The Stunt Man

Cameron is running from the police. On a bridge he causes a car to go into the water and the man inside is killed. The dead man was a stuntman on a film set. Eli Cross, the director, sees what happened and makes Cameron an offer: he will not hand him over, and in return Cameron will take the dead man's place. Cameron accepts. After that nothing is clear: is the director protecting him, using him, or trying to kill him. Richard Rush directs. Peter O'Toole plays Eli Cross and Steve Railsback plays Cameron. The idea is not being able to tell what is real. Every scene on the set is a game and a danger at once, and like Cameron the audience cannot separate the shooting from the thing itself. O'Toole's director is built as a god figure: he descends and rises on a crane, sees everything, and never says what he actually thinks. The part brought him an Oscar nomination. The production had a hard history of its own. The finished film could not find a distributor for years and only drew attention after a limited release. Richard Rush was nominated for the Oscar for direction and the screenplay for adaptation. The tone changes constantly, moving between comedy, thriller and romance, and the imbalance is deliberate. Who it is for: viewers who like cinema about cinema and late seventies American film. Who it is not for: the narrative is confusing on purpose, it runs long, and the unstable tone is tiring for some.