Filmbrain's Screen Capture Quiz: Round 16, Week 8

It's fairly late into the film that this very odd scene with Bernie Casey and an uncredited Claudia Jennings pops up in Nicolas Roeg's The Man Who Fell to Earth, and on its own it resembles a European perfume ad, but regular quiz entrant Antony S. from the UK suggests that the scene that follows (which finds a clothed Casey and Jennings tucking their children into bed) crystallizes one of the film's many themes. I'll allow him to explain in the comments, should he be so inclined.  I've never been able to make peace with the film, though I've seen it dozens of times over the years. As much as there is to admire about it, it doesn't reach the heights of Roeg's following three films, Bad Timing, Eureka, and Insignificance -- the peak of his post-Don't Look Now career in my opinion, though admittedly I haven't seen his silent short, The Sound of Claudia Schiffer, which on title alone sounds like a masterpiece. Of course the big story coming at the end of the holiday weekend was the news that Sydney Pollack had died. In recent years I've thought of him more as an actor than as a director, and let's be honest -- his post 80s directorial outings have been less than compelling. Yet his presence as an actor never failed to impress, and I only wish his short (and unexpected) stint on The Sopranos as a doctor/murderer had been his final role. Sadly, that distinction went to Made of Honor. This week: As Tom Servo would no doubt put it, "Say!" Who's the limber actress, once referred to as "box office poison", and in which film do we find her in such a position? Name the actress and the film. Submit your answers to this address. Good luck!

Comments

[jkmngld]

Now don't go hating Made of Honor too much. Great ( nor even Good ) cinema it ain't of course, but it is an honest and maybe even honorable attempt to make a guy-friendly chick flick. You've heard me sing this song before but as the father of a teenage girl I've packed away a LOT of chick flicks, so I have some idea of what goes on there, and to my recollection this is the only one that ever really made a shout out to the males in the theater. Big Genitals => Mad Cow Disease. Now THAT's man-humor.

[flickhead]

I think it's worth remembering that the 70s version of The Man Who Fell to Earth which received great notice was heavily edited -- either by Cinema V or Julia & Michael Phillips, or both. It was excellent, and I remember going back to see it three or four times.

The director's cut was released in North America about a decade later. The previously edited half hour sinks it. Unfortunately, it's what we're stuck with.

I'd rather go back and see the one that got all the great reviews.

The scene preceding Bernie Casey's dive into the pool was Buck Henry's boyfriend going out the window with his barbell. There was some nice instrumental music accompanying it that I've never been able to track down.

[dubarry]

he was a great actor. i didn't realize how much drek he made until i watched a retrospective yesterday. if out of africa was that isn't saying too much.

[Charles Kinbote]

[T]he peak of his post-Don't Look Now career in my opinion

Well, yeah, if you ignore Full Body Massage.

[antony s]

why roeg's scene is not just a perfume ad? uh oh. As I recall it, the victim’s plummet to his death blends into Casey diving into the pool, and surfacing, rising and profiting, as he does, from the destruction of Bowie’s empire, and thus the destruction of his dreams of return, of family life. The symbols of Casey’s success are first obvious – material and sexual, much like a perfume ad – but then that blends too into the exchange between husband and wife, no longer dream lovers but parents, tucking in the kids. Yet none of the other happily-colossal amounts of sex in the movie add up to this result – the most ‘banal’ achievement.

Doesn’t Casey whisper something to the effect of, are we honest with our children about the evil we do (or think we do) on their behalf – the evil in fact we’ve just seen him do, to his own undeniable profit, all summed up in that nice bunk bed affair for the wee ones? Hence, the notion that this tiny scene seems to crystallise a whole lot of things in this film - particularly the ambiguities in becoming a parent, arguably ambiguities that no character is shown being able to deal with – which is one way to take our ending: Bowie bows his head, admitting he has had enough.
– But maybe I was just very drunk when I last saw the movie …

[Sparkle]

I love Bernie Casey, and seeing him in The Man Who Fell To Earth was a special treat. I had to watch the movie several times before I could understand it. And like you, flickhead, I've also been looking for the instrumental that was playing during the "pool scene."