Trouble in Mind [1985] Alan Rudolph

Trouble in Mind (1985)


http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090209/

Includes documentary Halves of a Dream and Alan Rudolph speaks with Mark Isham.

Trouble in Mind is a 1985 neo-noir film which follows an ex-cop just released from jail after serving time for a murder sentence as he returns to the mean streets of the fictional "Rain City".

The film was directed and written by Alan Rudolph, and stars Kris Kristofferson, Keith Carradine, Geneviève Bujold, and Lori Singer, with an out-of-drag appearance by Divine. The movie starts with the world-weary 1920s blues standard "Trouble in Mind" and ends with a song of love and reassurance, both performed by Marianne Faithfull. The opening line is "I wouldn't say no to a woman or a job".

Kris Kristofferson ... Hawk
Keith Carradine ... Coop
Lori Singer ... Georgia
Geneviève Bujold ... Wanda
Joe Morton ... Solo
Divine ... Hilly Blue
George Kirby ... Lieutenant Gunther
John Considine ... Nate Nathanson
Dirk Blocker ... Rambo
Albert Hall ... Leo
Gailard Sartain ... Fat Adolph
Robert Gould ... Mardy Stoog
Antonia Dauphin ... Sonja Nathanson
Billy Silva ... Elmo
Caitlin Ferguson ... Spike

The movie flips between reality and unreality in a variety of ways, with the time, language and setting unclear. The leading characters all display traits of the opposite of what they seem to be (the heroic ex-cop, for example, is also a convicted murderer; the protective mother abandons her child; criminals show themselves to be sensitive philosophers; the wayward husband loves his wife; the straight woman shows a dark past; etc.). There are déjà vus and some uncanny look-alike side characters turn up in separate times and places. The four main characters convene by ones and pairs, get involved with one another, are joined by others, and end up in a final and absurd overall showdown to separate again as in a symbolic act of fertilisation, leaving the dead (and/or the past) behind.

The music, performed by Marianne Faithfull, is arranged and accompanied by Mark Isham. Peter R. Tromp (now Peter Trump, author of Milk the Children and Poems and Portions) provided music as Divine