X, Y & ZEE 1972

Warning: Spoiler Alert. This is a critical essay, not a review, so plot points are revealed for the purpose of discussion.

She's at that awkward age. Seventies-era Elizabeth Taylor, that is. Starting out as an uncommonly pretty child actress, Taylor grew into a breathtakingly beautiful movie star who became known (with the assistance of Eddie Fisher, Richard Burton, and "le scandale") as a world-class homewrecker and tabloid darling. Over time came the respect and legitimacy of two Academy Award wins (Butterfield 8, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?), too soon supplanted by the undesired notoriety of being the star of several costly, eccentric flops. Come the '70s, Taylor seemed to settle into a kind of teetering-on-the-edge-of-irrelevance fame that cast her as the walking embodiment of movie star excess. A symbol of fishbowl-celebrity victimization and the near-obsessive object of keyhole journalism. She was a public figure noted more for her jewels, illnesses, and fluctuating waistline than for her talent as an actress.

Elizabeth Taylor as Zee Blakeley

Michael Caine as Robert Blakeley

Susannah York as Stella 

I was 15 in 1972, and had you asked me then to name an actress, I would have said Glenda Jackson, Jane Fonda, or Faye Dunaway. If you'd asked me to name a movie star, in a heartbeat, I'd have said Elizabeth Taylor. She was in a different category altogether. Why? Certainly not because I was so familiar with her work. No, at age fifteen, I had only seen Taylor in a couple of movies on The Late Late Show, and on the big screen, only Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Secret Ceremony. The reason Elizabeth Taylor represented and defined movie stardom for me was that, for as long as I could remember and as far back as memory served, there had not been a single month in the entirety of my childhood that didn't find Elizabeth Taylor's face gracing the cover of a magazine, newspaper, or scandal-sheet. She was famous to me before I even knew what famous was.

But by 1972, Elizabeth Taylor had become an in-betweener. An eminent member of old-guard Hollywood too young to be nostalgically "hip" like Alexis Smith and Ruby Keeler (both of whom enjoyed brief career resurgences on Broadway in 1971: Follies and No, No Nanette, respectively); too big a star to go the put-out-to-pasture, weekly TV series route taken by Henry Fonda, Jimmy Stewart, and Shirley MacLaine (all starring in short-lived TV shows during the 1971-1972 season); and yet too old to be taken seriously in the "New Hollywood" which cast her  (preposterously) as a mini-skirted Las Vegas showgirl(!) carrying on an affair with 5-years-younger Warren Beatty in The Only Game in Town (1970). 

Granted far too little screen time (but making the most of it in a see-through frock),
the fabulous Margaret Leighton plays a party-giving socialite named Gladys.
She could be the prototype for Ab Fab's Patsy

One of Taylor's most significant drawbacks was that she still looked like a movie star in an era that had turned its attention to gritty naturalism and actors who looked like regular folks. In a time when roles were written for people who looked like Karen Black, Elliot Gould, and Dustin Hoffman, Elizabeth Taylor stood out for all the wrong reasons. A de-glamorized Taylor tended to look matronly (something both her fans and detractors never let her forget). Yet at the same time, an in-step-with-the-times Taylor (she was only 38 when X, Y & Zee began filming) came across like a trying-too-hard fashion trainwreck (something evident in most every frame of X, Y & Zee).

Seventies youth-oriented fashions were unique in that they seemed to come with built-in lie-detectors; they invariably made those who sought to appropriate the look of the "now" generation look infinitely older, not younger. Elizabeth Taylor's short stature and curvy figure (so fetching in the hourglass silhouettes of the '50s and '60s) was ill-served by the bright colors and form-fitting cut of mod clothes and hippie chic. When she wasn't looking like a Technicolor butterfly in blowsy caftans and height-reducing ponchos, she was encased and cocooned in trendy synthetics that appeared as uncomfortable as they were unflattering. 

As for her film career: the all-encompassing scope of Taylor's tabloid notoriety, a spate of ill-advised self-referential movie roles (audiences treated every Taylor/Burton film pairing as a dramatized glimpse into the couple's real life), and stunt-like TV guest appearances (in the daytime soap All My Children and on Lucille Ball's sitcom Here's Lucy—both in 1970), all conspired to make it next to impossible for audiences to accept her in a movie as anybody but herself.

What was a contemporary cinema demi-goddess to do?

Well, one solution – especially if one was as in need of a hit as Taylor at the time—was to give 'em what they wanted. And to a large degree, that's precisely what X, Y & Zee does. Author Edna O'Brien's original screenplay about a toxic romantic triangle among London's tony set (originally titled Zee & Co.) is an acerbic black comedy-drama that appears to have been whittled and shaped to suit the talents and persona of its star. (O'Brien contends that as many as four writers tinkered with her script...even changing her original ending - reportedly involving a ménage à trois - to a lesbian conquest.)

