Cat People (1982, Dir. Paul Schrader)
Synopsis:
Orphan Irina (Nastassja Kinski) travels to New Orleans to be finally reunited with her older brother, Paul (Malcolm McDowell). Shortly after her arrival a prostitute is mauled in a hotel room by a black leopard. Unable to find Paul, Irina explores the city by herself; eventually ending up at the zoo where the black leopard has been taken. Irina meets zoo keeper, Oliver (John Heard) and the two are instantly attracted to each other. When the black leopard mysteriously vanishes from the zoo after killing one of the other zoo keepers, Paul reappears and Irina learns the terrible truth about her family.
Regular readers of this blog will know that I tend to feature a horror film every year around Halloween. This year, tying in with the series of posts of underrated 80s movies, I’m looking at Paul Schrader’s 80s Remake of the 1942 Jacques Tournier B-Movie. In an interview included on the DVD of the film Schrader says that in retrospect he regrets using the title „Cat People“ because it meant most judged the film unfairly against the original, despite only the basic premise and the scene where Annette O‘Toole‘s character is stalked by Irene in the swimming pool. It’s an anomaly not only in Schrader’s career – he didn’t write the screenplay and it’s the only horror film he’s made (unless you count the abortive Exorcist prequel that he got fired from), but also in 80s horror films in general. This was the decade of slasher, vampire and werewolf films. Schrader’s movie, with its emphasis on eroticism as much as horror, has much more in common with the films of Dario Argento than the likes of John Carpenter or The Howling – not just just because of the amount of nudity in the film but also because of its saturated colour scheme and outlandish performances.
Despite being different from the glut of werewolf films released around the same time the film found an audience; due no doubt to the combined promise of Natassja Kinski naked and some startling transformation effects – both of which the film delivers – and would later become a cult film. Ultimately, though it has a lot more going for it than just a beautiful actress taking her clothes off and some cool prosthetic make up work and that’s why, even now over 30 years after its release, the film retains its power.
Like Schrader’s other 80s films (American Gigolo, Mishima) it’s visual style benefits enormously from his collaboration with both Ferdinando Scarfiotti (credited as „visual consultant“ as he was non-Union and therefore couldn’t officially be credited as „production designer“ – he was apparently so important that Schrader wanted to have the film co-credited to him and Scarfiotti equally, but was blocked by the studio) and cinematographer John Bailey (who would bring a very different sense of visual style to the work of Lawrence Kasdan – which just goes to show what a versatile cameraman he is.). Previously, Schrader’s work had felt closer to the style of the documentary realism of Taxi Driver (which he wrote the screenplay for) and which he has then returned to (for the most part) later in his career. The trio had first worked together on American Gigolo and Schrader only agreed to do Cat People if both Scarfiotti and Bailey would work with him again. A great deal of this film’s power is its incredible mis-en-scene and visual style and the use it makes of its New Orleans locations, from the swamps to the gaudy colours of The French quarter‘s rain-soaked streets and even the fabulous zoological house – which was an elaborate two storey. exterior and interior set built and designed by Scarfiotti and looks incredibly real with its turn of the century decrepitude and yet clearly designed with a great eye for aesthetic detail – especially in the shot (seen in the short video about the film’s makeup fx below) of its white floor tiles contrasting with Irene’s beige shoes and the deep crimson of the blood that’s splattered there.
There had been a sea change in the horror film industry the year before this film’s release, with both American Werewolf in London and The Howling bringing a new graphic realism to horror movie transformations, so much so that any werewolf (or this case werecat) movie that didn’t include such a scene (like the other werewolf movie from 1981 – Wolfen) was deemed to to be a failure. Audiences came expecting Cat People to have a similar feel, so there was a heavy burden on the shoulders of Makeup fx artist Tom Burman to deliver the same kind of fx, though he and Schrader wisely keep a lot of the prosthetics in shadow – which is why they still hold up very well today. In the short featurette from the DVD release below, Burman talks about the challenges he faced designing the film’s various make up fx. (NB Obviously, this features quite a few clips of the fx as they feature in the film; so if you’re reading this at work and/or you’re squeamish about blood and gore don’t watch it!)
Important though the visual style and fx are to a movie such as this, it wouldn’t stand up to repeated viewing if the performances weren’t interesting as well. Obviously, the stand out performance is Kinski – who essentially holds the film together. To me, this and Paris, Texas have been the key films of her career. Both highlight the sensuality and strangeness she bought to her screen characters, which made her such an icon. Few actresses to my mind can manage to segue between innocent and femme fatale as seamlessly as she does. Watching the film again, however, it’s her character’s apparent openness and lack of guile, rather than the more obviously sexual scenes, that make the character so alluring. I certainly have no shame in admitting that I (like so many others, no doubt) had a huge crush on her after seeing her in this film. Apparently Kinski herself has a fairly low opinion of the film these days, which may well have something to do with the fact that she and Schrader had an affair during the film’s shooting and according to the stories in Peter Biskind‘s „Easy Riders, Raging Bulls“, Schrader allegedly used full frontal nudity shots of her without her consent. Whatever the reason for her dislike of the finished film; her performance is one of her very best.
She’s admirably supported by both the two male leads. McDowell throws himself into the role with typical gusto, giving a suitably bonkers performance which is still enjoyable to watch; whereas Heard manages to ground the film in reality with a lovely, subdued performance particularly in his scenes with Kinski. There’s also a nice performance from Annette O’Toole (another of my teenage screen crushes) as the earthy, slightly tomboyish Zoo assistant in love with Heard’s character. She’s the polar opposite of Kinski’s character and the short scene where the two of them go and have a drink together illustrates how different they are from each other and is really nicely played.
There’s also solid performances from Ed Begley Jr., Ruby Dee, Scott Paulin, Frankie Faison and John Laroquette in supporting roles and it would be remiss not to praise the countless incredible big cats (cougars or mountain lions whose fur was dyed black, rather than actual black leopards who are impossible to train) that were trained by Ron Oxley and his team. Black leopards/panthers are my favorite animal, so the fantastic animals and their performances here are another huge highlight of this film for me.
The final major element of what makes this film so special is the score by Giorgio Moroder. Schrader and he had already collaborated on American Gigolo and at the time this film was made Moroder was at the height of his popularity as a producer and soundtrack composer. For me this film marks a shift in Moroder’s work towards some darker more atonal textures than many of his previous scores. Part of this is the early use of the Synclavier II synthesizer and it’s distinctive digital timbres (similar to those that would feature in Howard Shore’s score to Videodrome the same year) underscore many of the film’s creepier moments. In the interview I gave when promoting my 80s soundtrack-inspired album, „Fictions“ in 2016, I stated that whilst I loved the soundtrack within the film, the version that exists on the soundtrack doesn’t work as well for me. The reason for this became clear when I re-watched the interview with Paul Schrader on the DVD. The film version of the score was created by Moroder fading elements of the score in and out on a 24 track tape machine, so it’s much more minimal and has far less of the rather monotonous drum machine programming that the album does. The sequencing of the album is also quite bizarre – going from David Bowie’s fabulous title song (which is arguably now better known than the film which inspired it, having also been used in the soundtracks to both Inglorious Basterds and Atomic Blonde ) to one of the most atonal tracks on the soundtrack.
Ultimately, this is far too unusual a horror film with far too many arresting touches to be relegated to cult movie status and its performances and visual style make it a must see for the uninitiated and well worth a return viewing for those who’ve already seen it.
