Crazy Love

Interesting story about obsessive "love". Definitely a start to modern stalking legislation. But, at the end I was asking myself what the heck did I just watch.

The nice thing about this story is that it doesn't show what it pretends to--that with age comes wisdom. It shows that demented people are walking around us all the time and you can even be married to one so stay awake and never sleep while dating. Burt is a sociopath with psychopathic tendencies. Linda is a lovely girl who is stuck on herself. It's a union made in Hell. He is pretty much unrepentant after disfiguring her, but supposedly still in love with her (huh-Brooklynese)! She is frightened out of her mind but still able to be wooed by him (her ego demands satisfaction). He is a known whore, she's a tease. It's inevitable that people like this are drawn to each other in life. The only remorse he shows is in getting old. He's upset that he has no cachet anymore, not that he frigged up a woman's life. Their faces reveal the delight at being able to 'tell their stories' after all these years and that anyone would care enough to watch. We have become the ultimate voyeurs. Most of the friends, family, witnesses are elderly boozed out/smoked out floozies and pimps. It could have cult status. It's a film that ought to have been made by John Waters. Watch it knowing that these people have lived and learned nothing. Watch it knowing that though you'll try, you probably will NEVER reach beyond your high school mentality. Who you are in h.s. is basically who you are the rest of your life regardless of career, style, money, etc. A thug is a thug is a thug. A cheerleader is a cheerleader is an old cheerleader.

I'm reminded of the line from a Chris Rock special where he's talking about gay people should be allowed to married and "be as miserable as everybody else." How about passive-aggressive? One may try and pin-point Burt Pugach as being such, though he's not the easiest sort of character to crack. Or, maybe he is: a pioneer in the field of ambulance chasers, he laid eyes on a woman one day in the late 50s in the Bronx and knew he had to have her. She wasn't that easy, albeit he was pretty rich as a lawyer/movie producer, and had all sorts of nifty objects. But, low and behold, he was really married, and once found out kept stalling on getting divorced. Why exactly I'm sure only Burt, and his eventual ex-wife, could say, but it lead down a path of one of the most bizarre cases of 'tainted love' one could ever find: blindness by acid, jail-time, near poverty, and finally a strange reconciliation and marriage between stalker and stalkee.

If you don't know the tale of the Pugach's, as I did, some of this may come as something of a surprise (the glasses Linda wears, at first, seems like a simple fashion gimmick, until the real reason comes out- and sight of her eyes as they are today), but what makes the film work best is seeing it as a surreal human interest story. Like Capturing the Friedmans, you'll leave the theater or finish watching at home and it will get you talking not so much in a gossip kind of way as the newspapers originally made it out to be as a huge story (the kind that, had it come out today, would be probably the only news for a week on the cable channels), but as if these people are almost like characters in a movie. How could Burt's first wife stand all this, or even marry him? Didn't Linda know that Burt could go one step further following her engagement to Larry Schwartz? How could the two of them stay together even after there was ANOTHER big charge put against Burt in the 90s with another woman claiming damages? All these questions, and more, may be prevalent, but in the end it doesn't matter too much.

What Crazy Love is is sincere entertainment, where there's real truth in it- the circumstances following Linda's blindness, leading to a sort of existential crisis leading up to Burt, mostly for the money, truth be further told- and lots of dark humor as well. It may be a little exploitive perhaps, but seeing photos of Burt in the 70s after getting out of prison are some of the most demented photos, I've ever seen of a man, with his beard looking like what a character playing the devil might wear (not that he is the devil, just a, well, lying ambulance chaser). There's also some humility in seeing how, in a way, the marriage that Burt and Linda ended up in may not be too far removed, in seeing them on screen anyway, from how people you know might act- which is a level of discontentment and misery, but also the feeling that things can't get much worse.

