‘Point Blank’ — The Perfect American Dream.
(No spoilers but a lot of pontificating)
This is why I do it. Sometimes it happens. Sometimes I sit back after a film knowing I’ve just seen a genuine masterpiece. It happened last night with John Boorman’s ‘Point Blank’ (1967) which is a relatively simple (in fact, a shockingly simple) tale of a man out for what he’s due but told in such a way it feels like a radical reinvention of an entire genre. It’s ‘John Wick’ meets ‘Last Year at Marienbad’. But, flippancy aside, how do you describe a film like ‘Point Blank’?
The film plunges us in at the deep-end with a jolt. A job has taken place, some money has been stolen, a double-cross occurs and a man is left for dead. Pretty straight forward thriller fare yet the way it is served up to us leaves us reeling and disorientated, like being wrestled to the floor in a room full of men with countless soulless feet inches from stepping on your face. Now the man is alive and out for revenge, but how did he escape, what is his “existential state” and what is happening to time and space?
To the question of Walker’s existential state Boorman has said it doesn’t matter. And he is right. Why? Because that’s not the important issue here. The important issue is what is happening to time and space and the dislocation of image and sound.
Notice when Walker arrives at L.A. airport and walks down the concourse: footsteps become sound effects, sound effects become music, sound becomes separate from its source, is acousmatised, our listening habits are ruptured, aural contexts are shattered, we are plunged into the disorientating thrill of acousmatic space and we realise the movie has transformed into a liquid allowing Boorman to spurt the greatest release of tension in the history of cinema all over us. Fuck me and where to even begin?!
Just how “composed” were the sound of those footsteps? Were they ‘looped’ at certain points? Our ears are forced to project patterns onto the footsteps and we can’t help but start questioning sources and attending to the movie, sound and vision, in a different way. The effect is absolutely spellbinding as Boorman capitalises on the inherent and innate tension of the listening process. The use of sound in ‘Point Blank’ throughout is remarkable and important. Much like Godard, Boorman has a highly sophisticated ear for sound, its meaning and visceral impact, much like Angie Dickenson’s percussive thwocks against Marvin’s massive taiko drum of a chest and the sonic physicality embodied in them.
And the liquid analogy isn’t a trite, pretentious use of imagery on my part. Look at the sequence when Marvin and Dickenson are staking out Reese’s hotel in her car and the way the camera moves: it’s like watching mercury flowing. Plus, water isn’t really used here simply as a statement about political corruption or criminal power (this isn’t ‘Chinatown’, Jake). The use of water seems to be a statement about the language and rhythm of film itself, the very medium Walker swims in and was born from. Water is a form of transportation for Walker as is the form of the film. Notice the cut after the famous shot of Marvin at the storm drain — it cuts to more water, nothing BUT water, and, once again, an act of transportation has taken place. “How did you make it, Walker?” It’s obvious — teleportation. Much like how they “travel” to Fairfax’s house. They can move between the edits (notice Angie Dickenson, or more precisely her absence, when she turns all the appliances on. She moves like a spectre).
Walker even bursts into a room like a human jump-cut even when there’s no editing going on. Not only that but he escapes Alcatraz by a highly unusual means: by way of still photography. He travels by a series of cuts. Notice he isn’t “moving”. He doesn’t need to. Why bother when the edits can sweep you along?
Boorman compounds this sonic and editing flow with a visual approach that takes this typical Western/Noir tale and elevates it to the realm of the infinite. For example: at one point a man is asked to take some money and wait down by the old storm-drain. It’s the sort of dialogue you’d hear in an old Western just before cutting to a little creek or some grubby pipe-work. Instead we’re swept from a deliberately claustrophobic, windowless office to a vast space of limitless vanishing points and eternal horizon lines and forcing us ask to ourselves again, what is happening to time and space?
Exactly like the sound design and editing, Boorman keeps this visually arresting consistency running at such a high level, at such a soaring artistic altitude throughout the entire film that the effect is of lightheaded exhilaration.
Then there’s the sex and violence, both of which are extreme, occur in staccato bursts and are usually intricately entwined with a vast current of libidinal energy frothing throughout. Notice the way the secretary terrifyingly whispers to Walker “Behind me.” Was that an instruction? Or the constant voyeurism, the way the theme of watching and being watched is always in sight. Either way, the sexual elements of ‘Point Blank’ are off the charts — why else does Lee Marvin, when he lifts that curtain up and poking his gun through, look like a giant clitoris?
If the sex is voyeuristic then the violence is Fritz Lang, with Marvin smashing a bottle over a thug’s head much like the way he “gave” poor Gloria Grahame a cup of coffee in ‘The Big Heat’. Yet Boorman doesn’t dwell on sadism. This isn’t so much the violence of anger and frustration but the violence of inevitable style. Not that Walker isn’t a deadly force, far from it, but it seems to be his indefatigable presence that results in people dying rather than from any murderous intent (the reason he shouts “We blew it!” at the start is because death has now become part of the equation. Is Walker the only “moral” person here?!). He is still a badass though and even manages to “kill” a car. Not only that but he even makes it “bleed” in the process.
And talking of “style”, what’s with those hoodlums? Are these thugs and gangsters or architectural assistants to Mies Van Der Rohe or Le Corbosier? This adds to the mystery that is essential to ‘Point Blank’ so it is vitally important we are never told who or what The Organisation is or what Walker is fighting against. Is Walker just the average American making his way in the modern world, simply wanting his slice of the American pie? Is he railing against crime, injustice or faceless Capitalism itself?
But the biggest shock of ‘Point Blank’, the most startling aspect of it all? Despite all the pretentious waffling above and all the talk of avant-garde devices is that this movie ridiculously entertaining and enjoyable. This is not a chin-stroking think-piece. Nothing gets in the way of the “fun factor” and all these artistic decisions only enhance the telling of the story. It is a stunning achievement.
There is so much I could say about ‘Point Blank’. It is only 90 minutes long yet contains more enmeshed into its fabric than almost any other movie I’ve seen. Every single decision is an artistic one and every single decision clarifies the tale. It is a filmmaker saying “You know cinema can do this, right?” Not a shot or frame is wasted. Everything fits and corresponds to each other and those interrelations seamlessly combine to heighten the overall effect. So there is a way to describe it after all and you can do it in one word: perfect.
And as to Walkers existential state? Boorman was right: it doesn’t matter, despite that explicitly ambiguous ending. Besides, part of me thinks Walker is very much alive to this day and still out there, hiding between the edits of the film where he belongs, his natural home and the real ocean from where he was brought into existence.
After all, it’s not Walker watching all this pass in front of his eyes… it’s us. Now that’s a chilling thought.
