Ric Menello

Richard "Ric" Menello (August 20, 1952 – March 1, 2013) was an American filmmaker and screenwriter. Menello who co-directed the landmark music video for the Beastie Boys' 1987 single, "(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!)". His contributions to music during the era led MTV to call him, "one of the most influential visionaries behind the emergence of commercial hip-hop in the 1980s."

Menello's screenwriting credits included Run-D.M.C 1988 film, Tougher Than Leather, directed by Rick Rubin; the 2008 film, Two Lovers, starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Joaquin Phoenix; and the forthcoming 2013 film, The Immigrant, which will also star Joaquin Phoenix.

Biography

Menello was raised in Brooklyn. He earned a bachelor's degree in dramatic literature and cinema from New York University. He continued to take graduate courses in cinema studies at NYU after completing his bachelor's.

Menello started writing film criticism in college for the NYU Journal and the Arts and Humor magazine Cold Duck, and his articles appeared in Film Comment, Photon and Blood Times. He later became a regular contributor to European Trash Cinema, where he critiqued Italian and French genre films. One of those early articles Dark Universe: The World of Dario Argento (Photon July 1975) is cited in Maitland McDonagh's book Broken Mirrors, Broken Minds: The Dark Dreams of Dario Argento.

Wishing to broaden his experiences in the Arts, Menello acted on the stage in such Off and Off-Off Broadway groups as Theater At Riverside Church, Program in Educational Theater and Sammarkind Players. He appeared in productions of Romeo And Juliet, She Stoops to Conquer, Guys And Dolls, The Miracle Worker, Wind In The Willows and Bell, Book & Candle. At NYU, he studied acting with, and assisted the late legendary filmmaker Nicholas Ray, director of Rebel Without A Cause. Menello continued to act in many of his music videos and in the feature films Tougher Than Leather and Drop Dead Rock. His most widely heard Voice Over work is as Narrator for the documentary Out of Time and a Books on Tape collection of French Romantic Poetry. Menello contributed full length audio commentary along with critic Dan Yakir for the DVD release of the late Claude Chabrol's Pleasure Party (Une Partie de Plaisir) as well for Chabrol's Cry of the Owl (Le Cri du Hibou) where he worked alongside David Kalat. He maintained a long distance relationship for years with Chabrol writing to him at length to discuss his many films. Chabrol later gifted Menello with his own personal notated script for his film L'Enfer (Hell) that he also autographed to Ric in tribute to their long standing friendship. Menello also spent years researching the life and work of one of his favorite directors the late Jean Pierre Melville that included correspondence with Pierre Lesou, Philippe Labro and Bertrand Tavernier among others. He received a special thanks in the acknowledgement section of Ginette Vincendeau's book Jean Pierre Melville: An American in Paris further sharing his views on Melville with many fellow writers and cineastes. Japanese culture and cinema though remained his lifelong obsession and his passion and infectious enthusiasm for the many periods of Japanese film remained with him until his final days.

During the 1980s, Menello was employed as a part-time desk clerk at a dormitory at New York University (NYU) while simultaneously attending graduate school at NYU. Menello met record producer Rick Rubin, the founder of Def Jam Recordings, while Rubin was living in the same NYU dorm. He also first met the Beastie Boys while working at NYU. Writer Dan Charnas, author of "The Big Payback: The History of the Business of Hip-Hop," credited Menello with forming much of Rick Rubin's musical style and aesthetics, "Those guys {Rubin and the Beastie Boys} would hang out at the front desk watching movies with him and as Rick started bands and the label ... Menello was along for the ride...But more importantly, as all this stuff is starting, Menello helps to form Rick's aesthetic. Rick knows what he likes, but it takes Menello to help Rick understand it." In particular, Charnas has noted that Menello helped Rick Rubin, a longtime fan of Abbott and Costello, understand why he liked the duo, "Rick [Rubin] liked the whole lowbrow setup of the thing, but what Menello helped Rick understand was that it was not the slapstick that Rick liked, but the combination of that lowbrow slapstick with a very highbrow sophisticated form."

