Fifties Horror Classic Mutates Anew
by Steven X. Rea
NASTASSIA KINSKI
doesn’t like whai she’s
been reading about
herself lately, particu
larly the business that
began after Tess re
garding her "un
canny,” "eerie" and
remarkable” resem
blance to the young Ingrid Bergman
"I really don't look like her at all," in
sists the 21 -year-old Berim-bom actress
about the sad-eyed screen star of Ca
uManca. Spellbound and Notorious
Still, as she ambles idly through the
cold, stoney, Gothic set of a 1901 New.
Orleans zoo on Stage 27 at Universal
Studios, kicking the toe of one penny
loafer against the heel of her other,
dressed in a simple skirt-and-sweater
combo, her hair cropped short and
straight, die similarities
arc hard to ig
nore Amidst the zoo's ominous
dreamscape of bas-relief animal
scenes, giant statues of perched panth
ers and urine-stained cages with real
live babboons and cats nervously pac
ing within, Nastassia Kinski exudes
something of the same quiet, innocent
sexuality tftat became such a box office
boon for the Swedish actress in the
Forties (but which Nastassia uses to
minimal advantage in One from the
Heart)
And it's that look of innocent sex
uality — whether it recalls Ingrid
Bergman or not — that is what Nastas
sia Kinski's character in Cat People is
all about. Directed by Paul Schrader
<American Gigolo, Hardcore, Blue Col
lar) and co-starring Malcolm
McDowell, John Heard, Annette
O'Toole and Ruby Dee, Cat People
draws its inspiration from Val New
ton's 1942 yam of the same name, a
low-budget scarte about a woman
(Simone Simon) who could turn her
self into a panther. But, as Schrader is
quick to point out, his version is any
thing but a remake. In fact, only one
scene—the dark, creepy swimming
bath episode — remains from
the original.
Kinski is Irena, a bright, lonely girl,
an orphan whose family history is
shrouded in mystery. She discovers
that she has a brother in New Orleans
— Paul (McDowell), a minister for
some vague pentecostal sea — and
travels there to live with him and his
housekeeper (Ruby Dee). McDowell,
as it turns out, is a cat person with
strong sexual urges towards his young
sister; John Heard, who plays Oliver,
an official at the zoo, (alls in love with
Nastassia; while Nastassia, attraaed to
Heard, discovers that she’s a cat per
son as well. The upshot of all this
being (hat the transformation from
human to ferocious feline is sparked
by sexual desire; the metamorphosis is
some sort of symbolic manifestation of
a fearsome primeval passion—sex that
literally turns man into an animal. As
Paul, trying to seduce his virginal sib
ling, tells Irena: “Each time it happens
you tell yourself it's love, but it isn’t.
It’s blood. It's death And you can’t be
free from the nightmare, except with
me. And I with you. I’ve waited so long
for you."
Pretty silly stuff, all right, but the way
Nastassia Kinski sees it, it’s also a dis
armingly simple “love story.” As she
waits between takes for Schrader and
cinematographer John Bailey (Ameri
can Gigolo, Ordinary People) to work
out the moves of an elaborate tracking
shot, Kinski leans against one of the
empty zoo cages and talks about the
sensuality of cats and how humans
have a cat-like side to their nature.
"This film is really about sexual awa
kening, and about true love. About
bringing out the cat in us all," she says.
As for Schrader — an intensely seri
ous film criticnurned-filmmaker whose
worldview has been shaped by a stria
Calvinist upbringing and years im
mersed in the flickering, shadowy re
cesses of movie theaters — he likes to
refer to Cat People as his “fun" movie.
“Not fun in terms of a movie like Ar
thur," Schrader explains, sitting in his
Prowler trailer (the Prowler logo,
coincidentally, is a cat), “but fun like a
play can be fun. We’re not dealing with
terribly important issues here — I
mean, they are terribly important but
we're not making a 'statement' that has
to be dealt with.”
Schrader confesses that he’s not
exattly sure how to categorize Cat
People: “To tell you the truth, I don’t
quite know what genre I’m working in
at this point. Certainly it’s not a horror
genre because it fulfills none of the
needs and has very few of the prem
ises of that. It's not a monster genre
because it doesn't intend to work
at that level. So, it’s more on a
level of erotic fantasy, with a
few elements of horror and
monstrosity thrown in, but
not to the extent where
they define the movie.
