The problems with the movie don't arise solely from the interaction of the director and actors. The script takes place in a single night, but instead of letting us read between the lines, May has packed them with exposition so that the deserted nighttime streets of Philadelphia start to resound like a stage. And though the three women (Nicky's angry wife Jan (Joyce Van Patten) and Mikey's docile wife Annie (Rose Arrick), in addition to Nellie) have only brief screen time, May still tries to cover every base. Jan's scene is particularly lumpy. When Nicky shows up in the middle of the night she tells him to go away, then lets him in; she recriminates him, then kisses him passionately and asks him if he needs money. May has Van Patten express everything a bitter, soon-to-be-ex-wife would feel, and while her emotions might be believable if spread out over days or weeks, they're ludicrous following each other in quick succession.
May seems to be out of her element in every conceivable way. This may explain the odd technical glitches, such as the three times you see technicians to the side or at the back of shots. (The original cinematographer Victor J. Kemper quit before the end of the movie.) There are some beautiful images, highly evocative of the nighttown locations, but sometimes they're jarringly intercut with shots that are conventionally lighted and framed. Considering the gross overextension of the shoot and the indulgence of the actors, however, it makes perfect sense that the movie feels like the result of a game of 52 pick-up rather than the realization of a design.
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Article comments
1 - Rodney Welch
Some observations:
* "Mikey and Nicky is the only script May directed that isn't obviously structured as comedy or irony ... She has ... given too much of the development over to the actors, who cannot give it a more shapely sense of irony (that's really beyond them, to the extent that irony is principally a textual matter.) With nothing releasing the potential comedy in the material (apart, perhaps, from Ned Beatty as the hitman bitching about the other jobs he could have taken), May leaves no imprint on the material."
The first point I take from this is that the film is hard for you to pigeonhole. If it had been made in the style of A New Leaf or The Heartbreak Kid, well, that would make it a great deal easier for a professedly structuralist critic such as yourself to write about. As a result, the problem in your mind is that this isn't really May's film, but a film by the actors in which May did little more than point the camera, which prevents it from having "a more shapely sense of irony."
These concerns, however, seem to me outside of the film, because it's a more powerful, emotional, spontaneous film than what she did previously. It's more raw than cooked. She's not aiming for the same kind of sublety or telling those same kind of jokes she told before. Her design here is to capture the sense of a long, involved relationship between two men over the course of a single night; in its own improv way it's closer to Eugene O'Neill than, say, Moliere.
*As for the liquor bottle out of the window, I don't see how it is you think the erraticness doesn't come out of Nicky's character, as the guy's been up for days, he's sweaty, nervous, paranoid, totally fucked-up and smoking cigarettes like they're going out of style. So -- yes, he would throw a liquor bottle out of the window.
But here, too, is another aspect of the film: the suggestion that Nicky wants to be caught. Nicky's entire character is all about taking risks and pushing the limit, even when it's completely stupid to do so -- hence his behavior in a black bar where he deliberately goads one of the patrons. Nicky is rightly suspicious all the way through that Mikey is setting him up, and at times he seems to be deliberately pushing his luck, as if daring Mikey to go through with it -- handicapping himself, so to speak, by giving Mikey even more reasons.
I've long thought that a good companion piece to May's film is Scorsese's Mean Street, which came out a couple of years earlier. Mikey and Nicky are like an older version of Charlie (Keitel) and Johnny Boy (De Niro). Charlie is a complete toady; Johnny is completely undisciplined and completely fearless. Remember when Johnny Boy burns that $10 bill in front of that little mob enforcer and says "I fuck you right where you breathe"? That is a very Nicky thing to do, and Nicky seems to be doing it all through the film.
*"Too many of the loosely agglomerated scenes don't have the rhythms of live encounters..."
Well, this is a point where we may simply disagree -- because to me it all feels real, mainly because Cassavetes and Falk never drop out of character. Even when they're bullshitting each other, I never get the sense that they're just doing Actor Studio schtick. I think, possibly, because the film stars Cassavetes people may approach it with that prejudice in mind -- oh boy, here comes Big John the Actor, chewing scenery right and left. Indeed, that's the way some of his films are, somes of which (like Faces) are soooooo actorish that I haven't even watched them all the way through, but that's largely because he trusts the actors to be as inspired in front of the camera as he is, and they often aren't.
Whatever Cassavetes influence as a director (and it's been incalculable) I tend to value him more as an actor, which with him seems a purely natural talent rather than a studied one, and I regard his role as Nicky as one of the finest screen performances anywhere. There may be better ones, but there isn't one that, viewing for viewing, is so riveting. What you see when you see Mikey and Nicky is an actor who understands the character at his very depths: a trapped little rat who wants to keep living because he's addicted to his own self-destruction.
Alan, you have seen a different film completely than the one I have seen. There are finer, smoother, better-lit, more nicely-edited, cleaner masterpieces of great art that May's film, made with the kind of symmetrical precision you look for, but they don't prick the skin the way this one does. May drills hard into the competitive nature of a relationship between men -- and what she leaves on the screen is messy, alright, but it's also alive and throbbing.
