Meet Joe Black might not seem Hallowe'en material since it's largely a rom-com. However, there is a good enough creepy vibe to it with the opening voice saying "yes" with Parish confronting death in it to match. The film features Sir Anthony Hopkins playing a multimillionaire named Bill Parish, president of the Parish Communications. He's set up as something like President Trump with gray hair and a slight British accent (and this guy is younger than the president). On the eve of his sixty-fifth birthday, he begins hearing voices and learns they belong to Death who wants to explore the world before taking him to the next world.
Meet Joe Black is a re-imagining of the 1934 film
Death Takes a Holiday, which in turn is based on the Italian play
La Morte in Vacanza, by Albert Casella[1], while using a title structure like that of
Meet John Doe. It's the second of two movies where Hopkins played opposite Brad Pitt, who takes on the title role. Though a remake, a few differences are in the character of Death. In the 1934 film, the character, played by Frederic March, wants to know why people fear him and asks a duke to be guide. In
Meet Joe Black, Death is only doing this to explore what Parish speaks of with "passion, rapture, [and] obsession." Another change involves Susan. In the original story, the woman who captures Death's heart was not the Duke's daughter, but his son's sweetheart. In this one, Susan, played by Claire Forlani, is made to be Parish's younger daughter, with the older, Allison, played by Marcia Gay Harden, already married.
There is something like Martha and Mary deal in the two daughters. We see Allison spending many of her screen time focusing mostly on her party planning for the big birthday soiree she is hosting for her father, while Susan is a bit more relaxed and keeping everything hands off. Clearly, Allison is Martha while Susan is Mary, in this action. The reason for this is more of favoritism, as revealed in Allison's talk with Parish late in the movie, with Allison clearly suffering a case of a need for her father's approval. That need basically translated into her constantly worrying about how it will turn out and rarely taking a break, even with her husband, Quince, an employee of her father, coming along. Susan, on the other hand, is basically dotted on by Parish who wonders if she had found the right man, even though she is clearly in a relationship with Drew, another employee. For the most part, Susan plays up the character of the woman who is over thirty, very attractive, more focused on career instead of settling down, yet hasn't experienced true love, and then suddenly gets it when a good looking man steps in. At the same time, she's almost a daddy's girl, and the one time Parish shouts at her is enough to make her sad and avoid him.
One thing that may not be known to most is there is an actual Joe Black. The real Joe Black was a baseball player, serving as pitcher for the Brooklyn Dodgers, before dying a few years ago. Unlike Brad Pitt's alias in the movie, the real Joe Black wasn't Death in disguise. Not only that, the real man didn't even resemble Brad Pitt in any shape or form (look for yourself in
this wikipedia article). The one reference to this is brought up by Quince in the first dinner scene, upon learning Joe's name.
Considering how black is associated with death, there is a fair amount of it in the movie. Joe Black has it in his name, but there is also his suit and tux, as well as the swim suit and the dress Susan wears. Remarkably, Pitt's character doesn't get to be black either, but instead we get the white skin, blond hair, and blue eyed Joe Black, almost like something from Nazi propaganda. I am positive they went with Brad Pitt because he could project an expression of innocence if he wanted to, as if to match the way he interacts with the world. Really says something if they could only find blonds who show that more easily than they could find a dark skinned sort who can project the same image.
Another thing to note is how secular the movie is. Joe Black plays off as Death, yet never once do we hear anything of God. Parish is never shown praying or making amends with God on anything; he only speaks God's name when cussing or swearing. There is a moment with the Jamaican woman that suggests some old religion, but it's never done too deep. To me, it's inconsistent to have Death as a spirit and yet not bring up any other spirits or deities into the mix. The movie is also a sign have how rotten some people in Hollywood are given that they can't find anyway of saying the word "God" unless in anger or as a swear word.
On a less offensive note, there is no violence in the movie, not even a fight. The characters just talk and talk. There is a sex scene, done between Susan and Joe, but the scene is done very artistically. For one, we don't get any nudity -- everything is shot from the waist up with Pitt and the same with Forlani's back (ever her breasts get obscured by Pitt's arm in one shot). Instead, it mostly focuses on the faces and their reactions to the pleasure, which in a way makes much more erotic than any other sex scene in the film industry. Unfortunately, there's very little foreplay involved.
