Petulia

The Balboa is hosting a series of films set in San Francisco, called “The Reel San Francisco.” Tonight I saw Petulia, with Julie Christie, Richard Chamberlain, George C. Scott, Shirley Knight, with all these great uncredited appearances by Janice Joplin, Jerry Garcia, Rene Auberjonois, Mickey Hart, and Howard Hesseman! It was such a strange and amazing movie. First of all, Julie Christie’s white lips are more luscious than ever, and her hair is piled on her head in a baroque mound of coiled brown rolls. The film opens with her, inexplicably, making the move on the sad and grumpy and soon to be divorced George C. Scott, while dashing husband Richard Chamberlain looks on, permeating sexual heat in the background. Scott is turned off by her antics, and even more so when she starts appearing everywhere, telling him things like they’re going to be married and he’s going to be her lover, etc… Well, she is Julie Christie, and the morning after he finally gives in, he leaves her in his apartment, post coital, as he takes the kids out for a day on the Bay, calling her from every phone booth he passes, and returns to find her brutally beaten and unconscious. As his desire grows for her, she slips away, back to the arms of young Richard Chamberlain, of whom she’s terrified, as he’s the guy who beat her to a bloody pulp. We never see the violence, only its potential and effects. Shirley Knight, given only one key scene, is marvelous as a woman pulled simultaneously toward and away from George C. Scott, who also is marvelous, conveying his isolation and desire subtly, but deeply. The film itself has very jagged intrusive editing, with different narratives woven in that unwind chronologically backwards or forwards as the events are revealed by the thoughts or glances of the various characters. Very much of its time, and very fascinating to watch.