The Distinguished Gentleman

Village View
Dec. 4 - 10, 1992

"Yes, Director": After Skewering the British Government on the BBC, Writer/Director Jonathan Lynn Takes a Swipe at Capitol Hill
By David Hunter

Tucked away among the soundstages, drab offices, trailers, and bungalows on the 29th Century Fox studio is the elegant yet unassuming domain of one of film's rising comedy writer/directors, Jonathan Lynn. His fourth film, The Distinguished Gentleman, starring Eddie Murphy, opens this weekend and stands a good chance of raking in considerable holiday cheer and cash for Disney's hit-starved Hollywood Pictures' division. It may also temporarily alter the public and critical perception of its illustrious star as an egotistical sellout no longer capable of original, vital work.

Lynn, 49, a short and stout English native with a close-cropped beard and wheezy laugh, has already directed one of the year's best comedies, the surprising My Cousin Vinny starring Joe Pesci. Released in March, My Cousin Vinny was hailed by some critics, dismissed by others, and performed well at the box office. Only one of Lynn's two earlier films, Nuns on the Run, received much exposure, but his success in Hollywood has already been earned.

Both My Cousin Vinny and The Distinguished Gentleman boast strong, fleshed-out performances from stars and new talents, as well as sharing a mastery of constructing humor out of procedural situations.

"I believe real life is much funnier than anything you can think up sitting in your office," says Lynn. "I'm always incredulous and horrified." Written by Washington insider Marty Kaplan, The Distinguished Gentleman succeeds in toppling the once-honorable façade of congressional politics with its story of a small-time Florida con man (Murphy) who manages to get elected to the House of Representatives by taking advantage of the similarity of his name to that of a recently deceased incumbent.

"It's true. People have got elected by name recognition. A dead man got elected in Georgia. We used to have a line that was cut, along with other good material because [the film] was too long. The TV reporter on election night says, 'Actually, a lot of dead incumbents get elected, it's an American tradition.' I think that applies to genuinely dead incumbents, like some of those waxworks we saw at the Anita Hill hearings."

Lynn is proud of the fact that in My Cousin Vinny there was no villain, per se, just a corrupt judicial system that Joe Pesci's hilariously out-of-step lawyer eventually uses to vindicate his cousin. But in The Distinguished Gentleman, once Murphy's character has joined Congress' freshman in Washington, D.C., there are, as Lynn says, "a bunch of bad guys, some on-screen and some off-screen." Although the film revels in vintage Murphy impersonations, improvisation, and physical comedy, the underlying subtext is pertinent as the opportunistic outsider learns the influence-peddling, cooperation-for-cash realities of national politics.

"It is the system that is so corrupting. It's the fact that you have to run for re-election every two years as a congressman in a contested seat that costs as much as $700,000. You've got to raise that money from lobbies and vested interests. And there's no such thing as a free lunch. They want something," says Lynn.

In The Distinguished Gentleman, an amiable financier informs Murphy's character that there will be money for him no matter how he votes, pro or con, on particular bills. Catching on, he wonders how anything gets done in Washington. For Lynn who created the acclaimed political comedy shows Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister for English television, there is no mystery.

"We used to say that he British government had the engine of a lawnmower and the brakes of a Rolls Royce. The government is in the state of paralysis, just like it is here. You, for reasons that were valid at the time, enshrined paralysis into your constitution by the doctrine of the separation of powers, by making sure the executive [branch] and the Congress are different. What you succeeded in doing, just like in Britain, is having a system in which everyone can say no and nobody can say yes."

The goal of opening The Distinguished Gentleman between the election and the inauguration, with the events on-screen parodying up-to-the-minute contemporary history, meant a very hectic schedule, particularly in post-production. "It's not very often that you make a film which is actually timely," observes Lynn. Filming began in May and concluded in August, leaving only fourteen weeks for editing and scoring the film. "I was sending scenes to the composer [Randy Edelman] as they were cut. We couldn't wait to show him the whole movie." Although Lynn says that Disney was "very good" about the tight schedule, the filmmaker disliked the pressure but nonetheless delivered. "[I] didn't want to miss the boat. Most of the film is about the new administration, the new Congress. And this is the moment, actually."

Besides the risk of not having time to fine-tune the precision comedy, the frantic rush of the film meant adjusting the script to the real events taking place earlier in the year. "It was a problem keeping up with events. The script that we started out with revealed all kinds of things like the check bouncing that was going on, a whole range of congressional perks and scandals, which unfortunately kept unraveling before our very eyes. It was quite alarming to us how Congress was unraveling."
Through his experience with a poor white family and potentially harmful power lines near schools, Murphy's congressman acquires a conscience, but also learns about compromise. While Lynn firmly believes that "you've got to give good arguments to all sides," the issues raised have obvious solutions. "Electoral reform. Limits on how much people can spend to be elected to public office. If they can't spend so much, they don't need to raise so much. They don't have to sell themselves in advance to the lobbies."

