But Bartel the director was a different matter; his films are unforgiving in their satire--funny, but lacerating. Once and for all they showed us how cruel and vicious the world could look.
It's this lack of empathy that kept Bartel from being as great an Artist as his closest comparison, John Waters--but it also gives Bartel's films an elegance that Waters' lack. Waters is so in love with every tacky excess of his characters that he's sometimes willing to lose his narrative; Bartel's distance sees everything with the same frosty precision. Waters could never have made the car crashes in Death Race 2000 or Cannonball as visceral and kinetic as they are (though I bet he loves as much as I how the groupies in the former throw themselves under the cars' wheels, sacrificing their lives so their favorite racers can gain more points). Eating Raoul as directed by Waters might have been even more wicked, but only Bartel could have gotten so much variety while filming primarily in one cramped set.
And when it came to being a social prophet, Bartel was just as far ahead of the curve. The Secret Cinema is funnier and scarier than The Truman Show--and in fewer instances, compromises its conceit that we're all potential media subjects. (It's only 20 minutes long to boot.) Private Parts knew America was full of lonely, sex-obsessed misfits a decade before David Lynch came on the scene. And Eating Raoul and Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills went ahead and lampooned the '80s back... in the '80s, actually. You can argue there's not a great film in the bunch (though I'd put up a fight for Private Parts), but that's still a fine run of first-rate comedies. All you have to do to laugh along is agree with the director that there's not a damned person worth saving in the lot of them.
