Faye Dunaway is a high-fashion photographer whose work is causing an uproar in the media. A reporter intercepts her on the way into her gallery show, confronting her with whether she knows “just how offensive her artwork is to women.” Another reporter: “The violence if your photos—don’t you think you’re making people desensitized to this stuff?” Tommy Lee Jones tells her “It’s really sad this is the kind of junk that is passing for art these days.”
You would think her work would be in the vein of Mapplethorpe. I almost remarked it could even be in the style of Helmut Newton except, go figure, he was the photographer for the images we see in that gallery show. But, really, that man’s work wouldn’t have raised the hackles of the jaded New Yorkers of 1978, which is when The Eyes of Laura Mars was made.
The photos are glammed-up recreations of murder scenes, restaged with fashion models. The inspiration for these vignettes are visions she suddenly receives, and these are through the eyes of the killer. As Jones’s police detective tells her, some of her past photos uncannily resemble crime scenes photos not released to the public. I was scratching my head, wondering how her perspective in her pictures is the same as that taken by a crime scene photographer when what we see in these psychic episodes is from the murderer’s POV.
The previous victims were strangers to Dunaway. Now, people close to her start getting killed, each one stabbed through the left eye. Jones shows Dunaway a copy of her published book of photos with her face on the cover. It, too, has been stabbed through the eye. There are no end of suspects. There’s her agent, played by a flamboyant Rene Auberjonois. There’s Raul Julia, as her estranged husband. There’s Brad Dourif, her driver who has done some time in stir for breaking and entering. Oh, and there’s Jones’s detective, who is suspicious largely because he is wearing so much eyeliner.
There is much strangeness here, but nothing rings as true and so only feels like one pointless distraction after another. I didn’t care to speculate why Jones has a giant teddy bear on his desk in the police station. I wasn’t fascinated by a photo shoot on Columbus Circle where models pull each other’s hair out while posing around two overturned cars that are on fire. Mostly, I was confused by some terrible hats Dunaway wears, including something of the likes I believe I have only seen before in a self-portrait of Van Gogh and (I think) old movies where kids have mumps. Y’know, the kind of thing that has ties which you fasten under the chin. I was also startled by the accuracy of a Lloyd Bridges impersonation done by Auberjonois.
I wondered what the minds behind the camera were thinking at any point during this production. They were likely too busy angering John Carpenter by changing his script. Or changing directors in midstream and settling on Irvin Kershner (I like to think George Lucas saw this mess and thought, “Now there’s the guy I want to direct the sequel to Star Wars“). Or any number of other ways to make this a contentious shoot, which it was, by all accounts.
Producer Jon Peters is rumored to have been the source of much of the tension. I guess that’s what happens when somebody falls up from hairdresser to the stars to head of a Hollywood studio. Supposedly, he was the inspiration for Warren Beatty’s character in the movie Shampoo. He was also the boyfriend of Barbra Streisand around this time, which is presumably why she sings a deeply horrible title song, in what was the only occasion she did so without being the star of the picture for which she contributed a tune.
Speaking of absence, it is strange to see a film made from a Carpenter screenplay and not be directed by him. Supposedly, the end result was significantly different from what he originally wrote. Still, I doubt anybody could have made much of anything good out of this story.
I don’t have much more to say about The Eyes of Laura Mars because I didn’t think anything more about it. It is an unsatisfactory picture full of ridiculous plot developments, bad performances and a laughable conclusion. The only reason I can think of for anybody to see it is to experience NYC of 1978, as this seems to check a few boxes of that place and time. That starts with the titles, which are in some font like Avant Garde. You’ll see lots of black and mirrors, a look which was part of the zeitgeist for roughly a month in that year. That’s that horrible song by Streisand and, later, “(Shake Shake Shake) Your Booty” and “Boogie Nights”. But that’s all window dressing. In the end, unlike scantily clad models fighting around flaming cars on Columbus Circle, there is nothing to see here.
Dir: Irvin Kershner
Staring Faye Dunaway, Tommy Lee Jones, Brad Dourif
Watched on Kino Lorber blu-ray