"Humor is just another defense against the universe." -- Mel Brooks

July 28, 2018 11:09 AM

Portrait of an Artist as an Old Man: Mel Brooks in His 90s (David Denby, The Atlantic) “I’m just a Jew comic!” Brooks said to me at the beginning of our talk in Los Angeles, as if to ask, Why are you interested? But this comic has stormed through 75 years of show business, working in almost every medium imaginable (Borscht Belt, television, comedy albums, movies, musical comedy, one-man shows), and he may have contributed as much as anyone, in his manic style, to the formerly shaky but now sturdy arc of Jewish survival and success.
posted by Room 641-A (26 comments total)

Fun fact I learned recently: his production company, Brooksfilms, has a purposefully-anodyne name to obscure the association and produced some notable non-comedy films, such as The Elephant Man and The Fly.
posted by rhizome at 11:38 AM on July 28, 2018 [18 favorites]

Yeah I’m always confused when people act like Blazing Saddles is some travesty. Do they not get literally any of the jokes? The whole movie is punching up. Richard Pryor was one of the writers! The fuck?

I remain relieved that Brooks hasn’t been revealed to be a monster. His movies are sort of just the amount of sexism that I’m still willing to put up with, but like...the balance can shift, and I’ll be really mad if History of the World Part 1, Blazing Saddles, The Producers (the first one), or Young Frankenstein is taken from me.

Don’t be terrible, Mel. I’m begging you.
posted by schadenfrau at 12:02 PM on July 28, 2018 [27 favorites]

No mention of The Twelve Chairs, his first and perhaps most unnerving comedy.
posted by lagomorphius at 12:10 PM on July 28, 2018 [7 favorites]

Don’t be terrible, Mel. I’m begging you.

Don't make the same mistake I did, and read Ralph Rosenblum's When the Shooting Stops. Mel could be a little, shall we say, demanding. I'm doing my best to be charitable and chalk it up to nerves about making his first movie.
posted by Capt. Renault at 12:29 PM on July 28, 2018 [1 favorite]

The first movie I saw of his was The Producers; must have been 4 or 5. Fan ever since. He's so goddamned funny. And I love knowing that he's just out there living life, having a good time, and that his friend Carl is still around. I wish I could drop by one night just to hear their banter.
posted by droplet at 12:39 PM on July 28, 2018 [3 favorites]

Mel could be a little, shall we say, demanding. I'm doing my best to be charitable and chalk it up to nerves about making his first movie.

For those of us who haven't read the book: Just to be clear, are we talking about him being some kind of hard-to-please taskmaster on set, or actual bad behavior vis a vis #metoo?
posted by Strange Interlude at 12:46 PM on July 28, 2018

The whole movie is punching up.

Except for a lot of gay jokes.
posted by maxsparber at 1:00 PM on July 28, 2018 [12 favorites]

The Twelve Chairs, his first and perhaps most unnerving comedy.
"Hope for the Best, Expect the Worst" is one of my most frequent earworms.
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:00 PM on July 28, 2018 [3 favorites]

Just to be clear, are we talking about him being some kind of hard-to-please taskmaster on set, or actual bad behavior vis a vis #metoo?

The former. The way I remember the story, on The Producers crew members would go, "in movies we do things this way," and he would yell at them until they did it his way. So I could imagine he mellowed after he got more experience.
posted by RobotHero at 1:23 PM on July 28, 2018 [1 favorite]

schadenfrau: Don’t be terrible, Mel. I’m begging you.

Then don't read about his interview with BBC Radio 4, where he said that political correctness is the death of comedy (but that second link includes a series of tweets where Paul F. Tompkins replies to Mel's comment that "Comedy is the lecherous little elf whispering in the king's ear, always telling the truth about human behavior." and rebuts the idea that "PC" is killing comedy).

Also, watch out for the unnecessary (IMO) interview snippets with Brooks in Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story (FanFare link).

tl;want to read: he's a bit sexist, to say the least.

But I haven't personally put him in the "terrible" category, and still enjoy his movies.
posted by filthy light thief at 1:59 PM on July 28, 2018 [3 favorites]

D'oh! Linked above!
posted by Krazor at 1:59 PM on July 28, 2018 [1 favorite]

Here's the 1975 Playboy interview reverently mentioned in TFA (not a link to Playboy).
posted by bryon at 2:08 PM on July 28, 2018 [1 favorite]

Guys, I said don’t ruin Mel Brooks

(Kidding / sighing. I keep watching my tolerance for terribleness in artists going down, year by year, and I wonder if it will ever hit zero. It feels...close.)
posted by schadenfrau at 2:24 PM on July 28, 2018

Brooks - like many artists beforehim - shifted the Overton Window in a very progressive direction. He reached a point where he could not move it any further because he hit his own boundaries. Without him moving the window, it could have been harder for other comedians to create work that moved the window even further to the left. Someday, all of us on the left, no matter how woke, will be looked back on as hopelessly conservative.

