20 - The Future of Allusion: Hollywood in the Seventies (and Beyond)

Summary

One rootless man, driven by an illicit passion for another man's wife; a murderous bargain with the siren; fateful destruction. It's an old story. Or, to be more exact, it's an old movie – shades of The Postman Always Rings Twice ('46) and Double Indemnity ('44). And yet, of course, it is also a new movie – Body Heat ('81), directed by Lawrence Kasdan, coauthor of such other historical pastiches as The Empire Strikes Back ('80) and Raiders of the Lost Ark('81). Nor does Body Heat merely rework an old plot. It tries to evoke the old films, films of the forties, that the plot was a part of. Body Heat's costumes are contemporary, but of a nostalgic variety that lets us – no, asks us – to see the film as a shifting figure, shifting between past and present. The lighting extensively apes the film noir style of the forties, thereby enhancing its mood of pessimism-cum-destiny by citing the approved cinematic iconography for fear, lust, and loathing. We understand Body Heat's plot complications because we know its sources – in fact, because, through its heavy-handed allusions, we've been told its sources.Without this knowledge, without these references, would Body Heat make much sense? Even its eroticism requires our explicit association of the female lead with certain movie myths – for example, the woman-as-devil/temptress archetype – in order to be really forceful.