Article: Spending Time with Mr McMahon

This blog rarely talks about television. However, as a lapsed fan of sports entertainment, I took the time to binge-watch the recent release of Netflix’s limited series documentary Mr McMahon. This in-depth look at Vince McMahon, the former World Wrestling Entertainment owner, has coincided with the WWE merging with Zuffa, creating the new company TKO. The WWE’s flagship show, RAW, is also soon to be appearing on Netflix. However, during the 3-year filming of Chris Smith’s documentary, McMahon resigned from TKO after allegations of sexual assault and sex trafficking. Rather than throwing the series into disarray, the documentary is updated with details of the allegations. Most of the interviews that appear in the series are shown before the allegations with Vince’s final interviews never taking place.

The six-episode docuseries delivers an overview of his life. Detailing how he took the once territorial wrestling federation from his father, turning it into a global entertainment phenomenon. It also charts the creation of Mr McMahon; a wildly exaggerated television character of Vince who plays the main villain for the WWE. Mr McMahon asks whether there’s a difference between Vince the character and Vince the man. 

Considering the real-life allegations now attributed to Vince, the differences seem slight. Early on, Vince remarks that he doesn’t want to show anybody the real him. This is an unfortunate remark as Vince’s own self-aggrandising ego, toxic masculinity and unrepentant capitalist viewpoint underline his true nature at nearly every turn. While many of the film’s interviewees have an alliance with Vince, the documentary has done enough homework to highlight much of Vince’s questionable behaviour. And the term questionable is too light a word. When under the microscope Vince can be seen as a vicious Tyrant who rules over his bread and circus soap opera with an iron fist and engorged loins. No one is really spared from his oppressiveness, wiliness or lack of moral fibre. Huge musclebound Titans shed a tear for Vince at points. Granted that this takes place before the allegations and stepping down, it’s still hard not to see this as Stockholm Syndrome.

Like so many Netflix documentaries, Mr McMahon is hampered by how it is presented. It’s clear that many livelihoods have been lost or destroyed due to Vince’s actions, yet there isn’t a lot of breathing space for those who have suffered over Vince’s tyranny. Instead, the questionable antics are almost shrugged off with arguments over different values. Possibly because there’s so much dirt and there’s only so much time. This becomes tough to swallow during the midway point when the tragic story of Owen Hart comes to the forefront. The Hart family have suffered great turmoil under the WWE, with Owen’s death being the peak of their heartbreak. Listening to Bret speak about his dealings with Vince and the WWE is still as troubling as it was in the 90s. The fact that Owen dies on a live pay-per-view and Vince orders the show to continue speaks volumes. The images of distressed wrestlers continuing to fight over the only just dried blood stains of their dead friend are more haunting than any horror film. Yet that might even be the worst of it.  

But the difficulty here lies with the talking heads who still favour Vince. To many, Vince McMahon is still seen as a father figure who launched their careers. Countless people owe Vince for where they are today. Late on, Senior Vice President Bruce Pritchard takes offence to what he’s seen from the documentary, with a strong feeling that the only things the filmmakers are doing are showing Vince as a villain. Pritchard notes how Vince ensured the best care available for his wife who was diagnosed with cancer. The defence given feels like the moments in Peter Biskind’s Down and Dirty Pictures in which filmmakers who found success with disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein still gave him an amount of protection despite his bullying. With this, Mr McMahon has more of an element of balance than expected at times, because so many of the ex-wrestlers interviewed don’t hold a grudge against Vince, because why would they? 

For wrestling fans, Mr McMahon doesn’t tell you anything they already don’t know. Those who didn’t realise how much of a conceited megalomanic Vince McMahon is will be shocked at what they see. The film only drains half of the swampy waters. Some will be shocked at how guarded Vince is. Many more sordid details could easily be found on the many well-researched YouTube channels or by listening to the 4-episode deep dive of McMahon on the Behind the Bastards podcast. But those other outlets aren’t as slick. The backing that Netflix provides, softens matters because, as mentioned, the company now have a stake in the WWE. So, the documentary becomes a history highlight reel of Vince and the WWE for the uninitiated.

However, Vince’s corrupted story of the American dream plays out on a scale as large as films such as There Will Be Blood (2007) or Citizen Kane (1941). Honestly. Vincent Kennady McMahon’s story is that operatic. He is Daniel Plainview for the lovers of spandex. Nothing stands in his way. With pop culture influenced in ways many couldn’t even imagine. As a docu-series, with the interviewees that Smith manages to sign off and get time with, Mr McMahon is the most comprehensive, mainstream look at the WWE of recent times.

Wrestling journalist Dave Meltzer, who is often a voice of reason through the series, delivers a throwaway comment which rings true not only about Vince and wrestling fans but also the complicated relationship that many have with celebrity idols: “People will support an entertainment product and not care about the moral fibre of the guy running the product.” It’s not a profound statement, but an incredibly accurate judgment on where many are with modern celebrity culture. An unexpected moment in a series full of expected moments for wrestling fans.

Mr McMahon is streaming on Netflix

Dug what you read? Support me on Ko-fi

Article: Sleaze on the streets - A first viewing of Cop

 A grim neo-noir which is as blunt as its name. Cop (1988) is a morbid curiosity which only matches its bloody violence with absurdity. Roger Ebert’s review of the movie notes the film becomes an essay on the “Cop” genre; with its final shots slamming the book shut. Cop which certainly borrows from the likes of Dirty Harry (1971), certainly feels like a full stop on a certain type of cop drama. While of course, films like Cop have never stopped being made, its release coincides with the final Dirty Harry entry: The Dead Pool (1988). A film which had the cracks more than starting to show with the series. Cop also comes out the same year as Die Hard. Kathryn Bigelow’s Blue Steel appeared soon after in 1989. Looking back at this moment, it feels like subconsciously there’s a crossing of the guards. It might be harder to get away with films like this in the future.  Once Silence of the Lambs and Seven appeared in the '90s, it felt like the book Ebert talks about had been rewritten. Cop now feels even more like a relic. That doesn’t stop it from being an entertaining watch though.

The cop of the film’s title is deliriously played by James Woods, who portrays the role with the intensity and odious sleaze that only an actor like him can provide. Woods plays Lloyd Hopkins, an unorthodox police detective who, like Dirty Harry, doesn’t play by the rules, but damn sure gets results. However, while Harry Callahan's dubious morals are built towards a black-and-white view of justice, Woods Hopkins is a grubbier prospect. He is happy to rely on graphic stories of the scumbags he arrests/murders to his eight-year-old daughter, while his wife pleads with him to go to therapy for his troubled mind. The issues Hopkins has become quite apparent when he takes on a murder case of a young woman. He believes the murder is one out of a string of similar killings which have been occurring for almost two decades. Hopkins is a good detective, but his evidence in this case is flimsy. Therefore, Hopkins executes all the tricks of his playbook. Take note early one, Hopkins blows away a criminal suspect in a shower of bullets before making the moves on the dead man’s date before the split blood has even cooled. Lloyd Hopkins is a particular kind of asshole.

This is what makes Cop a fascinating watch. Hopkins’ talent as a detective is formidable. Shown early in the film’s second scene in which he shows a greener cop the ropes of what to pick up on when a call comes through. Yet why he’s a Cop seems to be for the sport, with little care for upholding the law. He puts on a front that he’s part of the thin blue line stopping L.A. from being overrun. Hopkins displays his little bedtime story to his daughter as something to prepare her for the scum she may have to deal with in her life. All the while, Hopkins’ objectification of women is as dubious as the hypothetical crims he claims that he is preparing his daughter for. Another litmus test for his values is his behaviour when canvassing a feminist bookstore for leads. Here he meets the owner, Kathleen; a woman who may hold the key to finding the culprit of the case. Here Hopkins pulls out his inner James Bond, putting on all his sleazy moves to seduce her. This is also while being wholeheartedly dismissive of her as a survivor of sexual assault. Seeing her as merely another object that can hurtle him towards his goal.

