BY BRIAN GREENE
Shampoo (1975) is a movie
that can leave a viewer unsure as to what they just watched. Was it merely a vanity project for
Producer/Co-Screenwriter/lead actor Warren Beatty, who plays a babe magnet L.A.
hairdresser who juggles his three main girlfriends while haplessly attempting
to go into business for himself? Beatty portrays George Roundy, a flashy
dressing, motorcycle riding lothario who deftly manipulates the hearts and
sexual appetites of the beautiful women who constantly want to throw themselves
at him and his hair dryer. Or is it a
social satire, a la The Graduate,
that exposes the flaws in American life by showing us the sexual/romantic
dysfunction in the homes of the upper crust? One of Beatty’s character’s love
interests is the wife (Lee Grant) of the business tycoon (Jack Warden) he hopes
will finance his would-be new spa. Is it
a screwball sex comedy that aims for occasional emotional profundity? The
second of the hairstylist’s two lady friends is the tycoon’s mistress (Julie
Christie), and the third is that woman’s close friend (Goldie Hawn). Or is the
movie primarily a commentary on the American political climate of the late
1960s, and its damaging impact on the citizenry? The story takes place over one
24-hour span, that happens to be the day Richard Nixon won the 1968
presidential election.
The
answer is that Shampoo is a little of
each of those things. Which leads to the question of whether it was successful
in developing any or all of its themes. The feature’s overall quality has been
a debatable point over the decades. Roger Ebert felt it came up short,
summarizing that it “wasn’t confident enough to pull off its ambitious
conception,†“wasn’t as funny as it could have been in the funny places,†and
“it’s not as poignant as it could be in its moments of truth.†In the pages of The New York Times, meanwhile, critic Nora
Sayre positively savaged the movie, charging that it ultimately sank into “a
slough of sentimentality†while also calling it pretentious and dumb. Other
reviews have been kinder. It’s been called “a sharp satire†by Time Out, and
“one of the last true moments of personal expression in American cinema†by Elaine
Lennon in Senses of Cinema, etc.
It
can be hard to know what we’re supposed to make of the main characters. Roundy
is shown to be a user, and his three girlfriends, while likeable-enough people,
are hardly role models feminists of the day could have seen as on-screen
heroes. So are we supposed to find all of them laughably shallow people, tragic
figures victimized by their own egos and emotional needs, or are they simply
authentic representations of a womanizing hairstylist and the kinds of people
with whom he would be likely to consort? Director Hal Ashby, who struggled
while working alongside the overbearing Beatty in Beatty’s
open-to-interpretation role as Creative Producer, seems to have felt distantly
sympathetic to the characters. Ashby said of them, “They’re not people I spend
time with, but they’re people I’ve looked at and felt sorry for. So I spent a
lot of time being very kind to those people. The other way’s easy. To make fun
of people is easy. Life isn’t that easy.â€
Something
else with which Ashby had to tangle during the making of Shampoo was the often volatile artistic relationship between Beatty
and Co-Screenwriter Robert Towne. Beatty and Towne were engaged in a creative
power battle over the film’s content starting back from when it was only an
idea being bounced around between the two of them. Once Ashby was brought in,
he found himself often acting as referee between those two. Towne was actively
involved on the set, to the point where Goldie Hawn came to feel like she was
working under three different directors. Despite this circus atmosphere,
though, and despite Ebert’s and Sayre’s critiques, and despite what some see as
its foggy intentions, Shampoo took in
a slew of nominations at both the Academy Awards and Golden Globes. Lee Grant won
the Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role.
For
this reviewer, the movie works when approached as a farce exposing the
ultimately hollow lives of the hedonistic main characters. I agree with Ebert
and Sayre that it fell short in its attempts (if that’s what they are) at
finding existential meaning amid the bed-hopping atmosphere. I also believe
that the political side story doesn’t work – no real impact is made, one way or
the other, by the characters’ chatter about the election and the occasional
clips of Nixon and other politicians talking on TV. But Beatty is believable as
Roundy, all of the supporting actors did a superb job in playing their roles,
and I disagree with Ebert about the comedic moments in the film; when it’s
funny, it’s very funny. It’s a good romp with able performers depicting people
who come across as realistic and whose exploits are interesting to follow, even
if we find them ridiculous. And Ashby’s direction is flawless.
Criterion
Collection’s new, restored Blu-ray version of Shampoo gives audiences a good reason to discover or, for those who
already know it, re-evaluate the film. And the timing is right, with a set of
pivotal political elections on the horizon here in the U.S. Criterion offers
its usual package of bonus features that help to deepen our understanding of
the movie. The transfer looks gorgeous and the bonus segments include a
surround sound audio version, a new discussion of the film between noted
critics Mark Harris and Frank Rich, a booklet essay by Rich, and clips from a
1988 episode of the British arts TV program “The South Bank Show,†in which
Beatty talks about the feature.
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