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The
Accused(1988) VHS
Three men commit a brutal gang rape in a crowded bar, but
because their victim has a reputation as a "party girl" the
district attorney (Kelly McGillis) can only pursue minor charges
against them. Jodie Foster earned an Academy Award for her
role as a woman denied justice in this gripping, fact-based
drama. 110 min.
The
Accused
was a fairly controversial film in its day (1988), dealing
head-on with the subject of rape. As with many controversial
films, this film received many accolades, including a Best
Actress Oscar for Jodie Foster as the attack victim. The production
has the air of a R-rated TV movie at times, but still delivers
the goods as an issue-oriented picture.
Foster
plays a woman who, at the film's start, runs screaming out
of a redneck bar. She has been raped in the arcade room by
three men, and, after going to the hospital for the routine
examination, is assigned a lawyer to deal with her case. The
trial of the rapists does not go as Foster hopes, as her lawyer
and those of the rapists make deals which whittle the crime
down to reckless endangerment, which means that they will
serve five years, tops. You see, one of those poor rapists
is a college man, and, of course, he can't let his future
go down the tubes because of, oh, some silly rape he just
decided to commit one day!
But
this is not the end of our story: the real story begins as
Foster is angered that her lawyer would dare compromise the
real crime of being gang-raped, and would dare play the typical
lawyer games without any consideration for how she feels about
the crime. She storms her lawyer's dinner party to express
that frustration, and after that feels forced to live her
life with the knowledge that she has been wronged. Her anger
finally explodes when she encounters the last person she wants
to meet - a man who apparently egged the rapists on during
that fateful evening. The scene brilliantly demonstrates the
psychological assault some so-called tough guys like to play,
as he first attempts to come across as a man foolish enough
to hit on a girl at the parking lot, and then attempting to
make her sound like a hypocrite for shying away from his advances
even as she apparently gives bar crowds live sex shows. This
man is one sick creep, and if Foster was able to finish the
job that she started by ramming her car into his truck with
him inside, I would have experienced one of the more justifiably
entertaining scenes of violence in cinematic history. But
it was not to be.
Actually,
we go back to the courtroom, as Foster's lawyer sees the error
of her ways, and agrees to take the taunting spectators to
court. Such tactics are unprecedented, creating intensity
and urgency. The defendants, of course, attempt shoot holes
all over this theory, first by claiming that Foster could
not have seen, in all the confusion, who taunted the rapists,
and later by saying that a spectator should not be punished.
But merely watching is not the issue, but that of taunting
the actual participants of the physical act of rape. If this
were a "regular" case of physical injury, there would most
likely be no question of where the criminal action lays. If
a person basically tells another to beat or murder someone,
then of course that person would be guilty of some sort of
crime. But because we are dealing with rape, the accused play
around with semantics and their own bloated ego, attempting
to lessen the crime by saying that perhaps she wanted it (so
someone would actually want to be gang-raped in public???)
or that even if she didn't, she shouldn't go after people
even if they contributed to an environment of oppression.
I doubt you'd hear much of this at a standard assault trial.
The
movie as a whole moves along at an entertainingly melodramatic
rate. The content and its presentation are straightforward,
and a bit TV-movie-ish, and it is fairly clear how the story
will turn out in the end. Most of the actors (including, as
a detective, former MuchMusic VJ and host of the late CBC
video program Good Rockin` Tonight Terry David Mulligan!!)
are adequate but not amazing. What saves this picture from
being too flat is Jodie Foster's performance. She really does
sound like the kind of person she is playing: the hard-luck
girl from the lower classes, not particularly educated, but
going on sheer emotion. She is a very angry person, for obvious
reasons, and feels cheated by the system's lack of concern
for what they seem to feel is just another statistic. Crossed
with her anger are her feelings of hopelessness and weakness,
apparent in her first major speaking scene, in which she speaks
as if every ounce of energy has been drained from her body.
Foster is unwilling to paint the character as a complete saint,
however, since the person is, after all, the kind of person
who willingly goes to scummy redneck bars, and talk
trash and other frivolous subjects to her friends. A very
telling moment is when the lawyer, an obviously very high-class
and tasteful woman, hears from Foster`s friend about the conversation
the two had before the rape. The lawyer becomes upset, no
doubt because Foster`s character's lack of upper-crust politeness
and social graces could become a liability. No doubt the lawyer
would find it so much easier if she were defending, say, one
of the girls from the WB`s 7th Heaven.
The
big question mark for some is apparently the infamous re-enactment
of the sequences leading up to, and including, the rape. A
number of sources, including the Leonard Maltin Video Guide,
and writings from other critics, take much offense, saying
that this scene is unnecessary, and too long. It is true that
this sequence is not for the faint of heart. We see everything
- all the nudity, agonising screams, forced intercourse, the
sadistically orgasmic reactions of the men who rape her, etc.,
etc. To be fair, I am actually very surprised that the film
got away untouched without getting an X rating slapped onto
it (it would have trouble not receiving an NC-17 now, as well),
considering that 9 ˝ Weeks, a vile, sanitized version
of the raping and humiliation of a female character, had to
be cut to get an R. The fact that The Accused survived
intact, however, may have been a blessing in disguise, since
this means that the movie is allowed to show to the audience
what rape really is like. It is not some short little
rinky-dink thing in which a woman just simply did not enjoy
herself, but is an assault, much like any other severe assault.
If you were drug into some enclosed space and beaten to a
pulp, of course it would be horrible, and to be violated in
other ways besides would even be more horrible. And to have
many people participate in your degradation is even worse
than that. And this scene rubs the viewer's face in it.
For
me, the only really big question mark would be the conduct
of Foster`s so-called friend, who actually dares to deny at
first that there was anything really horrible going on, and
then, when she is approached the second time, claims that
those guys cannot be messed with. Some friend she is! Sure,
many people are afraid of exposing themselves on the stand,
but for a supposed friend, another woman, at that, to just
pretend that her friend wasn't horribly raped is about as
low as a friend could go. I'd feel very betrayed myself, but
Foster does not seem to react much to her friend's behaviour.
But maybe that is just a point to be made; that women (at
least in the late eighties) were not confident enough to speak
out in a world where (as the end titles state) a rape occurs
every six minutes; where men feel like they have the right
to possess and attack women, while the women are supposed
to put up with it. But what this story means to say is that
it does not have to be this way; that it is not a woman's
place to have to put up with such assaults, or with the climate
which spawns them. The Accused is not a masterpiece,
but is a message film with a worthy message.
David
Macdonald
David
Macdonald's Movie Reviews
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