reiher@ucla-cs.UUCP (06/26/85)
I saw "Lifeforce" and "Cocoon" on the same day (plus two
Japanese movies in between, but that's another story), and
they've got my vote for improbable double feature of the summer.
That they were released on the same day is almost bizarre. Con-
sider: "Lifeforce" is a tale of malevolent aliens who come down
to earth and suck the life out of people. "Cocoon" is the story
of benevolent aliens who come down to earth and rejuvenate peo-
ple. "Lifeforce" models itself on "Alien" and "Invasion of the
Body Snatchers", while "Cocoon" decorously steals from "Close En-
counters of the Third Kind" and "ET". Here we have representa-
tives of two of the more popular film science fiction themes,
duking it out toe to toe. "Cocoon" is the winner by a knockout.
When you come right down to it, neither film has an ounce of
originality to it. Scenes and motifs are stolen left and right
from earlier films. You can have a lot of fun at either one
watching specifically for where you've seen this bit or that shot
before. "Cocoon's" idea of being breathtakingly original is to
use old people instead of kids. This kind of twist is the stuff
of legendary (or is that infamous?) Hollywood meetings, where
some guy wearing gold chains and a loud shirt with an open collar
jumps up and shouts, "I've got it!" "Lifeforce" doesn't have any
intention at all of being original, either. Not one element is
new, not one twist appears that we don't expect.
Faced with such a stunning display of uninventiveness in
script and story, "Lifeforce" and "Cocoon" must get by on style.
Here's where "Cocoon" pulls out in front. Ron Howard, director
of "Cocoon", really knows how to make an old turn look new again.
As my mind tucked away instances of things "Cocoon" was doing
over again, it also noted, "but that's a very interesting varia-
tion". Howard doesn't have a strong personal style, but he does
have a lot of intelligence and a feel for what will and will not
work. His last couple of films have reminded me a bit of those
great old Hollywood hacks, Michael Curtiz and Victor Fleming. No
one writes dissertations about them or scholarly articles analyz-
ing their style, but if you made up a list of your ten favorite
films, there's a good chance that one or more films by each of
these gentlemen would appear. (Curtiz, among many other films,
directed "Casablanca" and "Yankee Doodle Dandy" and co-directed
"The Adventures of Robin Hood", my own choice of the most beauti-
ful color film ever made. Fleming had a very good year in 1939,
when he directed "The Wizard of Oz" and "Gone With the Wind".)
Their hallmark, like many other studio directors, was that their
films were competent, professional jobs which drew from the ma-
terial, not their personalities. Howard looks like the same kind
of director. He knows what can be done to make material fly,
even if it isn't material that he feels deeply for. (A good ex-
ample of the other kind of great director is Steven Spielberg,
whose films are intensely personal. Alfred Hitchcock and John
Ford are the classic examples.)
"Lifeforce" was directed by Tobe Hooper, whose one undisput-
ed positive credit is "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre". (He re-
ceived credit for directing "Poltergeist", but rumor states that
Spielberg had as much or more to do with how the film came out.)
Based on this, one would expect that Hooper would play to his
strengths. He knows horror. He knows how to build up a shock
scene, he knows how much he has to show an audience and how much
he should suggest without showing. He knows when to build up
suspense and when to back off. Alas, Hooper rarely chooses to
play "Lifeforce" as a horror movie with science fiction over-
tones, but rather as a science fiction film which occasionally
dips into horror. The result is a few good horror scenes and a
lot of mediocre sf. Hooper even shortchanges some of the horror
scenes, playing them almost perfunctorily. If he was trying to
demonstrate his range, his ability to work outside of the horror
genre, and this does seem to be his goal, he has failed. He
should have stolen even more from "Alien".
The difference between the two films can be seen at almost
any level, really, from the script on up. The script of "Life-
force" is badly constructed, by any standard. We start out on
a space shuttle out examining Halley's comet. They discover an
alien spacecraft. Now, seeing as how the craft was obviously
designed by H.R. Geiger, and that someone on the shuttle must
have seen "Alien", you'd think that extreme caution would be the
order of the day. Well, no. Ok, the shuttle crew does something
really stupid and we're prepared to see them get their's, in best
horror film fashion. At this point though, "Lifeforce" chooses
to cut away to the shuttle arriving in Earth orbit, sans crew but
with some passengers it didn't go up with. The film has lost in-
valuable shocks here, but that's forgivable. What's unforgivable
is it's insistence on flashbacks to what happened, flashbacks
which aren't even very well played. From this point onwards, al-
most every character in the film acts in an incredibly stupid
manner, till the film plays out to a cheat of a climax, in that
we were told that certain actions would have certain results.
