Jeffrey Tambor suffered severe emotional abuse throughout childhood. His mother was mentally ill. At least one of Tambor's siblings went off the rails--in a dramatic way. Like Edward St. Aubyn, like many others, Tambor found that creative talent was something like a fire ladder; talent helped him to escape the burning building that was his own life. That's what I took from Tambor's memoir, "Are You Anybody?" when I read it several months ago.
Meanwhile, Jill Soloway had a parent come out, in a dramatic way, late in life. This change sent Soloway's career in a genuinely shocking new direction. Watch Soloway's work on "Six Feet Under": You might not think, this person is going to go on and create 'Transparent'. Like Molly Haskell, Soloway used one person's coming out to explore the connectedness within a family. One person makes an announcement; every other member of the family finds himself (or herself) changing, often with much gnashing of teeth and rending of garments.
There is so much to love in "Transparent." Soloway has talked about her Holy Trinity: "Funny, dirty, sad." She wants each of the three adjectives operating in almost every scene. Maura makes her announcement, and Maura's three (already-dysfunctional) grown children find themselves spinning faster and faster out of control. The narcissistic eldest daughter leaves her marriage for a woman, then cheats on the woman with her ex-husband, then finds herself unattached again, then wonders if she and her former husband could do some sanctioned "swinging." (Much of this occurs with another subplot humming along, the problem of a little boy's poop. Sarah's little kid won't poop--ever--and there are anxious poop-related phone calls and poop rituals sprinkled through the script. One thinks of Diablo Cody, and the great school-bathroom scene in "Tully.")
Maura finds herself in an extraordinary relationship with a character played by Anjelica Huston. Maura has traveled with her younger daughter to a kind of Lillith Fair. "Man on the land!" scream several participants, when they discover Maura is trans, and Maura flees in the company of a sympathetic Huston. Huston has lost both of her breasts to cancer; the two stars face each other in bed, (maybe slightly) bewildered by their own aging, demanding bodies, and you stop and think about how rare it is to see a scene like this on television. "I'm NATO," says Huston. "I'm Not Attached to Outcomes," and then they fool around, and it's sweet. This being "Transparent," the love doesn't last. Soloway pulls the rug out from under us--in a brutal way. Maura is entangled in a toxic, endless sparring match with her intolerant sister--the two grew up in a house of horrors, and Holocaust survival and severe untreated depression were involved--and the Anjelica Huston character endures a long, bitter "sibling dinner." "That's enough," says AH in the driveway, after a petty fight, and we breathe a sigh of relief for her, as she walks away. But, also: Our hearts break.
And there is so much more engrossing material about sex and the body. (One thinks of Philip Roth, another writer fascinated by mortality and by the gonads. In "Patrimony," Roth inspects his dying father's penis, and finds some relief in imagining the fun Roth, Sr. had had with his wife. This could have been lifted directly from a "Transparent" script.) A character is semi-raped during an academic conference; the bizarre violation involves testosterone cream. We watch a trans character killed in the Holocaust; years later, we see her (also) trans daughter struggling mightily with transgressive impulses. The Judith Light character recovers from sexual abuse only to find that she is weirdly aroused (and tormented) by the idea of secrecy (any kind of secrecy. And so guess which character she chooses to marry?) And I haven't even talked about transition surgery: the dreadful scene where Davina's partner suggests he's like Michelangelo with a scalpel, the tossing of Maura's undergarments into the sea, the painful meeting with the doctor. (And then all of the material about the Jewish faith--the struggles of Kathryn Hahn's character, the wandering in the desert/shopping mall, the discussion regarding Sarah's marriage contract and marriage "pageant." Again: Echoes of Philip Roth here.)
Where am I going with all of this? Well, I see Jeffrey Tambor in the news, again and again. I sense that he is sort of a monstrous person. I don't believe that his childhood excuses his behavior; you have the choice to be the person you wish to be, or not, regardless of circumstances, everyday until you die. But I have to say, alongside the awfulness, there is this towering performance. There is the great achievement of "Transparent." (There's also the brilliant work Tambor did in "Death of Stalin," recently.) Two things exist together: (1) Tambor is a noxious person. (2) Tambor is an indisputably gifted performer. One thing doesn't erase the other. The two facts exist together, in an uncomfortable and complicated way. This is the kind of queasiness and weirdness that you might discover--for example--in a typically detailed and searching script for the wonderful (and still-living, still-fruitful) series "Transparent."
