Venturing with Susannah York into the mental dark side of cinema
For whatever reason, the late Susannah York isn’t as celebrated as she should be. An accomplished actress if there ever was one, the chameleonic York enjoyed a bevy of solid roles which helped make her a name, but failed to win the kind of long-lasting adulation along the lines of Vanessa Redgrave and Julie Christie. Yet York’s talents are irrefutable. Her Oscar-nomned work in They Shoot Horses, Don’t They, as well as her turn as Superman’s mother, showed an actress constantly in sync and in tune with film she was in. What’s most peculiar about York was how even in the company of legendary screen performers, she seamlessly managed to stand out. Looking at her dazzling lineup of co-stars, including Jane Fonda, Marlon Brando, Elizabeth Taylor, Warren Beatty, and Montgomery Clift, it’s interesting to see how not once does York ever shrink in their presence. Yet it was those rare times when tasked with carrying a film on her own that the weight of what York brought to acting was at its most potent.
For all her versatility and range of diverse film roles, York was never more electric than when she played madness. It’s an emotion full of endless amounts of tremendous drama when painted on the screen, which also demands any actor tackling that kind of role to push themselves to their limits. In her hands, York danced with the complicated emotion on the screen, creating a portrait of mental torture that was never anything but mesmerizing. For a select few cinephiles, York proved herself the mistress of madness thanks to her work in 1972’s Images and 1975’s The Maids; both of which saw the actress inhabit two extremely different women linked solely by their emotionally damaged and deranged psyches.
Considered by Robert Altman aficionados as the director’s only pseudo horror movie, Images casts York as the happily married Cathryn, who begins to hear and witness strange occurrences at the couple’s remote country cottage, which begins to plague her marriage. Fitting perfectly into the decade of the experimental ‘70s, Images manages madness in a way few other films can. The cliffside view of Cathryn’s home in which she is literally looking down at herself, the eerie phone conversations she has with someone only she can hear, and the harrowing Hitchhiker scenes all illustrate the grip she is losing on reality. Altman grounds his film in the real world of the day by showing Cathryn’s anguish of not being able to have a child and the guilt she feels towards her past infidelity. But the brilliance of Images lies in the way it challenges the viewer’s own perception of sanity and cleverly makes them realize how vulnerable and trusting a person is towards the world on the screen.
Conversely, The Maids sees York give way to an altogether different, yet self-destructive type of madness as Claire, one half of a pair of maids (the other being Glenda Jackson’s Solange), who indulge in a sort of role play where they two take turns dressing up in their employer’s (Vivien Merchant) clothes and mocking/condemning her to the point of insanity. What’s so striking about The Maids is how no time is wasted when it comes to entering a new level of madness, particularly in regards to the fantasy which soon begins to take Claire over. Under the somewhat fire and brimstone guidance of older sister Solange, Claire finds she has two superiors holding her captive both practically and emotionally. The way she imitates her employer as a grotesque human embodiment of excess and self-adoration is excruciatingly demented and bears hints of sadism and masochism. As Claire switches back and forth between the two guises she wears (domestic and lady of the manor), she all at once realizes she’s living in a world of fantasy that’s rooted in bitterness, envy, longing, and regret. At the root of Claire’s madness, though, is the knowledge that she’s trapped in her own private, special hell dictated not only by her boss and sister, but by a disillusionment and resentment towards the life society has given her.
Even though one of the titles may have been helmed by Altman, both Images and The Maids couldn’t have been designed more differently from virtually every aspect save for their leading actress. The music of Images, courtesy of the great John Williams, consists of a heavy, electronic synth score reminiscent of the kind that were popular in the early-mid ‘70s and perfectly brings out the motifs of paranoia and dreaminess in this tale of schizophrenia. Visually, Images is also gorgeous to look at with its muted colors, striking compositions, hypnotic angles, and zooms, all of which are anchored by the film’s otherworldy feel.
If the world of Images epitomizes the levels to which the power of cinema can reach, The Maids does just the opposite, at times feeling like it doesn’t know it’s even a movie at all. One of the titles from the American Film Theater (a series of filmed versions of acclaimed plays starring notable actors), The Maids is the definition of stagey, with very little visual flair to be found anywhere. The film feels so eternally alienating, especially in its dialogue, which is so intelligent and rich in emotion and expression, that it overwhelms without ever giving a break to those watching it. But there’s also something macabrely striking about the film, especially the large and garishly lavish bedroom which seems both a dusty relic and a storybook princess’ lair. Virtually the entirety of the film takes place in this room, and it’s here where the world of The Maids, ripe with hostility and delusion, comes alive, keeping those who enter it trapped in one way or another.
Almost as different as the films themselves are the approaches York takes with both her characters. The actress doesn’t merely just play one form of madness, but instead illustrates various shades of the fractured mental state. Both prove incredible showcases for York as an actress. Images is bolstered by York’s abilities to play her character’s hallucinations not as haunting apparitions, but as very real entities, while her narration throughout the film remains viscerally surreal. Because of this, Images amounts to what is York’s most terrifying and best work, as evidenced by the Best Actress award she won at the Cannes Film Festival the following year. Meanwhile in The Maids, even though Solange may have the more dominant role, it’s Claire whose torment and pain are made all the more tragic thanks to the actress playing her. York recognizes the emotional stuntedness of her character and goes to the most effective of lengths to show how the demons swirling within Claire are screaming get out, even if means she must die in the process.
Plenty of actresses have tried their hand at on-screen madness over the years and turned in iconic performances as a result. Olivia de Havilland’s troubled Virginia in The Snake Pit and Taylor’s mentally crippled Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? are both considered classics for, above all else, the way their actresses put a face on the maddening reactions to the complexities of womanhood. It’s a crime that York’s turns in both Images and The Maids have failed to make their way to a spot alongside the aforementioned titles, since few other actresses could have bravely put out such daring and explosive explorations into the darkness of the female mind.
Images is currently available on Blu-ray from Arrow Video.
The Maids is currently available on Blu-ray from Olive Films.