Those actions have totally different results, for reasons never
explained but suspiciously resembling a desire to produce a sequ-
el. Someone forgot to remind the filmmakers that one only needs
to worry about a sequel if one produced a satisfactory film in
the first place. The climax is flat and unsatisfying, leaving
one puzzled but with little desire to see what happens next.
The script of "Cocoon" doesn't cover new ground, but it does
tromp the old, familiar turf in an assured manner. The dialog is
crisp, the characters mostly well delineated, the gaps of logic
not huge. The two related subplots, the rejuvenation of some
people in a Florida home for the aged and the mysterious activi-
ties of a group of people out in the middle of the ocean, are
nicely crosscut and merge in a natural fashion. While certain
twists do suggest a desire to do a sequel, they modestly murmur
"sequel", rather than screaming "SEQUEL!!!!!" at the top of their
metaphoric lungs, as is the case in "Lifeforce".
The performances in the two films are also at contrast. The
cast of "Lifeforce" isn't terribly distinguished (though Frank
Finlay once did a terrific Iago opposite Olivier's Othello).
Steven Railsback is a very good actor, but Hollywood doesn't know
what to do with him. He's been given three good parts in the
last decade, Charles Manson in "Helter Skelter", the title role
in "The Stunt Man", and the lead in "Lifeforce". His performance
in "Lifeforce" isn't up to his other two, but that is largely be-
cause the material isn't as good. Railsback is strong in the
part, and when he is speaking the lines, some of the plot incon-
sistencies momentarily disappear. The rest of the cast, Finlay,
Peter Firth, and many slightly familiar faces, almost to a man
give stiff-upper-lip style British performances. Very profes-
sional, to be sure, but not terribly exciting.
"Cocoon", on the other hand, is very well cast. There isn't
a bad performance in the film, and almost all of the cast has
something special to add. I was particularly pleased with the
performances of Wilford Brimley (as the ringleader of the old
folks) and Brian Dennehy (the alien in charge). Brimley is na-
tural and very sympathetic. Dennehy, out from under his usual
villainous brute role, displays great intelligence and sensitivi-
ty. Also excellent are Jessica Tandy, in the best of the older
women's roles, Hume Cronyn as an aged husband with tendencies to
stray, Don Ameche as a ladies' man whose spirit is still willing
even if the flesh is weak, and Jack Gilford as a skeptical old
fogey who stubbornly refuses to believe in miracles. Maureen
Stapleton and Gwen Verdon are given relatively little to do. The
younger members of the cast include Steve Guttenberg, a little
frantic at times for my tastes; Tawny Welch, Raquel Welch's
daughter, more beautiful than her mother and very talented; and
Barret Oliver, as Brimley's grandson. (I wonder if Oliver, who
had the leads in "The Neverending Story" and "D.A.R.Y.L", will
get to play a normal boy in a non-sf/fantasy story before puberty
kills his career?)
Both "Cocoon" and "Lifeforce" are special effects movies.
Special effects form important components of the concepts behind
the pictures. While I can picture "Cocoon" without its special
effects, "Lifeforce" really needs them. Thus, it is odd that,
despite the relative importance of effects to the two pictures
and despite the fact that "Lifeforce's" budget was about $7 mil-
lion more than "Cocoon's", the effects in "Cocoon" are generally
more effective and convincing than those in "Lifeforce". Some of
the spacecraft model work in the latter movie isn't very good,
and lots of lightshow stuff seems pretty arbitrary, being used
mostly to display what John Dykstra and company can do. The ef-
fects of "Cocoon", by contrast, are well-integrated and pretty
believable. I did find certain spacecraft shots towards the end
to be a bit amusing in an unintentional way, as I could practi-
cally hear the Industrial Light and Magic folks saying to them-
selves, "Now what spaceship special effects gimmicks didn't we
use on "ET"?" The best effects in "Lifeforce" are a combination
of makeup and puppetry, and these are quite persuasive. In-
terestingly, "Cocoon" features a creature which bears more than a
passing resemblance to those in "Lifeforce". The notable point
here is that the former film effectively uses the creature for
pathos, while the latter uses it for shock, and almost the same
creature works for both purposes, an illustration that presenta-
tion is everything. "Cocoon" also wins in the category of spe-
cial effects, then, but neither films' effects stand up to what I
think is the best special effects work so far this summer, Will
Vinton's Claymation in "Return to Oz". (And this Claymation
isn't nearly as versatile and amusing as that in Vinton's own
Mark Twain feature, due out this fall.)
