http://www.berkshireeagle.com/ci_16211281?source=most_emailed
He shunned Hollywood and made a Berkshires neighborhood famous.
By Derek Gentile
09/30/2010
STOCKBRIDGE -- Arthur Penn, the iconic director behind such classics
as "Bonnie and Clyde" and "Little Big Man" and who put Great
Barrington's VanDeusenville neighborhood on the map with his
direction of "Alice's Restaurant," died Tuesday night, one day after
his 88th birthday.
On Wednesday, his daughter, Molly Penn, announced her father had died
at his home in Manhattan of congestive heart failure.
Longtime friend and business manager Evan Bell said Wednesday that
Penn had been ill for about a year. A memorial service for Penn will
be scheduled before the end of the year.
Penn, who had a home in Stockbridge for almost 50 years, was honored
at the Berkshire International Film Festival in 2007 for his
contributions to the film industry.
"He had none of the airs about him that you would associate with a
prominent, ground-breaking director of movies and theater," recalled
Eagle Editorial Page Editor and film critic Bill Everhart, who
interviewed Penn prior to the 2007 BIFF Festival. "He was relaxed,
good-natured and frank about the ups and downs of his career, which
included a few unhappy experiences in Hollywood.
"He plainly loved life in the Berkshires, and with his casual,
no-nonsense manner, he fit right in," said Everhart.
Everhart recalled that Penn told him that he and his wife Peggy were
frequent visitors to the Triplex cinema in Great Barrington.
Penn initially made a name for himself as a Broadway director,
according to an interview in The Eagle in 1985. But he eventually
turned to films in the 1960s.
He is perhaps best known for directing "Bonnie and Clyde," a
sympathetic portrayal of Depression-era outlaws Bonnie Parker and
Clyde Barrow, as played by Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty.
In addition, Penn directed "Little Big Man," a story of the Old West
with the Indians as the good guys, starring Dustin Hoffman; an
adaptation of "The Miracle Worker," with an Oscar-winning performance
by Anne Bancroft; "The Missouri Breaks," an outlaw picture starring
Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson; and "All The Right Moves," a Los
Angeles thriller featuring Gene Hackman.
Critics confused
The softened image of criminals in "Bonnie and Clyde" confused most
critics when it was released in 1967.
"When [the movie] came out, we were in the tank," Penn said in a 2007
interview at the BIFF. "The critics hated it."
The film's violence was also a sticking point: The climactic scene in
the film shows Barrow and Parker being shot to death by police in
slow motion, blood bursting from their bodies.
Penn said in that same BIFF interview that the violence in "Bonnie
and Clyde" was graphic for a reason: The television coverage of the
Vietnam War was "every bit as bloody, perhaps more, than my film. So
I thought that if we were going to show someone getting shot, with
all the blood and the gore, we should really show it!"
But locally, Penn is most identified with the filming of "Alice's
Restaurant," based on the iconic ballad by local folksinger Arlo
Guthrie about being turned down for the draft because he had once
been fined for littering. The film itself was set in Stockbridge as
well as the VanDeusenville residence, a former church, of
restaurateur Alice Brock.
Selectmen confrontation
In June 1968, according to Eagle files, Penn met with the Stockbridge
Selectmen to outline his ideas for the film. Penn revealed to the
board that night that he was hoping to cast Guthrie and former
Stockbridge Police Chief William Obanhein in the movie as themselves.
Obanhein was the officer who arrested Guthrie and made him pick up
all the litter that Guthrie and a friend had dumped over a hillside
in Stockbridge the previous year, thus contributing to the song.
The board, specifically then-Selectman Arthur W. Maskell Jr., wanted
some assurance that the film would not cast residents or the town in
a "bad light."
"This bothers some of the townspeople," admitted Maskell.
Several residents at the meeting were concerned that Stockbridge
would be a place identified as a "hippie hangout" in the movie.
The discussion got a bit tense, as Penn conceded that "I don't think
there's any way I can assure everyone in town in advance whether or
not they will be offended."
Obanhein, according to the story, eventually broke the tension.
"Darn," he said. "I should have picked that rubbish up myself!"
Arthur Hiller Penn was born in Philadelphia on Sept. 27, 1922. He was
the son of Harry and Sonia Penn, and the younger brother of
photographer Irving Penn who died in 2009. When he was 3, Penn and
his mother moved to New York after his parents divorced.
On the move
Penn and his mother, a nurse who had run a health food store, lived
in a succession of apartments in New York City and New Jersey. The
young Arthur Penn attended at least a dozen elementary schools.
At age 14, Penn returned to Philadelphia to live with his ailing
father and help him run his watch repairman's shop.
Penn was no filmgoer as a child; books and baseball mattered more. In
an interview with The Associated Press, Penn said he was frightened
by a horror movie at age 5 and did not see another film until his
teens, when Orson Wells' "Citizen Kane" "staggered him," he said.
Penn joined the Army during World War II, and was in an infantry unit
that fought at the Battle of the Bulge. After the war, he studied
literature in Italy for two years, then returned to New York City,
where he worked as a floor manager on NBC-TVs "Colgate Comedy Hour."
By the early 1950s, Penn was writing and directing TV dramas. In
1956, he debuted as a Broadway director, but "The Lovers" closed
after four days.
An award-winner
Penn earned Academy Award nominations for "Bonnie and Clyde," "Little
Big Man," and "The Miracle Worker." On stage, "On The Way Home" won
both a Tony Award and a Pulitzer Prize in 1961 as Best Play.
He opted to live on the East Coast, in New York City and in
Stockbridge, rather than Los Angeles, as he had been disappointed by
the moviemaking process in Hollywood, which tended to focus on
blockbusters, rather than serious drama.
In a 2007 interview, Penn recalled that the first time he heard the
song, "Alice's Restaurant," in 1966, he "loved it, I thought it was great."
Penn continued: "And moviemaking was so easy in those days. I called
United Artists and told them I wanted to make a movie and they said, 'Sure.' "
But, he admitted, glumly, "It's not that easy anymore."
--
To reach Derek Gentile:
dgentile@berkshireeagle.com
or (413)528-3660.
.
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