On Screen

...On Screen FANTASY LIVES BY ROBERT ASAHINA Paul Schrader is probably the only filmmaker left in Hollywood who thinks sex has to be dirty Although only in his 30s, he typically heads straight for the sleaze, just like an un-regenerate lecher who prefers his thrills liberally spiced with sin In his script for Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver he had his protagonist, Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro), look at Times Square with the wide-eyed fascination and guilt of an uptight Calvinist from Grand Rapids, Michigan (which Schrader actually is) In Hardcore, his view of the West Coast porno industry mixed voyeurism and moralism in equal parts Now in American Gigolo, his third film as writer/director, he takes the grand tour of the Beverly Hills-Mal-lbu social set and, not surprisingly, ends up wallowing in its seamy underside One problem, of course, is that we don't need to be told the idle rich can be decadent, or that San Francisco's Tenderloin is squalid Schrader himself seems to dimly recognize this, the use of "American" in the title appears to be his way of trying to generalize the experiences of his leading character, Julian Kay (Richard Gere), into a statement about our corrupt culture Another problem is that all the ugliness is in the writer/director's head—not in the lovely mansions, beachside houses, and expensive clubs and restaurants photographed by John Bailey in the best coffee-table magazine style That is not to suggest American Gigolo lacks a subject The plot revolves around this terrible cnsis of Julian's "All my life I'm looking for something, I don't even know what it is " True, he owns a Mercedes and a wardrobe by Giorgio Armani, and he frequents the most exclusive watering holes in the Los Angeles area His clientele includes the loveliest, richest, most bored ladies in town He knows six languages (plus the "international language," as he reminds us), and treats older women kindly ("It took me three hours to get her off," he says of one "When it was over, I thought I'd done something worthwhile—who else would have taken the time7") He also has some standards ("I don't do fags and I don't do couples," he declares pnssily) But he's worried "I'm getting older," he grouses Poor Julian Those who do it for free and don't look as if thev just stepped out of the pages of Gentlemen's Quarterly may be forgiven if they don't feel too sorry for him Schrader tries another tack for our sympathy, though About hallway through, his campy look at the pastimes of the privileged abruptly turns into a paranoid fantasy/mystery A woman Julian once serviced has been murdered, and someone is framing him for the deed All of a sudden, his fancy clientele deserts him, the police hound him, and those posh places begin to get annoyed when he strolls in without a tie Life is tough when you're out of the m-crowd Unfortunately, there are even fewer moments of suspense mA merican Gigolo than there are insights into decadence, American style There are, however, some truly precious moments of unintended humor At the end, for example, audiences burst into laughter as our hero is saved by Michelle Stratton (Lauren Hutton), the wife of a prominent local politician, who declares to the world that she spent the mght of the murder with Julian and thus provides him with an alibi "I can't go home now,' she tells him When he asks why she made such a sacrifice for him, she answers, "I had no choice " Maybe it was j ust the way Hutton delivered the line, if wood could talk it would sound like her Or maybe it was the utter simple-mindedness of her sincerity Calvinist Fate in the form of dumb love Whichever, Hutton should give up acting to return to the modeling career that made her famous, and Schrader should just give up As for Gere, my opinion of him sinks lower and lower with each of his films (Looking Jor Mr Goodbar, Bloodbrothers, Days of Heaven, Yanks, and now this) He always looks right for his roles, yet unlike, say, Marlon Brando or Paul Newman, there is little force behind his handsome exterior, his eves are blank, and one suspects his head is hollow Gere simply lacks the power, the menace, to generate any excitement Just Tell Me II luit )ou II ant suffers from many of the problems that plague American Gigolo a for mer fashion model who can't act (Ah \lac-Graw), and a script whose attitudes toward sex belong to the dinosaur age The dinosaur in question is lav Pres-son Allen, who adapted her own novel for the screen, apparentlv not in the least dismayed by the mess she made in the past of other writers' works (She mauled John van Druten's / Am a Camera, to create Cabaret, and butchered Muriel Spark's The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie) Allen has the peculiar idea that the lives of the vulgar rich are full of fun MacGraw plays a "working girl" named Bones—yes, Bones—Burton She is a television producer who is also the lavishly well kept woman of Max Her-schel (Alan King), the head of a giant conglomerate Bones makes no bones about her status "I was his first subsidiary," she declares proudly at the outset But like poor Julian, she's not happy Though she has won an Emmy, and