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Less Than Zero is a 1987 American drama film loosely based on Bret Easton Ellis' novel of the same name. The film stars Andrew McCarthy as Clay, a college freshman returning home for Christmas to spend time with his ex-girlfriend Blair (Jami Gertz) and his friend Julian (Robert Downey Jr.), who is also a drug addict. The film presents a look at the culture of wealthy, decadent youth in Los Angeles.

Less Than Zero received mixed reviews among critics. Ellis hated the film initially but his view of it later softened. He insists that the film bears no resemblance to his novel and felt that it was miscast with the exceptions of Downey and James Spader.

Plot[edit]

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Clay Easton (Andrew McCarthy) is a straitlaced college freshman on the East Coast of the United States, who returns home to Los Angeles, California, for Christmas to find things very different from the way he left them. His high school girlfriend and now model, Blair (Jami Gertz), has become addicted to cocaine and has been having sex with Clay's high school best friend, Julian Wells (Robert Downey Jr.). Julian, whose life has gone downhill after his startup record company fell apart, has become a drug addict. He has also been cut off by his family for stealing to support his habit and reduced to homelessness. Julian is also being hassled by his dealer, an old classmate named Rip (James Spader), for a debt of $50,000 that he owes to him.

Clay's relationship with Blair rekindles and Julian's behavior becomes more volatile. His addiction is worsening and since he does not have the money to pay off his debt, Rip forces him to become a prostitute to work it off. After suffering through a night of overdose and hiding from Rip, Julian decides to quit and begs his father (Nicholas Pryor) to help him. The next day, Julian tells Rip his plans for sobriety, which Rip does not accept. Rip soon lures Julian to a Christmas party for affluent gay men in Palm Springs. Clay finds Julian and rescues him; after a violent confrontation with Rip and his henchman, Clay, Julian and Blair all escape and begin the long drive through the desert so Julian can attempt to achieve sobriety once and for all. However, the damage has already been done; the next morning Julian dies from heart failure in the car.

After Julian's funeral, Clay and Blair are sitting on a cemetery bench reminiscing about him. Clay then tells Blair that he is returning to the East Coast and wants her to go with him. She agrees to his offer. The film ends with a snapshot of the three of them at graduation.

Cast[edit]

• Andrew McCarthy as Clay Easton
• Jami Gertz as Blair
• Robert Downey Jr. as Julian Wells
• James Spader as Rip
• Nicholas Pryor as Benjamin Wells
• Tony Bill as Bradford Easton
• Donna Mitchell as Elaine Easton
• Michael Bowen as Hop
• Sarah Buxton as Markie
• Jayne Modean as Cindy
• Lisanne Falk as Patti
• Neith Hunter as Alana
• Michael Greene as Robert Wells
• Anthony Kiedis and Flea as Musicians
• Brad Pitt (uncredited) as Partygoer / Preppie Guy at Fight
• Christopher Maleki (uncredited) as Guy at Party
• Jackie Swanson as Party Girl (uncredited)

Production[edit]

Ellis' book was originally optioned by producer Marvin Worth for $7,500 before its publication in June 1985 with the understanding that 20th Century Fox would finance it.^[2]

The purchase was sponsored by Scott Rudin and Larry Mark, Vice Presidents of Production. The book went on to become a best seller but the producers had to create a coherent story and change Clay, the central character, because they felt that he was too passive.^[2] They also eliminated his bisexuality and casual drug use. Worth hired Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Michael Cristofer to write the screenplay. He stuck close to the tone of the novel and had Clay take some drugs but did not make him bisexual. The studio felt that Cristofer's script was too harsh for a commercial film.^[2]

Fox then assigned the film to producer Jon Avnet who had made Risky Business. He felt that Cristofer's script was 'so depressing and degrading.'^[2] Avnet instead wanted to transform 'a very extreme situation' into 'a sentimental story about warmth, caring and tenderness in an atmosphere hostile to those kinds of emotions'.^[3] Studio executives and Avnet argued over the amount of decadence depicted in the film that would not alienate audiences. Lawrence Gordon, the President of Fox who had approved the purchase of the book, was replaced by Alan F. Horn, who was then replaced by Leonard Goldberg. Goldberg found the material distasteful but Barry Diller, the Chairman of Fox, wanted to make the film.^[2]

Harley Peyton was hired to write the script and completed three drafts.^[2] In his version, Clay is no longer amoral or passive. The studio still considered the material edgy and kept the budget under $8 million.

