Written and directed by Alan Rudolph, 1978\u2019s Remember My Name<\/em> is a tantalizing, elliptical affair with about as many empty spaces as the house that Neil and his crew aren\u2019t exactly exhausting themselves to fill. We eventually put together that Emily has recently been released from prison after serving 12 years for a crime the movie is in no hurry to tell us about. She gets a job working the register at a local department store run by her old cellmate\u2019s son. Played by an impossibly young and spindly Jeff Goldblum, the marvelously named Mr. Nudd has a soft spot for his mom\u2019s charity cases. This is not a sentiment shared by shift supervisor Rita (Alfre Woodard), who has seen too many lost causes like Emily come and go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We can\u2019t be sure what exactly Emily is up to, or why she\u2019s flirting with her apartment building\u2019s super (Moses Gunn) and making weird requests for stuff like an extra security lock for the front door. She has a way of spitting out her words in sudden torrents. It seems as if she\u2019s been rehearsing them for some time \u2013 maybe even 12 years \u2013 and she\u2019s going to say them now whether you\u2019re listening or not. Chaplin is mesmerizing, exhibiting a ferocious single-mindedness amid sudden bursts of violence with which she seems to surprise even herself. Her stalking of Neil soon escalates to terrorizing his wife Barbara (played by Perkins\u2019 real-life spouse Berry Berenson) and it\u2019s more than halfway through the picture before we finally find out why. Sort of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s basically a running joke that every bit player in the movie is having a terrible day, with bartenders, store clerks and anyone else we encounter worn down to their very last nerve. People are constantly snapping at each other in ways Rudolph can\u2019t help but find unaccountably funny. The soundtrack is comprised entirely of old blues tunes sung by Alberta Hunter, who had recently made a return to the stage, well into her 80s. The songs unite all these sniping, disparate characters under the same downhearted cloud, their misery making beautiful music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It turns out Neil and Emily used to be married, way back before she wound up in the slammer. What a pair Chaplin and Perkins make together — they\u2019re all sinewy, awkward angles and antsy energy. It doesn\u2019t take too long for these two to get up to their old tricks, at which point Remember My Name<\/em> becomes an even more enticingly oblique experience. We learn everything about these two, and also nothing. Rudolph\u2019s screenplay feels like a Raymond Carver short story in how much it tells you by leaving almost everything out. (Altman\u2019s own 1993 Carver omnibus Short Cuts<\/em> owes more than a little of its atmosphere to Remember My Name<\/em>, especially the blues song soundtrack and the device of an earthquake that puts the characters\u2019 problems into puny perspective.) Remember My Name<\/em> attained a certain mystique among cinephiles over the years from never being released on VHS or DVD. The first time I saw it, I was fighting to stay awake during one of the film\u2019s rare appearances on late night cable, which made the ending\u2019s abrupt ellipses even more obscure. But on a second (daytime) viewing Rudolph\u2019s intentions are a bit clearer, with the wrought iron headboard of Emily\u2019s bed becoming another set of prison bars and Berenson\u2019s newfound cigarette habit representing the passing of a (nicotine) torch. One character finds freedom while the rest are left with playful visual evocations of how people can remain locked up in their pasts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Remember My Name” is streaming on Amazon Prime<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/remember2-1024x758.jpg\")
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Alan Rudolph started out as an assistant director to Robert Altman on The Long Goodbye<\/em>, California Split<\/em> and Nashville<\/em> before Altman began producing Rudolph\u2019s own directorial efforts with Welcome To L.A.<\/em> in 1976. There\u2019s a lot of obvious overlap in their regular ensembles and production crews, yet Rudolph\u2019s sensibility is significantly less spiky than that of his mentor, more indulgent of his characters\u2019 quirks and idiosyncrasies. For all its foreboding and mysterious motives, Remember My Name<\/em> somehow doesn\u2019t come off as a particularly unpleasant or mean-spirited movie. There\u2019s something almost wistful about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n