There’s always the possibility that it could have been perfect
No cinema visits this week, just the fallout from two doomed relationships instead. This week’s post was written to a midi file of Keith Jarrett’s 1975 Köln Concert that forms part of the score to Bad Timing.
the break-up (2006)
The biggest lie that romantic comedy sells is that there is a happy ending for everyone. The canniest romantic comedies take their lead from Shakespearean comedies, where the love of the romantic leads is torn asunder before being reconfirmed at the film’s/play’s end. Yet the tearing asunder of the relationship serves as a reminder that the status quo is more fragile than it may seem and that disruption and discord are never too far away from what may have seemed like an idyll. Vince Vaughn wanted to be involved in a film where a relationship came to an end in an amusing but more realistic way and the happy ending might be the realisation on the part of both sides that it was better the relationship ended when it did as a way of sparing them the pain that might have resulted if resentments had been allowed to simmer unchallenged for longer. The film surrounds its protagonists with all the accoutrements of traditional romcoms: best friends for the leads, a singalong at a family meal, a fabulous condo apartment well beyond the means of their respective salaries, and a bit of PG13-style nudity. The film’s ending suddenly reminded me of another film where a relationship goes nastily wrong, so I had to watch it again.
Bad Timing (1980)
If the break-up would be a bad choice for a date movie (or maybe it wouldn’t), this would be much worse. Bad Timing isn’t just a film from a director at the height of his powers (although it is), it isn’t just Theresa Russell’s finest onscreen work (although it is), it doesn’t just contain the finest musical choices any film could have (alithough it does), it’s something far more intense and insightful than the break-up could ever hope to even scratch the surface of. In a lot of ways, it’s unfair to compare Peyton Reed’s light comedy with a dramatic turn to Nicolas Roeg’s extraordinary masterpiece, because in all aspects of the filmmaking process, Bad Timing is superior. The editing is extraordinary and innovative where the break-up’s editing is polished but pedestrian. Eric Edwards does a valiant job of lighting the break-up so it doesn’t look like a bog standard Hollywood romcom, but his work is no match for a cinematographer like Anthony Richmond at the top of his game. The script of the break-up gives Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn nothing like the opportunities offered to Theresa Russell and Art Garfunkel to tear emotional shreds off each other long before Bad Timing reaches its appalling climax, the central mystery I will not reveal here, and the reason Rank Film Distributors were so horrified they removed the gong from the front of the film. It’s more than a distinction between mainstream and arthouse, it’s more a contrast of American and European. Vince and Jennifer are only too keen to talk about what’s going on between them, but Art and Theresa don’t have the time to talk, such is the intensity of their passion and the depth of the lies and secrets they’re keeping from each other. Vince and Jennifer think that the other might be knowable, they think that there’s still hope; Art and Theresa remain strangers to each other even when they’re together, they’re in the grip of a sensual obsession that will not end well for either of them. Bad Timing is a Borges-inspired labyrinth of passion where there are only wrong turns that take you deeper and deeper into its maze. Every moment is exceptional and fascinating, crafted like a fine nightmare from which no one will be allowed to wake up. It has an intent and ambition that only great work has, and the merely mediocre is unable to stand up to it.