A small-time stand-up comic gets in trouble with the mob. It's never explained what he has done wrong, although, perhaps, his problems have something to do with a gambling debt. The film's title sequence possibly includes clues as to how the comic got in trouble -- but we don't realize the significance of the mages under the titles until midway through the movie. (It's the same problem that Welles had with the studio superimposing opening credits over Touch of Evil, vandalism that makes it difficult for the audience to see clues planted in that scene that will later be important in the film.) Apparently, Beatty's comedian is doing well, has a nice car, and a beautiful girlfriend. But in the opening shot, an image right out of Fellini, a bunch of roly-poly fat men in a steambath laugh uproariously at Beatty who is all dressed up -- the scene is disquieting and never explained.(possibly the hero is hiding in the steambath from the mobsters chasing him). In any event, Beatty finds his agent all beat up and, then, eludes pursuers by running through a slaughter house. After the abattoir, he burns all his ID and hops a train to Chicago. There are lots of odd images in this opening sequence, inexplicable scenes that don't make sense -- for instance, in the freight car where Beatty is hiding-out there's an old gent (he seems to have wandered in from Richard Lester's A Hard Day's Night) sitting calmly on a folding chair. Beatty disembarks from the train in the worst possible place: a metal salvage yard where cars, some of them containing corpses from mobster hits, are crushed into cubes of steel. (Why a man fleeing the mob in Detroit would hole-up in mobster-central, that is, Chicago is baffling.) Beatty hides out in the gutters, has to eat at a Salvation Army mission (an old man tries to read the Bible out loud but stutters uncontrollably.) When some street kids beat up a man, the comic steals his social security card -- the guy has an impossibly complicated Greek name that everyone abbreviates to "Mickey One". The hero works as a garbage man in a restaurant, has a brief affair with a waitress, and, then, starts playing strip clubs, doing his schtick between burlesque acts. He's pretty good and his agent suggests that he play a big venue on Rush Street. The place is called Xanadu and is run by a man named Castle (this is a Kafka reference). Castle is played by Hurd Hatfield, a man so handsome that his good looks are disturbing -- he played Dorian Gray in the celebrated film twenty years earlier and something in the part has rubbed-off on him: he seems magically preserved, ageless, as if trapped in amber. Castle catches Mickey's act in one of the wretched clubs he is playing down on Wabash and desperately wants him as an act at his upscale club. (This aspect of the film, central to the narrative, doesn't make much sense, particularly because Beatty's act isn't shown to be funny at all.) Mickey is intrigued by the offer but has become completely paranoid -- he is afraid that the Detroit mobsters will learn where he is hiding if he takes this high-profile gig. Mickey has acquired a doting girlfriend by this time and she thinks he's unreasonably fearful. In fact, the film suggests, albeit obliquely, that Mickey is simply crazy and no one is actually pursuing him. He auditions at Xanadu although this is a catastrophe -- Mickey barks at the spotlight, a brilliant, accusatory beam of light that takes on a sinister significance: it's either the eye of god or the tool of the pursuing gangsters. Again, Mickey runs away, touring the more down-and-out parts of Chicago. In an alleyway, a bunch of clubs feature food and decor from different nations; each place has an ominous doorman dressed up as a person from the country featured inside. A brawl ensues and Mickey gets thrashed by a Chinese coolie, a Japanese samurai, an Indian maharajah and several African tribesmen. Badly beaten, he takes the stage at Xanadu, resolving to confront the terrifying spotlight. He has resolved to stand his ground and, if necessary, die at the hands of the mobsters allegedly pursuing him. The film ends with a final shot that doesn't explain anything, doesn't resolve the plot and doesn't even make any sense. We never learn whether Mickey is really being pursued by evil (unseen) gangsters or whether he has simply gone mad.
The movie is shot in a Fellinesque-style -- high contrast black and white with glaring light (particularly the ominous spotlight) and deep impenetrable shadows. Grotesque faces leer and grimace at the camera. Beatty's character is continuously menaced by machines, particularly huge loaders and cranes that hover over him at the salvage yard that he haunts. Some scenes are shot in fast-motion which creates an comical effect and some superimpositions between scenes last for extended periods, creating fantastic images of landscapes and characters superimposed on one another. An odd-looking junkman with a floppy hat and a horse-drawn cart seems to shadow Mickey -- this is intended as some kind of harbinger of doom. (Is Mickey going to be thrown on a scrap heap somewhere?) The junkman is played by one of Kurosawa's stable of repertoire actors, Kamaturi Fujiwara. This junkman is also an artist and he devises a massive sculpture that is designed to self-destruct, another symbol for Mickey's plight. The sculpture is clearly based on Jean Tinguely's Homage to New York, a big Rube Goldberg contraption that was supposed to tear itself apart when first shown at the Museum of Modern Art in 1962. (The stunt didn't work, the so-called Metamechanic sculpture only partially self-destructed. You can count on Hollywood to get these things right -- in Mickey One , the sculpture convincing rips itself apart, explodes, and, then, engulfs itself in a sea of fire extinguisher foam.) The sequence with the metal scaffolds, windmills, and conveyor belts of the Metamachine is interesting and the film also boasts a partially improvised and excellent score by Jazz-man Stan Getz. The film's ambitious content makes it also worth examining and some critics, have recently made grand claims for this movie --I think these claims are largely unwarranted. Channeling Kafka, Mickey says: "I'm guilty". His girlfriend reasonably asks him: "Of what?" Mickey responds: "Of not being innocent." There's a funny penultimate scene: in the nightmare junkyard with the cubed cars, Mickey encounters some winos. One of them has dyed blonde hair and is homosexual. He beckons Mickey to come and share some wine with him. Warren Beatty trembles in horror and disgust and runs away. He's rather be shot dead than have a drink with a sexually ambiguous character.
No comments:
Post a Comment