If I were to try to tell you what happens in the conventional sense in Saint Jack, I would probably sound like I was coming up short on story beats and the usual stuff we get in a story involving someone living in a kind-of-sort-of-yeah shady criminal life like Jack Flowers does in his Singapore brothel. But that's because director and Co writer (and Co star natche) Peter Bogdanovich isn't concerned with all of that - or I should say he has the confidence to not have to rely on things going so simply from point A to B to C or even having a completely defined Central Question to start the film off. And yet I hasten to also say it's an episodic kind of movie since the so to speak episodes don't really start and finish so much as temporarily pause and then pick up, like once say Denholm Eliot's expatriate bookkeeper cum Jack's buddy leaves and arrives and hangs out and leave again... until he doesn't.
It's simply the story of someone at a very particular point in their lives, and that sounds like not a lot happens but that's far from the truth. What Bogdanovich does with such conviction and honesty is to just show how this man Jack (not quite his name but close enough) goes about his nights and days in this corner of a city in Singapore where he knows a lot of people and people know him and he takes care of some of them while others, well, he'd much rather not deal with. In the first half of the film especially it doesn't seem like a lot is "going on" as far as how we are so often trained as moviegoers to expect natural conflicts and sets ups; Gazarra's title character takes Eliot's Leigh around and then another guy asks for him and they sit down, he looks over a "menu" of women, they sit in a room while two ladies do a show put to "Goldfinger" (oh the Golden Rule, a little sweet subliminal touch), but all this time something is... off. Two or more people are following Jack and Jack knows it, more or less, to the point where finally he runs off with Leigh and they give brief chase.
Somehow, this really does all add up to be completely absorbing because Bogdanovich is making it about Jack's point of view. I'm sure it's inevitable to try to compare to Cassavetes due to the Gazzara connection as well as a middle aged guy who may be down on his luck and trying to hide it ala Chinese Bookie, or the looseness like Altman, but if anyone flashed to me more than anything it was Scorsese and specifically the seemingly contradictory but wholly organic combination of laser-focus in point of view and a looseness in shaping character interactions and scenes. And like in many of Scorsese's work, especially around that time in the 70s, the city and location is another character to play with, or rather that our hero cant escape and it may shape him more than he cares to admit.
At the same time, with knowing only basic things as a casual admirer of the (late) director's life and work, it feels like a personal piece of some kind. Here is a guy who could be anything and he's in a world where he has to be Mr Amiable and Charming even as he misses home. I'm not sure if it was that that attracted Bogdanovich (maybe more literally it was the p***y let's be real), but he treats it all with this grounded reality while also letting his actors find the grace notes and taking dialog I'd have to think was largely scripted feel improvised - or moments that need to be explosive and messy, like when one of Jack's girls gets best and slapped around bursting out of a room into a hallway and he comes to look in on her as a crowd forms and the guy who did it looks as befuddled as he does. It's a bizarre moment that feels painfully real somehow.
And eventually there is Shape and dimension to this man, in part because of what he sees and has to endure, like the abuse from the gangsters to tattoo him (jokes on them as he adds to the tattoos to be fully flowered, ho ho), or what this shady CIA guy played by Bogdanovich wants from him (as it turns out, kind of a blackmail situation, what can Jack do, not go back to Buffalo at this stage that's for sure). Why does Jack stay in this city and country anyway? Maybe it's a freedom, or that there's this seedy escapism where he gets to be this Character of Jack Flowers Big Man, with everything reminding him of what he doesn't have while he has all this control... which can be taken away because he is in this land where white people are intruding.
(As an aside I'm now flashing to a George Orwell story called Shooting an Elephant where he wrote about a cop who's greatest anxiety was being laughed at, as every white man felt in the East. Maybe in this story, Jack doesn't exactly get laughed at and there isn't that imperial stronghold like it used to be with the British in the East, but there's that disconnect where he has respect but no love, as that costs money. Ok digression over).
And at the center of what makes this impossible to take your eyes off of is Gazzara. He sometimes seems so laconic, like Bogart but with even more Naturalism (or seemingly so), and yet there's so much sorrow and pain he's suppressing and yet there's this sensitivity that's underneath it all, maybe this understanding between director and actor that it can be shown, in little looks or in the eyes, or even in-between the lines so to speak as he gives that smile or grin of his. I love that we are plopped into this part of Jack's life and we only get little breadcrumbs (some of it from the CIA guy Eddie) how he got to this point - Jack even makes a deadpan remark that his English degree he got on a GI Bill (he wanted to be a writer) led him to this point. He's a cool guy to watch, but there's depth and sadness and distrust in him that be shows like it's a tap from a large fountain. It's one of the best performances of the 1970s.
