Flashpoint

Thanks to the Watergate scandal, the 1970s was a fantastic decade for paranoid conspiracy thrillers with such fine examples as The Parallax View (1974), Three Days of the Condor (1975), and All the President’s Men (1976) among the very best of that era. Audiences had become cynical and jaded about their government and were receptive to films that questioned authority. By the end of the ‘70s, a certain amount of fatigue set in and people wanted to see more upbeat fare like Jaws (1975) and Star Wars (1977) – escapist entertainment. By the 1980s, it was getting harder for conspiracy thrillers to attract mainstream audiences with rock solid films like Blow Out (1981) and Cutter’s Way (1981) failing at the box office. The little-seen Flashpoint (1984) also deserves to be mentioned with these other two films as one of the best thrillers to come out of this decade.

Logan (Kris Kristofferson) and Wyatt (Treat Williams) are two United States Border patrolmen that serve in the worst performing sector in Texas. So much so, that their boss (Kevin Conway) has brought in a pencil-pusher from Washington, D.C. to demonstrate a new scanning system that involves geo-sensors buried in the ground that will pick up an illegal immigrant trying to cross the border. Once the sensors are in place not as many agents will be needed, which means roughly two-thirds of their staff will be fired. Understandably upset at the prospect of planting the very technology that will conceivably cost them their livelihood; Logan and Wyatt continue to do their job.

One day while out on a call, Logan nearly crashes his jeep and in the process uncovers a vehicle buried in the ground. After doing some digging, he finds $800,000 and shows Wyatt what he found. Further searching uncovers a rifle and a license plate that dates back to 1963. They decide to check on the money and if it’s legit they’ll keep it in case they’re fired. Logan and Wyatt soon find out the dead guy in the jeep was not your average crook and cross paths with a hard-nosed FBI agent by the name of Carson (Kurtwood Smith) who arrives to take charge of a drug bust.

Logan is the laid-back veteran who’s been around long enough to know how to work the system while Wyatt is a young hothead that believes he can still make a difference. They make a good team, complimenting each other’s strengths and weaknesses. Kris Kristofferson and Treat Williams play well off each other and are believable as a duo that has worked together for some time. This is conveyed in the way they interact with each other, like the scene where Logan and Wyatt come across two women (played by Tess Harper and Jean Smart) whose car broke down in the desert. While checking out the engine the two men think up an excuse to keep these lovely ladies around long enough to take them out for a night on the town.

Williams is well-cast as the quick-tempered Wyatt, playing him as a man who hasn’t had the integrity beat out of him by the system. It exists in Logan too, but it has been lying dormant until the drug bust case and the appearance of the FBI agent that goes with it awakens the feeling. Kristofferson does a nice job of playing a guy who isn’t as jaded about the world as he would like others (and maybe himself) believe. Wyatt almost has himself convinced, but this case continues to gnaw away at him and he finally has a reason to give a shit about something again.

The always watchable Kurtwood Smith is excellent as the no-nonsense Carson. He takes what could have been a typical antagonist role and makes it special in a scene where Carson questions Logan’s decision to pass up a promising career in the military to be a border patrol guard out in the middle of nowhere. It’s a wonderfully acted monologue as the FBI agent lays it all out for Logan:

“The law of supply and demand … Your fucking job depends on those wetbacks. And if we didn’t have ‘em, we’d invent them. Otherwise, how would your department justify the millions it gets from Congress each year? It’s the American way, pal. Supply and demand. And when the supply is lacking you create it. Every morning I get up and I thank God for drugs and murder and subversion. Because without them we’d all be out of a job.”

Logan thinks he knows how things work, but he meets his match with the amoral Carson who has no illusions about what he does and why. Smith nails this scene without any flash – just straightforward acting with a slight air of menace as he portrays a man that Logan could have easily become if he hadn’t chosen to be a border patrolman.

Flashpoint received mixed reviews from the critics that saw it. Roger Ebert gave the film three out of four stars and wrote, “Flashpoint is such a good thriller for so much of its length that it’s kind of a betrayal when the ending falls apart. Why did they try so hard and then give up at the finish line?” In her review for The New York Times, Janet Maslin wrote, “Mr. Tannen’s strength is his ability to grab his audience’s interest quickly and to hold on to it, even by the most superficial means. Even when the movie doesn’t entirely make sense, it manages to be effective.”

