"You mean I didn't inherit my father's acting ability? But my boobs!"
Well, last night we had a quite fitting finale to course by watching Paul Schrader's 1982 remake of Cat People. This is fitting for two reasons: one, because we had of course watched the excellent original on the first week of class. Second, because the gulf of quality between the two is an extraordinary exemplar of the highs and lows of cinema.
Seriously, it sucks.
Storywise, the remake is dramatically different from the original (not a bad thing in and of itself). Irena (Nastassja Kinski) shows up in New Orleans to hang out with her brother Paul (Malcolm McDowell) and servant/resident voodoo girl Female (Ruby Dee as pointless stereotype), only to find things are not all they seem, as Paul is a cat person. A leopard is captured by zoo workers Oliver (John Heard) and Alice (Annette O'Toole) and escapes after killing one of the zoo workers (Ed Begley Jr.). Any viewer with even a teensy bit of sense can see where this is going; Irena is of course a cat person too, and Paul wants her to have a relationship with him because when they screw, they turn into cats. And so on.
Here's the thing: the original worked because of its limitations. Sure, the panther looks fake at the end, but what were you expecting from a 1940's movie with a $150,000 budget? And the road getting there is quite creepy; the scenes of Alice (Jane Randolph)'s moon-lit stroll through the park, and of course the pool scene, are fabulous, horrendously frightening bits because nothing is shown (and because Jacques Torneur and Val Lewton are artists of the first tier). There's also an interesting element of character development, with a stunning performance by Simone Simon, who is given a remarkably complex character given such the film (with the rest of the cast doing yeoman's work as well). The film's ending is also a wonderfully clever bit of subtlety, establishing a "rational" explanation for the film's characters that we know is false. All this may baffle the slack-jawed modern mass audience, but there you have it; not everything has to be explicitly shown or explained in a horror film to be scary. Of course, it helps if the film itself is the product of a talented cast and crew.
What does this movie have to compensate for its lack of such? Well, what generally happens when a movie like the original gets remade decades later. There is a lot of graphic gore, graphic sex, and lots of nudity, most of it gratuitous. Sure, Ms. Kinski and Annette O'Toole are quite attractive girls (and I suppose females might appreciate Malcolm McDowell's nudity as well), but what point does it have? What exactly is added from arms being ripped off and Kinski taking her shirt off every five seconds? Not much, I have to say, and it really points to what's wrong here. There's not even a pretense of subtlety, and as such it degenerates to the level of any other splatter film. This banality makes it all the more insulting, given that it pretends to be a remake of a great film.
Schrader's direction is thoroughly workmanlike throughout. Granted, there are some interesting visual elements, particularly the nightmare-like flashback/dream sequences, and a few interestingly-lit scenes (Oliver and Alice's confrontations with Paul/Leopard) that seem out of an Argento film. The movie throws in a few rather awkward homages to the original film that, given the movie's general dissimilarity to the original, seem like little more than gratuitous film buff moments. Homage can work, but when it exists for the sake of existing, it tends to be annoying. And in a film this bad, they only call attention to what's lacking in this version as per the original.
Nastassja Kinski is another major problem. Although she spends half the film very naked (which has provided material for an infinite number of teenaged spank banks), she lacks the strong combination of sensuality and vulnerability that the made the original such a great film. Nor is her performance anything to write home about. She's likeable if stiff at first, but as the story moves along she's not really convincing as a character; her transition from frightened waif to sensual monster happens with no character development other than her disrobing at every possibility. Granted, it's debatable how much can be blamed on the actress and how much on the film, which greatly plays down the character drama of the original.
Malcolm McDowell provides one of the film's few bright spots. He knows what kind of film this is and plays it to the hilt, chewing arms and scenery with admirable aplomb. It's not an Alex De Large-level performance, but it's fun to watch, and one of the few elements of the film that's appropriate to scale. Of course, he gets knocked off about halfway through the film - it's only fitting in a film that bolloxes everything else. (Although I could have gone a lifetime without seeing his flaccid weiner, I'm sure I'll live.)
The rest of the cast is nondescript. Annette O'Toole is pretty and charming but she has very little to do. Ruby Dee is nothing more than a stereotype (and a completely superfluous character at that). John Heard gives a stiff performance; not that Kent Smith's performance in the original was fantastic, but he looks like Alec Guinness compared to Heard's wooden portrayal. Ed Begley Jr. provides some light comic relief and pays for it with his arm. I might point out that a young John Larroquette has a small role as a zoo administrator, but I'm not sure I feel up to it.
So, in short: Cat People 1982 sucks. If you wanna see Nastassja Kinski's breasts, there IS Google for you. And if you like gratutious gore and violence, you might like this film. Otherwise, do your taste a favor and stick with the original.
Exeunt Intro to Film Genres! Sorry I didn't review more of the movies we watched, but really, what could I say about something like Blonde Venus or Gilda? "It was okay"? That's not much of a review.
Rating: 3/10 - Complete Drek
No comments:
Post a Comment