Many of the shots that open American Gigolo are angled far above high-price escort Julian Kay (Richard Gere) as he goes about his date. The bird’s-eye view on him captures the materialistic glamor in which he walks—designer clothes, a Mercedes convertible—while also placing it at enough of a distance to remove any identification or pleasure on our part. All at once, Julian is defined both as a man who delights in consumer culture while being a product himself, a person who’s constantly using himself as a model for the very things he buys.
Writer-director Paul Schrader routinely emphasizes this detachment in further sketching out the details of Julian’s life and demeanor. The man lives in a spacious apartment with modern decor, but the ample negative space of the flat stresses how it feels less like a home and more like a showroom for a lifestyle. Several paintings sit propped up in a corner awaiting framing and hanging, and it’s obvious Julian will never think about any of them as more than conversation pieces. Everything he owns is part of a larger costume designed to grant him entry into the high society whose women he services.
The emptiness of Julian’s life is also evident in his attitude toward his work and the corresponding lack of passion he feels in any relationship. He knows exactly what looks and phrases to employ to service his clients, or simply to attract women out in public, but he does so on autopilot. While he feels a jolt of pleasure at inducing desire in others, he does so with a hint of boredom, like a gamer using cheat codes and being left with no fulfillment upon succeeding.
Soon, Julian finds out just how meaningless his gestures at extravagance really are when it comes to buying him a slot among the rich. When one of his clients is murdered and cops finger him as the prime suspect, Julian quickly finds that all of the women who can provide alibis for the night of the crime won’t tarnish their reputation in order to help him clear his name. In short order, his carefully manicured image collapses, leaving an unshaven and disheveled man stumbling into fancy restaurants begging patrons for help, and to the open distress of maître d’s.
One of the women who cannot sully her name on Julian’s behalf is Michelle Stratton (Lauren Hutton), the wife of a California senator. Still, she does begin to feel a deeper connection to Julian, and the possibility of real romance offers a redemptive moral counterweight to his slow descent into paranoia and loneliness. Though smitten by Julian’s looks, Michelle is clear-headed enough to challenge the barriers he erects around his own feelings. “I love to be with you,” she says at one point. “I love it when you kiss me and you touch me. But when you make love you go to work.” The film’s second half is as much about Julian opening himself to a meaningful connection with Michelle as it is about the man discovering who framed him for the murder.
Situated at the transition point between the hedonistic Me Decade and the codified greed-is-good Reagan era, American Gigolo might be called the first film of the 1980s for the way in which its aesthetics seemed to anticipate everything from glossy interior designs to early MTV camera moves to sleek Miami Vice suits. Giorgio Armani, who at the time had a small footprint in the States, was one of several of the film’s crucial collaborators. Others included production designer Ferdinando Scarfiotti (who had worked with Bernardo Bertolucci on The Conformist and Luchino Visconti on Death in Venice) and disco-synth wizard Giorgio Morodor.
These contributors bring a shared aesthetic of icy European cool to American Gigolo that allows it to differentiate itself from the scuzzily immediate films associated with the New Hollywood movement. Even as Schrader revels in opulence, though, he stresses the moral turpitude beneath its surface, and American Gigolo’s finale introduces a Bressonian moment of grace that he’s repeatedly explored and recontextualized over his subsequent work.
Image/Sound
Arrow’s UHD presentation of its 4K restoration maximizes the smooth textures and tasteful off-white colors of Julian’s clean but bland personal aesthetic. The transfer stresses the cooler color grading of slightly blue interior and exterior shots, a faint tone that deepens the sense of the film being all glass surfaces. Black levels are deep and free of crush, and generally the image looks more naturally lit compared to the slightly boosted brightness of the 2014 Warner Blu-ray.
The disc comes with mono, stereo, and 5.1 soundtracks, and all do a great job of balancing dialogue and Foley effects among the throbbing strains of Giorgio Moroder’s score. But the 5.1 mix does betray a few instances of over-separated elements, especially in a pool scene where every off-screen splash sounds completely canned and inorganic.
Extras
Arrow’s release is loaded with a host of newly commissioned features, starting with a commentary by critic Adrian Martin, who adroitly mixes academic analysis and more playful observations. Elsewhere are interviews with various members of the crew, including writer-director Paul Schrader, actors Héctor Elizondo and Bill Duke, editor Richard Halsey, and camera operator King Baggot. Each subject offers a unique perspective on the production, from Schrader’s more thematically inclined talk to the crew’s technical breakdowns. There are also interviews with admirers such as DJ and music supervisor Dan Wilcox, who discusses Moroder’s career and seismic influence on film and popular music, and media professor Jennifer Clark, who situates Giorgio Armani’s costuming in the context of ’80s fashion trends.
An accompanying booklet contains a new essay by film professor Neil Sinyard as well as an archival review of the film by critic Bill Nichols. Both analyze American Gigolo through the prism of Schrader’s careers as both a filmmaker and critic.
Overall
Paul Schrader’s Bressonian anti-erotic thriller looks gorgeous on Arrow Video’s 4K UHD release, which comes with a host of rewarding extras.
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