Claudia Weill was going to direct at one stage but then was dropped by the studio.^[4]

Marek Kanievska was hired to direct because he had dealt with ambivalent sexuality and made unlikeable characters appealing in his previous film, Another Country. The studio wanted to appeal to actor Andrew McCarthy's teenage girl fans without alienating an older audience.^[2]

Cinematographer Edward Lachman remembers that originally the film was a lot 'edgier' and that the studio took it away from Kanievska.^[5] He also recalled a scene he shot with the music group Red Hot Chili Peppers: 'The Red Hot Chili Peppers were in that film and the studio became very conservative and they said, 'Oh the band, they're sweaty and they don't have their shirts on.' They destroyed an incredible Steadicam shot, all because they had to cut around them being bare-chested'.^[5]

At an early test screening, the studio recruited an audience between the ages of 15 and 24; they hated Robert Downey Jr.'s character.^[2] As a result, new scenes were shot to make his and Jami Gertz's character more repentant. For example, a high school graduation scene was shot to lighten the mood by showing the three main characters as good friends during better times.^[2]

Reception[edit]

Box office[edit]

Less Than Zero opened at No. 4 on November 6, 1987 in 871 theaters and made US$3,008,987, behind Fatal Attraction's eighth weekend, Hello Again's opening, and Baby Boom's fifth weekend. It went on to gross $12,396,383 in North America.^[6]

Critical response[edit]

The film received mixed reviews from critics. Film historianLeonard Maltin gave it two-out-of-four stars, his most frequently given rating: 'Bret Ellis' nihilistic story is sanitized into pointlessness, although chances are an entirely faithful adaptation would have turned everyone off; try to imagine this picture with Eddie Bracken, Veronica Lake and Sonny Tufts.' Indeed, Maltin despised the faithfully-adapted film version of a second Ellis novel, The Rules of Attraction, which he considered a BOMB (Maltin's lowest possible rating).^[7]

Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gave it a score of 50% based on a weighted average of 26 reviews.^[8]In The New York Times, Janet Maslin wrote, 'Mr. Downey gives a performance that is desperately moving, with the kind of emotion that comes as a real surprise in these surroundings.'^[9] Rita Kempley, in her review for The Washington Post, called the film, 'noodle-headed and faint-hearted, a shallow swipe at a serious problem, with a happily-ever-after ending yet.'^[10] In Newsweek, David Ansen wrote, 'Imagine Antonioni making a high-school public-service movie and you'll have an inkling of the movie's high-toned silliness.'^[11]In the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert gave Less Than Zero a four-star review, noting that the 'movie knows cocaine inside out and paints a portrait of drug addiction that is all the more harrowing because it takes place in the Beverly Hills fast lane...The movie's three central performances are flawless...[Robert Downey, Jr's] acting here is so real, so subtle and so observant that it's scary...The whole movie looks brilliantly superficial, and so Downey's predicament is all the more poignant: He is surrounded by all of this, he is in it and of it, and yet he cannot have it.'^[12]New York magazine's David Denby wrote, 'In many ways, Less than Zero is a cynical, manipulative job. Yet, the movie has something great in it, something that could legitimately move teenagers (or anyone else): Robert Downey Jr. as the disintegrating Julian, a performance in which beautiful exuberance gives way horrifying to a sudden, startled sadness.'^[13]

Upon its initial release, Ellis hated the film. While promoting the book Lunar Park he said he has gotten sentimental about it^[14] and has 'really warmed up to it now. I've accepted it.'^[15] He admits that the film bears no resemblance to his novel but that it captured, 'a certain youth culture during that decade that no other movie caught,' and felt that it was miscast with the exception of Downey and Spader.^[14] Furthermore, he has said, 'I think that movie is gorgeous, and the performances that I thought were shaky seem much better now. Like, Jami Gertz seems much better to me now than she did 20 years ago. It’s something I can watch.'^[16] The film was voted as the 22nd best film set in Los Angeles in the last 25 years by a group of Los Angeles Times writers and editors with two criteria: it 'had to communicate some inherent truth about the L.A. experience, and only one film per director was allowed on the list.' ^[17]

Awards and honors[edit]

The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists:

• 2004: AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs:
  • 'A Hazy Shade of Winter' – Nominated^[18]

Cancelled sequel[edit]

On April 14, 2009, MTV News announced that Ellis had nearly finished Imperial Bedrooms, his seventh book and the sequel to Less Than Zero. Ellis has revealed that the film's main characters are all still alive in the present day, and has already begun looking ahead to the possibility of a film adaptation. Ellis feels that interpreting it as a sequel to the 1987 Less Than Zero adaptation 'would be a great idea' and hopes to be able to reunite Spader, McCarthy, and Gertz should Fox option the sequel.^{[19][20][21][22]}

Soundtrack[edit]

A soundtrack containing a variety of music types was released on November 6, 1987 by Def Jam Recordings. It peaked at 31 on the Billboard 200 and 22 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and was certified gold on February 8, 1988.

