THE POETIC PRINCIPLES OF DON KEITH OPPER

There was once a time in Hollywood when commercial and artistic interests, while not entirely aligned, more or less went hand in hand. That was the legendary Golden Age, which spanned from the 1920s to the late 1940s. This era was characterized by the »genius of the system«, as film historian Thomas Schatz so aptly put it. This »genius of the system« was based primarily on the cooperation of everyone involved in film production. The whole was greater than the sum of its parts.

But this idea increasingly fell by the wayside after the end of the great studio era and was ultimately buried in the 1980s, after the end of the New Hollywood era. Since then, the Hollywood system has been dominated solely by business. However, cinema paid a high price for this, and with it such idiosyncratic and brilliant artists as Don Keith Opper. With his performances in films such as Aaron Lippstadt‘s »Android« (1982) and Wayne Wang‘s »Slam Dance« (1987), as well as his recurring role in all four installments of the »Critters« series, Don Opper has secured his place in the history of subversive genre and low-budget cinema of the 1980s and 1990s. However, as a screenwriter, he has never received the attention he undoubtedly deserves. He left his mark on »Android« and »Slam Dance« as emphatically as a writer as through his acting – if not more. As different as these two films are, they demonstrate a very unique sensitivity for genre narratives that draw the viewer deeper and deeper into existential questions without forgetting or disregarding the conventions of the genre.

Don Opper‘s screenplays take you straight back to the Golden Age of Hollywood. They evoke memories of the many small B-movie masterpieces produced by the major studios in the 1930s and 40s. One inevitably thinks of auteur Curt Siodmak, who wrote a whole series of unforgettable films for studios like Universal and RKO, films such as »I Walked with a Zombie« (1943) and »Berlin Express« (1948), or »The Wolf Man« (1941) and »The Beast with Five Fingers« (1946).

"Don Opper may not yet be a big name, and in person he's certainly no Valentino, but he has a subversive sense of humour and an original vision to match it. Over the last few years he's been spraying his graffiti, as both writer and actor, all over the bottom end of the movie world – and that's bottom as in budget, not class."
The Face, 1987

Don Opper and his brother, producer Barry Opper, clearly stand in the tradition of the smaller studio productions of classic Hollywood cinema with their work. All the films developed and realized by their joint production company SHO represent a style of genre works and low-budget productions that had become increasingly out of fashion, especially in the 1980s. »Android« and »Slam Dance,« like the »Critters« films, stand out from the mass of genre productions of the 1980s. They are far more carefully produced and far more sophisticated than similar works. Don Opper, born in Chicago in 1949 and active in the Chicago theater scene before moving to Hollywood in the late 1970s, once said in an interview, »I am the product of everything I have ever seen or read.« And it is precisely this knowledge of films and novels, plays and short stories that also informs his screenplays.

Opper‘s adaptation of Fyodor Dostoyevsky‘s short story »The Double,« first published in 1846, has never been made into a film. But »Slam Dance« and his dual roles in the »Critters« films suggest that cinematic history would probably have been enriched with this Dostoyevsky adaptation for a magnificent portrait of the mentality of the 1980s.

So it continues with his manic performances as the internally torn thug and killer in »Slam Dance.« His role as Buddy physically resembles Tom Hulce‘s protagonist, the comic book artist C. C. Drood, so much so that Drood is able to claim Buddy‘s body as his own and thus go into hiding with his family unchallenged. There‘s a bitter irony in this poisonous happy ending, which is quite typical of Opper‘s artistic vision. Even thoughBuddy was a killer and Drood ultimately killed him in self-defense, we know full well that the comic book artist is, in truth, a man without qualities or feelings. One who ultimately destroys everyone he encounters and then simply moves on. In »Slam Dance«, Tom Hulce is the radiant, deceptive face of an era of greed wrapped in pastels. Don Opper‘s acting reveals its true face.

