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SEEKING
October 18, 2006
Rev: March 7, 2009
"Desperately Seeking Susan" (1985)
A story of an escape from an
inauthentic suburban existance
to that land of thrills and Specifically, the
excitement: New York! gritty/grubby
bohemian underground
This is a near perfect movie: of New York of the
everything fits together early 1980s.
really tightly.
But you will not "get" the movie
if you're not in sympathy with the This movie had a
subculture of urban hipsters. tremendously long run
at the small movie
The mistaken identity farce houses of the Village.
is just the vehicle,
fundamentally the movie For some reason I keep
is an assertion of tribal envisioning it at the
identity: 8th Street, but the
Bleeker Street is one of
The superiority of an edgy, the settings of the
funky, urban existance to movie, so that's more likely.
the clean, orderly, safe
lines of suburbia.
The reason the highly unlikely amnesia
routine works here is that it's so
psychologically plausible: Roberta is
someone who really doesn't want to be
herself any more.
She would much
rather be Susan
Hm, that suitcase looks
like a drumcase. Oh, Or she *thinks*
the band's van is she would:
painted in the same
motif: the case was Susan is glorified,
stolen or wheedled away but not sanitized:
from the band. Fun to be with, but
watch your back.
The telephone: an ugly
beige plastic crudely
decorated with sea
shells glued all over it.
The dialog -- if you think about it a
little -- is nearly all multipurpose:
they wring all the meaning they can out
of the words, with very little waste. Perhaps: "Every
scene is a WHATNOT
necessary scene"?
Even the music -- some of which
is a little obvious and cheesy -- Even that
works well in context. one Madonna
track they use.
An oddity: no one
uses public transit. A complaint I have
about Woody Allen's
Ah, not completely true: "Manhattan" as well.
Susan arrives at 42nd St
by bus from New Jersey.
Consider that Susan gets in trouble
trying to stiff a cab driver when
she has no cash: why not use the
subway, hopping a turnstile if
necessary?
Susan is being followed by
Roberta, and the scene jumps
from Battery Park to St. Marks
Place. That's quite a distance You can catch a glimpse
to just walk: around 3 miles. of the "Trash & Vaudeville"
neon sign in the background.
Well, maybe: Susan is in
no hurry at that point.
She hasn't been in town
in a while.
Another oddity,
Certainly I've been and probably one
known to walk further of the reasons
than that in Manhatten. I like the movie DRUGS
so much:
Jimmie never complains
about Susan fucking for
cocaine.
Roberta doesn't have
a nasty valium habit.
The girls don't
smoke dope with Though there's
their pizza. one scene
where Susan
pulls out a
joint.
And so on...
In this one respect,
the 80s scene has been
cleaned up a bit.
Villon complained that VILLON
the farce form really
requires a more madcap
ending. The mistaken
identity is supposed to Maybe the author thought
produce an explosion, that was too cliched?
here it just fizzles
"Huh? No, that's not
*my* Susan."
The finish is
absolutely
perfect though:
Roberta and Susan The cameos:
meet face-to-face
at last, and Roberta Arto Lindsay
thinks fast, rising Ann Magnuson
to the occasion to Richard Hell
conk the bad guy FIRST_PUNKS
over the head with
the traditional Richard Hell has
bottle. a non-speaking role
as a corpse.
Susan immediately
realizes who Roberta Type-casting...
is, smiles and remarks:
"Nice going Stranger". (But his favorite
drug gets no mention.)
Roberta has made it.
She's crossed over
into another world. And escaped
New Jersey.
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