Anamorph (film)
Encyclopedia
Anamorph is an independent
psychological thriller
film
directed
by Henry S. Miller and starring Willem Dafoe
. Dafoe plays a seasoned detective
named Stan Aubray, who notices that a case he has been assigned to bears a striking similarity to a previous case of his. The film is based on the concept of anamorphosis
, a painting technique that manipulates the laws of perspective
to create two competing images on a single canvas.
Dafoe turned down the role initially but reconsidered after a chance meeting with producer Marissa McMahon on a flight from Los Angeles. The film also has cameo appearance
s by Mick Foley
and Debbie Harry
.
The film had its world premiere at the 2007 Milwaukee International Film Festival in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where star Willem Dafoe started out in theater. It was also shown at the Williamstown Film Festival in November the same year. The film opened in New York City
on April 18, 2008 and in Los Angeles
on May 2, 2008.
), is a seasoned, semi-retired detective with significant obsessive-compulsive disorder and struggling alcoholism
. Resigned to a teaching position for forensic psychology
, he is called back to active duty following a murder
involving a man murdered in a high-rise apartment building. Suspended, and surrounded by photography lights, the room is sealed off except for a pinhole
, creating a projected camera obscura
effect on the apartment wall. This murder, involving significant staged artistic effect, bears many similarities to the Uncle Eddie murders, a series of similarly "artistic" killings, for which Stan was promoted following the prime suspect's death in an attempted arrest. Stan relates some of his difficulties to Sandy, a recovering alcoholic and former prostitute who is a friend of Stan and Crystal, the final prostitute victim of Uncle Eddie, and Stan's apparent former lover. Sandy invites Stan on a hiking trip with a group of friends, which Stan declines.
A second killing quickly follows the first, in which the butchered corpse's limbs are hung independently from wires, creating the image of a raven
when viewed from the proper angle
. Stan begins drinking heavily, even filling his coffee cup with vodka
in the middle of work. He also begins to have friction with Detective Carl (Scott Speedman
), a recently promoted detective who is resentful of being left behind by Stan. Following this, Stan returns home to find his apartment has been broken into, the thief stealing an antique Victorian
chair and replacing it with a taping of his inquiry following Crystal and Uncle Eddie's deaths. Stan also notices a painting identical to the camera obscura projection in an antiques store, also painted with identical pigments to the Uncle Eddie killings.
Stan visits Detective Jorge "George" Ruiz, his former partner until the Uncle Eddie murders. After reminiscing briefly, Stan doesn't inform Ruiz of the copycat killings, and departs. Partway home he realizes he is being followed, and chases his stalker, who escapes. The following morning, Stan is informed Ruiz has been found murdered, his abdomen opened and his innards removed, forming an inkwell of blood, including a pantograph
machine and a half-finished canvas. Using his former partner's blood, Stan paints the other half of the painting, forming the image of a screaming face. The other officers begin to suspect Stan. Attempting to replace his chair, Stan consults with Blair Collet, an antiques dealer who finds antique chairs for Stan, and likens Stan to the killer's patron, as he bought the painting from the antiques store, or his obsession, similar to Francis Bacon's obsession with Pope Innocent
. Blair then takes Stan to an art gallery which is filled with model depictions of the recent murders, including Stan's stolen chair. The curator informs them that the artist is Gerri Harden. Searching the art pieces, Stan finds a clay model of the raven, with hundreds of fingerprints still present on the clay. This leads them to a warehouse with a dummy model wearing a Gerri Harden name badge, and several paintings, when Stan realizes the name is an anagram from 'a red herring'. During this time, he receives a photograph of Sandy and her friends from the hiking trip.
The next day, Stan receives a call from the killer, who repeatedly tells him "a poison harms" (An anagram for anamorphosis
, the artistic technique he is using), and tells Stan to come see his next show, which is another empty warehouse containing diagrams of the final Uncle Eddie murders, including Crystal's, which, when viewed from high above, had the appearance of a body on a rock by a beach shore. Stan, at home, receives a call from Sandy with another invitation, when he realizes that the man who had been stalking him is in the picture. He fails to reach Sandy, and tries her AA group, when he learns her sponsor, the man in the picture, drove her away. Sandy is receiving a tattoo of angel's wings, provided by the killer. She blithely remarks that he might be too high to finish, and comments that she's never seen him high, and he responds that he'd never put that poison in his veins. Sandy begins to struggle, first for a chance to look at the tattoo, and then for a break, and the killer slits her throat. Stan appears at the studio, without having called in for backup. He sees Sandy slumped over as the killer walks past her. Stan follows the killer, wounding him in the shoulder before being stabbed. The killer drags him to the podium and the chair that they'd found the dummy in and props Stan in place. Stan, noticing the tattoo with an eye stenciled beneath it, places his head on Sandy's back, revealing that, when viewed in conjunction with the warehouse floor, spells out the word 'DEAD', a hallmark of the Uncle Eddie murders.
