Movies - The Revenge Generation (Part 1), 7-31-2010

 Taking a break from the purely political here because of something said about Clint Eastwood. There was a piece in The New York Times characterizing his films as being about revenge.

We live in the age of revenge. We want the simplicity of death to those angering or frightening us. Due process confuses or bores – until you or someone in your family is arrested. Otherwise, military tribunals are a good thing, search warrants a nuisance, and mandatory prison sentences reinforce our governmental machismo. Punitive laws warm tour bellies, while reformation gives us a headache.

I do not put this down to Eastwood. I am not even sure the majority of Eastwood's films deal with revenge, but many films do deal with revenge. However, Eastwood is useful for translating the ethos of the Western (lawless frontier requiring self-help) into the urban setting.

Compare the climax of True Grit with the climax of Magnum Force. Both involve the killing of a gang by a law officer. Westerns abound with more examples.

In crime dramas before Dirty Harry, the cops were not killers. Gangsters were killers. Yes, much of this had to do with the Hayes Code.

Crime dramas were meant to be realistic. Westerns were mythic. Sergio Leone raised the mythic bar in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly and Once Upon A Time in the West over that done by John Ford in The Searchers or The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Revenge fantasies could easily play out in a Western, tucked back into a long gone frontier.

Then came the Seventies with tow particular revenge fantasies featuring actors known for their Westerns: 1) Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry series; and 2) Charles Bronson with Death Wish series. Eastwood and Bronson had more in common with the Westerns of the past than the StalloneSchwarzeneger movies coming in the future.

Is my memory wrong that Stallone's Cobra made more money than NIghthawks? I think so. Which of the Beverly Hills Cop movies ended with the arrest of a bad guy? None. Walter Hill did not end 48 Hrs. with an arrest, and in his Streets of Fire, the cops are powerless. Name any Schwarzeneger action movie where he did not kill the villain. I wish they had even a trace of Death Wish's moral quandary.

[To be continued in Movies - The Revenge Generation (Part 21), 7-31-2010. sch 2/22/23]