Based on Nathanael West's equally Hollywood-Gothic novel, "The Day of the Locust" revolves around the lives of several Los Angelenos: Tod, a Yale art graduate working on a painting; Faye, an aspiring and out-of-touch actress, and her ostentatious father; and Homer, a sexually-repressed outcast. The film charts each of the characters' aspirations that come crashing into one of the most apocalyptic and ghastly endings in film history.
I had read West's novel years ago before finally seeing this film, and it's evident that director John Schlesinger took heavy cues from the source material. This adaptation stays true to the novel, only making minor alterations where it has to cut its losses. It's dark, wacky, grotesque, and at times flat-out disturbing, and there is a strange dreaminess to the film that recalls the novel's borderline-absurdist approach to the material.
There is a phenomenal attention to detail here and sophisticated cinematography, capturing the hazy underworld of Hollywood that houses its rejects and wannabes. The film's greatest asset is, inarguably, its stellar cast. William Atherton plays the leery painter with conviction, while Donald Sutherland captures the eccentricity and quirks of Homer. In the novel, West draws all the characters to the tipping point of caricatures, and Karen Black perhaps best embodies this as Faye, the starry-eyed and artless aspiring actress- Black evokes the childlike sensibility of the character with a purposeful sexuality that is what makes her character in particular so disturbed. Burgess Meredith (also Black's co-star in "Burnt Offerings") is appropriately hammy as her gimmicky showman of a father. Geraldine Page makes a brief but grandiose appearance.
The oft-discussed ending is worthy of the talk it is the subject of; it is one of the most well-shot and harrowing conclusions in film history, edging on the apocalyptic and the orgiastic, much like the source material. While typically discussed as a drama, I consider "The Day of the Locust" to be a horror film just as I consider the novel to be a horror novel- unconventional, albeit, but the film captures something wildly grotesque that challenges its audience, and some may find it a work difficult to locate merit in. There is a terrifying nucleus to this story that trumps its less-horrific finishings.
All in all, "The Day of the Locust" is a classic and important film; like its source novel, it serves us with a grim portrait of society that is not exclusive to Hollywood, but is perhaps best exemplified in the city of stolen water and stolen dreams. Barring "Mulholland Drive," which came over two decades later (and was undoubtedly influenced by Schlesinger's film), "The Day of the Locust" remains the greatest fictional representation of Hollywood ever, and perhaps the most horrifying film to lay claim to Los Angeles. 10/10.
I had read West's novel years ago before finally seeing this film, and it's evident that director John Schlesinger took heavy cues from the source material. This adaptation stays true to the novel, only making minor alterations where it has to cut its losses. It's dark, wacky, grotesque, and at times flat-out disturbing, and there is a strange dreaminess to the film that recalls the novel's borderline-absurdist approach to the material.
There is a phenomenal attention to detail here and sophisticated cinematography, capturing the hazy underworld of Hollywood that houses its rejects and wannabes. The film's greatest asset is, inarguably, its stellar cast. William Atherton plays the leery painter with conviction, while Donald Sutherland captures the eccentricity and quirks of Homer. In the novel, West draws all the characters to the tipping point of caricatures, and Karen Black perhaps best embodies this as Faye, the starry-eyed and artless aspiring actress- Black evokes the childlike sensibility of the character with a purposeful sexuality that is what makes her character in particular so disturbed. Burgess Meredith (also Black's co-star in "Burnt Offerings") is appropriately hammy as her gimmicky showman of a father. Geraldine Page makes a brief but grandiose appearance.
The oft-discussed ending is worthy of the talk it is the subject of; it is one of the most well-shot and harrowing conclusions in film history, edging on the apocalyptic and the orgiastic, much like the source material. While typically discussed as a drama, I consider "The Day of the Locust" to be a horror film just as I consider the novel to be a horror novel- unconventional, albeit, but the film captures something wildly grotesque that challenges its audience, and some may find it a work difficult to locate merit in. There is a terrifying nucleus to this story that trumps its less-horrific finishings.
All in all, "The Day of the Locust" is a classic and important film; like its source novel, it serves us with a grim portrait of society that is not exclusive to Hollywood, but is perhaps best exemplified in the city of stolen water and stolen dreams. Barring "Mulholland Drive," which came over two decades later (and was undoubtedly influenced by Schlesinger's film), "The Day of the Locust" remains the greatest fictional representation of Hollywood ever, and perhaps the most horrifying film to lay claim to Los Angeles. 10/10.