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SEEKING
October 18, 2006
Rev: March 7, 2009
"Desperately Seeking Susan" (1985)
A story of an escape from an
inauthentic suburban existance
to that land of thrills and
excitement: New York!
Specifically, the gritty/grubby
bohemian underground of New
York of the early 1980s. This is a near perfect movie: everything
fits together really tightly.
You will not "get" the movie if
you're not in sympathy with the The telephone: ugly beige
subculture of urban hipsters. plastic crudely decorated
with sea shells glued all
The mistaken identity farce over it.
is just the vehicle, This movie
fundamentally the movie had a very Strutting down St. Marks
is an assertion of tribal long run at Place, there's a glimpse of
identity: the Bleeker the "Trash & Vaudeville"
Street Cinema neon sign in the background.
The superiority of an edgy, in the
funky, urban existance to Village: a Susan's suitcase is very
the clean, orderly, safe character in strange: round and stenciled
lines of suburbia. the movie with a skull motif. Ah:
works as a the band's van is painted
projectionist in the same way: It was a
The reason the highly there. drumcase, most likely
unlikely plot device of stolen from the band.
"amnesia" works here is that
it's so psychologically
plausible: Roberta is
someone who really doesn't She would much
want to be herself any more. rather be Susan
Or she *thinks*
she would:
Susan is glorified,
but not sanitized:
Fun to be with, but
watch your back.
The dialog -- if you think about it a
little -- is nearly all multipurpose:
they wring all the meaning they can out
of the words, with very little waste. Perhaps: "Every
scene is a WHATNOT
necessary scene"?
Even the music -- some of which
is a little obvious and cheesy -- Even that
works well in context. one Madonna
track they use.
An oddity: no one
uses public transit. A complaint I have
about Woody Allen's
Ah, not completely true: "Manhattan" as well.
Susan arrives at 42nd St
by bus from New Jersey. MANHATTAN_WOODY
Another oddity,
Consider that Susan gets in trouble and probably one
trying to stiff a cab driver when of the reasons I
she has no cash: why not use the like the movie, is DRUGS
subway, hopping a turnstile if that most of the
necessary? drug use has been
sanitized away.
Susan is being followed by Roberta doesn't have
Roberta, and the scene jumps a heavy valium habit.
from Battery Park to St. Marks
Place. That's quite a distance Jimmie never complains
to just walk: around 3 miles. about Susan fucking for
cocaine.
Well, maybe: Susan is in
no hurry at that point. The girls don't
She hasn't been in town smoke dope with Though there's
in a while. their pizza. one scene where
Susan pulls out
Certainly I've been In this one a joint.
known to walk further respect, the
than that in Manhatten. 80s scene has
been cleaned
up a bit.
I have heard Villon
complain that the farce
form really requires a
more madcap ending.
The mistaken identity VILLON
is supposed to produce
an explosion, here it
just fizzles "Huh? No,
that's not *my* Susan." Maybe the author thought
that was too cliched?
The finish is
absolutely
perfect though:
As Roberta and Susan The cameos:
meet face-to-face at
last, Susan is in Arto Lindsay
trouble, but Roberta Ann Magnuson
thinks fast, rises to Richard Hell
the occasion and conks FIRST_PUNKS
the bad guy over the
head with the Richard Hell has
traditional bottle. a non-speaking role
as a corpse.
Susan immediately
realizes who Roberta Type-casting...
is, smiles and remarks:
"Nice going, Stranger". (But his favorite
drug gets no mention.)
Roberta has made it.
She's crossed over
into another world. And escaped
New Jersey.
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