SMITHEREENS - #941

While 1970s American movies like Taxi Driver and Dog Day Afternoon gave us an indelible image of the grimy side of 1970s New York, it was the independent auteurs that followed that captured the more arty, anything-goes side of the city’s culture. Early Jarmusch, for instance, and even Martin Scorsese’s Big Apple follow-ups to Travis Bickle like The King of Comedy and After Hours.

Susan Seidelman is by far more in the Jarmusch camp. The New York of her 1982 feature debut Smithereens is the New York that gave us Basquiat and Madonna--with whom, of course, Seidelman would make Desperately Seeking Susan not too long after. Interesting people doing interesting things just for the sake of it, just because they thought New York was the place to be. New wave music and graffiti, striped skirts and checkered sunglasses, hustlers and poseurs--all of these are elements of Smithereens, and all make the film interesting, even if its story never quite finds the depth of its surroundings.

First-time film actress Susan Berman stars in Smithereens as Wren, a New Jersey ex-pat who is trying to blag her way into a rock-and-roll lifestyle. It’s never quite clear what Wren’s artistry encompasses, and likely she hasn’t figured it out yet either, but she plasters photocopies of her face around the city and pretty much barrels through anyone who gets in front of her. Forever the opportunist, she drags along fresh Montana-transplant Paul (Brad Rinn) to her night on the town when it’s clear he’ll pay the bills, but then drops him for Eric, a singer played by real life punk icon Richard Hell, as soon as he shows a passing interest and potentially something to gain. Wren spends the rest of Smithereens bouncing between the two, with only Paul being smart enough to know he’s being used, and the girl too blind to see that Eric will never take her to Los Angeles and let her manage his band.

Working with mostly an unprofessional cast*, Seidelman manages a kind of neorealism that is as much John Cassavetes as it is Jim Jarmusch--though I’d also compare this to Alison Anderson’s Border Radio [review]. This quality will  be a boon for viewers looking for an unvarnished time capsule, but might be a problem if you are seeking something with a bit more form. Seidelman is definitely working with the best of what she had available. Shot by Chirine El Khaden, who also worked a camera on the influential hip-hop movie Wild Style, Smithereens has the dirt and grime of a documentary--all of which comes through with a gritty clarity on the Criterion Blu-ray. We see such mythologized sights as the Peppermint Club, and most of the people hanging around are likely the real deal and not hired extras. Going from seedy movie theatres to Bohemian cafes, there is an undeniable authenticity to Smithereens. You could almost say you were there.

And you could also say you’ve spent a lifetime with its main character. Wren is a hard woman to like. Paul is entirely right: she is a self-serving loser with a bigger mouth than tangible qualities to offer. The only thing that makes her tolerable--as opposed to, say, Agnes Varda’s Vagabond protagonist, or countless loudmouth male sidekick characters like most anything Jason Lee played in the 1990s--is that Susan Berman understands the insecurity behind the bravado, and she can sell it when the façade drops. If only she was a tad more charismatic, I might have felt more inspired by the freeze-frame ending. Wren could have been more like Antoine Doinel on the beach at the end of The 400 Blows [review], suggesting a possible future; instead, she only appears startled by the irony of receiving unwanted attention after spending the whole movie trying to monopolize everyone’s time.

Much better is Seidelman’s initial film-school short And You Act Like One Too. Shot in 1976, this black-and-white tale of a housewife feeling neglected on her 30th birthday is a charming day-in-the-life. Marsha (Karen Butler) is abandoned by her husband and daughter on what is meant to be her special day, so instead of sitting around feeling sorry for herself, Marsha goes out and gets a new hairdo, runs some errands, and takes a chance giving a ride to a charming hitchhiker (Andras Maros). Unsurprisingly, this trip leads her to some unexpected places, and Seidelman delivers a comic twist at the end that is truly delightful. The film is simple in its intent, but broad in its character analysis.

Seidelman’s second student film is the color divorce drama Yours Truly, Andrea G. Stern. This short focuses its attention on young Andrea (Jilian Frank), the daughter of a newly separated couple. She lives with her mom (Joanne Gross), and starts to feel left out when a new man (Billy Wine) moves into the house. While the narrative thrust is that Andrea is trying to get Jonathan to move out, this isn’t a Disney Channel comedy where the schemes are wild and implausible; on the contrary, Seidelman’s deeply felt script imagines what realistic actions Andrea would take, what tools she’d have at her disposal.

