Choose Me
1984 US
Dir: Alan Rudolph
Str: Genevieve Bujold, Keith
Carradine, Lesley Ann Warren
Choose Me is abundant with chromatic pleasure.
Choose Me is directed by an independent director Alan Rudolph. Therefore,
the ambiance of this stunning movie is totally different from other mainstream movies. Saying in a word, extremely
stylish movie would be the most proper word for it. I am considering, even among recent movies, there would be
no movie matching this one in the terms of modernity and stylishness. Using by the terminology of music, Choose
Me is abundant with chromatic pleasure, that is definitely not the characteristic of traditional movies. The
pleasure from chromatic passages accrues from the dynamic deviation from the static structure of dominant sound
basis. In other words, chromatic pleasure is derived from the dynamic negation of static structure, therefore it
is rather intuitive and sensuous. Coose Me is, in this meaning, belonging to this category, and dynamic,
not because it has a lot of action scenes (it doesn't have), but because all the relationships between main characters
shown in the movie are formed casually and rather haphazardly. Of course, I am not saying casual relationships
are dynamic, but saying the dynamics of the actions and the reactions themselves of forming relationships is the
main focus of this movie, and, therefore, it has nothing to do with such issues like static observations of already
established relationships or the depiction of the problems of the relationship between a person who has certain
characteristics and another person who has another different set of ones.
All the lead characters of this movie look narcissistic.
One curious aspect of this movie is that, despite the fact it is depicting
relationships among persons, all the lead characters seem to belong to a narcissistic type. It goes without saying
that Keith Carradine is playing an extreme narcissist here. But, even other main characters are more or less narcissists
either. For example, Genevieve Bujold who is playing telephone therapist of a radio station is also playing a narcissistic
person. First of all, her alias name is Dr. Nancy Love. What kind of person calls himself/herself Dr. Love? But,
the fact she is a narcissist becomes more obvious when she talks, by herself, about a famous radio telephone therapist
to Keith Carradine while knowing he doesn't know she is that very famous therapist herself. She talks about herself
as if from a third person view point. Of course, one of the reason why she does so might be because she doesn't
want to let him know she is the one. But, it will become obvious that her way of talking is typically narcissistic
when you notice she looks completely immersed in herself while her talk, yet talking from a third person view point,
which is definitely a typical symptom of narcissistic behavior that is suggesting a typical dichotomy between inner
herself and external herself. This self-reflective inner process makes her completely incapable of dealing with
other persons except through the anonymous phone calls from the radio station. Nevertheless, her incompetence doesn't
include the ability to assess other person's personality, for assessing other person's personality requires very
sensitive observation mechanism that can't be developed by such kind of persons who are always confident of themselves
and content with themselves. Though you might think narcissistic persons should be definitely content with themselves,
it is not true, for their self-reflective characteristics don't originate from their self-contentment or self-confidence
but rather originate from the lack of them. Therefore, she can pinpoint other person's problems and advise them
with proper suggestions but, as soon as things turn to herself, she can't even understand herself at all, and has
great trouble in dealing with actual persons in her real life. Also, another main character of the movie Lesley
Ann Warren who is regarded by Genevieve Bujold as a very stable person, nevertheless, can't be immune from this
problem either. She buys a lounge bar, whose original owner commited suicide, because the original owner's name
is the same as hers, and that name is on the signboard of that lounge bar. In a scene, she tells Bujold that she
feels she has never owned anything. This obviously means also her existence is divided into two selves. The essence
of narcissist is, own existence being divided up into two parts, one part of self is gazing at the other self,
and, dominated by this self-reflective mechanism, s/he loses actual reality, which will surely bring the feeling
of being incapable of catching and holding and touching of any reality. Finally, she tries to kill herself. The
idea of kiling oneself would never happen to the persons who weren't suffering from this dichotomy.
From first, Choose Me is dropping any external reference point by
which a given element is assessed.
Considering these facts, Coose Me is definitely not an usual traditional
drama movie. Of course, there are many traditional movies whose main purpose is to depict problematic persons.
But, in the case of those movies, main focus resides in the relationship between those problematic persons and
the rest of the society that is usually considered to be normal. It is the matter of establishing or restoring
or sometimes destroying the mapping structure of static social mechanism. In short, in these movies, there is always
some basic reference point that postulate a certain static structure by which a given relationship of a given person
to a given external situation is assessed. On the other hand, Coose Me is not a drama if the word "drama"
should be used in this traditional meanings. Because no fixed static basis to be applied for evaluating a given
relationship or situation is introduced in this movie; that is, from first, the movie is droping any external reference
point by which any activities of the characters can be measured. It is showing us just dynamism of interaction
among those characters. The movie whose entire lead characters have narcissistic trait would be difficult to exist
among traditional drama movies, for the relationships among them, being devoid of any fixed behavioral pattern
in them, are liable to become haphazard, which would be definitely detrimental to traditional drama scheme that
requires certain patterns based upon a static structure. But, Choose Me is irrelevant to this issue. Because,
as I said before, its purpose doesn't reside in the observation or the assessment of a given character or relationships
a given character forms, but resides in letting audience feel the momentary dynamism of character interractions.