Woods’ ability to sink into Hopkins’ grubby nature makes the endeavour immensely watchable. There's a swiftness in how he fornicates with a sex worker witness. A brazenness to the obnoxious tone in his exchanges with his boss. Hopkins is, for lack of a better word, a sleazy prick. However, the amount of concern he gives to this case, along with the fact his hunches keep him on track of the killer, only makes him more compelling. This is Bad Lieutenant (1992) before Bad Lieutenant. The way the film cannily keeps focus away from the killer helps suggest that you don’t need villains around when you have cops like this. In an updated reference, Hopkins is no better than the killer he’s chasing. Seeing people, particularly women, as disposable. He would be a reason to choose the bear.

Despite this, the film applies a certain level of absurdity to the proceedings. Leslie Ann Warren, a feminist book owner comes across as a fierce activist for women’s rights. However, it’s surprisingly troubling how easily Hopkins puts the moves on her; and how swiftly she indulges him. It’s a dynamic that would be more interesting if Hopkins needed to chip away at her defences. However, the weakness within this character and her belief in white knights and happy endings feel underwritten. Although it does bring forth a dark humour to the situation. Albeit one that would perhaps get the stink-eye from folk today. Also, while Hopkins's cop credentials are established well early on, it’s a narrative in which Hopkins rarely seems to struggle in his investigative work. Hopkins is allowed to have some fiery exchanges with his head of department when he’s deprived of resources for the case. However, his hunches are unwavering, a small piece of detective is uncanny, and the conflict within the film never gets as hostile as Hopkins himself.

However, the brutally abrupt finale to Cop is such a ballsy slap in the face, that it’s lingered in my mind for a few days since my viewing. It’s not that the last moments are shocking in any grotesque way. But the film’s ending is so sudden that it forced me to think about the film, as well as parts of the subgenre. It’s commendable that the film's unromanticised finish ensures a sense of nihilism all the way up until the end. Cop starts and ends with a Detective on the edge; who’s so enraptured by sleaze that he’s become addicted to it. He talks a good game about wanting to solve the case, but the disillusionment and emptiness can be seen from the start to the final three shotgun blasts. Copagander this ain’t.  

Cop can be found on various streaming platforms.

Dug what you read? Buy me a Ko-fi!

Article: "It's a good scream" - A view on Blow Out (1981)

Spoilers abound in this piece

The way Brian De Palma tacitly Became one of my favourite directors was quite surprising. It was a seduction that occurred with a quiet subtlety. Many years ago, I watched his 1981 film Blow Out as a chance to cross off a blind spot in my long list of movies I’ve not seen. Then over the years since then, I own or at least have seen a huge chunk of his filmography. They’re not all brilliant. Many of De Palma’s works in the latter half of his career don’t shine as brightly as his iconic films of the 70s and 80s. However, De Palma’s filmmaking is so distinctive that even many of his failures have been somewhat interesting. In an age of cinema by committee where filmmaking takes less risks now more than ever, watching something by a director like Brian De Palma still elicits a thrill. You are watching something directed. Not middle-managed. 

Now over 40 years old, the themes of Blow Out still cause provocation. One element is the likes of social media allowing people to lounge within some of the more sinister sides of their interiors. The ending of Blow Out is disturbing for a few reasons. One of them being a woman’s blood-curdling last moments becoming the ADR backdrop for a glib sequence of gaudy horror. In an era where almost everyone’s phones allow one to “broadcast themselves”, it’s of no shock that many people can turn their trauma into “content”. Although De Palma’s film suggests there is a personal toll for doing this, even despite the flashy filmmaking. 

With further inspection, Blow Out is De Palma having a ball with the Conspiracy Theory thriller. A sub-genre that had its heyday in the 70s. Once the rise of Donald Trump solidified the premise of “fake news”, that and the all-encompassing force of social media helped ensure that almost all current affairs can be believed to be underhanded. Trump himself had an assassination attempt not even months ago at the time of writing this. Yet the fracturing of media now has made the idea that the man was ever shot a difficult one. The same manipulation of the medium expressed in Blow Out now feels commonplace for a larger group of people. Misinformation is now a part of the furniture.  

 Blow Out starts with a quintessential De Palma fake-out; opening with an unknown assailant leering outside a rambunctious sorority house. The killer breathes heavily while they peer through the windows of female dorm rooms. Mimicking the likes of Halloween (1979), the shot is taken from the killer's perspective. By seeing what he sees the viewer becomes a participant in what may be about to take place. Soon the killer is inside; stalking the halls of the co-ed’s living quarters. He scans the bedrooms of the young, scantily clad women. Nearly all of them seem to be indulging in some sexual activity. He spies upon a solitary blonde in a shower. She is unaware of the killer advancing upon her until the last moment. Her eyes widen and she lets out…a rather ridiculous scream. The film cuts away and we discover that this is a film. It's a scene of a movie playing within a movie. This gratuitous slasher flick is being checked out by sound engineer Jack Terry (a career-best John Travolta) who is then instructed to find more ambient sound for the movie. He’s also charged with finding a better scream for the soon-to-be murder victim in the film.

The innocuous task of finding some movie sounds kick starts a chain of events which alter Jack’s life in a way he could never imagine. While capturing sounds of wind, owls, and toads, Jack hears a tire burst and sees a car fly into the nearby lake where he’s capturing sounds. In a moment of heroism, he rescues Sally (Nancy Allen) who was trapped in the vehicle but finds out later in the hospital that the other person in the vehicle, a famous senator, drowned in the car. Questions arise about why that young girl was with a politician on the brink of an election win. She isn’t his wife. She’s substantially younger than the man she was in the car with. But a more taxing riddle is burning on Jack’s mind. He thinks he heard a gunshot before the wheel blew out. If it had merely blown out, then it’s an unfortunate accident. If there was a gunshot, then this was an assassination attempt. 

Ostensibly a political conspiracy thriller which relates more to the decade just gone, Blow Out is also an incredible movie about filmmaking and how our media distorts the truth. So much of the film is De Palma using his bag of tricks to illustrate the illusiveness of fact, and how easily an audience can be toyed with. That opening sequence starts from the killer’s perspective. We’re then told that the movie we were watching, which was at first through another person’s eyes, is not the film we will be watching. The third scene that plays while the opening credits appear utilises more De Palma favoured techniques. The scene has Travolta’s Jack working on his film while a television relays the evening news. Using the split dioptre and split screens, the film not only builds Jack’s character on one side of the screen, but it also constructs the narrative bones of much of the movie on the other. It also provides fictional information. I’m sure many people know that “Liberty Day” doesn’t exist as a holiday in America but, Blow Out shows you this information like Philadelphia has been celebrating the day for years. 

The way the camera is used to inform people of the story is beguiling. The cinematography is used in a manner that heaps layers of meaning upon each image. Midway through the film, Jack is searching for a piece of audio evidence that has gone missing. As he frantically searches the room, the camera rotates in a slow 360 pan. The move not only highlights the slowly increasing paranoid energy of the protagonist, but it also mocks Jack’s occupation as a soundman, spooling around like a reel of tape.  Split screens are used to highlight victims and murder weapons at the same time. 

