Misfortunes of Imaginary Beings: 04/17/25

A blog formerly known as Bookishness / By Charles Matthews

"Dazzled by so many and such marvelous inventions, the people of Macondo ... became indignant over the living images that the prosperous merchant Bruno Crespi projected in the theater with the lion-head ticket windows, for a character who had died and was buried in one film and for whose misfortune tears had been shed would reappear alive and transformed into an Arab in the next one. The audience, who had paid two cents apiece to share the difficulties of the actors, would not tolerate that outlandish fraud and they broke up the seats. The mayor, at the urging of Bruno Crespi, explained in a proclamation that the cinema was a machine of illusions that did not merit the emotional outbursts of the audience. With that discouraging explanation many ... decided not to return to the movies, considering that they already had too many troubles of their own to weep over the acted-out misfortunes of imaginary beings."
--Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

Thursday, April 17, 2025

The Panic in Needle Park (Jerry Schatzberg, 1971)

Kitty Winn and Al Pacino in The Panic in Needle Park

Cast: Al Pacino, Kitty Winn, Alan Vint, Richard Bright, Kiel Martin, Michael McClanathan, Warren Finnerty, Marcia Jean Kurtz, Raul Julia. Screenplay: Joan Didion, John Gregory Dunne, based on a book by James Mills. Cinematography: Adam Holender. Art direction: Murray P. Stern. Film editing: Evan A. Lottman.

The Panic in Needle Park doesn't have much in the way of character arc: Bobby (Al Pacino) and Helen (Kitty Winn) end up pretty much the way they began, in search of a fix. What it does have going for it is immersiveness, a determined effort to plunge the viewer into the midst of some lost lives. That this perhaps isn't enough to make for an effective movie is, I think, signaled by some of the tricks screenwriters Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne pull, to heighten the viewer's emotional connection to the characters, which at one point involves the sacrifice of a cute puppy. But the movie is effective, largely because it's so well acted. It gave us one of our first looks at Pacino at his most hyperactive, as well as one of our rare looks at Winn, whose performance deservedly won the best actress award at Cannes. They're surrounded by a superb ensemble.

Showgirls (Paul Verhoeven, 1995)

Elizabeth Berkley in Showgirls

Cast: Elizabeth Berkley, Kyle MacLachlan, Gina Gershon, Glenn Plummer, Robert Davi, Alan Rachins, Gina Ravera, Lin Tucci, Greg Travis, Al Ruscio, Patrick Bristow, William Shockley. Screenplay: Joe Eszterhas. Cinematography: Jost Vacano. Production design: Allan Cameron. Film editing: Mark Goldblatt, Mark Helfrich. Music: David A. Stewart.

Since the near-universal critical reaction that made Showgirls a byword for bad movies, attempts have been made to reevaluate it as a satire on Vegas or the entertainment business or the marketing of sex or something. Perhaps it was the double-edged cleverness of director Paul Verhoeven's next film, Starship Troopers (1997), that inspired some critics to find the same in Showgirls. So I conscientiously tried to watch it with that in mind. But no, it's just tawdry and tedious, with none of the wit or ironic distancing that would signal satiric intent. For example, just watch Kyle MacLachlan try to hide his embarrassment at some of the things he's supposed to do or say.