Wider Screenings film reviews

SHOWGIRLS (1996: d. Paul Verhoeven)
pr. Alan Marshall, Charles Evans; scr. Joe Ezsterhas; ph. Jost Vacano; m. Rena Riffel, David A. Stewart; ed. Mark Goldblatt, Mark Helfrich; cast. Elizabeth Berkley, Gina Gershon, Kyle McLachlan, Robert Davi, Glenn Plummer, Gina Ravera, Alan Rachins, Lin Tucci, Greg Travis, Al Ruscio (131 mins)
(updated 02-Nov-2011 2:55 PM )

Provoking the American Censors and Flaunting the NC-17

Some films are controversial for the circumstances of their production, some for their violence and some even for their sleazy, contemptuous attitude.

In the case of the film Showgirls, the second collaboration between director Paul Verhoeven and screenwriter Joe Eszterhas (following their hit thriller Basic Instinct), the film was a talking point well before it was ever released, thanks to its provocative attitude to the American film rating system. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), moralistic regulatory watchdogs for the American film industry, had in 1990 introduced an NC-17 rating for films too strong for an R-rating but not quite the hardcore pornography associated with an X-rating. As many newspapers and other advertisers refuse to carry ads for X or NC-17 films, an NC-17 rating is equated with box-office death. Showgirls is unique in that it is the first big-budget, big-studio film deliberately intended to be classified NC-17 and to make that a major marketing strategy. In the process, Verhoeven became the first director contractually obligated to deliver an NC-17 rating. The final film was considered so sexy that it not only got its desired controversial rating, but soon caused a moral uproar. It became one of the most critically lambasted of all contemporary American films and flopped at the box-office although was reportedly a big video hit. Since its initial release, it has became almost obligatory to bad mouth the film.

Synopsis (contains spoilers)

Showgirls tells the story of a young drifter (an exuberant Elizabeth Berkley) who hitches a ride to Las Vegas with the desire to be a dancer in a big Vegas show.

She makes friends with a seamstress for such a show and ends up sharing accommodation – the two of them almost like naïve girls. Berkeley longs to be like the dancing star (Gina Gershon) of the show Goddess, however can only get a job in a strip club as a stripper and lap-dancer. When Gershon sees her, the bisexual tension erupts and the two of them begin a power-game of sorts. Berkley gets an audition for the big show, at Gershon’s design. When she eventually gets the role, she goes after Gershon’s boyfriend and casino entertainment director Kyle MacLachlan. Winning his affection by recreating her lap dance for real, she courts the role of understudy to Gershon and taunts Gershon about her age (at thirty-something Gershon is apparently pushing it in this profession). Gershon has other plans and exercises her power to have Berkley removed from the show. Berkley has a revenge plan in mind although when she is at the point of success an unexpected moral decision faces her when her past comes to the surface. Has she sold her soul and become a whore after all? Her moral sense of herself comes to the fore when her friend and former housemate is raped by a hotel guest – a visiting rock singer – and she seeks revenge.

Sexualized American Morality

In truth, Showgirls is not nearly as bad as its attackers would maintain. It is indeed a very bitter, cynical version of the American Dream.

There is not a single sympathetic character in the film – the possible exception being Berkley’s friend, who is horribly violated, perhaps as a punishment for being naïve and likeable in a world clearly corrupt and rotten. Although the big shows may offer glamour in their topless numbers, the seedy strip-clubs catering to the lap-dance crowd at least make no pretence about their selling of sex: it is not that which is the issue, merely the showmanship associated with the selling – the illusion of sophistication. In that way, as was Verhoeven’s stated intention, the film is not so much about sex as it is about morality in America. Verhoeven has long been fascinated with moral issues, dating back to his Dutch films, and in Showgirls addresses the moral wasteland that underlies the American Dream. It is his cynicism regarding sexual exploitation and commoditization that runs through this film. Sexuality is a symptom of a greater moral bankruptcy that would exploit vulnerability and reward callous exploitation. The American Dream is only attainable through a moral compromise that makes whores out of all women and pimps or exploiters out of all men – rarely has the immorality of the American Dream been so exposed and mocked. Tellingly, Berkeley’s one hold on morality is with the ironic assertion that she is not a whore.

In this respect, the most telling remark occurs at the Cheetah, a strip-club run by Robert Davi. A new dancer is there and backstage mentions her real name.

