(2) That is in large part because the difficulty or impossibility of figuring things out is its subject. Roger Ebert writes that Night Moves is difficult to figure out on one viewing, which is true. And Night Moves (1975) is a detective film in which the caper that keeps the protagonist occupied isn’t the one he’s really in the middle of, and neither the caper he thinks he’s in nor the caper he’s actually in is what the film is about. Little Big Man (1970) is a picaresque western based on Thomas Berger’s 1964 novel in which all the usual western tropes are upside down and inside out: the white women are whores, the soldiers are bloody savages, the “hero” George Armstrong Custer is a homicidal fruitcake, and only the Indians are consistent, ethical, and occasionally close to rational. Bonnie and Clyde (1967) was a love story about two vicious killers that ended with the female protagonist, Bonnie Parker (Faye Dunaway) in a hip-flopping parody of sex while she was pounded and perforated by a barrage of. The earlier movie was too wrapped in romantic fashion to pass for neo-realist (the historical characters were ugly, vicious and stupid, just the kind favored by nouvelle vague directors.) As a representative 70s picture, Night Moves is right up there with work by Lumet and Scorcese, with Penn's own distinct style and pacing.In three successive films over an eight-year period Arthur Penn redefined the borders of three major film genres. I far prefer this film to Penn's Bonnie and Clyde. Neo-realism is a powerful technique in the right hands, as Night Moves is. The question, "How could that story come out of what I know?", creates troubling disturbances in a viewer's perceptions and expectations. In Night Movies, scenes look too familiar. With nouvelle vague, and American disciples like Penn, Lumet and early Scorcese, the viewer isn't given those theatrical pomps. Its best exponent was Orson Welles (at least in two 40s films and the later Touch of Evil). 40s film noir by contrast was high theater, with extreme lighting, and intense use of unusual camera angles, movement, and cutting. The movie's all on location, all in natural light, with mostly incidental music. Penn's Night Moves has a look more like Truffaut or Melville. Original noir movies, even those like Lady From Shanghai where much was shot on location, were scarcely bound by the realist conventions. The film's frequent comparison by critics to 1940s Hollywood noir films is apt, but Night Movies is more directly related to the nouvelle vague, a series of French movies from the late 1950s and early 1960s. Sharp's plot is dark and often eerily inpenetrable. Melanie Griffith, who looks about 14, makes one of her first appearances and is a marvelously evocative, sexually precocious teenager on the run from a tyrannical mother,played with slightly rotten bile by Janet Ward. Jamie Woods makes one of his earliest appearances as a stunt pilot's mechanic, and is wonderfully eccentric, a perfect fit to the part and to the movie. Susan Clark as Hackman's (Harry Moseby) wandering spouse, makes a lot from a somewhat thankless role. In this, as an androgynous tough girl who draws the detective's attention, she's perfect opposite Gene Hackman. Jennifer Warren, whom I don't remember in anything else, might seem off or stiff in almost any other setting. The script by Alan Sharp is crisp, sharp, the characters well-drawn, the dialogue terse (and witness to Sharp's superb ear) and a good fit with the actors. The movie was directed by Arthur Penn, who'd done Bonnie and Clyde eight years earlier, another neo-realist film shot in blazing natural light. To get that t o work in more than one scene requires a first rate script, front line director, and a terrific acting company. The opportunities for irony loom large (remember the cornfield scene in North by Northwest where Cary Grant gets strafed). It's got the same setup as familiar Bogart movies and Dashiell Hammett stories, the middle-aged detective falling into a mess too big for his skills, judgment and imagination, but it's shot in bright, natural light. It's a neo-noir film, sure - all the PR says that, but it's a noir film in bright light, whether that of the West Coast, or of the Keys and the Caribbean. Not long ago, it was put on DVD - time to see the whole thing. However, something about the movie stuck, including vivid scenes in the Caribbean. The writer saw this movie many years ago on a date.
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