Flashpoint is an engrossing mystery that gradually reveals itself the deeper Logan and Wyatt become involved in it. The film only gets more interesting as the scope of the conspiracy becomes known and we’re right there with our two protagonists as they uncover it. It is refreshing to see a thriller that eschews wall-to-wall action and convenient coincidences that plague many contemporary thrillers in favor of two protagonists that actually use their intelligence and abilities to figure things out. That’s not to say the film doesn’t have its exciting moments, like when a wounded Logan outmaneuvers three armed antagonists using his wits as much as his marksmanship.

That being said, Flashpoint places an emphasis on the duo’s savvy and keen observations of a given scene by studying things like tire tracks or surveying the terrain. The problem Logan and Wyatt face is that they get involved in something that puts them in grave danger. The film didn’t do very well because it flew in the face of the feel-good capitalism of the Reagan era by not only criticizing the problem of illegal immigration in America, but also the dirty secrets the U.S. government keeps. Flashpoint’s commercial failure can be chalked up partly to bad timing and now the time is right for it to be rediscovered.

Check out Sean Gill's fantastic review of this film over at his blog - Junta Juleil's Culture Shock.

Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia

Sam Peckinpah spent his career fighting against the Hollywood studio system to make his own distinctive brand of films. Out of all the ones he made only on Bring Me theHead of Alfredo Garcia (1974) was he given final cut privileges. The film is the epitome of a grungy nihilism that was in vogue with many American filmmakers during the 1970s with Peckinpah leading the charge in 1969 with the explosive deconstruction of the western that was The Wild Bunch. Coupled with his love affair with the country of Mexico, the veteran director created a deeply personal film that alienated critics and mainstream audiences alike back in the day, but has gone on to become one of his most highly regarded films.

The film begins with an image of idyllic beauty: a young, pregnant Mexican girl suns herself on the bank of a river. This is quickly shattered by a brutal scene where said girl is tortured by her land baron father, known as El Jefe (Emilio Fernandez), until she reveals the name of the man responsible: Alfredo Garcia. This is achieved by the breaking of her arm and Peckinpah makes sure he rubs our noses in the ugliness of the act, complete with the sickening snap, which sounds like a branch breaking.

Feeling that he was betrayed by Garcia (“He was like a son to me.”), El Jefe issues a bounty: a million dollars to whoever can deliver the head of Garcia to him. And so, he sets in motion a series of events that will have bloody, tragic consequences. Two rich businessmen (Gig Young and Robert Webber) search every town and small village for any signs of the man. One day, they happen by a small-town bar where they catch the eye of Bennie (Warren Oates), the bartender who likes the color of their money. We meet him playing piano and at first glance Warren Oates resembles a scuzzier version of Tom Waits during the Nighthawks at the Diner phase of his career. The actor exudes a sleazy charm that is a lot of fun to watch, especially when he talks sports with the two rich businessmen.

Bennie asks around and finds out that his girlfriend Elita (Isela Vega) once had Garcia as a customer when she was a prostitute. Bennie strikes a deal with the businessmen. He has four days to bring back Garcia’s head for $10,000 or they will come after him. So, Bennie and his girl go on the road with two thugs in a beat-up station wagon tailing them. They travel through some of the most dirt-poor parts of Mexico that you will not find in a tourist brochure any time soon. Bennie becomes obsessed, not with the money, but with Garcia and why his head is so valuable. He sees it as a ticket that will lead him to this answer.

Once they find Garcia’s body, Bennie and Elita’s lives get a lot more bloody and violent as the film shifts gears into a balls-to-the-wall revenge picture. Bennie’s descent into murder-fueled madness is something to see. He starts talking to Garcia’s severed head. He looks in the mirror and sees a completely different man looking back at him than who he was when this all began.

