A DOUBLE LIFE (George Cukor, 1947)

Ronald Colman won a Golden Globe and an Oscar—against John Garfield in Body and Soul and Michael Redgrave in Mourning Becomes Electra—for his selfconscious and laughably theatrical turn as the insane actor who cannot keep his stage performance of Othello separate from his private life in A Double Life. Beautifully and intricately directed by George Cukor, who has a field day playing with sound and sound effects, and gorgeously, darkly yet crisply photographed in black and white by Milton Krasner (this is the highest attainment in his career), the film is, of course, a variant on a longstanding joke in theater. But nothing is funny in this glum, relentless film, least of all Colman’s acting. The script is by the spousal team of Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin.
     Martin Scorsese and others insist that the film is Cukor’s only attempt at film noir. However, I have written this about Cukor’s Gaslight:

At least by habit, if not by creed or philosophic imperative, film noir places a male hero at disadvantage to a femme fatale—a deceitful, corrupt woman who ensnares the man in his own ruin, or sometimes, intending no harm, an intoxicatingly mysterious woman whose effect on the man generates the same result. On the other hand, the lady-in-distress thriller harkens to an older, simpler form, the theatrical melodrama, where it is a man who disadvantages a woman, or more than one woman, for the sheer sadistic pleasure of doing so. In both instances, a projection of sexual fear participates: in the lady-in-distress thriller, the villainous male suggests the female’s fear of sexuality, although the sexuality she fears may be emblematic of the male power in her world that in any number of ways, not just sexually, disadvantages her; in noirs, the treacherous female suggests the male fear of being consumed, and not just sexually but also emotionally, by the female. George Cukor’s marvelous Gaslight combines both conventions, enhancing an old-fashioned melodrama with the kind of psychological complexity usually reserved for film noir.

I will leave it to you to decide who is more accurate in this matter, Scorsese or I. Let me add, though, a related thought: what distinguishes Cukor’s A Star Is Born (1954) from other versions is precisely its noirishness—and, of course, the singing talent of Judy Garland.

PERMANENT RECORD (Marisa Silver, 1988)

David, a high school senior, is a perfect kid, at least in the eyes of parents, peers, teachers, school principal; he is set for college next year, is musically gifted, and his prospects for his band are looking up. Everyone delights in his presence except Kim (Pamela Gidley, marvelous), to whom he doesn’t talk although they are lovers. In reality, David is bottled up, poised to implode from all the pressure that is routinely placed on him by those full of expectations for him. Most adolescents have to cope with failure; how does one cope with success? What is it like always to be presumed invincible and on top of things, with no one reaching out to calm your confusions, with fear of disappointing others your invisible companion?
     David commits suicide; a “terrible accident” is the presumption, a fall from a cliff. Only, unbeknownst to David, best friend Chris (Keanu Reeves, playing scenes rather than giving a performance) is right behind him; he hears David’s silence during the fall. Chris receives in the mail a note from the deceased: “I wanted everything to be perfect; only, it wasn’t.”
     Writer-director Marisa Silver’s Permanent Record, which was shot in Portland and Newport, Oregon, is less about David than about the fallout from his death, especially when it is learned that this was a suicide. Silver inserts no flashbacks; when David is gone, he is gone—a haunting absence. We recall how hard he was on carefree Chris to pull himself together and realize his own musical gifts. David seemed laidback with everyone else, but not with Chris. We know how perceptive Silver’s film is when we realize that David was “acting out” on Chris all the pressures that David felt were targeting him. Chris ends up putting words to a melody that David had composed. The song, gorgeous and heartrending, is “Wishing on Another Lucky Star,” actually by J. D. Souther: “The world grows cold,/ The heart gets torn and tattered. . . .”
     A fence is put up so no one else will “fall” where David did. The film ends with David’s friends congregated there and the camera in pan-mode. The irony is devastating; the fence, a farce for all the good it can do. These kids will never get over their loss, which will factor into the course of their lives.
     As with her Old Enough (1984), Silver is gentle and powerful; she embraces her young characters and lets them go. She also draws from Alan Boyce a brilliant performance as David. It really is an impossible role. Boyce must not expose David’s hidden torment too blatantly, for then we would ask why nobody else saw it, and he mustn’t hide it so much that his suicide seems a narrative trick. Boyce strikes the best possible balance, and invests the boy, besides, with a poignant aura.
     Permanent Record isn’t quite as amazingly fresh as Old Enough. There is some lugubriousness. And, while the kids are wonderful, Kathy Baker is a cipher as David’s mother.