Word: cora
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...goes the novel, with the collision force of mean men's fists or lovers' thighs. Chapter One: Frank and Cora meet. Two: they make big bloody love. Three: they plot the murder of her husband Nick. Four: the murder attempt fails. Five: they set out for a life on the road, then split. Six: Frank returns to her. Seven: this time they do kill Nick. Eight: they make love over his corpse. Nine: they are charged with his murder. Ten, Eleven, Twelve ... In bold, remorseless strokes, and fewer than 100 pages, James M. Cain etched a portrait...
...verismo of Luchino Visconti's 1942 Ossessione and the platinum-blinded glitz of the 1946 version starring John Garfield and Lana Turner to concentrate on a purposefully paced retelling of Cain's story. It means to calibrate every movement in the desperate mating dance of Frank and Cora, "these unspeakably stupid, very simple people, filled with guile and tenderness." That is Director Rafelson's phrase, spoken without contempt for his characters but with an understanding of their selfish, consuming needs. Though Nick's café is just a short drive from Hollywood, Cora knows the only...
Rafelson makes handsome, careful movies (Five Easy Pieces, The King of Marvin Gardens) about outcasts fighting a system all too ready to ignore them. At times, his Postman is too handsome, too careful: Rafelson caresses every ladder in Cora's stockings, every crescent of dirt under Frank's fingernails, until they become aspects of art direction. Jack Nicholson's performance as Frank is studied too. The dashing star of a decade ago has dared to inhabit the molting seediness of the character actor. So Cora must choose between two middle-aged galoots: one offers her security...
...Cain saw it, woman was the temptress, and Cora was a wailing siren -Circe in a highway diner. Jessica Lange's Cora is trapped, no less than Nick and Frank, by the grim imperatives of the Depression and her search for the deepest sense of identity through sex. The actress's presence and gestural eloquence provided Rafelson with this point of focus: Cora knows who she is and what men will do to possess her. A fraternity of appraising eyes follows her on the streets, in court, at the diner. One managing, sad-faced, respectably poor-emerges from...
...Cora G. Chase Vaughn, Wash...