Men In Suits (2013)

Movie monsters have been a staple of genre films going all the way back to the beginnings of cinema. Many of us carry fond memories of a childhood spent glued to the television set, watching Godzilla (or some other menacing beast) smash through miniature sets much to our unbridled delight. But what many people may forget is that there is a person inside that suit – drowning in sweat, muscles aching with every movement – and he (or she) is responsible for bringing the creatures we hold so dear to life. In some ways, it’s a testament to the actor’s performance that viewers can so easily forget an anthropomorphic beast would be lifeless if not for the performance of that person inside. Thankfully, Men in Suits (2013) has come along to remind fans that not only is there a captain inside that rubber ship, but being that person is a demanding job, one that requires an incredible amount of stamina, strength, and the ability to emote without saying a word. It is an ambitious love letter to a timeless craft, speedily covering decades of ground in a scant 93-minute run time.

There are a number of well-known suit actors interviewed here, including Doug Jones, Tom Woodruff Jr., Brian Steele, Douglas Tait, Bob Burns, Van Snowden, and Haruo Nakajima. One thing all of these actors agree on is that being a suit actor is a demanding job that often doesn’t receive the accolades it deserves. Jones in particular seems to be very passionate regarding the “suit actor vs. screen actor” debate, noting that sometimes he felt like he was “treated like a prop” on set, rather than getting the respect a non-suit actor might have received. Many of the performers also agree that a lean body is best, as suit work is an additive process much like prosthetics, and keeping in shape requires rigorous exercise and incredible stamina. For example, Brian Steele’s costume for “Wink” in Guillermo del Toro’s Hellboy 2: The Golden Army (2008) weighed over 100 lbs., and he was required to perform – at the same peak level - for up to 12 hours a day. You have to be conditioned to endure this kind of abuse because if the suit actor calls it quits, shooting stops. It’s that simple. Steele said he would ride his bike to set every day – a 40 kM trek – to maintain his physical prowess. Jones, too, admits the work can wring you dry, but he also jokes that if he were to drop dead in a rubber suit on a del Toro picture he’d “die a happy man.”

With so many monsters and actors to cover, no one creature is focused on for too long, but the film does devote a sizeable chunk to cinema’s King of the Monsters: Godzilla. Actor Haruo Nakajima, who is still spry at the ripe age of 84, recalls the original suit he wore for Gojira (1954) weighed over 200 lbs. and was so reinforced and stiff he could leave it standing upright once he exited the back. It was not uncommon for a cup of sweat to be drained from the suit at the end of each day. Luckily, for the sequels the suit’s weight was cut by more than half, which allowed for Godzilla to battle Toho’s stable of kaiju more effectively. Nakajima proved so adept at maneuvering (however he could) inside a suit that he went on to be cast as many other top monsters – Varan, Rodan, Baragon – and he was also brought on to the cast of Ultraman so that, while performing, he could train the other suit actors who had little to no experience.

Many of the film’s history lessons are provided by the endless encyclopedia of creature features himself: Bob Burns. He knows this stuff inside and out, schooling viewers on everything from naming all of the top actors who performed in Hollywood’s gorillasploitation movies, to describing his own work as an actor and how the suits he manned were constructed. Of course, he’s got all the goods to show off on camera, too. Numerous film clips are shown to provide context to the pictures discussed, and no single film is too heavily covered. Remember, the goal here is to educate fans on the actors inside the suits. So don’t be surprised when Star Wars only gets a passing mention before the film moves on to other things. If I had any complaint at all here, it would be that the film can be a bit schizophrenic at times, trying to blaze through almost a century of cinematic history. It’s not small feat, and the film largely succeeds at covering the major bases, but the frenzied nature will oftentimes leave you wanting a little more on certain subjects.

Steele mentions that suit actors started to get a little nervous around 1993, when Jurassic Park dominated the marketplace and showed how far computer-generated images had come. It was a bit of a dark period, and even when studios were hiring actors for suit work it was usually for superficial reasons – tall actors, built actors, etc. They weren’t hiring actors who had a history of delivering rich, nuanced performances that the roles called for. Seizing the opportunity, Steele started Creature Boy, essentially a union for suit actors. If a production is looking for a specific type of actor to play a role, they can turn to his company and receive a number of qualified recommendations. As suit technology has improved, many films have reverted to using the tried and true man-in-suit method to have something tangible on-screen. Even the prevalence of motion-capture technology still requires that an actor inhabit the role, which can only means Steele and his contemporaries will be in business as long as they’re still making movies.

Speaking of his contemporaries, the film’s wraparound (and occasional intercuts) have us following actor Douglas Tait as he prepares to don a demonic creature suit for a role in Joe Lynch’s still-unreleased Knights of Badassdom. By allowing viewers to see Tait acting in various stages of his suit’s completion, the film allows for a better understanding of the design and acting process behind his work. Getting an early feel for the suit allows him to determine what muscles he’ll have to focus on building up to make sure his body is up to par (get on those forearms, Doug!). Tait describes his thought process along the way, cluing us in on how advancements in technology have made his job moderately easier… but at the end of the day he’s still sweating his ass off in a 100+lb. suit for hours at a time. The enthusiasm for his craft is infectious, though, rarely showing him without a smile every step of the way. It goes a long way to show that the men inside these suits are the same kids we used to be - only now with a profound appreciation for the work that it requires. After watching Men in Suits, I’d be surprised if anyone else didn’t feel the same.

