Basic Instinct
Sex and violence are the key components of “Basic Instinct,” the last great film directed by Paul Verhoeven in America (unless you’re a fan of his “Starship Troopers”), and one of the only great films written by Joe Eszterhas, depending on your feelings about “Flashdance” and “The Jagged Edge.” Now, when I use the word “great” in association with “Basic Instinct,” I’m not intending to put the film on the same level of artistic mastery as its obvious model, Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo.” Instead, I look at it as a film of great, cinematic guilty pleasures that draw the viewer in, so long as you aren’t squeamish about sex and violence.
And trust me, it’s the sex and violence that makes the movie. This is a film that got an R rating in 1992, though most often is seen in its “unrated” form, which honestly, is not much different than the theatrical version. How the film got away with an R-rating is still beyond me, and is a perfect “go to” film on how the movie ratings system we have in America is broken beyond repair. How fitting, then, that Verhoeven and Eszterhas pushed things further with their next film together, “Showgirls,” which was released with an NC-17 rating, although is almost tamer than this film. Could it be that they were using the latter film to comment on the absurdity of what they got away with in the earlier film?
I’ll leave that question for another time. For now, it’s about “Basic Instinct.” The story begins with the murder, in bed, of a retired rock-n-roll star, and turns into a cat-and-mouse psychological game between San Francisco detective Nick Curran (Michael Douglas, in one of his best performances) and author, and possible killer, Catherine Tramell (Sharon Stone), who toys with him in ways that excite him, and frighten him, at the same time. As someone who’s had run-ins with Internal Affairs over alcoholism, drug abuse, and a shooting that took the lives of two tourists, Curran is the last person who should be in charge of getting evidence against a beautiful, manipulative, sexually-dominate suspect. Or is he? He may be the only one qualified to do so, even if getting closer to her leads him down the rabbit hole.
There’s a lot of parallels between “Basic Instinct” and “Vertigo,” many of which are laid out in Verhoeven’s intriguing commentary with cinematographer Jan De Bont, who does brilliant work in this film, especially during a car chase where Curran is tailing Catherine. Trust me, though– “Vertigo” is better. Don’t get me wrong: the cues Verhoeven takes from Hitchcock here (the San Francisco setting; the parallels about male obsession with seeing the woman we want to see, rather than the woman we are given; the odes to Bernard Herrmann’s iconic music in Jerry Goldsmith’s great score for this film) make watching the film a wonderful puzzle for movie fans. However, whereas Hitchcock, in his classic, British way, alluded to things subtly, Verhoeven and Eszterhas turn the film into an over-the-top soap opera. A different film for a different era.
The film, however, stands apart from “Vertigo,” and is an engaging, titillating thriller in its own right. Part of that is the conviction of Verhoeven and Eszterhas to just go from broke in terms of content and execution, but also, the performances by Douglas and Stone. There are a lot of great character actors in supporting roles, but the stars are the main attraction, and they keep us mesmerized every step of the way. I mentioned that this was one of Douglas’s best performances, and that still holds true, but really, Sharon Stone’s is the one we keep coming back to the movie for. A former model, she made a splash in Verhoeven’s “Total Recall,” but created something truly special with her performance in “Basic Instinct.” It’s not just her looks, and her constant nudity, but she helps us see Catherine’s calculation, and we are just as seduced as Curran is. It’s too bad she tried to go back for seconds with 2006’s sequel, which was misguided in every, possible way. Say what you will about this film from an artistic standpoint, and I can certainly understand why people could dislike this film, but Verhoeven and his collaborators swung for the fences when it came to challenging Hollywood in terms of tone and content, and for my money, they hit it out of the park.
