CRIMES OF PASSION

US, 1984, 102 minutes, Colour.
Kathleen Turner, Anthony Perkins, John Laughlin, Annie Potts, Bruce Davison.
Directed by Ken Russell.

Crimes of Passion is another eccentric Ken Russell film. After making his name with television features, especially about artists and musicians, in the '60s, he made a number of impressive films - though critics always highlighted his flamboyant style and his seeming to go over the top: Women in Love, The Music Lovers, The Devils. From the mid-70s he made only few films: Valentino, Altered States.

This film continues his interest in themes of relationships, sanity and madness, fragmentation of the personality, integration, religion, sexuality. As with many of his films, the settings are a blend of a fantasy world and reality. This is the garish American city alongside of the alleged wholesome American way of life. Kathleen Turner gives a striking performance as a fashion designer who is a prostitute by night. Anthony Perkins, it would seem deliberately with the references to Psycho, does a reprisal of his maniacal suppressed male. Here he is an alleged minister which brings a mad religion theme into focus with themes of salvation and redemption, sacrificial deaths. The other lead character is John Lachlan, the ordinary bland American. Annie Potts is very good as his nagging wife.

The film is interesting from a psychological point of view - and can be very well read by a Jungian framework. However, many dismissed the film as too bizarre.

1. Impact and interest, entertainment? Bizarre? Values and stances?

2. The film in the career of Ken Russell: themes, human behaviour, psychology, madness, reality and fantasy, the real world and the stylised world? The situating of the story in America - a piece of Americana? The world, individuals? Where do Russell's sympathies lie?

3. Russell's visual style: flamboyant, garish, loud? Colourful? Realism, flights of fancy and fantasy? Use of colours? Editing and pace, bold contrasts?

4. The title - and the usual reference to a sexual liaison and murder? The deaths and crimes - who committed a crime, who was the victim? Guilt, responsibility? Who is to judge the crime? The exploration of passion: emotion, sensuality, sexuality? The bases for relationship? Madness, sacrifice, death?

5. The film's ability to communicate sensuality and sexuality? Inviting the audience into this experience? Symbols and realism? The authentic, the bizarre, the fantasy world? Lust and love? Exploitive or not? Verbal impact: blunt language, sexual language? Serious, jokey? Therapy? Expressions of relationships - authentically? The indications of Asian art and the erotic? The place of the erotic? Russell's cinematic skill in communicating this: kinetic. editing, music, suggestion? The voyeur characters? The audience sharing this? Participating in the experiences?

6. The plot and its reality unreality? The initial and end context of therapy? The importance of fantasy in therapy, the surfacing of fantasy - no matter how bizarre? Fantasy and games, manipulation, role-play? The overtones of psycho-drama, dreams? The basic plot-line in these contexts: the sub-plots. interconnections? Plausibility? A schematic presentation of the various characters and their developments and interactions?

7. Psycho-analytic and psychological theories for interpretation of the film - Freud and Jung? Theories of therapy, dreams, the , masculine and the feminine, animus and anima, dreams? The characters as real, as in each other's fantasies? Satisfactory psychological resolution and integration?

8. The focus on Bobby at beginning and end? Hopper and his talk -therapy, honest, frank, flip? The therapy session, Bobby as guest, his bland statements about his happy 11 years' marriage, the slip about ten years? Anger when accused of being 'a lousy lay'? His blaming Amy? Anger and the need for some resolution? His seeming to be alerted to the reality of his marriage and relationship? The film as his therapy? Where had he arrived at the end? Separation from Amy, union with Joanna, more honest? The future - possible with Joanna? But 'a good lay'? A better man than before? Tender, macho? The flip ending?

9. Bobby as the bland American man, the background to his marriage, love for his wife from high school, the children, his job, friends? Suburbs, money and expectations: a tub, car? His image - grown up or not? Work, enjoying his work? Taking on industrial espionage for the money? A kind of voyeurism? Success? Being referred to as a boy scout, a man of honour? His relationship with his children. joking with them at TV, his later visiting his son at school? With Amy: her frigid manner, tension, nagging, his crude jokes and her reaction, bedroom talk, the discussion about being honest and faking her response, the clarity of his theory about marital relationship and her prudish response, leaving. the visit and the meal (and her presenting him with an old pullover as a gift, memories of the past, her attempt to tell a crude joke)? His behaviour at the party, his magic trick, his miming of the orgasm? His following Joanna in his work, seeing her as China Blue, listening to Peter Shane through the window, caught by the prostitute while photographing? His visit to China Blue, nervousness, her using the Airline routine with him, the invitation to a sensual experience, sexual - and the filming style of their sexual encounter with silhouettes like the Indian sexual art? His trying to save her from Shand and attacking him in the street, his feelings for her, fighting for her? His visiting her at home, not wanting to intrude, knowing her real name, the reality of her life. his comments and her criticism of him? Her giving him permission to return? The second sexual encounter and the expression of love, a more intimate sensuality? The fights, his return? His shock about the final role-play with Shane? The ending and his being with Joanna?

