There is a moment during the suspenseful climax of WHITE DOG, director Sam Fuller’s last American-made film (out on Criterion Collection DVD December 2), in which the character played by Paul Winfield unsheaths his gun and levels it at the eponymous canine, which has been trained by white racists to attack and kill black people. The filmmaker shoots from a low angle—Winfield pointing his loaded weapon directly into the camera.
As the shot dollies forward toward Winfield and finally focuses on the gun in his hand, the lens keeps zooming in even further until it appears that the muzzle of the weapon is about to fill the frame—and then something unexpected happens. Instead of aiming a firearm directly at the viewing audience, Fuller drops his sights about an inch lower and fills the widescreen frame with the finger on the trigger, leaving us staring intently at a muscle making a decision as to whether or not to shoot a beast that might be about to kill one of our protagonists.It is in moments like these that WHITE DOG is elevated by the thoughtful intelligence of an auteur who is looking to supply more than just cheap and easy thrills. Instead of delivering the expected (and clichéd) image we’ve come to expect at a film’s climactic moment, we are challenged instead by the presentation of an unexpected point of view of a life-or-death situation that forces a viewer to re-examine the relationship between the visceral and intellectual thrills cinema offers—and possibly wonder why there aren’t many more talented filmmakers out there who can find a new way of looking at things without the need to dumb down plotlines or ladle special FX all over a story with nothing to say.
Based on a short story by Romain Gary that first appeared in Life magazine in 1970, WHITE DOG has been much better-known and talked about than actually seen until now; thanks to the good folks at Criterion, this is about to change. But as fine as the film is, it’s not without flaws. Frankly, the first half hour vacillates between hamfisted Screenwriting 101 clichés and brilliant shorthand storytelling (sometimes within the same scene) as we are introduced to Julie (Kristy McNichol), an aspiring actress who accidentally hits the titular stray German shepherd with her car while driving along a dark road one night. Taking responsibility for her actions, she brings the dog to a vet and eventually into her daily life while simultaneously trying to find its original owner.
When she’s attacked in her own home by a thug, Julie discovers that she has one helluva good watchdog to protect her. But when it begins to attack black people without provocation, she and her boyfriend begin to suspect something else is afoot, so she ends up bringing the animal to an African-American trainer (Winfield) to have the dog deprogrammed—if such a thing is possible.
From there, once the contrivances of getting the plot in motion have been taken care of, one can feel the sure hand of Fuller tightening his grip. He embraces the challenge of dramatizing the battle of wits between a man of science who believes that a dog that has been made into a bigot can be reconditioned and an inscrutable creature whose unpredictable nature makes it a kind protector one moment and a murderous beast the next—which is what makes this a horror story.
But what kind of monster are we witnessing? As the characters ponder the nature of the beast (which Fuller himself discusses at greater length in a supplementary interview—more on that in a moment), and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are used as a basis of comparison to describe the dog’s dual nature, it’s pointed out that the canine has been created more in the manner of Frankenstein’s monster, as it has been taught to hate in a way that does not arise naturally from its state of being—after all, black dogs and white dogs don’t attack each other based on the color of their fur. That’s something only humanity does. So this poor dog has been made into a monster by a real beast: man.
With that in mind, you might now have a better idea of why this film has been abandoned and left for dead for more than 25 years without a previous, legitimate video release in the U.S. It has something to say, and is not afraid to say it in the starkest possible language.
For a movie that has been missing in action for so long, Criterion’s transfer of the uncut feature is well-nigh perfect-looking, a sharp, clean and colorful 1:85 image enhanced for widescreen viewing. The most substantial video supplement is Four-Legged Time Bomb, a nearly 45-minute interview piece with producer Jon Davison, co-writer Curtis Hanson and Sam Fuller’s widow, Christa Lang-Fuller (who has a brief cameo in the film as a nurse). All three have excellent and informative stories to tell about the development of WHITE DOG (which at one point was to be helmed by Roman Polanski, among others), what it was like to work with (and live with) Fuller and then the backlash against the film—including charges of racism made against a project that’s not in the least bit racist, but bluntly about racism—that kept it from being released after its completion.
One comes away from these interviews with the impression that it’s Hanson who was responsible for the disjointedness of the film’s first half hour (as he takes credit for having written these early sequences), which tries to shoehorn a lot of character development into a short amount of time. Although Davison never brings it up, eagle-eyed genre hounds will be pleased to note brief and amusing cameos from Paul Bartel and Dick Miller—not surprising given Davison’s previous producing stints for Roger Corman (including HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD and PIRANHA).
A text interview is also provided with dog trainer Karl Lewis Miller, who makes some interesting observations about working with Fuller and also describes the process and the attention to little details necessary to create convincing footage of canine attacks. Finally, the disc provides a brief but welcome photo gallery that consists mostly of behind-the-scenes pics.
An accompanying booklet contains an “interview” with the White Dog as conducted by Fuller himself, which, in the spirit of a Jonathan Swift essay, elaborates on the film’s touchiest themes with a wry sense of humor. For fans of the director, it’s impossible to read these words without hearing them delivered in his distinct, staccato delivery. Two critical essays are also provided, by J. Hoberman and the other by Armond White; the former is a good overview of Fuller’s career by the Village Voice writer, and an exploration of how WHITE DOG fits into the director’s oeuvre. It also describes how the film was completely shelved and withheld from U.S. theaters until it was finally unspooled at New York’s Film Forum in 1991 as part of a Fuller series—which this writer was proud to attend, along with a very enthusiastic and appreciative audience.
White, a critic for the free weekly New York Press, is normally an insufferably pretentious and annoying writer—a Steven Spielberg sycophant and Brian De Palma apologist whose self-righteousness when championing films that nobody else (usually rightfully) likes makes him the critical equivalent of a famous literary windmill-challenger. However, whether through judicious editing by Criterion or a rare instance of self-aware cleansing of his prose, White here delivers a well-written and compelling essay that one can only hope is a step in the right direction for the rest of his career. Good luck to you, Armond, from a fellow toiler in the ink trade.
WHITE DOG is an absolutely essential purchase if you’re a fan of Fuller or solid, intelligent genre filmmaking in general. With this disc, it finally receives the video presentation and critical appreciation it has earned after so many years of undeserved obscurity, and having downright ignorant accusations leveled against it.
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chris alexander makes this comment
Wed 26 Nov 2008 03:37:40 CST