My point being, we can enjoy Blazing Saddles for what it was in its time and acknowledge that there are things about it that are no longer defensible (I'm thinking of the sexism and homophobia). I feel the same way about Monty Python. Brilliant comedy that was progressive in its time but that isn'y consistently reflective of 21st century values. That's ok though and it's ok to enjoy it and acknowledge where it falls short of our values in 2018.

Anyhow, long live Mel Brooks. In fact, he ha has.
posted by Joey Michaels at 2:56 PM on July 28, 2018 [66 favorites]

Ohhhhh, sweet mystery of life, good thing Mel's found itttttttt...
posted by delfin at 5:13 PM on July 28, 2018 [2 favorites]

He reached a point where he could not move [the Overton Window] any further because he hit his own boundaries.

I am going to steal the hell out of this line. Thank you.
posted by Etrigan at 5:21 PM on July 28, 2018 [14 favorites]

One of my few celebrity meeting moments was Mel and his Anne Bancroft. They had a house in Dunewood on Fire Island, and I worked the ferries. Great genuine people the both of them. Was always a fan of his, and the way he treated the crew and everyone he met was always fantastic. Good people.
posted by herda05 at 6:55 PM on July 28, 2018 [11 favorites]

Lincoln Center had a Bancroft series several years ago and one of the people who came to speak said that her death had been very hard on him.
posted by brujita at 8:32 PM on July 28, 2018

One of my neighbors was a teen star who met Mel Brooks during a casting call for some stupid movie I can't remember the name of. At the end of the call my neighbor, who didn't advance to the next round because his smart ass jokes didn't amuse the casting directors, asked Mel "Ok. What's the deal? What do I need to know in order to succeed in comedy?"

Brooks replied, "Wit is shit; funny is money."
posted by Hermione Granger at 9:54 PM on July 28, 2018 [6 favorites]

Brooks trialed the musical incarnation of Young Frankenstein here in Seattle now too long after the megasuccess of the musical stage incarnation of The Producers, like, maybe 2002?

Anyway somehow I got opening night tix for my wife and I and two visiting out of town pals. We decide to grab a quick pre-show bite across the street at Dragonfish. As we cross the contstruction-muddled street, a short elderly man built like a bulldozer shoulders by us along the fence, squinting into the sun as he heads to the theater.

It took me until the curb to realize it was Mr. Brooks, and me without my Saran Wrap.
posted by mwhybark at 11:52 PM on July 28, 2018 [1 favorite]

Someday, all of us on the left, no matter how woke, will be looked back on as hopelessly conservative.

This is actually a really hopeful and comforting thought, thank you.
posted by lollymccatburglar at 2:40 AM on July 29, 2018 [15 favorites]

And I love knowing that he's just out there living life, having a good time, and that his friend Carl is still around. I wish I could drop by one night just to hear their banter.

Watch the Reiner/Brooks episode of Seinfeld's "Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee," where they just hang out together. It may have been my favorite one.
posted by CheesesOfBrazil at 7:01 AM on July 29, 2018 [5 favorites]

Watch the Reiner/Brooks episode of Seinfeld's "Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee," where they just hang out together. It may have been my favorite one.

Their two episodes of WTF are really great for the same reason.
posted by Ragged Richard at 8:00 AM on July 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

Carl Reiner, I know mostly from when Johnny Carson would call him as a sub for guests who didn't make it. He seemed like he was a reliable font of old-time comedy.
posted by thelonius at 8:24 AM on July 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

Gary Beach died the other week. Just reminds me how mortal at lot of these stars are.
posted by Definitely Not Sean Spicer at 3:23 PM on July 29, 2018

Don’t be terrible, Mel. I’m begging you.

AFAIK, the closest he's come to a #metoo moment is this anecdote about casting Madeline Kahn in Blazing Saddles (quoting an account from Forbes, though I've heard it many places):

So I'd seen Madeline Kahn in a few movies that I liked her in, and I ask her to come and read for Lili Von Shtupp, and I know I want her. And when she comes in the office, she reads and she's just perfect – and then I tell her that I want to play a little song for her. I tell her I've written this kind of Marlene Dietrich parody, this little song called "I'm Tired." And she loves that song – she think it's so great. She goes, "I can't wait to do it." I say, "There's one thing – raise your skirt. I'd love to see your legs." So her jaw drops, and she's so disappointed; she goes, "Oh, this turned out to be one of those." I said, "No, no, I'm very happily married. Remember I'm doing Dietrich and kind of doing Destry Rides Again? You gotta straddle a chair, and I need to see some beautiful gams." She goes, "sure, sure!" She grabs the chair and straddles it and show me her legs, and everything is perfect. But she had this terrible, disappointing moment, another director who just wants to get her on the casting couch. But it didn't turn out that way at all. And she was just great in the movie.

posted by cheshyre at 4:22 PM on July 29, 2018 [3 favorites]