In its February 1969 issue, Harper’s (a monthly culture, literature, and politics magazine) published Pauline Kael’s “Trash, Art, and the Movies” essay, where she argued movies dismissed as “trash” because they merely aspired to be “entertainment” were as much art as “art” movies.* Unfortunately, in order to make that valid point, Kael indulged in what rightly gets derided today as “clickbait” journalism by denigrating art films, as well as anyone who dared like them, but that’s another discussion entirely. One movie Kael defended in the essay was the 1968 release The Thomas Crown Affair, directed by Norman Jewison and written by Alan Trustman:
“If we don’t deny the pleasures to be had from certain kinds of trash and accept The Thomas Crown Affair as a pretty fair example of entertaining trash, then we may ask if a piece of trash like this has any relationship to art. And I think it does.”
Though I of course strenuously disagree with Kael’s attitude towards “’art” films, I do think she’s correct when she writes that “trash” (I prefer “entertainment”) does have a relationship to art. That said, my problem with the original version of The Thomas Crown Affair has nothing to do with whether it’s “art” or not, it’s that I don’t feel it’s entertaining enough. Granted, the heist scenes (shot by Haskell Wexler and edited by Hal Ashby, Byron Brandt, and Ralph E. Winters) are tense and exciting, and I think the use of split screens helps in that regard. I was never a member of the Steve McQueen cult, but I think he does a fine job playing the title role. Finally, while I also was never a fan of Alan and Marilyn Bergman, “The Windmills of Your Mind” is a good song used well in the movie. My problem is with Faye Dunaway, or rather, the conception of her character Vicki Anderson, the insurance investigator out to catch Crown and bed him. Admittedly, part of this may have to do with the fact the MPAA ratings system, replacing the old Hays Code, went into effect after this movie was released, so movies were still somewhat repressed. However, Jewison, Trustman, and costume designer Thea van Runkle basically turn Anderson into a girl, with the way she’s dressed (while she does wear business suits, they’re designed to be as demure and non-threatening as possible) to the way she fixates on Crown as a criminal not because of any evidence but because of “women’s intuition”. The famous scene between Crown and Anderson in the bathtub strikes sparks, but otherwise, the way Jewison shoots the two of them together feels like he slathered on the soft-focus photography. To me, the 1999 remake, directed by John McTiernan and written by Leslie Dixon and Kurt Wimmer (McTiernan did uncredited rewrites) is better because it’s more entertaining, making it more artful.
In this version, Thomas Crown (Pierce Brosnan) is still a top-notch business tycoon who turns to robbery because he’s bored, but instead of hiring a crew to rob banks, he instead hires a crew to attempt a heist at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (which is never named, though it’s pretty obvious – the interiors of those scenes were actually done at the New York Public Library on 42nd Street), except that crew is merely a distraction (they’re easily caught) so Crown himself can steal a valuable Monet. Detective Michael McCann (Denis Leary), who’s in charge of investigating the robbery (along with his partner, Detective Paretti (Frankie Faison)), finds himself working with Catherine Banning (Rene Russo), an investigator from the company that insured the painting. As with the original, Banning figures out Crown is the one who committed the robbery, and as with the original, she wants both to catch him and bed him. As with the original, things don’t entirely work out as planned.