During this, Detective Carl, at his desk, notices a reflection in the first murder photo off his coffee cup, of the raven in the second murder. Searching the raven, he finds the face from the third killing, and in the third killing painting, finds an image of the studio they'd searched. The killer shoots Stan, just before Carl appears and guns down the killer. Stan, struggling for breath, leans back, and dies.
reported that 26% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 19 reviews. Metacritic
reported the film had an average score of 48 out of 100.
Independent film
An independent film, or indie film, is a professional film production resulting in a feature film that is produced mostly or completely outside of the major film studio system. In addition to being produced and distributed by independent entertainment companies, independent films are also produced...
psychological thriller
Psychological thriller
Psychological thriller is a specific sub-genre of the broad ranged thriller with heavy focus on characters. However, it often incorporates elements from the mystery and drama genre, along with the typical traits of the thriller genre...
film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
directed
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
by Henry S. Miller and starring Willem Dafoe
Willem Dafoe
Willem Dafoe is an American film, stage, and voice actor, and a founding member of the experimental theatre company The Wooster Group...
. Dafoe plays a seasoned detective
Detective
A detective is an investigator, either a member of a police agency or a private person. The latter may be known as private investigators or "private eyes"...
named Stan Aubray, who notices that a case he has been assigned to bears a striking similarity to a previous case of his. The film is based on the concept of anamorphosis
Anamorphosis
Anamorphosis or anamorphism may refer to any of the following:*Anamorphosis, in art, the representation of an object as seen, for instance, altered by reflection in a mirror...
, a painting technique that manipulates the laws of perspective
Perspective (visual)
Perspective, in context of vision and visual perception, is the way in which objects appear to the eye based on their spatial attributes; or their dimensions and the position of the eye relative to the objects...
to create two competing images on a single canvas.
Dafoe turned down the role initially but reconsidered after a chance meeting with producer Marissa McMahon on a flight from Los Angeles. The film also has cameo appearance
Cameo appearance
A cameo role or cameo appearance is a brief appearance of a known person in a work of the performing arts, such as plays, films, video games and television...
s by Mick Foley
Mick Foley
Michael Francis "Mick" Foley, Sr. is an American semi-retired professional wrestler, author, comedian, actor, voice actor and former color commentator. He has worked for many wrestling promotions, including WWE, WCW, ECW and TNA. He is often referred to as "The Hardcore Legend", a nickname he...
and Debbie Harry
Debbie Harry
Deborah Ann "Debbie" Harry is an American singer-songwriter and actress, best known for being the lead singer of the punk rock and new wave band Blondie. She has also had success as a solo artist, and in the mid-1990s she performed and recorded as part of The Jazz Passengers...
.
The film had its world premiere at the 2007 Milwaukee International Film Festival in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where star Willem Dafoe started out in theater. It was also shown at the Williamstown Film Festival in November the same year. The film opened in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
on April 18, 2008 and in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
on May 2, 2008.
Plot
Stan Aubray (Willem DafoeWillem Dafoe
Willem Dafoe is an American film, stage, and voice actor, and a founding member of the experimental theatre company The Wooster Group...
), is a seasoned, semi-retired detective with significant obsessive-compulsive disorder and struggling alcoholism
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
. Resigned to a teaching position for forensic psychology
Forensic psychology
Forensic psychology is the intersection between psychology and the criminal justice system. It involves understanding criminal law in the relevant jurisdictions in order to be able to interact appropriately with judges, attorneys and other legal professionals...
, he is called back to active duty following a murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
involving a man murdered in a high-rise apartment building. Suspended, and surrounded by photography lights, the room is sealed off except for a pinhole
Pinhole
Pinhole may refer to:* Pinhole , a rock band from Liverpool, England, later to become The Dead 60s* Pinhole , a song by Japanese rock band Ogre You Asshole* Pinhole camera, a camera that uses a pinhole to form an image instead of a lens...