Elizabeth Taylor portrays Zee Blakeley, the coarse, overdressed vulgarian wife of shout-talk architect Robert Blakeley (Michael Caine). Theirs is a sophisticated open marriage. A decidedly rocky one, however, sustained by constant bickering, wicked parry and thrust verbal matches, and relentless game-playing of the sexual one-upmanship sort. This dysfunctional breakup-to-makeup cycle is disrupted when Robert meets and instantly falls in love with the serene Stella (the lovely Susannah York sporting the most astoundingly-constructed 70s shag), a widowed dress designer with twin boys and a fashion boutique named...appropriately enough...Kaftan.

As the younger "other woman" who has caught both Robert's eye and exceedingly fickle heart, Stella exudes such intelligence and sensitivity that it's rather difficult to understand what she sees in the lizard-eyed lothario...beyond, perhaps, the flattery of the ardency of his pursuit. As for Robert, it's clear Stella represents an opportunity for a little peace and quiet, and a little less fashion eye-strain.

"I think she looks like a bag of bones."
Zee and best friend Gordon (John Standing) size up the competition

I can only speculate that what ensues was initially intended to be a three-pronged war of wills in which everyone's desires are ultimately revealed to be selfish and motivated by rescue, dependency, or escape. However, what is actually served up is a one-woman battle and full-on frontal assault waged by Zee against Robert and Stella (both hopelessly outmatched) as she resorts to every trick in the book—and a few no one had yet dared think of—to keep her man and assure that things remain as they are.

Screenwriter O'Brien may have exhausted the whole "modern marriage under stress" topic in 1969's more dramatically satisfying Three Into Two Won't Go (in which Rod Steiger's uncooked pastry dough countenance strains credibility as the fought-over commodity in a romantic triangle featuring real-life wife Claire Bloom, and Judy Geeson). A similar tone of sophisticated cynicism and candor is strived for in X, Y & Zee, but only the occasional spark note is ever actually hit. No problem, for Taylor & Co. seem content to coast on personality and fireworks, capitalizing on and exploiting every ounce of the script's self-referential humor and second-hand Albee melodrama.

The result: Elizabeth Taylor's Zee, balancing on the brink of self-parody and frequently leaping headlong into camp, is less a character than a burlesque amalgam of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? 's Martha; Leonora, the scatterbrained chatterbox from Reflections in a Golden Eye; the claws-out Maggie from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof; and snatch-and-grab bits culled from years of Taylor's press clippings.

Taylor makes knowing, self-aware jokes about her weight-

 Zee: "Real men don't like skinny women. They only think they do because they're supposed to look better in clothes. But what happens when the clothes come off, and you climb between the sheets on a cold winter night? Then they like to know they're with a real woman."

Taylor turns well-known critical barbs into self-directed comedy-
Robert: "She (Stella) suggests you open a fish store."

Taylor indulges her well-documented bawdy sense of humor-
Zee: "Frankly, Scarlett, I don't give a shit!"

Taylor reprises Maggie the Cat-

Zee: (On the phone to Stella) "Is my husband in your skinny, chicken-like arms?"

Taylor reprises Virginia Woolf's Martha- 

Zee: "Come back here, you! I haven't dismissed you yet!"

And, of course, with each scene of Taylor and Caine whaling on and wailing at one another between bouts of heated make-up sex, the tumultuous real-life Taylor/Burton union (which had about two more years to go) is evoked, and (the audience hopes) reenacted.

Taylor, while balancing an enormous mane of Medusa hair, drowning in a fashion parade of gaudy, sail-like caftans, and risking violet eye-shadow poisoning, gives a performance that is by turns unsubtle, nuanced, hilarious, knowing, touching, and assured 

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILM

I imagine that the mental calisthenics a writer must perform in order to come up with something new to say about the romantic triangle are considerable. Edna O'Brien's tack seems to be to examine what binds people together in an atmosphere of unbridled license. The Beautiful People populating X, Y & Zee are a rarefied set. Unlike the penniless, free-love hippies espousing freedom and "doing your own thing" in the atmosphere of the sexual revolution, the hedonistic individuals at the center of the film have both the wealth and autonomy to be truly free. And therein lies the problem.

Without the need to be tethered or tied to anyone, the whole idea of marriage and morality becomes confoundingly fluid. No one can be accused of cheating because cheating first presumes the existence of rules. And from what little we glean from this couple's past (Zee can't have children and pets die on them with tragic regularity), like Albee's George and Martha, game-playing replaced rules for Zee and Robert long ago.

The introduction of Stella into the middle of this duo is significant. Stella, unlike Zee, is a working woman, and Robert, a self-made man, is wealthy but proud of his humble beginnings. Stella—calm in the face of Zee's excitability, soft-spoken to Zee's shrillness—also wears around her neck a Quran case amulet (an Islamic protective talisman which plays an important but subtle role in the film's conclusion) suggesting a spirituality and connection to something outside of herself…another attribute lacking in Zee. Add to this the fact that Stella also has two children with whom Robert immediately develops a rapport, and we come to understand why Zee recognizes in Stella, no ordinary rival.

