Catherine Tramell

Catherine Tramell
Basic Instinct character
Stone as Tramell in Basic Instinct
First appearance	Basic Instinct (1992)
Last appearance	Basic Instinct 2 (2006)
Created by	Joe Eszterhas
Portrayed by	Sharon Stone

Catherine Tramell is a fictional character and the main antagonist of the film Basic Instinct (1992) and its sequel Basic Instinct 2 (2006). Tramell, created by writer Joe Eszterhas, is played by Sharon Stone in both films. Tramell is considered to be one of Stone's most iconic roles,^[1][2] with Stone describing Tramell to be her most famous and relevant character.^[3] Tramell was nominated for the American Film Institute's list of the "Best Villains",^[4] and was named one of the greatest characters by Entertainment Weekly in 2010.^[5]

Appearances

Basic Instinct

Basic Instinct establishes Tramell as a beautiful, wealthy heiress and successful crime novelist who is connected to the violent stabbing death of a washed-up rock musician, Johnny Boz, who was found in his bed tied to the bed posts with a white silk scarf. She is subsequently investigated by San Francisco homicide detectives Nick Curran (Michael Douglas) and Gus Moran (George Dzundza), who learn that Boz died in exactly the same manner as a character in Tramell's most recent novel. Tramell shows little emotion upon hearing of Boz's death, and under questioning by the police, behaves provocatively; in the film's most famous scene, Tramell recrosses her legs to show that she is not wearing underwear beneath her short skirt.

Curran looks into Tramell's troubled history and links her to the deaths of her wealthy parents (who died in a boating accident), her counselor at UC Berkeley (who was also killed with an ice pick in an unsolved homicide), and her former fiancé, a famous boxer, who died in the ring. She also has a habit of befriending imprisoned murderers such as her girlfriend Roxy, who killed her brothers as a teenager, and Hazel Dobkins, an elderly woman who killed her husband and children for no apparent reason. However, when he confronts Tramell, she taunts him with knowledge of his drug addiction and his killing of two tourists on assignment while high on cocaine. Thinking that Tramell received the confidential information from an adversarial internal affairs investigator, Marty Nilsen, a violent Curran gets himself suspended and falls into a drunken stupor. After Nilsen is found dead, he becomes the prime suspect. Curran, increasingly seduced by Tramell, becomes sexually involved with her; she tells him that he will be the basis of the character in her next novel.

A torrid affair between Tramell and Curran begins with the air of a cat-and-mouse game. Curran shows up at a club and witnesses her sniffing cocaine in a bathroom stall. Later, they have aggressive sex at Tramell's apartment. Roxy, jealous of Nick's relationship with Catherine, unsuccessfully attempts to kill Curran and dies in a car crash. Tramell's apparent grief over Roxy's death leads Curran to doubt her guilt. Curran then learns that as a college student, Tramell had a lesbian encounter with Beth Garner, a police psychologist with whom he previously had an affair. Upon finding the manuscript to Tramell's latest novel, and reading the final pages where the fictional detective finds his partner's dead body, Curran realizes that Moran is in danger. He is too late to stop Moran's apparent murder by Garner, whom he shoots when he thinks she is retrieving a weapon. Evidence collected in Garner's apartment points to her as the killer of Boz, Nilsen, Moran, and her own husband. She is ultimately branded as the killer.

Curran is left confused and dejected, knowing from the manuscript that Tramell, at least must have known more about Moran's murder. When he tries to confront her after returning to his apartment, the two end up making love. During a session of pillow talk where they discuss their future, Tramell reaches for something under the bed before abruptly resuming sex. The camera pans below the bed to show Tramell's weapon of choice, an ice pick, confirming that she was killer all along and that she could kill Curran and wants to do it.^[6][7][8]

Basic Instinct 2

In Basic Instinct 2, set fourteen years after the events of the first movie, Tramell speeds through London in a sports car with Kevin Franks, an English football player. After taking Franks' hand to masturbate herself and reach orgasm, Tramell crashes the car into the River Thames. She attempts to save her partner, but she says in the subsequent scene, "When it came down to it, I guess my life was more important to me than his." When Scotland Yard finds evidence of her culpability in the death, Tramell is made to attend therapy sessions with a court-appointed psychologist, Dr. Michael Glass (David Morrissey). At her trial, Glass testifies that Tramell is a narcissist who suffers from a pathological "risk addiction", showing no regard for right or wrong. However, Glass' testimony is deemed insufficient, and Tramell goes free.

Tramell begins playing mind games with Glass, who finds himself becoming both frustrated and increasingly intrigued by her. Eventually, he succumbs to temptation and begins an illicit affair with Tramell. However, following the murder of his ex-wife's partner—a journalist planning to write a negative story about Glass—he suspects that she is trying to frame him for the killing. As more people close to Glass turn up dead, his obsession with Tramell grows to the point where it threatens his career and livelihood. In the meantime, Glass conducts a survey for Detective Superintendent Roy Washburn (David Thewlis), who has taken the Tramell case and is now investigating the murders and discovers aggravating elements for his earlier professional life. Eventually, Glass himself can no longer tell right from wrong and now he suspects that everything was designed by the corrupt officer for the latter to nail the writer.

During Glass' confrontation with Tramell, she reveals that her latest novel is based on the present situation, featuring characters based on herself, Glass, and the victims. Tramell gives to Glass a draft of her new book, which suggests that her next victim is his colleague, Dr. Gardosh (Charlotte Rampling). However, this turns out to be a ruse to trick Glass into having a violent confrontation with Tramell and Gardosh, and subsequently he shoots Detective Washburn. Glass is committed to a mental hospital, where Tramell reveals the whole plot of her latest book The Analyst, which gained a better ending thanks to him, and flashbacks are shown of Glass committing all the murders. She claims that he used her as a smokescreen, presenting an increasing obsession with her as a way to feign mental instability and avoid prison. The novelist tells him to come back soon because she misses him and leaves with a wicked smirk on her face, having found an equal who is as manipulatively murderous as she is. Glass, still sitting in his wheelchair, takes the book in his hands and an enigmatic spasmodic movement is erased on his lips.

Personality

In Basic Instinct 2, Tramell is described as a "pathological liar" with her being diagnosed as a psychopath with narcissistic and borderline features by psychologist, Dr. Michael Glass; he explains: "Inside I believe she vacillates between a feeling of godlike omnipotence and a sense that she simply does not exist, which of course is intolerable. I believe Ms. Tramell's behavior is driven by what we might call a risk addiction. A compulsive need to prove to herself that she can take risks and survive dangers that other people cannot. Especially the subsequent encounters with the police, the powers that be. The greater the risk, the greater the proof of her omnipotence. All addiction is progressive, the addict will always need to take greater and greater risks. I suspect the only limit for her would be her own death."

Tramell's victims

References