HIGHLA-L Digest - 1 Apr 2004 to 3 Apr 2004 (#2004-63)
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Topics of the day:
1. Season Three dvds: Blackmail
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Date: Sat, 3 Apr 2004 17:29:00 -0500
From: kageorge <kageorge@erols.com>
Subject: Season Three dvds: Blackmail
COMMENTARY: Gillian tells us they were going for the "Strangers on a Train"
storyline, where MacLeod is put into the position of being blackmailed into
do a "favor" for a guy who has witnessed and filmed a fight and a
Quickening, and the guy wants him to murder his wife. Gillian says she
thought that concept lost focus because they had to incorporate an evil
Immortal into the plot.
Gillian says she enjoyed the episode a lot, even though it will never be on
anyone's 10-Best lists. Its charm was that it was one of the series' "most
straightforward" episodes in which MacLeod gets trapped in a somewhat
humorous situation, reacting with charming exasperation, but then "in the
end there is real evil to fight and he puts it down." Gillian notes,
however, that even though the story of Kurlow, the evil Immortal played by
deLongis, kind of took over the blackmail part of the plot, even though it
was the more boring part of the story, and even though the sword fight at
the end "was a great one."
F. Braun tells us that he is very aware when he is doing fight choreography
that he is making choices about the character, the moves have to reflect not
only what happens in the scene, but who the character is and what might be
going on in his mind, providing a subtext for the actor.
DeLongis tells us Braun had sketched out some things out on paper, but
because DeLongis was an experienced swordsman and a fight choreographer in
his own right, he collaborated with DeLongis directly in evolving the fight
together, and therefore the fight became more character-based. Adrian also
occasionally changed some of the choreography, not just because Braun moves
differently than he does, but because Adrian knows the character of MacLeod
better. DeLongis tells us that, in addition to showing character and driving
the story forward, certain aspects of the moves were built in, like a
particular bookcase to be trashed and a television that was to explode.
Braun says the fight took two days to film because of its length and
complexity, but artistically, it was a very satisfying experience.
Gillian tells us that, because they liked Anthony DeLongis so much, they had
actually talked about leaving the character of Kurlow alive in order to have
him return, but the character was just not interesting enough to do that.
"He was a pretty stock evil Immortal." She tells us DeLongis' name went on a
list of people they wanted to bring to, or bring back on the show. She says
they also had a list posted in the kitchen they called the "Hot List" which
was a list of lines they never wanted to hear on the show again, including:
"I don't think so;" "It's what we do;" "It's who we are." They tried
actively to avoid having Duncan say those lines because they had become
cliches.
The wife of the blackmailer found out about Immortals, and Gillian says that
she suspects that after the episode was over, Joe went to her and recruited
her into the Watchers.
OUTTAKES: In the flashback scenes, they show the attempt to toss a lantern
into the boat to set it afire (the first attempt the lamp went into the
water). Then they show the hangman trying to kick the barrel out from under
MacLeod, which is unsuccessful and becomes an amusing moment for the
extra/actor who is trying it.
"Poor man's process", Gillian says, refers to the least expensive way to
shoot a driving scene. Park the car in a darkened corner, have crew members
move lights past it to simulate the car's movement, and you have the actors
pretend move the steering wheel and react to traffic. In the outake, Adrian
and Jim are joking around in the car, with Joe moving the steering wheel
wildly, acting like they had just run over a pedestrian. They both look
behind, and Adrian says, "Ah, well. Ten points."
Filming at the house where the fight took place was problematic because they
had huge, etched glass doors which were electronically rigged to open at a
stately pace. Adrian, Gillian says, had to carefully time his "stalk through
the house" so he would pass through the doors when they were open, then he
only had to deliver one line, "if he could remember it." We see Duncan
stalking through the house, looking for Kurlow. He passes through the open
doors, starts to say his line, then lets the sword drop, leaning over on his
thighs with a frustrated sigh as he forgets the line. With a laugh, DeLongis
sneaks up behind AP, pretending to be ready to stab him in the back. Adrian
tries it again, and forgets the line again, saying, "I don't believe it," as
DeLongis again clowns around with his sword.
THE EPISODE: I like the opening of this episode (once they get past the
sleazy guy filming sex with his mistress and complaining about his rich
wife). As the guy leaves, he sees Duncan and another Immortal fighting in a
nearby parking lot. He grabs his video camera and starts filming when the
Quickening starts. Duncan sees him, and tries to go after him, but is
stopped by the grip of the Quickening (and that's a cool moment, visually).