While the original was set, and shot, in Boston, the remake is set, and shot for the most part, in New York City (though it was also shot on location in Martinique when Crown and Banning take off for an island getaway), which means McTiernan has a wealth of New York City actors to use in small roles. Admittedly, some of them don’t have much to do – I’m not sure what led Ben Gazzara or Fritz Weaver (as, respectively, Crown’s lawyer and Crown’s business associate) to appear in this movie unless they originally had bigger parts or they received a good paycheck for their efforts – but people like Michael Lombard (as Bobby, head of security on the floor of the museum), Mark Margolis (as Knutzhorn, an imprisoned forger who has a connection with Crown), and Daniel Oreskes (as the leader of the robbers Crown hires), whom TV viewers would know from their appearances on the original Law & Order, add zip to their roles. Although I don’t normally notice geography when I’m watching a movie, even in movies set in NYC (I can tell if a movie set in NYC was shot elsewhere because it’ll have a certain feel to it, but unless it’s egregious, I don’t mind too much if I’m caught up in the story), I did recognize a couple of locations here, such as the outside of the museum, as well as a scene where Crown and Banning are in Greenwich Village, and McTiernan and cinematographer Tom Priestly Jr. shoot those scenes well. The music score by Bill Conti is another reason why the movie works, as it strikes the perfect light tone, though the best part of the music is the use of two songs. “Windmills of Your Mind”, which was performed by Noel Harrison in the original, gets played as an instrumental during the Greenwich Village scene, and is well covered by Sting over the closing credits. Also, during the final museum scene, Nina Simone’s live version of “Sinnerman” plays, and in addition to being arguably her best song, it also works very well within the scene.
Still, as dazzling as the movie is to listen to and look at (the latter is also helped by the crisp pace McTiernan, Priestly, and editor John Wright give the movie, especially in the heist scenes at the beginning and end of the movie), it wouldn’t work nearly as well without the characters and performances being compelling. McCann is sort of the standard character of the third wheel outside the two romantic leads, as well as being the standard character of the by-the-book detective in a crime movie. Yet that proves to be a good fit for Leary, as well as restraining him to the parameters of the role. Admittedly, I’m someone who thinks a little of Leary can go a long way, and who likes him more when he is working within the context of a role, as in The Ref, his other best performance, where he did riffs on his stand-up persona but also had to do so alongside squabbling couple Judy Davis and Kevin Spacey (Wag the Dog is also a very good movie, and he’s fine in it, but a lot of actors could have played the role, whereas no one could have played Gus in The Ref like Leary did). Leary is more restrained here, basically projecting a sarcastic persona – when he asks Banning if he can drop her off someplace, only to find out she keeps an apartment in New York City (not to mention she’s coming to his office), he responds, “She keeps an apartment. I keep goldfish.” Leary also suggests his usual anger (when McCann sees Banning is upset with the idea Crown is lying to her at one point, but she insists she’s okay, he recalls how when his girlfriend married someone else out of the blue, he had sex with five women in three days, wrecked his car, and got suspended for beating up a suspect, “but I was okay”) rather than going into full-rant mode. Yet at the same time, Leary is also able to suggest how McCann also has feelings for Banning while recognizing he won’t get anywhere with her, and that he knows there’s real police work he does (busting someone who ripped off poor people, putting away an abusive husband and father), so when Banning, in saying goodbye to him near the end, tells him, “You’re a good man,” you believe it. Leary and Faison also provide good comic relief in their reactions to what Banning does, or even the disgusting-looking drink she brings into work one day (“You don’t want to know” is her response). Dunaway appears in this version as Crown’s psychiatrist, and I know some critics grumbled about the idea someone like Crown would want, much less need, a shrink, but I have a theory her character is all in his head (McTiernan and Priestly shoot her in a black background to contrast with her blond hair), and she’s undercutting Crown’s thoughts at every turn, so I think she works in the context of the role.
