'Lost' films found 3: Alan Rudolph's 'Return Engagement'

I avoid promoting free streams of copyrighted movies on this blog, but do spotlight the posting of films that are “MIA” (read: no DVD [or VHS] release in the U.S, and very little chance there will be one). Such is the case with Alan Rudolph's Return Engagement (1983).

It's Rudolph's only documentary and is not essential viewing – if you're unfamiliar with his work, check out his films Choose Me, Trouble in Mind, or Afterglow first. But if you already know his work, or you're interested in the lives and public personas of Timothy Leary and G. Gordon Liddy, the film is definitely worth a look.

It was shot when Leary and Liddy became a sort of “comedy team” on the lecture circuit, cordially “debating” each other in various cities during the early Eighties. What we see of their stage encounter in Return Engagement indicates that their speeches were learned by heart and their disagreements over various issues were most likely repeated verbatim on every stop on the tour.

Rudolph is a master of the “small film” and understated emotion, so it's fascinating to see him use a similarly personal approach for a documentary. The only problem here is that Leary and Liddy had honed their personas so well by the Eighties that they were close to being cartoon characters: the kooky, mellow-as-anything, Sixties acid guru and the equally kooky, hyper-macho, right-wing extremist.

“There is no there there” with either man. During a scene where Rudolph films the men with their wives, one gets the sense that, while the scene isn't exactly staged, the couples have still worked out their “roles” to an almost unnerving degree.

The positive aspect of the film is its time capsule quality. Liddy is filmed working out at the gym, while Leary – who declares himself a “futurist” above all – is seen typing away on a word processor, extolling the virtues of computers as he works on the manuscript of his latest book. To further situate where the American public was in '83, the film's opening scene has people on the street being asked what they know about the two men. Those interviewed seem to be “remembering” two figures from a somewhat distant (but actually somewhat recent) past.

Perhaps the film would've worked better if Rudolph or his surrogate, interviewer (and event moderator) Carole Hemingway, had challenged both men more about the depth of their beliefs; as it stands, she asks Leary about his “show-biz” aspect and Liddy about his fondness for talking about murder, but little is revealed in the process. Rudolph's assignment in this case was to film the debate and add some colorful moments around the event, so one can't expect very much.
 
According to a 2013 interview with Rudolph, he looks back at the film as a “strangely satisfying experience. It took a few days to film and a long time to edit and nothing was written other than necessary information.” He refers to the debate as a “dog-and-pony show” and notes that he made the film for producer Carolyn Pfeiffer to basically work his way toward making a fiction film with “complete independence” in the shooting and editing (the result was Choose Me).

He also reveals in the same interview that “At the ‘breakfast with spouses’ segment, Mrs. Liddy showed up with a fresh black eye under her sunglasses.” You can see the bruise in the film – some makeup was applied, but it's still visible.

A few moments in the “debate” are galvanizing, as when Liddy casually discusses how murder factors into the running of the U.S. government, and when Leary is confronted by an angry blind man who claims his disability was caused by Leary's advocacy of hallucinogens (as kids on LSD shot this gentleman, blinding him). For the most part, though, one gets the impression one is watching a fairly “scripted” bit of stagecraft – Leary in particular walks back and forth on the stage, while the more stolid Liddy stays planted where he is when it's his turn to stand and talk.

Rudolph wisely includes at the end of the picture long scenes from high school classroom sessions run individually by Liddy and Leary. Both men come off far better in these sequences than they do onstage. They situate themselves historically for the students and defend themselves against some very pointed questions – by comparison, the debate comes off as the publicity stunt it most surely was.

In closing, though, I must mention the film's most jarring scene, which is a cocktail party held in honor of the two men early on in the film. The attendees at the party include Geraldo Rivera, Marjoe Gortner, Maria Shriver, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Harry Nilsson, and Cheech Marin (!). At one point, Leary wonders where “Bob” is. When asked why he cares so much, the perpetually turned-on guru replies, “Bob got the cocaine.” One wonders if Rudolph has any outtakes from this blissfully tacky gathering….

The film can be found two places online. The first is on YouTube in three parts. The first part of the film is here at 8:52. In both this posting and the one on the archive.org site, the film follows two episodes that Leary did with Bob Costas (this is apparently because these items were on the first volume of a series of VHS tapes featuring Leary movie and TV appearances).



Full disclosure: I run the Alan Rudolph fan page on Facebook. "Like" the page if you're a fan of Rudolph's work. It is located at this link.

