theresa russell – filmcentric

I’m not honestly sure where the comedy is in this, except that it’s a fantasy scenario. Not unlike the more recent One Night in Miami…, it’s a theatrical production which imagines four historical figures gathering together in a single hotel room to talk over various ideas of interest to the playwright/screenwriter. None of these figures is identified by name but it’s clear who they’re supposed to represent (Marilyn, Joe DiMaggio, Einstein and Senator Joseph McCarthy), and over the course of the night various ideas are discussed. There’s some exploration of Marilyn’s inner life, of sex and hypocrisy, of the American state’s interest in foreign individuals like Einstein (even if it does see McCarthy acting more like an FBI agent), and some kind of fantasy nuclear apocalypse scenario in which Marilyn dances through the fire, the hotel room exploding like the end of Antonioni’s Zabriskie Point. It’s a lot to take in, and given its origin, it’s rather talky, but there’s plenty to like, plus watching Tony Curtis play McCarthy here makes me wonder how many other actors have starred in films with both the real person and someone doing an impersonation of them.

FILM REVIEW: Criterion Collection
Director Nicolas Roeg; Writer Terry Johnson (based on his play); Cinematographer Peter Hannan; Starring Theresa Russell, Michael Emil, Tony Curtis, Gary Busey; Length 108 minutes.

Seen at home (DVD), Wellington, Sunday 28 August 2022.

This is a tough film but I think it makes most sense in the context of the kinds of films being made at this period (which Russell herself touches on in an extra on the Criterion disc), films in which pretty young women act flirty and have sex with the (older) leading man, thus softening his hardened masculine persona. Except unlike those films, Bad Timing makes this relationship central to its plot and it doesn’t leave it there, but goes much further. This older man here is not just any man but an esteemed psychoanalyst Dr Alex Linden (living and teaching in Vienna, of course), and his obsession for Theresa Russell’s flirtatious and ‘easy’ younger woman Milena becomes something that ultimately contributes to her psychological disintegration. He projects onto her his own needs, takes out his jealousy and is overtly positioned by Roeg’s film as in fact not just a creepy sexual predator but also (and this may perhaps count as a spoiler, but it’s important to know in terms of the kind of psychosexual terrain that’s being covered in the film) a rapist. The film makes clear, through Russell’s fantastic performance, just how social constrained her agency is, a societal expectation as created explicitly by men like Art Garfunkel’s doctor, and which he preys on increasingly methodically. As such, it’s all rather psychologically (and at times, physically) brutal — their initial sexual encounter in flashback is cross-cut with a bloody, invasive surgical procedure on her unconscious naked body, following what appears to be a suicide attempt — so despite Roeg’s typically textural use of editing back and forth in time, little snippets of one time period fragmenting into another, it is a difficult watch. However, I do believe it’s trying to unpick the layers of obsession that can run through relationships (especially in films), pointing its finger firmly at 20th century psychoanalysis as being part of the problem.

CRITERION EXTRAS:

Nic Roeg and his producer Jeremy Thomas sit in one of their kitchens and talk about the film some 25 years later, recollecting some of what went into creating it, how Roeg found Russell as his actor, and a little bit about the reception by the studio.
There are about 17 minutes of deleted scenes, half of which have no sound (as it wasn’t preserved) but they give little extra scenes to flesh out some of the characters.

FILM REVIEW: Criterion Collection
Director Nicolas Roeg; Writer Yale Udoff; Cinematographer Anthony B. Richmond; Starring Theresa Russell, Art Garfunkel, Harvey Keitel, Denholm Elliott; Length 122 minutes.

Seen at home (DVD), London, Sunday 22 March 2020.