Cinephiliac :: MOVIE REVIEW & RANT: Fear City (1984, d. Abel Ferrara)

New Yorxploitation

Melanie Griffith in FEAR CITY

Brass-balled, Bronx-born auteur Abel Ferrara is one of those two-fisted screen bards that always follows through on each sucker punch, his heart beating with Sam Fuller's blood. His scorching morality plays and tainted-psyche humanizations are raw nerves exposed and chewed through, like a naked tornado called Hyde to Scorsese's more calculated risk-taker Jekyll. However, what makes an Abel Ferrara film for me isn't plot or casts of meaty, dilemma-torn characters. It's in the gritty city itself, a filmmaking toybox for tones, textures, sounds, music and aesthetic. When Ferrara looks at New York City, he knows its tourist-trap beauty is bullshit and the lurid truth is in the blackened gum on the bottom of the postcard rack. He's the director who would probably kick my pasty ass all the way to Chinatown if he heard this flowery praise.

Excluding his one-time-only skin flick, Fear City (1984) was Ferrara's third feature, a gutter-noir thriller set in the armpit of pre-gentrified Times Square and seen almost exclusively at night. Ferrara didn't perceive the skyscrapin' billboards and excessive wattage as a sinfully exciting paradise like Las Vegas; rather, his menacing midtown purgatory is as literally dark as the after-hours sky. Shot so that buildings have no edge definition and color lies in the negative space of shadow, the ubiquitous neon of the '80s is unusually used here as paint on a deep black canvas. (Check out the French DVD cover below for reference.)

As for its premise, Fear City would work on a double bill in one of the era's 42nd Street grindhouse theaters. Said to be modeled after Ferrara and his long-time screenwriter Nicholas St. John, ex-boxer Matt "Matty" Rossi (Tom Berenger) and biz partner Nicky Parzeno (Jack Scalia) run the Starlite Talent Agency, basically a harem of on-call strippers. A bumpy credits-sequence ride through the streets postulates Times Square as nothing more than a one-stop peep show, in which we're allowed our first glimpses (more like gawking glares) of a topless Loretta (Melanie Griffith) on the stage. Within the first ten minutes, you know of hell and decadence: gratuitious boobies, a stripper stabbed by a serial killer, a club-owner shakedown, and neck-licking lesbianism (the latter only appearing in the European cut, to be discussed later).

Tom Berenger stands in for Ferrara, Jack Scalia for Nicky St. John.

The narrative catalyst is indeed "The New York Knifer," a nunchuck-wielding manifesto writer who may or may not be exclusively attacking Matty and Nicky's girls. Could it be an operation staged by their competition, Goldstein? (Please tell me this guy's a reference to Screw founder Al Goldstein.) Will Matty's mob bosses in the downtown social clubs show any leniency as Starlite's dry-erase board of scheduled working girls (not work safe) is gradually wiped cleaner? Can Matty conquer his sleepless agony over accidentally killing a guy in the ring and ruining his boxing career? Are he and Loretta meant to be together forever, or will they be undone by her smack-habit relapses at the first signs of duress? And brash homicide dick Al Wheeler (Billy Dee Williams, who may as well be brandishing a Colt 45 with Tarantino-giggly lines like "There's nothing I hate more than guineas in Cadillacs"), will he ever stop busting Matty's chops?

"Nobody's clean," says Billy Dee's former vice cop, and he ain't kidding in this setup. With the slasher at large, tensions and subplot boiling points run high and red, and Ferrara relishes this amped-up zone to muck with audience moralities. When the boys beat up an innocent architect at a strip joint because he's spotted with an Xacto knife, the aftermath pays little penance: it was a mistake that could NOT be avoided. This and a shot of Matty tossing a gun into the East River (in view of the still-standing World Trade Center) reflect modern allusions after one wiseguy offers: "This bastard was meant to be caught, not prevented. You can never prevent terrorism." Black-and-white readings be damned.

Even rooting for troubled Matty in his alleyway showdown with this karate killer, Ferrara's Fear City refuses empowerment through the idea of an antihero. It loves, hates and understands its sleaze as a certainty that these characters may win minor victories, yet they'll never escape the inevitable downward trajectory of their lives. It's too schlocky with its physical training montages, redundant flashbacks and diseased entertainments to dare consider its depth, but it's notably compassionate and naturalistic in its grim vivacity. Fear City is like a Cassavetes giallo set in 1984, not the year but an alternate universe of Orwellian terror. Except Big Brother was severely maimed in the first reel.

