‘Get Carter’ or — Finally Getting It?
I have a confession — I’ve never liked ‘Get Carter’ (1971). It’s not I didn’t think it was any good but it was the fact the movie scared me, unnerved me to a ridiculous extent, made me feel I’d just had sex with someone I shouldn’t have. How could I get into something so nihilistic, so nasty, so violent it makes ‘Chinatown’ (1974) laughably quaint in comparison? Still, seeing as I’ve been having my own personal Mike Hodges retrospective this week I thought I should re-visit what’s regarded as not just his greatest film but one of the finest British movies ever made. Besides, maybe the film wasn’t as shockingly grim as I remembered.
Turns out ‘Get Carter’ absolutely is a grim as I remembered and then some as from the very opening shot — Caine contained in glass — to the suffocating screening of pornography as undeciphered hidden messages broil under the surface to the speeding metal bullet of the train smashing its way through the landscape, the overriding sensation is of claustrophobia and the inescapable driven by revenge and hate. It’s the psychological manure from which violence can burst forth at any moment and in ‘Get Carter’ it most certainly does.
Caine’s Carter is a London gangster who travels back to his hometown of Newcastle to investigate the apparently accidental death of his brother. He quickly realises, or knew all along, that something is not right. Carter is relentless and implacable. Nothing will stop or sway him from his quest and nothing is unexpendable.
In this sense ‘Get Carter’ is similar to John Boorman’s ‘Point Blank’ (1967), both films centering on walking protagonists moving towards a fixed goal. But whereas ‘Point Blank’s Lee Marvin is an almost abstract character (a literal blank point) Caine’s Carter is a seething mass of corrupt psychology and psychopathy. He’s a human being, just an unbelievably horrible and psychotic one.
When we realise just how evil Carter is it’s sickening, possibly because we’ve allowed ourselves to become a little bit enamoured by this gangster with a shotgun and a hard on, but also because we’re not quite prepared for just how far Carter will go to exact his retribution. The violence in ‘Get Carter’ is extremely shocking but all the warning signs were there in that very first shot.
The other similarity with ‘Point Blank’ is the influence of New Wave cinema. ‘Get Carter’ can, initially, seem realistic with the streets of Newcastle giving the sense of a grounded real-world location. Yet, as the film goes on Caines’ Carter, much like ‘Point Blank’s Walker, starts to become dislodged from the “real”, almost moving purely within cinematic space. For example — notice when Glenda picks Carter up in her sports car and takes him to meet Brumby. They’re not getting there via the city streets but by the process of editing (an obvious point when talking about a film, I know). Carter is trapped in the frames and when you consider how film functions as a plot point in ‘Get Carter’ it’s not that far-fetched to consider this increase in abstraction. By the time ‘Get Carter’ enters its third act we’re no longer in “Newcastle“ (yes, Newcastle needs the quotation marks) but more the existential wasteland at the end of Pasolini’s ‘Teorema’ (1968).
Not that its all bleakness and violence because, and this is where it’s been beneficial coming to ‘Get Carter’ towards the end of a Hodges-athon, what is also present is Hodges’ typically sly sense of humour and politic bite. Yes, the humour in ‘Get Carter’ is so dark it’s Vantablack and you could find yourself laughing at stuff you really shouldn’t be laughing at, but it’s most certainly there.
It was great to finally get ‘Get Carter’ and its reputation as one of the best, and grittiest, gangster films made is totally justified. It’s another great showcase for Mike Hodges’ skill, intelligence and cinematic panache except where in his other films he can play a little coy here he’s got his foot hard on the pedal and is blasting along with ferocious speed. It’s taken me a couple of decades, two viewings and an appreciation of its director but I finally now get Carter… although I still don’t like the guy.
So that’s three Mike Hodges’ films in the last week and I think I’ll keep this momentum going and make it a fourth. Nothing special. Just revisiting a certain little plaything for when I get bored.