Both Susannah York and Michael Caine give noteworthy performances

This is the core conflict in X, Y & Zee, and while not earth-shatteringly profound stuff, it makes for compelling human drama and (in the film's quieter moments) is exceptionally well-played by the cast

THE STUFF OF FANTASY

Alas, quiet moments in X, Y & Zee are pretty hard to come by. As directed by Brian G. Hutton (Night Watch) X, Y & Zee is a crudely funny, visually flashy, magnificently photographed, and exceedingly noisy movie. Perhaps in an effort to better fashion O'Brien's 3-character story into a star vehicle, X, Y & Zee not only tells the story from Zee's perspective (which I can understand), but allows Zee's aesthetics (loud music, loud clothing, and shrieking whenever possible) to become the film's defining motif. 

I'm aware that the '70s presents its own unique challenges if one's intention is to depict a character as vulgar and coarse, and it's a great deal of campy fun having Elizabeth Taylor run full-throttle diva roughshod over every and all; but it does tend to unbalance the narrative, making it difficult for the dramatic sequences to hit their stride. As a huge fan of Mike Nichols' poorly-received 2004 comedy-drama Closer (about two sets of couples endlessly circling one another), I think X, Y & Zee could have benefited from a similarly deft balancing of the serio with the comic.

PERFORMANCES

As stated in previous posts, my respect for and appreciation of Elizabeth Taylor was rather late in coming, making me wonder what I would have made of  X, Y & Zee had I seen it when it was released to theaters in January of 1972. Because it plays so strongly to what I once thought were her weaknesses (her voice, her sometimes too-knowing camp appeal) I don't think I would have rated it very highly. 

Today is a different story. Maybe it's my own age (I'm 20 years older than Taylor in this film), maybe it's nostalgia for the era (the '70's never looked more Austin Powers-like), and most definitely it's the dawning awareness that her like is nowhere to be found on movie screens today; but I think Taylor is damn good in this movie. As funny as she is in the first part (a broad performance not likely to win over detractors) she truly shines and is quite moving in the second half. I've seen X, Y and Zee several times, and while I find it to be uneven (I can understand Edna O'Brien's dissatisfaction with the script) I can't deny that I have - to quote the poster - an absolute ball watching it. 

In Richard Burton's published diary, he wrote of how there was a genuine belief on his part that X, Y and Zee would be the much-needed boxoffice hit for Elizabeth. Alas, it proved to be just the latest in a lengthening string of underperforming films that came to characterize her latter-day career. Taylor never stopped being a star, but she never again rose to the heights of her '60s film popularity. 

I especially like Susannah York. Her character doesn't entirely make sense to me, but York's performance is so natural and seems to come from a place of clear understanding on her part, I feel I'm always struggling to get up to speed. She draws me into her character in search of what I'm positive I'm missing. The scenes between Taylor and York are my favorites. The hospital scene being a real standout...both are just tremendously affecting together. In the buddy-film atmosphere of the '70s, not many big female stars were cast opposite other women, and I forever bemoan what was potentially lost in not having any women's films comparable to the pairings of Redford and Newman.

X, Y and Zee's meta credentials don't stop with allusions to Taylor's previous roles as overbearing shrews. Susannah York's casting (her part was said to have first been offered to Julie Christie) harkens back to her controversial role in 1968s The Killing of Sister George

THE STUFF OF DREAMS

Couldn't sign off on X, Y and Zee without commenting on two non-Elizabeth Taylor-related favorite things about the film. One is the luminous cinematography of Billy Williams (Women in Love, Night Watch). Maybe it's the pristine quality of the DVD, but I never noticed before how burnished everything (and everyone) looks. The garish '70s decor and fashions pop off the screen creating a glitzy world of numbing sensual overkill.

X, Y and Zee goes for every "sophisticated" and "adult" credit it can get by having two featured gay characters. Michael Cashman is Gavin, an employee at Stella's shop. Cashman, whose character Zee mordantly describes as a "poncy little fag" is, in real life, currently a member of British Parliament and the Labour Party's special envoy on LGBT issues worldwide. So shove it, Zee!  

Second is the film's musical theme, the eloquent ballad "Going in Circles" by Ted Myers & Jaianada. The lovely lyrical version played under the film's opening credits sets the tone for a movie that doesn't arrive until about 45 minutes in. And a terrific vocal version is heard over the closing credits, but the singer's identity is hard to reliably confirm. 

