MAKSQUIBS CINEMATHEQUE: HARD TIMES (1975)

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Tuesday, May 20, 2008

HARD TIMES (1975)

Working smoothly within their natural range, three undervalued talents (scripter Walter Hill in his helming debut, toothy James Coburn & stoic Charles Bronson) get just about everything right in this tough, tight boxing pic. The no-holds-barred/bare-fisted/non-sanctioned type of fisticuffs, played with no grandstanding & no winks to the audience from a never better Bronson. New Orleans in the ‘70s has little trouble passing for the Depression era and Philip Lathrop ’s lensing is blessedly free of that hazy look that’s now ‘de rigeur’ for period settings. Bronson & Coburn’s vehicles slid badly after this one and Hill, for all his talents, remains something of an underachieving puzzle. Perhaps the modest scale helped as much as the content on this one.

NOTE: Overseas (where it's sometimes called THE STREETFIGHTER) this title is readily available in a WideScreen edition, but Hill, Coburn & Bronson only rate a No-Frills/Pan & Scan DVD on their home turf. (Note: Current VODs now offered in correct WideScreen frame format.)

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A last thought before we go.

Well, enough from me. But before we sign off, here's a great quote from Emile Zola's L'OEUVRE (THE MASTERPIECE), which is about painting rather than the yet to be invented medium of film, but which points a fine critical eye toward the whole idea of art criticism. It's a good, if chilly, thought to keep in mind, especially when you surf the net.

"Has it ever struck you that posterity may not be the fair, impartial judge we like to think it is?

"Suppose the artist's paradise turned out to be as nonexistent as the Catholics, and future generations prove just as misguided as the present one and persisted in liking pretty pretty dabbling better than honest to goodness painting. There are some accepted masterpieces for which I myself wouldn't give a twopenny damn.

"Classical training has given us a wrong view of everything and forces us to acclaim as geniuses a lot of fellows who are no more than well-balanced, facile painters, while what we might really prefer is the work of more emancipated but less even artists known only to an initiated few. Immortality at present depends entirely on the average, middle-class mind and is reserved only for the names that have been most forcibly impressed upon us while we were still unable to defend ourselves...

"Perhaps that's the sort of thing that's best left unsaid. It's certainly the sort of thing that gives me the shudders!"- Emile Zola

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Now Over 5500 Reviews and (near) Daily Updates!

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

HARD TIMES (1975)

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A last thought before we go.

DROP ME A LINE