American Gigolo (1980)
(In French, On TV, February 2020) What I find interesting about American Gigolo is not only the multiple layers of interpretation that critics have assigned to the film over the years, but that I can almost see what they’re talking about. While it can be summarized in a deceptively simple fashion (a character study of a good-looking but an emotionally stunted man earning his living as a gigolo and framed for murder), you can read a lot into the depths of the film. Maybe it’s about sexual anxiety; maybe it’s about repressed homosexuality; maybe it’s about American capitalism reducing all relationships to a transaction; maybe it’s about the harsh reckoning of the post-hedonistic 1970s; maybe it’s about the loneliness of people without strong social ties; maybe it’s about Southern Californian post-scarcity malaise. Writer-director Paul Schrader has often been a leading obfuscator of his own work, encouraging various profound interpretations facilitated by scripts that leave a lot unstated. Since American Gigolo doesn’t move particularly quickly nor has a lot of moment-to-moment fun to offer, critics are free to let their thoughts wander trying to make sense of it all. Or, maybe, it’s just what it feels like: a dour, self-flagellating, sad meditation with a bit of pulp melodrama to make it all more interesting than just a superficial look at a man having sex with rich women and living a high-end lifestyle. Richard Gere became a superstar on the strength of his full-frontal performance here, so that’s one meaningful legacy for the film. So: jot down American Gigolo as being rich in alternate meanings for your next contentious movie podcast—you can see a whole lot of different things in it, and who’s to say that you’re wrong?