PETULIA 1968

Some years back, director Francis Ford Coppola released The Godfather Trilogy 1901-1980: a chronologically reassembled edit of all three of his Godfather films. As appealing as it was (in a passive, brain-dead, sort of way) to have the sprawling Corleone saga laid out in a fashion so as to make it impossible for even the most distracted viewer to lose the narrative thread, the sad result was that in the attainment of unequivocal comprehension, all poetry was lost. Robbed of the sometimes poignant juxtapositioning of past and present events, The Godfather became just another gangster film.

The artful manipulation of time in The Godfather films—the past coexisting with the present—is more than just a stylistic conceit; it's an essential representation of the films' narrative themes of destiny and predetermination. In Petulia, the conveyance of time as a nonlinear phenomenon reflective of the characters' fractured lives (a point of annoyance for several critics back in 1968), is no less fundamental to the telling of this distinctly Sixties, yet timeless, story.

Down on Me
Well-heeled attendees of a charity fundraising dance "Shake for Highway Safety" react to the rock group Big Brother & the Holding Company (Janis Joplin)

Richard Lester’s Petulia is the story of a small group of very pretty people whose perfect-looking lives are nevertheless bloody battlefields strewn with the carnage of emotional (sometimes physical) violence every bit as senseless and arbitrary as the glaring images of the Vietnam War that flicker from the largely ignored TV sets running nonstop in every room. Depicted in an artfully disjointed style which intercuts flash-forwards and flashbacks with scenes occurring in the here and now, Petulia examines the tentative love affair between impulsive, unhappily married newlywed Petulia (Christie) and the generationally displaced surgeon Archie (Scott). Archie is an old-fashionedly decent man facing a kind of existential mid-life crisis in the midst of "The Pepsi Generation," and he doesn't know quite what to make of it all.

Just as Coppola's use of flashbacks in The Godfather created a sense of history encroaching upon the present, Petulia is an almost-love-story told in a time-tripping, hopscotch fashion so organic to the era (the swinging Sixties); the place (Summer of Love San Francisco); and characters (the beautiful people), that it’s impossible to imagine the film realized in any other way.

Julie Christie as Petulia Danner

George C. Scott as Archie Bollen

Richard Chamberlain as David Danner

Shirley Knight as Polo (Prudence) Bollen

Joseph Cotten as Mr. Danner

I saw Petulia for the first time just two months ago, and given my predilection for all things Julie Christie, it struck me as more than a little puzzling how this near-perfect little gem had managed to elude me all these years. I suspected I would like it, but I didn't really expect to love it as much as I did. Funny, touching, and full of startling performances...it's so perfectly attuned to my tastes and interests it practically has my name on it. Advertised at the time of its release as “The uncommon movie,” Petulia might well have added "unexpected” to the mix, for I've really never seen anything quite like it. Not only does it have Julie Christie at her most jaw-droppingly gorgeous (EVER…and that’s saying something), but she, George C. Scott, and Richard Chamberlain bring an empathetic intensity to characters one might best describe as guardedly dispassionate.

Although they share no scenes together, Petulia reunites Kathleen Widdoes (pictured) with her The Group co-star, Shirley Knight 

Petulia is Richard Lester's savage picture postcard satire of American life in the late Sixties. A time when sentimentality was considered square, relationships tangential, and the polished-metal, automated world of “now” was moving and changing so fast it stood in constant danger of leaving itself behind. As a dissection of an emerging cultural scene and its people, Petulia is a surprisingly focused social skewering considering its relative lack of distance (it's one of the few mainstream films commenting on the decade to actually have been filmed where and when what we commonly associate with '60s culture originated). Richard Lester (A Hard Day’s Night, The Ritz) takes a fragmented, psychedelic view of the gleaming-surfaced existence of  jaded, wealthy hippies and disillusioned, drop-out professionals. A world where the disenfranchised poor and people of color are always glimpsed (just barely) on the periphery, and the hippies are just as phony and callous as the straights. The darkly comic, fumbling interplay of these lost-and-found souls striving—often in shell-shocked bemusement—to reach out to one another in a disposable, mechanized, instant gratification society is rendered in strobe-light glimpses boldly captured by Nicolas Roeg’s (The Man Who Fell To Earth, Don’t Look Now) kaleidoscopic camera lens.