Considering that both films' budgets hover around or above
the $20 million level, it should come as no surprise that both
are technically accomplished. The photography in "Cocoon" gets
the nod over that in "Lifeforce", simply on the basis of variety.
Neither film sports a particularly distinguished score, but both
are serviceable. One of the most unexpected aspects of "Life-
force" is hearing Henry "Moon River" Mancini proving that he,
too, can imitate John Williams.
Between them, "Cocoon" and "Lifeforce" display three of the
oldest and most familiar concepts in drama: pageant, pathos, and
melodrama. (Note that I am not using any of these words in a
pejorative sense, but in their original meanings, as descriptive
terms for components of drama.) Pageant, back in Shakespearean
times, used to consist of marching around small armies on stage
and showing off richly dressed kings and their courts. Modern
audiences are harder to please, since film and television have
taken them places where ordinary people could never go before.
Now, pageant requires either incredible opulence or dazzling spe-
cial effects. The point about pageant, then and now, is that its
only real purpose is to awe the viewer. Both "Cocoon" and "Life-
force" have their moments of successful pageant.
"Cocoon" also has a strong component of pathos and a little
melodrama, but not much. (Some comedy, too.) Dying spouses,
children wrenched from their grandparents, friendly aliens in
peril - this is the stuff of modern pathos. "Cocoon's" greatest
success is in the area of pathos. Ron Howard milks it for all
it's worth, politely demanding that there will not be a dry eye
in the house. Before people get too overwhelmed by "Cocoon",
though, it's worthwhile to remember that lightweight pathos is
really what we're getting, not very much real human drama (though
Jack Gilford has a moment or two). The fantastic setting and the
handling of the film really lightly brush the surface of the
heart. "Cocoon" does not reach very deep. The melodramatic com-
ponent of "Cocoon" is largely held to the ending, and isn't exe-
cuted with as much conviction as the rest of the picture. I'd
guess that Ron Howard, too, is getting a bit tired of the race by
the aliens and their friends against the evil/ignorant/unthinking
forces of the government. This device deserves to be retired for
a few years.
"Lifeforce" hasn't an ounce of pathos, and this lack works
against it. Hooper tries to get by only with lots of pageant and
melodrama. The first is moderately successful, the latter only
intermittently works. As long as Hooper tries to shock, the
melodrama works. His attempts to make the film succeed on the
levels of mystery and suspense fail. The device used in
"Lifeforce's" finale, the last minute, one or two man dash to
save the city/world/universe before total destruction occurs,
still has some life left in it, being one of the mainstays of
modern cinema, but Hooper doesn't find how to tap its remaining
vitality. A notable lack of humor in "Lifeforce" is also debili-
tating, while some good comic bits serve to give "Cocoon" a lit-
tle variety.
Fundamentally, "Cocoon" is a winner and "Lifeforce" is mar-
ginal. Howard gets to direct whatever he wants next, Hooper's
career is in some trouble. "Cocoon" makes a bundle, "Lifeforce"
might break even (though, since its break even point comes at
around $60 million, this is in doubt). Tristar thanks the gods
that it backed "Rambo", so that it will have at least one hit to
tide it through the summer, 20th Century Fox breaths easy in the
knowledge that even if its other summer films flop, it will make
enough off "Cocoon" to keep the stockholders happy. You'll prob-
ably like "Cocoon", you are much less likely to enjoy "Lifeforce".
--
Peter Reiher
reiher@ucla-cs.arpa
soon to be reiher@LOCUS.UCLA.EDU
{...ihnp4,ucbvax,sdcrdcf}!ucla-cs!reiher