Raw L. The Ridley Scott Encyclopedia

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In a 1977 interview Vaughan-Hughes emphasized the

fact that he wanted to establish D’Hubert as the hero of The

Duellists; to show him as someone with a private life. Hence

he created a new character, Laura (DIANA QUICK) whom

D’Hubert eventually marries. However, D’Hubert’s obses-

sion with dueling eventually takes over his life to such an

extent that he forgets about Laura.

Vaughan-Hughes’s screenplay went through several

drafts; an early version (now in the British Film Institute,

London) had D’Hubert being accused of rape by a maid—

something that prompts Feraud to continue the duel. To

emphasize the importance of Feraud’s private life, Vaughan-

Hughes incorporated two long scenes involving the soldier

and Laura. D’Hubert admits at one point that he is nothing

more than a savage brute, needing a woman to tame him.

However this does not seem very likely as D’Hubert believes

that Feraud will win in the end. These two sequences were

deleted from the final script.

Vaughan-Hughes’s original draft ends with D’Hubert

acquiring a new self-confidence; not only does he emerge

victorious, but he has the opportunity to condemn Feraud

as a Bonapartist—someone who should take the chance to

leave France and live in exile for the rest of his life. This dia-

logue was likewise removed from the final script: Scott

replaces it with an image of Feraud standing on a hill, sil-

houetted against the landscape. Like Napoleon, Feraud has

paid the price for overreaching himself.

Despite the cuts, Scott praised Vaughan-Hughes’s script

for its emphasis on character development that seemed

“minimalistic, specific [and] loaded with humor.” Iain John-

stone reports that Vaughan-Hughes actually wrote a draft

script for TRISTAN AND ISEULT, which apparently was

going to be produced by Paramount Pictures and filmed in

the Dordogne (like The Duellists). However, the project was

abandoned when Scott saw Star Wars, as the director

believed that George Lucas “had beaten him to it in charac-

ter design.”

References

Iain Johnstone, Tom Cruise: All the World’s a Stage (London: Hod-

der and Stoughton, 2006), 99–100; Ridley Scott, quoted in Duelling

Directors: Ridley Scott and Kevin Reynolds, Documentary on the

making of The Duellists included in the 2003 DVD release of the

film (Los Angeles: Paramount Pictures Corporation, 2002).

VAUGHN, VINCE (1970– )

Born 1970 in Illinois and made his name in the film

Swingers (1996), which immediately paved the way for a

leading role in CLAY PIGEONS.

Vaughn plays a serial killer with a passion for his work.

In an interview he claimed that “It’s rare to find a piece of

material that is both very funny and very dark. That combi-

nation is what interested me. It keeps an audience wonder-

ing what is going to happen next ...[Lester Long] is a man

with no conscience. Nevertheless, Lester is a charmer—

women love him, and men easily become his friends.”

Vaughn gives a compelling performance as the serial

killer, whose basically amiable nature conceals an obsessive

personality. We are made aware of this by the way he keeps

laughing nervously, as if unsure of what to make of the peo-

ple he befriends. When they double-cross him, he reacts vio-

lently; the only way he can be pacified is if they vow to

remain loyal to him. This is clear in a scene towards the end

of the film, when Lester holds the girl Kimberly as a hostage,

a knife to her throat, and exclaims to Clay (JOAQUIN

PHOENIX): “I’ve taken a lot of chances for you. Hell, I’m

taking a chance tonight, but that’s okay, because we’ve got a

special kind of friendship.” When Clay resists, Lester threat-

ens him nastily: “I go down, you go down with me.”

References

Matt Healy, In Too Deep (Draft Script for Clay Pigeons dated 7 Jan-

uary 1997) (Beverly Hills, CA: Scott Free, 1997); Vince Vaughn,

interviewed in “Production Notes: Clay Pigeons,” included on the

European DVD release of the film (Frankfurt: BY Internationale

Medien und Film, 1998).

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WAG THE DOG

US 1997 r/t 97 min col. Production Companies: Baltimore

Pictures, New Line Cinema, Punch Productions, and Tribeca

Productions. Producers: Michael de Luca, Robert De Niro,

and Barry Levinson. Director: Barry Levinson. Writers:

Hilary Henkin and David Mamet from the novel American

Hero by Larry Beinhart. Director of Photography:Robert

Richardson. Production Designer: Wynn Thomas. Music:

Mark Knopfler. Cast: Robert de Niro (Conrad Brean), Dustin

Hoffman (Stanley Motss), Anne Heche (Winifred Ames),

Denis Leary (Fad King), Willie Nelson (Johnny Dean),

Andrea Martin (Liz Butsky), Kirsten Dunst (Tracy Lime).

The action takes place just before a presidential election

in which the current president seems to have little chance of

being reelected. One of his advisers contacts a top Hollywood

producer in order to manufacture a war in Albania that the

president can heroically end, all through the mass media. The

subject of how the mass media can influence American pol-

itics is a popular one—although not actively credited, it is

likely that this film inspired THE LAST DEBATE.

WAKAYAMA, TOMISABURO (1929–1992)

Born in Tokyo, Japan, Tomisaburo Wakayama made his

debut in films in 1956. He was best known in his own coun-

try for playing Ogami Itto, the scowling, seventeenth-century

ronin in six Kozure Ogami (Lone Wolf and Cub) samurai fea-

ture films.

Cast as the Sugai, the elderly yakuza leader in BLACK

RAIN, Wakayama’s most noteworthy speech comes late in

the film on why he hates America, both for detonating

nuclear weapons on his homeland and dominating the post-

1945 cultural landscape. It is the Americans who created the

“black rain” of the film’s title with its nuclear experiments.

Sugai explains that he runs the counterfeiting racket—to

flood the market with millions of fake dollars—as a way of

paying the Americans back. Sugai also considers it his duty

to fight Sato (YUSAKU MATSUDA) for supremacy; in his

system of values the young pretender has no right to chal-

lenge the elder man’s authority.

Wakayama was an expert with a sword, a living legend

in Japanese films; persuading him to play Sugai was no easy

task. Scott told PAUL M. SAMMON that he had a formal

meeting with Wakayama, in which “someone was sitting on

one side of Tommy [Wakayama] lighting a cigarette every

ten minutes and setting it into his cigarette holder. So our

talk was very impressive, actually . . . Finally, at the end, he

muttered something to the translator in Japanese, which

meant ‘Yes, I’ll do it.’”

