STREET SMART
Produced by Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus
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Meanwhile, in the spacious office of the publisher of a slick city magazine (suspiciously like New York), a smug executive leans back in his chair, tossing off half-baked witticisms, as a writer begs for his professional life. Jonathan Fisher (Reeve), once a promising writer of features, has been demoted to the purgatory of service articles; you know the type: the best ice cream, where to find gourmet-cooking gear, etc. His chance at redemption suddenly pops up in the guise of another contributor’s missed deadline. Eagerly, he offers to make it up with the perfect piece: The Lifestyle of a Pimp. Not a sociological or slice-of-life tract, mind you, but almost a fashion profile, the scoop on what a black New York panderer does with his profits: where he vacations, what kind of furniture he buys, how much he spends on his wardrobe. Naturally, the publisher loves it, and Fisher hits the streets to start his research.
Unfortunately, Fisher doesn’t know any pimps, and a nighttime visit to Times Square only ends up in rebuffs and misunderstandings. His short deadline drawing near–he’d offered to turn the piece out over the weekend–he decides to take desperate measures and makes the whole thing up, down to inventing a Hawaiian condo for his fictitious pimp. The article is a smashing success, and brings Fisher not just a promotion but a job on a local TV station doing human-interest stories on the shady, quasi-criminal New York milieu. It also brings him to the attention of the aggressive assistant district attorney who’s prosecuting Fast Black for first-degree murder. Convinced that the article is about Fast Black, the prosecutor insists that Fisher testify: he backs off when the reporter refuses, but the defense attorney, sensing a way to create a sideshow, subpoenas Fisher and his notes.
Once inside the hotel room, Fisher sits down in a chair while Punchy walks about the room, getting drinks, tossing off her coat. Schatzberg shoots the seated Fisher at eye level, not just letting us identify with his point of view but confirming his position as the watcher, the objectifier of the woman performing in front of him. The shot indicates that, while his lust isn’t sexual, he is still trying to take something, not just from the woman, but of her as well. Schatzberg then shifts to a shot that matches the writer’s gaze of Punchy standing over Fisher. And while it reinforces the previous shot, it also modifies it, because the angle shows the standing Punchy looming over Fisher, watched by him, judged by him, yet somehow dominating him. And the dialogue is equally multilayered, because Fisher is asking the oldest of johns’ questions: How did Punchy get started in the sex trade? And Punchy responds in kind with a long, humorous anecdote that ultimately serves to get Fisher in bed. It’s no longer a case of who’s using who, but who’s using who more.
