Operation Screenshot (Films Of The Seventies) David Cronenberg's RABID (1977)

 

 

 

 

My older posts on Rabid can be found here for those interested. 

 

Cinema's Great Faces: Marilyn Chambers in David Cronenberg's Rabid

Some films and performances just stick with you. I can still remember very clearly the first time I saw Marilyn Chambers in David Cronenberg's Rabid (1976). It was the mid-nineties, and I was in my early-twenties living in Lexington, Kentucky. It was a rainy afternoon and I had stopped off at a video store after some classes to take advantage of the three films for three dollars day. Cronenberg was already one of my favorite directors, but Rabid had alluded me as I had never been able to track down a copy. Luckily this store had one, and I remember it was in one of those big oversized clam-shell cases that were so popular in the early days of home video. For some reason that day has stuck with me. I can still see and hear the rain hitting against my windshield as I took a shortcut back to my apartment, and I remember there was a wonderful crisp chill in the air, even though it was in the late part of the spring.



Rabid really floored me in that first viewing. Something about Cronenberg's images and Chamber's face combined with the steady rain, which had turned into a downpour outside my apartment, went together incredibly well. I recall that I was enjoying the film so much that I was paranoid during the second half that my power would go out, as the rain turned into a thunderstorm outside, but thankfully it didn't and I was able to finish the film. After watching the film and being overcome by that feeling only a great horror film can give you, I stepped outside on my terrace to see the storm had broken and there was a lovely orange glow on the horizon, as the day gave way to night. It was a wonderful afternoon that will remain in my memories as long as I have them.



There will no doubt be a lot of snide remarks written and made about Marilyn Chambers in the upcoming days and weeks. That's to be expected from a culture that loves to judge and tear down its icons, and Marilyn Chambers was indeed for a period in the seventies one of America's great icons. She was a sweet-faced and all knowing personality whose mere presence seemed revolutionary, but America pushed it into glossy boxes in dimly lit back rooms that supposedly no respectable person ever visits but, like a lot in our culture, we know that's a lie.



I've always thought there was something fascinating about Marilyn Chambers. For many she will remain just infamous, but for me she's eternally captivating. Her work in Rabid alone will always remain special to me. It's the kind of wonderfully naive and fresh performances that a more 'accomplished' actor could never even hope to give. The fact that it should have led to more 'legitimate' work for Chambers is unquestionable but honestly, no matter which path she chose to travel in her life, Marilyn Chambers was always legitimate.



I am very saddened to hear of Marilyn Chambers passing, and feel especially bad for her daughter. I regret so much now that I missed an opportunity to meet Marilyn last year at the Cinema Wasteland convention. I would have told her how much I admired her work in Rabid, and how I considered it one of the great silent screen performances in the sound era. I've often wondered if she ever came across the piece I wrote on her in the film, as I know it is one of the more popular I have posted here. I'll never know, but I will continue to wonder.



Here is a tribute in stills to Marilyn's wonderfully expressive work in Rabid. I will also be posting further tributes throughout the week at my seventies blog, Harry Moseby Confidential (where ironically I added a template pic and wallpaper of Marilyn over the weekend), as Marilyn Chambers was the seventies personified.























Some nice tributes to Marilyn have been written by Susie Bright, James Hansen and Glenn Kenny.

Overlooked Classics: Marilyn Chambers in Rabid

For his second full length feature film, RABID (RAGE), Director David Cronenberg originally wanted to cast a young actress named Sissy Spacek for the lead role of Rose. His Canadian backers fought against Spacek as they wanted a 'name' actress that could fill the seats. They had no way of knowing that as Rabid went into production Spacek would become an overnight sensation with her powerful performance in De Palma's CARRIE.
The financiers of Rabid, including future director Ivan Reitman, made an admittedly odd and risky move and brought in adult film star Marilyn Chambers to play the pivotal lead role. Chambers, while known mostly for her work in The Mitchell Brothers' BEHIND THE GREEN DOOR, had worked in the early seventies Sean Cunningham-Wes Craven project TOGETHER but RABID would be her first large role in a mainstream production.
Chambers had started out her career with some modeling, including the mother on the famous Ivory Snow box, but her life was forever altered after being discovered at a Mitchell Brothers casting session at the age of 19.
Her work in BEHIND THE GREEN DOOR made her an instant underground sensation and forever solidified her as one of the three most famous adult stars of the seventies. Unlike most of her adult world peers though Chambers possessed a real charisma and charm in front of the camera and she had a real natural and fresh acting ability that Cronenberg was successfully able to tap into.
RABID is my favorite of the early David Cronenberg films and it is a textbook example of not just his early obsessions but also of how to make an independent, low budget film. Much of RABIDS strength comes not just from Cronenberg's remarkably smart direction and script but from Chambers, who gives an absolutely pitch perfect performance as the very doomed Rose.
Cronenberg was obviously aware that he was working with a relatively inexperienced actress so many of the film's finest moments come through moments of silence, rather than dialogue. The incredible opening shot is a good example with Rose standing silent as Cronenberg's camera pans around her. Chamber's has one of the great faces of the seventies and Cronenberg makes good use of it in the opening shot and with a particular screaming close up of her in the hospital a bit later.
Chamber's would say of Cronenberg on RABID'S 25th anniversary in a interview with Rue Morgue, "he really calmed me down and said 'less is a lot more'". It was a good piece of advise as the silent spots of Rabid make its more chilling and explosive moments all the more intense.
There are so many great moments in RABID that it is hard to single specifics out. One shot that sticks with me is Chambers walking through the cold Canadian city getting hungrier and looking for her next victim. She passes a poster of CARRIE, Cronenberg's sly wink to Spacek, and decides to go into an adult movie theater.
Rose is a remarkable character because she is so tragic, there is never a moment in the film where Cronenberg lets us forget that the killing and feeding she is doing isn't by choice but by need. Upon escaping from the hospital for the first time Rose attempts to feed from a cow and immediately gets ill. Chambers is great in this moment as she lightly pets the cow as if to say, "I'm sorry".
Everything about RABID, from the chilling library score to the final bleak closing shot, is perfect to me. VIDEODROME might be the ultimate expression and culmination of Cronenberg's art but you can literally watch him build his own mythology in his earliest films, specifically RABID.
After early doubts and some problems on the set with her boyfriend Cronenberg grew to respect Chambers and has said many good things about her and her work as Rose. He also expressed regret that she didn't have more success in later mainstream films. I share that regret.
Chambers would never again be given the opportunity to give a performance as good as Rabid. There would be more films, some straight...some adult...a brief singing career...personal problems...arrests and finally resolution as reports now have her at her happiest with a daughter and a much calmer life.
RABID isn't often mentioned among the best Cronenberg films but it is a real personal favorite to me. It's like watching one of the great masters beginning one of his most ambitious pieces, a piece that he has continued to build upon, refine and improve in his remarkable 30 plus year career. The film remains one of his most important works and Marilyn Chamber's performance in it is one of the finest ever given for him.