Watching with Bogdanovich commentary

I took the time to watch Bringing Up Baby with the DVD commentary from Peter Bogdanovich and it turned out to be quite insightful. While some commentaries don’t offer much and others have a film scholar talking throughout the entire film, Bagdonavich fits somewhere in the middle, recalling an interview with Hawks and noting some observations. At the same time he laughs from time to time and you see that he’s really enjoying the film and in a way watching it with you.

One thing Bogdanovich points out is how Hawks grounds the film in reality by not trying to be funny. His whole point while making the film is to have these funny situations happening to these characters and have the actors play it straight. According to Bogdanovich, Hawks had Walter Catlett, who plays the constable, help Katharine Hepburn at playing Susan by not trying to be funny. In fact, if you look at all the characters you’ll see that they’re all played seriously. Hepburn and Cary Grant both play these zany characters, the screwball heiress and the absent-minded professor, without trying to get laughs. It’s evident in their faces and their gestures, more so for Grant who keeps a straight face while Hepburn is bent over in laughter.

Another point brought up throughout the film is the long takes. It's something I didn't really notice. I think I paid attention more to the scenes with the leopard and wondering either how they were made or if PETA would be having a field day if they were around back in the day. But Hawks here actually films long takes, barely cutting. He told Bogdanovich that it allows for a more organic feel, letting the actors do their things and manipulating little in the editing room. And it's quite true. In fact when you take a closer look you appreciate the amount of practice and professionalism it took to film the scenes. And the best part is how funny the film turns out in the end. And again, there's this whole thing about basing it on reality, trying to make it as realistic as possible. Doing the long takes allows for that, there's no trickery, and there's no break of momentum. These funny situations are happening in real time.

If you look at the film you'll notice that most of the action happens at nighttime, which Bogdanovich says was rare for the time, although I don't really notice time of day in other films. How he says it though makes sense because comedy is meant to be seen, so it tended to take place during the daytime. Bogdanovich calls it daring for Hawks to use nighttime setting.

So why didn't it do well at the box office? Hawks apparently thought that there wasn't a single sane person in the film. We sympathize with Susan but it's obvious she's a bit screwy. Every character in the film is crazy and that's what Hawks thought was the problem. He needed a couple of normal people in order for audiences to click with the film or to further ground it in reality. One character he thought should've been normal is the groundskeeper character, who Bogdanovich points out is perhaps the weakest part of the film.

I have to say that I actually quite enjoyed listening to Bogdanovich talk about Brining Up Baby with his anecdotes and observations in between laughs. It made it enjoyable and brought a new perspective in watching the film and learning a bit about how it was made.