by Frank Calvillo
Box Office Alternative Column
Box Office Alternative is a weekly look into additional/optional choices to the big-budget spectacle opening up at your local movie theater every Friday. Oftentimes, titles will consist of little-known or underappreciated work from the same actor/writer/director/producer of said new release, while at other times, the selection for the week just happens to touch upon the same subject in a unique way. Above all, this is a place to revisit and/or discover forgotten cinematic gems of all kinds.
Robert Zemeckis once again reaffirms his standing as one of the most showman-like filmmakers this week with the wide release of the The Walk, the true story of a French high-wire artist who attempted to walk the gap between the World Trade Center in the 1970s. With its show-stopping set pieces, The Walk looks like another entry from a filmmaker who has made a career out of telling stories full of interesting characters and exploring the visual power of movies.
For me, The Walk calls to mind an often overlooked Zemeckis production, The Public Eye, which also featured an unusual, yet fascinating character in the kind of larger than life situation which only Zemeckis could help tell.
Executive produced by Zemeckis from a screenplay by director Howard Franklin, The Public Eye stars Joe Pesci as Leon Bernstein, or “Bernzy,” (as his acquaintances refer to him), a freelance photographer in 1940s New York. Bernzy has photographed everyone from murder victims to mobsters, becoming well-known amongst every cop and criminal along the way. When he is summoned by Kay Levitz (Barbara Hershey), the owner of the most upscale nightclub in the city, to help investigate the connection between a powerful mob family and her late husband, he uncovers a scandal involving war profiteering, which forces him to step away from the protective shield of his camera for the first time in his life.
It would be far too easy to dismiss The Public Eye as a studio-driven star vehicle for one of the hottest stars of the moment (Pesci was riding high on the combined success of Goodfellas and Home Alone at the time of production). Instead, the film proves itself a bit ahead of its time by showcasing a character whose life revolves around taking pictures. The film’s opening credits are featured alongside an assortment of photos showing various New York denizens in a very early look into the cell phone/Instagram culture we live in now. The idea is furthered throughout in various moments, such as when Bernzy instructs a cop to insert a victim’s hat into the shot he is taking of the corpse because he insists its an item people like to see when looking at a photo of a dead person. Meanwhile lines such as “Everybody likes having their picture taken. EVERYBODY,” and “I’ve gotta get the moment,” may be Bernzy, but they are also completely about today.
Anyone can see that The Public Eye is a film about stylization. In fact the film is so stylishly draped to the hilt with the sort of lighting, cars, and costumes that The Public Eye turns into the very definition of a film homage to the noirs. Each shot is so exquisitely set up and filmed to the point of noir-ish perfection, that it becomes easy to miss certain bits of dialogue as a result of getting lost in many of the film’s gorgeous trappings.
This feel of 1940s movie beauty doesn’t limit itself to the production design, however. Franklin has crafted every aspect of The Public Eye to mirror some of the best of Hollywood’s golden age. Case in point, the grand set piece near the film’s end featuring a gun massacre between two rival mob families in a traditional Italian restaurant. The sequence, in which Franklin intercuts gunfire with the flash of Bernzy’s camera and a black and white freeze frame of the shot, has the kind of operatic feel to it that’s nothing but spectacular.
At the heart of The Public Eye, though, is a surprisingly keen character study of a figure so often overlooked in these kinds of films. While he may be the film’s protagonist, Bernzy is first portrayed, at best, as sort of likable creep. There’s a total detachment and callousness he carries with him everywhere he goes, feeling more about the art of photographing than what he’s actually photographing most times. Dressing as a priest to get a shot of a dead body and moving victim’s body position before cops get there in order to get a more artistic shot, shows that nothing is too far for Bernzy.
And yet, this is a man who truly believes what he does is art. Scenes such as when he fends off the advances of a prostitute in favor of photographing a lovesick couple in a diner tellingly prove this. However, the most poetic of these moments occurs when Kay observes a rain-soaked Bernzy photographing a passed out drunk in an alley for no other reason than the fact that he sees something within him which he feels deserves to be seen. Its a genuinely touching moment and one which illuminates the fact that Bernzy IS the public eye, seeing the city and its people for who they really are.
I’m not sure that anybody other than Pesci could have pulled this part off. The role of Bernzy was tailor made for him and wonderfully shows that Pesci was indeed a versatile actor who wasn’t defined by trademark gestures and looks. The Oscar winner nails the character’s essence and recognizes the man he is playing in a way which makes The Public Eye more than just a star vehicle.
As a slightly less traditional femme fatale, Hershey gives one of the more realistic portrayals of a film noir leading lady by melding old school conventions with modern day acting sensibility. Meanwhile, great supporting character work from Stanley Tucci as a mob henchman, Jared Harris as a suspicious doorman, and Jerry Adler as high-profile writer only add to The Public Eye’s watchability factor.
The Public Eye was released during the great noir resurgence of the early ’90s when everyone from Kenneth Branagh to Goldie Hawn was churning out films full of intrigue and shadows (both of which are worth checking out, by the way). While most critics reviewed the film favorably, audiences weren’t especially interested in The Public Eye’s many throwback qualities, resulting in the film’s box office failure.
Today, The Public Eye is notable for the slight curio factor it possesses, which is mainly due to how it was able to showcase its leading man in a way no one had thought of before. Anyone who looks beyond the film’s poster, though, will discover a beautiful homage to ’40s cinema, a great character piece and a quality Zemeckis production.
