January 11, 2006
Last week, a novel idea was semi-seriously proposed over at Girish's: a coordinated, cross-blogsophere dissertation on Paul Verhoeven's Showgirls. And so here I am, an hours and forty five minutes into the film, and I feel like having a drink.
And now it's over. I'd seen the film once before, over at a friend's house a year or so ago. I did have a drink then - quite a few, in fact. The 10th Anniversary DVD had just been released and, capitalizing on the film's burgeoning camp value, came packaged with a drinking game that sounded like the makings of a marvelous evening. Libations were procured, the film was turned on, and I had a hell of a lot fun. Showgirls was indeed gloriously, hilariously awful. I loved it.
Thanks to Girish, however, I now know there's a growing contingent which considers Showgirls a smart, subversive, postmodern riff on All About Eve (as opposed to the sleazy rip-off of All About Eve it was initially labeled as). I had my doubts, but allowing the possibility that my mental state might have prevented a deeper understanding of the film, I sat down this evening with an open and uninebriated mind. An hour and forty five minutes in, I knew I wouldn't be joining the film's supporters. I tried. Honestly, I did.
The picture is still pretty enjoyable as camp, but I can't take it seriously because I don't think Verheoven did. At times he seems fully aware of the potential in Joe Eszterhas' typically puerile script for a bit of arch, satiric opulence, but it's a potential he's constantly betraying. His incompetently mixed messages are most evident in the way he directs his two leading ladies: Gina Gershon in clearly in on the joke, but Elizabeth Berkeley is deadly serious, almost as if she's convinced that she's making an important picture (behind-the-scenes interviews don't do much to dissuade this). I think she's actually a good actress - her scene was the best part of Roger Dodger - but Verhoeven seems to have done her a pretty grievous disservice by not telling her that she doesn't need to be; perhaps he was too enchanted with her to do otherwise? Whatever the case, Berkeley's sincere delivery of terrible dialogue veers sharply into the realm of unintentional hilarity and completely undermines the film's satiric potential.
Because the film is so all over the place, tonally, Verhoeven is unable to abate the uglier side of the script. The nudity is all fine and good, but beyond that, this is a gratuitously misogynistic picture, and it's not too hard to pinpoint Eszterhas as the root of the problem (just look at some of his other work); even worse, his treatment of the film's two African American characters reeks of racial condescension. There's a fine line between enjoyable exploitation and bad taste, but I don't think Eszterhas has a clue where it is. I'll give a bit more credit to Verhoeven; I do think he is a smart filmmaker (Starship Troopers, for what it's worth, is pretty subversive), and it's too easy to suggest that he might have been too distracted by all the T&A on the set. Maybe he just wanted to make a bad movie.
I'm sure these same criticisms have been leveled against the film many times over the past decade. For fear of redundancy (and an admittedly dismissive attitude towards the film), I toyed with the idea of a more playful response; a running commentary of a second round of that drinking game, perhaps. Or a handful of anecdotes, such as the one in which I first marveled at the ads for the film (and that oh-so-exquisite expanse of feminine gams depicted therein) on the side of a bus while I was waiting for my parents to pick me up from school. Or a detailed account of seeing Gina Gershon in a thrift store two weeks ago. But because there are those who genuinely appreciate the film on a more intellectual level - and because, as I'm suddenly becoming aware, I respect and generally share the opinions of many of them - I thought it would only be appropriate to give Showgirls a fair shake and soberly come to the conclusion that the film works best as somewhat-divine trash.
This is a level I'm perfectly willing to enjoy it on, with a few caveats and in moderation; nonetheless, I'm looking forward to reading all the other opinions, dissenting or otherwise, that'll be popping up this morning. And subsequently, if anyone ever wants to come play the Official Drinking Game with me, do feel free to let me know.
Posted by David Lowery at January 11, 2006 7:00 AM
Comments
David, thanks for joining the party.
It's always insightful to get your take on anything.
Just a thought.
"...but I can't take it seriously because I don't think Verheoven did."
