The Way of Hopper

It’s been a hot minute and for that I apologize.  I’ve been immersed in a world of “need it yesterday” deadlines.  The seething has subsided; the deadlines have been met; the blog entries continue…

So Hopper’s dead, and I personally had no idea he was as old as my grandpa.  Regardless, I can’t say enough how much this guy has served as a career/persona/image template for myself.  Here’s the list of my top 5 personal heroes, and you’ll see that Dionysus himself made the cut:

5. Bo Goldman – A screenwriter extraordinaire, has one 2 Oscars.  This dude is a hero because he got asked to do a rewrite of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest for basically nothing, expecting nothing from the opportunity because he was poor as balls, then he won an Oscar, and it turned out to be one of the best films of all time.  Being nestled into rewrite-land, this guy is someone I constantly remind myself of so that I fully realize that what I’m doing isn’t necessarily going to be in vain.

4. Dennis Hopper – Okay… I mean, he was fucking crazy in the best way possible.  Both an actor and a filmmaker, this dude knew how to make an incredibly effective, bizarro film (a favorite genre of mine), and was able to portray really messed up people effortlessly.  It of course raises the question, “Was Dennis Hopper a really fucked up person…?”  Maybe, but I simply have the maddest respect for the iconic niche he made for himself in the entertainment industry.  As with the next 3 heroes, he was an ultimate misfit operating in a system that didn’t necessarily want him, yet he couldn’t be ignored.

3. Andy Kaufman – If you don’t know who this is, we can’t be friends anymore.  In the loose spirit of Candid Camera, this is the guy that took large scale pranks and make them culture-wide pranks.  Another case of being so out there and bizarre, he couldn’t help but being put in the limelight.  Yeah, in the end, maybe he got too much attention for his own good, but Kaufman is one of the first (if not only) examples who intentionally committed social suicide because he thought it would be funny.  And it was.  Also, he was one of the first to really engage audiences with dual personas without ever acknowledging he was the same person (Tony Clifton in particular, his fucking disgusting stand-up persona that he shared with Bob Zmuda.)

2. David Lynch – There’s a lot that can be said about this guy, but I won’t bother, as he’s the king of the ambiguous meaning, explanation, resolution, whatever.  No, I’m not a die hard fan of his films (I don’t like Blue Velvet, minus Dennis Hopper of course) – I only like Mulholland Drive and The Elephant Man (one of my favorite films of all time.)  The real respect is simply because he’s been able to make the fucked up, weirdass films he has.  I mean… who else has been able to sell a major studio on an idea like Blue Velvet?  Or Lost Highway?  OrWild at Heart?  I dare say no one, and believe me, there are plenty of wannabe Lynches out there in film school purgatory.

1. John Cassavetes – The embarrassing part of this one is that I’ve actually only seen one Cassavetes film, A Woman Under the Influence.  But being a film nerd aficionado, I know all about the big Cass, and shit man, this guy is the testament to taking a vision that no one cared about and creating a demand for it.  He’s basically the father of DIY distribution and making abstract films with challenging subject matter.  I mean, the guy would act as a day job just so he could get his films made.  I don’t know, just the way he would go about making his films, his dedication to working with actors and trying to make films as much like a live theatre experience is so fucking amazing to me, even without seeing all the movies.  Props.

There’s obviously a running them here with the guys on my hero list – they are/were all more or less misfits in their own right when it came to the industry.  No one has done them any favors, and they’re balls to the wall about originality, perseverance, and making people go “what the fuck did I just watch?”  I couldn’t be more proud to have these dudes on my list.

But Hopper… certainly the most vocal, strongest personality on here, and likely the most iconic and recognizable (even more so than Kaufman). There’s of course a lot of retrospectives going on in celebration of Hopper’s life – ones that are inevitably better, more educated, and more poignant that I can present here.  So I’ll just give you a little ditty on my intro to Hopper, and how he was the impetus for my affinity towards the weird.

When I was 10, my parents bought Speed on VHS because it was on sale at Costco for like $20 (ha, a deal back in 1994.)  I’d seen the trailer and had been mesmerized by it (“Ode to Joy” was a mind-blowing juxtaposition over the action sequences of the bus hurling through the streets of L.A., something that suspended me in awe for some months.)  When I watched Speed for the first time, I was held captive – my ADD and hyperactivity didn’t exist for the 2 hours of the film.  And no, it wasn’t because of Keanu’s amazing acting (ahem), or Jeff Daniels’ incredible follow up to Dumb and Dumber, or even the action.  All of it was subservient to Hopper.  I of course had no idea who Hopper was at the time, but he grabbed me by the balls.  Yeah, I’d seen ruthless characters like him before – Belloch in Raiders of the Lost Ark, Darth Vader in Star Wars, T-1000 in Terminator 2.  But this guy… this guy was maniacal.  Keep in mind, I hadn’t seen a lot of films yet, but with the aforementioned, you have a pretty boy, a cyborg, and a liquid metal robot thing.  Belloch was easy to hate because Indiana Jones is so likeable, Darth Vader was conventionally brooding (no I’m not knocking him, just saying), and T-1000 lacked any shred of humanity, albeit the occasional humorous line (“Say, that’s a nice bike…”)

Hopper was electric – equal parts witty, insane, and intelligent.  When I was watching, it was the first time I ever really had a conflicted feeling about who I was supposed to root for.  Yeah, Keanu was the obvious choice, but I couldn’t help but respect Hopper’s cunning and constant one-ups on Keanu.  And he was missing a thumb!  The best way to put it is that he had a maniacal charm, which Hopper certainly had in his public life.  And believe me, I do my best on a daily basis to emulate this exact kind of charm.  Yes, I’m crazy, but still too laid back.  I need to up the weird, so consider it my mission to carry Hopper’s torch from here on

RIP