A great deal of Catherine O'Hara's legacy is tied with that of Eugene Levy. The pair collaborated for the better part of half a century. This collaboration began at Second City & SCTV and ended with Schitt's Creek. In the middle were a series of movies directed by Christopher Guest which he co-wrote with Levy.
Between 1996 and 2006, O'Hara and Levy were a core part of a company actors who appeared together in four films - Waiting for Guffman (1996), Best in Show (2000), A Mighty Wind (2003) and For Your Consideration (2006). Best in Show and A Mighty Wind make for the best pairing as O'Hara and Levy are cast as a married couple and a formerly married couple so there is a lot of screen time with the pair.
In Best in Show, O'Hara and Levy play Cookie and Gerry Fleck, a Florida based couple who travel to Philadelphia to compete in a dog show which they ultimately win. The pair cannot go anywhere without running into of Cookie's former paramours much to the chagrin of Gerry who literally has two left feet.
In A Mighty Wind, O'Hara and Levy play Mitch Cohen and Mickey Crabbe who were a folk music duo known as Mitch and Mickey. However, the couple have been estranged for years and only reunite when the man who started their career dies, and a tribute show is held in his honor at New York City's Town Hall.
Both films are uproariously funny. Aside from O'Hara and Levy, we see in both films Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, Jane Lynch, Jennifer Coolidge, John Michael Higgins, Parker Posey, Fred Willard, Ed Begley, Jr., Larry Miller, Bob Balaban, Jim Piddock, Don Lake, Deborah Theaker and Michael Hitchcock. This is a remarkable company of actors, and O'Hara and Levy are first among equals.
Of the two films, A Mighty Wind resonates with me more deeply. For starters, I care about more 1960's folk music than I do about dogs. That detail aside, I think O'Hara and Levy do some of their most interesting work onscreen. While plenty funny, O'Hara is far more self-contained as Mickey Crabbe than in other roles while Levy, who is usually the straight man of the pair, plays against type as the unpredictable and volatile yet sensitive Mitch Cohen. Among the laughs, there are moments of warmth and tenderness between the two.
O'Hara and Levy also get to show off their considerable musical talent. "A Kiss at the End of The Rainbow" would have been a great 1960's folk song.
If the loss of Catherine O'Hara was a kick in the gut, I cannot begin to imagine the grief Eugene Levy has been feeling. In June, Levy paid tribute to his friend of more than half a century at the Canadian Screen Awards.
Levy summed up O'Hara in this way, "For me, she was the one person I spent the most time working with over our 50-year careers and that is something I take great pride in being able to say. Catherine O'Hara was simply the best." R.I.P.
No comments:
Post a Comment