Just One More Thing: Murder -- A Self Portrait

Notes and screenshots for Murder -- A Self Portrait: Originally broadcast on November 25 1989, starring Patrick Bachau as the manipulative Max Barsini, Shera Danese, Fionulla Flanagan and Isabel Lorcsa as the women trapped in his orbit, some Vito Scotti, a little George Coe and, of course, Peter Falk as Columbo.

"A womanizing famous painter becomes paranoid about his first wife revealing his secret of killing his art dealer in the past, so he murders her while devising a solid alibi. Lt. Columbo investigates the apparent drowning of the ex-wife."

-IMDB Summary

"In Murder, a Self Portrait, artist Max Barsini (Patrick Bauchau) has kind of an odd arrangement- he shares a beachside house with his second wife (Shera Danese) and his model/mistress, all while his first wife (Fionnula Flanagan) lives right next door. When the original Mrs. Barsini announces she’s moving out to be with her former therapist, the artist fears she’ll be take a deep, dark secret along to her new digs- Max’s murder of an art dealer decades ago. Deciding he can’t trust her to keep quiet, he kills her on the beach and throws her body in the water to fake a drowning. When Columbo’s assigned to the case, he has to endure lengthy portrait sessions and multiple black-and-white dream sequences to get closer to proving Barsini’s added murder to his palette. Joining to discuss the episode, along with page three murders, hate quadrangles and trinity structure, is podcaster (Hold My Order Terrible Dresser) and writer (We Are the Mutants), Michael Grasso"

-RJ's episode summary

Listen to the original podcast episode here:

Episode 67: 40th Annual Basset Hound Club Picnic with our guest Michael Grasso.

Murder -- A Self Portrait

Season 9, Episode #1

Director: James Frawley

Writer: Robert Sherman

What a strange, compelling episode of Columbo. Like other outliers – Last Salute to the Commodore comes to mind as an example, or Murder Smoke and Shadows – the strength of this episode depends on its uniqueness. If there had been TWO episodes with the pacing and content of Murder: A Self-Portrait, this would be interminable. But as the exception that proofs the rule? M:ASP is engaging.

Bachau is so wildly over the top in his portrayal of Max Barsini that it stops registering as an acting performance. He’s engaged in a choreography of the mind, mental exercises given physical expression in such a way that you honestly can’t tell what he’s going to do next – except that it was be repulsive and you’ll hate him for it. My wife was very disappointed, in particular, that Barsini wasn’t the victim…

There weren’t exactly what I’d call “superb” performances in this episode, but everyone was absolutely inhabiting the worlds to which their characters belonged. This may also be my favorite of the many Shera Danese performances on this show, all brass and bile until it boils down to strength and self-determination. She had a great arc.

The dream sequences are the standout element of the episode, of course, and they’re trickier to navigate than most experiments on the program. The circus/hallucination sequences in Murder Smoke and Shadows came out of nowhere, so the episode didn’t have to do any work to bear the weight of the weird part. M:ASP must create a framework in which the dream sequences can carry some of the plot – quite a bit of the plot, in fact – which probably explains why it’s so overwrought. 

A weird episode worth watching, after you’ve seen at least five pretty good Columbos first. If you start with this one, you’d have the most messed up idea about what constitutes an episode of this show…

Here's a quick tour around Barsini’s studio at the opening of Murder: A Self-Portrait. Please notice the complete absence of his signature red pigment, excepting a self-portrait on the wall:

Among every other scene in Murder: A Self Portrait, I was genuinely annoyed by this one below. The cioppino is lovingly prepared and plated for what should be an appealing visual when finally shot. It’s edited so that we don’t even get a frame of the cioppino uninterrupted, before Bachau’s bread-wielding hand juts in and shoves bread into it, obscuring it. 

But, then again, I’m willing to assume that this episode is intentionally loaded up with symbolism and semiotics. In this case, here’s the cioppino – as red as Barsini’s signature color – prepared lovingly by his first wife Louise, who is effectively a prisoner of this man’s ardor and vanity. And he barely takes a moment to appreciate the meal she’s prepared before he jams his fist into it. He craves it, adores it, demands it, and then brutalizes it.  I’ll take that one as a metaphor, sure!

The Basset Hound Club picnic at the beginning of the episode Murder: A Self Portrait, which I honestly though was only fluff and filler and would never inform any remaining part of the episode in any fashion. Imagine my surprise.

It is filled with fluff, of course: Basset hound costume parties, sexy blonds tying ribbons to basset hounds, people playing instruments right in basset hounds’ faces. There’s even a basset hound eating a whole chicken on a picnic table, except when they remove the dog, the spot where he was standing was perfectly cleaned out to the size and shape of a basset hound. They were expecting him!

Celebrating forty years of basset hounds. Here’s to another forty!

Clips from the dream sequences of Murder: A Self-Portrait. Eerie and interesting, even if the “French uncle” up top looks like Sam Kinison. “OHHHH. OHHHH. SOMEONE MURDERED ME. I’M BURIED HERE! OHHHHH!” and so on.

Next episode: Columbo Cries Wolf