Second Sight
R2 DVD
Joseph
Losey’s Boom! (1968) is an absolute
cult classic, starring Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and Noel Coward how
could it be anything else. It was controversial at the time it was released as
it was marketed as a mainstream Hollywood film yet was really a European styled
art film. Taylor and Burton were always complex individuals and by the time of
Boom! decided to do something a bit different. This was the eight of eleven
films they did together and is one of their most eccentric.
Boom!
was based on Tennessee William’s play The
Milk Train Doesn’t Stop here which while an impressive work is not
especially approachable, it twice failed on Broadway and as a film is certainly
an enigmatic work.
The
use of exiled American director Joseph Losey was also an interesting choice.
Losey had been hounded out of the United States by the McCarthy communist witch
hunts and now worked in Europe and Britain. He previously had been quite successful
with his pop art film Modesty Blaise (1966) and hence high hopes were placed on
Boom!
Elizabeth
Taylor plays Flora ‘Sissy’ Goforth a terminally ill widow who has been married
six times. She is unbearably narcissistic, has loads of money and has decided
to spend her final days at an isolated villa dictating her memoirs to servant
Miss Black. She lives in a state of drug induced reverie and fuels her memories
with loads of prescription drugs, morphine, Vitamin B injections and booze. She
is rather paranoid and protects her villa with a pack of wild dogs controlled
by a dwarf.
Soon
her self induced isolation is broken when an attractive poet Chris Flanders
(Richard Burton) arrives by boat and surviving a dog attack makes her acquaintance.
While primarily a poet he is also an artist who makes mobiles designed to
symbolize freedom and it seems he has arrived to free Sissy from her psychological
prison.
Sissy’s
only friend is a psychic known as The Witch of Capri (played deliciously by
Noel Coward) and she invites him for a special dinner comprising roasted pig
and boiled “sea monster”. The Witch begins his deep and profound
divination and informs Sissy that the poet is really the Angel of Death in
disguise. He visits rich women before they pass on to the other world and
liberates them from their physical possessions. Now Sissy is in a real spin,
she is very attracted to Chris but less than excited by this news as she
believes she has something rather significant to say to the world and wants to
complete her memoirs before she dies. Unsure what to do, she refuses to offer
any meals to Chris and spends her time screaming, hurling abuse and sparring
with him. As she degenerates into madness and the final stages of her illness,
Chris becomes the Angel of Death, leads her through her dying moments, relieves
her of her most precious possessions (in this case her jewels) and throws them
into the sea ! The term “Boom!” is used time and time again by Chris for
emphasis during their conversations and in the final stages of the final his
voice becomes booming as it leads her to the other world.
This
is an enigmatic film with lots of metaphysical and spiritual speculation as
well as bitchy dialogue, lots of rages and insults and superb character
development and interpersonal interactions. It is camp, fun, outrageous and a
true cult classic, it is the favourite film of cult film director John Waters
and it is hard not to agree.
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This review will appear in Volume 2 No.6 (2009) of the digital and
print edition of Synergy Magazine.
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