Basic Instinct (1992)
Country: US
Technical: col/scope 128m
Director: Paul Verhoeven
Cast: Michael Douglas, Sharon Stone, Jeanne Tripplehorn
Synopsis:
An unstable San Francisco cop develops an erotic obsession with the chief suspect in a murder case, and becomes the inspiration for her latest work of 'faction'.
Review:
This full-blooded pyscho thriller, the logical culmination of a subgenre that began with Jagged Edge, was an obvious vehicle for the director's lurid imagination and disregard for respectability, and also brought its screenwriter a coveted seven-figure salary. Behind Jan De Bont's impressive Vertigo-esque cinematography and Verhoeven's directorial panache lies an archly cynical and self-reflexive exercise in audience manipulation: we are asked to identify with a protagonist for whom hostility and lust seem inextricably linked in his relations with women, and whose capacity for discernment is constantly bested by the lure of sexual satisfaction. Hmm. 'Is this supposed to be ourselves and our relationship with the movie?' we ask.
Country: US
Technical: col/scope 128m
Director: Paul Verhoeven
Cast: Michael Douglas, Sharon Stone, Jeanne Tripplehorn
Synopsis:
An unstable San Francisco cop develops an erotic obsession with the chief suspect in a murder case, and becomes the inspiration for her latest work of 'faction'.
Review:
This full-blooded pyscho thriller, the logical culmination of a subgenre that began with Jagged Edge, was an obvious vehicle for the director's lurid imagination and disregard for respectability, and also brought its screenwriter a coveted seven-figure salary. Behind Jan De Bont's impressive Vertigo-esque cinematography and Verhoeven's directorial panache lies an archly cynical and self-reflexive exercise in audience manipulation: we are asked to identify with a protagonist for whom hostility and lust seem inextricably linked in his relations with women, and whose capacity for discernment is constantly bested by the lure of sexual satisfaction. Hmm. 'Is this supposed to be ourselves and our relationship with the movie?' we ask.
Country: US
Technical: col/scope 128m
Director: Paul Verhoeven
Cast: Michael Douglas, Sharon Stone, Jeanne Tripplehorn
Synopsis:
An unstable San Francisco cop develops an erotic obsession with the chief suspect in a murder case, and becomes the inspiration for her latest work of 'faction'.
Review:
This full-blooded pyscho thriller, the logical culmination of a subgenre that began with Jagged Edge, was an obvious vehicle for the director's lurid imagination and disregard for respectability, and also brought its screenwriter a coveted seven-figure salary. Behind Jan De Bont's impressive Vertigo-esque cinematography and Verhoeven's directorial panache lies an archly cynical and self-reflexive exercise in audience manipulation: we are asked to identify with a protagonist for whom hostility and lust seem inextricably linked in his relations with women, and whose capacity for discernment is constantly bested by the lure of sexual satisfaction. Hmm. 'Is this supposed to be ourselves and our relationship with the movie?' we ask.