Barnet Kellman gives a forceful comic lead room without letting the rest of the programme disappear. We rate his ability to make a sitcom feel settled from its pilot while keeping the next laugh a surprise.
Fi1m perspective
In the pilot of Murphy Brown (1988), Candice Bergen has enough force to make every exchange seem likely to finish on her terms. Kellman gives the situations some surprises of their own, letting absurdity develop without announcing each step. We laughed at the pilot's setups because we could not always see the next complication coming. He gives Bergen room without making her the only source of comedy.
Faith Ford's Corky Sherwood, Joe Regalbuto's Frank Fontana and Charles Kimbrough's Jim Dial make an ensemble substantial enough to stand alongside her. Kellman's emphasis on rehearsal, timing and physical business is well suited to that sort of company. He has worked with writer-producer Diane English and remains open to ideas from writers and performers. There is enough comic weight around Bergen to keep her forcefulness from wearing us out.
The theatre work helps explain the attention to actors: Kellman directed new American plays in the 1970s, and his feature debut, Key Exchange (1985), adapted his own stage production. Television became the more sustained outlet for that approach. He directed the first 75 episodes of Murphy Brown, then the pilot of Mad About You (1992), establishing comedies rather than simply joining them once their habits were fixed.
The shift to studio features brought Straight Talk (1992), starring Dolly Parton and James Woods, and criticism from some reviewers about formula and sentiment. Those reservations matter for a director whose television strength is making familiar situations less predictable. They do not, however, make sitcom direction a lesser achievement. We would begin with his television work rather than treat the features as the main event.
Murphy Brown is not uniformly rewarding: the secretary gags and musical routines are less effective than the difficult, capable woman at its centre. Kellman need not take either all the credit or all the blame for that. Start with the pilot, where he has to make the comedy work before anyone has acquired the habit of watching.
Biography
Barnet Kellman is an American director of theatre, television and film. He began his career in New York directing premieres of new American plays, including the Broadway production of Breakfast with Les and Bess and off-Broadway works such as Key Exchange and Danny and the Deep Blue Sea.
After moving to Los Angeles he directed the pilots for Murphy Brown (1988) and Mad About You (1992), among many others, and went on to direct dozens of episodes of Murphy Brown as well as episodes of ER (1994), Alias (2001), Ally McBeal (1997), Monk (2002) and The Middle (2009). He has also directed the feature films Straight Talk (1992) and Slappy and the Stinkers (1998). Kellman won two Primetime Emmy Awards for his work on Murphy Brown.
He is a professor of directing at the USC School of Cinematic Arts and co-founder of its USC Comedy programme.
