An Almost Perfect Affair (1979)
Paramount DVD (region 1)
d. Michael Ritchie; pr. Terry Carr; scr. Walter Bernstein, Don Peterson; ph. Henri Decais; m. Georges Delerue; ed. Richard A. Harris; cast. Keith Carradine, Monica Vitti, Raf Vallone, Christian De Sica, Dick Anthony Williams, Brooke Shields, George Peppard, Sergio Leone, Marco Ferreri, Edy Williams, Paul Mazursky, Farrah Fawcett (93 mins)
Throughout the 1970s, director Michael Ritchie was held in increasingly high esteem for his blend of social satire and an almost over-riding interest in the nature of competition as perhaps symptomatic of contemporary American values.
His style drew initial parallels to Robert Altman and he developed an almost documentary-like interest in people gathering around central events of cultural importance. His protagonists, however, were not often likeable, and sometimes shallow, but always was there the impetus of competition. It was thus perhaps natural that Ritchie’s interest in filmmaking, competition and cultural events should lead him to An Almost Perfect Affair, set during the tumult of the Cannes Film Festival. The film would prove a turning point for Ritchie: it was his last “personal” film, as after the subsequent cynical spit in the face of The Island, he turned to more crowd-pleasing subject matter. His comedies of the 1980s ironically found a box-office success that had eluded his most provocative work. It seemed that the more anonymous Ritchie became, the more the public was prepared to see his films. Critically though, he was considered irredeemably lost in impersonality and banal commerciality. This loss was regretted by some and it seems in retrospect that with An Almost Perfect Affair the director had exhausted his personal stake in the medium and lost some hidden struggle.
In An Almost Perfect Affair, an independent American first-time director (Keith Carradine) comes to France for the Cannes Film Festival with cans of film in hand. He intends to show his work outside official screening in the hope of finding a distributor.
His luck turns when, according to French customs and censorship practice, his film is confiscated at the airport, an event witnessed briefly by a returning actress (Monica Vitti). Out of his element in a foreign country, Carradine makes his way to his hotel. His efforts lead to a chance meeting with Vitti, an older woman who senses something about this hapless but determined young man. Soon they begin seeing each other and when Vitti reveals that her husband is a famed producer (Raf Vallone) there to promote her movie for the Cannes celebration, Carradine wonders if Vallone can get his film out from customs. Indeed, Vallone does make the censorship bureau screen the film early and it is passed back into Carradine’s hands. However, his concern for his film is now counter-balanced by his interest in Vitti. As the two of them begin an affair, it becomes clear that Vitti is disillusioned with the film-obsessed world she dwells within: as an ageing sex-symbol she sees in Carradine a spark of malleable youth. However, when she finally sees his movie she cannot placate the insecure Carradine who is faced with a choice – love for a woman or love for the movies.
It is difficult not to take this film as Ritchie’s assessment of his personal priorities, as the film constantly questions the “value” of the movies. Carradine is an aspiring outsider and in relating his dilemma, Ritchie wonders if the love of film is essentially the beginning of a kind of indifference and even dehumanization.
Of course, the clash between life and art is not a new theme, but it is treated here with surprising resonance. Thus, despite the image of Cannes as a rallying point for film culture, for Ritchie it primarily attracts the obsessed and addicted, the vain, disillusioned and desperate. Hence, the emphasis is on a subtle de-glamorization of the film industry and a subtle revelation of its entrapping hold over those within it. The nature and worth of such passions are repeatedly contrasted – the passion for artistic achievement (and success) held against the passion for interpersonal bonding. Vitti seeks the latter, whereas Carradine’s priorities are bound to his obsession with cinema. The confusion and doubt that underlies these characters, especially Carradine and the would-be distributor he soon meets, contrasts with the superficial glamour going on around them. There is much insecurity behind the lives of those on the fringe who idolize film and only an elusive contentment for those who succumb to its obsessive success: thus, Vallone has made his choice, fully realizing that his wife perhaps needs some extra time to re-affirm hers.
Ironically, there is no real animosity in this film, between characters or on Ritchie’s behalf, as most people long to relate to one another. Ritchie, however, laments what he considers the longing suppressed by misplaced priorities.
The ease of 1970s morality, in particular the “open, free” marriage between Vallone and Vitti, makes Vitti’s affair with Carradine into a moral conundrum for the both of them. This dilemma in turn re-enforces the film’s dominant examination of conflicted feelings: these people are trapped, whether they realize it or not, and their affair is a fleeting attempt, by Vitti especially, to find a love that is not qualified by a devotion to film. That Ritchie can find no real solution to his look at the role of love within the film industry makes much of this movie seem bittersweet, full of Carradine’s shy insecurity and Vitti’s middle-aged longing and regret. Perhaps the choice each of them makes in the end is inevitable as the film slyly embodies its title: everything in it is just short of ideal – the realization of this imperfection perhaps underlying the search for connection and maybe at best, the hope for personal growth and a confirmation of priorities and values. For Vitti (and perhaps even for Ritchie) films are just things that get in the way of true human feelings and any competition for these things occurs at the expense of what is found in human nature. But this film culture is inescapable.
DVD DETAILS:
Vision
The anamorphic widescreen transfer on this gently melancholic film is initially grainy but clarifies nicely to preserve the open, stylized naturalism of Ritchie; his use of zooms, open frame compositions, overlapping dialogue, restless motion and multi-character set-ups being definitely comparable to Altman. Indeed, there is much in style and tone in An Almost Perfect Affair that anticipates Altman’s much more celebrated treatise on film-culture in The Player, down to cameo appearances by celebrities of the time. The surface busy-ness of the festival atmosphere is nicely contrasted to the emotional confusion and doubts it masks, undermining the reputation of Cannes as the high point of film culture. The film reveals a real fondness for natural sunlight and the breezy pop-art colors of the decade, having a rather pastel look at times. It works as a verite study of the excitement of a film festival but is just as concerned with the inner lives and unresolved emotions of the people drawn there. Film posters recur throughout (again anticipating The Player) and there is a clever in-joke as Carradine walks under a window in which Brooke Shields is sitting (the two having recently starred together in the controversial Pretty Baby). References to the marketing of films and filmmakers also work their way nicely into the visual scheme towards the end. In look and feel An Almost Perfect Affair seems a hybrid of American and European styles.
Sound
The sound transfer is available in Dolby Digital mono only. Within these limitations, it is a clear and consistent transfer, and the expected hiss is all but absent throughout the movie. This absence of a hiss enhances the effect of the lush scoring. It is good on the boom of an arriving airplane and captures the overlapping voices in crowded locations, contrasting these nicely to the increasing intimacy between Vitti and Carradine. With an emphasis on diegetic sounds, the film carries a sense of verite authenticity and even exposure in certain sequences and such source sounds (and sporadic press comments) are always crisp and often poignant. The dialogue is of course very film-referential and there are some sly in-jokes about American film directors of the 1970s (with particular mention of the disappearance of Terrence Malick) as well as an amusing running-joke about a remake of A Streetcar Named Desire. Ritchie also favors quiet scenes wherein human voices alone reach for direction and communication away from the otherwise confusing and potentially overwhelming bustle. He also evidently likes to convey a sense of voices in movement and makes much out of contrasting voices in differing ambiences (in cafes, casino, hotel rooms, parks, and even on the water). A fuller home-theatre transfer would have emphasized this interplay between human voices and the environment even more, but this remains superior mono work.
Special Features
There are no special features.
