Rufus Collins | Through the Shattered Lens

Directed by Andy Warhol, 1964’s Soap Opera features a plot that largely plays out in silence.

The silent, grainy black-and-white footage depicts what appears to be a love triangle between Warhol associate Rufus Collins, Sam Green, Ivy Nicholson, Gerard Malanga, and “Baby Jane” Holzer. There’s a lot of kissing. There’s a lot of slapping. There’s a lot of scenes of our nameless characters giving each other suspicious and meaningful looks. At one point, Jane Holzer makes what appears to be a very important phone call. We don’t know who these people are or how they’re related but they certainly do seem to be intensely obsessed with each other. The situations grow progressively more and more sexual and one gets the feeling that, if we could only hear the dialogue, we would have a chance to vicariously take part in a great melodrama. Of course, the footage itself is so grainy that it’s sometimes hard to tell who is who. Indeed, the characters often seem to be interchangeable. That’s certainly true of real soap operas as well. With new actors regularly stepping into old roles and one story’s hero becoming the next story’s villain, soap operas were all about accepting whatever was presented on the screen. In real life, drama has real consequences. In Warhol’s film and on television, melodrama is just something that happens without any real repercussions.

Janes Holzer in Soap Opera

Fortunately, the film provides a few breaks from the repetitive cycle of nonstop, grainy drama. Sprinkled throughout the film are commercials breaks, featuring actual commercials that were supplied to Warhol by Lester Persky, an advertising executive who later found greater fame as a Broadway producer. (He produced Hair, amongst other productions.) In between scenes of Ivy Nicholson kissing Sam Green and Rufus Collins looking shocked, we get a serious of very happy and very loud commercials. Indeed, after watching the silent and grainy soap opera footage, it’s a bit jarring to have an expertly staged commercial suddenly blare forth in crisp black-and-white. An obnoxious salesman tries to sell us things to make our home better and our meals tastier. Jerry Lewis shows up with a child and tells us to be sure to contribute money to his telethon. Model Rosemary Kelly is introduced by an announcer who tells us that Rosemary is going to tell us about the greatest adventure of her life. That adventure? Not conditioning her hair for five days. Amazingly, her hair is still full and lustrous! Even after swimming and sleeping on it! Not even a broken steam valve can make her hair look bad! This commercial is so effective that it’s actually featured twice and why not? Even I want to know Rosemary’s secrets and my hair always looks good!

Rosemary Kelly in Soap Opera

Warhol subtitled this film The Lester Persky Story, both to thank Persky for supplying the commercials but also to point out that the commercials were really the whole point of the show. The plot of any show, whether it’s a real one or the one in Warhol’s film, really only exists to keep you watching long enough to see the commercials. And it must be said that the commercials are the most interesting part of this film. After watching the Soap Opera actors for ten minutes, it’s a relief when Rosemary Kelly appears and, with a big smile on her face, starts enthusiastically talking about her hair. We all complain about commercials but we still accept them as a fact of life and, in the end, it’s usually the commercials that people remember and try to pattern their lives after. I mean, there’s a reason why I’m still singing that “Nothing is everything” song from the Skyrizi commercials.

And now, let’s check out how Rosemary Kelly’s hair is doing in hurricane winds!

Rosemary Kelly in Soap Opera

“Bela Lugosi’s dead….” Peter Murphy sings at the start of 1983’s The Hunger and, in the case of this film, it’s as much of a challenge as a tribute.

Bela Lugosi and Dracula are gone, the film announces, and so is the old-fashioned vampire movie. Here’s a new look at an old favorite….

Of course, seen today, The Hunger doesn’t seem new. Since The Hunger‘s release, there’s been a countless number of films in which vampires have been decadent and chic aristocrats, hanging out in dark nightclubs and looking at the world with ennui-stricken eyes. By today’s standards, the stylish decadence of The Hunger can seem almost quaint. Much like Paul Schrader’s remake of Cat People, The Hunger is such a film of the 80s that you half-expect someone to offer you a line coke while you’re watching it. Also, like Cat People, it’s such a glorious tribute to excess that there’s no way you can’t watch it once it starts. It’s hypnotic in its excess.

In The Hunger, our vampires are Miriam Blaylock (Catherine Deneuve) and her lover, John (David Bowie). Miriam has been a vampire since at least the time of the ancient Egyptians. Rather than sinking her fangs into the necks of her victims, Miriam uses an Ankh pendant to slit their throats. John was once a cellist in 18th century France. Now, they live in an expensive New York townhouse, where they teach classical music and occasionally murder anyone that they can convince to come up to see them.

When they first met, Miriam promised John that he would have eternal life but she didn’t promise him eternal youth. Unfortunately, it takes 200 years for John to notice. When he starts to rapidly age, he seeks out aging expert Dr. Sarah Roberts (Susan Sarandon) for help. Though Dr. Roberts is originally dismissive of his claims, she is shocked to see John age several years in just an hour.

When an angry and desperate John kills the music student (Beth Ehlers) that Miriam was hoping to transform into her next lover, Miriam is forced to search elsewhere. When Sarah shows up, searching for the man who aged years in an hour, Miriam feels that her search may be over.

As one might expect from a film directed by Tony Scott, The Hunger is an extremely stylish film, to the extent that the film’s story is often secondary to the way that Scott chooses to tell it. The set design is so ornate and every scene is so precisely lit and shot and that, at times, the movie feels a bit like a commercial for vampirism. It’s easy to imagine Britney Spears singing “Work Bitch” in the background of some of the scenes. (“You want a hot body? You want a Bugatti? You Want a Maserati? You better work vamp.”) Throughout the film, New York glows like a neon wonderland while John and Miriam coolly look out over the world like 18th century French aristocrats who have no idea that they have a future date with the guillotine. At times, it’s a film that becomes almost ludicrous in its celebration of grandeur and style. One could imagine Jean Rollin telling the same story just as effectively while spending a lot less money.

And yet, it’s that very embrace of the over-the-top ludicrousness of it all that makes The Hunger a memorable film. The film’s a tribute to excess, with an ending that falters precisely because it attempts to reject precisely what it’s spent the past hour and a half celebrating. The Hunger doesn’t add up too much but its hypnotically stylish and well-acted by a cast who does their best to keep up with Tony Scott’s camera.