Bad Timing (1980)

BAD TIMING is the one Nicolas Roeg film (from his initial period of peerlessly brilliant movies) which had so far eluded me; actually, for some reason, I had missed out on its one and only TV screening in my neck of the woods.

Following in the footsteps of Mick Jagger in PERFORMANCE (1970) and David Bowie in THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH (1976), Art Garfunkel was the third pop star to be engaged as an actor by Roeg. Harvey Keitel, on the other hand, was not Roeg's first choice for Inspector Netusil: the role had previously been offered to Albert Finney and Bruno Ganz (both of whom turned it down) and Malcolm McDowell (who was unavailable). While their casting is indeed eccentric, contrary to the general opinion, I found them both very good in their difficult roles. Despite her young age and the complexity of the character she was playing, the stunning Theresa Russell - who turned down SUPERMAN (1978) to do this but, ironically, is now currently engaged on SPIDER-MAN 3! - is simply astonishing in the film and she should by rights have become a huge star because of it; as it is, she ended up being criminally underused and her career has subsequently been disappointingly uneven.

While the film's working title was ILLUSIONS, its eventual title could be referring to the chance meeting between Garfunkel and Russell at a party (had either of them left earlier, they might never have met), to Garfunkel's inexplicably sluggish movements on the night of Russell's suicide attempt (which are under Keitel's dogged scrutiny) or even to estranged husband Denholm Elliott's reporting of Russell's recovery just as Garfunkel is about to break down under Keitel's relentless questioning and confess to his ravishment of her while she was practically comatose. Tragically, Garfunkel's plight in the film was eerily mirrored in real-life towards the end of shooting when his own girlfriend Laurie Bird - whose brief acting career included two films for Monte Hellman, TWO-LANE BLACKTOP (1971) and COCKFIGHTER (1974) - committed suicide in their apartment. Clearly one of Roeg's most personal films, BAD TIMING is not only a harrowing study of male-female relationships or more precisely "l'amour fou", but is also another depiction by Roeg (as had been the case with all his previous pictures) of characters stranded in a foreign land, in this case two Americans in Vienna. In hindsight, the tumultuous and almost deadly Garfunkel-Russell relationship is mirrored in the one between Garfunkel and Keitel, especially in the film's latter stages when the interrogation and subsequent revelation take center stage; the latter sequences, then, are capped by an enigmatic ending - due to Elliott's nick-of-time appearance and subsequent dematerialization - could this be a figment of Garfunkel's agitated state of mind? BAD TIMING is shot in Roeg's typically fragmented style which, this time around, can perhaps be explained by the fact that the narrator (Art or Theresa) is under a lot of emotional (Keitel's interrogation of Art) and physical (Theresa's life-saving surgery) strain. In another sense, BAD TIMING can even be seen as a sophisticated precursor to the erotic thrillers so prevalent in filmdom from the late-80s onwards.

For the third consecutive time, Anthony Richmond serves as director of photography for Roeg and the film also boasts a splendidly eclectic soundtrack - Billy Holliday, Keith Jarrett, The Who, Tom Waits, not to mention some typical Viennese zither music a' la

Fmovies: Theresa Russell plays her character with an amazing degree of depth and variety in this film. She's sexy, vivacious, fun-loving, wanton, capricious, headstrong, and yet vulnerable to the soulless, self-serving shrink portrayed chillingly well by Art Garfunkel. Theresa's character is very lifelike and (despite the character's flaws, both obvious and subtle) also quite sympathetic.

This is not an easy film to watch. For one thing, it's rather non-linear, and flits around between several different times and places. Rather than telling a story as such, it's more of a jigsaw puzzle, the pieces of which are revealed and placed one at a time. For another, it's actually rather unnerving to watch the process of her dissolution, both due to how realistically it's shown and the fact that we want to like Malena (or at least I did).

If you're at all a fan of Russell, I think you'll find that this is one of her best performances ever, and the direction and staging are first-rate.

(It was also a bit weird to see Harvey Keitel with long hair.)

This film will always have a soft spot in my heart because it introduced me to Tom Waits' music. His song Invitation to the Blues brilliantly opens this unsettling story of a snobby professor's "ravishing" of a free spirit. I don't know why this film has never been released on video. My viewpoints of the characters has changed over the years in this complex film. Art Garfunkel's obsession with Theresa Russell feels more unnerving with each viewing. It's probably the first and only sort-of mainstream film to represent near-necrophilia. Harvey Keitel's strange motivation for wanting a confession out of Art seems more complicated as the film progresses. Theresa is brilliant in the female lead.

