Tony Scott, “The Hunger” (1983)
One of a number of 1980s-made movies in the remake production line, this glossy flick was Tony Scott’s directorial debut about a love triangle of two vampires searching for immortality and a mortal human who originally was part of the search. Miriam and John (Catherine Deneuve and David Bowie) are two lovers who have been together for a couple of centuries now, subsisting on human blood and presumably moving long distances from time to time to avoid suspicion and detection, ending up in New York City in the late twentieth century; but John finds old age rapidly encroaching on him and they both hear of medical specialist Dr Sarah Roberts (Susan Sarandon) who has done research with monkeys on sleep disorders and ageing, so they seek her advice and help. Unfortunately the doctor fails to respond at first and is too late to prevent John’s rapid deterioration – an early scene in the consultation room perhaps should be required viewing for those doctors and other professionals who keep clients waiting – and she ends up falling under Miriam’s seductive spell and being primed to replace John as lover. John himself ends up trapped in a coffin shoved into an attic room along with the coffins of Miriam’s previous lovers, all of them victims of her lie that she can give them eternal life.
When first released, the movie garnered negative reviews and it’s easy to see why: the very sketchy plot moves very glacially for most of the film’s running time and only towards the end does the pace pick up and the tone changes from subdued to melodramatic. Much of the movie is dominated by long camera shots dwelling on background details, ostensibly for the sake of mood and atmosphere and to establish Miriam and John as refined sophisticates who inherit and pass on the best of European high culture to the people they live among in New York City. Before he became a film director, Scott’s background was in advertising – he ran an agency together with older brother Ridley who also became a film director, only more famous – and the influence certainly shows in the glamorous, glossy style of the movie which these days looks rather twee and not a little ridiculous. I would rather have seen a movie that spent less time lovingly dwelling on transparent white curtains swaying near windows and more on the history of Miriam and John, and how it is that while Miriam can remain youthful and vital indefinitely, her lovers decline after two centuries and end up trapped in shrivelled bodies in coffins, hidden out of sight. More time should have been spent on some character development, just enough to make Miriam’s seduction of Sarah credible and for the audience to feel some sympathy for the three main characters, however repellent their behaviour. The actors have little to do and I have the sneaking suspicion that Deneuve and Bowie were hired more for their ethereal beauty than for any acting ability. Bowie especially just walks on and off but his problem may be due to the way the original eponymous novel by Whitley Strieber, who incidentally wrote the screenplay for the remake commissioned by Warner Bros, ended up translated to the screen; I understand much of it fell by the wayside and the bits that did involved John’s character seeking vengeance on Miriam. The film compensates for the loss by tacking on a very flimsy and undeveloped sub-plot about a police search for a missing teenage girl but this has the nature of being an afterthought and just doesn’t tie into the main plot or provide any tension or direction to the movie at all.
The best part of the film is in its opening scenes where Miriam and John prey for victims in a Goth-themed nightclub to the tune of 1980s UK band Bauhaus’s song “Bela Lugosi’s Dead”: a hard edge to the movie is established with sharp lighting and the actors in shiny black leather and dark glasses glide through the crowds, pick their victims and take them home for dinner. It’s all action with just two or three words spoken and just a few quick but effective camera shots are needed for the audience to see how the vampires dispatch their victims. In a movie where the “v” word is never mentioned, Miriam and John enjoy no physical advantages over ordinary mortals: they need knives to kill, they must dispose of the bodies themselves, they have to hide evidence that points to them as killers. If the whole movie had been more like its opening scenes, which alone made the movie a cult must-see among young people, in style and pace, it would have been a great movie as it’s not without its assets: yes, it’s very beautiful to watch, very melancholy (too much so, perhaps) and richly layered with details redolent of culture and past times that only immortal creatures can appreciate. Miriam and Sarah’s love-making scene is erotic in a tasteful way and the violence can be quick and shocking, almost demonic.
The appealing aspect of “The Hunger”, which Scott could have made more of, is the notion of two individuals pursuing indefinite life who have only each other and who by their nature must stay their distance from human society yet are compelled to interact with it and negotiate and test its changing boundaries and extremes through time. They acquire art and culture and learn to act as refined sophisticates and social leaders according to the host society’s conventions; they may become world-weary and sad at the passage of time (and the growing coarseness of society around them) but their essential nature remains savage and ravenous, and they will always be dangerous wherever they are.