In 1969, when filmmaker Milton Moses Ginsberg's micro-budget debut, Coming Apart, first appeared on the scene, it was seen as a formally audacious study of a damaged protagonist. Time has not diminished that impression, since nothing else looks exactly like it, though the voyeuristic angle links it with a few earlier films, like Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window, and later ones, like Steven Soderbergh's Sex, Lies & Videotape.
If the film was controversial in its day, it would be considered even more problematic if made today, since Joe "Glassman" Glazer (Rip Torn), an on-the-verge-of-divorce psychiatrist, hides a camera in his borrowed NYC bachelor pad behind a "kinetic art object." The black and white film consists entirely of his stationary-camera encounters with nearly a dozen women (and a few men) in after-hours scenarios, rather than in counseling sessions. In most every case, they're oblivious to the all-seeing eye, raising questions about consent and ethics. Ginsberg separates the encounters by fading to white or black, sometimes both.
Though Joe engages in conversations, the director mostly depicts sexual activity of some kind. In addition to the camera, there's a mirror behind Joe's couch, allowing him to see everything the audience sees. In that sense, he's performing for the camera, whereas his female visitors are performing for him. One woman changes into a sheer negligée and stilettos and asks him to burn her with his cigarette (he declines). Another arrives with her seven-week-old baby, shares her modeling portfolio, and takes off her top after he comments on a nude photo. Several others also disrobe, including two who dance to the Jefferson Airplane while half-naked, a performance also for the audience's delectation.
Viveca Lindfors, one of the few to keep her clothes on, plays an urbane lover who finds Joe exasperating, while Sally Kirkland plays a coarse ex-patient unraveling at a similar pace (notably, the American Psychiatric Association would formally ban relationships between therapists and patients in 1973). Though she's clearly unstable, Joe treats her with more contempt than compassion, so it's gratifying when she finds a way to turn the tables. Suffice it to say, she finds the hidden camera.
In one of three interviews included with Kino's 2K restorations, Ginsberg recalls being knocked out by Rip Torn in Tennessee Williams's Sweet Bird of Youth on Broadway in 1959. Ten years later, he was thrilled to be able to offer the actor a part in his debut. Since leading roles rarely came Torn's way, the actor jumped at the opportunity, and his stage experience would come in handy since he has to command the screen in a one-set film built around an emotionally challenging role--and he nails it.
Upon its release, a film intended to excoriate a promiscuous man, much like Ginsberg himself, was dismissed in some quarters as exploitative. The actresses in the film certainly bare more skin than the actor, so that isn't completely surprising. If anything, though, the tension between style and substance—a critique of sexism using the tools of sexism— makes Coming Apart such a singular piece of work, one just as likely to inspire strong feelings now as it did then.
What type of library programming could use this title?
Adventurous library programming on experimental film could find a provocative example in Coming Apart.
What academic subjects would this film be suitable for?
Instructors could use Coming Apart in a course on experimental film and unconventional sexual behavior, especially diary-like entries, such as Jim McBride's David Holzman's Diary and Shirley Clarke's Portrait of Jason, both from 1967.
What kind of film series would this narrative fit in?
Film programmers should consider the title Coming Apart to fit into a film series on 1960s cinema and the careers of Rip Torn and Sally Kirkland.