Ken Tucker’s Pop Culture

On Wed., July 23, a little bit of modern late-night history was made, as The Late Show with David Letterman turned two segments over to a discussion with Jane Mayer about her new book, The Dark Side. Her subtitle tells it all: “The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals.” What needs telling more than I’ve seen in the media is how seriously engaged David Letterman was on this subject, and how far he was willing to go to express, if only by the implications of his questions, his thoughts and feelings about the present administration.
It’s one thing for Letterman to make fun of Bush’s crippling inarticulateness in the host’s nightly “Great Moments In Presidential Speeches” clip. It’s another for Letterman to ask, as he did this night without a trace of his trademark irony, whether there wasn’t enough documented proof to have Dick Cheney and his immediate collaborators brought to war-crime trial.
Years ago, kids, late-night hosts such as Steve Allen and Jack Paar used to use their perches to politely question the politicians of their day. A bit later, Dick Cavett turned some of his ABC time over not just to politicians but to critics of elected officials and government policy, ranging from Abbie Hoffman to Gore Vidal.
But in the present era, only Craig Ferguson regularly puts literary authors on his air, and when Jay Leno gets a pol onto The Tonight Show, his obsequious deference makes for some embarassed eye-averting for viewers at home. (Conan O’Brien and Jimmy Kimmel never permit you to know they have political interests at all, which some would say is just as well, but I’d kind of like to hear Harvard-boy O’Brien drop his mask of manic nuttiness once in a while and articulate the serious thoughts he doubtless has off-air.)
Serious thoughts were what Letterman was persuing with Jane Mayer. He was so casually blunt in his open contempt for the way Bush has allowed government policy to be run by Cheney and his radical cronies, I’m very surprised that Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh weren’t calling for Letterman’s wizened hide the following day. (I saw no attack on Dave in print, on the air, or in the blogosphere, did you? If so, I’d appreciate any info on this.)
It was a high point for Letterman’s long service to America, and I’m not joking. The guy continues to be sharply funny when he’s not political, and if advancing age, having a young son, and seeing the end of his CBS contract is imbuing him with a sense of freedom, a what-are-they-going-to-do-fire-me? attitude, then I say: Start booking more political writers pronto, Dave.

Check out my review of the new Silver Jews album on NPR…

For the best TV interview with Bill Murray I’ve ever seen, be sure to check out tonight’s edition of Elvis Mitchell: Under The Influence, on TCM. As befits a chat on a classic-movie channel, Murray lets loose with loads of shrewd comments about a surprising range of films, from Hoosiers (”I cry and laugh at the same time”) to an impassioned championing of a fairly obscure 1936 screwball comedy, The Moon’s Our Home. Murray says a high point is the pillow fight between its stars, Henry Fonda and Margaret Sullivan, adding, “I love pillow fights with girls. It’s one of my favorite things.”
Murray also tells a very funny story about calling up Clint Eastwood after seeing 1974’s Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, which costarred Jeff Bridges, and asking Eastwood if he could play his second banana in any of Eastwood’s upcoming projects, because the buddy role seemed like such fun.
This is the second terrific interview in a row for Under The Influence, which premiered last week with a fine conversation between host Mitchell and the late Sydney Pollack. Which is odd, in a way, because Mitchell doesn’t seem to do much to elicit the excellent responses he gets. He sits back in a dapper suit, all smiles and murmurs, lobbing the occasional softball. But these guys hit ‘em right out of the park. Which makes me think Mitchell has a gift for putting guests at ease (no small feat, especially for a guy as guarded as Murray usually is). Mitchell’s strategy of keeping the talk focused on movies his guests admire loosens their tongues — they immediately sense that the host isn’t going to ambush them with some gossipy grilling.
Interestingly, whereas Pollack downplayed any friction between himself and star Dustin Hoffman on the set of Tootsie, Murray tells a riotous stories about just how much tension there was on the set — “These guys couldn’t agree on what time the sun came up” — and how he diffused it. As I said, great stuff.

Over the weekend I saw Hellboy II: The Golden Army, the summer’s latest super-hero movie, and, until The Dark Knight arrives in theaters on Friday, the season’s most soulful one. That’s because Hellboy’s director is Guillermo del Toro, creator of Pan’s Labyrith, The Devil’s Backbone, and the first, 2004 Hellboy film. Del Toro works on our imaginations by inserting his dreams into ours; his visual vocabulary includes such things as solemn faces with displaced eyes (they peep from hands in Pan’s; from wings in Hellboy II). He’s the artiest commercial filmmaker this side of Todd Haynes working right now (I intend that as a compliment), and I hope you stuff Hellboy II into your summer moviegoing.
Just as David Lehman has taken the time in recent editions of The Best American Poetry to point out uses of poetry on TV shows, I will add that this movie uses poetry as a plot-point: Hellboy II—a romance every bit as much as it is an action-film—includes a verse from Tennyson’s “In Memorium”; a small chunk perfectly suited for a scary movie, beginning with the couplet, “When the blood creeps, and the nerves prick/And tingle; and the heart is sick.” Del Toro adds to the literariness of the movie by having a main character hide a crucial desired object in the pages of a volume of Tennyson, and then, Poe-like, make it almost impossible for the other characters to find by hiding the book in full view in a crowded bookshelf. If you think there’s nothing but dumb noise in summer blockbusters (Hellboy II was #1 at the box office this past weekend), think—and look—again.

It has been reported that the extraordinary science-fiction writer, poet, and essayist Thomas M. Disch has died—he is said to have commited suicide on the 4th of July. He was 68.
The general public may be familiar with his best-known credit: He wrote the novella The Brave Little Toaster, which became the acclaimed 1987 Disney cartoon. But Disch also wrote ten science fiction novels and scores of short stories that placed him at the center of his genre for their uncommon literary adroitness, dry wit and clear-eyed skepticism. Go read the lyrically beautiful On Wings Of Song (1979) immediately, please. He also wrote a unique trilogy of mordant thrillers: The Businessman: A Tale of Terror (1984), The M.D.: A Horror Story (1991), and The Priest: A Gothic Romance (1994).
Disch’s primary calling, however, was as a poet. He published a half-dozen collections characterized by a mastery of poetic form, and in 1995 published a collection of essays, The Castle of Indolence: On Poetry, Poets, and Poetasters, that was overflowing in its glowing appreciation and ruthless criticism of what he considered the best and worst tendencies in modern poetry. I keep it on my bedside table for periodic re-reading and inspiration.
I’ll quote just one apercu among many from that collection that all critics would do well to heed: “The larger value of negative criticism—beyond the sigh of relief that ‘At last someone has said it’—is that, without it, any expression of delight or enthusiasm is under suspicion of being one more big hug in that special-education classroom where poets minister to each others’ needs for self-esteem.”
My small request is that you read the full range of what Disch wrote and fully appreciate his art, craft, and passion. It was the failure of an audience to appreciate the scope of what Disch accomplished that, I’m willing to bet, was one cause of his sad, too-early death.