The “comic masterpiece” nobody understood except Jack Nicholson: “This is a singular complaint”
It takes a brave and possibly arrogant actor or filmmaker to call a movie they’ve either starred in or directed a masterpiece, because that’s a call that’s left up to critics and audiences. Jack Nicholson was in a few, but there was one occasion where he stretched the bounds of credulity.
You don’t win three Academy Awards, earn a record-setting 12 nominations, and step away from the spotlight with your reputation firmly intact as one of the greatest actors in cinema history without being very good at your job, and Nicholson’s roll call of masterpieces speaks for itself.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Chinatown, Easy Rider, The Shining, and Five Easy Pieces all fit the bill, and you might even be able to stretch it to Terms of Endearment, The Last Detail, The Departed, and A Few Good Men, depending on who you ask, but that’s a lot more likely to open a can of worms than his indisputable best work.
However, Nicholson was adamant that another one of his lesser-heralded efforts deserved to join the pantheon of his finest features, but he was about the only one who thought so. As its leading man and director, it goes without saying that he had some serious skin in the game, but there can’t be many cinephiles out there who’ll die on the hill that Goin’ South is one of the star’s best.
It’s alright, a reasonably diverting and fitfully entertaining western comedy, one that launched Mary Steenburgen’s career and saw John Belushi, in his second feature-length outing after Animal House, quickly realise that working with a hell-raiser of greater stature than him wasn’t going to work.
Goin’ South is far from the worst movie that Nicholson has ever been in, but it’s a million miles away from being one of the best, too. While the offbeat caper’s reputation has grown marginally over time, he was convinced that the critics were wrong, he was right, and it was a classic that never got its due.
“I was doing The Shining in England, so I didn’t get the full brunt of the criticism,” he explained. “But I resented that it was kind of this claptrap view.” He was on the other side of the world, and when he caught wind of how Goin’ South‘s standing with critics was… well, going south, his first response was that the majority were incorrect, and he, the minority, was the only one who could see the truth.
“I think wanting to grab that easy handle kept them from seeing what I extremely modestly say is a comic masterpiece,” he added, and as if to suggest that he wasn’t being entirely biased toward a picture that he’d helmed and playing the leading role in, he turned on himself. “Remember, this is a singular complaint. If anything, I’ve been overly praised.”
Is Goin’ South, as Nicholson claimed, an unsung comic masterpiece? In a word, no. In three words, absolutely fucking not. Still, he couldn’t have made it clearer that he disagreed with the consensus, even if that was an awfully flimsy leg to stand on.
