SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION (1993)
“We could have been killed, throats slashed!”
Director: Fred Schepisi
Writer: John Guare
Cinematography: Ian Baker
Editor: Peter Honess
Music: Jerry Goldsmith
Notable Cast: Donald Sutherland, Stockard Channing, Will Smith, Ian McKellen, Bruce Davison, Richard Masur, Anthony Michael Hall, Heather Graham, Daniel von Bargen, Anthony Rapp, Osgood Perkins, J.J. Abrams
Stockard Channing. What a name! How can you NOT come from money when your name is fucking Stockard?! Is that even her real name? I was first exposed to Channing in Grease, where she played the oldest high school student you’ve ever seen in your life. But those cheeks! I always loved her chubby cheeks. She played a great villain in that flick.
I can’t really remember her in anything else, save the film we’re here to discuss today. Which actually started out as a play, based on real events, in the 1980’s. I remember back then they’d actually have commercials for Broadway shows on television, and they pumped the shit out of Six Degrees of Separation on Broadway.
I used to see that commercial every day it seemed (peep a young Evan Handler with a full head of hair).
That, Cats, and a commercial for the Milford Plaza.
Don’t ask.
My main takeaway was that someone’s pink shirt was sullied, but other than that, I was a little kid who just wanted whatever garbage show I was watching to come back from break.
By the time the adaptation came out in 1993, I was a freshman at NYU, devouring every film I could. It was a cold winter day I headed to the Waverly theater in the West Village to see the film adaptation of the play that haunted my childhood syndication. I loved that they kept Stockard Channing in the role she originated, Ouisa Kittredge (how’s that for a blue blood name?). She’s so perfect for the part of a blue blood WASP, whose frozen life slowly thaws throughout the film.
I hate when films dump key actors from the stage that made the material what it was in the first place that garnered all that attention. Take Glengarry Glenross, one of my favorite films. I love Al Pacino and, to a much lesser extent, Jack Lemmon. I get wanting to replace Joe Mantegna (amazing) with Pacino, who was a big star, but did we really need to swap out Robert motherfucking Prosky for Jack Lemmon?!
It is to my eternal regret that I was too young and unaware to have ever seen Prosky play Shelley “The Machine” Levine on stage. Talk about a perfect role for the perfect actor.
Oh well…
They made no such mistake here (well, not totally, as they recast Paul, replacing the great Courtney B. Vance with the decidedly NOT GREAT Will Smith, more on that bit of casting later).
And really hit a home run by casting the insanely great Donald Sutherland (RIP, brutha) as Ouisa’s husband, the effete Flanders “Flan” Kittredge. They make a delightful pair of the sort you still see strolling along Park Avenue from time to time.
Between them, and John Guare’s delicious dialogue, you’re in upper class Manhattan heaven.
All this still begs the question, though, how are the 1ST 5 Minutes?
1ST 5 MINUTES
We get a rather unremarkable opening credits montage, CUs of a painting, which then segues into a wide-angle establishing shot of the Manhattan skyline and Central Park, which turns out to be the view from a high-rise apartment window. It’s dawn.
While the images here are whatever, the music, by maestro Jerry Goldsmith, is amazing. It perfectly encapsulates the haughty high society most of our main characters marinate in on a daily basis. Genius work.
The soundtrack for this film was on heavy rotation in my CD player for years after seeing this. Much like with Natural Born Killers, The Devil’s Rejects and Angel Heart, they include dialogue from the film in the actual score.
And it is sublime.
Not so much the Will Smith shit, but Donald Sutherland. That man’s voice and intonations are on another level. Could listen to him talk about paintings and dreams all day. What a wonderful presence Sutherland had. And he’s never looked better than he does here. Not really a fan of Sutherland’s looks when he was younger, but goddamn did that man age like a fine wine. Here he sports a salt and pepper beard along with a gorgeous white mane on his cabeza.
Then paired with a tuxedo? Wow!
Sutherland was the tits. No doubt.
As we see more of this apartment, we notice an overturned stool, quite out of place. A portent? We’ll see. All we know at this point is this is a place where rich people live. You know, if that view didn’t tip you off already. And check out this apartment. I have no idea if this was a set or what, but this place REEKS of rich 80’s hotness. Puttin’ on the Ritz, indeed.
It’s a very red apartment, red walls, red window treatments, red carpets. Red is everywhere. What mean? No idea if there is some subtext to the color choice, but in this context it can only mean one thing.
Rich. Appointed. Designed.
Then we see a large leather upholstered chair over on its back. And then Donald Sutherland and Stockard Channing enter frame, flustered, out of breath, beside themselves, still in their robes from waking up. They’ve been robbed, and they freak out about “the Kandinsky.”
