|
|
June 22, 2001/Tamuz 1, 5761, Vol. 53, No.38
Bruckheimer defends blockbuster image
NAOMI PFEFFERMAN
The Los Angeles Jewish Journal
Jerry Bruckheimer laughs when you mention the reviews that charge he makes Money, not Art. "Thanks for reminding me," he quips. "But I get great reviews from the Bank of America."
A fitting response for a producer who is the uncontested king of Hollywood blockbusters.
His "Pearl Harbor," the priciest movie ever approved by one studio, opened over Memorial Day weekend with the biggest series of explosions ever recorded on film.
In the 1980s, Bruckheimer and his then-partner, Don Simpson, bought matching black Ferraris, hired identical twin assistants and churned out a string of multibillion-dollar testosterone-fests like "Top Gun" and "Beverly Hills Cop." Even after Simpson died of a drug overdose in 1996, Bruckheimer continued to reign as cinema's adrenaline mogul with flicks such as "Con Air" and "Armageddon." If you do the math, he's probably the most financially successful producer in movie history, with film, video and soundtrack revenues topping $11 billion.
So what if the critics dump on his movies? Bruckheimer says he personally identifies with the genre. "It's about overcoming your problems and succeeding," he says.
If Bruckheimer made his own biopic, it would begin in his childhood home in a blue-collar Jewish section of Detroit just after World War II.
His parents were German-Jewish immigrants who arrived in the United States in the 1920s; his father was active in the Conservative synagogue where Jerry became a bar mitzvah. Bruckheimer senior never made more than $140 a week as a salesman but Bruckheimer junior was more ambitious.
When his parents dropped him off at weekly matinees at the Motor City theater, he dreamed of Hollywood.
"I wanted to make movies," he says. "I fell in love with the magic."
Bruckheimer studied photography, won some local prizes and then fled Detroit the way his parents had left the Old Country. He arrived in Hollywood after giving up a lucrative Madison Avenue advertising job to accept a low-paying 1972 movie gig. By the early '80s, he was collaborating with Simpson on "Flashdance," a surprise hit that put the producers on the Hollywood A-list.
Bruckheimer gleaned ideas for films by voraciously reading four newspapers a day and 90 magazines a month. He says his drive to succeed was motivated by his parents' immigrant experience. "They were always scraping together a nickel," he says. "I didn't want to be poor, to tell you the truth."
Given his family history, one would expect Bruckheimer's World War II movie to be set in Nazi-occupied Europe, not the Pacific. His mother's half-siblings died in concentration camps, while his uncle, who was fluent in German, served as an interpreter in U.S. intelligence.
But then again, Bruckheimer knows a good story when he sees one. While other producers feverishly developed Holocaust-themed projects in the wake of "Schindler's List," he paid attention to a Disney executive who described visiting the USS Arizona memorial at Pearl Harbor some time ago. The exec noted that the battleship had been demolished within five minutes during the Japanese surprise attack on Dec. 7, 1941. "We thought that would make a great backdrop for a movie," Bruckheimer says. "It was the first time we were ever defeated on our own soil."
These days, Bruckheimer does not belong to a synagogue, but he is returning to his roots by developing his first Jewish-themed film, "Operation Moses," based on the mass airlift of Ethiopian Jews to Israel in 1985. It's a saga worthy of a Bruckheimer movie, with a cloak-and-dagger military operation, a dangerous desert journey and an inspiring ending. Will the movie be an action film? "Absolutely," Bruckheimer says. "I (envision) a number of explosive sequences." The producer is so proud of the project that it's prominently listed in his bio in the production notes for "Pearl Harbor."
But don't suggest to Bruckheimer that Jewish action heroes won't draw big box office bucks. "If there is a stereotype that Jews aren't action heroes, you can always get around it," he says. "What's important is the storytelling."
|
