Article by Jens Mikkelsen. Photo by Olivia Simonson.
Every now and again a film will play inside the auditorium of the James W. Miller Center on 6th Street. This film will be presented by a host (or two, depending on the evening) and is, at times, disappointing. The tastes of the co-hosts don’t always entice the audience, but despite this fact, there remains a small set of regulars who will likely find themselves back.
The film presented Thursday evening was entitled Nightmare Alley and was a personal favorite of host, Derek Thury. He had prepared a nine-page prologue to express this fact, but it was unfortunately cut down to a less demanding two pages as per request of his (absent) co-host.
While I wouldn’t be able to come up with nine pages to say about it, I found Nightmare Alley quite watchable, albeit slow at times. As the host Derek pointed out, there was a Dante’s Inferno undertone to it that is often associated with the travelling carnival which served as the backdrop of this film. The shots inside the “House of Damnation” were especially reminiscent of this devilish aesthetic, with our main character taking on the cunning characteristics of a demon, or possibly even the Devil himself.
The film followed a carnival worker, who, upon discovering how to feign psychic abilities for entertainment purposes, leaves the carnival behind and begins using this newfound power to scam rich clients. Many of these clients, however, have skeletons of their own—and our predatory protagonist ultimately becomes preyed upon himself. As I would rather not give too much of the film away for people who wish to view it on their own, I’ll make that the extent of my summary. I don’t really need to explain any more significant plot points to discuss the overall theme of the film, which is all that is relevant for this type of thing anyhow.
The film explored themes of greed, power-lust, and exploitation, with a heavy emphasis on the exploitation part. In some ways I would say it even kind of reminded me of an old 1960s exploitation film (or at least the first half at the carnival did). We see shocking characters (such as the freakshow geek) perform shocking acts, like biting off the head of a chicken. We also witness the abuse and exploitation of the “geek” at the hands of the carnival manager. This has “1960s grindhouse” written all over it.
The second half of the film, which mostly follows the main plot points I had already mentioned, seems much more noir and less popcornish. But the exploitation theme is still there. Obviously, the carnival worker is trying to exploit emotionally vulnerable rich people, but it circles back around in ways I won’t elaborate on, that ultimately puts him in the position of exploitee.
Although it probably seems like I’m going somewhere with this, I’m really not. I don’t have much more to say about the film because it was just a film. The definite highlight of the evening was the enthusiasm of the host and not the performance of Bradley Cooper as the carnival psychic or the weird-looking scar makeup on Cate Blanchett’s chest. If it wasn’t for the host telling me how much I should like it, I probably wouldn’t have enjoyed the film as much as I did. It was his sales-pitching that brought it up from 5 stars to a solid 6.7 out of 10. If I were to give any recommendation, it would be to go for the host, and you can pretty much ignore the film
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