The following is a review I had to write for my Writing Film Reviews class. It was one of a major writing assignments. The review is about a 1980's film that many have not heard of called The Stuntman. Our teacher chose the film because it was a movie that movie studios did not want to release. The film was saved by film critics and got distribution. Unfortunately, I do not know very many people who have seen this film so I don't know how good a saving the critics did. Either way the film recently came out on Blu Ray if you interested in seeing it.
The Stunt Man (1980)
The Stunt Man is about named Cameron who falls upon a film shoot while is running from the cops. The director of the film shoot, Eli, convinces Cameron to hide from the police on his set by posing as the stunt man whom Cameron had accidentally caused the death of earlier. Cameron is then transformed into double for the main actor and is given the new name of Lucky Bert. After some training Cameron, a.k.a Bert, goes into filming the stunt scenes for Eli’s film. Amongst all this he begins an affair with Nina and he also begins to suspect fowl play on set by Eli. Nina and Cameron plan to runaway before the shooting of the last scene in which he believes Eli wants to stage his death in order to achieve a realistic performance.
You can see the lack of substance in some of the performances. Steve Railsback's (Cameron) performance seems forced and strained. He is supposed to be a cocky yet troubled young man but Railsback’s acting becomes over dramatic in his attempt and at times hardly believable. The love affair that occurs between Cameron and Nina Franklin (Barbra Hershey) is also predictable. There is no chemistry between them and so it is hard to understand why they are in love. Barbra Hershey is suppose to play a screen siren who is not only beautiful but mature in both her personality and acting ability. In her first encounter with Cameron she exclaims to him “I am the movies” after he mentions that their encounter is just like something out of the movies. After watching her performance as Nina this statement falls by the wayside because any maturity or confidence this character is suppose to have is replaced with a character who is flighty and at times more naive than Cameron. She plays Nina more like a hippie type character who can do nothing more than smile and who believes she has all the answers but really has no clue.
The only convincing performance is that of Peter O`Toole. His character, Eli Cross, exercises a godlike control over the entire production. His power is most obvious in the scenes where he is seated in the crane hovering over the set. Eli is the one who holds the strings and Cameron becomes increasingly aware of this as the film goes on. Eli cannot finish his film without a stunt man and Cameron is in need of sanctuary. Eli continues manipulating Cameron by withholding information about the scenes Cameron has to do. This causes Cameron to become more and more paranoid believing that Eli is trying to kill him for the sake of getting the best possible takes. Eli does this because he needs Cameron on his set. Cameron reminds Eli of the person he is making his film about. He uses Cameron for inspiration and manipulates him to get the reactions that he wants.
At the end of the day it is all about Eli’s film and the message he is trying to get across: an anti-war statement. Eli is a director who has something to say but seems to have a hard time pinpointing just how to say it. It is through his interactions with Cameron that this dilema becomes clear to him. In a dinner scene near the beginning of the film, Cameron discusses making his film relevant with his writer Sam (Allen Garfield). Eli confesses that ''War isn't the disease... It’s only one of the symptoms." But Eli needs to determine what the disease is in order to make the film relevant. Through his interactions (and the way he manipulates Cameron) Eli is able to pinpoint that the disease is in fact a social one - and it stems from the paranoia in all of us.
At its heart, The Stunt Man is a story of the making of a film. I thought the film was successful in how it handles the theme of a film about the making of the film. The irony and self reflectivity of this concept is not lost on the viewer. We are constantly being reminded of the production. We are also directed to the idea that since this is a film about the making of a film almost everything is fabricated and manipulated for the film shoot. I particularly liked how Rush uses circus type music to compare the film production to the concept of putting on a show. At the end of the film the entire film crew enters on to the shooting location of the final scene like a circus rolling into town. On lookers observe them go by as they point and smile, one of them even mentions that they look like a circus.
There is a song at the beginning of the film in which there is a line ''Nothing is quite as it seems.'' Nothing is as it seems. The boundaries between reality and fiction are constantly blurred in this film. Rush does a fine job of continually throwing the rug from under the viewer. We are introduced to Nina as an old women but in fact she is a young and vivacious woman who put on special effects makeup to fool the crew. Even some of the characters have difficulty in sorting out what is real and what isn’t. Cameron is often scared for his life while shooting his scenes but he is oblivious to the fact that precautions have been set up to keep him out of harm’s way. It is this constant haze that feeds the paranoia which is at the heart of this film.
The Stunt Man was for the most part entertaining but whatever relevance it was seeking became lost in its meagre attempts to make it meaningful. In Rush’s documentary, The Sinister Saga of Making “The Stunt Man” (2000), he claims that the film has a subversive message because it deals with the subject of war (in this case Vietnam), the effects of war, and the paranoia in all of us. That is all very nice and all but I had hard time finding the connections between these ideas. Cameron is suppose the physical embodiment of films ideals and message. He represents a Vietnam vet who’s experience in the war and modern day America have shaped him into a hard character who is suspicious of those around him but his time in Vietnam seems to be in afterthought in Cameron’s character. It seems to be more of means of playing up the cocky hard exterior he claims to have. Eli mentions, not as a fact but as an assumption, that Cameron fought in Vietnam for two years and he killed many people. Cameron exclaims “...Hey I didn’t kill that many people...”. Cameron is the key to the Rush’s and intern Eli’s message but Railsback’s performance lent nothing to the hard and troubled man Cameron was suppose to be. I could not believe Cameron to be that man and therefore I was not convinced of what the film was trying to say about the modern man.
