She didn’t get naked as Ophelia in Hamlet, but she gave up the goods here.
Some of the most tedious films in history are created when cinematographers decide to direct, as you know if you’ve seen any of Nick Roeg’s films. It is possible to have a great film without great cinematography, but it is not possible to have a great film based solely upon great cinematography. See Roeg’s “Walkabout” as the perfect illustration of how beautiful photographs can’t guarantee a great film.
Or see “Girl on a Motorcycle”, directed by Jack Cardiff.
Cardiff was a great cinematographer. He photographed The African Queen and Black Narcissus, among other triumphs. He had less success as a director, however, and this film has nothing to recommend it except scenery.
Here’s the deal on this movie:
An adventurous woman is bored with her humdrum marriage to a conservative teacher in France. One morning, she gets on her motorcycle, abandons her husband, and drives to see her lover in Germany. Along the way, she passes some beautiful scenery, and contemplates her past and future. She anticipates the reunion with her lover. She dies before she gets there. The end
I know that already sounds pretty boring, but the film is actually a lot duller than it sounds.
For years, it was rumored that there was an X-rated cut of the film which was much wilder than the version then available on tape. The DVD has the uncut version, but don’t get your hopes up. The really hard sex scenes were solarized in post-production, and they look like one of those light shows for serious acidheads, and are about as sexy as watching a lavalamp. The medium sex scenes, full nudes, were shot in virtual darkness. Among the scenes you can actually see, there is virtually nothing worth seeing.
It’s possible that the film may have some appeal to bad movie lovers, because it has a very high cheese content. You have all the chromakey motorcycle scenes in front of the moving background. You have the endless narration. You have the corny acidhead visual effects, you have Marianne Faithfull making blissed-out expressions as she drives, and oh, that dialogue:
“Your body is like a violin in a velvet case.”
“Your toes are like tombstones”
My advice to you, however, is to skip it even if you love bad movies, because it just too damned tedious.
Sidebar #1: If you were to make a list of the worst damned movies you’ve ever seen, how many of them would Alain Delon be in? I’m not talking about bad movies that are fun to watch like “Hell Comes to Frogtown,” but movies that are a complete waste of your time in every way, providing no art value and no entertainment value of any kind. Delon would be in at least three from my list: this one, Airport ’79, and The Assassination of Trotsky.
Sidebar #2: Marianne also showed a nipple for about a second in a 1967 film called I’ll Never Forget What’s-‘Is-Name
Disagree on “Walkabout”
If you can find old uncut movies that I can’t. Bonnie Bedelia is in a 1972 movie called The Strange Vengeance of Rosalie that had nude scenes from her that were cut for the American release to obtain a PG rating. Apparently her nudity was kept in the European release, but it’s a rare film. There are two websites I can access (I don’t have any paid streaming) with the American version including youtube.
(1) The American Film Institute confirms that the nude scenes existed. “The picture initially earned an R rating, but was re-edited to delete all of Bonnie Bedelia’s nude scenes. Upon being resubmitted to the MPAA board, the film was re-rated PG. Box and other reviews commented negatively on the ‘jumpy continuity’ caused by the re-editing.”
(2) The film opened in France on March 26, 1975, with an adults-only classification (18 and over), and the stated running time was 109 minutes. That is consistent with (a) a more explicit version (b) that is two minutes longer than the American release.
But — here’s the rub. While the nude scenes existed and seem to have been in the French theatrical release, there is no evidence anywhere that the uncut version has ever appeared on home video.
Thanks for this! 🙂
Some DPs made a decent transition to director. Barry Sonnenfeld shot a couple of early classics for the Coen brothers, then went on to direct “Men in Black” and “The Addams Family” (also “Wild Wild West,” but nobody’s perfect).
And there are a couple of directors who always shoot their own films, sometimes under a pseudonym. Robert Rodriguez and Steven Soderbergh come to mind, though I guess they’re more “directors who shoot” and not so much “DPs who direct.”
there’s nothing tedious about Roeg’s films. you might not enjoy the pace of Walkabout but how could anyone say Don’t Look Now! is tedious or boring or slow? Silly.