Meanwhile, legendary cinematographer  Vilmos Zsigmond and the design team build multitudes of shots with Red, White and Blue to capture the film's mood. Desaturating the colour where they can. Using the colours of the American flag as the palette of the film only seems to heighten the cynicism of the film’s central conspiracy. Zsigmond in an interview on the Arrow Blu-ray, spoke about how much he dislikes movies in which the dialogue tells the story over the visuals. One wonders how he would cope with the cinematic landscape now, where some movies are mere fodder for internet meme culture.  

Brian De Palma has fared less well in his later decades. His recent efforts have faltered below the level of his earlier works, perhaps due to the changing attitudes and approaches to cinema and filmmaking. This is a shame because, with films like Blow Out, the filmmaker has things to say in abundance. First off, the film’s title and plot are a riff on Michelangelo Antonioni's Blow Up (1966) and more than a small nod to the world cinema that De Palma devoured during his early career. The film also feels like a response to The Conversation (1974), directed by De Palma’s friend Francis Ford Coppola. The references to Alfred Hitchcock's movies undoubtedly make an appearance as expected. However, the most notable aspect of Blow Out is how much De Palma wants to communicate the filmmaking process.  Blow Out is so fun because intermingled with all the paranoid thrills of it all, De Palma is gleefully inducting us into how the sausage is made. The fun with so many of Brian De Palma’s thrillers is how they both deconstruct their absurdity while sweeping you up within it. There are many films which love to tout the “power of cinema” yet De Palma, at this point in his career, was so adept at filmmaking, that he managed to do so by having John Travolta illustrate the potency of the moving image with a flicker book. It’s not like people haven’t done things like this before. It’s just that they haven’t done it like De Palma. Almost every scene highlights the artifice of cinema, while the same visual language is used to enthral the viewer.

In addition to this De Palma has never been afraid of pushing buttons and having his films revel in their baser urges. When combined with his technical skill Blow Out, along with the likes of Dressed to Kill (1980) and Body Double (1984), allows the filmmaker to make films that are operatic yet trashy. Lusciously crafted, but lurid in theme. While Body Double and Dressed to Kill are possibly more direct with their explicit nature, Blow Out still indulges in provocations. The death of the Governor is founded upon his fondness for escorts. The thuggish Burke, played frighteningly by John Lithgow, is killing women who look like Sally. One of them is also a sex worker (Deborah Everton). The interplay between Lithgow and Everton before her violent demise is comical, but also based on the idea of hooking up in a public station for a sex act. 

The final moments of Dennis Franz’s Manny are wryly shot with the character lying as if crucified, while the camera hovers over him a la God’s eye view. The scene's main purpose is to provide more detail into the film’s inciting incident. And it ends with Manny losing a headbutt battle with a bottle of whiskey.  His last moments are a desperate attempt to get his end away with an unwilling Sally. Bathed in red light, the death of this low-rent Jake Gittes wannabe is shown with a beauty the character doesn’t deserve. Of course, that’s the fun of it. The film loves to jump over the line between sex and death. De Palma loves to do this with panache. 

My love for Brian De Palma, particularly his more personal genre pieces, is that he knows that the audience likes to watch.  While a polarizing filmmaker, he’s also a seductive one, using the power of his technical to lull a viewer into corruption. His films wouldn’t be challenged so much if they weren’t so cinematically proficient. At his peak, the films of De Palma became fascinating because of how well they manufactured distance between a viewer while coaxing them into the heightened drama. Blow Out starts with a cheesy wannabe Halloween-style opening. Something that feels manufactured, but once Lithgow’s Burke begins to execute murders of women who share a familiarity with Sally, suddenly the film's tactics, still self-contentedly winking at the audience, operate on a different level. The cheese has gone. It is now replaced with anxiety. 

De Palma’s command of film language comes from the filmmaker he cribs from the most, Alfred Hitchcock. De Palma's filmmaking journey stems from the impression Hitchcock’s Vertigo made in 1958. The portly Brit’s ability to utilise cinematic language burrowed deep into the psyche of a then-young De Palma. In a 2020 interview with the Associated Press, De Palma details:

“As I’ve gotten older and made a lot of films, I can see there’s always lessons to be learned from Hitchcock the way he sets up certain sequences. And “Vertigo” is the whole idea of creating an illusion and getting the audience to fall in love with it and then tossing it off the tower twice. Very, very good idea.”

It's such a good idea that De Palma borrows from Hitchcock liberally for many of his films. Sometimes it was the theme, like Body Double, where the voyeurism of Rear Window (1954) plays a huge part of the narrative. Dressed to Kill is an updated reinterpretation of Psycho. In Blow Out, however, while De Palma makes his riffs to Hitch, what punctuates the matter is De Palma’s setting the film up as an example of Hitchcock’s “Bomb Analogy”:

 “Let us suppose that there is a bomb underneath this table between us. Nothing happens, and then all of a sudden, “Boom!” There is an explosion. The public is surprised, but prior to this surprise, it has seen an absolutely ordinary scene, of no special consequence. Now, let us take a suspense situation. The bomb is underneath the table and the public knows it…In these conditions, this same innocuous conversation becomes fascinating because the public is participating in the secret.”

Blow Up is possibly De Palma performing this exercise in its purest form. From the split screen news report early on that layers and primes the audience to information the lead character seems only half aware of, to the introduction of Burke, whose underhanded tasks throughout the film, which like the cheesy slasher film from the start hands the audience the perspective of the killer. De Palma goads the audience with the information. He seems to say: “Are you watching this? You’ve been given this information. Don’t you think it might hurt somebody?” De Palma constantly provides the audience with knowledge the characters are unaware of. The viewer becomes a participant. 

De Palma, despite his love of Hitchcock, isn’t fond of the idea that he imitates the master of suspense. On an episode of Dick Cavett's 1978 talk show, De Palma told Cavett that he had evolved the cinematic grammar that Hitchcock had put in place. This is true. De Palma uses Hitchcock as the basis, but there’s always as much of De Palma in his films as there is Hitchcock. Quentin Tarantino sums this up well in an interview where he gives his opinion on why he vibes with Brian De Palma over Hitchcock. In an interview, he notes that De Palma not only being able to explore the artistic minutiae of the violence in his set pieces due to the changing attitudes of the eras that each filmmaker operated in but also mentions that De Palma is a stronger social satirist throughout his body of work. It’s fascinating to hear Tarantino mention this, as I suddenly felt the director try and provide similar within his work, to mixed results.  

Both De Palma and Tarantino are similar to hip-hop producers, who have repurposed the language of the medium that they love in surprising ways. Injecting what has come before with their personality infused. It’s hardly any surprise that both directors often make commentaries about filmmaking itself within their movies. They are also directors who at the peak, were looking to see what buttons they could push from a societal standpoint. This is perhaps why Blow Out endures. In a recent interview for Vulture, De Palma claims his films have lasted out because they are cinematic in a way that modern films do not approach. It’s hard to disagree. A Guardian retrospective on the film notes how the film is broken down into visual and audio, in a way that you don’t see in modern filmmaking, despite the improvement of tech. 

But the best films of De Palma are also dream vessels for the themes they inhabit. Body Double is now revised as one of De Palma’s crowning achievements from film fans. It’s easier to see this now. Because the world we live in has become inhabited by the allure of voyeurism. We are now constantly snooping around the publicly private lives of everyone else. Blow Out is a blow-for-blow account of how the moving image helps play with objective truth and how easily we lose ourselves because of it. De Palma guides the viewer through this; the fake-outs, the split screens, the homages to cinema language. The audience is being directed every step of the way.  Blow Out’s tragic ending becomes an exclamation point on how truth is lost. The screams Sally emits before her actual death are taken, repurposed and reshaped into the shoddy horror film that Jack’s been making. Real pain into a fake entertainment. Jack finds his killer scream to finish his movie. It’s a good scream. His producer loves it. But the sound is driving him mad. And you know where it came from too. Yet if he told anyone where those cries came from no one would believe him.

