Puzzle of a Downfall Child

PUZZLE OF A DOWNFALL CHILD is about a famous fashion model who's burnt out on the business and moved to a cottage by the sea to reflect on her splintered life. Years of being treated as an object by photographers, stylists, agents, etc., has left her with a serious identity complex and an addiction to pills...although flashbacks show that she was somewhat unhinged to begin with. The film isn't really that good; as critic Pauline Kael noted when the film came out, "I have a constitutional aversion to movies about women whose souls have been lost, stolen or destroyed, especially when it isn't made clear -- and it never is -- whether the heroine had a soul in the first place." But what IS very special about the movie is simply the way that Dunaway LOOKS. Rigged out in precise red lipstick, false eyelashes and liquid eyeliner, she's meticulously photographed by director Jerry Schatzberg, a former lover and onetime fashion photographer. The story is inspired by the true life life of Anne Saint Marie, a fashion model who later came unglued. Schatzberg taped conversations with Anne Saint Marie and used her comments as a framing device for the story. Not a great film, but an interesting one nevertheless.

Faye Dunaway has always been my favorite actress and this movie provides a great showcase for her talents. She plays a very neurotic model who cannot even trust her own memories. The movie is done in a non-narrative style that was fairly common in the 1970s, with events shown out of order, and that device is used very effectively to portray the protagonist's instability. This is one of the overlooked movies from a period that produced many great and challenging films; I don't believe it's ever even been on video.

For the life of me, I can't figure out why someone doesn't put this film out on DVD or video. Puzzle of a Downfall Child is a hauntingly spare film about the breakdown of beauty. Although less well known than The Panic in Needle Park, it is Jerry Schatzberg's masterpiece. His use of non-linear storytelling coupled with some incredibly dreamy flashback sequences made me feel as if, like heroine Lou Sands, I too was coming slightly undone. For Faye Dunaway fans (and really who isn't a fan of Faye's?), this film showcases not only her incredible beauty--the eyelashes are to die for--but also her talents as an actress. She is more believable as an actress portraying a model than any model portraying an actress could ever hope to be. If it should ever make its way to an art-house near you, you will do yourself a disservice if you miss it. After I left the theater, I kept thinking of that trite adage about how they don't make them like they used to.

Directed by a real fashion photographer Jery Schatzberg to telling the ups and downs of a famous model, it became a hard endurance even to most self-denying cinephiles on so slow pacing and boring offering, it didn't catch the audience at its period of time, even rising movie star Faye Dunaway, when she often raised corpses from the graves over such loveliness, still if the viewer has enough forbearance, he shall be awarded by great and moving outcome.

It's featured as several past recollections of punctual events, whether it's sad or happy on countless flashbacks, conceived as art-movie it has a stellar casting as Roy Scheider, the unforgettable Viveca Lindfors with a strong European accent, Barry Morse and the upcoming star Barbara Carrera in smallest role, it somehow exposes the hard and stiff environment whom the fashion model should be entering in distress soon or later.

Also points out a frailty of human being in in question as the Faye Dunaway magnificent portraits, an insecure girl surround by strongest pressure, love affairs and so for, a non-romanticized lifetime of a model, waiting for the final quarter, it will pleased you plenty, get ready to there!!

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First watch: 2024 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 7.

Just as in Mahogany, audiences are supposed to forget the very well-known fact that models start their careers young. You can't say, "I want to be a model" when you're in your thirties and get discovered. Most models have to retire at that age because they're too old. So, when Faye Dunaway wants to become a model in Puzzle of a Downfall Child, we have to just nod and smile. We also have to nod and smile when she's caught unawares by how critical the modeling industry is. She's told to lose fifteen pounds, and she acts shocked. Models are torn to shreds on a daily basis. It's not a glamorous industry, despite the beautiful clothes and photographs. Why are we nodding and smiling? Because Faye Dunaway gives a great performance and we want to watch it. She tells her story in flashbacks to a journalist, so the film is a bit "1970s", but her acting is worth the funky zooms and long, aimless walks along the beach.

There's an incredible scene that acting teachers and coaches should show their students. Faye is on the phone with Roy Scheider, and she wants him to come over to her place. He keeps refusing, and with every line of dialogue, Faye gives a different expression. She could have just played the entire scene as "pleading" and read the lines as written, but instead, she said one line straight-forward, another teasing with a passive aggressive accusation, and another as a distraction, and yet another with desperation. I had a teacher once who told his students to write the motivation in the margin next to every line of dialogue. It's as if Faye were teaching that course, and to see her breaking down is a lovely piece of acting.

If you like that classic 1970 style of filmmaking, stories about successful models who have regrets along their climb to the top, or want to see a different Faye Dunaway than Mommie Dearest or Network, definitely check this one out.