Ironically, The Stunt Man is a film that was saved from being lost forever by Rush's efforts to have the film made and seen by not only the public, but by critics who could make or break it. The picture was released even though the powers that be wanted it to disappear. Among all this, I think the film fails to bring the audience something memorable.Its aim was to make something that was both entertaining and meaningful but it failed to do both. The Stunt Man’s lack of solid acting, its overall surface message, and lack of clean visual storytelling left me unsatisfied.
You can see the lack of substance in some of the performances. Steve Railsback's (Cameron) performance seems forced and strained. He is supposed to be a cocky yet troubled young man but Railsback’s acting becomes over dramatic in his attempt and at times hardly believable. The love affair that occurs between Cameron and Nina Franklin (Barbra Hershey) is also predictable. There is no chemistry between them and so it is hard to understand why they are in love. Barbra Hershey is suppose to play a screen siren who is not only beautiful but mature in both her personality and acting ability. In her first encounter with Cameron she exclaims to him “I am the movies” after he mentions that their encounter is just like something out of the movies. After watching her performance as Nina this statement falls by the wayside because any maturity or confidence this character is suppose to have is replaced with a character who is flighty and at times more naive than Cameron. She plays Nina more like a hippie type character who can do nothing more than smile and who believes she has all the answers but really has no clue.
The only convincing performance is that of Peter O`Toole. His character, Eli Cross, exercises a godlike control over the entire production. His power is most obvious in the scenes where he is seated in the crane hovering over the set. Eli is the one who holds the strings and Cameron becomes increasingly aware of this as the film goes on. Eli cannot finish his film without a stunt man and Cameron is in need of sanctuary. Eli continues manipulating Cameron by withholding information about the scenes Cameron has to do. This causes Cameron to become more and more paranoid believing that Eli is trying to kill him for the sake of getting the best possible takes. Eli does this because he needs Cameron on his set. Cameron reminds Eli of the person he is making his film about. He uses Cameron for inspiration and manipulates him to get the reactions that he wants.
At the end of the day it is all about Eli’s film and the message he is trying to get across: an anti-war statement. Eli is a director who has something to say but seems to have a hard time pinpointing just how to say it. It is through his interactions with Cameron that this dilema becomes clear to him. In a dinner scene near the beginning of the film, Cameron discusses making his film relevant with his writer Sam (Allen Garfield). Eli confesses that ''War isn't the disease... It’s only one of the symptoms." But Eli needs to determine what the disease is in order to make the film relevant. Through his interactions (and the way he manipulates Cameron) Eli is able to pinpoint that the disease is in fact a social one - and it stems from the paranoia in all of us.
At its heart, The Stunt Man is a story of the making of a film. I thought the film was successful in how it handles the theme of a film about the making of the film. The irony and self reflectivity of this concept is not lost on the viewer. We are constantly being reminded of the production. We are also directed to the idea that since this is a film about the making of a film almost everything is fabricated and manipulated for the film shoot. I particularly liked how Rush uses circus type music to compare the film production to the concept of putting on a show. At the end of the film the entire film crew enters on to the shooting location of the final scene like a circus rolling into town. On lookers observe them go by as they point and smile, one of them even mentions that they look like a circus.
There is a song at the beginning of the film in which there is a line ''Nothing is quite as it seems.'' Nothing is as it seems. The boundaries between reality and fiction are constantly blurred in this film. Rush does a fine job of continually throwing the rug from under the viewer. We are introduced to Nina as an old women but in fact she is a young and vivacious woman who put on special effects makeup to fool the crew. Even some of the characters have difficulty in sorting out what is real and what isn’t. Cameron is often scared for his life while shooting his scenes but he is oblivious to the fact that precautions have been set up to keep him out of harm’s way. It is this constant haze that feeds the paranoia which is at the heart of this film.
The Stunt Man was for the most part entertaining but whatever relevance it was seeking became lost in its meagre attempts to make it meaningful. In Rush’s documentary, The Sinister Saga of Making “The Stunt Man” (2000), he claims that the film has a subversive message because it deals with the subject of war (in this case Vietnam), the effects of war, and the paranoia in all of us. That is all very nice and all but I had hard time finding the connections between these ideas. Cameron is suppose the physical embodiment of films ideals and message. He represents a Vietnam vet who’s experience in the war and modern day America have shaped him into a hard character who is suspicious of those around him but his time in Vietnam seems to be in afterthought in Cameron’s character. It seems to be more of means of playing up the cocky hard exterior he claims to have. Eli mentions, not as a fact but as an assumption, that Cameron fought in Vietnam for two years and he killed many people. Cameron exclaims “...Hey I didn’t kill that many people...”. Cameron is the key to the Rush’s and intern Eli’s message but Railsback’s performance lent nothing to the hard and troubled man Cameron was suppose to be. I could not believe Cameron to be that man and therefore I was not convinced of what the film was trying to say about the modern man.
Ironically, The Stunt Man is a film that was saved from being lost forever by Rush's efforts to have the film made and seen by not only the public, but by critics who could make or break it. The picture was released even though the powers that be wanted it to disappear. Among all this, I think the film fails to bring the audience something memorable.Its aim was to make something that was both entertaining and meaningful but it failed to do both. The Stunt Man’s lack of solid acting, its overall surface message, and lack of clean visual storytelling left me unsatisfied.
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