|
Portrait of the artist as a young goon. James Toback finds his perfect stand-in in Harvey Keitel, sort of a Manhattanite Raskolnikov or Van Gogh decked out in leather jackets, ascots and a Russian monk's haircut. He tears passionately into Bach's Partita No. 4 at his home, the languidly moving camera takes in the curve of the piano to reveal the inscrutable muse (Tisa Farrow) outside the window, momentarily enraptured. The hands that make music also brutally take down a mountainous pizzeria owner who owes money, his loan-shark papa (Michael V. Gazzo) beams a proud smile. Another debtor isn't easily persuaded, so the protagonist finds the man's mistress (Tanya Roberts) and seduces her on the toilet. "Do you love me?" "I love your..." "My what?" "Your pussy." Toback plays with symbols promiscuously—the brooder's subconscious is a tape recorder perpetually playing '60s pop bubblegum tunes, there are rectal exams and discarded diaphragms, the mother (Marian Seldes) demands a kiss on the lips from the vile virtuoso. He penetrates and is penetrated, masters the sonata by himself but comes undone before the maestro at Carnegie Hall. His nemesis is an ebony column of muscle (Jim Brown) whose machismo turns a lesbian kiss into a bloody headbutt, Farrow is enthralled by this id figure and Keitel loses her the way he had first seduced her, to the tune of "Mockingbird." When the raging psyche is trapped inside a stalled elevator or paces in a darkened room, the vision is closer to Fists in the Pocket than to Taxi Driver. The auteur imagines himself as a pathological fiend heading toward a baptism of gore, music can no longer soothe the beast. The Narcissus pond but full of acid, "that's not a heroic fuck, that's a dumb fuck." Cinematography by Michael Chapman. With Danny Aiello, Ed Marinaro, Georgette Mosbacher, Carole Francis, Lenny Montana, and Tony Sirico.
--- Fernando F. Croce |