Insignificance

Moviecut—Insignificance

I agree with the synopsis: it's not the best of Roeg's works but it has what just might be the best scene in movie history, which describes in elegant detail Einstein's theory of relativity. The fact that Marilyn Monroe explains it to Einstein is the capper! It makes it even more interesting knowing that MM and Einstein not only knew each other but admired one another.

If you have any sort of appreciation for character and dialogue, and any sense of American cultural history, you will find a lot of very absorbing material in this film. It probably was originally a play, and that's why it's dialogue heavy, but I can't stress enough how these icons that we only have a shallow understand of are made into truly complex and wonderful characters. This film is better than any college course for telling you how to create a character-driven story.

"Insignificance" is a far from great film, from a stage play, directed by Nic Roeg. In the scheme of Roeg's films, this is above the level of most of his post-"Don't Look Now" work, which is characterised by judicious use of Theresa Russell as lead actress. She's actually very good here, and far from the problem in other Roeg films like "Bad Timing" and "Cold Heaven". As the "Actress", who is Marilyn Monroe, Russell is very effective, portraying her as a thoroughly depressive, but likeable siren. She plays well alongside Michael Emil as Einstein, who is excellent to say the least. He looks the part admirably, and while Theresa Russell doesn't look exactly like Monroe, she certainly is attractive enough to make the part ring true. Other players are adequate if not quite as arresting as Emil and Russell are. A pretty workable, intelligent script is directed well by Roeg, but certainly not brilliantly, like "Walkabout" or "Performance". As in other later Roeg films, he tends to rely too much on vague, insubstantial flashbacks, that add very little to the film. In many ways the film would have worked better as a shorter (say, 60 minutes), more modest piece. Still, a quite acceptable, passable film. At times quite excellent, but somewhat lacking overall. Rating:- *** 1/2/*****

Yes, it's flawed - especially if you're into Hollywood films that demand a lot of effects, a purely entertaining or fantasy story or plot, and you can't actually think for yourself. Roeg's films are for the intelligent film-goer, and Insignificance is a perfect example. The characterizations are brilliant, the story is excellent, but, like all Nic Roeg's films - it has you thinking on every level about aspects of reality that would never have dawned on you before. His films always make you think, and personally, I like that in a film. So don't expect to come away from watching this film and feeling all happy-happy, because it's likely you'll be disappointed. But I think it's excellent.

A movie that's hard to classify. It's not strictly a crime movie even though the actions of Senator Joe McCarthy are most definitely illegal and an abuse of his power and privileges. On the other hand, it's not strictly a comedy, a romance or a political debate. What makes the film work is not so much what happens or what is said but the performances of two people – Theresa Russell as Marilyn Monroe and Michael Emil as Albert Einstein. Alas, Tony Curtis is not even a tenth as convincing as Senator McCarthy. Admittedly, unlike the other characters who are firmly grounded in reality, McCarthy's talk and actions are, to say the least, unbelievably bizarre. I can't picture McCarthy going anywhere or doing anything without a police escort. He was a hated man who received well over a thousand threatening letters after he started making headlines. Furthermore, Curtis doesn't look the least little bit like McCarthy. He doesn't act like McCarthy, he doesn't talk like McCarthy and – above all – he never gives the impression that he is McCarthy, whereas Miss Russell comes across as a dead ringer for Marilyn Monroe. She has Marilyn's mannerisms down pat, although she seems admirably careful not to overdo them. Emil is an easily recognizable (though by no means a dead ringer) for Albert Einstein. As for the fourth and least important member of the lead quartet, Gary Busey does not impress as Joe DiMaggio. He doesn't act like Joe, he doesn't talk like Joe, but takes his cue from Curtis and overacts. In public, Joe was always quiet and restrained. He came to life on the field. How he acted in private life, I've no idea, but I'm sure he didn't act like a neurotic loser, which is the way Gary Busey interprets him. Fortunately, the role is not only small but comparatively unimportant. It's Theresa Russell who makes the movie work – aided to some extent by Emil's acting and the time-capsule art direction. Available on an excellent Magna DVD.

Joe DiMaggio, Albert Einstein, Marilyn Monroe and Senator McCarthy (or rather, unnamed facsimiles of them) converge in a hotel room. The result is a thematically sprawling work, covering topics like celebrity, guilt, the plight of the Native American, the shape of the universe, Communism, and nuclear destruction. I haven't been a fan of Roeg at all, but there is something that draws you in to this film, asking you to sort it out and piece it together. The problem is, I don't think it can be pieced together. It's messy... perhaps uniquely messy or intriguingly messy, but messy nonetheless. The story (based on a stage play) flits from one idea to another, too busy trying to cram them all in to make them resonate. And I had big problems with the performances. I can't stand Theresa Russell. Partly it's her vacant, husky voice but I also just don't think she's a good actress. Tony Curtis does what he can, but the characterization of McCarthy is too cartoonish and savage to take seriously. Michael Emil is annoyingly nebbishy as Einstein, as if he'd been plucked out of a Woody Allen film. Amazingly, that leaves Gary Busey as the best member of the cast, but all he really has to do is be a dumb lout. Honestly, if the performances were just a little bit better I'd probably rank this film higher. There are at least two fantastic scenes: one where Monroe explains the theory of relativity to Einstein, and the horrifying but gorgeously surreal finale where Einstein envisions the room being ravaged by nuclear carnage. But taking the film as a whole, it's just too all over the place.

