USA,
1970
Shown in 1970
CREDITS
- dir
-
Jerry Schatzberg
- prod
-
Paul Newman, John Foreman
- scr
-
Adrian Joyce
- cam
-
Adam Holender
- cast
-
Faye Dunaway, Barry Primus, Viveca Lindfors, Barry Morse, Roy Scheider
- prod co
-
Newman-Foreman-Schatzberg Productions
- source
-
Universal Pictures
- premiere
-
World Premiere
-
COMMENTS
Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Jerry Schatzberg, John Foreman in person.
OTHER
The world of high fashion and the concomitant rises and falls of the beautiful models who inhabit this world have rarely been treated seriously in American films. This has usually been the gossamer substance for musicals (Roberta, Funny Face, etc.) and only Cukor's A Life of Her Own (1950) stands as a serious perusal of this rarified milieu. For his debut film, the career of famous fashion photographer Jerry Schatzberg has aptly prepared him to make a definitive drama about the life and loves of a fashion model, with extraordinary results. Puzzle of a Downfall Child is assuredly the most perceptive treatment ever given of the subject, and the heroine, Lou Andreas-Sand, is one of those glamorous creatures who are doomed to be accepted for her beauty of face and figure alone—a chic adornment for the psychiatrist's couch. In addition to one's fascination with Lou's fluctuating memories about her sexual frigidity and amoral love affairs, mostly with strangers, one is able to discern the difference between the model's illusions and the realities she so deftly embellishes with distortion. In the number of years covered by the story, it is possible, too, to notice Schatzberg's awareness of the changing social attitudes from one decade to the next: He is a social critic, observing the world he knows, with a tastefully jaundiced eye. The acting is splendid, and Faye Dunaway, as Lou, is given her first chance to display a unique, unpredictable talent, quite dramatic and capable of exploring the shattered personality of a mannequin-manquee. It is a role in the grand Hollywood tradition: at the center, moody, and touched with melancholy. It has been ages since one has seen this kind of work, and Miss Dunaway wears the mantle of Davis, Crawford and Stanwyk with the aplomb of a sorceress. She thoroughly convinces us that beautiful women, one and all, often sit at home, waiting for someone to call.
—Albert Johnson
FACTOID #177
In 2000 animator Faith Hubley was the recipient of the Persistence of Vision Award. One year later, her daughter Emily appeared at the Festival with her bandmates, Yo La Tengo, to perform a score accompanying the silent underwater films of Jean Painlevé.