Internet sources cite Three Dog Night, but they recorded a cover version on an album that sounds nothing like the one in the film. Another source claims the vocalist is Richard (Harry) Podolor, the manager of Three Dog Night. Further confusing the issue, a friend who claims to have seen the film when it was initially released says that Three Dog Night sang over the closing credits originally, but when the film came to VHS and DVD they replaced their version (copyright issues?) with the one we now hear (who that is I still don't know). In any event, it's a graceful song and curiously ideal for this not-very well-regarded little film that has become one of my favorite Elizabeth Taylor vehicles.

Zee: "He loves his little games. Do you play?"

Stella: "I'm afraid I don't."

Zee: "Nor do I."

BONUS MATERIAL

As a possible solution to the above quandary, I found this online poster image containing a sticker promoting Three Dog Night singing "Going in Circles" in the film. (click on poster to enlarge)

One of my favorite Elizabeth Taylor clips: Taylor presenting at the 1981 Tony Awards. She's really adorable and infectiously hilarious.

Copyright © Ken Anderson   2009 - 2016

IMAGES 1972

At one time or another, everyone has had the experience of waking from a dream feeling, even if only for a second, as though the dream were real. Recently I had one of those dreams where you see yourself, as if in real-time, sleeping in bed, conscious of being asleep and dreaming, yet at the same time aware of being awake, outside of the body, and observing. The way these varied states of consciousness peel away only to reveal other, hidden states of consciousness, each with a psychological validity that crosses over into reality, is like the chimerical equivalent of a Russian nesting doll. It all happens very swiftly, fleetingly in fact, yet while it’s happening, you harbor a tiny fear in your heart that it’s a tossup as to which of these realities is authentic.

This inability to discern what is real and what is imagined is at the core of Robert Altman’s dreamy, trippy, intriguingly abstruse psychological thriller Images. A movie that takes the fluid dreamscape logic of 3 Women, crosses it with the volatile psychosexual menace of That Cold Day in the Park, and adds to it all the schizophrenic character-study subjectivity of Roman Polanski’s Repulsion.

Susannah York as Cathryn

As with Catherine Deneuve’s Carol in Repulsion, when we first meet Susannah York’s Cathryn, she is a woman already deep in the throes of mental illness. Cathryn is a schizophrenic, a fact she appears to be at least subtly aware of (or at least suspects) on some level. Married to her waggish businessman husband Hugh (Rene Auberjonois), the rather solemn Cathryn spends a great deal of her time isolated, as she is an author working on a children’s book.
Altman incorporated In Search of Unicorns, a children’s book Susannah York was writing at the time, into the screenplay of Images. Published in 1973, York’s somewhat euphuistic fairy tale so perfectly suits the dreamlike tone of Images, it’s hard to believe it wasn't written expressly for the film. Moreover, York’s melodious voiceover narration of passages from the book provides an appropriately cryptic counterpoint to the action.

As Cathryn endeavors to patch together the narrative fragments of her children’s fantasy, she engages in lengthy inner monologues that cull forth shadowy images of her past. A vague and disjointed puzzle of images, sounds, and memories from her past that intrude abruptly and randomly upon her present.

Rene Auberjonois as Hugh
Mirrors, lenses, and prisms are a motif Altman employs throughout Images to convey Cathryn's fractured reality 

Cathryn is a woman haunted. Haunted by past infidelities (lovers, both dead and alive, have a nagging way of reappearing, attempting to resume their dalliances); guilt (she vacillates between being both desirous and fearful of having a child); suspicion (she assigns her own deceitful behavior to her husband); and specifically, the unwelcome, ever-encroaching memories of a lonely childhood. Memories, for reasons left unexplained, she struggles to suppress. We’re never explicitly told what is ailing Cathryn, nor is it clear what has recently occurred to accelerate the frequency and intensity of her schizophrenic episodes. What is apparent is that her illness—one the film's subjective POV makes us privy to alone—takes the form of a mercurially shifting reality which, at times, appears to be conspiring to betray her.

Dream Lover
Cathryn's former lover, Rene (Marcel Bozzuffi of The French Connection), reappears after having died in a plane crash three years prior

Although I desperately wanted to see this when it was released in 1972, I was just 14 years old, and Images was an R-rated movie playing at one of San Francisco’s “art house” cinemas. A theater, I might add, whose policies regarding underage attendance were not as flexible as those of my trusty neighborhood moviehouse, thus necessitating many attempts on my part to persuade apathetic family members (or mature-looking friends) to accompany me. In spite of the thriller being promoted with a very eye-catching poster featuring dual Susannah Yorks reflected in the lens of a vintage bellows camera stabbed by a butcher knife (see below), I found not a single taker. So I only got around to seeing Images at a revival theater sometime in the '80s.

Happily, thanks to Susannah York’s brilliantly restless performance; Vilmos Zsigmond’s (Heaven’s Gate) lush and evocative cinematography; the unsettling musical score by John Williams (with Stomu Yamashta); and especially the film’s stylistic similarities to the work of Roman Polanski, Images became an instant favorite that was more than worth the wait.