Blow Out is on YouTube and Prime Video at the time of writing. There are also two exceptional Blu-ray packages floating around.

Dug what you read? Buy me a Ko-fi!

Article: Venice in Peril - Looking back at Don't Look Now.

In the years since I last watched Don’t Look Now, I had lost two children in a short space of time. Rewatching the film in 2024, with the dark shadow of grief clouded over my face, I must admit, the film hits a little differently. The horror films I love most are often tinged with a little sadness. Horror works better when a particular line of sorrow runs through it. But one of the reasons Nicholas Roeg’s film still strikes a chord, 50 years after its release, is just how well it hits the pain points of grief. Watching Don't Look Now this time around, I found myself stricken by its opening scenes. When John Baxter (Donald Sutherland) pulls his daughter’s body out of the cold muddy water, he emits an ungodly howl. His sobs come from the pit of his stomach. I’m stuck by this because I know those sounds. The resonance with that anguish is all too clear now. 

Family turbulence always goes a long way in horror films. The open wounds of a family broken by a traumatic incident are the perfect breeding ground for the supernatural to fester. Much like Roeg’s sophomore feature Walkabout (1971), Don’t Look Now has a family member's death as the catalyst for the story. When their young daughter drowns in the river near their home in England, John and Laura Baxter travel to Venice where John has accepted a commission to restore an ancient church. Saddled with the remorse and grief felt by their negligence that played a part in the tragic accident, Laura’s feelings soon take a turn with a chance meeting involving two elderly sisters. One of the siblings believes she is psychic and claims to have had contact with the Baxter’s daughter from beyond the grave. The readings give Laura hope, however, John stubborn with guilt and wary of a spate of murders occurring in the city, grows frustrated with his wife’s insistence of Christine’s happiness in the afterlife. That said, John also appears touched by the gift of premonition and is soon struck with visions of a small figure dressed in the same outfit Christine wore at the time of her death: A Red Hooded Mack.

For all the talk of visions and apparitions, so much of Don’t Look Now deals with the very human drama of a couple finding each other after a traumatic event. Where Walkabout used its guilt-riddled incident to approach themes of lost innocence and irrevocable change, Don’t Look Now’s tragedy leads towards how grief influences intimacy and romantic connection. Innocence is lost here too. However, Roeg frames this as two flawed human beings who still have a deep love for each other and, importantly, still look for ways to reconnect despite their differing views on tackling their loss.

One can say that travelling to Venice to get over their daughter's drowning is perhaps not the best way to go about overcoming their despair. Moving to a literal floating city surrounded by water ensures that the Baxters cannot get past their trauma. In the original short story by Daphne du Maurier, the death of Christine is caused by meningitis. Roeg and his screenwriters alter this in the film to drowning, a masterstroke. With that substance being the element that took their daughter away, the so-called city of water becomes a haunting presence for both the audience and the Baxters. A crumbling, sinking crypt masquerading as a place of escape. Full of labyrinthine alleyways and dead ends. At one point The Baxter’s find themselves lost in the city. Their disorientation metaphorically highlights the couple's struggle to find a way out of their pain. It becomes important to note that Laura leaves Venice at one point and does so after obtaining clarity from the clairvoyant sisters. For John, who never leaves Italy once the film’s action moves there, the location becomes a catacomb of grief. 

The small moment of respite the Baxters obtain in the film is also Don’t Look Now’s controversial sequence. Midway through the film, John and Laura enjoy a moment of passionate lovemaking. The scene is executed in such a way, that the gossipy whisperings that the actors had full sex on film remain to this day. For a British film, the last thing you’d expect to find is sexuality being so unbridled when the culture is often so chaste. So much emphasis is placed on the scene due to the will they, won’t they factor. What becomes more apparent, however, is when we consider how the scene is intercut with the couple getting ready afterwards. There’s a strong emphasis on the normality of it all. For the Baxters it is a small piece of levitation and true pleasure the couple has after the tragedy that’s befallen them. This makes Don’t Look Now one of the only films which observes sexuality in a mature and adult way. The scene seems more erotic because of this. The awkward gait and angles of their body movement give the scene a realism that has not been seen much of before or since.  Roeg's assembly of the sequence feels like the shower sequence in Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960). You are led to believe you saw more than you actually did.  

But this moment of intimacy doesn’t wash away the deep-seated pain that looms over the couple. The sex hints at the connection of love the Baxter’s once had. But their feelings on how to approach grief now show a vast rift between them. And that the disconnect is affecting. Anyone who has experienced anything similar knows how fleeting the feeling of normalcy is. So much of their location is used as a destabilising effect. The spate of murders lingers in the background. The priest John is working with seems blasé about the work taking place, and even the God he proclaims to believe in. Midway through the film, a detective is introduced to investigate the spate of murders occurring in the background. Roeg purposely casts an Italian actor whose command of English isn’t as strong as others. Pushing the isolation the couple feel even further. But the key ingredient to much of Don’t Look Now is the mosaic-like editing. 50 years on, Don’t Look Now is put together in a way that feels fresher than films released 6 months ago. So many films of the modern era appear incapable of utilising the language of cinema in such an expressive way. With so many elements of composition and editing being viewed as more of a means to an end. Roeg’s powerful use of cutting ensures the Baxters are unstuck in time. Reliving their pain in both past, present and future. Essentially experiencing grief as a Mobius strip. An unbreakable loop of anguish. 

At one point a character describes Venice as “A city in aspic, left over from a dinner party, and all the guests are dead and gone.”  When you think about it, you wonder: Why bring your trauma to such a place?  It is a city which leaves its characters unmoored in many ways. John tries to throw himself into work, but either appears unfocused or in peril. Heather’s unstableness is displayed in just how easily susceptible she is to these strange sisters who claim to see into the beyond. For many the scariest thing in the world is our fragile mortality. The death of Christine becomes a huge metaphor for this. Her passing disturbs John and Laura in all three tenses. Leaving them unprepared and uncertain. For Laura (impeccably played by Julie Christie), the sisters help her regain some emotional footing but leave her vulnerable. For the sceptic John, his reluctance only ramps up his anxiety and fear of the unknown. When you lose a child, even if you have the good fortune to have another, or the child has a sibling, that small piece of the puzzle of a person’s life will forever be missing. It becomes difficult to feel like the complete picture again. It becomes obvious to see what the Baxters are doing to try and break the loop. 

Don’t Look Now isn’t one for typical scare tactics. Save for one moment, the gore is scarce. The type of Lewton Bus scares which litter many horror films are also omitted. But what makes Don’t Look Now so unsettling is its sense of existential dread hanging around the edges of the frame. Noticeable in the symbolic decaying city of Venice but also in how the film hops across its fractured timeline almost at a whim. Having the audience occupy the same frame of mind as its protagonists. John suffers from the curse of premonition early. Experiencing moments of foreshadowing that could change the fate of characters if they could just understand what’s happening to them. It’s a disorientating and unsettling effect. Being led to see more of the future than one can comprehend. Through their grief, the senses of the Baxters are now heightened in a way that others are not due to their perception being dulled.  Roeg encapsulates a profound anxiety: a fear of the known unknown.  

