Chelsea Walls By Rick Curnutte Richard A. Curnutte, Jr. is the Editor of The Film Journal. He has studied English and Film at Ohio University and The Ohio State University.

First-time director Ethan Hawke's DV film begins badly, stilted. Characters come and go, barely registering an impression on the viewer, making little if any impression. Sporadic music plays on the soundtrack, and dialogue is strewn about in a random, faux-Cassavetes manner. Chelsea Walls takes place in the famed Chelsea Hotel, stomping ground of some of history's most notorious poets, artists, stars. In Hawke's film, though, its denizens are yesterday's nobodies, a struggling singer/songwriter, an alcoholic writer, a timid painter, a beautiful wallflower who waits for calls from a boyfriend who seemingly can't stand her. It's all a bit contrived and precious, too much too early.

Then, somewhere around the 45-minute mark, Chelsea Walls into something quite different. As a young married couple struggle to keep it stable, poems are recited over the soundtrack, and the film segues into its rather remarkable final half, buoyed by the sturdy, moving performance by Kris Kristofferson as the drunk writer. He drifts from woman to woman, a new flame, an ex-wife, the wallflower, looking for something: not really affection, just recognition. But he seemingly can't escape his role as the womanizing lush, even as it's quite obvious that he seeks not to objectify, but to glorify, a love. When his editor comes the next morning to pick up his latest manuscript, he's hungover, depressed. The editor suggest he get help, that things will get better. In the bathroom, he sums up the whole film: "All the King's horses and all the King's men...couldn't put Humpty Dumpty back together again." The door closes.

I think Hawke's decision to use Kristofferson in this role was an important one. He has the aged, careworn face that suggests a lifetime of boozing and slumming. At one time he might have been a romantic. He might have loved someone as much as he hates himself. But he's too far gone, now, and he simply can't go back. This suits the rest of the cast and the film itself. He reigns over the hotel as a kind of reminder of what can happen if you throw it all away too early.

Now, this is not a message movie. It's a picture that is simply lived-in, full of snapshots of different types, not quite real, not quite imaginery, of artists and loners who want something, though few of them, if any, know what.

Hawke has a strong enough eye for framing a shot to make the DV footage striking and cinematic, if not awash in aesthetics. It's a solid effort from the actor, perhaps pointing toward another project in the future. I'm curious to see where he goes from here.

                                                                 © FILM JOURNAL 2002