“Every so often comes a film so startling, so breathtakingly new that it literally defies description.” Such words were echoed by countless critics at the time of its release, and three decades later The Stunt Man remains as elusive and nuanced a film as ever was brought to the screen. Shot in 1978, but not released until 1980, the project attracted talents like Sean Connery and George C. Scott opposite young hopefuls Jeff Bridges and Martin Sheen. The journey took nine years, but director Richard Rush finally created his passion project and masterwork with the actor he wanted most; Peter O’Toole, opposite Steve Railsback. The result is a film that defies convention, transcends genre, and sits with the immortals in the pantheon of film.
Vietnam veteran Cameron (Railsback) flees the police in the film’s barreling opening. Handcuffed and unarmed, the fuzz nonetheless get a few shots off at him. When Cameron easily incapacitates an oversized telephone mechanic blocking his path, it becomes obvious that whatever his crime is, he’s as dangerous as they come. On the lamb, he finds himself on a bridge almost rundown by the beautiful Dusenberg forever associated with the film. The car plummets off the side, with cameras rolling and Cameron flees again. He stumbles onto a World War I film set, mixing in with the crowd of tourists spectating the Hollywood carnage unfolding on their beach. Cameron, showing a humanity that begins to complicate any expectation of one-dimensionality in the film’s characters, saves a drowning old woman, which turns out to be the film’s leading lady in makeup (Barbera Hershey). From there, Cross enlists him as the film’s new stunt man, covering up the original man’s death on the bridge and hiding Cameron from the police. It’s as perverse a symbiotic relationship as they come, rooted at the crossroads of obsession and paranoia.
“Good parts make good actors…and only good actors know good parts.” Peter O’Toole knows good parts, and he had a gem with Eli Cross. Receiving the sixth of his eight Oscar nominations, O’Toole commands the screen with a charm and eloquence that can chill in an instant and unleash into a barrage of ferocity just as quickly. He remains one of the true greats, more talented than any one decade could contain, and The Stunt Man was his midlife bridge, seamlessly transporting him from the awe-inspiring work of his youth to the unrivaled mastery evident in his later career.
Chronic paranoia. Truth or illusion. Invention. Richard Rush offers his own view of the film’s themes in one of the countless special features, but The Stunt Man will forever fall between definitions. To determine genre would be to make something profound into something trite. To search for meaning is to enter the labyrinth of the human condition, where only wrong turns and minotaurs await. No, in the end, The Stunt Man is one film to the passive viewer, the layperson who reclines into their own laziness when the theater goes dark and the reel starts turning. This film calls for viewers to engage and analyze, beckoning for a time when discerning, active viewers weren’t afraid to think and look inward for answers. The great Francois Truffaut himself heralded the film as one of the best he’d seen and Rush as one of American cinema’s greatest talents.
Without Rush, the first director of the American New Wave, there wouldn’t have been Coppola, Scorsese, and their like who have come to be recognized as great talents. Rush’s own tale in some way concludes The Stunt Man, which became his greatest achievement and last real project to gain any substantial acclaim. As if Eli Cross himself, Rush gave everything he had to make the ultimate film, and now justly it sits alongside Citizen Kane in the exclusive club of films that dared to be more than what the film of their day was. That simply dared, and touched the untouchable.
BLU-RAY BONUS FEATURES
You know that a film is a director’s masterpiece when they include their own feature-length making-of documentary, The Sinister Saga of the Making of the Stunt Man. This Blu-ray might rank among the best for bonus features, including the standard trailers, deleted scenes and commentary. Various featurettes allow each principal to look back on their characters and the manic project that rivaled the movie-within-the-movie itself in every way, from its epic odyssey to the screen, to its unadulterated subversive outlook. Richard Rush further receives his own featurette, charting his “Maverick Career” and the Blu-ray features round out with a look at a talkback years later with director and cast at the New Beverly.
"The Stunt Man" is on sale June 7, 2011 and is rated R. Action, Comedy, Crime-Thriller, Drama, Romance, Thriller, War. Directed by Richard Rush. Written by Richard Rush & Lawrence B. Marcus. Starring Beverly Hershey, Peter OToole, Steve Railback.