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILM

Petulia (based on the John Haase novel, Me and the Arch Kook Petulia) is very effective, not to mention outrageously stylish, in the ways it depicts the messy complexity of relationships. Contrary to what songs, romance novels, and fairy tales would have us believe, really connecting with another human being is a frustratingly difficult business. It's imperfect, inconsistent, and comprised of a million little disappointments and uncertainties, all tethered to an overpowering but seldom acknowledged need for human contact. 

The straightforward Archie can’t make head-nor-tails of the captivating but confounding Petulia, who is herself of two minds about her beautiful but abusive husband, David. Polo, Archie’s ex-wife, is not quite over him, yet seems to have leapt into a compromise relationship. Meanwhile, their friends Barney and Wilma (?!) -Arthur Hill and Kathleen Widdoes - whose own marriage is falling apart, scheme to have them reconcile. These emotionally inarticulate couplings form a roundelay of missed chances and miscommunications endlessly reenacted by the uniformly dissatisfied protagonists. Individuals whose words and actions seem to be forever at cross purposes with their desires.

As Petulia is as much a social satire as a poignantly bleak meditation on emotional authenticity (“Real, honest-to-God tears, Petulia?”), the picture of America that Lester paints is one of alienating mechanization and deceptive appearances. Richard Lester’s San Francisco is one of automatized motels; switch-on fireplaces; indoor flowers that die when exposed to real sunlight; decoy hospital room TV sets; sullen flower children; nuns driving Porches; topless restaurants; gloomy all-night supermarkets; and kiddie excursions to Alcatraz Prison (which is a reality now, but was not, if I remember correctly, the case back in 1967).

Among the row houses of Daly City, Archie seeks the assistance of two two non-cooperative hippies (that's WKRP's Howard Hessman in the pink shirt) 

PERFORMANCES
No one does sham superficiality better than Julie Christie. From Darling's narcissistic Diana Scott, Far From the Madding Crowd's perniciously thoughtless Bathsheba, to the emotionally vacant Linda Montag of Fahrenheit 451, Christie has made a career of adding depth and dimension to otherwise unsympathetically shallow characters.
The walking contradiction that is Petulia Danner: arch posturing one moment, self-recriminating anguish the next, is one of Julie Christie's strongest most persuasive performances.

I can't say I've ever cared much for George C. Scott (who somehow grows increasingly more handsome as the film progresses) but I think he is rather spectacular here. He avoids the usual self-pity that comes with these kinds of roles and makes Archie into a strong, very likable character you come to care a great deal about. It's a most effective dramatic device when a staunchly unexcitable character in a movie breaks into a smile, and when this happens in Petulia, it just about breaks my heart.

Special mention must also be made of Richard Chamberlain (then known exclusively for TV's Dr. Kildare and as a heartthrob romantic lead) daringly cast against type and delivering an overwhelmingly chilling portrayal of a man who is a physically perfect, psychologically damaged, Ken doll.

THE STUFF OF FANTASY
A film set in '60s San Francisco is bound to be visually vivid, and Petulia is a marvelous-looking movie whose color photography is as expressive as it is overwhelming. There are psychedelic light shows accompanying musical appearances by The Grateful Dead and Janis Joplin, striking vistas of Bay Area locations, and the candy-colored mod fashions of the day take on a fairly 3D effect.

My partner was the first to take note of the beige/brown cheerlessness of Archie's bachelor apartment (top) contrasting so expressively with Petulia's fraudulently festive pink and yellow boudoir (below).

