European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - June 17, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse Hollywood shoptalk Beatty talks of straightforward baloney Stephen Hunter Baltimore Sun los Angeles a you never get what you expect that s for sure. What you expect is a Glossy narcissist All Flash and Glamour sleek As a Gigolo. Warren Beatty is after All one of the great legends of our time far More known in a curious Smirky Way for rumours of what goes on in bedrooms than for images that go on screens. Women want him men hate him. Men hate him because women want him. He has too much and he got it too fast. He s easy to despise. This is after All the Man of whom Joan Collins said Quot he was insatiable. Three four five times a Day. And he was Able to accept Telephone Calls at the same thai s the Warren Beatty of myth. And Here s what you really get if you visit with him in a hotel suite in los Angeles you get a clotted Earnest Beatty blow dries Julie Christie in 1975�?Ts intellectual dressed like a suburbanite on saturday afternoon a Man richly engaged in certain internal dramas struggling to free his thoughts or at least find a shape to them. Certain facts that the camera refuses to record become obvious he has slightly bucked Teeth. He has scuffed shoes. His hair though Ripe As a Wheatfield in Kansas in july is flecked with Gray. But he s still Lithe and Boyish at 53, As he twists Abc the Star and director of a Dick Tracy stops mid production to take publicity shots for a recent Barbara Walters interview. And struggles not so much with the questions thrown his Way but rather toward finding a satisfactory Way into them and getting the words out in a proper sequence. And his answers can be As dense As German dialectic. Quot do you know this word a schadenfreude Quot receiving a Bluffer a nod he goes on to state Quot i believe we now exist in a mass communications conspiracy of and looked up later schadenfreude discloses its meaning it is a enjoyment obtained from the mishaps of others Quot evidently Beatty s co deification of the ordeal by photographer and gossip columnist he must endure Ever time he appears in Public with a different woman. Beatty worries that Beatty the stud May have somewhat overshadowed Beatty the filmmaker. Quot the reputation ? you re talking about publicity. And what i saw was such a negative movement in the press a and such Evita a a that it seemed to make unfettered perception of my work impossible. I think its sad but society seems to need it and does demand it. There a no Way to Correct what is he has a Point his 30-year career in Hollywood is As carefully crafted As any Star s since world War ii. He a chosen with a great Deal of sensitivity never making a movie for sheer Box office returns that would make him he s appeared in As Many great and near great films As any actor of his generation from splendor in the grass to Bonnie and Clyde to Mccabe and mrs. Miller to the Parallax View to reds. His failures have mostly been honorable a the Fortune lilith and even the much maligned ishtar of which he now claims with considerable truth that the budget was reviewed not the movie. And what s he remembered for Julie Christie. Joan Collins. Leslie Caron. Diane Keaton. Madonna. Now he takes his biggest Chance of All producing directing and starring in Dick Tracy a cartoon pure evocation of americans primal image of authority and rectitude for no less a corporate entity than the Cost conscious image neurotic Disney company the result which debuted nationally last week Page 12 to plus sunday june 17,1990 is pretty much a fish or Cut bait proposition for his career and he knows it which May be Why the recently publicity shy Star is sitting still for All manner of rudeness and buffeting with a two Day series of interviews with critics one on ones no less lasting for an hour there a really Only one question Why Dick scrunching impish by in his chair Beatty says Quot it was one Way Back to a childlike state of mind that gave me permission to put on a yellow Raincoat and a yellow hat and say a let s go men Quot a i wanted to make a movie where people could be simple and straightforward that looked at the world As if from a child s eyes. I tried to give the colors the meaning they had when i was a child a i was angered by red fascinated by Green. I remember when i had a new favorite color every week. I tried to put myself Back to where i was before Quot a irony comes into his tone and self mockery a a before i got Subtle and tasteful Quot Quot generic ism Quot is a key concept in Beatty a vision of Tracy the Man and Tracy the movie. In a bold move to purify the imagery and recapture the sweetness and clarity of the original Chester Gould comic strip Beatty decided to create a movie entirely of primary colors and generic objects. Its the greatest Experiment in German expressionism in Cinema since the Cabinet of doctor Caligari. The movie walks a number of interesting lines its very violent a violent enough for example that Disney is releasing it under its grown up Touchstone Aegis a and yet it has no blood. Despite the violence he says that the Benchmark emotion of the film was innocence. Quot i d been offered so Many roles where i was asked to play a heroic character but they seemed to read like baloney. And i thought if i m going to do baloney let me do straightforward baloney a where the hero has no cheap doubts or in t cynical or Paramount Diane Keaton gets a hug from Beatty in a reds a the film that won him a directors Oscar
