Death of a Cyclist (Muerte de un ciclista)

 

Director Juan Antonio Bardem

Lucia Bosė

DEATH OF A CYCLIST (Muerte de un ciclista)       A-                                                              aka:  Age of Infidelity                                                                                                             Spain  Italy  (88 mi)  1955  d: Juan Antonio Bardem

After 60 years, Spanish cinema is politically futile, socially false, intellectually worthless, aesthetically valueless, and industrially paralytic. Spanish cinema has turned its back on reality and is totally removed from Spanish realistic traditions as found in paintings and novels.     —Juan Antonio Bardem, in Salamanca, Spain, 1955

An interesting relic from the Franco era in Spain that is memorable on several counts, as the writer/director Juan Antonio Bardem is the uncle of modern day actor Javier Bardem (Vicky Cristina Barcelona, No Country for Old Men, Before Night Falls) and the film won the Fipresci prize at Cannes in 1955, a time when the director was actually serving time in prison for political offenses.  Public outcry led to his release, but he was arrested several more times in his lifetime.  The director was a Communist and ardent anti-Fascist who never left Spain during the Franco regime, so certainly this social realist film may be seen through his politicized eyes examining the complacency of the Spanish bourgeois society under Franco, where fear is a common denominator that keeps people silent and in lockstep, and might be seen as his version of Buñuel’s THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL (1962), filtered through the psychologically paranoid lens of Hitchcock, giving it the feel of a horror film.  It features beautiful Italian actress Lucia Bosé, the winner of Miss Italy 1947 (which included other contestants Gina Lollobrigida, Silvana Mangano, Eleonora Rossi Drago and Gianna Maria Canale) and star of Michelangelo Antonioni's THE STORY OF A LOVE AFFAIR (1950).  Her beauty alone is striking and is central to the film as she plays María, a pampered and spoiled socialite who is comfortably married to a rich industrialist Miguel (Otello Toso) whose wealth allows her to live a life of extravagance and luxury while she is secretly having an affair with an unambitious assistant college professor Juan (Alberto Closas), whose influential family arranged for his position.  Their wealth gives them the ability to hide their secrets. 

In the opening scene, on a flat country road that extends endlessly across an empty landscape, a lone figure on a bicycle is struck by a car driven by Juan and María who quickly decide to scurry away like rats rather than help the man, Muerte de un ciclista (J.A Bardem, 1955) [HD] | FlixOlé YouTube (1:52).  The rest of the movie revolves around this single event, where the two choose to conceal their affair rather than save a man’s life, a decision that haunts them when they learn the man died on the side of the road.  In one of the strangest possible changes in mood, they immediately find themselves at a swank, upscale party where the mysteriously strange piano player, Rafa (Carlos Casaravilla), claims he saw her with Juan on the road that day and seems to relish the idea of playing a song entitled “Blackmail,” where the interplay between the two of them is choreographed like a song.  The subsequent dread at the thought of being exposed and “losing everything,” which plainly means their privileged position in society, starts gnawing away at each of them, but in a different way.  Juan visits the working class village where the dead man lived, a striking contrast of Italian realist poverty to the protected palatial estates of the wealthy, and in this manner seems to reconnect to the world around him, perhaps seeing for the first time the role social divisions play in Franco’s society, while María is seeking protection from the man she sees as an extortionist, growing more hysterical at the thought of what she stands to lose, especially from a vile bottom feeder like Rafa, who is a repulsive, Iago-like figure that dwells in a cave-like world of rumors and “dirty little secrets.”  Also an art critic, he seems perfectly at home in the dreamlike atheistic dissonance of modern art, where he finds nothing remotely peculiar or understandable in the harsh abstractions or formless expressions, but his blood curdles at the idea of always being treated as an outsider, so using devious, underhanded means to expose the hypocrisy of the rich comes natural to him, as this represents a new breed of Franco citizenry that spies on and exposes the moral ills of society, keeping the public safe from itself. 

