Pauline Kael reviews

Fast Times at Ridgemont High

US(1982):Comedy
92min,RatedR,Color,Availableonvideocassetteandlaserdisc
Notbad.Itmayfallintothegeneralcategoryofyouthexploitationmovies,
butitisn'tassaultive.Theyoungdirector,AmyHeckerling,makingher
featurefilmdbut,hasalighthand.Ifthefilmhasatheme,it'ssexual
embarrassment,buttherearenobigcrises;thestoryfollowsthecourseof
severalkids'livesbymeansofvignettesandgags,andwhenthescenesmiss
theydon'tthud.Inthismovie,agag'sworkingornotworkinghardly
matterseverythinghasaquick,makeshiftfeeling.Ifyou'reeatingabowlof
RiceKrispiesandsomeofthemdon'tpop,that'sO.K.,becausethebowlful
hasanice,poppyfeeling.ThefriendshipofthetwogirlsJenniferJason
Leighasthe15yearoldStacywhoiseagertolearnaboutsexandPhoebe
CatesasthejadedValleyGirlLindawhoshareswhatsheknowshasalovely
matteroffactness.WithSeanPennasthesurferdoperSpicolithemost
amiablestonedkidimaginable.Penninhabitstheroletotally;thepartisn't
bigbuthecomesacrossasastar.AlsowithRobertRomanus,Judge
Reinhold,BrianBacker,andRayWalston.Thescript,byCameronCrowe,
wasadaptedfromhisbookabouttheyearhespentataCaliforniahigh
school,impersonatingan
adolescent.Themusica
collectionofsome19pop
songsdoesn'tunderlinethings;
it'sjustalwaystherewhenit's
needed.Universal.
Foramoreextended
discussion,seePaulineKael's
bookTakingItAllIn.

F/X
US(1986):Thriller
106min,RatedR,Color,Availableonvideocassetteandlaserdisc
RobertMandeldirectedthisingenioussuspensefilmaboutamoviespecial
effectswizard(BryanBrown),basedinNewYork,wholetshimselfbe
bamboozledbyacoupleofmenfromtheJusticeDepartment'sWitness
RelocationProgram;theyhirehimtostagethefakeassassinationofaMafia
boss(JerryOrbach),sothatthisgangstercangiveevidenceagainsthis
associatesandberelocatedwithoutfearofreprisals.BryanBrown
underplaysniftily,andhe'sjoinedbyasecondheroswaggeringBrian
Dennehy,builtlikeabarnandsportingabig,messymustache,asarogue
cop.Hegrabsthemovieinhischoppersandshakesitup.Thispictureloses
somethingwhenittakesaturntowardacceptanceofcorruption,butthe

script,byRobertT.Megginsonand
GregoryFleeman,givesDennehy
somesharptoughguylines,andhe
sendsthemhomelikeamastercomedian.He'ssoenthusiasticallyoverscaled
thathefillsthescreen.Despitethefilm'shighbodycount,it'snotthekindof
thrillerthatleavesaviewerfeelingdebauched;Mandel'sworkiscleanand
brisk.Thecinematographer,MiroslavOndrcek,givesthecityarich,dark
glint.WithDianeVenoraasthewizard'sactressgirlfriend,JoeGrifasi,
JossiedeGuzman,CliffDeYoung,MasonAdams,andafewweakscenes
withMarthaGehman.Orion.

