|
Click here to return to the main site. DVD Review
Valentine ‘snakeskin’ Xavier, following some obscure crime, is run out of New Orleans. He’s not that bothered, at thirty he’s feeling the strain of existing only in the darkened places where parties usually mean sex. Travelling across the country his car breaks down in a small Mississippi town which opens up the opportunity for a job at a local store, but rather than safety and solace, which he seeks, he finds a town rent asunder by sexual tension and hate... The Fugitive Kind (B&W - 1959 - 1 hr, 56 min, 31 sec) is a steamy slice of southern corruption, directed by Sidney Lumet (Serpico 1973, Dog Day Afternoon 1975) and based on a play by Tennessee Williams, who also worked on the screenplay with Meade Roberts. The film was based on his play Orpheus Descending and won two awards at the San Sebastián International Film Festival. Orpheus, in classical Greek mythology was a prophet, muse, musician and poet with the power to charm not only all living creatures, but even the stones themselves. Where Orpheus descends into the very pits of hell to find his love Xavier (Marlon Brando) drags himself out of the pits of New Orleans and ascends to a new town with its own version of hell. Rolling into town, he first encounters the sheriff’s wife Vee Talbot (Maureen Stapleton), who tries to find solace from her life in painting, a barrier between her and her racist, bully husband (R.G. Armstrong as Sheriff Jordan Talbott). Through this meeting Xavier is offered a job as sore clerk. Although the store is owned by Jabe (Victor Jory), he is confined to bed dying of cancer. Downstairs the sexually repressed Lady (Anna Magnani) runs the business. Lady holds on to a great bitterness as her father’s winery was burnt to the ground, with him in it, when he sold alcohol to Negros. Xavier is all charm and sensuality, clad in his snakeskin jacket with his guitar slung across his shoulders, he quickly catches the notice of bat shit crazy Carol Cutrere (Joanne Woodward), the local drunk and nymphomaniac, who professes that she knows him from some previous seedy parties, which he attended as part of the ‘entertainment’. As time passes Lady finds herself drawn towards Xavier, which spells doom for both of them. Tennessee Williams used a lot of his own experiences in his work, the southern belle, always on the edge of hysteria mirrored his experience of his mother, and the bullying drunk was reminiscent of his father. In an age when homosexuality was forbidden, themes of suppressed sexual tension run like a vein through most of his work. Those themes appear again in the film. This is a languid film; Lumet spends much of the movie lingering on close up shots of the characters faces, offering up their inner despair for the audience to witness. Quite in the film not only represents the sexual tension between the characters but is also used to enhance the threat to Xavier from the town’s males. The pace becomes mesmerising, it’s like watching a slow car crash.The DVD has a pretty clean print, given its age. Presented with an aspect ratio of 16x9 1:66 the audio is 2.0 mono, with no extras. 7 Charles Packer Buy this item online
|
|---|