Fans of Robert Altman will recognize actor Hugh Millais as the bounty hunter in McCabe & Mrs. Miller. Here he plays Cathryn's libidinous neighbor and former lover, Marcel

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILM

Few things are more dismal than watching a film that thoroughly explains, spells out, and underlines (with italics) each plot point and narrative twist that you’re left with nothing to ruminate or talk about afterward. While that's a point that can be made about many of the movies-by-market-research released these days, no one could ever say that about a Robert Altman film.

In Images, Altman takes the very intriguing tack of asking us to exclusively share the increasingly fragmented perspective of a schizophrenic. A choice whose not-unexpected effect on the viewer is a mounting sense of disorientation and unease as it dawns that the story's entirety is to be told by a disturbingly unreliable narrator.

Cathryn Harrison as Susannah (Marcel's daughter)
Images plays fast and loose with the audience's reality as well. Each of the characters in the film shares the real-life name of one of the actors (Susannah, Rene, Cathryn, Hugh, and Marcel)

And therein lies the beauty of this film for me. As it grows ever more apparent that Cathryn is losing her grip on sanity, Images becomes a thriller that actively engages and challenges you to piece together the puzzle of the character's life and the film's story. Reality and hallucination merge imperceptibly without benefit of the usual clichéd cinema vocabulary indicators of dissolves, soft focus, echoes, or slow-motion; so a great deal of the veracity of what occurs is continually called into question.
Altman understands that no two people see or experience life exactly the same way, so he doesn't waste time trying to explain his personal point of view in his movies. Instead, he tells his story, then leaves it to each of us to make of it what we will. Even his brilliant DVD commentaries fail to "explain" things for the moviegoer craving answers. Altman is a director who would rather you actively watch one of his films and fully misunderstand it, than to passively sit and be spoon-fed every detail and theme. 

Images is one of those films that reveal more details each time you watch it.
In this scene, Cathryn works on a puzzle with Susannah, the daughter of a former lover. The single POV shot shared by the two individuals - Cathryn's adult hand occupying the left of the frame, Susannah's smaller hand on the right -  hints at the possibility of Cathryn actually working the puzzle alone, sharing the moment with a hallucination of herself as a young girl. Even the subject of the puzzle is suspect, as Cathryn continually says that she has no idea what the image is, yet we know for a fact that it is a puzzle of the very house she is occupying...the house she spent a great deal of time alone in as a child.

To clarify, I’m no fan of the sort of studied incoherence that put David Lynch on the map (and removed him just as swiftly). But I do love movies that demand your attention on first viewing, offer plenty of food for thought after, and later reward repeat viewings with heretofore undiscovered pieces of the puzzle…all laid out for you to find at your leisure should you just care to look. Such films hold the potential for each revisit to feel like a fresh experience.

PERFORMANCES

It’s been widely reported (and corroborated on the DVD commentary) that due to recent news of her pregnancy and concerns about the film’s script, Susannah York wasn’t all that keen on appearing in Images. But if York’s performance is the work of a woman ambivalent about the film she appears in, her years studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts were clearly well-spent. Without resorting to ostentatious tics, gestures, and histrionic displays of madness, York inhabits her character to a chilling degree. Never for a moment are you in doubt that you are watching a fully fleshed-out individual, a character comprised of intelligence, imagination, and inner life. All of these, under the circumstances of her character's internal disintegration, convey a certain sadness as we observe a personality slowly submerged by mental illness. 

Cathryn continually confronts images of herself, whether reflected, remembered, or hallucinatory 

Where York particularly excels is in conveying, without words, the vast array of emotions attendant to discovering one’s mind is operating independent of one’s will. Images compels in giving the distinct impression that something Cathryn has likely been successful in keeping a lid on for some time, is now starting to slip through her fingers. Susannah York shows the panic, confusion, danger, and even the humor in Cathryn’s loss of psychological ground. Small wonder that York won the Best Actress award at the 1972 Cannes Film Festival for her work in Images.

THE STUFF OF FANTASY

I'm not sure why, but for as long as I can remember, I have been fascinated by movies dealing with the concept of duality. From Vertigo, Dead Ringers, Don't Look Now, The Tenant, Persona, and of course, 3 Women; so many of my favorite films are psychological thrillers in which the duality of human nature and the fluid quality of reality play a part.  

I'm still one of those who find the inner workings of the human psyche to be a far more terrifying landscape than anything that can be dreamed up by the gore-mongers making horror films today, so I personally consider Altman's Images to be an excellent thriller that effectively packs on the atmospheric dread and character-based tension. The environment Altman designs for his film is one loaded with reflective surfaces, shadowy corners, and interiors comprised of a Caligari-like assemblage of stairs, railings, rooms, and angled archways. Add to this the near-constant tinkle of wind chimes and an eerily deceptive (subjective) soundtrack, and you've got a thriller worthy of both Roman Polanski and Alfred Hitchcock.

