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Our Guru is left scratching his head and pondering wither Nigel Tufnel?
by Zak Weisfeld
It's been nineteen years since This is Spinal Tap was unveiled and Christopher Guest entered the mockumentary Hall of Fame. This week saw the wide release of Guest's latest film A Mighty Wind and, coincidentally, the pitiful, exsanguinated death of that same genre. Or at least Guest's exquisitely refined version of it.
Wind chronicles, well, not much really. The film is structured around the attempt to put on a folk music reunion concert organized as a memorial for the death of one of folk music's biggest promoters. Standing in the way of the perfect concert is the difficulty in bringing together the once popular duo Mitch Cohen and Mickey Crabbe—or Mitch and Mickey as they were known professionally. Mitch has suffered a psychotic break of some kind and isn't willing, or able, to perform. This may not strike you as a hilarious jumping off point. And it isn't. It's debatable if, in fact, it's even meant to be.
Though the size of the cast has increased since Spinal Tap, Guest's mockumentaries have become increasing insular, exploring ever more self-contained worlds of people and pop culture. With Wind he's gone from insular to hermetic. His universe of washed up folkies, nebbish impresarios and love-lorn former stars seems less like an off-kilter version of reality and more like a completely separate one—a stage set or diorama where each character is given a wardrobe and a quirk and then quickly sealed in Lucite. We are encouraged to come and gaze at them, but not to expect them to do too much lest they shatter.
The cast of Wind could politely be referred to as Guest's usual ensemble. One might also call them cronies, and the lack of new blood is one of Wind's weak points. While it may amuse to see what that crazy Fred Willard is up to this time (the same thing he was up to last time, in case you're wondering), the novelty wears off quickly and what's left is a chummy smugness reminiscent of the reunion of an Ivy League improv troupe.
And those that aren't smug seem bored with the Guestian character shtick—wading through the halting, improvised dialogue, struggling to find the joke in the interview segments, working way too hard to find that quirky
edge to the character. The strain
is especially visible with John Michael Higgins and Jane Lynch, the leaders of the über-perky folk act, The New Main Street Singers, who also happen to be part of a color based cult. Quirky, see. But also pointless.
The couple at the heart of Wind are the former duo of Mitch and Mickey played by Eugene Levy (who also co-wrote the screenplay) and Catherine O'Hara (who didn't). O'Hara plays Mickey as a thoughtful, middle-aged woman who's never quite gotten over her former partner and she brings an honesty and a heart to the role that's totally superfluous. The role of Mitch, on the other hand, stretches Levy's meager acting chops further than is comfortable to watch. Levy plays Mitch like a borscht belt Rain Man, all bad wig and long pauses. Worse still, there's enough pathos left in Mitch to make one unwilling to laugh at him.
Which may be the ultimate problem with Wind. In Best in Show and Spinal Tap, Guest's characters were so involved with their bizarre passions that they believed their struggles to be larger than themselves. They believed that what they were doing was important in a profound way. It was this gulf between the character's perception and the reality of the mock documentary that generated the comedy of Guests' earlier, and funnier, works. But the populace of Wind seems all too aware of how small and unimportant they are. The members of the Folksmen and Mitch and Mickey realize that their moment is not only fleeting but already flet. There's no comedy to be found in their barely perceptible rise and almost invisible fall. And not much tragedy either.
Guest mockumentaries have become so refined, so consumed with nuance and character that he's transcended comedy altogether and instead become a kind of miniaturist. Wind isn't a mockumentary because it doesn't mock. Instead, it's just a drama without a script. What Guest badly needs is the broad comic touch of a Rob Reiner (and Reiner could definitely use the subtlety of a Guest) to put a little fun back into his precious little world. As he should know, there's a fine line between stupid and clever, and Wind is too clever by far.
May 15, 2003 * Vol. 13, No. 20
© 2000 Metro Pulse
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