Maybe the best Roeg film since "The Man Who Fell To Earth" (1976), and surely his last good one, "Insignificance"rolls along gathering momentum, like some enigmatic ball, seemingly going nowhere yet arriving everywhere as it explodes in a shower of illumination. The time is 1954, a year in which Marilyn Monroe's career was beginning to crest, divorce from DiMaggio was in the offing, and the mixed blessings of her self-improvement program via psychoanalysis and the Actors' Studio were already under way. So, in the delightful encounter imagined by Terry Johnson's play (performed at the Royal Court in 1982), Marilyn flees from the gawking spectators and lowbrow frustrations of filming the subway grating scene for The Seven Year Itch to drop in unannounced on a shyly startled Einstein in the hope of intellectual stimulation ('Gee,' she sighs contentedly after being lectured sternly on the dangers of merely pretending to understand, 'this is the best conversation I ever had'). But just as a despairingly jealous DiMaggio is on Marilyn's trail, so McCarthy is hounding Einstein to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee; and in a valiant attempt to rescue the manuscript of Einstein's latest opus from being impounded as subversive, Marilyn gets punched in the stomach by McCarthy, causing her to abort the baby that might have saved her marriage. Significant events that are insignificant, in that physically Marilyn could never have borne the child anyway, while Einstein himself cheerfully throws away the manuscript he has already destroyed four times. Relativity. At the end, absently watching Marilyn go through her lines for him—only she hasn't any, Einstein sees a nuclear holocaust —only there isn't one. Faithfully filming this scenario adapted by Johnson himself, Roeg has completely transformed it by placing it under his familiar sign of time and the stars. The opening image, of a wrist- watch spiraling in free-fall through space, has many ramifications: in its formal use as a device providing each of the four principals with childhood memories defining both the drives that turned them into stars and the inhibitions that burned them out; or in the more general symbolism of the timepiece stopped forever when a childhood experiment of Einstein's went wrong and which, for 'the Daddy of the H Bomb', signifies the guilty past horror of Nagasaki and the guilty future horror of what he has glimpsed next in his exploration of the precise nature of the universe. Will Sampson, a mysterious Indian serving as a lift-boy addresses Einstein in a scene that seems like straight from David Lynch films: 'I know you. You're a Cherokee,' the elevator man had told Einstein, in a double-edged reference to the Cherokee belief that wherever he is, there is the center of the world. The thread of significance (or insignificance) has less to do with getting back to ancient wisdoms than with Einstein's complaint that people, though seeing themselves at the center of the universe, 'won't take responsibility for their world, they want to put it on the shoulders of the few.' The point is that, revered as the world's greatest repository of knowledge, Einstein knows that knowing is nothing, and thinking is what makes us significant.

I have always been a great admirer of Nicolas Roeg and "Walkabout" is one of my favorite films. This is a film version of Roegs stage play and while most of the film takes place in a hotel room it still has some of Roegs cinematic flare. Very unique story is about a famous actress (Theresa Russell) who after a hard nights work on a film in 1954 goes to a hotel to visit a famous professor (Michael Emil) and together in his hotel room they talk. After awhile she wants to go to bed with him but as they start to get undressed her husband is banging on the door. Her husband is a famous ex-baseball player (Gary Busey) and he wants to know what is going on. The three of them in the hotel room talk about what is going on and what the future holds for them. Meanwhile, a famous senator (Tony Curtis) is threatening to take away the professors papers if he doesn't testify at a hearing. Theresa Russell is just excellent and while she's not trying exactly to impersonate Marilyn Monroe she does a wonderful job of exuding the phobia's and nuances that Monroe is very well known for. One thing the film does is show her as not only a woman on the verge of a mental breakdown but show her as a physical wreck as well. She talks of being unable to have children and at one point in the film she suffers a miscarriage. You can make an excellent case that this is Russell's best performance and I probably wouldn't argue. The film does an interesting thing in showing many flashbacks as the characters continue to talk about one thing and in the flashback we see one of many reasons for their actions. Busey also gives a good solid performance and it reminds me of what a strong persona he gives off on screen. Emil as the professor is a character that has many more things on his mind then we originally thought. The last scene in this film is a demonstration of his darker side! One of the highlights of the film for me is the little conversation he has with the elevator man (Will Sampson of "Cuckoo's Nest") and they discuss what Cherokee Indians think about at all times. But of course the famous scene in this film is where Russell demonstrates to Emil how she does understand the theory of relativity and uses toys to show this. The professor is delighted by her demonstration and so are we! Russell and Roeg are married in real life and they do admirable work when they are in collaboration and this is probably their best film together. Good performances and a very interesting job of directing make this a challenging and visually thought provoking film.

Director Nicolas Roeg and writer Terry Johnson have fashioned a fantastic story-conceit: to assemble four disparate icons of history in one hotel room and have them exchange their ideas and perceptions of life. Theresa Russell (finally using her innate blankness to her advantage) plays a Marilyn Monroe-like starlet, Michael Emil is Albert Einstein, Gary Busey is a famous ball-player a la Joe DiMaggio, and Tony Curtis is a Senator not unlike Joseph McCarthy. Russell is grating at first, but her performance improves tremendously, while Emil is the acting stand-out, leaving an amazing impression. Of course this is a Nicolas Roeg film, which means it is by turns difficult, distracting, overly arty (sometimes for no other purpose except to be irritating), and obtuse. Yet, the film's inscrutable nature is almost endearing: you may feel something fresh being born out of this crazy-quilt material. For discerning film-buffs, there's nothing else quite like it. *** from ****