Bob Rafelson - The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981)

Description:
The sensuous wife of a lunch wagon proprietor and a rootless drifter begin a sordidly steamy affair and conspire to murder her Greek husband.

This remake of the 1946 movie of the same name accounts an affair between a seedy drifter and a seductive wife of a roadside cafe owner. This begins a chain of events that culminates in murder. Based on a novel by James M. Cain.

Remaking a certified cinematic classic is always tricky business, given that the question “Why bother?” lingers naggingly in one’s head. In this case, director Bob Rafelson and screenwriter David Mamet (whose distinctive voice is nowhere in sight) seem interested in creating a more “authentic” version of James M. Cain’s Depression-era novel, which they achieve primarily by incorporating explicit scenes of steamy sexuality between Cora (Lange) and Frank (Nicholson), and restoring cuckolded husband Nick Papadakis’s Greek ethnicity (he was simply “Nick Smith” in the 1946 version). Unfortunately, however, Rafelson and Mamet are unable to create a more interesting or compelling drama than that told in Tay Garnett’s MGM classic: while both Nicholson and Lange are excellent actors, they can’t compete with the iconic status of their predecessors (Lana Turner and John Garfield), and neither one is particularly well cast. With that said, Rafelson’s update is at the very least a visual treat: Sven Nykvist’s glowing cinematography is as seductive as always, and set designer George Jenkins effectively recreates a specific time and place in history. Nonetheless, this re-envisioning of Postman ultimately remains optional viewing rather than a must-see gem.

This neo-noir is a persuasively atmospheric scaffold of a mechanical command of film-making, and we are impressed by the performances, the atmosphere, the air of approaching brutality. But what is this movie saying about its characters? What does it gather and deduce about them? Why was it significant to tell their story? This film belongs to a hard-bitten, time-honored potboiler by James M. Cain, which had even then prompted three prior films, including the classic 1946 Lana Turner-John Garfield adaptation. It isn't hard to fathom why director Bob Rafelson chose to helm his own version. On the premise of his pivotal episodes, he was drawn to the brute savagery in the narrative and he felt that in 1981 he could approach Cain's sexual barbarism with much more frankness.

He was right. His film comprises scenes of uncommon corporal intensity, most famously the sex scene on a kitchen table, which was so vigorous and compelling that many believed that the two leads were really having sex on screen. I don't believe it was only the film-making; it was the natural earthbound chemistry between the actors. Jack Nicholson, contemporary cinema's earthy epicurean, radiates a special energy, though here not generally demonstrative. plays a Depression-era rolling stone, a petty scrounger, and a con man. Also radiating a special energy, Jessica Lange, who proves physically very self-aware, is the jaded and voluptuous hash-slinger in a short-order tavern managed by her much older Greek husband, John Colicos. Animal frenzy explodes between Nicholson and Lange virtually the instant they first see each other, and the sex is abrupt, callous, uninhibited, and purely libidinous.

The screenplay is the film debut of noteworthy maverick playwright David Mamet, who is known mainly for his shrewd, aphoristic, usually coarse dialogue and evasive, hyperbolic phraseology, as well as for his interpretation of masculinity. But while those elements can be found here in pure form, Mamet is entirely conscious of his change in medium. From scene to scene, the film is more instinctual in building its narrative than driven by dialogue or externalized subconflicts. He submits to pure function in his then new medium and thus this crime drama is much more a clean sweep regarding ambiance. Each and every battered Coke sign, every bygone automobile and old overcoat and old trivial truism have been put in with appreciative forethought.

Jessica Lange defers to the touch of a libertine hooligan with a natural rapport. Jack Nicholson has seldom been sleazier, sneakier, less relenting. John Colicos, as the conveniently dense, inebriated, business-minded Greek-American, provides a well-refined performance. And yet, we never know the people in this remake. They are kept immutably unfulfilled within a convention of utter exactitude: They exist, they eat, they sleep, they act. That would be right on if the filmmakers could stand outside their characters and have feelings about them. But I never maintained that was the situation. Nonetheless, Rafelson, master cinematographer Sven Nykvist and other partners have gone to limitless torment to fashion a picture that is admirably attained on the level of production.





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