Watching Don’t Look Now this time after experiencing a similar tragedy, the core relationship between the Baxters hits harder now than previously. From the quiet moments of intimacy to the unsaid things which lie amongst the small talk, all creeps under the skin. At the same time, the film’s infamous climax is just as heart-wrenching as it is unsettling. Perhaps because after experiencing something so painful, it’s easy to see oneself fall into the same trappings as John. Wary of a hesitant future, all the while being too stubborn to see what may be in front of you. The loss of innocence does indeed bring about existential dread. It also pulls intimacy into sharp focus. One of the scariest things for me in rewatching Don’t Look Now is how tragedy can alter one’s sense of perception. Even now, when watching the film again, a small part of me still cries out for its ending to differ. For John to regain some of his innocence.  For him to absorb a little more of that intimacy over his grief. Something to have him refrain from stumbling around dilapidated alleys. Sleepwalking towards more misfortune. 

In the time it took for me to collate some thoughts on this film, Donald Sutherland had died. His son Kiefer announced on Twitter that his father’s life was well lived. Be it M*A*S*H, Klute, or Six Degrees of Separation. Sutherland’s ability to bring pathos to whatever role he played was astonishing. I feel that John Baxter is amongst his best performances. A father whose grave trauma has rocked his foundations to the core. In a piece celebrating the film for Inverse magazine, Kayleigh Donaldson remarks: “It’s not simply that you cannot escape death; it’s that it’s everywhere, quietly reminding you of its arrival in your life.” In rewatching his performance here, I found a strange amount of solace within my two losses. A salve through observing grief on a Moebius strip. I was rewatching Death on a loop. In real life. On celluloid. Melded together in the same mosaic way Nicolas Roeg constructs his film. Yet despite the film’s melancholy, through Donald’s performance now comes his son’s words. We may not be able to escape death, but we can live life well before its arrival. I look forward. With an attempt to live well for my wife and son. The two of us looking for where we can rebuild our bonds and provide a new piece of the puzzle to reframe ourselves.

Review: Bleeding Love

Year: 2023

Director: Emma Westenberg

Screenplay: Ruby Caster, Clara McGregor and Vera Bulder

Starring: Clara McGregor, Ewan McGregor

Synopsis is here

 

Bleeding Love opens with something that’s become a familiar pattern in today’s fractured media landscape. Like many independent features of its kind, the film begins with a multitude of different film production idents. Most of them are unheard of. Such openings have become a clear example of how difficult it is to get certain movies off the ground. It certainly makes this production feel more determined.

Ironically, the dogged nature of the barrage of production labels feels correct for Bleeding Love. It is a film about drug addiction and estranged family ties. To gain a solid footing on such themes in real life tenacity is often a key component. For lead actress Clara McGregor, who also has producer, story and singer credits on the film, it’s clear that she's dying to say something in this film. And is looking for as many ways to express that.

It possibly helps that having a famous father helps. Clara co-stars alongside her dad Ewan in this good-natured and well-intentioned tale of a father who is covertly taking his daughter to rehab hours after she’s overdosed. Their fractious relationship gets quickly established in the film's opening scene where Clara’s daughter character asks her dad to pull over on the roadside so she can relive herself. It’s an excuse to flee as the girl sprints off with her father struggling to keep the pace. It’s a funny moment. Bleeding Love effectively sets up the relationship between the couple and the tone finds its footing quickly.

There’s some intriguing stuff to chew on here. Ewan McGregor is well known for his breakthrough role as Scottish heroin addict Renton in the 90s’ phenomenon Trainspotting (1996). There is a dry sense of humour in seeing McGregor come full circle. His features are now only slightly gone to seed. He finds himself in the role of a father who feels he knows better. In Bleeding Love, his role as dad comes with a keen knowledge of where substance abuse can take you. In this story, it soon becomes apparent that this parental figure has had his share of demons but is trying his best to steer that around. This road trip with his daughter becomes a chance for him to bury some of his skeletons while keeping his daughter from creating her own.

Clara McGregor as the unnamed daughter has some entertaining moments throughout the film. Her substance-addicted character is not too overzealous. However, she is perhaps too fresh-faced and striking to seem as in trouble as the film suggests. The chemistry between father and daughter is solid enough. They bounce off each other as one would expect from real-life family members.

But while both McGregors are appealing to watch, the film never gains the emotional tug that would alleviate it above anything seen before. Director Emma Westenberg is confident in terms of form. Her use of wide-angle lenses to portray flashback scenes and drug use is well utilised, and the pop aesthetic and moments of humour are enjoyable. It’s also welcoming that many women occupy roles behind the camera to produce a film that appears different from what could have been expected.  But despite Bleeding Love’s focus on its father-daughter relationship and small flights of fancy, the film is often too safe to linger in the mind for very long.  

Bleeding Love is available on Digital Platforms from 22nd July 2024

Dug what you read? Buy me a Ko-fi.

Article: The Jagged Edge within Cutter's Way

Cutter’s Way is a fascinating film anomaly. Released in the 80s, yet the cynical 70s tone looms over it. The wounds of Watergate and Vietnam fester from scene to scene. The blockbuster ball had started to roll at this point. All the while, Cutter’s Way (originally Cutter and Bone) fell prey to internal politics. Studio executives had no way of compartmentalising this neo-noir. There was no space for its ambiguity and contempt once the likes of Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) rolled onto screens. Sliding in a few months after Cutter’s Way's dismal March release. As the decade had Hollywood move away from the grimness of the 70s era, films like Cutter’s Way felt even more uncommon. However, we should be glad this almost-forgotten gem has supporters. Radiance Films
 garnered a hefty Blu-ray release for starved noir fans to discover. Not many present-day gems would gain such a second life within the cold-blooded streaming era.

The woozy opening of Cutter’s Way evokes a very different period. A marching parade dances giddily in slow motion while Jack Nitzsche's haunting score opens proceedings. The image starts in black and white before bleeding into colour. A quiet primer that seemingly suggests a shocking ending for the film we're about to watch. The juxtaposition of aw-shucks Americana imagery alongside the anxiety-riddled audio composition hints at something dreadfully amiss with the picturesque display. These opening credits remind me of the end credits of Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper (2015). Another film that utilises American iconography ironically. The most interesting American movies seem to love dealing with the country's dying innocence.

This displacement never leaves the viewer once the story opens and the characters are introduced. It’s Fiesta night and Richard Bone (Jeff Bridges) is caught in a post-coital exchange with a married woman (Nina van Pallandt). A scene not too out of place if it were found in American Gigolo (1980). Amusingly (Nina) as the satisfied recipient of a roll in the hay with a man named Bone is of little surprise. Van Pallandt was an object of temptation in neo-noirs such as The Long Goodbye (1973) and the previously mentioned American Gigolo. However, the somewhat callous nature of Bridges’ Bone is the eye-opener here. His golden boy good looks hide an insensitive personality. The exchange between them is a beautiful set-up of character. Bone sleeps with the woman under a flimsy pretence that he's selling her husband a yacht. Being an absolute chancer, Bone then nonchalantly bums cash off the same woman using a truthful untruth about seeing an ill friend in his clapped-out car. We discover that both elements of his statement have a kernel of fact. The vehicle needs more than a service. And Bone indeed does go to see an ill friend. Yet the money is clearly for neither of these things. This short scene sums up its main character more comprehensively than many movies.