"ft’s nothing terribly
profound,” he con
tinues, "it’s just an ex
ploration into sexual
fantasy. Why these cer
tain images hold sway
over us — you know,
white horses and black
panthers — that Jungian
stuff. These images and
feelings that seem to be
inbred into the race. Cat
People just has fun playing
with those elements.”
Some of Schrader's “fun"
includes a prologue set in a
surreally orange desert that es
tablishes the legend of the cat
people via a tribal sacrifice of a
5-year-old girl. Schrader, grinning,
calls his opening sequence “a lot
of mystical hooey and mumbo
jumbo.” Then there’s the scene
where Ed Begley, Jr., who plays one of
Heard's zookeepers, starts washing
down a panther’s cage singing "What’s
New Pussycat.” What’s new is that the
pussycat’s about to have Begley for
lunch.
Certainly, Cat People is a departure
for Schrader. For one thing, it’s the
first film he's direaed that isn’t based
on his own screenplay. Alan Ormsby
(My Bodyguard) gets the credit for the
Cat People writing job, though
Schrader reports that the movie he’s
finishing up is “80 percent or more
different than the script 1 was first
handed " (Schrader says that both he
and Ormsby handled the rewrites.) As
for just being the hired-on dtreaor,
"Initially it was liberating," he explains,
“because I didn't feel like it was my
story or that I was a participant in the
film. But as I became more involved in
the story and found that in fact I was a
participant, I began to rewrite it more.
I began to relate to John Heard’s
character, so 1 expanded his role tre
mendously. Now I feel quite propriet
ary, quite personal about the film in a
way I didn’t when I began.”
Cat People also marks a major de
parture in style and mood for the
filmmaker. Gone is the hypjer- psycho
tic energy that permeated his scrip* of
Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver. Gone is
the downbeat, dour realism of Blue
Collar, the languid high-tech tones of
American Gigolo Along with
cinematographer Bailey and famed
production designer Ferdinando
Scarfiotti (The Conformist, Death in
Venice), Schrader has shap>ed a rich, il
lusory vision that resonates like some
come-to-life Symbolist painting.
“It’s far more non-verbal than any
thing I’ve done before,” says Schrader.
“It is not realistic, it is not street- ~
oriented. It finds its truth in sexual
fable and myth and fantasy. It’s more
magical, more stylized. The narrative is
defined within a kind of dream logic.”
Scarfiotti, who designed the spec
tacular vine-tangled Victorian zoo and
who, according to Schrader, practically
authored the op>ening desert scene
and Nastassia Kinski’s dream sequence,
was in fact essential to Schrader’s
character concept. “He was in my con
tract. When 1 agreed to do the movie I
put in a clause saying that if they' didn ’t
have him I didn’t have to do the
movie.
“I don’t know what film buffs are
going to make of this movie,” muses
Schrader as he puts on a blue blazer
and heads back to the soundstage. "It’s
going to be very hard for them to
make comparisons because there are
different characters, different settings,
different scenes, a different plot. But
the title’s the same,” he laughs. “All of
which is fine by me, since I never had
any intention of remaking the original
anyway.”
Probably because he is one himself,
Schrader seems esp>ecialfy concerned
with "film buffs" and critics and their
various reactions to his efforts. At Uni
versal's Alfred Hitchcock theater,
where Schrader was overseeing the
dubbing of some last minute scenes,
prints of some new matte effects for
the desert prologue were screened.
Joked Schrader, as he studied the exo
tic panorama on screen: “Now I have
to think of some horrible story for the
press. How it took us two long, terri- *r
ble weeks in Morocco to get this se
quence. How the Assistant Director
was kidnapped and we were trapped
in the mountains by a band of guerilla
soldiers.”
Whatever the press and the public’s
reaction to Cat People, Schrader is
proud of his $13 million erotic fantasy.
T've used this opportunity to heighten,
to improve my ability to tell stories
visually rather than literarily. And I **■
think I’ve got a winning hand."
Nastassia Kinski and Malcolm
McDcnvell (left) as brother and sister —
with more than the usual sibling
ties