Carny (1980)

Carny is a movie that seems to have fallen through the cracks somewhat. It’s a terrific movie but it’s easy to see why it’s so often overlooked. It’s an oddball movie and it that doesn’t fit neatly into a particular genre. Such movies don’t go down well in Hollywood, or with mainstream critics. Studios are left wondering how to promote such movies and too often solve the problem by not promoting them at all.

There’s some comedy, almost enough darkness to qualify it as film noir, there’s an unconventional love story, at times it flirts with both the crime and horror genres. And it’s a bit of an oddity in Jodie Foster’s filmography.

This movie seems to have been a labour of love for Robbie Robertson, better known as the guitarist and main songwriter of The Band. He produced the movie, he co-wrote the story, he plays one of the three lead roles and he contributed some of the music. He had been a carny in his younger days and that is undoubtedly one of the things that gives this film an air of authenticity.

Foster plays Donna, an 18-year-old waitress who goes to a travelling carnival with her boyfriend. She’s starting to realise the boyfriend is a jerk. She meets Frankie (Gary Busey). Frankie is more or less the carnival’s geek. He wears clown makeup and calls himself Bozo and sits in a cage insulting the patrons who throw baseballs at a target. If they hit the target Bozo gets dumped into a pool of water. The more Frankie/Bozo insults them the keener they are to pay their money to try to dunk him. He’s a weird guy but Donna takes a liking to him.

Donna dumps her boyfriend and sleeps with Frankie.

Frankie shares a caravan with his buddy Patch (Robbie Robertson). Patch is suspicious of Donna. She’s not a carny. He thinks it’s a bad idea for Frankie to get involved with her.

Various dramas disrupt the life of the carnival. The carnies are used to that. They’re used to having to deal with corrupt cops and city officials. They’re used to irate marks causing trouble. Donna’s arrival is another disruption, threatening the friendship between Frankie and Patch.

Donna tries to become a carny. She gets a job in the girlie show. That causes more dramas.

There isn’t really a strong central plotline. The focus is on the three lead characters. That puts a lot of pressure on the three leads but they’re than equal to the challenge.

I see this movie as playing a part in Jodie Foster’s career similar to that played by Sky West and Crooked in Hayley Mills’ career. In both cases you have successful child actresses starting to make the move into grown-up roles. This is really Foster’s first romantic leading lady role. Both movies are coming-of-age movies of a sort. Both deal with girls who are outsiders. Both deal with girls trying to cope with making the move into womanhood and finding the transition difficult. In both cases the result was superb performances by the actresses in question in very fine movies.

Donna is a nice girl but she’s a teenager and she’s a bit unpredictable, as all teenagers are. Foster makes her likeable and charming. One doesn’t normally think of Jodie Foster as a sex symbol but she has her moments in this movie.

Donna is an outsider who desperately wants to find her place in the world but she knows she’s never going to fit in to conventional society. She dislikes that world and has deliberately chosen to reject it. But she needs to fit in somewhere. She has to decide if the carny world is the world for her. She is also aware that she will have to prove her ability to be part of the world. The carny world is based on fierce in-group loyalty. In the scene that was undoubtedly responsible for the movie’s X rating she has to decide if she is capable of that absolute loyalty. She has to decide is she is prepared to whore herself out to a crooked local official in order to save the carnival.

Gary Busey goes over-the-top but that’s the right way to play his role.

Robbie Robertson strike the right note of cynicism, but while Patch is cynical he has a fundamentally decent side that he tries to hide. The carnival is Patch’s whole life. He is initially hostile to Donna because she’s not a carny. He doesn’t dislike her as a person. She’s just not a carny. If Donna can persuade Patch to accept her as a carny then everyone else will accept her but the sexual attraction between them complicates things.

What really makes the movie work is the three-way chemistry between Foster, Busey and Robertson. They work together beautifully.

This movie is an odd mix of romanticism and cynicism. The carny world is amoral and not overly honest but they are loyal. The movie doesn’t try to push the viewer into making a judgment on them. By the end of the story you will have to make up your own mind. It's also refreshingly free of moralising about sex.

There have been quite a few movies dealing with the outsider world of the carnival. I wouldn’t necessarily say Carny is the best of them but it is the one that feels most honest and authentic. And I think it offers the most complex look at that world. It is a bit episodic but this is a movie that is character and relationship-driven rather than plot-driven. And the characters and relationships are fascinating. The relationships cover the whole gamut of human relationships - friendship, group loyalty, love and sexual relationships.

Carny really is a movie that should get a lot more attention. I love this movie. Very highly recommended.