Vogel 21: Coming Apart and Broughton

Coming Apart (1969, Milton Moses Ginsberg) “Where would we get a duck? I don’t even have a dresser.” Pervert Month continues, as psychologist Rip Torn sets up a hidden camera to watch him have sex with all his neurotic patients, and anyone else who knocks on his door. Women who join Rip include Julie “daughter of John” Garfield (Ishtar)… Viveca Lindfors, the Swede in Run For Cover… and Sally Kirkland of Demme’s Crazy Mama. The online plot description say Rip induces his own mental breakdown, but it’s Sally who aims a gun at herself then trashes his office in slow-mo at the end. Rather than emphasizing breakdown, Amos Vogel tells the story as Rip’s “increasingly problematic sex life.” From Film as a Subversive Art: The End of Sexual Taboos: Erotic and Pornographic Cinema, Vogel goes on and on (usefully) about censorship laws. “One can only hope that eventually arousal of erotic feelings in the cinema will take the place of the aggression and violence predominant in films today,” sorry…