Sir-realism
Narrative gets Lynched in Hopkins's phantasmagoria
By Andy Klein
A little over a decade ago, Sir Anthony Hopkins made his feature directorial debut with August, exactly the kind of film one would expect from a British actor - a stylistically conventional update of a classic play (Chekhov's Uncle Vanya), transferred to the screen. Now he gives us his second feature, Slipstream, which is exactly the last sort of film one would expect from a British actor.
That is, Slipstream eschews all connections to stage virtues or any other sort of non-cinematic narrative qualities. Perhaps one could find a prose equivalent in Joyce or Beckett, but basically this is "all cinema, all the time." My initial reaction, during the first 10 minutes, was that Hopkins, frustrated in a desire to be in a David Lynch film, decided, "I'll make my own damned David Lynch film!"
That theory went out the window when I remembered that Hopkins was in a David Lynch film (The Elephant Man), albeit over 25 years ago. So perhaps Slipstream is a simple act of admiration or, alternatively, satire. Maybe a bit of both.
In any case, the first thing we see onscreen are slo-mo, or step-printed, images flashing at us, accompanied by a spooky Lynchean rumble on the soundtrack. There's a car accident (maybe). There's the title credit - Slipstream - with the word dream faintly fading in and out as a second part of the title, barely long enough to be perceived. A woman (Fionulla Flanagan) is gossiping on the phone, referring to something awful (probably fatal) happening to "Felix" - but, as we're later told, Felix, like the similarly named cat, has nine lives.
At a racetrack, a young woman tells screenwriter Felix Bonhoeffer (Hopkins), "It's all over." What's all over? The race? The movie Felix is writing? Felix's life? Is she leading him to the hereafter?
Apparently not. They drive to the desert ... or maybe away from it. Stuck in a freeway tie-up, they are assaulted by a lunatic shooter, who maybe shoots one or both of them, not that this ends their participation in the film.
Outside a bar, Felix accosts a waitress (Stella Arroyave, the real-life Mrs. Hopkins), who is also the young girl's aunt. The waitress's boss (Michael Clarke Duncan) tries to protect her, but she waves him away. Pretty soon, the boss is taken away at gunpoint by a thug named Ray (Christian Slater), who takes him out to the desert and kills him (not that this ends Duncan's participation in the movie, either).
It's right around now that the image irises in to black, as though marking the end of Act One. Act Two starts out as an updated knockoff of Ernest Hemingway's "The Killers," with Ray and partner Geek (Jeffrey Tambor) terrorizing the patrons and employees of a diner. (Indeed, the closing credits include a "thanks" for permission to include a clip from one of the film versions of Hemingway's short story.)
Ray starts talking about the 1956 film Invasion of the Body Snatchers and, at some point - details of Slipstream understandably grow fuzzy as soon as you leave the theater - that film's star, Kevin McCarthy (played by himself), shows up.
Also at some point, a director (Gavin Grazer) yells cut, and we discover that the "Killers" shtick is just a movie, being shot on location in the Mojave. Ray and Geek are really actors named Matt and Jeffrey. But things are spinning out of control on the set: The script needs to be rewritten, so studio boss Harvey (John Turturro) dispatches - you guessed it - Felix out to the set.
OR DOES HE? OR IS IT? OR WHO WHICH? OR WHAT THE FUCK?
Your guess is as good as mine.
Bizarrely, for all the appropriation of traditional David Lynch trademarks - we even get flickering light bulbs - the Lynch film Slipstream most closely resembles is the only one Hopkins couldn't have seen: Inland Empire, which was released only a month or two before Slipstream debuted at Sundance earlier this year. Both films jumble up levels of reality, blending Hollywood filmmaking and dreams and fantasies and alternate realities and - maybe, just maybe - some definable non-alternate reality. That is, it's possible that within the tangle of perspectives in each film hides a simple central narrative that represents the movie's "reality." But I doubt it.
Hopkins muddies the reality even more than Lynch by referencing himself within the film. Not only is there a quick mention of the upcoming "Hannibal 4: Blue Dragon with Hopkins," but within montages we see brief clips of Hitler and Nixon, both of whom the actor has portrayed.
It would be wrong to suggest that Lynch is the only influence on Slipstream. In terms of filmmaking phantasmagorias, Fellini's 8 1/2 (1963) was firstest with the mostest, echoed by Paul Mazursky's Alex in Wonderland (1970) and Woody Allen's Stardust Memories (1980). A few months ago, John August's The Nines presented a clever variation on this concept. Alain Resnais's magnificent Providence (1977) doesn't concern filmmaking, but its central conceit - a drunken writer's internal meandering - is much the same. (And the protagonist there wears a floppy hat similar to what Felix wears in Slipstream! Coincidence? Well, okay, probably.)
One technique that Hopkins uses freely doesn't appear in any of those precursors. In addition to the more familiar rapid-fire montages, he sometimes has both video and audio "stutter" in the manner of hip-hop scratching, with quick repetitions of pieces of dialogue. There are bits of this to be found in Resnais's Je t'aime, je t'aime (1968) and (I think) in Godard and Richard Lester, but it's rarely been explored outside of the barely seen experimental shorts of Martin Arnold.
Introducing the film at Sundance, Hopkins said, "I did it as a creative joke." That might be true, but that's a lot of effort - and money ($10 million) - for a joke. It's quite possible that Hopkins was trying to preempt criticism of the film on the grounds of pretentiousness, deliberate obscurity, and all-around "artsiness."
On the other hand, there is a sense of play running throughout. It's easy to imagine that Hopkins meant the movie as a sort of "romp," which is slightly different from a "joke." Certainly he was getting personal pleasure out of indulging a total freedom from conventional narrative restrictions.
So, to quote Henry Silva in Amazon Women on the Moon: Bullshit? Or not? You decide!
I'm a sucker for this sort of narrative playfulness, so I fully enjoyed Slipstream. Perhaps it's best thought of as Inland Empire Lite: At half the length, it's easier going down but less filling. And there is pleasure to be had in watching Slater and Turturro chew the scenery.
Most of all, for any died-in-the-pod film buff, there's the thrill of seeing old fave Kevin McCarthy on screen, looking remarkable at 92. Of course, that old Twilight Zone episode ("Long Live Walter Jameson") where he never aged was just a piece of fiction ...
... OR WAS IT?
Published: 10/25/2007
DIGG | del.icio.us | REDDIT
