that there is a lot of personal history and striving for truth and accuracy of how television is run.
Earlier in the film he tells his wife "The show is too personal, I would rather not do it than do it badly." To which his wife, played by Justine Bateman against kitchen counter holding her mid-section replies: "I'm six months pregnant honey, aren't you worried about having a job." As the compromises of his vision that continue, Duchovny's back suffers physical pain probed by the needles of the absurdity he encounters on the board room and the set. I was reminded of Truffaut in one of the standard bearers of a film about filmmaking in Day for Night. He gave his director character a hearing aid symbolic of how one becomes so focused on their internal reality in the film making process. Duchovny's Mike Klein leaves the network roll-out of his show in crutches, having been embattled by strong external forces for weeks. In skirmishes between personal vision and commerce, guess which one will likely win (or leave one a tiny bit wounded)?
posted by well-executed buffet at 7:06 AM
Comments:
Post a Comment