CURRENT VIEWING: THE HUNGER: TONY SCOTT

Catherine Deneueve laments the loss of Susan Sarandon and still looks chic while doing it

"The Hunger" is director Tony Scott's debut film, made in 1983. It stars Catherine Deneuve, David Bowie and Susan Sarandon and opens with a performance by Goth gods, Bauhaus, chanting "Bela Lugosi's Dead". That tells you a lot. David Bowie is said to have hated the film after watching its first screening. Bowie apparently found it to be too stylized, too mannered and not "narrative" enough. Yet here it stands, a veritable classic in the annals of stylish films. "The Hunger" is a vampire film where the word "vampire" is never mentioned and one where the real horror is the horror of aging... since aging signals the inevitability of death. The Hunger is also a horror film where the true horror is the horror of bad taste. I watch this movie over and over again because I'm hypnotized by the icy facades that is the beauty of Bowie and Deneuve. What is interesting is that their's is not a young beauty. By 1983 the legendary beauty of Bowie and Deneuve stood on the brink of fading and so "The Hunger" is a film that manages to preserve that fading beauty in a way that perfectly serves the narrative. Interestingly enough, the luscious young thing in the film happens to be Susan Sarandon. The beauty of Bowie and of Deneuve is cold as befits icons of that stature. In fact that is precisely what they strike the viewers as...statues beautifully lit, perfectly dressed and exquistely mannered in a gorgeous townhouse judiciously decorated with priceless antiques. And what do you do when you are rich, ageless and beautifully dressed. You sit in a room and play sad sonatas on a piano. The seduction scenes in this film are so hot, I think they changed my idea of life when I was very young. And that is the eternal power of images.