*** SAVAGE NIGHTS
Directed by Cyril Collard Written by Collard and Jacques Fieschi With Collard, Romane Bohringer, Carlos Lopez, Corine Blue, Claude Winter, Denis D’Archangelo, and Jean-Jacques Jauffret.
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A related quandary presents itself with Savage Nights (an adequate though incomplete translation of the original French title, Les nuits fauves), written by, partially scored by, directed by, and starring a bisexual musician/composer/filmmaker who died of AIDS a little more than a year ago. Because it deals semiautobiographically with the reckless life-style of the filmmaker, Cyril Collard, presumably before as well as after he learned he was HIV-positive, it is not a movie that can be approached from any neutral corner. The relation of life to art was undoubtedly even more melodramatic for a French audience because Collard, who was one of the first public figures in France to openly acknowledge being HIV-positive, was still alive when his film opened in France. In fact, he died only three days before Savage Nights swept the annual Cesar awards (the French equivalent of the Oscars), winning prizes for best film, best first film, best editing, and best new actress (Romane Bohringer), and it seems likely that given the circumstances under which they were awarded, the prizes had some political import.
Even in the U.S., where the political significance of the film is necessarily somewhat different, we can’t ignore the film’s autobiographical subtext; and the fact that Collard is now dead may intimidate us into not being too critical–even if we wind up recoiling from the movie, as some people have.
The most obvious attributes of the film’s style are a camera that tends to remain close to the characters and mobile (reportedly the camera was most often mounted on one of the shoulders of the cinematographer, Manuel Teran) and editing that depends largely on jump cuts–unexpected breaks in continuity and leaps forward in the action. Less prominent, though worthy of mention, is an emphasis on bright colors that, according to Collard in a 1992 interview, stems directly from a desire to emulate fauvism, the artistic movement associated with such painters as Matisse, Derain, and Vlaminck. (This style point is one reason “savage nights” is a less-than-perfect equivalent to les nuits fauves.)
I have fewer problems with what comes between the beginning and the end, even though the three central characters aren’t very likable, behave monstrously on occasion, and are sometimes impenetrable (Samy in particular). After all, the same could be said of most of the characters in King Lear–which is not to suggest that Collard has much else in common with Shakespeare. (Some critics have complained that the way the characters scream at one another in some scenes points to some dramatic failing on Collard’s part, but I can’t see what they’re talking about. The consequences of playing out one’s feelings to the utmost, sexual and otherwise, are the subject of this movie, and Collard needs those screams the way Matisse needed those blues–all the better to splash us with.)
