Monday, August 17, 1998
The University Daily Kansan
Section C·Page 17
Prison drama holds viewers captive
Disturbing series from 'Homicide' creator rings true
By Frazier Moore
AP Television Writer
NEW YORK — Many mornings last spring, Edie Falco would step into her rollerblades and skate to iail.
An actress on a roll, she plays Diane Wittlesey, a correctional officer at the Oswald Maximum Security Penitentiary — "Oz" — on the uncompromising HBO series of the same name.
"But I have certainly had this type of role in real life," says Falco with a shrug, recalling years of waiting tables to get by — another service-type job in a blue polyester uniform.
When filming resumed for a second "Oz" season, she again had the good fortune to be living just a few blocks from her Chelsea workplace. The set of Oz and its experimental unit, the modern, bright Cell Block 5 (dubbed Emerald City) are in a former Nabatae cookie factory.
There she joined an ensemble
of actors, including Ernie Hudson, Terry Kinney, Rita Moreno and B.D. Wong, in a fierce, captivating series. Created and co-written by Tom Fontana, whose credits include NBC's "Homicide," this series will not let you go.
To put it mildly, people in Oz have a hard time getting along with each other. On the third of the season's eight episodes, Warden Glynn (Hudson) copes with his daughter's rape on a city street — and with the taunting silence of a con who knows her attacker.
Edie Falco
Another inmate, Schillinger (J.K. Simmons), makes a gruesome power play to restore inmates' respect for the Aryan faction he leads. And the twisted manipulator O'Reilly (Dean Winters) goes into the hospital for a mastectomy.
While it may sound like a freak show, it is not. What makes "Oz" such disturbing television is how it captures the rest of us. At the worst times, it rings familiar. And dreadfully convincing, with its cell block of actors playing brutish and depraved.
Whew.
"It feels really quite comfortable,
"argues Falco, who grew up
"You would not believe it, but for some reason this is the funniest bunch of people I've ever been with in one room. When these guys all get started, I'm sick to my stomach from laughing so hard."
as one of the guys in her Long Island town. "There's little about Diane that has to do with being a woman, so it is not hard to forget, at times, that she's doing a man's job."
Actress
She does that job with no concern for either reforming or tormenting those in her charge. She just wants to pay her bills. A single parent with an ill mother, Diane is another prisoner, held captive by a job that pays slightly better than whatever else she might land. "There isn't the time or the luxury of saying, 'Oh God, this is scary, I don't know if I can hack it.'"
Playing Diane, maybe Falco,
34, can draw on sense-memory
from her years as a self-described bad, grudging waitress.
"I'd been doing low-budget movies for many years, and you
don't get paid a lot, but I had resigned myself to that lifestyle," she recalls. "Then I would be bringing a fajita to somebody, and they would go, 'I saw you in so-and-so.' Horryrifying! I'm covered in tomato juice and smell like drinks, and I get recognized from a part I played. I couldn't bear it."
Thanks to HBO's upcoming series "Sopranos," in which she plays a mob wife with big hair and too much makeup, Falco can expect to park her order pad for good. And she's hoping for a third year of "Oz," which, despite all signs to the contrary, she describes as a behind-the-scenes hoot: Jail, jail, the gang's all here!
"You would not believe it, but for some reason this is the funniest bunch of people I've ever been with in one room." Falco
confides. "When these guys all get started, I'm sick to my stomach from laughing so hard."
After laughing at just the thought of them, she makes a further disclosure.
"I hope they'll forgive me for saying it, but these are not really the toughest bunch of guys." She laughs at the reporter's incredulous expression. "They have the script working in their behalf." Do you agree?
Does that mean that Falco's not as tough as her character?
"Well, the truth is," she says, "I am."
Elsewhere in television
PAN-AFRICAN FILM FESTIVAL: Cable's BET Movies continues its "Pan-African Film Festival," a collection of award-winning films from Africa and the African Diaspora. This week's feature is "Haramuya," a 1995 French drama directed by Jean Brehat. Set in a modern African city, Ouagadougou, the film centers on a devout Muslim named Faco who tries to run his two-wife household in the traditional way. The trouble begins when the ambitious younger son gets involved with his older brother's hoodlum friends. The festival will continue through Aug. 26. Actress CCH Pounder is host.
Commentary
Aaron Spelling on fantasy island, critic says
By David Baudor AP Television Writer
90210.
NEW YORK — Summers are usually lazy, dull times on the television beat, as on television itself. Which is all the more reason to be thankful for Aaron Spelling.
The noted TV producer felt compelled to issue a statement days after a tsunami struck the coast of Papua New Guinea, killing thousands of people.
The tidal waves rolled ashore on the same day that Spelling's cheesy, ratings-challenged soap opera Sunset Beach began a story line in which Southern California is struck by a devastating earthquake and tidal wave.
Sort of a case of life imitating art,
if you consider Sunset Beach art.
"We were appalled to read about the earthquake and tsunami that occurred in New Guinea," said Spelling, producer of Melrose Place, Charlie's Angels and Beverly Hills
"On Sunset Beach, we had also staged an earthquake and tidal wave. Our shooting of these episodes occurred weeks before the New Guinea catastrophe. We sincerely hope that our fans and the press
Spelling: Story line on soap opera echoes reality.
realize that. Had we known beforehand of the impending disaster in New Guinea, we would never have created a similar story line."
Wait a minute. "Also staged?" By whom? That Great Director in the Sky? And did the budget division approve the special effects?
Now there are several ways of looking at the motivation behind a statement like this.
It could be that Spelling, child of the human race, simply was trying to express his concern for fellow man in the face of great suffering.
Of course, believing that anyone outside of the Spelling household would care what Aaron Spelling thinks of the Papua New Guinea tragedy is a rather remarkable display of hubris. Even for the man who turned Shannen Doherty and Farrah Fawcett into stars.
Did Spelling fear that fans would think he instantly whipped up a story about a killer wave to take advantage of a tragedy while still fresh in the public's mind?
Well, there were three Joey Buttufuco TV flicks (none by Spelling, in his defense). You can almost hear the whirring of Hollywood minds: Earthquake. Tidal wave. Children thrown into lagoons. People hanging on to trees for dear life.
Or it could be that Spelling, mindful that not everyone may be aware of the Sunset Beach plot twist despite NBC's publicity blitz, was trying to take advantage of a tragic coincidence and let people know.
Kind of a public service, in other words.
Why didn't I think of that?
"No, no, no, no," said Jonathan Zaleski, Spelling's public relations representative. Spelling simply was responding to several press inquiries about the weird timing.
The story line was conceived and filmed more than a month ago, an effort to shake things up on the moribund soap, "It wasn't meant to be in poor taste," Zaleski said.
The Sunset tsunami story line lasts about a month — rather brief for a soap opera, where one night of passion usually lasts a month — so there was nothing else to do but keep it going, he said. At least three weeks of lead time would be necessary to get replacement episodes on the air, and taking
Sunset Beach off for ruruns wasn't an option.
"Once you shoot it, you can't really go back." Zaleski said.
That's OK. We accept the explanation. If the story line is in bad taste, people have the freedom not to watch it. That won't necessarily force a massive, nationwide change in plans.
But it's that last line of Spelling's statement that is most intriguing:
"Had we known beforehand of the impending disaster in New Guinea, we would never have created a similar story line."
Of course, if the people of New Guinea had known about the impending disaster a month ahead of time, they might have picked up their villages and moved to the mountains. As it was, there were about six minutes between the earth shaking and the waves crashing ashore.
Maybe the Great Director will plan ahead next time.