, creating a projected camera obscura
Camera obscura
The camera obscura is an optical device that projects an image of its surroundings on a screen. It is used in drawing and for entertainment, and was one of the inventions that led to photography. The device consists of a box or room with a hole in one side...
effect on the apartment wall. This murder, involving significant staged artistic effect, bears many similarities to the Uncle Eddie murders, a series of similarly "artistic" killings, for which Stan was promoted following the prime suspect's death in an attempted arrest. Stan relates some of his difficulties to Sandy, a recovering alcoholic and former prostitute who is a friend of Stan and Crystal, the final prostitute victim of Uncle Eddie, and Stan's apparent former lover. Sandy invites Stan on a hiking trip with a group of friends, which Stan declines.
A second killing quickly follows the first, in which the butchered corpse's limbs are hung independently from wires, creating the image of a raven
Raven
Raven is the common name given to several larger-bodied members of the genus Corvus—but in Europe and North America the Common Raven is normally implied...
when viewed from the proper angle
Angle
In geometry, an angle is the figure formed by two rays sharing a common endpoint, called the vertex of the angle.Angles are usually presumed to be in a Euclidean plane with the circle taken for standard with regard to direction. In fact, an angle is frequently viewed as a measure of an circular arc...
. Stan begins drinking heavily, even filling his coffee cup with vodka
Vodka
Vodka , is a distilled beverage. It is composed primarily of water and ethanol with traces of impurities and flavorings. Vodka is made by the distillation of fermented substances such as grains, potatoes, or sometimes fruits....
in the middle of work. He also begins to have friction with Detective Carl (Scott Speedman
Scott Speedman
Scott Speedman is a British-born Canadian film and television actor. He is best known for playing Ben Covington in the coming-of-age drama television series Felicity and Lycan-Vampire hybrid Michael Corvin in the gothic horror/action Underworld films.-Early life:Speedman was born Robert Scott...
), a recently promoted detective who is resentful of being left behind by Stan. Following this, Stan returns home to find his apartment has been broken into, the thief stealing an antique Victorian
Victorian architecture
The term Victorian architecture refers collectively to several architectural styles employed predominantly during the middle and late 19th century. The period that it indicates may slightly overlap the actual reign, 20 June 1837 – 22 January 1901, of Queen Victoria. This represents the British and...
chair and replacing it with a taping of his inquiry following Crystal and Uncle Eddie's deaths. Stan also notices a painting identical to the camera obscura projection in an antiques store, also painted with identical pigments to the Uncle Eddie killings.
Stan visits Detective Jorge "George" Ruiz, his former partner until the Uncle Eddie murders. After reminiscing briefly, Stan doesn't inform Ruiz of the copycat killings, and departs. Partway home he realizes he is being followed, and chases his stalker, who escapes. The following morning, Stan is informed Ruiz has been found murdered, his abdomen opened and his innards removed, forming an inkwell of blood, including a pantograph
Pantograph
A pantograph is a mechanical linkage connected in a special manner based on parallelograms so that the movement of one pen, in tracing an image, produces identical movements in a second pen...
machine and a half-finished canvas. Using his former partner's blood, Stan paints the other half of the painting, forming the image of a screaming face. The other officers begin to suspect Stan. Attempting to replace his chair, Stan consults with Blair Collet, an antiques dealer who finds antique chairs for Stan, and likens Stan to the killer's patron, as he bought the painting from the antiques store, or his obsession, similar to Francis Bacon's obsession with Pope Innocent
Study after Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X
Study after Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X is a 1953 painting by the Irish artist Francis Bacon. The work shows a distorted version of the Portrait of Innocent X painted by the Spanish artist Diego Velázquez in 1650. The work is one of a series of variants of the Velázquez painting which...
. Blair then takes Stan to an art gallery which is filled with model depictions of the recent murders, including Stan's stolen chair. The curator informs them that the artist is Gerri Harden. Searching the art pieces, Stan finds a clay model of the raven, with hundreds of fingerprints still present on the clay. This leads them to a warehouse with a dummy model wearing a Gerri Harden name badge, and several paintings, when Stan realizes the name is an anagram from 'a red herring'. During this time, he receives a photograph of Sandy and her friends from the hiking trip.
The next day, Stan receives a call from the killer, who repeatedly tells him "a poison harms" (An anagram for anamorphosis
Anamorphosis
Anamorphosis or anamorphism may refer to any of the following:*Anamorphosis, in art, the representation of an object as seen, for instance, altered by reflection in a mirror...
