Village of the damned
Celebrate January 11:
International Showgirls Day!
Above: Elizabeth Berkley (Click to enlarge.)
Asked in an interview what films and filmmakers he admires, director Jacques Rivette said something I didn’t expect to hear:
“I've seen [Starship Troopers] twice and I like it a lot, but I prefer Showgirls (1995), one of the great American films of the last few years. It's Verhoeven's best American film and his most personal. In Starship Troopers, he uses various effects to help everything go down smoothly, but he's totally exposed in Showgirls. It's the American film that's closest to his Dutch work. It has great sincerity, and the script is very honest, guileless. It's so obvious that it was written by Verhoeven himself rather than Mr. Eszterhas, who is nothing. And that actress is amazing! Like every Verhoeven film, it's very unpleasant: it's about surviving in a world populated by assholes, and that's his philosophy. Of all the recent American films that were set in Las Vegas, Showgirls was the only one that was real — take my word for it. I who have never set foot in the place!”
The image of Rivette, creator of such modest, low-key works as La Belle noiseuse (1991) and La Bande des quatre (1988), enthralled by one of Verhoeven’s frenzied, mega-budgeted popcorn movies seems strange…until you realize the qualities shared by the people in their films. One step out of reality, wandering in a fog of wishes and ideals, they’re dismayed over the prospect of a life in banality. Rivette often deals in actors or painters or magicians or spirits for his characters; Verhoeven’s are the intolerant, aggressive bourgeoisie, often the products of caustic, unfriendly environments, people who know where the guns are hidden and how to use them, and rarely with a concern for consequence. Call it the cinema of impulse.
After doing some intriguing work in his native Netherlands, Verhoeven proved his box office mojo in American action fare: Robocop (1987), Total Recall (1990), and Basic Instinct (1992). He made a fortune, and was the best thing that ever happened to Sharon Stone. Total Recall benefits enormously from her haughty sensuality, as does Basic Instinct, Verhoeven’s first unabashed foray into glossy kitsch with an ice pick at its center. Both of her characters exemplify the adolescent male fear of independent, mature, beautiful women as vampires, using the promise of sex to drain the life from men who are, to the director’s understanding, innocent and hapless victims of circumstance.
When casting was underway for Showgirls Sharon was approaching forty — some fifteen years (and a few pounds) beyond the film’s naïve, star-struck lap dancer Nomi Malone. The part went to statuesque wetdream Elizabeth Berkley, Sharon Stone Lite. All things considered, she does remarkably well in the role. (Up to that point, her biggest gig was the TV show Saved By the Bell.) Seemingly oblivious to such overripe dialogue as “You look better than a ten inch dick,” Berkley’s completely immersed in the vacuous persona, even poignant at times, often charging like a bull in a china shop to points beyond the Method. A total fantasy figure, her Nomi maintains a radiant complexion and a firm twenty-inch waist on a steady diet of cheese fries, potato chips and Big Macs — undoubtedly Eszterhas’s kind of woman.
There’s nothing inappropriate about the character as far as Verhoeven’s punch-drunk Vegas is concerned. Less a realist than a caricaturist, he milks the setting as a microcosm of consumerist decadence rotting from its own avarice and adrenaline. There’s no doubt that this was unintentional, since he’s admitted to approaching the script from a radically different perspective (in an interview supplied on the DVD, Verhoeven claims that it’s “a musical”), but Showgirls is littered with the sins of contemporary Sodom underlined by thumping Wagnerian techno pop.
The media-fueled preoccupation with youth and appearance, gluttony and expensive toys, the loathing of middle-income people (characters here either own mansions or live in trailers)…greed, power, fleeting success, ego, vanity, manipulation, instant gratification…to say nothing of ferocious acrobatic sex that would land most of us in the hospital…these sundry elements permeate Eszterhas’s ludicrous scenario, which draws liberally from the well of 1940’s and 50’s backstage melodrama — specifically All About Eve (1950), this time with an exotic dancer gyrating her way up the ladder, stepping over the bodies in stiletto heels.
