45 Years Ago, Altered States Sent Viewers On A Wild Ride

Just like most Ken Russell offerings, Altered States boasts an eccentric edge. Russell had already cemented his audacious sensibilities with Tommy and The Devils, but this sci-fi horror, released 45 years ago today, pushes the limits of sensory overload. Renowned screenwriter and novelist Paddy Chayefsky (best known for Network and The Hospital) wrote a powerhouse script based on his surreal 1978 novel, itself inspired by neuroscientist John Cunningham Lilly’s research on sensory deprivation tanks and psychedelics. As a result, both Chayefsky’s novel and script have a sound scientific foundation and pose layered philosophical questions about altered states of consciousness.

The gulf between Chayefsky’s grounded story and Russell’s exaggerated interpretation of it feels immediate. Chayefsky’s script is verbose and obsessed with precision, while Russell’s Altered States is a 100-minute rollercoaster from hell, one where you’re constantly exposed to audiovisual excess. What’s more, Chayefsky’s focal point is the sensory deprivation tank itself, which annihilates all external stimulation for psychopathologist Eddie Jessup (William Hurt) and pushes him towards drug-fueled scientific discovery. Jessup’s journey examines the limits of hubris through the lens of hard sci-fi and searches for meaning amid existential absurdity. Chayefsky envisioned the adaptation in the same vein, hoping that his complex script would lead to a complex film.

Enter Russell, who promptly traded dense analysis for sensational imagery and defanged the script’s scientific bent in favor of something more surreal. Chayefsky, whose robust career had facilitated complete creative control, was unable to come to a compromise with the director, and what ensued was an ugly feud between two artistic forces. After three weeks of rehearsal, Chayefsky left production and tried to get Russell replaced after the director refused to entertain his constant meddling. Many of Chayefsky’s criticisms boiled down to nitpicking, as he wasn’t happy with certain aesthetic choices (such as the color of the sensory deprivation tank) and Russell’s apparent irreverence towards the source material.

That said, Chayefsky wasn’t wrong about Altered States’ glaring flaws. Given Russell’s stylistic emphasis on abstractions, many of the film’s nuances were lost, especially when it came to dialogue. When Jessup gets swept up in technical jargon about gene regression and connected consciousness, we aren’t interested in parsing any of it, as Russell’s vision is better understood as a fluid fantasy. It was also a challenge to translate the script’s hallucinatory passages to the big screen — how do we interpret “the first particle of matter being created” in a way that’s interesting and accessible? Instead of meeting each other halfway, the Russell-Chayefsky duo never saw eye to eye, to the point that the latter used a pseudonym instead of taking credit for the screenplay.

Russell’s Altered States eschews the novel’s practicality from the get-go. Chayefsky’s isolation tank is closer to how these devices look in reality: sleek, compact, and lined with material that creates the illusion of darkness. In stark contrast, Russell places Jessup inside a brightly lit tank made with see-through glass, where our protagonist floats while being hooked to haphazardly placed electrodes.

Similarly, Chayefsky envisions Jessup’s ceremonial drug trip (where he ingests the primordial flower) as a dream state bursting with images of frenetic de-evolution. Cinematographer Jordan Cronenweth interprets this chaos with smoky backdrops and double exposures, which capture a lizard morphing into a woman and two sand-swept figures disintegrating into sphinx-like stone. Subsequent hallucinations are rife with religious and sexual symbolism, where the nightmarish view of an apocalyptic landscape is tuned to John Corigliano’s haunting score. It’s strangely beautiful to look at (especially in Criterion’s 4K restoration), even when these visions are a far cry from the script’s empirical view of dream states.

While Chayefsky’s thorough, metaphysical text is praiseworthy, it’s not suited for faithful adaptation. Russell’s instincts are decidedly over-the-top, as he forgoes any form of subtlety while embracing baroque sensibilities. But this very excess gives Altered States the impetus to stand out as a visceral cinematic experience. Dick Smith’s brilliant prosthetic work also makes space for chilling body horror when Jessup’s flesh contorts and devolves into an ape-like creature with no self-awareness or memories. Hurt’s committed performance does considerable heavy-lifting here, as his Jessup doesn’t wade through the absurd premise with half-hearted conviction. He’s mad enough to dive headfirst into the well of the collective unconscious and continue this madness even when his X-rays look more simian than human.

None of these events are treated with irony, as Russell situates Jessup’s relationship with Emily (Blair Brown) as a sincere anecdote to human folly. As cliché as it might sound, we’re told that only love and radical empathy can snap a devolved brain out of evolutionary stupor and ground unchecked human ambition. Jessup’s search for truth is still a potent motivator — it starts as genuine curiosity about the human condition, but quickly consumes his sense of judgment and sanity. But Russell’s Altered States is ultimately about the impermanence of relationships, and how easy it is to lose sight of what’s important when you’re transfixed by the garish assault of psychedelia.