O Astro Selvagem

I discovered this movie 30 years after its production, presented by Roland Klick himself. I wouldn't have even want to see it if I hadn't heard about the difficulties encountered by the production to work with Dennis Hopper at this time. What I saw on the screen was Dennis Hopper at its best. And I mean it. I've been mesmerized by his monologues and extremely convincing soliloquies. Hopper's depiction of a frustrated, shameless music manager, as well as his complex relationship to his colt Moody "White Star" (Terrance Robay) alone would have deserved the award that the movie got. An excellent Neue Deutsche Welle movie from the eighties.

Well, I guess that this was actually a real film, and I really saw it, and I must say that this is one of the biggest disappointments of my day. This film was really, really, really terrible. Dennis Hopper was coked up to the gills and acting 1000 miles/minute. His charge in the film was simply a bad actor and on top of all of this, they lifted the crowd footage for the concert scenes from the TSOL concert that happens during the film Suburbia (the good punk film, not that lame thing that Eric Bogosian did a few years ago, I love Bogosian, but this film was an mistake), right down to using the fight scene with the main characters from the other film.

This movie was below low budget and I doubt that even the most hardcore Dennis Hopper fans will be able to sit through this 90 minutes of pointless nonsense. To be honest, I am still not really sure what this movie was about, a concert promoter and some Yanni-esque keyboardist. Some riots and random footage from other films, I dunno.

It is the early 1980's, and Ken Barlow is a has-been music producer eking out a living in Berlin. Barlow was once somebody, aeons ago he managed The Rolling Stones (or so he says). Now, he has few prospects, throwing his lot in with an up-and-coming New Waver by the name of Moody Mudinsky. Barlow believes Mudinsky is the future- or says he does, anyway- and the weathered producer is determined that the kid make it big- at any cost. In order to gain publicity, Barlow goes down a dangerous road, staging riots and other violent stunts that leave him ever-circling the rim of career-ending oblivion, as well as threatening to derail Mudinsky's career before it even takes off.

Roland Klick's 'White Star' is a muddled, hectic joyride of a movie. Klick's screenplay- written with Thilo von Arnim and Karen Jaehne-Lathan- lacks interesting characters, natural dialogue or any memorable scenes to speak of. On top of that, the writers don't seem to have spent any time in the music industry, as their work is hollow and based on caricature, reflecting a lack of knowledge- or a lack of interest- about the subject matter. It is an underwhelming melodrama masquerading as a gritty slice of life, full of overblown sequences that are so inept and camp one may think the film is a parody, like some kind of 'Spinal Tap' for the Punk Rockers. It isn't though, and the narrative's mediocrity is frankly close to unbearable at times.

On the plus side, Jürgen Jürges' cinematography is striking. He captures the decrepitude of the Berlin streets with real panache and style, highlighting the seedy underbelly of the town masterfully. His naturalistic work was similarly effective in films like 'Christiane F' and 'The Last Days Of Childhood' at showcasing the cold reality of the German landscape of that time. It is unostentatious work that lingers long in the mind after the credits have rolled- in fact, it surpasses the film itself in terms of quality and memorability.

The same can be said about star Dennis Hopper's performance as Barlow. As is well-documented, for a time, Hopper was essentially living in a world of his own. Fuelled by copious amounts of drugs and alcohol, he spent decades in a narcotic stupor; making films and acting to varying degrees of quality and levels of coherence. For every great film like Wim Wender's 'The American Friend', that benefitted from his drug-addled improvisations, there were lesser films that didn't, the impact of which he hampered by overacting and going off script. Then, there were the truly uninspired movies that had very little to offer in the first place but another wild Hopper performance; 'White Star' falls into this third category.

As Barlow, Hopper is like a simmering pot of water on a rickety stove: you feel at any moment all hell could break loose. As in 'Apocalypse Now' or the aforementioned Wender's flick, much of Hopper's dialogue was improvised, which in this case helps the film immensely. His wacky, train-of thought monologues make the film entertaining, while his crazed appearance and over-the-top demeanour make his character worth spending time with. Barlow the character is dull as written, but Barlow as played by Dennis Hopper is a madcap, marvellous cinematic creation.

The performances from the supporting cast are less laudable. Terrance Robay plays Moody Mudinsky, and gives a performance so wooden you'd swear he was carved out of balsa. That he never acted in another film is a testament to his abilities on screen; which are nil. David Hess has a small role he tries to make the most of, though the character is severely underwritten; and in the end of the day there's little he can do with it. The rest of the cast aren't worth speaking about, as they leave no impression whatsoever- good or bad; which is almost worse.

'White Star' is not a successful film by any means: the script is awful, the direction is lazy and the soundtrack is so boring as to be unmentionable. For all the narrative's noise, riots and violence; it's simply rather dull. However, it's also not a travesty, due practically entirely to star Dennis Hopper's performance, which is wildly entertaining and captivating in its' intensity. Even with the joys of Hopper though, the film is mediocre and ultimately apt for a line from Shakespeare: 'White Star' is "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

Dennis Hopper stars as the manager of an up-and-coming pop act called White Star, who he promotes by any means possible, including starting riots. Hopper more or less saves this one from being terrible with a performance that looks to me like he is coked out of his eyeballs. The so-called up-and-coming White Star himself is a total charisma vacuum with no discernible music talent either. So, that's somewhat of a problem, while the story is clumsily told to say the least with White Star rising, avoiding an assassination attempt and becoming a drug addict IN THE SPACE OF A WEEK! Its hopelessly inauthentic from a music perspective or as a believable drama but it was strangely watchable all the same, probably on account of The Hop coasting on class A drugs.

I like Dennis Hopper in White Star and the whole Film !! Watched it many times, and still finding new details. This is Dennis Hopper at his best, nearly like in Blue Velvet. Very special location in Berlin-/Punk, and one of a kind in my Dennis Hopper DVD-collection. The German translation is also very good, at the end of the film Dennis's voice change from German to English in fact of the thrilling final comment........... ............. .......... ........... .......... ........ AAAAAAA AAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAA AAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAA AAAAAAAA AAAAAAA AAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAA