Maidstone is another flight of insufferable ego from Norman Mailer in which the "great man" plays radical filmmaker and presidential timber Norman Kingsley. Shot in color and the wide open spaces of East Hampton on a bigger budget it is a marked departure from Mailer's two earlier claustrophobic bores but it still suffers from the same disjointed improvised stuttering about by clueless characters attempting to interact with Mailer's badgering.
It's all moribund living theatre as Mailer/Kingsley and camera roam grand East Hampton estates and get in the face of a bevy of false eye lash candidates explaining obliquely what the role entails which from the looks of the footage a substantial amount of it calls for making out with the sybaritic Norman. There are some pallid attempts to shock with some crass soft porn as well as address social issues with disenfranchised minorities along with heavy doses of Mailer pontificating in a couple of accents. Meanwhile he hacks at the editing with a machete turning everything into a sound bite.
Later under a shady tree Norman summarizes to cast and crew what he was attempting to get at with his seesaw reality/fiction production likening it to a battle and attack, something it seems actor Rip Torn takes to heart when he attacks Norman with a hammer since fictional Kingsley is target for assassination. Mailer is taking a beating before wife Betty Bentley and the kids step in to save Norm. But the camera keeps rolling as the winded, bleeding and incredulous writer stumbles off (along with his traumatized family), a victim of his pretentious hyperbole but not before recording the most powerful and absorbing scene of the whole film in which Mr. Torn must be given writing credit. Despite this happy ending it remains an arrogant mess of smarmy guerrilla theatre filled with the fatuous musings of a guy desperate for attention willing to say anything to do just that.
It's all moribund living theatre as Mailer/Kingsley and camera roam grand East Hampton estates and get in the face of a bevy of false eye lash candidates explaining obliquely what the role entails which from the looks of the footage a substantial amount of it calls for making out with the sybaritic Norman. There are some pallid attempts to shock with some crass soft porn as well as address social issues with disenfranchised minorities along with heavy doses of Mailer pontificating in a couple of accents. Meanwhile he hacks at the editing with a machete turning everything into a sound bite.
Later under a shady tree Norman summarizes to cast and crew what he was attempting to get at with his seesaw reality/fiction production likening it to a battle and attack, something it seems actor Rip Torn takes to heart when he attacks Norman with a hammer since fictional Kingsley is target for assassination. Mailer is taking a beating before wife Betty Bentley and the kids step in to save Norm. But the camera keeps rolling as the winded, bleeding and incredulous writer stumbles off (along with his traumatized family), a victim of his pretentious hyperbole but not before recording the most powerful and absorbing scene of the whole film in which Mr. Torn must be given writing credit. Despite this happy ending it remains an arrogant mess of smarmy guerrilla theatre filled with the fatuous musings of a guy desperate for attention willing to say anything to do just that.