Peckinpah takes the time to show the relationship between Bennie and Elita — the intimate familiarity. It is almost like they are out for a picnic and not looking for a dead man. They have their dream of one day getting married. Oates delivers a fierce and fearless performance devoid of vanity. He’s not afraid to look unattractive and behave badly, like the way Bennie treats Elita. They live in a grungy flea pit that makes you want to have a shower – or at least check for ticks – it’s that tangible thanks to the set design. Bennie and Elita are in love – they’re a hard-drinking couple that cares for each other. She stays with him because she loves him and he’s devoted to her. He’s willing to kill for her. It’s a fully realized relationship with its own unique complexities. There is a scene where Bennie asks Elita to marry him that is touching and heartbreaking – easily one of the most intimate and emotional scenes in any Peckinpah film. It makes us care about what happens to them and it lays the groundwork for Bennie’s transformation into a hardened killer.

A troubling aspect of Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia is Peckinpah’s harsh treatment of women. From the pregnant girl that has her arm broken to Elita almost being raped by a dirty biker, women are abused and generally treated like crap. That being said, Elita is an interesting character in that she rises above the misogyny of Bennie and the biker. She doesn’t cower in fear but bravely faces her would-be abuser. Isela Vega does a wonderful job conveying Elita’s conflicted feelings that she has for her past relationship with Alfredo and the hopeful future she could have as a result of the bounty for his head.

What can you say about Warren Oates that hasn’t already been said? He was one of the most underrated actors in the ‘70s. He left behind an impressive body of work; some of the best was with Peckinpah. In Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, he looks the part of Bennie, with his cheap, white suit, gaudy shirt and loud tie, complete with large sunglasses — based on Peckinpah’s actual attire at the time. Oates always looks disheveled and world-weary — a life of hard-living. He has a natural, tough guy presence that you just don’t see any more. He has a cool, don’t-mess-with-me attitude. And no one can quite curse angrily as convincingly as Oates does. At one point, he tells two bikers (one played by Kris Kristofferson) who are about to rape his girlfriend, “You two guys are definitely on my shit list.” You don’t really like Bennie but you grow to respect him and his obsessive desire for the truth.

Filmmaker Sam Peckinpah was working on The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970) when long-time friend Frank Kowalski told him about an idea for a film that he had. “’I got a great title: Bring Me the Head of Alfredo…,’ and he has some other name – ‘and the hook is that the guy is already dead.’” Peckinpah loved the idea and began working on it with Kowalski while making Cable Hogue and later in England while filming Straw Dogs (1971). Together, they produced a 20-page treatment with Lee Marvin and Jane Fonda in mind.

Peckinpah hired screenwriter Walter Kelly to write the script. He wrote the first half before the director fired him. Producer Martin Baum had formed his own independent production company, Optimus Productions, and had a deal with United Artists. Peckinpah came to him with Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia and 25 pages of the script. Baum read and liked it. United Artists agreed to pay the director to write the rest of the script but he told Baum not to pay him because he owed him a favor. Peckinpah told the producer that if UA liked the script then he could pay him.

The director finished the script with Gordon Dawson who approached the project thusly: “I wrote Sam. How can I drag this guy through every toilet in Mexico? I knew Mexico and I knew Sam, and I knew how much Sam loved Mexico. And I knew what Sam liked about Mexico, so I just put it all in there.” Peckinpah showed the finished screenplay to James Coburn and Peter Falk, both of whom passed because they found the material too dark for their tastes. Then, the director thought of Warren Oates who accepted the role without reading the script as working with Peckinpah was the only reason he needed.

Peckinpah started pre-production in mid-August 1973 in Mexico City. With the exception of a few key people, the entire crew was Mexican. To that end, the director hired Alex Phillips Jr., one of the country’s premiere cinematographers, to work on his film. They bonded over a dislike for wide-angle lenses and an admiration for zooms and multiple camera set-ups. Peckinpah told him, “I make very few takes, but I shoot a lot of film because I like to change angles. I shoot with editing in the back of my mind.”

While scouting locations, the director relied extensively on his gut instinct and a desire to portray a gritty, realistic vision he had of Mexico. Peckinpah spent a lot of time searching for the right bar that would Bennie would frequent. He finally discovered a place in the Plaza Garibaldi known as “Tlaque-Paque.” The director looked around and said, “This is dressed. This is for real.” Mexican crew members told him that the bar’s owner had an infamous reputation and it was rumored that he once killed a woman there, serving very little jail time because he bribed the right people in positions of power.

Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia went into production in late September. A month later, Peckinpah was quoted in Variety magazine as saying, “For me, Hollywood no longer exists. It’s past history. I’ve decided to stay in Mexico because I believe I can make my pictures with greater freedom from here.” This upset the Motion Picture and Television unions and they openly censured Peckinpah for his statement at their National Conference in Detroit. They also threatened Alfredo Garcia with union boycotts upon its release, labeling it a “runaway” production. The director claimed he had been misquoted and before his film was to be released, the unions relented on their threat.

Early on, Oates had difficulty getting into the role – playing an outsider living on the margins of society. He realized that due to the personal nature of the script he should base his performance on Peckinpah: “I really tried to do Sam Peckinpah, as much as I knew about him, his mannerisms, and everything he did.” Once he made that choice, the actor committed completely to the role as one close friend found out when he visited the actor in Mexico during filming: “All traces of Oates had disappeared—he was that mean.”

As principal photography continued into the month of December, the demand, both physically and emotionally, were taking their toll on the cast and crew. Deep in the depths of a cocaine binge, Peckinpah put his cast through hell, playing mind games with Oates so that he would think the director was mad at him, which would put the actor on edge for a given scene. Oates was battling his own demons, indulging in vodka and tequila on a regular basis. He and Peckinpah would get into heated arguments, which was par for the course for these strong-willed men. This approach, according to friends, came out of Peckinpah’s own insecurity as he felt that the only way to exert control on his set was to make everyone more insecure than him. To help everyone let off some steam, Peckinpah and the producers bought out a local bar and threw a surprise party. Principal photography ended three days before Christmas and Peckinpah took a week off before supervising the editing process.

In mid-August of 1974, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia opened first in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. New York magazine’s Michael Sragow called it “a catastrophe so huge that those who once ranked Peckinpah with Hemingway may now invoke Mickey Spillane.” Roger Ebert gave it four out of four stars and called it, “some kind of bizarre masterpiece.” The New York Times’ Nora Sayre felt that the film began “brilliantly, especially because of the pacing. Knowing when to speed the action up or slow it down, Mr. Peckinpah grabs our total attention. Then the movie disintegrates rapidly.” Newsweek criticized the plot as a “necrophiliac and nonsensical struggle for the love of a woman.”

Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia is a ferocious crime film that has been imitated (see Man on Fire) but never equaled. No amount of visual and stylistic flourishes can compare with Peckinpah’s sparse, no-nonsense approach. It is a slow burn of a film for the first two-thirds only to erupt into an orgy of violence for the last third that acts as a cathartic release, both for us and for Bennie. At times, it is not an easy film to watch. One gets the feeling that Peckinpah doesn’t care if you like his film or not. He didn’t make it for people to love or hate, he made because he had to it – it was a story he had to tell. His film is unafraid to tell a story with such unflinching honesty and takes you to places that challenge you and make you think about things differently. That’s what Alfredo Garcia does so well. Finally free of studio constraints, Peckinpah was able to tell a story his way and that’s why this film is his most satisfying one.


SOURCES

Compo, Susan. Warren Oates: A Wild LIfe. University Press of Kentucky. 2009.

Blu-Ray Review of the Week: Heaven's Gate: Criterion Collection

With Heaven’s Gate (1980), Michael Cimino made the classic risky gamble that many ambitious filmmakers make. Still flush from the commercial and critical success of The Deer Hunter (1978), he used all of his newfound clout to make an epic tale depicting the Johnson County War of 1892 with a massive budget, courtesy of United Artists, and a star-studded cast headlined by musician and some-time actor Kris Kristofferson. The film’s production was plagued with several well-publicized problems and the end result was a difficult and challenging film that was savaged by critics as a muddled mess. Worst of all, Heaven’s Gate was a huge box office flop, which resulted in United Artists going under. The lion’s share of the blame was leveled at Cimino who was punished for his hubris. Over the years, he made the occasional film but never enjoyed the kind of resources he did at the peak of his career.

As sometimes happens, the years were kind of Heaven’s Gate, especially when cineastes discovered that the version released in theaters was the studio cut and that his original was much better. The reclusive director had taken refuge in Europe where he’s still regarded highly. Reappraisal of Heaven’s Gate has been a long time coming and recently Cimino’s finally been given the opportunity to restore the film to the way he originally envisioned it so that it can rightly be judged on its own merits.

