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Bringing Up Baby

Nine times out of ten, I’m a big fan of screwball comedy. So I should be wildly in love with Bringing Up Baby, a 1938 screwball comedy that’s widely accepted as the greatest of its genre. Starring Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn, and directed by Howard Hawks, what could possibly be wrong with Bringing Up Baby? In some ways, I see Bringing Up Baby as the antithesis of classic screwball comedies like It Happened One Night or The Philadelphia Story. The latter films are tightly scripted, witty, well acted, and feature charming actors. But screwball comedies, when they fail, fail big. Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn are fine actors, and Howard Hawks is one of the great American directors. So when they get together to make a screwball comedy and end up failing (to me), they fail as big as possible. Thus, we have Bringing Up Baby.

What goes wrong? The characters, as written and performed, are gratingly obnoxious. Grant plays an uptight paleontologist (as opposed to all those wild, loose ones we hear about these days) and Hepburn plays a flighty heiress who, as soon as she sees him, proceeds to get Grant to fall in love with her. As is common, wackiness and love ensues, along with some random elements, such as the titular leopard (see? The Hangover didn’t capitalize the market on wild cats in comedies!). Grant has never been less appealing, as a stick in the mud who doesn’t even loosen up that much when Hepburn’s wiles and charms work on him. What’s more, Hepburn’s mannered style of acting has never made me cringe more. In just about every other movie, these two are great performers and capable of high and low comedy. Here, they shoot for the stars and miss.

Nashville

In the category of filmmakers I am supposed to like but just can’t, the number-one candidate has to be Robert Altman. On the one hand, you could argue that if Altman hadn’t made films like Nashville, we wouldn’t have Paul Thomas Anderson’s masterpieces Boogie Nights and Magnolia. There’s no question that Anderson is a major fan of the late director, having gone so far as to provide uncredited help on Altman’s final film, A Prairie Home Companion. But every single film of Altman’s that I’ve seen (and, being fair, I’ve still not seen MASH or McCabe and Mrs. Miller, movies I do want to see) has either bored me to tears or made me want to throw something at the screen. Nashville, widely lauded as his masterpiece from 1975, got both reactions. Set in the titular city on the day of a political convention, Altman gives us plenty of characters and little stories, but no momentum or interest.

What bored me was just that; unlike Anderson’s 1990s-era Altmanesque films, Nashville has no movement. It’s a lengthy film that lies there, jumping from character to character with no purpose or fluidity. What made me want to throw something at the screen was the constant attempt at humor in the form of the British journalist played by Geraldine Chaplin. Chaplin’s character is meant to be a stuffy, know-nothing writer who searches for meaning and deep thought in the silliest places, including a junkyard. What’s the point of the joke, aside from pointing and laughing at a foolish member of the media? I have no idea. Is her character in the film for a reason? Aside from trying to show me a window into the human experience and failing, probably not. Altman is very ambitious in his filmmaking, but his style puts me at arm’s length, never able to embrace the emotions the characters feel. I wish I felt differently, but I don’t.

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