Remembering Sam Neill
The fabulous New Zealand actor Sam Neill passed away last month at the age of 78. He made many films, including Jurassic Park, The Piano, The Hunt for Red October, but we’ve chosen to remember him with the 1981 psycho-thriller Possession. We’re not alone in loving this deeply twisted film. Sam loved it, too.
“Possession is one of the best films I was lucky to be in,” he recalled in his memoir. “This is by no means a universal view. Not many people have ever seen it and, of those who have, it is true that many loathe it. I myself regard it as a masterpiece, albeit a very flawed masterpiece. I am not alone in that view."
Recalling Polanski’s Repulsion and Cronenberg’s The Brood (yep, that’s the ballpark we’re in), Possession details the collapsing marriage of Mark and Anna. There’s also a son, a lover or two, some supernatural goings-on, a weird creature, lots of murder, and a crazy body count. In this film, breaking up really is hard to do. Adjani won Best Actress at both Cannes and the Cesar Awards, and her intensity in this role must be seen to be believed. It’s the kind of performance that hums with electricity, and actually feels a little dangerous. Little wonder that Adjani suffered a breakdown in its aftermath.
Neill said of Possession, “I call it the most extreme film I’ve ever made, in every possible respect, and (Zulawski) asked of us things I wouldn’t and couldn’t go to now. And I think I only just escaped that film with my sanity barely intact.”