The Stunt Man

 SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

 

 The Stunt Man (1980) is about making movies and the sometimes demonic way that the process plays with reality. The opening has one dog blocking a car’s access, and another dog snarling and trying to bite someone in a diner. However, on a TV commercial playing in that restaurant, a perfectly trained pooch jumps through a woman’s bent leg. The images show how video alters reality to fit the filmmaker’s agenda. 

 

 Cameron (Steve Railsback) is in the diner. (His name, noted by IMDb, is a play on “camera on,” which stresses the fact that the actor, who is being filmed by a camera, plays a fugitive who will play a stunt man, who will also be photographed). He is a Vietnam vet wanted for attempted murder, which we discover much later. Policemen are in the diner, and they attempt to arrest him, but he escapes. He tries to hitchhike on a bridge. A car, a Duesenberg, which is an unusual anachronistic vehicle to be there, stops and he assumes he is to be picked up. But, the driver yells at him, telling Cameron to get lost. When the car reverses its direction, Cameron throws something at the car, but when he looks, the car disappeared (a bit of movie magic). A helicopter descends and hovers next to the bridge. It has a camera on it which shows Cameron has wandered onto a movie shoot. The director, Eli Cross (Peter O’Toole, nominated for an Oscar for this role) stares intently at Cameron. His first name, Eli, means God in Hebrew, according to IMDb, and, of course, his last name conjures up Christ being crucified. Eli descends from the sky, like a deity, but he is ironically more like an anti-Christ as he controls destinies in his make-believe world which spills over into the actual one. IMDb points out that T-shirts worn by crew members show the title of the film Eli is making is “Devil’s Squadron,” which would clearly equate Eli with Satan.

 

 Cameron heads to a beach and as he strolls on a boardwalk, he notices someone painting the ocean and sand on a canvas. The shot emphasizes how art tries to recreate the actual world, but it is just a copy, not the genuine thing. He watches other people gathering to look down on the beach where the film crew is working. A WWI airplane flies by, which shows how movies within their own structure can warp time as they create their own representation of life. The people there applaud as supposed bullets are fired and explosions go off. We are the real audience and they are a fake one, our surrogates, since they are in a movie about the making of a movie. The special effects are so real that the audience, Cameron among them, are fooled into thinking an actor playing a soldier really had his leg blown off. But, they are relieved when they see makeup was used to create the effect. The scene shows how people automatically suspend their sense of reality when watching a story unfold.

 

An old woman approaches one of the actors and asks for an autograph. She then falls into the ocean and Cameron tries to save her. She turns out to be the leading actress, Nina Franklin (Barbara Hershey), wearing makeup to see if she will pass for a senior citizen later in the film’s story. She not only fools Cameron but also those making the movie. It’s as if the film is suggesting that anyone is susceptible to accepting illusion for reality. She tells Cameron to follow through with rescuing her, as if to continue a scene from a film. He even comments on the verisimilitude of the activity by saying that it’s “just like the movies.” Even the master of illusion, Eli, says he was “scared” she might have been harmed.

 

Eli’s helicopter lands and he exits upset as he tells Ace (Philip Bruns) that the car that went off the bridge drifted downstream and the stunt man driving it drowned. True catastrophes occur while telling a fictional tale. This accident happened while Cameron was mistaking a phony event for a real threat. Eli tells Ace not to divulge anything about the accident since real life would infringe upon his imaginative creation, which is more important to him than anything else.

 

Eli saw Cameron on the bridge from his chopper and smartly deduces that he was running away. As cops arrive at the scene Eli observes how nervous Cameron becomes. He also notices that Cameron has the severed remains of handcuffs on his wrists, which Eli alters, as he does with other perceptions as a director, calling them “charm bracelets.” Eli knows he can use Cameron’s situation to help him concerning the loss of the stunt man. Cameron says the car was speeding toward him and he implies that his defensive reaction was one he adopted in Vietnam, where he evaded “gooks.” Eli says that he thought that racist term was just something made up by “Time Magazine.” His comment shows how what is taken as real some may believe just came from something an individual made up.

