The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990)

After his mistress runs over a young teen, a Wall Street hotshot sees his life unravel in the spotlight and attracting the interest of a down and out reporter.

Director:

Brian De Palma (as Brian DePalma)

Writers:

Michael Cristofer (screenplay), Tom Wolfe (novel)

Stars:

Tom Hanks, Bruce Willis, Melanie Griffith

1 win & 5 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Tom Hanks	...	Sherman McCoy
Bruce Willis	...	Peter Fallow
Melanie Griffith	...	Maria Ruskin
Kim Cattrall	...	Judy McCoy
Saul Rubinek	...	Jed Kramer
Morgan Freeman	...	Judge Leonard White
John Hancock	...	Reverend Bacon
Kevin Dunn	...	Tom Killian
Clifton James	...	Albert Fox
Louis Giambalvo	...	Ray Andruitti
Barton Heyman	...	Det. Martin
Norman Parker	...	Det. Goldberg
Donald Moffat	...	Mr. McCoy
Alan King	...	Arthur Ruskin
Beth Broderick	...	Caroline Heftshank

Storyline

Financial "Master of the Universe" Sherman McCoy sees his life unravel when his mistress Maria Ruskin hits a black boy with his car. When yellow journalist Peter Fallow enflames public opinion with a series of distorted tabloid articles on the accident, the case is seized upon by opportunists like Reverend Bacon and mayoral candidate D.A. Abe Weiss.

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Plot Keywords:

accident | mistress | tabloid | journalist | mayor | 

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Taglines:

Take one Wall Street tycoon, his Fifth Avenue mistress, a reporter hungry for fame, and make the wrong turn in The Bronx...then sit back and watch the sparks fly.

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Genres:

Comedy | Drama | Romance

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for language

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

21 December 1990 (USA)

Also Known As:

La hoguera de las vanidades

Filming Locations:

346 E 59th Street, Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$47,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$4,216,063, 21 December 1990

Gross USA:

$15,691,192

Company Credits

Production Co:

Warner Bros.

Technical Specs

Runtime:

125 min

Sound Mix:

70 mm 6-Track (70 mm prints) Dolby (35 mm prints)

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Donald Moffat also appeared in The Right Stuff (1983), which is also adapted from a Tom Wolfe book. Warner Bros. produced both films.

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Goofs

Before cuckold Arthur Ruskin dies in the restaurant, his cocktail glass alternates from between his hands to outside his hands.

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Quotes

Peter Fallow: Oh excuse me but what the hell? Who were these people? What were they doing here? This was my story. Sherman McCoy was my baby, my creation.

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Connections

Referenced in Bonfire of the Panties (1991)

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Soundtracks

Pennies From Heaven
Written by Johnny Burke and Arthur Johnston

User Reviews

An excessive but funny American satire. De Palma tries to film his great masterpiece switching from Hitchcock to Kubrick. Perhaps, not wholly satisfactory but fascinating and one of the most interesting film

After giving us two excellent films - "The Untouchables" and "Casualties of War" director and auteur Brian De Palma tried to get the masters degree on major filmmaking with the very complex best-selling novel by Tom Wolfe. Faced to the challenge of making a great satire of nowadays America, De Palma does not find his own voice as he did in his two previous films, and goes back to the copy-and-paste path. This time it is not an imaginative and talented personal version of Hitchcock obsessions, but an interesting approach to Kubrick's style in "Dr Strangelove" and even "Lolita". After confessing that the director he admires in a most intimate way is Stanley Kubrick, Brian De Palma uses the witty Tom Wolfe novel as the story he needs to imitate one of his most admired masters.

The result is an excessive but funny satire. It is certainly underwritten, overacted and overdirected but, still, De Palma shows once again a great visual style and a wild sense of humour which makes us laugh several times.

Perhaps, De Palma should have remembered that such a witty and complex story has to be told seriously with the apparent simplicity and hidden complexity he reached in "Casualties of War", without trying to underline with the direction that every scene is supposed to be funny. Those strange camera angles taken from Kubrick nuclear satire do not work here and the characters are too exaggerated -Jean Renoir said that each character has some reasons and here,if De Palma had tried harder not only to criticize but to understand them, it would have been a much more effective film- and being both a Kubrick and a De Palma fan, I think that Kubrick influence was not good at all here. In this satire, as in his Vietnam drama, such a talented director as De Palma could have given more importance to substance that to form, given that this was not one of his brilliant thrillers where form is essential, but an intelligent satire about people. In fact, in many moments of the film De Palma uses a not so mannered and much more effective style and shows a great talent in portraiting situations ironically, something which is not usual in films from the nineties.

Overall this work remains as one of the most aggressive portraits of America ever filmed. Perhaps this is why the film was a flop in the Box ffice -it was absurd to make it with such a expensive cast and budget, given that such an acid satire cannot be popular- and De Palma's career, which was on his best moment, did not recover completely even after the wonderful "Carlito's Way", one of his best films. If you study Film direction it is absolutely necessary to see it, because of its risks, mistakes and achievements.

In conclussion, one of those strange films which you will find fascinating both because of its values and its mistakes.Forget about the novel; the film is an excessive and wild satire which will make you both think and laugh. De Palma genius and talent are present in many scenes. Moments like the initial shot, Alan King's speech, Clifton James,Donald Moffat or Andre Gregory performances -even the Morgan Freeman final scene, which De Palma did not like and is really good, reminding me of Capra, something extremely difficult in such a cynical decade- are not easy to forget.

It is not often to find such a complex and interesting film. I strongly recommend it.