Puzzle of a Downfall Child. 1970. USA. Directed by Jerry Schatzberg. Screenplay by Carole Eastman (as Adrien Joyce), based on conversations with model Anne Saint-Marie. With Faye Dunaway, Barry Primus, Viveca Lindfors, Barry Morse, Roy Scheider. Digital restoration by Universal Pictures in collaboration with the Cinémathèque Française under the supervision of Jerry Schatzberg. 105 min.
A seminal work from the dawn of the New Hollywood, Jerry Schatzberg’s directorial debut stems from that pivotal moment when the formal innovations of Europe’s New Wave directors were radically reshaping American filmmaking. The film’s mosaic structure, which recalls Alain Resnais’s time-shifting montage technique, creates a vivid portrait of psychological disintegration within the fashion industry. Drawing from his own background as a fashion photographer and from recorded conversations with model Anne St. Marie, Schatzberg crafts an insider’s examination of the commodification of beauty and its human cost.
Faye Dunaway, in a lacerating performance, portrays Lou Andreas Sand, a former model reconstructing her past from the isolation of a beach cottage. Carole Eastman’s layered screenplay (written under the name Adrien Joyce) unfolds through a series of fractured memories and imaginings, told to a documentary filmmaker (Barry Primus) who serves as both catalyst and unreliable interpreter. A remarkable supporting cast, including Viveca Lindfors, Barry Morse, and Roy Scheider, inhabits the shifting landscape of Lou’s recollections.