Rubin chose Menello and his then-roommate, Adam Dubin, to co-direct the music video for the Beastie Boys' 1987 single, "(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!)". Menello had already co-written the draft of Tougher Than Leather, which wouldn't be released until 1988, when Rubin approached him about directing the Beastie Boys. Menello later described himself as hesitant to direct (You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!) out of concern of "ruining their careers," but accepted the offer. In a 2012 interview with MTV News, summed up his thoughts on the music video more than a quarter century later saying, "It was kind of a dumb video, but it was done in a very sophisticated way visually. I often say the style of the video is 'stupidity done in an intelligent way...If I knew that people were going to be looking at them 26 years later, I would've done better!...I wrote the movie 'Tougher Than Leather,' which the Beastie Boys appeared in, then Rick Rubin suggested I would be a good director for 'Fight for Your Right' because I had new ideas and it was better to fail at a new idea than to succeed with a crappy old idea." The landmark music video, in which mixed Menello's highbrow and lowbrow humor. Menello, a cinephile, added references to numerous films to the music video, including Breakfast at Tiffany's and Dawn of the Dead. Menello's video effectively launched the Beastie Boys' mainstream hip hop careers. Menello continued his association with the Beastie Boys by writing the proposed Television Pilot "The Beastie Boys Get Stupid" that he created along with Rick Rubin. He then wrote the screenplay for the feature length film "Scared Stupid" that was to mark the Beastie Boys feature film debut. When relations between Rubin and The Beastie Boys fractured, resulting in the Beasties leaving Def Jam, the feature film was unfortunately shelved despite receiving full backing from New Line Cinema.

Menello and Dubin also co-directed the music video for the Beastie Boys "No Sleep till Brooklyn" in 1987. Menello then went on to make several other music videos as a solo director including such highly distinct and hugely successful videos as LL Cool J's"Going Back to Cali", Danzig's "Mother" and Slick Rick's "Children's Story". He additionally crafted videos for artists as diverse as MC Lyte and Marcia Griffiths.

Rob Tannenbaum, the author of the 2011 book "I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution", has called Menello an integral person responsible for launching the early careers of both the Beastie Boys and LL Cool J through his films and videos. Tannenbaum noted that, "There are no more than a handful of music videos that have done more for a band's career and more vividly described their image than 'Fight For Your Right To Party,' did for the Beastie Boys."

Menello continued to work behind the scenes writing and co-writing treatments for an endless stream of music videos. In 1993, he collaborated with his cousin and frequent collaborator Vincent Giordano on the treatments for Doro Pesch’s Bad Blood and Last Day of My Life that Giordano both directed and shot. The Bad Blood video was originally influenced by Sam Fuller’s film Verboten! and their treatment further developed into a powerful, thought provoking clip that was voted Best Anti-Racism video during the first MTV Europe Music Awards ceremony in 1994. The video later spawned a series of commercials and public service announcements by Doro calling for racial tolerance in Germany. Giordano and Menello continued working on music videos with one of their last MV collaborations being the low budget video for Kittie's Funeral For Yesterday that Giordano directed and Menello contributed to and co-wrote the treatment for.

Screenwriting

Menello also worked as a screenwriter throughout the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s. He often wrote at night at the Vox Pop cafe in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn. He moved to another Brooklyn bar, Sycamore, when Vox Pop closed in 2011. He hosted a weekly film screening, with guests including Mark Romanek and Darren Aronofsky. Menello also revised and collaborated with actors, including friend, Owen Wilson, to revise and strengthen existing dialogue.

Menello frequently worked with film director, James Gray, on Gray's projects. The two teamed up to co-write the 2008 romantic drama, Two Lovers, starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Joaquin Phoenix. Menello also co-wrote Gray's upcoming 2013 film The Immigrant, which will star Joaquin Phoenix, Marion Cotillard, and Jeremy Renner. He recently completed the screenplay to Jimmy Roselli, the forthcoming feature film based on the book Making the Wiseguys Weep: The Jimmy Roselli Story by David Evanier for producer Neil Jesuele as well as Mr. Ric's Cinema, a dramatic pilot co-written with producer Vincent Giordano. Menello had several other screenplays completed at the time of his death including Written in Blood co-written with Mel Neuhaus, Pair Of Lies co-written with Vincent Giordano and The Three Shadows of Mr. Go. He enjoyed collaborating with a wide assortment of writers and directors and his huge body of written work demonstrated a steady writing pattern that accelerated over the last few years of his life.

Ric Menello died from a heart attack on March 1, 2013, at the age of 60. Menello was raised in Brooklyn, lived for several years in New Jersey, but moved back to Brooklyn in 2007, settling in Ditmas Park.

External links

• Ric Menello at IMDb
• RIc Menello talks to Paul Rowlands[1]