The Fury 1978 what the hell is this movie?
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While Brian De Palma was making Carrie ( as a part of his Alfred Hitchcock imitation films ), Alfred Hitchcock himself was making his last picture Family Plot, where he used the composer from Steven Spielberg's Jaws John Williams for the score. De Palma, probably knowing Williams through Spielberg, decided to mess around with Hitchcock himself, making a sort of yet another Carrie ( a film about people with superpowers ) but this time hiring John Williams himself for the score. And weirdly enough ( while Spielberg was finishing Close Encounters and starting 1941 where his camera sexually obsessed over De Palma's GF at the time Nancy Allen ) De Palma hires Spielberg's girlfriend at the time Amy Irving for the lead role.
Frankly the film is kind of shitty. De Palma isn't trying to direct the shit out of it, it seems. There are moments of good cinema. Like when you have a basic shot of Amy walking around with this professor guy and she starts falling, so she touches his hand. Suddenly the film becomes cool. You get montage of closeups of this touch and a rear projection shot of her vision. Good fucking stuff. But other than a few moments like that it seems like most of this movie is shot very matter-of-factly.
And the weird think about this style, is that while the film tries to feel like this rather serious picture ( being shot matter-of-factly, is the technique for Oscar-bait Hollywood dramas ) the script is rather silly. Making you ask yourself: why didn't De Palma do almost anything fun with this script?
Actors in this film are strange. The only one who seems to care is Amy Irving. She gives a genuinely impressive performance. Kirk Douglas ( the older Douglas ) is playing this Jewish family father, who's son was kidnapped because he had superpowers... well Kirk Douglas doesn't give a damn. It works in more comedic scenes. But he seems to be utterly uninterested in the movie. So in the dramatic scenes he looks laughable.
Nancy Allen is not even in the movie, so her performance here is literally non-existent. Which is strange. De Palma was shoving his wife Nancy into every single thing he did. And while they weren't married in 1978, they were totally dating, because they married right after this movie got released. So what happened here? Why not her? Why Amy instead? Was De Palma jealous of Nancy in the hands of Steven? Was De Palma doing a sort of revenge by casting Amy? And if so, why the film isn't sexual?
Like of course the film does give us some shots of Amy Irving's body in a bikini. But that's about it. She went with her friend to the beach at one time. There is no full frontal nudity as there was in Carrie. ( and even if you look at Carrie, while you get full frontal of Nancy, Amy is already covered by the time the camera gets to her ). Maybe Amy is just shy. Or maybe the film wasn't obsessing over Amy because De Palma respects Spielberg. Maybe De Palma got John Williams not because of Hitchcock, but because of Spielberg.
I have a hard time understanding whether the film was trying to be good or was trying to be silly. Let's assume it was trying to be silly. The whole Kirk Douglas character makes me believe it is one huge comedy movie. So then why the hell Amy is acting her ass off, trying to get herself an Oscar in such a dumb movie? And Amy is good enough, she was nominated for an Oscar a few years later in 1983, probably trying even harder.
If you read the Joseph McBride book about Steven Spielberg, you know that Amy divorced Spielberg in 1989 because she felt like she was just his shadow. There was no recognition of Amy Irving the serious actor. Amy was always either Steven Spielberg's girlfriend, or later Steven Spielberg's wife. If she appears somewhere, they talk about Steven Spielberg. If she is in a movie and some blender-dumbass reviews said movie many decades after it is released, the talk about that movie eventually involves Steven Spielberg. Before she ultimately gave up and separated herself from Spielberg, in an attempt to distinguish herself. To establish herself. As herself. Not as Steven Spielberg's shadow. Before all that, she was still trying to become herself while being Steven Spielberg's shadow. She is acting her ass off in this movie, because she knows her boyfriend just made fucking Close Encounters of the Third Kind. And if she wants to be paid attention to, for something of her own, it should be at least as good, or even better than whatever Steven is doing.
Steven on the other hand never cast Irving in any of his movies ( unlike De Palma who cast Nancy everywhere pretty much, and unlike Luc Besson that worked with all of his 4 wives on his films ). There was though a possibility that would have been rather ironic. But Irving's great wisdom saved her from this embarrassment. Spielberg originally wanted to cast her as Marion Ravenwood in the first Indiana Jones film. But she didn't want to do that. So the role went to Allen. Not Nancy Allen, an unrelated Karen Allen. This sounds like a great loss. Like she could have been in a Steven Spielberg movie, in a role that people really like to this day. But here is a catch. The second Indiana Jones film had Kate Capshaw in it, as the main love interest of Jones himself. And as we all know Kate's plan was to get Spielberg to marry her. Which worked, in 1991 they were married and they are still together to this day.
