Obscure movie - need title?!
Question: Ok, saw this years ago in college at a party and I didnt get a title. A group of primative people discover a house, move in and become sophisticated and evolved. Slowly they began to revert back to primative again and ended with then running back into the forest. Does anyone know the title of this one?
Answers: Ok, saw this years ago in college at a party and I didnt get a title. A group of primative people discover a house, move in and become sophisticated and evolved. Slowly they began to revert back to primative again and ended with then running back into the forest. Does anyone know the title of this one?
The Savages (1972)
starring Lewis J. Stadlen, Anne Francine, Thayer David, Susan Blakely, Salome Jens, Martin Kove, Kathleen Widdoes, Christopher Pennock, Sam Waterston
**SPOILERS**
IMDB synopsis:
A tribe of primitive "mudpeople" encounter a croquet ball, rolling through their forest. Following it, they find themselves on a vast, deserted Long Island estate. Entering, they begin to become civilized and assume the stereotypical roles and dress of people at a weekend party. There follows an allegory of upper-class behavior. At last, they begin to devolve toward their original status, and after a battle at croquet, they disappear into the woods.
IMDB review:
"Savages" opens in dazzling sepia-toned black-and-white. A tribe of primitive forest-dwellers called the 'Mud People' find a mystical round orb that's fallen from an alien world. (In other words, a croquet ball.) They trace its path to an elegantly dilapidated Colonial-style mansion. As they explore the house, the prehistoric intruders start to play dress-up. Soon enough, the screen shifts into colour. The 'savages' transform into the denizens of a grandly decadent 1920s house party.
Chief among them are a formidable Auntie Mame-style hostess (Anne Francine), a toothy and spirited debutante (Susan Blakely), an elegantly faded 'fallen woman' (Salome Jens) and an exotic, eyelash-fluttering vamp (legendary Andy Warhol icon Ultra Violet). As usual in a Merchant-Ivory film, the women's roles are stronger than the men's. But a young Sam Waterston is on hand, rehearsing his 'detached and disenchanted observer' role for "The Great Gatsby".
While that later film is little more than a parade of gorgeous costumes and opulent sets, Savages is considerably more. Ivory's eye for social nuance and period detail is as sharp here as in later masterworks like Quartet, Heat and Dust and A Room with a View. Yes, it may perhaps be possible to dismiss Ivory as a bland director~but only if you dismiss Jean Rhys, E.M. Forster or Henry James as bland authors. Or is it a crime to be a discreet and faithful adaptor of other people's work?
"Savages" is one of the rare films based on Ivory's own imagination. And what a perverse and mordant imagination it turns out to be! What little "civilisation" the "savages" acquire in the guise of Jazz Age socialites is, of course, a flimsy and feeble veneer. We can't be surprised when they revert to full-fledged barbarism. In fact, the honesty of that primal state comes as something of a relief.
"Savages" is impeccably acted, smoothly directed, wittily written, richly designed~and photographed with jaw-dropping splendor by Walter Lassally! It may be something of an aberration in the Merchant-Ivory canon. It is also, possibly, their best film.
sorry idk but it sounds like a really cool movie