Cameron, a fugitive wanted by the police, dodges a car on the bridge, and throws a metal item at it, which then crashes into the river. Cameron is taken under the wing of demented director Eli, who lies to the police that the fugitive is the stunt driver Burt (who fell with the car in the river), and now hires Cameron as his stuntman on his World War I film which is under delay. Cameron starts a relationship with the main actress, Nina, but is repulsed when he finds out she got her roles by sleeping with Eli. On the last day of filming, Eli wants Cameron to drive the car over the bridge into the river. Cameron starts the car early in order to escape, but the pyrotechnics blow up his tire, so the car falls into the river, anyway. Cameron swims to the shore, but starts an argument with Eli over his small fee.
Films about making films often end up as an interesting watch, since many filmmakers insert problems and difficulties that happened to them, giving a metafilm touch. “The Stunt Man” is one of these films: its premise is basically simple, but the director Richard Rush tends to obfuscate the whole storyline. “The Stunt Man” seems like a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde picture, since it has two levels—at times it rises to brilliance, and then at times it falls down into a sloppy mess—that are fighting each other, trying to alternately take the leading position. The film is a chaotic, disorganized, at times even clumsily directed patchwork, with the music playing over the actors talking, making it occasionally difficult to understand what they are saying, whereas the bizarre moments abound, from the infamous opening shots of a dog licking its own crotch, up to the demented sequence of the stuntman Cameron playing a WWI soldier running across the rooftop of a modern looking building, falling through a window, and landing on to a brothel (!), where other soldiers start taking his clothes off while the prostitutes are cheering. On one hand, this all seems weird, but on the other hand, it gives the impression of the madness of the megalomaniac director in the story, Eli, who is even more insane than Fellini was in his later surreal phase of his career, which makes it understandable why Cameron would be so hesitant at continuing working on the film set.
Indisputably, Eli gives the story spark, and the film is consistently inspired while he is on the screen, a film director who would do anything to complete his artistic vision, whereas Peter O’Toole plays him wonderfully, delivering another fine performance. Moreover, Eli is often presented coming down from the sky, either from a helicopter or a camera crane, to symbolize his feeling of divine while he controls other people like pawns. Some of Eli’s funny lines include: “Burt here was so busy being brilliant that he wouldn’t have noticed sweet Jesus walking on water”. On the last day of filming, where they can film only one take of the crucial scene, he shouts in front of the film crew: “I therefore order that no camera shall jam and that no cloud shall pass before the Sun!” When one of his cameramen shouts “cut!” and ends a scene because only 33 feet (equivalent to 22 seconds) of film were left in the camera, Eli goes berserk and accosts him: “In 22 seconds, I could break your spine! ... In 22 seconds, I could put 22 bullets inside your ridiculous gut!” The main protagonist, Cameron, is never as interesting as Eli, but the script gives him a few comical monents to shine: one of them is one of the most hilarious confessions of an attempted murder ("He was banging my old lady, so I started banging on his door!... I took the ice cream bucket and slammed it on his head! But it wasn't him, it was a cop... The tip of his nose frozen, and his earlobe frozen..."), which causes Nina (exceptional Barbara Hershey) to burst out laughing, or the moment where the make up woman stretches her hand out towards Cameron, who gives her back her underwear, but then she just grabs his hand, instead, and pulls him towards herself. One of the wildest movies ever to be nominated for an Oscar, “The Stunt Man” is a crazy experience— but that may be a part of its raw charm, being a true original that is its own thing.
Grade:++
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