This all comes to a head in a superb nightclub scene of Flamenco singing, where Rafa, drunk from liquor, seems to be setting the trap whispering in people’s ears, while María grows more frantically suspicious by the second, becoming a feverish montage of close ups shown with a maniacal energy that suggests madness or delirium, 🚩 Recordando a JUAN ANTONIO BARDEM YouTube (5:58).  The film benefits greatly from unusual cuts and a modern sound design, not to mention faces accentuated by white light, turning Bosé’s face into a highly fragile porcelain figurine.  Bardem elevates the hysteria of fear to unseen heights, turning this into a Hitchcock homage to horror, as everything that follows slowly unravels from its hinges, as Bosé’s María turns into a woman-in-black femme fatale who senses only the darkest ulterior motives.  It’s an unusual bit of movie hysteria, all shown in a taut 88 minutes, where the finale was altered due to the concerns of the national censors, where we’ll perhaps never know the original intentions of the director.  Shot by Alfredo Fraile, the clarity of the image is superb, where it has been suggested Bardem may have had the only 35mm camera in all of Spain.  As it is, it’s a startling social critique using sharp jagged edges shining the light on some of the darkest days in recent Spanish history, using a scathing noirish melodrama to expose how the wealthy will cling to any corrupt or immoral means to hold onto their privileged status in life, where greed and selfishness are their birthright, and supporting Franco allowed their opulent lifestyles to continue unabated.   

Body Heat

 

Writer/director Lawrence Kasdan

Kathleen Turner and William Hurt

Kasdan and Kathleen Turner

BODY HEAT             A                                                                                                                  USA  (113 mi)  1981  d: Lawrence Kasdan

Ned is caught in limbo, in a dream.  I wanted this film to have the intricate structure of a dream, the density of a good novel, and the texture of recognizable people in extraordinary circumstances.        —Lawrence Kasdan, quoted by Richard Corliss from Time magazine, August 24, 1981, Cinema: Torrid Movie, Hot New Star 

The debut film for both Kasdan and Kathleen Turner, this is a sweaty entry into the heat-oppressed, neo-noir landscape, joining films like J. Lee Thompson’s Cape Fear (1962), Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye (1973), John Huston’s CHINATOWN (1974), and Arthur Penn’s Night Moves (1975). While comparisons are aptly made to Double Indemnity (1944), with Turner playing the Barbara Stanwyck femme fatale, yet perhaps going further to an even darker place, it actually opens just like  Out of the Past (1947), with William Hurt playing the Robert Mitchum role waiting to meet “the girl,” even if he has to wait endlessly at a bar she frequents until she finally shows up, and when she does, the hot and sticky Floridian landscape is ripe for the raw sexuality of a heated erotic thriller with murderous implications.  After co-writing the screenplays of two hugely successful movies, George Lucas’s THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (1980) and Stephen Spielberg’s RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981), the former advertising copywriter was offered a chance to direct his own film, making the most of his opportunity, initially turned down by Fox because he insisted upon casting unknown stars, but George Lucas agreed to help finance the film for a smaller studio, even offering advice in the editing room that Kasdan never forgot, reminding him, “Making movies has nothing to do with the technical stuff.  It has everything to do with what kind of person you are.”  Set in the backwater town of Miranda Beach, Florida in the middle of a heat wave, Hurt plays Ned Racine, a lawyer of dubious reputation, with a slew of one-night stands under his belt, whose best friends are assistant deputy prosecutor Peter Lowenstein (Ted Danson, a year before he landed the lead television role in Cheers) and police detective Oscar Grace (J. A. Preston, a year before he landed a television role in Hill Street Blues), who have a habit of meeting in a local diner, shooting the breeze while catching up on their sordid lives, with Lowenstein living vicariously off Racine’s sexual exploits.  It’s clear this is largely a male-driven film, where everything is seen through the eyes of Racine, a bright, likable guy who is the anchor of the film, a small-town lawyer striking it big when he meets an alluring femme fatale in Matty Walker (Kathleen Turner), who is simply extraordinary, reveling in her sexuality with an undeniably devastating presence that literally jumps off the screen (Hurt gets top billing, but Turner steals the show), married to one of the wealthiest men in the area who is twenty years her senior, trapped in a loveless marriage with an ironclad prenuptial agreement that leaves her nothing, living in a mammoth estate, the kind of thing you only see in pictures, yet what we remember is the haunting sound of the front porch wind chimes.  Their torrid affair is all hush hush, but we quickly surmise what’s at stake, surrounded by swaying palms and the constant threat of danger, though we never really get under her façade to see what’s lurking underneath, becoming a seductive metaphor for the destructive power of ambition, offering a staggering amount of hints and inferences, though it’s typically viewed through the male perspective, a product of the male fantasy, driven by ego and lust, where the sweat and suffocating heat provide the atmospheric conditions for some sizzling sex and lurid ideas that extinguish all rational thought, leading into a danger zone, where murder and sex are the same impulse, resulting in a deal to kill the husband consummated in a lawyer’s office.  This film set the tone for a string of excellent neo-noir films that followed, like Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982), the Coen Brother’s Blood Simple (1984), William Friedkin’s To Live and Die in LA (1985), David Lynch’s BLUE VELVET (1986), also Michael Mann’s Thief (1981) and MANHUNTER (1986).