What's funny about it, this second Indiana Jones film was done in 1984, when Irving was not even dating Spielberg that much. And which was before they were ultimately married in 1985. Irving divorced Steven only in 1989. So for Capshaw, that was a hell of a decade of nervousness. Yet imagine how much more ironic the whole thing would have been in Amy had agreed to play Marion.
I can only imagine how cringe-inducing this might be for directors like Destry Spielberg and musicians like Buzzy Lee ( or Sasha Spielberg ) to watch the second Indiana Jones film where their mom and dad met. But then imagine how cringe-worthy the conversation about those films, with their half brother Max Spielberg would have been, if his mom was also a part of the Indiana Jones franchise.
Now looking at the stupid movie we are trying to discuss here, The Fury, I actually started understanding Steven at the time. While somebody like Nancy Allen is conventionally attractive, this seriousness of Amy adds a lot of very cool character to her amazingly cute appearance. Amy has this aura to her that makes you want to sit close to her and have a deep conversation with her. While also being utterly bamboozled by her. You want to stop thinking and just admire the fuck out of her. The thing is, something like this happened to me as well with my GF. I just wanted to sit right next to her and admire her all the damn time.
While Nancy Allen is the hot babe in town. Amy Irving is the girl you love. And looking at the two directors, Brian De Palma seems to be way more of a sex-addict than Steven Spielberg. While Spielberg is this sentimental romantic person. So now it is obvious why Nancy went with De Palma and why Irving went with Spielberg. I cannot see it in any other way.
In a way, Amy was so romanticism inducing that Brian De Palma made here a rather kosher movie. Yes there are silly deaths, from super-powers. And one bad guy literally explodes into meaty pieces at some point. But the movie isn't trying to be a psycho-sexual experience. It is just a psychological experience. Apart from the beach scene in the very beginning, there is not a single real reference to sex in the entire film. Even the one time Kirk's character has an intercourse in the film, the movie shows only the aftermath conversation of it.
Now speaking of the character of Kirk and a strange connection this movie has to De Palma's film Snake Eyes. The Fury starts in Israel. As Kirk Douglas ( who you may know is a Jewish man ) is having a good time with his son. Suddenly a bunch of Palestinians arrive and start shooting everybody. And then we learn that the bad guys hired those Palestinians to distract the father, while they kidnap the son. Because the son has super-powers or something.
Later in the film, this son character walks through an amusement park in Chicago. And he sees a bunch of Arabs ( not necessarily Palestinians ) on one of the rides. He uses his powers to break the machine in an attempt to hurt them very much.
The plot of Snake Eyes revolves around military missile defense system ( which is strangely similar to what Israel has currently with the Iron Dome and stuff ). The bad guys are trying to hide the fact that the system is somewhat flawed. And so they are assassinating an important political person who is about to learn how flawed the system really is. In their scheme they specifically use a Palestinian to shoot the politician. So they could have somebody to blame, to cover their operation.
Both films uses Palestinians as a coverup for bad guys. So that those bad guys could blame somebody else. Now, if we already attached Steven Spielberg into this, we have to connect it in some way to Spielberg's film on the matter Munich. About Palestinians who take Israeli athletes hostage. And then about a Mosad operation to eliminate those Palestinians.
The film by Spielberg is trying to do to Israel-Palestine conflict what Maïwenn Le Besco's 2011 film Polisse is trying to do to ( pro vs anti ) child-sexuality. It is trying to walk a fine line of nuanced discussion showing both sides as carefully as it can. Respecting both position on the matter. And yet not being too safe, and actually showing terrible things from both sides.
Is De Palma, being a friend of Spielberg, does that very same thing, in a slightly less straight to the point manner? As in, you could do a movie like Munich where the whole film is one big meditation on the subject. Or you could just put the contradictory thought provoking moment somewhere in an, otherwise, somewhat unrelated movie.
Which also begs a sort of interesting question. How come Spielberg didn't have anything to say since October of 2023?
Happy Hacking!!!
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