Reference

Ridley Scott, quoted in Paul M. Sammon, Ridley Scott Close-Up:

The Making of His Movies (New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press,

1999), 95.

WALSH, M. EMMET (1935–)

M. Emmet Walsh has carved out a reputation for playing

deadly crooks, zany comedic roles, and corrupt cops since

the 1970s. Cast as Bryant, the police chief in BLADE RUN-

NER, Walsh based his interpretation on members of his

family, many of whom were civil servants: “I had no trouble

playing a bureaucrat. And Bryant liked his job. He lived in

that office. That’s why I played him so cheerfully.” Scott told

PAUL M. SAMMON that he saw the character as a heavy

character whose “stomach was all shot to hell. That’s why he

offered Deckard [HARRISON FORD] two glasses of

whiskey in his office. Bryant liked to see other people drink

because he couldn’t.”

Bright is an inherent racist who identifies the REPLI-

CANTS as “skin jobs” and enjoys the power he wields over

Deckard as he offers him a choice between being a killer

(cop) or a victim (little people). Although appearing only

briefly on screen, Walsh’s Bryant embodies the inherent cor-

ruption of Blade Runner, manipulating people for his own

ends with scant concern for their feelings.

Reference

Paul M. Sammon, Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner, 2nd

ed. (London: Gollancz, 2007), 119.

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WASHINGTON, DENZEL (1954– )

Born Denzel Hayes Washington Jr., in Mount Vernon, New

York. He made his first screen appearance in Carbon Copy

(1981), and won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor eight

years later for his role in Glory. Other major films include

The Pelican Brief (1993), Courage Under Fire (1996), and

Remember the Titans (2000). Washington made his debut as

a director with Antwone Fisher (2002). Washington was cast

as Frank Lucas in the original production of AMERICAN

GANGSTER, but the film was never made. He was per-

suaded to return to the production once the project had

been green-lighted by Universal Pictures with Scott as the

director.

To prepare for the role, Washington acknowledged in

the production information that he “got in a room with

Frank, turned on the recorder and talked with him. I didn’t

try to imitate him, necessarily, but Frank’s such a charmer;

that’s key to his character . . . What interested me in the story

was not to glorify a drug dealer, and I told Frank that when

I met him.” Washington evidently wrote the biblical passage

Isaiah 48:22 (“There is no peace, saith the Lord, unto the

wicked”) on his shooting script to remind him of Lucas’s

journey and quest for redemption.

Washington gives an understated performance in the

film—the very epitome of social respectability, it would

seem, as he leads a quiet, inconspicuous life eating alone in a

midtown NEW YORK diner, going to work, “dropping in on

one of the several office buildings he owns. Nights, he usu-

ally stays at home. When he does go out, it’s to a club or

diner—with his new wife—friends, celebrities, sports figures

...Sundays he takes his mother to church. Then drives out

to change the flowers on Bumpy’s [Bumpy Johnson’s] grave.”

However there is a strong undercurrent of violence beneath

this urbane surface—for example, when Frank leaves his

diner, walks up to the local hoodlum Tango (Idris Elba), and

shoots him in the head in broad daylight. Everyone stops

dead in their tracks and looks at him: according to STEVEN

ZAILLIAN’s script, this is “maybe that’s what he wants.” He

calmly reaches into Tango’s suit pocket, takes out a money

clip thick with cash, and sets it right next to the body saying

that it is “for the cops.” Frank subsequently returns to the

diner and continues his lecture on good business practice

(“What matters in business is honesty, integrity, hard work,

loyalty, and never forgetting where you came from ...That’s

basically the whole picture right there.”) We discover the rea-

son for such violence at the end of the film, when Frank

admits to Richie Roberts (RUSSELL CROWE) that he har-

bors a lifelong contempt for authority figures or anyone who

orders him around.

Washington’s performance drew mixed reactions from

reviewers. Writing in The Guardian, David Thomson felt

that American Gangster rehearsed “the same old bogus

runaround we were given in Heat, where two outrageously

great and self-satisfied actors played the routine that said:

well, really, aren’t cops and hoodlums cut from the same

cloth? No, they are not, and why do our movies keep trying

to insist on the iniquity? So, hear this cry for Denzel that at

his peak he has to play such garbage . . . I’ll believe in

progress the day Denzel Washington plays a black man who

has a full-blooded physical affair with a white woman.”

References

American Gangster: Production Information (Los Angeles: Univer-

sal Pictures, 2007); “David Thomson’s Biographical Dictionary of

Film #25,” Guardian Film and Music, 9 November 2007, 20; Steven

Zaillian,“American Gangster: Final Shooting Script” (27 July 2006),

www.roteirodecinema.com.br/scripts/files/american_gangster.htm

(accessed 8 February 2009).

Bibliography

Douglas Brode, Denzel Washington: His Films and Career (New

York: Citadel Press, 1997); Martyn Palmer, “Original Gangsters,”

Empire 221 (November 2007): 114–24; James Robert Parish, Den-

zel Washington: Actor (New York: Facts on File, Inc., 2005); Denzel

Washington and Daniel Paisner, A Hand to Guide Me (New York:

Meredith Corporation, 2006).

WATERWORLD

US 1995 r/t 130 min col. Production Company: Universal Pic-

tures. Producers: Kevin Costner, John Davis, and Charles and

Lawrence Gordon. Director: Kevin Reynolds. Writers:Peter

Rader and David Twohy. Music: James Newton Howard and

Artie Kane. Directors of Photography: Scott Fuller and Dean

Semler. Production Designer: Dennis Gassner. Cast: Kevin

Costner (Mariner), Dennis Hopper (Deacon).

In a future where the polar ice caps have melted and the

earth is covered by water, the people travel the seas in search

of survival. The Mariner leaves his solitary existence to care

for a woman and a young girl while being pursued by the

evil forces of the Deacon.

Legendary action film that cost over $200 million, at a

conservative estimate, and made only $88 million in domes-

tic distribution but recouped a total of $167 million includ-

ing overseas distribution. Universal eventually returned a

profit on the film, even though in the public mind the film

was an expensive flop.