The DVD cover on the right is the French release discussed below.

Out-of-print and difficult to track down (thanks, Filmbrain!), Cheyenne Films' Region 2 PAL (French) DVD of Fear City features the much-preferred uncut release of the film that is otherwise unavailable in the U.S. What differs from Anchor Bay's inferior R-rated disc, you ask? More sex, violence and titillation? Well, yes and a whole lot more: [SPOILERS ALERT]

* The aforementioned lesbianism is toned down in two scenes that blatantly changes the dynamic between lovers Loretta and Leila (Rae Dawn Chong). In the first, Matty goes backstage of a club to give flowers to Loretta, but changes his mind after seeing her getting her neck licked by a horny Leila. The U.S. version sees Matty's POV as Leila giving her a friendly back massage, which now doesn't make sense why he leaves in a huff. Later, Leila wakes up a sleeping Loretta, gives her a wet tongue kiss (inferring they slept in the same bed), then goes out to fetch coffee. Inversely, the U.S. version doesn't offer the lip-smacking (French DVD = French kiss?), so the two ladies come off as simply friends, not lovers. When Leila is stabbed and left in critical condition late in the film, the lack of sexuality in the U.S. cut somewhat deadens the sympathy we feel for Loretta because their platonic love isn't well-developed, whereas their uncut foreplay offers a potent image of intimacy. Also, celebrity lipstick lesbians are hot, even with poofy '80s hair.

* Who knows why this was cut, but the Euro version showcases an extended sequence of the psychopath in his studio dojo, sweatily practicing the nunchaukus. The film works better with it, and at 94 minutes, I can't imagine there was producer pressure to make it any shorter (and doesn't Ferrara typically have final cut?).

* Relating to a lap-dance customer, the line "came in his shorts" is somehow more disgusting to me when altered to "drooled all over his shorts." Have some control, mongoloid!

* A sex scene between Matty and Loretta made it past censors with some below-the-shirt groping in the U.S. release, but the Euro cut has Matty first removing her hair stick (chopstick?) and lewdly working it in and out of her mouth. Here's proof that innuendo can be more explicit than shown flesh.

* The ending. Wow, it's amazing how subtle differences can change the mood of a film so wildly. After beating the snot out of the killer just in time for the cops to show up, Matty is forced to confront Detective Wheeler again. Billy Dee says, "Think you're a hero, Rossi?" and Berenger replies, "Not by a long shot." There's a beat between them, as if the gruff cop might actually appreciate this good-intentioned act of ridding Manhattan of a killer, but instead Matty is taken away in a police car. The U.S. version adds one more line, as Billy Dee smiles and acknowledges: "Maybe you are." Wrong, wrong, wrong! These are the mean streets, and Ferrara would never allow this ball-breaker to condone vigilantism for the sake of a happy ending! If this was the version I saw first, that would have ruined the whole show for me.

* Following that, the uncut film rolls credits over an instrumental, letting the intensity of what transpired sink in. The U.S. version goes crazy on the synth with a book-ended version of "New York Doll," accredited to Lower East Side stalwart David Johansen (that's Buster Poindexter to you) and composer Joe Delia.

Melanie Griffith swaps spit with Rae Dawn Chong in FEAR CITY.

Abel Ferrara is an undervalued filmmaker, which is why a loose collective of film writers (including myself) each wrote about him today as part of an informally scheduled blog-a-thon:

Muburak Ali lets his stream-of-consciousness speak of Ferrara.
Zach Campbell plays a Dangerous Game, among others.
Matt Clayfield checks into New Rose Hotel and more.
Charles Bronson vs. God offers MP3s in his Driller Killer bit.
Brian Darr finds arresting ideas in Bad Lieutenant.
Martin Degrell plans an Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
Filmbrain time-travels back to Ferrara's early short films.
Flickhead remembers Ms. 45's Zoe Tamerlis, plus more.
Richard Gibson documents Abel Ferrara: Not Guilty.
Ed Gonzalez can't free himself of The Addiction.
Aaron Graham turns us on to a Ferrara episode of Miami Vice.
Michael Guillen goes before the grace of Mary.
Eric Henderson blew my brains out with Ms. 45.
Darren Hughes looks for meaning in Ferrara's cynicism.
David Lowery seeks faith in The Driller Killer.
Peter Nellhaus sips his Ferrara with a Cat Chaser.
Girish Shambu sheds light on The Blackout.
Matt Zoller Seitz polices Bad Lieutenant.
Harry Tuttle thoroughly details his disbeliefs in Mary.