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The Hudsucker Proxy



cast :

Tim Robbins, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Paul Newman and Bruce Campbell

crew :

Directed by: Joel Coen
Written by: Joel and Ethan Coen and Sam Raimi
Produced by: Ethan Coen
DOP: Roger Deakins
Editor: Thom Noble
Music Score by: Carter Burwell

release date :

1994

The most common knock on ‘The Hudsucker Proxy’ (1994) is that it has an uninspired plot and feels cold and workmanlike. This film, written by Joel Coen (who also directs), Ethan Coen and Sam Raimi, fits firmly into the Coens’ filmography precisely because of its irregularity in a cinematic world of banality. Indeed, the plot is one that has been used many, many times before. In fact, the basic arc is probably one of the oldest and most often used in all of modern storytelling, which means admittedly that you’ve seen it before. It is however a story that has proven popular over many years. Some people may see the familiar plot elements and roll their eyes when the story does not immediately grab them. In doing this, they miss all the things that make this movie completely different from others.


The movie is set in 1958 and Norville Barnes, played by Tim Robbins, is a young, small town man come to the big city for his big break. He gets a job in the mailroom at Hudsucker Industries where, coincidentally, the president, Waring Hudsucker, has just committed suicide, meaning that controlling share of the company will become public in one month. Vice President Sidney J. Mussburger (Paul Newman) hatches a plan to force the stock down so that the board will be able to buy all the stock cheaply once it hits the market. In order to do this, he needs to appoint a president who will cause large scale panic and apprehension. He finds that person in Norville Barnes. A roller coaster ride of a presidency follows. Meanwhile, a fast-talking female reporter played by Jennifer Jason Leigh lies her way on to Norville’s staff in order to investigate the new and unknown businessman only to fall for him.


‘The Hudsucker Proxy’ removes two of the fundamental elements found in most of these stories. The first is the audience’s emotional reaction to the main character. In these movies, the audience generally likes and roots for the main character, or they despise him and look forward to his downfall. There simply is not much to like or dislike in Norville Barnes. He is a simple man from a small town. He has got ambition and big dreams which he displays so naively that it’s kind of endearing. You want to see him succeed and reap the rewards of that success, but mostly because he is the protagonist and he’s harmless.


His ambition brings us to the next element that the Coen brothers took out of the equation, which is the strong sense of causality these stories usually exhibit. The audience watches as the main character’s actions directly lead to his rise and fall. The audience can isolate exactly what in the character’s personality causes all of this. This does not really happen in ‘The Hudsucker Proxy’. Norville Barnes does not seem entirely responsible for anything that happens throughout the film. His ambition does lead him to seize the moment and pitch his big idea to Mussburger during a chance encounter. However, while his promotion is a result of this meeting, it is not exactly because of his pitch or his idea.


Something that does not seem to make an impression on many people is that ‘The Hudsucker Proxy’ is ruled with an iron fist by a sense of “destiny.” Examples of something greater than the characters themselves being at work are numerous and explicit. Events seem to move ahead in a predetermined direction no matter what the characters do, their decisions seem irrelevant. Undoubtedly, there is a strong sense of fatalism in the other “rise and fall” tales. It is built in because the audience has some notion of how things will turn out right from the beginning. We are always supposed to believe that these characters’ actions determine the outcomes, even though we, as the audience, know roughly what is going to happen. Inevitability is part of the plot in ‘The Hudsucker Proxy’, but it also seems to operate as a comment on story archetypes, and stories as a whole. After all, aren’t all the events in any story predetermined (to some extent)? This is all the truer with familiar stories. The Coens never pretend they are going to wow the audience with their plot.


This is all sort of much ado about nothing, however. The plot and themes are really just stuff that happens in the incredibly rich world that the Coens and their associates have created. The story does not need to enthrall the audience when there is so much else to take in. Furthermore, the very stylized world is made up of seemingly disparate pieces of other forms of entertainment. This is fitting for a movie with such a derivative plot.


The whole of ‘The Hudsucker Proxy’ seems to be a mash up of a cartoon, a fairy tale, and Old Hollywood clichés. You really need not have seen the movies that are channelled here because you have seen these same elements parodied before. The characters speak in an eloquent and deliberate way that could only come from someone labouring over each word beforehand. They spit out fully formed sentences or monologues without even thinking about it. Jennifer Jason Leigh in particular seems to simply recite her snappy dialogue in many scenes, as if she were completing a tedious exercise in which the only requirement was to get every word right. This sort of goes with her tough, career girl character who has an incredibly easy time deceiving Norville, but it also parodies a classic style of film acting. That the actors appear to be reciting lines adds to the feeling that they are just playing out scenes that are already scripted for them.


Some characters have positively ridiculous features and props generally have exaggerated if not unrealistic dimensions and properties (Mussburger’s appointment book is just absolutely massive). Meetings and corporate announcements are chock full of silly business lingo (sub-franchising), outrageous euphemisms (a PA system proclaims that Waring Hudsucker has “merged with the infinite”), and absurd repetition.


The fairy tale elements are not as prevalent as the other two. The whole presentation, specifically the narration, mirrors that of a twisted story book and some late, fantastic developments are pleasant surprises. There is a climactic confrontation that elevates the story to a tale of good vs. evil, in a silly yet satisfying way. The fairy tale angle also makes the “destiny” elements feel a bit more organic.


The cast, including many Coen regulars, do a great job of embracing the silliness without letting it take over the movie. Paul Newman is marvellous as the gravelly voiced, ruthlessly calculating business exec. John Mahoney is excellent as a gruff and demanding newspaper editor. It is a performance very similar to what J.K. Simmons has been doing in the ‘Spider-Man’ films. Jim True-Frost delivers a head turning performance as the overzealous, over-friendly, wisecracking elevator operator.


The sets really display the mix of old Hollywood and animated film. The big offices are huge, vast spaces with unreasonably high ceilings and no apparent reason for being so large since they are sparsely furnished. The mailroom is grey (greyer even than the rest of the movie) and it seems incredibly chaotic while also very carefully regimented and monitored. It all looks a little old fashioned for 1958 but we have already established that realism has no place here.


This world is rounded out by many small details. The circle, which functions as an important plot device, is referenced through words and images numerous times. Some of the references are extremely overt, while others are slightly more subtle. There is even a sly reference to ‘The Red Balloon’ (1956). The circle also ties into the theme of fatalism when one character refers to the “great wheel that gives us all what we deserve.” I’m not sure that there is a deep symbolic meaning to all this, but it’s one example of the details that hold the film together and make it fun to watch.


There is no rule that says plot needs to be the most important thing in a movie, or that a movie needs to be emotionally engaging in order to be good. These are two areas where ‘The Hudsucker Proxy’ falls a little short, without a doubt. But I think they are adequate so that they do not detract from all the other things that are so right about this movie. The obviously constructed and outlandish world works in a movie that has a noticeably constructed plot and that does not ask the audience to become too emotionally invested in the characters. The Coens find a way to make very well tread ground look entirely new and exciting, which is a very admirable thing.


Watch


Country: USA
Budget: £12,600,000
Length: 111mins


Filmography:
‘The Red Balloon’, 1956, Albert Lamorisse, Films Montsouris


Pub/2008


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