THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, October 6, 1994 TAG: 9410060072
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Movie Review
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, MOVIE CRITIC
LENGTH: Long : 120 lines
AMERICA looking through a mirror darkly, and perhaps askance, is the theme of ``Quiz Show,'' a terrific movie in which everything is deceptively simple but nothing is absolute. The heroes are all marred and the villains are all human.
Robert Redford, winner of the 1980 Academy Award for directing ``Ordinary People,'' has drawn superlative performances from his cast. In the process, he throws at us a parable of when, and how, America lost its innocence. There is no question, in the jaded 1990s, that America has lost the small-town freshness reflected in Norman Rockwell portraits.
But how did it get that way? We've heard that the turning point was Watergate. Lost illusions. Lost respect. We've heard that it was Vietnam. Lost goals. Lost national pride. Now, we hear, through a film that is sheer entertainment from first frame to last, that the catalyst was actually the quiz show scandals of the late 1950s.
Like ``All the President's Men,'' in which Redford starred, the film has its own viewpoint and is not really harmed by the inevitable claims of compressed and sometimes outright inaccurate ``facts.'' Facts are not the drama here. The screenplay, based on a chapter from Richard Goodwin's book ``Remembering America,'' is more concerned, on a dramatic and entertainment level, with exposing the 1990s pursuit of fame and money. It asks, in modern - not 1950s - terms: What would you do if you knew no one would ever find out?
Charles Van Doren, played with a charismatic charm by new star Ralph Fiennes, was willing to accept answers and questions in order to step from the shadow of his famous family. (Pulitzer-winning poet Mark Van Doren was his father and famed historian Carl Van Doren was his uncle.) His vehicle was the NBC quiz show ``Twenty-One.'' A spellbound nation watched breathlessly as he beat former champion Herbie Stempel, a bespectacled nerd who sweated in the isolation booth, was unattractively arrogant about his knowledge and had bad teeth.
Judgements were now made on a new, cosmetic level. (New? Or has it always been that the beautiful and the charming have had it too easy). The power of television, a medium which changed our lives forever, was just beginning.
But when the scandal broke, and we learned the show was fixed, there were those who wondered what all the fuss was about. After all, didn't we realize it was just a show?
No, we didn't.
It is the genius of the Redford movie that he recreates time past at the same time that he sees it through a modern mirror. After all, Redford himself, the golden boy of the movies, knows a great deal about what it's like to be crowned an icon in a cosmetic society - lionized because of looks and charm. He seems to be doing his own public penance here.
John Turturro turns in a flashy and always-on-edge performance as Stempel, a grad student who needed the money. Stempel glories in his initial fame but doesn't know how to handle it. When the ratings dip because the audience is getting tired of his weekly (Monday nights against ``I Love Lucy'') show of trivial, but formidable, knowledge, he is forced to throw the game. He has been able to tell what color Paul Revere's horse was, but is sorely embarrassed by the fact that he has to ``miss'' the easy question of what year ``Marty'' won the Oscar.
Ralph Fiennes creates a tragic hero from Van Doren, a charmer who is able to woo America too easily. The range of this actor is emphasized by our chilling memory of his performance as the Nazi commander in ``Schindler's List.'' Van Doren becomes an instant celebrity, making the cover of Time magazine, and winning $129,000 before being exposed.
In a telling, and brilliantly played scene, Paul Scofield (the 1966 Oscar winner for ``A Man for All Seasons'') plays the golden boy's father and lets us know why his son may have sold out. Charlie has always done everything right, but he's an also-ran in this prestigious family, until the somehow vulgar medium of the TV set puts him in the limelight. The scene at the elder Van Doren's birthday celebration is wonderfully and subtly underplayed, as is most of the film.
Rob Morrow of TV's ``Northern Exposure'' is left the quieter and more immobile role - that of Richard Goodwin, the author of ``Remembering America,'' who is presented as the investigator who broke the case.
Even the most rudimentary research reveals that this is an exaggeration if not an outright falsehood. The case was examined over a long period of time by the district attorney's office, and Stempel had already confessed before Goodwin came into the picture.
Viewers are not likely to care. The film's dramatic structure needed an outside observer and Goodwin serves nicely. It is ironic, though, that ``Quiz Show,'' the movie, is guilty of the same sin that it lays upon ``Twenty-One'' - twisting facts in order to entertain a hungry and demanding public.
Christopher MacDonald makes emcee Jack Barry look like a buffoon - a foolish characterization because it is so publicly known that Barry was otherwise. The picture of the show's producers, and of NBC's involvement, have been factually attacked but this doesn't really harm the film itself - or its entertainment value. After all, it forthrightly states that it is based on Goodwin's book, which is only one view.
In a final, and equally telling, scene, the character of Goodwin is laid open when he, like everyone else, is wooed by the possibility of luxury. He looks longingly at a new Chrysler car as the radio broadcasts news of the Russian Sputnik. Goodwin actively seeks the same fame that Van Doren received. In fact, he, through subtle acting and staging, is shown to sympathize with the golden boy he has exposed. It is meaningful when an onlooker comments that ``I thought it used to be the man drove the car. Now the car drives the man.''
``Quiz Show'' is one of the year's best films and will surely, again, earn Redford an Oscar nomination. The cast is uniformly impressive. Turturro is the most showy but it will probably be Fiennes' charisma that gets the Oscar bid. MEMO: ``Quiz Show'' is at the following locations: Chesapeake Square in
Chesapeake, Janaf in Norfolk, Lynnhaven 8, Pembroke in Virginia Beach
ILLUSTRATION: "QUIZ SHOW"
Rated: PG
Starring: John Turturro, Rob Morrow, Ralph Fiennes, Paul Scofield,
David Paymer
Mal's rating: ****
Ralph Fiennes, from left, Christopher McDonald and John Turturro
star in Robert Redford's "Quiz Show."
BARRY WETCHER
Investigator Richard Goodwin (Rob Morrow), right, talks to a
contestant (John Turturro) in ``Quiz Show Scandel.''
by CNB