Bad Timing fmovies. I saw this film when it was originally released and it still ranks as my all-time favorite. From the opening strains of Tom Waits' gritty "Invitation to the Blues" (which is cut off by the wail of an ambulance!) every aspect--music, scenery, the astonishing acting--melds together into a masterpiece.

Theresa Russell is simply a knockout as Milena, a woman who refuses to be "owned". She's beautiful, sexy, carefree, and absolutely infuriating to Art Garfunkel's psychologist Dr. Linden. His compulsion to control her leads to disaster, and Garfunkel's performance is absolutely astonishing. The expression on his face in the final scene is unforgettable. It haunts me still.

Bad Timing is Nicholas Roeg's film about a relationship that is fueled by an obsessive passion, more or less, on both sides, and ends in a kind of mutual destruction. This has been fodder for many an independent film, but Roeg and his screenwriter attempt the material with a twist (Roeg, perhaps in his own distinct sensibility as an auteur, more-so). They're attempting to dissect it by a manner that goes along with how a mind works through a relationship after the fact, through memories of what worked, what didn't at all, what's foggy, what's crazy, subtle bits that connect more directly to others, and essentially reveals as much as any one person can think about the individuals in their link. Throw in a little detective/criminal mystery entanglement, some trademark Roeg editing and narrative technique, and sprinkle some of the most appropriately steamy (and appropriately disturbing) mature sexual context in a movie since Last Tango, and you've got a sort of cult classic.

It's the kind of work that, as someone who loves getting a filmmaker who approaches things from a skewed perspective almost like an intellectual, is nearly inspiring. I didn't gain mind-blowing Bergmanesque insights into the realm of a torn relationship, but it's enough to squash competition that might show up late at night on IFC. It deals with a psychology professor, Alex Linden (Art Garfunkel, the most unlikely of male leads for a sexually charged and complex individual, but out-does his previous turn in Carnal Knowledge as a subtle performer of a man in total emotional crisis), and his romance with young Milena (the extraordinary Theresa Russel, arguably her best performance to date, soul pouring out like it's her one and only chance to shine), who is possibly already married to a much older man across the Vienna border (Denhalm Elliot, great in his few scenes).

They have powerful lust and some good times, even in Morocco of all places, but... they just don't click, due to Alex not being able to let go of what Milena does, almost in a "every breath you take" style (watch as the Who's "Who Are You" is used in the most stirring effect imaginable). Without saying too much, something terrible happens to Milena, a hospital stay occurs, and an investigation (overnight, of course) happens between a detective (long-haired Harvey Keitel, compelling even when it's only in the smallest, two-note spurts) which leads to a test of pure existential upheaval. But Roeg firstly approaches the style like it's a shuffleboard of images and scenes, moods and thoughts, and it's a wonderful experiment in subjective approach. Many post-modern filmmakers only wish to try and make a film dealing with genre (i.e. crime/gangsters) like this, but Roeg does it sometimes subliminally, cut-aways implying sexual interaction and obsession that go the opposite way of the pondering style of a Last Tango (i.e. the operation scene, a cut-away between a tense gynecological exam during surgery and sex).

The other thing that Roeg wisely does, as he did do sort of in Walkabout, is to let the actors play up to their strengths. While it was trickier to to as a director, and to actually notice in the finished product, in Walkabout, in Bad Timing there are countless scenes where we see the actors tapping into the characters full-throttle, and revealing little layers in the script that wouldn't be present in a more conventional treatment. It's simple to say this kind of material would get shut out

Bad Timing is not an easy film, but one that rewards effort. Art Garfunkel joins the line (Jagger, Bowie) of singers who produced career best acting performances for this director - the scene of him smoking while staring over a bridge into the abyss of his life is worth buying the dvd alone - and Theresa Russell is simply incendiary. The story is a relatively simple one of how two people who should never have got together become obsessed with each other, but is told in Nicolas Roeg's fluid, labyrinthine style with flashes back and forward and disconcerting edits. The sexual content is extreme for some tastes, but raw and painfully honest in a way which defies simple titillation. Intense work from one of the giants of British and world cinema, now sadly neglected, and one of a string of great films, Performance, Walkabout, Don't Look Now and The Man Who Fell to Earth which mark Nicolas Roeg out as a great director.