The Driver's Seat (DVD, 2006)

Ignore professional critics whose reviews of this film are so off point they nearly sent it into exile!

Elizabeth Taylor (became a Dame on December 31st, 1999) plays her top & most shocking portrayal of insanity as Lise (no sur-name). Utterly unleashing herself, during a decade when her MGM peers shyed away from, Taylor's gutsy as it gets acting this unseemly sort of character. Golden Era Hollywood, when Taylor was groomed to be picture-perfect, was over. Taylor's over it & moving on. As society changes, so too does Taylor's taste for parts. She goes all out for parts that transcend those meant for glitzy glamour gals (who couldn't act!). Coincidence that Taylor's professional self-confidence turns out in style on the day after she leaves Richard Burton before divorce #1, the day she walked into this set?

Titles for this film suffer from a similar psychosis as Taylor's Lise: it's gone by "Identikit" (originally) & "Psychotic." Perhaps it's called "The Driver's Seat" because Taylor surely found hers! There's a particular scene I have in mind: wearing a psychadelic dress, lavendar eyes extremely painted darkly around, daring an airport security guard for a frisk. Lise is absent of mental presence, present in physical absence & totally in control in character. Bill (Ian Bannan) as a nymphomaniac after Lise delivers a mischievious performance. Mrs. Fiedke (Mona Washbourne) enjoys empathizing enough with Lise to become close, even though Lise is on a mad quest for a man to . . .: The Woman of La Mancha (Italian style)?

As "Identikit" opens it's obviously bizarre. Lise appears as a psychotic (split from reality) with a driven force of obsession to land a specific ideal of ultimate lover: not for sex. What's she want him for, then? Lise's realities verge vacuously near & away from what feel like deadly cliff over-hangings. Credit artful, decadent cinematography for helping to develop surreal scenes that leave traces of sensation that objects are disconnected, shattered or disjointed: like a Picasso; distorted. Be prepared to see thru the lens, projections on a screen, images of Lise's choppy states of mind, skewed views of her realm, distortions of surroundings or not? Who can say? Like asking, "Define normal?" All answers depend upon who's defining. Welcome to Lise's definitions . . . after she creates a disruption at work.

Getting ready to fly to Rome, she's an employee who's been ordered to take time off. Flashback : Flashforward. Zoom in : Zoom out. Flying : Grounded. Terrorists : Police. Construct : Deconstruct. Scenes of a violence-ridden Rome. An unstable city. Where's that lusty, holy, happy-go-lucky city of Audrey Hepburn & Gregory Peck's "Roman[tic] Holiday"? In Lise's (sur)real Rome Piza itself is leaning off it's foundation.

Ready, set, try to put scenes together as if to make a story "line"? Dots won't connect to make the picture: inside experimental film artists of the early 1970's. Don't know what film genre is seen or felt? A scene seems avant garde as fluvial art. Another's as clinical as a documentary. No step-by-step linear trend of plot to plod along because it's going wherever Lise's mind does.

"Identikit's" history traces back to it's opening night in 1974 at Cannes Film Festival when the film stopped. Its audience sat silently stunned. Giuseppe Patroni Griffi's direction takes Muriel Spark's novel & makes an Italian cinema verite film of it~

[How'd you feel reading post-modernese? "Psychotic"?]