☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
Bad Timing (1980) – N. Roeg
Let’s face it, after the high-water marks of Walkabout
(1971) and Don’t Look Now (1973), director Nicolas Roeg never really made it as
an auteur (he also co-directed Perfomance, 1969, with Donald Cammell and served
as cinematographer for Lester, Schlesinger, Truffaut, others). This might be his last hurrah (though there
were other attempts to follow this theme to come). Perhaps following on from
the cut-up technique he used to edit the Julie Christie-Donald Sutherland sex scene
in Don’t Look Now, he used that technique for Bad Timing, although for the
entire film. Some reports suggest the film
was shot as a straightforward erotic thriller and only later sliced and diced (à
la William Burroughs) but I prefer to see it as a puzzle film, intended as
such. After Tom Waits’ “Invitation to the Blues” plays, we are in an ambulance
with Art Garfunkel tending to a comatose Theresa Russell (subsequent versions
of this scene include “Who Are You”). From there, we jump back and forth in
time across their (intense) relationship. It’s an “opposites attract” scenario
with free spirited Russell living in the moment and Freudian psychotherapy
professor Garfunkel trying to control her. In keeping with Garfunkel’s
occupation, sex and death are the main themes here, but it isn’t clear who is
unravelling more as the film “progresses” (or just as more details are added to
beginning, middle, and end). At some point,
we realise that Harvey Keitel is actually a police detective investigating
whether any malfeasance has taken place on the night that Russell was sent to
the hospital and suspicion rests on Garfunkel. Things do conclude with a
revelation and I guess that cements the feeling that both characters are equally
damaged by this oil-and-water affair. But the reason to watch this film (if you
are fully prepared) is for the madness and intensity and brave acting by both
Russell (who subsequently married Roeg) and Garfunkel (previously in Carnal
Knowledge, 1971, another risky choice) who don’t shy away from nakedness
(physical or emotional). Reviews suggest
this is polarizing (no surprise).
