Cold Bishop wrote:Three more with a few days left:
Trouble in Mind (Alan Rudolph, 1985) Available on DVD in the UK
This, not Blade Runner, is the ultimate future-noir of the decade. While it may not have the benefit of Blade Runner’s amazing sets, Rudolph’s future works well enough despite his limited budget: armed militias roam the street, civil disobedience is rampant, and Pynchon-like messages mark the landscape. Alan Rudolph also crafts maybe the best film of the entire 1980s wave of neo-noirs. This is his valentine to the genre, and a movie that seems to speak exclusively in the language of film history. Valentine may be right, since despite its sordid assortment of losers and lowlifes and its at times explicit violence, the movie has a lyrical, romantic quality to it. There’s a plot straight of a hard-boiled novel in there, but that is not so much important as are the characters. Always the Altman acolyte, the strength of the movie comes from the collection of people that revolve around the film’s Wanda Café: Keith Carradine, Geneviève Bujold, Lori Singer, Joe Morton, George Kirby and in the lead, Kris Kristofferson. Often ragged on for his acting, both this and Heaven’s Gate should have launched him as a leading man. The most terrific at all, however, is Divine in his only non-drag performance, a surprising, menacing, off-kilter turn as the ruthless gangster Hilly Blue. A bizarre and haunting film with an incredibly unique atmosphere. I wish I could make room for Choose Me, Made in Heaven and The Moderns as well.
Runaway Train (Andrei Konchalovsky, 1985) Available on R1 DVD
Both the Brute Force and the Wages of Fear of the 1980s. Like Dassin’s film, it’s a tough, visceral and ultimately humane look at the dehumanizing aspects of prison as well as man’s relentless fight for freedom. It resembles Clouzot’s both superficially – like the trucks of those film, the train in question creates a unbearably tense scenario of unrelenting danger - but also in the desperation of the characters, the barren isolation of the setting, and in the existential philosophy that informs the story. It may be a shame that Akira Kurosawa never managed to make the film in the 60s with Henry Fonda and Peter Falk as it was planned. Yet, in the hands of another émigré, Andrei Konchalovsky, working with a rewrite by Eddie Bunker, we’re compensated with a film that doesn’t waste any of the potential Kurosawa must have seen in the story. It’s a film that practices the lost art of the action film, balancing the suspenseful mechanics of its narrative with a driving philosophy and compelling character study, all created with intelligence and integrity behind the camera. As an action-adventure film, Konchalovsky has a superior control in crafting the films spectacular set pieces. As a thriller, not a scene goes by that escapes the film’s palpable tension. Yet both of these aspects only work because we care about the characters. Jon Voight is here at a crossroads: the era that gave him his best work is coming to an end, and the one which will catch him sleepwalking through embarrassing dreck is approaching. Not only is Runaway Train possibly his last great role, it’s possibly his greatest, a fierce, animalistic performance of frightening intensity as a man who’s last remaining link to humanity and sanity is the desire for freedom. Eric Roberts, as the egotistical, dimwitted partner in over his head, is also great, equally obnoxious and vulnerable. This role is the last in the triptych, including Star 80 and The Pope of Greenwhich Village, which should have launched him into stardom. Both got well deserved Oscar nominations. While the Commissar may be better known among this board and certainly has more art-house cred, this may be Konchalovsky’s best film. That he slid down into Hollywood trash like Tango & Cash and Homer and Eddie is unfortunate; this is the rare film that balances the showmanship of mainstream, commercial product with a real artistry. An action-adventure film in the tradition of not only Dassin and Clouzot, but also Hawks, Huston, Kurosawa and Leone, and with the tides changing to shallow pyrotechnics, its one of the last of its kind.
The Stunt Man (Richard Rush, 1980) Available on R1 DVD
This is a film trapped between the commercial and the art film; it proved too difficult and cerebral for the mainstream audience, and it was still too much of an action film for it to go over with the arthouses. And while this tightrope walk does provide the film with its own problems, it works wonderfully as a synthesis between these two worlds which have since become more divided. It’s a movie about mind games, puzzles and illusion, about the separation between cinema and real-life and fantasy and reality, about the mechanics of the cinema laid bare, and about paranoia. It’s also a crime film, action film, screwball satire, romance, and on and on. Peter O’Toole gives a career best performance, and Steve Railsbeck is so good it’s weird that he never went on to do any thing major again. The same can be said of Rush, who seems to have vanished off the face of the earth after this labor of love, save for one unfortunate misfire. Sometime Rush’s antic comedy can become a little too broad, and the film isn’t exactly subtle about its intentions, but the film thrives off a wonderful kinetic energy which makes it a feast for the eyes and ears. A wonderful house of games which is always a delight to watch. Unfortunate that it was ignored by its audience in its day and age. It deserves much more than just a cult audience.
I love "Choose Me" which, I suspect, will endure for me as Rudolph's greatest:
if you haven't yet seen it, may I also recommend "Remember My Name".
Although I plan to give 'Trouble In Mind' another look I was disappointed with it on my only viewing: too much of it was about mood and look, I thought.
Casting Divine in a non-drag role was a good idea, though.
I thought Kristofferson's iconic performance in Peckinpah's "Pat Garrett and Billy The Kid" should have been enough.
Comparing "Runaway Train" with 'Brute Force' is valid, I think, but after the initial adrenaline rush of the escape and hitching a ride on the train, things went quickly downhill for me,thereafter, although I haven't seen it since its initial cinema release.
I think, though, comparisons with the Aldrich film, "The Emperor Of The North" might be more valid, although I didn't think much of that one either.
Agreed on Eric Roberts': he gave a wonderfully slimy, sleazy characterisation in 'Star 80':
(which would make a great double-bill to watch and compare with Willem Dafoe's performance in Schrader's 'Auto-Focus')
I can recall I didn't much care for 'The Stunt Man', and I remember quickly taping over the recording I made
(would make an interesting double bill with another Peter O'Toole film, "My Favourite Year", which I think was released about the same year!)
I hope this doesn't mean we'll be disagreeing on the merits of "The Moon In The Gutter"!