Note: Originally written for The Cooper Point Journal.
Norman Mailer, as bypassed as he’s become by the passage of time and the ever-changing landscape of contemporary popular writing, is a cultural figure many people would find troublesome to be a devoted fan of. He was popular for his strong positions against the women's liberation movements of the 60s and 70s, his opinions on race and racial relations, and for coining the terms ``hip” and “hipster”. His most famous piece of writing is an essay called The White Negro, in which Mailer describes how he believes that, during the time of the piece’s writing, that white people who wanted to be “hip” took it upon themselves to live their lives day-by-day, and in a leisurely yet nihlistic fashion, of which he is said to have seen in the lives of black people of the time who were a part of underground culture, or who were seen by whites as the “cool” black people. However, perhaps he’s most known for his public persona, in which his writing was only a singular vessel; he was a notoriously contemptible person to work with, for example having left the crew of Jean-Luc Godard’s film adaptation of King Lear just two days into being on set for it. Most famously, he was invited to speak on the Dick Cavett show, in which at one point Mailer is asked a question that he finds to be detrital, and gruftly tells the host “why don’t you move onto the next question?” to which Dick infamously replied “why don’t I fold this piece of paper in half five times and stick it where the sun doesn't shine?”. He swiftly received a roaring applause from the emphatic and empathetic audience.
However, I am not writing a history, thinkpiece, or retrospective on Norman Mailer’s writing, personal life, or public persona. This is about his much overlooked, although small, filmography. It is comprised of four feature length films, the first three of which, “Wild 90”, “Beyond The Law” and “Maidstone'' have been compiled in an Eclipse box series entry, which is a subsidiary project of the Criterion Collection (these three are also available on the Criterion Collection currently!). His last film, “Tough Guys Don’t Dance”, is a film that is much more remembered for a singular scene that has been expressed through internet meme culture seemingly endlessly, that is, a scene wherein the main character reads a letter with some unfortunate news, the character looks up and starts to proclaim this repeated phrase: “Oh man, oh god!”. The camera, simultaneously, swirls around the character counterclockwise. It’s hilarious and incomptetent and exists outside the range of cinephiles deep in the throngs of a Letterboxd binge, which is, for a director as severely overlooked as Norman Mailer is, genuinely interesting.
As for the first three films mentioned, his film Maidstone stands out among his work as some of the most deeply egotistical, having been compared to “a Rorschach test of the inside of Norman Mailer’s mind”. The film presents a man (played by Mailer himself, naturally) as a man both directing a male sexual fantasy variation on Luis Buñuel’s classic 1967 surrealist sexploitation film Belle de Jour, which has already been widely dubbed an “arthouse male fantasy film” by some critics, as beloved as it is. Mailer takes this film much farther than Belle du Jour, filling it with sapphic sexuality and male domineering. Simultaneously, Mailer’s character is running as a presidential candidate, essentially as himself but soberly confident, a state we rarely witness him in in his films. The film is also notable for the ending sequence, a prolonged real-life fight sequence between Mailer and one of his actors, Rip Torn, during which Mailer was struck on the head with a hammer, significant others yell, and children cry. It’s a breaking of the fourth wall that shows how much of an effect Mailer’s antics have on the real world and those around him. All in all, it’s a stressful fever dream full of action and uppity dialogue and male ego. As a piece of sixties film history it’s a curious oddity, but not much more unless you’re one of the rare few who genuinely admire his filmmaking today.
“Wild 90” and “Beyond The Law” are notably similar films, as they were produced on a shoestring budget and shot completely within days, and with acclaimed documentarian D. A. Pennebaker doing cinematography work. The cinematography in these films are in black and white, but perhaps because of their griminess and aesthetic cheapness, they present better without color than with, such as in Maidstone or in Tough Guys Don’t Dance. It’s also important to note that the audio in his first two films is absolutely horrible, but not because of format quality lost to time, or The Criterion Collection’s lack of work on refurbishing it. It is because the production sound mixer on set was belligerently drunk for the entirety of the shooting, resulting in the microphone sometimes being far too distant from the actors. In short, to be able to even successfully consume his first two films, you have to use subtitles when you watch them, it’s often impossible to understand what’s being said without them. Wild 90 is about a collection of hot summer nights following a trio of gangsters holed up in a claustrophobic New York City loft. In it, they spend their time drinking, smoking, braying, yelling, fighting,entertaining female guests, and breaking things. It’s almost reminiscent of Harmony Korine’s 2009 outsider cinema film Trash Humpers in regards to its complete disregard for polite society manners and any sense of cordiality. There’s not much to say about it, as nothing of note ever happens. However, I’d like to include some notable quotes from the film to illustrate just how brazen the whole affair is: a) “Listen, why don’t you smell the hair in your armpit and gimme a little fart?” b) “We need some cunt! Get some cunt in this place! We get the cunt, we relax!” c) “Asshole to appetite--that’s the CIA.” It’s almost stomach-churning at points.
Beyond The Law is his most humanistic and caring film, as it is almost strictly a police procedural film, and it presents its criminal characters of victims of something much bigger than themselves or the police, something that is different for each person brought into the police station, regardless of whether they are evidently guilty or innocent. It is his most accessible film, although a similar brazenness as seen in Wild 90 is most certainly apparent, with the central character, a police chief (Norman Mailer in the starring role, of course) yelling at the booked locals, teasing them and trying to get them to say an easy confession. His character, however, is a bit oddly written, as he is sympathetic towards the booked in parts (notably, a man who admits to killing his wife) and in other parts is an embodiment of cruel and unusual punishment as a member of the police. The film certainly matches up with his personal politics, that is, male-centrism, a focus on brute power and belligerent energy, but also noting the marginalized in our society being victims of something greater, such as pulp versions of Joan Of Arc. If there’s any beauty in his films, it certainly shows in this one. It’s a beauty that is rarely seen in his films. His films can only be recommended for their brazenness, their one-off lines of sometimes brilliant dialogue, and their very low fidelity aesthetics, all surrounding Norman Mailer’s literarily important and influential style. He is a man whose genius has not aged very well, and yet his spirit remains even if it is not widely known today, and for that alone it is worth checking out one of his films. As I noted, I’d recommend Beyond The Law more than any other of his.