THE MEDUSA TOUCH
UK, 1978, 105 minutes, Colour.
Richard Burton, Lino Ventura, Lee Remick, Harry Andrews, Alan Badel, Marie- Christine Barrault, Jeremy Brett, Michael Hordern, Gordon Jackson, Michael Byrne, Derek Jacobi, Robert Lang, John Normington.
Directed by Jack Gold.
The Medusa Touch refers to the head of the gorgon who could turn anything and anyone to stone with her gaze. In this film it refers to the character played by Richard Burton who has telekinetic powers of a destructive nature. There is an attempt on his life and a French detective, played by Lino Ventura, investigates. This brings him into contact with the victim’s psychiatrist, played by Lee Remick.
The film explores the back-story of the central character and his upbringing, the coincidences or not of strange disasters in his life – which, it seems, he causes by his powers. As the film progresses, there are episodes of disaster as well as the step-by-step exploring of the character as well as investigating the attack on him.
The film has a very strong supporting cast of British character actors which gives it some distinction. It was directed by Jack Gold, a strong director of both cinema films and television movies over many decades.
1. The meaning of the title, the picture during the credits, the linking of Marler and Medusa? The face of destruction? Audience expectations from the title and this linking?
2. A British treatment of the occult, telekinesis, disasters? The British civilised tone and intellectual approach? The psychological study and language? The framework of the detective story and the gradual piecing together pf the personality of Marler? The culmination in the disaster trend? Was the blending of these elements successful? for entertainment, for reflection on the themes?
3. The atmosphere of the prologue? the scanning of Marler's desk, his novels, the moon landing and its disaster, Marler's face and his turning to the audience, the suddenness of the violent bashing? Audience reaction to this violence? The blood-spattered television etc.? The reversal of feelings later when it was revealed that Dr Zonfeld did it? and the audience shared her feelings? That the audience would wish Brunel to do the same?
4. Was the plot plausible? The background of Marler's growing up, his experience of his power, the theme of coincidences? the facts, the explanations? Marler's brain, power, destruction? The response of the psychologist, of the police? Politicians? The implications of a person with this kind of power? Did the film bring this out sufficiently well as warning, for fear?
5. Marler as the incarnation of destructive evil? Why? Was this left in mystery? Comment on the interplay of the hospital sequences and the recording of his brain activity and the outside events as well as the memories of his past? The cumulative effect of this understanding of Marler and his power? The build-up to a huge violent climax? Gimmick, disaster trend, appropriate for the theme being presented?
6. The appropriateness of Richard Burton for the role of Marler? His appearance, his eyes, a Medusa? His diction, literary explanations, eloquent and rhetorical condemnations of people and issues? His worry about himself and his going to the psychiatrist? His recounting the discovery of his power? Its culmination and the fact that it could not be destroyed? His succumbing to it and allowing himself to be the vehicle of evil? The irony of audience sympathy in the killing attempt on his life at the beginning and yet the audience wanting him to be dead by the end? How well did the film build up the chronology of his life, sufficient flashback glimpses to understand what he was like and what he did? What did they reveal? His story of the destruction of the Irish nurse with her reading of hellish stories? His parents and their bickering and commenting on him and his making the car crash on them on Dover Cliffs, the schoolmaster and his humiliation of him and the collecting of the leaves in the rain and the burning of the school, the publisher and his running outside to meet a friend whom we never identified, his relationship with his lawyer companion and his memory of him, his performance in the court scene and his condemnation of the Establishment and military, the effect on the judge and his death, the hostility of the prisoner as indicating the hostility with which people regarded him, the deformed child, his hostility towards his beautiful and wealthy wife and her lover and killing them? The visit to the fortune teller and his fear? Was this credible for the build-up to Dr Zonfeld's experience of his making the Jumbo Jet crash? Sufficiently plausible for the destruction of the cathedral and for the atomic power plant?
7. The effect of his experience of his power on him, more than coincidence, the destructive element? His ideas about it and the way that he used them? Developing hostility towards the Establishment for example the Judge, the people to be destroyed at the cathedral opening, at the atomic plant? The moon-landing and his destruction of that? The Devil and the current issues and the confrontation of these? The fact that he survived?
8. How well did the film balance the film with Marler? His French background, presence in England, his examination of the body, Marler's room and his fascination with the pictures, the journal? The fascination of the discussions with Dr Zonfeld and the reading of the journal? His using his detective skills to build up a picture of Marler and his life, his attitudes? His relationship with Duff and the comic sequences between them, for example Duff coming in and frightening him, driving the car towards him, the cooking sequence? his accountability to the inspector and their scenes together, the political implications? His amazement at Marler's experience in the hospital? His discussion with the Doctor and the explanations of the background? His looking at the films about telekinesis? His interviews with Dr Zonfeld, the publisher? His growing awareness of Marler's capabilities, his worry, nightmares, moving to action to clear the cathedral, his inability to clear the cathedral and prevent its destruction and the deaths? Marler's final word and the ominous destruction of the atomic site?
9. Brunel as the balance of common sense, justice, the administration of the law: human feeling? How could the audience identify with him and move with fascination to Marler to horror of him?
10. The surprise of discovering that Dr Zonfeld was a woman? Lee Remick's style in this role? Her businesslike manner, supplying of the information, her wanting to avoid giving information? The gradual revelations and her place in these? Her finally deciding to tell the story of the crash of the jet? The realisation that she had tried to kill Marler and the re-creation of this scene? Her attempt to kill him in the hospital? Her inability to do this? with his opening of his eyes and her taping and subsequent suicide? Marler's destruction even of the person he sought to help him? His reliance on her, yet his despising of her - witch doctor etc.? (The malice of Marler, even unintentionally, with the suicide of his neighbour's wife and his neighbour's consequent hostility)?
11. How well portrayed, for the purposes of the credibility of the film? In a brief manner, the roles of the nurse and her Irish hell stories, his parents, especially his critical mother, the ironic master in the school room, the lawyer, the judge and his hostility, the prisoner and his condemnation, the neighbour and his hostility, his wife and her spurning of him, the lover and his critical attitude, the publisher and his wondering, the fortune teller and his fear?
12. The theme of telekinesis and its possibility, the documentary videotape and the visualising, the explanation, the doctor keeping an open mind? The psychological implications of the power of the mind? How seriously were these aspects of the screenplay presented?
13. The melodramatics of Marler willing the plane to crash into the skyscraper and Dr Zonfeld's presence and watching? The violence of the destruction and the motif of the people going past the rubble being cleared - throughout the film?
14. The build-up to the cathedral - on the television news, the west front, the cracks, the obtuseness of the Bishop, the explanations of the clergymen? The preparation, the inspector trying to help Brunel? The pomp and circumstance of the ceremony and people arriving? The visualising of the disaster in the best disaster film tradition? crumblings and crackings, falling pillars, the death toll, people's hysteria and trying to escape? The irony of it being on the television set in Marler's hospital ward? The interweaving of the signals of his brain activity?
15. An appropriate climax melodramatically? The ominous nature of his threatening to destroy the atomic plant?
16. Horror aspects and the problem of evil and destruction incarnate? Science fiction themes of telekinesis? The overtones of the occult? The British civilised manner of their presentation for popular consumption?
