The Flesh

Sergio Castellitto and Francesca Dellera

Marco Ferreri's The Flesh (La Carne) is one of the more successful comedies from the provocative Italian satirist. The ten or so features of his I've seen range widely from good (La Grande Bouffe) to abysmal (Don't Touch the White Woman). To my mind, The Flesh tops them all. Ferreri was known as favoring a loose and improvisatory approach with his actors, but he was more interesting visually, especially in his use of color, than most comic directors of his era. The script for The Flesh, by Ferreri and a host of collaborators, is mostly a two hander with masochistic Paolo (Sergio Castellitto) being tormented by Francesca (Francesca Dellera) at his seaside abode in Anzio. Paolo is a dweeby cocktail pianist who runs off with Francesca after meeting her at a disco. He rejects all contact with the outside world: forsaking work, friends, and family (an ex-wife and two kids), all for his siren. She turns him into a helpless creature, totally dependent on her largesse, but tables are turned at the end. The names of the twosome are supposed to call to mind Dante's tragic lovers from Rimini, but Ferreri only alludes to past mythos in order to subvert and transform it.

Paolo is a schlep who is dominated by everyone, not just Francesca, but even by his own children and dog. Castellitto and Ferreri wisely choose not to make Paolo a complete disaster at his job. Castellitto agreeably navigates Franco-Italian lounge standards, albeit with a kazoo instead of a mouth harp. The score ranges from Paolo Conte to Kate Bush to Queen, all memorably and knowingly used. Castellitto gets to show off his physical dexterity in the role even when his character has been paralyzed. Francesca does this when Paolo has a stiff member so she can utilize his services at her leisure. Castellitto, ironically, is a lively victim. Viewers of the recent Conclave, where he played a conservative Cardinal, would do well to sample this example of the full range of the actor's talents.

Francesca Dellera has little to do in comparison except to loll indolently in various states of dishabilles. She is playing a cartoon of female sexual power; a hard R Jessica Rabbit. Her visual splendor commands the screen with brilliant tongue in cheek. Prince was entranced enough to buy up a Paris theater for a private showing and, presumably, to woo Ms. Dellera. For once, mighty Prince struck out. The film's Francesca uses her sexual power to dominate Paolo. Their relationship is an inverse of traditional sex roles. Paolo hardly leaves the house while Francesca roams free. Francesca applies mascara to Paolo and makes him don a light blue sari with a fetching shawl. Paolo is repeatedly warned to beware Francesca, but falls in her thrall just the same. When she attempts to leave for the next lover/victim on her list, Paolo finally gets proactive. Francesca's fate equates ritual cannibalism with the Catholic eucharist, just like The Golden Bough.

Not that Ferreri is out to make a great statement, but there is a consistent strain of feminist critique bound within the tight framework of The Flesh. The supporting cast is limited to vignettes with the happy exception of the always welcome Philippe Léotard. The feminist tang is most apparent in a sequence at the supermarket where the butcher shows Paolo the various cuts of meat on Francesca's torso and flanks. Women are just a slab of meat in the world of this film. What makes this palatable is Ferreri's reverence for female fecundity. Francesca is not only a sexual beacon and dynamo, but an enthusiastic nursemaid. Paolo can only ape Francesca's regenerative powers by consuming her. The print of The Flesh on Tubi is barely adequate. 

The Bostonians

James Ivory directs Madeleine Potter and Vanessa Redgrave

I've been trying to come to terms with James Ivory as we both near the slow, lurching dance to the grave. I found his work, as I watched it in my youth, overly refined and visually dull. Merchant Ivory was too Apollonian for me while I was enjoying the Dionysian frenzy of Evil Dead, Mad Max, and Possession. The Bostonians, released in 1984, is a Henry James adaptation that is respectful and suitably repressed. I won't conjecture on Ivory's childhood in Oregon, but his hometown of Klamath Falls was and is the very definition of the sticks. Ivory's deliberate and visually chaste style jibes better with straitlaced period dramas than more modern and unbuttoned fare: I would cite Jane Austen in Manhattan, Slaves of New York, and Le Divorce, all failures, as evidence. In the Twentieth Century, I thought the Merchant Ivory team's tradition of quality approach was retrograde cinema. It is telling that The Bostonians was partly financed by both the BBC and Boston's WGBH. However, I find the Merchant Ivory films, even their failures, more interesting than I did at the time and The Bostonians is a relative success.

