VLVL2 (14) Movie(s) of the Week, 271-274

[Paul Nightingale]

More on Roscoe's function in this chapter, the way in which the narrative
juxtaposes him to Frenesi as a means to setting up Brock.

After the "memorable dope-field shoot-out" Brock, "babbling", insists he'll
always be indebted to Roscoe. This of course is part of Roscoe's
recollection of Brock "dumb and terrified as a recruit following his
sergeant". As well as being helplessly dependent, Brock here has been
deprived of coherent speech: he is anything but the articulate intellectual
he has presented himself as. Roscoe ("wheezing" as a result of his exertions
on Brock's behalf) likens the experience to being in a Movie of the Week
(271). A certain ambiguity surrounds this statement.

Cf Zoyd in the hotel scene with Frenesi: "'Feel like Mildred Pierce's
husband, Bert,' is how Zoyd described his inner feelings ..." (57). I
pointed out at the time that Zoyd, drawing on Frenesi's (and his own)
knowledge of film history, is alluding to the fact that, at the end of MP,
the errant wife returns to her forgiving husband.

In each case the reference frames experience in terms of its cultural
representation, as performance. For Zoyd an attempt to communicate with his
wife, but also wishful thinking. For Roscoe, however, the reference might be
self-deprecating, as in: Nothin' to it, ol' buddy! Or: All in a day's work.
It might also be ironic, a reminder that such 'hands-on' activity is not
Brock's forte. For Roscoe, after all, Brock is "dirt-ignorant".

Hence the departure from the camp (274). Frenesi has failed to provide a
"politically correct answer" (cf her failure to "just [zing] him one", 201).
Brock accuses Roscoe of "blow[ing] my effect here" with "one of [his]
old-time comedy routines". In terms of characters' perceptions of their
experience as a performance, the "effect" is a departure as staged as that
from the dope-field would have been: Roscoe's "old-time comedy routine" sees
the screwball (and subversive) nature of his relationship with Brock intrude
into, or disrupt, the latter's relationship with Frenesi.