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Shock Corridor - Criterion CollectionRating:
Release Date: 25 August, 1998 Retail Price: $29.95 OUR Price: $26.99 You SAVE: $2.96! Cast: Complete Cast (12 total) |
Shock Corridor - Criterion Collection Reviews
Cinematic subversion disguised as Grade B exploitation
I'm not sure I understand how anyone could come away from Fuller's "Shock Corridor" without thinking about the film for quite awhile, and also feeling very uncomfortable. The story in and of itself is really nothing special, and is sort of a bizarre twist between something Jim Thompson and George Orwell might have written if they collaborated; pulpy with an almost cheap feel, the social implications of the ill fated Johnny Barrett's plight are far-reaching for not only 1960's America, but today's world as well.
What takes place in this film is the brutal humanization of a man who goes looking for glory and success in a place where human beings are relegated to the depths of obscurity. Johnny Barrett, a reporter working with police, feigns insanity to gain entrance to a mental hospital and unveil the killer of a patient, someone named Soames. One doesn't get the impression that Peter Breck's character cares very much about the plight of the patient or his gruesome death at, as it turns out, the hands of the very people supposed to care for him--he just wants the Pulitzer Prize. The only problem with Breck's character is that you only care about him when he's in pain: he comes off most of the time as a self serving SOB who doesn't care about his wisely foreboding girlfriend Cathy, played by the beautiful Clarence Towers.
This is a gutsy film for the time in which it was made: Cathy begrudgingly pretends to be Johnny's sister in an effort to make him look like an incestuous maniac who may be a physical threat to her. He is coached by a team of psychiatrists for a year (a YEAR? I doubt it would take that long to fool most shrinks nowadays), and after a few violent fits he is thrown into the Dantesque mental hospital which will prove, in its humanity and unbearable nakedness of man's suffering, to be stronger than his petty pursuit of meaningless recognition.
Johnny, as one might expect, gets a lot more than he bargained for. In the course of his doomed quest he becomes intimately entwined in the psyche of severely damaged people, three of whom are victims of an indifferent and ruthless civilization: one, a young black man who plays a fictional composite of the first black student in the South, has been driven completely mad by the bigotry and abuse he encountered and believes himself to be the Grand Wizard of KKK, stealing pillow cases to incite race riots directed at another black patient. Perhaps the most unforgettable scene in this movie is when he stands on up on a bench preaching white supremacy with the fanatical conviction only the insane can possess--and that's probably the point. Another is a former Korean soldier who believes himself to be a famous soldier in the Civil War who, in reality, was actually absent at Gettysburg: he was brainwashed into Communism and considered too much of a shame by his country to remain part of the free world. Another is an old man who behaves like a five year old, and yet before his psychotic break worked for NASA helped to construct the Atom Bomb. In his moments of lucidity he explains why he chooses childlike madness over the mechanistic horror he has unleashed on the world. Critics have cited this film as an example of bad acting, but these three performances are Oscar worthy, at least to my mind.
The way the movie is shot draws the viewer into Barrett's bleak world and his selfish endeavor becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Breck is only adequate for the first half of the film, but as his character slowly starts to crack, his talent shines. This move is a must see and I cannot believe it is so little known.
Still shocking in it's core
Having watched "Shock corridor" recently, it left me with mixed feelings. Some of the elements in this movie about a journalist who fakes mental illness to get himself committed to a psycho ward in order to investigate a murder, were so outdated that they almost irritated me. What perhaps at the time of release would have been pretty amazing, is now nothing more than a hat full of cheap gimmicks and tricks.
The hysterical voice-over by journalist Johnny Barret sounds cheesy and corny; it's too explanatory and to much `acted out'. Actor Peter Breck may be just trying too much here, and so destroys what might have been a really imagnitive role with a lot of potence.
What bothered me even more was the complete clichéd manner in which psychiatric disturbed people (loonies) were portrayed: without any exception the mentally ill people on the ward are expressionisticly gesting and articulating and mimicing characters who seem to have been taken out some long-lost deleted scenes from the 1919 expressionistic psycho-movie "Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari".
Having said this, there are some moments that really have managed to be exiting and thrilling, even after so many years: there is the rough, cutting-edge cinematic form in which the movie is shot and edited - unpolished and harsh, (with a stark use of black and white which reminds us of that other dark classic, "The Third man"), its images sometimes seem to hammer in the viewers face.
Then there is the relatively great amount of time in which the characters (namely the three alleged witnesses to the murder) are getting a chance to explain / show / express / contemplate their madness and what had triggered it.
It's here that big social issues, like American patriotism versus the (unreasonable?) Angst for communism, racial matters, and the invention and destructiveness of the atomic bomb, all which have caused many people to lose their heads over, come in to play.
These `mind shattering issues' are accompanied by flash-backs in color, that are even more menacing than that they are warm or comfortable, which you might want to expect. And all of a sudden, it's no longer just the sanity of indiviuals that are at stake here, but the combined sanity of social structures and society in general that's in dispute.
The surrealistic scene near the end in which the "corridor", or the hallway in the psycho ward is trashed by a huge rain shower, and in which a totally frantic Johnny Barret finally looses his mind completely, is horrifying, almost unreal, and a complete mindbender in its own way.
Its a brilliant scene in which we all loose our minds for a moment, and, thank God for that, because if you manage to keep a straight face after this transcedenting piece of social cinema, then you're the one who's really crazy.
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