How many directors do you recognize?

I was invited to participate in a Facebook event through my Flickcharters group that involved voting on the films of Frank Capra, and it included a picture of Capra as its artwork. This picture, in fact.

It made me realize how few directors I tend to actually recognize, even the important ones.

It's understandable why I might not recognize Capra, as he died in 1991 and looked much older than this in my 18 years of being alive to that point. A bit more shamefully, I have not sought out any old interviews with him or any documentaries that might look into his earlier years (something like Five Came Back, for example).

But it's not just older directors like Capra. Something came up the day before I saw this that prompted me to look up Tom Tykwer, a favorite of mine for having directed two of my top 50 films of all time: Run Lola Run and Perfume: The Story of a Murderer.

Tom Tykwer looks like this, but I wouldn't have known it:

Seeing the picture of Tykwer made me realize it was not the first time I'd seen a picture of him. But I clearly had not retained an image of him in my mind, as I couldn't produce this appearance when thinking about him. (And may not be able to the next time I try, either.)

But that's a rather fringe example as well, as Tykwer is not exactly a major director despite working regularly and having prominent examples of good films to his name. A more compelling example is that I have a hard time telling you exactly what Joel and Ethan Coen look like. They directed two films in my top ten (Raising Arizona and Fargo) and are some of the most celebrated directors working today. As you probably know, this is what they look like:

I knew they looked sort of like that -- like, I had the rough outlines of their appearance in my mind. But I guarantee you that if I ran into either of them on the street, I would not know it was them. If they were both together, maybe. If they were being followed by a group of people talking to each other in hushed tones and taking pictures, probably. But one by himself and without any fanfare? Highly doubtful.

It extends to others. Just thinking randomly of some of my favorite films by directors actively working, could I conjure a mental image of Alfonso Cuaron? No, no I could not. (I had a vague one, which I checked just now and was off a bit.) Guillermo del Toro? Closer, but not exact. Then again, I've got a perfect image of Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (they are kind of the holy triumvirate of contemporary Mexican directors), but that may just be because he's won two directing Oscars in the past three years.

The point is, there's a strange disconnect for me, and for some other cinephiles I'm sure, between the extent that we revere the artistic exploits of these people and the extent that we'd be able to pick them out of a police lineup.

On some level it makes sense. We are not seeing them in front of the camera. And in the instances where we are, it helps tremendously. No one anywhere who knows anything about film could fail to recognize Orson Welles, for example. Or an example from my own recent viewing experience, Roman Polanski. He has that cameo in Chinatown, but he's the star of the Polanski film I just saw last weekend, The Tenant. Or an even more recent mention on this blog, Kevin Smith.

But if you're only behind the camera, you need to court media attention in some way to be recognizable, and I would say that the Coens do not particularly care for that. Someone like Christopher Nolan, however, is a lot more recognizable because you see him showing up to talk about his work pretty regularity.

I guess I'm not saying anything particularly profound here.

But I do wonder if it points to some kind of deficit in myself as a cinephile. It has occurred to me that although I continue to consume films at a ravenous rate, I may not be rounding out my knowledge of film history the way other cinephiles in my position -- or even more importantly, other critics -- would be. I almost never read about cinema in long form, for example. I read articles that I see posted on Facebook and the like, but I don't choose books on cinema for my next book the next time I'm looking for one. I think of this as a conscious form of counter-programming to my busy viewing schedule, but it means I'm not going in depth on the behind the scenes of these films, which I think is also essential to a well-rounded film education. I mean, most books aren't going to give you a better idea of what a director looks like, but they will create the greater all-around awareness of a person that is symbolized by the superficial element of knowing what they look like.

I won't think too deeply on it.

But I do wish that I had looked at that picture of Frank Capra and said "That's a picture of Frank Capra" and not "Who is that guy? Oh, it must be Frank Capra."

And it was interesting to me how Frank Capra did not look like Frank Capra -- or not how I thought Frank Capra would look, anyway. I think of Capra as a kind of reckless optimist, and this man looks too severe to conform to my preconception of him. Then again, Capra also directly The Lost Weekend so he can be just as dour as this photo implies to me.

What's perhaps worst is that I did not even know he was of Italian descent, another thing I discovered in just briefly looking up something about him now. Not that his descent is even particularly noteworthy, just that it challenges another wrong preconception I had about him, which was that he was born in America. A preconception I wouldn't have had if I had read up on this guy at all.

So, this just strengthens my resolve to do something I should have done a while ago: Make every other book I read be a book on film. Or I should say, at least a book that somehow deepens my understanding and appreciation of film. I guess if you are speaking cosmically you might say that every book does that, but in this case I'm clarifying because it will allow me to keep my planned next book on the docket, which is Joan Lindsay's Picnic at Hanging Rock (after I finish Thomas Hardy's The Return of the Native). That'll be a worthwhile cinema-related reading experience as it will give me insight on how a film I love was adapted from its source material.

I'll become a better cinephile, dammit, one book and one director's face at a time.

Capra Madison

This is the second in my Double Jeopardy series, in which I revisit films I may have liked too much, to see if they hold up. It runs on Tuesdays.

I know what you're thinking -- Was this whole Double Jeopardy series just so Vance could write about high-concept comedies, in which a fantastical plot device allows the protagonist to change his life in ways that at first seem desirable, but are ultimately undesirable? Last week Bedazzled, this week Click?

I promise, it's just a coincidence -- I won't make a habit of it.

Adam Sandler's production company is called Happy Madison. The name is a hybrid of Sandler's first two big-screen successes: Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore. It seems a bit infantile to be so openly proud of those two movies, but then again, they're probably his two funniest movies, so have at it, Adam.

