A Little Ditty about Jack and Diane: Self-Reflexivity and Diegetic Disruptions in Something’s Gotta Give

It’s no secret that Nancy Meyers wrote the screenplay of Something’s Gotta Give (2003) with its lead stars, Diane Keaton and Jack Nicholson, in mind. This is one reason the film noticeably conflates Keaton’s and Nicholson’s characters with their public images. As many critics have indicated, this self-referentiality is certainly an entertaining addition to Meyers’s script about two middle-aged people finding love (and lots of sex) in the autumn of their lives. However, the deliberate use of parody also, I believe, occasionally disrupts the film’s diegesis and thus at times hinders the spectator from completely immersing him/herself in the fictional narrative at hand. This is not to say that the viewer cannot enjoy the film (it is after all one of my favorite modern screwball comedies), but this conscious technique on the part of Meyers does sometimes defy one of the fundamental expectations of Hollywood’s narrative cinema — namely, that the spectator will remain anchored in the story s/he is watching. [1]

In Something’s Gotta Give, Nicholson’s character (Harry Sanborn) grins devilishly, dons Ray Bans, smokes cigars, and only dates younger women. This characterization is clearly a send-up to the actor’s own star persona. Nicholson, who is virtually always photographed with a shark-like grin and sunglasses on his face (and frequently a cigar in his hand), has recently even been quoted as saying this about his trademark: “With my sunglasses on, I’m Jack Nicholson. Without them, I’m fat and seventy” (“Biography”).

In the same way, the actor’s well-publicized romantic relationships with younger women — Rebecca Broussard (who is 26 years younger than Nicholson) and Lara Flynn Boyle (who is 33 years his junior) — are evidently poked fun at in Something’s Gotta Give through Harry’s initial romantic relationship with the 30-year-old Marin Barry (Amanda Peet). For instance, after the opening credits, Meyers reveals a two-shot of Harry and Marin as they drive to the Hamptons for a weekend tryst. But Harry, with his wrinkles and receding hairline, and Marin, with her ponytail and vivaciousness, look more like father and daughter than lovers. Almost immediately, then, we recognize that the couple is mismatched, much like Nicholson and his real-life May-December romances.

This self-reflexivity continues via Harry’s dialogue. On his playboy reputation, for instance, the life-long bachelor quips to Marin, “It just so happens, my dear, that women of a certain age don’t date me. You ever think of it that way? No, it’s always me. You dames are all alike.” On marriage, Harry boasts, “People find it interesting that I’ve escaped the noose for so long.” On having sex three days after a heart attack, Harry gestures at his crotch and asks his young doctor (Keanu Reeves), “What about ‘Mr. Midnight’ here? When can I be up and running in that department?” These lines that Meyers wrote for Nicholson are not all that different from some of the star’s own public quotes:

“You only lie to two people in your life: your girlfriend and the police.”

“I only take Viagra when I am with more than one woman.”

“My motto is: more good times.” (“Biography”)

It is also worth mentioning that the brightest shirt Nicholson wears in the film is the same one in which he was photographed in the year 2000 on a beach with Flynn Boyle. [2] Nicholson apparently was adamant on wearing his own yellow-and-green-striped shirt in the film because it “evoked the beach.” And while Meyers now admits that the shirt is “such a non-issue,” she initially had a major problem with the wardrobe, thought it was extremely out of place in the film, and wanted it ditched: “It monopolized both of us,” the director confesses, “[Jack’s] shirt became the day’s work” (Interview/Commentary). It is unclear if Nicholson insisted on dressing in his own clearly worn-out attire because it, indeed, looked like beachwear, or if the actor — who admits that he constructs his screen characters by looking for clues within the screenplay and within his own life — is consciously parodying his own public playboy status from the earlier tabloid pictures (Interview/Commentary).

Above, Nicholson and Lara Flynn Boyle in Saint-Tropez in 2000.
Below, Keaton and Nicholson in Something’s Gotta Give.

Moreover, Nicholson asserts that many things he did during the filming of Something’s Gotta Give (e.g., specific gestures he gave, the way he looked at Keaton) were much more personal and more natural than anything he had ever done in previous performances: “There were certain things I did in this movie that [were like] something that I’d do in my own life,” Nicholson admits. “There was vulnerability and a direct approach in a lot of these scenes that when I would do them (and I wasn’t prepared for this) and I’d be done with the scene, I’d think ‘Wow, I don’t think that I’ve ever really done that on film before’” (“Nicholson Falls”). So once more, the lines between reality and fiction are being blurred.

In his essay on cross- and self-referencing in Hollywood films, Frank Pillipp claims that although self-awareness and parody are not novel concepts in cinema, they have definitely become faddish. Pointing to Soapdish (Michael Hoffman, 1991), The Player (Robert Altman, 1992), and Last Action Hero (John McTiernan, 1993), all of which reference and satirize the film and television industries, Pillipp suggests that these films constantly seek to “break down the walls between diegetic levels” (55-56; 58). Perhaps self-referentiality and parody “have become the rule rather than the exception,” but still, both theoretically disrupt the audience’s connection to the diegesis; or to use Pillipp’s own terms, both “take the viewer out of the temporal-spatial context into which he has anchored himself” (57).

