Eastern Promises (David Cronenberg, 2007)

[Cronenfly]

I've very much so enjoyed reading the flurry of recent postings: even though I'm still not behind the movie to any great extent, I think to see it generate so much discussion (about the movie, its audience, its sexual politics, its publicity, and more) exonerates it in my mind enough to make it worthy of further consideration. Thanks a bundle.

[David Ehrenstein]

Because of the film's deliberate appeal to the mainstream, its success as a confrontation of the exploitative conventions of mainstream movies must be judged by its effect on a mainstream audience.

I don't quite follow you there. Is there "mainstream" longing for a film about sexually paranoid Russian gangsters, their reflexive abuse of women, and their fetish for tattooing one another?

[Stagger Lee]

Not longing, no. That's the whole point, actually. The shocking violence, the unpleasant sex, the homosexual tension, the male nudity; they're all there as an affront to an audience that is used to the puerile way these things are normally handled. The film is mainstream enough to appeal to the masses, but once they're in the seats it is designed to challenge their warped sensibilities. That's my take on it, at least.

Edit: Not just any "masses", by the way. The gangster theme and the hot lead actress fit with this interpretation as deliberate choices to bullseye the targeted movie-going group. People (who know nothing of Cronenberg) go to it expecting some rock-and-roll gangster violence and some hot hetero sex scenes.

[Mr Sausage]

Because of the film's deliberate appeal to the mainstream, its success as a confrontation of the exploitative conventions of mainstream movies must be judged by its effect on a mainstream audience.

I don't quite follow you there. Is there "mainstream" longing for a film about sexually paranoid Russian gangsters, their reflexive abuse of women, and their fetish for tattooing one another?

What I think he means is the type of people who frown upon male nudity, who have ensured that it has become an 'unspoken' taboo in cinema, and who constitute the bulk or the average film goer. And I think your description gets at the transgressive nature of the movie: I guarantee the general audience has no idea it's "about sexually paranoid Russian gangsters, their reflexive abuse of women, and their fetish for tattooing one another." The film's atmosphere seems designed to make the general audience palpably uncomfortable.

EDIT: Stagger Lee beat me to it.

[Cronenfly]

Not longing, no. That's the whole point, actually. The shocking violence, the unpleasant sex, the homosexual tension, the male nudity; they're all there as an affront to an audience that is used to the puerile way these things are normally handled. The film is mainstream enough to appeal to the masses, but once they're in the seats it is designed to challenge their warped sensibilities. That's my take on it, at least.

Edit: Not just any "masses", by the way. The gangster theme and the hot lead actress fit with this interpretation as deliberate choices to bullseye the targeted movie-going group. People (who know nothing of Cronenberg) go to it expecting some rock-and-roll gangster violence and some hot hetero sex scenes.

Funny: I saw this with my sister, who has pretty mainstream taste, and she enjoyed it a good deal more than me. It's hard for me to say for sure, but I'm not so sure that mainstream audiences won't cotton to it: it depends a lot on individual taste, but I think that the film doesn't go far enough to alienate most modern mainstream viewers: there's cetainly nothing like the penus gun/male stomach vagina in Videodrome. You probably are right, though: those with no experience in regards to Cronenberg or similar sorts of movies will probably be somewhat taken aback. But, I feel that if you're in any kind of big city or anywhere with access to cable (or even most reality TV), then a lot of the content (beyond the male nudity, and even that's pretty mild) won't shock that much, I don't think, even with Cronenberg's twisting. While Cronenberg has (IMO) adjusted more to the mainstream content-wise in recent years, I also feel that the mainstream has bent more towards him in recent years as well, maybe even going so far as to embrace his perversions of all the things they hold so dear. I'm not just trying to be contrary: I honestly believe that the movie won't be that shocking to a lot of people, though, as you say, there will always be some who have their expectations reversed, even violently. I feel that with a fair number of movies, though (Cronenberg certainly isn't the first to use big name actors, inklings of hetero sex, and violence/gangsters to lure in those expecting something else than what they get), and while it likely is a part of EP's "subversion of the mainstream" (and a fair enough reason to admire it), I don't feel that it's something particularly novel or worthy of applause.

[David Ehrenstein]

Well then standards have certainly changed. I suggest you all look up the reviews afforded Performance when it opened stateside in 1970 (it didn't make it to England until the following year. Richard Schickel and John Simon were profoundly offended by it.;

As for Cronenberg, the place he now occupies in world cinema couldn't have been anticipated back when he made They Came From Within (aka. Shivers ) or several years later The Fly.

