Mickey One

Thanks to AMC's Film Preservation series those of us who had missed the rare previous opportunities to view this out-of-print cult classic on television were recently afforded a cinematic pleasure of the highest order.

Everything about this film impressed me enormously - its startling New Wave-influenced editing and camera angles, its atmospheric noir lighting effects, its surrealistic mise en scene, its Kafkaesque paranoia and philosophical themes, and the incredibly convincing performance given by Warren Beatty in the title role. There isn't a dull shot or moment in the entire film, and some of its images and visual conceits (the automobile junk yard as existential metaphor, for instance) are breathtaking. That this artistically ambitious and ambiguous film ever got made and theatrically released in 1965 is a small miracle. Perhaps I'll think differently after the initial glow has worn off and I have a chance for a second viewing, but right now I'd rank Arthur Penn's Mickey One with such all time great thrillers as The Third Man and Touch of Evil.

Director Arthur Penn and Star Warren Beatty were the team behind 'Bonnie And Clyde', a movie which literally exploded on to Hollywood screens in 1967, and caused some serious repercussions still being felt today. There's no argument from me that 'Bonnie And Clyde' is a milestone, and definitely a modern classic. But I have heard hardly anyone mention Penn and Beatty's previous collaboration 'Mickey One' released two years earlier. In its own way this movie is just as stunning, yet it is almost forgotten and unseen. I had been curious about the movie for some time and was ecstatic when I stumbled across an old VHS copy in my local video store (apparently it was never released on video in the US, this is certainly not the case here in Australia). I must say this was one of the most original and surprising movies I've ever seen. It reminded me in some ways of Boorman's 'Point Blank' and Seijun Suzuki's 'Tokyo Drifter' and 'Branded To Kill' ( all of which it predates by the way) in the way that it uses a genre crime film as an excuse for some mind-blowing visuals and ideas. 'Mickey One' shares a similar stylized surrealism and hip approach to the aforementioned, though they are all quite different films in other ways. Warren Beatty is an actor I have long lost interest in, but the movie reminds you of just how good he was in his heyday. The rest of the cast is eclectic and interesting and includes Canadian beauty Alexandra Stewart, veteran character actor Jeff Corey and an unforgettable appearance by Kamatari Fujiwara as an enigmatic performance artist in one of the movies most striking sequences. Beatty plays "The Comic" a wise-cracking comedian in the Lenny Bruce/Mort Sahl mold who finds himself on the run from the mob. He drifts along keeping an extremely low profile and doing odd jobs, before the lure of the stage proves to be too strong to ignore. He starts performing again under the name Mickey One, but as his reputation increases he becomes extremely paranoid wondering where/if/when his past will catch up to him with (presumably) fatal consequences. I see others who have seen this film have mentioned Kafka, others Fellini, and many have commented on the jazz influence (Sax legend Stan Getz is a featured soloist on the soundtrack). I can see what everyone is getting at, but those comparisons and the others I have made, really give you little idea of just how special and unique this movie is. If you get the opportunity to watch it please do so, as I believe you will be impressed. There are many contenders for "the great lost 1960s movie" and 'Mickey One' is as good as any. A truly remarkable movie that deserves to be rediscovered.

As I recall, the movie got a lot of buzz on first release. After all, 1965 was decades into Hollywood's fixation on the commercially conventional, with linear narratives, explicit story lines, and happy endings with no loose threads. In short, just the kind of traditional story-telling that sent audiences home happy, reassured, and ready for more. So it's not surprising that many folks, of perhaps a more imaginative bent, were ready for something different. After all, art-house theatres were taking off with the likes of Ingmar Bergmann and the French New Wave. So along comes a movie like Mickey One with a very different Hollywood slant, and, by golly, it gets talked about, maybe more than it should have.

Seeing the concoction today, it strikes me as mainly a mess, perhaps more self-indulgent than honorable, but a mess in either case. Of course, it's harder to specify standards to judge arty films by than it is conventional films. After all, a critic's misgiving may amount more to critical oversight than to an absence of subtle profundity. I'll take that risk in saying that whatever the symbolism of Mickey's predicament, it's hard to care. And that's mainly because whatever the intended symbolism, it's too unstructured to invite interpretive inquiry. To me the movie's more a series of occasionally jarring visual effects than anything invitingly profound. It certainly doesn't help that actor Beatty is simply too callow to give Mickey's complex character a persuasive purchase. And since he's in about every scene, we're continually burdened with seeing the actor instead of the character.