After the sex scene and the two have redressed, it's obvious that Joe didn't learn the art of tie tying, something that is hard for some men. As a result, it's not put back on, but its absence provides another use of symbolism -- that of virginity loss.
I do have a copy of the movie on DVD, though there are few things I noted like the fact the sex scene happens at the start, not end, of one chapter, thus making skipping the scene not an option if you don't like missing a few things. I also have found the shooting script for the movie and it contains scenes not included in the movie that the DVD failed to show (not sure if the Blu-Ray has them or not). For example, we have been hearing about this Bontecou deal and a meeting. The script has an actual scene where Bill Parrish meets this mysterious Bontecou and they have a private talk. Considering the talk doesn't include the deal, my guess to why it's not in the movie has something to do with plotting. The script has more depth to Drew in how he has Joe Black researched after the first board meeting and later on shows up to tell Joe he found nothing on him. Drew then shows up at the Parish house without an announcement to bring up the deal, mostly as a last warning before the scene of his dismissal. Parrish considers it threatening and orders him out. Drew leaves, but also has an argument with Susan, during which she ends things with him. Without the scene, we lose many plot points, especially with Susan and Joe falling for each other, because it almost looks like the usual leading lady cheats on S.O. with leading man, but that's okay because her fiance, or boyfriend, is the bad guy of the movie thing going on. There is also a funny scene after the Jamaican woman dies with Joe stopping by a Korean grocery store and getting some peanut butter. He doesn't understand anything of money change, even as the man brings it to him, and says he can't change. If only they kept it in the movie.
Don't take my word for it, look it up.
Meet Joe Black was also trimmed up for the airport version once, which was sometimes aired on television in the early Aughts. The trimmed version was disowned by Martin Breast, who placed on Alan Smithee in the credits. It's justified due to the removal of the bargaining and dealing plot, the deletion of the Jamaican woman's death, additional moments between Parrish and his daughters, even the love scene is cut up into a series of kisses with some undressing of Joe for the female gaze. I also consider that a good reason why they don't have it on home video.
Meet Joe Black is a long movie with funny moments, though the acting does seem to be something you'd see in
Twilight (did Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart watch this movie before playing their characters?). The movie was modest at the time of its premiere, but most people went to see it only because previews to
Star Wars: The Phantom Menace was included. It's one of the few movies that is not fondly remembered today, most likely to be dismissed as another romantic comedy from the 1990s with cheesy dialogue, though Brad Pitt fans would enjoy it.
One good part is the birthday scene where Bill Parrish offers his wish to the crowds, where he proclaims not on riches or fame, despite everything that has happened, but only for people to have a wonderful life. He had also heard Joe wanting to have Susan with him, but Parrish convinces him that love is more than the three things he said earlier, but also "trust, responsibility, making...decisions and spending the rest of your life living up to them." He knows, as do we, that Susan is only in love with the man whose body Death took, enough to claim Necrophilia on Susan's part, as well as basically the woman only being in love with the identity that the man has just stolen, not the man in possession. Once Joe realizes this, he breaks it off and returns the body back alive for Susan, though it does lead to us wondering how the man will react to being called Joe.
Best part is how Parrish mends things with Susan and tells her how much he loves her while "What a Wonderful World" plays in the background. Though he won't be dancing with her at her wedding, the dance that follows is the perfect father-daughter dance. I also like the way they use the foot bridge to mark Bill Parrish's exit with Joe, with Susan coming up to see the two men she loved disappear, only for one to reappear. Under normal circumstances, she'd be asking what had he done to her father and call him a murderer, but since it's a movie it's let loose. Something about it makes it feel like the parting farewell of the nineties, if not the whole 20th Century, telling us how things will be okay and we shouldn't have regrets as we enter the new millennium.
At the time the film came out, we were all like Parrish before he crosses the bridge as the Millennium arrives. After that part, we became like Susan, wondering what will come next and wait for whatever it is to come, to come to us. Certainly makes one wish we could go back in time and see the arrival without all the knowledge of what was to come. Bill Parrish was right in the movie. It is hard to let go.
[1] "
Death Takes a Holiday." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Takes_a_Holiday (last modified August 12, 2018).