I think texts can acquire meaning and richness quite apart from (and sometimes ironically irrelevant or even opposed to) what the creator may have intended to put into it.
Posted by: girish at January 11, 2006 8:37 AM
I guess I just contradicted myself. :-)
Since I argue in my post that Verhoeven was working deliberately, like Sirk. (which I believe).
Posted by: girish at January 11, 2006 9:32 AM
I like how there's a general movement in most of these pieces this morning to venerate Elizabeth Berkeley. As Zach pointed out, she really got the raw end of the deal with this film.
Posted by: Ghostboy at January 11, 2006 2:23 PM
Yeah, I've always felt her to be the heart of the film (even if it is a bit of a "blank" heart; but blankness can be an enormous virtue, as Bresson definitively demonstrated).
I've also noticed that charismatic performances (like Gershon's) sometimes tend to get a disproportionate amount of attention when the film is discussed, especially soon after its release.
But Time, as the great leveller, performs its magical corrections in the long run.
As Filmbrain pointed out, what we just did would have been unthinkable in '95. We wouldn't have had our friend Time on our side.
Posted by: girish at January 11, 2006 3:42 PM
Much as I'm hearing that tuba music they play on Price is Right whenever a contestant loses, I appreciate the honesty.
As to the (admittedly surprising) Berkeley lovefest, I think it certainly falls in line with the tone of Showgirls' critical revival (from my standpoint, at least): admitting the film has its illicit pleasures but still insisting on Verhoeven/Eszterhas's hidden generosity.
Posted by: Eric Henderson at January 11, 2006 6:21 PM
I used your review as a sort of barometer, Eric, to which I just couldn't align myself.
You know what the movie reminded me a bit of, though? DePalma's Femme Fatale (which a lot of people really love). Not just because of the 14-year old boy's perpective on female sexuality which they both share, but because they both come so close to doing something really interesting with a specific genre, but, for whatever reason - be it directorial laxness or incongruent tonal and/or thematic content or plain old sloppy screenwriting - fall sadly short.
Posted by: Ghostboy at January 11, 2006 7:34 PM
Well, Showgirls doesn't have to be for everyone--my beef is with the sort of stampede mentality with which the film was trampled, unfairly, in 1995 and ever since. (Movies that get massive, indignant bitchslaps from the critical community tend to be interesting, if not always good.) Audiences don't always like to get behind this sort of plasticity, and Verhoeven's ethically-arrived-at element of misanthropy to boot, and a lot of the venom rests at the feet of critics eager to attack this film for what they thought it failed at doing, rather than what it actually tried to do and (in my opinion) did quite well.
Interesting comparison to Femme Fatale (which I think is an excellent film), David. I'll have to ponder that.
Posted by: Zach at January 12, 2006 8:49 AM
Zach, I agree about Femme Fatale. Now to put my finger on why exactly I like it so.
Posted by: girish at January 12, 2006 8:57 AM
I liked Femme Fatale well enough (and adored the Bolero-iffic first twenty minutes), but I can't help but feel that it's ultimately a bit of a cheap trick. The dream revelation is not at all substantiated by the half-baked noir that comes before it - it's too specific, too overplotted, too objective in its perspective; it's as if the film was supposed to continue in that direction, but DePalma, unsatisfied with what might have been a rote conclusion, decided to borrow a page from Lynch instead. Lynch, of course, did exactly that when he added the final 30 minutes to the original Mulholland Drive pilot; but his form is conducive to surrealism, whereas DePalma is too clean, too mechanical a stylist to pull off a psychological fugue of that sort (overflowing fish tanks do not a good dream make).
My (perhaps purely subjective) comparison between it and Showgirls is based in this clunky fusion of themes and intentions; in DePalma's case, I see a noir thriller that's too slick to be a dream; in Verhoeven's, a social satire that's too campy to be taken seriously (or camp that's too idealogically unstable to be credited as intelligent subterfuge).
Posted by: Ghostboy at January 12, 2006 11:39 AM