Stay As You Are (1978)

          Were this film stripped of its trappings as a European art piece, it would stand revealed as the salacious story of a middle-aged man who cheats on his wife with a troubled young woman, even though circumstantial evidence suggests he might be the young woman’s father. Yes, Stay As You Are tackles the serious issues of adultery, betrayal, and incest by way of a glossy presentation that extensively showcases costar Nastassja Kinski sans clothing. Stay As You Are is a fairly credible movie, inasmuch as the philandering protagonist experiences an existential crisis, so it’s not as if the filmmakers pat him on the back for sleeping with his maybe-daughter. Still, despite a romantic score by Ennio Morricone and a jaunty performance by leading man Marcello Mastraoianni, Kinski’s formidable sexual power is the focus. She’s mesmerizing whenever she’s onscreen, whether dressed or not, even though her performance is tentative.

          Cowritten and directed by Alberto Lattuada, Stay As You Are stars Mastroianni as Giulio, an Italian architect who meets a schoolgirl named Francesca (Kinski) while traveling on business. Despite learning that he knew Francesca’s late mother and therefore might be her biological father, Giulio hides his suspicions from the young woman even as she flirts with him—and even as he (weakly) resists his lust for her. After the movie’s turgid middle passage, during which Giulio faces various family issues (“A frigid wife, a whoring husband, a pregnant daughter, and now an abortion for the grand finale!”), Giulio succumbs to temptation by taking Francesca to a hotel in Madrid for sex—lots and lots of sex. Francesca turns out to be a piece of work, at one point serving Giulio a cup filled with her own urine, and the story eventually moves in a bittersweet direction.

          Beyond its questionable psychosexual content, Stay As You Are has a few genuine cinematic virtues. The naturalistic cinematography by José Luis Alcaine is quite beautiful (some shots of Kinski, her long hair illuminated by the sun, are breathtaking), and Lattuada generates rich atmosphere with scenes of the artist-refuge neighborhood where Kinski’s character lives with an equally nubile roommate, who also, inexplicably, tries to seduce Mastraoinnani’s character. (The degree of male wish-fulfillment on display here is extraordinary.) In the end, Stay As You Are is probably half legitimate drama and half sex fantasy, which means it’s neither disposable softcore nor a truly lofty rumination on desire. It’s a grown-up movie that most viewers will seek out only for the purpose of reveling in Kinski’s beauty. (Available from www.CultEpics.com)

Stay as You Are: FUNKY

Tess (1979)

          Given director Roman Polanski’s tumultuous rise and fall during the late ’60s and early ’70s—securing an enviable reputation as a master of suspense films, reaching the A-list with Chinatown (1974), becoming an international pariah following a sex scandal—it was reasonable to expect that he would close out the decade with the kind of perverse cinematic statement for which he was known. Instead, Polanski made Tess, an old-fashioned romantic drama culled from classic literature. Whether inadvertently or strategically, Polanski (somewhat) neutralized his critics by delivering a movie almost completely devoid of any allusions to his lurid life. This maneuver also set the stage for the second act of the Polish-born filmmaker’s career: Exit the enfant terrible, enter the sophisticated classicist. Tess is filmed with the same clinical detachment as his previous pictures, but the movie represents a significant maturation since it is not predicated on shock value.

          Adapted from Thomas Hardy’s 1891 novel Tess of the d’Urbervilles, which is about a principled young woman who falls victim to callous men and unforgiving social structures, the movie is set in Victorian England. Tess Durbeyfield (Nastassja Kinski) is the daughter of a drunkard laborer, and she seems doomed to a life of back-breaking servitude. When Tess’ father discovers that his family is related to the noble d’Urberville line, Tess is sent to find a position in the household of a local branch of the D’Urberville clan. Thus she meets Alec Stokes-d’Urberville (Leigh Lawson), a cad who seduces and abandons her, unaware that she’s become pregnant. The unbowed Tess delivers the child, who dies soon after, and then Tess tries to restart her life as a fallen woman. Love comes when she meets wealthy Angel Clare (Peter Firth), who has not yet chosen his path in life, but Tess’ past returns to haunt her in unexpected ways.

          The narrative underlying Tess is sturdy, of course, though it’s curious that Polanski stretches the film over nearly three hours when the story could easily have been told in much less time. Tess is a film of painful pauses and saturated silences, as the texture of the movie stems as much from what is unsaid as from what is said. Paradoxically, the film is also rather blunt, featuring dialogue that explains the emotional states of characters more explicitly than is necessary. (“You’re so good and gentle,” Angel says to Tess at one point, “I was mad to fear your resentment.”) The nature of the dialogue is, of course, defensible because Polanski and co-screenwriters Gerard Brach and John Brownjohn were writing about a more formal time, but the wordiness can make for some slow going.

          Similarly, Polanski’s tendency to linger on moments rides a fine line between creating nuance and practicing directorial self-indulgence; although most of the film’s shots are indeed quite beautiful, it’s as if Polanski couldn’t bear to cut a frame. In the end, this more-is-more aesthetic works in the movie’s favor, because Tess casts a spell. Tess is such a showpiece for Polanski’s wizardry, in fact, that the film’s performances seem incidental.

          Firth and Lawson deliver their lines professionally, and both incarnate snobbish entitlement, but neither does work that merits any great excitement. As for leading lady Kinski, her beguiling looks are unquestionably the focus. Simultaneously delicate and feral, she’s a walking personification of innocence blended with sexuality. Her accent wobbles, however, so in some moments she sounds French and in others she sounds German. Furthermore, it seems Polanski guided her to present blank expressions so the context of his storytelling could impart meaning on the canvas of her face. Like the movie’s excessive length, this approach ultimately delivers effective results. Still, a more emotional performance would have generated real dramatic heat.

Tess: GROOVY

To the Devil . . . a Daughter (1976)

It was probably inevitable that the folks at Hammer Films would produce a movie in the vein of Rosemary’s Baby (1968), because nothing screams Hammer like the lurid intersection of sex and supernatural thrills. Unfortunately, To the Devil . . . A Daughter lacks the comic-book fun of the best Hammer flicks—it’s a ploddingly serious psychodrama hampered by indifferent leading performances. And because certain scenes push the boundaries of good taste in terms of displaying nubile flesh, the whole endeavor feels needlessly sleazy. Therefore, even though director Peter Sykes mounts a generally handsome production, with sleek camerawork by the great David Watkin and several atmospheric locations, the cons outweigh the pros. Richard Widmark stars as John Verney, a supernatural expert recruited by worried dad Henry Beddows (Denholm Elliot) to look after Henry’s teenaged daughter, Catherine (Nastassja Kinski), who has spent years cloistered with a mysterious religious organization in Europe. Long story short, it turns out the head of the organization, Father Michael Rayner (Christopher Lee), is a Satanist grooming Catherine for some sort of unholy union with a demon. Verney attempts to save Catherine. The saucy plot could have worked, but Widmark seems so bored that he sucks the life out of every scene he’s in, while Lee—as always, more interesting as a physical presence than as an actor—merely glowers like he’s making one of his interchangeable Dracula movies. In the absence of dynamic leading performances, all eyes turn to Kinski’s exotic beauty. Had she been cast as an innocent whose sexual power was merely implied, Kinski could have justified the movie’s existence with her innately beguiling qualities. Instead, the filmmakers went too far and displayed the actress fully nude, despite the fact that she was a minor at the time of filming. Toying with the erotic implications of a provocative story is one thing, but brazenly showcasing a child as a sex object is putrid.

To the Devil . . . a Daughter: LAME