‘Brute Force’ or — Confronting our Inner Munsey?

The key to Jules Dassin’s ‘Brute Force’ (1947) dwells in its opening titles: the word “outside” is in quotation marks meaning only one thing — this prison exists outside ordinary time and space. The question is then, where the hell does it exist… if at all?

Joe Collins (Burt Lancaster) wants to escape prison, as do his cell mates. Sadistic Capt. Munsey (Hume Cronyn) exerts discipline with a psychopathological pleasure, his methods already having led to the deaths of several inmates. The ineffectual and weak warden is collapsing under pressure to keep the prisoners in line, creating a possible power vacuum. Capt. Munsey has his eye on this vacuum (this is a man born to move through and exist in voids). Collins needs out. The only question is — how? This is a prison break movie so how will escape be achieved? By stealth? Ingenuity? Balloon? Tunnel? The answer is provided by the movie’s title — BRUTE FORCE! This isn’t going to be pretty, is it?

‘Brute Force’ opens much like Martin Scorsese’s ‘Shutter Island’ (2010) as blaring music (a fantastic score by Miklós Rózsa) and an oppressive atmosphere suggest we are in a realm where the external world doesn’t exist, only the prison. Immediately this increases all pressure to the point where the only release is oblivion and destruction; that is inevitable.

So ‘Brute Force’ is your typical “let’s escape from prison before the guards kill us” picture, which it is but only to an extent. For one thing, very little time or detail is given to the escape plan (you don’t need a plan when all you’re using is brute force). Instead we focus on the various inmates of Collins’ cell, each of their stories told through a series of brief flashbacks. This keeps ‘Brute Force’ nicely varied despite its single location of total confinement (the Flossy flashback, in particular, is great).

And these men are confined. All moments of the “outside” world only seen through those flashbacks so, hence, don’t exist. Even the mysterious woman who binds all these men together seems a phantom, so much so that the picture of her on their cell wall has her eyes closed to them, denying their existence, their reality and even their adoration.

The prison is all that exists meaning escape is impossible. Even the warden is trapped and can’t move or travel beyond its confines. Meanwhile the men are digging a drain pipe, but where is this drain pipe going? Into abstract space itself?! It might as well because no other alternative is a reasonable possibility. This is why resistance is futile and escape quixotic.

All this would be enough to make ‘Brute Force’ a commanding, intelligent, tough, superbly directed, prison drama movie alone, but it has one more ingredient that turns it into something truly special and I’m talking about, of course, Hume Cronyn’s Capt. Munsey.

It’s not just that Cronyn’s performance is exceptional (it is) or that Munsey is one of cinema’s great psychopaths (he is) but more how that psychopathology fits into the rest of the prison’s structure. For example — think of the prison as a microcosm not of society or the family but, instead, the human head with the prisoners, like little Numskulls, representing different aspects of the human psyche trapped inside: so the good-natured doctor represents maturity and compassion; the warden embodies waning authority; Collins — rebellion; Munsey is discipline, control and abuse and, seen this way, we ALL have an inner Munsey because Munsey is in every human psyche.

All we know about Munsey for the first hour is that he’s a skilled, patient manipulator but suddenly we are explicitly presented with the true extent of Munsey’s narcissism simply by watching him cleaning his rifle (it is a horrifying image). A prisoner is brought into Munsey’s office — “I understand you’re interested in the drain pipe?”, Munsey asks whilst eagerly soaping up his hands clean and while we’re getting extremely nervous as to where all this is going or what “drain pipe” Munsey might actually be referring to.

Stripped to his tight, white vest Munsey plays Tannhauser, pulls out a of length of piping and walks towards the prisoner. Except Munsey is not playing the music to cover the sound of the oncoming beating; he KNOWS his men will hear the impacts. He’s playing it for the glorification of his own sadism. Munsey plays Wagner like Patrick Bateman plays Huey Lewis and the News. It’s a phenomenally shocking moment, the sexual overtones ramming home the link between the sexual gratification of violence inherent in fascism. And anybody is a potential fascist.

Don’t think so? Think of a time you won an argument but couldn’t resist delivering a little extra dig or put down just because you could. Congratulations! That’s your Inner Munsey! Ever took delight in proving someone wrong and found yourself tempted to lord it over them, even just a touch? Well, that’s your Inner Munsey! Got a little voice of superiority that sometimes pops up inside your head telling you you’re better than that other poor sod? Yep — THAT’S your Inner Munsey! Any temptation to exert power or control in a relationship dynamic risks unleashing our Inner Munsey and if you don’t think you have a jumped up little Napoleon with a Christ complex inside of you then you shouldn’t be allowed out in public because it’s obviously already in full control of YOU! The trick is not to deny our Inner Munsey (after all, Collins only exists himself because of Munsey’s existence and this is also what powers their bizarre attraction) but to recognise it for what it is and what happens if it is allowed to get out of control because when it does relationships, and societies, are destroyed. That’s a shocking realisation.

‘Brute Force’ is pretty much shocking realisations from here on out to its explosive climax of total annihilation. When the prison break occurs it’s in an eruption of violence that’s as impactful and gasp-inducing as anything Peckinpah ever attempted and as equally nihilistic (Munsey on the machine-gun feels like a precursor to ‘The Wild Bunch’s crescendo of violence). This is the only way it could’ve ended. Nothing outside exists and the only form of recognition these men have to prove their existence is each other (again, this is why the woman in the picture has her eyes closed to them).

This is not just a film about prison conditions and reform, although that is all there; it is also a film warning how anyone can become a fascist, especially if the vanity and power of our Inner Munsey is left unchecked or if our Inner Wardens and Goodly Doctors are too weak. It’s a very scary conclusion… although not as scary as the other message in the film. Around 35 minutes in the prisoners are relaxing, watching a lightweight comedy movie in their mess hall. On screen, a young couple are happily gathering up some new-born chicks and deciding what to do with them. They need to do something with them, after all. Otherwise, left to themselves, they’d simply peck each other to death. The prisoners laugh at this.

Now THAT’S nihilism for you, folks!