Waterworld creates a DYSTOPIAN vision of the future,

where people are left rootless and wandering in an inhos-

pitable world. It is only because the Mariner discovers some

human feelings within himself that he learns to care for the

young woman. Director KEVIN REYNOLDS was to create

a similar kind of dystopia in TRISTAN + ISOLDE;an

ancient world where no one really cares for anyone else.

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Bibliography

Janine Pourroy,“The Making of Water world ” (New York: Boulevard

Books, 1995); James Robert Parish, Fiasco: A History of Hollywood’s

Iconic Flops (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons. Inc. 2006), 249–70.

THE WAY OF THE GLADIATOR

Written by Daniel P. Mannix and originally published as

Those About to Die in 1958, and reissued in 2001 under the

new title. One of the major sources for the screenplay for

GLADIATOR, this book tells the story of the Roman Games

and the gladiators who fought in the various spectacles put

on for the Emperors. It focuses not only on the risks taken

by the gladiators themselves, but on the wanton cruelty of

many of the activities: of gladiators mangled beneath chari-

ots, slaughtered by wild beasts and maltreated by prison

guards. Mannix also focuses on the Roman people’s thirst

for blood sports: once they had a set of games that lasted 122

days, at the end of which eleven thousand people and ten

thousand animals had perished.

WEAVER, SIGOURNEY (1949– )

Born Susan Alexandra Weaver. The stately, intense dramatic

lead entered film as Ripley in ALIEN.

Ridley Scott filmed several tests of Weaver for the stu-

dio executives: in one she runs through rather nicely con-

structed corridors; in another she asks for sexual “relief”

from the captain, removing her top in the process. In Xime-

ria Gallardo’s and C. Jason Smith’s Alien Woman—a study

of Weaver in the role—DAVID GILER is quoted as saying

that the selection process even included a female audience:

“Alan Ladd [of Twentieth Century-Fox] watched the screen

test and had all the secretaries in the building come down

and watch it. And then everybody asked—and they got in a

big argument—did she look more like Jane Fonda or Faye

Dunaway.” The secretaries liked her, and Weaver was in.

Ripley takes her responsibilities seriously; in an early

scene, a landing party returns from their exploration of an

alien planet with the news that Kane (JOHN HURT) has

been infected with the alien. Ripley refuses to let the party

on board the ship; the infection could potentially contami-

nate the entire crew. Dallas (TOM SKERRITT) counter-

mands her order, however; and the end result is disastrous.

Most reviewers agreed that Ripley is tough and Weaver’s

performance is compelling. Alien Woman quotes from some

of them: Ripley is either “sexy,” “pleasant to look at,” or

“gutsy”; she is “controlled,”“earnest,”“intelligent,”“impres-

sive,” “funny,” and “efficient.” Newsweek’s David Ansen’s

labeling of Ripley as a “tough talking astronette” reveals a

certain fascination with this confident female, who is very

different from the heroines of the 1950s monster films that

inspired Scott’s conception.

Ripley’s critical reputation has varied greatly over the

years. In the late 1980s critics viewed her as a feminist

heroine—someone who eventually defeats the alien and

emerges successful. She became one of the main elements of

the film’s FEMINISM. In an interview with Starburst pub-

lished in 1987, Weaver described the character as someone

whose mind “never stopped working” as she embarked upon

“an epic journey through personal hardship, trauma and a

fiendish nightmare.” But at what price success? The making

of Alien had been fun; but according to her biographer

Robert Sellers, she did feel as if she had been thrown in at

the deep end. She had advanced and grown as an actress in

the theater by playing supporting character parts, a success-

ful modus operandi that she hoped to repeat in films. This

was not to be; from now on Weaver would be cast solely as

a leading player, associated with a certain type of (aggressive,

feminine) role.

Weaver reprised her role in the three other films that

make up the ALIEN QUADRILOGY. Her next project with

Ridley Scott was playing Queen Isabel in 1492: CONQUEST

OF PARADISE, a role originally slated for Anjelica Huston.

Scott said in an interview with Empire, “Sigourney had

always been in my mind to do this [role] ...I walked

straight slap-bang into her.” Weaver herself described the

queen in the pressbook as someone who “always relied on

her intuition . . . When Columbus speaks about what he

wants to do, she feels that he can really do it—she feels his

passion is the same as hers. She thought that he was her kin-

dred spirit, doing the impossible even more than she. That

was the start of her great admiration for him.”

Weaver gives an understated performance—although a

reigning monarch of the throne, she appears rather a passive

personality. However, we know that she is actually the force

behind Columbus’s schemes; in one sequence she is shown

peeping through the keyhole in an adjoining room while the

admiral tries to convince Luis de Santangel (FRANK LAN-

GELLA) of the value of traveling to the New World. Clearly

she treats it as a charade—an opportunity for her to discover

whether Columbus possesses the courage of his convictions.

She will permit him to go, whatever he says. Even when he

has been discredited she still believes in him and his dreams.

Weaver’s performance was dismissed by Amanda Hopkin-

son in Empire magazine as spurious, “with peals of silly gig-

gles and seductive interest to afford spurious erotic interest.”

References

“Aliens: Sigourney Weaver Talks About her Role of Ripley,” Starburst

102 (February 1987): 17–18; Ximeria Gallardo, C. Jason Smith, Alien

Woman: The Making of Lieut. Ellen Ripley (New York: Continuum,

2004), 18, 20; Amanda Hopkinson,“Conquest of History?” Empire,

November 1992, 90; Pressbook, 1492: Conquest of Paradise (Los

WEAVER, SIGOURNEY (1949– )

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Angeles: Paramount Pictures, 1992), 4; Ridley Scott, quoted in Mark

Salisbury, “In Nineteen Hundred and Ninety Two ...,”Empire,

November 1992, 86; Robert Sellers, Sigourney Weaver (London:

Robert Hale, 1992), 76.

Bibliography

Ros Jennings,“Desire and Design—Ripley Undressed,” in Immortal,

Invisible: Lesbians and the Moving Image, ed. Tamsin Wilton (Lon-

don and New York: Routledge, 1995), 193–206; T. D. Maguffee,

Sigourney Weaver (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989).

