The
late British enfant terrible Ken Russell, that often brilliant and outrageous
provocateur behind such controversial classics as The Devils and Crimes of
Passion, was typically known for working outside of the mainstream despite
having enormous critical and commercial success in his homeland. Usually for a reasonable budget, the director
could pull off some impressive technical feats, sport lavishly innovative production
design and always operated by the beat of his own drum. After two decades in the film scene, Russell
embarked on something completely different and outside of his ordinary approach
to filmmaking with the 1980 science fiction thriller Altered States. Based on the
novel by Paddy Chayefsky and being the cult director’s one and only time
working within the American Hollywood studio system, his third picture for
Warner Brothers is among the most powerfully psychedelic and mind-blowingly
bizarre horror films ever made. A
simple mad-scientist story of Faustian pursuit and science gone awry, Altered States concerns college
university professor Dr. Edward Jessup (William Hurt in a splendid debut)
obsessed with decoding alternate states of consciousness through the use of
sensory deprivation research in isolation tanks under the influence of
hallucinogenic drugs. Needless to say,
the professor’s psychological experiments initially conducted with students
before shifting the focus on himself, spirals out of control and touches on
everything from bodily transformation, inexplicable metaphysics, terrifying
hallucinations and even old fashioned wolf man tropes. It’s a genre-shifting batshit smorgasbord
that could have easily flown apart into a laughable mess were it not for the
masterful Russell’s taut and sharp direction, gleefully skirting a tightrope
walk between melodrama, stark terror of the unknown and top-hat-and-cane
cynical farce without ever coming across as tonally inconsistent. Not many science fiction horror movies have
the ability to careen into absurdity and successfully traverse back into horror
again. |
| Hey. Care to take a warm bath? |
And
of course there’s the acting across the board, which ranges from calm and muted
to hysterical, bombastic and even histrionic with characters talking over each
other at the same time or screaming in unison.
You can see the evolution of a soon to be great and renowned actor in
William Hurt’s mad scientist who makes the eccentric genius an obsessive but
ultimately curious man eager to learn what he can even if the study places his
life in danger. Equally strong is Blair
Brown as Emily, a biological anthropologist who falls madly in love with Jessup
but also fears for his sanity (and eventually her own) as he becomes further
ensconced in the dangerous experiment.
Bob Balaban and Charles Haid turn over humorous supporting roles as two
veteran researchers hastily assist Jessup in his mad pursuit, providing the
viewer with down-to-Earth characters we can relate to outside of the
increasingly insane bubble forming around Jessup and Emily.
That’s
not to say the making of Altered States was
a hunky dory experience for all involved however. For instance, Warner Brothers, still bitter
over the scandal created by The Devils,
urged writer Paddy Chayefsky to pick a different director over Russell out of
fear of courting controversy yet again.
Chayefsky insisted and in a curious twist of fate, the figure who bore
the most contention towards Russell was Chayefsky himself. The two artists fought constantly over the dialogue
and tone with Chayefsky objecting to Russell’s bombastic acting and tongue-in-cheek
flights of fancy where Russell felt Chayefsky’s self-seriousness came across as
pretentious. Another problem involved
Chayefsky’s reverence for his own dialogue, with Russell wanting to improvise
and to dodge Chayefsky, Russell had his actors shout their lines at the same
time to toss in ad libs in the process.
Eventually Russell succeeded in banning Chayefsky from the set who tried
and failed ultimately to have Russell, his initial first choice, removed as
director. Furthering the bitter feud
growing between Russell and Chayefsky, Chayefsky ultimately took his pen name
off the film and used his biological name Sidney Aaron instead. To make matters worse, Russell picked up a
drinking habit while working on the film which, compounded with the much
publicized row with Chayefsky, led to Russell’s brief foray into Tinseltown
becoming a short lived stint.
With
all things considered, Altered States is
a splendidly psychedelic thriller full of Russell’s trademark sensual excess,
audiovisual overload and heightened, deliberately over the top performances and
still breathtaking visual effects that stand the test of time in today’s
effects driven cinematic arena. Not all
of it will make immediate sense nor should it, as it’s a traditional mad scientist
story filtered through the prism of intellectual and abstract science fiction
stories like 2001: A Space Odyssey or
The Man Who Fell to Earth. It also has, for all its terror images and
avant-garde soundtrack, a real sense of impish whimsy about itself. Contrary to the hard and heavy madness of The Devils or Crimes of Passion, you can tell Russell is clearly having fun in
spite of later expressing his own disappointment with the finished
product. Years later Russell would take
the tongue-in-cheek approach to horror as far as it could go with The Lair of the White Worm, his vampire
monster movie with Hugh Grant. And yet where
that film made a swan dive into high camp, Altered
States maintains a steady tightrope walk between hard sci-fi horror and
buffoonery where you’re not always sure how seriously he’s taking the material,
keeping the audience on their toes by not warning you when he’s ready to yank
the rug out from under you. Unfortunately
Russell never did make another mainstream Hollywood effort after Altered States which is a real shame, as
the late master filmmaker clearly understood the big studio picture better than
the bigwigs financing it.
Score:
- Andrew Kotwicki
