Remember My Name
| Remember My Name | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Directed by | Alan Rudolph |
| Produced by | Robert Altman |
| Written by | Alan Rudolph |
| Starring |
Anthony Perkins Geraldine Chaplin Moses Gunn Berry Berenson Jeff Goldblum Dennis Franz |
| Music by | Alberta Hunter |
| Cinematography | Tak Fujimoto |
| Edited by | William A. Sawyer Tom Walls |
| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
|
Release date
|
February 1978 |
|
Running time
|
94 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Remember My Name is a 1978 American thriller film, written and directed by Alan Rudolph and produced by Robert Altman. Geraldine Chaplin stars as a deranged woman, determined to get back her husband, Anthony Perkins.
Rudolph explained what he wanted to achieve: "an update of the classic woman's melodramas of the Bette Davis, Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Crawford era". It had a successful run in Paris before opening in New York City.
Neil Curry (Perkins) is living a happy life with his second wife Barbara (Berenson) in California after abandoning his first wife, Emily (Chaplin), in New York. Their life of domestic bliss is interrupted when Emily comes back from prison, where she served a 12-year sentence for murdering Neil's former lover. She arrives in California to wreak havoc and also to claim back Neil.
The San Francisco Chronicle gave the film 4 out of 5 stars. They praised Perkins and described Chaplin's performance as "extraordinary", and that she "adopts a unique speech pattern as Emily. She says everything as though she's rehearsed it and now is blurting it out in what she hopes will be accepted as a reasonable replica of casual speech. Emily's manner only loses its furtive, dodging quality when she feels in control or when she flies into a rage." The review also praises how Rudolph "embellishes his film with sardonic humour", and the "comically macabre touch" of TV news in the background of disasters such as an earthquake that killed 1 million in Budapest.
The Washington Post described it as a "neurotic film noir" that is also a "gripping tale of sexual frustration". The reviewer was also impressed with Chaplin's performance; "Chaplin is spooky, spookier even than Perkins, in this complex performance as a woman who's painfully adjusting to freedom."Jack Kroll of Newsweek praised Rudolph's direction; "he has a real eye for the visual paradox, the elegant and even beautiful form in which this savagery sometimes works." The review praised Perkins as a "specialist at playing the 'nice guy' whose smile and sweat suggest something not so nice underneath". Kroll also heaped praise on Chaplin as her performance "creates something new in the modern pantheon of weirdos. She is chilling in her ability to be both guilty and innocent, victim and predator, catatonic and driven by feelings so deep they draw blood".
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