Of course, the main reason the movie works so well is the chemistry between Brosnan and Russo. At the time, Brosnan was still in the middle of his run with James Bond, which I think was his weakest period, as well as some of the weaker Bond movies (with the exception of Goldeneye – the parts of Tomorrow Never Dies I like have less to do with Brosnan and more to do with Michelle Yeoh, Jonathan Pryce, and in a smaller role, Vincent Schiavelli), where the charm he showed so effortlessly on Remington Steele seemed forced. When I first saw this movie in theaters, I thought Brosnan was honestly charming as Crown but not necessarily deep. After this movie came out, Brosnan started moving towards more character roles (he had shown he could do comedy in Mrs. Doubtfire, which I didn’t like otherwise, and Mars Attacks, which I did), as when he completely subverted his Bond persona as an amoral spy in The Tailor of Panama and a down-on-his-luck assassin in The Matador, so coming back to this movie shows Brosnan does get the chance to do more than play a persona. McTiernan and Wimmer, who wrote the male parts (Dixon wrote the female parts), have Crown replicate some of the things he did in the original (playing golf, hang gliding), but also give him some bits of business, such as when he challenges Banning by saying, “Do you want to dance, or do you want to dance?”, or when McTiernan and Priestly use a 360 degree pan of Crown right before the second heist scene starts and he says, “Play ball!” (according to McTiernan, that’s what Babe Ruth said right before his last game). Brosnan of course can put on the surface charm Crown has, but he also suggests how he’s intrigued by Banning because she’s someone who can spar with him on an equal level, which Russo brings to the role.
Russo made her mark earlier that decade (after making her film debut in the 1989 baseball comedy Major League) in mainstream movies such as In the Line of Fire, Outbreak, Get Shorty, Tin Cup, and Lethal Weapon 3 and 4, where she was paired with leading men like Clint Eastwood, Dustin Hoffman, Kevin Costner, and Mel Gibson (she also worked with the latter on Ransom). Except for In the Line of Fire, these weren’t the type of movies that got remembered at Oscar time, but Russo held her own with all of them, and convinced you she was capable whether playing a Secret Service agent, a CDC doctor, a B-movie actress, or a psychologist, and playing both comedy (as in Tin Cup when she’s totally flummoxed when Costner confesses he’s in love with her) or drama (as with In the Line of Fire, when Eastwood finally talks about guarding the car when JFK was shot, and she impulsively takes his hand to comfort him). McTiernan and Priestly first shoot Banning as she’s walking behind McCann while Paretti and a museum official explain what happened (in a nice joke, the would-be robbers used an actual Trojan Horse to get inside the museum), just blending in, until she walks up to McCann (whom she insists on calling “lieutenant” at first) as he’s kneeling down, and she blows holes in his theory of the crime. She’s able to figure out what happen (that the robbers were a smokescreen for Crown robbing the Monet), and while she does develop a hunch about Crown when she first sees him, Banning also doesn’t pursue him until she finds out Crown had unsuccessfully tried to bid on the same painting at an auction. Unlike Dunaway in the original, Russo also dresses like an adult here (Kate Harrington and Mark Zunino are the costume designers here), while not being afraid to show her sex appeal in order to try and manipulate Crown, even as she finds herself becoming attracted to him. Banning doesn’t bend the ethics of her profession as much as Anderson did in the original (where she kidnapped a child), though she does break and enter into Crown’s apartment to get the painting (naturally, Crown had prepared for that, which is another nice touch), and she gets furious when she thinks Crown has gotten the better of her, in both personal and professional terms. Russo had shown herself capable of playing roles with more dramatic heft in Ransom (though she’s playing the stereotypical wife role, she gets to show real grief, as when she finds out her son’s been kidnapped, or anger when she thinks Gibson has gotten her son killed), but she ups her game here.
McTiernan is probably best remembered today for being the director of the original Die Hard, which was a game-changer as far as action movies go, and for hiring a private investigator to illegally wiretap one of the producers of the Rollerball remake he directed (as well as being imprisoned for perjury when questioned about that), so this movie might get lost in the shuffle when compared to those events. Similarly, the movie came out in 1999, which many (myself included) call one of the best years for movies ever, and saw the release of many boundary-breaking movies. But I would argue another reason why 1999 was such a good year for movies is because there were a lot of mainstream movies that didn’t necessarily break boundaries but were good examples of entertainments. In that context, the remake of The Thomas Crown Affair stands out, much more, in my opinion, than the original did.
*-In an interview she gave in the 1980’s, Kael admitted if she had known Hollywood would almost exclusively turn to make “trash”, she would have had second thoughts about writing the essay.