The Seventies seemed to be a time for film makers to push the envelope by shocking viewers and challenging mainstream perceptions with stylized treatments of sex and violence. Other movies that come to mind are 1971's "Klute" and 1977's "Looking for Mr. Goodbar". I would even throw 1970's "Joe' into that mix with it's take on free love and nudity. What's kind of funny as I watched the picture today on cable, was that the exposed breasts of women in Laura Mars' photos were uncensored, but the ones on the live models were. What's the point of that?
There's that other element that gets some treatment from the newspaper reporter in the story speculating on whether the gallery photo exhibit has a desensitizing effect on society, and might possibly be the cause of some deranged killer who gets inspired by the titillation of sex and violence together. There are those, primarily in the position of making these pictures, that think that's all hogwash, but why wouldn't a rational person make the same observation. Sometimes bad ideas get their start in a subliminal way.
Anyway, this was a fair enough thriller. Trying to figure out the murderer in a murder mystery can often be a challenging exercise, but this film tried too hard to pin the crimes on Brad Dourif's character, so I had him dismissed right off. That John Neville (Tommy Lee Jones) turned out to be the killer in Laura's visions wasn't a complete surprise, though the picture could have better explored at which point in his life Neville went completely off the rails. The confrontational scene in which Laura realizes in horror that John is a madman was handled well, I was patiently waiting for her to pull the trigger and she didn't let me down. Good job, Laura.
There's that other element that gets some treatment from the newspaper reporter in the story speculating on whether the gallery photo exhibit has a desensitizing effect on society, and might possibly be the cause of some deranged killer who gets inspired by the titillation of sex and violence together. There are those, primarily in the position of making these pictures, that think that's all hogwash, but why wouldn't a rational person make the same observation. Sometimes bad ideas get their start in a subliminal way.
Anyway, this was a fair enough thriller. Trying to figure out the murderer in a murder mystery can often be a challenging exercise, but this film tried too hard to pin the crimes on Brad Dourif's character, so I had him dismissed right off. That John Neville (Tommy Lee Jones) turned out to be the killer in Laura's visions wasn't a complete surprise, though the picture could have better explored at which point in his life Neville went completely off the rails. The confrontational scene in which Laura realizes in horror that John is a madman was handled well, I was patiently waiting for her to pull the trigger and she didn't let me down. Good job, Laura.