USA: Mel Brooks demands credit for vulgarity in cinema

Record ID: 856775

  • Title: USA: Mel Brooks demands credit for vulgarity in cinema
  • Date: 15th May 2013
  • Summary: BROOKS SITTING AT PIANO MEL BROOKS SINGING
  • Embargoed: 30th May 2013 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Usa
  • City:
  • Country: USA
  • Topics:
  • Reuters ID: LVA7Z4H8JZBEQID28561K1LOESNZ
  • Aspect Ratio:
  • Story Text: In a year where Mel Brooks finds himself the recipient of a lifetime achievement award, a career spanning public TV documentary and a DVD collection of his greatest hits, the comedic legend proudly claims responsibility for introducing vulgarity to Hollywood and basks in the belated acknowledgment of his directing skills.

    Mel Brooks, whose career in comedy includes writing and directing iconic comedies "The Producers," and "Young Frankenstein," will receive the American Film Institute's Life Achievement Award on June 6. And if you ask him, it's about time.
    "They're finally recognizing that I'm a pretty good director," the 86-year old one-time standup comic said in a wide-ranging interview at his Culver City offices. "They say, 'comedy force, funny, good writer, funny actor. Nobody every, in the press or anywhere, said I was a good director."
    Brooks spends his time these days working with a single assistant in a quiet, three-room suite at the Culver Studios, a once flourishing 95-year old studio where scenes from "Gone with the Wind" and "Citizen Kane" were shot.
    Behind his desk sit three Emmys, several Grammys and assorted other statutes, a monument to a six-decade career that began as a drummer and stand up comedian in Borscht Belt resorts before he became a writer for his friend Sid Caesar's 1950s groundbreaking comedy variety show "Your Show of Shows."
    His career includes Emmys, Tonys and an Academy Award but the only people who ever thought he was a good director, he says, were Oscar-winning director Billy Wilder and Alfred Hitchcock, the master of suspense and psychological thrillers.
    In 1968, he wrote and directed "The Producers," about a timid accountant and an unprincipled producer who stage a flop for tax purposes. Though initially scorned, it eventually won Brooks a screenwriting Oscar and a cult following.
    Soon after, he was asked to rewrite and direct a parody Western that became "Blazing Saddles", a big hit in 1974, about a black sheriff and a drunken gunfighter who overcome prejudice and corruption.
    Brooks, looking back on the making of that film, thinks that the times, and the studios, have changed.
    "I don't think you could do that picture today. I don't think they'd allow it, the studios. Unless it was a black cast doing a picture about black people, then it would be allowed," said Brooks.
    The film generated $119.5 million in ticket sales and is ranked No. 6 on the American Film Institute's list of Hollywood's 100 funniest movies.
    Brooks is a pioneer in Hollywood for combining humor, absurdity and farce, a precursor to the box office smashes of "Scary Movie" and "The Hangover." It's a title he'll gladly claim.
    "I hope that, in some way, I've been responsible for the vulgarity that's filling the screens now. It's comedy," said Brooks.
    Brooks' entire career will be recognized on May 20, when PBS will premiere "American Masters Mel Brooks: Make a Noise," a documentary that traces his life from his childhood in Brooklyn to Broadway, where a musical adaptation of his film "The Producers" won 12 Tony Awards.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2013. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: Audio restrictions: This clip's Audio includes copyrighted material. User is responsible for obtaining additional clearances before publishing the audio contained in this clip.
Register