Psycho 

THE STUFF OF DREAMS

The best movies are journeys. Journeys that transport us to other lives, other times, other lands, and, in the case of Images, other states of consciousness. Because the written word can so perfectly capture the subtleties of thought and emotion, and music is ideal for the conveyance of mood and feeling, what I have always loved about movies is how they can make real the fantastic. To render in corporeal terms, the dream /nightmare phase of existence where reality and illusion converge in ways that are not always easy to put into words. 

Hidden Behind Her Back
The threat of violence, unexpected and sudden, runs throughout Images

One can describe, academically and emotionally, what schizophrenia must be like, but in Images, Robert Altman finds a visual language capable of conveying a psychological frame of mind. Miraculously, seamlessly, Altman captures a state most of us only know through dreaming: the helpless, floating feeling of reality and fantasy existing as one, with our inability to discern where reality ends, and fantasy begins. The nightmare, of course, would be to have this be our awake, conscious state. Images brings this nightmare to life in a way refreshingly naturalistic and devoid of melodrama.
Even if you're left unpersuaded by the film as a genre thriller, you can't help but admire Altman's ability to take you inside the consciousness of another person, allowing for the vicarious experiencing of the real world through an entirely alien perspective. Although not one of Robert Altman's most discussed films, Images is a favorite of mine. One that fits neatly into his catalog of character studies of women on the verge.  

Who's watching whom?

'TIS A PUZZLEMENT- Piecing together the fragments

The wind chimes signaling a schizophrenic episode.

Elements of Cathryn's life can be gleaned from the "monologues" she shares with hallucinated others.

Note the address of Hugh's liaison given to her by a well-meaning "friend."

Note the soundtrack whenever Cathryn is using the phone  (Dial tones? Busy signals? Voices?)

Susannah's history/Cathryn's history.

Archie, the dog.

Malevolence perceived in everyday objects.

Windows or mirrors? Any difference?

I think it was either Roger Ebert or Pauline Kael who suggested interpolating the word "You" during several conversations where Cathryn references her husband "Hugh."

Copyright © Ken Anderson   2009 - 2013

SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE 1978

In writing about films, I'm afraid I'm guilty of coming down pretty hard on the recent spate of comic book movies. My usual gripes:

1. The cloak of self-seriousness they've shrouded themselves in of late.

2. The need for each successive film in a franchise to be busier, noisier, and more frenetically-plotted than the last.

3. The gradual usurpation of the kid-friendly genre by adult males (college-age to middle) willing to come to social media blows and death threats over plot points, casting, trivia, and fidelity to source material. Which, it bears repeating…is a Comic Book.

4. There just being so darn many of them.

Despite their obvious popularity and profitability, I still stand by my assertion that glutting the market with so much ideologically and stylistically similar "product" may be good business, but it's lousy art. But whenever I find myself being too much of a curmudgeon about the ceaseless hype surrounding the latest cookie-cutter entry in the DC or Marvel franchise, I only have to remind myself of what a flurry of hoopla and excitement I happily allowed myself to get swept up in way back in 1978. 

I don't think there was a soul on earth more charged-up about the release of Superman: The Movie. A film that was then, and remains today, my absolute favorite superhero movie of all time.

Christopher Reeve as Superman / Clark Kent

Margot Kidder as Lois Lane

Gene Hackman as Lex Luthor

Valerie Perrine as Eve Teschmacher

Like many people my age, Superman comic books and reruns of The Adventures of Superman TV series (1952-1958) were an inextricable part of my childhood. And, outside of a few Saturday morning cartoons, they were also the only Superman I knew. (The less said about the 1975 TV version of the 1966 Broadway musical, It's a Bird… It's a Plane… It's Superman the better). So while I dearly loved the TV series, when it was announced in 1976 that a mega-budget, all-star Superman film was going into production, I was overjoyed at the prospect of any form of updating of that program's '50s sensibilities (gangsters and crime lords), cheesy flying effects, and George Reeves' baggy-kneed Superman tights. 

Interest and excitement intensified as I opened myself up to being subjected to nearly two years of pre-production hype and advance publicity. I ate it up. By the time the film was set to open, I had whipped myself into a proper frenzy of anticipation.  

Marlon Brando and Susannah York as Jor-El & Lara

Glenn Ford and Phyllis Thaxter as Ma & Pa Kent

Superman: The Movie opened Friday, December 15th, 1978, at Grauman's Chinese Theater in LA, and, of course, I was in line opening night. The pre-release press reviews were near-unanimous raves. The film's marketing strategy—minimalist teaser ads dramatically highlighting the Superman insignia and little else—left everyone intrigued yet completely in the dark. In those pre-internet days, it was easier for movies to keep much of their content under wraps before release, so buzzing through the waiting crowd that night was the thrill of expectation, wonder, and the sense of being present for an "event." 

