The chameleon of the title is Terry (Robert Glaudini), a dealer of many things illegal and illegitimate, specifically illicit substances and essential bootlegs of works of art. This is where we open the film, as Terry is playing brutal, unmoving thug to a printer, pressuring him to make illegal copies of a limited edition piece, in a fascinatingly rich sequence that has a beautiful sequence when the printer's inks move across the silk, and then once he hangs it, he talks about how good it looks without noticing that it's a gun firing, and then Terry finds the gun the print is based on, points it at the man and tells him he's taking it as collateral, and the printer again doesn't seem to connect the dots. He complains that it's nicely-made and worth money, not that it's being pointed at him, the film almost saying that assigning such a self-important value to art puts it on the same level as the drugs he pushes, robbing the items of their inherent usefulness in a quest for self-worth.
The rest of the films proceeds like this, where we follow our chameleon Terry, as he moves through several varied and different environments; first, he meets an old flame (Ellen Blake) on top of a hill: she gives him a frog, and they jovially reminisce about old times. His demeanor is completely altered from the brute we witnessed before, being sort of innocent and gentle, but this is how he's supposed to be, that is the correct norm, so he does it. He then meets with a society woman who is buying coke off him, and his demeanor once again is altered, he becomes almost catty, speaking at length about vain societal problems (hair loss, social events) as he is sunning himself. His fourth and final meeting is with an artist way out in the desert to does sculptures and has a giant telescope, and with him, he speaks curtly and with an emphasis on drug lingo, as if to present his credentials, but again, seems like a completely different person.
The most interesting scenes, though, come when he is left to his own devices. Like Peter Sellers (whose life story could be affixed this same title), Terry has no personality of his own, he merely knows how to fill his void suitably for any situation. But where Sellers' primary objective was to entertain, Terry is just using and feeding off his clients; these people are sort of detached from reality anyway, and so he manipulates them and speaks their language to get what he can from them; the fascinating thing is that he doesn't use them for any reason other than to have something to keep engaged with. There's an early sequence after he leaves the printer where he plays a tape he recorded himself, just of him listing off an endless run of errands and clients and phone calls he has to make that day. For me, this scene was initially interminable, but the more the film went on, the more I got that it was a key scene: his life is only defined by the deals he's engaged in, and the fact that the tape is damn near endless (and that he spent so much time recording it, and then spent so much time listening to it) shows that he's terrified of having to deal with himself. His second driving sequence is equally interesting (and makes me hate The Brown Bunny's pointless driving sequences even more), because it's another endless monologue that provided the wonderful second quote at the top, and would be funny if it wasn't so sad, as he just keeps talking nonsense at length in place of actual contemplation
The film is almost self-consciously, over-the-top arty in its visual sensibility, with vivid colors and color transitions and hand-held camera-work and obvious symbolism and off-center blocking, and a late scene that works as a sort of trip into the black hole of Terry's identity, a starkly lit, haunting, imminently theatrical monologue where he talks directly to the camera (not to the audience, just speaking out) and then ends up covering himself in bright, rich paint. These affectations are emphasized in a wonderfully uncomfortable, pretentious, endless art show sequence (where Terry spends the entire time exchanging pleasantries and setting up future meetings) juxtaposed with his dehumanized inner monologue (or not; the gorilla thing) give the whole thing an arty-critical film, even as it engages in artiness itself. There's an intriguing late scene that I think puts his thesis out in the open: near the end of the film, Terry returns to the printer's place, and meets a carpenter (i.e., someone that actually contributes something useful to society), who seems embarrassed by the fact that he's "only" a house builder, and seems to deify these artists that aren't giving anything tangible to society (or are, but are stagnating, only to inflate their own self-worth).