WEINER, JENNIFER (1970– )

Born in Louisiana, Jennifer Weiner’s first novel, Good in Bed,

appeared in 2001. IN HER SHOES appeared a year later; and

was filmed by CURTIS HANSON with Scott producing, in

2005. It is a good example of CHICK LIT, focusing on the

existences of two sisters who have nothing in common but

a CHILDHOOD tragedy, shared DNA, and the same size

feet, but they are about to find out that they are more alike

than they ever would have believed. Weiner did not have

anything to do with the script for the film, which was writ-

ten by SUSANNAH GRANT.

Reference

Jennifer Weiner, In Her Shoes (London: Simon and Schuster, 2005);

Jennifer Weiner, interviewed (2006), www.readinggroupguides

.com/guides3/in_her_shoes2.asp#interview (accessed 8 August

2008).

WELLES, ORSON (1915–1987)

Legendary actor, writer, and filmmaker, the subject of RKO

281. Scott counts Welles among his great inspirations,

though he admitted in an interview that he was glad he was

not directing when Citizen Kane came out in 1941: “The film

was so good that, if I’d been a filmmaker at the time, it

would have crushed the hell out of me. It was like a quan-

tum leap forward in both technique and storytelling.”

Scott envisaged his version of the making of Citizen

Kane (i.e., RKO 281) as a big-budget feature film, but the

studios didn’t share his enthusiasm for a period film about

filmmaking. “It really came down to the budget ...really

they [HBO, the producers of the film] cut me to size.”

In terms of character, Scott shares with Welles a belief

in the power of ambition. Welles’s biographer Barbara

Leaming remarks that while Welles “provoked hostility

when he [first] got to Hollywood,” he also “inspired ...sub-

sequent generations of filmmakers . . . he is responsible for

inspiring more people to be film directors than anyone else

in the history of cinema.” Likewise, Scott’s ambition has

driven him to make films which otherwise would not have

been made (e.g., BLADE RUNNER), and he has also

launched the careers of other directors, not only as a pro-

ducer of their films, but as a cofounder of his advertising

agency RSA.

References

Barbara Leaming, Orson Welles (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books,

1989), 199–200; Ridley Scott, quoted in Barry Garron, “Kane

Explained,” Emmy 21, no.6 (December 1999): 8.

WESTERNS

The Western has recently been subject to radical revision

from Hollywood filmmakers. The back-to-back release of

3:10 to Yuma (2007), NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, and

the Ridley Scott–produced ASSASSINATION OF JESSE

JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD reveal the pro-

tagonists’ desire to be heard—something that resonates with

audiences of today, when many in the US feel they live in

dark times ruled over by small minds. The Western’s myths

and rituals have served America well in earlier epochs—and

if filmmakers and audiences continue to be drawn to them,

perhaps it’s because the genre still has something to say

about America’s past that people need to hear.

Bibliography

Jim Kitses, “Twilight of the Idol,” Sight and Sound, 17 no. 12

(December 2007): 16–20; James Naremore, “Films of the Year,

2007,” Film Quarterly 61, no.4 (Summer 2008): 59–60.

WHERE THE MONEY IS

Germany/USA/GB 2000 r/t 88 min col. Production Compa-

nies: Gramercy Pictures, IMF Internationale Medien und

Film GmbH & Co., InterMedia Films, Pacifica Film, Poly-

gram Filmed Entertainment, and Scott Free. Executive Pro-

ducers: Moritz Borman, Guy East, Tony Scott, Chris Sievernich,

and Nigel Sinclair. Producers: Ridley Scott, Christopher

Dorr, Charles Weinstock, and Chris Zarpas. Director:Marek

Kanievska. Writer: E. Max Frye. Director of Photography:

Thomas Burstyn. Production Designer: André Chamberland.

Music: Mark Isham. Cast: Paul Newman (Henry Manning),

Linda Fiorentino (Carol), Dermot Mulroney (Wayne), Susan

Barnes (Mrs. Foster), Anne Pitoniak (Mrs. Tetlow), Bruce

MacVittie (Karl), Irma St. Paul (Mrs. Galer).

Busy with other commitments, the Scotts hired fellow

director Marek Kanievska, whose only feature film credit was

the British-made Another Country (1987). They cast PAUL

NEWMAN in the leading role as an aging crook; his leading

lady was LINDA FIORENTINO, who made a lasting impres-

sion in The Last Seduction (1993).

Budgeted at $18 million, Where the Money Is began

shooting in Quebec, Canada, on 7 January 1998. For New-

man, the production offered a return trip to Montreal,

where he had filmed Quintet for Robert Altman two decades

earlier. The script called for several car chases, Newman

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remaining behind the wheel throughout the filming. As

director Kanievska explained to Newman’s biographer

Daniel O’Brien: “Paul can drive better than most stunt driv-

ers. It was just another day on the race track for him, but it

proved to be a pretty harrowing experience for Linda

Fiorentino, who was sitting next to him in those vehicles.”

According to the pressbook, the director liked the experience

of the production, which he felt was “colorful, playful and

eccentric . . . It features all my favorite colors . . . When you

get people in a tense or suspenseful situation and you put

them in a colorful context, it all takes on a different tone.”

Director of photography Tom Burstyn agreed in another

interview for the pressbook: “We decided every room in the

nursing home should be a wild color . . . Each room is deco-

rated with curtains of a very strong color and this gave me

the excuse to light the scenes in an extremely colorful way—

in green, violet, turquoise.”

Reviews were favorable and sometimes enthusiastic. The

Guardian thought that “there’s a classical simplicity about

such a narrative ...Kanievska generates a momentum that

carries events on at a considerable clip . . . [he] serves his

cast—and audience—entertainingly enough.” Empire

thought of it as “a pacy little adventure with some marvelous

one-liners and smart twists ...Newman [gives] ...a mas-

terclass in timing, sardonic delivery and weathered charm.”

Film Review described the film in one review as “a beguiling

caper that Hollywood film-makers sadly don’t make any-

more ...the cinematic equivalent ofa light snack”and in

another as “a likeable comedy, which would fill your Sunday

afternoon nicely, but fails to cash in fully on Newman’s obvi-

ous charm.”

Where the Money Is went on limited release in the

United States on 14 April 2000, over two years after it was

shot. It took only $5.65 million at the North American box

office, less than a third of its production cost.