ANDROID

AARON LIPSTADT | USA 82

It all begins with a touching, achingly beautiful moment of longing. The android Max 404 assembles a small figure from metal parts, shaping it with feminine curves. Her male counterpart is already waiting for her. And Max waits as well. In the isolation of the space station, where he spends his days as assistant to Dr. Daniels – a ›mad scientist‹ portrayed by Klaus Kinski – he yearns for companionship, for love, for a life on Earth. When three fugitive criminals, one of them a woman, arrive at the station, his dream suddenly seems within reach.
Aaron Lipstadt’s surprisingly quiet and contemplative science fiction film »Android« (1982) ranks among the most fascinating productions to emerge from Roger Corman’s »New World Pictures«. The genre-typical bursts of action and special effects, staged by Lipstadt with flair and inventiveness, serve to strikingly underscore Max’s search for humanity. Don Opper’s sensitive performance endows this android with an aura of almost childlike curiosity and innocence. In doing so, he powerfully blurs the line between man and machine – paving the way for films like »Ex Machina« (2014).

CRITTERS

STEPHEN HEREK | USA 86

Joe Dante’s »Gremlins« (1984) undoubtedly served as inspiration for Stephen Herek’s horror and science fiction satire »Critters«. Yet Herek does not simply copy his predecessor. Instead, he discovers a voice of his own – one that pays homage both to the small-scale science fiction and monster films of the 1950s and to the modern B-movies of the 1980s.
The Critters – small, furry, and insatiably voracious aliens – escape from an intergalactic maximum-security prison and, by sheer misfortune, crash-land in a small town in Kansas. But it’s not just the ever-hungry furballs: their pursuers, two extraterrestrial bounty hunters with the ability to shape-shift, also plunge the town – and the Browns, a classic all-American family – into chaos. Stephen Herek’s directorial debut, featuring Don Opper as a likable loser who rises to the occasion when confronted with an alien menace, is above all a brilliant genre parody. Every scene radiates the sheer fun the cast and crew had in making it. Herek and his ensemble achieve a remarkable balancing act: they cast a sardonic eye on the not-so-idyllic life of small-town Kansas, yet never betray their characters..

SLAM DANCE

Wayne Wang | USA 82

In the 1980s, film noir experienced a remarkable renaissance in Hollywood. On one side were lavish remakes of classics from the »black series,« such as Bob Rafelson’s »The Postman Always Rings Twice« (1981) and Taylor Hackford’s »Against All Odds« (1984). On the other, directors like David Lynch, Michael Mann, and the Coen brothers reinvented the genre with their own distinctive visions. Yet the wildest, most innovative, and subversive noir of that era is Wayne Wang’s »Slam Dance«. Don Opper’s screenplay – influenced by Jim Thompson and Charles Dickens,
Charles Willeford and Fyodor Dostoevsky – sends cartoonist C. C. Drood, played by Tom Hulce, on a pitch-black journey through a surreal Los Angeles of corrupt cops, neurotic killers, and a decadent high society. The absurd conspiracy he stumbles into recalls Roman Polanski’s »Chinatown« (1974). But Opper coats his tangled story with a glaze of jet-black humor. His protagonist Drood is not even an antihero, but rather an everyman incapable of compassion or love, whose amoral wanderings reveal the emptiness and cold glitter of the Reagan era.

CRITTERS 2

KEN LOACH| USA 88

Vordergründig folgt Mick Garris‘ »Critters 2: The Main Course« (1988) der klassischen Logik nahezu aller Sequels. Es gibt mehr Critters, mehr Blut und spektakulärere Action-Sequenzen. Allerdings spielt die Fortsetzung während der Ostertage, und das lässt einen aufhorchen. Dass die pelzigen Monster ausgerechnet aus ihren Eiern schlüpfen, wenn Kinder nach Ostereiern suchen und die christliche Kleinstadt-Gemeinde die Auferstehung Christi feiert, zeugt von einem ziemlich bissigen schwarzen Humor. »Critters 2« ist mehr noch als sein Vorgänger eine als absurdes SciFi-Horror-Spektakel maskierte Satire auf den »American way of life« an sich. Nicht zufällig zieht es die gefräßigen Fellbälle in ein mit einem ziemlich enervierenden Song beworbenes Fast-Food-Restaurant und später dann in eine riesige Fleischfabrik. Im unersättlichen Hunger der Aliens spiegelt sich die Gier der Menschen. Die Autoren David Twohy und Mick Garris nehmen hier die Doppelmoral und die Selbstzufriedenheit der amerikanischen Gesellschaft ebenso ins Visier wie die Kopfgeldjäger die Critters. Und am Ende ist es dann der von Don Opper gespielte Außenseiter, der die rettet, die ihn immer verlacht und gedemütigt haben.