I also liked that Duncan assumed the guy had to have been a Watcher and
heads over to Joe's, truly pissed off that they had filmed a beheading and a
Quickening. He yells at Joe ("I want that tape and I want it NOW!"), who
insists the Watchers don't use video cameras (which begs the question: Why
not?). Joe seems almost amused and elated that some guy got a beheading on
tape, and insists that he help Duncan find the guy, just in case the guy is
a Watcher, but it's pretty obvious it's because he wants that tape for the
archives.
The sleazy guy is a lawyer with a rich wife living in a beautiful, modern
house full of one-of-a-kind etched glass panels. He locks away the tape, and
gets out a gun, insisting to his suspicious wife that his nervousness about
the tape and his distraction is because of some dangerous case from the
office he is working on.
There is a terrific scene between Duncan and Joe as Duncan takes Joe back to
the scene of the fight. Duncan is irritated and snippy and Joe is
maddeningly curious. When Joe asks who the immortal was that Duncan killed,
we get a flash back to England in 1805, and a drunken Duncan stumbling down
the street with his good friend, Johnny, who had fought in the war together.
They part, and Johnny ends up witnessing two Immortals (Maitlin, who was the
Immortal Duncan killed in the parking lot, and Kurlow) rob and kill a young
man. They knock Johnny out and frame him for the murder.
Joe and Duncan are sitting in a car, watching the building, obviously having
been there all night hoping the guy with the camera will reappear. Joe is
restive and tired, needing to go to the bathroom, and they argue about how
that might be accomplished, and just then the guy shows up.
There is another neat action scene where Duncan fakes the guy out, appearing
practically out of nowhere just when the guy thinks the coast is clear. He
tells the guy he's not going to hurt him, but the guy stupidly says, "Look,
we both know that your ass is mine, don't we?"
At which point, DMotCM grabs him around the neck and says, "Excuse me?" (I
liked that.)
The guy arrogant tries to assert that they "can come to a reasonable
settlement," offering to give the tape back in return for Duncan performing,
"... a certain service for me, which shouldn't be too difficult for a man of
your obvious talents." The guy wants Duncan to kill his wife.
Now we find out that, back in 1806, Duncan tried to find the real murderers
to clear his friend Johnny, and got a description, but couldn't find them.
It is only after he has confessed to the crime himself in order to save
Johnny's life, that Kurlow and Maitlin come to the scene of the hanging, and
Duncan "feels" them, recognizing Kurlow from the description Johnny had
given. (There's some nice crowd action going on in these scenes, well shot,
a lot of atmosphere.) In a later flashback, there is an extended (a little
too extended IMO) confrontation between Duncan and Kurlow in a maze, where
Kurlow gets away.
Meanwhile, the lawyer's wife has found and is playing the tape, watching the
sex scenes. The scene with Duncan killing Maitlin is showing when Duncan
sneaks in. He hears the tape going, and distracts the wife with a small
noise, sneaking in and taking the tape. He starts to leave, but can't bring
himself to go without trying to warn her, but all he does is manage to scare
her half to death. She takes shot at him, and he ducks out.
There is another great conversation with Joe about what Duncan did and the
consequences of her having seen the tape, and of him needing to stop the
lawyer. The following scene is of the lawyer stomping angrily into Duncan's
dojo, and what follows is pretty funny, as the lawyer threatens Duncan,
utterly convinced of his own position of power. Duncan loses patience with
the idiot when he feels another Immortal approach, telling the guy to get
out. The guy is oblivious, so Duncan knocks him out and drags him into the
alley (we hear a cat screech in protest). Of course, the Immortal is Kurlow.
The two of them face off, but are interrupted by Sleazy!Lawyer!Robert, who
stumbles in, complaining about Duncan assaulting him. Kurlow tells him he'll
meet Duncan in the tunnels at midnight, and the lawyer comes up with a new
idea, that Duncan will kill his wife in return for Robert killing Kurlow.
Duncan tells him he's in way over his head, and throws him out. Convinced he
can manipulate MacLeod into killing his wife, Robert goes to the tunnels,
shoots Kurlow and (big surprise), Kurlow gets back up and strangles Robert
to death (to everyone's relief) as Robert croaks he offers Kurlow money,
says he has a rich wife. "How nice," Kurlow replies, and leaves, apparently
to rob the rich wife. (This is a *very* weak plot point.)
Duncan shows up, finds Dead!Sleazy!Lawyer ("Told ya," says Duncan
dispassionately), and Kurlow is gone. He goes go Joe, speculating that when
the body is found, the wife will tell the police about him, and he will then
have to kill off the current iteration of Duncan MacLeod. Joe is convinced
there's another way, that he'll think of something to say to the wife to
convince her not to give Duncan up to the police. "Relax," Duncan says on
the drive over. "It's not my life that's in your hands. It's just my life
here."
