New Line Cinema released The Hidden on 30 October 1987.
I was there. In the theater. I absolutely loved it. And I’ve watched it about once a decade since then. And I still think it is great. So you should just watch it — even if you’ve seen it before.
But I want to talk about something else.
A few years back, I watched the film with director Jack Sholder’s commentary. It was fine. Pretty typical of director commentaries. No real surprises. And lots of production details no one really cares about.
But he talked a lot about co-star Michael Nouri. According to Sholder, Nouri was angry that Kyle MacLachlan was getting all the attention. And here’s the thing: I’m sure he was right. It’s hard to look at a photo of Nouri and not think he keeps his head firmly wedged up his ass.
But it always comes back to this: filmmaking ain’t cancer research. I would certainly hate if cancer researchers went out in public and bad-mouthed their colleagues. (Biologist James Watson did this about Rosalind Franklin and I lost all respect for him as a human being.) But I’d forgive it. I mean, people curing cancer can do what they want.
Why is it that filmmakers think it is fine to air their dirty laundry in public like this? I think part of it is that there is a very high level of psychopathy in Hollywood. But the bigger issue is that people in Hollywood love the taste of their own excrement. The successful ones don’t think they are curing cancer. They think what they are doing is so much more important than that!
So rather than acting like an adult and just moving on, they hold on to grudges for decades just to spew them out on commentary tracks, where the salacious bits are repeated in places normal (non-commentary watching) people frequent.
Again, I don’t doubt that Michael Nouri is a prick. Then again, maybe he was just at a bad place in his life. Or maybe Jack Sholder misunderstood him. The only thing that really matters is that Nouri is great on screen and his character’s relationship with MacLachlan’s character is perfect.
So forget all that. The Hidden is pure joy. Thanks to all who made it possible!
The Hidden (1987) poster via Wikipedia under Fair Use.
I wonder if Hollywood rudeness is just “s**t rolls downhill.” Studio executives routinely s**t on artists; directors and writers and actors compete with each other for work, trying to please the same clods at the top. People who are demeaned by those above them frequently seek out someone to demean, themselves. It’s ugly but it happens. And studio execs are pretty notorious for their sneering “I like telling artists they’re worthless and powerless” petty cruelty. That’s been true of Hollywood for over 100 years.
Still, you’re so right in pointing out how cheap and immature such DVD commentary remarks are. It’s like my thought that there should be honor among theives; those of us who are struggling writers shouldn’t s**t on other struggling writers, unless they write something particularly vile that gets a lot of attention. We’re all in the same leaky boat; we should support each other, personal disagreements aside. Hollywood people turded on by studio execs shouldn’t diss others who were turded on, too, not in public. It’s just tacky.
I think there is something to all of that. But I think it is far worse now when top actors and directors have a lot of power than it was when it was just a good-paying job. That’s why I lean heavily toward the idea that they are just full of themselves. And it goes along with my own experience. I still find it shocking how people in Hollywood act like what they are doing is super important. And most of these commentaries are recorded well after the people are still working. So they *could* complain about studio heads. But they don’t. And the things they complain about are minor. In general, their own rudeness is as bad as what they are complaining about!
Great point about how they could talk about studio heads, but they don’t. It was one thing I liked about Ron Shelton’s book about making Bull Durham — 99% of his complaints were about studio interference. (I normally don’t read “making of” books and it’s not like Bull Durham is some great masterpiece, but Shelton’s a funny writer.)
Just this afternoon I was thinking of The Long Kiss Goodnight. Shane Black was paid four million dollars for that script. But the studio still didn’t trust him and destroyed the ending. It’s crazy!