Lynn's success with actors, particularly in supporting roles such as Marisa Tomei's delightful performance in My Cousin Vinny as well as Lane Smith's work in that film and The Distinguished Gentleman, comes from experience. "I think it's probably because I'm an actor [Into the Night and Three Men and a Little Lady]. I'm not an ex-actor, I'm an actor that nobody gives a job to anymore. I learned about directing actors over a very long period of time. I've been doing that for 25 years in the theatre."

Lynn's career in comedy began at age eighteen in the Footlights dramatic club in Cambridge with John Cleese, Graham Chapman, and Eric Idle, among others. "We were sort of like the original Second City company that came from Chicago to New York," Lynn says.

In addition to authoring several books, including A Proper Man, Lynn wrote "countless" TV comedy shows. "You really have to become an expert at knowing what will make the audience laugh because you don't get a second chance. You write it, you rehearse it for five days, you stick it in front of an audience, and they laugh or they don't laugh. We don't have laugh machines in Britain. The BBC is quite prepared to humiliate you by putting out a show where nobody laughs."

Having worked with Orson Welles (on "one of his eleven unfinished movies") and on the stage with Jerome Robbins, filmmaker Lynn lists such immortals as Ernst Lubitsch, Billy Wilder, and Charlie Chaplin as directorial inspirations. "To me the greatest comedy ever made is City Lights," he says. Still, Lynn feels he's learning his craft as he goes. "I know an awful lot more than I did three movies ago, but it's an endless process of self-education."

Lynn is an internationalist, so to speak, in his approach to what makes audiences laugh. "I think comedy's about seven deadly sins: lust, cowardice, pride, greed, stupidity…it's about fundamental human vices. If you look at the great silent comedians, they were completely international. The fundamental emotions and the fundamental behavior are the same everywhere. I think a lot of what makes the audience laugh is recognizing their own foibles, their own faults. I think when you laugh you kind of own up to your own misbehavior, your own bad thoughts, your own bad deeds."

Murphy, whose Boomerang was a moderate summer success but nowhere near the runaway box-office triumphs of some of his Paramount comedies such as Beverly Hills Cop, has been called the modern everyman. "My intention was to have Eddie give the kind of performance that he gave in his early Paramount movies. I think people instantly loved him when he first appeared in 48 Hrs. When Eddie feels right about a movie, and when the material suits him, there is something so captivating and charming about him, as well as funny. I wanted to recapture that, which I felt had got lost a little. It's what I think of as the old Eddie Murphy in this film - the street-smart outsider who nails the white Establishment."

Murphy was "very inventive" and "charming to all the cast and crew," says Lynn. "He was really terrific to work with. We're planning to do another movie together in about a year. Of course, I read the newspapers. I read about the famous entourage that prevents you from getting to talk to Eddie. I read about how he was impossibly late. I heard all the usual stuff. None of it proved to be true on this movie. His entourage is just a few friends who are very nice people: his cousin and a couple of other people who hang out with him, who run his business life."

Lynn does not hesitate to proclaim Murphy the "biggest star in the world" and goes on to marvel that the actor has managed to be a top box-office draw for more than ten years - an extraordinary feat, "especially for a black American, with all the attendant problems." In this time of rocky race relations and ongoing socioeconomic upheaval, The Distinguished Gentleman avoids most stereotypical confrontations and does so without condescending to audience expectations. "This movie is especially not about race relations. There are good guys and bad guys of both colors and of all ethnic backgrounds.

"It was important that this not be a film about black against white. This part could have been played by a white star. It's just that I think Eddie's the funniest guy around. And he's perfect for this part. [The role] happens to be right for Eddie because of his talent, not because of his color."

After directing a film for Disney with a star on leave from Paramount, Lynn is back at Fox, which distributed My Cousin Vinny, working on a new project called Mrs. California. Based on real events, the film focuses on a 1954 Mrs. California contest. Because of ongoing negotiations, Lynn is unable to reveal who will star in his new film.

"I'm interested in the small parts, as well as the big parts," he says. "I spend a lot of time on casting, [and then when the cameras start filming] somehow doing what is necessary to help the actors give their best performance - which is different with every actor. I'm interested in people and the way they behave towards each other, which seems to me both poignant and ludicrous."