"American Gigolo": Transcendental Style and Narrative Form

Author(s): Bill Nichols

Source: Film Quarterly, Vol. 34, No. 4 (Summer, 1981), pp. 8-13
Published by: University of California Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1212138
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8 JOHN SAYLES

tions of swordfights. Whether they can do that or around

around and
and you
youlearn
learnlessons
lessonsbyby
how
howhard
hard
youyou
getget
not will be interesting to see, but very little of it is beat
beat up
up when
whenyou
youdodothe
thewrong
wrong thing.
thing.
They
Theyloselose
actual talking. a lot
lot of
of their
theirstudents
studentsthat
thatway,
way,but
but
that's
that's
howhow
Did you use subtitles? they do it.
I try to keep it down to a minimum because It sounds like how you learn to be a screen-
writer. One last question, do you have any idio-
audiences don't like subtitles. Mostly it's an action,
the way the samurai treats this American guy. Sort syncracies concerning your writing habits, like
of like they tried to do in Shogun, having the when you write, where you write, or whether you
audience be as out as the character was and usinghave a magic pen?
the subtitles only when he starts understanding I write under pressure and everywhere, mostly
Japanese. These old swordfighters and karate on airplanes.
masters don't talk very much. They throw you

BILL NICHOLS
American Gigolo:
Transcendental Style and Narrative Form
All the films Paul Schrader has written, or directed, TheThe main
maincharacter
character of of
American
American Gigolo
Gigolo
(Julian
(Julian
or both, treat serious themes seriously. They oftenKay,
Kay, played
playedbyby
Richard
Richard Gere),
Gere),
setssets
out on
outwhat
on what
center on a quest, a goal pursued to the point of seems,
seems,by bycontrast,
contrast,a remarkably
a remarkably reasonable
reasonable
questquest
monomania. Schrader's central characters go too -to -to clear
clearhimself
himself
ofofsuspicion
suspicion
of murder-but
of murder-but this this
far; they exceed the limits of convention, normalcy,isis placed
placedwithin
withinthe
the context
contextof aoflife
a life
revolving
revolving
or law. Something drives them on. Whether in around
aroundanother
anothergoal
goal
apparently
apparentlyno less
no less
extreme
extreme
The Yakuza, Hard Core, Taxi Driver, Blue Collar, than that of these other heroes: the reduction of
Obsession, Rolling Thunder, American Gigolo orhuman intimacy to the level of a business transac-
Raging Bull the central character's idee fixe pushestion. The gigolo hero provides women with what
him toward a point perilously close to the bounds they need, taking his pleasure, as any decent mer-
of sanity, a point well beyond the limits within chant might, in knowing that the commodity he
which most of us choose to live. His films, in fact,sells (himself) is of superior quality, and claims
seem like a series of variations on John Ford's The his own emotional needs do not exceed this com-
Searchers, itself a film which clearly questions the mercial equation. American Gigolo, though, at-
tradition of the heroic odyssey. In American Gigolotempts to demonstrate that there are, indeed, other
more than any of Schrader's other work, that needs unmet, spiritual needs most of all, that the
odyssey is spiritual; but here as elsewhere, what hero himself must in the end come to acknowledge.
draws our interest is the sense of characters goingThis rupture of the limitations of a tightening coil
to extremes. They set up a palpable movement, a of false assumptions distinguishes Gigolo from
dizzying, tightening spiral of logic and self-justify- Schrader's other films where characters persist in
ing premises driving toward some obscure but the mono-planar pursuit of their obsessions to
dangerous destiny. The mad mixture of determina-inevitable, and destructive, conclusions. American
tion and jealousy embodied by Jake La Motta in Gigolo, by contrast, provides for a transcendental
Raging Bull exemplifies the emotional heat of thismoment of self-awareness, conversion, grace. The
movement most insistently, just as the solitary formal or stylistic terms within which this move-
preparations for combat of Travis Bickle in Taxi ment occurs, however, establish crucial con-
Driver best exemplify the increasingly nightmarish,straints on how we read the film thematically.
isolated world of the demented seeker.

