Spoilers Part 1 1989-1995

Part 1: 1989 - 1995

copyright 2012 Anne Billson

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Introduction

I wrote my first professional film review in 1980, for a short-lived London listings magazine called Event. The film was a porn movie called Insatiable, starring Marilyn Chambers, whom I'd heard of, because a couple of years earlier I'd seen her in David Cronenberg's Rabid, in which she'd developed a bloodsucking phallic growth in her armpit that had been instrumental in turning most of the population of Montreal into flesh-eating zombies.

Alas, there was to be no such excitement in Insatiable, a hardcore film chopped down for the UK softcore market, which meant there was little of interest left; porn superstar John C Holmes was in there, but the reason for his being famous wasn't, not after distributors had finished snipping him down to X-rated acceptability. But I was fascinated by Chambers's pubic hair (trimmed into a shape I described as Mohican, later to become known as a Brazilian) and impressed by the free gin and tonics.

Alcohol, I was to learn, was a rare luxury at press screenings, but in the years to come I would review little but softcore porn, bad teen movies and the sort of horror movies not even horror movie fans normally bother with. I would review them for listings magazines, free magazines and the Monthly Film Bulletin (which scrupulously insisted on running reviews of every film released, as a matter of public record). I would review them because no-one else wanted to, and because I needed the work.

Every so often, I would stumble across a little nugget of interest - a screenwriting credit for Barry Levinson tucked away in the credits of a low budget exploitation pic, for example, or a deliriously entertaining Dutch melodrama by a little known director called Paul Verhoeven. But it was three years before I reviewed a film the general public might actually have wanted to go and see (Flashdance) and another three years after that before I finally reviewed a film that I might actually have wanted to go and see (Aliens). I think that's known as paying your dues.

Since then I have written about film for around two dozen different publications, not all of which you will have heard of, and at least three of which went bust overnight, owing me money and requiring me to start my reviewing career all over again, from scratch. At one time or another, since the mid-1980s, I have been the official film critic for publications as diverse as Today, The Sunday Correspondent, Tatler, New Statesman & Society and The Sunday Telegraph.

I liked being a film critic - I got to see blockbuster movies weeks, sometimes even months before the non-film reviewing public, which meant seeing the movies before my appetite for them had been blunted by exposure to too many articles, reviews and overly explicit trailers. I also liked being obliged to see films I wouldn't normally have seen. I even enjoyed some of the bad films. Only twice did I find the job physically hard to take; once during a British film so dreary it gave me a panic attack and I was forced to go outside into Soho Square and take deep breaths in order to calm down, and another time, during a Chinese movie, when I didn't just nod off, but actually started to drool in my sleep.

Why publish this selection? Mainly because it occurs to me that I have now spent half my life writing film reviews, and I thought it might be nice to have something to show for it other than a pile of yellowing newsprint. Naturally I've tried to leave out most of the really embarrassing or boring stuff, but these reviews were written anything up to 20 years ago, so there are bound to be cringe-making moments. I've done a bit of subediting here and there, and I've deliberately tried to include reviews of films I liked but which otherwise seem to be universally detested (Alien Resurrection, Gus Van Sant's remake of Psycho) simply because I think they deserve to have at least one dissenting voice out there, sticking up for them.

Despite the title of this volume, there are relatively few 'spoilers' in the following pages; I don't think the function of film reviews is to provide detailed synopses, much less give away all the best shocks or jokes in advance (though from time to time I do fall into this trap, and for that I apologise in advance). I think the function of film reviews is principally to allow me, the writer, to be opiniated and obnoxious, to demonstrate how erudite and intellectual I am by dropping in lots of high-tone cultural references and allusions to film history, to exasperate readers with my misfired shots at sophisticated wit and effortful attempts at limpid prose, to miss the point of the film entirely, go off at a tangent and generally make everyone wish they were reading Pauline Kael instead.

Anne Billson 2008

ETA: I'm afraid I've had to remove all the accents from the following texts, as I'm told unusual key combinations can play havoc with e-publishing. So apologies to Gerard, Pedro and Leos.

Chapter 1: Dangerous Liaisons

Letter 176: The Baroness de Billson to the Marquise de Merteuil.

