THE CRYING GAME
A ten-step film review by Ron Hogan
Copyright 1993 Ron Hogan
1) Excerpted from an interview with David Cronenberg in INNER VIEWS, a collection of interviews with seven contemporary directors:
Because in a cinema you are abstracting yourself from your daily life to have this special moment, this sacrament... But the very fact that you have abstracted yourself from you everyday life means you have disinvolved yourself, the process, from your life (235).
One of the things about growing up in what Jack Nicholson referred to in a recent interview as the "post-literate generation" is that, from the age of nine or so onward, film and cinema ceased to hold as much of that sacramental mystique for me. First through cable television, and later and more powerfully through the VCR, the breadth and depth of cinema became available in my home. Cronenberg again: "It's almost unthinkable now, that you did not have access to films except when they came out in the cinema and then disappeared forever..." (236). Through the process of overfamiliarization, perhaps even saturation, I came to recognize the conventional patterns around which films are organized--so individual films rarely hold any suspense for me. It seems that about one film a year can come up with a plot twist that genuinely shocks me. In 1991, it was the true nature of Branagh's "I'm not Roman" line in DEAD AGAIN, and in 1992, it is THE CRYING GAME.
2) Since my film reviews have centered around what's in a film and what can perhaps be extracted from its contents, rather than whether or not you should go out and see it, I have been pretty casual with regards to spoilers. It helps that all the films I've previously reviewed have not had any major surprises. This is not the case with THE CRYING GAME. Two of my ten points revolve around the genuine surprise contained within the film. That makes this review a genuine spoiler, so I've decided to put a control-L after this paragraph. If you haven't seen the film, don't spoil it for yourself by reading the rest of this article.
3) The girl that isn't a girl: that genuinely surprising moment for me is, of course, that beautiful tracking shot that starts from her head and slowly goes down her body, soaking up her nakedness, culminating in a full set of testicles. I dare anybody to see that coming beforehand. It's interesting that the film places her as one part of the only true functional relationship, the unseen relationship between her and Jody. The point being that love/trust isn't something that necessarily takes place between a man and a woman, and that being a man or a woman isn't necessarily related to having testicles or a vagina. The bond between Jody and Fergus, for example, is a strong bond, which has nothing to do with the fact that both of them are men. Placing a character in the film who "is" simultaneously male and female emphasizes that this is a film about relationships between *human beings*.
4) Jaye Davidson does a fantastic job as Dil, probably the most difficult film role of 1992. One wonders if she were to be nominated for an Oscar--AMPAS members could have a real puzzler on their hands as to whether or not somebody with testicles can be nominated for Best Actress or not. This is a largely rhetorical question, of course--if nothing else, the Academy will bend over backwards to find five people with vaginas to throw into consideration--probably Emma Thompson and Susan Sarandon included. But in general, I don't think this has been an especially good year for women's roles in film.
5) Stephen Rea will not get nominated for Best Actor for Fergus, because there's a glut of actors to choose from this year. Which is a shame, as he does a fantastic job playing a man trying to cope with all the things that life throws at him: coming to respect a man and then having to shoot that man; falling in love with a woman who turns out to be a man; getting pulled back into a life he's trying to escape. And on his looks alone, especially after he gets his haircut in England, he has the potential to be at least a minor sex symbol for the 90s if he plays his cards right.
6) Good to see Neil Jordan making a film for himself again--that seems to be what he does best. Though even his Hollywood films don't feel like complete sellouts, and HIGH SPIRITS showed some genuine potential--plus he never got a chance to supervise the cutting of that film. But it's in a situation like this, when Jordan is in control of the vision, that he truly excels as a filmmaker.
7) I had something to say about terrorism here, but I can't remember what it was. Only that it had something to do with a psychological condition--the Stockholm syndrome--in which the hostages come to identify with their captors. An opposite process looks to occur within this film, partly because Fergus isn't really cut out for terrorism--he's got the skills, but not the heart. As I said before, a genuine bond takes place between Jody and Fergus, but I add now that it's purposefully cultivated by Jody as a straw at which to grab when it comes time to make the escape attempt.
8) That bond is rooted in the fact that although one man is black and the other white, one English and the other Irish, they are both men. There are certain qualities that transcend national and ethnic boundaries: the need for respect and self-respect, the love of a good woman, the need for the sort of dignity that comes from being able to take your own penis out of your boxers when you need to urinate. It's the search for those self-qualities that Fergus takes up even after Jody's death--they are brought into the forefront when the two men are talking, but they remain throughout the rest of the film.
9) So the films about people's natures--a point brought home by the telling of the parable of the frog and the scorpion *twice*. Since the best known source of that parable is Orson Welles' CONFIDENTIAL REPORT (also known as MR. ARKADIN), I was trying to build up a connection between the two films, at least in my mind, and it is this--the stories of men who, in the midst of violent situations of intrigue, struggle to discover the true identity of themselves and of their adversary--after all, Fergus' affair with Dil is part of his attempt to understand what Jody was really like, why he affected Fergus so. Also, as in Welles' TOUCH OF EVIL, nobody is who they appear to be in this film--only in THE CRYING GAME, the differences become much more divergent, rooted in the character's own bodies.
10) For a British film, there's a lot of American pop music, the two main selections of which are used quite ironically, though the true irony of "When a Man Loves a Woman" only becomes apparent halfway through the film. Lyle Lovett's cover of "Stand By Your Man" was so perfectly suited to the ending of the film, though--the good humor with which Fergus has sardonically adjusted to Dil's maleness really comes through in his aloofness, and the song is the culmination point of the ironic way Jordan deals with the revelation once it has been made. As for the song "The Crying Game," I had never heard it before, so I don't honestly know if it's British or American, but Boy George's version isn't half bad--and how appropriate to have the title song sung by the one pop star of the eighties who most successfully embodied androgyny. Heck, for the first month or so of "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me," I thought he *was* a woman. So it was a genuine surprise much like the one provided by this excellent film when the truth came out.
Ron Hogan rhogan@usc.edu comments welcome
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