James Averill (Kris Kristofferson) is a federal marshal that arrives in Casper, Wyoming where he learns of a plot by cattle ranchers to kill local European settlers for their land, sanctioned by the government no less. He soon finds himself embroiled in a bloody battle. He also finds himself conflicted as many of the wealthy cattle ranchers come from the same Harvard-educated background as he did, but Averill also has a strong moral sense and wants to stand up for the settlers who are getting ripped off and killed for their troubles.

Cimino juxtaposes the rich, pompous cattle ranchers, who gather in their ornate wood lodge drinking the best liquor, with the settlers that live in abject poverty and entertain themselves watching cock fights in the backroom of the local bar. He also shows how the community gathers for a county dance at the local roller skate rink that leaves little doubt as to which side Cimino favors.

With Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973), Kris Kristofferson demonstrated some considerable acting abilities. He had gotten a few more films under his belt by the time he appeared in Heaven’s Gate and was called up to headline this epic, which he does admirably, delivering a thoughtful performance that is quite naturalistic. He is supported by an impressive cast that includes the likes of Christopher Walken, John Hurt, Sam Waterston, Brad Dourif, Isabelle Huppert among others. They all turn in excellent performances, helping bring this fascinating world to life.

It’s a cliché to say it but they just don’t make films like Heaven’s Gate anymore. It was shot on location with massive sets populated by hundreds of extras. The film’s excessive budget is all up there in every frame, gorgeously photographed by the great Vilmos Zsigmond. The film has plenty of ambition to burn and assumes that its audience is intelligent enough to follow the complex narrative and the numerous characters that are a part of it.

Heaven’s Gate is often blamed from the Film Brats fall from grace in the late 1970s and early 1980s and the rise of the producers, but the writing was already on the wall with other ‘70s auteurs having costly flops, like William Friedkin’s Sorcerer (1977), Francis Ford Coppola’s One from the Heart (1982), and Martin Scorsese’s New York, New York (1977), to name a few. The reign at the top of the Hollywood food chain was over for most of them and Heaven’s Gate just put a fine point on it. Now that enough time has passed, Cimino’s film can be rediscovered and re-evaluated.

Special Features:

This new transfer of Heaven’s Gate has been personally supervised by Cimino. While it may not look like it did when first projected theatrically, a lot of work went into cleaning up the film to the director’s specifications. The transfer looks very impressive, still retaining the filmic look but devoid of any blemishes. The new 5.1surround soundtrack, also supervised by Cimino, is excellent with David Mansfield’s score sounding better than it ever has and the ambient noises and sound effects coming through loud and clear.

There is an illustrated audio conversation between director Michael Cimino and producer Joann Carelli that runs an absorbing 30 minutes. Rather fittingly, he starts off talking about the inspiration for Heaven’s Gate, which was research he did on barbed wire, of all things. Cimino also talks about how he writes screenplays with Carelli acting as an objective editor, keeping him in check and making sure everything made sense. They cover many topics, including how to direct actors, scouting locations, costumes and so on.

Also included is a new interview with Kris Kristofferson who talks about what drew him to the project – mainly the chance to work with Cimino. He loved the attention to detail in the film and how it helped him as an actor. He recounts several fascinating filming anecdotes in this engaging interview.

There is an interview with musician David Mansfield. He said that Cimino wanted real musicians to play live during filming and hired him and other notable musicians, like T-Bone Burnett. Mansfield talks about how he composed the film’s memorable score, his choices for instrumentation and so on.

Assistant director Michael Stevenson is interviewed and mentions that Cimino originally wanted him to work on The Deer Hunter but he was busy at the time. He talks about the mind-boggling logistics of some of the more grandiose sequences in Heaven’s Gate and one really appreciates all the hard work that went into this film.

There is a “Restoration Demonstration” that briefly examines the painstaking work that went into restoring the film to Cimino’s exact specifications. We also see how the numerous scratches, splice cuts and other imperfections were removed.

Finally, there is a teaser trailer and T.V. spot for the film.

Since this edition has been given Cimino’s seal of approval it is not surprising that the documentary Final Cut: The Making and Unmaking of Heaven’s Gate is not included. It is quite critical of Cimino and the film, which probably explains why it has not been included, which is too bad as it goes into a blow-by-blow account of what went down. The documentary is easily found online as is the book it is based on, by United Artists executive Steven Bach.