6 ms·

Portrait of an Artist as an Old Man: Mel Brooks in His 90s

71 points by johnny313 8y ago

hprotagonist 8y ago
Profiles like this seem to only be published when someone’s pretty near death. (the Leonard Cohen new yorker profile being a good example). not looking forward to that—Mel Brooks is a national treasure.
- melling 8y ago
  Excellent use of confirmation bias?
- melling 8y ago
  I got downvoted for confirmation bias. Let me try again. Can we crawl out of the Dark Ages?
a_d 8y ago
Mel Brooks features in two Joseph Heller (of Catch-22 fame) books: No laughing matter and From Coney Island to here. It is amazing to read about how Mario Puzo (of The Godfather), Mel Brooks, Joseph Heller, Speed Vogel spent their evenings together, playing cards, eating dinner, watching TV and just ‘shooting some shit’ as friend do. The passages in the book reminded me of impressionist painters gathered in a Parisian cafe talking about where to get cheap turpentine (as depicted in the book ‘Lust for life’). Worth a read! There is also an article where two old friends (Brooks and Heller) meet again:https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/entertainment/books/1979/03/11/mel-brooks-meets-joseph-heller/1f2e9a54-724f-4bf7-b000-460d1d778d18/?utm_term=.e18d582009f7 https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/entertainment/books/1... Also, in one of the brilliant episodes of Jerry Seinfeld’s Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, he pays a visit to Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner (with Chinese Take-out food) — I highly recommend watching that to get a glimpse of sharp incisive wit in full action at age 90! Edit: this link is better http://articles.latimes.com/1998/feb/27/news/ls-23428 http://articles.latimes.com/1998/feb/27/news/ls-23428
- delinka 8y ago
  Chinese? There were definitely sandwiches. Maybe there was also Chinese, but definitely sandwiches.
  - a_d 8y ago
    Yes. Roast beef sandwiches, Potato salad and soup :)
kazinator 8y ago
Lil' old man!
TangoTrotFox 8y ago
I find it bemusing to imagine Mel Brook's movies being released today. Think about Blazing Saddles. It'd be met with nonstop claims about all sorts of isms and ists with coordinated Twitter attacks to try to hurt Brooks or any company that facilitated it or its release. And of course he is not, nor are his films. In a way it's the same thing that's already happened to Mark Twain and The Adventurers of Huckleberry Fin. It's now been banned in numerous US schools under typically facile implications of isms and ists, because of a certain word. The thing I find most bewildering though is that people seem to no longer actually care about content or context - it's all about the most incredibly superficial approach to everything. It's interesting that both Mel Brooks with Blazing Saddles, and Twain with Huck Fin, made a point of contrasting the superficiality and nonsensical nature of labels against the strength of character of those being labeled. The slave/prisoner in both tales being one of the only decent and honorable peoples in their respective stories. Just kind of sad to feel like we're regressing so much and calling it progress.
- maxerickson 8y ago
  Oh come on, Huck Finn has been banned in stupid schools for decades.
bmmayer1 8y ago
This passage resonates especially well with today's times: Audiences hoping for safe spaces—especially Jewish audiences—can be rudely jostled by Brooks’s wilder moments. The musical number “Springtime for Hitler,” first unleashed in the movie version of The Producers (1968), of course turned Nazism into merry choreography—boys and girls singing and dancing in S.S. uniforms and regalia. The joke was something more than a joke. Those who had seen Broadway shows in the ’50s and ’60s knew how closely Brooks adhered to the shape and sound of Broadway style. The audience for musical comedies was heavily Jewish, so the wit was partially aimed at them and at Jews in general—an audience inclined to feel itself a victim of history.
scandox 8y ago
Young Frankenstein was written and developed by Gene Wilder. It was definitely not born out of Brooks’ obsession with Mary Shelley’s novel and even Brooks would hardly say so!
- justin66 8y ago
  You may well be right, but they certainly share a screenplay credit.
qrbLPHiKpiux 8y ago
Spaceballs and Blazing Saddles are my favorite movies from him.
RickJWagner 8y ago
It's a great pity that today's generation can't appreciate Brooks' greatest works. Too politically incorrect. Of course the irony is that Brooks' work was groundbreaking for it's time. He skewered everyone equally, except for bigots who got a double dose. But in today's society, much of it would be considered too raw. It really is a shame, because it teaches us all to laugh at ourselves.
- splatzone 8y ago
  Really a whole generation? Anecdotal but I and so many of my friends in our early twenties adore Mel Brooks

