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starring: Gary Busey, Jodie Foster, Robbie Robertson, Meg Foster, Kenneth McMillandirected by: Robert Kaylor
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9786301648844
Format: Color, NTSC
ISBN: 6301648846
Label: Warner Home Video
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Warner Home Video
Release Date: April 20, 1994
Running Time: 106 minutes
Sales Rank: 9508
Studio: Warner Home Video
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Editorial Review:
Amazon.com essential video:
Part coming-of-age chronicle, part road movie, Carny is memorable for Jodie Foster's sexy, intelligent heroine and the pivotal influence of costar, cowriter, and producer Robbie Robertson. As principal songwriter and guitarist in The Band, Robertson had already been accorded the stature of rock auteur by some critics; when director Martin Scorsese captured the musician's laconic sex appeal and deep, mesmerizing speaking voice on celluloid for The Last Waltz, the seed was planted for the Canadian rocker to graduate from documentary to dramatic feature.
The lurid, colorful carnival milieu also dovetails with Robertson's Band legacy as songwriter, and his penchant for crafting picaresque story lines with a vivid sense of place. Robertson is Patch, a carny veteran whose de facto partner is the leering, cruel Frankie (Gary Busey), an abusive clown, and the film lingers on the tawdry and menacing world behind the carny's garish public spaces. When the young, self-confident Donna (Foster) shows up and joins the troupe, the bonds between Patch and Frankie are strained. Donna's walk on the wild side brings her in intimate, sometimes dangerous proximity to the freaks and lowlifes that populate this world, which the writers and director Robert Kaylor savor for its atmosphere of outsider surrealism.
Foster acquits herself wonderfully, making this a revealing step between the prematurely hardened nymphet of Taxi Driver and the actress's first truly adult roles, soon to follow. Busey and Robertson fare less well, their work long on mannerism but ultimately cryptic to a fault. Like the movie itself, they transmit a cynicism that seems hollow without more real insight into how they came to inhabit this netherworld, and why they can't escape it. --Sam Sutherland
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating: - Carny, a ride to remember
Gary Busey and Robbie Robertson hit the nail square on the head in their performance of Carny. Toss in Jodie Foster and you have a real tilt-a-whirl of a ride through the scenes in this movie. I rated it 4 stars and would give it 5 if it was on DVD. I worked several years in a stick joint pulling in quarters with one of the smaller shows. There is a lot of facts based on the carnival life and I was glad to have played a part. You don't see much of the mobster type which was big business several years ... Read More
Rating: - Something Wicked This Way Comes
and it is Carny...The nudity and profanity were bad. The people representing the South really put her down and was not fair or accurate. To see our beloved Battle Flag on some low life's truck made matters worse. Southern people are polite, God-fearing, home loving people and should be represented as such. I think everyone in that movie was disabled either mentally or physically. Gary Bussey was the best. Jodie Foster was too preppy for a waitress/carny worker. Robby Robinson was too attractive to play ... Read More
Rating:  - A world that is gone forever.....I think
I was born the same year as Jodie Foster. I remember seeing her in various commercials, TV shows and movies as I was growing up. She was the unofficial poster child for single parent families and independent, if somewhat dysfunctional children. This film was made just as the 70's were ending and the 80's were starting. I remember these days, the Carnival, what it was like. One could learn a lot on the midway. That when things look too good to be true they were, like the shiny switchblade knife that ... Read More
Rating: - Atmospheric trip through the fair.
This is a highly atmospheric trip through Carnival life. I wish that the relationship between Frankie and Patch had been fleshed out more to show how they entered their peculiar double-act, but a fascinating double-act it is. Robbie Robertson isn't so much an actor, more he is a tantalising presence - broodingly sexual in contrast with Busey's lecherous attitude. Jodie Foster gave a surprisingly mature performance. I've never seen Taxi Driver, so for me the effect of seeing Donna's Baptism by Fire into Carny ... Read More
Rating: - a delightfully quirky trip off the beaten path
As of July 2006, Carny is not yet available on DVD, but get it when it appears. Foster, Robertson and Busey are fascinating in this little-known gem. And the music includes some incredible stuff. (Some numbers have been cut on commercial tv airings, which is a shame. Pray that the eventual DVD release is complete.)
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