Thirty years ago I was directing a musical in a theater in the East Village. I was standing in the lobby when Mike Nichols walked in. He was there to see another play in the same theater. The resplendent sound of my big production number could be clearly heard echoing in all its glory. Mr Nichols stood there transfixed, listening carefully. Oh my god, I thought, I'm about to be discovered. Then he turned to me and said, "What's that horrible noise?"
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The Designated Mourner was one of the best theatrical experiences of my life. It was strange and haunting and magical. So, not 'horrible', not for me or for the full house of theatre goers.
13
I'm sorry to hear about John Simon's passing. This was a lovely piece to end on.
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Rest in peace, John Simon--but the side-swipe at "The Designated Mourner," an important and brilliant play by Wallace Shawn, was not necessary or true.
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Merci John (RIP). I sat next to you at an opening performance of Sam Shepard's "Fool for Love" at the Circle Repertory. You were lukewarm on the production. Mild irony that my wife would handle the sound editing for Altman's film version two years later.
5
For those of us of a certain "age" (French pronunciation, please)...
Mike: "Mother, I was sending up Vanguard. I didn't have a second."
Elaine: Well, it's always something, isn't it?"
Elaine: "I read in the paper how you keep losing them."
Mike: "Mother, I don't lose them."
Elaine: "And I thought, what if they're taking it out of his pay?"
He will forever be Mike from Mike and Elaine. If he had done nothing else, it would have been plenty.
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Way to go, Times, in assigning this review.
Thank you, Mr. Simon
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In the early '90s I worked at ABC News alongside Diane Sawyer - a joy. I had the great pleasure of meeting and speaking with Mike many times. Each time we spoke he made up a new name for me which always made me laugh - his entire intention. I have long admired his work and will enjoy it for years to come. How lucky we all are to have it.
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"He was not proud of his past" seems oddly out of place for a man of so many accomplishments. Perhaps John Simon meant he had regrets about some actions in his past- To quote the late, great Joe Strummer- "Everybody gotta have some regrets". Even the greatest have flaws.
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@Quadriped
John Simon did not say Nichols was not proud of his past. Fellow director Jack O'Brien said it. So John Simon simply quoted him. But the context in which O'Brien made his comment would surely indicate that Nichols meant he was not always proud of firing and humiliating people.
Also, more than a few comments here express seeming surprise that John Simon is dead. He got a rather huge obit in the Times about 10 days back. One should always read the obituaries so that you know you can proceed with your day if you are not included in them. Nichols would have understood that perfectly. As for Simon, wherever he is (no assumptions, please), he's probably reading this current book review section and lamenting the fact that he is being included with "the usual pencil-pushers."
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Treating Elaine May poorly, what a legacy! I find him smug, heartless and self-aggrandizing. A user of people.
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What better swan song for a critic than a piece on Mike Nichols? RIP John Simon.
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to be honestly yet brilliantly human - what a legacy!
5
As an adolescent in the early nineties I stumbled upon a VHS of "Working Girl" and from that point Nichols was my favorite director. I saw "Angels" and "The Graduate" and "Heartburn" and "Birdcage" and all the others, but "Working Girl" made me a Nichols devotee. This man who managed to elevate a comedic story about an ambitious professional woman (one much like my Bronx-born, Queens-raised single mother) without mocking her or her dreams gave me my first taste of feminism in film. Oh, and he gave us girls some nice eye candy by making Harrison Ford the love interest! Even in my thirties when I'd ride the subway to work in sneakers paired with a professional skirt and sweater I'd call it my Tess McGill look. Thanks, Mr. Nichols. I'll be putting this on my Hanukkah wish list.
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@sef
A question regarding "Working Girl".
The deity is in the details.
How does the audience know that Harrison Ford has not had forced sex with the Melanie Griffith's character?
She is still wearing her panty hose in the morning.
In this little detail by Nichols, we see that Ford has respected her.
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@Meta1 They can be taken off and put back on, y'know. Actually, one leg is enough.
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I love Mike Nichols. If he directed a movie I went to see it. His heart and his joie de vivre was evident in his work. I'll await the book with much enthusiasm.
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Mike Nicolas had much better taste than John Simon. The Designated Mourner by Wallace Shawn is one of the great plays of our time.
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What would you expect from John Simon? Editorializing till the very end.
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@Grant
sorry... MIKE NICHOLS. I got excited. John Simon could do that...
1
Mike Nichols create a body of work that will always be a part of film history. Thank God for those like Nichols because you have to wonder in these horrid days of comic-book cinema who is going to carry the mantle forward.
