An Open Letter to Steve Martin
Dear Steve,
You know how people occasionally pass the time by making lists, top tens, that sort of thing? Well, up until a few weeks back, if I had been putting together a list of the greatest comic actors, you’d have been right up there. Of course, you might not have been, as it’s been a while since you were on top form, but I’m fairly sure that you would have come to mind, and been cheerfully tucked in the middle somewhere alongside Robin Williams or Dan Akroyd maybe. Hey, if you’d asked me ten years ago, well then you’d have definitely been in there and most likely a top three player.
Of course, you don’t care about your position in my top tens, and nor should you, I just wanted to be clear that I considered you to be immensely talented. I was, in short, a fan. However, having watched “The Pink Panther”, I have to wonder what you do care about these days even if you’re not concerned with where I rank you. In the interests of disclosure, I’ll say that I couldn’t finish watching it and gave up about twenty minutes before the end, so perhaps the finale is superb and it rights the wrongs in the first hour or so, but it’d have to be some ending. What I saw was totally appalling, jokes were telegraphed, performances stilted, accents bad beyond the intentional and the story, and the telling was drab and uninvolving. If it was just a bad movie, then I would have just been disappointed and moved onto the next thing, but it was more than that. This movie made me angry and it took a while to work out why.
Firstly, it’s a reworking of one of my favourite film franchises and more specifically a performance by Peter Sellers that is such a gem that it lifts the films (the first few anyway) into classic status on its merits alone. In that performance, Sellers blends the outrageous with immensely subtle and focused use of movement, facial expression and voice (including that ridiculous accent) resulting in a screen presence that is utterly involving and completely hysterical. The kindest thing I can say about your re-working of that role is that you appear to have completely missed the point. I could add that your performance was clumsy, ill-conceived, thoughtless maybe? The worst thing I can say? I think the angry part of me sees it as offensive to what Sellers did; a greed-driven pillaging of the source material from someone who has run out of ideas. I know I’m being too precious, but I don’t want to think of your Clouseau everytime the original comes up. I don’t even want to do it in the context of stating how poor the remake is. As melodramatic as it may sound, I feel like you’ve vandalised my pleasurable memories of the original.
But that isn’t the whole story. If the remake had been from someone else, some lesser actor — for argument’s sake let’s say Rob Schneider — I doubt I would have cared. The root of my anger is that you, a comedic actor I thought highly of, did it. Beyond screwing around with something I love, in doing so you’ve demonstrated an apparent lack of concern or interest in your art and betrayed my faith in your personal “brand”. I can’t square the actor I saw butchering the role of Clouseau with the actor who gave me “The Jerk”, “Man with Two Brains” and “The Lonely Guy”. What happened to that guy, Steve? Okay, so you got a bit older, the market moved on and you mellowed a little, but “Roxanne”, “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” and even “Father of the Bride” and “Parenthood” were still decent films. You were still recognisably you, just a softer, more mainstream you.
Perhaps this is about me, perhaps I’m projecting my own fears about growing older onto you, but really, are you happy with what you’ve done in the past few years? Maybe you aren’t. Did you watch the Pink Panther dailies and think it was all going horribly wrong? Did you want to stop it, but the studio wouldn’t let you? If you’re happy with it, then fine, I guess I’ll resign myself to catching up with your change in tastes in 20 years or so, but if not… well, I guess I should be less angry and more sorry for you. I don’t know which I prefer to believe. Either way, I doubt I’ll subject myself to watching another film of yours and I’ll try to blank out any future continuations of the Pink Panther franchise that you might have planned. Just, please keep your hands off “The Party”.
Really, please. I couldn’t take it.
