This could be taken either as a farce or a serious drama, or an intermingling of the two -- I think that's the best way to watch it, as some scenes are undeniably funny, but to view *all* of this as a joke would suggest that it's a lot more distanced than it is. This is really an ode to and worshipping of nakedness -- real nakedness, blemishes and all -- naked genitals, naked emotions. (What makes the naked emotions so interesting, dealing with most of the performers except Dallesandro, is that they're based on extreme affectation -- "I've got to get some aaaacid" -- but still reveal more than the majority of more "accomplished" acting does.)
It would be easy to look at this as a parading of freaks -- the light bulb credits, and Geri Miller dancing topless to the line, "Mama, look at me now!" But that wouldn't take into account the fact that Miller is nothing if not sincere. The movie works by capturing literal abstractions, if that makes any sense -- out of focus close-ups that work both as simple pieces of formal beauty (Joe's silhouetted face on the street, with a golden background, as he talks to Andrea Feldman), and as insistent closeness.
This is the real reality of drug use -- dirty, pimpled, de-glamorized, and, above all, boring. Morrissey has always worked with satire and seriousness intertwined, so it might be difficult for some people to note the complexity of his work. When Joe begins to rape a woman, it turns into semi-passionate sex. Another woman hears about this and asks him to rape her. Another woman suggests that, since you have sex with strangers, why not family? Morrissey is making fun of all of this at the same time as he's probing into it; this isn't *just* a comedy, it's much more than that -- look at the scene where Jane Forth says to Dallesandro that his complexion is looking a little rough, a statement so intimate, so aware, so personal that it knocks him off guard. (Sometimes it's just sex without any moral judgment, such as when Holly Woodlawn, in a performance that defies categorization, declothes and fondles a young boy.)
It's often absurd, as in the scene where Joe is stoned stupid and naked, and Forth and her husband are bickering as he stumbles around their living room, a scene of bourgeois mockery. When Forth's husband asks him what it's like being a junky, his curiosity almost makes it seem like the junky life is a worthy life -- at least it's individualistic. 9/10
It would be easy to look at this as a parading of freaks -- the light bulb credits, and Geri Miller dancing topless to the line, "Mama, look at me now!" But that wouldn't take into account the fact that Miller is nothing if not sincere. The movie works by capturing literal abstractions, if that makes any sense -- out of focus close-ups that work both as simple pieces of formal beauty (Joe's silhouetted face on the street, with a golden background, as he talks to Andrea Feldman), and as insistent closeness.
This is the real reality of drug use -- dirty, pimpled, de-glamorized, and, above all, boring. Morrissey has always worked with satire and seriousness intertwined, so it might be difficult for some people to note the complexity of his work. When Joe begins to rape a woman, it turns into semi-passionate sex. Another woman hears about this and asks him to rape her. Another woman suggests that, since you have sex with strangers, why not family? Morrissey is making fun of all of this at the same time as he's probing into it; this isn't *just* a comedy, it's much more than that -- look at the scene where Jane Forth says to Dallesandro that his complexion is looking a little rough, a statement so intimate, so aware, so personal that it knocks him off guard. (Sometimes it's just sex without any moral judgment, such as when Holly Woodlawn, in a performance that defies categorization, declothes and fondles a young boy.)
It's often absurd, as in the scene where Joe is stoned stupid and naked, and Forth and her husband are bickering as he stumbles around their living room, a scene of bourgeois mockery. When Forth's husband asks him what it's like being a junky, his curiosity almost makes it seem like the junky life is a worthy life -- at least it's individualistic. 9/10