Thursday, June 04, 2009

Davd Carradine; Charlie Stella

By coincidence I happened to spend half an hour last night going through Christopher Wicking's book on TV directors from the inception of network TV up through the eighties. One of his points is that visually TV quickly became static. For reasons of budget and laziness, there was a corporate style used by most TV directors. The best men and women found ways to do good work within those confines but too much "product" was dull and unimaginative.

Wicking credits Jerry Thorp and his Kung-Fu show with breaking all the rules and thereby freeing at least two generations of directors from the drudgery of television inanity. I happened to catch a Kung Fu episode a few weeks ago and even though Thorpe's approach has been imitated literally hundreds of times the visual style is still remarkable. It makes the story and the acting all the more interesting.

David Carradine was spot on in the lead. I generally liked his performances, though you could always see when he was phoning them in. There was a mystery in the face and the laconic voice that served him well. I always wonder what brings people to that moment in a hotel or bathtub or automobile when they finish it off. A year or so ago saw him interviewed at some length and he looked both weary and troubled. A fair share of his work will be remembered in the annals of popular culture.

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Charlie Stella has a very cool blog. Go here:

http://temporaryknucksline.blogspot.com/

4 comments:

Dave Zeltserman said...

Ed, one can only imagine how good Kung Fu could've been if they had hired Bruce Lee for the role. It's also looking like Carradine's death was accidental.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/05/AR2009060500909.html

Ed Gorman said...

I'll never understand strangulation-as-sexual pleasure or whatever this process entails. I remember when a respected sf artist died doing this in the early seventies. Young, talented, happily married--the impact that had on me made me look on it as craziness I guess.

Dave Zeltserman said...

Ed, years ago I worked at Digital Equipment Corporation, and with a company of 120,000 employees, some strange stuff would go on. One of the employees died in a very peculiar fashion, and a friend of mine explained it to me--it was the first I ever heard of it, and I guess the point is to climax as you're passing out. Each to their own, but the thought of it gives me the willies. Another employee committed suicide by taking a chainsaw to himself. What a way to go.

Dave Zeltserman said...

By the way, I'm assuming it's only a coincidence with the way Carradine died that you lumped the post with Charlie...