It was slapped with an NC-17 rating for nudity and simulated sex in its cheesy stage shows and austere dance numbers. Berkley and Gina Gershon (playing the Bette Davis part) look fabulous in and out of their clothes, but the pounding repetition of bare, wrinkle-free skin punches lust and desire into numbness. Lacking the acumen for successful and stimulating erotica, Verhoeven manages to flatten their magnificent physiques into meat. Clenched facial expressions, hyperactivity and the arrogant sense of entitlement euphemistically called “attitude,” so fashionable in the 90’s and prevalent among the pinched and modish cast, sours the senses, causing physical beauty and the mere thought of sex to seem vulgar and redundant. (Not that it’s completely asexual: Berkley’s lap dance with Kyle MacLachlan and the lesbian tease sessions with Gershon do have their moments.)
A case of the dragon consuming itself by the tail, Showgirls transcends the limitations normally set by genre and dramatic convention — and comes to embody every foul, odious thing it professes to abhor. That it evolves into a compelling (and very funny) reflection of western culture spiraling out of control for lack of dignity and shame was surely an accident. The picture was a box office bomb, killed by its MPAA rating and the reluctance of exhibitors to show it, causing Berkley’s film career to go south and sending Verhoeven back to the boot camp sci-fi of Starship Troopers. However, when Showgirls won a ‘Razzie’ award for worst picture, Verhoeven was on hand to collect the prize…even he thought it sucked. Perhaps too myopic to see, he may be unable to fathom it as an indictment of culture tainted by the very boorishness that made films like Total Recall and Basic Instinct hits.
Showgirls Trivia Contest: In a nightclub scene in the film, a DJ plays a 1990’s dance mix that borrows music from the soundtrack of what 1960’s movie? Send your answers here, with “Showgirls contest” in the subject box. Prizes will go to the first three correct responses. (Prizes will be sent only to addresses in North America.) Please have responses in by January 18; answers will be posted on January 20.
Furthermore…
Bloggers celebrating International Showgirls Day:
The Whine Colored Sea
Girish
Fagistan
Drifting
Obsolete Vernacular
Long Pauses
Hell on Frisco Bay
Elusive Lucidity
Cinephiliac
When Canses were Classeled
Supposed Aura
Nilblogette
Coffee, Coffee, and More Coffee
Cinematical
Video Watchblog
GreenCine Daily
Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule
Bitter Cinema
Self-Styled Siren
…and…
Official site
IMDb
Showgirls screen grabs
Gina Gershon gallery
Buy from Amazon:
Or check out the “VIP Limited Edition”:
International Showgirls Day!
Above: Elizabeth Berkley (Click to enlarge.)
Showgirls (1995 — 131 min. — UA) Directed by Paul Verhoeven. Written by Joe Eszterhas. Cinematography by Jost Vacano. Edited by Mark Goldblatt and Mark Helfrich. Starring Elizabeth Berkley, Kyle MacLachlan, Gina Gershon, Robert Davi, and Lin Tucci as Henrietta ‘Mama’ Bazoom.
“I've seen [Starship Troopers] twice and I like it a lot, but I prefer Showgirls (1995), one of the great American films of the last few years. It's Verhoeven's best American film and his most personal. In Starship Troopers, he uses various effects to help everything go down smoothly, but he's totally exposed in Showgirls. It's the American film that's closest to his Dutch work. It has great sincerity, and the script is very honest, guileless. It's so obvious that it was written by Verhoeven himself rather than Mr. Eszterhas, who is nothing. And that actress is amazing! Like every Verhoeven film, it's very unpleasant: it's about surviving in a world populated by assholes, and that's his philosophy. Of all the recent American films that were set in Las Vegas, Showgirls was the only one that was real — take my word for it. I who have never set foot in the place!”
The image of Rivette, creator of such modest, low-key works as La Belle noiseuse (1991) and La Bande des quatre (1988), enthralled by one of Verhoeven’s frenzied, mega-budgeted popcorn movies seems strange…until you realize the qualities shared by the people in their films. One step out of reality, wandering in a fog of wishes and ideals, they’re dismayed over the prospect of a life in banality. Rivette often deals in actors or painters or magicians or spirits for his characters; Verhoeven’s are the intolerant, aggressive bourgeoisie, often the products of caustic, unfriendly environments, people who know where the guns are hidden and how to use them, and rarely with a concern for consequence. Call it the cinema of impulse.
