Eating Raoul. (18.)
Directed by Paul Bartel. 1982.
Starring Mary Woronov, Paul Bartel, Robert Beltran, Ed Begley Jr. and Buck Henry. 82 mins. Out on Blu-ray from the Criterion Collection.
The first question you must ask is, what kind of film gives away its ending in its title? The character of Raoul (Beltran) doesn't turn up till around a third of the way through and then becomes such an important part of the narrative that he has to survive until sometime near the conclusion. Revealing a character is doomed is one thing but, this not being a porn movie, the fact that the film concludes with an act of cannibalism really is a strange thing to highlight from the outset.
Previous to that the film is all about a very straight-laced couple, Paul and Mary Bland (Bartel and Woronov), tut-tutting their way through life in sexually promiscuous LA, who start killing swingers and stealing their money to save up for the deposit to realise their dream: starting a restaurant called Chez Bland.
Bartel and Woronov are out of the Roger Corman school of low budget film making – he directed and she was in Death Race 2000 – and it has that cheap-as-chips aesthetic. The visuals are flat and the acting often aspires to little more than getting the lines out correctly. Of course, you either buy into the idea of B movie magic or you don't. Here it often translates as a kind of timidity, a safety net. Performers deliver the lines in an exaggerated way so that if it turns out to be horrible, they have the get out of saying they weren't taking it seriously. Camp and kitsch are always the cowards way out.
It's all very LA but built around a perennial British comedy notion – the couple made up of an ugly older bloke and the hot younger woman. The incongruity of pairing Bartel with Woronov is the Brit equivalent of a sitcom with Christopher Biggins and Valerie Leon* as a married couple. Bartel missed his niche not being born British, he would've have been a whiz on chat shows regaling Parky et al with anecdotes. It would have all been terribly civilised. Instead, he had clunk around Hollywood with his buckets of blood. Well, at least he got some decent weather.
This seems to be the Bartel film that posterity is taking a shine too. The laughs are spread thinly across its 82 mins but it gets funnier and the final half-hour has some big laughs. The film makes the most sense as a treatise on the fragility of mortality: here people die from the lightest bang on the head from a frying pan.
Extras
Audio commentary featuring screenwriter Richard Blackburn, production designer Robert Schulenberg, and editor Alan Toomayan
* The amazonian beauty in Carry Ons Camping, Up the Jungle, Again Doctor, Matron and Girls.
Directed by Paul Bartel. 1982.
Starring Mary Woronov, Paul Bartel, Robert Beltran, Ed Begley Jr. and Buck Henry. 82 mins. Out on Blu-ray from the Criterion Collection.
The first question you must ask is, what kind of film gives away its ending in its title? The character of Raoul (Beltran) doesn't turn up till around a third of the way through and then becomes such an important part of the narrative that he has to survive until sometime near the conclusion. Revealing a character is doomed is one thing but, this not being a porn movie, the fact that the film concludes with an act of cannibalism really is a strange thing to highlight from the outset.
Previous to that the film is all about a very straight-laced couple, Paul and Mary Bland (Bartel and Woronov), tut-tutting their way through life in sexually promiscuous LA, who start killing swingers and stealing their money to save up for the deposit to realise their dream: starting a restaurant called Chez Bland.
Bartel and Woronov are out of the Roger Corman school of low budget film making – he directed and she was in Death Race 2000 – and it has that cheap-as-chips aesthetic. The visuals are flat and the acting often aspires to little more than getting the lines out correctly. Of course, you either buy into the idea of B movie magic or you don't. Here it often translates as a kind of timidity, a safety net. Performers deliver the lines in an exaggerated way so that if it turns out to be horrible, they have the get out of saying they weren't taking it seriously. Camp and kitsch are always the cowards way out.
It's all very LA but built around a perennial British comedy notion – the couple made up of an ugly older bloke and the hot younger woman. The incongruity of pairing Bartel with Woronov is the Brit equivalent of a sitcom with Christopher Biggins and Valerie Leon* as a married couple. Bartel missed his niche not being born British, he would've have been a whiz on chat shows regaling Parky et al with anecdotes. It would have all been terribly civilised. Instead, he had clunk around Hollywood with his buckets of blood. Well, at least he got some decent weather.
This seems to be the Bartel film that posterity is taking a shine too. The laughs are spread thinly across its 82 mins but it gets funnier and the final half-hour has some big laughs. The film makes the most sense as a treatise on the fragility of mortality: here people die from the lightest bang on the head from a frying pan.
Extras
Audio commentary featuring screenwriter Richard Blackburn, production designer Robert Schulenberg, and editor Alan Toomayan
- The Secret Cinema (1966) and Naughty Nurse (1969), two short films by director Paul Bartel
- Cooking Up “Raoul,” a new documentary about the making of the film, featuring interviews with stars Mary Woronov, Robert Beltran, and Edie McClurg
- Gag reel of outtakes from the film
- Archival interview with Bartel and Woronov
- Trailer
- PLUS: A booklet featuring a new essay by film critic David Ehrenstein.
* The amazonian beauty in Carry Ons Camping, Up the Jungle, Again Doctor, Matron and Girls.
