Another classic enigmatic wink comes in the stalwart late night horror favorite, ANACONDA (1991), starring Ice Cube, Jennifer Lopez and Jon Voight.
Voight has a blast playing a Quint-like snake-stalking maniac who gets eaten up and later spit out by a giant anaconda. Drkpitt at Double Action reports:
Voight's crushed, twisted, partially digested body is regurgitated by the snake right in front of Lopez. As she screams in horror, Voight's suave, debonair character still manages to wink at her with his left eye since he feels that she must find him even more irresistible now.
What more need be said about the symbolic resonance of the wink? The ultimate in conspiratorial inclusiveness, the wink transcends subject and object, releasing both for a split second from the constraints of time and space, revealing all attachment and worry to be folly. Voight's wink in ANACONDA especially seems to invite a special metatextual reading: the actor commenting to the fans on his day spent wrapped in special effects goo: "Hey, it's a living." and simultaneously in the film's diegesis: "Why worry about the big bite, Baby? Come on in, the digestive tract's fine." Also, finally and most deliciously, the wink is a meaningless flourish, an unquantifiable signifier, as inscrutable as the Mona Lisa's smile.
Monday, October 06, 2008
Semiology of the Wink, Part III
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3 comments:
Aha! - the wink as last assertion of identity - and connection to others - before disappearing into the void.
Your description of Voight’s final wink made me think of Herbert Lom’s compulsively winking eye in THE PINK PANTHER STRIKES AGAIN, the last essential part of him remaining (like the grin of the Cheshire Cat) before he, too, disappears into a void.
Holly shit, Kuersten! I just wrote about Anaconda last night, focusing on the wink, unaware that someone else had this image rattling around in their head (I caught it on TV the other night, was tired to finish it, and watched the second half yesterday on a $1 VHS tape that had been sitting for a while.
Incidentally, a chance encounter with Voight confirmed that the actor considers this one of his favorite roles. And he improvised the wink.
Also, for what it's worth, Voight is a McCain, and presumably, a Palin supporter...I sense a shady connection here. Kuersten, work your paranoid best.
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