Of Time and the River

By RICHARD CORLISS

BLAZE

Directed and Written by Ron Shelton

It was an affair made in tabloid heaven: stripteaser Blaze Starr ("Miss Spontaneous Combustion, and I do mean bustion!") and Earl K. Long, fine Governor of the great state of Louisiana. Long was too full of his princely power to be discreet about his indiscretions. Blaze could have told him -- and in this lengthy, clever, depressing film she does -- that "your political instincts are clouded by the aroma of my perfume." By 1959, when Long's campaign slogan was the forthright "I ain't crazy," his liaison with the stripper was as controversial as his tax evasion and support for Negro voting rights. He lost. It was a little American tragedy, played as farce.

Ron Shelton (Bull Durham) directs Blaze with plenty of pungent wit, but from a high, disinterested view. He never gets steam into the affair. Paul Newman approaches Earl from the outside too, as a growly-bear clown who doesn't realize he's King Lear. Lolita Davidovich, making the most of her first big break, plays Blaze as a sensible, loving career gal with an overripe body. But the picture is not mainly about sex or even love; it is about an aging man's loss of sexual, political and personal power.

The film ends with a great shot. Blaze walks out of the state house where Earl's corpse lies, and the camera ascends to take in Long's old domain. Randy Newman's poignant song Louisiana 1927 -- a cracker's lament about a devastating flood -- reaches its apogee of symphonic paranoia with the line "They're tryin' to wash us away." Just then, the camera discovers the Mississippi roaring past, washing away Earl and his wily, wild, pre-TV tradition of Southern politics. What has happened down there is that the wind has changed, and for its last three minutes Blaze finds potent film poetry to express that change. The rest of the movie lacks Earl's heroic craziness. And the stars could use a dose of Blaze's spontaneous combustion.