They’re frantic until finding the painting right where they left it. Their relief lasts mere seconds before another freak out about another art piece, also right where they left it. Channing is going on about how they “could have been murdered, throats slashed.” Good stuff, slightly camp, bit of a send up of effete snobs, but played delicately enough so it never descends into a parody of these people.
Far from it.
They seem quite relived to be alive, before their barking dog sends them into another quick fit of hysteria, before remembering they have a wedding to attend that day. They hear a thump, go to investigate, but nothing, the phone rings and we cut to Will Smith, with a raggedy haircut and plain t-shirt, in an apartment saying the word, “hello,” directly to camera, almost as if he is practicing how to say the word.
Very weird.
Smash cut to the Flanders driving in what looks like Westchester, racing to a church for the aforementioned wedding. As they enter, they argue over why they’re even there, before taking their seats, and reciting the “I pray the Lord my soul to take” thing. The people around them ask if everything is okay and they immediately go in with the “could have been killed, throats slashed” bit. They all stand as the bridesmaids enter, and Channing’s mind wanders.
Smash cut to a twirling Kandinsky painting, showing how it is painted on both sides, as Channing marvels at it, saying “Chaos control, chaos control, you like you like?” YES! Love this.
Cut back to the wedding, and it’s the reception. A few people are gathered around Flan and Ouisa, as they begin to relate the story of their previous, momentous evening. What’s notable here is the way Ouisa “polices” Flan as he tells the story, always aware of social mores and minefields she assiduously tries to avoid.
Shows how money traps these people, as opposed to freeing them.
They’re stuck in a world of tripwires and egg shells, one wrong step and boom, they’re out of the club.
No more invites to those cocktail parties.
It’s all about how you come across. Can’t be too excited or too low key. Must always strike the right balance.
They say they were having dinner with their friend Jeffrey, from South Africa, and we cut to Ian McKellen in the Flanders’ apartment at night, imploring us to listen to how quiet the city is.
I love this 1ST 5 Minutes.
The expertly drawn portrait of upper crust Manhattanites, the music, the bizarre cutaways, and the promise of a great story to be told by the Flanders themselves about their crazy night.
How the hell do you take this off?
Come on, trust your instincts. This is quality shit right here.
The rest of the flick
When you boil it down, this flick is basically the Fresh Prince teaching the stuffy old white lady a life lesson in… something. Living authentically? Not sure what message the film is trying to impart. But I’m not a message guy, I’m an entertainment guy, and this movie entertains me and tells a funny and somewhat poignant story about class, race, and the movie version of Cats (before they actually made the movie version of Cats).
The 1ST 5 Minutes are kind of emblematic of the film as a whole, in that most of the film is the Flanders sitting around at some swank restaurant or house with their moneyed friends, telling them the latest twists and turns in the story of what they thought was Sydney Poitier’s son entering their lives, with lots of smash cuts to past events. It’s all very playful and livens up the stage play.
Curious to know how this plays out on stage because it is clear they jumbled some stuff up for the film.
Ultimately, we see that Will Smith’s Paul has done to others the very same thing he did to the Kittredges. Bruce Davison and Richard Masur nail their small roles. Davison is just as reliable as they come, and Masur fucking kills it as the sole Jewish guy amongst these WASPs. JJ Abrams plays his asshole son, and it is a real treat to see their very, very realistic interactions.
It’s enjoyable to see these upper crust types ripped out of their comfort zone and thrown into some hairy situations. Like when The Three Stooges would go to some swank party and beclown themselves.
My Favorite Scene is more a bit of a scene, and not the whole scene. So, Will Smith plays a gay con man who hustled one of the gay classmates (Anthony Michael Hall, in a great little role) of these richies to tell him everything he knew about all the parents.
One by one, Paul acts as if he was mugged outside their apartment building, and then hustles them to spend the night, whereby he has his gay lover come and act like a real robber, whereby Paul thwarts him and saves the richies.
Anyway, the only full hustle we see is the one he pulls on our main characters. Coincidentally the only couple he didn’t take money or steal from. In the course of the evening after his “mugging,” he charms them with theories about Catcher in the Rye (maybe trenchant back in the 80’s, but looked at now it’s trite and pedantic) as well as how cultured he is and, of course, the fact he is Poitier’s son and can get them cast as extras in the Cats movie.
Paul then cooks them dinner with whatever they have in the kitchen, and here’s my Favorite Bit, as they eat, Will Smith suddenly leaves the table without saying anything to Sutherland or Channing. Let me remind you, they’ve just spent the last several hours being charmed and wowed by the young man.