Consequently, with regard to Something’s Gotta Give, this fusion of the womanizing Harry Sanborn and the star persona of Jack Nicholson distances us periodically from the onscreen events. For instance, as we hear Harry’s opening voiceover (“Some say I’m an expert on The Younger Woman…guess that’s cause I’ve been dating them for over forty years”) and as we listen to some of Harry’s initial lines about Keaton’s character, Erica Barry (“I’ve never seen a woman that age naked before”), we theoretically leave the narrative to question this strange merger between “reality” and fiction. We perhaps ask ourselves the following:

Is Nicholson really satirizing himself in this way?

How did Meyers get him to play this character, and why is he doing it?

And just maybe, we wonder, could Nicholson’s involvement in this narrative actually change his mind about dating women his own age?

Regarding this last hypothetical question, “real” and fictional lines were blurred even more when 2003-04 tabloids claimed that Nicholson and Keaton were dating (Douglas 351-57) and when Keaton admitted several times in an interview with Oprah Winfrey that she is “in love with Jack Nicholson.” And even more recently, there was some chatter about the actors’ potential offscreen love-life after the two were paired together to present the prize for Best Picture at the 79^th Annual Academy Awards.[3]

Are they or aren’t they? Nicholson and Keaton at the 79^th Annual Academy Awards (2007).

Although perhaps not as exaggerated, this self-referentiality is apparent in Keaton’s character as well. A divorced Broadway playwright, Erica Barry is somewhat ditzy and occasionally clumsy, she gesticulates excessively, she speaks with frequent pauses and repetition, and she dresses in white or black buttoned-up clothes and hats. This onscreen image is not unlike Keaton’s star persona. With a fashion sense all her own, Keaton frequently wears gloves, hats, men’s ties, and white or black suits. In fact, in an interview with Keaton for this film, Lesley Stahl’s first words to the actor were about her wardrobe: “You work so hard to hide yourself and cover up. And you’re wearing gloves. We’re in Los Angeles, honey!” Even in Keaton’s current L’Oreal ads, the actor/spokesperson is dressed in either her white turtleneck or a white pants suit.

Keaton, buttoned-up, all in white at the 2004 Golden Globe Awards (above) and for L’Oreal.

Since Meyers envisioned Keaton for Erica Barry, the star’s personal style makes its way into the screenplay of Something’s Gotta Give as well. For instance, during the film’s love scene, Erica directs Harry to cut off her cream-colored turtleneck, freeing her not only from her clothes, but also the film’s visual metaphor for her uptight personality and alleged disinterest in men and sex. As well, one night after dinner, Harry asks the playwright if she ever “gets hot” wearing such high-collared clothes. There are other references to her clothing in the film as well: one day after Harry sees Erica naked, he yells at her, “You saw my ass, and you don’t see me acting nuts, wearing hats and glasses and weird get-ups!” And during one of Harry’s post-heart-attack check-ups, the aging bachelor reiterates Erica’s clothes once more: “Oh, she’s a major piece of work, Doc. The woman wears turtlenecks in the middle of the summer.”

Additionally, Keaton still occasionally responds to interview questions with that same quirky repetitive la-dee-da, la-dee speech that made her famous in Woody Allen’s Annie Hall (1977), a film that was also based on Keaton’s own life (and her real-life relationship with Allen). When asked if she would ever date a younger man as does her character in Something’s Gotta Give, Keaton charmingly stammers about: “It’s a great fantasy to play…I, you know, not for me. Not for me. No. Uh uh.” (Stahl). Similarly, when asked whether she deserves the Academy Award for her portrayal of Erica, the actor stumbles over her words with, “I think that, oh, I don’t know what to say. It would be great. Of course it would be great” (Stahl).

This sort of “stop-and-start” line delivery is also evident in the lines Meyers wrote for Keaton. For instance, when Erica learns that Harry manages a hip-hop record label, she offers, “I’m sorry but, look, you know, I hate rap, I mean, I do. It’s sort of violent and crude for my taste…not to mention just a tad misogynistic.” Similarly, after Erica and Harry first have sex, Meyers has Keaton deliver the following stream-of-consciousness lines: “I have no idea how to do this…be intimate but not….the color is draining from your face. Okay, look, I’m gonna pee, take one of your blood pressure pills then when I get back, let’s not talk anymore.”

Again, most film critics mention the self-referential features in Something’s Gotta Give. While a few complain that the picture “wallows in self-referential smugness” and is “deliriously amused with its own cleverness” (Brady), most actually delight in the fact that, for instance, “Jack is playing Jack” (Foundas). With that said, I am not all that concerned if people approve or disapprove of Meyers’s use of parody and self-reference, but I am intrigued that so many people notice it. That the technique is cited over and over in film (and DVD) reviews suggests that this blending of “reality” and fiction is readily accessible to the film audience and not just an association that only a film scholar or a Hollywood insider would make.

