April 14, 2014

Characters We Love! Amy Blue

If you haven't watched Gregg Araki 1995 film The Doom Generation your missing out. Most importantly your missing out on one our favorite cinematic characters Amy Blue.

The Doom Generation stars Rose McGowan, James Duval, and Johnathon Schaech, as "Jordan White and Amy Blue, two troubled teens, (who) pick up an adolescent drifter, Xavier Red. Together, the threesome embark on a sex and violence-filled journey through an America of psychos and quickiemarts." (imdb)

"These characters are cultural ciphers of a fractured society, wounded souls who wander through a corrupt, alienated world in search of redemption." (Bright Light Film)

"Production designer Therese Deprez has created some astonishingly beautiful images that give the film the feeling of an hallucinogenic nightmare. Steeped in psychedelic shades of red, purple, green, and blue, The Doom Generation features a series of hyperstylized hotel rooms that the color-coded threesome Jordan White (James Duval), Amy Blue (Rose McGowan), and Xavier Red (Johnathon Schaech) occupy while on the run. Araki is an anarchic filmmaker in the tradition of Vigo and Pasolini, showing us areas of human behavior and transgression that test our limits as an audience. His characters explore their sexuality in a series of erotic scenes initiated by the mysterious character of Xavier Red, whose presence sets off the narrative a la Teorema." (Bright Light Film)

Amy is played by 90's film star Rose McGowan, who also had staring roles in Charmed, Scream and Jaw Breaker. Ms. McGowan was also the girlfriend of rock musician Marilyn Manson. Jordan Ladd was originally to be casted as Amy Blue but her mother, Cheryl Ladd decided that she didn't think it was a good role for her daughter at the last minute. This is why Arkai put Cheyl Ladd on the “no thanks” closing credit list as people who “had no faith” in his movie. Araki and Cheryl later kissed and made up becauseJordan Ladd appears in his follow-up film “Nowhere” 1997.

However , we're glad Rose McGowan was casted as Amy, no one could or will ever do it better. Amy is the definition of cool. Even film critic Roger Ebert couldn't deny her effortless coolness. "Rose McGowan steals the show as the foul mouthed, morally aimless femme fatale on crystal meth and Diet Coke."

Matthew L. Severson writer for Bright Lights Film Journal had the chance to interview Araki, Rose McGowan and James Duval the morning after the press release screening at the Castro Theater in 1995.

Young, Beautiful, and F***ed: The Doom Generation. 1995

Review and Interview with Director Gregg Araki and Actors Rose McGowan and James Duval

Matt: What has been your feeling about the general response the film's getting?
Gregg: Really good. It really needs an audience to respond and react to it, though. Did you see the film?
Matt: I've seen it twice, actually.
Rose: Did you see it last night?
Matt: I saw it last night and I saw it at the press screening here about two weeks ago.
Gregg: I hate press screenings.
Jimmy: It was probably better last night.
Matt: At first there were a lot of press people who walked out during the film — it was dead quiet — people seemed afraid to react to it. And yet the response was completely different last night. . .

Rose: It's just like when Xavier licks the come off his hand, everyone gasped in shock at the press screening but then when we show it to a regular audience everyone is clapping and screaming — it's like a roller-coaster rides
Jimmy: At the end of every screening they're always speechless — it defies people's expectations.
Matt: People are really expecting the film to go one way, riding at one level, and to end on this certain note . . .
Jimmy: And then it smashes them upside the head! Leave with this! It definitely leaves them with something to think about.
Matt: Totally F***ed Up is also an amazing film. Like The Doom Generation it seems to speak to this generation in a way I don't think has been captured on film before. Certainly not like most films that tend to deal with agendas and issues.
Rose: Like "After-School Specials."

Matt: It seems that your aesthetic and ideas are so relevant to today's youth culture. You've often been quoted as being greatly influenced by Godard, saying that Totally F***ed Up was your Masculine-Feminine. Would you say that The Doom Generation is your Weekend?

Gregg: That's what this French critic told me — "It's your Weekend!" When I madeTotally F***ed Up I consciously thought, "This is my Masculine-Feminine." The Doom Generation I never thought of in that way. I mean, they're obviously related, with the car, the couple, and the violence. Weekend is totally apocalyptic, and I guess my film shares its nihilism.

Matt: The Doom Generation makes inventive use of color and cinematography. InVariety, Emanuel Levy wrote "Stylistically, Araki may have been inspired by Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange or Peter Greenaways The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover." What do you make of this?

Gregg: I've seen those films, but they are not any huge influence. I've seen A Clockwork Orange, and I like it more than the Greenaway film — and, well, it's obvious where the writing comes from because of the red rooms, etc. But that's what happens when you make a film: you make it, and then people interpret it any way they want.

Matt: How do you feel the characters in this film represent today's youth?

Rose: I think it's completely appropriate. I've said this now numerous times already, but it's actually something that I would go see. And I can't say that I would go see Reality Bites. I don't think that I would go see those movies because they are all made by 45-year-old men in Hollywood, who are all thinking, "Oh, they'll get off on this, they'll think it's hip, slick, and cool!" Rather than a film made by somebody who's making a film about things they love, listening to music they love to listen to, using the language they like to hear. And obviously there's a lot of themes running throughout, but the majority of it is made for and by the mentality of the people that are going to see the film in some way. It's very different than a film made by somebody who's preaching at you, "Feel this now!" This film lets the person make up their own mind, and it's also a really cool crazy fuckin' movie.