Warning: May contain spoilers
In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, America went through a brief period of producing thrillers featuring psychotic female antagonists.
I call this mini sub-genre Hollywood’s ‘Mad Woman’ period. Key examples include ‘Fatal Attraction’ (1987) (Michael Douglas has an affair with bunny boiler (literally) Glenn Close – disastrous consequences); ‘Misery’ (1990) (author James Caan is rescued from a car accident in the middle of nowhere by a deranged female fan – disastrous consequences) and ‘The Hand that Rocks the Cradle’ (1992) (an attractive nanny attempts to usurp her employer’s family – disastrous consequences).
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These were all fantastically entertaining films in their own right, although could hardly be considered highbrow or ground-breaking in themselves. What’s interesting about them collectively though, as Mad Woman films, is the shift they represent in Hollywood’s portrayal of women as a whole. These films were the first time Hollywood really started casting women not as objects of pity or desire, but of fear.
The female leads in the above films all exert a stifling control over the hapless male protagonists in a way that is totally contradictory to Hollywood’s established perception of femininity. It’s arguably a misogynistic approach (although I wouldn’t personally agree with that assessment), but the attempt to cast women in a light in which they are essentially the power holders is surely a progression from what was their default position in American cinema before then – essentially two dimensional supporting characters defined solely by their relationship with more interesting males.
David Fincher’s latest effort, the adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s 2012 novel, ‘Gone Girl’ fits perfectly within this sub-genre, and Amy Dunne (played superbly by Rosamund Pike) is cast from the ’Mad Woman’ mould. To be honest, it’s difficult to say anything about this film without giving at least something away (I‘ve already said too much), so I’ll try and keep spoilers to a minimum. However, if you haven’t seen it and you really like surprises, you should probably skip to the part where I talk about ‘Nightcrawler’.
The first we see of Amy is through a series of flashbacks to her and husband Nick’s (Ben Affleck) early whirlwind romance. A beautiful, intelligent, spontaneous woman who suddenly goes missing, Nick’s apparent apathy and lack of emotion about the whole situation turns the audience against him from the outset.
The truth about Amy – the first in a series of delicious twists – is revealed about halfway through, but the full extent of the brutality she is capable of is saved until the end. This was the best executed and distressing climax to a film I have seen for some time (for which Trent Reznor’s accompanying score deserves a shout-out). To put it mildly, and without wanting to give too much away, I didn’t realise I was squeamish until I watched that scene. In one vicious act, Amy propels herself firmly into the company of other Mad Women on a scale Rebecca de Mornay’s nanny could only dream of.
Fincher is also the perfect director to make a Mad Woman film. His movies have always somehow managed to toe the line between trashy and thought-provoking (‘Fight Club,’ ‘Se7en’), in the same way that the best Mad Woman films do. His best films are always unsettling in a way that goes beyond their actual storylines, indicating a disturbing hollowness to their worlds which is a little too close for comfort.
This is again the case in Gone Girl. The eerily empty Missouri town in which most of the film is set, and Nick and Amy’s enormous but sterile home, are both symbolic of the moral and spiritual voids within almost all the characters.
Previous Mad Woman films were fairly clear battles between good and evil – but the lines are more blurred in Gone Girl. Moral certainties do not exist in David Fincher’s world, and it is this sense of hollowness that has been Fincher’s key contribution, not just to the Mad Woman sub-genre, but to cinema as a whole.
***
If ‘Gone Girl’ is a film in which morality is at best ambiguous, indie flick ‘Nightcrawler’ is one which violates and tramples over it in the most cynical, depressing way possible.
Creeping out of the shadows of LA’s seedy, lonely underworld, the film stars Jake Gyllenhaal as Lou Bloom, an odious ‘independent news reporter’ who spends his time prowling the streets of LA for footage of tragedy which he later sells to a low-budget news station.
Bloom’s mission is to track down footage of ‘urban crime creeping into the suburbs’ in his station’s desperate quest for ratings. It is quickly apparent that the bloodier and more intrusive the footage, the better – as one of his competitors puts it, ‘if it bleeds, it leads.’ Bloom throws himself into this mission with a merciless vigour, lying, cheating, stealing and even interfering with police crime scenes in order to fulfill his task criteria.
Everything about ‘Nightcrawler’ is creepy. The LA depicted in this film is a heartless, depressing void, where the human presence is almost entirely absent. This is not the glamorous metropolis representing the Mecca of ambition in the public consciousness, but is a cold and emaciated ghost town where any sense of community or even friendship has long since evaporated.
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The utterly repellent Bloom fits right into this backdrop. Gyllenhaal is superb in this role, and his capacity for creepiness is almost unnerving. Every subtlety is accounted for, from his gaunt, pallid appearance – with vaguely hipsterish ponytail, short-sleeved shirts and New Balance trainers – to his high-pitched, joyless laugh, his sense of weird otherness is enough to make the skin crawl.
Bloom justifies his increasingly appalling actions with empty, corporate jargon throughout, constantly spouting motivational bullshit at his weak, gormless partner (Riz Ahmed) without ever really paying him properly. His contemporaries are no better – Bloom sells his footage to another depressing and morally defunct failure, the fading news anchor Nina, whose total lack of remorse in her quest for ratings is perhaps one of the most unsettling things about the film.
If ‘Gone Girl’ harks back to the Mad Woman sub-genre, then ‘Nightcrawler’ is a contemporary take on another more recognised genre: Film Noir. Despite not involving private detectives, femme fatales or Humphrey Bogart, its view of humanity as a pitiless, corrupt and amoral cesspit is absolutely in line with that genre’s themes.
That sense of hollowness that exists in ‘Gone Girl’ is all-pervading in ‘Nightcrawler.’ There are almost no redeeming features about any of the characters in either film, and very little hope exists in the portrait of America they portray. These characters are twisted, soulless leeches – emotionless, sterile and, fundamentally, alone.
Both are tremendous films. After a slow summer, cinema just got good again.
Connor Pierce
Filed under: Pop Culture
