Perfect Films: “Altered States”

I did not grow up in the 1960s, and I can’t claim any special knowledge of the magical and tumultuous period of American culture. However, I did grow up in the 1970s, when there was still just a faint afterglow of that glorious time. I vividly remember that day in 1975 when Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese Army, and thus ended the most divisive and catastrophic the U.S. has ever fought. I also remember the election of Ronald Reagan, which finished, once for all, the last vestiges of what was once called the counterculture—that semi-revolutionary, underground movement characterized by sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll. (Especially the drugs.)

I remember, in fact, some of my parents’ friends, who were obviously adherents to this so-called counterculture. They wore cool clothes (lots of paisley), drank run-and-cokes, and laughed at everything, as if they were seeing a different world through their bloodshot, dilated eyes. (I am pretty sure some mind-altering substances were involved.)

Obviously, I am nostalgic for that period, even though I didn’t actually live through it. (This is the most noxious form of nostalgia, obviously; nostalgia for something that never actually happened.) Even so, I have read a lot of books about that period (my favorite in Robert Stone’s Dog Soldiers), and I honestly feel that I caught a bit of that vibe—that lingering spirit of rebelliousness that was fired in the furnaces of Vietnam, Watergate, and the Summer of Sam. 

If had to name a movie that most perfectly captured that vibe, it would have to be Ken Russell’s Altered States. Released in 1980, it exemplifies that side of the Sixties and Seventies that most people don’t know about—the questing, quasi-religious side that wanted to liberate the common people from their blissful, mind-controlled slumber via the use of mind-altering drugs. People no longer realize that, for a time, LSD was as important a religious trapping for hippies as communion wafers are for Catholics. (Being a Catholic myself, I can say this with no guilt.) For that brief time, psychedelic drugs were not merely a form recreation. Rather, they were a doorway to a new kind consciousness, one that was both more evolved and more primitive than the “normal” state most of us wander around in during our daily lives.

Altered States captures that spirit. In theory, it is a science fiction movie. The story of a brilliant young psychologist, Edward Jessup (Hurt), who becomes obsessed with finding a cure for schizophrenia. His research starts him on a quest for the root of human consciousness, the primordial “first thought” from which all life expands. In true 1960’s fashion, he immerses himself in an isolation tank and records his own hallucinations, many of which include disturbing religious imagery and also memories of traumatic events.

Jessup is clearly a brilliant madman, of the sort that often appear in Paddy Chayefsky’s stories. Selfish and aloof, he is also a bit of an asshole. But he is partially redeemed by his relationship with Emily (Blair Brown), an equally brilliant anthropologist who loves Jessup in spite of—and, perhaps, because of—his madness. The tormented romance (and later, marriage) between Jessup and Emily gives this already packed film a human dimension and aspect of pathos that is almost completely missing from the typical science movie.

Part of the genius of Russell’s film is that he casts the two leading roles with actors who are about as clean-cut and white-bread as any in cinema: William Hurt (in his first film role), and Blair Brown.  These two actors also had some other things in common: they were extremely good-looking and incredibly smart.  In fact, Altered States is one of the most obnoxiously “smart” movies I have ever seen, filled with rambling, Nietzschean dialogue that somehow seems completely real, and also manages to be extremely affecting—even moving.

How could it be otherwise? The screenplay, after all, was written by Paddy Chayefsky, the author of such previous masterpieces of erudition as Network and Hospital. Chayefsky had a talent for creating characters who both hyperliterate and filled with rage. (Who can forget Howard Beale’s cri de cœur: “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore”?).  But of all the films Chayefsky wrote, Altered States is my favorite. Under the guiding hand of Russell—who was perhaps the second freakiest film-maker ever, after David Lynch—his script crackles with intelligence and a sharp, dramatic perversion.

All this might sound like pretty high praise for a silly science fiction movie. But then again, as I alluded earlier, Altered States is only a science fiction movie in theory. That is, it’s a science fiction movie in the same way that David Cronenberg’s The Fly is a science fiction movie; yeah, it has some of the tropes of science fiction, but it’s really a gritty, smart, ultra-modern drama, two-hour meditation on the themes of madness versus sanity, science versus religion, and selfishness versus love.

And—oh, yeah—there’s a lot of sex, too.

When the movie first came out, I saw in the theaters, and I remember being totally blown away by its imagery. Jessup’s hallucinations are among the most compelling ever rendered on film. Nothing comes close to them (except, perhaps, the twenty-minute-long mind-fuck at the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey). The most striking sequence comes when Jessup ventures to Mexico in search of a mushroom called Amanita muscaria, a powerful hallucinogen used by the local natives in their religious ceremonies. Of course, Jessup arranges to participate in one of these ceremonies, and when he finally ingests a small amount of the drug, he embarks on a dream sequence that might give William Blake a run for his phantasmagoric money.

Actually, I have a theory about dream-sequences: I believe that the ability to render a dream-sequence in a film without blundering into pseudo-Freudian cliché, or—even worse—inadvertent comedy, is one of the most difficult things a movie director ever has to do. And Russell pulls it off brilliantly. I love the way he uses actual fireworks (set off in the cave just above Hurt’s head) to externalize the chemical fireworks exploding in Jessup’s brain as the mushroom first takes hold of him. And the montage that follows—a swirl of vivid and striking images, in which Emily serves as a kind of anchor for Jessup’s rapidly unraveling sanity—is one of the most interesting ever filmed.

This is a good place to mention one of the film’s other great strengths: the soundtrack. Scored by avant guarde composer John Corigliano (who got an Oscar nomination for his efforts), the movie assaults the view with trumpets, tribal horns, and strings. I would say that, at times, it feels like Biblical epic, except that no Biblical epic I have ever seen has had this much power. In our modern age of cinema, where symphonic scores have been almost completely shunned in favor of techno-beats or pop-music samplings, the young directors of today would be well served by studying this picture. It really has one of the most hypnotic and thrilling soundtracks in film history.

Indeed, without Corigliano’s score, the film would feel very much like a stage play. Most of its scenes occur indoors, and often with just two characters. Even in its delightfully freaky second and third acts, the movie works best in its quieter moments, when an increasingly frightened Emily tries to keep her increasingly unhinged husband, Jessup, from exploring psychic forces that he can barely hope to understand, no less control.

This occurs when Jessup returns to his university with a mason jar full of the Mexican magic mushroom, which he promptly combines with the use of the sensory isolation tank from earlier in the film. The combination of the drug and the tank allow him to go much further down the mental rabbit-hole than he dared imagine—to the point where his physical body starts to transform into various primordial beings.

This part of the movie is too much for some viewers. One prominent reviewer even called it “silly”.  All I can say to such people is: it works for me. Even when Jessup emerges from the tank as a proto-human ape (played by noted New York dancer Miguel Godreau with tremendous effectiveness), I was completely engrossed. Ironically, this is one of the most “realistic” films I have ever seen.

Most of all, I am endlessly impressed by the performances of the small cast. Hurt gives the first of his many brilliant performances playing people who are too-smart-for-their-own-good. And Blair Brown is beautiful, tragic, and brave. Great supporting performances from the (then) unknown character actors Bob Balaban and Charles Haid (later of Hill Street Blues fame).

If you can, check out Altered States from Netflix or your local library, and then up-vote it on IMDB. It’s a classic.