Dusty and Sweets McGee (1971)
Narratives are not a construct of reality, are they?
Dusty and Sweets McGee is interesting as an example of a film that devises its own grammar. Critics of the film might simply say that the picture is scattered, disjointed, incoherent, even pointless. I’d argue that a film about heroin addiction should be just that. Especially, when the film adapts a pseudo-documentary style with the intent of giving a more accurate depiction of life under the influence.
The film mixes documentary interviews and dramatic scenes with real people playing under pseudonyms. Music and audio carry the majority of the film. To some extent this is a soundtrack film, akin to Easy Rider or American Graffiti, but here the soundtrack serves less as an emotion lynchpin, but as a haunting audible patchwork of sounds that drift in and out of the film, like foggy recollections from a substance soaked evening. Actions do not move along a plot. There is no plot. Just the next high. Scenes as often stopping abruptly or running out of steam and ending in a freeze frame. In a way, scenes just nod off or pass out.
Never having done heroin, I cannot speak to the accuracy of this films depiction of the drug’s effects. I am inclined to believe that the ‘nodding off’ that occurs in these scenes is far more truthful than the more dazzling depictions of drugs we are accustomed to from Hollywood. Like Alan Clarke’s Christine, that reduces addiction to a grinding, dull routine, Dusty and Sweets McGee leaves most of the highs aside and focuses more on patterns of dependency and repetition.
One scene in particular captivated me mostly because it felt so foreign from anything you’ll find in a narrative where each scene must propel the narrative. An aging greaser with a rolled up sleeve exposing a swastika tattoo waxes his yellow muscle car while a young girl sits in a patio lounge chair listening to him talk about his car and a regretful tale about a gangbang he was involved in. It is as if he seeks sympathy as he tells this story, but the girl is too far gone to respond. The scene just peters out. A confession goes unheard, a connection doesn’t get made. As simple as it sounds, the effect is stattering.
Director Floyd Muturx has at least three amazing credits to his name. He wrote Freebie and the Bean. He directed Aloha Bobby and Rose and American Hot Wax. Now, I’d add Dusty and Sweets McGee to that list. Sadly, his work seems cursed. Freebie and the Bean and Dusty and Sweets McGee finally came out on DVD, but only as no frills DVD-Rs from the Warner Brothers archive. Aloha Bobby and Rose received a small release on Anchor Bay and American Hot Wax is still waiting for a DVD release. Hollywood Knights is his only film to get any real release and while entertaining, it is not close in humor or psychology to these others.
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