Apologizes to Film Society

 

Unaccustomed as I am to apologizing publicly for my occasional erratic behavior, I must perforce extend just such an apology to most of the audience of the Film Society screening of Blow Out at 2:00 on Sat. Aug. 1.

What I despise in unruly audiences, what I have inveighed against more than once in these pages and in our theater…I was guilty of myself.

Three-quarters of the way through that Brian De Palma film, without even realizing I was doing it, I leaped up and began shouting and—at the top of my voice—stalked out of the theater. It was reprehensible behavior, and I am heartily ashamed of myself for it. That I was totally unaware of what I was doing, that I was impelled by my loathing of the brutalization of women that film contains, is no excuse. It was a visceral reaction and I lost control completely. Not until I’d driven home, still trembling with disgust and anger, was my friend Jane able to tell me what I’d been screaming.

I had no recollection of the words. But Jane tells me this is what I shouted:

“Jesus Christ! Another sick De Palma film…I should’ve known!” (At that point I hit the aisle.)

“The man is sick, the man is twisted.” (At that point the audience was laughing.) “Next come the mindless eviscerations and anatomy lessons!” (By that time I was out the door.)

Don Segall (the writer, not the director) followed me out and was justifiably annoyed at my behavior. He upbraided me, saying, “If you don’t like the films you ought to resign from the Film Society,” to which I responded in a blind fury, “Resign from the Society, fer chrissakes, I’m one of the ones who picks these goddam films!”

John Considine and his lady, and a few others, followed my example and came out also. They did it quietly. I’m told that of the several thousand attendees of the various screenings, only 16 walkouts were logged. I guess that distresses me almost as much as my own uncontrolled actions.

My revulsion at Blow Out stemmed, in large part, from a carryover abhorrence of De Palma’s previous exercise in woman-hatred, Dressed to Kill, which we also screened at the Film Society; and from my growing awareness that these movies are more elegantly mounted examples of what has come to be known as the genre of “knife-kill flicks.”

My gorge grew more buoyant as Blow Out progressed, pressured by a column I had written just a few days earlier on the knife-kill phenomena.

As a member of the Film Society Committee (and I hope a responsible member), I have brought the matter of these films to the attention of my fellow committeemen. It is my feeling that we must reappraise the manner in which we select films for the members to see. I am dead against censorship of any kind. Nonetheless, we do select the films for the Society, from those available to us with considerations of play-dates and the other strictures put on us by the studios; and as we would opt not to show a film we knew in advance was a dog, it seems to me well within the bounds of our selection process that we should pay some attention to the advisability of showing films that pander to less than noble instincts in an audience.

Ostensibly, it is the main purpose of the Society to offer to the members those films that will be of benefit in the pursuance of our craft. Even stinko films can serve that end, if only to proffer warning. But as we would not screen a film we knew to be a certified, card carrying disaster…so, I feel, we should demonstrate restraint in showing films that consciously, gratuitously debase the human spirit.

If members of the Society wish to go to commercial theaters and pay their money to see films of this nature, all well and good. But we ought to have higher standards.

As a craftsman who works seriously at the holy chore of screen writing, I think it’s time we examined more responsibly the nature of the cheapjack predators prowling through our industry, for whom we have to bear the brunt of censure from the New Puritans, the Moral Majority nuts and the self-styled viewers-with-alarm who want us to pre-censor what we write.

All of us get tarred by the brush, every time another woman gets an icepick in her eye in the course of one of these films.

—Harlan Ellison