owns a duplex apartment filled with Precisiomst paintings and so much expensive furniture that she has to keep $ 1 million worth of French antiques in storage, she wants more Specifically, she wants her own movie studio Nasty old Max, who has a spare one, won't let her have it—despite the fact that it is losing money and he could give it to her as a tax write-off "You're afraid if 1 pulled it off, I wouldn't need you any more," she tells him On top of everything, Bones really loves old Max Never mind that she plays around with a young playwright, Steven Routledge (Peter Weller) He can barely afford an apartment in New York and a farmhouse in Vermont Not much competition for Max, naturally "He's rich, he's powerful, he adores me, he's exciting in every way," Bones tells Steven "Someone should tell younger men about older men " That line sounds suspiciously like that of an older man, not an older woman But no one has ever accused Allen of consistency, or of plausibility in her characterizations Or, for that matter, of good taste Indeed, Just Tell Me What You Want is so shabby in its shameless pandering to the acquisitive fantasies of its audience because it was made by the same kind of crass opportunists it lampoons The latter include Seymour Berger (Keenan Wynn), the aging Hollywood tycoon who has nursed a grudge against Max for years, and waits for the right moment to put the screw to him, Mike Berger (Tony Roberts), his son, who differs from the old man in every way except for his greed, and Max himself, the most obnoxious arriviste ever to appear on screen And all of these men find their perfect real-life matches in Allen and director Sidney Lumet, who expect you to laugh while they pick your pocket for the price of admission to their foul film A refreshing alternative to the phony problems of the rich is Coal Miner's Daughter, the real-life story of Loretta Lynn's rise from the literal pits of poverty in Butcher Hollow, Kentucky to the position of undisputed "queen of country music " The script was adapted for the screen by Tom Rickman from Lynn's autobiography of the same title "If you're born in the mountains," a character announces early in the film, with the weary resignation of a native Appalachian, "you got three choices coal mimn', moonshinin' and movin' on down the line " To escape this bleak life, Loretta (Sissy Spacek) pins her hopes on Doo-little Lynn (Tommy Lee Jones), a veteran just back from World War II who has entered the mountain man's second traditional vocation Since she is only 13, her father has good reason to oppose their romance Actually, Webb's resistance has more to do with Doohttle's occupation than Loretta's age (Child brides were—and still are, for all I know—not uncommon in the rural South ) So when Doolittle gives up moonshining after his partner is killed, Webb surrenders to the inevitable, issuing a stern warning to his future son-in-law "Don't you never hit her, and don't you take her away from home " Doolittle eventually does both, and it seems as though Loretta has merely exchanged her dismal life as a coal miner's daughter for an equally dreary existence as a housewife and mother The couple soon exhibit unexpected reserves of resourcefulness and strength, though When Loretta begins to show that she has some talent as a singer, Doolittle encourages her, and the rest is history As with many film biographies, Coal Miner's Daughter can scarcely do justice to the richness of its subject's life The Butcher Hollow sequences and Loretta's early days as a singer are genuinely moving, yet the moment she starts to make it big, the passage of time is so compressed that her story becomes a series of cliches the loneliness of life on the road, the jealous spouse, the children left behind Unfortunately, too, Loretta's climactic on-stage breakdown has been seen before—in Nashville, where Ronnie Blakely played the character based on Lynn Furthermore, although Spacek, who does her own singing in the movie, sounds far better than anyone would expect, she's j ust not as good as the real Loretta (but then, who is9) And Beverly D'Ange-lo, who acts and sings the part of Patsy Chne, Loretta's mentor, lacks the throaty tremolo that was the trademark of the late smger Nevertheless, director Michael Apted and Rickman (a native of Kentucky and author of the script for another fine country-music film, W W and the Dixie Dance Kings) are acutely sensitive to the language and rhythms of rural America CoalMiner's Daughter is rich in revealing detail a Saturday-night dance at a Grange Hall, where the band is decked out in string ties and cowboy hats, Mrs Webb (Phyllis Boyens), her pinched and withdrawn face straight out of Walker Evans, inspired by "Blue Moon of Kentucky" to burst into an awkward jig, Loretta coming to her father's grave bearing a bouquet of plastic flowers because "the real ones just die " It has also been a long time since I've seen an IGA store on screen, or characters who don't look uncomfortable wearing satin shirts with yokes stitched in white piping Finally, any movie that brings back those great Patsy Chne songs?Crazy," "I Fall to Pieces" and "Sweet Dreams"—is worth seeing, and listening to...