There’s something to be said for watching a movie in the comfort of your own dorm room, by yourself. You can make all the inappropriate comments you like, laugh at all the wrong moments, offer running commentary and advice, even, when the DVD started skipping, yell at the projector booth and throw empty White Castle boxes.
Within the first few seconds of film, Joe drops a bar of soap. I’m a little surprised no one else picked up on that, but then again, I already knew the tenor of the rest of the movie. I also thought it was a hilarious visual pun. It might just have been an excuse for a full nude exposure from the feet up so we could see how built he was.
A lot of ground was already covered in the class discussion, so I’ll try not to retread ground already well-worn, other than to say that yes, it was depressing, yes, it was about the characters, and yes, I kept thinking they had a shot at making it, but would screw up some way or another. It was mostly about loneliness and how we deal with that and how we try to survive and make our way than about depression and always failing, I thought. Leaving for Florida and killing the elderly man seemed less about being thwarted in our aims and desperation and meant to be statements on the lengths Joe was willing to go to for his friend, and the value he put on that friendship. “Kin” was what he called Ratso (I call him “Rizzo.” “Ritzy ditzy razzy ol’ Rizzo”) in the old man’s apartment. When you think about it, Ratso was the only one he had in the world.
Joe’s relationship to his grandmother was – very charged and highly erotic. I don’t think anyone has reached around and pulled my face down for a kiss the way she did while he was massaging her, when they didn’t also want to sleep with me. The scenes in the bed were weird in the same way – well, the naked man with the whiskey bottle was just weird, but the scene a little later in the montage where she pulls him close and kisses his face was – weird in a very different, suspicious way.
Montage! Montage! Montage! Everything’s a montage! Emotions are montages! Memories are montages! Drug-induced euphorias are montages! Montages! Montages! Montages!
I really do think Joe Buck could have made it as a hustler – if he had only stuck with it, gotten a manager (I yelled this and related advice at the screen with disturbing regularity), been persistent, instead of walking around in a fugue all those days after the ‘manager’ incident. Tried the same trick again with the escort service, now that Joe was a little wiser to the ways their (higher breed of) clientele preferred to be treated (in public, anyway). Or hell, he could have applied for a job with the escort service. Boy needs to get his act together.
The ‘manager’ scene was pretty damned screwy altogether. Getting down on their knees and praising Jesus for – a fruitful hustling? – was just downright bizarre and almost nonsensical, and Joe’s reaction was also – well, it was fairly well explained through the montage, but it still seemed a little strong. What I was expecting - waiting for – maybe I mean ‘goading for’ – was for the manager to ask Buck to go down on him, probably fellate him. Maybe that expectation was what the director/writer wanted to play on.
I’m a little confused as to why people were a little confused as to whether or not Joe killed the elderly gentleman in the hotel room. The man was clearly a closet queer that believed his “unhealthy” preferance in past-times was an affront to God – hence the repeating that things were ‘wrong’ and telling Joe that he ‘deserved this’ when Joe started hitting him and wanting to give him things to try and make it ‘right’ and so on (I don’t remember if this aspect of the scene was discussed in class or not so I’m doing it here to be safe). Joe clearly used the telephone mouthpiece (or receiver) to smother the old man, and killed him. The train passing as he did it would confirm this – killers had a reputation of waiting for a train to go by before striking, so that the noise would cover up there victim’s struggle. Joe obviously didn’t have the luxury of waiting for one to pass before killing the man, but audiences – particularly audiences from the late 60’s, which I’ll get back to in a minute – are so accustomed to seeing scenes of murder while a radio blares or a train rolls overhead that it becomes iconic – sort of shorthand for “murder being done here.” In 1969 there would still be plenty of people who remembered old-time radio programs where the tactic of killing as a train went by was all the rage because it aided an audio element to the otherwise tired “screams.” For a classic example hear “Sorry, Wrong Number” (http://www.geocities.com/emruf2/otr/suspense2.html) (or rather read, I can’t get an audio version online without paying – sorry).
Why didn’t I hear a single person refer to Rizzo as a grifter? It’s what he is, folks. Look the term up.
Speaking of Rizzo and his grifting, thieving ways, I thought one of the most poignant, inciteful moments of the film was when they visit his dad’s grave. Rizzo can’t even mention the guy during the movie without down-talking him. When they get there, Rizzo even swipes a bunch of flowers from a nearby grave. At first you think, “Jeeze. How callous – towards the person whose grave he swiped that from and to his father who he gives it to. Almost like an anti-gift – I think so little of you not only do I not buy you flowers, I give you stolen flowers instead.” But then you realize that stealing is all Rizzo has to give. He doesn’t have a single thing he hasn’t swiped or cheated out of somebody, except maybe his dreams of Florida. Stealing to give to his dad, or give to Buck, is the most sincere thing Rizzo has to give.
To end on a lighter note, thank god Joe ditched the cowboy suit. You’d look handsome in anything, sweetie, no need to look like a clown while you’re at it. In his new gear he reminds me of a blonde Tommy Vercetti (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Vercetti) but 17 years earlier and with a more tragic choice in shirt color. Maybe it’s just because they both fled New York for Miami. Maybe I just want to play GTA: Vice City again. Who knows.
Best moment? When Joe Buck learns some sense and announces out loud “I think I’m going to get some kind of job or something. Hustlin’, that ain’t no kind of life for a man” (or something to that effect). Pan back. “What do you think about that?”
Me: “I think I’m dead. Quick, check my pulse. Look, I’m real sorry, but I just browned your new pair of pants.”
I’ll be a real riot in hell.
No Comments Yet
No comments yet.
Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI
Leave a comment