 

Jake (Alex Rocco) is the local police chief, and he is angry about Cross disrupting the everyday existence of the town because of the filming. He sees the film crew as a sort of invasion of his real-life domain. In order to avoid legal problems, that is, reality interfering with his creative project, Eli invents (what else?) a story. He says that Cameron is really the supposedly deceased stunt man, Burt (ironically played by Michael Railsback, which adds a real relationship to the fictional one). Since Cameron is wet from “rescuing” Nina, Eli can say that Burt was recovered from the submerged car. As the two are hoisted up on a crane, Eli tells Cameron that he can have the whole crew and actors greet him as “Burt,” which shows the extent of Eli’s power. His ascension into the air stresses Eli’s omnipotence. So, Cameron goes undercover, and deceptively plays multiple parts, one outside the film, that of Burt, and also as a stunt man pretending to be other actors within the movie. Eli says that people like to believe stories, they enjoy shedding incredulity, and since the cops are people, they’ll believe what Eli is creating. (Director Richard Rush said in an interview that having a story where a person is hiding on a movie set and is dominated by a director was, “a way to examine our universal panic and paranoia of controlling our own destinies.” In a way, that is what happens to all actors within the context of making a film).

 Eli says he will be on the set “in a minute.” His employee says is that “a real minute or an Eli minute,” stressing the two types of realities co-existing here. To emphasize this idea, Eli tells Cameron, as they approach a door, that the barrier is “a looking glass” and on the other side is “wonderland.” He tells Cameron to close his eyes, which he does. In a way, the director of the film we are watching, Rush, makes us close our eyes, too, since the screen goes dark, joining us with the fictional character. When the next lit scene is revealed, the hair stylist, Denise (Sharon Farrell) has cut Cameron’s hair, turned it blonde, and Cameron has lost his beard. He now resembles the dead Burt who was made to look like the lead actor, Raymond Bailey (Adam Roarke). The wizardry of the movies has resurrected a man, at least in the pretend world. Eli now calls Cameron “Lucky,” a term that at this point seems appropriate since he has escaped the cops.

 

Denise seduces Cameron and as they recline on the floor of the trailer, that shot is in counterpoint to the next one where we have an actor in a similar position playing a dead soldier. The contrast stresses how the same physical position can imply intense life and the end of one’s existence. In a scene with Raymond, Eli says the film is about how people put themselves in danger, just as Burt did, to give purpose to their lives. Cameron begins to learn stunts from the coordinator, Chuck (Charles Bail), who doesn’t seem thrilled to have an amateur to train. He asks Cameron how is he going to handle running across roofs while bullets are shot over his head? Cameron counters by saying that in Vietnam, he had to run while the enemy shot at his head, not over it, and he survived. His real-life experiences were more dangerous than the fake ones in the film. The effects in a movie do not replicate reality, but instead stylize it to produce the effect the director wants. Cameron wonders if Chuck is “putting” him on, and Chuck says, “I wouldn’t know how to do that.” But, that is exactly what he does for a living, presenting a false appearance. What follows are several scenes where Chuck shows the tricks (emphasis on that word) of the trade, including an awning that is a reinforced prop which is supposed to catch Cameron in a fall.

 

