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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 1, 1990)
30 V Novmfccr 1990v )u«<owt / entertainment So good it should be better , Film shows considerable courage but misses the mark on a few points ▼ hilip K aufm an’s Henry &. June is such an intelligent, well-crafted film that to be at all critical seems like perverse, self- indulgent nit-picking. B ut the fact that it is so very good makes one wish for that extra push to propel both feet to land the m ark. I suspect th a t K a u fm a n has struck his ow n com p ro m ise b etw een a film so literary that only folks w ith e n la rg e d b ra in p an s w ould attend, and a - film so avant garde £ C H A R D F R A N C I S (in relation to our cultural main-stream) that it would land a X X X and only be seen by lonely old men in raincoats who watch with newspapers rattling nois ily on their laps. O r both. But not the public-at-large. Well, Kaufman has attracted the public-at-large, and his fusion is sublime; but his compromise is more than a touch misleading. T herefore. . . my quibbles. The title is misleading, to begin with, but that leads to more. Henry <t June has little to do, really, with Henry and June Miller, as Henry, and then June, would venture into Paris where he could seriously pursue his literary career as the writer who would push the boundaries of sexual taboos in literature like no other in the 20th century. Henry & June is actu ally about Anais Nin, the m uch m ore significant writer whose diaries and writings were the source for this film. Nin was to m eet and have substantial in tellectual, emotional and sexual encounters with both husband and wife while she was also married to her P husband, Hugo. Both the title and the film suggest Henry and June Miller as major catalysts on N in’s road to self-discovery, breaking out o f her shell. But Nin was already well down the road she would take with her writing and her life. N or was her quest so firmly on as the film suggests by omission. egocentric This shift in the film’s focus m ight seem subtle, but is m y m ajor quibble: Are w e going to see a woman who takes action, or a woman who is merely acted upon? I already have m y own well-developed alarm system which goes off whenever a work by a woman, largely about women, is finally transformed into a film by a male director. You might see this as my own reverse sexism, but I do not doubt that men can understand what a wom an is ab o u t W hat I do doubt, m ost thoroughly, is that a m an can follow through with the expression. Anais N in spent the large part o f her literary career attempting to develop a non-m asculine approach to literature. She was troubled by a masculine world-view which she saw as too intellectual, too abstract, and too prone to frag m ent hum an emotion and experience. In the larger context, beyond literature, N in saw that masculine view destroying the individual itself, cutting it off from the real world, real needs, and setting it o ff on a self-destructive, world-destructive course. N in’s alternative entailed a two-fold task. First a woman m ust remove the false self-perceptions im posed by a male-defined society. Second, and more difficult, she must find her ow n voice. Nin felt that a w om an’s emotion-based ability to view the world would lead to new understandings, new strengths. Henry Miller and Lawrence Durrell, both good, long time friends o f Nin, would criticize her for not being a "realistic” writer, for being too "poetic.” In the film those words come, incorrectly, from June after she has read N in’s portrayal o f her. N in’s counter, out side o f the film, was that male “realism” was more intellectual than real, too divorced from the primal forces at play in the world. N in’s alternative reality has som ething to do with the poetry, pow er and mysticism o f an emotion cleared o f social debris. Kaufman shows Nin attracted to H enry’s m as culinity and to his lust-for-life, while she is also at tracted to June’s ability to do the most horrible things stupendously and with a sense of innocence. W atch ing this film, the view er m ight find N in a touch neurotic as she picks up June’s talk o f innocence to repeat, at odd sexual m om ents, com m ents about feeling innocent, discovering innocence. In reality, N in’s search was much more complex than anything that either Henry or June could provide. She was searching for a pure experience, propelled by pure emotion and cleansed of any intellectual or emotional abstractions. So, too, the sexuality that N in would utilize to kick open her own doors o f perception is not quite right here. Kaufman attempts to use a sultry, stylized sexuality interrupted by jarring bits of reality as a way o f capturing N in’s prose/poetry sexuality. The clos est he comes to capturing N in’s sexuality is the scene where Nin and Miller make love on a chair next to a boiling pot o f soup. The raw, graphic quality o f that scene achieves a poetry instead o f imposing i t So my objection, writing and observing as a male, is that a male has made this film. Somewhere there seems to be a secret voice that m en just c an ’t seem to echo. One sees it here most explicitly at two points. Anais and husband Hugo venture forth to buy two prostitutes and have them m ake love like a m an and a woman. W hen the prostitute playing die m an asks if they would like any variations, Anais responds that she wants the woman to stop performing a male role and to make love like a woman. If this scene begins as a metaphor for N in’s sexual, emotional and liter ary search, it goes wrong. T he sexual performance which Kaufman has presented so graphically sud denly goes out o f focus, ju st at the point where it should achieve clarity—just as the film does in gen eral with any direct feminist or lesbian scene. Les bianism, in particular, remains tantalizing only as long as at least one partner plays the masculine role. If it is two women becoming totally feminine, it becomes too difficult for poor Kaufman. N ow that I have ap p eared to so thoroughly trounce the film, let me write that this film is, hon estly, w ell-nigh great. T h e sexual w ar betw een masculine and feminine views, and we should tie in heterosexual and same-sex views, is such heavily mined territory that if I find fault with Kaufinan for not knowing how to land on target w ith both feet, I do that with the recognition that for most folks these days it is difficult to figure out just where to land. That Kaufinan has had his wife. Rose, work with him on the screenplay is to his c re d it Henry & June is about a sexual tug-of-war w hich is simultaneously intellectual and primal. T hat K aufm an feels u p to stepping into the fray between two literary giants such as Nin and Miller shows considerable courage and, despite m y nit-picking, he succeeds often enough. Any work o f art which forces me to wrangle with my ow n p ercep tio n s, and m y p e rc ep tio n s o f o th e r people’s perceptions, is well worth the e ffo rt Good exercise for the brain and the h e art G o to this and prepare to be jarred, offended, inspired, challenged and then to walk outside hav ing to (and more importantly wanting to) think about it all for awhile. W hether you agree with the movie or not is, in the end, not really the p o in t T he point is learning how to grow. Ease into a Hot Spring Spa! Why buy an Oregon Hot Spring Spa? T We appreciate our Just Out Customers ▼ 5 year warranty. Everything included! 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