Under the dry and dusty Hollywood(land) Hills of the 1930's, dispersant characters and chancers gather to harvest what they can get from the studio system or else become leeching camp followers. Based on a celebrated novel by Nathaniel West.
(Who presumably knew the scene first hand from his date of birth and working C.V.)
America, being a republic and a relatively new country does not have that many unique stories in its foot-locker. The western, the gangster/American Mafia cycle and Hollywood backstage story are the only three I can think of right now. The latter - naturally - being today's quarry.
Like the other two, lots of free gifts, built-in charms and easy plot devices. Human ego, sex and exploitation are never more to fore than in showbiz. The prize of success and the cost of failure mean that morals are more easily put to one side. Nothing being as cheap as human beings out here in the Cali sunshine.
While I used the term "chancers" in one of the early paragraphs above I should have used the term "no chancers." Only lead male - William Atherton - has any clear and discernible artistic talent and even that seems depressive and obsessive.
(Judging solely by what he produces. Unless he was trying to do early sketches for Pink Floyd's The Wall - which his drawings curiously mimics!)
Karen Black is a standard over-verbose ten-a-dime peroxide dreamer. Taking everything from fan magazines and the movies. An extra with no chance of progress beyond Central Casting because she can't really act (although Black certainly can!) Seems loyal to her ageing father (a brilliant pre-Rocky Burgess Meredith) and her odd-ball friends though.
(Her interactions with a dim accountant - brilliantly played here by Donald Sutherland - shows a hint of a darker and more exploitative side. Or is the reality of her own situation beginning to sink in? Is he the future meal ticket when her looks fade?)
To add perspective the film takes an upstairs/downstairs look at the big studio. With Atherton walking between the two storeys. However this does little other than to illustrate a fairly healthy props budget. With money comes sex, privilege and opulence, the movie tells me. Hold the front page.
The central problem is that there is very little subtle about this production from the title (humans being locusts) onwards. What could be almost a soap-opera-come-tragedy is brought to a climax that brings to mind Apocalypse Now. Real bizarre and heavy-handed stuff.
(In 1930's Hollywood even the street by-standers are mad as hatters?)
In short summation, Locust is a more interesting film for its parable and its moral than the often tepid (ludicrous and over-the-top finale accepted) on-screen action. My closing thoughts are that in Hollywood nothing has really changed other than the clothes and the technology. It is still the wheel on which a thousand dreams are broken.
(Who presumably knew the scene first hand from his date of birth and working C.V.)
America, being a republic and a relatively new country does not have that many unique stories in its foot-locker. The western, the gangster/American Mafia cycle and Hollywood backstage story are the only three I can think of right now. The latter - naturally - being today's quarry.
Like the other two, lots of free gifts, built-in charms and easy plot devices. Human ego, sex and exploitation are never more to fore than in showbiz. The prize of success and the cost of failure mean that morals are more easily put to one side. Nothing being as cheap as human beings out here in the Cali sunshine.
While I used the term "chancers" in one of the early paragraphs above I should have used the term "no chancers." Only lead male - William Atherton - has any clear and discernible artistic talent and even that seems depressive and obsessive.
(Judging solely by what he produces. Unless he was trying to do early sketches for Pink Floyd's The Wall - which his drawings curiously mimics!)
Karen Black is a standard over-verbose ten-a-dime peroxide dreamer. Taking everything from fan magazines and the movies. An extra with no chance of progress beyond Central Casting because she can't really act (although Black certainly can!) Seems loyal to her ageing father (a brilliant pre-Rocky Burgess Meredith) and her odd-ball friends though.
(Her interactions with a dim accountant - brilliantly played here by Donald Sutherland - shows a hint of a darker and more exploitative side. Or is the reality of her own situation beginning to sink in? Is he the future meal ticket when her looks fade?)
To add perspective the film takes an upstairs/downstairs look at the big studio. With Atherton walking between the two storeys. However this does little other than to illustrate a fairly healthy props budget. With money comes sex, privilege and opulence, the movie tells me. Hold the front page.
The central problem is that there is very little subtle about this production from the title (humans being locusts) onwards. What could be almost a soap-opera-come-tragedy is brought to a climax that brings to mind Apocalypse Now. Real bizarre and heavy-handed stuff.
(In 1930's Hollywood even the street by-standers are mad as hatters?)
In short summation, Locust is a more interesting film for its parable and its moral than the often tepid (ludicrous and over-the-top finale accepted) on-screen action. My closing thoughts are that in Hollywood nothing has really changed other than the clothes and the technology. It is still the wheel on which a thousand dreams are broken.