GODZILLA-THON #1 - Gojira (1954)

Godzilla fever has been running high thanks to Gareth Edwards' upcoming 2014 reboot invading Comic Con this weekend, so it seemed like as good a time as any to re-watch all of Toho's 28 entries in the historic franchise.

For a bit of backstory, I'm essentially the definition of a dyed-in-the-wool Godzilla fan. As far back as I can remember, I've been fascinated with big monster movies, or daikaiju for the initiated. I've got the worn-out VHS tapes to prove it. I would curate my own movie marathons, piling up my store bought (and bootlegged) Big G tapes to ready myself for an entire day of nerding the fuck out. All at the age of 6. Few things made me happier than watching man-in-suit movies until my eyelids gave out and I was carried off to bed. I owned every single film Toho had released up to that point - this would've been around 1987/88 - which explains why my favorite G films come from the earlier Showa era of the series. In fact, aside from Godzilla 1985 I didn't see any Heisei era films until the mid-to-late '90s. This is partly due to Toho doing a shitty job of giving them proper VHS released in America... and partly due to my entering high school and maintaining a social life.

But I digress. The point I'm getting at here is that despite all of my constant Godzilla-thons, I never watched the original film much. I watched it plenty to know it well enough. The black & white presentation never bothered me as a kid. I gravitated towards the more monster-heavy entries in the series, like 1974's Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla. Plus, let's face it - Toho might've done a commendable job on the suit itself but that puppet used for close-up shots hardly looked menacing. And this was also the American-edited 1956 version, called Godzilla, King of the Monsters, which eschewed virtually all of the somber mood and nuclear subtext of the Japanese version in order to give Perry Mason, er, Raymond Burr screen time as our man on the ground, journalist Steve Martin. Clearly, this was before the time of the Steve Martin, but the name confusion did turn up when the character was reprised for Godzilla 1985. There, they just called him "Steve" or "Mr. Martin", never a combination of the two. It isn't a bad film - especially to the non-critical mind of a kid - but since the original version was lovingly restored around 2004 people seem to deride it more than usual.

Back to the marathon. Criterion put out a sexy new edition of Gojira (1954) on Blu-ray. This edition fully blows the Classic Media Blu-ray release out of the water, with an improved picture (CM's release was 1080i), better audio, and a minor wealth of bonus material. Now, it should be noted that they didn't license any of the features found on the 2-disc DVD Classic Media released, so fans who own that edition would be wise to hang on to it. But if all you're concerned with is the a/v presentation, look no further than Criterion.

The film itself is clearly superior to the heavily-edited American version. As I stated earlier, the tone is much more serious and somber. Godzilla is an obvious allegory for the undersea nuclear testing being done around that time (and even more obviously, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki). He is presented as a force of nature, an unstoppable beast who only leaves the sea when his food source has been depleted due to deep-sea explosions. As gripping as the monster footage is, the story is compelling and humanistic. Professor Yamane (Takashi Shimura) desperately wants to study the beast, hoping that through science we can learn how Godzilla is impervious to atomic testing and conventional weaponry. But the military just wants to kill it, a task they continually fail at completing. They have to enlist the aid of Dr. Serizawa (Akihiko Hirata), a scientist who has developed a device - the Oxygen Destroyer - that can essentially liquefy oxygen, killing whatever is in its wake. He's reluctant to offer his aid, however, since he knows that as soon as his experiment is revealed men will want to harbor it for nefarious purposes. The pathos bleeds off the screen, elevating what could have easily been a simple monster-runs-amok film into something emotional and poignant.

"Chicks dig the patch, right?"

Much - if not all - of the film's success is thanks to the triumvirate of technical innovation: director Inoshiro Honda, producer Tomoyuki Tanaka, and special effects supervisor Eiji Tsuburaya. Without delving too deeply into history that can be found elsewhere, it was Tanaka's idea to film the movie. The script went through many changes, as did the final design for Godzilla, which at one point was to be a monster with a mushroom cloud-shaped head (!). Finally, on their third attempt to create a useable sculpture, did Tsuburaya & Tanaka settle on the now-classic look. They still needed to put a man in that 200-lb. rubber suit, though. Enter Haruo Nakajima, who wore the bulky behemoth under stage lights with temperatures inside reaching 130 degrees Fahrenheit. He reportedly had a cup of sweat drained from the suit daily. The stiff rubber forced a more reptilian - and, thus, less human - style of movement because Nakajima was so restricted. Rumor has it the suit could stand on its own once he was out! Sounds like grueling work, but he took it all in stride without complaining. Nakajima did almost all of the suit work during the Showa era.

"Godzilla - did the Oxygen Destroyer really kill him... or was it cancer?"

It's been said that a good score can dramatically help any movie, and the impressive orchestration of Akira Ifukube certainly does just that. This is the man who composed a large majority of Godzilla's most memorable themes. This score reciprocates the somber tone meant for the film, making it unique among his work on other Godzilla films since the mood never reached the emotional depths of this first picture. Ifukube would go on to score for Godzilla the rest of his career, finally stepping down after handling duties on Godzilla vs. Destroyer in 1995. Let's not forget he also gave the Big G his trademark roar, something achieved by rubbing a resin-coated glove over a contrabass string. Simple, effective, incredibly memorable.  

I liken this inaugural Godzilla film to Rocky (1976) - hang on a sec, lemme finish - in that this was the launch pad used to gauge reaction and then plot ahead. Everyone seems to forget that Rocky loses in the first film, much like the Big G loses (even worse, really... he dies) here. But as Prof. Yamane said in the film, perhaps there are more of Godzilla's species out there, waiting to be woken up from continued testing.

Lucky for us, he was right.