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VALMONT
Reviews
Sfonijig Colin Firth, Annette Bening, Meg Tilly, Henry Thomas,
Jeffrey Jones, and Fairuza Balk-
Produced by Paul Rassma Written hy Jean-Claude Catriere.
Directed hy Milos Forman
An Orion release. Historical drama, rated R Running Time:
138 min Screening date: 10/24/89.
Anyone in Hollywood will tell you that costume dramas
based" on obscure 18th-century novels are boxoffice anathema.
And yet in the last 12 months, two versions of the same epistolary
18th-century novel, and a French one at that, have been
turned into major studio films. Go figure.
Stephen Frears' "Dangerous Liaisons" was a mild boxoffice
success, due primarily, one supposes, to the star appeal of
John Malkovich, Glenn Close and Michelle Pfeiffer in its lead
roles. It was a wicked, ironic film, difficult to interpret in its
More lush but not as captivating as "Dangerous
Liaisons," this alternate version of the same story also
lacks star power. Look for strong critical support but
modest boxoffice.
tone, and did not make a compelling case for the Choderlos de
Laclos novel on which it was based. Now Milos Forman (director
of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," "Hair," "Ragtime,"
"Amadeus") has made "Valmont" based on the same material,
without the big stars, without the cynical tone, with a lot
more costume, pomp, music, and that sort of thing, and with a
slightly less appealing and interesting result.
It's hard to think or talk about "Valmont" without constantly
referring back to Frears' film, and without finding the newer
film to be less worthwhile. For starters, almost everyone in
the earlier film is corrupt or corruptible, whereas "Valmont"
features a world of slightly dippy people who happen to be
rich and adulterous. "Dangerous Liaisons" was claustrophobic,
with characters often scurrying around like chess pieces.
"Valmont" occupies all of Paris and its environs, with carriages,
duels, huge balls and weddings displayed in a more
open, breathing environment. "Dangerous Liaisons" was very
literary. "Valmont" is plainer, the language much easier to
follow. Jean Claude Carriere has written in lots of extras who
have lots of silly pratfalls and one-liners to perform, and his
script hasn't nearly the strict architecture of Christopher
Hampton's for Frears. Carriere's characters disappear for
large chunks of time (the film is by far the longer), and when
they reemerge it isn't necessarily good news.
The acting in Frears's film was strange — quasi-comic, quasi-evil,
quasi-droll You could never be sure what the characters
meant or how the actors felt about it. There is no such
complexity in the Forman film. It is a straightforward and
plain in its tone as was "Amadeus," and, although often quite
good, the performances aren't as absorbing as those in "Dangerous
Liaisons," because we don't know the actors in "Valmont"
so well. It's interesting to watch John Malkovich as an
18th-century count. It is not as compelling to watch new faces
in new roles. This is not, by the way, to detract from the fine
work of Annette Bening as the Marquise de Merteuil (the
Glenn Close role), of Meg Tilly as Madame de Tourvel (the
Michelle Pfeiffer role), or of Colin Firth, who handles much of
the role of Valmont well. But there isn't quite the same edge
— people aren't acting against type because they don't have
types to begin with. They fit more naturally into the text but
they also vanish into it more completely.
To be fair, the plots of the two films are so dissimilar that
they may as well have been based on two distinct works.
"Valmont" is mostly concerned with the romance of young
Cecile Volange and her music teacher Danceny. Valmont and
Merteuil, the licentious plotters who were the center of
Frears' film, are relegated to large but peripheral roles. Even
more brusquely treated is Meg Tilly's Tourvel, who is not the
pious, faithful wife played by Michelle Pfeiffer, but rather a
naive rube, whose entrapment would appear a piece of cake.
The whole thing is pretty timid stuff, especially given predecessor.
"Valmont" is a Hollywood film, the sort of thing that occasions
much breasting-beating around Oscar time. "Dangerous
Liaisons" is something other, something, in retrospect, pretty
good. "Valmont" is lovely, lovely, lovely, but hollow at its
center. Frears' film was hollow too, but it was a hollowness
bom of nihilism, whereas Forman's film is hollow because it is
shallow. Both films warp their original source by making a
20th-century film of it, but whereas Frears and Hampton modernized
the material with existentialism and drollness,
Forman and Carriere commercialize it with gilt and soap.
"Dangerous Liaisons" wasn't quite good enough to make you
read the book "Valmont" isn't quite good enough to make you
read the novelization.
Rated R for sexual situations.— Shawn Levy
SHOCKER
Starring Mitch Pileggi, Peter Berg. Michael Murphy, and Cami
Cooper
Produced by Marianne Maddalena and Barin Kumar Written
and directed by Wes Craven.
A Universal release Hoiror, rated R Running Time: 110 mm
Screening date: 10/24/89
Determined to create an utterly unredeemable villain now
that his first child, Freddy Krueger, has grown up into a hellbom
Henny Youngman whose films (directed, it often seems,
on spec) consistently outgross (in all senses) his own, talented
director Wes Craven now gives birth to Horace Pinker, an
anarchic brute who butchers whole families for the sheer love
of slaughter. "Shocker," Pinker's debut, is a ripper of a birth
announcement. Part "Blue Velvet," part "Max Headroom,"
part even of the best of the "Nightmare on Elm Street" films,
it continually bolts in surprising directions, drunk on its terror,
nerve and wit Craven loses control at times, with some poor
casting ( Imii ( ,s aiul writing particularly evident, but the ener-
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