Of course, fictional films are theoretically not supposed to, as Pillip puts it, “disrupt the audience’s connection to the diegesis” in this manner. After all, Hollywood was/is dominated by a single mode of narrative form (classical Hollywood cinema) as well as two highly structured continuity systems of editing and sound — all of which are in place to keep audiences involved in the storyworld, not move him/her in and out of the diegesis. But here, the slippage of meaning between Nicholson’s/Harry’s womanizing and between Keaton’s/Erica’s unusual clothing and speech patterns occasionally (and hilariously) challenge that.

Works Cited

Berardinelli, James. Rev. of Something’s Gotta Give, by Nancy Meyers. ReelViews.com Dec. 2003.

“Biography for Jack Nicholson.” Internet Movie Database 4 Sept. 2006.

Brady, Sara. Rev. of Something’s Gotta Give, by Nancy Meyers. Premiere Magazine 12 Dec. 2003.

Douglas, Edward. Jack, the Great Seducer: The Life and Many Loves of Jack Nicholson. New York: HarperCollins, 2004.

Ebert, Roger. Rev. of Something’s Gotta Give, by Nancy Meyers. Chicago Sun-Times 12 Dec. 2003.

Foundas, Scott. Rev. of Something’s Gotta Give, by Nancy Meyers. Variety 5 Dec. 2003.

Griffin, Frank. Personal Interview. 5 Dec. 2006.

Griffin, Nancy. “Diane Keaton Meets Both Her Matches.” Rev. of Something’s Gotta Give, by Nancy Meyers. The New York Times 14 Dec. 2003.

Grossman, Lev. “Jack of Hearts.” Time (8 Dec. 2003): 52-54.

Keaton, Diane. “Falling in Love Again with Diane Keaton.” Interview with Terry Keefe. Venice Magazine Jan. 2004.

——-. Interview with Lesley Stahl. 48 Hours 18 Feb. 2004.

——-. Interview with Oprah Winfrey. The Oprah Winfrey Show. 3 Mar. 2006.

Nicholson, Jack. Interview/Commentary. Something’s Gotta Give. DVD. Columbia, 2004.

——-. “Jack Nicholson Falls Hard for the Romantic Comedy Something’s Gotta Give.” Interview with About.com 7 Dec. 2003.

Pillip, Frank. “Creative Incest: Cross- and Self-Referencing in Recent Hollywood Cinema.” Literature/Film Quarterly 27.1 (1999): 55-64.

Schwarzbaum, Lisa. Rev. of Something’s Gotta Give, by Nancy Meyers. Entertainment Weekly 3 Dec. 2003.

Scott, A. O. “Weep, and the World Laughs Hysterically.” Rev. of Something’s Gotta Give, by Nancy Meyers. New York Times 12 Dec. 2003.

Something’s Gotta Give. Dir. Nancy Meyers. Perf. Diane Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Keanu Reeves, Amanda Peet. DVD. Columbia, 2004.

Thomson, David. “Jack, the Lad.” Rev. of Something’s Gotta Give, by Nancy Meyers. The Independent on Sunday (14 Dec. 2003): 1.

Weiskind, Ron. Rev. of Something’s Gotta Give, by Nancy Meyers. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 12 Dec. 2003.

Notes

[1] Berardinelli, Ebert, Grossman, Schwarzbaum, Scott, Thomson, and Weiskind reference Meyers’s use of self-referentiality. Nancy Griffin, Grossman, and Keaton’s interview with Terry Keefe cite Meyers’s intentions with the screenplay.

[2] This photograph of Nicholson and Flynn Boyle in Saint-Tropez is circulated widely on the Internet. Some sites claim that the picture was taken during the summer of 2006 and that the couple, who allegedly dated from 1999 to 2001, had reunited. Several other sites claim that the photo was not taken in 2006, but in 2001, when the couple was actually an item. According to Hollywood photographer Frank Griffin — whose company, Bauer-Griffin, the photo is attributed to — the image should be dated around May or October of 2000, which confirms that the shirt is indeed Nicholson’s and that he owned it prior to the making of Something’s Gotta Give. (I spoke with Frank Griffin.)

[3] There are references to Keaton and Nicholson’s potential real-life romance in the entertainment section of iVillage.com: “When a Britney-bald Jack Nicholson and good friend Diane Keaton presented the Oscar for Best Picture, we felt a certain heat coming through the screen. Maybe it’s just the connection they have as former co-stars, but we wouldn’t be surprised if there was a little ditty about Jack and Diane that we didn’t know about” <http://slideshow.ivillage.com/entertainment/2007_oscar_couples/chemistry_class.html>. Several bloggers mentioned the pairing too, for instance, “Diane Keaton and (a bald!) Jack Nicholson come out to present Best Picture. There’s some weird vibe or inside joke thing going on between Keaton and Nicholson” <http://www.cinematical.com/2007/02/26>. And here is another (more vulgar) reference about the same: “I promise you that he and Diane Keaton had a little bit of ‘something’ before they gave out the Best Picture Oscar. We were trying to figure out if it was blow or just a quickie in the bathroom that got them so wound up but there was something going on” <http://evilbeet.blogspot.com/2007/02>.

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