The reason why I said Coose Me is abundant with chromatic pleasure resides in this point. For, chromatic
pleasure comes from momentary dynamics deviating from the dominant sound basis upon which a given passage is based
rather from the anticipation of the resolution of a given passage into that dominant sound basis, which certainly
means vectors are completely reversed between these two styles; i.e. dynamic deviation from a fixed basis versus
resolution into it
Why does this movie have so many scenes where someone is talking
to someone else over the phone?
There is another curious aspect in this movie; that is, there are many scenes
where someone is talking to someone else over the phone in this movie. I presume this is not just because one of
lead characters (Bujold) is working at phone answering service. But because it's necessary. Using the terminology
of recent computer technology, a telephone is working as an interface here. An interface is a part of an object
(a person), and main purpose of which is to present an object with a method of dealing with the ouside of that
object. Many characters in this movie communicate with others through this interface. But, you must be careful
about that the communication through an interface is quite different from direct communication, for an interface
itself imposes its own set of matrix upon its users. For example, you might be able to talk about something over
the phone, which wouldn't have been able to even mention through direct conversation. Because the use of a telephone
could provide its users with its unique set of matrix by which the situation that mere direct conversation have
predisposed could be altered significantly. In short, a telephone as an interface can alter the mode of the way
of dealing with outer situations of its users. In this movie, there are other things which is working as an interface,
such as a camera (Keith Carradine is a photographer) and a bar counter (Lesley Ann Warren is working at a lounge
bar). As you might be wondering what a bar counter has got to do with an interface, I am going to explain it here.
The presence of a counter between a master and a client surely changes the interaction between them from whatever
could be without it. Using the terms of sociology, it certainly emphasizes their respective social roles as a bartender
and a client. Likewise, a camera can work as an interface. Because a camera cut out just one aspect of whatever
shot by it; that is, it's an abstraction of reality seen by the person who shoot it. But, it should be added that,
conversely, a camera can alter the perception of its users so that, even without it, users shall see a scene as
if seen through a camera. In this way, all of the lead characters appearing in Choose Me are more or less
interacting with others through those interfaces; a phone, a camera, and a lounge bar counter.
The adoption of the method of interface has, of course, advantage
and disadvantage.
Then, what about them? Of course, there are both advantage and disadvantage
in communicating through an interface. As for disadvantage, it's obvious that if someone assimilate himself solely
with his interface aspect, it will surely cause the person serious identity problems. Because, apart from the obvious
fact interface is just tiny one part of the person dealing with the outside, interface is essentially an aspect
to be seen from the outside of that person, not from the inside. Though the other two persons are not so obvious
about this, at least Bujold's problem of being incapable of dealing with real other persons seems to result from
her tendency to assimilate herself with radio personality too much under the role of which she is always communicating
with others through anonymous phone calls. As for advantage, it's difficult for me to clearly explain it. So I
would like to start by saying that one of the reason why, recently, it has been considered important in the computer
industry that an interface should be separated from an object is because, by separating the aspect dealing with
the outside from an object itself, the object can reduce dependancy on other objects so that the changes in an
object won't affect other objects at all, yet still communicating with each other. Should many different values
be able to be juxtaposed in a single plane, which I suppose is the circumstance with these days, the static structure
model of each value refering to each other directly wouldn't work at all. Because, in defintion, a value becomes
a value only after other related values are negated. So it's unlikely to happen that a person who is accustomed
to a certain value system (or a certain culture) easily adapts himself to a new value system. But, suppose we think
in this way; that is, global higher values can only arise when some local lower values dynamically interact with
each other through a common interface that is not the essential part of either local value, this problem will be
solved. Besides, interfaces can dynamically create a completely different set of patterns to its users. Therfore,
it might be one way of creating a new higher value without spoiling the original value of its user. This is a very
dynamic model and, at the same time, modern.
I am a fun of Genevieve Bujold, and she is quite marvelous here.
Finally, I would like to add this; that is, Genevieve Bujold who is one of
my most favorite actresses of all time is very excellent in this movie. Though she had appeared several American
made movies such as Earthquake(1974), Coma(1978) after she sppeared in the movie Anne of the Tousand
Days(1969), she seems to have been a little bit out of place in those Hollywood movies. Because her amiable
but subdued characteristic is not so suited for them. But, here in Choose Me, she is proving herself to
be a very competent and unique character. Along with its supercharged modern and stylish atmosphere, she and other
players' performances succeed in making the movie one of the most unforgettable movies of 1980s.