After his car claps out on him, Bone spots a man dumping what looks like a body into a trash can before driving off. Almost hitting him. Thinking nothing of it, Bone heads to the local bar and meets his friend Alex Cutter (John Heard). Cutter is his sick friend. A one-armed, one-eyed Vietnam vet with a limp in his stride and a chip on his shoulder. Cutter is a loud, obnoxious drunk who appears to be doing his best to win gold in the Offence Olympics. He seemingly does everything he can to upset and distance everyone around him. His first act is racially abusing some black men at a bar where Bone meets him. This is just the start of his antics. 

Mo (Lisa Eichhorn); Alex Cutter's long-suffering wife, is soon introduced. Finding out that Mo and Cutter are in matrimony is baffling enough. When it is realised that she and Bone haven’t blown caution to the wind, the situation becomes more difficult to believe. The inebriated jibes from a deeply resentful Cutter suggest that something may already have happened. Or that he feels it will. Bone is a callow shirker. Cutter is the insufferable loud bore. Yet Mo is the quiet bond which holds the dysfunctional trio together. It’s easy to forget that Mo has reluctantly joined the male duo in some scenes. She slowly absorbs into the background while Cutter brings the world to rights, while Bone cringes. But Mo's silence is loud. Blowing out the water the juvenile idea that the number of words in a female performance is paramount to said character’s actual actions. To know the tale of woe that has fallen upon this trio is to study her face. Although she speaks much less than her male cohorts, she can chop either man down with her comparable wit at a moment's notice.  When she does speak, often in the way of her withering, wounding put-downs, her words count.

But what did Bone see that night of the fiesta when the car broke down? His thoughts on the matter take up less space than even the sentence I used to describe them. Go back. It’s a short line. But when he half mentions the situation to Cutter, a man whose scars have him seeking righteous indignation on anyone he feels deserves it, suddenly a mystery is afoot.  This dysfunctional trio soon embark on a presumed shaggy dog story based on the murky events of what Bone saw. The urge to find out what happened becomes driven by an animated Cutter, whose desire to bring who he believes the murderer is to justice only becomes more deranged from scene to scene. One unsettling moment comes early on when Cutter listens to Bone’s story. For a man who seems to bleed whiskey, the concentration and soberness in his voice at that point become quietly concerning.

Cutter’s Way is a film with murder as an inciting incident at its heart. Yet the film keeps a viewer on tenterhooks as to whether the suspect, almost arbitrarily labelled as the killer by Cutter, ever did anything wrong. The story is far more interested in the bitter regret that gnaws at these characters every day. Anchored by three superlative performances, Cutter’s Way plays out like a grim kitchen sink drama. Bone’s uninterest in solving the so-called case highlights his trait as a commitment phobe. Cutter is extremely happy to remind Bone that he doesn’t see things through. Yet looking at the scant “evidence” of the case, Cutter’s drunken quest for revenge feels like the ramblings of a madman. He is a self-proclaimed man of the people, angry at a world that steps over veterans like himself. As for Mo? Her pain is etched across her face. A small moment has her wordlessly watch children playing, while her husband drunkenly grizzles on. Once again, with such simple economy, the film fills the audience in on the character's state of mind more effectively with brief reaction shots over typical, obvious dialogue. 

These haunted characters allow Cutter’s Way to disarm a viewer. The murdered girl is almost insignificant. But then the person who talks about her murder the most is a war-torn vet who was never at the scene in the first place. The limping, one-armed man with an eye patch believes everyone else is blind to the facts. The most disturbing thing about Cutter’s Way is how it plays out a second time. At first, it’s watched through the eyes of Bridge’s Bone. Playing off like an offshoot of his character in The Last Picture Show (1971) or a precursor to his iconic role in The Big Lebowski (1998). He is our passive protagonist, guiding us past John Heard’s showy performance of Alex Cutter. Holding us a certain amount of distance away from Cutter’s charismatic mania. The second watch, however. It’s almost impossible to watch it through Cutter’s eye. Does his conspiracy theory make sense? Maybe not at the time, but his hostility certainly shapes things. The film pushes you more than a few steps towards his demented claims. Suddenly the coastal backdrop that felt unimportant to the drama in the forefront the first time around takes on a new sinister angle within a rewatch.

In Cutter’s Way and the equally tragic Born to Win (1971), director Ivan Passer incisively captures the cynicism many Americans seemingly held at the time of release. His outsider perspective gives the film its strength. A notable director of the Czech new wave of the 60s, people often knew him more for his lighter fare. However, two of his American films hold a remarkable toughness about themselves, a viewpoint which suited the downbeat cynicism laid bare by the era.  In Born to Win, Passer welds the circular bleakness of drug addiction in a way that keeps the film from feeling like an After-school special. Yet in Cutter’s Way, the filmmaker finds something even more haunting. A country so blighted by a war it lost and a lying president that rot has crept in. Eating away at the home-spun fantasy that many have happily bought into. Be it Bone’s commitment phobia or Cutter's deep-seated anger towards the establishment. These characters have been broken down by the promises that both America and each other failed to keep.  These frustrations are laid bare within this compact small-town story.

Such ennui allowed a sickening rot to set in. Corroding the happy home-spun fantasy brought into by many.  Bone hides early adultery with a beige capitalist alibi: selling a boat to a wealthy patron. During the Founders Day parade, Cutter wiles away time by making suggestive comments about the young girls in the procession. He does so in earshot of Mo. The moment has a touch of Virginia Woolf to it. Cutter makes a habit of making dubious comments disguised as vindictive jokes. Often grimly marking himself as a crippled cuck to get a rise out of his dispassionate associates. At one point Mo, who's grown sick of the trio's listless existence, buys fresh food as if such a superficial gesture would make an instant difference to their mindsets outside of a TV commercial. Eichhorn is so quietly moving through the narrative as the film's heart. Wait until halfway through when said heart bleeds. It's agonising.

By stripping away the exceptionalism found in so many American movies, Cutter's Way brings an honesty that America loves to shy away from.  It’s worth noting how the film is released only months before audiences fall in love with an adventurous historian who just so happens to masquerade as James Bond with a whip. Almost a decade before Cutter Way, audiences gained a deep-rooted connection with Clint Eastwood’s solitary, rule-breaking law enforcer, Dirty Harry (1971). Nowadays, the audience's embracement of the exceptional hero resides even longer with us. The era of franchises started and progressed with films such as Raiders of the Lost Ark, which had us look to the heavens for our heroes. It's fascinating to watch Passer ignore this. Instead, scratching beneath the surface to where others are reluctant to itch. Digging into a world lacking in heroes. Opening the door to a realm of indifference even before the gen-x cynicism of the 90s. The resentment these people harbour has infected all three of them deeply. It sticks to them. Refusing to let go. Causing their self-worth to weaken before spiralling outwards towards a country incubating their anger. The power of Cutter’s Way comes from how honest the dishonesty is. We watch the despondence of this trio of lost souls and realise how easy it could be for such a heinous murder to idly pass by.

The saddest thing about Cutter’s Way is that its muddled release holds a similar haplessness to the film's own characters. By the time it was released the numbing obsession with the superficial was complete. Audiences wouldn’t be invested in the crumbling visage of a once innocent America in the same way that anyone other than Cutter would be disinterested in a conspiratorial murder mystery. It’s not like cynical neo-noir is new. Yet a sense of brevity is found in Passer viewing America as the story's femme fatale. A nation far too unwieldy and rotten for its own good is now happy to delude itself with seductive yet self-centred idealism. It will placate the people with pageantry and parades. Blindly ignoring its victims. Our unfortunate trio are nothing more than the fall guys to the façade. In its own way, Cutter’s Way has deeper wounds than others. And the injuries are turning septic. Passer remarked in an interview with Jonathan Rosenbaum that the film is about what it takes to pull the trigger. The scary thing about Cutter’s Way as it fades to black is that even if people find the strength to pull the trigger, they may still be left in the dark. The film’s shocking yet ambiguous final moments rubber stamps this notion. For two hours, Cutter’s Way drags its viewer through the distorted mind of a veteran broken by war. By the end, Ivan Passer’s film considers how much we should believe him. The answer gets more disturbing the more you think about it.

