A hidden, crude, poignant and remarkable work!
Added 7/26/2005
First at all: you may argue the racism in movies have reached the saturation point, and may be you decide to pass down this offer. But let me tell you that this criterion may shadow the possibility to watch one of the most potent and admirable performances in years of an enviable cast.
Consider the Dennis Hopper's performance. I think Dennis has made through his career, six outstanding portraits: Hoosiers,The American friend,Blue Velvet, Black widow, True Romance and this one. Second argument Ed Harris as the implacable investigator is superb too. Third: Barbara Hershey makes a penetrating and brilliant acting as the sensitive wife of Hopper.
Finally,the script by itself: we have a crude and terrible drama in the forties: Hopper plays a role of a convinced racist (and facist too, if you want)who considers the brutal murder means less tha nothing. His out of mind actions are so enrooted in the most stinking beliefs and prejuices.
The sequence of the crime is plenty of high caliber realism and dramatic intensity that makes us to remind Parker's Mississippi burning, but the best is yet to come when the fury, rage and sick obsession becomes gradually in a true state mind, deeply neurotic and obsesive. His familiar relationship is just sinking; his progresive process isolation is told with superb handle camera.
I recommend this work due its undeniable virtues. Tension, hard to follow story due the merciless argument but plenty of good sequences.
1 out of 2 people found this helpful.
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a real downer
Added 4/15/2002
In case you missed the last 100 movies out of Hollywood on racism in the south---here's another one. Although it does remind us of the sickness history has taught us about,especially around the period the movie is set in(circa 1949),it is too shocking brutal and unforgiving to offer any hope,let along enjoyment.Dennis Hopper's performance is fantastic!He is sadistic and paranoid and eventually pathetic.Hersey and Harris are excellent as they almost always are.The problem lies with the pattness of the movie.It's the familiar plot taken a little(or a lot)further for the shock value.I don't think I like this director and the screenplay might have been done by one of those slasher/gore types.The two stars are for the performances and that's about it.
1 out of 9 people found this helpful.
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Sad and troubling story of a sadistic Southern bigot
Added 10/18/2001
Produced in 1991, and based on the novel by Peter Dexter, this film which was produced for theaters but wound up on HBO, stars Dennis Hopper as a sadistic Southern bigot in the late 1940s. Not only does he cruelly abuse his wife in a most humiliating way, he goes to the home of a poor black family to collect a debt and viciously shoots a woman several times and murders her 12-year old daughter. His lawyer, played by Ed Harris, defends him at his trial but gradually becomes disgusted with his client and befriends and then romances Hopper's wife, played by Barbara Hershey. Only tragedy can result from this; it is just a matter of how and when.All performances are excellent, especially that of Hopper, who again plays the perfect villain. He's deranged and sinister, far beyond even the tolerated racism of the time, and his cruelty knows no bounds. His performance sent chills down my spine, as I stayed glued to the small screen holding my breath as the story unfolded. Darnita Henry played the role of the young girl with a combination of terror and innocence that endeared her to my heart. I identified with her and mourned her death with a sense of revulsion at the casual way in which Dennis Hopper perceives it. Tina Lifford, the young girl's mother who survives the attack, gives a fine performance as she testifies in court with a quiet dignity. The audience knows the truth and then sees the horror of the twisted justice meted out at that time. This film is sad, without a shred of humor or hope. It is not a pleasant experience and left me upset and troubled. But yet I recommend it to those not afraid of the emotional catharsis. Just be forewarned.
3 out of 6 people found this helpful.
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Gyllenhaal with a hook in his mouth
Added 8/21/2000
I partially blame Stephen Gyllenhaal for ending Debra Winger's film career. He mis-directed her in A Dangerous Woman, and after Billy Crystal tied a pigeon to her head in Forget Paris, she didn't have a chance. (Jessica Lange was great enough to survive her encounter with Gyllenhaal in Losing Isaiah). Perhaps he is only capable of supporting lesser actors like Barbara Hershey, who he has used a number of times. (Their Killing in a Small Town for TV is probably their best collaboration). Here Hershey is the narrator of the story of the trial of her husband Dennis Hopper for shooting a little black girl. Hopper's character is so mean that he can wear a buttoned-up stiff white-collared shirt in the humid South. His appearance recalls Robert Mitchum's homicidal preacher from Night of the Hunter, and his haircut screams psychotic. Since we are presented with the truth of the killing at the start, and because we are in the South and the victim is black, we know that the verdict is inconsequential. The all white jury tips you off too. Gyllenhaal even gives the courtroom audience hand-held fans which flap like insect wings and upstage the trial scenes. He seems more interested in the sado-masochistic relationship between husband and wife. Granted these scenes give some life to the otherwise sluggish pacing, and they also feature an odd fetish for glass. Glass is broken, a bottle is used to rape Hershey, and Hopper covers his bedroom floor with panes to ensure his wife does not enter. This kind of detail also carries over to Hopper's invalided mother, whom he watches being bathed in the opening scene, but who's condition is never given any payoff. The only thing remarkeable about the whole film is the formal dialogue, and the fact that people in the South tend to resist being shot. Hopper might have triumphed in his role with a better director. It seems as if he is ready to rage but hasn't been given the opportunity, since Gyllenhaal cuts away from him. Ed Harris initially brings some tenderness to his role as Hopper's lawyer, but the brutality of his sex with Hershey only reminds us of her bottle encounter. We are told that the oldest lesson of the South is: it is easier to bury than forget. Since this film was intended as a feature but then shown on TV, it seems the opposite is true for Gyllenhaal.
2 out of 10 people found this helpful.