71 points by johnny313 8y ago

Profiles like this seem to only be published when someone’s pretty near death. (the Leonard Cohen new yorker profile being a good example). not looking forward to that—Mel Brooks is a national treasure.

melling 8y ago
Excellent use of confirmation bias?
melling 8y ago
I got downvoted for confirmation bias. Let me try again. Can we crawl out of the Dark Ages?

a_d 8y ago

Mel Brooks features in two Joseph Heller (of Catch-22 fame) books: No laughing matter and From Coney Island to here. It is amazing to read about how Mario Puzo (of The Godfather), Mel Brooks, Joseph Heller, Speed Vogel spent their evenings together, playing cards, eating dinner, watching TV and just ‘shooting some shit’ as friend do. The passages in the book reminded me of impressionist painters gathered in a Parisian cafe talking about where to get cheap turpentine (as depicted in the book ‘Lust for life’). Worth a read! There is also an article where two old friends (Brooks and Heller) meet again:https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/entertainment/books/1979/03/11/mel-brooks-meets-joseph-heller/1f2e9a54-724f-4bf7-b000-460d1d778d18/?utm_term=.e18d582009f7 https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/entertainment/books/1... Also, in one of the brilliant episodes of Jerry Seinfeld’s Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, he pays a visit to Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner (with Chinese Take-out food) — I highly recommend watching that to get a glimpse of sharp incisive wit in full action at age 90! Edit: this link is better http://articles.latimes.com/1998/feb/27/news/ls-23428 http://articles.latimes.com/1998/feb/27/news/ls-23428

delinka 8y ago
Chinese? There were definitely sandwiches. Maybe there was also Chinese, but definitely sandwiches.
- a_d 8y ago
  Yes. Roast beef sandwiches, Potato salad and soup :)

kazinator 8y ago

Lil' old man!

TangoTrotFox 8y ago

I find it bemusing to imagine Mel Brook's movies being released today. Think about Blazing Saddles. It'd be met with nonstop claims about all sorts of isms and ists with coordinated Twitter attacks to try to hurt Brooks or any company that facilitated it or its release. And of course he is not, nor are his films. In a way it's the same thing that's already happened to Mark Twain and The Adventurers of Huckleberry Fin. It's now been banned in numerous US schools under typically facile implications of isms and ists, because of a certain word. The thing I find most bewildering though is that people seem to no longer actually care about content or context - it's all about the most incredibly superficial approach to everything. It's interesting that both Mel Brooks with Blazing Saddles, and Twain with Huck Fin, made a point of contrasting the superficiality and nonsensical nature of labels against the strength of character of those being labeled. The slave/prisoner in both tales being one of the only decent and honorable peoples in their respective stories. Just kind of sad to feel like we're regressing so much and calling it progress.

maxerickson 8y ago
Oh come on, Huck Finn has been banned in stupid schools for decades.

bmmayer1 8y ago

This passage resonates especially well with today's times: Audiences hoping for safe spaces—especially Jewish audiences—can be rudely jostled by Brooks’s wilder moments. The musical number “Springtime for Hitler,” first unleashed in the movie version of The Producers (1968), of course turned Nazism into merry choreography—boys and girls singing and dancing in S.S. uniforms and regalia. The joke was something more than a joke. Those who had seen Broadway shows in the ’50s and ’60s knew how closely Brooks adhered to the shape and sound of Broadway style. The audience for musical comedies was heavily Jewish, so the wit was partially aimed at them and at Jews in general—an audience inclined to feel itself a victim of history.

scandox 8y ago

Young Frankenstein was written and developed by Gene Wilder. It was definitely not born out of Brooks’ obsession with Mary Shelley’s novel and even Brooks would hardly say so!

justin66 8y ago
You may well be right, but they certainly share a screenplay credit.

qrbLPHiKpiux 8y ago

Spaceballs and Blazing Saddles are my favorite movies from him.

RickJWagner 8y ago

It's a great pity that today's generation can't appreciate Brooks' greatest works. Too politically incorrect. Of course the irony is that Brooks' work was groundbreaking for it's time. He skewered everyone equally, except for bigots who got a double dose. But in today's society, much of it would be considered too raw. It really is a shame, because it teaches us all to laugh at ourselves.

splatzone 8y ago
Really a whole generation? Anecdotal but I and so many of my friends in our early twenties adore Mel Brooks