Ace complains about Eli being behind schedule because the director is not satisfied with certain scenes. There is the conflict here between the practical business aspect of moviemaking and the artistic desire to get the work done right. Sam (Allen Garfield), the screenwriter, tells Eli at dinner with the cast and crew that Eli missed his relevancy about making an anti-war film because it was now peacetime. But Eli says that Cameron thought the war was like a “plague.” Yet, he enlisted. Eli points out later that someone made a good anti-war movie, but when it was shown, enlistments increased, implying it had the opposite effect of what was intended. Cameron said earlier that he was just trying to get home for Thanksgiving, so sometimes he had to kill the enemy to do so. Eli says he is trying to show “that there is a reasonable and better way to get home for Thanksgiving.” Eli seems to be suggesting that he wants to show that there should be an alternative to engaging in war in the first place. Sam says that the studio will chop out the thematic parts and leave in the battle scenes. Eli likens that to having the fingers of one’s child cut off. When he asks Sam what he would do if the studio suggested that amputation be performed on his daughter, Sam says he would need to get a second opinion. It is a funny line, but it shows that although Eli has control on the movie site, there are those in the background that also want to have power over his destiny. He could be likened to a rebellious Lucifer showing his disdain for the god-like film company bosses. Police chief Jake interrupts the party and asks if anyone saw the fugitive, Cameron, and asks “Lucky” if his hair was always blonde. This scene adds suspense as to what might happen if Cameron is found out. Jake says that Eli must submit to someone in a higher position of authority to aid in the investigation of the car crash. Again, the filmmaker’s artistic vision is threatened by outside forces.

 Cameron, most likely feeling that he is in danger of being apprehended, packs a bag and looks like he is going to leave the hotel where the cast is staying. Eli, Denise, and Nina arrive. Cameron hides outside, and then he sees Nina through the oval-shaped glass of the hotel door. She looks radiant amid the chandelier in the background and the ornate wrap she is wearing that frames her. The view simulates a shot from a movie, and Cameron is attracted to her star appeal, which is an augmented illusion. He looks up at a tower that is part of the hotel and is surprised by Nina who asks if he is planning to rescue the “maiden” from that height, which is to occur in the movie. They have already played out a fake rescue and they revisit that make-believe scenario again, indulging in the escapism that movies provide. But, Cameron says Eli wouldn’t let him do the stunt if there was real danger. However, Eli has already lost a stunt man. Cameron says she can jump from the tower, and they go up to the ledge around the circular height. When up there, Nina becomes upset and angry and wants to escape as she can separate real danger from the imagined kind. When she realizes that Cameron is also frightened, his vulnerability draws her in, and they kiss. But then Eli focuses a spotlight on them. It’s a reminder that what we are watching as the audience is a scene from a film, not real life, but it also stresses Eli’s intervention in all of their lives.

 

Eli floats around on a crane, reinforcing his otherworldly persona. Cameron thinks Eli will sell him out to the cops if he shows footage of him on the bridge. Eli acts as if he is above all of that (literally and figuratively), as if regular rules don’t apply to filmmakers. He says that King Kong was a model that was only three feet, six inches tall. The illusion created by the movie presented him as an immense ape. Based on this power of altering perceived reality, the megalomaniac Eli says, “If God could do the tricks we can do, he’d be a happy man!” When Cameron asks why Eli would protect him, the director says the new stunt man is as “crazy” as the person he is making the film about. Eli adds, “I’ve fallen madly in love with the dark side of your nature.” These words point to Eli’s subversive nature. Later, Eli tells Sam that he wants to know what Cameron did that caused him to be wanted by the police, and that he sees him as being like a time bomb that can explode at any moment, which is what he sees as duplicated in the main character of his film. Eli’s fiction is inspired by actions and motivations of actual people.

 

When filming resumes Cameron performs numerous stunts, including jumping off of the tower and climbing over rooftops as bullets are shot and explosions go off. We wonder at some parts, as when Chuck hits him with a rifle butt and then Chuck falls off the building, if what’s happening is real or not. The sequence, which has great stunts for any film, ends with Cameron crashing into a brothel, which was substituted for an earlier scene in a mental institution. Even Cameron was surprised by some of the actions, and Chuck tells him that Eli likes the scenes to look spontaneous. There is a gray area here as to what is true of fake within the context of the movie within this movie. (Of course, we also know that there is a real stunt man filling in for the actor Railsback who supposedly is doing the stunts in the story). The cop Jake watches this action piece so he can be convinced that Cameron, alias Lucky, is Burt.

