Under the Skin

ROBERT BENTON, the writer/director who won two Oscars for introducing to the screen a new, more realistic depiction of family life with Kramer vs. Kramer, has now done the same for the mystery thriller genre. In Still of the Night, Benton expands on the Hitchcock tradition of studying the human mind as the true key to how and why crimes occur. Benton emphasizes character, not gore, the murder that precipitates the action is less the focus of the film than a device for exploring the inner lives of the characters involved.

The story revolves around Dr. Sam Rice (Roy Scheider), a psychiatrist who becomes involved in a mysterious chain of events when one of his patients is found stabbed to death. Shortly after the murder, the victim's mistress comes to Rice's office, apparently curious about what her lover has told him. Brooke Reynolds (Meryl Streep) is a beautiful and very mysterious woman whose nervous desire for secrecy intrigues Rice, leading him to suspect her of complicity in the murder.

His questions are not answered till the last scene, but Benton is evidently more concerned with how Rice sees this mysterious new woman in his life than with the murder itself. Rice becomes obsessed with unraveling the secret of Brooke's personality, and thus the mystery of her lover's death. Throughout the film. Streep brilliantly conveys a vulnerable sensuality and exoticism that makes her character at once alluring and fearfully repellent. Her strikingly blonde hair and pale skin are continually set against a dark background, thus reinforcing her ominous and mysterious image. At times, she seems a lonely apparition in the darkness, a product of Rice's imagination and perhaps a key to his own confused psyche.

Rice is faced with the dilemma that confronts so many psychiatrists--an uncertainly about his work. He questions whether--with all his own personal problems--he is really qualified to solve those of his patients. Roy Scheider brings a rare credibility to his role, freeing his character from the stereotype of the movie psychiatrist. His Dr. Rice is not the self-assured Freudian father figure who sits comfortably back in his chair, doodling on a pad of paper. Instead, Scheider often seems just as unsure of himself as any patient. In one sequence, Rice steals Brooke's keys and sneaks through the auction house where she works, in an attempt to search her desk for evidence. Suddenly, he stops and says aloud. "This is dumb." The abruptness of the self-deprecating remark underscores his ambivalent feelings: While Dr. Rice the shrink recognizes an element of the ridiculous in his decision to play detective. Sam Rice the man is prey to an overpowering need to satisfy his curiosity.

THE CAMERA STALKS Scheider as he makes his way through the artifacts of the auction house--as if does throughout most of the film. But unlike in more conventional thrillers, this technique is not intended to identify the camera's eye with the murderer's. It represents instead Rice's own attempts to follow his instincts, to rediscover his identity. The sequence pulsates with a natural suspense not found in many film thrillers. The audience doesn't expect to see the killer burst through the door, as might happen in a more contrived film, but Rice's personal tension and psychological turbulence are far more riveting than such cloak-and-dagger suspense.

The audience can feel Rice's inner fears because they arise from his own personality, not from circumstances. Early in the film, as he searches through a darkened corridor--paranoically believing the killer is after him--it is clear he is actually exploring the channels of his own mind.

Benton's pacing accentuates this type of suspense. He makes frequent use of flashbacks, as Rice goes over his notes regarding his sessions with the murdered man. Rather than gimmicks to fill in gaps in the plot, however, these scenes are shown clearly as Rice's mental processes. In one scene, for example. Rice is distracted by a sound in an adjacent room. The flashback suddenly breaks off and the camera once again focuses on Rice in the present, wondering what the noise was. A moment later, he dismisses the sound and returns to his memory; the flashback continues precisely where it left off, with the patient in mid-sentence.

With the aid of Nester Almendros' evocative cinematography, Benton creates a highly ominous atmosphere which make Rice's fascination with Brooke all the more credible. Many scenes are filmed in obscure light, with large shadows looming in the background. The effect is claustrophobic; the characters seem almost swallowed up by their surroundings. In one scene, as Brooke confesses a secret from her past, her face is framed by absolute blackness, the only object in view, so that the audience is drawn to her as inexorably as Rice is.

The climactic scene, in which Rice finally unravels the mystery, is filmed in a haunting blue light. This is the obscure color of dreams, and in fact the murdered man's dream becomes the key to solving the crime; the psychiatrist succeeds where the police have failed. The discovery parallels the structure of the film, since character exploration, not a succession of shoot-outs or chase scenes, propel plot.

Still of the Night is an intellectual thriller; it excites the mind rather than the trigger finger. As such, this stylish and excellently acted film grabs the audience's attention with an intensity reminiscent of Hitchcock's finest, keeping its suspense at a peak from start to finish. The question asked in the film's newspaper ads--"Did she or didn't she?"--is misleading. Only her psychiatrist knows for sure.