FatalAttraction
US(1987):Thriller/Romance
119min,RatedR,Color,Availableonvideocassetteandlaserdisc
Aprimeronthebadthingsthatcanhappenifamancheatsonhiswife.
There'ssometimesafinelinebetweensexinessandcraziness,andthehero
(MichaelDouglas),aManhattancorporatelawyerasettledmarriedmanisn't
hipenoughtocatchthedangersignalswhenheletsawomanbookeditor
(GlennClose)talkhimintogoingwithhertoherloft.Oncethiswoman
beginsbehavingasifshehadarighttoashareinthelawyer'slife,she
becomesthedreadedlunaticofhorrormovies.Butwithadifference:she
parrotstheaggressivelyangry,selfrighteousstatementsthathavebecome
commonplacesoffeministfiction,andthey'resoinappropriatetothe
circumstancesthatthey'reproofshe'sloco.They'realsothedirectorAdrian
Lyne'sandthescreenwriterJamesDearden'shostileversionoffeminism.
Thefilmisaboutmenseeingfeministsaswitches,andthewaythefactsare
presentedhere,thewomanisawitch.Brandishingakitchenknife,she
terrorizesthelawyerandhisfamily.Basicallythisisagrossoutslasher
movieinaglossyformat.It'smadewithswankandprecision,yetit's
grippinginanunpleasant,mechanicalway.Theviolencethatbreaksloose
doesn'thaveanythingtodowiththecharacterswhohavebeensetup;ithas
todowiththeformulathey'reshovedinto.Thepictureenforcesconventional
morality(intheeraofAIDS)bypilingonparanoiacfear.WithAnneArcher
asthebeautifulhomebodywife,EllenHamiltonLatzenasthebrightlittle
daughter,andStuartPankinastheclowningpal.TiptopeditingbyMichael
KahnandPeterE.Berger.
(Dearden'sscriptisan
expansionofthe42minute
filmDIVERSION,whichhe
wroteanddirectedinEngland
in1979.)Paramount.
Foramoreextended
discussion,seePaulineKael's
bookHooked.
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TheFrenchConnection
US(1971):Crime
104min,RatedR,Color,Availableonvideocassetteandlaserdisc
TrackingdownashipmentofheroininNewYorkCity.Ahugelysuccessful
slambangthrillerthatzapstheaudiencewithnoise,speed,andbrutality.It's
certainlyexciting,butthatexcitementisn'tnecessarilyapleasure.The
ominousmusickeepstighteningthescrewsandheatingthingsup;themovie
islikeanaggravatedcaseofNewYork.Itproceedsthroughchases,pistol
whippings,slashings,murders,snipings,andmorechasesforclosetotwo
hours.Thisiswhat'smeanttogiveyouacharge.Therearenogoodguys.
GeneHackmanplaysthelowlifepolicedetectivewhocracksthecase;
porkpiehattedandlewdandboorish,he'salsoasadist.WithFernandoRey,
RoyScheider,TonyLoBianco,andMarcelBozzufi.MusicbyDonEllis;
cinematographybyOwenRoizman.Thescript,byErnestTidyman,was
basedonthesupposedlyfactualaccountbyRobinMooreinabookaboutthe
largestnarcoticshaulinNewYork
policehistoryuptothattime.William
Friedkindirected.AcademyAwards:
BestPicture,Director,Actor
(Hackman),Screenplay.20thCentury
Fox.
"The French Connection" is routinely
included, along with "Bullitt," "Diva" and
"
Raiders of the Lost Ark," on the short list
of movies with the greatest chase scenes of
all time. What is not always remembered is what a good movie it is apart from
the chase scene. It featured a great early Gene Hackman performance that won
an Academy Award, and it also won Oscars for best picture, direction,
screenplay and editing.

The movie is all surface, movement, violence and suspense. Only one of the
characters really emerges into three dimensions: Popeye Doyle Gene Hackman,
a New York narc who is vicious, obsessed and a little mad. The other characters
don't emerge because there's no time for them to emerge. Things are happening
too fast.
The story line hardly matters. It involves a $32 million shipment of high-grade
heroin smuggled from Marseilles to New York hidden in a Lincoln Continental.
A complicated deal is set up between the French people, an American money
man and the Mafia. Doyle, a tough cop with a shaky reputation who busts a lot
of street junkies, needs a big win to keep his career together. He stumbles on the
heroin deal and pursues it with a single-minded ferocity that is frankly amoral.
He isn't after the smugglers because they're breaking the law; he's after them
because his job consumes him.
Director William Friedkin constructed "The French Connection" so surely that it
left audiences stunned. And I don't mean that as a reviewer's clich: It is literally
true. In a sense, the whole movie is a chase. It opens with a shot of a French
detective keeping the Continental under surveillance, and from then on the
smugglers and the law officers are endlessly circling and sniffing each other. It's
just that the chase speeds up sometimes, as in the celebrated car-train sequence.
In "Bullitt," two cars and two drivers were matched against each other at fairly
equal odds. In Friedkin's chase, the cop has to weave through city traffic at 70
m.p.h. to keep up with a train that has a clear track: The odds are off-balance.
And when the train's motorman dies and the train is without a driver, the chase
gets even spookier: A man is matched against a machine that cannot understand
risk or fear. This makes the chase psychologically more scary, in addition to
everything it has going for it visually.
The movie was shot during a cold and gray New York winter, and it has a
doomed, gritty look. The landscape is a waste land, and the characters are
hardly alive. They move out of habit and compulsion, long after ordinary human
feelings have lost the power to move them. Doyle himself is a bad cop, by
ordinary standards; he harasses and brutalizes people, he is a racist, he
endangers innocent people during the chase scene (which is a high-speed ego
trip). But he survives. He wins, too, but that hardly matters. "The French
Connection" is as amoral as its hero, as violent, as obsessed and as frightening.
The key to the chase is that it occurs in an ordinary time and place. No rules are
suspended; Popeye's car is racing down streets where ordinary traffic and
pedestrians can be found, and his desperation is such that we believe, at times,
he is capable of running down bystanders just to win the contest. I had an
opportunity at the Hawaii Film Festival in 1992 to analyze the sequence a shot at
a time, using a stop-action laserdisc approach, at a seminar honoring the work
5

