Mr. Sleeman Is Coming

     Remote Viewer

     Stylized fashion photography based on crime scenes, car accidents, 1970s models posing as corpses: subject matter of controversial and successful photographer Laura Mars (Faye Dunaway) in Irvin Kershner's Eyes of Laura Mars (1978), screenplay by John Carpenter, who directed Halloween.

     Tommy Lee Jones, before he became such a familiar face, plays New York police detective John Neville.  He investigates a string of ice pick murders of friends and colleagues of Laura Mars, a woman suddenly cursed (for no explained reason) to view these killings through the perpetrator's eyes.

     As a photographer obsessed with death and violence, Laura attracts police attention.  In one instance she sees herself stalked but escapes, necessitating twenty-four hour protection.  Carrying on with her job, she continues creating set pieces along the lines of Helmut Newton stylization.  Newton shot some of the photographs.  Celebrated for her honest, though overelaborate, depictions of society's violence, Laura Mars also finds herself harshly criticized and at times reviled for supposedly glorifying death and destruction.

     Detective Neville shows her police photographs from two old cases that look like examples of her own work, the corpses positioned the same way, with similar backgrounds, as the models and settings in her pictures.  Does she get her inspiration from real murders viewed remotely?  Neville seems amenable to the idea, crazy as it sounds.  His attraction to her (she is Faye Dunaway after all, hair dyed auburn) probably has something to do with his open-mindedness.

     The film depicts the late 1970s world of New York fashion, with New York's locations--its dirt, litter, noises, crowds, faintly heard domestic arguments--providing a rich background.  The World Trade Center towers can be seen in several shots from various angles.  

     Raul Julia plays Laura's obnoxious ex-husband Michael.  Rene Auberjonois is very good as  Donald Phelps, Laura's gay close associate.  Brad Dourif is also very good as Laura's driver, Tommy, a nervous fellow with a lot of bad shit in his past.  Frank Adonis plays Sal, a cop wearing pale blue-lensed glasses.  His performance is pure cop, and quite excellent.  

     The film, replete with suspects, leaves the viewer wondering nearly throughout.  I won't reveal the killer's identity.

     Kershner does a good job of creating suspense, sometimes using camera lenses that claustrophobically direct the focus on Faye Dunaway as she's about to see something through the killer's eyes.  When that happens she sees nothing else, leaving her effectively blind.  Not a good thing when she's driving.

     This is the only film I've ever seen showing an AMC Pacer involved in stunt driving.  The choice of the Pacer, with its big curving rear windows on the sides suggesting eyes, perhaps, was an apt one for this particular film.

     Jones and Dunaway are predictably good, but I was more impressed with the performances of Auberjonois, Dourif, and Adonis, an interesting instance of character actors outshining the leads.

     A good film, Eyes of Laura Mars is a curious example of a pseudo-horror film/police drama/cultural slice of life from a specific time and a place readily recognizable, but no longer in existence.  A corpse in a sense, photographed in a stylized way.

                                                                              Vic Neptune