Point Blank
Dir. John Boorman, English, USA, 1967
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Thu 29 November 2012 // 19:30
/ Cinema
“One of noir's most bleak, vicious and inventive masterpieces.” – SLANT MAGAZINE
PROJECTION ON 35MM!!
THE PLOT
After a successful robbery involving Mob money, a hood, Walker (Marvin), is shot by his wife (Acker) and partner (Vernon) while they split the loot in the deserted Alcatraz prison. Although left for dead by the pair, Walker is, two years later, physically mended and out for revenge.
In a 1960s San Francisco that's been leaving him behind for almost a decade, Walker finds himself caught between those who want the money back and his desire to retrieve it for himself.
REVIEWS
Point Blank has 95% of positive reviews on Rotten Tomtoes.
Point Blank was elected no 17 best crime film of all times in The Guardian.
“Point Blank was one of the most brutal and inventively eye-popping thrillers of the 60s.” – THE GUARDIAN
“Boorman's American debut failed on commercial release because of an over-intellectual style, and it's bleakness and brutality. Some 30 years on and widely re-released, it is ranked among his best work and considered a classic thriller.” – FILM 4
“John Boorman was able to juice up this Red Harvest-like corporate thriller with a still arresting visual scheme that makes Los Angeles a phantasmagoric city of neon and scalding sunlight – half noir, half Alphaville.” – THE GUARDIAN
Point Blank is hailed in the book 1,001 Movies You Must See Before You Die as "The perfect thriller in both form and vision."
Film historian David Thomson calls the film a masterpiece.
FACTS
- The film is an adaptation from the noir crime pulp novel The Hunter by Donald E. Westlake, writing as Richard Stark.
- Director John Boorman met Lee Marvin while on the set of The Dirty Dozen in London. Boorman and Marvin talked about a script based on the book The Hunter. Both hated the script but loved the main character of Walker. When they agreed to work on the film, Marvin threw the script out the window.
- This was the first film ever to shoot at Alcatraz, the infamous prison which had been shut down since 1963, only three years before the production.
- The Hunter was the basis for other feature films such as Helgeland's Payback (1999), starring Mel Gibson. Director Boorman has joked that Payback was so bad that Mel Gibson must have taken the original script for Point Blank that Boorman and Marvin had thrown out.
STYLE
Point Blank combines elements of film noir with stylistic touches of the European nouvelle vague.
PART OF OUR SERIES: SAN FRANCISCO ON FILM
San Francisco is one of the great American cities but its role in American cinema has often been overlooked by people who prefer to examine New York City or Chicago.
These 3 films, all set in the Golden Gate City, demonstrate how San Francisco plays a key role in the American cinematic imagination.
In Invasion of the Body Snatchers (the first remake of Don Siegel’s classic alien invasion movie), San Francisco is the home of alternative lifestyles, which makes it difficult to discern who is an alien pod and who remains human.
Point Blank sets up San Francisco as the scene of a double-cross which leads the film’s hero towards a shocking realisation about American crime.
The final film in the season, Zodiac, is closely based on real events, and depicts San Francisco as a menacing home to unfathomable criminals. This is not the San Francisco that you think you know!
+ DISCUSSION
All the films will be introduced by Dr Joe Street, senior lecturer in American History at Northumbria University, and the screenings will be followed by a discussion.