Culture shock

I’m not a movie buff, nor am I particularly buff. Though I have, on occasion, been known to watch a moving picture just once and immediately commit it to memory. The obscurer the better. There’s no use in slowly banging the drum for something everyone already loves. Films like The Godfather and The Mighty Ducks do not need any help from me. But there are those pictures in need of a little assistance. For whatever reason, they didn’t resonate at the time of their release, garnering a small, cultish fanbase only to slip through the cracks of history. But like a cockroach that seeks refuge in the narrow crevices, they always come back. Always.

Friday means story time, children. So let’s go back, way back to the early 1980s. There are films I return to repeatedly during the most trying times. And Guy Voltage is one such celluloid masterpiece. Paul Newman, the great Paul Newman, plays a middle-aged, down-on-his-luck, electrician’s apprentice, named Giacomo “Jack” Sparks. Sparks struggles to break through into a ultra-stratified industry, searching in vain for a much-needed creative outlet. He’s too old to be an apprentice, but through a series of mishaps, the audience comes to realize why this man of great ability seems to be sentenced to a lifetime of painful resignation and disappointment.

There’s resistance within his current peer group. They dislike his attitude and the frequency he makes terrible jokes. All of which focus on Ol’ Sparky, his namesake, and famous form of capital punishment. AKA The Chair. 

“I didn’t know murderers liked barbecue!” 

That’s only one such example of a joke with no setup, a tenuous premise and a weak punchline. But with Jack, there’s always more where that came from. And never a last minute reprieve from the Governor.

At the time of the film’s climactic scene, Sparks has completely insulated himself from other human beings. But he gets a serendipitous house call for a blown fuse box in a rickety walkup on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Without thinking, he shoves his mildly deformed thumb (inadequately explained in a much earlier scene) inside, right after licking it, and a drawn-out electrocution sequence commences. It’s as inscrutable and lengthy as Stanley Kubrick’s Stargate in 2001. But barely half as entertaining. Still, it’s the highlight of a film with many of them. 

When Sparks comes to, his whole outlook on life has changed, feeling newly grounded with powers few ever attain. Thus he quits his gig, knowing his day in the sun will never arrive. Suddenly possessing perfect pitch and an encyclopedic knowledge of classical music, Giacomo exits the building, fried and frazzled. He’s miraculously across the street from Lincoln Center. Without an appointment or a tuxedo, he confronts the gatekeepers at the New York Philharmonic. It sends shock waves through the industry when they cave and make him conductor for life. Giacomo Sparks transforms into a truly super conductor. 

This film has it all. Failure, success, wordplay, and even a small cameo from Laurence Olivier, in one of his last roles, as a multilingual nesting starling residing in the eaves of an abandoned building. But why I like the film is that it teaches us. It teaches us in order to make it in this crazy world you need to be good at two things. No more specialization. 

When I’m not writing, I’m hitting acorns with a tennis racket as hard as I can. Am I good enough to turn pro? That remains to be seen. But everyone needs a backup plan. This just happens to be mine.