Jeremiah Tower: The Last Magnificent
Directed by: Lydia Tenaglia
Starring: Jeremiah Tower, Anthony Bourdain, Ruth Reichl, Mario Batali, Martha Stewart, Wolfgang Puck
Documentary/Biography - 102 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 24 Apr 2017
Starring: Jeremiah Tower, Anthony Bourdain, Ruth Reichl, Mario Batali, Martha Stewart, Wolfgang Puck
Documentary/Biography - 102 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 24 Apr 2017
Food Network and CNN TV personality Anthony Bourdain is responsible for Jeremiah Tower: The Last Magnificent. The idea for the film was his, he produced it, and he brought on an executive producer from his TV world, Lydia Tenaglia, to realize his vision. Bourdain says he is attempting to right an historical injustice. Jeremiah Tower, who Bourdain claims as the first celebrity chef, disappeared from culinary attention some 25 years ago and, thorough the lens, Bourdain wants audiences to discover where he went and why Tower does not receive the credit he deserves. Jeremiah Tower does enough to snag your curiosity, more so to foodies, but Tenaglia makes a peculiar choice to focus on Tower’s restaurant resumé rather than what makes the man tick. You will learn all there is know about establishments called Chez Pannise, Stars, and Tavern on the Green, but you leave the theater knowing far less about the man behind the cuisine.
Categorize Jeremiah Tower into three acts and the first two are for all documentary connoisseurs. Tower had a remarkable oddball youth full of extended European travel where as the only child in his family and frequently in the palatial hotels they resided in, he learned to adapt to all the alone time. This storybook form of childhood is rife for idiosyncratic foibles. Young Jeremiah read and absorbed menus at the dinner table where we assume he was not permitted to speak and he memorized them. It turns out this hobby was a wise use of his time while the cocktail-chasing adults did their best to ignore his presence.
Categorize Jeremiah Tower into three acts and the first two are for all documentary connoisseurs. Tower had a remarkable oddball youth full of extended European travel where as the only child in his family and frequently in the palatial hotels they resided in, he learned to adapt to all the alone time. This storybook form of childhood is rife for idiosyncratic foibles. Young Jeremiah read and absorbed menus at the dinner table where we assume he was not permitted to speak and he memorized them. It turns out this hobby was a wise use of his time while the cocktail-chasing adults did their best to ignore his presence.
Jeremiah’s youth is amusing to watch as Tenaglia employs young actors to recreate the absurdity of the scenes. To visualize his time at Harvard, listen to the ingredients Tower used to make an amateur Molotov Cocktail: a Dom Perignon champagne bottle, an Hermes scarf, all concealed in a trademark, light blue Tiffany bag. These are the options of a college kid with an allowance. This is the best example as any that Jeremiah Tower is not about the food, even though the film is marketed toward that slice of the public. It’s about a man with quirks and his place in American culinary society.
Mostly told in flashback, the present day shots follow Tower roaming. He explores his memories while sitting on ancient Mexican ruins during the golden hour toward sunset. As noted food critics like Ruth Reichl and fellow kitchen celebrities like Martha Stewart and Mario Batali dissect myriad Jeremiah scandals and outrages, Tower goes scuba diving and stares at the horizon topside on boat decks. Bourdain reserves most of the talking head chatter for himself and his agenda to aide in Tower’s resurrection.
There is very little ‘food porn’ compared to run-of-the-mill foodie documentaries. Jiro Dreams of Sushi, perhaps Jeremiah Tower’s closest kin by genre, ogled the rice, the fish, and the sauces. Recent cinema about fictional culinary masterminds including Burnt, Chef, and Big Night drool over pots and pans preparing meals the audience aches to taste. However, instead of Louvre-quality plates adorned with haute cuisine, most of the food we see are whole pigs skewered on a spit. There is more description than visual evidence because the majority of Jermiah’s tales takes place in the ‘70s and ‘80s. I understand Chez Panisse is different now than it was then and Stars is long gone, but as Jeremiah Tower is doused in carefully constructed recreations, you may be forgiven if you expect them to recreate the menu as well.
The pace gains a much appreciated trot when Jeremiah jettisons Chez Panisse for Stars where a hybrid montage kicks off with how it impacted the downtrodden San Francisco neighborhood, the atmosphere, the celebrities, and in turn, how Tower morphed from chef into celebrity. After some hammy edits jumping back and forth in time about why Jeremiah turned his back on Stars, his peculiar reemergence at Tavern on the Green, a Central Park restaurant abhorred by food critics, the film down-shifts into a walk again. Tenaglia had multiple paths to pick from on how to introduce Tower to us, but opting for his restaurant biography at the expense of the man underneath the chef’s hat creates a distance. There is a very good chance Tower did not let Tenaglia get too close, but there is nothing a movie audience can learn about a man who rambles off platitudes about the necessity of ironclad kitchen control over repeated shots of his diving with the fishes.
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