After doing some intriguing work in his native Netherlands, Verhoeven proved his box office mojo in American action fare: Robocop (1987), Total Recall (1990), and Basic Instinct (1992). He made a fortune, and was the best thing that ever happened to Sharon Stone. Total Recall benefits enormously from her haughty sensuality, as does Basic Instinct, Verhoeven’s first unabashed foray into glossy kitsch with an ice pick at its center. Both of her characters exemplify the adolescent male fear of independent, mature, beautiful women as vampires, using the promise of sex to drain the life from men who are, to the director’s understanding, innocent and hapless victims of circumstance.
When casting was underway for Showgirls Sharon was approaching forty — some fifteen years (and a few pounds) beyond the film’s naïve, star-struck lap dancer Nomi Malone. The part went to statuesque wetdream Elizabeth Berkley, Sharon Stone Lite. All things considered, she does remarkably well in the role. (Up to that point, her biggest gig was the TV show Saved By the Bell.) Seemingly oblivious to such overripe dialogue as “You look better than a ten inch dick,” Berkley’s completely immersed in the vacuous persona, even poignant at times, often charging like a bull in a china shop to points beyond the Method. A total fantasy figure, her Nomi maintains a radiant complexion and a firm twenty-inch waist on a steady diet of cheese fries, potato chips and Big Macs — undoubtedly Eszterhas’s kind of woman.
Above: In any other film dealing with deceit and subterfuge, this image could stir up all manner of metaphysical ramification. In Showgirls, she’s simply putting on her makeup. (Click to enlarge.)
There’s nothing inappropriate about the character as far as Verhoeven’s punch-drunk Vegas is concerned. Less a realist than a caricaturist, he milks the setting as a microcosm of consumerist decadence rotting from its own avarice and adrenaline. There’s no doubt that this was unintentional, since he’s admitted to approaching the script from a radically different perspective (in an interview supplied on the DVD, Verhoeven claims that it’s “a musical”), but Showgirls is littered with the sins of contemporary Sodom underlined by thumping Wagnerian techno pop.
The media-fueled preoccupation with youth and appearance, gluttony and expensive toys, the loathing of middle-income people (characters here either own mansions or live in trailers)…greed, power, fleeting success, ego, vanity, manipulation, instant gratification…to say nothing of ferocious acrobatic sex that would land most of us in the hospital…these sundry elements permeate Eszterhas’s ludicrous scenario, which draws liberally from the well of 1940’s and 50’s backstage melodrama — specifically All About Eve (1950), this time with an exotic dancer gyrating her way up the ladder, stepping over the bodies in stiletto heels.
It was slapped with an NC-17 rating for nudity and simulated sex in its cheesy stage shows and austere dance numbers. Berkley and Gina Gershon (playing the Bette Davis part) look fabulous in and out of their clothes, but the pounding repetition of bare, wrinkle-free skin punches lust and desire into numbness. Lacking the acumen for successful and stimulating erotica, Verhoeven manages to flatten their magnificent physiques into meat. Clenched facial expressions, hyperactivity and the arrogant sense of entitlement euphemistically called “attitude,” so fashionable in the 90’s and prevalent among the pinched and modish cast, sours the senses, causing physical beauty and the mere thought of sex to seem vulgar and redundant. (Not that it’s completely asexual: Berkley’s lap dance with Kyle MacLachlan and the lesbian tease sessions with Gershon do have their moments.)
A case of the dragon consuming itself by the tail, Showgirls transcends the limitations normally set by genre and dramatic convention — and comes to embody every foul, odious thing it professes to abhor. That it evolves into a compelling (and very funny) reflection of western culture spiraling out of control for lack of dignity and shame was surely an accident. The picture was a box office bomb, killed by its MPAA rating and the reluctance of exhibitors to show it, causing Berkley’s film career to go south and sending Verhoeven back to the boot camp sci-fi of Starship Troopers. However, when Showgirls won a ‘Razzie’ award for worst picture, Verhoeven was on hand to collect the prize…even he thought it sucked. Perhaps too myopic to see, he may be unable to fathom it as an indictment of culture tainted by the very boorishness that made films like Total Recall and Basic Instinct hits.
