I've been spacing these posts a little too far apart, and letting them pile up. So, I'm devoting a full week to new installments of my "Great Directors" series. Enjoy.
Frank and Eleanor Perry were a husband and wife filmmaking team, sometimes referred to as "The Perrys." Frank directed and Eleanor wrote. Their work was almost all contemporary dramas, often intensely psychological character pieces. The partnership resulted in six films together, and several more separately, after they parted ways. Their success often feels like a reflection of the era when they thrived - New Hollywood in the late 1960s and early 1970s, that brief moment where movies could be about truly adult subjects and adult themes without compromise. You could make weird, difficult to categorize films like "The Swimmer," or "Diary of a Mad Housewife." You could make a tragic, painful movie about growing up, like "Last Summer."
There was a vein of deeply felt cynicism about relationships and social constructs in the 50s and 60s that seemed to run through everything. "Last Summer" embodies this, following the friendships and romances that develop among four bored teenagers vacationing on New York's Fire Island. From the outset, the dynamics are unbalanced. Two of the kids are from wealthy families, and the other two are not. One girl is beautiful, cruel, and beginning to test her ability to manipulate and influence others. One girl is overweight, awkward, and already touched by tragedy. You can see the awful ending coming long before it happens, but there's such a familiarity and such a magnetic pull to the early scenes of the kids' casual encounters and conversations. Everyone is so heartbreakingly normal, and the horrible things that happen to them are heartbreakingly normal too.
The lazy summer atmosphere, the empty landscapes, and the occasional glimpses of uninterested parents quickly exiting the frame, all contribute to the creation of this rare, specific moment in time where the story unfolds. You know immediately what kind of headspace the four characters are inhabiting before they even say a word. Body language is often more important than the dialogue, especially in the case of Rhoda, the awkward, idealistic girl who is marked from the beginning as an outsider to the group. Rhoda was played by Catherine Burns, who received an Academy Award nomination for her work in this film, but reportedly hated the end result. I don't blame her. The performance is brilliant and vulnerable, but the framing of it is so merciless, it borders on the disturbing.
The Perrys are able to get into their characters' heads, and show the patterns of their thoughts on film in a way that I've seen few other filmmakers manage. They capture the experience of being a fifteen or sixteen year old left to their own devices, suddenly aware of the new possibilities of sex and power, yet painfully inexperienced in handling the emotions that come with them. There's such a clarity to the visual language and the editing, such a careful handling of the tone. A frivolous moment can quickly turn into a dangerous one, or vice versa. In the hands of different filmmakers, "Last Summer" might be framed as a cautionary tale, about the dangers of peer pressure or moral lapses. The Perrys, however, show their characters' darker impulses are on some level innate and natural, the inevitable result of group dynamics, sexual tensions, and simple curiosity.
"Last Summer" is one of several high profile X-rated films that were released at the end of the '60s, and quickly became notorious for its graphic ending. Though highly regarded at the time, audiences were less receptive and the film became an obscurity for decades. However, a film this good will be rediscovered eventually. I have no doubts about it whatsoever. It remains a haunting, emotionally devastating film that captures so much of the sadness and the cruelty of adolescence, that it barely feels dated, even fifty years later.
What I've Seen - Frank Perry
David and Lisa (1962)
Ladybug Ladybug (1963)
The Swimmer (1968)
Last Summer (1969)
Diary of a Mad Housewife (1970)
Doc (1971)
Play It as It Lays (1972)
Man on a Swing (1974)
Rancho Deluxe (1975)
Mommie Dearest (1981)
Compromising Positions (1985)
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