In Contention

Tag: Hector Babenco

  • ‘Kiss’ on DVD…at long last!

    Kiss of the Spider WomanSpeaking of the home market, Hector Babenco’s “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” one of the great films of the 1980s, finally arrived on my desk this week from the good folks at City Lights Entertainment. It has not been available on DVD until now. Kris previewed the release last month.

    Having not seen the film for more than 20 years, I anxiously popped it into my player and sat down to enjoy it once again with my wife. To my surprise, the film’s raw power is still there, the performances of William Hurt and Raul Julia have seemed to deepen over the years and the picture’s independent spirit remains intact.

    William Hurt was on the rise in Hollywood when he agreed to take the role after more than 14 months of the producers and director working with Burt Lancaster fell apart. Lancaster had very strong ideas about how he saw the film, and after a triple by-pass, the prducers went elsewhere for the part of Molina.

    Known as an intellectual actor, William Hurt would go on to win the Academy Award for his brilliant performance as a jailed homosexual who falls in love with his cellmate (a revolutionary portrayed with intense brilliance by Raul Julia). Shot on location in Brazil, the film had a gritty, honest look that attracted critics upon the poicture’s release in 1985.

    To the shock of even the producers it was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Hurt) and Best Adapted Screenplay. Strangely, and sadly, Julia was snubbed for a nod alongside Hurt. James Garner probably took the nod that might have been his for “Murphy’s Romance.” Hurt’s ultimate win was something of a surprise over the heavily favored Jack Nicholson (in “Prizzi’s Honor”), scoring a point for indy films in the 1980s.

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  • Did Hector Babenco really get his Hurts confused??

    William Hurt in Kiss of the Spider WomanI’m not too privy to the behind-the-scenes drama of Hector Babenco’s “Kiss of the Spider Woman.”  I haven’t even seen the film in close to a decade and it’s one of those that slips my memory more often than not, maybe because it hasn’t been available in any home medium for so long, but likely because I didn’t respond to the material originally.

    I couldn’t deny William Hurt’s affecting (and Oscar-winning) performance, however.  Ditto Raul Julia’s concentrated work.  Regardless, I’ve been meaning to give it another look ever since.

    Anyway, I was reading through Lou Lumenick’s recounting of the film’s rocky road to the screen (as detailed in the documentary “Tangled Web: Making ‘Kiss of the Spider Woman’”), and my head was spinning.  I never knew there was such turmoil going on off-camera.  But nothing could have prepared me for this bit:

    [Leonard] Schrader’s screenplay originally attracted the attention of Burt Lancaster, who wanted to play Luis, and consequently of the major Hollywood studios. But Lancaster left the project after Weisman refused to use a different script written by Lancaster himself — who had done his own costume test in drag.

    [Producer David] Weisman went with Hurt, then an up and coming leading man. Hurt clashed repeatedly with director [Hector] Babenco, who thought he was going to be working with the British actor John Hurt.

    W…T…F?  And there’s more.  I encourage you to give it a read if you weren’t already aware of all of this (something tells me I should have been).

    “Kiss of the Spider Woman” is finally getting a DVD release this month, by the way.  It hits the market as a two-disc collector’s edition and on Blu-ray (both of them apparently Amazon exclusives) on July 22.