WhatzUp - Leisure Time Weekly for Northeast Indiana

Color Me Kubrick
by Catherine Lee

“It’s my head!” The way John Malkovich screams this agonized sentence in Being John Malkovich lives in my memory. When he says this dozens of people are paying to spend 15 minutes in his head. As marvelously absurd as this premise is, Malkovich, a gifted chameleon in human form, makes it seem possible. That film suggests that we might all have many personalities living in us. “It’s my head!” is what I scream to myself when one of my bad selves is infecting my thoughts.

Malkovich has made a career of playing snobs, creeps, villains and freaks. Though perhaps no movie could celebrate his peculiar reputation as ably as Being John Malkovich, Malkovich is the perfect actor to star in Color Me Kubrick, a film with a premise almost as unique and quirky as Being John Malkovich.

Color Me Kubrick, with its clever tag “a tru … ish story,” is the story of Alan Conway, a con man who impersonated film director Stanley Kubrick for many years. While Color Me Kubrick is self-proclaimed as only “tru ... ish,” it is at least as true to the basic facts as many films that boast that they are “based on a true story.” Conway did pose as Stanley Kubrick for many years, and though he looked nothing like the real Stanley Kubrick, he used Kubrick’s reputation as a recluse to prey on people who wanted to be famous or at least bask in the friendship of the famous.

Conway’s cons were so successful that once his victims discovered or suspected the fraud they frequently pursued the real Kubrick to complain and commiserate. Fielding these calls and complaints was Anthony Frewin, Kubrick's long-time assistant. There were so many victims Frewin eventually compiled extensive files on Conway’s tricks. Frewin is the screenwriter of Color Me Kubrick, and so “tru … ish” has special resonance.

Behind the camera is first-time director Brian Cook who worked for decades with Kubrick, including as assistant director for Barry Lyndon, The Shining and Eyes Wide Shut. With this writer-and-director team it isn’t surprising that Color Me Kubrick, with its amusing and clever asides about celebrity and human frailty, is first a very loving valentine to Stanley Kubrick. And this is not a gushy, gooey “wasn’t he a genius” valentine. This is much more sly and dry, the kind of tribute that friends who miss their friend and understood his quirks would make.

Color Me Kubrick will be most appreciated by Kubrick fans, though it is amusing and entertaining all on its own. There are big and little details that suggest the master. The first scene is an amusing reworking of the mood of A Clockwork Orange, complete with soundtrack. Bits of soundtrack from Kubrick films are all over Color Me Kubrick. The filmmakers use of Strauss seems to suggest that you can make any scene soar if you score it with such triumphant music. Malkovich walking to the laundromat in his bathrobe sucking down a bottle of vodka turns a bit of 2001 inside out.

The original soundtrack of Color Me Kubrick is by Bryan Adams. I’m not usually a Bryan Adams fan, but his songs here are much more subdued than his usual work. “I’m Not The Man You Think I Am” is much better than any of the songs that have won him three Oscar nominations and is better than this year’s Oscar nominees for Best Song.

Visually, the filmmakers dress up scenes with color, richness, clutter and detail that would make Stanley smile. Malkovich appears in outlandish costume after outlandish costume. There are no powdered wigs, but the endless vain accessories are first-cousins to anything in Barry Lyndon. Malkovich takes on different accents and mannerisms depending on who he is conning, often as a contrast to those he is conning. He’s more high tone and prissy when he’s seducing a metal band into thinking they are going to be in his next film and all he’s after is a few nights of fun, lots of drinks and a little spending cash. He employs the most exaggerated Bronx accent and rather crass demeanor with higher class victims who are being set up for lengthy hotel stays and dreams of Vegas. Movies are magic, and so it isn’t surprising that so many people can be easily brought into believing. The words “Stanley Kubrick” are spoken with shock and awe by a couple dozen characters in Color Me Kubrick, and each time you can feel the magical spell the invocation of the name a famous film director provokes. And it is the possibility of fame and the immortality of movies that seems to capture every victim. One doting gentleman notes, in a conversation about making a singer as big as Elvis, “Can you imagine how big Jesus would have been if he played the guitar?”

In 1993, Frank Rich wrote an article exposing Conway after running in to him in a restaurant. (My condolences to Rich, who is played in the movie by someone much less handsome and charming than he is in person, and to Alex Witchel, his wife, who is played in the film by Marisa Berenson, who is quite beautiful but an easy decade older than Witchel would have been in 1993.)

This bit of real fame for being a famous fraud landed Conway in trouble, but nothing stuck. He was never successfully prosecuted for any crime. The well-to-do don’t want their embarrassing gullibility outed publicly, and no one in the system wants to bother with petty theft. Conway’s abilities at manipulation land him a soft cushioning stay at various mental health facilities. He changes his shape to suit and flatter his doctors. His keen ability to work any situation is a skill highly prized by film directors. These days no film director avoids the spotlight. Kubrick was the last director who could be used in this way, and it is lots of fun watching a gifted actor play a guy who lived it up with ease simply because a famous film director didn’t give interviews or like to have his picture taken.

Catherine Lee is the executive director of Fort Wayne Cinema Center, the only independently operated movie theater in Fort Wayne, specializing in independent, foreign, documentary, specialty and classic films.