FINGERS (1978) 

From all accounts, since its rather unremarkable release in 1978, Fingers has slowly climbed up the ladder and is now considered a "cult classic." And its quite easy to see why: this emotional and sexually charged drama cogently portrays its self-contradictory protagonist without ever betraying him. Harvey Keitel is Jimmy, a man perhaps capable of perfecting the art of life under the right circumstances but internal and external pressures prevent him to do so. On one hand, his mother (only seen briefly), a pianist, wants him to follow her path even though hes past the beginners age; while on the other, his father (Michael V. Gazzo), a loan-shark, often urges him to forget everything else in order to help collect his debts. We watch Jimmy doing both brilliantly playing a Bach piece in the opening sequence, and not long after, expertly drawing the owed money from a restaurateur. But as this compulsive man starts to question himself and his manhood, things start going downhill (he even stops carrying his tape player everywhere like he used to). So, to prove himself capable in more ways than one, he tries to develop a relationship with an enigmatic sculptor (Tisa Farrow), but it turns out that she belongs to a local boxer-turned-pimp (Jim Brown). Directed by James Toback, Fingers, which was his debut feature, remarkably covers a lot of ground in its short running time. Much credit certainly goes to Keitel who mightve won more accolades for his leading performance in Abel Ferraras Bad Lieutenant (1992), but hes just as good here as a man incapable of getting rid of his demons which brings this tragedy full-circle in the classic Greek sense as the final sequence unfolds. Perhaps Toback was so enamored with his character that he didnt quite flesh out the secondary ones, but then, hes cut the film lean and raw, not the way everyone likes it.

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*FINGERS is available on DVD from Warner (U.S.).