THE KING OF MARVIN GARDENS (1972)
This was one
of the last BBS films released and was as quietly innovative as EASY RIDER was
loudly provocative. Bob Rafelson and Jack Nicholson combined as they had before
in the ground-breaking partnership that produced FIVE EASY PIECES the year
before, and many later projects, in a piece reflecting casting revelations and unique directorial style.
We open on a
bespectacled, sombre Nicholson unfolding a tale in a semi-darkened room. We
have no idea of location and yet for the next five minutes in a single take, we
are held hypnotised by his peculiar monologue about his relationship to fish
and his grandfather. It feels like a confessional and yet we don’t know why he tells
it or to whom. Some way in, a red light blinks, distracting him to his
irritation. We then discover in a wider shot that he’s actually a radio show
host, albeit one with a perplexing niche - what is his show’s purpose? Rafelson
wrote this monologue in real-life for an English course, and its disturbing fictional
allegation of childhood complicity in family murder caused his teacher to
recommend him for a remedial class due to suspected mental instability.
Nicholson’s
performance as David Stabler is a revelation. Awkward, introverted and downbeat,
his role is more like that typically taken by Bruce Dern, who Rafelson
deliberately switched with him so that Dern would equally challenge himself as
his brother Jason, a wolfish, shady wheeler-dealer with grandiose schemes. The
two contrast well in a way that seldom would be tested in future. Rafelson also
experiments with style a great deal in the filming, asking Lazslo Kovacs to
shoot all the external scenes in static camera shots that disorientate the
viewer slightly and place each actor in a specific image. On a beach scene in
Atlantic Scene, Dern for example would be filmed against a promenade backdrop
while Nicholson would be against the waves but at a different spot altogether -
framing the former as a visionary and the latter all-at-sea perhaps.
THE KING OF
MARVIN GARDENS is also another chance to see the great Ellen Burstyn at work, delicately
earning sympathy as a woman recognising that the clock is ticking on the
viability of her looks and that her wagon is hitched to the unreliable Jason
with tragic consequences. She sees herself supplanted by her step-daughter Jessica
(Julia Ann Robinson), ‘You’re the meal ticket now’. As the group act out a
fanciful Miss America pageant, the younger model is literally put centre-stage
under a rented spotlight. (This is also notably the only point where Nicholson
allows a lightening characteristic flambouyance into his role, which audiences
would come to rely on all-too-much later in his career) Burstyn is tender and
extremely poignant as she takes the law and a gun mistaken for a water pistol into
her own hands and her mind unravels at the result.
The film
ends cyclically with these awful events reduced to another of David Stabler’s
monologues on his show. Nicholson allows vulnerability to crack his introverted
case as he channels his life into his medium on-mic. Maybe his one consolation and
indeed his program’s purpose is that his listeners are unseen and so some form
of private catharsis can be gained in public.
BBS’s body
of work was an integral part of the early 70s shift in tone to explore unsafe,
challenging creativity - and without
succumbing to pat, rosy fakery in its conclusions, this approach was often echoed
elsewhere in film culture as my blog will illustrate repeatedly.
=IAN=
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