Nevertheless, Sutherland’s hackles are raised, a strange black man wandering around his luxurious apartment… unsupervised? Not wanting to appear alarmed, he simply starts calling out, “Hello? Hello?” until Will Smith returns with seconds for everyone, much to Sutherland’s relief. Such a great little moment, showing no matter what Smith does, he’ll always be looked at as some black kid, possibly up to no good.
Great shit.
My Favorite Line also belongs to Sutherland, where he recounts a dream about his children’s 2nd grade. It is equal parts hilarious and amazing.
“I remembered asking my kids' second-grade teacher: 'Why are all your students geniuses? Look at the first grade - blotches of green and black. The third grade - camouflage. But your grade, the second grade, Matisses, every one. You've made my child a Matisse. Let me study with you. Let me into the second grade. What is your secret?'“
How great is that? I love his childlike wonder at the paintings he sells. As he says in the film, he truly does love them, he doesn’t look at them as pieces of meat. And Sutherland really nails that aspect of Flan. One of his best performances.
Will Smith is pretty terrible, as usual. But here it actually kind of works because he’s supposed to be a person pretending. It’s just so obvious he’s “acting.” Maybe that was the point?
In the scenes with Anthony Michael Hall, where Smith is basically playing himself, namely, a gay black man, he’s fine.
Stockard Channing is great, and is given a wonderful end scene where she realizes, out loud, to a whole group of people, including investors for Flan’s latest purchase, how fake her whole life has been.
She kills it. Never been better.
My Favorite Shot is in a great scene toward the end between her and Will Smith, where she meets him downtown to take him to the cops personally so they don’t mistreat him, but she’s just a hair too late, and he’s already in the back of the squad car. He yells through the cracked window, “The Kandinsky is painted on both sides,” with a big smile on his face as the cop car pulls away. Such an odd thing to say at that moment. Always stuck with me.
And that’s the last time anyone sees him.
There’s a whole subplot with Heather Graham and her actor boyfriend who are also scammed by Paul, leading to Paul seducing and having sex with the boyfriend, before giving Paul all their money and then committing suicide. It’s not bad in and of itself (and leads to one of the funniest bits, Flan’s doorman spitting on him for “abandoning his negro son”), but it comes completely out of nowhere, and lasts for quite a bit of time. I don’t know, I like Heather Graham’s tits, but I want more Stockard and Donald!
It's one of the best of the early 90’s awards bait dramas. It delivers every time I watch it, including now, over 30 years later. But it was my first semester at NYU, and the first time I was living in Manhattan, and Christmas was approaching, and the city just had a certain feel to it back then and this flick captured it.
None moreso than the aforementioned arrest scene. The pay phone Paul calls Ouisa on at the end is right across the street from the Waverly Theater, which features prominently in the background of some shots here, and also happens to be where I was watching the film itself.
Incredibly meta moment, watching characters on a screen in front of the movie theater you’re sitting in watching them perform.
Can’t disentangle all that from my feelings for the film. That said, everything good about the movie really is contained in that 1ST 5 Minutes. If you find yourself enjoying that opening, you will be richly rewarded by watching the rest.
Trust me.
The One Sheet
Terrible fucking one sheet. Terrible. Channing and Sutherland as floating heads next to the city skyline? Same for Smith, but instead of nice buildings it’s more ghetto-y? Lazy as fuck.
But I do like the copy on the poster. I always think of that concept when walking around Manhattan, all the lights on in all the different apartments. All containing their own worlds.
Like the beginning of Sea of Love or Fatal Attraction. Naked City, indeed.
This other image was quite hilariously used to sell the movie on home video. I fucking love it, it is so fucking bad. Trying to rope in Fresh Prince fans, promising a zany comedy along the same lines as the sitcom?
Too fucking funny.
Would pay to watch this with someone who rented it solely based off this image.
Will Smith took a big risk by doing this film at that point in his career, and the risk is playing a gay character. One can sense the time the film was shot in as well as the reticence of actors to actually “play the gay.”
One scene has Smith kissing Anthony Michael Hall, but it is shot from behind each actor’s head, so we don’t actually see the kiss, and it is obvious Smith never brings his face close enough to actually kiss Hall, and then a sound effect of a kiss.
It’s incredibly awkward.
Looked really dumb back in 1993, and looks really dumb now. Especially with what we now know about Smith! The film serves as a wonderful time capsule, bringing us back to a place we can never again revisit in reality, for good, or for ill.
What a picture!
I’ll leave you with one last scene I did not mention, the very end, where Ouisa leaves Flan (that music when she walks away, WOW!) and makes her way down Park Avenue, stops to look at flowers in a window, then imagines Paul’s reflection in the mirror talking about the Kandinsky, before walking on and flashing back to her visit to the Sistine Chapel, where we see her slap the hand of God, laughing.
An apt metaphor.
See you in two pink shirts…