"After an initial orgy of fancy camerawork, the movie settles down into the story of Bowie's final days. He has that disease, where you age suddenly. He needs a lot of blood to keep going. He appeals to a medical researcher (Sarandon) for help, but she brushes him off, and by the time she realizes he's serious, he looks like Methuselah. Then Sarandon visits the lavish town house where Deneuve and Bowie lived, and that's where a glass of sherry leads to the seduction scene.
"Now I've got to be honest about this scene. Part of its interest lies in the fact that Catherine Deneuve herself and Susan Sarandon herself are acting in the scene. That gives it a level of reality that would be lacking in a porno film, even a much more explicit one. Because we know that famous actresses don't usually agree to appear in scenes such as this, we're aware at the chance they're taking -- and the documentary reality of the scene gives it an effectiveness all its own.
"In Herzog's Nosferatu the Vampyre, we felt some of the blood-scented lure of eternal death-in-life. Here it's just -- how would an ad put it? -- "Catherine Deneuve for Dracula."" - Roger Ebert (1983)
Screening as part of our series When the Lights Go Down: The Sex Scene
See a throuple of screenings in this series and save with a Ménage à Trois Pack!
Previous screened September 20-22, 2019 as part of our Summer 2019 series, "Weekend Classics: Staff Picks."