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AMERICAN GIGOLO

Generically, American Gigolo shares a number

of qualities with film noir and with the samurai
film. Stylistically, Gigolo draws heavily upon the
transcendental style and narrative structure of the
films of Ozu and Bresson. (It also borrows scenes,
motifs, and situations from a host of other films,
from Scorpio Rising to Saboteur-detailing them
would make another article.) Gigolo's relationship
to Bresson's work and Schrader's interpretation
of it in a book he published several years ago are
what I want to explore most thoroughly.
Richard Gere and Lauren Hutton: AMERICAN GIGO LO
Briefly, though, we might first notice that Julian
Kay shares something of the existential ethos em-
bodied by film noir heroes. Like them he lives in a Their loyalty and services (once purchased) are
world characterized by instrumental maneuvering. given with total dedication, and the nihilist spirit
Like them he is set apart by his own code of con- with which they overcome impediments (carried to
duct that will brook no transgression. And like an extreme in Misumi's Sword of Vengeance
them he finds that it is love that leads the way back series) remains, in fact, anchored to a contracted
toward collectivity, that love serves as an avenue loyalty. Julian embraces the ethical principles of
of possible redemption from the corruption of the the man who seeks to act correctly more than to
marketplace and those who have internalized its enjoy himself, who guards against losing self-
values. In film noir, though, this love is the brighter control (through exploitation, manipulation or
side of a single coin: the good-bad girl, for exam- "possession" by another), who values ascetic dis-
ple, appears to embody both love and deception cipline as a way of life, whose pleasure derives
and brings some measure of hope to relations from integrity-from obligations dutifully fulfilled.
within the everyday world. Julian's acknowledge- (In this he also shares qualities embodied by the
ment of his love for Michele (Lauren Hutton), ascetic heroes of Schrader's other work: discipline,
however, offers not so much an extra resource in in all these cases, is obsession's other name.) Much
his everyday struggles, but opens up the possibility
of American Gigolo's fascination derives from the
of a spiritual dimension to life wholly apart fromrelentlessness with which a warped objective is
his gigolo environment. In American Gigolo, love pursued. Self-mortification, denial, dedication-
can be seen not only as the (dubious) sanctuary of they mark the man of greatness (and of madness)
the private against the corrosiveness of the public, in cultures such as ours or feudal Japan's. Much
as it is in noir, but also as a pathway leading to more than most samurai films, American Gigolo
the transcendence of this real, material realm alto- opens up the psychopathic edge to an ethics no
gether. Perhaps, unlike fifties gigolo Joe Gillis in longer firmly anchored to a timeless first principle
Sunset Boulevard, Julian Kay will find that there but instead built on discipline, denial, and services
is an exit, an alternative to the corruption (of that can be bought and sold. In Julian's case, per-
feeling as much as anything) in which he's becomehaps it is the proximity of his apparently idiosyn-
immersed. This would appear to be Schrader's cratic ethics to those that underpin the Puritanism
central theme and it is a point to which we will surrounding us which provides an additional ele-
return. ment of resonance. Dedication, commitment,
Julian Kay's cool self-sufficiency borrows fromservice-they become misplaced. Lofty goals are
the samurai tradition as well as noir. American replaced by lesser ones. We expect, and dread, a
Gigolo, like Melville's Le Samurai and Winner's terrible reckoning. American Gigolo moves down
The Mechanic, transposes the world of the ronin this avenue only, in the end, to reverse itself. Here,
the film and its style move us toward the trans-
(masterless) samurai to the modern, western world.
Hit man and gigolo, like the noir detective hero,cendental and the models of Ozu and Bresson.
cannot afford involvement although, like the ronin
samurai, they have a rigid code of ethics to uphold.In his book Transcendental Style in Film: Ozu,