Above: After it tanked in its initial run, United Artists tried hawking Showgirls as a so-bad-it’s-good attraction on the midnight show circuit, but no one was buying it.
Bloggers celebrating International Showgirls Day:
The Whine Colored Sea
Girish
Fagistan
Drifting
Obsolete Vernacular
Long Pauses
Hell on Frisco Bay
Elusive Lucidity
Cinephiliac
When Canses were Classeled
Supposed Aura
Nilblogette
Coffee, Coffee, and More Coffee
Cinematical
Video Watchblog
GreenCine Daily
Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule
Bitter Cinema
Self-Styled Siren
…and…
Official site
IMDb
Showgirls screen grabs
Gina Gershon gallery
Buy from Amazon:
Or check out the “VIP Limited Edition”:
posted by Ray Young at
7:33 AM
8 Comments:
Epic, passionate piece of movie-love, Flickhead.
I dig it so.
That Rivette quote blows my mind, but as soon as I read it, it made complete sense. His actresses often seem to be acting for the stage rather than screen, their moods are erratic, they act largely like children, and he loves the metaphysical show within a show where there is no reality. His characters also give the same importance to everyday things like eating as they do to the plot points - I prefer Berkley and her roommate's all-in-good-fun argument about which bitch ate the last of the potato chips over the famous "brown rice and veggies" quote.
Jacques Rivette said that? Well I never. Not that I follow his work, I did really like 'Celine and Julie go boating' though...
'Showgirls' was totally panned in UK on initial release, until you mentioned it I didn't even know anyone liked it let alone there was something of a cult building. I must try and watch it.
The mirror screencap (or still) is fantastic. I considered mentioning the mirrors in the first Cristal-Nomi scene, another example of self-conscious Sirkism on Verhoeven's part.
"so obvious that it was written by Verhoeven himself rather than Mr. Eszterhas, who is nothing..."
Having read about how Eszterhas nurtured this project and treated the script like it was Long Day's Journey Into Night, I have to say I would LOVE to hear his reaction to that!
Do you also think it's Verhoeven's script? a little "Raising Showgirls" instead of "Raising Kane," perhaps?
Hugely enjoyable post. Your caption for the mirror screen cap is hilarious. I eagerly await news of what your new banner does for your site traffic. :D
I'm just digging all the love for Berkley's performance in the film, though I'll admit it's taken me a long time to come around to it myself (unlike lust-at-first-sight with Cristal Connors).
Even if one previously-unenlightened soul out there sees the film in this new light after reading today's posts, we've achieved something special.
Siren, consider me momentarily exhausted on Showgirls. I'd love to do a "Raising..." piece, were it not for raging bull Eszterhas. I simply couldn't handle that much torque.
Didn't he also write the screenplay for Sliver? As I recall, that was the best film Roman Polanski never made.
The Sirk comparisons seem, at the very best, convenient to me. But such a critical approach could drag on indefinitely. I'm sure a case could be made for Showgirls as an extension of Nick Ray as well.
Nilblogette, as for Rivette, I agree with your comparisons. There is the sense of (often misdirected) anger in some of his characters, notably two or three of the acting students in La Bande des quatre, Sandrine Bonnaire in the excellent Secret défense, Emmanuelle Béart in La Belle noiseuse (with Jane Birkin trapped in suppression), the conspiring ghosts of Céline et Julie vont en bateau, Laurence Côte's character in Haut bas fragile, and Jeanne Balibar's percolating actress in Va savoir. They are really not all that different in temperament from Nomi Malone.
*smacks forehead* I forgot Nicholas Ray!!!
I saw Ray's Party Girl last year. Now THAT film has some real points of comparison with Showgirls, now that I think of it.
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