TROPIC OF CANCER A film review by David N. Butterworth Copyright 2000 David N. Butterworth
*** (out of ****)
Director Joseph Strick is not one to shy away from tough literary adaptations.
In 1967 his camera wandered the streets of Dublin, following Milo O'Shea as Leopold Bloom, the central figure of James Joyce's masterful "Ulysses." A dozen years later Strick took another stab at adapting an immortal Joycean tome for the screen, the author's first novel, "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man."
Like those two unassailable works, Henry Miller's once-banned, now-legendary "Tropic of Cancer" was considered "unfilmable" by many but in 1970 Strick took a shot at translating it too, and the film is now seeing a re-release paired with Bernardo Bertolucci's once-banned, now-legendary "Last Tango in Paris." Both films are rated NC-17 today and while the nudity is prevalent yet tame by modern standards, the sexual explicitness of the situations (and, especially in Miller's case, the language) sets both "Tropic" and "Tango" apart.
Miller's 1934 semi-autobiographical novel about a bawdy expatriate in Paris during the Great Depression was referred to by Ezra Pound as "a dirty book worth reading," and Strick's film version, updated and told mostly in unrelated vignettes, supports that observation by keeping most of the author's brilliantly shocking passages--and imagery--intact.
It stars a startlingly handsome Rip Torn as Miller and a flagrantly nude Ellen Burstyn as his estranged, revolted wife.
The film opens abruptly, a roman candle of golden sparks pouring forth from a bidet under the stark, matter-of-fact titles: "Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller." Cut to Miller on a Paris sidewalk, bumming change. French francs to feed his habit--prostitutes. Miller wanders city streets, past huge abandoned oil refineries, and over the Seine, talking to himself, in his head, that inner Miller voice, that voiceover narration that quotes huge chunks of Miller's unprintable dialogue, dialogue that alternately worships and condemns the exposed female form. He hooks up with friends, associates, and lots and lots of women. He boozes, he bleeds a little (metaphorically speaking), he beds the women all.
While the tone and temperament of Miller's tale is retained, "Tropic of Cancer" is really a book to be savored at the turn of each page, not viewed as a cinematic treatment or interpretation. Nevertheless, it is fun watching Torn (who's very good: a raised eyebrow here, a boisterous belly laugh there) drink and whore and sleaze his shabby way through life with equal amounts of good humor and worthlessness. Burstyn's contributions are brief but memorable. Credited as Ellen McRae, "Tropic of Cancer" was an early film role for her (hence, presumably, her rare display of nakedness), one which came right before her big break as the female lead in Peter Bogdanovich's "The Last Picture Show."
Whereas Burstyn's hair and makeup date the then 38-year-old actress, the film itself doesn't seem dated at all simply because the colors of Miller's worlds coupled with his colorful expressions of desire make the experience a timeless one.
-- David N. Butterworth dnb@dca.net
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