SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot.
Watching James Cameron’s films, I sometimes experience what I imagine the Lumières’ original audiences must have felt: a mixture of disbelief and delight, and a sense of wonderment at the magic of the movies. True Lies has several such moments, my favourite being the scene in which Arnie, on horseback, gallops after evil Aziz (Art Malik), who is on a motorcycle. The chase takes us through busy streets, a hotel lobby, up an elevator and across tall buildings. It is silly stuff – but silly stuff is rarely so thrilling.
Spectacle films don’t rely on the same types of realism as genres such as domestic comedies, but verisimilitude nonetheless remains an important criterion. We know that Arnold Schwarzenegger isn’t actually flying the jet in True Lies, yet if we could see how the effect was constructed (by detecting the matting, morphing or miniatures, for example), our pleasure would be lost. Part of the joy of Cameron’s films (and this applies even to Piranha II: The Spawning) is that they trick us so well.
Critical response to True Lies has so far been mixed. My local newspaper in Montreal awarded the film only two stars, recommending that audiences wait until it is released on video – as ridiculous a piece of advice as one is likely to get. The film offers many pleasures (humour, romance), but perhaps the greatest, the one unavailable on video, is what the bulk of its reputed $120 million budget was spent on – the creation of particular kinds of spectacle (luxurious sets, exotic locations, huge boys’ toys, high-speed chases, dramatic shoot-outs and extravagant explosions) whose enjoyment is predicated on widescreen viewing and increased by audience participation. Unlike La Totale! (the 1991 French film directed by Claude Zidi on which Cameron’s work is based), whose effects are not diminished on a small screen, True Lies is a film to see at the movies.
A comparison of La Totale! and True Lies can probably tell us much about the specificity of French and American national cultures. But such a comparison also points up some of the characteristics of the contemporary big-budget American spectacle film, Cameron and Schwarzenegger’s speciality both in their previous collaborations (The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day) and in the rest of their individual oeuvres. Watching La Totale! reminds us that True Lies is a type of cinema rarely feasible outside Hollywood. Smaller national cinemas cannot afford and do not have similar access to cutting-edge special effects technology (much less the opportunity to develop it with particular films in mind, as Cameron did for The Abyss and Terminator 2). Only Hollywood can maintain an infrastructure which keeps employed personnel skilled in a wide range of narrowly specialised areas of filmmaking.
In both True Lies and La Totale!, a couple, happily married for many years, find their marriage in trouble. The wife (Helen Tasker, played by Jamie Lee Curtis in Cameron’s film) is approaching middle age and longs for excitement at least once in her life. She does not know that her husband Harry (Schwarzenegger) has lied to her throughout their marriage and is in fact a highly glamorous secret agent rather than the boring nine-to-fiver she believes him to be. Her would-be paramour Simon (Bill Paxton) is also lying to her: while trying to seduce her by posing as an agent and taking credit for her husband’s exploits, he is in fact a used-car salesman. By the end of the film, the husband has neutralised the competition and recruited the wife into his organisation. Working together, they keep their marriage spicy and their country safe.
True Lies and La Totale! not only share this almost identical plot (and a subplot about Arab terrorists stealing weapons and wanting to blow things up), but the former also borrows situations, props and even lines of dialogue from the latter. Yet the two films belong to different genres (or perhaps more accurately deploy different combinations of elements from various genres), and indeed to different modes altogether. La Totale! mixes elements from the picaresque sex comedy, the domestic melodrama, the buddy-cop film and the spy film. But as one would expect from the director of Les Ripoux, the film’s primary aim is to make the audience laugh. True Lies mixes elements from the screwball comedy, the domestic melodrama (both films are family romances), the buddy-cop film (the Tom Arnold-Arnold Schwarzenegger relationship can be read as a twist on that of Mel Gibson and Danny Glover in the Lethal Weapon films), and the spy film (though the spectacular elements and hero’s panache are drawn more specifically from the big-budget Bond movies). But as one would expect from the director of Aliens, the film’s primary aim is to provide spectacle that will thrill, chill and awe the audience.
The comic elements in True Lies are successfully realised, but though they are sometimes combined with spectacle, they most often alternate with it, just as the film switches between the domestic and public spheres, and push the narrative forward. The first scene in the film is an action scene; the last a comic one. Both feature a tango. At the beginning Schwarzenegger dances with the sexy Asian villainess (Tia Carrere); by the end he’s dancing with his all-American wife. Their marriage is saved, the United States is free of Arab terrorists, the former suitor is made to pee in his pants at the feel of a lipstick and the hero and heroine tango into the night. True Lies may just be an embroidered La Totale!, but the embroidery is so extensive and skilful as to constitute a different object.
José Arroyo, Sight and Sound, September 1994
True Lies
Director: James Cameron
©/Production Company: Lightstorm Entertainment
Presented by: Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation
Executive Producers: Robert Shriver, Rae Sanchini, Lawrence Kasanoff
Produced by: James Cameron, Stephanie Austin
Associate Producer: Pamela Easley
Unit Production Managers: Scott Thaler, Patricia Whitcher
Production Supervisor: Paddy Cullen
Production Accountant: Susannah L. Brengel
Supervising Location Manager: Michael J. Burmeister
2nd Unit Directors: E.J. Foerster, Glenn Wilder
1st Assistant Directors: J. Michael Haynie, Aldric La’auli Porter
Key 2nd Assistant Director: Martin Jedlicka
Script Supervisor: Sharron Reynolds
Casting: Mali Finn
Screenplay: James Cameron
Based upon a screenplay by: Claude Zidi, Simon Michaël, Didier Kaminka
Director of Photography: Russell Carpenter
Underwater Cameraman: Peter Romano
Aerial Photographer: David L. Butler
Camera Operators: Michael St. Hilaire, Paul Babin
B Camera/Steadicam Operator: James Muro
Chief Lighting Technician: Rick A. West
Still Photographer: Zade Rosenthal
Special Visual Effects: Digital Domain, Cinesite Digital Film Center, Boss Film Corporation, Fantasy II Film Effects
Additional Visual Effects: PDI
Additional Digital Effects: Pacific Title Digital, Inc. Light Matters
Special Effects Co-ordinator: Thomas L. Fisher
Edited by: Conrad Buff, Mark Goldblatt, Richard A. Harris
Production Designer: Peter Lamont
Art Directors: Robert Laing, Michael Novotny
Set Designer: Joseph Hodges
Property Master: Charles Stewart
Costume Designer: Marlene Stewart
Costume Supervisor: Lisa Lövaas
Make-up Supervisor: Jeff Dawn
Animal Effects: Make-up & Effects Labs
Key Hairstylist: Peter Tothpal
Music: Brad Fiedel
Conductor: Shirley Walker
Music Supervision: Randy Gerston
Music Editor: Allan Rosen
Scoring Mixer: Tim Boyle
Choreographer: Lynne Hockney
Sound Design: SounDelux
Sound Mixer: Lee Orloff
Re-recording Mixers: Mike Minkler, Robert Beemer
Supervising Sound Editors: Wylie Stateman, Gregg Baxter
Sound Effects Editors: Scott Martin Gershin, Peter Michael Sullivan, Randy Kelly, Jay B. Richardson, David Kneupper, Dino DiMuro, Mark A. Lanza, Peter J. Lehman, Brian McPherson, Michael Cook, Christopher Assells, Clayton Collins, Dan Hegeman
Stunt Co-ordinator: Joel Kramer
Cast
Arnold Schwarzenegger (Harry Tasker)
Jamie Lee Curtis (Helen Tasker)
Tom Arnold (Gib)
Bill Paxton (Simon)
Tia Carrere (Juno)
Art Malik (Aziz)
Eliza Dushku (Dana)
Grant Heslov (Faisil)
Marshall Manesh (Khaled)
James Allen (colonel)
Dieter Rauter (boathouse guard)
Jane Morris (Janice)
Katsy Chappell (Allison)
Crystina Wyler (Charlene)
Ofer Samra (Yusif)
Paul Barselou (old guy in bathroom)
Chuck Tamburro (helicopter pilot)
Jean-Claude Parachini (Jean-Claude)
Uzi Gal (lead terrorist)
Majed Ibrahim (high-rise terrorist)
Armen Ksajikian (Juno’s chauffeur)
Mike Akrawi (Jihad cameraman)
Mike Cameron (citation pilot)
Charles Cragin (Samir)
Louai Mardini (bread van terrorist 1)
Gino Salvano (bread van terrorist 2)
SSgt Scott Dotson (Harrier pilot)
Tom Isbell (reporter at hi-rise)
John Bruno (custodian)
Charlton Heston (Spencer Trilby) *
USA 1994
141 mins
Digital 4K
*Uncredited
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Programme notes and credits compiled by Sight and Sound and the BFI Documentation Unit
Notes may be edited or abridged
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