Some folks look for an existential reading of whatever subtext there is (my impression is something about mysteries of original sin and freeing oneself from the overhang). So for those interested in existential themes, let me recommend Monte Hellman's 1965 Western, The Shooting. In my book, Hellman shows how a profound subtext can be combined with conventional story-telling, and in a way that may not be flashy, but is at least involving. All in all, it's no mystery to me why Mickey One, Two. or whatever has since drifted into obscurity, and in all likelihood, will stay there.

This gritty surreal stumble through 1965 America is uncompromisingly downbeat. Like a last visit to the now absent locales featured in Diane Arbus photographs, it repels and attracts almost like a roadside museum of oddities. Apparently Lenny Bruce and Diane Arbus shared a passion for New York's infamous Hubert's Flea Circus and a Times Square movie theater that ran Todd Browning's "Freaks". This film captures that strange lost in the fun house feel also seen in Orson Welles' "Lady from Shanghai" climax . To add contrast Director Arthur Penn also interjects dreamy Playboy magazine moments between Warren Beatty and 1966 Playmate of the Year Donna Loren at a posh hotel. Stan Getz silky saxophone on the sound track provides Mickey One's one discernible connective thread. It dramatizes the observation that, "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you". Visually the film was so modern that audiences took at least 20-years to catch up to it.

I have not watched many American films in the past few months. Even the good ones tend to be repetitive, not just in plot, but in style and technical aspects. An "art film" in this country seems simply to be a Hollywood script produced for less money. This goes for every era of American film.

So it is rare to find an American film with true aspirations towards originality. And now I see Mickey One. I heard about it quite a while ago, not long after I saw the second pairing of director Arthur Penn and actor Warren Beatty, the absolute masterpiece Bonnie and Clyde. That was some four years ago. Mickey One is not available on video, so I never really thought I would see it, nor did I really care; I was interested, but had not heard many good things about it (it's usually categorized as "pretentious" or an "interesting failure"). But then, about a month ago, I caught a snatch of it on AMC. Then, tonight, I come home from work, turn on the television, switch to AMC, and it is just about to begin. It was only 95 minutes long, so I sat down to watch it.

What I experienced was possibly the most unique American film I'd ever seen. I would cite a few possible influences of this film to describe it: it reminded me of Fellini, mainly 8 1/2, + Kafka + a very unique and difficult to identify style of humor, very sly. Many people who do see this film will probably dismiss it because of its confusing story, and admittedly, once the story makes sense, it doesn't equal up to all that much. I didn't mind that so much. Maybe the sum is not as great as its parts, but, boy, are those parts amazing! For one thing, the cinematography is amazing. The final scene, where Mickey One (Warren Beatty) confronts his fears in the form of an unrelenting, unblinking spotlight. The dialogue is also amazing, too, as well as the screenplay (at least for individual scenes). Take, for instance, the way Mickey's love interest is introduced: to escape a possible spy, he jumps out of his bathroom window onto a trampoline. He comes back to his apartment later to find a young woman sitting in his chair. "Who the heck are you?" "Your landlady said you were evicted. I gave her all my money, and it's dark outside. I can't go now!" I haven't seen that before. It's damned clever. Also, I've never in my life, in American film or elsewhere, seen such a clever use of speeding up the film. Sure, plenty of filmmakers use slow-motion as a filmic tool, but fast-motion, I've just never seen that before (possibly in silent film, but it is not the same).

The best part of the film happens to be almost completely separated from the rest of the film. A Japanese fellow who has appeared from time to time in the picture, who always sees Mickey and waves at him, reveals his magnum opus of modern art made from parts found it the junkyard. He calls it "Yes," and it is this profoundly weird and comical machine that smashes together trash can lids and pounds on piano keys. There are fireworks attached to it, which eventually make Yes burst into flames, which leads the fire department to put it out in a glorious blanket of what seems to be bubbles from bubble bath or dish soap. It's quite surreal, and quite amazing.

Seriously, if you are a fan of unique cinema, see Mickey One. 9/10. And Warren Beatty's great, too, as ought to be expected.