Meanwhile, Jill Soloway had a parent come out, in a dramatic way, late in life. This change sent Soloway's career in a genuinely shocking new direction. Watch Soloway's work on "Six Feet Under": You might not think, this person is going to go on and create 'Transparent'. Like Molly Haskell, Soloway used one person's coming out to explore the connectedness within a family. One person makes an announcement; every other member of the family finds himself (or herself) changing, often with much gnashing of teeth and rending of garments.
There is so much to love in "Transparent." Soloway has talked about her Holy Trinity: "Funny, dirty, sad." She wants each of the three adjectives operating in almost every scene. Maura makes her announcement, and Maura's three (already-dysfunctional) grown children find themselves spinning faster and faster out of control. The narcissistic eldest daughter leaves her marriage for a woman, then cheats on the woman with her ex-husband, then finds herself unattached again, then wonders if she and her former husband could do some sanctioned "swinging." (Much of this occurs with another subplot humming along, the problem of a little boy's poop. Sarah's little kid won't poop--ever--and there are anxious poop-related phone calls and poop rituals sprinkled through the script. One thinks of Diablo Cody, and the great school-bathroom scene in "Tully.")
Maura finds herself in an extraordinary relationship with a character played by Anjelica Huston. Maura has traveled with her younger daughter to a kind of Lillith Fair. "Man on the land!" scream several participants, when they discover Maura is trans, and Maura flees in the company of a sympathetic Huston. Huston has lost both of her breasts to cancer; the two stars face each other in bed, (maybe slightly) bewildered by their own aging, demanding bodies, and you stop and think about how rare it is to see a scene like this on television. "I'm NATO," says Huston. "I'm Not Attached to Outcomes," and then they fool around, and it's sweet. This being "Transparent," the love doesn't last. Soloway pulls the rug out from under us--in a brutal way. Maura is entangled in a toxic, endless sparring match with her intolerant sister--the two grew up in a house of horrors, and Holocaust survival and severe untreated depression were involved--and the Anjelica Huston character endures a long, bitter "sibling dinner." "That's enough," says AH in the driveway, after a petty fight, and we breathe a sigh of relief for her, as she walks away. But, also: Our hearts break.
And there is so much more engrossing material about sex and the body. (One thinks of Philip Roth, another writer fascinated by mortality and by the gonads. In "Patrimony," Roth inspects his dying father's penis, and finds some relief in imagining the fun Roth, Sr. had had with his wife. This could have been lifted directly from a "Transparent" script.) A character is semi-raped during an academic conference; the bizarre violation involves testosterone cream. We watch a trans character killed in the Holocaust; years later, we see her (also) trans daughter struggling mightily with transgressive impulses. The Judith Light character recovers from sexual abuse only to find that she is weirdly aroused (and tormented) by the idea of secrecy (any kind of secrecy. And so guess which character she chooses to marry?) And I haven't even talked about transition surgery: the dreadful scene where Davina's partner suggests he's like Michelangelo with a scalpel, the tossing of Maura's undergarments into the sea, the painful meeting with the doctor. (And then all of the material about the Jewish faith--the struggles of Kathryn Hahn's character, the wandering in the desert/shopping mall, the discussion regarding Sarah's marriage contract and marriage "pageant." Again: Echoes of Philip Roth here.)
Where am I going with all of this? Well, I see Jeffrey Tambor in the news, again and again. I sense that he is sort of a monstrous person. I don't believe that his childhood excuses his behavior; you have the choice to be the person you wish to be, or not, regardless of circumstances, everyday until you die. But I have to say, alongside the awfulness, there is this towering performance. There is the great achievement of "Transparent." (There's also the brilliant work Tambor did in "Death of Stalin," recently.) Two things exist together: (1) Tambor is a noxious person. (2) Tambor is an indisputably gifted performer. One thing doesn't erase the other. The two facts exist together, in an uncomfortable and complicated way. This is the kind of queasiness and weirdness that you might discover--for example--in a typically detailed and searching script for the wonderful (and still-living, still-fruitful) series "Transparent."
Comments
Post a Comment