 

Sam says that when he read the original insane asylum part of the screenplay to his family, his son shook his hand for the first time out of admiration. But, Sam concedes that Eli’s “vulgar” brothel segment is more “moving” and “impassioned,” and he doesn’t know why. Eli says maybe it’s because, “the enemy may just be a poor horny slob, like yourself, falling into the nearest whorehouse.” Eli seems to be stressing the universality of behavior, and it fits in with his previous desire to offer an alternative way of thinking that may prevent wanting to go to war with others that are more alike than they are different. He says that he wants to show some of the madness behind the wartime action depicted. Eli asks Cameron what he would do to show that craziness if he were on the wing of an airplane about to die, and Cameron says he would dance. We see that scene being shot, and it looks as if Cameron is really on the wing of a WWI airplane high above the ground, and he dances. He then loses his footing which results in his hanging onto the edge of the wing. But then it is revealed that it is a special effect, and the plane is just a short distance off the ground and is being rotated, with Cameron safely tethered to the plane. It then appears that Cameron is being thrown form the plane and his face at first seems to reflect shock, but there is a transition, and he has really reached an orgasm while having sex with Nina.  Afterwards, the alarm clock goes off which Nina set to make sure they were on time on the set. Cameron also tries on her old- woman wig. She gets upset and wants the alarm turned off and for him not to ruin the wig. He wants her not to care about the clock and the wig, as a sort of defiance against Eli ruling her life, and thus having some control over her destiny.

 

There was a camera mounted in the car that filmed remote footage of Burt under water. Burt was supposed to get out but couldn’t escape. Cameron and Chuck watch the footage of Burt drowning, and it is a dark scene as they are an audience watching an actual death, not a fake one, as intended. Of course, it really isn’t since we are watching a movie. But, within the context of the story, an actual event substitutes for a contrived one. IMDb also suggests that Cameron here could be viewing his eventual drowning death. After all, he is the new Burt.

 Sam comes up with an idea that has the elderly character that Nina is portraying receive a gift from her love, the character who dies in the car accident. It is a collectible with figurines of a woman on a swing, legs apart, being approached by a bear. It suggests bestiality, or at least the merging of sweetness with danger, sort of the existence of opposites in life. As Nina acts out a scene with mementos at the unmarked grave of her deceased lover, Cameron learns from Denise that Nina and Eli were once romantically involved, which complicates how Cameron views Eli’s motivations toward him. At the end of the scene, Nina’s fondness for Eli is still evident as she hugs him.

 As Eli hands Cameron additional script material there is smoke surrounding them. It could be a special effect made from dry ice, but it lends a hellish element to Eli’s appearance. They head to a screening room where Jake and a FBI agent view footage of the car going off the bridge. Eli has someone state that he saw Cameron heading off elsewhere while the real Cameron sits there pretending to be Burt. Eli is directing real life now, not just a movie, as he has edited out Cameron’s appearance on the bridge. When Jake tells “Burt” that it’s surprising he survived, Eli says they must get back to work and still have time to kill Burt. He means in the movie, but it seems ominous, since Eli is jealous of Cameron’s relationship with Nina, and he may want to eliminate Cameron who can reveal that the director is covering up the real Burt’s death. As the two walk, Cameron voices his concern that Eli may make him drown as did the real Burt, thus getting his picture completed and just delaying knowledge of Burt’s death coming out. He says this while behind a closed fence, that makes him seem like he is trapped in Eli’s web.

 

After an involved war scene is cut short because of a lack of film, Eli’s wrath appears as he talks about how he can do all of these omnipotent activities within the film, including killing people, but he is frustrated that his minions can still ruin his movie. Meanwhile, in Cameron’s room, Nina plays out a scene, but Cameron is unresponsive, since he sees Nina as being deceitful about her relationship with Eli. She tosses him an apple and he takes a bite and then throws it away. The action appears to be symbolic of Eve bringing about Adam’s downfall.