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10 AMERICAN GIGOLO

Bresson, Dreyer (University of California Press, of screens is never total. A tension persists. He
1972), Paul Schrader develops a cross-cultural calls this a tension between "sparse" means-which
formula by means of which the transcendent may give the sense of disparity, refuse to provide satis-
be expressed in film. He describes three moments factory explanations, prompt us beyond the every-
of paramount importance: (1) Considerable atten- day- and "abundant" means-which give a
tion to simple details of everyday life, le quotidien. sense of empathy for characters, work to hold an
(2) A sense of disparity that gradually emerges. audience before the screen, fabricate a plausible
We experience a sense of mystery, of explanatory imaginary realm within which we expect to find
inadequacy, within the everyday: something more satisfying resolution at story's end. (If abundant
is demanded but relentlessly withheld. This emerg- means alone compel our leap, we have the "reli-
ing disparity culminates in a decisive action by the gious" film, The Ten Commandments, for exam-
hero that demands commitment from the viewer. ple, and its cinematic "miracles"; if sparse means
(Examples are the declaration of love by Julian atdominate from the outset, we have the structural
the end of American Gigolo; the same declaration film, Wavelength, for example, and its failure to
by Michel in Bresson's Pickpocket, "How long it involve us via the human vessel for what lies be-
has taken me to come to you"; the priest's death yond.) In Bresson and Ozu, Schrader's abundant
in Diary of a Country Priest; Hirayama's weeping means succumb to sparse ones, epitomized by the
at the end of Ozu's An Autumn Afternoon.) (3) moment of stasis. The hero's conduct, especially
Stasis, a literal freezing of the action after the his "decisive act," remains enigmatic and the
decisive moment, a formal strategy that resolves moment of stasis supersedes the richer, more
the experience of disparity by prompting us to go abundant elements that served to draw us into the
beyond the everyday. The viewer's only alternative film's narrative world. As a result, the story's
is to reject the action and its following stasis as grounding in the everyday fails to prove adequate.
outlandish, inexplicable, a violation of what every- It does not provide the satisfaction of a coherent,
day expectations would allow. Stasis calls for explainable narrative resolution. We must leap
faith. The static view of the everyday which to wehigher ground, as the moment of stasis invites,
are given cannot contain our emotion, it leadsorusreject the mechanism at work entirely. Schrader
to place it elsewhere. Something remains unseen. sees no middle ground between discovering grace
The images have not told all. Examples Schrader and spiritual transcendence and the lack of grace
cites are the final codas at the end of Ozu's films. that traps us within the material confines of the
In Bresson it is the closing shot, suggesting onenesseveryday. Whether American Gigolo also provides
to all things: the shadow of the cross in Diarynoofalternative reading is a question we must ex-
a Country Priest, Michel's imprisoned face inamine further.
Pickpocket (repeated in Gigolo), the dark streetAmerican Gigolo seems consciously patterned
down which the hero disappears in A Man Escaped.
after the three-moment formula for transcendental
To provide a sense of disparity transcendental style which Schrader outlines in his book, with
style must remove what Schrader calls "screens"- Bresson as the chief mentor even though the bal-
those means of involving the viewer emotionally ance between abundant and sparse means is clearly
and psychologically in specific situations and indi- different from Bresson's. (Three successive static
vidual characters which most films depend on. shots of Julian's apartment and of Westwood,
These are largely the tactics of psychological real- where he lives, clearly echo Ozu's codas but seem
ism and its expressive instruments of camera essentially gratuitous given the strongly expressive
movement, musical accompaniment, classical edit- camera style that dominates generally.) The film
ing, and so on. Bresson, for example, undermines searches for another balance in keeping with its
suspense, strips characters of psychological den- own time and place. The risk of over-sparseness
sity, demands automatic, non-expressive acting, (boredom) remains, but far less blatantly. Whether
relies on static, mainly frontal camera work, mini- the expression of the transcendent also survives is
mizes music, stresses everyday sounds, and en- another question.
forces a deadpan, non-dramatic editing rhythm. Unlike Pickpocket and other Bresson films,
Schrader goes on to argue that such removal American Gigolo does not deemphasize several of

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AMERICAN GIGOLO

the screens nontranscendental styles utilize to

convey their meaning. Instead it reserves much of
its sparseness for the ending. There is, for exam-
ple, the matter of choosing stars, Gere and Hutton,
in contrast to unknown non-actors, as well as the
invention of many clever pieces of business that
help draw us into Julian's everyday world. (Many
of these play off familiar, and often objectionable,
stereotypes: the black as gangster-pimp; the tone
of blatant homophobia and the sensationalization
'Screens"'. the probing detective
of gay nightlife in terms of S&M bars; the ruthless,
"liberal" politician; the politician's bumbling aide-
turned-spy; the clever, probing detective whose some pleasures and, with Michele, genuine con-
game of wits with Julian provides considerable cern?) than from the style. This flattens "dis-
involvement; the jaded, self-centered attitudes of parity" into dramatic tension rather than a sense
the clients Julian services.) of another realm unexhausted by the everyday.
Likewise, other screens experience only partial (In Schrader's own terms, any gradually emerging
erosion. It is hard to imagine any transcendental sense of disparity is almost nonexistent.) The
impulse, initially, for example, when we follow resulting shift from the formula for transcendence
Julian on a buying spree to the vibrant beat of Schrader works out for Ozu, Bresson and Dreyer
Blondie's "Call Me." But popular music and has appreciable consequences for the film's ending
flashy images continue throughout the film (until and its decisive action.
the "decisive action"). In fact, Gigolo's camera In traditional narrative and Hollywood terms
style seems to owe far more to Bertolucci than to
American Gigolo has an ostensibly "happy end-
the quiet, simple style of Ozu and Bresson. Track- ing." The dilemmas revealed within the fictional
ing shots abound. They exude power, authority, realm (the arena of the everyday and its screens
a rapture between camera and subject that seems in Schrader's terms) find resolution: Julian is
altogether earthly. (Godard's lateral tracking shots absolved of guilt and makes the decisive act of
pose a more controlled and critical contrast to declaring his love. But something is still amiss-
Bertolucci's, and seem to suggest a sensibility ofas it should be in a transcendental scheme. Para-
Puritan denial similar to Schrader's, but Gigolo dox and contradiction do not disappear beneath
exhibits none of the desire to expose the material- the pleasure of a tidy resolution entirely. Instead
ist underpinnings to phenomena that we find in the ending's style engenders further paradox.
Godard, at least on first examination.) And again, The style becomes suddenly sparse or laconic.
abatement is not seen until the very end: Schra- Static long takes are interspersed with fades to
der's camera glides and cranes and probes, right white, Julian's declaration of love for Michele is
up to the climatic death of Leon, the villain who
frames Julian.
The acting is not deadpan (though for a man
who trades in pleasure, Julian is certainly guarded),
the dialogue is engaging (Julian, for example, cre-
ates pandemonium at a police line-up by confiding
to another suspect that he, Julian, had been paid
for his co-operation); for the most part the editing
forges the traditional pattern of psychological
continuity found in so-called classical films. The
shift from sparseness toward abundance is clearly
substantial. Disparity grows more from the prem-
ises (how long and to what degree can a man
uphold a code of self-denial in the midst of awe-