THE STUFF OF DREAMS

It's always struck me as a curious phenomenon how so many films from the '80s and '90s can appear so dated to me, yet most of my favorite films from the late -'60s and '70s seem to have a timelessness about them. I don't pretend to know the reason, but I suspect it's because so many '60s and '70s films are about people and relationships, while '80s and '90s films are chiefly the result of pitches, formulas, and focus groups. Ignore the swinging '60s window dressing (but who would want to?) and Petulia is as topically relevant today as it was in 1968. Perhaps more so

Estrangement. The natural consequence of erecting barriers in the avoidance of pain

On the strength of one month's ownership of the DVD and three viewings, Petulia has become my absolute favorite Richard Lester film. The first American feature from a director known for his bold comedic style, Petulia is not as great a thematic departure as it at first appears. There are plentiful examples of Lester's penchant for absurdist humor, caustic irony, and the sad/funny details of human interaction. But what distinguishes Petulia for me is the humanity at the core of this little microscopic vision of the world. That and the sophisticated style of its execution. In that, Petulia is indeed an uncommon movie.

Petulia is, at its heart, an adult twist on the classic fairy tale. Petulia is the damsel in distress who, perhaps tragically, can't or doesn't want to be saved. David, the Prince Charming whose beauty conceals a beast. Archie, the frog prince who lives happily ever after.

Copyright © Ken Anderson     2009 - 2012

DON'T LOOK NOW 1973

There is nothing like a good scare at the movies. I don't mean those jarring, throw-your-popcorn-in-air, dig-your-nails-into-your-partner's-arm, moments (ah, sweet memories of Wait Until Dark). As fun as they can be, those moments are over much too swiftly. What I refer to are those far more satisfying, lasting feelings of intensifying disquietude that overtake you the moment a movie starts to touch upon an anxiety or sense of dread that runs deeper than mere surprise in the face of the unexpected. Those moments when the passive role of observer — the moviegoer's emotional safety valve—give way to the more interactive role of the projected participant. Suddenly, you're relating to the film on a visceral level, and all the while an electric current running through you is taking great delight in your being brought to such a vulnerable state of apprehension by mere flickering images projected on a screen.  

It happened once when I was a kid and saw Rosemary's Baby and it happened again as an adult with Nicolas Roeg's Don't Look Now. an opaque, atmospheric thriller that proves when it comes to scary stories, it's all in the telling.

  Julie Christie  as  Laura Baxter

  Donald Sutherland  as John Baxter

Hilary Mason as Heather, the blind woman with "second sight"

  Clelia Matania as Wendy

An off-season assignment to restore a decaying church in Venice Italy affords architect Donald Sutherland and wife Julie Christie the opportunity to leave behind mournful memories associated with their English country home—the site of a recent tragedy--the accidental drowning death of their young daughter. However, Venice in winter, a shuttered city blanketed in gray skies, desolate streets, and half-empty cafes and hotels, is so grim and foreboding it's hard to imagine a less suitable place to try to overcome depression. A feeling further intensified by the city being beset by a string of grisly, unsolved murders. With the “chance” meeting of a pair of eccentric elderly sisters, one blind and claiming to have a psychic connection with the deceased child, a chain of strange and uncanny events is triggered...events as labyrinthine and dark as the streets of Venice themselves.

                              The unforeseeable foreseen.
                              A sense of something not being right.
                              An accident. A premonition. A fate.

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILM

What one considers scary is as subjective a designation as what one considers to be funny, so I'm aware my claim of Don't Look Now being one of the scariest movies I've ever seen is not the same thing as saying it's a scary movie. I'm certain that for many its premise and execution are far too leisurely and bloodless for the Texas Chainsaw Massacre crowd, and the label of "arty" would not be baseless in describing both its structure and visual style. But for whatever reason or whatever chord it struck, this darkly mysterious merge of the rational and paranormal just scared the bejesus out of me when I first saw it. And continues to do so even today.

Venice in Peril
A sign calling attention to the endangered status of Venice architecture also 
alludes ominously to the serial killer terrorizing the city.