The first weekend of release saw the theater adding late-night screenings to accommodate the overflowing masses. The line I stood in (formed at 4pm to get into an 8pm show) wrapped almost around the block. Camaraderie born of the shared battle fatigue of waiting so long revealed that all any of us could talk about was how Superman: The Movie was going to stack up, special effects-wise, to the previous year's megahit, Star Wars. That, and speculating on how the film intended to make good on the promise of its tagline: "You'll Believe a Man Can Fly." 

The makers of Superman had a knack for setting up and meeting audience expectations.
The first time Reeve unveils the "new" Superman outfit (no baggy knees!)
 is also the first time the audience finds out how this particular Superman will fly.
The audience I saw it with started cheering the moment they saw that cape and blue tights. But when the Man of Steele took off in graceful flight, throwing us a literal curve by banking the wall of the fortress (no prior Superman had ever flown in any directions other than horizontal and vertical) ...the cheers and applause reached stadium levels. 

George Reeves, the Superman of childhood.
Christopher Reeve, my favorite Superman of all time.

Whenever I rewatch Superman, I can still remember, clear as a bell, what it was like seeing it that first time. First, there was that familiar rumble of excitement that passed through the packed theater as the lights dimmed and everyone sat higher in their seats and got in their last-minute shushes. Then, that moment when the square aspect ratio of the B&W prologue is literally pushed into 70mm widescreen color (and MAJOR amplified Dobly sound) by those laser-like "flying credits" whooshing towards us. The loudest boom (which sounded like a jet plane taking off) was reserved for the appearance of the Superman insignia, which seemed to zoom in over our heads onto the screen from somewhere at the back of the theater. 

Next came the first trumpeting of horns of composer John Williams' majestically heroic score, and with this, absolute pandemonium in the auditorium. The biggest collective gasp I've ever heard in my life filled the Chinese Theater, followed by applause and thrilled exclamations all around. 

Superman wasn't even two minutes old and already had the audience eating out of its hand.

Otis (Ned Beatty) and Miss Teschmacher read about the Man of  Steel. I think Otis moves his lips.

Although production on Superman had begun before Star Wars was released, Superman: The Movie arose from the same cultural zeitgeist. In concept and execution, it was another affectionate update and tribute to the kinds of films that kids of my generation grew up seeing at Saturday matinees. The cynical and disillusioned '70s—whose attitudes echoed the Great Depression of the 1930s—were searching for hope and heroes. (That other Depression Era optimist, Annie, had opened on Broadway just a year before in early 1977.) The simplicity of Superman's motto: a belief in "truth, justice, and the American way," struck a social chord.

Superman: The Movie accomplished the miracle of being something totally new, yet comfortingly nostalgic. Something sophisticated, yet charmingly corny. Something spoofishly fun, yet respectful of both the Superman legend and its legions of fans. And, for once, a film had lived up to its massive hype. 

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILM:

When action films and summer blockbusters come under critical fire for being moronic, shoddily written, or just a series of explosions and car chases strung haphazardly together (directors Michael Bay and Roland Emmerich come to mind), I always take umbrage when their lazy defense is: "It's not supposed to be taken seriously," "It's pure escapism!", or "It's intended for kids!"

As children's book authors Dr. Seuss and Roald Dahl could tell you, kids aren't stupid, and escapist fare doesn't mean mindless.  

Jackie Cooper as Perry White

What I love about Superman: The Movie is how smart it is. Correction: make that ingenious. It's the canniest transfer of a comic book character to the movie screen I've ever seen. The script is witty and sharp, the tone is winkingly arch, and there are many thrills to be had in the film's masterfully-handled action sequences. But best of all, the film never plays down to the audience. 

Expertly balancing ever-shifting tones of adventure, romance, drama, and comedy, Superman: The Movie employs a classic, three-act story structure and finds ways to lend dimension to its comic-book-originated characters. 

Jeff East as Young Clark Kent

Though the budget for Superman: The Movie tipped at $55 million, an element that plays out nicely over time is the human-sized scale of the film's narrative. Hewing closely to the simplicity of the original comic books and TV series, the villainous stakes of Lex Luthor and his henchmen may come across as modest compared to the overcrowded, overplotted, mass-mayhem destruction noise fests of today. But for me, the film's accessible scale is a significant part of its charm.
I like a Superman who has time to rescue cats from trees and apprehend common thieves. I find the whole "global destruction" angle of contemporary superhero films just too emotionally distancing.

Jor-El sentences Ursa, Non, and General Zod to the Phantom Zone
Villains Sarah Douglas, Jack O'Halloran, & Terence Stamp
don't really make their presence felt until Superman II (1980)

PERFORMANCES

During the entirety of my childhood George Reeves and Noel Neill were the only Superman and Lois Lane I knew. Now, rather spontaneously, when I think of Superman and Lois Lane, I can only see Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder. Their performances have blotted out all prior and subsequent incarnations of the characters. Both actors are such spot-on, visually witty, temperamentally ideal incarnations of the characters that they have become Superman and Lois for me. 

