Saturday, June 7, 2008
Paul Schrader: Still Slippin' Into Darkness After All These Years
I grew up in the seventies. It was the end of Vietnam exacerbated by the Pentagon Papers, the fall of Nixon and Watergate, and a time when enough evidence had come to the surface for many or most Americans to believe that the full story of Kennedy's assassination did not dwell between the covers of the Warren Report. And it was a time when my taste in film became highly influenced by the Hollywood "new cinema" era where Coppola, Scorsese, Altman, and others came into prominence.
By the mid seventies, the tide turned. Studios were being bought up by investment firms and big corporations. Jaws and Star Wars, began the era of the mindless spectacle thrill ride which we still have too apparent with us. What became immediately rarer were the moral character studies which featured intimacy, great technical and aesthetic components and an opportunity for actors to shine.
Paul Schrader's film of last year, The Walker, connected with me I am sure because it took me back to a zone that his other pictures dwelt in, a protagonist's world closing in and caving in due to external forces, some of which were exacerbated, at least, by his or her own choices. His script of Taxi Driver, and direction and/or writing of American Gigilo, Night Sleeper, Auto Focus, Patty Hearst, Yoshima, Blue Collar and nearly all the rest feature this kind of conflict.
Woody Harrelson's character of Carter Page III is the homosexual son of a prominent southern politician who does some deal dabbling in real estate and investments, but he is mostly a walker, a gentleman who escorts prominent Washington, DC women to societal events and plays Canasta with them weekly. Harrelson spit shines and rises to the occasion in this role. He is best when he gets to wax candidly with the likes of Lauren Bacall, Lily Tomlin, and Kristen Scott Thomas. Wilhem Dafoe and Ned Beatty are among the men who play the husbands. But my favorite male actor in this work besides Harrelson is German actor Moritz Bleibtreu (from Im Juli) who plays Harrelson's boyfriend, an agitpop and flamboyantly gay artist that is more open and truthful to himself than his walker lover.
Car's world comes a'tumblin' down when the lover of one of his Senator's wives is murdered and he finds himself implicated in he crime. Yes, there are complications, coverup, and conspiracy. And as it unravels, Schrader's script is filled with lots of wicked touches like the character of Mungo Tenant, an ambitious prosecutor who might remind one of Rudolph Giuliani.
This film dropped out of sight during the late fall/Christmas glut of movie releases. The window is so small these days and pictures that are not mainstream and trendy get mislaid. I think that is the case with The Walker with its long shadows, character driven circumstances and ultimately, a film that might be a bit of an anachronism, but one that took me back 30 years to when these kinds of experiences at the cinema mattered.
posted by well-executed buffet at 9:30 PM
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