Puzzle of a Downfall Child

Trailer—Puzzle of a Downfall Child

I'll give Faye Dunaway credit for her subtlety as the neurotic fashion model in therapy because she can't handle being so drop dead gorgeous that it either keeps the men away or has them trying to become too close. She's the type who will ask an admirer to approach her in a bar as if they've never met, make a pass, then react damaged after making love because she doesn't believe it is real love. Her neurosis is rather pretentious, but I guess you'd have to be in the high heels of someone like her to understand. Surprisingly this was not the bad movie I'd expected it to be, and Faye delves into this young woman's disorders obviously having studied it, well deserving of her Golden Globe nomination. Coming off this and a juicy supporting role in "Little Big Man", Faye was proving that she wasn't just a flash in the pan even though she had a few loo loo's just before this. She has a great fantasy life on screen as well, living in her mind as if she was a 1930's movie heroine. (No, not J. C.) Very dated but fascinating, an unimaginable without Faye in it.

source: Puzzle of a Downfall Child

source: Puzzle of a Downfall Child

Fashion model Lou Andreas Sand (Faye Dunaway) struggles with work and life. She struggles with relationships, with men, and with sex. She struggles with loneliness and with mental breakdown. It's all about Faye Dunaway. It's a character study. It's well-made. Faye is bringing the same damage as she will in Chinatown. She's magnetic.

Faye Dunaway has always been my favorite actress and this movie provides a great showcase for her talents. She plays a very neurotic model who cannot even trust her own memories. The movie is done in a non-narrative style that was fairly common in the 1970s, with events shown out of order, and that device is used very effectively to portray the protagonist's instability. This is one of the overlooked movies from a period that produced many great and challenging films; I don't believe it's ever even been on video.

PUZZLE OF A DOWNFALL CHILD is about a famous fashion model who's burnt out on the business and moved to a cottage by the sea to reflect on her splintered life. Years of being treated as an object by photographers, stylists, agents, etc., has left her with a serious identity complex and an addiction to pills...although flashbacks show that she was somewhat unhinged to begin with. The film isn't really that good; as critic Pauline Kael noted when the film came out, "I have a constitutional aversion to movies about women whose souls have been lost, stolen or destroyed, especially when it isn't made clear -- and it never is -- whether the heroine had a soul in the first place." But what IS very special about the movie is simply the way that Dunaway LOOKS. Rigged out in precise red lipstick, false eyelashes and liquid eyeliner, she's meticulously photographed by director Jerry Schatzberg, a former lover and onetime fashion photographer. The story is inspired by the true life life of Anne Saint Marie, a fashion model who later came unglued. Schatzberg taped conversations with Anne Saint Marie and used her comments as a framing device for the story. Not a great film, but an interesting one nevertheless.

Not exactly surreal but still nearly completely devoid of a real story-line. Faye Dunaway is a highly successful model who goes off the deep end, leading to a self-imposed isolation that she can't seem to get out of. In what is a genuinely phenomenal performance, Dunaway is emotionally stripped bare. In some ways, her acting here recalls Jane Fonda's work in KLUTE. There's a lot of angst beneath some very thin skin. The supporting cast includes Viveca Lindfors, Roy Scheider (as Dunaway's hot headed boyfriend) and Barry Primus, in his film debut. From a script by Carole Eastman with some really odd direction by Jerry Schatzberg. The movie bends time and jumps back and forth as Dunaway's past is revealed. It's bleak but never depressing.

A landmark in independant american filmaking, Puzzle is the best film ever directed by Jerry Schatzberg. Faye dunaway is incredible. One of the best fims of the 70's.

For the life of me, I can't figure out why someone doesn't put this film out on DVD or video. Puzzle of a Downfall Child is a hauntingly spare film about the breakdown of beauty. Although less well known than The Panic in Needle Park, it is Jerry Schatzberg's masterpiece. His use of non-linear storytelling coupled with some incredibly dreamy flashback sequences made me feel as if, like heroine Lou Sands, I too was coming slightly undone. For Faye Dunaway fans (and really who isn't a fan of Faye's?), this film showcases not only her incredible beauty--the eyelashes are to die for--but also her talents as an actress. She is more believable as an actress portraying a model than any model portraying an actress could ever hope to be. If it should ever make its way to an art-house near you, you will do yourself a disservice if you miss it. After I left the theater, I kept thinking of that trite adage about how they don't make them like they used to.