Davi immediately counters that men do not want to “fuck” someone of that name, but want to do so to someone with the name he gives her, “Hope”. The implication is bitter – Vegas draws in young women wanting success and men ready to sexually use them and in the process systematically destroy and rob them of their hopes and dreams. This sexual destruction is the moral blight in America – only by using sex against men can the Dream be achieved, although along the way, the moral compromises needed to master the techniques of manipulation destroy the moral decency of the American Dream. Women in this way are forced to become little more than expensive whores – it is also significant thus that the successful woman, Gershon, is bisexual, implicitly acknowledging that she can do without men and so control them – it is this blend of ambition and manipulation she senses in Berkeley, both can expertly use sex and men to get what they want. It is a film about the moral decay and hypocrisy of the American Dream as evident in the sexually wicked culture of Las Vegas, a city of Biblical immorality yet where people flock to in search of the hopeful best of America, expecting almost an American Paradise. It is this irony which perhaps most amuses and bemuses Verhoeven.

Glossy Sophistication in Satire of American Sexual Mores as Contemporary backstage Musical

The visual transfer on this DVD is outstanding, capturing a film of extraordinary production values – Las Vegas has never been as strikingly captured as here.

The vibrant, gaudy neon and colored lights are prominent throughout and the musical numbers are vividly rendered as uniquely American sexual spectaculars, repeatedly paralleled to the strip routines and lap dances as a kind of spectrum of moral acceptability and moral hypocrisy in American society, idolizing what it would denigrate. Ironically, daylight is a sobering time, for it is mostly at night that this environment thrives – the contrast between times of day, with daylight a realistic counterpoint to the frenzied, infernal neon glitz of night, is most effective and gives the film pause to catch its breath. The energy in color and editing rhythm captures the relentless drive of the Vegas lifestyle, the futile perversity of moral abandon. Verhoeven’s mobile camera is expertly deployed in these scenes. The film manages to achieve a convincing backstage and onstage milieu, both at the main show and at the smaller, seedier clubs which absorb the fallen dreams of the many young women who go to Vegas. In visual design if nothing else, this film is outstanding, and the transfer truly captures this slick professionalism – the only visual rival to this film’s depiction of Las Vegas is Terry Gilliam’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray].

The Spectacle of Immorality

The sound transfer is also exceptional, capturing the intense, equally busy and relentless aural energy of this film.

It is a transfer of enormous energy and relentless driving force, fully immersing the viewer in the atmosphere of immorality and spectacle, capturing both the allure of showmanship and reality of the desperate lives attracted to it. There is much constant background activity, making for some involving directional effects. Indeed, the sound is vibrant and dynamic throughout, propelled by an equally fine score and a telling selection of songs meant as comments on the descent into immorality and irony that Verhoeven takes the viewer into. The on-stage numbers are scored to give an impression of Vegas spectacle and succeed perfectly as audio-visual extravaganzas, indicating the film also as structured as a modern musical of sorts – an update of the honored backstage musical conventions of such as 42nd Street (Keep Case Packaging) and A Chorus Line. Minor details and ambient sounds are all crisp when called for and again seem more subdued during the daylight – the city lives for night and artificial sophistication. The transfer is always engaging and the design feels true to both the reality of the city and the spirit with which it is commonly conceived in American popular escapism, a trait the film seeks to explode in its production design. This is an outstanding transfer aurally as well as visually.

Treats for the Collector

In the way of special features there is a theatrical trailer (promising more of a sex show than is actually delivered in the film) with the tagline “leave your inhibitions at the door”.

A brief “Making-of” featurette has the actors’ takes on the film and their characters, MacLachlan tellingly considering manipulation to be a main theme, and Eszterhas considering it to be a contemporary musical of sorts. The DVD comes with a booklet that offers additional behind the scenes information. It is too easy to merely dismiss Showgirls as a bad movie or to criticize Berkley as many have, for in truth the film is a bitter comment on American moral hypocrisy and Berkley brings tremendous drive to the role (it is a sad fact that she has had to bear much of the weight for this film’s failure with the critics). The only let down on this DVD is the lack of extras as it would be fascinating to hear what the participants now think of a film that has been vilified perhaps more than any other.

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US BLU-RAY AVAILABILITY DETAILS: Showgirls (15th Anniversary Sinsational Edition) [Blu-ray]
UK BLU-RAY PURCHASE INFORMATION: Showgirls [BLU-RAY] [UNCUT VERSION] [DUTCH IMPORT]
AUST - BLU-RAY AVAILABILITY INFORMATION: Showgirls