"Nobody makes it. Nobody shows it. Nobody sees it."Opening the doors that shouldn't be opened, navigating the economy of a thing that doesn't exist, literally breaking through the sets all around you and finding nothing but your own failure. From an outsider's perspective, a California porn industry The Searchers is an undeniably ridiculous premise but as funneled through George C. Scott's pure hysterical boomer rage and Schrader's obviously personal relationship to this paranoid, sex-obsessed material there's just something about it that works. It feels like he's effectively exorcising his own repressed, conservative Midwest Calvinist upbringing and distant, abusive father in the gutter filth movie houses he escaped to and where his own career got started. The ending feels a bit sudden and tidy and I think he could have stood to give his dad a bit more of that ugly edge (that Ethan Edwards or Travis Bickle had) but this is still very solid at alternating between being grim and funny about this specific type of strait-laced man in a grimy, "corrupt" modern world. Also features one of the greatest disguises in movie history.Full discussion on ep 296 of my podcast SLEAZOIDS.
74Paul Schrader's Calvinist odyssey, and total batshit self-seriousness. Look, you'd probably think George C. Scott diving into the sexual underworld is a great concept, and you'd be right, but you'd also be right in saying that it's a bad idea. This movie works because of its commitment, not necessarily because of the material. It's why many, but not all, of Paul Schrader's greatest accomplishments were given life by Scorsese's direction (Taxi Driver, Bringing out the Dead, Last Temptation of Christ). This yearned for an objective lens, a participant detached from the hellish descent. Often, Paul Schrader finds himself impassioned by the very issues that he places his characters within, and certain films benefit (Blue Collar, First Reformed) while others do not, like this one. It seems like Paul Schrader is uncomfortable by the last stand of noble conservatism, but when it's portrayed so viciously, who could blame him? George C. Scott's performance is fucking wild. It's the kind of performance that lives in infamy for two elements: his stoic quiet and sudden bursts of rage. Hardcore is ultimately off-its-rocker, but it's the kind of stuff that just isn't made anymore, as cliche as that sounds. One of the most idiosyncratic character studies to come out of the 70s, which is saying almost too much.
