ALTERED STATES (1980)

By: Steve Biodrowski
Date: Sunday, June 10, 2001

Master of excess, director Ken Russell piled his usual visual flair upon a screenplay by Paddy Chayevsky, about hallucinogenic substances and isolation chambers that unlock a doorway into the primorial past of Dr. Edward Jessup (William Hurt), who is searching for a path all the way back to the spiritual secrets of the universe. The assaultive visual approach (hammering home the hallucinatory scenes) turned off some, and the ending of the otherwise well-thought-out script is fairly simple (love overcomes the sterilty of science), but Russell somehow invest the proceedings with genuine feeling, and a sense of awe at standing on the verge of revelations to great to be glimpsed by mortal man.