Openly intending to reinvent the seething amorality of the best film noirs from the 1940’s, it’s got it all in this neon-shaded contemporary romance, where lust, greed, murder, duplicity, and betrayal are proud standard bearers for this creatively inspired movie, with a jazzy sax-heavy musical score composed by John Barry (who scored many James Bond movies) that elevates the film, heightening the emotional stakes, remaining sexy, seductive, and a little sad, John Barry - Body Heat - 1981 YouTube (3:17), where perhaps the most recognizable refrain comes near the end of this musical sequence, Body Heat - Track 06 I'm Frightened YouTube (2:36).  The torrid chemistry between lead actors William Hurt and Kathleen Turner helped launch the much-discussed film into part of the public conversation, adoringly shot in ‘Scope by Richard H. Kline, expressing a luxurious and sultry beauty.  Exhibiting a razor-sharp tongue, Matty’s opening salvo is “You’re not too smart, I like that in a man,” Body Heat (1981) Lawrence Kasdan HD William Hurt, Kathleen Turner YouTube (4:56), immediately setting the stage for what follows.   Hunkered down at the local watering hole for the exclusive and the elite, Racine scopes the joint before finding his opportunity, assuming a position next to her that few have been privileged enough to obtain, only to hear that smoky, husky voice offer her lay of the landscape, like a warning shot, “There are some men once they get a whiff of it they trail you like a hound,” yet all her dire warnings of disappointment only whet his appetite for more, getting him so wound up there’s no possible way he could just get up and walk away, Body Heat (1981) - Bar Scene - 1080p HD YouTube (3:48), getting ensnared in a nihilistic vision only meant for the most primal impulses, yet he wouldn’t have it any other way, as he’s heard the call of the wild, Body Heat 1981 William Hurt, Kathleen turner YouTube (1:41).  Once he’s hooked, he’s trapped in the illusion of love and glory, which she feeds to him on a platter, finding himself sucked into believing this is paradise, the answer to all his prayers, yet there’s an insatiable need that drives his every move, living on the edge, where he’s constantly reminded there’s an immovable obstacle standing in his way, who only shows up on weekends, but a formidable opponent, as he has money, marriage, and the law on his side, while Racine would be viewed as an opportunist, an outside intruder, a man driven by the worst impulses, where he hasn’t a leg to stand on, which comes to light in a chance encounter, meeting face to face, where Edmund Walker (Richard Crenna, aka Colonel Trautman from the Rambo movies), is a force to be reckoned with, Great Richard Crenna scene in 'Body Heat' (1981) YouTube (4:27).  She’s the outlier, the exception to the rule, driven by the same darker regions that Racine inhabits, only more cunning and calculating, an unscrupulous and sinister woman whose greed knows no bounds, seemingly smoothing it all out, making murder seem necessary and normal, but it’s an aberration, a violation of all that’s untarnished, twisting things up in his mind and making him think it was all his idea.  Kasdan hired Carole Littleton as the film editor to get a female perspective, especially when it came to the sex scenes, much of which ended up on the cutting floor, as he didn’t want this to resemble a male sex fantasy.  A tagline for the film suggests, “As the temperature rises, the suspense begins.”

