Revenge of the Male Weepie Mask

By RICHARD CORLISS

Moviegoers don't get many chances to cry together in public these days. The local picture house is a place for belly laughs and slasher screams; for a cathartic sob one must go to TV for a Movie of the Week or a late show. Once in a while, though, a film will buck the glut of exploitation movies and attract any viewer who still carries a hankie. Critic Raymond Durgnat called them "male weepies": films to make a grown man, or a baby mogul, cry. They describe a heroic life struggle that may end in defeat or death but never in ignominy. There is nothing like a fighter against the odds--a caring father (Kramer vs. Kramer), a troubled teenager (Ordinary People), a young cancer victim (Terms of Endearment) or a misunderstood songwriter (Amadeus)--to exalt ! and liquefy a theaterful of adults. Or to win the past six Oscars for Best Picture.

With $20 million in its first 17 days of wide release, Mask is this year's first strong entry in the weepstakes. Its subject, Rocky Dennis, was the butt of one of God's practical jokes. This bright teenager had a preternaturally sweet disposition--and the grotesque face of Bert Lahr's Cowardly Lion. Rocky's rare disease, craniodiaphyseal dysplasia, ended his life at 16, in 1978. And yet (of course) he was one of nature's noblemen, loved by puppies, blind girls and the motorcycle gang his mother Rusty hung out with. "I look weird," says Rocky (Eric Stoltz, in a wonderfully authentic performance), "but otherwise I'm real normal." Better than normal. He shines in school, plays Cupid between his mom (Cher) and a rowdy old friend (Sam Elliott), and falls into tender love with a City Lights sweetie (Laura Dern) who can see only his good heart and humor. Metaphorically, Rocky is the beautiful soul hidden in every shy teenager with a bad case of zits.

It is the mandate of male weepies to smash one Hollywood cliche (in this case, that heroes are always handsome) in order to reveal several others (beauty is the beast; the good die young). Anna Hamilton Phelan's script neither sidesteps nor wallows in these homilies; it is notable mostly for the bathetic excesses it avoids. So is Peter Bogdanovich's directorial touch. Bogdanovich may be the last and finest avatar of the classic Hollywood style; discreet tracking shots, invisible editing, no camerabatics, no teary close- ups for emotional blackmail. Nobody is trying to make a masterpiece here. Mask has a sturdy, disposable feel to it, like the tissues moviegoers are advised to bring with them when they see it.

At the moment, it is Bogdanovich who feels disposable. He has his biggest hit since Paper Moon a dozen years ago, yet he has virtually disowned Mask. Seems Producer Martin Starger cut two scenes from the film and replaced music by Bruce Springsteen (Rocky's favorite rock star) with four Bob Seger songs. Twenty-two directors, including Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese and Frank Capra, came to Bogdanovich's defense; so did an impromptu protest committee, Moviegoers Against Studio Kibitzing (M.A.S.K.). So the picture offers two parables: one of Hollywood devouring its own, one of the man in the lion mask. The second is worth attending to, for it demonstrates anew that there is such a thing as an honest cry at the movies.