Cruising
(1980/Lorimar/MVD/Arrow Blu-ray)
Picture:
B Sound: B- Extras: B Film: B-
The
power of the a motion picture to shock is either cheap, or most
B-movies that have nothing to offer, or one that takes risks and
tries to be about something. Some films fall between both and that
is where controversy comes from and one of the most unique examples
of this is William Friedkin's serial killer murder thriller Cruising
(1980) with Al Pacino as a police officer asked to go undercover in
the world not just of a newly-liberated gay community, but its darker
S&M leather scene to find a serial killer.
To
some, this might not sound shocking now, but back in 1980, any film
that dealt with that particular sphere of gay life or any film that
dealt with serial killers was considered rare, shocking and even
taboo. Then this film has both, but considering you have the
director of The
French Connection
(honest about police brutality) The
Exorcist
(with its feminist dynamic), Boys
In The Band
(a solid film based on the stage play that would soon be criticized
by gay groups for being to cliched and even stereotypical) and one of
the greatest actors of all time who had played a targeted, honest cop
in Serpico,
a bi-sexual robber in Dog
Day Afternoon
and could still be a convincing, eventually cold gangster in the
Godfather
films should signal to us that the film would do its best to be a
groundbreaking, smart thriller that would challenge the audience, be
creepy, suspenseful, realistic and further proof of their stunning
talents.
Instead,
they did not get along as well as fans hoped for (Friedkin not used
to his method acting?), the already controversial book had gay rights
groups shocked it was being made into a film so they decided to
protest and sabotage the production as much as possible (rightly
concerned and somewhat accurately so that the film (pre-Internet)
said if you are gay and you come out, you will be brutally murdered,
killed and punished for your sexuality and should just live in fear
and hide yourself) and that it was not a gay filmmaker or producers,
so it was bound to have problems.
Well,
that turned out to be partly correct. Friedkin himself said only a
man a faith (like himself) could have directed The
Exorcist
and maybe he should have taken his advice on this film (which both
Brian De Palma and even Steven Spielberg (!) were once set to direct)
and it is not like there were not openly gay or known to be gay
filmmakers available (John Schlesinger comes to mind), so the result
is a very interesting, mixed film that has some good moments,
chilling moments, graphic moments, then collapses for reason you'll
have to see for yourself so I do not spoil what works in the film.
After
being persuaded to take the job, Pacino moves into the gay
neighborhood and quickly starts chatting up gay men and tries to get
the basic idea of what is going on. Still seeing his girlfriend (the
underrated Karen Allen) when he can get away (they are sexually
involved), he soon finds himself in the dark recesses of leather bars
and through sheer inexperience, almost gives away he is more of a
novice than he should be, but he starts to slowly get clues as to
what is going on. Between gay men brutally murdered and body parts
(possibly related) showing up in the nearby river, it is urgent he
discovers the killer (or possibly two of them, though the clues keep
speaking to one killer in most cases here) and make sure he is not
killed. What if the killer realizes he is an undercover cop?
Though
they did not know this at the time as AIDS had not arrived yet (as we
post this, a report HIV turned up in DNA from 1965 is intriguing, but
the full-blown appearance was just starti9ng to slowly show up as the
film was being released, unknown to all) and things were about to
take a hard Right shift with the Reagan White House (we're still
dealing with the effects of both today), the film has early sequences
of the open pleasantries we had never seen of this kind of living
from day to day that hardly any cinema ever showed. If this had been
a drama with even some comedy and no murder mystery, it might have
been some kind of time capsule classic.
As
Pacino's police officer continues his work, the killer strikes again
and it makes it tough on Pacino to feign being gay for a lifetime,
yet as the murders increase, the pressure starts to affect his
personality (as it does later for William Petersen going after the
Tooth Fairy serial killer in Michael Mann's Manhunter
a few years later) and the clues keep on coming. Unfortunately,
Friedkin's reworking of the mystery fails and becomes a prophecy
fulfilled for all the gay protesters, but I will not spoil anything
because you have to see and hear this one to believe it, trying to
follow the mystery as best you can.
More
evident than ever is the anger and hate all over most of the film
from bitter cops, to homophobic cops, to oddly homophobic scenes that
should never been in the film (a black man in a cowboy hat and jock
strap at the police station is one of the goofiest) and the film
becomes a mess, not helping Friedkin's career either as he had just
had his Wages
Of Fear
remake Sorcerer
become a big bomb a few years prior. This was not comeback project
for him, but it was not for lack of trying or getting some of the
best possible talent to fit the film, as I'll now keep pointing out.
In
all that hatefulness, anger, bitterness and darkness, it does live up
to being a modern (and rare, as the term is one of the most abused
around) Film Noir and the late, great writer Robin Wood (Hitchcock's
Films)
addresses the film in a great section of his classic book Hollywood
From Vietnam To Reagan... and Beyond
(reviewed elsewhere on this site) that the club scenes are not dark
and the real life patrons are actually having fun, explicit sex and
all. Instead, he talks in detail about how patriarchal rule and
patriarchal Hollywood narrative collapse here as much as any of the
great 1970s classics, save having to deal more (and most) explicitly
with toxic masculinity and male dominance mentality.