For those who have not waded through the thicket of this book's prose or would prefer not to, The Bostonians is a love triangle set in New England and New York in the mid-1870s. Young Verena Tarrant (Madeleine Potter) enters a domestic relationship with the older Olive Chancellor (Vanessa Redgrave) united by love and a commitment to feminism. Verena, the daughter of a mesmeric healer, is a powerful speaker and a boon to the nascent suffragette movement. She attracts male attention, some of which has been wisely elided by screenwriter and Merchant Ivory mainstay Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. The third point in the triangle is Basil Ransome, a Southern born lawyer based in New York and distant cousin of Olive's. The names of the characters exemplify their essence as in Dickens whose The Pickwick Papers makes a cameo appearance. A virile war veteran vies with a New England spinster for the soul of America. Male is contrasted with female, reaction with progression. Self-interest with idealism and private life with a public one. I could go on and on as, doubtless, others have in countless academic tomes. The denouement is inevitable as love conquers all and biology proves to be destiny.

The film ameliorates the sting of James' satire of New England, with its quirky devotion to progressive causes, homeopathy, and spiritualism. The film manages to portray a simulacrum of centennial Americana with patriotic songs, fireworks, and lovely seaside vistas that recall Winslow Homer. The cinematography by Walter Lassally was justly praised, but the ramshackle nature of Merchant Ivory productions, Christopher Reeve's agent described them as "wandering minstrels", has its drawbacks. The lighting is spotty and a few outdoor shots cry out for a crane, but such was the threadbare reality for these intrepid independents. Richard Robbins, the most under sung member of the Merchant Ivory menage, offers an effective score that ranges from original music to Wagner to Edgar Poe. 

Madeleine Potter and Christopher Reeve

The best asset of the film is its superb supporting players, all well cast and spot on: Linda Hunt, Nancy Marchand, Wallace Shawn, Wesley Addy, Nancy New, and Jessica Tandy who alone could away with intoning James' batty bromides. Madeleine Potter captures the youthful pluck of Verena, but not the charisma that charms multitudes. Christopher Reeve is always a little wooden, but so is his character who is enamored with his own false sense of rectitude. Reeve was a big, hulking, athletic guy. Physically he is perfect, a fox in the henhouse, but his Southern demeanor and accent are not convincing. Scenes that should have an emotional impact, such as Basil visiting Harvard's memorial to the Civil War dead, don't register. It grieves me to criticize Reeve because he appears to have been an utter gentleman. On the other hand, there is Vanessa Redgrave who jousted with Ivory during filming. In a recent documentary, Stephen Soucy's very good Merchant Ivory, Ms. Redgrave shows she hasn't mellowed by ripping into her interviewer and I would not mess with her whether she was holding an AK-47 or not. Nevertheless, she was one of the most brilliant actresses of her generation and she displays her mastery here. Her lustrous hair pinned back tight, Redgrave looks and behaves, as Olive describes herself, "awkward and dry." Pauline Kael wrote that Redgrave's performance was the only thing she liked about the film.

I have a more positive appreciation of the film, but do acknowledge its moments of drawing room torpor. However, that dovetails with the work's examinations of the strictures of a privileged American life. Ivory and his associates takes pains to show how sweltering life was in American cities in the 19th century. The ladies are swaddled in a ridiculous number of layers that they are eager to discard as soon as they are in private quarters. The strictures of society are literally impinged on female bodies. Ivory's chaste style remains more suited to the corsets of repression than the loosed bonds of Romantic extasy.

 

Devo

                     

Chris Smith's Devo is a friendly documentary that captures the nervy energy of the new wave unit. I never thought of them as anything but a singles band, but the film captures their roots in the conceptual art of the 1960s. They were pioneers in wedding video images to their music before MTV. The documentary pays scant attention to the band members' families and upbringing in Ohio. The members remain relatively anonymous throughout the film, not that Devo had many wild escapades, they seem like art school nerds who don't talk about their feelings. Also, the point of Devo was never individuality, but a conformity somewhat derivative of Kraftwerk with a dose of spastic punk and funk. Instead of robots, they were devoluted cogs in a corporate machine, dressed identically and wearing Dadaist hats or plastic hairpieces. They were a cult band who lucked into a hit single, Whip It whose video is pictured above, but they were like most pop units with a quick rise and fall.

Smith does a very good job illustrating the Kent State killings of 1970. A number of band members were attending that institution and witnessed the death of four students that day in May, propelling them away from demonstrations and into snarky protest art. The documentary shows that they were ambivalent about popular success, they knew what goes up must come down, but they hobnobbed with rock royalty (Bowie, Eno, Neil Young) and went on innumerable chat shows (Merv Griffin, Mike Douglas) to plug their product. Smith takes full advantage of the surreal kick of their appearances on the tube and their stage show. Lead singer Mark Mothersbaugh has had the most success after the bands heyday as a composer for film and television. He gets the most screen time, which is somewhat apt, but also frustrating. The lives of certain bandmates are hardly sketched at all. Still, the film never overstays it welcome. It is currently streaming on Netflix.