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OFFICE POLITICS The most visually striking sequence to grace a Mike Nichols movie is the opening for his 1994 Wolf. A wink to The Shining, Jack Nicholson is driving his car through Vermont’s Buels Gore and the snowy mountainous terrain and the long shots are tenebrous, a little Germanic and foreboding—a setting as Xmas card from Lon Chaney, Jr. So moody and enveloping you wonder if Nichols had anything to do with it. Haskell Wexler’s zoomy camera in Virginia Woolf an exception, Nichols’ works usually look functional—just enough of whatever it takes to pass as movies. It’s why some of us dread going to a Nichols movie; we pay to see what is TV monitor. If Giuseppe Rotunno as cinematographer is chiefly responsible for the opening, he’d have made a rare contribution to the Nichols catalog. The “vision” thereafter is a different story altogether: it is late 80s television; the settings degrade into fakery, even the forest is a set up. Yet for a good hour Wolf maintains a substantial hold thanks to Jack. His darting eyes and brows are being utilized fittingly—as opposed to being early warning sirens he’s once more going to let them do all the acting. He exhibits both a Kevin McCarthy handsomeness and a restrained caustic charm. After the infectious bite, his early metamorphosis is amusing, as if second nature to frighten horses, to sniff out scents on intruders and booze on breath, to be re-charged by a keener sense of sight and super-acute hearing. And absolutely natural for him to have carnal lust intensified and appreciated—he uses his mouth to undo the housecoat of his wife (Kate Nelligan) who later lauds him on the answering machine as an “animal.” There’s pleasure watching Jack plotting, using his innate likability, his common sense, his rarely used gift of calm to get what he wants in the book publishing industry, though we never believe he’s an editor (or any profession except being Jack). More pleasing is he’s not loaded down with obscenities. Then half way thru, Wolf takes its sharp turn to Nincompoopville. What happened? Filming took place from April, 1993 to the end of July, 1993 but the movie wasn’t released until June, 1994. Within those eleven months the movie was, at the very least, re-edited and given the usual test preview(s) and the comments were not promising. Now the rumors: the conclusion was supposedly the major disappointment and substantial reshooting was said to be required to patch up the mess. Apparently Nichols told a different story later: only a shot or two had to be done to undo the clumsiness in a stunt man’s jump. Here’s some truthiness: no one believes a $70 million dollar movie was delayed for months over jump shots. What the original climax and wrap were we still don’t know—maybe they will show up in a future Blu-ray edition, though Nichols has always been against DVD extras that include outtakes. Apparently Jack was never sure what was going to be the script’s finish, as he and good friend/co-writer Jim Harrison boozingly tinkered with an update of the The Wolf Man mythology for roughly fifteen years, during which Jack would occasionally pitch their scenario to studios for financing. Early into the production, script doctor Wesley Strick was called in and told by Nichols “there aren’t any actual scenes in Jim’s script; please give me some scenes I can direct.” In comments by Jack and Nichols to the press when the movie was released, it’s clear they avoided discussing the howler ending by shifting to the movie’s gimmick of transmutation as metaphor. In fact, Nichols did wonder if Wolf could incorporate AIDS, without prejudice; his spurts of anxiety over the script seem to allow Michelle Pfeiffer not to object much to being the recipient of the sexual transmission of Jack’s contagion. His guidance of the actors throughout much of the picture is further evidence he preferred the uncredited wit of Elaine May and the humorous shenanigans of publishing house egos to mounting an actioner. Those involved in the making of the movie report Nichols’s customary spark was zapped by the end of shooting; in post production, he grew agitated not only by the growing nervousness of Columbia wanting to open the movie ASAP as interest on its debt was accruing but also by the immense pressure brought on by the months he and Jack wasted in not coming up with a more sophisticated exit. (They never did another movie together.) Foremost a party raconteur, Nichols’s gift for city slicker gab has always been the central appeal to his heavily metropolitan audience; recognizing he could never be reconciled to the body horror genre, those viewers really want Jack back in the office protecting his stable of writers, growling at Christopher Plummer’s ownership, at least between full moons, and want discovery about Plummer’s relationship with his daughter Michelle. A more satisfactory ending: Jack and Michelle get hitched and at the reception daddy Christopher bestows his generosity: “I’ve got my jet ready to take you on the honeymoon of your dreams.” The next shot: the beauty & the beast arrive at a resort called Chaney’s. The closing shot: Jack puts the amulet around Michelle’s neck and, flashing his wicked smile, says, “You’re gonna need this.” Encapsulating what we’re left with, Hal Hinson in the Washington Post quipped Wolf “is the only one of its kind ever made—a horror film about office politics.” Text COPYRIGHT © 2007 RALPH BENNER All Rights Reserved.
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