No Pynchon-Discussion At All (Sorry)

[MARIZZO at aol.com]

Parenthetically, but concurrently with some of the latest discussion:

There have been some overlaps in regard to the directors we're talking about, 
and I'd like to just reconfigure things a little bit to make a point about 
the big disjunct to be found between Eastwood's films.

Since "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" was mentioned as an originator of a 
certain  critical strain in American films, we should remember that it shared 
its director with the original "Dirty Harry".  There's a big disjunct right 
there, which needs little elaboration.  This same director, Don Siegel, went 
on to make one of the many direct forerunners to "Unforgiven," Wayne's last 
film, "The Shootist."  This film portrays its autumnal killing man, and his 
self-disgust, with little of the subtlety you'll find in what will 
undoubtedly be Eastwood's last word on the Western; it's a rather simple 
story, in which our hero preaches directly to a young boy the immorality of 
killing.  Whereas in "Unforgiven", Eastwood preaches to just about anyone, 
most of all himself, the virtues of his new life, and no one's buying this 
pablum for a second.  When Wayne re-assumes the mantle of his violent ways at 
the end, it is to assure the safety of the people in the town, and the last 
thing he sees before expiring is that young boy throwing a still-hot gun in 
renunciation.  In "Unforgiven", the killing at the end is ugly and vengeful.  
It's also of a further reach, giving the smackdown to even more marginally 
guilty parties; Eastwood kills people for just looking at him the wrong way, 
practically.

Two other current-day Eastwood films, "Magnum Force" and "Thunderbolt and 
Lightfoot", feature none other than Michael Cimino in their credits.  I 
believe that with Cimino, you find an even more schizoid personality than 
either Siegel or Eastwood.  In a film like "The Deer Hunter" you have, on the 
one hand, a strain of all-American machismo, with its two main characters who 
stand apart from their weaker friends as the guys who can get the killing 
done "with one shot."  They feel great pride in their ability to bag those 
deers, quick and clean.  This pride gets all transmuted in Vietnam--the 
DeNiro character experiences some heavy disillusion on his return home, best 
illustrated in that great scene where he returns to Pennsylvania, espies a 
welcome home party being prepared for him, and retreats to a hotel room, 
curling up in the corner (it's this kind of a scene that will deservedly keep 
DeNiro employed for the rest of his life, regardless of how fallow his recent 
career has been); the Walken character finds a new suicidal outlet for his 
killing abilities, trying for that last one shot in nightly Russian roulette 
matches.  This is a very confused film in a lot of ways, but what else can 
you expect from a man who planned for years to make a new version of "The 
Fountainhead," yet whose most recent, barely released film, "The Sunchaser", 
wallowed in all sorts of simplistic mysticism, New Age and otherwise, as 
cartoonish as Rand, yet altogether antithetical.

Eastwood may be a conservative, but we can easily see here that there is 
something which takes precedence over a point of view in film:  the story.  
Peckinpah made "The Wild Bunch," then "The Ballad of Cable Hogue"; "Junior 
Bonner," then "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid."  Eastwood's latest films, all 
marginal at best, have been based on superfluous best-sellers, which offered 
him none of the darker currents of "Unforgiven".  And besides, who says you 
can't be a conservative and still see that killing is not all it's cracked up 
to be?

Parenthetically, "Tightrope" is one current-day Eastwood film which he didn't 
make which I think stands apart from the rest of this batch.  It's not great 
or anything, but has some of that tortured quality I've discussed a little 
here.

And as far as Coppolla is concerned:  it's only been six years since he did 
anything of value, with that charming little fairy tale, "Jack."  Just 
kidding.

Oh, and if we're talking Vietnam films here, I think "Full Metal Jacket" is 
the best-argued of them, brilliant and true, even if something about the film 
feels off when it's portraying the horror.

Sorry I unleashed this letter, so unrelated to just about everything we 
should be talking about here, but in a sense a couple of you asked for it.  
Oh, and Michel:  thanks for the great dispatches.  Stop chastising yourself 
for not being "scholarly" (that's not a bad thing at all); your stuff is 
really helpful.

--Michael.
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