PERFORMANCES
I claim no objectivity when it comes to Julie Christie. To the head-scratching bewilderment of my partner, who thinks she's fine enough but nothing to rave about, I find her to be an intelligently resourceful actress who brings an air of emotive conviction to everything she does. And it certainly doesn't hurt that she is a stone knockout, to boot. Her matter-of-fact naturalness proves an essential asset in a film such as this, lest her character be made to appear hysterical or unbalanced. Donald Sutherland underplays so well (usually, anyway) that the skill of his performances are often overlooked. In Don't Look Now he is at his relaxed best, making his character a believable skeptic in the face of the fantastic. Watch the play of emotions over his face as his character tries to sort out the mystery that his life has become. It's just the kind of in-the-moment urgency that is lacking in so many suspense films. Sutherland seems to be right with us, the audience, not a step ahead nor a step behind. I think he's fantastic here.

The much-discussed graphic sex scene between Christie and Sutherland is but one of many moments of genuine affection displayed between the couple. Moments that invest the film with a real sense of the pain of loss.

THE STUFF OF FANTASY

There's a chilling sequence in which the couple venture out at night, looking for a restaurant they've heard about. The dark streets and alleys prove an insurmountable maze and they become lost and eventually separated. In the midst of this, an unearthly cry is heard and something terrifying is half seen. This scene just had my pulse racing. It is a brilliant bit of  cinematic tension.

Things only half seen and half heard.

THE STUFF OF DREAMS

The film's title is really splendid. No matter how you say it, literal or ironic, whatever you think it means, whatever punctuation you add, or wherever you place the emphasis; it remains 100% appropriate to the film's themes. It speaks of warning, apprehension, sight, and danger. All elements of the film evocatively rendered in the recurring perception motifs of eyes, watching, seeing, and reflecting.

A woman without sight watches.

The city is full of windows but no one sees the murderer.

A child drowns because no one is watching.

Much of  Don't Look Now concerns itself with the concept of perception. Most certainly self-perception (Sutherland's character's fatal flaw is ignoring his own sixth sense) and awakening to the danger inherent in not heeding signs of warning, not being watchful, not seeing, not looking. 

Don’t Look Now is one of those movies so rich in content that it yields dividends with each re-visit. This brief insert shot reveals details of Donald Sutherland's nightstand: a photo of his children with the drowned daughter's face obscured. A glass of water with a symbolically significant red base. A paperback copy of Der Stellvertreter (subtitled, A Christian Tragedy) by Rolf Hochhuth - a play alleging the Catholic Church turned its back on (failed to heed, refused to see) the warning signs of The Holocaust. Playing further into the themes of not looking and paying little heed, in a later scene, a Catholic Bishop pondering the violence in the world wonders aloud if perhaps God has "other priorities" or perhaps "we have stopped listening."

A thriller in every sense of the word, Don't Look Now is one of those rare suspense films that doesn't lose its punch after it's revealed its mystery. Indeed, that's precisely the point when more questions are likely to spring to mind. Whatever level it's approached by -- a mood piece, a study of grief, a psychic mystery, a ghost story -- Don't Look Now delivers as a chilling, remarkably effective, and atmospheric suspenser that's as much a treat for the eyes (Venice has never looked more hauntingly beautiful) as the imagination. But keep your eyes peeled.

BONUS MATERIAL

Don't Look Now theatrical trailer:

Copyright © Ken Anderson    2009 - 2011

THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH 1976

The track record for pop recording artists successfully transitioning to motion pictures is checkered at best. For every A Hard Day’s Night or The Rose, there’s a Shanghai Surprise or Under the Cherry Moon. If the more successful examples of this often painful sub-genre have anything in common, it's that they tend to be vehicles that don't unduly strain the talents of the artist in question, and, contextually speaking, serve to augment and exploit the said artist's already firmly established public image.

Elvis merely had to channel his stage persona for Jailhouse Rock; Roger Daltrey really WAS Tommy, and 70’s pop sensation David Bowie found the perfect vehicle for his otherworldly Ziggy Stardust/ Space Oddity image in Nicolas Roeg’s dreamily poetic adaptation of Walter Trevis’ sci-fi classic: The Man Who Fell to Earth.

