Friday 21 June 2013

Carny (1980)



Carny (US 1980 102 min.)   Directed by Robert Kaylor, written by Phoebe and Robert Kaylor.


Drama starring Jodie Foster, Gary Busey and Robbie Robertson. Frankie and Patch are side-show artists in a travelling carnival. When they meet Donna, it is the beginning of an erotic and dangerous adventure.




Produced by Robbie Robertson, formerly guitar player with sixties/seventies alternative heroes The Band, who also co-stars along with Gary Busey and Jodie Foster.

Robertson and Busey are a pair of carnival ("carny") workers/grifters whose attraction is based around something that resembles a more sophisticated and adult version of the "stocks" game that you see at village fairs and the like.

Busey sits inside a cage suspended over a tank of water, abusing and mocking the customers while Robertson hustles them into buying three throws worth of balls with which to hit a target and dump Busey into the water.

Of course anger and the constant torrent of verbals from Busey make aiming very difficult, ball after ball misses the target while Robertson pockets the dollars.

The opening ten minutes of the film focuses on the sideshow. We watch Frankie (Busey) preparing himself, applying the grotesque make up he affects, climbing into the cage and readying himself for that evening's "performance".
Meanwhile, Patch (Robertson) walks the midway, chatting with the other operators, resolving problems, relaxed, cool and enjoying himself.

Frankie and Patch are perfectly content : they travel light, drink and smoke (there's an awful lot of smoking) and (we assume) womanise through the south with (it seems) not a care in the world.

Until, at one small middle of nowhere town, Frankie encounters Donna (Jodie Foster) a bored and frustrated waitress. She falls for Frankie's charm and air of mystery outsiderness.
Frankie assumes it's a one-off liaison, until Donna appears bag packed and ready to go, seduced by the glamour of the carny lifestyle and determined to be part of it.

The film then explores this unexpected (and largly unwanted) intrusion into the perfect lifestyle of Patch and Frankie, the effect it has on them, the traumatisation of Donna as she realises some of the truth beneath the exterior glamour (especially when she tries her hand as a burlesque dancer in a truly creepy scene).
There's a few sub-plots that keep the action moving along : the way that the carnival is constantly given the shakedown by corrupt town officials, and the way in which Frankie and Patch deal with one especially nasty slimeball; the carny's constant dream of giving up the travelling life and the rather brutal way in which they are reminded that for most it's a lifetime job.

Kaylor (who previously directed the strange Roller Derby (1971)) keeps the camera moving throughout, giving a sense of the claustrophobic nature of the carnival workers inter-connected lives, allowing himself a few flashy camera tricks here and there especially during the denouement of the shakedown story mentioned above.

A lot of the background artists are genuine carnival workers, including a large number of "freak show" workers, as such the film is a record of a part of the entertainment industry that has all but disappeared in the US (and makes no moralising point regarding their exploitation or otherwise, to the other carnival staff they are merely co-workers)

Busey was hot off his utterly splendid title role in 1978's The Buddy Holly Story and is, once again, mesmerising in the dual role as the taunting sideshow attraction and the best buddy whose life suddenly loses a lot of it's anchoring.
Robertson, for a non-actor, is surprisingly good - exuding a sort of effortless cool as the always slightly-in-the-background brains behind the operation.
Jodie Foster is slightly anonymous in the role, 18 at the time she's perfectly cast but always seems to be slightly too knowing to be entirely convincing as a wide eyed small town girl in awe of this travelling melange of oddballs.

It's not a great piece of cinematic art, but there's a lot going on of interest. I guarantee that the first fifteen minutes will hook you in and provide you with sufficient reason to stick with it to the end.
Odd but enjoyable independent (in every sense) film from a time when such things existed within the mainstream in far greater numbers than they do today.

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