Altered States (1980)

Director: Ken Russell
Writers: Paddy Chayefsky (written for the screen by) (as Sidney Aaron), Paddy Chayefsky (novel)
Stars: William Hurt, Blair Brown, Bob Balaban

Altered States may no longer be widely known, but it makes a strong impression on its fans. The creators of the highly regarded TV series Fringe (now filming its fifth and likely final season) were so impressed that they borrowed major elements from the film: the use of sensory deprivation tanks combined with hallucinogens to unleash dormant mental powers; the belief that thought alone could open doors to other realities; and the actress Blair Brown portraying a brilliant woman hopelessly devoted to a possibly mad scientist who can never fully requite her love. But Fringe is only the most recent and sustained in a long line of homages, both serious and satirical, to Altered States. Once seen, it's a film that's hard to shake.

Not that its original creative team didn't try. The film's screenwriter, three-time Oscar winner Paddy Chayevsky (Network), who had adapted his one and only novel from a long career of writing for TV, film and theater, took his name off the project in protest at the final result; the film's screenwriter is now listed as "Sidney Aaron". Arguments with Chayevsky had already led to the exit of the film's first director, Arthur Penn (Bonnie and Clyde). The original studio, Columbia Pictures, dumped the project when the budget grew beyond initial projections. Warner Brothers picked up the film and proceeded with director Ken Russell, who would later claim he was the twenty-seventh choice and whose disputes with Chayevsky, along with reportedly bad behavior on the set, would damage his career for years to come.

In retrospect, there's tragic irony in the clash between Russell and Chayevsky, because they shared the same passion for overstatement, though in different registers, Chayevsky being more satirical, while Russell was more fantastical and bizarre. Unfortunately they also shared the same insistence on being in charge (or, at least, thinking they were; Russell would later claim that all of Chayevsky's previous directors were "malleable", but I doubt that anyone other than Sidney Lumet was in charge of Network). The two combatants needed an old-style producer from the heyday of the studio system to ride shotgun on both of them. Maybe then they could have done a better job reconciling the conflicting strands in Altered States than Russell was able to do by himself. Chayevsky had written a critique of the search for ultimate truth, but Russell, who had converted to Catholicism, understood the allure of such things—and also knew how to make that allure both creepy and fascinating, like all the best villains in horror s. Russell succeeded so well that at times Altered States verges on self-parody, and by the end he has no satisfactory resolution to the story; so he winds it up quickly and rolls the credits.

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