The film deliberately exploits Newman’s screen image

of MASCULINITY, which has been mostly aptly summed

up by Mark Harris: “Newman became a star at a moment

when two opposing images ...were dominating the screen:

the rough, tough unforgiving force of actors like John Wayne

. . . and the newer, more sensitive, almost wounded approach

exemplified by Montgomery Clift. He [Newman] belonged

to neither category; rather . . . he found a way to be both

brutal and tender, callous at one moment and vulnerable the

next.” In Where the Money Is Newman shows his toughness

as he deliberately feigns a stroke in order to secure tempo-

rary release from prison. Even though Carol MacKay

(Fiorentino) and her husband Wayne (DERMOT MUL-

RONEY) expose him as a fraud by throwing him out of his

wheelchair into the lake, Newman’s Henry Manning demon-

strates his mental toughness by stubbing a lighted cigarette

out on his hand. By concentrating solely on his heartbeat,

he can render himself impervious to any other stimuli,

whether physical, mental or visual.

Manning’s tender side is revealed soon afterwards when

he asks Carol to dance with him. While the two of them keep

their distance from one another (especially as Wayne is sit-

ting close by), it is evident that Manning understands Carol’s

desire to escape from the daily routine of married life. The

two of them become unlikely partners in crime by hatching

an elaborate scheme to steal $2 million from a security firm.

Although it eventually fails, both find the experience so

rewarding that they resolve to work as a team, with Carol

pretending to be Manning’s granddaughter. The film ends

with them involved in another heist, this time in a jeweler’s

shop: Carol persuades the assistant (Vlasta Vrana) to help

her remove her wedding-ring in the stockroom, leaving the

counter unattended; meanwhile Henry (who hitherto has

remained immobile in a wheelchair) looks through the dis-

play cases and puts whatever he likes into a small black bag.

Where the Money Is allows Newman to play a role

strongly reminiscent of Henry Gondorff in THE STING.

Like Gondorff, Manning comes out of retirement to teach

an aspiring hustler how to stage the Big Con. The only dif-

ference between the two is that his sidekick is now a woman

instead of a man.

Linda Fiorentino’s role as Carol contains distinct echoes

of THELMA & LOUISE. Like the two protagonists in the ear-

lier film, she leads a humdrum life in a nondescript Califor-

nian suburb, working as a nurse in a care home and married

to a dominant husband who demands that she should pursue

a “normal” life—in other words, fulfill a subordinate role as a

homemaker. She derives no pleasure from her existence—at

one point she complains to Henry, “Me and Wayne don’t

make sense any more. [Soon] I’m gonna wonder where my

life went. I’m the one who’s dead here. I gotta do some-

thing.” This explains her willingness to break the shackles of

convention and join Manning in a life of crime.

Carol’s dreams eventually come true, as the two of them

give the police the slip and hit the road in a Mustang—one

of those iconic CARS (like the 1966 Thunderbird in Thelma

& Louise) which achieved prominence in the famous nine-

minute car chase through the streets of San Francisco in the

film Bullitt (1968). One of the car’s designers summed up

the experience of driving a Mustang thus: “It’s a car you can

drive fast and probably not get caught all the time.” It sums

up the significance of freedom in Where the Money Is.

The parallels between Where the Money Is and Thelma

& Louise are also apparent in their plots. The earlier film ends

with the eponymous central characters driving off a precipice

into the Grand Canyon, and thereby freeing themselves of

patriarchal culture. Where the Money Is employs a similar

shot on two occasions: the first occurs in a black-and-white

sequence right at the beginning, where the youthful Carol

WHERE THE MONEY IS

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and Wayne are shown kissing and cuddling in their car. A

truck suddenly appears in front of them; Wayne swerves to

avoid it and loses control of the steering wheel. The car veers

off the road, plunges into the undergrowth, and crashes into

a lake. However, both Wayne and Carol emerge unharmed,

with faces flushed in sheer exhilaration.

In the second sequence at the end of the film, Manning

drives the Mustang into the water, with Carol once again as

the passenger, in an attempt to escape the police. At first we

think both of them have perished; but they make a speedy

recovery and continue their lives as an aging Bonnie and

Clyde. As in Thelma & Louise, the entire sequence demon-

strates how the central characters reject the world of con-

vention and pursue their dreams instead.

By contrast, Wayne remains a prisoner of his upbring-

ing. While agreeing in principle to assist Carol in the secu-

rity van robbery, he only does so in the belief that she will

“go back to normal” afterwards—in other words, accept the

fact that the two of them are “a husband and wife amateur

hour.” When she refuses to comply with his wishes, he

reports her felony to the police, justifying his decision by

asking Carol: “What am I supposed to do? I did it for us.”

Wayne’s trust in her proves misplaced, as Carol runs out on

him. In the patriarchal universe, it is the male who is

expected to be active while the female passively accepts his

opinions. Where the Money Is reverses this distinction:

whereas Carol actively pursues her dreams, Wayne experi-

ences them vicariously by playing video games. His funda-

mentally blinkered outlook on life is summed up through

frequent prison images—for example, being photographed

in close-up looking out of a barred window in his house at

the rolling landscape outside.

Kanievska enjoys making fun of existing stereotypes of

MASCULINITY. The corrupt nurse Karl (Bruce MacVittie),

who exploits the care home residents by stealing their valu-

ables while they are asleep, also fancies himself as a biker.

In a sequence(recalling MICHAEL DOUGLAS’s race along

the Hudson River in BLACK RAIN, Karl dons his helmet

and leathers and zooms away from the home in a cloud of

exhaust fumes. What he does not know, however, is that

Manning has immobilized his bike by severing the fuel

injection pipe (as a way of taking revenge for the nurse’s

petty crimes). As a result Karl ends up quite literally on his

backside—much to the amusement of the residents—losing

a tooth in the process.

What the film proposes is that everyone should set aside

existing gender preconceptions and adopt more fluid identi-

ties instead. At various points in the action Manning plays a

stroke victim, a genial convict, a tough guy, a religious zealot

encouraging people to achieve “a state of grace,” a daredevil

driver, a perfect gentleman (described by one of his fellow-

residents as someone of “good breeding”), and an aging

grandfather sitting comatose in his wheelchair. Carol plays

Manning’s surrogate mother (while he passes the time in the

care home) and subsequently assumes the part of his grand-

daughter when the two of them rob the jeweler’s shop. Her

other roles include that of a telephone operator making hoax

calls to facilitate the security firm robbery. Kanievska’s view

recalls that put forward by Virginia Woolf in Orlando (1928),

which proposes that all identities—whether masculine or

feminine—should be fluid, evanescent and subject to change.

