For its first ten minutes or so, Starman feels like a John Carpenter movie. It starts with an invitation. The U.S. sends a phonographic recording out to space that contains an offer for any extra terrestrial life force to come pay America a visit. Then there is some nice parallel editing, as the screen cuts between a martian scout vessel coming to earth and a classic suburban American house in which Karen Allen drinks wine and cries as she watches a clips of her recently deceased husband Scott through a projector. “Don’t do this to yourself, Jenny, go to sleep,” she says, as we continue to see the ship flying towards earth. It’s obvious where it’s headed, though the fact that it arrives near Jenny’s house is actually a result of a crash landing that destroys the ship.
We get a
subjective POV shot of the alien, which seems to be just a bunch of blue light,
as it moves through Jenny’s house, finds a scrapbook that contains a lock of
Scott’s hair, and uses this to create a clone. Enter Jeff Bridges as an alien.
But before we get to see Bridges, there’s a great Carpenter moment in which the
alien first morphs into a weird looking baby (with classic 80s special effects)
and then rapidly progresses through the different life stages, all while Jenny
watches in horror.
It’s a
promising opening if one is expecting a John Carpenter movie a la The Thing or The Fog. But what we get after that is a road adventure love story
that feels less like John Carpenter being himself than Carpenter channeling
Steven Spielberg. The alien initially kidnaps Jenny as they trek across America
towards Arizona (where the Starman’s people will send another ship), but as the
journey progresses, she goes from fear, to understanding, to emotional
attachment. All the while, they’re being pursued by the U.S army, who in their
hostility are contradicting the country’s original cordial invitation. A
scientist who is investigating the crash is one of the few people who seems to
recognize this. “Screw morality,” he says at one point. “What the hell ever
happened to good manners—we invited him here!”
Starman is clearly designed to be the type
of well-rounded movie that’s accessible for a wide audience. There are the
expected random bits of humor, mainly obvious jokes concerning the alien’s
ignorance of human standards (for example, he doesn’t differentiate between the
ladies’ room and the mens’ room, or understand that we usually eat dessert after the meal), exciting chase scenes,
and of course the budding romance between Jenny and the alien. It’s a sweet,
predictable love story, but also a believable one. The alien is hardly
replacement for Scott, but since he looks just like him, one can’t help but
understand Jenny’s growing infatuation for him. Once she realizes that the
alien isn’t hostile, she allows herself to be completely taken by the fact that
a form of her beloved has returned. Who wouldn’t?
For his
performance, Bridges was nominated for an Oscar, and while he employs a steady
flow of complex facial expressions since his language skills are limited, when
he does happen to speak it’s a little grating. One can only take so much of
Bridges in robotic voice mode, especially since the actor’s real voice is such
a rich and pleasant one. Luckily, Allen is terrific and wonderfully committed,
portraying a complicated, grief stricken woman thrown into a terrifying
situation and never once acting as though she’s above the material. It’s the
rare Hollywood blockbuster in which a woman gets the majority of the dialogue
and screen time. Allen’s work here makes you wonder why it doesn’t happen more
often.
Beneath the
love story, breezy pace, and overall sense of fun lies Starman’s ulterior agenda, namely to critique the modern government/military
system in America as paranoid and overly aggressive (it’s never clear though
whether it’s suggesting we’re still in a fairly primitive state, or if this
attitude is a result of the social/political disillusionment of the 1970s),
while ultimately giving mankind itself a big pat on the back. “You are at your
very best when things are worst,” Bridges declares at the end, and those words
come out of his mouth like big blinking lights screaming thesis statement.
Though it
doesn’t have Carpenter’s stamp (or screenwriter credit), Starman is still a fantastic formal exercise. When there is
movement Carpenter uses a dolly or steadicam, and when the action stops he
employs basic two shots and shot-reverse—shot angles. There’s no unnecessary
flourishes or visual bric-a-brac. His wonderfully practical and simple
compositions keep the film looking sleek and professional, which is what genre
movies ultimately need. Jim Mickle has taken that cue and applied it to some
fantastic modern genre films, while Jeff Nichols is using his already
Carpenter-esque visual style in a movie actually inspired by Starman. His first big studio movie,
It’s called Midnight Special, and
opens next year. But, as said ultimately Starman
has more in common with Spielberg than Carpenter. Hell, it even closes with a
Spielbergian face (see Kevin Lee’svideo essay).
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