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Subj: Scrooged: Bill Murray becomes the Howard Beale of Christmas Posted: Sat Dec 20, 2008 at 09:44:52 pm EST (Viewed 427 times) | |||
There have been countless attempts to "update" and "modernize" Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, but none of them have even come close to the sheer win that is Bill Murray in Scrooged. Yes, it's literally 20 years out of date by now (the Solid Gold Dancers actually appeared in it shortly after their show had already been cancelled), and yes, like Network, its parodies of ratings-driven television programming actually seem quaint and relatively tame when compared to how much more absurd modern reality has become in that regard, but it's got an impressively star-studded cast, a stunningly dark sense of humor for a heartwarming holiday movie, and an awesome performance by Bill Murray back when he was arguably at his comic zenith. When I was a kid growing up in the '80s, Bill Murray was one of those guys who was probably like unto a mass media version of my spirit animal; from grade school through high school, I identified so fucking much with his deadpan smartass sarcasm and aggressively antisocial outbursts, and looking back on it, it probably shouldn't surprise me that I became so much of a misanthrope as an adult, because even if I didn't realize it back then, what almost all of Murray's characters had in common was a snarling, sneering, cynical disdain for human stupidity, rules governing "good behavior," and damn near everything else. Murray himself rarely laughed in any of his roles, and when he did, it was like watching an angry dog bark. Murray's version of Scrooge, a TV programming executive in charge of an all-star live Christmas Eve broadcast of A Christmas Carol, uses humor to express his character's coldness and cruelty toward humanity, and as wrong as it is, it's also fucking hilarious. Unlike the original Scrooge, who was merely miserly, thoughtless, unyielding and closed-off, Murray's version of Scrooge is a terrorizing tornado of vicious bastardy, proactively tearing into those around him with such mad, manic vigor that you eventually realize that it's the closest his character can come to anything approaching happiness anymore. Of course, once you take such a Scrooge character to an even greater extreme than the original, you've got to make the Ghosts of Christmas even meaner and scarier, too, just to get through to him. Yes, the Ghosts are more broadly comic, to match Murray's own performance, but their visions of past, present and future are also unnerving as hell. The first time I saw the movie, I actually said, out loud, "Holy shit," when Murray's character literally stumbled onto the tragic fate of Michael J. Pollard as Herman, the homeless man who had mistaken Murray for a down-and-out Richard Burton, in one of the film's funnier scenes, and whom Murray's character had brushed off instead of helping. Murray's reaction, of guilt redirected into anger at Herman, was uncomfortably emotionally genuine, and every beat of the scene felt like a punch in the chest. Likewise, the starkly black-and-white scheme of the visions of the future played out like a hellish nightmare, right down to Murray's final, cringe-inducing pleas of "DON'T LET 'EM BURN ME, JIMMY!" Which brings us to the spiritual awakening of Murray's Scrooge character: "IT CAN HAPPEN EVERY DAY! YOU'VE GOT TO WANT THAT FELLING! AND IF YOU LIKE IT, AND YOU WANT IT, YOU'LL GET GREEDY FOR IT! YOU'LL WANT IT EVERY DAY OF YOUR LIFE, AND IT CAN HAPPEN TO YOU! I BELIEVE IN IT NOW! I BELIEVE IT'S GONNA HAPPEN TO ME NOW! I'M READY FOR IT ... and ... it's great ... it's a good feeling ... it's really better than I've felt in a long time." This one always makes me choke up, for precisely the reason that Roger Ebert criticized it in his review; watching it feels like you're actually witnessing Bill Murray have an on-camera emotional breakdown in real life, which, if you think about it, is completely in keeping with the sort of personally transformative revelation that his character has just been subjected to. Of course, it doesn't hurt that Murray's Scrooge manages to have a happy ending that one-ups the original in one regard, by allowing him to get back together with his one true love. Karen Allen is one of those women whose huge eyes, wide smiles and warm personality have managed to make her come across like a fresh-faced young girl for decades, and while I must admit to overlooking her charms when I was younger, seeing how gracefully she's aged is actually making me reconsider not seeing the latest Indiana Jones movie, in spite of the bad reviews it's received, because THIS is the face of a 57-year-old woman:  So, yes, suffice it to say that this one goes on my list of recommended holiday films. | |||
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