, the artistic technique he is using), and tells Stan to come see his next show, which is another empty warehouse containing diagrams of the final Uncle Eddie murders, including Crystal's, which, when viewed from high above, had the appearance of a body on a rock by a beach shore. Stan, at home, receives a call from Sandy with another invitation, when he realizes that the man who had been stalking him is in the picture. He fails to reach Sandy, and tries her AA group, when he learns her sponsor, the man in the picture, drove her away. Sandy is receiving a tattoo of angel's wings, provided by the killer. She blithely remarks that he might be too high to finish, and comments that she's never seen him high, and he responds that he'd never put that poison in his veins. Sandy begins to struggle, first for a chance to look at the tattoo, and then for a break, and the killer slits her throat. Stan appears at the studio, without having called in for backup. He sees Sandy slumped over as the killer walks past her. Stan follows the killer, wounding him in the shoulder before being stabbed. The killer drags him to the podium and the chair that they'd found the dummy in and props Stan in place. Stan, noticing the tattoo with an eye stenciled beneath it, places his head on Sandy's back, revealing that, when viewed in conjunction with the warehouse floor, spells out the word 'DEAD', a hallmark of the Uncle Eddie murders.
During this, Detective Carl, at his desk, notices a reflection in the first murder photo off his coffee cup, of the raven in the second murder. Searching the raven, he finds the face from the third killing, and in the third killing painting, finds an image of the studio they'd searched. The killer shoots Stan, just before Carl appears and guns down the killer. Stan, struggling for breath, leans back, and dies.
Cast
- Willem DafoeWillem DafoeWillem Dafoe is an American film, stage, and voice actor, and a founding member of the experimental theatre company The Wooster Group...
as Stan - Scott SpeedmanScott SpeedmanScott Speedman is a British-born Canadian film and television actor. He is best known for playing Ben Covington in the coming-of-age drama television series Felicity and Lycan-Vampire hybrid Michael Corvin in the gothic horror/action Underworld films.-Early life:Speedman was born Robert Scott...
as Carl - Yul VazquezYul VazquezYul Vázquez was born in Cuba. He is an actor and he is married to Linda Larkin.He has appeared as “Bob” in the Seinfeld episodes “The Soup Nazi”, “The Sponge” and “The Puerto Rican Day”....
as Jorge "George" Ruiz - Clea DuVallClea DuVallClea Helen D'Etienne DuVall is an American actress. She is best known for her role as Sofie on the television series Carnivàle as well as for films such as The Faculty , Girl, Interrupted and The Grudge .-Early life:DuVall was born in Los Angeles, California, the only child of Rosemary and...
as Sandy - James RebhornJames RebhornJames Robert Rebhorn is an American character actor who has appeared in over 100 television shows, feature films and plays.-Personal life:...
as Brainard - Amy CarlsonAmy CarlsonAmy Lynn Carlson is an American actress best known for playing Josie Watts on Another World and Alex Taylor on Third Watch. More recently, she played Kelly Gaffney on the short-lived NBC courtroom drama, Law & Order: Trial by Jury. She currently plays Linda Reagan on the CBS drama Blue Bloods...
as Alexandra Fredericks - Peter StormarePeter Stormareis a Swedish film, stage, voice and television actor as well as a theatrical director, playwright and musician.- Early life :...
as Blair Collet - Don HarveyDon Patrick HarveyDonald Patrick Harvey II is an American actor and voice actor, known as Don Harvey.He was born and raised in St. Clair Shores, Michigan, the sixth of eight children. He started acting in high school. He did several shows before graduating and moving on to the University of Michigan where he studied...
as Killer - Paul Lazar as Medical Examiner
- Edward HibbertEdward HibbertEdward Hibbert is an American-born English actor and literary agent.-Biography:Hibbert was born in Long Island, New York, the son of Geoffrey Hibbert. He has one sister. He was raised in England, where he attended London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art...
as Gallery Owner - Mick FoleyMick FoleyMichael Francis "Mick" Foley, Sr. is an American semi-retired professional wrestler, author, comedian, actor, voice actor and former color commentator. He has worked for many wrestling promotions, including WWE, WCW, ECW and TNA. He is often referred to as "The Hardcore Legend", a nickname he...
as Antique Store Owner - Debbie HarryDebbie HarryDeborah Ann "Debbie" Harry is an American singer-songwriter and actress, best known for being the lead singer of the punk rock and new wave band Blondie. She has also had success as a solo artist, and in the mid-1990s she performed and recorded as part of The Jazz Passengers...
as Neighbor
Critical reception
The film received negative to mixed reviews from critics. As of April 23, 2008, the review aggregator Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
reported that 26% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 19 reviews. Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
reported the film had an average score of 48 out of 100.