This is the most thoughtful deconstruction of a flop imaginable, as well as an ideal festival choice for those who used to buy DVDs just for the commentaries. This amusing gabfest among film lovers centers on the much-maligned 1995 film directed by Paul Verhoeven, Showgirls, which spectacularly laid an egg with critics and the public upon its release. Observations, sharp and sardonic, fly fast and furiously.
Jeffrey McHale’s reappraisal of film, which remains one of the few NC-17 studio releases, relies on abundant clips from the film as well as a generous outpouring of Verhoeven’s filmography. (If you have never seen the film in question, after seeing this thorough examination, you will feel like you did.) Except for in the archival footage, there are no talking heads.
None of the film historians and critics set out to convert audiences to the pleasures of the film. They instead point out its merits. Certainly, the cinematography by Jost Vacano pops on the screen in all its neon-lit luridness. According to the pundits, a lesson worth relearning is that a movie can be stuffed with contradictions—and Showgirls certainly is—and still have appreciable qualities.
This is not a behind-the-scenes look at how a 40-million dollar bomb derailed the careers, at least momentarily, of screenwriter Joe Eszterhas and star Elizabeth Berkley, who played Nomi Malone, the newbie to Vegas who hopes to become a stripping star. (In one clip, critic Gene Siskel panned Berkley for being not attractive “as a star.”) No one from the film is interviewed for McHale’s camera, and for those interested in Eszterhas’s point of view of how the film came about and came apart, he offers his frank observations in the Hollywood Reporter‘s podcast It Happened in Hollywood. (There he also goes on record about how Berkley won the lead role.)
As writer David Schmader puts it, “nothing is small and boring” about Showgirls. Interviewees roundly agree that it was comedic, albeit not on purpose, despite what Verhoeven has said about his intentions over the years. Author Adam Nayman (It Doesn’t Suck: Showgirls) praises the film for being “unapologetically tacky.” He and the other commentators smoothly connect Verhoeven’s earlier films, such as The Fourth Man, Spetters, and Basic Instinct, to the hyper-sexualized and glossy surface of Showgirls. Indeed, Verhoeven comes across as having always been a provocateur since his early days in the early 1970s, and the clips from Business Is Business and Spetters all serve as cases in point.
The no-holds-barred dissection of Showgirls takes on its banal dialogue; problematic racial depictions, in which black characters worship a blond goddess; its portrayal of women; and the queer connection. For all of the nudity and bumping and grinding, Nayman proclaims it “the least sexiest movie ever made.” One voice chimes in that the film seems written by a 13-year-old boy. (It’s at times difficult to keep track who’s talking.) Writer Haley Mlotik and critic Susan Wloszczyna are among the contributors, as well as April Kidwell, who stars as Nomi in Showgirls! The Musical! For Kidwell, the histrionics involved in playing Nomi were a cathartic substitute for therapy after she was sexually assaulted.
It was roughly 10 years after its theatrical release when audiences at midnight screenings began to take Showgirls more seriously while still laughing at it. For author Jeffery Conway, Verhoeven’s skin flick joins a trilogy that includes Valley of the Dolls and Mommy Dearest for being “impossibly bad and thrilling at the same time.” Even when singing the praises of the film, Conway irreverently breaks down a scene as though it was written by a “brain-dead Harold Pinter”: a lunch date between Nomi and her stripper rival, Crystal (Gina Gershon), at Spago, where the conversation turns to how both women love to eat Doggy Chow. What this trifecta shares, in Conway’s estimation, is a particular trait, “failed seriousness,” to quote Susan Sontag’s definition of camp.
But in Showgirls’ defense, Conway praises the non-naturalistic acting, and he has a point: its cast goes against the grain of de rigueur realism. Co-star Kyle MacLachlan admitted at a Q&A at the Seattle International Film Festival that Showgirls was meant to be a hard-hitting drama, out-sized emotions and all.
(One minor nitpick regarding the documentary: Verhoeven’s film Spetters is credited as being from 1983, but it was actually made in 1980 and released in the United States in 1981.)
The movie’s advocates make a convincing case that a film could be both good and bad, which shouldn’t be a revelation. They make convincing points, or at the very least make for congenial company.
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