Images. (15.)
Directed by Robert Altman. 1974.
Starring Susannah York, René Auberjonois, Marcel Bozzuffi, Cathryn Harrison, Hugh Millais, John Morley. 102 mins. Out now on Blu-ray from Arrow Academy.
Though he is one of the giants of American cinema, a man who made thirty-four features plus numerous TV productions over a four-decade career, his reputation largely rests on a phenomenal five-year burst of creativity connecting his two big hits, MASH in 1970, and Nashville in 1975. In between, he turned out classics like McCabe and Mrs Miller, The Long Goodbye, Thieves Like Us and California Split, glorious freewheeling deconstructions of genre and filmmaking convention. In amongst those six he made oddball satire Brewster McCloud, and this. I'd always presumed Images to be one of his misfires, but this beautiful Arrow Blu-ray release reveals it be every bit extraordinary as his other films of this period. You may have issues with it, not entirely see eye to eye with it, but it is a genuinely unnerving portrait of a woman haunting herself.
Cathryn (York) is an author of children's books (in a nice cross-promotional tie-in, the book her character is writing, and often quotes from, is York's own In Search of Unicorns) with a hazy grasp on reality. Alone at home, she is plagued by an anonymous phone caller claiming that her husband (Auberjonois) is with another woman. So the couple head off to their isolated house in the countryside, but here her mental state really begins to deteriorate. She imagines herself being menaced by three men: her husband, her dead French lover (Bozzuffi) and a family friend (Millais) who all gradually become interchangeable, as well as a doppelganger. One of the film's most extraordinary shots is York standing on a hill, looking down from on high at her country home at herself pulling up in their car and entering the home.
I think that is a reasonable summary of events. Altman gives you little to go on, keeps you as disorientated as possible. (The trick of having the five named characters all be given the names of other actors in the cast – Susannah York plays Cathryn, Cathryn Harrison plays Susannah, the men likewise – is a bit gimmicky but it is indicative of the games the film plays.) York's character is like Billy Pilgrim in Slaughterhouse 5, but rather than coming unstuck in time, she is unstuck in the present. She can't keep her story straight. She will begin a conversation with one man and suddenly find that she is talking to another. There is one sequence where she is being seduced by each of the three men simultaneously: she will fend off one of their advances and in the next moment be pounced on by another as she tries to stop each of them finding out about the other. It's like a metaphysical bedroom farce.
There's one big flaw in the film: it is fundamentally facile. Possibly the film's title is its most pertinent criticism: it is just a series of very startling images, underpinned by very little. (It's a terrible title and suspect that it might be a reason why it disappeared into such obscurity it was rumoured that the Columbia had burnt the negative. Why would you hunt out a film called Images?) If York is really meant to be schizophrenic then it is a trivial exploitation of the condition. It's stunning and creepy and horribly disturbing, but there is nothing at stake because York's condition doesn't have any resonance.
What's good about the film is absolutely everything else. The title card describes it as "Robert Altman's Images" but I think some acknowledgement for his little helpers wouldn't go amiss. Cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond (Close Encounters, Heaven's Gate, The Hired Hand) does wonder with the autumnal County Wicklow countryside. (Possibly better even than Geoffrey Unsworth's vision of it in Zardoz, and on a tiny budget and tight schedule.) Zsigmond has shot some classics, but his work here is as good as any of them. A pre-Spielberg John Williams contributes a marvellously creepy score, aided by “sounds” from Stomu Yamash'ta.
York won the best actress award at Cannes, but sometimes her delivery is a little stilted; occasionally a line reading will really jar. She is though a compelling presence. I was really stuck by her unexpected resemblance to Julie Christie, who had been Mrs Miller in Altman's previous film. She'd seem to be so different, far more stuck up than the free-spirited Christie, but at times the resemblance is uncanny.
You can see the obvious influences of Bergman's Persona (in that two women become one; here one woman becomes two) and Polanski's Repulsion, but Images sent our feelers that landed in many different places. You wonder if Roeg had seen it because both Don't Look Now and Man Who Fell To Earth seem to be inspired by it. The visual thrill of two people being in a scene together and then one of then leaving the room and suddenly disappearing from the location is something you see in David Lynch all the time.
Personally I'd have to say Altman overdoes it with the wind chimes as a symbol of menace but otherwise, this is an amazing piece of filmmaking and a startling surprise. Far too good to be forgotten.
Extras.
Brand-new 4K restoration from the original negative
Audio commentary by Samm Deighan and Kat Ellinger who both work on Diabolique magazine and its Daughters of Darkness podcast. They both come at it from the horror angle.
Scene-select commentary by writer-director Robert Altman. This lasts 35 minutes and clears up some of the film's ambiguity.
Interview with Robert Altman, from 2003.
Brand new interview with actor Cathryn Harrison
An appreciation by musician and author Stephen Thrower that is Kermodious and insightful
Theatrical trailer
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by the Twins of Evil
Directed by Robert Altman. 1974.
