Naked Lunch

Did you ever have that friend in high school or college that seemed to go out of their way to do crazy, stupid or gross things, seemingly just to prove that normal people are wusses?  That's kind of how I feel about David Cronenberg sometimes.  The man has made some legendary movies over the past few decades, but for every weirdly appealing film he makes, there seems to be a bizarrely repulsive one to balance out his output.  I categorize Naked Lunch in the latter category.  Theoretically based on the book of the same name by William S. Burroughs, Cronenberg instead chose to make the film a metatextual movie; this is a movie about Burroughs (or, at least an analogue of him) having some serious drug hallucinations and writing what would become Naked Lunch.  The book was thought to be unfilmable for many years --- at one point, Mick Jagger was attached to star, which would have made it unwatchable if it was filmed --- because the book doesn't really have a plot.  Unless drug-fueled ranting is a plot.  Well, it worked for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, so maybe this will be just as fun.

Or maybe not.  William Lee (Peter Weller) is a part-time exterminator who learns that his wife has been stealing his bug-killing powder and injecting it into herself.  It's not just any movie that can begin with that premise, you know.  William looks for a way to get her off the drug, but when he arrives home with an alleged cure (mixed in with more bug powder, of course), he finds her having sex with one of his friends; a few minutes later, he plays William Tell with his wife and ends up shooting her in the head.  Oh, did I forget to mention the part where a pizza-sized bug with a mouth on its back tells William that he's a secret agent and must kill his wife?  Yeah.  That happens.

...and then it morphs into a typewriter.  Huh.

The story doesn't get any less strange from that point on, but it's really not worth summarizing.  Naked Lunch really isn't about where the story is going so much as it is about the weird and disturbing things you see along the way.

Speaking of which...!

It is difficult for me to gauge the acting in this film because everyone is purposefully acting unnatural.  So, I guess I'll just judge them within the context of the movie's weirdness.  I thought Peter Weller gave an interesting performance in the lead.  He handles almost everything with an accepting deadpan that fit the material from the book (which is plenty weird without any visuals) and Cronenberg's script.  While I have only hallucinated as a result of a fever, I have observed others tripping their balls off, and the choice to have Weller try and act like everything is normal no matter what he sees rings true.  I would have liked a minimal reaction from Weller on some of the odder moments, but that's a personal preference.  For a movie with a ton of drug trips, the supporting cast is surprisingly small.  Judy Davis plays the dual roles of Joan Frost and Joan Lee, but her character is neither amusing nor appealing in any way.  I don't think that's a reflection of her acting, though, as her part is generally abrasive.  Ian Holm has a small part that is played mostly straight, and he's fine, I suppose.

Is that the woman suit Buffalo Bill always wanted?

Roy Scheider and Julian Sands are both somewhat creepy at first, and then the weird stuff starts to happen.  None of these are particularly great performances, or even the kind that makes you ever want to see these actors again, but I think they fit the material just fine.

I'm less understanding with David Cronenberg's direction and story.  On a purely artistic level, I have to give the man some kudos for filming a seemingly unfilmable novel.  That said, I am amazed that this movie was A) funded B) finished and C) released in theaters.  It is just so intentionally weird, so consistently disgusting, and so frequently repulsive that I have a hard time imagining someone watching this movie and recommending it to anyone else.  The worst part about this movie is that, despite all the weird and gross things, it's still a pretty dull movie.  The story --- which is intentionally unconventional --- has a glacial pace and when you combine a slow pace with deadpan acting, the bizarre visuals in this film lose their impact.  Well, most of them do.

Pictured above: a typewriter vagina.  Possibly.

Cronenberg is capable of a lot more than just gross-out filmmaking, so I find this film, which he invested a lot of time and effort into, very disappointing.  I have always felt that one of Cronenberg's strengths was in his storytelling, so when he directs a movie with no real story (like this one), I think he's working at a disadvantage.  This movie is not incompetent, though.  It is just an interesting failure by a talented director.

Weller and Cronenberg

I grew up a pretty big Simpsons fan, so I was sometimes aware of pop culture before I knew exactly what was being referenced.  There is an episode where Bart, Nelson, Milhouse, and Martin go on a road trip with fake IDs and decide to see an R-rated movie; after leaving a theater showing Naked Lunch, Nelson states "I can think of two things wrong with that title."  That's a pretty good summary of most people's reactions to the movie, but there are some redeeming moments amidst all the weirdness.  There are a handful of truly great lines that I find hilarious in any context, like "Mugwump jism can't be beat."  Weller's monologue about the man who taught his asshole to talk is another one of those moments where the movie really captured the nightmarish ramblings of the source material.  The special effects were all pretty good for 1991, and they are still significantly gross to watch by today's standards.