Yours Truly, Andrea G. Stern is somewhat ambitious in style, framing itself as a documentary with the off-screen director colluding with the girl, but also putting us in the space of her imagination. The title refers to how Andrea signs off her diary entries, which also serve as narration for the film. The result is something more real and personal than if Seidelman had chosen not to take a child’s point of view so serious.

* Though keep an eye out, because apparently Chris Noth from Law & Order and Sex and the City plays a prostitute! I didn’t see him, but I didn’t know to look.

This disc provided by the Criterion Collection for purposes of review.

BORDER RADIO - #362

The 1980s was a wayward decade for a lot of people, but for punk rockers in particular, it was definitely not the best of times.

Punk was spawned from the boredom of the late 1970s, but it didn't take long for it to go mainstream. By the mid-'80s, the movement had been assimilated by popular culture and many of its icons had traded in their bad boy ways for a much shinier Yankee dollar. This left those who wanted to maintain the original vision of the genre in a bit of a wasteland: too out of date to matter, too stubborn to just fade away.

The 1987 independent feature Border Radio sits itself down smack in the middle of this conundrum. Made itself with a punk rock spirit, it was shot on 16mm black-and-white film over several years with a trio of student directors at its helm. The screenplay was written in tandem by the filmmakers--Allison Anders (Gas Food Lodging), Dean Lent (now a cinematographer), and Kurt Voss (Down and Out With the Dolls)--but in the spirit of true collaboration, it was fleshed out on set, with the cast improvising new scenarios. The result is something loose, ragged, and short, like a punk song on film; the downside is, like a lot of punk, it's a little shallow, stuck on one note for the duration.

Shot in Los Angeles, Border Radio features several important members of that city's music scene. Chris D., a member of the Flesh Eaters and Divine Horseman, plays Jeff, a popular cult musician who has seen far too much compromise creep into his act over the years. His friend and bandmate, Dean, is played by John Doe, leader of the seminal rock band X. Additionally, the score is done by Dave Alvin of the Blasters (whose pre-existing song also provided the movie's title), and he also shows up in Border Radio as a guitarist who has become estranged from Jeff. For rock stars, all three of these gentlemen are distinctly lacking in the charisma department. Their amateurish acting is just the beginning of Border Radio's problems, however.

When Jeff and Dean were at the end of their rope, they teamed up with obnoxious hanger-on Chris (Chris Shearer, Grace of My Heart) to rob a nightclub who they felt had exploited them (how punk rock is that?). As Border Radio begins, some thugs from the club have come looking for their money, and so Jeff hightails it down to Mexico, leaving Dean to take the beating and his wife, Lu (Luanna Anders), to answer the angry phone calls from Jeff's record label and take care of their daughter. On her search for Jeff, Lu gets suckered in by Chris and soon learns the true story about the robbery. She organizes a road trip to retrieve the pouting performer, but since this is the aimless 1980s, any journey of this kind is going to end up as self-reflexive and ironically pointless.

Border Radio bears the influence of Jim Jarmusch. It goes for the same kind of meandering ordinariness that was the hallmark of early Jarmusch classics like Stranger than Paradise. This is a difficult conceit to manufacture, however, you have to have a special eye for it. Either none of the three directors were cut out for this kind of storytelling or there were too many cooks in this kitchen, and so no real direction could be found. Border Radio is all over the place. It has traces of road pictures, crime movies, faux documentary, and kitchen-sink drama, but it never settles on one element long enough to give the movie any cohesion. At one point, John Doe even declares that he's in a western, and there truly is the whiff of the outlaw lingering around the production, but when it comes down to it, Border Radio plays it a little too safe to truly stand apart.

So, the sum of all these parts is that Border Radio is an interesting curio of its time. While some of the participants went on to greater cinematic glory--Anders has made some good pictures, and John Doe has been excellent in quite a large number of character roles--Border Radio is merely the entryway at the edge of that glory, and it comes off as such.

Originally written January 16, 2007. For technical specs and special features, read the full article at DVD Talk.