References[edit]

1. ^Less Than Zero at Box Office Mojo
2. ^ ^abcdefghiHarmetz, Aljean (November 18, 1987). 'Sanitizing A Novel for the Screen'. The New York Times. Retrieved 2010-05-14.
3. ^Crimeen, Bob (December 31, 1987). 'Death in the Fast Lane - Hollywood Home Truths'. Daily Telegraph.
4. ^Cieply, Michael (March 11, 1988). 'A Fired Woman Film Director--New Questions, Issue Continues'. Los Angeles Times.
5. ^ ^ab'Q&A - Cinematographer Ed Lachman on Censoring the Red Hot Chili Peppers and the Vitality of Robert Altman'. AMC Movie Blog. May 2008.
6. ^'Less Than Zero'. Box Office Mojo. Amazon.com. Retrieved 2007-12-13.
7. ^Maltin's TV, Movie, & Video Guide
8. ^Less Than Zero at Rotten TomatoesFlixsterRetrieved 2010-01-01.
9. ^Maslin, Janet (November 6, 1987). 'Less Than Zero, Young Lives'. The New York Times. Retrieved 2007-11-16.
10. ^Kempley, Rita (November 6, 1987). 'Zero: Paying Through the Nose'. The Washington Post.
11. ^Ansen, David (November 16, 1987). 'Down and Out in Gucci and Gomorrah'. Newsweek.
12. ^Ebert, Roger (November 6, 1987). 'Less Than Zero'. Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 2021-02-01.
13. ^Denby, David (November 23, 1987). 'More Than Zero'. New York.
14. ^ ^abFarris, Brandon (September 20, 2005). 'Bret Easton Ellis Interview'. HillZoo.com. Retrieved 2007-11-16.
15. ^'A Tale of Two Brets'. Amazon.com. Retrieved 2009-08-18.
16. ^Buchanan, Kyle (May 17, 2010). 'Bret Easton Ellis on Less Than Zero, Its Adaptation, and Its Sequel Imperial Bedrooms'. Movieline. Retrieved 2010-05-20.
17. ^Boucher, Geoff (August 31, 2008). 'The 25 best L.A. films of the last 25 years'. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2008-08-31.
18. ^'AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs Nominees'(PDF). Retrieved 2016-07-30.
19. ^Carroll, Larry (2009-04-14). 'Bret Easton Ellis Finishes 'Less Than Zero' Sequel, Wants Robert Downey Jr. Back'. MTV News. Retrieved 2009-04-15.
20. ^Connelly, Brendon (2009-04-14). 'Robert Downey Jr. Back For Less Than Zero 2? Brett Easton Ellis Suggests So'. Slashfilm.com. Archived from the original on 2009-04-16. Retrieved 2009-04-15.
21. ^Graham, Mark (2009-04-14). 'Bret Easton Ellis Wants to Reunite Less Than Zero Cast for a Sequel'. New York. Retrieved 2009-04-15.
22. ^Lewis, Hilary (2009-04-14). 'Does Bret Easton Ellis Want Robert Downey, Jr. To Be An Addict Again?'. The Business Insider. Retrieved 2009-04-15.

External links[edit]

• Less Than Zero at IMDb
• Less Than Zero at AllMovie
• Less Than Zero at Box Office Mojo
• Less Than Zero at Rotten Tomatoes

“Don Quixote” is considered the groundbreaking novel responsible for the beginning of modernism in literature. The thing that made Cervantes’ work special was the way he talked about the novel within the novel, creating a literary world self-aware of literature. In the evolution of any art form, there is a moment when art starts to ask questions about itself.

There are some prior examples, but since the 60s it has been one of the most explored and rich questions to raise. Format experiments (Greaves, Kiarostami), vengeance on Hollywood (Altman, Lynch), genre mocking (Craven, Goddard) or autobiographies (Truffaut, Fellini) are some of the forms of meta experimentation in the next 20 examples.

1. Man with a Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov, 1929)

The Soviet montage was the first moment in cinema when filmmakers started to make films to talk about cinema itself. Eisenstein proposed different categories for editing, and for applying them onscreen.

Kuleshov experimented with editing to prove how much of the emotion and acting skills of a face come from what image is next to it. But the most radical of them was Dziga Vertov. He didn’t believe in telling a story and he saw straight narrative as a bourgeois pleasure, so he just went to film his city, Moscow, without an organized plan.

At the same time, he shows this idea and it resulted in editing with some scenes in the editing room, and using every montage technique to remind us that we are watching a film. Film as a way to forget about your day was against the Marxist conviction of Vertov, so he tried every way possible to make us know this is a film.

