Night Moves is a big budget, mainstream film from 1975 with the requisite ingredients of its genre: a star director (Arthur Penn), a star male lead (Gene Hackman) and more than a few attractive female characters (Susan Clark, Jennifer Warren and a young Melanie Griffith). There are a few laugh-out-loud pages of dialogue which have not aged well over the past three decades. One example of high unintentional comedy involved a long discussion between Hackman and Jennifer Warren reminiscing about the erect nipples of youth.
However, for the most part what I realized watching Night Moves is just how dumbed down most mainstream films are today. The "mystery" uncovered by Gene Hackman's private eye (an homage to the airplane scene in North by Northwest) is interesting, but the real value in NM resides in its subtext. The film's title is revealed as a double entendre in a scene where Hackman describes to Warren about the knight moves in a chess match by two great masters. Hackman describes how the chess champion lost the match and regretted his whole life that he missed the opening in the match for checkmate in three simple moves of the knight. This dialogue is juxtaposed against the chess match of plot movements, as the mystery unfolds and Harry Moseby slowly determines who's lying and who's telling the truth. Admittedly, its completely unbelievable that Jennifer Warren's character (a drifter living in the Florida Keys) would understand the elegance of a series of chess moves from a match which occured a decade earlier, but it does, however, work as a neo-noir metaphor for the intricate plot of the film.
Finally, the other cool thing about this film is that the Harry Moesby character is essentially a pre-cursor for Hackman's Coach Norman Dale character from Hoosiers: at one point he shakes a booklet while yelling at James Woods character, he gives a couple of speeches which felt like you were transported to the Hickory High locker room. In the end, it not a film that will change your life, but it is certainly engaging throughout.
However, for the most part what I realized watching Night Moves is just how dumbed down most mainstream films are today. The "mystery" uncovered by Gene Hackman's private eye (an homage to the airplane scene in North by Northwest) is interesting, but the real value in NM resides in its subtext. The film's title is revealed as a double entendre in a scene where Hackman describes to Warren about the knight moves in a chess match by two great masters. Hackman describes how the chess champion lost the match and regretted his whole life that he missed the opening in the match for checkmate in three simple moves of the knight. This dialogue is juxtaposed against the chess match of plot movements, as the mystery unfolds and Harry Moseby slowly determines who's lying and who's telling the truth. Admittedly, its completely unbelievable that Jennifer Warren's character (a drifter living in the Florida Keys) would understand the elegance of a series of chess moves from a match which occured a decade earlier, but it does, however, work as a neo-noir metaphor for the intricate plot of the film.
Finally, the other cool thing about this film is that the Harry Moesby character is essentially a pre-cursor for Hackman's Coach Norman Dale character from Hoosiers: at one point he shakes a booklet while yelling at James Woods character, he gives a couple of speeches which felt like you were transported to the Hickory High locker room. In the end, it not a film that will change your life, but it is certainly engaging throughout.
No comments:
Post a Comment