Title: THE LAST TYCOON

Date: 6/15/1995; Publication: Magill's Survey of Cinema;

Magill's Survey of Cinema

06-15-1995

THE LAST TYCOON

Abstract:
Based on F. Scott Fitzgerald's unfinished novel, the film stars Robert De Niro as Monroe Stahr, the aloof Hollywood film executive who loses his sense of invulnerability and strength as a result of a frustrating love affair and the growing sophistication of his audience. Whether ignoring the ideological tenets of Communist organizer Brimmer (Jack Nicholson) or justifying the end of his relationship with Kathleen (Ingrid Boulting), Stahr can only function within the artificial confines of the industry that dominates him.


Summary:
During the 1970's, America was swept by a fervid nostalgia for F. Scott Fitzgerald and his era, and THE LAST TYCOON was one of two major films that were by-products of that nostalgia. Unlike THE GREAT GATSBY (1974), which preceded it, however, Elia Kazan's film came closer to what the audience seemed to crave: not only a documentary of a bygone era's flamboyance and monied romanticism, but also a step-by-step description of how a filmmaker creates such a documentary. In essence, THE LAST TYCOON is a satisfying enough formula for how to make a movie about the sort of movie the audience craved.

If the film THE LAST TYCOON is a tribute to the old school of "escape" films which gave the people "what they need," as Monroe Stahr (Robert De Niro) explains to his love, Kathleen Moore (Ingrid Boulting), it is also the same for Fitzgerald's monumental unfinished novel, claimed by some critics to have been potentially his best work of fiction. Given this heritage, the film, with its screenplay written by Harold Pinter, has much to live up to.

Written during the last years of Fitzgerald's life, the novel is, when compared with biographies and Fitzgerald's own notes and letters, a painful rendering of the author's unsuccessful stint as a screenplay writer in Hollywood's feast-or-famine days of the 1930's. Perhaps a description of a perennially hopeful idea of what might have been had fortune treated him more kindly, Fitzgerald's story delineates the strange requirements expected of a certain group of people in their common effort to crank out successful films. To some, this meant turning out good films despite the audience's tastes; to others, the only criterion of success was box-office profits; to still others, it meant combining audience tastes with the industry's better capabilities and somehow reaching a happy medium that would ultimately elevate the audience's expectations as well as its tastes. Monroe Stahr belongs to this latter group.

Stahr, a quietly authoritative film executive, dictates the production of a large Hollywood studio from a respected vantage point of cool aloofness. One night while Stahr naps in his studio office, the area is shaken by a moderate earthquake. Jolted from sleep, Stahr rushes to the back lots of the studio to inspect for damage. One of the lots has flooded, and bizarre props from varied movies bob in the water before the lot's flood lights, floating with comic majesty down this newly formed river. Perched on a large, out-of-context pagan head is Kathleen Moore, whose own simple beauty is captivating enough, but whose striking similarity to Stahr's now deceased wife overpowers him. This half-comic, half-macabre first sighting begins for Stahr a consuming odyssey, not only of recapturing a part of his past, but also of relinquishing that self-contained, invulnerable status that affords him the strength and influence to accomplish what he does.

Regardless of the personal tuggings taking place in Stahr's private life, however, life at the movie factory is crumbling. It is the heyday of unionization, a situation ripe for infiltration of the studio by a Communist organizer (superbly played by Jack Nicholson). Much of what he professes is ideologically acceptable, but Stahr refuses to accept it. Rather than choose to thwart the organizer and the union efforts, Stahr for the most part elects to ignore them. This proves to be a crucial mistake. The film industry has chosen to ignore far too much of life, and its audience has grown to a certain sophistication that can no longer ignore itself and its real concerns in the entertainment it seeks.

This discrepancy between the making of films and the audience for whom the films are made is a pivotal issue upon which screenwriter Harold Pinter focuses much of his script. Each scene is crisp in its intention and in its movement from beginning to end, from premise to conclusion; and the series of scenes is held together by the thread of Stahr's varying functions in each of them. Creating these concise scenes is Pinter's strength, and it is ironically reflected in Stahr's repeated claims that only he is able to bring together all the components of similarly concise and worthy films. As the industry of filmmaking gradually rearranges itself more in keeping with the "real" world of the audience to whom the movies are directed, there is a direct strengthening of Stahr's belief in his own authority. To maintain this belief, however, Stahr isolates himself even more from his colleagues in the industry. This is what brings him to this end, what drove Fitzgerald down, and what brings the film to its perplexing conclusion.

Despite the power and influence Stahr wields in the film business, he grows to realize that he is not capable of manipulating either his own personal life or trends in audience taste with the same assuredness. Kathleen, proving either her willfulness or her weakness, decides not to change the prescribed course of her life, and abruptly announces in a letter to Stahr that she can no longer see him. In a brilliantly written and directed scene, Stahr in essence "makes a movie" in his mind to satisfy his need to understand and control what has happened, to discover what quirk of fate kept him from attaining this one goal. He stages the entire series of events leading not only to Kathleen's decision, but also to the execution of her decision. This is done with Stahr's obviously cinematic attention to even the smallest detail. Satisfied, Stahr assimilates what he has created into his own consciousness, accepting it, we suspect, with as much conviction as he would any other movie. The result is that Stahr is swallowed up by the very industry to which he once gave life and which now is the only force through which he can affirm his own existence. THE LAST TYCOON, then, is about a man who finds himself living in a world that can no longer accommodate him, estranged from society, and isolated by his own previously unquestioned power and his superb intellect and talent.

As Monroe Stahr, Robert De Niro gives one of his finest, and possibly most underrated, performances. The part is executed with a quiet deliberateness too often reserved for the cowboy heroes of Westerns rather than for the roles of the elegant intellectual. The understatement of De Niro's role is matched by Ingrid Boulting's portrayal of Kathleen Moore. If De Niro's role is governed by controlled aloofness, then Boulting's is marked by a wistful and profound resignation. The characters rendered by these actors are not superficial. Instead, they are intelligent, contemplative, and worthy of each other.

THE LAST TYCOON was not universally well received. Many notable critics objected to Kazan's treatment of the film industry, perhaps finding its approach somewhat ungrateful, if not hypocritical. It must be remembered, however, that few if any institutions are totally good, if they are good at all, and the same can be said for the film industry.


Release Date: 1976

Production Line:
Sam Spiegel for Paramount

Director: Elia Kazan

Cinematographer: Victor J. Kemper

File Editor: Richard Marks

Run Time: 123 minutes

Cast:
Monroe Stahr - Robert De Niro
Rodriguez - Tony Curtis
Pat Brady - Robert Mitchum
Didi - Jeanne Moreau
Brimmer - Jack Nicholson
Boxley - Donald Pleasence
Kathleen Moore - Ingrid Boulting
Fleishacker - Ray Milland
Red Ridingwood - Dana Andrews
Cecilia Brady - Theresa Russell
Wylie - Peter Strauss
Popolos - Tige Andrews
Marcus - Morgan Farley
Guide - John Caradine
Doctor - Jeff Corey
Seal Trainer - Seymour Cassell
Edna - Angelica Huston

Review Sources:
New York Times: November 18, 1976, p. 59
Newsweek: November 22, 1976, p. 157
Time: December 6, 1976, p. 87
Variety: November 17, 1976, p. 18

Named persons in Production Credits:
Sam Spiegel

Studios named in Production Credits:
Paramount

Screenplay (Author):
Harold Pinter
F. Scott Fitzgerald

Color



Video Available.
Genre:
Drama

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