Director Report Card: Tony Scott (1983)

The origin of Tony Scott's career is intertwined with that of his brother, Ridley. Tony's first film credit was starring in his older brother's debut short, “Boy and Bicycle.” After Ridley became a popular maker of commercials, Tony followed in his foot steps. And after Ridley successfully made the leap to feature films, Tony Scott would soon do the same as well. Critical and fan opinon on the two Scott brothers tend to be divided. While Ridley's films are often praised and awarded, Tony was too often dismissed as a purveyor of trashy popcorn movies. I, for one, think this is unfair. After giving every single movie over Ridley's long career a shot, it only seemed right to give the younger – lesser? That remains to be seen – Scott the same treatment. 

1. The Hunger

With a portfolio full of slick commercials and television work, Tony Scott was ready to break into feature films. A potential project he was interested in making was an adaptation of Anne Rice's influential novel, “The Interview with the Vampire.” Instead, Scott would become attached to a different vampire project. Before becoming a full-time occultist and proponent of alien abduction, Whitley Strieber was a respected horror novelist. His second book, “The Hunger,” had gotten some attention in 1981. M-G-M was developing a film version and this is the literary vampire story Tony Scott would make his theatrical – in both meanings of the word – debut with.  “The Hunger” would sink its fangs into audience in April of 1983.

Miriam Baylock lives forever. As long as she drinks human blood, she'll always remain young and beautiful. It has been this way since the days of ancient Egypt. Over the ages, she has taken multiple lovers. Her latest is a John, a cellist she met three hundred years ago. One day, Miriam and John's lives of sex and blood are interrupted when he starts to age. Within the span of a few days, the centuries catch up with him. Around the same time, Miriam meets Sarah Roberts, a scientist who studies aging and sleep. She immediately seduces Sarah, taking her as her new seemingly ageless lover. Yet, as Sarah discovers this new world of endless nights and insatiable hunger, will she survive? And what of Miriam's past lovers?

“The Hunger” begins with a lingering shot of Peter Murphy, of Bauhaus, singing that Bela Lugosi's dead. This is a deliberate announcement that “The Hunger” is not a traditional vampire story. All of the usual rules of the vampire myth are rejected here. There's no mention of bats, garlic, or stakes through the heart. These bloodsuckers have no fangs and can walk around in the daylight. In Streiber's novel, it's explained that Miriam is not even undead. She is a different species from humanity, a “real” inspiration for the common vampire myth. She doesn't age and can only pass a deficient version of her condition to her lovers, who eventually do start to grow old. (Streiber would think up a similar scientific explanation for the werewolf myth in “The Wolfen.”)  This is a pretty clever and unique take on the vampire genre, especially as it existed cinematically forty years ago. 

Those opening minutes announce something else too. The film cuts between Murphy's staring face, as he sings behind a fence in a nightclub. Through a series of rapid edits, we see Miriam and John select their prey for the night. As the sun is either going down or coming up over the horizon, we see the vampires lure their meals for the night into their home. They seduce, strip down, and then slice open their targets. Blood washes over a pure white porcelain sink. Occasionally, shots of a monkey wildly leaping around its cage are interjected. There's no dialogue throughout any of these scenes. “Bela Lugosi's Dead” ends abruptly, a slow and simmering piece of music beginning instead. It certainly makes an impression. “The Hunger's” status as a sexy, bloody, and stylish rock n' roll take on the vampire premise is established immediately.

The film's title is well chosen. Miriam and her lovers hunger for blood, slicing veins with blades hidden in Ankh necklaces, but not blood alone. After being infected by Miriam, Sarah slices into a rare steak, the camera lingering on the sight. Yet the passionate, hot, pumping blood represents other things as well. After her first encounter with Miriam, Sarah's boyfriend can no longer satisfy her sexually. Similarly, Miriam and John lure in many of their victims with the promise of sexual release. While the story is certainly wrapped up with the hunger for sex, this is only part of it. The one thing that has eluded Miriam over her endless life has been a love that lasts. And so desires that need to be filled, all lusty and bright red with blood, define the entire movie.

Yet, as red hot as “The Hunger” is thematically, its approach is often much cooler. Miriam and John live their days in a cavernous mansion. They decorate with classical art and sculptures. They sit in darkened rooms and practice music all day. They always look extremely glamorous, dressed in fancy clothes and drinking red wine from narrow stemmed glasses. Almost all these scenes are scored to classical music, full of longing and beauty. At night, they slink into smoky clubs, easily being the coolest people wherever they go. It's no wonder that “The Hunger” would become a cult classic among the goth subculture. The film depicts the life of a vampire as one defined by being beautiful and pale forever and sitting around in shadowy, gorgeous buildings, smoking and drinking and having sex for all your days. Sophisticated, mysterious, artistic, spooky, sexy: That's everything every goth desires to be.