Crash remains my favorite -- while I'm not at all fond of his rendition of Naked Lunch.

[Barmy]

Wow, what laughably condescending views some people have of mainstream audiences. EP has 60 seconds of gore and fleeting glimpses of a wiener (no close ups). What exactly is confrontational about that, and even if it is, how are these mainstream peeps going to be made into better people by being so confronted? Certainly the mainstream media has embraced this film. Entertainment Weekly (one of the most vanilla rags in existence) in particular.

Keep in mind that there is a new HBO series whose name escapes me with erections and such, and that has generated only mild eyebrow arching.

[Hai2u]

As to Nikolai, I hesitate to say he is homosexual, but I love the suggestion that, if he is not gay, he is at least partly reciprocating Kiril's barely concealed feelings as a way to further infiltrate the Russian mob.

I totally agree. I think this excerpt from the film comment interview posted on page 2 pretty much sums up Nikolai and Kiril's relationship.

It's a very homoerotic film. And not just because of that scene. You have this cocooned, violent all-male society where everyone is jockeying for power. And I think the central relationship of the film is between Vincent Cassel's character, Kirill, the real son of the mob leader, and Nikolai, the “adoptedâ€

[Jeff]

Certainly the mainstream media has embraced this film. Entertainment Weekly (one of the most vanilla rags in existence) in particular.

I've no doubt that plenty of mainstream publications are giving good reviews to Eastern Promises, but I wouldn't single out Entertainment Weekly as one of them. Gleiberman gave it a 'B' in a publication where virtually everything receives an 'A-.'

The film's biggest champions seem to be The Village Voice's Jim Hoberman and Film Comment's Amy Taubin.

[Stagger Lee]

Wow what laughably condescending views some people have of mainstream audiences.

Mainstream audiences are what keep us neck-deep in game shows, "reality" TV, Martin Lawrence movies, and Justin Timberlake songs.

EP has 60 seconds of gore and fleeting glimpses of a weiner (no close ups). What exactly is confrontational about that, and even if it is, how are these mainstream peeps going to be made into better people by being so confronted?

The audience wants sex and violence from their movies--especially their gangster movies. Eastern Promises is confrontational because it delivers the sex and the violence, but it delivers it in a way that challenges the viewer: the sex is unpleasant to watch, the violence is disgusting, and there's an obvious gay undercurrent.

Keep in mind that there is a new HBO series whose name escapes me with erections and such, and that has generated only mild eyebrow arching.

This is irrelevant. It's not that the material is intended to be racy, it's that it deliberately flies in the face of the conventions of cool violence and mandatory hot hetero sex (no male nudity, please) that Hollywood audiences are accustomed to.

[David Ehrenstein]

Eastern Promises is confrontational because it delivers the sex and the violence, but it delivers it in a way that challenges the viewer: the sex is unpleasant to watch, the violence is disgusting, and there's an obvious gay undercurrent.

An "obvious gay undercurrent' is "confrontational"? After the success of Brokeback Mountain ?

Good thing Cronenberg didn't have Kirill and Nikolai get it on. That would have had many of your rushing for the exits in panicky fright.

[Stagger Lee]

Goodness, I feel like a fucking broken record. It's confrontational to the target audience. How much, do you suppose, among mainstream movie-goers, does the target audience for Brokeback overlap with that of, say, The Departed? Gangster films are notoriously homophobic, and the same people who get a boner for the glamorous murderin' are identifying with the no fags allowed vibe.

I dunno, I must be off-base if the point is this difficult to make.

[David Ehrenstein]

I think you are because the target audience is Cronenberg fans.

This may be a gangster film but you have to slosh a great deal asdie (Russians, stark naked Viggo, and Cronenbergian ultra-violence) to deal with it as a gangster film.

IOW, The Departed it ain't.

[LeeB.Sims]

There is another layer here that I wanted to point out and see if anyone else noticed it (probably, I'm not all that clever) but it would be strictly for those who have seen the film or don't mind spoilers.

[quote]At first I didn't like the seemingly conventional plot twist where Nikolai turned out to be undercover. I thought it was a lazy attempt to pad the character's heroism and make him a more clearly defined “good guyâ€

[David Ehrenstein]

You're quite right, the ending is quite ambiguous in character terms. But then that's scarcely new for Cronenberg. Nothing in any of his films is ever quite what it seems.