                                                                   David Bowie

Simply told, The Man Who Fell to Earth is the story of a traveler (Bowie) from a drought-decimated planet who comes to earth with a vague plan to save his world's remaining survivors. (The plan is made explicit in the novel: he intends to build a ship that will transport his planet’s survivors to earth to colonize, and if necessary, forestall nuclear war).

                                                                       Splashdown

Armed with the advanced technology and intellect characteristic of his people, the determinedly pragmatic alien (who goes by the name of Thomas Jerome Newton and carries a British passport) is rendered defenseless by his inability to comprehend the complex and sometimes paradoxical workings of the human soul.
A treatise on everything from alienation, longing, corruption, ambition, and hope, The Man Who Fell to Earth is that most intriguing brand of science fiction film: a futuristic drama that takes into account the fact that the technological advancements of science seem never rise above the ethical limitations of man.

                                    A world without water, a family left behind
 
WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILM
I really admire how The Man Who Fell to Earth plays with the concept of time. The story has the feel and scope of an epic, but there is no reference to just how much time has elapsed. Major events unfurl, inventions reorganize lives, yet Bowie's unchanging flawlessness stands in poignant counterpoint to the aging decay of those around him. Roeg's employment of fluid time imbues Tevis' novel with an abstract metaphysical richness that makes this somewhat familiar "fish-out-of-water" tale shimmer with keen human insights and finely-observed perceptions about loneliness and the universal need to connect.

                                                              Close without Contact

PERFORMANCES
Whether by design or luck, surrounding the relatively stiff and inexpressive Bowie with a team of idiosyncratically naturalistic actors (Rip Torn, Candy Clark, & Buck Henry) evocatively underscores Bowie's unerasable "otherness" as the alien and brings into tragic relief his unending estrangement from those he seeks to understand.
Hands-down the film's best performance is given by Rip Torn as the disillusioned idealist Nathan Bryce, but Candy Clark is the film's emotional center. As Mary-Lou, a small-town girl lonelier and more isolated than the alien she falls in love with, Clark does some very intelligent things in bringing dimension to a character who's none-too-bright.

                             Candy Clark as Mary-Lou: Looking for Love

A plea to be seen instead of just being watched        

                               Mary-Lou & Nathan find one another in old age
                               "I don't want her to get lonely."

THE STUFF OF FANTASY
There is just something so right about the conceit that an alien from another planet would look like an orange-haired British pop star. It adds yet another layer of pop-cultural awareness to a film that equates human greed, ambition, and folly to a preoccupation with surface appearance and the inability to actually see what is right before our eyes.

                                                  Rip Torn: "Are you a Lithuanian?"

                                                         Bowie: "Don't be suspicious."


THE STUFF OF DREAMS
The Man Who Fell to Earth is a film filled with fluid imagery. Both literally and figuratively. Liquids, in the form of water, alcohol, and bodily fluids, are a major visual motif and subtextural theme.

                                
WHAT FUELED MY DREAMS
Having lived for more than 50 years, I've seen my share of technological advancements. Sci-fi movies are inclined to envision the future as some utopian ideal where all our problems solved by technology, or as a nightmarish world of "1984" -ish technological enslavement. My experience has been that no matter how advanced the invention, we humans have a way of modifying it to accommodate our basest natures.

The Man Who Fell to Earth doesn't position itself in any easily identified point in time and tells a tale of a savior, of sorts, who comes to earth; and yet the most use we have for him is exploitative and corporate in nature. Money and power rule, and while the corrupt and ambitious move the world along to its inevitable annihilation, people fumble about trying to connect while blind to ever discovering how to do so.

You can keep your Star Wars gadget-fetishism and your Close Encounters of the Third Kind wish-fulfillment fantasy; I'll take the wistful vision of space travel offered by The Man Who Fell to Earth. A film whose catchline could have been: "In space no one can hear you cry."

                                            "I think maybe Mr. Newton has had enough."

VOGUE Theater, San Francisco  1976
Promotional check which entitled the recipient to $1 off towards the purchase of a
The Man Who Fell To Earth movie poster

Copyright © Ken Anderson  2009 - 2010