It's not a great documentary, as sometimes the editing is a little jerky, and the last transition from previously cool songs to a mopey ballad the couple dance to is not good at all. But it's got many qualities that make it very watchable- unpredictability (or predictability, depending on point of view or knowledge of the material), a real sense of time and place (great Bronx locations), and two people and their friends and witnesses who can attest to the biggest puzzle of them all: how could they get back together after what happened?

The victim, Linda, who ends up married to the guy did not say in this documentary that she loved the man who paid someone to disfigure her and then years later married her. He disfigured her face, her beautiful eyes and ruined her life as much as possible without actually killing her. To me it is obvious he is a narcissist because he never really admits any GUILT over ANY of his BAD VERY BAD actions. Dating her when he was married, obviously he's about 8-9 years older than her. She never had sex with him, and it was 'hinted' but not stated outright that finally in her mid-30s after she'd been disfigured she was planning to lose her virginity, finally! to another guy, but when that guy saw her eyes not hidden behind dark glasses, he freaked. The one man she thought loved her (not Burt) broke off their engagement after she got out of the hospital after the acid attack. This woman was STRONG WILLED. To be blind to the point where she could only see light/dark and 'shapes' and yet walk to work, in a big city, without a seeing eye dog or even a white cane, shows her strength. But by the time Burt got out of jail, Linda had been single, and living alone, for years. She had no one, no money, barely surviving in a one-room 'apartment'. AND there's Burt, still relentlessly telling her he loves her, and asking for her forgiveness. So she has a love/hate relationship with him, what's new about that? She tells him 'if you love me send me money'... and although he was still in jail at the time, he was selling his lawyering services to the inmates and two weeks later she's got a certified check from him for $4,000.00... in early 1970-71. That was BIG money for that time. Enough time has passed that she has 'gotten over' what he did to her, as much as one could, and she no longer hates him. Hate is a strong emotion, and very draining, just like infatuation. (I think infatuation, not love, is the flip side of hate.) So he's out of jail, paid his 'debt to society' (as he said) and she wants some respite from her life of not-much. So she marries him. Odd, maybe, but not 'weird'. She doesn't love him, and he, purportedly, does love her (in his narcissistic way). I understand why she married him. Although he never stopped being a liar/cheat (he's a narcissist), he does seem to take care of her, and finally, that's better than living alone, struggling to survive financially with an overwe'ening sense of loneliness. Maybe his punishment is having to take care of the woman he supposedly loved and yet injured so seriously. Who knows. Life is short and difficult. So she took comfort from her enemy. Move along, people, nothing (new) to see here. Very well done documentary! I was surprised it kept my interest, but it did.

This may be the most amazing true-life documentary I've ever seen. If it wasn't all true, I'd never believe it. Who would? This is an insane "love story," and it really happened. Ask the citizens of New York City who lived through this tabloid story. I'm sure they couldn't believe it, either, but it was headline news in their area for quite a while.

I hesitate to say too much for those who haven't watched this, but I highly recommend this DVD. The filmmakers did an outstanding job in presenting all the major figures in this fascinating tale of twisted lovers....and "twisted" is putting it mildly, especially in regard to the chief male: Burt Pugach, who is one of the most despicable no-conscience people I've ever seen. If you have a low opinion of lawyers, you'll really appreciate this story! The female part of this bizarre "love" story is Linda Riis. She's the first person you see on camera and, from the first sentence on, you think incredulously "who is this?!" The weird sunglasses, eyebrows, obvious wig and brutally-frank New York directness and accent hits you like a truck. Her story, and from her perspective, is the most amazing of them all. Everyone else that follows - Burt and Linda's friends and associates - are almost as riveting. These are all real people, not actors.

Trust me: you have to see this to believe it. If crazy people, obsession, romance, crime, loneliness, comedy, etc., are all something you find entertaining, this documentary has all of it. It might also disgust you that human beings can be so pathetic.

I couldn't stop shaking my head in disbelief after this watching this documentary. Kudos to everyone involved in this film for a job very well done.