Shitty.
You liked this, Arnab? The camera did so many 360 turns I thought they had it rigged to a toilet. Okay, it wasn’t awful. But it wasn’t good, either. I don’t like it when there’s so much crying in an action movie. Suck it up, you fuckers. Sublimate your sadness in a good old-fashioned ass-whupping, like the rest of us.
I far prefer the action of “Nowhere to Hide” and the thriller politics of “J.S.A.” (and Park’s later films–“Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance” and “OldBoy”–are even better).
perhaps the steady diet of action-melodrama that i was raised on has something to do with it.
the most emotional action-melodrama I can think of offhand is “Bullet in the Head” which I believe has some serious crying scenes. in the Jean-Pierre Melville films which I would also regard to some degree as action-melodramas, the characters indicate overpowering emotion by titling their fedoras a little further to the right or by allowing themselves a brief glance at their compatriots while pulling the job. I just saw one of the Lethal Weapon movies (whichever one has Jet Li in it)–I thought I was watching a damn soap opera, it was so sickly sweet and sentimental!
And who can forget the final scene of First Blood? A spectacular display of pathos. Can you have an action film without crying? The motive of even the most virile of action movies is melodramatic desire (the return to innocence, to legitimacy, to safety, etc.). Male weepies are, by and large, action-oreinted. Steve Neale and Linda Williams do some work on this stuff. Men cry in action movies *because* they’re sucking it up, *because* they’re sublimating their sadness (and ours) in ass-whupping (which is why a lot of the crying comes at the end of these films). And we cry, too because the infantile fantasy we’ve busied ourselves with fulfilling for 85-90 minutes is just that: infantile and fantastic.
actually, i’d managed to. and now you’ve reminded me. thanks john!
there seems to be a parallel track in big hollywood action movies from the 80s and on. the schwarzenegger-cyborg track–no emotion of any kind–and the more soap-operatic “lethal weapon” track. there wasn’t much crying or anything else in the classic western was there?
Lot’s of emotion in the classic western. Heaps of pathos. It continues right on through history. Even as the genre underwent transformation, it stayed. Think of the marvelous scene where Slim Pickens dies in PAT GARRET & BILLY THE KID. And I cried at the end of RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY. I think we’re all supposed to cry, like the boy does, at the end of SHANE. But I don’t. I laugh. A loud Edith Prickley laugh. What’s interesting (and I wonder if this is what Arnab is getting at) is that in the old westerns there is a combination of steely stoicism (Christ, Shane IS a cyborg) and gushes of emotion (the boy, Jean Arthur’s character). The two go hand in hand, which I guess is what I’m getting at.
And by the way, Richard Crenna is hilarious in First Blood. Did this guy go to a 3-hour acting seminar run by William Shatner to prepare for his role as Colonel Trautman?
“Don’t…do it…Rambo”
Kirk Douglas was supposed to play Trautman, but he backed out. Oh! Think of the scenery that could have been chewed…more.
I was mostly poking at Arnab–which I have to do via insult, from this distance, but (I think you get my meaning) if he was nearby, I would poke him with my penis–but what an interesting discussion.
Of course, you’re right, John. Weeping is always just under the surface in action flicks. But projection outwards, away from the tough guy–where we get a little boy (or sometimes a weaker man, or a woman) weeping, while the hero carries on, stiff in many regards–is the norm. What struck me in “Shiri” (and in Woo’s movies, too) is a willingness to have the protagonist himself squirt a few tears.
I was less annoyed by the melodrama than by the forgettable nature of the action, actually. I think you all are right: melodrama and action are two great tastes that taste great together. Hey–in melodrama, isn’t it also typical that men remain stoic, while the womenfolk gush? Although I can also think of some stoic female protagonists, who carry on while those around them fall about fussing. (Bette Davis, for instance.)
Maybe it’s less a generic distinction than a gendered-representation distinction, which the blurring of genres might discombobulate.
Do women gush more than men in melodrama? I dunno. Robert Stack gushes more than any woman in WRITTEN ON THE WIND. I think in a lot of melodramas men just aren’t around. Much anyway. If they are around, they’re generally out of the loop and therefore not so much stoic as clueless (like John Bowles in STELLA DALLAS).
Does Bette Davis ever cry? Not sure, but I do recall her asking for a large order of prognosis negative in DARK VICTORY. Ahh, what a shining moment in Classic Hollywood cinema that is!
this is what i meant as well about the classic western. the heroes themselves rarely expressed emotion.
though Jimmy Stewart is an emotional wreck in many of the Anthony Mann westerns–The Naked Spur and the Man from Laramie come to mind.
male hysteria, stewart, hitchcock etc. split to their own discussion here