I wish I had a Mugwump skull keyboard :(

I was hoping that time and a sober viewing would make Naked Lunch more enjoyable than when I watched it in college, but no dice.  Don't get me wrong, this is a weird movie.  It's just not entertaining.

Marathon Man

After his award-winning and iconic performance in Rain Man, Dustin Hoffman's career changed.  In the 90s, some of his more memorable performances were the colorful characters in Hook, Wag the Dog, and Dick Tracy, while his post-2000 output is split between "quirky" and voice-over work for children's movies.  In other words, his characters have become more "characters" than people.  For anyone just reaching adulthood (which would mean that they were born in 1993, which makes me feel older than the pyramids), Dustin Hoffman has always been a silly, short actor.  When I watched Marathon Man recently, it reminded me just how good Hoffman once was at portraying the everyman.

This movie doesn't introduce the audience to Hoffman's character right away.  Instead, it focuses on a case of road rage between an elderly German-American and an elderly Jewish-American that results in both drivers being killed in a collision with an oil truck.  And my wife wonders why I hate driving in the city.  It takes a while before the importance of that incident becomes clear, but I'll save you the suspense.  The German was the brother of Christian Szell (Laurence Olivier), an infamous Nazi doctor.  Szell's brother would cash in his brother's stolen treasures from the war and send the money by courier to Szell in his well-protected South American home.  Without his brother to turn the goods into money, Szell must risk a return to America, or else be killed by his protectors when his money runs out.

Doc (Roy Scheider) works as a CIA operative, with one of his responsibilities being to help Szell; in exchange for transferring the money to Szell, the US government would get information about surviving Nazi war criminals from Szell.  But the CIA doesn't care enough about Szell to protect him any more.  To make sure that Doc doesn't impede his plan, Szell fatally wounds him.  Doc manages to make his way all the way across New York City to his brother, Babe's (Dustin Hoffman), apartment.  Any man that go to such great lengths to prolong his pain, but not his life, must have had a good reason for doing so, right?  Well, that means that anyone interested in Szell's riches is now suddenly interested in Babe, and the stakes are high enough to justify just about anything.

Marathon Man was adapted from the book of the same name by the book's author, William Goldman.  If you are familiar with his work, then it should be no surprise that this is a layered narrative that pieces together seemingly unconnected stories surprisingly well.  If you are familiar with his screenplays, it shouldn't be surprising that a lot of what made the book fun to read has been edited out of the screenplay, to make it a more manageable story.  The core story remains mostly unchanged, except for the ending, so we still have the benefit of Goldman's awesome characters.  Sure, it's easy to like Babe, because he's a stubborn, intelligent, poor college student.  Doc was an interesting character, despite his brief screen time.  Even William Devane was given a character with levels.  The character that stands out the most, though, is definitely Szell.  Laurence Olivier's performance was chilling and, if you don't like the dentist, the stuff of nightmares.  The infamous scene where he tortures Babe with dentistry, while not explicit, is still unsettling.

A classic Shakespearean actor, about to mess you up.

This movie is not about the characters, as interesting as they may be.  It's about the story and the way it unfolds.  Director John Schlesinger handles this complex story well, and he respects the intelligence of the audience enough to not spell every last detail out.  The key story elements are explained, but there are no unnecessary flashbacks or ghosting images on the screen, and I appreciate that.  The soundtrack is effective, changing the mood from scene to scene, but gradually becoming more ominous as the film progresses.

What this movie does best, though, is exploit some very common fears.  The dentistry scene is the most famous in the film, and rightfully so.  Everyone is vulnerable in the dentist chair, and having your dentist calmly explain that he is going to drill into a healthy tooth and dig into a raw nerve, just to hurt you, is horrifying.  When I watched this scene again, I was struck by my own reaction; yes, I was a little uncomfortable at the moment, but the idea behind the scene disturbs me more than the scene itself.  And the idea of being interrogated, but not having lies or the truth believed --- that's pretty scary.  That is not the only scene that takes advantage of a commonly vulnerable time.  Babe's home is invaded by thugs while he is in the bath.  The panic on his face as he realizes just how hard it will be to protect himself is instantly and easily related to.

From a film perspective, there isn't much to critique negatively in Marathon Man.  When Doc died, the makeup used to give him a pale face was pretty awful, right up there with Cary Elwes in Saw.  I've never understood why this movie spends so much time on the death of Szell's brother, when it could have fleshed out Babe or Doc more with that time, but it was still an amusing scene.  And, as much as I enjoy Dustin Hoffman in the 70s, his angry/scared yelps can get annoying after enough repetition.  Still, this is an intelligent thriller with a good cast, good direction and good writing.