Critical comment on Where the Money Is has been

scant, to say the least. The only essay of note referring to it

is one written by David Patrick Stearns (2007), which cites

Newman’s role as Henry Manning as one where the actor

“crafts the details of his character and delineates private and

public behavior in ways that add great dimensions.” Stearns

quotes a line from the film (“However easy it is, we have a

job to do. Do your homework”) as evidence of Newman’s

meticulous preparation for any role, “when an actor’s per-

formances blend life experience and cultivated technique.”

References

Peter Bradshaw, “That Old Grey Magic,” The Guardian,6 October

2000, 15; Tom Burstyn, quoted in the pressbook for Where the

Money Is (London: Intermedia 2000), 22; James Cameron-Wilson,

“Where the Money Is,” Film Review Special Issue 34 (2001): 122;

Mark Harris, “Paul Newman 1925–2008,” Entertainment Weekly,

September 2008, www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20230909,00.html

(accessed 27 November 2008); “Interview: The Team Behind the

2008 Mustang Bullitt” (16 November 2007), http://autoshows.ford

.com/189/2007/11/16/interview-the-team-behind-the-2008-mus-

tang-bullitt/ (accessed 27 November 2008); Marek Kanievska,

quoted in Daniel O’Brien, Paul Newman (London: Faber and Faber

Ltd., 2004), 295; Marek Kanievska, quoted in the pressbook for

Where the Money Is (London: Intermedia 2000), 15, 21–22; David

Patrick Stearns, “Paul Newman as King Lear,” Obit Magazine, 2 June

2007, www.obit-mag.com/viewmedia.php/prmMID/68 (accessed

27 November 2008);“Where the Money Is,” Empire, October 2000,

54; “Where the Money Is,” Film Review, May 2001, 73.

WHITE SQUALL

US 1996 r/t 129 min col. Production Companies: Hollywood

Pictures, Largo Entertainment and Scott Free. Executive Pro-

ducer: Ridley Scott. Producers: Mimi Polk Gitlin and Rocky

Lang. Director: Ridley Scott. Writer: Todd Robinson from the

book The Last Voyage of the Albatross by Charles (“Chuck”)

Gieg Jr. and Felix Sutton. Production Designers:Peter J.

Hampton and Leslie Tomkins. Director of Photography:

Hugh Johnson. Music: Jeff Rona. Cast: Jeff Bridges (Captain

Christopher “Skipper” Sheldon), Caroline Goodall (Dr. Alice

Sheldon), John Savage (McCrea), Scott Wolf (Chuck Gieg),

Jeremy Sisto (Frank Beaumont), Ryan Phillippe (Gil Martin),

David Lascher (Robert March).

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The origins of this film came about in the early 1990s

when screenwriter TODD ROBINSON was introduced to

CHUCK GIEG, who told him of the story of his time on The

Albatross thirty years before. Gieg subsequently served as a

consultant, using the telephone and email to communicate

with Robinson. Robinson himself took the script to pro-

ducer Rocky Lang, and the two of them tried to find a suit-

able director. They were resolute in their determination to

maintain the integrity of their story; this precluded them

accepting a number of lucrative offers because they would

have been required to alter the script to conform to some-

one else’s ideas. Eventually, their patience and vision pre-

vailed: they showed the script to Ridley Scott.

At this time Scott was considering directing Mulholland

Falls (eventually directed by Lee Tamahori in 1996). When

the White Squall script was shown to him, he read the mate-

rial and announced ninety minutes later that he would make

the film. In a preproduction interview with Neil Norman

published in 1995, he said the film had attracted him on

account of its historical value: “It’s about a generation that

is gone and lost . . . And I don’t think it’s ever going to come

back. In a way this film is really about the rite of passage

from adolescence into manhood and I think the process has

evaporated. The real values, family values, have collapsed . . .

Children have lost respect for their elders ...Now there is

far too much toleration of bullshit ...Ifthat [the disaster]

had happened today everyone would have been sued . . . the

most they would have done then would have been to have a

hearing. In simple terms the boys defended the honour of

their Captain. Consequently he was let off the hook.”

Scott used several seafaring films as guides, including

Frank Lloyd’s MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY (1935) and

John Huston’s MOBY DICK (1956), both of which featured

maverick captains obsessed with achieving their goals.

The film had an expansive location shoot, taking in the

Caribbean islands of Grenada, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent

before moving inland to Georgia and South Carolina. In the

publicity for the production, most of the creative personnel

stressed the fact that filming itself was an adventure. Scott

was quoted in the production information as saying that the

cast “function[ed] like a crew and are the most professional

group I’ve ever worked with” (though SCOTT WOLF admit-

ted to feeling “extremely nervous when I met Chuck Gieg,

since I was portraying him”). Producer MIMI POLK made

the same point in the production information: “The young

cast, as well as the real crew came from different back-

grounds and experiences, and were challenged by being put

in a confined and often isolated environment. Finding a

common bond, they all became friends and learned to work

together as a crew.” Likewise, cinematographer HUGH

JOHNSON emphasized the fact that the crew had to con-

tend with the elements, which made them bond together:

“Shooting in the Caribbean is difficult ...The problem is

that the sun is high at nine-thirty in the morning, especially

out on the boat. It’s very difficult, because the light goes up

so quickly and we’re trying to create images of light, shade

and contrast when the sun there.”

Reviews on the film’s opening in 1996 were lukewarm,

to say the least. The Village Voice critic considered it “[a] dis-

appointing adventure [that] plays more like ‘Dead Poets

Goes to Sea.’” The London Guardian voiced similar opin-

ions; while the film contained “one of the best sequences of

a yacht slowly sinking in a storm that I have ever seen [it is]

...chock full ofthe kind of clichés one might expect from

a bad Disney feature of ten years ago.” Nigel Andrews of the

Financial Times voiced the kind of criticism that has dogged

Scott since the start of his career as a film director: “[The

film] is low art with a high-art sheen. It looks like every sea

painting you ever wanted to steal off a gallery wall. The

resulting brigantine riding the high-clawing, silvered waves,

the Turnerish storms blending their gloomy, glowing half-

colours; the hot-hued exoticism of lulls ashore.” Likewise

Mark Kermode in Sight and Sound described White Squall

as “[a] sustained and exhausting torrent of energy which

threatens to drown the viewer in experiential overload. As

the Albatross keels and groans its way into the ocean, with

the soundtrack shaking our ear-drums and intestines, Scott

metaphorically manacles us to the doomed ship’s deck, drag-

ging us down into the whirlpool, making us gasp for air as

the waters envelope the screen.”

