note
Here follows a trilogy of reviews in which the representation of the pornographic industry is charted in mainstream film from the 1970s to the 1990s. Forgive, if you will, my indulgence, such a study, it is thought, may yield potentially interesting results.


1: Hardcore; a.k.a. The Hardcore Life (1979)

In Grand Rapids, an isolated Calvinist backwater, deep in snowy Michigan, while the elders sit and debate the finer points of doctrinal theology at Christmas, a generational gap is glimpsed in the irreverence of the younger members of the household. A respected patriarch in this dynamic is Jake Van Dorn; a devout Midwestern everyman whose life is about to fall apart.

While on a church mission trip to the West Coast, his daughter Kristen disappears, something which nothing could have prepared him for. Having enlisted the aid of Andy Mast, a California private dick, and on this man’s advice, Jake retreats to Grand Rapids to await developments. When they come Jake is forced to realize his worst nightmare. In a peepshow in a rough part of town Andy shows Van Dorn his latest purchase, an 8mm loop called ‘Slave of Love’ in which Kristen has hardcore sex with two young guys.

The last vestiges of normalcy which Jake has been pitifully clinging on to now burn, now explode into Old Testament wrath. Unable to contain himself he suspends his managerial schedule at his family run, furniture manufacturers and wholesalers and embarks upon a mission to Los Angeles. Finding his P.I. in bed with a starlet/hooker, and disdainful Andy's excuse, that “this is research!”, he sacks him on the spot and resolves to make his own enquiries. Here follows a long descent, sometimes embarrassing, occasionally harrowing and persistently, everincreasingly, dark. The Orphean protagonist who must voyage into the dark underworld of the West Coast porn scene to rescue his beloved daughter Jake must find his way to hell, to where women are killed for entertainment, for his daughter’s salvation and in so doing, faces the ultimate tests; of mettle, of ethics and judgment of this repellent new morality.

George C. Scott is superb as the embattled Van Dorn, by turns reserved and severe, bewildered, outraged and monomaniacally determined, one can almost see the new lines of jaded cynicism seaming this character’s face in the closing scenes -the development is complete and it has been an exemplary display of assured acting force with relatively few histrionics on the way. None of the other players contribute so much as a fraction of the work C. Scott puts in and are thus hardly deserving of more than a passing mention: Larry Boyle as Andy, the dirty investigator is well cast but not nearly so much fun to watch as his portrayal of Joe Curran (”Joe”(1970)). Season Hubley delivers a creditable hard-nosed-hooker-with-a-vulnerable-heart while nostalgia fans may smile at the appearance of Dick Sargeant (TV’s Bewitched). Curiously however, outside of Jake himself, it is Van Dorn Jr., his missing daughter that is of greatest importance in this film -the character of Kristen throws so many salient aspects into relief she is key.

Paul Schrader, (writer of 1976 Palme D’Or Winner Taxi Driver), does a wonderful job in mirroring his two protagonists both boldly and finely. Jake Van Dorn; the upright, and uptight bastion of the old school of morality is also old in years and it is about him that we know the most throughout the film -his thoughts and deeds, his background, his social life, his motivation. Kristen, however represents an entirely antithetical proposition; willowy, young, absent, her influence on the narrative is paramount but she exists in an off-screen continuum, about her we know practically nothing at all until the very final reel.

It is of great interest that Schrader shared with his protagonists a Calvinist upbringing in the town of Grand Rapids. This cannot be a coincidence; I feel in fact -and more certainly in light of the moral ambiguity which lent Taxi Driver its such unique force- that through this film Schrader sought not merely demonize the then-recent mainstream fascination with pornography, nor either just to censoriously expose the dangers in that industry’s seamy underbelly but to exorcise a conflict within himself. The vivid juxtaposition of the two most important characters in the film and too the polarity of sound and cinematography and whole feel of the wintry and austere environs of the Michigan town and its vibrant, funky, exciting and dangerous West Coast foil, seems in my mind, to represent its director's Joycean conflict between sin and creative freedom or sanctity and the fetters of religious dogma.

