AMERICAN MASTERS MIKE NICHOLS MOVIE

The movie (which airs on PBS tonight at 9 P.M.) isnвЂ™t a major contribution to MayвЂ™s filmography her singular and original artistry doesnвЂ™t take utterly free flight here, but the show is nonetheless distinctive in its sparseness, its fixed and almost obsessive concentration on NicholsвЂ™s face and voice. But these punctuations feel unusually judicious and brisk whatвЂ™s noteworthy about the film, besides NicholsвЂ™s own reflections, is the fact that May leaves him on camera talking in close-up, without musical or graphic adornment, for surprisingly extended periods. Most of the filmвЂ™s fifty-two minutes feature Nichols in this one filmed interview, which is punctuated only by a few snippets of interviews with others (including Meryl Streep, Renata Adler, Robin Williams, Tom Hanks, and the director Stanley Donen, who is MayвЂ™s partner) as well as a handful of archival stills, newspaper clippings, and film clips. Nichols tells that story, as he tells the story of the rest of his life and work, in the form of a talking head against a murky black background, the work of a filmed interview from some time in his later years, conducted by the producer Julian Schlossberg. ThatвЂ™s because Nichols was born in Berlin but, as a Jew persecuted under the Nazi regime, immigrated at the age of seven to New York.

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF EVERETTД«ut first, before Nichols gets to open his mouth, May begins with a swift comic touch: the title card, вЂњMike Nichols: An American Master,вЂќ set to the perky strains of вЂњEine Kleine Nachtmusik,вЂќ dissolves to a clip of Adolf Hitler bellowing a speech. Elaine May directs the American Masters tribute to Mike Nichols, with whom she became famous, in the late nineteen-fifties, as an improvisational comedy duo.

American masters mike nichols