White Squall had a budget of around $38 million.

When it was released, the film failed to make much of an

impact with the moviegoing public, grossing only around

$10 million in North America. Nonetheless, the film’s impact

on audiences encouraged RICHARD E. LANGFORD, the

English teacher on the original voyage, to publish his own

reminiscences, written in the mid-1960s but hitherto

unpublished. They appeared in 2001 as White Squall: The

Last Voyage of Albatross.

The film returns to themes explored in previous Scott

films, notably 1492: THE CONQUEST OF PARADISE and

THE BROWNING VERSION. Captain Sheldon resembles

Columbus (GÉRARD DEPARDIEU) in his determination

to continue the voyage at all costs and educate his charges.

Described in Todd Robinson’s script as “part Ahab part

Queeg and even Bligh,” he observes at one point that work-

ing on board ship “builds character . . . the kind you only

find on mountain-tops, deserts or battlefields or across

oceans.” His dedication to character building prompts him

to commit sadistic acts—for example, forcing Gil Martin

(RYAN PHILLIPPE) to climb the rigging, despite the boy’s

fear of heights. Later on he challenges Frank Beaumont

(JEREMY SISTO) to a fight, a knee-jerk reaction to the boy’s

having mortally wounded a dolphin. Such acts prompt Gieg

WHITE SQUALL

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317

(Scott Wolf) to reflect on whether Sheldon is any different

“from our fathers back home.” On the other hand, Sheldon

remains unselfishly devoted to his charges’ welfare. In one

sequence Cuban officers try to take one of the boys as a pris-

oner for failing to produce his American passport. Sheldon

stands in front of the boy and announces that “nobody on

my ship is going anywhere.” If they want to take someone as

a prisoner, they will have to make do with Sheldon himself.

The Cuban officer (James Medina) climbs down and leaves

the ship, pausing only to smash its compass with the butt of

his rifle. Not to be outdone, Sheldon responds in Spanish

(hitherto he has spoken only in English): “Las estrellas es lo

unico, que un marinero verdarero sa mesesita para encontrarse

[real sailors only need the stars].”

Sheldon fears no one; and although brutal in his meth-

ods, he harbors a genuine concern for his crew. The boys

understand this, which helps to explain why they all join him

in the final climactic sequence in the courtroom, exclaiming

“you go one, we go all.” In this respect, Sheldon is more suc-

cessful at his job than Columbus—even Frank Beaumont

(whose testimony provided the basis for the case against the

captain) understands how much he has learned from the

experience of being on the Albatross, and rejoins the group

of boys, ringing the ship’s bell (salvaged from the wreck) as

he does so.

Once the boys reach the deserted Galapagos Islands,

they take possession of it in a sequence strongly reminiscent

of Columbus’s arrival in the New World. In a voiceover, Gieg

informs us that they wanted to “stake a claim [on the

islands] as our own” as they roam over the vast landscape

dressed in shorts and carrying staffs. Todd Robinson’s script

emphasizes the primal nature of this scene: “Pounding

through the waterline like the wild horses of fable, the

hunters charge after the hunted [goat], closing ...The wind

carries the sounds of ceremony across the water. The flames

from the beach reflect off the water turning the white hull

of the ship a deep flickering orange.” In a sense the boys have

discovered a new world—emotional rather than physical—

as they come to understand the importance of teamwork

and concern for one another.

This particular theme recalls The Browning Version,

even though in the earlier film the focus of attention centers

on the teacher rather than the boys in his charge. In both

films a series of pivotal sequences are used to signal the char-

acters’ development. At the beginning of White Squall

Robert March (DAVID LASCHER) is depicted as a bully,

unceremoniously ejecting one of his fellow crew members

from a bunk, and later grabbing another one’s private parts,

snarling as he does so,“Don’t ever call me stupid.” However,

we soon discover that this aggression is nothing more than

a cover-up for March’s academic shortcomings; he has to

cheat in order to pass his exams. The rest of the crew mem-

bers volunteer to help him, and as a result he passes his

exams. Gieg says to March,“It feels different, doesn’t it?” (to

have achieved something by his own efforts, and thereby dis-

covered an identity for himself).

Martin undergoes a similar process of development as

he climbs up to the crow’s nest and rings the ship’s bell tri-

umphantly while waving to the departing Frank Beaumont

(who has just been expelled from the ship). Immediately the

crew raises a cheer, prompting Sheldon to observe to Frank,

“They never gave up on you, you know.” The final court-

room scene is strongly reminiscent of The Browning Version,

both visually and thematically; it takes place in a crowded

hall, with parents and their offspring witnessing the pro-

ceedings. Tiring of the repeated questions calling his

integrity into question, Sheldon gets up from his seat, tak-

ing responsibility for the entire disaster, and strides through

the audience (just like Crocker-Harris in the earlier film).

The boys likewise move towards the door as Gieg tells Shel-

don that the entire voyage was “something we made

together,” and emphasizes this by encouraging everyone—

the captain included—to put their arms around one another

in a final show of unity. Like Crocker-Harris, Sheldon comes

to understand how everyone should “share his burden, the

burden of sea-captains, and fathers, the burden of men . . .

You can’t win in the end. You face the music, you trim your

sails, and you keep going.”

White Squall also returns to familiar Scott territory in

its emphasis on MASCULINITY. The boys can only survive

if they stay together and look out for one another. This is

emphasized in another pivotal sequence that begins when

Francis Beaumont (DAVID SELBY) and his wife Peggy (Jill

Larson) fly in to Panama to take their son Frank out for a

meal. Francis strides on board ship, proclaiming, “We’ve

come to give our boy a little break from the monotony.”