Lke Jeremy Irons in David Cronenberg's Dead Ringers, Reeve's dual performance
 involves subtle shifts in body language that transform his features right before my eyes

I've loved movies all my life, but I've never fully understood that imperceptible, interdependent alchemy the camera captures that accounts for screen chemistry and star quality. It strikes me as a most elusive, ethereal factor, yet the fates of multimillion-dollar movie projects are tethered to it. Both Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder are fine actors in their own right, but for me, they've never registered as effectively in any other film or with any other co-star. They are magic together, and I treasure every scene they share. 

The casting of Marlon Brando was a central thrust of Superman's early publicity, but time has revealed his contribution to have been simultaneously significant (the Brando persona adds gravitas to the whole "Father of Superman" thing) and negligible (any number of competent actors could have done as well).

However, I've nothing but unqualified praise for the rest of the marvelous cast assembled.  

I sense a great deal of the credit is owed to director Richard Donner (The Omen), who, after setting the right tone and creating a kind of cartoon reality, then has his actors pitch their performances to just the right level of believable and comic. Glenn Ford and Phyllis Thaxter play their scenes with a beautiful, relaxed naturalness that perfectly sets up the "comic book" style acting that takes over when Clark moves to Metropolis. Jackie Cooper's excitable Perry White is one of my favorite performances, and I am particularly delighted by Gene Hackman and his barely-up-to-the-task minions Valerie Perrine and Ned Beatty.

Marc McClure as Jimmy Olsen

THE STUFF OF FANTASY
Swoon alert. One of the top reasons Superman: The Movie is my fave rave superhero movie is because I am absolutely enchanted by the Superman/Lois Lane romance. And as embodied by Reeve and Kidder, they make for one of cinema's most charismatic and charming screen couples. I'm a sucker for corny romance anyway, but in taking the time to create a Lois and Clark that are quirky, imperfect, and endearing, Superman made the pair so likable that you're practically rooting for them to fall in love. 
*Spoiler Ahead*
I'm well past middle age, I've seen this movie dozens of times, and it's a movie adapted from a comic book for Chrissakes; but when Lois dies at the end, I get waterworks each and every time. Christopher Reeve's performance is just remarkable (I love that bit when he tenderly places her body on the ground and winces, as if afraid to hurt her even in death). The entire sequence is a tribute to what writers can achieve in a big-budget genre film if they remember a film's audience comprises human beings, not market analysts. Superman made me believe in these fictional characters by getting me to identify with them and care about what happens to them. Today, I think superhero films are out to get their audiences to have a relationship with the stunts, gadgetry, and special effects. .

The Effects Are Fake, The Characters Are Real
Since the relationship between Lois and Clark looms so large in my fondness for the film,  it never bothers me that the special effects in Superman look so dated. In an ironic twist, today's superhero films have special effects that are eye-poppingly real; only the characters are cardboard.

Clip from "Superman: The Movie"  1978

THE STUFF OF DREAMS

I'd be remiss in praising Superman without making special mention of the indispensable contributions of famed cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth (Murder on the Orient Express, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Cabaret) and composer John Williams (Jaws, Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind). A master of light with an eloquent eye for composition, Unsworth gives Superman a distinctive sheen (evident in the screencaps used here), its degree of impact made all the more conspicuous by how significantly subsequent Superman films suffered due to their lack of visual distinction.  

And what can I say about John William's epic Superman theme? Absolute perfection! It deftly strikes the right chord of nostalgia by recalling the classic TV show theme, yet feels like a wholly new take on those soaring themes from serials and adventure films of yesteryear. Williams' score is one of those real goosebump-inducing anthems that absolutely MAKES the film. As far as I'm concerned, John Williams is as responsible for Superman's success as Richard Donner.

Past Meets Present
The best joke in the film, and the one that got the absolute biggest, loudest laugh of the evening, was the sight gag featuring Clark Kent, in full retro "This looks like a job for Superman!" mode, encountering his first modern phone booth.

After 1980's Superman II (which I very much enjoyed), it's fair to say I haven't liked a single Superman incarnation—film or TV—since. I do intend seeing Man of Steel (2013) when it comes out on DVD*, although I admit, my expectations aren't very high. 

*Update 2014: Watched Man of Steel and my jaw never left the floor, stunned as I was for how epic a miscalculation the whole costly enterprise was.

So, the point of this post is that, despite my grousing, I really do "get it" when it comes to the public's fascination with comic book movies today. Even without needing to call them 'graphic novels." I appreciate that illustration is a valid narrative medium and doesn't instantly brand a work as lightweight or intended only for children. 

It's natural to want to recapture the sense of wonder movies had for us as kids. And I can't think of a better reminder of that fact than Superman: The Movie. 

Copyright © Ken Anderson  2009 - 2013