From: rhogan@chaph.usc.edu (Ron Hogan)
Subject: REVIEW: THE CRYING GAME
Reply-To: rhogan@chaph.usc.edu (Ron Hogan)
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 22:03:32 GMT
Followup-To: rec.arts.movies
Summary: r.a.m.r. #01677
Keywords: author=Hogan

			     THE CRYING GAME
		   A ten-step film review by Ron Hogan
			Copyright 1993 Ron Hogan

1)  Excerpted from an interview with David Cronenberg in INNER VIEWS, a
collection of interviews with seven contemporary directors:

     Because in a cinema you are abstracting yourself from
     your daily life to have this special moment, this
     sacrament... But the very fact that you have abstracted
     yourself from you everyday life means you have disinvolved
     yourself, the process, from your life (235).

One of the things about growing up in what Jack Nicholson referred to in
a recent interview as the "post-literate generation" is that, from the
age of nine or so onward, film and cinema ceased to hold as much of that
sacramental mystique for me.  First through cable television, and later
and more powerfully through the VCR, the breadth and depth of cinema
became available in my home.  Cronenberg again: "It's almost unthinkable
now, that you did not have access to films except when they came out in
the cinema and then disappeared forever..." (236).  Through the process
of overfamiliarization, perhaps even saturation, I came to recognize the
conventional patterns around which films are organized--so individual
films rarely hold any suspense for me.  It seems that about one film a
year can come up with a plot twist that genuinely shocks me.  In 1991,
it was the true nature of Branagh's "I'm not Roman" line in DEAD AGAIN,
and in 1992, it is THE CRYING GAME.

2)  Since my film reviews have centered around what's in a film and what
can perhaps be extracted from its contents, rather than whether or not
you should go out and see it, I have been pretty casual with regards to
spoilers.  It helps that all the films I've previously reviewed have not
had any major surprises.  This is not the case with THE CRYING GAME.
Two of my ten points revolve around the genuine surprise contained
within the film.  That makes this review a genuine spoiler, so I've
decided to put a control-L after this paragraph.  If you haven't seen
the film, don't spoil it for yourself by reading the rest of this
article.



3)  The girl that isn't a girl: that genuinely surprising moment for me
is, of course, that beautiful tracking shot that starts from her head
and slowly goes down her body, soaking up her nakedness, culminating in
a full set of testicles.  I dare anybody to see that coming beforehand.
It's interesting that the film places her as one part of the only true
functional relationship, the unseen relationship between her and Jody.
The point being that love/trust isn't something that necessarily takes
place between a man and a woman, and that being a man or a woman isn't
necessarily related to having testicles or a vagina.  The bond between
Jody and Fergus, for example, is a strong bond, which has nothing to do
with the fact that both of them are men.  Placing a character in the
film who "is" simultaneously male and female emphasizes that this is a
film about relationships between *human beings*.

4)  Jaye Davidson does a fantastic job as Dil, probably the most
difficult film role of 1992.  One wonders if she were to be nominated
for an Oscar--AMPAS members could have a real puzzler on their hands as
to whether or not somebody with testicles can be nominated for Best
Actress or not.  This is a largely rhetorical question, of course--if
nothing else, the Academy will bend over backwards to find five people
with vaginas to throw into consideration--probably Emma Thompson and
Susan Sarandon included.  But in general, I don't think this has been an
especially good year for women's roles in film.

5)  Stephen Rea will not get nominated for Best Actor for Fergus,
because there's a glut of actors to choose from this year.  Which is a
shame, as he does a fantastic job playing a man trying to cope with all
the things that life throws at him: coming to respect a man and then
having to shoot that man; falling in love with a woman who turns out to
be a man; getting pulled back into a life he's trying to escape.  And on
his looks alone, especially after he gets his haircut in England, he has
the potential to be at least a minor sex symbol for the 90s if he plays
his cards right.

6)  Good to see Neil Jordan making a film for himself again--that seems
to be what he does best.  Though even his Hollywood films don't feel
like complete sellouts, and HIGH SPIRITS showed some genuine
potential--plus he never got a chance to supervise the cutting of that
film.  But it's in a situation like this, when Jordan is in control of
the vision, that he truly excels as a filmmaker.

7)  I had something to say about terrorism here, but I can't remember
what it was.  Only that it had something to do with a psychological
condition--the Stockholm syndrome--in which the hostages come to
identify with their captors.  An opposite process looks to occur within
this film, partly because Fergus isn't really cut out for
terrorism--he's got the skills, but not the heart.  As I said before, a
genuine bond takes place between Jody and Fergus, but I add now that
it's purposefully cultivated by Jody as a straw at which to grab when it
comes time to make the escape attempt.

8)  That bond is rooted in the fact that although one man is black and
the other white, one English and the other Irish, they are both men.
There are certain qualities that transcend national and ethnic
boundaries: the need for respect and self-respect, the love of a good
woman, the need for the sort of dignity that comes from being able to
take your own penis out of your boxers when you need to urinate.  It's
the search for those self-qualities that Fergus takes up even after
Jody's death--they are brought into the forefront when the two men are
talking, but they remain throughout the rest of the film.

9)  So the films about people's natures--a point brought home by the
telling of the parable of the frog and the scorpion *twice*.  Since the
best known source of that parable is Orson Welles' CONFIDENTIAL REPORT
(also known as MR. ARKADIN), I was trying to build up a connection
between the two films, at least in my mind, and it is this--the stories
of men who, in the midst of violent situations of intrigue, struggle to
discover the true identity of themselves and of their adversary--after
all, Fergus' affair with Dil is part of his attempt to understand what
Jody was really like, why he affected Fergus so.  Also, as in Welles'
TOUCH OF EVIL, nobody is who they appear to be in this film--only in THE
CRYING GAME, the differences become much more divergent, rooted in the
character's own bodies.

10) For a British film, there's a lot of American pop music, the two
main selections of which are used quite ironically, though the true
irony of "When a Man Loves a Woman" only becomes apparent halfway
through the film.  Lyle Lovett's cover of "Stand By Your Man" was so
perfectly suited to the ending of the film, though--the good humor with
which Fergus has sardonically adjusted to Dil's maleness really comes
through in his aloofness, and the song is the culmination point of the
ironic way Jordan deals with the revelation once it has been made.  As
for the song "The Crying Game," I had never heard it before, so I don't
honestly know if it's British or American, but Boy George's version
isn't half bad--and how appropriate to have the title song sung by the
one pop star of the eighties who most successfully embodied androgyny.
Heck, for the first month or so of "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me," I
thought he *was* a woman.  So it was a genuine surprise much like the
one provided by this excellent film when the truth came out.

Ron Hogan
rhogan@usc.edu
comments welcome

Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews