I can’t think of two more diverse approaches to film than these
two 1970s crime films. One is American (U.S.) and the other European. If one
needed an explanation of the difference in our cultures, this double feature
should do the trick.
Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw |
The Get Away (1972) is about as American as a movie can
get. Sam Peckinpah directed. Arthur Hill wrote the screen play based
on a Jim Thompson novel. There are are guns — lots of guns — car
chases, crashes, fires, explosions, falling elevators, even a potential
hydraulic compaction in the back of a trash truck. McQueen is an ex-con who, in his exchange for what he imagines to be
his freedom, trades his girlfriend and agrees to do a bank heist. We go from bad to worse. No end to treachery. Along the way, the Thompson noir got a
Hollywood detour. Quincy Jones provided some happy ending music. Even so, the movie was a big hit, and despite
its ‘70s sentiment, Getaway is
nonetheless an adventure. You won’t doze off. The casting director deserves an award. Ali
MacGraw costars with merit, and supporting actor Al Lettieri is appropriately and masterfully despicable. Sally Struthers is at her irritating
best.
Maria Schneider and Jack Nicholson |
The theme of the evening is “escape,” from what to what. In The Passenger we find Jack Nicholson playing British-born
American TV journalist David Locke who is fed up with his wife, his life, and
his job, which has devolved into a shallow practice of a once important
profession. At a remote hotel in Chad,
he discovers that a fellow Western traveller with whom he had befriended has
died of natural causes. The dead man had few ties back in England. Locke
figured that, given the circumstances and with a little tinkering, he could
exchange identities. It was Locke who
would be dead, officially. And the Nicholson character would be reborn as
Robertson, set free from his encumbrances. However, Robertson turns out to have
been a munitions supplier in the Chad civil war. The new Robertson comes into a large sum of
money, but of course cannot deliver the goods.
In this European film, written in part and directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, the threats are
more implicit than manifest. The
character’s philosophically existential dilemma is more important than his
physical survival.
The Passenger
(1975) is a slow, beautiful film. While Getaway
is nearly all action, The Passenger
slows so you can see the amazing stream of still photographs that make up the
whole. The life force in the film, however,
comes from actress Maria Schneider,
who plays a young and eccentric "passenger,",if only the main character would
get it. She is a sprite who does her best to help a human (Nicholson) find what
he is really searching for.
Oddly, at the end of Getaway,
Steve McQueen tells Slim Pickens, “I
hope you find what you’re lookin’ for.”
The thing is that the Slim Pickens’ character, hardly pivotal, was the
only one (in both movies) not looking for anything and seems quite content.
The roughly four hours watching these two movies are spent
in hot, dry and desolate places. To help
you endure your cinematic surroundings, put some ice into a glass with tequila
or rum to stay cool. Lemonade is nice
too.
No comments:
Post a Comment