Cutter's Way is out on Amazon Video at the time of writing. But try and find the limited edition Blu-ray by Radience Films if you can. 

Dug what you read? Buy me a Ko-fi!

Article: Indulging in The King of New York

The first time I heard the name Frank White was listening to The Notorious B.I.G.  Christopher Wallace vocally gave himself the moniker on many of his tracks. The name was taken from the fictional character portrayed by Christopher Walken in Abel Ferrara's kinetic crime drama The King of New York. To see rappers label themselves with the violent crime characters of the movies is no big shock, especially in the 90s. The earlier albums of Jay-Z were filled with skits which lifted movie dialogue from Carlitos Way (1993). The 1983 version of Scarface influenced the lyrics of several rap artists, while southern rapper Scarface made it his stage name. However, I always found Wallace using the Frank White nickname to be an amusing one. By extension, giving himself the name, the artist was labelling himself King of New York emcees. His reputation grew after his fatal shooting ended his far too short career. But the self-proclaimed nickname feels like such a wry and knowing aspect of mythmaking before the bleak tragedy of his passing.

The King of New York is equally as dark. Ferrara’s film feels just as doomed as B.I.G’s seminal hip-hop debut ‘Ready to Die’. Their main characters deal with death, drugs, and money in equal parts. All with the lingering knowledge that their ideals are in no way sustainable. Frank White is released from prison with the intent to go straight. He wants to be mayor of New York City. Taking a leaf out of Micheal Corleone’s book, he’s decided to decimate the criminal underworld and consolidate his drug empire while looking to frame himself as legitimate. New York’s narcotics squad quickly catch wind of White’s activities. Leading the case are three dogged yet weary detectives. However, with no tangible evidence against the kingpin, their efforts look in vain. However, if you’ve heard Biggie’s ‘Suicidal Thoughts’ you just know that tragic consequences loom around the corner.

It's crazy realising that The King of New York stuts its stuff in the same year that Goodfellas (1990) and The Godfather: Part 3 (1990) flexed their Mafioso muscles. While the two crime films of Coppola and Scorsese waltz around with an air of prestige about themselves. The King of New York is as down and dirty as they come. Eschewing the romanticism of the larger studio pictures and becoming its own Shakespearean tragedy set within the Big Apple. Frank White holds similar, lofty aspirations to that of Micheal Corleone. To run in the halls of government, even if it means getting there by nefarious means. But no Machiavellian scheme exists here. Both Coppola and Scorsese love to manoeuvre around the hierarchy of their gangsters with an element of pomp. Ferrara is less interested in pageantry. The King of New York, like many of Ferrara’s other films, is a lean beast. Like White, there’s no time to play around.

Frank White:” I’ve lost a lot of time. It's gone. From here on, I can't waste any. If I can have a year or two, I'll make somethin' good. I'll do somethin'...

[Chuckles] ... somethin' good. Just one year, that's all.”

In a 2012 interview on the Arrow region B Blu Ray of the film, a candid Abel Ferrara remarks that the film is how a volume of prosperity gained from a newly established nouveau riche (the drug dealers) was briefly viewed from the eyes of blue-collared joes, the cops trying to take White down. Amusingly, in the same interview, Ferrara considers White as a “dreamer”. A man full of contradictions with little time on this earth. The slenderness of The King of New York as a movie eerily in parallel with the rap star who made the film’s lead character his namesake a few years later. But the plight of Frank White and the metaphors viewed by his creator are also fascinating. A focus on the conflicting idealism that often occurs in similar gangster movies. They only need to be in “the life” for a little longer. The ill-gotten fruits of their violent crimes can then be obtained without consequence. White forgets that he lives in what Ferrara deems a "life of survival". Unfortunately, none of us get out here alive. In the case of Frank White, life is more likely to be a good time than a long one. With that one good year starts to look mighty precious. But as Frank notes in the film's latter end: he doesn’t need forever.

When director Quentin Tarantino first started following the work of Abel Ferrara, he felt that the Bronx native would become the next Martin Scorsese. An understandable notion from an aesthetic point of view. The King of New York has a few visual instances that suggest that earlier Scorsese vibe. The opening scenes of Frank White surveying New York in a stretch Limo after his release feel strangely reminiscent of Travis Bickle roaming the streets in Taxi Driver. The short, sharp, bloody first shootout resembles Scoresese's earlier works. A drug deal filled with tension explodes. Bodies are strewn across the floor in a matter of a few squib-filled seconds. But the two paths diverge from each other soon after.

One difference is Ferrara embracing the melting pot of New York. Despite the cynicism within The King of New York, Ferrara appears fascinated with dynamics not so keenly approached by his peers. In his review of The King of New York, Roger Ebert constantly looks for a logic that Ferrara cares little about. Frank White is a Caucasian criminal with an army of loyal black men under his wing. Ebert spends time wondering why. Wanting the script to tell us more. Yet we are left with an ambiguous commentary on race relations. Handled with a contradictory earnestness and community not found in earlier Scorsese features. White’s relationship with black street criminals is frowned upon in the film and questioned in film reviews.  However, the mixed racial groupings of both cops and criminals hold a dramatic contrast to the more dismissive or aggressive relationships found in the likes of Goodfellas and Taxi Driver. Granted those films are not about racial harmony. Nor is The King of New York. However, the dynamic found in Ferrara's film gives a fresh sense of precedence. Reflecting the audiences who would connect with the film. Despite a tepid box office performance, The King of New York did very well with black audiences. Suddenly The King of New York had me thinking of films such as Kanas City (1996), One False Move (1992) and, of course, the boom period of hood movies that graced the 1990s. The addition of music from Schooly D, one of the originators of Gangster Rap, not only cemented a sense of immediacy but also strengthened the ties to inner-city black America. A far cry from the misty-eyed, segregated period pieces of the same year. The idea of The King of New York being a racial trendsetter might be reaching for some. However, Ferrara’s desire to let such provocation linger for a viewer does make King of New York even more compelling. Bringing forth the overriding statement that the only colour that matters is green.

For all this talk about racial commentary, The King of New York is also a formidable exercise in style and mood. So much of the charisma of Frank White is compiled in how Abel Ferrara, Christopher Walken, and cinematographer Bojan Bazelli construct the world. From the first moments of White swaggering out of prison to the cold, pensive close-ups of him as he is driven through the underbelly of his desired kingdom.  Is Frank White cavalier on his idea to be New York’s Robin Hood? Of course, the imagery of Walken dancing with his stoned mistresses, bathed in golden diffused light, or gazing out at the New York skyline is seductive enough to gloss over the practicalities. It delivers the conviction. Bazelli’s work is of standout here. Capturing faces in mesmerising close-ups. The sense of power felt watching Walken in those early moments is palpable. In addition to this, Bazelli indulges scenes by bathing them in bold primary colours. So much so that I was reminded of another film: Deep Cover (1992). Guess who the cinematographer was. A quick glance at Bazelli’s filmography also features his potent work in features like The Ring (2002) and A Cure for Wellness (2016). Although one wonders how the cinematographer feels about revisiting Boxing Helena (1993).

