The other Gotham

Periodically people will ask about favorite or best or most underrated horror movies. I always say Gotham, 1988, starring Tommy Lee Jones and Virginia Madsen, written and directed by Lloyd Fonvielle.

Part of the problem is that I am not a huge horror fan. I don't seek it out, and what I do see is probably not something I like that much, so I don't really have other answers to give.

That could be an excellent reason not to respond, and leave the discussion to the people who know what they are talking about, but I still feel compelled to give my vote, because I love Gotham so much.

Not that many people know about the movie in the first place, so it truly is overlooked. It might not count as a horror film; though there is a supernatural element. Despite only seeing it once, on late night television, it has stayed with me. A ghost story should be haunting.

When the question gets asked, and I give my unimpressive answer, I will often go check out the IMDB page, and see what other people have said. There are some who love it, and got what I got, or wonder over things that I didn't, but at least they are thinking about it. One poster wrote at length on how it's all about the Jungian constructs, but he didn't have enough room to really get into it.

There are also posters who completely miss the point, and that just makes me want to talk about it more. Well, if you don't use it to expound on things that no one is interested in listening to you go on and on about, what's the point in even having a blog?

Spoilers will follow.

Tommy Lee Jones is a down-on-his-luck private eye. He is named "Eddie Mallard", which is exactly right, but I will stick to actor names for the most part. The movie is full of characters who we recognize from classic gumshoe films, but the movie is not set in the past; it's just about the past.

Colin Bruce hires Jones to get his ex-wife to quit bothering him. The tricky part is that the "ex" is through expiration, not divorce. Bruce points out Virginia Madsen, young and beautiful and tangible. Jones assumes Bruce is delusional, but that makes the job easy money; he can get paid to chat up a beautiful woman who obviously can't be the dead wife. She is the dead wife.

It takes Jones a while to believe it. The coroner photos strike the first serious blow. He may have been suspecting a con up to that point, but not this.

Jones' reaction in the scene is visceral, but there's a little detail I like in there. The photos are found by his friend Tim, played by Kevin Jarre. Every PI should have friends who are good at getting information, and Jones is no exception. He was going to pay Tim for the help, but Tim at that point says he doesn't want pay. He's Irish and superstitious and there is something bad here.

Superstition seems very reasonable at that point. You are in a modern city where no one is supposed to believe in ghosts, but the doorman knows that sleeping with a ghost is bad for your health, and the priest Jones visits later takes him seriously too.

There are little details that I could think about forever. Jones is told that the dead don't lie, but the priest tells him that the dead always lie. Both seem plausible. Both seem true.

Jones starts going downhill fast. Even though she is destroying him, you can still feel pity for Madsen. A trophy wife for Bruce, she drowned during a boat party (I wonder if Natalie Wood's death was an influence). You can question whether the other guests were as callous as she remembers, but the raw pain that she felt when she was dying and no one cared is real.

Her one request was that she be buried naked in her jewels. She haunts her husband because he took the jewels back.

If this was Sam Spade, Tim would probably end up dead, and Jones would end up sadder, wiser, and alone, though Debbie, the former girlfriend who was getting involved with Tim would still be around. This is where things get different.

Jones gives Madsen a choice: she can have the jewels or she can let them go and he will follow her anywhere, including death. She wants the jewels more.

And it was a false choice. They have been placed on a chalice in the church, blessed and protected on holy ground, because there have been some bad forces at work around them. The last we see of Madsen is her telling Bruce that he still owes her the jewels. The increased difficulty in getting them is his problem.

The grasping desires that led her into a loveless marriage and pitiless friends will not let her rest. We saw better sentiments in her more than once, but she ultimately turned them down.

He will remain haunted, and you feel the dread in that, but he could have stopped it at any point by just giving up the jewels when he still had them. He doesn't want to be haunted, but he still cared about the jewels more.

Jones is free. Maybe the jewels are cursed, but not for him. He can let go.

Jones goes away with Tim and Debbie. Symbolically they head off for tropical sunshine, leaving the gloom of Gotham behind. Their flaws were not fatal. It was a film noir, but they escaped it.

It's not a jubilant happy ending. Even the ending music, if I recall correctly, had a subdued and eerie tone while it played over pictures of the three in paradise. I was in a dark family room with the volume low so I wouldn't disturb anyone, so it could be that. Maybe it couldn't be too jubilant because you see that not everyone does make it. Some people would rather stay bound by hate.

But for the darkness that out there, and for the things that could have happened, the resolution was pretty good. You can choose friendship. You can be helped.

That's what has stayed with me about Gotham. That's what I keep wanting other people to have seen.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095246/combined