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A hidden, crude, poignant and remarkable work!
Added 7/26/2005
First at all: you may argue the racism in movies have reached the saturation point, and may be you decide to pass down this offer. But let me tell you that this criterion may shadow the possibility to watch one of the most potent and admirable performances in years of an enviable cast.
Consider the Dennis Hopper's performance. I think Dennis has made through his career, six outstanding portraits: Hoosiers,The American friend,Blue Velvet, Black widow, True Romance and this one. Second argument Ed Harris as the implacable investigator is superb too. Third: Barbara Hershey makes a penetrating and brilliant acting as the sensitive wife of Hopper.
Finally,the script by itself: we have a crude and terrible drama in the forties: Hopper plays a role of a convinced racist (and facist too, if you want)who considers the brutal murder means less tha nothing. His out of mind actions are so enrooted in the most stinking beliefs and prejuices.
The sequence of the crime is plenty of high caliber realism and dramatic intensity that makes us to remind Parker's Mississippi burning, but the best is yet to come when the fury, rage and sick obsession becomes gradually in a true state mind, deeply neurotic and obsesive. His familiar relationship is just sinking; his progresive process isolation is told with superb handle camera.
I recommend this work due its undeniable virtues. Tension, hard to follow story due the merciless argument but plenty of good sequences.
1 out of 2 people found this helpful.
|
a real downer
Added 4/15/2002
In case you missed the last 100 movies out of Hollywood on racism in the south---here's another one. Although it does remind us of the sickness history has taught us about,especially around the period the movie is set in(circa 1949),it is too shocking brutal and unforgiving to offer any hope,let along enjoyment.Dennis Hopper's performance is fantastic!He is sadistic and paranoid and eventually pathetic.Hersey and Harris are excellent as they almost always are.The problem lies with the pattness of the movie.It's the familiar plot taken a little(or a lot)further for the shock value.I don't think I like this director and the screenplay might have been done by one of those slasher/gore types.The two stars are for the performances and that's about it.
1 out of 9 people found this helpful.
|
Sad and troubling story of a sadistic Southern bigot
Added 10/18/2001
Produced in 1991, and based on the novel by Peter Dexter, this film which was produced for theaters but wound up on HBO, stars Dennis Hopper as a sadistic Southern bigot in the late 1940s. Not only does he cruelly abuse his wife in a most humiliating way, he goes to the home of a poor black family to collect a debt and viciously shoots a woman several times and murders her 12-year old daughter. His lawyer, played by Ed Harris, defends him at his trial but gradually becomes disgusted with his client and befriends and then romances Hopper's wife, played by Barbara Hershey. Only tragedy can result from this; it is just a matter of how and when.All performances are excellent, especially that of Hopper, who again plays the perfect villain. He's deranged and sinister, far beyond even the tolerated racism of the time, and his cruelty knows no bounds. His performance sent chills down my spine, as I stayed glued to the small screen holding my breath as the story unfolded. Darnita Henry played the role of the young girl with a combination of terror and innocence that endeared her to my heart. I identified with her and mourned her death with a sense of revulsion at the casual way in which Dennis Hopper perceives it. Tina Lifford, the young girl's mother who survives the attack, gives a fine performance as she testifies in court with a quiet dignity. The audience knows the truth and then sees the horror of the twisted justice meted out at that time. This film is sad, without a shred of humor or hope. It is not a pleasant experience and left me upset and troubled. But yet I recommend it to those not afraid of the emotional catharsis. Just be forewarned.
3 out of 6 people found this helpful.
|
Gyllenhaal with a hook in his mouth
Added 8/21/2000
I partially blame Stephen Gyllenhaal for ending Debra Winger's film career. He mis-directed her in A Dangerous Woman, and after Billy Crystal tied a pigeon to her head in Forget Paris, she didn't have a chance. (Jessica Lange was great enough to survive her encounter with Gyllenhaal in Losing Isaiah). Perhaps he is only capable of supporting lesser actors like Barbara Hershey, who he has used a number of times. (Their Killing in a Small Town for TV is probably their best collaboration). Here Hershey is the narrator of the story of the trial of her husband Dennis Hopper for shooting a little black girl. Hopper's character is so mean that he can wear a buttoned-up stiff white-collared shirt in the humid South. His appearance recalls Robert Mitchum's homicidal preacher from Night of the Hunter, and his haircut screams psychotic. Since we are presented with the truth of the killing at the start, and because we are in the South and the victim is black, we know that the verdict is inconsequential. The all white jury tips you off too. Gyllenhaal even gives the courtroom audience hand-held fans which flap like insect wings and upstage the trial scenes. He seems more interested in the sado-masochistic relationship between husband and wife. Granted these scenes give some life to the otherwise sluggish pacing, and they also feature an odd fetish for glass. Glass is broken, a bottle is used to rape Hershey, and Hopper covers his bedroom floor with panes to ensure his wife does not enter. This kind of detail also carries over to Hopper's invalided mother, whom he watches being bathed in the opening scene, but who's condition is never given any payoff. The only thing remarkeable about the whole film is the formal dialogue, and the fact that people in the South tend to resist being shot. Hopper might have triumphed in his role with a better director. It seems as if he is ready to rage but hasn't been given the opportunity, since Gyllenhaal cuts away from him. Ed Harris initially brings some tenderness to his role as Hopper's lawyer, but the brutality of his sex with Hershey only reminds us of her bottle encounter. We are told that the oldest lesson of the South is: it is easier to bury than forget. Since this film was intended as a feature but then shown on TV, it seems the opposite is true for Gyllenhaal.
2 out of 10 people found this helpful.
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