The Voice of Reason: A V.I.P. Pass to Enlightenment (16 page)

 

DIRTY HARRY

God, I love this film. This film sprang from the fertile ground of mid-’70s San Francisco and became an unintentional landmark of gay cinema. It held strong elements of the city’s import to the national restructuring of cultural themes of sexual identity—macho pestering; the louche, lurid appeal of sexual slumming; the “rough trade” ethos. When Harry Callahan’s antagonist, who is also Harry’s gay “femme/bottom” alter ego, sees Harry’s gun, he lasciviously intones, “My, that’s a big one.” This is mere seconds after Harry has spurned another anonymous potential male sexual partner in the rambles of Golden Gate Park in the middle of the night. That self-same antagonist, I should point out to you kids who aren’t on board yet, is named Scorpio, an overt reference to Kenneth Anger’s masterpiece film
Scorpio Rising
, commonly referred to as the Gayest Film Ever Made. Dirty Harry Callahan—an insane, inhibited, dangerously listing cargo vessel of repressed homosexuality, torpedoed below the waterline by his own unrequited urges, lurching ever closer to wrecking on the shoals of his own misunderstood masculinity—shoots what he can, beats what he can’t, and ignores the opposite sex entirely. What a great cop movie, with such an interesting subtext.

 

 

A CLOCKWORK ORANGE

Insane, violent, visionary, original, challenging, brilliant.

 

 

THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY

Unjustly derided with the descriptive term “spaghetti western,” this film stands as a great story, a powerful artistic statement, and a meditation on war, culture, religion, friendship, betrayal, and greed. It’s also great fun and great entertainment, and it doesn’t weigh itself down with ponderous notions of its own profound importance à la the two
Godfather
films I mentioned. When you rewatch this movie, I am sure you will agree that Eli Wallach would have made a much better Don Corleone than Brando, and that Lee Van Cleef would have made a better Hyman Roth than Lee Strasberg.

 

 

ALL THAT JAZZ

Almost criminally underappreciated artistically, Roy Scheider was an actor of the very first rank. As a performer, he was powerful, talented, versatile, and assured. Scheider never turned in bad work. He was amazing in
All That Jazz
,
Jaws
, and
Sorcerer
, a Friedkin remake of Clouzot’s
Wages of Fear
. Without a doubt, Scheider would have made a better Sonny Corleone than James Caan.

 

 

VANISHING POINT

What a film. Check out Barry Newman in the white Dodge Challenger. Check out Cleavon Little as Super Soul. An existentialist essay on, well, I don’t know. I’m not going to go all “film school” on you. Just watch and enjoy.

 

 

AGUIRRE: WRATH OF GOD

In this film, Klaus Kinski, a true and proper man and one of the greatest actors ever, plays a hunchbacked, mutinous conquistador on a doomed mission to find a city of gold in the rainforests of South America. Personally, I’ve had a lifelong fascination with Kinski. Back in ‘88 when I was just a young buck, I can recall my father bringing me to Studio 54 in New York to attend the book-release party for Kinski’s autobiography,
All I Need Is Love
. I remember clutching my copy of the book to my chest, and brushing past Michael Musto and various other members of New York’s nightlife royalty, and approaching the Dark Prince Himself—Yes, Kinski in all his demented glory, a shock of blond-white hair perched slightly askew on his huge head, his full, blood-red rubbery lips, and wide-set, incredibly blue and almost supernaturally piercing eyes, staring down at me momentarily as I stood there with a book and pen, hoping for an autograph. Only to have him sneer at me in utter contempt and turn his back on me. I still have the book, and I recommend it to all of you. Not the garbage, stripped-down, ruined
Kinski Uncut
, a reprint that was criminally “edited” (translation: destroyed). That book came out many years later to yawns and crickets, after Kinski had given up the ghost in the redwood forest of Lagunitas, California. I suggest the book despite being snubbed. I remember that my father took me to Chinatown to eat as a consolation for my failure to obtain the autograph—and we may or may not have gone to a restaurant whose name rhymes with “Ho Wop,” and we may or may not have seen members of the New York arts-and-culture scene whose names rhymed with “Candy Marhol” or “Bavid Dowie,” and we may or may not have snorted heroic lines of white powder that may or may not have been pulverized vitamins off the red-enamel tabletop in full view of the assembled patrons. But back to
Aguirre
—a great film and a great achievement. Watch, learn, enjoy. You’re welcome.