of the cinematographer, Owen Roizman. He recalled the way the whole chase
was painstakingly story-boarded and then broken down into shots that were
possible and safe, even though actual locations were being employed. Lenses
were chosen to play with distance, so that the car sometimes seemed closer to
hazards than it was. But essentially, the chase looked real because its many
different parts were real: A car threads through city streets, chasing an elevated
train.
The other key element in the film, of course, is Hackman. He was already well
known in 1971, after performances in such films as "Bonnie and Clyde,"
"Downhill Racer" and "I Never Sang for My Father." But it's probably "The
French Connection" that launched his long career as a leading character sta r-- a
man with the unique ability to make almost any dialogue plausible. As Popeye
Doyle, he generated an almost frightening single-mindedness, a cold
determination to win at all costs, which elevated the stakes in the story from a
simple police cat-and-mouse chase into the acting-out of Popeye's pathology.
The chase scene has, in a way, been a mixed blessing, distracting from the film's
other qualities.

ExorcistII:TheHeretic
US(1977):Horror
110min,RatedR,Color,Availableonvideocassette
DirectedbyJohnBoorman,thispicturehasavisionarycrazygrandeur(like
thatofFritzLang'sloonyMETROPOLIS).Someofitstelepathicsequences
aregoldentonedandlyrical,andthefilmhasaswirling,hallucinogenic,
apocalypticquality;itmighthavebeenahorrorclassicifithadhada
simpler,lessritzyscript.But,alongwithflyingdemonsandtheology
inspiredbyTeilharddeChardin,themoviehasRichardBurton,withhis
precisediction,helplesslyandinevitablyturninghislinesintocamp,justas
thecultivated,stagetrainedactorsinearly30shorrorfilmsdid.Likethem,
Burtonhasnoconvictioninwhathe'sdoing,sohecan'tgetbeyondstaginess
andartificialphrasing.Thefilmistoocadencedandexoticandtoo
deliriouslycomplicatedtosucceedwithmostaudiences(andwhenitopened,
therewereaccountsofpeopleintheatreswhothrewthingsatthescreen).But
7

it'swingedcampahorrorfairytalegonewild,anotherinthelonghistoryof
moviemakers'kingsizefollies.There'senoughvisualmagicinitforadozen
goodmovies;whatitlacksisjudgmentthefirstcasualtyofthemoviemaking
obsession.WithLindaBlair,fouryearolderthaninthefirstfilmandgoing
intotherapybecauseofhernightmares,LouiseFletcherasthetherapist,and
MaxvonSydow,KittyWinn,NedBeatty,PaulHenreid,andJamesEarl
Jonesas
Pazuzu.ThescriptiscreditedtoWilliamGoodhart;the
cinematographyisby
William
Fraker;theproduction
designerwasRichard
MacDonald;themusic
isbyEnnioMorricone.
Warners.