AMERICAN GIGOLO: The Bressonian ending P

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12 AMERICAN GIGOLO

perplexingly sudden. But what is particularly inter- pared-for quality should remind us of the reality
of the contradictions the film presents and the
esting here is that this lack of total resolution within
the terms of classical narrative is a criterion not impossibility of their resolution-without altering
only for transcendental style but for ideological everyday or material reality rather than transcend-
contestation as well. "Disparity," though truly ing it. The films of Douglas Sirk, for example,
present at the film's conclusion, offers more than explore this tactic where a patently contrived,
one possible meaning. deus ex machina ending ties things up so swiftly
For either a Marxist or a transcendentalist, a and neatly that resolution seems far more artificial
satisfying resolution in the face of irresolvable than the contradictions which preceded it.
contradiction is extremely problematic. Contradic- Ironically, a Sirkian reading of American Gigolo
tions, in fact, remain in the real, material world, seems reasonably well warranted; after all, its
or between this world and that transcendent realm decisive act and stasis are only another, perhaps
beyond. To allow tensions to be resolved is to more literal form of deus ex machina. But such a
provide false contentment, artificial satisfaction. reading runs counter to Schrader's transcendental
The narrative needs to point beyond-for a Marx- formula as he develops it in his book. Our experi-
ist, to those contradictions which, since they are ence of Julian as a man incapable of feeling, bent
real, remain, and require change in the real world; on self-denial and the pleasing ego games of willful
for a Christian, like Bresson, or perhaps Schrader, self-control, is not easily dispelled: an unprepared-
to those contradictions which, since they defy logic for ending reminds us that the real, material con-
and commonsense, we must embrace with faith. ditions prompting such contradictions also lack
An ending may be happy but, as with American genuine resolution. And Schrader's stress on
Gigolo, not on all levels. However much it resolves,abundant means gives added weight to this re-
something more, some excess, must remain un- minder in contrast to the films of Ozu and Bresson
resolved. where our interest in material conditions is con-
American Gigolo's ending, though ostensiblysiderably reduced by a very different balance
"happy," clearly leaves a sense of excess. In terms between abundant and sparse means throughout
of Schrader's analysis of transcendental style, the films. (Conversely, Schrader's failure to de-
Gigolo's ending contains both the decisive action velop a sparse style and a gradually emerging
and the stasis that should move us to an act of sense of disparity may be a strong indication that
faith, to a discovery of the excess beyond the such a style is indeed a vital part of any trans-
everyday: the transcendent. It is clearly at odds cendental formula.) With American Gigolo, we
with the previously established, abundant style. expect resolution to come within Julian's everyday
The question then becomes whether this form of realm, the one in which we have been immersed.
ending points to the transcendent for which a When it does not (due to the discrepant style of the
sparse style like Bresson's prepares us, or back ending), this points to the genuine impossibility of
toward those material conditions in which Schra- resolving the dilemma of Julian's self-contradictory
der's more abundant style has immersed us. nature within the context in which it arises because
Now, in traditional terms the unprepared-for of the self-contradictory nature of that real, mate-
stylistic change and seemingly gratuitous resolu- rial context.
tion to American Gigolo would be ascribed to sys- It is perhaps more than ironic that American
temic constraints ("Hollywood made me do it," Gigolo thus supports a reading strictly counter
as von Sternberg may have been wont to say of the to the one Schrader's formula proposes. Schrader's
family reunion grafted onto the end of Blonde recourse to abundant means, like Sirk's use of
Venus), or to a subversive style. With American melodrama, certainly encourages this inversion of
Gigolo we have no indication the ending was a transcendental ending, this return to material
imposed over the objections of the director. (As conditions. Ambivalence, or the tendencies of
we've seen, Julian's conversion actually fits neatly ideology to open cracks and fissures in a text, are
into Schrader's formulaic scheme.) Nor does sub- certainly harder to find in Bresson, and perhaps
version seem to be the point. If Gigolo's ending Ozu. Bresson's work seems, from premise to con-
were the product of a subversive style, its unpre- clusion, in style and content, to function in a spir-