But for all the style, it's astounding that The King of New York maintains an air of B-movie grit about itself. Ferrara combines lean, kinetic energy with the extravagant criminal indulgence found within sensationalistic second features and Blaxploitation fare. The King of New York never shies away from its thorny racial comradery nor its brazen sexuality and over-the-top violence. And it's all the better for it. Where else can you see such a scummy Laurance Fishburne performance? The type of off-the-chain display that could only exist in a film with one foot still in the exploitation world. How can a man with such calm, commanding roles like Furious Styles and Morpheus have a performance like this in his locker? Will mainstream cinema ever have such a charismatic anti-hero display his lustful desire with such wanton abandon on a subway train? Possibly not. But we should be lucky The King of New York exists as a jolt of lightning in a bottle, almost forgotten in a year where two of the New Hollywood champs came out with some big swings. Goodfellas became ranked as one of America’s best crime films. The Godfather: Part 3 became the uneven brother to its muscular siblings.  The King of New York stumbled out of the blocks but became the cult cousin that rewards viewers willing to give a little time to films that lay off the beaten track. When Biggie Smalls crowned himself as New York royalty, he saw the swagger and energy of Frank White that he wanted to replicate within his music. Both Frank Whites were here to excite, and each did so with aplomb. 

The King of New York can be found on Amazon Prime. However, I recommend picking up the great Arrow 2 Disc Blu-ray if possible. 

Like what you read? Indulge me in a Ko-fi

Article - A quick look back at Interview with a Vampire

Neil Jordan’s film Interview with a Vampire has reached 30 years old this year. A discovery I made when I decided to watch my DVD copy to overcome the near-daily paralysis by film choice. Like so many of my peers, I have to forcibly stick with an immediate film choice or else be cursed to doomscroll for the rest of the evening. So camp, beautiful, depressed vampires abound! Interview with a Vampire is one of those films I always didn’t mind watching. However, narrative fragments fall out of my head despite multiple viewings. This time, I tried to reconcile my issues with a film I enjoyed most of despite holding it at arm's length.

Based on the 1976 Anne Rice novel of the same name, Interview with a Vampire tells the angsty story of Louis (Brad Pitt), a previously widowed slave owner who chronicles his centuries-long life as a creature of the undead. From his transformation by malicious vampire Lestat (Tom Cruise) to his parental relationship with Claudia (Kirsten Dunst), a young girl who has turned into a vampire through unfortunate circumstances.

Interview with A Vampire perhaps was infamously known for Anne Rice’s anger at Cruise being picked for the role of Lestat. Her anger quickly quelled after watching the performance by Cruise. A turn that is still considered as one of his most memorable. Lestat always felt like a landmark role for Cruise. It marks the first time the actor toyed with the role of anti-hero. But it’s also significant that while the homoeroticism of Top Gun was more of a byproduct than a necessity of that film, it is baked into Interview with a Vampire in a way that can't be ignored. Being the early 90s an element of brevity can be seen in one of Hollywood's notable golden boys playing a character who is so against type. In looking at Cruise’s filmography, his most alluring performances are when he decides to go against the grain. His roles that play against or challenge his more typical masculinity are almost always more interesting than when he embraces it. Give me Eyes Wide Shut (1999), Magnolia (1999), or this over the ongoing Mission Impossible movies he’s seemingly resigned to do. Cruise’s Lestat is one of the few times he unlocks the sociopathic side. It worked so well that Rice took out a two-page spread in Variety praising his performance and admitting she was wrong.

Cruise’s brash Lestat dampers Brad Pitt’s turn as Louis formidably. The contrast is palpable and possibly stems from Pitt’s depression when working on the film. The long dark days of a six-month stint in London had got to him so badly that he asked producer David Geffen how much it would cost to get out of the movie. The price? $40 million. Pitt’s passive Louis is a cypher, with none of the visual tics that the actor became known for. Interview with a Vampire trades in on his beauty, but none of the viral sexuality or energy that made him interesting in his earlier 90s films and beyond. It’s an overly mannered performance which comes off as flat and laboured. All the industry goes to Tom.

While an unevenness between the two leads exists, Interview is still an interesting artefact in that the homoeroticism still simmers under the lid. To see these now Hollywood heavyweights play out petty, catty arguments with each other like a middle-aged couple feels radical. As does the unconventional family unit between two male vampires and Claudia (a fantastically firey Kirsten Dunst), the child sired almost out of pity by Lestat. And we must remember Antonio Banderas, an Almodóvar fave, turning up in the latter stages. The film has more than a little queer credential. Allegedly Anne Rice’s fear of Hollywood’s homophobia was so great that at one point, she turned in a rewritten version of the film with a female Louis, with Cher in consideration for the role. By sticking to their guns Neil Jordan creates a far more engaging piece. It’s something you didn’t see a ton of in the 90s: a highly budgeted, queer horror film with Hollywood A-Listers. The only thing that comes close is perhaps one of Jordan’s influences on the film: Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula (1992) which came two years before it. Although Coppola’s film outdoes Interview for out and out horniness.

Were the dark, gothic Vampires the perfect creatures for the cynical 90s era? Interview with a Vampire and Dracula suggest this. Both films were not only large in scale, and rich in detail. They were also big on existential malaise and deep-seated longing. In Interview, this is perhaps best exhibited in the unfortunate character of Claudia. Growing older in mind, but never in physicality, Claudia is possibly the saddest string in Interview’s bow. Along with the idea that vampires must keep in touch with the world as it changes and evolves. A latter scene involving Lestat alludes to a feeling of immortal senility as it is shown that he has not kept up with the changing times of the world.

It's perhaps fitting that Interview with a Vampire also feels trapped in a cocoon of its era despite its then-progressive handling of sexuality. In the latter half of the decade, Bloodsuckers had somewhat shed the angst brought on by Coppola and Jordan. Instead, vampire films began to get their bite back. With films which seemed more in tune with the grubby grit of Kathryn Bigalow’s Near Dark (1987) or even Joel Schumacher’s The Lost Boys (1987).  People seemed less interested in seeing vampires as mopey sad bois on film. The latter section of the 90s gave us From Dusk Till Dawn (1996), Vampires (1998) and Blade (1998). Although the Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV series (1997) managed to keep brooding, gothic guys alive until Twilight (2009). That said, even creator Joss Wheadon had an innate desire to subvert elements of the gothic vampire tropes when looking back at his first attempt at the Buffy universe as a feature film.

The edgy vamps of the latter end of the decade illustrate one of Interview's weaknesses. After a while, these haunted sad sacks stop being engaging. Looking back at the film during this rewatch, I found the inner turmoil of Louis rather bland. Cruise’s Lestat, the driving force behind all the most entertaining aspects of the film, goes missing for most of the film's second half. While the film’s narrative dissipates once the action moves to Paris. The introduction of Antonio Banderas and Stephen Rea should be a boon for the story. Both actors put in decent turns. But the problem is that Louis remains uniquely unsympathetic throughout. It’s easy to feel like Lestat; infuriated with Louis's supposed “goodness” despite there being very little to him. One suspects the novel's success lies in how Rice rounds out the character. If any book fans stumble on this piece, let me know.

And it’s with this that I realised my issue with Interview with a Vampire. Despite the lavish detail and exciting, over-the-top performances from Cruise, Rea and Banderas, Louis is just a dull interviewee. Even with everything being told to an excited Christian Slater. In addition to the later stages' lack of narrative propulsion, Pitt's central performance highlights the trouble I now find with this gothic drama. But I can never be too harsh on it. Looking back on its release 30 years ago, what I also see is the kind of gateway drug to overblown, gothic horror that is always warmly welcomed by myself. Despite my issues with the material. Which is why I probably still own the DVD.    

(4