Every "Adam Sandler movie" that has been made since 1999 is a Happy Madison movie -- Little Nicky, Mr. Deeds, 50 First Dates, Anger Management, etc. Adam Sandler doesn't necessarily have to be in the movie for it to be an "Adam Sandler movie," as movies like The Hot Chick, Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star and Paul Blart: Mall Cop also fall under the Happy Madison label. Similarly, Sandler appears in movies that are not "Adam Sandler movies," and not produced by Happy Madison, such as Punch-Drunk Love and Funny People. The movie I crapped on (sight unseen) last Friday, Grown Ups, is the consummate Happy Madison movie, as it features not only Sandler, but the stars of The Hot Chick, Dickie Roberts and Paul Blart as well.

If Happy Madison is a hybrid of Sandler's two formative successes, then Click is a different kind of hybrid. It's a mixture of a Happy Madison movie and, surprisingly, a Frank Capra movie. Hence, Capra Madison.

And like Little Nicky, Mr. Deeds and 50 First Dates, none of which I've seen, I probably would not have seen Click if I hadn't made it the second half of a "sneak into the second" double feature. Around the time the movie came out, four years ago, I was working in the IT department of a restaurant company, and was sent out to a site about an hour east of Los Angeles, to fix a cash register or something. The site is right next to a multiplex, so I decided to extend my workday by four hours, since I always love seeing movies in unfamiliar locations. First I saw the Keanu Reeves-Sandra Bullock weepie The Lake House, then I stayed for Click.

I don't know which one I was expecting to like more, but Click was the clear winner.

In the review I wrote at the time, I commented that the idea of a remote control that controls real life had taken a particularly long time to come to the screen -- and that Click was a thoroughly satisfying realization of the concept. But it doesn't start out that way. In fact, the first 20-30 minutes represent some of the worst instincts of the worst Happy Madison movies. Rob Schneider, disguised under heavy makeup, plays a wet t-shirt-loving Middle Eastern prince named Habeeboo, whose name everyone constantly mispronounces. Sandler's Michael Newman screams at a bunch of teenagers playing with fireworks and jumps a fence to try to beat them up. And a recurring joke is that the family dog loves humping a duck stuffed animal that's the same size as he is.

During this interminable lead-in to the good stuff, I could feel the uncertainty mounting in my wife, on the couch next to me. I wondered if the film's second and third acts could possibly redeem the first.

Once again, they did.

At a certain point in the movie, the remote control starts following Michael's past preferences. Michael once told the remote to fast forward to his next promotion, which he expected to be just a couple months off. Now, the remote wants to fast forward to his subsequent promotion -- however far off that may be. Ditto for the times Michael wanted to fast forward through sex and through being sick -- just that one time in both instances, but the remote programs it as a preference that supersedes all else.

So it's at this point that the movie moves away from boob jokes and fart jokes -- Sandler hitting slow-mo to watch the bouncing boobs of a jogger, and hitting pause to fart in his boss' face -- and becomes a sublime examination of the risk of sleeping through our lives, and missing the details that make it worth living. This is where the Frank Capra part kicks in -- most literally, It's a Wonderful Life. With assistance from a guardian angel figure, played by Christopher Walken (more on him in a minute), Michael gets to see his future life if he continues on his current trajectory. But he's not just witnessing it -- he's living it. And it's moving forward at a speed he can't control.

Sure, there's some shtick here too -- at one point, Michael's weight doubles, the end result of his steady junk food diet. To director Frank Coraci's credit, though, this scene does not get milked for laughs and is relatively short. This scene also highlights the technical reasons for seeing the film -- it was nominated for an Oscar for its makeup effects, which are sometimes quite astonishing.

Maybe I'm just a sucker for movies where characters age into imperfect futures that are passing through their fingers like running water, because the second half of Click really gets me. Fast-forwarding into Michael's future surprised me, because the ads had just shown the bouncing jogger boobs, and Michael slapping the paused face of his boss (a hammy David Hasselhoff). This should be no surprise, because the ads were trying to win the Happy Madison crowd only. But Click has so much more to offer than mere Happy Madison shtick. Some of the events of Michael's future are as touching and as delicately handled as anything you would want to see in a sensitive drama. And if I wasn't sure I was right about this the first time, I knew it the second -- especially when I heard my wife sniffling back some tears. I did her the courtesy of not embarrassing her by drawing attention to an emotional moment that surely caught her by surprise.

The reason more people probably did not like Click was that there was too much Capra for the Happy Madison crowd, and too much Happy Madison for the Capra crowd. As hybrids go, Click is probably more diametrically divided than most you will see -- but its good parts really do elevate the bad ones, rather than the bad parts dragging the good ones down to their level.

I said I'd get back to Christopher Walken. Walken is a full-on comedic performer at this point in his career, and Click is one of the funniest performances he's given. As the inventor of the remote control, who guides Michael through his journey -- an employee of the "Beyond" department at Bed, Bath & Beyond -- Walken's Morty is simply hilarious, his line deliveries always worthy of a good chuckle, no matter what he's saying. He may be what pushes Click over the top, saving it from its weaker comic instincts with a gonzo performance that's in a category all its own. But to continue the hybrid metaphor, Morty also has a dark side, which serves that part of the story well -- to chilling effect, at certain points.

Double Jeopardy Verdict, Click: If only half of a movie is going to be good, you're always better off with it being the second half -- and because it's usually the other way around, the movie leaves a better impression than many of the scores of films that have strong beginnings and weak finishes. The second and third acts elevate this film into a recommended high-concept escapist dramedy, one that's actually touching, and not as funny as you might think it's trying to be.

Whether that last comment qualifies as a selling point or a detractor depends on what side of the Capra/Madison divide you find yourself.