Starring Susannah York, René Auberjonois, Marcel Bozzuffi, Cathryn Harrison, Hugh Millais, John Morley. 102 mins. Out now on Blu-ray from Arrow Academy.
Though he is one of the giants of American cinema, a man who made thirty-four features plus numerous TV productions over a four-decade career, his reputation largely rests on a phenomenal five-year burst of creativity connecting his two big hits, MASH in 1970, and Nashville in 1975. In between, he turned out classics like McCabe and Mrs Miller, The Long Goodbye, Thieves Like Us and California Split, glorious freewheeling deconstructions of genre and filmmaking convention. In amongst those six he made oddball satire Brewster McCloud, and this. I'd always presumed Images to be one of his misfires, but this beautiful Arrow Blu-ray release reveals it be every bit extraordinary as his other films of this period. You may have issues with it, not entirely see eye to eye with it, but it is a genuinely unnerving portrait of a woman haunting herself.
Cathryn (York) is an author of children's books (in a nice cross-promotional tie-in, the book her character is writing, and often quotes from, is York's own In Search of Unicorns) with a hazy grasp on reality. Alone at home, she is plagued by an anonymous phone caller claiming that her husband (Auberjonois) is with another woman. So the couple head off to their isolated house in the countryside, but here her mental state really begins to deteriorate. She imagines herself being menaced by three men: her husband, her dead French lover (Bozzuffi) and a family friend (Millais) who all gradually become interchangeable, as well as a doppelganger. One of the film's most extraordinary shots is York standing on a hill, looking down from on high at her country home at herself pulling up in their car and entering the home.
I think that is a reasonable summary of events. Altman gives you little to go on, keeps you as disorientated as possible. (The trick of having the five named characters all be given the names of other actors in the cast – Susannah York plays Cathryn, Cathryn Harrison plays Susannah, the men likewise – is a bit gimmicky but it is indicative of the games the film plays.) York's character is like Billy Pilgrim in Slaughterhouse 5, but rather than coming unstuck in time, she is unstuck in the present. She can't keep her story straight. She will begin a conversation with one man and suddenly find that she is talking to another. There is one sequence where she is being seduced by each of the three men simultaneously: she will fend off one of their advances and in the next moment be pounced on by another as she tries to stop each of them finding out about the other. It's like a metaphysical bedroom farce.
There's one big flaw in the film: it is fundamentally facile. Possibly the film's title is its most pertinent criticism: it is just a series of very startling images, underpinned by very little. (It's a terrible title and suspect that it might be a reason why it disappeared into such obscurity it was rumoured that the Columbia had burnt the negative. Why would you hunt out a film called Images?) If York is really meant to be schizophrenic then it is a trivial exploitation of the condition. It's stunning and creepy and horribly disturbing, but there is nothing at stake because York's condition doesn't have any resonance.
What's good about the film is absolutely everything else. The title card describes it as "Robert Altman's Images" but I think some acknowledgement for his little helpers wouldn't go amiss. Cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond (Close Encounters, Heaven's Gate, The Hired Hand) does wonder with the autumnal County Wicklow countryside. (Possibly better even than Geoffrey Unsworth's vision of it in Zardoz, and on a tiny budget and tight schedule.) Zsigmond has shot some classics, but his work here is as good as any of them. A pre-Spielberg John Williams contributes a marvellously creepy score, aided by “sounds” from Stomu Yamash'ta.
York won the best actress award at Cannes, but sometimes her delivery is a little stilted; occasionally a line reading will really jar. She is though a compelling presence. I was really stuck by her unexpected resemblance to Julie Christie, who had been Mrs Miller in Altman's previous film. She'd seem to be so different, far more stuck up than the free-spirited Christie, but at times the resemblance is uncanny.
You can see the obvious influences of Bergman's Persona (in that two women become one; here one woman becomes two) and Polanski's Repulsion, but Images sent our feelers that landed in many different places. You wonder if Roeg had seen it because both Don't Look Now and Man Who Fell To Earth seem to be inspired by it. The visual thrill of two people being in a scene together and then one of then leaving the room and suddenly disappearing from the location is something you see in David Lynch all the time.
Personally I'd have to say Altman overdoes it with the wind chimes as a symbol of menace but otherwise, this is an amazing piece of filmmaking and a startling surprise. Far too good to be forgotten.
Extras.
Brand-new 4K restoration from the original negative
Audio commentary by Samm Deighan and Kat Ellinger who both work on Diabolique magazine and its Daughters of Darkness podcast. They both come at it from the horror angle.
Scene-select commentary by writer-director Robert Altman. This lasts 35 minutes and clears up some of the film's ambiguity.
Interview with Robert Altman, from 2003.
Brand new interview with actor Cathryn Harrison
An appreciation by musician and author Stephen Thrower that is Kermodious and insightful
Theatrical trailer
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by the Twins of Evil
