Gene Wilder: Actor

After the sad news of the passing of Gene Wilder, I am re-posting a previous blog from several years ago about what a fine actor he was.  Wilder had great success early in his career in breakout roles in Bonnie and Clyde, The Producers, Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Sex, and of course Willy Wonka.  He then wrote and directed a number of mediocre to bad comedies and faded away in the 1990’s with health problems.  He won an Emmy for Will & Grace in 2005, but his best work was in the early 1970’s.  That’s a long time ago, but people still remember his Willy Wonka.

All reports are that he was a sincerely nice man who endured several tragedies but left a legacy of insanity and laughter.  RIP Gene Wilder.

Gene Wilder, Actor

By pure coincidence two films were released in 2005 that were remakes of films starring Gene Wilder; Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory from this summer, and the more recent release of The Producers.  So we have not one but two opportunities to compare Wilder’s work with another actor.  In both cases Gene Wilder comes out on top.

Johnny Depp had big shoes to fill when stepping into Willie Wonka’s--the role was arguably Wilder’s greatest achievement and might have been worthy of Oscar consideration had it not been in a “children’s film” (he did snag a Golden Globe nomination for best actor in a comedy/musical).  The role of Willie Wonka was a challenging one, and Wilder made the character multi-dimensional.  He veered from avuncular to sinister and back again, with temporary stops at whimsical and malicious.

Wilder set the tone for the character with his entrance; it was his idea to have Wonka initially limp before breaking into a somersault.  It established the character as completely unpredictable.  In other hands this could have seemed erratic, but somehow Wilder was able to imbue Wonka with an underlying veneer of goodness even when he seemed angry or malevolent.

Depp, by contrast, created a one dimensional Wonka, a character stuck in perpetual childhood (much like Michael Jackson, whom some have speculated Depp was impersonating).  The film itself seemed to focus more on Wonka’s emotional development, undermining the sense in the original that Wonka was a master manipulator sure of himself in all situations.

The Producers is another Wilder triumph, the role for which he received his only Oscar nomination for acting (he also got one as co-author of Young Frankenstein).  Wilder’s Leo Bloom was a true basket case, lost in times of stress without his “blue blankey.”  Wilder’s frantic hysteria in the opening scene made Zero Mostel’s girth seem reasonably intimidating despite his not being THAT much smaller.  The character then credibly developed into a self-confident con man under Mostel’s character’s tutelage.

The role of Leo Bloom was assumed, first on Broadway and then on film, by Matthew Broderick.  He is, quite frankly, terrible.  Broderick also demonstrated a complete lack of charisma in another musical, the TV version of The Music Man.  Broderick seems to feel that musicals are realistic anyway, so there’s no reason to act realistically.  In the famous “I’m hysterical” scene Broderick says the words, “I’m hysterical,” but there is no conviction in his voice of demeanor.  The same was true in The Music Man; it was as if he believed he had a good product that would sell itself instead of having to finagle every sale.

Maybe it works on Broadway, where there are no close-ups, but in the film version Broderick appears stiff as a board.  He isn’t credible when he is hysterical at the beginning, and he isn’t credible when he is self-confident at the end.  He also towers over the smaller Nathan Lane, making his, “You’re going to squish me like a bug” line completely inexplicable.

Looking up Gene Wilder’s entry at IMDB.com, I was surprised at how sparse the listing was.  TV movies aside, he hasn’t made a movie since 1991, and he hasn’t had a hit since . . . I suppose 1984’s The Woman in Red (and he hasn’t made a good movie since Silver Streak in 1976, although in the 1990’s he wrote and starred in two excellent TV movies featuring Jewish detective “Cash“ Carter).  In addition to The Producers and Wonka he also did excellent work in Young Frankenstein, Start the Revolution Without Me, and Silver Streak.  Seeing actors such as Depp and Broderick attempt to fill his shoes and come up wanting made me appreciate his films that much more.