The film is just as rambling as Cassavetes' films, but Jost has such a handle on the material that it works so much deeper; it feels more deliberate and less messy. The film is focused, and has a tangible ethos. The film's finale is not so much unexpected as inevitable (with a damning final line), and with a statement to make and a conscious ethos, I really felt like I had gone through an experience. The fact that I wrote so damn much about a film I'd never heard of before today, and has less than five votes on the IMDb, should tell you that much. This was a memorable and fascinating (that's use #4!) cinematic journey that makes me excited and relieved that I grabbed FIVE films from Jon Jost. If any of them are as great as this one, I've got a lot to look forward to.
{Grade: 8.75/10 (A-/B+) / #5 (of 22) of 1978}
The rest of the films proceeds like this, where we follow our chameleon Terry, as he moves through several varied and different environments; first, he meets an old flame (Ellen Blake) on top of a hill: she gives him a frog, and they jovially reminisce about old times. His demeanor is completely altered from the brute we witnessed before, being sort of innocent and gentle, but this is how he's supposed to be, that is the correct norm, so he does it. He then meets with a society woman who is buying coke off him, and his demeanor once again is altered, he becomes almost catty, speaking at length about vain societal problems (hair loss, social events) as he is sunning himself. His fourth and final meeting is with an artist way out in the desert to does sculptures and has a giant telescope, and with him, he speaks curtly and with an emphasis on drug lingo, as if to present his credentials, but again, seems like a completely different person.
The most interesting scenes, though, come when he is left to his own devices. Like Peter Sellers (whose life story could be affixed this same title), Terry has no personality of his own, he merely knows how to fill his void suitably for any situation. But where Sellers' primary objective was to entertain, Terry is just using and feeding off his clients; these people are sort of detached from reality anyway, and so he manipulates them and speaks their language to get what he can from them; the fascinating thing is that he doesn't use them for any reason other than to have something to keep engaged with. There's an early sequence after he leaves the printer where he plays a tape he recorded himself, just of him listing off an endless run of errands and clients and phone calls he has to make that day. For me, this scene was initially interminable, but the more the film went on, the more I got that it was a key scene: his life is only defined by the deals he's engaged in, and the fact that the tape is damn near endless (and that he spent so much time recording it, and then spent so much time listening to it) shows that he's terrified of having to deal with himself. His second driving sequence is equally interesting (and makes me hate The Brown Bunny's pointless driving sequences even more), because it's another endless monologue that provided the wonderful second quote at the top, and would be funny if it wasn't so sad, as he just keeps talking nonsense at length in place of actual contemplation
The film is almost self-consciously, over-the-top arty in its visual sensibility, with vivid colors and color transitions and hand-held camera-work and obvious symbolism and off-center blocking, and a late scene that works as a sort of trip into the black hole of Terry's identity, a starkly lit, haunting, imminently theatrical monologue where he talks directly to the camera (not to the audience, just speaking out) and then ends up covering himself in bright, rich paint. These affectations are emphasized in a wonderfully uncomfortable, pretentious, endless art show sequence (where Terry spends the entire time exchanging pleasantries and setting up future meetings) juxtaposed with his dehumanized inner monologue (or not; the gorilla thing) give the whole thing an arty-critical film, even as it engages in artiness itself. There's an intriguing late scene that I think puts his thesis out in the open: near the end of the film, Terry returns to the printer's place, and meets a carpenter (i.e., someone that actually contributes something useful to society), who seems embarrassed by the fact that he's "only" a house builder, and seems to deify these artists that aren't giving anything tangible to society (or are, but are stagnating, only to inflate their own self-worth).
The film is just as rambling as Cassavetes' films, but Jost has such a handle on the material that it works so much deeper; it feels more deliberate and less messy. The film is focused, and has a tangible ethos. The film's finale is not so much unexpected as inevitable (with a damning final line), and with a statement to make and a conscious ethos, I really felt like I had gone through an experience. The fact that I wrote so damn much about a film I'd never heard of before today, and has less than five votes on the IMDb, should tell you that much. This was a memorable and fascinating (that's use #4!) cinematic journey that makes me excited and relieved that I grabbed FIVE films from Jon Jost. If any of them are as great as this one, I've got a lot to look forward to.
{Grade: 8.75/10 (A-/B+) / #5 (of 22) of 1978}
