The Bonfire of the Vanities (film)

''The Bonfire of the Vanities'' is a 1990 American satirical black comedy film directed and produced by Brian De Palma and starring Tom Hanks, Bruce Willis, Melanie Griffith, Kim Cattrall and Morgan Freeman. The screenplay, written by Michael Cristofer, was adapted from the best-selling 1987 novel of the same name by Tom Wolfe.

The film was a box office bomb, grossing just $15 million against its $47 million budget. The controversies surrounding the film were detailed in the 1991 book ''The Devil's Candy: The Bonfire of the Vanities Goes to Hollywood'', by Julie Salamon.

Plot

Sherman McCoy is a Wall Street bond trader who makes millions while enjoying the good life and the sexual favors of Maria Ruskin, a Southern belle gold digger. Sherman and Maria are driving back to Maria's apartment from JFK Airport when they take a wrong turn on the expressway and find themselves in the "war-zone" of the South Bronx.

They are approached by two black youths after Sherman gets out of the car to move a tire out of the road. He jumps back into the car and Maria guns the engine in reverse, running over one of the teenagers and they drive away. Sherman initially wants to report the incident to the police, but Maria immediately talks him out of it, fearing that their affair would be publicly exposed.

Meanwhile, alcoholic journalist Peter Fallow, anxious for a story to make good with his editor, comes upon the hit-and-run case as a rallying point for the black community calling upon Jewish district attorney Abe Weiss, who is the Bronx District Attorney seeking re-election. According to Judge Leonard White, almost all of DA Weiss' prosecutions end up with black and Puerto Rican defendants going to prison and Weiss is seeking a white defendant for purposes of convincing the minority-majority community that he is worth re-electing.

Weiss recognizes the press coverage inherent in prosecuting the callow Sherman, who has been discovered as the owner of the car, and therefore presumed to be the hit-and-run driver, in order to cultivate the image as an avenger for the minorities and be propelled to the mayorship of New York City. As Sherman is brought to his knees, New York City fragments into different factions who use the case to suit their own cynical purposes.

Finally, Sherman is left without any allies to support him except for the sympathetic Judge Leonard White and the remorseful Fallow. Fallow gains a tremendous advantage and insight into the case when he is dating a woman who is the sub-letting landlord of Maria's apartment, and knows of secret recordings of conversations in the apartment made by the building owners to prove that the woman is not in fact living in the rent-controlled apartment herself. She discovers information about the McCoy case (where Maria states she was driving the car), which she gives to Fallow, who in turn covertly supplies it to McCoy's defense attorney.

Sherman gets his hands on a tape and plays the recording in court, where it reveals Maria directly contradicting the evidence she has just given, showing she has been perjuring herself and causing her to faint. Sherman plays the tape on a tape recorder inside his briefcase connected to a small loudspeaker that he holds on the desk.

When the judge orders that he approach the bench with this evidence, he asserts that the tape is his (making it admissible evidence), resulting in his acquittal. The people in the court go into an uproar, to which Judge White launches into a tirade that they have no right to act self-righteous and smarmy, or that they are above Sherman, considering Reverend Bacon claims to help disadvantaged New Yorkers but actually engages in race baiting, or that the District Attorney Weiss pushed this case not in the interest of justice but in the interest of appealing to minority voters to further his political career by appealing to their desire to "get even". After the Judge made his point, he begs the people to be decent and change their ways, letting Sherman go.

A year later, a large audience is applauding the premiere of Fallow's book. Fallow says that Sherman McCoy has moved away from New York City to an unknown destination, presumably to live in obscurity.

Cast

In addition, George Plimpton has a credited cameo appearance, Geraldo Rivera has an uncredited cameo appearance, and Hanks's wife Rita Wilson has a small but intense role as the PR woman at the beginning of the movie.

Production

The novel of ''The Bonfire of the Vanities'' was a bestseller. Warner Bros. bought the rights from author Tom Wolfe for $750,000.

The film's production was plagued by controversy. Among them were the acting choices. When the project was first pitched and Mike Nichols was attached as the original director, he wanted Steve Martin for the role of Sherman McCoy, but the studio rejected it because they thought Martin was too old for the role. Tom Wolfe wanted Chevy Chase for McCoy. Kevin Costner, Tom Cruise and Christopher Reeve were also considered for the role.

Brian DePalma ultimately came on board to direct and offered the role of Peter Fallow to both Jack Nicholson and John Cleese (Fallow was English in the novel), but both actors turned down the role. When De Palma was unable to deliver an actor, the studio forced him to cast Bruce Willis, who had starred in the successful 1988 film ''Die Hard''.

Walter Matthau was initially offered the role of the judge, but demanded a fee of $1 million. The producers balked at meeting his price and signed Alan Arkin instead for a modest $150,000. Arkin was then replaced by Morgan Freeman when the studio decided to change the judge's ethnicity from Jewish to African American in order to respond to criticism of the film's racial politics, and dialogue was added to have the judge denounce the manipulative actions of the main characters. De Palma said he "didn't want to racially polarize" the film by having "a white judge talking morality to a basically black audience." Arkin refused to waive his payment after being recast. Edward James Olmos was also considered for the role of the judge.

F. Murray Abraham, who had a significant part in the film, chose not to be credited because of a contract dispute. When he was denied the billing above the title that he had requested, he took his name off the picture.

De Palma wanted Uma Thurman to play Maria Ruskin. Thurman tested for the role, but Tom Hanks felt that she wasn't right for the part and, eventually, Melanie Griffith was cast instead.

The studio made significant changes to the source material, making Sherman McCoy more sympathetic and adding a subplot involving a minor character, Judge Leonard White (eventually played by Freeman).

Filming

In one notable scene in the film, Maria Ruskin (Melanie Griffith) arrives in New York on an Air France Concorde. The film's Second Unit Director, Eric Schwab, calculated the time and day when a runway at JFK would line up exactly with the setting sun, to serve as a backdrop, and managed to film in the single 30-second time period when this occurs in any given year, while winning a bet that he could make the scene an essential part of the movie. The 5-camera shot cost $80,000 and lasted just 10 seconds in the final cut. Schwab also directed the opening title shot—an almost equally elaborate and expensive set-up requiring a 24-hour timelapse of Manhattan, from a camera platform beside a gargoyle on top of the Chrysler Building.

Several of the sets parodied the home decorated by Robert Denning and Vincent Fourcade for Carolyne Roehm and Henry Kravis

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