Word: rafelsons
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...RAFELSON has a reputation for being another of those Hollywood renegades led by his own vision who refuses to take any stock in the more pervasive trends in the business. He's probably more a choreographer than a director, since he claims he likes to set up situations in which the acting evolves spontaneously. Maybe he really does know what he's doing--maybe his vision is unfailing--but somehow there's always this nagging incompleteness in his movies. The confidence of a genuine masterwork seems to seep out of Five Easy Pieces, but it's almost impossible to tell...
...Rafelson clearly knows the depth of Nicholson's talent because the camera is constantly moving in for those tiny flashes of expression that probably would have been lost with another director. This is one of the elements that makes the movie feel so masterful--Rafelson wants you to notice the facial ticks and pulsing veins in his quick close-ups. He is no less indulgent of Jessica Lange as she goes through her role of the petulant hellcat. Again and again. Rafelson sets up scenes that point to her vicious, fatal beauty, to give the sense that it is doomed...
...some respects, this extraordinary care is fatal to Rafelson. The movie could have been shot through cobwebs, with its muted, overcast tones. Every surface seems decayed, and he hovers over the details in his sets until the smallest of them seem laden with meaning. He approaches each seene as if they were miniatures in and of themselves, and they are often brilliant. The colors are all diffused to give the stylistic impression of the earlier noir films. But he seems to construct his films like a mosaic, and it results in a completely discordant sense of pace...
...Rafelson, however, refuses to let these betrayals unwind in their own frenetic fashion. Scenes of furious violence are undercut by his reluctance to leave the action before every angle has been explored. The result is a collection of brilliant scenes which don't seem to be related in time. Playwright David Mamet has taken most of the xenophobia and complication out of Cain's novel, and left in their places huge gaps for Rafelson to muse over. But one suspects Rafelson didn't even notice...
...What Rafelson ends up with, then, is a period piece, haunting in its intensity, but ultimately, distant and emotionless. We end up watching it like clinicians. Maybe disgust and rage really are apt subjects for nostalgia--and a lot would probably say that it's a good thing. But maybe that's what they really meant by the Big Sleep...