Bone (1972).
Larry Cohen is a writer and director best known for his horror and sci-fi exploitation pictures - The Stuff, It’s Alive, God Told Me To, the Maniac Cop series, to name a few. And people familiar with the seedier side of 70’s films probably also know that he kind of began as a voice in the Blaxploitation community with Black Caesar and Hell Up in Harlem in 1973. But Cohen’s directorial debut is not as widely seen, a very dark surrealist comedy called Bone from 1972.
Bone starts with an older white couple, Bernadette and Bill, bickering in their backyard by the pool. They’ve got the biggest, most expensive house on the block. Bill dives into the pool and pops out, exclaiming that there’s a rat caught in the filter. Neither of them really want to deal with picking up a rat, but…not to worry, because Bone shows up (Yaphet Kotto). Bone grabs the rat and tosses it into the bushes, and then reveals that he’s not there as an exterminator, but rather to rob them.
He takes them into the house and demands money, and this is where the cracks in this upper class lifestyle start to show. There is no money in the house, and it turns out that Bill and Bernadette have less money than they have let on. Bill’s auto business isn’t doing the numbers it used to. As Bone tosses papers and files out in Bill’s office, we learn that he’s also involved in some shady business practices and has taken out a life insurance policy on Bernadette. Being held hostage, all they can do is bicker. The first indication that this is a wildly inappropriate dark comedy comes when Bone says something like, “Well, I was going to rape her, but it seems like you guys got enough going on.” After careful consideration, Bone decides he needs to leave with something…and with no money in the house, he sends Bill to the bank to draw out money. If he’s not back within an hour, he’s going to rape and kill Bernadette. This is where the film goes into places you didn’t think it would. As Bill gets to the bank, he’s about to take his money out, and decides against it. He strikes up a conversation with a woman in line to purchase new checks, and just hangs out with her for the afternoon. Over at the house, Bone decides to rape Bernadette and then decides against it at the last minute. Instead of being grateful, Bernadette is offended, and questions Bone as to why he won’t fuck her. The last third of the film is Bernadette and Bone going out to look for her husband to find out why he didn’t come back.
Littered in are surreal visions and flashbacks for all three people involved. When the film is over, you’ll wonder…was any of it real? At one point, some of the characters are on a crowded bus, and then the next minute, there’s no one there. Did Bone even exist?
Obviously the film is a big swing, a satirical mess that doesn’t quite nail what I think it’s going for, which is a condemnation of the fraudulent white lifestyle that often blames minorities for their issues. "it deals with problems we still face today in America. The film is revolutionary because it cuts to the heart of racial prejudice. And some of that is indeed sexual, where the white man has a fear of the black man’s sexuality. It’s a thorn in the side of the white community. They’re still afraid of black people. In many cities white people will cross the street when they see black people coming." But while the film didn’t 100% work for me, I will say that Yaphet Kotto was amazing as the titular character. Kotto is an actor you’ve seen before, probably in smaller roles. Alien, Brubaker, The Running Man, and Midnight Run are all memorable performances, but I don’t think I’d ever seen him lead a film. You’re never going to like Bone…in fact, you’ll probably despise all three people in here, but he’s really interesting playing this kind of apparition that seems to inhabit all of the fragile white fears going on at the time. All three actors were great, but Kotto stands out as the strongest link. Joyce Van Patten plays Bernadette in a really risky, shocking role. The scorned, bored housewife who eventually tries to seduce her captor. In a particularly uncomfortable scene, he explains how he can’t get it up without beating his victims, and she tries to arouse him anyway. Bill, played by Andrew Duggan, is quietly seething to the point that you never know when he’s going to explode. His visions give us a bit of insight into his macabre mind, giving you a sense that he only thinks about cars, about making money. The film starts with an ad for his car dealership, each car occupied by a dead, bloody body. Later on he envisions himself making love to a car. Eat your heart out, Titane.
If you’re interested in seeing Bone, it’s only ever been released on DVD. The DVD is pretty good, featuring a decent transfer, a commentary by Larry Cohen and frequent collaborator Bill Lustig, an interview with Jack Harris where he details the difficulty of distributing the film in 1972, and some 16mm black and white scenes from an initial attempt to film the picture with a different actress cast as Bernadette. You can pick that up used on Amazon for around $11, but if you don’t want to wait or don’t care about extras, there’s a pretty decent rip up on YouTube.
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