10. Bobby and his growing up. his potential, a reasonable ego strength but a traditionally cold American wife. 11 years of marriage? The need for China Blue and his fantasies? Wanton but real? The contrast with Hopper and his shallowness? The contrast with Shane and his madness, both wanting to save China Blue, the truth, religion background, violence?

11. Joanna as China Blue: the range of her sex games - Miss Liberty. the violent treatment. the rape enactment, the airline routine, taunting Peter Shane dressed as the sensual nun, the being picked up in the fashionable car for a trio, the sado-masochistic policeman, the visit to Ben and her treating him humanely, her work on the street? The world of prostitution (the real and unreal sets for this world?), her adapting to this world? Audience judgment of her? A surface life - bringing fantasy to the surface? Her attitudes towards the money, taking it, tearing it up? Personal involvement and disgust? The drink, the pills? Peter Shane and his denunciations and the effect on her, the continual clash with her, his intervening, coming to her room, his bag like a miniature sex shop, her response to his religious mania, the fact that he wanted to save her, her dressing as a nun to shock him? Audience response to seeing her as Joanna in her career with her efficiency, ambition, icy manner, suspect of industrial espionage? Her home, wealth, its taste and beauty? Her encounter with Bobby as China Blue, her being touched, hurt. inviting him to come again, her response to being fought over in the street? The reaction to meeting him at home? His name and her comments on his immaturity? The bond between the two, the invitation? The sensual encounter in her home and the evoking of love in her? Her going to the factory, Shane in the elevator? His knowing the truth? The parallel with the discoveries by Shane and Bobby? Her reaction to the wealthy couple in the car and their snobbery, her getting out? Her being picked up by Ben's wife, the encounter with Ben, her taking off her wig and treating him as a human being, honestly? The violence with Peter Shane in her home, being tied up, his taunting her with the dildo, 'Superman'? Shane's identifying with her? Their role-play and the irony of her killing him - realistically, symbolically, both? The end with the information given about her life with Bobby?

12. Joanna and her icy ego, her fears, her feeling 'safe' as China Blue, the sleazy motel as Paradise? Bringing her fantasies to the surface, living out others' fantasies and living up to them? The encounter with Bobby as bland but falling in love with him, his gentleness? Peter Shane as a symbol of her super-ego, mad. maniacal, destructive? The need to kill Shane and be united with Bobby?

13. Anthony Perkins as Shane - his stock-in-trade mannerisms as madmen? The relationship with Psycho - and the visual memories, especially at the end with the role-reversion and deaths? His being a voyeur. his watching the nude dancer. his images of going berserk and killing the dancer? Reality and fantasy? His immediate going back to religious stances, the soap box and his prayers? Yet the bluntness of his earthy and crude language? His bag with its sex-shop contents? The dildo and its being called Superman? His accosting China Blue and her reaction? The visit and his abuse? The $50 and her appearing as a nun? Her comments on sheer emotionalist? His praying, peeping? His mad shrine with its candles and religious pictures? The phone calls and calling China Blue Joanna? Haunting her, being at the factory and stating her name? His death wish, the final visit, tying her up, torturing her? Reversing roles? Dying in order to save her? A real character, symbolic? Symbolic of the shadow world?

14. Amy - and the basic meaning of the world as 'soul' (by contrast with 'body')? Prim, high school girl, nagging, home life, suburban, disappointment? Money. meals? Talk about the children's teeth? Talk about her duty as a wife? Moods. a party. the photo. her disgust at Bobby's orgasm act? Criticisms of his magic act? The bedroom talk, her faking her responses? Her statement of not feeling the necessity of sexual experience? Her being hurt? The importance of the intrusion of the bizarre television ad with the mock window store brides and bridegrooms (in the manner of Ken Russell's Tommy) in the middle of conversation? Her being left by Bobby? Her wanting to try again, the meal, the gift of the sweater from the past. her attempt to tell a crude joke? Her relationship with her children? A symbol of the American wife?

15. Hopper and his boasting, being at the therapy session, the shop, the party, wanting to be in touch with his ex-wife, the barbecue? The phallic jokes?

16. The range of Joanna's clients: their needs, fantasies. macho images, exploitive? The men and their experience of sex - with Miss Liberty, with a woman wanting to be raped etc.? The snobs in the car? The sado-masochist policeman and his abuse of China Blue? Ben and his wife, Ben's simplicity and humility. China Blue's response?

17. The prostitutes, the nude dancer - the pathos of their experiences? The symbolism of the life-size doll which Shane kills the prostitutes as murderable dolls?

18. The film as Americana: in its look, city life, locations?

19. The importance of the symbols - the use of sexual objects - from sex shops, in prostitutes' rooms. the jokes e.g. with sausages at the barbecue? The continued sexual atmosphere?

20. The importance of the music: Dvorjak and his New World Symphony with the variety of instruments. rhythms, arrangements? Corresponding to moods? The lyrics of 'It's A Lovely Life'? Use for China Blue, the sexual experiences. the TV ad? The variations on 'Onward, Christian Soldiers' for Peter Shane? Religious mockery? The final credits with the Dvorjak music?

21. Reality and fantasy? 1980s cinema? observation of behaviour? Psycho-drama?