Madame, having long been one of your most devoted followers, it falls to me to be the bearer of tidings that will make you gnash your teeth. On the other hand, you may well bust a gut laughing, since we know your sense of humour is amusingly warped. How delightful to recall the smallpox scar make-up you wore on your last visit to Paris! How we chortled when that mischievous Choderlos de Laclos fellow put it about that this hideous disfigurement was divine punishment for your outrageous behaviour!

This is the gist of what I have learned. Do you remember persuading the Vicomte de Valmont to deflower the Volanges girl before the little slut could be married off to that ungrateful ex-lover of yours? Well, shortly after you retired from the public eye in order to compose your memoirs, many of the letters pertaining to this intrigue fell into the hands of a bounder named Christopher Hampton who, since he was a playwright, made a play out of them. His attempts at capturing your inimitable essence were surprisingly effective, though a natural bias towards his own gender resulted in the wretched Valmont being elevated perilously close to the status of hero. Instead of his well deserved demise being the consequence of sheer ineptitude with the epee, it was made to appear that he was a romantic suicide. His deathbed confession was presented as a moral triumph, instead of an act of cowardice and reprehensible betrayal of those sterner ideals to which he professed adherence whenever it suited his purposes.

Had it been left at that, my dear Marquise, you would have had little cause for complaint, especially as you yourself were portrayed on the stage by a certain Miss Lindsay Duncan as a charming creature of great beauty and amorality. But alas, the play proved such a success that it has now been made into a motion picture, and it is here that I fear you have been sorely misrepresented. Firstly, and in my opinion disastrously, you are played by Miss Glenn Close, who formerly achieved notoriety as the psychotic harpy in Fatal Attraction. Miss Close is, of course, lumbered with the baggage from this role, so that there will no doubt be many filmgoers who see you as nothing more than a frustrated matron, a pitiable bitch to be booed and hissed like a music-hall villain.

Miss Close, moreover, though she might conceivably be considered handsome in an impoverished backwoods community that prizes sun-darkened skin and freckle-faced candour above aristocratic elegance, is singularly lacking in sex appeal. Indeed, she looks positively plain when placed alongside Miss Michelle Pfeiffer, the actress cast as your chief rival and object of Valmont's absurd puppy-crush - the nauseating Madame de Tourvel. What with her bruised lips and moist eyes and voice all a-tremble, my dear, it is no contest; no man in his right mind, not even the ridiculous Valmont, would ever dream of casting such a cupcake aside as a favour to that imposter being passed off as yourself. To those of us who have had the honour of knowing you, Madame, this ludicrous deception stretches credulity too far.

As for Valmont, he is portrayed by Mr John Malkovich as a leering satyr, launching himself at women with a vulgar abandon that would get him banned from every respectable drawing-room in the land. Valmont had his faults, certainly, but lack of savoir faire was not one of them. Nor was lack of subtlety. Whenever Mr Malkovich and Miss Close tell untruths or utter double entendres in the presence of those not privy to their schemes, they smirk and twitch as if in the grip of Tourette's Syndrome, to alert us to their duplicity.

I could go on. I could mention the American accents that, although one is not averse to this New World way of speaking per se, are more redolent of thirtysomething-style let-it-all-hang-out than of sexual intrigue a la eighteenth century French aristocracy. I could tell you of the strangely underdressed chateaux, or of the perambulations that everyone takes in the gardens whenever Mr Stephen Frears gets bored with the great indoors and feels he should demonstrate that he is directing a film and not a stage play. Walk? In the garden? And run the risk of sullying one's pale skin with a plebian suntan?

I could complain about the lack of social or economic context which makes your boast of avenging your sex seem no more than a half-hearted nod towards late twentieth century Feminism, or about the film-makers' yellow-bellied concessions to popular sentiment, or about the inattentiveness to appearance in a story which is all about appearances. Instead, cast and crew have gone on record (and critics have backed them up) as saying it is somehow a good thing that the gorgeous, elaborate costumes are barely given the time of day. I know, and I know that you know, Madame, that to be a successful poseuse, one must always be acutely aware of the discrepancy between appearance and actuality.

Madame, I urge you to take action. If necessary, we could retrieve your letters and promote our own version of events, this time with a more suitable actress in the leading role. Some fifteen years ago, Faye Dunaway might have done you justice. Today, we might have... who? Genevieve Bujold? Catherine Deneuve? As the director, we might hire Ridley Scott, who I am told can be pretty