There is featured a climactic resolution in which father and daughter have to learn to understand each other before they can be reconciled (and through which the objectivity of the film drastically loses ground as we realize we have only been seeing the world through Jake Van Dorn’s eyes). The whole moral tone of the film has been disdainful censorious only as a manifestation of the point of view of its protagonist. Despite this, and the point is subtle at any rate, Schrader attracted reams of heavy criticism, unsurprisingly, from the hardcore feature magazines of the time. Accusations that the snuff connection depicted in the film is unjustified, unrealistic and misleading ring true; the idea that connections in the sex industry, even in the sadomasochistic side of things would blithely hook customers up to public screenings of women being stabbed in the neck is patently absurd. Such things happen only in nightmares, and that, I feel is precisely why their inclusion is so excellently calculated for optimal effect in this film.

The ‘snuff’ reel procurement and screening sequences, shot in respectively in lurid spectral green and deep bloodred light are nightmarish. Van Dorn has reached the horrific nadir of his descent and taken the viewer -censor permitting- every step of the way with him. It is to the film’s detriment to read these sequences as realism, -the extraordinary hallucinatory lighting in the various seedy fleshpots around which Jake stumbles, in fact, goes some way toward precluding this. Other such visual flourishes include a grotesque and fantastic brawl which rips through a succession of themed humiliation chambers and out into a precipitous San Francisco street, sharp details in the costume and set design and what is for me one of the defining shots of the seventies urban horror film: Jake, believing he is finally closing in on his daughter’s abductor, crashes into El Matador (the killer), a sex lounge which erupts as Van Dorn locates his quarry. Kristen meanwhile , wraith-like, gaunt and white jumps from her seat and whips round. She looks as an angel of death. The image lasts all of a second but sears itself on the retina for incalculably longer.

Despite its heavy subject matter, Hardcore is not all misanthropy and gloom. Leavening moments of comedy and humor, from sight gags -such as a Star Wars themed exotic dance revue and the ridiculous disguise of wig and moustache Jake dons for a bogus porno casting call- to more puerile sketches -such as an indignant actor’s protestation at that event that he’s “Dick Black... big Dick Black!”- abound, however one is left with the distinct impression that any laughs generated were more often unintentional than deliberate.

Whichever way one cuts it up or down, there is no escaping the fact that the nemesis in this picture is the pornographic industry and it is this which makes the movie seem so dated. The late seventies were ripe, perhaps, even back then, already a little overripe for a moral panic about the glut of adult movies which cascaded out from Behind the Green Door (1971). But twenty-three years later, with the XXX movie industry doubling its annual revenue and clearing profits far in excess of those made in the mainstream market, this anger seems a little quaint. There is nothing big or terrifying about porno movies nowadays and there isn’t an evil conspiracy of big bad bogeymen waiting to snatch your virginal daughters for their wicked ends -although with disturbingly increasing frequency there seem to be many companies plying faked versions of scenarios not too dissimilar. Porn is currently as common as tea and toast and often just as boring. So while for many the tale depicted in Hardcore will truly seem like a nightmare others will simply struggle to see so much as a grain of truth in the arch way the sex industry is portrayed.

As I wrote this review a thought occurred to me regarding the film’s auteur, Paul Schrader, and its place within his canon of work. For while the film shares a strange and sordid vigour with Raging Bull (co-writer, 1980), Blue Collar (co-writer-director, 1978) and Taxi Driver (writer, 1976) it is with the last of these, in especial that Hardcore, would appear peculiarly to commune. Leimotifs common to both include; the salvation of purity (embodied in both by an underage runaway girl working in the sex industry) by a cathartic bloodletting spree, and a scabrous vision of a modern society in purgatory from the perspective of its vigilante scourge.

Uncharitably one could assert that the later movie is a derivative remake of a superior work, but in fairness I would like to think that in some ways Hardcore is an updating, and more rigorous working out, of a similar moral framework against a different topical backdrop. I also feel that this is the movie Schrader wanted to make and for its complex ambiguity alone, not to mention a plethora of other distinguishing features, have no hesitation in asserting its importance, both as an example of its kind and as a powerful film in its own right.


© Monday 19th August 2002 Alexander Moss

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: VHS
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age