Fat City is a bleak but compassionate look at love, boxing, and alcoholism through the eyes of the lower class residents of Stockton, California in the 1960’s. Its material derives from a 1969 novel of the same name by Leonard Gardner. I haven’t read the book because I don’t have that kind of patience. In fact, there are probably directorial choices Huston made that could be explained if I read the book but I’d rather just leave it up to my own interpretations. There are plenty of metaphors to dissect and further commentary to be made about the film’s importance and overall meaning, but the gist is that happiness is a goal one can never actually achieve. “Fat City” is essentially heaven, a fairytale land that no person can possibly get to because well… it doesn’t exist. Fat City is also one of the 300+ movies that holds a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes but that’s none of my business. I’m only here to analyze John Huston’s piece of this puzzle.
John Huston made some odd choices in his later years as a director. After making a household name for himself with classic films such as The Maltese Falcon, Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The Asphalt Jungle and The African Queen, no one could have possibly imagined there would be room in his filmography to churn out such oddball festival fare as Wise Blood and Under the Volcano, troubled misfires like Love and Bullets, inept garbage like Phobia, or even his extremely personal swan song: the literary chamber drama, The Dead. It is my opinion that, as an artist, John Huston could have only reached the heights he did through the storied journey he took leading up to and following his 1972 masterpiece, Fat City. To put it more plainly, I’m saying Fat City is the best movie John Huston ever made, the pinnacle of his career.
The opening of the film starts rather abruptly with a montage of the city of Stockton, a nice little instrumental playing through. With carefully and not so carefully chosen shots, the late Conrad Hall captures the dismal, rundown city; it’s basically a dump. On the 15th cross dissolve, we enter the room of some dingy, worn out white guy lying in bed. That’s Tully, the film’s lead. He’s trying to smoke, but he can’t find a lighter so he gets up, checks a little chest of drawers and his coat pockets. No lighter. The instrumental starts to fade as he sits on the bed looking out the window where we can only hear the noise from outside. He stares out quietly, eventually getting up to put his pants on. This is an especially notable detail. It’s very important that we see him put his pants on one leg at a time. He then sits down to put on his socks and I’ll be damned if a new song doesn’t start. Only it’s the same song as far as I can tell, this time with the lyrics: “Take the ribbon from your hair… Shake it loose and let it fall…” Right then and there you know this is a masterpiece. Huston isn’t worried about entertaining us. He just wants us to live here. What this does for the viewer is almost hypnotic. We don’t realize what’s happening to us right then, but as you study Huston’s choices that proceed, it’s clear this opening is doing more than setting a tone.
For instance, when Tully is at the bar and he meets Oma and Earl, the scene around them is rather chaotic. If Scorsese were in charge he would probably include additional angles, visit some different tables, and other tasteful but unneeded flourishes to paint the busy picture more vividly for the audience. But Scorsese (GOAT that he is) wouldn’t have led us there the way Huston did. Huston had already told us in the beginning that the characters would be doing all the heavy lifting. There’s not much else going on here other than just enough shots (3-4) to capture Susan Tyrell’s summit. God, what a character. Susan Tyrell, like John Huston, appears as if she’s barely lifting a finger as Oma. If there were a better role than this for a woman in the 70’s, I never saw it. Huston recognized her incredible screen presence and he blocked the scene accordingly, switching angles after a couple minutes to just Oma and Tully. When Earl chimes in, he pokes his head into the frame where Oma is shooing him out as fast as she can. We’re so focused on the performances that we don’t even realize it’s just Huston finding a way to stay in that moment with Tully and Oma. To most substantial directors the word “coverage” is derogatory. I think Huston felt bad for Oma’s treatment of Earl so he gave the man his own shot for a second or two. It was unnecessary, but I’m glad it’s there. Therefore, if this was Huston’s idea of getting coverage, he fooled the hell out of me.
The scene that follows (and I promise I’m not going to talk about every single scene here) is one I remembered the most after the first viewing. Ruben, the boxing coach, sits up in bed with his wife reflecting on the kid he met in his gym earlier that day. He’s referring to Jeff Bridges’ character Ernie Munger. In one shot: Ruben is smoking a cigarette while his wife sleeps. He’s talking to her but she’s not listening, responding only with “That’s good”. Ruben is going on and on about how Ernie Munger could be a champion and he needs this to be true. There’s a desperation in his eyes. It’s not money he needs, even though everyone is obviously poor as hell in this town. What he needs is a resurgence. When we do eventually see a cut, it’s a tight shot on Ruben turning off the bedside lamp just before he continues to ponder the possibilities in the dark. The actor, Nicholas Colasanto, is very aware that his character is probably the biggest dope in the whole movie, but he would never let the audience know. That’s the moment where John Huston reveals another hand. Huston is fascinated by these people that are, by all accounts, total losers. Huston’s interest isn’t in the laughs, although he knows it’s hilarious, but he actually finds their motivations more interesting than what people were used to seeing in movies. This gritty simplicity stood out from the more formalized perspective of American films at the time. The Godfather, Cabaret, Sleuth and Deliverance were some of the big movies of that year. There’s a serious levity to this style that modern directors like David O. Russell and Alexander Payne are privy to, wherein Huston is treating subtle humor with more patience and care, than most big productions would deem responsible. A lot of time is spent setting up one big punchline like when the young black boxer, Buford, gives one helluva motivational speech to Ernie Munger right before his first fight. The stakes are high and everything is on the line. Cut to all of them at an old dive bar, their faces beat to hell and Ruben saying, “Anybody can get tagged in their first round.” To all of these characters success is just right around the corner, only it never is.
In the final scene, one I consider to be one of the most beautiful in the history of cinema, Tully and Ernie are having coffee at a big open diner. The walls are green for some reason. The two don’t say much but what they do say is profound: “Maybe we’re all happy.” Tully turns around, we cut to a tight shot of his face and the camera zooms into his eyes. He’s looking at a set of tables of these old, weathered men playing cards. Time is frozen. When we get back to reality Ernie says he’s gonna take off. Tully says “Hey, stick around. Let’s talk awhile.” Ernie agrees and the two sit there drinking coffee for the remainder of the film’s running time. I don’t know what the novel said. I don’t know what the script said. But I do know that John Huston gave us and Tully an unforgettable moment of cinema— This moment is the best it’s going to get and there’s nothing wrong with that. Whether Tully is optimistic or not about his situation in life, it really doesn’t matter either way. Here we are. Enjoy it or don’t enjoy it. It’s not likely to change in this town and at this age. Tully may have accepted it all at that point. John Huston accepted it, although he was just passing through. This scene makes the viewer aware of everything that preceded it. Huston led us to believe that it was an easy story told with simple tools but, in actuality, it was a deeply sentimental one. Huston was a director who had already mastered the art of communication in film and just let his subconscious do the work. The rules of narrative are only at play to rationalize his otherwise outsized vision of these characters.
I believe the most tasteful, innovative films came from the 1970s. Hal Ashby has recently resurged as one of the greats. In a similar vein, his character studies in film are some of the best we have. All credit where credit is due but as time progresses, in the same way pop culture lost Hal for a moment, we could lose John Huston. Let’s not lose any of them. The Coen Bros, PT Anderson, Spielberg, Lynch, Scorsese… they’re not going anywhere. As long as we’re carrying on with the notion that Cinema is an art form and not just commerce, let’s keep guys like John Huston, George Roy Hill, Sidney Lumet, Robert Altman and John Cassavetes in the conversation.