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My father, who had excellent taste when it came to all things entertainment-related, watched 'Angels in America' when it aired on HBO. He hadn't seen the play. I called to ask what he thought. 'Mike Nichols is a genius,' he replied. Dad said it all.
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@Marc Kristal
And the playwright?
Hope Dad had an opinion there too.
4
I recall so very many precious memories of May and Nichols sketches.
My favorite is the Jewish Mother guilt trip sketch in which, mom, Elaine, calls her rocket scientist son working at Cape Canaveral, to complain about his failure to call her.
The sketch ends with Mike admitting she has made him feel very guilty.
Mom's response is [[roughly]: If I could believe that, I would be the happiest mother in New York.
14
Funny, not much mention of Elaine May. I know that wasn’t his genius heyday, but it had to be influential. At a minimum, it shows the huge distance between the post war sophisticate wit of those two and where we stand today. That said, sounds like a fascinating book about a true “American” voice.
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LIke the writer of the first comment, I loved the Actor's Studio interview. Just so you know, I have, from time to time, watched it on YouTube.
4
In Tom Hanks’s words, “The Graduate” was “the ‘Citizen Kane’ of disaffected youth.”
^ For Baby Boomers likes Hanks himself, this is likely true.
"The Graduate" definitely gave voice to those disaffected Boomers who wished to show their collective rage towards their elders; in particular, the aging G.I. Generation who fought and died in World War II. It's fascinating how Mike Nicholas is a Silent Generation artist (born 1931 during the Great Depression) and yet his film became a generational touchstone for the Boomers (born a decade later).
I believe Gen-X'ers relate more to "Reality Bites," "Clerks," or "Slacker" than Boomer fantasias such as "The Graduate." The Gen-X films encapsulate what it feels like to be rendered invisible by a much larger generational cohort (i.e. Boomers) which refuses to step aside and insists on calling everyone else as "slackers" simply because they didn't have the same economic blessings which the Boomers had in their youth.
Of course, due to Boomer gate-keeping culture, the disaffected Millennials and Zetas haven't had their collective experiences represented in film yet with the exception of perhaps "Mid-90s," "Lady Bird," and "Eighth Grade." But none of those latter films have had the courage to spell out the rage all other generations feel towards the Boomers.
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@Sándor
And none of those Gen-X'er, Millennial and Zeta films are anywhere near the quality of the Boomer and Silent Generation films.
I mean, really. The Graduate vs. Clerks?
11
@Sándor Jeez! Get over that the Boomers rule and you may be passed over if your turn comes. "Clerks" and "Slackers" is what you are showing with "Reality Bites" as your hole card? None of them are a patch on any of Nichols's work.
7
Far too many Gen-Xers have grown up to become the tyrannical managerial-types they used to whine about. And I say this as someone who is part of the not so greatest generation...we’ve enabled fake news, Trump and Brexit, reality TV and helicopter parenting. To name a few sins. So lay off the boomers and millennials, when the slaughter comes, no one will come out unscathed.
4
As was not unusual for John Simon, he has made two large errors in this piece: 1) Nichols did not direct the musical ANNIE, he was one of its producers, among many; and 2) THE DESIGNATED MOURNER was far from "dreadful" (Simon's opinion only), it received terrific reviews; and Nichols was never alone on stage for the play, he shared the stage throughout with his co-stars Miranda Richardson and David de Keyser. (I saw it twice.)
I met Nichols many times in the 90s and always found him utterly charming; I am surprised, however, that this review (and the book?) makes no mention of Nichols' sexuality, one of Hollywood's most quietly whispered secrets. Ah, well, perhaps that will be part of a later book.
15
@PW Eh, not too quietly whispered. I remember reading about that on Wikipedia shortly after Nichols' death.
Also, that line about "humiliating people when could do it" seemed like an odd late addition to a basic fluff piece. Not saying it wasn't true. According to a recent HBO doc examining Garry Shandling's life, the director berated the hell out of Shandling, someone who had previously idolized Nichols.
Maybe, instead of a throw-away line at the end, more should have been made about those type of public, on-set outbursts.
4
I love Mike Nichols. His appearance on The Actors Studio inspired me so I taped it on a VHS to watch when I needed a boost. The tape is long gone, in some yard sale somewhere for some lucky person to enjoy. Looking forward to reading the Praise from friends.
15
The note about the author of this review adds a deeper layer of resonance to the review itself. Wow.
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