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Interconnectedness is key to the conceptual anecdote, a bit of Napoleon might float in your drink, "we're all part of that fuckin' great alimentary canal." The cosmos in a Madison Ave. hotel room, four ringers for Fifties pop-culture totems pass through. The Actress (Theresa Russell) needs an intellectual boost after committing her underwear to cinema, her husband The Ballplayer (Gary Busey) stews in jealousy and frets over his own bubblegum-card legacy. The Professor (Michael Emil) must deal with guilt over the weaponization of his scientific discoveries, plus pesky persecution from the sniveling Senator (Tony Curtis). "To unify the fields" is the stated goal, Monroe, DiMaggio, Einstein and McCarthy comprise the fanciful arrangement, a tender and gruesome Nicolas Roeg quasi-farce. The filming of The Seven Year Itch is observed, the transcendental vantage point is that of the crew member under the subway grate. The shy genius is not starstruck by the nervous blonde knocking at his door, she's got toy trains and flashlights and balloons to illustrate relativity. "I'm not theoretical. I demonstrate." Hiroshima terrors and casting-couch memories, stopped clocks and Hockney calendars. The bed is not quite shared, thanks to the slugger desperate to save his marriage. "If I want to see my wife, I just go to the movies." The Red-baiter meanwhile seeks a facsimile of the sex goddess to cure his impotence, he's played by her Some Like It Hot co-star under a coat of sweat. Knowledge is "mindless agreement," truth in a maze of mythologies is something else. The shamanic observer is the elevator operator (Will Sampson), who might be Queequeg domesticated: "I go up and down. I watch TV. I'm no Ionger a Cherokee." Roeg's punchline hinges on the bombshell pun, with an apocalyptic daydream to outdo Zabriskie Point followed by a wink. With Patrick Kilpatrick, Raymond J. Barry, and Daniel Benzali.
--- Fernando F. Croce |