Submitted by jimmer, Oct 23, 2007 19:02

Interesting take on a movie I greatly enjoyed from a vhs copy i saw in the 1980's and don't necessarily remember as well as i should, but i'd like to make a few points about it that haven't been addressed in the review...
1) the influence of warhol's movies is dismissed with a popcult dismissal of solanas...yeah she was deranged, but as the vastly underrated mary harron's biopic indicates, it was a systematic sort of derangement that fit in with other things happening in that place and era...if you put a gun in rip torn's hand and a hammer in valerie's hand, wouldn't history have changed?
2) mailer was absolutely conscious of what you call the "midlife crisis" aspect of the movie...he makes that quite apparent in his literary work, approaching it with a sense of humor and nuance that vanishes from his later work...btw, if you see younger hippies having sex in docus of rock festivals and stuff in that era, does that mean they're having youth crises? cousin, i'd rather watch middle agers do the nasty in general 'cuz they're more likely to know what's it's all about, unless they're longterm ltrs who gave up on the magic and mystery of sex, which is a topic mailer excelled in writing about and knew intimately more than, say, warhol, who was mostly celibate...
3) mailer's biggest mistake in conceptualizing his movies was that he directed them himself...imagine how great he could have been if he collaborated with john cassavetes or someone else who could block shots as well as put a share of the aesthetic vision in the same pot on the poker table. in a sense, the failures of mailer's work demonstrates the failure of the entire concept of the movie director, which mirrors the failure of the concept of the singular u.s. presidency, which was a primary issue in 1968 and continues to be a primary issue today, believe you me. this also brings to mind the assurance he brought to the cinematic version of "tough guys don't dance", an excellent, profesionally done flick which was probably in essence co-directed by the superb cinematographer frederick elmes and seemed to repudiate the aquarian excesses of mailer's earlier movies.

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