Meta cinema evolved later in other ways, with many of the ideas applied on a narrative structure, but Vertov first placed this mechanism that leads to question what we are watching, and why are we watching it.

2. Duck Amuck (Chuck Jones, 1953)

Animation can be seen as a meta-fictional exercise by itself. Even if the audience, especially the children in the audience, can get immersed into a story, you are aware of how real the situation is. Chuck Jones always took advantage of this feature, playing with meta-fiction all around.

Little jokes about drawing in Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner, or a huge number of inter-textual references, can be find in Jones’ works and show how much consciousness he had in his art. The greatest example of this is seen in one of his masterpieces “Duck Amuck”. The film shows Daffy Duck trying to have a new adventure, but being interrupted constantly by his creator.

A hand of an unseen animator takes off Daffy’s mouth, changes his background and clothes, and morphs the shape of his body. The audience is completely aware of how animation works, how any background is handmade and repeated and how there is somebody dubbing Daffy.

When we see Bugs Bunny as the animator some of the meta experiment is over, but this is just a way of making the film lighter and more friendly. But the philosophical issues are already there, and our relationship with Daffy Duck changes forever.

3. 8 ½ (Federico Fellini, 1963)

This is the most important meta film, period. After the groundbreaking success of “La Dolce Vita”, Fellini was only able to find inspiration for another film through himself and that situation.

After making a film that was recognized as one of the greatest pieces of filmmaking ever made, the most important thing that Fellini had to express was his inner feelings. Guido (Marcello Mastronianni) is a film director suffering a lack of inspiration after making a successful film. Pressured by everyone around him, his process of filmmaking is mixed directly with his personal life and history.

Obviously talking about himself, Fellini accomplished the most complex and beautiful film about filmmaking. Life and film are impossible to separate. A critic once said that Fellini made a film so incredibly personal that he ended up making a universal statement. “8½” was the number of films that Fellini had made at the time, and reflected this lack of creativity, hence the title.

4. La Ricotta (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1963)

A tableau vivant consists on recreating a painting with live actors. Pasolini made more than one in his life, bringing a solemn and sacred aura to his proletarian characters. Mixing these high concepts with the low-depths was his way to express where he really saw the sacred elements of these paintings.

“La Ricotta” presents another way of taking a tableau vivant of its bourgeois conception, this time with humor. Orson Welles plays an intellectual director, making the main character a meta joke from the beginning. Welles is filming a tableau vivant with non-professional poor Italian actors.

The result is a comedy fest where mistakes and problems turn the living picture into a joke. The intellectual director gets mad while nobody seems to take the religious elements seriously.

Pasolini made this film showing his canon elements, including his view on sacredness and its relationship with the working classes. But he also made a big meta joke on his own intellectual cinema. If we were able to see what they were filming, the result would be a dead-serious and intellectual tableau vivant, but being on the other side the reflection is far deeper.

5. Symbiopsychotaxiplasm Take One (William Greaves, 1968)

“Symbiopsychotaxiplasm Take One” is not a film with meta elements but a complete meta experiment. William Greaves proposed a way of filming that didn’t had any guarantee; he had no way to be certain of what he was filming. We say Greaves had directed an amateur film, and at the same time there is a crew simultaneously following his crew.

With a split-screen we see the film he is working on, and the making-of the film. But after awhile we can start to question which film he is making, the fiction or the documentary about that fiction, or both. The same confusion is felt by the crew, and we can see them discussing it a number of times throughout the films.

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While some of them claim it is Greaves’ idea, others think he is just a clueless and inexperienced director. We see Greaves frustrated when he is incapable of getting good acting from his stars, but in these discussions a cameraman starts to ask if that is his idea. “Symbiopsychotaxiplasm Take One” is about the process of filming, but more deeply it’s about the fiction and trickery of cinema.

At the end we don’t have a revelation from Greaves, but rather a failed fiction and documentary. But like the crew, we can start to ask how much of this was his idea, or furthermore, how much of this could have been staged.

6. F for Fake (Orson Welles, 1973)

Orson Welles made a documentary on art forger Elmyr de Hory, and he applies the same rules of the man he is portraying. Welles lies to the audience, and he is not afraid of telling us. In the presentation we know that half of the documentary will be a lie, and that he is going to trick us.

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The film moves from the main narrative and makes a trip through Welles’ own life, Howard Hughes, art history and the nature of documentary. Welles shows us how everything in a documentary is a narrative construction, and how editing is the important part where a filmmaker turns a film into his own narrative and view, and how we must not believe it so easily. The film is also a big step further in “mash-up” editing, previewing what was going to happen with MTV culture.