"Well," grimaces Joe, "That sure takes the pressure off. It's a piece of
cake, now."
Sure enough, though, Kurlow is there, terrorizing Dead!Sleazy!Lawyer's wife,
and the big fight scene ensues. These guys are good. It's fast, it's
interesting, it's fierce, ending up out by the pool, where Kurlow slices
Duncan across the belly, but Duncan comes back flips Kurlow into the pool,
ultimately beheading him, the body leaking blood into the water. The Q is
lots of garden lights exploding and glass breaking, until Duncan ultimately
falls into the water, crawling back out of it into drifting mist/steam. It's
a cool shot.
Joe and Robert's wife show up back at the dojo. She asks what Robert was
involved in, but thanks Duncan for saving her life, and asks if there is
anything she can do for him. Duncan says no, but Joe interjects that,
actually there is something she can do for him. "If anybody asks about that
video tape..."
"What tape?" she asks innocently, denying any knowledge of any tape.
She leaves, and Joe sees the tape on the desk. He picks it up, saying he
thinks it has real historical value, asking if he can have it for the
archives. Duncan, who is casually throwing darts at a dart board, says that
whatever is on the tape, he can have. Joe looks gratified for a minute, but
then says, "You erased it didn't you?" Duncan just smiles.
MY SUMMARY: This episode, while not having great emotional impact, is a fun
one, IMO. The scenes between Joe and Duncan are some of the best and most
natural we will see in the series, as they demonstrate both their
friendship, their mutual respect, as well as some of the inherent tension
that exists between them.
Duncan's ongoing exasperation with the lawyer is fun to watch, the
flashbacks are rich in crowd detail and visuals, and while Kurlow isn't a
particularly interesting villain (his big, bald sidekick Maitlin actually
has more potential as a villain), the final sword fight is exciting, stylish
and visually appealing.
I also enjoyed Duncan's struggle to keep the wife alive, while
simultaneously trying not to mire himself any further in Sleazy!Lawyer's
life. His self-admonition ("Brilliant, MacLeod!") after unintentionally
scaring the wife half to death is a classic. And Joe's comment as they are
discussing it was also a statement of Joe's understanding of Duncan's
fundamental character: "It's an awful pain in the ass when your sense of
honor gets in the way of your own best interests."
"It happens," Duncan replies.
"Yeah," Joe comments. "To you."
Commentary by DeLongis: Rather than watch the episode again with the audio
commentary on, I decided to watch it separately as such commentary can often
be distracting during the episode itself. DeLongis says the work he did on
Highlander "was one of my proudest associations." He liked the premise of
responsibility, duty and obligation, and examining the issue of what you
would do if you have more than one lifetime to live.
A lot of DeLongis' comments (and the man obviously loves to talk) were on
the technical aspects of costuming and how the costuming effects both
characterization and action sequences. He talks more about how well he and
F. Braun worked together. He ultimately also mentions that he really learned
about the Watchers when TPTB let him create a character for the Watcher
Chronicles named Charles Anthony, the Curator of Antiquities. The premise
was to analyze the swords in the Chronicles, and this was done by DeLongis
in the guise of Charles Anthony. Many of the dvd episodes have Watcher
Chronicle entries analyzing the sword of the Immortal in that episode.
DeLongis says that during the making of "Duende", he found out from Ken Gord
that it was actually Adrian who had called Abramowitz during "Blackmail" and
said he, "...liked this guy, he's good. Do we have to kill him?" While the
character had to die (for which DeLongis was ultimately grateful because the
Consone character was much richer and more interesting to play), DeLongis
said he thought it was classy that he wouldn't have found out that Adrian
was behind him being asked back if Ken Gord hadn't told him.
He goes through all the major moves of the final fight, talking about how
careful they had to be not to hurt the irreplaceable glass. By the time they
got to the end of the fight, it hadn't really been choreographed, so he and
Adrian just worked it through on the fly, with Braun looking on and
advising. The flip into the water, he says, was doubled by the Canadian
silver medalist in gymnastics. When the Q started, he chuckled and said it
was "time to get out your cigarettes," and that the Q was "dazzling" to
watch in person. He says he really liked the Q's on the show, that they
introduced the element of the supernatural, that he never quite understood
them, but "they were always very satisfying."
MacGeorge
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End of HIGHLA-L Digest - 1 Apr 2004 to 3 Apr 2004 (#2004-63)
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