The Savage Eye (1960)

The Savage Eye (USA, 1960) 68 min B&W DIR-PROD-SCR-EDITOR: Ben Maddow, Sidney Meyers, Joseph Strick. MUSIC: Leonard Rosenman. DOP: Jack Couffer., Helen Levitt, Haskell Wexler. CAST: Barbara Baxley, Herschel Bernardi, Jean Hidey, Elizabeth Zemach, Gary Merrill (voice). (Image Entertainment)

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Here is an interesting find… an ambitious, beautifully shot, pseudo-documentary, tonal poem which provides a striking look at the misfortunes of a middle-aged woman, circa 1960. The esoteric poetry voiced over the soundtrack (by actor Gary Merrill), often makes this work pretentious, but it is commendable for its command of time and place lacking in most fictional films of the same period. This was made long before divorce rates skyrocketed, and therefore was ahead of its time in its portrayal of the sorrows of a recently divorced woman (played by Barbara Baxley). The camera follows her attempts to be acceptable in society’s eye: from the antiseptic white beauty parlour, to the muddy grey dingy bars that she frequents with her new, equally dingy boyfriend. The film gives the illusion of a documentary, if because Baxley is not a familiar enough face to most viewers, until the weird ending informs us we’ve been fooled. But still this is a striking look at little people in a big world. On video, this film is followed by Strick’s Oscar-winning short, Interviews with My Lai Veterans (1970), which intercuts four separate ex-soldiers relating to the camera an atrocity that they witnessed in the Vietnam war, building a linear story of the event. This documentary is merely talking heads -more of a report than a film- but an important early filmic condemnation of Vietnam, all the more that it is by enlisted men.

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Originally published in Vol. #1, Issue #8.