With and without Godard: Deceased Artiste Anne Wiazemsky

Although many of her English-language obits naturally labeled Anne Wiazemsky as the “ex-wife and muse” of Uncle Jean (aka Jean-Luc Godard), it was nice to see that her impeccable first performance in Bresson’s Au Hasard Balthazar (1966) was highlighted in the headlines of other obits. In France she was equally billed as “actress and romancier” (novelist). She did indeed have a “second act” to her career when her books (20 in total) were received warmly by both critics and the public from 1988 on.

Several of her novels were romans à clef based on her own very rich life. She came from royal Russian stock, with her father serving as a French diplomat; her mother was the daughter of Nobel laureate Francois Mauriac. The family moved frequently due to her father’s profession, but Anne became a lifelong Frenchwoman when her family moved to France in 1962.

Au Hasard Balthazar is one of Bresson’s masterpieces (so many masterpieces in such a small body of work — only 13 films). Like all of his work, it’s a quiet picture that has incredible emotional impact because it is so low-key and “observant” of its characters.

Anne was one of Bresson’s “models,” the non-actors he hired to play the lead in his films. She is also one of the few Bresson performers to subsequently become a movie star (Dominque Sanda is the most prominent example). She was a perfect performer for Bresson, as she hit the right notes of innocent and fragile curiosity for her character in Balthazar.

In one of her books she wrote that Bresson was infatuated with her and asked her to marry him. She declined the offer and instead wound up romantically involved with one of Bresson’s most talented fans, Godard. 

She did not, however, have vehicles written for her by JLG, as Anna Karina did, because her marriage to Uncle Jean occurred while he was an ardent Marxist who was making overtly political films — which, nonetheless, happen to feature some of the prettiest women seen in cinema (all lit and framed to perfection by JLG).

She made seven films with Godard, including his arthouse hits La Chinoise (1967) and Sympathy for the Devil (aka One Plus One, 1968); in the other five of the seven films she either has no character name or is uncredited. Her presence in the films is privileged, with her most often playing a “searcher” who is looking to understand politics and its effect on the average person.

This is seen to best advantage in a long scene in La Chinoise where she asks real-life philosopher Francis Jeanson (playing himself) about revolution. Her character Veronique advocates terrorism, but seems ignorant of the consequences of terrorist behavior.

The wondrous “music video” trailer Godard created for the film:

Godard continued to use her as a “searcher” in the scattered but entertaining Sympathy for the Devil.

Several filmmakers openly proclaimed their worship of Godard by emulating his framing and editing style and, most importantly, “stealing” his lead actors. These included Pier Paolo Pasolini, Alain Tanner (for one film, Le Retour d’Afrique), and a major Funhouse favorite, Marco Ferreri. 

Ferreri cast Wiazemsky as the “Eve” figure in his post-nuclear Garden of Eden fantasy The Seed of Man (1969, below). In true Ferreri style, the film is both fascinating and, at points, downright odd — and features a beach as one of its main settings.

Pasolini cast Wiazemsky twice, the first time in his brilliant Teorema (1968), which has a plotline that has been ripped off several dozen times (but always without the “downer” ending). She is the daughter of the family that is affected by drifter Terrence Stamp, who sleeps with each member of the clan (including the father!). It’s a strong, well-rendered scenario.

Her second and last time starring in a Pasolini film was Porcile (1969), his wildly allegorical film about capitalism, with the main capitalist here owning a pig farm (get the symbolism?). It’s such an unsubtle allegory that PPP asked his friend Marco Ferreri (no stranger to unsubtle allegories) to costar as one of the capitalists.

Most important, though, are the two stars, both Godard stalwarts. Jean-Pierre Leaud — in his high-energy, fond-of-recitations Godardian incarnation — stars as the scion of the capitalist family, while Wiazemsky plays his politically engaged girlfriend.

Wiazemsky did indeed reinvent herself in the late Eighties, as her first book was published in 1988, the same year that her last movie was released.

Only one of her books has been translated into English thus far (My Berlin Child), but many positive reviews of her novels in French can be found online. In her obit in the left-wing newspaper Liberation, it was noted that “discreetly, book after book, she forged a status as a loved and recognized, often award-winning, novelist.”

Her movie career was indeed memorable, thanks to Godard crafting several indelible images around her. But Bresson’s utilization of her inquisitive, sad-looking visage enshrined her forever in the memory of most fans of great cinema. It’s hard to forget Balthazar once one has seen it.

As a final clip, here is a beautiful moment from Teorema synched to music by Erik Satie: