Variety

Obsessions by Seth Vargas

If you are just getting in to movies, the thrill of them, the feelings that they create within you, you may be unfamiliar with the inherent voyeurism that comes with watching films. Many artists have tackled this subject within a subject, from Rear Window to The Lives of Others, and maybe one of the best meditations on the idea of a screen within a screen, Steven Soderbergh’s Sex, Lies and Videotape. Why is it that we enjoy gathering in the dark to watch other people live out their lives? What need do we have within us that the light of the screen fills? In 1983, Bette Gordon unleashed her unabashedly brusque and seedy masterpiece, Variety.

Christine needs a job. She takes a job at a place that would repel most people, but Christine is not most people. She sees what she shouldn’t want to, she goes where she shouldn’t want to, and her curiosity turns from fascination to obsession. We’ve seen this type of story before, but Gordon’s eye towards sex work, pornography, men and voyeurism are not something we’ve seen often before, and at the time in the early 80s, she was helping to forge the path forward for female filmmakers.

The movie is slow, and uncomfortable. I’ve seen it described as disjointed, but I reject that judgement. We observe Christine as she observes and explores the world around her, surprising herself with her boldness, and perhaps her newly deadened sense of self preservation. She puts herself at risk, first in small ways, then bigger ones, and we are right beside her, sharing in her disbelief about her actions. She’s reaching out and taking control, but to what end?

The main performance by Sandy McLeod is fascinating. She draws us in, and we immediately feel for her. A young, beautiful woman working the ticket booth at a porno theater? Our defenses raise in her name, as does our disgust, but, well… we want to see what happens, too. We’re just like her, after all. We want to see. There isn’t any harm in seeing if it isn’t real, right?

It’s just a movie, and what happens in a movie isn’t real. So we can be voyeurs, without fear, that is unless the very act of watching changes us somehow. Variety may have less answers on that idea than you prefer, but if you give yourself over to it’s eye you may begin finding the answers within yourself.