This should be a good topic. Even beloved animated features about a young woman falling in love with her captor (instinctual defense mechanism to avoid the bi-polar rage of a dangerous monster) have explored this topic. Beast did such a good job of crippling Belle with fear that she eventually took even the smallest pleasantry (like not killing her) as a grand romantic gesture.
We’ll kick this week of with a great performance from Terence Stamp in William Wyler’s “The Collector” (1965). In this film, Stamp plays a socially awkward bank teller whose hobbies include: nature walks, dousing rags with chloroform, collecting butterflies and locking beautiful art students in his basement/dungeon. Ok, so his collection of art students isn’t very extensive… he actually only has one, but she’s pretty special. The Stockholm Syndrome doesn’t take right away though. Sometimes she has to fake her affection at first. But as the film progresses, tension and melodrama seem to constantly take turns in the driver’s seat.
The second film of our double feature has, over the years, become one of my favorites. It also did wonders to reaffirm my crush on Christina Ricci. Vincent Gallo writes, directs and stars in “Buffalo ‘66” (1998). Gallo plays Billy Brown a man fresh out of prison in upstate New York. He does what most of us would do right after a five year lockup. He kidnaps a ballerina (Ricci), makes her pose as his wife and sets out to find and kill the Buffalo Bills placekicker that he blames for ruining his life. The plot is far from the only thing about this film that is unique. His technique of shooting this film seems as though he went to film school simply to learn which rules to break. Most notably, he has absolutely no regard for the 180 degrees rule. As a result, some of the scenes are confusing and disorienting. The end result of this film as a whole however shows how much fun you can have when an original story is told by a visionary storyteller.
Enjoy bitches....
Buffalo 66 is one good flick. I haven't seen The Collector in awhile, and when I did I don't think that I was old enough to fully realize the underlying tones. So many films utilize this technique. Good article.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I caught The Collector on cable about a year ago. It's really Stamp's performance that stands out the most. But, there's also a couple of great, tense 'almost gonna escape' scenes as well.
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