 

Cameron shows up at a family birthday celebration for Nina, and they kiss and seem reconciled. Cameron learns from Henry (Jim Hess), the camera assistant, who is drunk at the bar, that Eli just let Burt drown so he could get the footage. Eli literally determines who lives and dies on his set. There is a switch to watching the rushes and Nina’s family gets to see her portraying someone else. But a nude scene appears, and Nina’s parents see the uncomfortable side of representing realistic images inside a fictional tale. The immoral Eli acts like it was a mistake that the shot was included, but he really allowed the image to be seen so Nina could portray “shame” on camera.

 Cameron confesses his fear to Nina that Eli may try to kill him when the shot of the car going off the bridge is recreated. He wants to leave, and she says she wants to know why he is being pursued before she commits to going with him. He tells her that the fellow soldier he was supposed to partner up with after the war was having sex with his girl. He broke into his comrade’s store and started to destroy it when a cop confronted him. Cameron threw a vat of ice cream at the officer, injuring him, but only causing frostbite of the nose and ear. However, he was charged with attempted murder. As he tells the story he revisits his violent wartime feelings as he did when he wrecked the store. He breaks and throws things in the prop room they are in, so we have a fake reenactment of an actual event, just like a movie. As they slide around on paint, they begin to laugh, showing how drama can turn into slapstick comedy, in movies and in life.

 

The two want to sneak out at night and they go to the garage, but Cross and the police have locked them down and secured the roads. Cameron says that Eli seems omniscient, knowing what he is planning to do. Cameron says he feels like he is in a story that Sam wrote, saying he doesn’t feel real and has to die because a “script says so.” Thus, again, art and life mix together. Cameron muses about how nice it would be if they tore out the last page of the script. He sees Nina’s smiling face reflected in the car window, as if it’s an image being projected on a screen, and they say they will do a “rewrite.” Instead of the car going off the bridge, he will drive away with Nina hiding in the trunk so that the two lovers can drive off and live happily ever after. They want the film’s story to end the way they want their own life to turn out.

 

Eli gives a film director’s god-like Sermon on the Mount as he bellows high up on a bridge (his usual default position, above everyone else) that no camera shall jam, and no cloud shall pass in front of the sun. They rig the car, another Duesenberg, for the last shot for the plunge into the water that Cameron wishes to avoid. Jake the police chief has his men there and they will be extras in the scene. It’s more blurring of the lines between fact and fiction. One of the deputies says that the rifles look too modern for WWI, which implies that movies can’t exactly replicate facts. Cameron says that the guns better have blanks, which shows his fear that actual danger may slip into the fabricated story. Cameron grabs the handle to the trunk where Nina was hiding. His double, the star, Raymond, seems to know that she is supposed to be in there and tells Cameron he doesn’t need to check, since it will not alter what action happens next. He seems to be the inability to alter one’s fate. Their faces are reflected in the car’s surface, showing how art mirrors life and vice versa, and it’s difficult to distinguish one reality from another.

 

The stressed-out Cameron mistakes a camera check for his cue to start driving. But there is a blowout of a tire, and the car goes off the bridge. Cameron is frantic, thinking that Nina will drown in the trunk. But, Cameron views Nina next to Eli on the Bridge. Cameron is able to get through the window of the car and swim to land. The cops dressed as soldiers approach menacingly and one says, “get him.” To Cameron, it sounds like he is being apprehended, but they are just there to help and congratulate him. Cameron laughs hysterically out of relief. There were divers in the water to help with his rescue. Nina tells him that Eli told her that Cameron changed his mind and decided to do the stunt, which, of course, was not the case, and was just another example of Eli manipulating those around him since everything must be subordinated to his artistic needs. She is delighted that he and Eli were now on good terms, another deception. She runs and messes up her outfit just to hug and kiss Cameron.

 Eli descends once again from a crane and implies that the possibility of him trying to kill Cameron was just for effect. Eli is taller and goes off flying in his helicopter, taking up his dominant stance. Cameron and Eli argue about how much Cameron should be paid. The fake stunt man appears like an angry Job incensed by how much suffering God has made him endure.

 

The next film is The Caine Mutiny.