2 - Alan Dale
Thanks, Rodney, for the long, considered comment.
A few quibbles. The movie isn't hard for me to "pigeonhole": as I wrote, "Mikey's betrayal of Nicky is small-scale tragic naturalism: a worm turning â€" into a viper â€" and biting his 'friend's' heel." And as you no doubt noticed, I didn't have any "trouble writing about" Mikey and Nicky. The "problem in my mind" is that May's great talent is for comedy and irony, not for what she attempts in Mikey and Nicky, and the fact that she prostrates herself before her star is a sign of that. No artist possesses every talent. To me Schindler's List is not a better movie, or even a better Spielberg movie, than E.T..
"These concerns, however, seem to me outside of the film, because it's a more powerful, emotional, spontaneous film than what she did previously." The logic of that escapes me. You experience it as a more powerful, emotional, etc. movie than what May did before, but that doesn't imply my concerns are "outside" of the film, whatever that means.
I actually don't think we saw different movies. If you took my review and left in all the neutral descriptions and removed the criticism and added in its place something along the lines of, "And that's why it's so good," I think it would be clear we saw the same movie. As I said in my review, "My tolerance for this is perhaps low." I don't know how to admit more plainly that I'm talking about a personal reaction to a film, which is, of course, what all critics are talking about.
I think your comments here are an excellent positive review of the same movie. "It's more raw than cooked." is a perfectly apt phrase. And your suggestion that Nicky wants to be caught makes sense and is helpful even for someone like me who wouldn't want to sit through the movie again.
I do think, however, I'm pretty fair to the movie, considering I didn't enjoy it. I gave Cassavetes a lot of credit for his innovations and noted that it's one of those situations in which the innovator, in my opinion, didn't implement his innovations as satisfactorily as later artists. Scorsese's Mean Streets is a perfect choice to illustrate this. In my adulation of Mean Streets, I give Cassavetes credit for what Scorsese learned from him, but this is where the "shapeliness" comes in. Mean Streets is conceived, shot, and edited with an aesthetic judiciousness in which spontaneousness and passion are not at all compromised. It's a visionary accomplishment. The fact that Mikey and Nicky do all throughout May's movie what Scorsese has Keitel and DeNiro do in more limited doses just means Mikey and Nicky offers more of the same, not necessarily better.
To point out, as you did, that there are "finer, smoother, better-lit, more nicely-edited, cleaner masterpieces of great art than May's film, made with the kind of symmetrical precision you look for," isn't to the point. In fact, in my review I complained not about the bad lighting but about the good lighting, being jarringly intercut with the much more interesting messy shots. And "symmetry"? As a defender of Guy Maddin and Bruce LaBruce, I don't think that charge will stick.
Finally, one of the tests I run in my head after a movie is whom I could recommend it to. I think your view of the movie is entirely coherent and plausibleâ€"I would say "convincing" except it didn't change my mind. The only people I know who might possibly see it the way you do are either actors, directors, or writers. Not a bad haul by any means, but certainly a limited one.
3 - Alan Dale
I feel compelled to post this comment from a reader I got on my website:
"Dear Mr. Dale,
I read your review of Mickey and Nicky. Boy are you out of touch. Was the film not Gay enough for you? Do your taxes and stay off the net please as your reviews are not helping things. By the way, what the hell was your back handed Vincent Gallo insult about. Gallo is clearly an original, interesting and important filmmaker. What bitter hang up do you have with him personally I wonder?
Several folks consider Gallo's films to be among the best they have seen. Are you just put off by him personally? I think so and you see that's why
you should consider ending your little role as a critic. Your personal hang ups should have been left at the front door. Get out, be the best fag you can be and tax away but please stop this game of you as the critic.
Love, Jose"
This e-mail has several aspects that are common to the mail I receive and that have the opposite effect from what the writer intended:
1) stating an opinion as if it were an argument ("Gallo is clearly an important filmmaker");
2) reducing the disagreement to personality ("Are you just put off by him personally? I think so"--this sort of thing would probably be irrelevant even if it were true);
3) personal attacks (esp. for being gay which to me is a good thing);
4) vituperation generally (it's only a movie, it's only a movie review, it's only one man's opinion); and
5) weirdness ("Love"?).
After reading his comment I have no idea what he liked about Mikey and Nicky, or even if he saw it, and what he didn't like about my review, except that it contained a (passing) negative reference to Vincent Gallo.
4 - Rodney Welch
Maybe this Jose character is Vincent Gallo's so-called "sock puppet."
5 - Alan Dale
Thanks for the link, Rodney. That would mean I'd been "socked" by "an original, interesting and important filmmaker." Not bad.
6 - Rodney Welch
There are worse things. I honestly don't know anything about Gallo, but doesn't "homophobic" occasionally precede his name?
7 - Alan Dale
I didn't know about this, but here's a link that supports your theory.