[LeeB.Sims]

You mean my stomach is not really a vagina and my video game controller doesn't really have a clitoris? Way to burst my bubble. Anyway, that was really my favorite aspect of the film, the fact that is was all about secrets, the mysterious nature of Nikolai's character being the main vehicle for this theme.

[Barmy]

EW may have given this a B, but it also devoted two articles (each more than a sentence or two--unusual for EW) in two successive weeks to it. The target audience is not fans of "Saw" or Julia Roberts. This thing made $5 million over the weekend--not bad, but not blockbuster bucks. Naomi Watts is 40 years old, she is not a "hottie" to anyone under the age of 80 and no one knows her work other than that abysmal appearance in Ding Dong. The film is not being marketed as a love story. No one goes to this expecting to see Naomi's titties. It's being marketed as a violent thriller with a dick in it. And that is precisely what is on screen.

Upshot: the mainstream press loves it, the people going to it know what they are getting into and it is silly to argue that this is a confrontational or non-mainstream picture.

[Cronenfly]

EW may have given this a B, but it also devoted two articles (each more than a sentence or two--unusual for EW) in two successive weeks to it. The target audience is not fans of "Saw" or Julia Roberts. This thing made $5 million over the weekend--not bad, but not blockbuster bucks. Naomi Watts is 40 years old, she is not a "hottie" to anyone under the age of 80 and no one knows her work other than that abysmal appearance in Ding Dong. The film is not being marketed as a love story. No one goes to this expecting to see Naomi's titties. It's being marketed as a violent thriller with a dick in it. And that is precisely what is on screen.

Upshot: the mainstream press loves it, the people going to it know what they are getting into and it is silly to argue that this is a confrontational or non-mainstream picture.

I agree, and times indeed have changed: the content of EP is not shocking anymore, the comment it makes on said content may be there, but not strongly enough to make people change or reconsider their perspective in any way: the audience I saw it with made the same responses they've always made at displays of violence (mild disgust, visceral enjoyment, somewhere in-between), no more, no less. It may be more of a reflection of the world we live in than the movie itself, but if this is what Cronenberg has to offer, then he's occupying the same terrain as any other number of other thriller-spewing journeyman directors, subtleties be damned. A cynical view perhaps, but I feel Cronenberg on at least one level is being cynical as well: just turning them out, even well, isn't good enough for an artist of his caliber. But, if that's what he wants to do, that's his choice, and I'm sure he'll have no problem getting any other similar vehicles off the ground, because, regardless of BO, the suits know how to market them. I only hope he's saving up some cache to make something worthwhile again.

[Robotron]

I saw this tonight, and it's obvious Cronenberg is content with no longer having anything significant to say, and will henceforth probably rely on lesser storytelling techniques like sentimentality and didacticism. Acknowledging that and moving on, though, he is certainly one of the best action directors working today. The bath house fight scene is probably the single most entertaining thing I will see in any new release this year, and was more than worth the price of admission.

[DrewReiber]

I saw this tonight, and it's obvious Cronenberg is content with no longer having anything significant to say, and will henceforth probably rely on lesser storytelling techniques like sentimentality and didacticism.

Oscar, here he comes!

[chaddoli]

I saw this tonight, and it's obvious Cronenberg is content with no longer having anything significant to say, and will henceforth probably rely on lesser storytelling techniques like sentimentality and didacticism. Acknowledging that and moving on, though, he is certainly one of the best action directors working today. The bath house fight scene is probably the single most entertaining thing I will see in any new release this year, and was more than worth the price of admission.

It seems like most of you have forgotten that Cronenberg's two previous films were among the best of his career, and seminal films of the decade. Making one "minor" work every once in a while is no reason to write him off completely.

And the bathhouse fight is indeed the best scene of the year.

[LeeB.Sims]

Not only do I agree with what chaddoli pointed out above, but I fail to understand why this is such a “minorâ€

[Barmy]

Why didn't one of the thugs just grab the wienie and rip it off?

[Hai2u]

Here are some amazon.com Cronenberg/Viggo Interviews: Extended Interview & tattoos

[redbill]

Why didn't one of the thugs just grab the wienie and rip it off?

I wonder how the theater audience would have reacted to that...