As eternally youthful as the vampires appear, age is going to catch up with all of us eventually. John, like all of Miriam's former lovers we eventually learn, begins to suddenly age one day. He goes from being perpetually beautiful to having liver spots on his hand one morning. He ages fifty years in the course of fifty minutes. John is desperate to hold onto his youth, taking increasingly vicious measures in hopes of staying young. But it's no use. Casting notoriously ageless stars like David Bowie and Catherine Deneuve in these roles was no doubt an intentional move. Watching Bowie age before our very eyes, thanks to Dick Smith's extremely subtle and brilliant make-up effects, is a lot more surprising than it'd be with some other performer.

The reason a wild monkey springing around her cage appears in that opening scene is because Sarah's experiments are being done on primates. The simians seem to mirror John and Miriam's condition somewhat. Later, we see the male macaque collapse into old age quickly, dying suddenly. And in the beginning, the female monkey attacks, kills, and eats her partner for no discernible reason. All of Miriam's partners eventually turn into half-alive, decrepit ghouls, still conscious but trapped in corpse-like bodies. Does she do this intentionally, maliciously? Is she a ruthless predator? Hours after John is gone, she's already chosen his replacement. This suggest a certain degree of callousness but there's also evidence to suggest Miriam is simply a perpetual fool for love. She becomes so attached to her lovers that she keeps them, in this near-death-like state, in caskets in her basement. Her feelings for John, and then Sarah, seem utterly sincere. Who knows what living forever does to your emotions. Yet this sense of ambiguity over Miriam's feelings and motivations floats over all of “The Hunger.”

There had been lesbian or bisexual vampire movies before “The Hunger.” 1936's “Dracula's Daughter” kept its girl-on-girl lust barely beneath the surface. The influential novel “Carmilla” had been adapted before, as “Blood and Roses” and a trilogy of titillating films from Hammer. Yet there had never been a sapphic love scene like this before, that depicted it frankly and with big stars like this. The scene is unapologetically erotic, both women looking gorgeous as their hands and mouths work over each other's bodies. The build-up to the sex, where Sarah strips out of an already skin-tight shirt, is actually equally erotic to the act. What makes this scene really groundbreaking is how casual it is. No dramatic attention is paid to either woman's sexuality. That someone would fall into bed with Catherine Deveune, regardless of gender, is treated as a matter of fact. That a bisexual encounter is treated as something so normal, and depicted so glamorously, was truly unprecedented in a film of this level in 1983.

But, of course, the sex scene looks glamorous. The entire movie looks like that. Tony Scott makes sure every single scene is as stylish looking at possible. Much like his brother, he utilizes quite a lot of stylized lighting, rays of light piercing darkened rooms from single windows. Yet Tony Scott's visual design is also more expressionistic than his brothers. A shot of a guy on roller skates dancing in an alleyway is defined by high-contrast shadows. Scott also includes lots of scenes of curtains billowing in the air. In fact, I'd wager that 40% of “The Hunger” is made up of curtains dancing through the air. It almost becomes funny by the end, as Miriam is surrounded by blowing fabric for the umpteenth time. But, hey, it does work. “The Hunger” looks insanely cool and sexy throughout.

Unfortunately, as the movie goes on, it looses sight of its story. Looked at from a distance, “The Hunger” doesn't actually have much in the way of story. Miriam and John's relationship is established. He is consumed by old age. She moves onto Sarah, who briefly struggles with her new status as a vampire, and the movie heads towards its climax. If you haven't' read Streiber's book, you might be a bit confused why Miriam's lovers age and she doesn't. Or why she has a collection of them in the business. By the end, “The Hunger” completely dissolves into things happening for no reason. Someone else ages rapidly and another character comes back to life for unexplained reasons. (Though the latter was the result of studio tampering.) Tony Scott turns up the stylization in hopes of covering the gaps in logic but the audience still notices.

Still, “The Hunger” coasts for a long time just on its unforgettable atmosphere of slick, gothy coolness. The cast goes a long way. When you have David Bowie in your movie, it's hard for his irrepressible sense of coolness not to rub off. Bowie is, of course, brilliantly cast as a seductive vampire. Even showing some pathos, during his character's degradation, and effectively acting from under some extensive make-up. Deneuve, though definitely hampered by a thick accent, is nevertheless utterly seductive as Miriam. She can't quite make up for the vagueness of the character's inner life but her sense of sensuality goes a long way. Susan Sarandon is also very good as Sarah, a rational woman wrapped up in something she can't quite understand, and being swept away on new emotions that are behind her control. That trio of performers, whose interaction take up most of the movie, are clearly a big reason why “The Hunger” works as well as it does.

Upon release in 1983, “The Hunger” would receive largely negative reviews from critics. Looking back on them, there's definitely a degree of snobbishness in a lot of the reviews, looking down on the movie's pulpy premise and style-over-substance approach. Those same elements, not to mention its frank sexuality and overwhelming goth coolness, would soon enough win the movie a cult following. I don't think “The Hunger” works very well on a scripting level. Its sound design is also a bit distracting, as the tiniest blade being pulled seems to make a huge shriek on the soundtrack. Yet, when a cast is this capable and everything looks as good as it does, you can't care about that stuff too much. “The Hunger” might not make the most sense but you're unlikely to forget its visuals and sense of cool, making it an absolutely distinctive take on the vampire movie. [Grade: B]