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AMERICAN GIGOLO 13

itual or transcendent domain. Criticism of that responsibility

responsibility for
for certain
certain filmic
filmic texts
texts may
maybe befar
far
view remains primarily external rather than em- more a materialist than the Paul Schrader who
bedded in it, but Schrader brings this criticism wrote Transcendental Style just as the John Ford
inside his work, as a flaw or gap between the who celebrated America was quite a different
ideology he appears to endorse (the quietism of a director from the John Ford ferreted out by the
transcendental, mysterious grace) and the overall Cahiers editors in their Young Mr. Lincoln article).
style and structure of the film which consequently And what is most intriguing is not the possibility
operates as a form of internal criticism. of placing Schrader squarely in either camp, but
The limitations of American Gigolo, then, may of teasing out the (contradictory) tension between
stem from Schrader's failure to apply his own material conditions and transcendental resolutions
formula effectively, which assumes a level of con- to which he gives compelling expression.
scious authorial intention that leads us, I suspect,
into a critical cul de sac; or these limitations may
stem from a pattern of textual organization (re- A POSTCRIPT FROM PAUL SCHRADER
gardless of how it got there) that does, indeed,
authorize a materialist over an idealist reading. I have chosen to believe that my current work
I have compared Gigolo's structure to Schrader's as a writer and director and my previous work
blueprint for transcendental style throughout, but as a critic have nothing in common. This
must also insist that this parallelism cannot be doesn't mean they have nothing in common;
taken as a given; something gets lost in translation, it means I've chosen to believe they don't.
and that "something" is precisely the autonomy This is more than a semantic distinction.
of a textual system, the film's own process of sig- Criticism deals with cadavers; film-making
nification in contrast to an author's presumed with fetuses. A writer must not prejudge an
intentions. The question is not the effective appli- idea struggling to be born-even if it violates
cation of a formula for a transcendental style his critical principles. The moment a film-
(which Schrader himself, in his book at least, maker fixes his own "style" he dies as an
warns cannot be applied mechanically), but the artist.
effect of those stylistic differences that distinguish For this reason I had no qualms about lift-
one film from another, despite overall similarities. ing the end of Pickpocket for American
This returns the notion of the transcendent to Gigolo. My circumstances are so different
material conditions; of culture and personality, to from Bresson's that plagiarism is out of the
varying extent, of textual organization most cer- question. I could remake Pickpocket shot for
tainly. (And in no case should the transcendent shot and not plagiarize Bresson. As Nichols
be equated with the spiritual, which may just as points out, the style of American Gigolo
readily be imminent.) The abundant means of stands in direct contrast to its Pickpocket
American Gigolo, its retention, to a large degree, ending.
of "screens," the perhaps overly mechanical reli- I don't know what this means. I don't want
ance on a formula, especially in the "decisive to. Perhaps my "style" will be a permanent
action" and stasis that end the film, the numerousand contradictory tension. Perhaps it is mov-
borrowings from films and film traditions-theseing toward a harmony as yet unknown to me.
inflect Gigolo in a distinctive way. They suggest,Perhaps it will lose even the value of this
together with Schrader's other work, that he may tension.
be better equipped to convey a powerful sense of I suspect this is the attitude of every film-
the paradoxes facing the solitary hero who stands maker. When I interviewed Bresson several
above the need for the gifts of others, the defiant
years ago, I was surprised to discover he had
man of willful self-control, that ghostly ruin of ana fluid and prismatic view of his-in my
ideal plagued by his dark nemesis-the alcoholic, view-doctrinaire style. It is left to others to
the loser, the gentle altruist-than he is capablediscover whatever style a film-maker has.
of giving expression to the transcendent. Paul Perhaps this is why I find I am no longer able
Schrader as a writer-director assigned authorial to write objective criticism.

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