source: Tropic of Cancer

Henry Miller's rousing poetic * is brought to the screen in the form of Rip Torn as the controversial author wandering Paris from one situation to the next, either narrating Miller's words over various shots of the famous city, or dealing with, and suffering through, random confrontations with crazy women and even crazier men. Reminiscent of how Charles Bukowski's life would be attempted years later in BARFLY and FACTOTUM... stream-of-conscious odysseys never settling into one particular melodrama for too long... this film's progressively-racy dialog seems awkward and forced. Some of the side-actors don't fit the (for 1970) groundbreaking template, at times feeling like an X-rated episode of MARY TYLER MOORE. Torn, although not entirely believable as Miller, is intriguing to watch, and along with a few quick sexy scenes with Ellen Burstyn, solely owns this obscure curio that seems borrowed otherwise.

Director Joseph Strick gets props for even attempting to film Henry Miller's expat manifesto. It's unfortunate that it's simply not very cinematic. Rip Torn is Miller, roaming Paris looking for a meal and sex with pretty much every woman he encounters. The film consists mainly of a series of amusing vignettes involving Miller & cronies. There's a certain amount of naughtiness with most of the interest derived from Torn's narration/reading from Miller's racy prose. Torn is fine and Ellen Burstyn plays his not so tolerant wife. James Callahan is outstanding as the least stable of Torn's friends (engaged to a equally unstable Parisian hooker). Strick & co-writer Betty Botley infuse the film with a lot of oddball characters.

Tropic of Cancer (1970) *** (out of 4) Good art film has American writer Henry Miller (Rip Torn) traveling through Paris trying to score as much free food and sex that he can get. Along the way he discusses these adventures with his friends as they too are after the same thing. TROPIC OF CANCER is based on the controversial work of Miller and it's easy to see this is a film from the 70s as the decade broke down all sorts of barriers about what could or couldn't be shown in movies. I always enjoy watching this more adult, X-rated films from the 70s because you could argue that cinema was changing during this period as much as it had since silent was passed by sound. The sexuality of the novel are on full display as the film kicks off with non-stop nudity and sexuality and this continues to the very end. I think what will effect people the most is the actually sexual dialogue, which is pretty raw and frank and I'd say that this talk would probably shock people a lot more today than the actual nudity and sex. Torn turns in a pretty good performance as Miller. I've read other opinions stating that he was way over-the-top but I think this was more of the character than the actual performance. Ellen Burstyn, appearing totally *, is also good as Miller's wife, although she isn't given too much to do. TROPIC OF CANCER has some pretty weird style going in it and I think at times the film is extremely uneven but for the most part it works thanks to the subject matter and performances. This is certainly far from a classic but fans of the sexual liberation of the 70s should enjoy it.

As it's many years since I read the book I can't recall whether it had the same impression on me as the film, which was to profoundly depress me about the nature of man. The protagonist seems pretty much without redeeming features. He chases women in order to get them into bed, but seems to be basically hostile to them. He has friends in order to sponge off them. His sneering smile just makes me want to slap his face. I suspect however that this was not the intention of the film and we're really supposed to think he's quite a guy. In the context of the times the explicit language and sex scenes exploit a new permissiveness, but fundamentally it's an ugly and sexist depiction of men and women : the men trying to get sex with the minimum of commitment, and the women trying to pin the men down or get their money. It's really dated in this respect. On the plus side, I enjoyed the beautiful female bodies. The Parisian landscape shots also lift the ugliness from time to time.

In order to appreciate Henry Miller's style, it is essential to get a feel for the juxtaposition of his elegant, often heartfelt prose, and the profane nature of his subject matter. He is the modern Catullus, the poet not of "lovemaking" but of the joys of flat-out *****ing. The movie had difficulty synthesizing this sense of sacred and profane in harmony. It tried now with a Rip Torn overvoice reading from Miller's work, then with some poetic shots of the beauty of Paris. It never really seemed to succeed. The movie could never find anything to focus on. It represents a string of vignettes, and they don't seem to lead to any common goal. Many scenes seem to concentrate on the minor characters for much too long, and without apparent purpose. Such picaresque efforts rely on the charm of characterization for impact, and this film has some of that, but not enough. It's structured as if somebody said "let's make a film of Tropic of Cancer" without actually feeling any passion for why they wanted to do that. It was certainly interesting to see Rip Torn so young and so good-looking, and to see Ellen Burstyn in such a flagrant display of nudity. Some of the locales are accurately evocative, and Torn is reasonably credible in the lead. It is fairly explicit in the sexual scenes, and extremely explicit in its use of language. You could watch it and not feel you've wasted your time, but be advised that you won't feel much rewarded, either.

Moviecut—Tropic of Cancer

source: Tropic of Cancer

Henry Miller's rousing poetic * is brought to the screen in the form of Rip Torn as the controversial author wandering Paris from one situation to the next, either narrating Miller's words over various shots of the famous city, or dealing with, and suffering through, random confrontations with crazy women and even crazier men. Reminiscent of how Charles Bukowski's life would be attempted years later in BARFLY and FACTOTUM... stream-of-conscious odysseys never settling into one particular melodrama for too long... this film's progressively-racy dialog seems awkward and forced. Some of the side-actors don't fit the (for 1970) groundbreaking template, at times feeling like an X-rated episode of MARY TYLER MOORE. Torn, although not entirely believable as Miller, is intriguing to watch, and along with a few quick sexy scenes with Ellen Burstyn, solely owns this obscure curio that seems borrowed otherwise.

As it's many years since I read the book I can't recall whether it had the same impression on me as the film, which was to profoundly depress me about the nature of man. The protagonist seems pretty much without redeeming features. He chases women in order to get them into bed, but seems to be basically hostile to them. He has friends in order to sponge off them. His sneering smile just makes me want to slap his face. I suspect however that this was not the intention of the film and we're really supposed to think he's quite a guy. In the context of the times the explicit language and sex scenes exploit a new permissiveness, but fundamentally it's an ugly and sexist depiction of men and women : the men trying to get sex with the minimum of commitment, and the women trying to pin the men down or get their money. It's really dated in this respect. On the plus side, I enjoyed the beautiful female bodies. The Parisian landscape shots also lift the ugliness from time to time.