Salient. Newspaper of the Victoria University Students' Association. Vol 42 No. 7. April 9 1979
Watching for Potential
Watching for Potential
The Boys From Brazil is like that. It's fun (and often very funny), suspenseful, reasonably exciting and efficient. That last quality is important. Too many films derail (or don't even get out of the station) because they don't use what they've got to best advantage. The railway image actually comes from Brian De Palma's most recent film. The Fury. It itself jumps the tracks, like the toy train Gillian sends telekinetically haywire at the ESP demonstration, because it tried to go too fast, to create too much action and eventually it all becomes a bit ludicrous. The Boys From Brazil is a bit daft, sure, but then the best thrillers usually are. It, though, is under control all the way.
And I think that if films like this are well-controlled, and inventive, and effective, and well-executed, then they can make justified claims to being (wait for it) Art. And no less so than the "serious" films (you know, the stuff they show at the Film Society). To put it another way, look at the Mona Lisa. Who's to say what it "means", or indeed whether it has any intrinsic meaning or value at all? But we we'd all agree, it's a masterly piece of painting. I'm not saying that The Boys From Brazil is a masterpiece, but some of these films are, and that's why I go to all of them (because you can never ever judge a film by its subject matter — let's face it, even Mona L.'s not the best looking broad in the world).
The reason why films in the suspense/ thriller/horror bracket are of special interest at the moment (and why I go on and on about them) is because Stanley Kubrick's next film (The Shining, due out by Christmas) is in this field. And he's already produced two out of a handful of what I consider to be the greatest contemporary achievments in cinematic art, 2001 and Barry Lyndon. So I'm counting the days. It should be quite a ride.