Block Cinema (Northwestern University) - Friday, 7pm
Letting
Peter Falk (Mikey) and John Cassavetes (Nicky) run wild on film can
be a dangerous proposition. Sure, Cassavetes got away with it as a
director, but he financed his own movies. After shooting 1.4 million
feet of film while running 3 cameras at once, Elaine May was
understandably over budget and the studio was understandably
disappointed. Paramount buried the film after a short run, and it
would be 12 more years until she would direct again (ISHTAR).
Although panned by critics at the time, May's approach yielded a
nuanced portrait of the male ego and of Downtown LA that has rarely
been matched. The 2 close-ups and a master approach to cinematography
was effective, albeit listless, in generating a claustrophobic world
– a structure largely controlled during May's lengthy editing
process. Although the two leads play low-level LA gangsters, they may
as well be any of Cassavetes' standard protagonists: cornered by
their jobs and social circumstances, and long past fighting to break
out of them. We know the hero isn't going to win by the end of the
first reel, and we know that he's not much of a hero by the end of
the second. But watching May's collaboration with two great method
actors in their prime is worth savoring until the credits roll.
(1976, 119 min, 35mm) JH - cine-file.info