This
might not have happened with a gay director (Wood never considers
that), but adds that the Paul Schrader hit American
Gigolo
issued the same year (including Blondie's classic hit ''Call
Me'')
is the far more homophobic film and that protesters let it get by,
with considering possible reasons (like gay men might more likely
want to be with Richard Gere than Pacino, or the music and hip
clothes made it more acceptable?) as Wood goes on to point to
Schrader's homophobic and racist tendencies throughout his career.
With Friedkin's record and giving him the benefit of the doubt, that
would leave the late producer Jerry Weintraub (who co-produced Robert
Altman's brilliant Nashville
(1975) as his first film project) as the only one with any power left
to be responsible for the homophobia in this film. That has some
validity, but we'll need to examine that in a separate essay which
would include a long list of awful, badly made feature films.
Despite
the plotting and ideological issues that eventually ruin it, the film
is actually very effective and creepy in the way it should be for a
genre film featuring such talent, which is all the more reason its
failures continue to haunt it. However, there is the simple
reactionary part to the film since its announcement that S&M
participants would automatically be killers, which no one wants to
deal wit, dispute or even talk about. Though an overgeneralization,
that will always haunt it to, no matter the big name power, since
that lifestyle will always be underground by its nature and keep
Cruising
in cinematic infamy forever.
Cheers
to the actors bravely playing positive or semi-positive gay roles at
a time when most such characters were shallow stereotypes, Paul
Sorvino is good here as Pacino's boss and Joe Spinell, who also
played a brutal killer around this time, also shows up to good
effects. One time real life cop Sonny Grosso plays a detective,
future comedy star Ed O'Neill plays a fellow detective, plus we have
Don Scardino, Powers Boothe, Richard Cox, Randy Jurgensen, Allan
Miller and James Remar, this was not any kind of anti-gay propaganda
film, but a serious, ambitious attempt to do a dark thriller. It
shows you can have all this talent and ambition and a film not work
out. We don't see this kind of risk-taking today.
One
last thing I can say about the film is that Lorimar (know as the TV
production company behind The
Waltons
and Dallas,
lightyears away from the situations in this film) was not only shot
on location in New York City, but is part of a cycle of films shot
there when the city was still in its gritty, crime-ridden decline and
rightly belongs (though it is the last thing that tends to get said
about the film) in the cycle of gritty, realistic crime thrillers
that showed the dark side of that city you could not even see on
gritty TV shows of the time of the same or similar cities, so it has
that credibility 100%.
That
brings us the the new transfer, featured here in 1080p 1.85 X 1
digital High Definition that is approved by Friedkin and shows off
full color versus the interesting DVD that also looks good, but tends
to have many scenes that are in blue light, whether that is what the
film once looked like or not. Director of Photography (and now
director) James A. Contner did some great work before moving into
directing with films like Nighthawks
(the Stallone film, not the gay sex drama), visually amusing work on
the so-so Jaws
3-D,
goofy ripped jeans comedy So
Fine
with Ryan O'Neal, Eddie
Macon's Run,
The
Flamingo Kid,
Berry Gordy's The
Last Dragon,
Michael Mann's Heat,
George Romero's underrated Monkey
Shines
and cult TV fave Crime
Story.
Yet again, another great talent, a serious heavyweight who happened
to debut with this film. The look works, the composition adds
suspense and this new transfer is fine, though a debate on its
accuracy (as it did on Friedkin's The
French Connection
in an early Blu-ray release I actually liked before it got pulled) is
upon us again.
If
anything, we cannot debate and ask enough questions about the
transfers we are getting, now more than ever. I though the
anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image DVD from Warner Archive also
looked good and the blue-look made the film as creepy as the full
color we get here. They are both worth checking out.
The
theatrical monophonic sound has been nicely upgraded to a DTS-HD MA
(Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix and before this release, the Jack
Nitzsche music score had been issued in a limited edition on vinyl
and the underrated Super Audio CD format by the great Audio Fidelity
record label just before they folded, so it is now a collector's
item. That likely helped this upgrade and the music is a plus, with
Nitzsche having worked with Schrader in the past, plus on films like
One
Flew Over The Cookoo's Nest,
Roeg's Performance,
the Richard Gere Breathless
remake, Carpenter's Starman,
Lyne's 9
1/2 Weeks
and Reiner's Stand
By Me,
so his talents (going back to hit records like ''Needles
and Pins''
speak for themselves. Again, another talent that shows with was not
some exploitive B-movie.
Extras
include
an illustrated
booklet on the film including informative text and an essay by F.X.
Sweeney, while the disc adds two feature length audio commentary
tracks by Friedkin, one solo he did years ago from the DVD and a new
one where he is joined by Mark Keemode, The
History of Cruising
(as the press release explains) - archival featurette looking at the
film's origins and production, Exorcising
Cruising
- archival featurette looking at the controversy surrounding the film
and its enduring legacy and an Original Theatrical Trailer.
Now
you can see the film and try to figure it out for yourself, if you
can handle the suspense, sexuality and graphic violence.
-
Nicholas Sheffo
