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Wednesday, Nov 25, 2009
"Writer of O": Yes, Virginia, women can be perverts too
Pola Rapaport's "Writer of O" is an elegant but muddled affair, worth seeing despite (and maybe because of) its own split personality. It begins as if it's going to be a personal film; Rapaport evidently grew up in a New York family so sophisticated that her dad bought her older sister, who was 16 at the time, a copy of the S/M porn masterpiece "Story of O," which would become one of the 20th century's most celebrated literary mysteries.
Then Rapaport detours into a sort-of adaptation of the novel itself, in the restrained mode of "tasteful" European porn. This doesn't last long, thankfully. (In fact, a cheesy, arty film adaptation of "Story of O" already exists, made in 1975 with Corinne Clery in the title role and Udo Kier as her demanding lover, René.) Then "Writer of O" settles into a more comfortable mode, that of explaining how it was that Dominique Aury, a respectable, 40-something literary lady of mid-1950s Paris, became "Pauline Réage," author of one of the most notorious pornographic works in history.
As Rapaport's interviews reveal, even those close to the secret at Gallimard, the prestigious publisher where Aury worked, never guessed the secret. Albert Camus, who worked one floor below Aury, opined that no woman could have written such sadomasochistic filth; the fairer sex simply did not contemplate such things. "So much for Mediterranean psychology," one observer wryly notes. In fact, Aury's fable about a woman who willingly subjects herself to every cruelty her lover can devise was itself a love letter to a man she felt was slipping away, composed in bed at night -- with a pencil, so she wouldn't stain her linens with ink.
Rapaport interviews many survivors of that long-gone postwar Paris, and even manages a brief meeting with Aury herself, before the latter's death in the late '90s. Women harbor just as many forbidden sexual fantasies as men do, Aury suggests, and perhaps more. While it might be a stretch to call "Story of O" a feminist work, there can be no question that it set the female erotic imagination free as never before. On the other hand, nothing demonstrates the repression of women more clearly than the fact that Aury was never able to claim full ownership of one of the most challenging and influential novels -- not to mention one of the most avidly devoured -- of the last 100 years.
"Writer of O" is now playing at Film Forum in New York. It opens May 27 in Chicago, June 16 in Los Angeles, June 23 in San Francisco and June 30 in Boston.
"Double Dare": Stuntwomen, from "Wonder Woman" to "Xena" to "Kill Bill"
Something of a sleeper hit already, Amanda Micheli's "Double Dare" explores another dimension of feminism -- women who can kick your ass and whoever else's you want to bring along. Mind you, Jeannie Epper and Zoë Bell, the subjects of Micheli's documentary, are not really the belligerent type, although they're truly impressive physical specimens. Instead, they're two of the more prominent figures in the tiny alternate universe of Hollywood stuntwomen.
Epper is a grandma pushing 60, who refuses to give up her career. (Indeed, while Micheli is following her, she gets an eight-week gig on the set of "The Fast and the Furious 2.") Her big break came as Lynda Carter's stunt double on the '70s series "Wonder Woman," and since then she's been among the handful of women qualified to crash cars, jump off buildings and be thrown through windows while the cameras roll. Bell, a strapping Amazon from New Zealand, was a teenage athlete who just sort of fell into a job doubling Lucy Lawless, star of "Xena: Warrior Princess of the Universe."
There's not a lot more to "Double Dare" than that. After "Xena" folds up shop in Kiwiland, Bell comes to Hollywood and is halfway adopted by Epper (perhaps at Micheli's instigation). Although her first attempt at an American career washes out, Bell bounces back and Epper wangles her a big chance, an audition to be Uma Thurman's double in Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill." It wouldn't be fair to tell you more, but Micheli's film is an agreeable ride with these two salt-of-the-earth gals from opposite corners of the globe as they perform outrageous stunts and battle Hollywood sexism. It's a classic gal-pal movie, perfect for daughters, sisters, moms and the guys whose asses they kick.
"Double Dare" is now playing in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Bellingham, Wash., and Portland, Ore. It opens May 13 in Boston and Hartford, Conn., and May 20 in Minneapolis, Provincetown, Mass., and Salt Lake City.
