Timothy Carey, the name has a certain aura to it. Some cinephiles know this
feeling, those who go out on a limb and watch what little role he has. Carey, a character actor who zigzagged
through the latter half of American cinema’s history, from A to Z pictures and
everything in between, had a special talent.
He could make a thin role into something memorable. He threw his 6’ 4’’ body around and spoke
with a voice that sounded more like a cement mixer. He stole scenes, evaporating the memory of
those that came before and after it.
Only Stanley Kubrick and John Cassavetes managed to integrate
Carey into their films seamlessly. For
both filmmakers, he appeared twice in their work. For Kubrick: The Killing (1956) and Paths
of Glory (1957). For Cassavetes: Minnie and Moskowitz (1971) and The
Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976). They
were able to rein in Carey, controlling his high-strung acting for maximum
effect. In Paths of Glory, in fact,
Carey gives a career-performance. An
interlude from the psychotics he often played, as Private Ferol, Carey is a smooth
man, someone who would fit in with Jack Kerouac and co., not WWI France.[i] By film’s end, he becomes unraveled. Along with Ralph Meeker and Joe Turkel, he’s
one of the soldiers court-martialed and executed. “I don’t want to die,” he repeats, sniveling,
whimpering, and crying as he faces the firing squad.
For every friend, Carey had three or four enemies, people
who couldn’t tolerate his brand of free-wheeling, combusting improvisation. Fact and legend often blur in Hollywood
history. In Carey’s case, there seems to
be more legend than fact. His bouts with
actors and directors are tabloid-worthy and tailor-made to his outsider
persona. Billy Wilder and James B.
Harris fired him.[ii] Elia Kazan dubbed his guttural lines.[iii] Richard Widmark and Karl Malden beat him. Marlon Brando stabbed him with a pen.[iv] Always cheeky, Carey proclaimed that he was fired
more than any other actor in Hollywood.[v]
In 1962, Timothy Carey released[1] a
film as nutty as the characters he played – The
World’s Greatest Sinner. Shot on the
cheap (around $100,000) and partially self-financed[vi] [vii],
Sinner makes up for all the bit parts
Carey played previously and subsequently.
In almost every shot, Sinner is
all Carey. He plays Clarence Hilliard, a
bored insurance salesman who becomes a rock icon, a presidential candidate, a
dictator, but above all, a superhuman being.
This last one belongs to a cross-eyed, Nietzchean ideology that he
promotes. Now called God Hilliard, he
proclaims that everyone is capable of being superhumans, of being their own
God. Of course, Hilliard is the leader
of these man-gods. He advocates eternal
youth and bans death. By film’s end, the
power-hungry Hilliard even challenges God.
Sinner is Privilege’s idiot cousin. It’s hamstrung by flat performances and cheap
sets. The narrative bits collide into
each other. This gives the film an
amateur feel. Couple this with the
surprising formal choices Carey makes (cutting before a scene ends, shooting
scenes without sound, varying shot angles) and you have an example of naïve art
reminiscent of Trent Harris and Crispin Glover’s work. Unlike the ironic weirdness of Rubin & Ed or the mannered weirdness
of What is It? Sinner is sincerely strange. It’s partly audacious and partly
buffoonery.
Consider one of Clarence’s first attempts to address the
public. Before his tub-thumping
politicking rallies-cum-concerts, Clarence is in the bowels of suburbia. After
a few strums of his guitar, he says: “Everybody! Clarence Hilliard is here.” Framed in a low-angle shot, an etched figure
in front of clouds, he continues: “I’m not a preacher, and I’m not drunk, I’m
just a politician. He hears me.” Clarence shoots out his index finger,
pointing to someone off-screen. Cut to a
reverse shot, and we see one lone man walking on the street. We hear the cries of a dog off in the
distance. “Does anyone else here me
around here. I formed a new party,
called the Eternal Man’s party, even if I have to tell it to the dogs and
chickens. Everybody come on up out of
your houses, Clarence Hilliard is gonna make you a superhuman being.” More strumming as he tilts his head up in exhalation. Cut to one of these lonely houses. As soon as the door opens, there’s a sharp
cut back to Clarence, swinging his body around in the opposite direction,
pointing once more. “There’s the first
lady!” The finger turns first, into a
gracious hand, palm facing up, and then extending to the sky – a motion of
power. “Lady, I can make you live forever.”
Hands play an important role in the film. Hands extend out. Hands ball into fists. Hands shoot into the air. Hands splay on the chest in a moment of fake
sincerity. These are the movements and
gestures of that rhetorical wizard and mythic creature called God Hilliard.
Within a cut, a smattering of people appear before Clarence
as if out of the air. He gets on top of
something to address the growing crowd.
From the back side, we see him gesticulating wildly, hands shooting out
this way and that, pointing every which way.
The camera tilts down to reveal what he’s standing on -- a pile of bags
with a sign that says: “Fertilizer 4 Bags 1$.”
Of course, Carey sells shit. In
his last project, a surreal play called The
Insect Trainer, he’ll sell us farts.
From the toilet to the transcendent, that’s Sinner’s narrative path. Near the end, God Hilliard challenges God. He
pokes holes in “the body of Christ” to see if it bleeds, thereby confirming
God’s existence. Alas, no blood, there’s
just a whole-y piece of bread, sending Clarence in a knee-slapping, cackling
fit. Clarence leaves the room and
returns to his superhuman being headquarters – a building across his lawn. A cut back to the wafer corresponds with
feint moans heard over the soundtrack.
The camera follows a thick trail of blood across the grass. The shot is startling, even entrancing, because
the trail is so consistent in width, and because the camera hovers so close to
it, so quickly. From here, there’s a
backward movement, back to the house, back to the room, and back to the wafer
as Clarence runs to the trail’s source.
Opening the door, the black and white image switches to red. Clarence shrieks and writhes. This is one of cinema’s supreme miracle
moments, up there with Ordet and Viaggio in Italia, and it’s found in
the gutter.
[1]
Although screened in 1962, Carey would continue to tinker with the film for the
rest of his life, re-editing and shooting new material.
[i] Jonathan
Rosenbaum, “Key Person: Timothy Carey - Killing a cockroach in Path's of Glory." Defining Moments in Movies: The Greatest Films, Stars, Scenes and Events that Made Movie Magic, edited by Chris Fujiwara, (London: Cassell Illustrated, 2007), 274.
[ii]
Grover Lewis, “Cracked Actor: Timothy Carey,” Film Comment 40.1 (2004): 61.
[iii]
Sam McAbee, Timothy Carey: Saint of the Underground,” Cashiers du Cinemart 12 (2012).
[iv]
Ibid.
[v]
Lewis, 59.
[vi]
Millie de Chirico, “Behind the Scenes,” TCM.com,
Turner Entertainment Networks, INC.
[vii]
McAbee.
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