Everything is so amazingly relative, baby.
Watched Breathless last night. With Richard Gere. 1983.
Now dig , this movie was a re-make of a French film made in 1960. I have watched both many times and the French film is infinitely better. More subtle, super cool. Starring Jean-Paul Belmondo, directed by Jean-Luc Godard. If you have brushed up even casually against French film, you recognize both of these names as giants in their field.
Regardless, the point is that foreign films achieve the same impact in subtler ways, cooler, more restrained, sophisticated.
When we Americanize films, we tend to go over the top.
I have seen the Gere version much more than the Belmondo version because it is generally more available.
And I have always watched it with a smirk, an understanding that the violence and the insanity of the main character are exaggerated.
But I have dug it for the same reasons you have - sometimes in life I wish I was Jesse Lujack.
Not as a cop killer, but as a reckless criminal who just doesn't give a damn about anything and who indulges in and celebrates his insanity in the face of a world he cannot respect.
He worships Jerry Lee Lewis - singing Breathless a couple of times in the movie with abandon - especially in the climatic final scene - he sings it with every fiber of his being like it is a religion. Which of course it is to him. Jerry Lee is the man and Jesse can only try to be as cool.
Suspicious Minds - Elvis - smoothly woven into the plot as well, sung by Jesse at just the right time and with just the right reverence when his back is against the wall.
The Silver Surfer. Jesse reads this comic religiously and identifies with it but not in the crucial way that proves to be his downfall. The Silver Surfer researched - "One of the noblest and tormented cosmic entities in the universe, The Silver Surfer treasures freedom above all else, but has often sacrificed his liberty for the greater good."
Jesse has a few opportunities to escape the predicament he has put himself in, but keeps putting it off because of the love he burns for his obsession - Monica Poiccard, the character played by his voluptuous co-star.
His dream is to run away to Mexico with her; his reality is death at the hands of police who eventually trap him resulting in his decision to go for the gun rather then turn himself in.
Here's my point.
I was enthralled with this movie last night. I suspended disbelief. I accepted the over the top angle of the plot as supreme reality.
And I was mesmerized.
The reason? I am feeling trapped. I am being forced to perform as a trained chimp in the hope of achieving financial security. The interview merry-go-round.
And I would much rather be an armed criminal with a finely tuned sense of the absurd who can break into Suspicious Minds when it appears that I have absolutely no options.
I would much rather be an armed criminal, surrounded by cops with a gun at his feet, who decides to break into a fatalistic rendition of Breathless before reaching for the gun and certain death.
He even acts a bit of it out, turning towards the cops and pushing his hands against the air to accentuate the words before turning his back to the cops and looking back down at the gun.
At this point in the movie, when Monica realizes that she actually does love Jesse after trying to pretend that she doesn't, and begs him not to reach for the gun, my heart ached.
She called the cops on him to put him in this position and then regretted it - too late.
I got sucked all the way into this movie last night and I dug it. I felt it, it moved me, it disturbed me. I loved it.
It fed my fantasy because of where my head is at right now. I have never enjoyed the Gere version nearly as much as I did last night.
Postscript: As soon as I caught my breath, I dialed up another gem. Coffee and Cigarettes. You have never heard of this movie and never will unless you make the effort.
It is not an action movie. It's all dialogue. In fact it is a collection of scenes, each one different than the next and unconnected except for coffee and cigarettes (and some dialogue).
It is quirky, comical, bizarre and delicious.
Give it a shot for Christ sake. Every movie you watch does not have to have Vin Diesel in it, you know.
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