|
Peter Bogdanovich
Targets (1968) is as self-referential as it gets.
An old Boris Karloff movie rolls under the titles. It is being watched
by him, named Byron in Bogdanovich's film, and other friends.
When the showing is over, Byron announces that he wants to retire to the
filmmaker who has just completed a script for him,
Sammy (played by Bogdanovich himself). Byron says that the real violence
around them makes his horror movies look pathetically outdated.
Across the street a young man, Bobby, is buying a gun and accidentally aiming
it at Byron as he checks it. He has the trunk full of weapons.
Bobby drives home: a stereotypical suburban home of the American middle class.
He has the typical loving wife, Ilene, and they live with his parents.
His wife has to work in the evening to make ends meet.
After she leaves, Bobby grabs a gun from the trunk of the car and keeps it
in bed the whole night. In the morning he kills his wife and his mother.
In the meantime the struggling director Sammy, who is also the boyfriend of
Byron's diligent secretary Jenny, has spent the night talking with
Byron and in the morning Byron is more reasonable about his retirement.
He accepts to appear in person at a drive-in to inaugurate his new movie.
Bobby breaks into a oil refinery and climbs to the top of a tank. He pulls
out his gun and starts shooting at the cars on the freeway, killing several
drivers.
When the police arrive, Bobby flees. A police car chases him and Bobby hides
in the same drive-in where Karloff is scheduled to speak.
While Byron is driving in his limo towards the drive-in, Bobby is getting ready
to strike again. The first victim is a spectator who went into a telephone
booth. Bobby even briefly aims his gun at the limo.
Then the lights go off and the movie starts. Bobby begins shooting at anybody
he can see. People panic and try to drive out, while the horror movie is
still rolling. Byron and his secretary get
out of the limo and walk towards the screen, as agreed, for his speech.
Jenny herself is wounded by one shot. Byron starts walking towards the sniper.
Bobby is confused because the scene on the wide screen is a scene of Byron
walking towards his direction and the real-life Byron is walking towards him
from another direction. Bobby shoots at both, causing the screen to catch fire
and Byron to get wounded. But Byron has a chance to disarm the sniper and
slaps him repeatedly in the face. Bobby simply hides in a corner, like a little
child. The cops arrive and arrest him.
A duel between the monster of the old-fashioned collective imagination and
the monster of the new society.
The Last Picture Show (1971), based on the novel of the same name by Larry McMurtry, was one of the first films of the 1970s to exploit the nostalgic
feeling for the 1950s. Appropriately, it was filmed in black and white.
The story was basically a collection of episodes loosely tied together by
the ghostly atmosphere of the town. In a sense, it was a claustrophobic version
of Fellini's cinema.
While Fellini's characters fundamentally like their life and their town,
Bogdanovich's characters hate their life and their town.
In the 1950s young men
Sonny and Duane live in a small sleepy town in Texas, swept by the wind in
the first scene. Sonny has a mute friend, Billy, and a girlfriend Charlene
whom he has been seeing for a while, but he's no longer excited about. He seems
more excited about the waitress, Genevieve, of the only restaurant in town
and especially about Jacey, although she is beyond his reach.
Duane is dating the rich and beautiful Jacey. Her mother, a bitter and cynical
frustrated wife, disapproves because Duane is poor.
Another depressed woman is the wife of Sonny's coach, whom Sonny is asked to
take home (she starts sobbing in front of him).
A semi-drunk rich boy, Lester, invites Jacey to a wild party where people are likely to
swim naked. She's tempted but needs to find an excuse with Duane.
They are both going to their parents' party, where Jacey's mother openly flirts
with a male friend while her husband is playing cards.
Jacey pretends that her parents set her up with Lester and ditches Duane after
letting him touch her intimate parts.
Sonny leaves Charlene and kisses his coach's wife.
At the pool party of the rich kids Jacey is invited to strip naked in front
of everybody. She is amused by her own temerity as she dives naked into the pool.
Duane is venting his anger by getting drunk with his fellow poor kids. They
decide to have fun by buying a prostitute for Billy, Sonny's mute friend, who
has never had sex in his life. The joke ends up in a humiliation for the poor
kid. They are reproached by the
old cowboy, Sam, who runs the billiard room, the restaurant and the movie
theater. Sam bans Sonny from all his establishments.
Sonny and his coach's wife make love but she cries of humiliation while he comes.
One day Sonny returns to the restaurant and is forgiven by old man Sam and
welcomed by his mute friend Billy again. The waitress, Genevieve, tells him
that the town knows about his relationship with the adulteress.
Jacey is now part of the crowd of decadent rich kids. She teases Lester because
he can't even undo her bra, then lets another boy kiss her and touch her.
She confesses to be still a virgin and not wanting to be one.
Duane and Sonny decide to ride to Mexico and Sam gives them some money.