As great as this is, I do wonder what Welles would've done with it. As is, it's a surprising piece of work from a director I largely peg as a "He does an Homage to this or that" and it has things it reminds me of but not to where it feels homage. Saint Jack is a genuine expression of a mood more than a traditional crime story, a mood and a vibe that has careful direction and skillfully cinematography.
It's simply the story of someone at a very particular point in their lives, and that sounds like not a lot happens but that's far from the truth. What Bogdanovich does with such conviction and honesty is to just show how this man Jack (not quite his name but close enough) goes about his nights and days in this corner of a city in Singapore where he knows a lot of people and people know him and he takes care of some of them while others, well, he'd much rather not deal with. In the first half of the film especially it doesn't seem like a lot is "going on" as far as how we are so often trained as moviegoers to expect natural conflicts and sets ups; Gazarra's title character takes Eliot's Leigh around and then another guy asks for him and they sit down, he looks over a "menu" of women, they sit in a room while two ladies do a show put to "Goldfinger" (oh the Golden Rule, a little sweet subliminal touch), but all this time something is... off. Two or more people are following Jack and Jack knows it, more or less, to the point where finally he runs off with Leigh and they give brief chase.
Somehow, this really does all add up to be completely absorbing because Bogdanovich is making it about Jack's point of view. I'm sure it's inevitable to try to compare to Cassavetes due to the Gazzara connection as well as a middle aged guy who may be down on his luck and trying to hide it ala Chinese Bookie, or the looseness like Altman, but if anyone flashed to me more than anything it was Scorsese and specifically the seemingly contradictory but wholly organic combination of laser-focus in point of view and a looseness in shaping character interactions and scenes. And like in many of Scorsese's work, especially around that time in the 70s, the city and location is another character to play with, or rather that our hero cant escape and it may shape him more than he cares to admit.
At the same time, with knowing only basic things as a casual admirer of the (late) director's life and work, it feels like a personal piece of some kind. Here is a guy who could be anything and he's in a world where he has to be Mr Amiable and Charming even as he misses home. I'm not sure if it was that that attracted Bogdanovich (maybe more literally it was the p***y let's be real), but he treats it all with this grounded reality while also letting his actors find the grace notes and taking dialog I'd have to think was largely scripted feel improvised - or moments that need to be explosive and messy, like when one of Jack's girls gets best and slapped around bursting out of a room into a hallway and he comes to look in on her as a crowd forms and the guy who did it looks as befuddled as he does. It's a bizarre moment that feels painfully real somehow.
And eventually there is Shape and dimension to this man, in part because of what he sees and has to endure, like the abuse from the gangsters to tattoo him (jokes on them as he adds to the tattoos to be fully flowered, ho ho), or what this shady CIA guy played by Bogdanovich wants from him (as it turns out, kind of a blackmail situation, what can Jack do, not go back to Buffalo at this stage that's for sure). Why does Jack stay in this city and country anyway? Maybe it's a freedom, or that there's this seedy escapism where he gets to be this Character of Jack Flowers Big Man, with everything reminding him of what he doesn't have while he has all this control... which can be taken away because he is in this land where white people are intruding.
(As an aside I'm now flashing to a George Orwell story called Shooting an Elephant where he wrote about a cop who's greatest anxiety was being laughed at, as every white man felt in the East. Maybe in this story, Jack doesn't exactly get laughed at and there isn't that imperial stronghold like it used to be with the British in the East, but there's that disconnect where he has respect but no love, as that costs money. Ok digression over).
And at the center of what makes this impossible to take your eyes off of is Gazzara. He sometimes seems so laconic, like Bogart but with even more Naturalism (or seemingly so), and yet there's so much sorrow and pain he's suppressing and yet there's this sensitivity that's underneath it all, maybe this understanding between director and actor that it can be shown, in little looks or in the eyes, or even in-between the lines so to speak as he gives that smile or grin of his. I love that we are plopped into this part of Jack's life and we only get little breadcrumbs (some of it from the CIA guy Eddie) how he got to this point - Jack even makes a deadpan remark that his English degree he got on a GI Bill (he wanted to be a writer) led him to this point. He's a cool guy to watch, but there's depth and sadness and distrust in him that be shows like it's a tap from a large fountain. It's one of the best performances of the 1970s.
As great as this is, I do wonder what Welles would've done with it. As is, it's a surprising piece of work from a director I largely peg as a "He does an Homage to this or that" and it has things it reminds me of but not to where it feels homage. Saint Jack is a genuine expression of a mood more than a traditional crime story, a mood and a vibe that has careful direction and skillfully cinematography.