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The Fury
Vintage DePalma, with all the glory that implies
1978
Director: Brian DePalma
Starring: Amy Irving, Kirk Douglas, John Cassavetes, Carrie Snodgress
Sure cannot hurt.
THE SETUP:
Kirk Douglas' son gets kidnapped for his psychic abilities. Amy Irving is a promising psychic lured in possibly to replace Kirk's son. Weirdness unfolds.
DISCUSSION:
This is one strange movie, but it's all handled with the classic DePalma technique, so naturally it's riveting. But you should get used to the fact that you are never going to find out a lot of what's going on, and why it's going on.
The movie opens with a scene in the "Mid East," in which Kirk, his son Robin, and John Cassavetes are hanging out at the beach. There is a bit of discussion of Robin's "talents," then suddenly there's this terrorist attack, in which Robin comes to believe that his father has been killed, and he's taken off by Cassavetes, presumably to this psychic institute.
This is the second movie I've watched recently with Kirk Douglas [the other was The Final Countdown], and he's really charming. In the opening scene here, he's all jovial and tender with his son, then, during the attack, grabs a machine gun and starts blazing, steals a boat which explodes, and survives to make it back to shore. Later, he jumps out of a city window onto an elevated train track, and does some serious acrobatics in the scaffolding underneath to get into an apartment building on the other side of the street. I was thinking that the remarkable thing about Kirk Douglas is that he really carries off that he is the kind of guy who WOULD, and COULD, spring into action like this when required. I clearly need more Kirk.
Then we switch to Amy Irving, who is just beginning to discover her psychic ability. She has this thing where if she touches someone while having one of their psychic episodes, they begin to bleed. I liked that their flesh doesn't rip open or anything, they just start to bleed from their mouth, fingernails, eyes, etc. It seems more realistic than something flashier happening. She is soon targeted by the very people who abducted Robin, and also by Kirk, who is trying to reach her so she can locate Robin, while he tries to stay clear of their search for him. So the movie has these neat parallel plots, while also having the ever-lovable 'long-standing vendetta' motif.
One immediate revelation that I had never noticed before is that Amy Irving was really incredibly beautiful. Even seeing her in Carrie and elsewhere I thought she was just average. Here for some reason she's an absolute knockout, and her acting is brilliant as well. Suddenly I began to be a little sorry that she wasn't able to guide her career in a direction that would showcase her talents to more people.
The other thing about this movie is that it totally leaves characters for long stretches of time, really until you forget about them. You're watching Amy and her friends [and one enemy] and her mother, and you're like "But what about Kirk and company? What was that about?" Then Kirk comes on and we drop Amy for an extended time. The other thing is that the movie just IS NOT interested in tying up all the loose ends for the viewer. You never find out what this evil organization wants of Kirk's son Robin, you never even find out what they do or what they are, and you're not really sure what they want Amy for. I think this is intentional, to remain in the perspective of the characters themselves, who also don't see the big picture of what is happening, only their small part in it. I also think DePalma isn't so interested in his stories making sense as he is in them making a kind of thematic or cinematic sense, which you can see in Phantom of the Paradise and especially in Femme Fatale.
The full DePalma flourishes are in full effect here, and I couldn't be happier. I love him because he's not afraid to do something really showy or outrageous to have an effect. A lot of directors want their technique to fade into invisibility, feeling it would distract from the story or take one out of the movie, but they don't realize that often having one's attention drawn to the technical aspect of how a film is put together can HEIGHTEN the emotional effect. The split screen at the climax of Carrie freaked me out as much what was happening onscreen did. There are a number of wonderful sequences here, notably a slow-motion escape from the institute with no sound but John Williams' score, a great rear-projected psychic vision, and just a lot of smaller touches that goose the tone into the unsettling, such as the large number of crowd scenes. Oh, and there's also a WONDERFUL shot of Amy Irving unconscious while having a psychic vision, while the face of a person way across the room, on the other side of the frame, is also in focus [by filming both elements separately]. Does it MEAN much? I don't know, but it adds to the tone, keeps the movie exciting, and adds a creepy sheen of voyeurism.
Hitchcock started his career by making silent films, and often said that this was excellent training in telling stories visually. He wanted to tell as much of the story as he could, even in his later films, through purely visual means. He considered it a lack of creativity when something was SAID in the script that could have been communicated visually. Maybe I'm just thick, but it was during this film that it first occurred to me that this is one of the many lessons DePalma seemingly absorbed from Hitchcock. I think, however, DePalma takes the Hitchcock impulse toward abstraction further in his own work, seeing the films foremost AS FILMS [rather than a filmic telling of a story with characters], which, again, I think reached its purest expression so far in Femme Fatale.
Heady, no?
One of the bizarre highlights of this movie would have to be the character of "Mother Knuckles." She deserves her name. During Kirk's aforementioned escape through an apartment window, DePalma takes the time to set a well-realized domestic scene inside the apartment, delineating the characters in fair detail before bringing Kirk back on the scene. The scenes that follow continue with this charming digression from the main plot, but are too delicious for me to ruin for you here.
SPOILERS HERE >>> The story is as confusing as ever toward the end, reaching a conclusion that makes emotional sense if not pure plot sense, wherein Amy uses her powers to blow John Cassavetes to bloody bits. This scene predates similar scenes in Scanners by three years-in fact, there are a lot of similarities between this film and some of the early Cronenberg films like The Brood or Rabid, most notably the characters, who have supernatural powers that they are just beginning to discover, and the settings of these strange and sinister institutes that both study and exploit these individuals. Anyway, I wanted to point out that you see Cassavetes explode 13 times in a row! This makes the most sense in the context of Armond White's idea that this represents a cinematic orgasm. The triumphal music that follows immediately after is also a bit funny and odd, but you know how orgasms are. <<<<SPOILERS END.
The DVD release of this also includes a few trailers for other movies, including one for the original release of Alien, which is just flat-out fucking amazing! One of the best trailers I've ever seen. It starts slow with that bumpy egg thing, then builds slowly with soundless scenes from the movie accompanied only by music, and finally explodes in a screech of action and sound. It both makes a great tiny film in itself and also expresses the tone of the full film. If you happen to rent this disc, be sure to check it out.
SHOULD YOU WATCH IT?
Yes! You should watch everything Brian DePalma has ever done or ever will do!
RELATED FILMS:
CARRIE is also great, great DePalma, and a great movie all around. If you haven't seen it in a while, and regard it as a puff teen horror movie, watch it again and you'll be amazed at its quality.