When they come back, they learn that Sam has died and left the billiard hall
to Sonny.
Determined to lose her virginity, Jacey offers herself to Duane, but Duane
just can't do it. She is humiliated and warns him not to tell anyone.
They try again in a motel and this time he succeeds, while she passively
waits for him to finish.
But she wanted to lose her virginity only in order
to be accepted by a rich decadent kid, Bobby. She goes straight to him and
dumps Duane, who then decides to leave town. Jacey is punished by her new
boyfriend, who dumps her almost immediately. When a rough oil worker invites
her into the billiard hall, she accepts to have casual sex with him.
Her mother figures out what happened and is shocked (probably more because
she wanted him than because he slept with her daughter). Jacey is desperate
that now she will be single forever, but her mother suggests Sonny as a viable
candidate, as the relationship with a middle-aged woman is unlikely to last.
Sonny's lover is no longer feeling guilty. She not only enjoys their
relationship (she finally found love) but has become a happy and funny woman.
Jacey carries out her plan though and easily seduces Sonny, who has always
secretely lusted after her. The coach's wife is annihilated realizing that
the best time of her life is coming to an end.
The son of the preacher is caught molesting a little girl and put in jail.
Duane returns to town and learns of Sonny's affair with Jacey.
They fight and Sonny ends up at the hospital. Duane decides to enroll in
the army to fight in Korea.
Sonny and Jacey elope and get married, but her father have the police track
them down and annul the marriage before it is consumed. Jacey's mother
sympathyzes with Sonny and reveals that she was Sam's first lover.
The movie theater is closing, killed by the competition of television.
Duane returns from the war. Sonny invites
him to watch the last movie ("picture show").
Then Duane takes the bus to the big city.
Just then a truck runs over Sonny's mute friend Billy and kills him.
Sonny is the only one to feel sorry for the death. Everybody else hardly
mourns the poor boy. Devastated, Sonny walks back into the coach's house
to his old lover. Without saying a word, he lets scorn him and scold him.
Then he simply clutches her hand.
Paper Moon (1973) , filmato in bianco e nero e ambientato negli anni '30.
Una bambina rimane orfana e un amico della madre e` obbligato a prendersene cura.
Estorce $200 alla famiglia dell'uomo che ha causato la morte della madre
e progetta di sperire la piccola dagli zii, ma lei non ne vuol sapere,
minaccia di denunciarlo per i $200 che le spettano di diritto e lui allora
se la tiene.
Attraversano la nazione in auto, vivendo delle piccole truffe dell'uomo
(vende Bibbie di lusso alle vedove che incontra, fingendo che siano state
ordinate dai defunti consorti) a cui collabora la piccola e intraprendente
bambina.
Rivendicando la propria parte del bottino, sveglia e astuta, pronta a capire quando lui tenta di raggirarla, lui si comporta da Bonnie con il suo Clyde.
Ma e` anche di buon cuore e manda a monte le truffe a danno dei poveri.
Roosveltiana. Complessata perche' tutti la credono un maschietto.
Fuma a letto e in auto. Tiene la cassa, controlla il compagno, che la
trascura spesso per le donne. Una ballerina che prendono a bordo con
la sua servetta nera mette in crisi il loro rapporto:
lui spende e spande per la ballerina, la bambina si ingelosisce e tiene il
broncio.
Per disfarsi della ballerina, la piccola organizza una trappola corrompendo
la servetta e facendo in modo che lui trovi la ballerina nelle braccia
di un altro.
Anche quando vengono arrestati per contrabbando di alcolici da uno sceriffo
corrotto,
e` lei a organizzare e dirigere l'avventurosa fuga in auto..
Quando pero` gli uomini dello sceriffo li raggiungono e lo pestano a sangue,
portandogli via anche tutti i soldi, lui si decide a consegnare la bambina
agli zii, essendo arrivati al loro paese. Ma la bambina non resiste che qualche
minuto con la buona e petulante zia. Gli corre dietro con i suoi due stracci
e quando lui rifiuta di riprenderla con se` gli ricorda che e` ancora
in debito di $200. Partono insieme sul macinino lungo una lunga strada polverosa.
Mask (1985) e` una commedia sentimentale
Un adolescente ha il viso sfigurato da una malattia incurabile. Riesce comunque
a farsi accettare nella comunita` dei motociclisti di cui fa parte sua madre
(drogata e un po' ninfomane) e a scuola, dove la sua intelligenza e il suo
buon umore finiscono per conquistargli le simpatie di tutti. Riesce persino
a convincere la madre a ravvedersi.
Una ragazza cieca si innamora di lui, ma i genitori di lei si oppongono,
e il mostro ne muore di dolore.
|
If English is your first language and you could translate the Italian text, please contact me.
Scroll down for recent reviews in english.
|