EyesofLauraMars
US(1978):Crime
103min,RatedR,Color,Availableon
videocassetteandlaserdisc
ThisNewYorksetthrilleroperatesonmoodand
atmosphereandmovessofast,withsuchdelicatechangesofrhythm,
thatitsexcitementhasasubterraneansexiness.FayeDunaway,with
long,thick,darkredhair,isLauraMars,acelebrityfashion
photographerwhospecializesinthechicandpungencyofsadism;the
picturessheshootshaveafurtivechargewecanseewhytheysell.Directed
byIrvinKershner,thefilmhasafewshockingfastcuts,butitalsohas
scabrouseleganceandasurprisingamountofhumor.Laura'sscruffy,wild
eyeddriver(BradDourif)epitomizesNewYork'scrazed,hostileflunkies;
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he'ssowoundupheseemstohavethetensionsofthewholecityinhisgut.
Hermanager(Ren Auberjonois)istenseandambivalentaboutLauraabout
everything.Hermodels(LisaTaylorandDarlanneFluegel),whointheir
poseslookwickedlydecadent,arereallyjustfunlovingdingalings.Asfor
Dunaway,constantlykneelingorsprawlingtotakephotographs,herlegs,
especiallyherthighs,arefarmoreimportanttoherperformancethanher
eyes;herfleshgivesoffheat.TommyLeeJonesisthepolicelieutenantwho
representsoldfashionedmorality,andwhentheneuroticallyvulnerable
Laura,whohasbecometelepathicaboutviolence,fallsinlovewithhim,
they'reaverycreepypair.Withthehelpoftheeditor,MichaelKahn,
Kershnerglidesoverthegapsintheveryunevenscript(byJohnCarpenter
andDavidZ.Goodman,withanassistfromJulianBarry).Thecastincludes
RaulJulia,RoseGregorio,MegMundy,andBillBoggs(ashimself).
Columbia.

Foramoreextendeddiscussion,seePaulineKael'sbookWhentheLightsGo
Down.

Jaws
US(1975):Horror
124min,RatedPG,Color,Availableonvideocassetteandlaserdisc

Itmaybethemostcheerfullyperversescaremovieevermade.Evenwhile
you'reconvulsedwithlaughteryou'restillapprehensive,becausetheediting
rhythmsareverytricky,andtheshockimagesloomuphuge,rightontopof
you.Thefilmbelongstothepulpiestscifimonstermovietradition,yetit
standssomeoftheoldconventionsontheirhead.ThoughJAWShasmore
zestthananearlyWoodyAllenpicture,andalotmoreelectricity,it'sfunny
inaWoodyAllenway.Whenthethreeprotagonistsareintheirtinyboat,
tryingtofindthesharkthathasbeendevouringpeople,youfeelthatRobert
Shaw,themalevolentoldsharkhunter,issomanlythathewantstogetthem
allkilled;he'ssomanlyhe'shomicidal.WhenShawbeginsshowingoffhis
wounds,thebookishichthyologist,RichardDreyfuss,stringsalongwithhim
atfirst,andmatcheshimscarforscar.Butwhentheichthyologistis
outclassedinthenumberofscarshecanexhibit,heopenshisshirt,looks
downathishairychest,andwithaputonartist'sgrinsays,"Youseethat?
Rightthere?ThatwasMaryEllenMoffitshebrokemyheart."Shaw
squeezesanemptybeercanflat;Dreyfusssatirizeshimbycrumplinga
Styrofoamcup.Thedirector,StevenSpielberg,setsupbarechestedheroism
asajokeandscoresoffitallthroughthemovie.Thethirdprotagonist,acted
byRoyScheider,isaformerNewYorkCitypolicemanwhohasjustescaped
thecitydangersandfoundahavenaschiefofpoliceintheislandcommunity
thatislosingitsswimmers;hedoesn'tknowoneendofaboatfromtheother.
Butthefoolonboardisn'tthechiefofpolice,orthebookman,either.It's
Shaw,theobsessivelymasculinefisherman,whothinkshe'sgottoprove
himselfbyfightingthesharkpracticallysinglehanded.Thehighpointofthe
film'shumorisinourseeingShawgetit;thisnutAhab,withhis
hypermasculinebassoprofundospeeches,standsinforallthemenwhohave
toshowthey'retougherthananybody.Theshark'scavernousjaws
demonstratehowlittlehistoughnessfinallyaddsupto.Thisprimalterror
comedyquicklybecameoneofthetopgrossingfilmsofalltime.With
LorraineGary;MurrayHamilton;CarlGottlieb,whocowrotethe(uneven)
scriptwithPeterBenchley,asMeadows;andBenchley,whosebestseller
novelthescriptwasbasedon,asaninterviewer.CinematographybyBill
Butler;editingbyVernaFields;musicbyJohnWilliams.Producedby
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RichardD.ZanuckandDavidBrown,forUniversal.(Spielbergdidn'tdirect
thesequelsthe1978JAWS2,the1983JAWS3D,andthe1987JAWS
THEREVENGE.)
Foramoreextendeddiscussion,seePaulineKael'sbookWhentheLightsGo
Down.

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