When The Birdcage won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast, a good friend of mine and I weren’t too happy. We were both big Fargo fans and we wanted it to win, but it wasn’t even nominated in that category. We knew Fargo was going to get screwed over by The English Patient at the Oscars and it did.
I never watched The Birdcage when it came out but caught it on cable years later and found myself laughing at the absurdity of the whole movie. I think Calista Flockhart was flying high on the success of Ally McBeal and Robin Williams had just won a well-deserved Oscar. Nathan Lane was in the poorly made Encore! Encore! TV show that would be quickly canceled. But it did seem like entrie cast of this movie was firing on cylinders and it all worked like a great machine.
Unfortunately, the commercials played up too much of Albert Goldman (Lane) in drag pretending to be the wife of Armand Goldman (Williams). But that is only about third or so of the movie. The whole movie is a high-octane comedic farce about two families both having to deal with issues that they avoid when they should tackle them directly. I think that’s why it was such a success. We can all see the folly of trying to do what we think is the right thing only for it to go wrong.
Armand is owner/operator of The Birdcage, a drag club in South Beach, Fla., with his longtime companion Albert as the main star. Together, they have raised Val (Dan Futterman), who is Armand’s biological son from a fling he had with a successful businesswoman, Katherine Archer (Christine Barankski). Val has returned to South Beach from college to tell everyone he’s getting married to a co-ed he met, Barbara Keely (Flockhart).
But what Armand and Albert don’t know is that Barbara is the daughter of Kevin Keely (Gene Hackman), an ultra-conservative U.S. Senator, who has been hit with a big scandal. He’s the co-founder of the Coalition for Moral Order, whose other co-founder, a southern conservative senator, who has been found dead in the bed of an underage black prostitute. To deflect the media attention, Kevin’s wife, Louise (Dianne Wiest), suggests they arrange a dinner meeting with the Goldmans who Barbara calls “Coleman.” If they can get the media to focus on Barbara’s upcoming nuptial, it will also give them a reason to take refuge in Florida. But Barbara also doesn’t tell them that Val has gay parents lying his father is actually a cultura,\l attache for Greece.
Val also wants Armand to act less flamboyant and is worried how Albert, who is very flamboyant, will come off. So, after much thought, Armand agrees to make the house look more conservative and take out all the questionable artwork, including sculptures with big penises. Armand and Val also have to work on Albert. At first, they try to get to go on a trip but then try to make him act like he’s an uncle to no avail. So, as a last ditch effort to fit in, the overly dramatic Albert dresses in drag surprising Armand and Val. The gag is that anyone can tell it’s a man in drag, even Barbara, but her parents are so oblivious, they eventually get in a fight when Louise feels Kevin is cozying up too much to him.
The Birdcage is based on La Cage aux Folles, a French farce written by Jean Poirot, which was turned into a French movie by the same name in 1978. It’s directed by Mike Nichols with his long-time writing collaborator, Elaine May, adapting the movie. It helps that Nichols also has work in theater as he and May are able to stage the scenes so they are mainly focused in several settings of The Birdcage theater and the penthouse apartment.
Originally Williams was scheduled to play Albert with Steve Martin as Armand, but Martin had to drop out. Williams asked Nichols if he could play Armand with Lane cast as Albert. Lane had been cast in several small roles in movies like Ironweed and Addams Family Values before he was cast as Timon the Meerkat in the 1994 Disney hit The Lion King that Lane became more popular. He steals every scene he’s in. Seeing Williams play the straight man (well, you know what I mean) actually works better. He does a few of his traditional comedy but mostly lets Lane cut loose.
Some of the movie’s highlights is between Williams and Lane as Armand tries to teach Albert to “act like a man.” This includes showing him how to “smear” mustard on the toast because “men smear” and not worry about “piercing the toast.” And Albert pretends to walk like John Wayne. Later they discuss talking about the Miami Dolphins and working on their handshakes. The whole scene is foolish because it shows just how foolish it is “to be a man.” Ironically, Armand and Albert have managed to raise a great child into a young man who is very accepting and caring.
Hackman and Wiest are perfectly cast as the typical conservative parents. Wiest, unfortuantely, had played too many of these roles she was typecast. Hackman, who has shown his comedic abilities in Young Frankenstein, manages to pulls some laughs. Because both actors are in more serious roles is why I think it works. If Nichols had cast comics as Kevin and Louise, I don’t think it would’ve worked because they can play off Lane and Williams better.
Even though it was provocative and revolutionary for 1996, there are some scenes that haven’t aged well. The other F-word is said a lot even by Armand when he tells Val he’s tired of being what others want of him. And even though he is hilarious as the butler/housekeeper Agador Spatacus, Hank Azaria has come under fire in recent years for some of his roles on The Simpsons. Agador seems to be a Latino who wears as little clothing as possible and hates shoes, but it’s theoritically possible that Agador has created this persona. So, it’s easy to overlook it.
For the most part, LGBTQIA characters were still being portrayed in a way that was offensive. Outside Blake Edwards movies, most were seen as victims or sex maniacs. The portrayal of the community in Sidney Lumet’s Q&A can be seen as cringeworthy as well as Cruising, even if that was the scene during the era. I would even say that Armand and Albert are a gay male version of Ricky and Lucy Ricardo with their mannerism and behavior. They also deeply love each other and Val. In the end, it’s Val who fully accepts Albert has a parent.
Ironically, Futterman would have an earlier role in The Fisher King where he played an unpleasant character who attacks Williams’ character. Futterman has mostly gone to working behind the camera, producing movies and writing scripts for Capote and Foxcatcher. While the rest of the main cast is still alive, Hackman retired from acting in the mid-2000s.
It’s Williams who still makes us laugh almost a decade after his death by suicide shocked a nation, if not the whole world. This is one of his rarest of roles in which he is mostly reacting. In one of the movies’ most notable scenes, he slipped and fell down. Because Azaria and Futterman stayed in character, Nichols left it in the scene because it added to the madness. It shows how wonderful an actor and comic he was and how he is still missed by so many.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 