Immediately Frank is “full of rage. This is an invasion of his

privacy. Everyone feels it.” Frank’s rage boils over in a local

restaurant; he accuses his father of embarrassing him and

storms out—closely followed by his father. The two of them

are shown fighting in the street, with Frank predictably com-

ing off second best. Frank is only prevented from causing

more harm to himself by his fellow crew members, who dis-

cover him blind drunk in the street, smashing streetlights.

They drag him into the darkness and ensure that he goes to

sleep. Scott suggests that Frank’s parents have abnegated

their responsibilities to their son; it is the boys who are now

responsible for his welfare. James Clarke comments: “It [the

film] makes a good companion piece to Peter Weir’s 1989

Dead Poets Society—both of them are about imposing father

figures who their ‘sons’ must break away from.”

The only critical comment to have appeared on the film

is contained in the surveys of Scott’s oeuvre as a whole.

James Clarke draws our attention to the fact that apart from

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the final song “Valparaiso” sung by STING at the end of the

film, accompanied by images of the boys landing in the

Galapagos Islands, Scott is very sparing with his score:

“There is no music used on the squall sequence which

enhances its believability. Scott lets the terror speak for

itself.” Clarke highlights the parallels between White Squall

and JOSEPH CONRAD, in its emphasis on “The marine set-

ting with young men and story of honour and loss of inno-

cence ...The boat ...is like a microcosm of the world at

large as well as being a place removed from everyday rou-

tine in which the boys’ adventure unfolds before returning

them to the everyday at the conclusion.” He also detects “a

very military strain to the ‘philosophy’ of the film” which

finds later expression in G.I. JANE, GLADIATOR, and

BLACK HAWK DOWN. In a relentless search for literary

antecedents, Clarke also likens the story to JOHN MIL-

TON’s Paradise Lost, notably when Frank shoots a dolphin

with a harpoon.

Richard A. Schwartz seems more preoccupied with the

film’s manipulation of history: “For although the Albatross

is boarded on Fidel Castro’s personal orders and is rescued

by the American fleet, the rescuing fleet is not engaged in the

naval quarantine that Kennedy imposed during the crisis.

Instead, Chuck tells us they are en route to the Bay of Pigs.

But the Bay of Pigs invasion occurred in April 1961 . . . Sim-

ilarly, Scott overlaps the storm that sinks the Albatross with

the launch of Alan Shepard in the Mercury 1 spaceship. But

that flight occurred on 1 May 1961, about three weeks after

the Bay of Pigs invasion. Presumably, both the invasion and

Mercury 1 flight occurred while the real Albatross was at sea

in 1961, and Scott was trying to do justice to the actual his-

tory by inserting them. Treated differently, the historical

intrusions might have intensified the drama or created sug-

gestive parallels between the voyage into outer space and the

one at sea. But as presented, the anachronisms merely con-

fuse viewers who lived during those times.”

Scott’s grasp of history might not be entirely accurate,

but the historical references are significant. The Bay of Pigs

reference is used to contrast the American and the Cuban

world-views; whereas Sheldon and the boys try to work

together for mutual benefit, the Cubans seem far more pre-

occupied with an ostentatious display of power. By implica-

tion, Scott suggests that their unnecessary bravado—in

violation of accepted maritime laws—provoked the Cuban

Missile Crisis. Similarly the radio broadcast of the Mercury 1

spaceship is used as a counterpoint to the white squall dis-

aster. Whereas the launching of the craft symbolized Amer-

ican progress in the space race against the Soviet Union, the

sea disaster emphasizes just how powerless human beings

can be while contending against the elements. They might

try to conquer them—through space travel—but such a task

proves ultimately futile. This once again emphasizes the

importance of community: to survive in a hostile world,

people must stick together.

References

Nigel Andrews, “Growing Up and Rites of Passage,” Financial

Times, 9 May 1996, 15; Georgia Brown, “White Squall,” Village

Voice, 6 February 1996, 48; James Clarke, Ridley Scott (London: Vir-

gin Books Ltd., 2002), 152; Mark Kermode, “White Squall,” Sight

and Sound, May 1996, 64; Derek Malcolm, “Drowning by Num-

bers,” The Guardian, 9 May 1996, 9; Neil Norman, “Scott of the

Caribbean,” Evening Standard 18 May 1995, 28; Production Infor-

mation, White Squall (Los Angeles: Hollywood Pictures, 1996);

Todd Robinson, White Squall: Revised First Draft, Unpub. script,

dated 31 October 1994, http://sfy.ru/sfy.html?script=white_squall

(accessed 8 September 2008); Richard A. Schwarz, The Films of Rid-

ley Scott (Westport, CT: The Greenwood Press, 2001), 123–24.

Bibliography

Estelle Shay, “White Squall: Stormy Weather,” Cinefex 66 (June

1996): 33–34, 126; Michael Wilmington,“White Squall:Director a

Visionary without Visual Strategy,” in Ridley Scott Interviews,ed.

Laurence F. Knapp and Andrea F. Kulas (Jackson: University Press

of Mississippi, 2005), 129–32; “Young Men and the Sea.” Premiere 9,

no.6 (February 1996): 66–71 (photographs from the shoot by Jeff

Bridges).

WHITEMORE, HUGH (1936– )

Hugh Whitemore began his career in television, writing

plays and adapting literary classics by Dickens, Brontë, and

Somerset Maugham. His film screenplays include 84 Char-

ing Cross Road (1987) with ANTHONY HOPKINS and Utz

(1992).

Whitemore wrote the screenplay for the Emmy award-

winning GATHERING STORM, produced by Scott. The

script caused considerable controversy by celebrating the

achievements of Ralph Wigram (LINUS ROACHE), a civil

servant and committed anti-appeaser who worked in the

Foreign Office, and who passed on secret documents to

Churchill, in full knowledge that he was breaking the law

by doing so. Whitemore defended his decision by insisting

that Wigram received due mention in THE GATHERING

STORM: MEMOIRS, Churchill’s own account of World

War II.

WICK, DOUGLAS (1955– )

Wick is the son of Charles Wick (a producer and in business

and politics). His early hits included Working Girl (1988),

and Stuart Little (1999).

Wick is credited with taking the script to GLADIATOR

and convincing Scott to direct it. Wick asserted in the book

of the film, “No one had done this kind of spectacle in thirty

years ...It was an opportunity that hadn’t been visited in a

WICK, DOUGLAS (1955– )

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