Racine is not the Atticus Finch lawyer depicted in the movies, but is defined by his human flaws, with a small practice in a small Florida town about an hour north of Miami, handling all kinds of cases, personal injury suits, wills, real estate deals, more serious crimes and anything else that looks promising.  A womanizer who gets easily distracted by danger and sex, he is introduced in the courtroom as a shady character who leans toward sleaze, with a judge scolding him for his flimsy defense in a fraud charge, with a dubious client who miraculously avoids jail time, warned by the judge not to come back to his courtroom without “a better defense or a better class of client,” with Lowenstein congratulating him afterwards for effectively “using incompetence as a weapon.”  This sets the stage for the murky, rot-infested world he inhabits, a smart-ass with a cynical view about the way things work, a small-time character who has a way of getting away with things, like a grown-up frat boy who’s maintained his childish demeanor, as it’s always worked for him, but he’s purely minor leagues.   Meeting Matty Walker is a step into the big time, where the stakes are greater, and the crimes are much more ruthlessly ambitious, as the source of Edmund Walker’s wealth is an undisclosed secret, where his silent investment partners also have a way of getting what they want, willing to do whatever it takes (“Whatever is necessary”), no matter how devious or underhanded, with suggestions that shadowy, criminal-affiliated behavior is a routine part of their playbook.  For Racine to enter the lion’s lair, he would have to get mixed up in the nefarious business of foul play, and this is where Kathleen Turner does not disappoint, as she’s one of the great femme fatale characters of all time, where she skyrocketed to fame from a position of anonymity.  The murder actually occurs midway through the film, with a surprisingly long aftermath allowing Racine to get lost in a maze of narrative confusion, where that extended breadth allows for a slower pace with some astonishing revelations, as the noose around his neck slowly tightens, discovering he’s not the kind of man he thought he was, weak-willed, easily manipulated, and blinded by male delusion.  The first time seeing this film viewers will likely be gobsmacked by the finale, which completely subverts the film noir tradition, some of it due to the easing of censorship codes, with sexuality inherent to the genre, showing copious amounts of graphic sex that was not allowed in the 1940’s, while modern era neo-noirs can also play with different kinds of outcomes, as women are allowed to be as bold and as devious as men, offering an innovative use of plot twists, developing new realities with a greater sense of authenticity than was present in the 40’s.  This is a film that pays reverence to the film noir traditions, wearing its influences like a badge of honor, with Kasdan having done his homework, writing some exquisite dialogue, offering surprising twists, where it’s not by accident that it is still revered today.  These were also breakout performances by Ted Danson, but also Mickey Rourke, playing a savvy ex-con who happens to be an explosives expert, as their careers were jumpstarted by their work in this film.  Ironically, the film was actually shot during a rare cold spell during the winter in Lake Worth, Florida, where stagehands were actually wearing coats when this was being shot, using sprayed-on sweat to create the illusion of heat, which this film sells in every scene, becoming the predominate mood and backdrop for the moral abyss that swallows up these characters.  Turner’s smoldering performance lays the blueprint for Linda Fiorentino in THE LAST SEDUCTION (1994) and Jennifer Tilly in the lesbian noir mélange of Bound (1996), perhaps the last of the great erotic thrillers, though one might also include Diane Lane in Adrian Lyne’s UNFAITHFUL (2002), along with Meg Ryan and Jennifer Jason Leigh as sex-starved sisters in Jane Campion’s In the Cut (2003).