“A star is digitized!”
A trio of new movies came out this past Friday, but the one on people’s minds continues to be A Star is Born. The fourth, that’s right, FOURTH remake of this story features the rocking vocals of Lady Gaga and the directorial debut of Bradley Cooper, both of which are being justifiably celebrated. As the film’s two lovestruck leads, Cooper and Gaga make the whole affair work, ensuring that their version of A Star is Born will certainly continue to stand on its own once all the hype and buzz fades away.
I thought about revisiting one of the previous versions as a tribute in honor of the film’s release, but each one is so special and beloved in its own way, I didn’t dare touch them. Instead, I thought I’d focus on the overlooked 2002 comedy Simone, a slightly off-center version of the story in which an artist who has seen better days falls under the spell of the new star he’s helped launch into the stratosphere.
Written and directed by Andrew Niccol, Simone stars Al Pacino as Victor Taransky, a once-top movie producer whose career has fallen by the wayside after Nicola Anders (Winona Ryder), the A-list star of his latest movie, has walked off the set. When studio head Elaine (Catherine Keener) threatens to pull the plug on her ex-husband’s film, Victor scrambles to find any way to save his movie. Desperate, he secretly creates a digital actress named Simulation One aka Simone (Rachel Roberts), who he programs and inserts into his movie. When the film, and especially Simone, becomes a worldwide sensation, Victor’s grip on both his creation and his sanity begins to slip.
One of the most striking aspects about Simone is its somewhat brazen commentary on Hollywood’s instantaneous acceptance of fantasy as reality. Out of all the world’s corporate structures, the film industry is one of the few whose rules, mores, and customs are constantly changing according to what the pulse of the culture is. Because of the nature of such a landscape, Victor as an artist is at a standstill. He is considered passe, irrelevant, and out of touch; a once-heralded genius who now exists as a reminder of a time within the industry that has come and gone. Victor’s creation of Simone is first and foremost a surefire method of realizing his creative dream and finding rejuvenation as an artist. At the same time, though, Simone functions as a full on rebuke and attack on the state of Hollywood in the present day and its treatment of him. There’s certainly a sense that by creating Simone, Victor is secretly laughing at the ridiculous susceptibility of the movie world and their instant mythologizing of a woman who doesn’t even exist. Eventually, Victor realizes all too late the power of his creation when he himself becomes as obsessed with Simone as the rest of the world. In one of the film’s most telling moments, Simone is accepting an award for her work in the film (pre-taped, of course) when Victor suddenly realizes that he’s forgotten to program his starlet to thank her creator.
Attention must be paid to the way Simone deals with the subject of women. The film offers up two portraits of women and the two opposing sides of power they embody. On the one side is Elaine’s studio boss. Having divorced Victor, Elaine has risen in the ranks and made a career for herself solely based on her own tenacity and merit. Her self-worth within the industry is exemplified by the fact that she doesn’t let the fickle attitudes of those around her dictate her perspective and instinct. It’s because of this that she is able to show Victor genuine empathy and understanding, even when her position requires her to terminate his deal with the studio. By contrast, Simone is a woman whose power is a direct result of the man who has shaped her. Simone is Victor’s idea of a woman, tailored to his own view and notion of feminine perfection. It’s that perfection which makes the public fascinated and leads Victor to the brink of madness when he realizes he can’t escape what he’s created. Victor’s relationship with both Elaine and Simone provides a strong and clever metaphor to Hollywood’s lack of understanding towards the different kinds of powerful women that exist there, as well as the movie world’s misguided attempts to control them.
Because he’s not typically known for lighter, more thoughtful fare, watching Pacino in Simone is a real treat as the actor makes himself right at home in the film’s slightly comic and oftentimes cerebral atmosphere. The look in his wide eyes as he sits in a jail cell while Simone is shown on TV in the background as he mutters “she’s indestructible” is priceless. Meanwhile, the scenes with him in an empty studio in which Victor is literally conversing with Simone on the big screen are great in the way Pacino illustrates his character’s shaky hold on reality. Simone will never be seen as containing one of the actor’s finest performances, but his work throughout it shows that Pacino, who even into his 60s, was still eager to push himself creatively by exploring different projects which promised new and interesting challenges.
The female members of the cast bring perfect authenticity to their characters and statements about women in the industry. Roberts is ethereal, luminous, and witty as the title character, playing her as the imagined goddess everyone sees her as, but also as a formidable opponent for her seasoned leading man. Keener gives off strength and understanding in a way that perfectly suits her character, while Evan Rachel Wood gives a “wise beyond her years” turn as Pacino and Keener’s teen daughter. However it’s Ryder’s brilliant supporting turn which gives the film a specific kind of depth and poignancy as a woman considered to be a product of the industry, whose celebration has come to define her.
Filmed in the fall of 2000, but held until the late August 2002, Simone was universally ignored by audiences who couldn’t find the movie even if they were looking for it, which they sadly weren’t. Critics meanwhile had little time or interest in Simone, liking some aspects, but ultimately finding this Hollywood satire a somewhat lackluster follow-up project to Niccol’s debut, Gattaca.
Niccol has certainly never been short on creating innovative stories which challenge the perceptions of reality. Besides Gattaca, titles such as The Truman Show and In Time all played with concepts of self and society by presenting notions of a Rod Serling-esque future and its infiltration into the present day. At the same time, the concepts Niccol creates remain incredibly cinematic in their realization, making each one feel both slightly eerie and wondrous at the same time. Simone is by far the filmmaker’s most accessible offering, as well as his most overlooked. This isn’t because the film is of lower quality in comparison to his more famous works by any means. Instead, Simone’s continued anonymity could probably be chalked up to the fact that the film has one too many ideologies, all of which are handled a little too subtly for them to have the same kind of impact found in other Hollywood satires. However, what it lacks in upfront bite, Simone more than makes up for in its honest, unfiltered vision of the lost artist and his steadfast determination to exist through whatever means necessary.
