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One of Nicholson's "Tragic Trilogy" : (SPOILERS FOR CHINATOWN, THE LAST DETAIL, AND CUCKOOS NEST)

posted 2 years ago by ecarle (14979)
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Jack Nicholson spent over a decade struggling in the low-pay indie ghetto of Roger Corman movies(from horror to bikers to LSD) before exploding on the scene in 1969 with Easy Rider.

There followed one of the most impressive star-making runs in movie history -- just to START the Nicholson career: from Easy Rider (1969) to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest(1975) Nicholson zoomed to a kind of "countercultural prestige superstardom": hits, Oscar nominations, quality films.

After Cuckoo's Nest, there would be a couple of slumps, but Nicholson always came back with something major: The Shining. Reds. Terms of Endearment. BATMAN(and career rebirth with a younger generation.) A Few Good Men. As Good As It Gets.

Meanwhile, back in the 70's: The Last Detail, to me, is the first of a "trilogy of tragedy" that rather established Jack Nicholson not ONLY as a drawling hepcat hipster hero...but as connected in a very sad way to the theme of...powerlessness. The desire to help someone else, and the inabilitiy to do so:

The Last Detail. Nicholson does the right thing and gives the poor young prisoner the gift of good times on the town, some booze, a brawl ...and a broad. But in the end, Nicholson can't save the kid from his 8 year term for stealing some paltry cash out of a charity jar that was the pet cause of the Admiral's (?)wife. Its not simply that Nicholson CAN'T save the kid; he WON'T save the kid. He's subservient to the Navy bureaucracy. He is a pawn of the Man.

Chinatown: We go back to the 30s (via a gorgeous, gleaming Panavision POV with none of the grit of The Last Detail) and learn that Nicholson's private eye, back in Chinatown, "tried to prevent a girl from getting hurt and made sure that she GOT hurt." Again with the loser-hood, and come THIS film's end, Nicholson again finds himself powerless from stopping The Man from raping family and the land alike...and ends up making sure that someone gets killed this time, not just "hurt." The private eye solves the murder, but can't bring the killer to justice.

Cuckoo's Nest: In an institution full of "self-committed crazies," rebel Nicholson stirs them all up, but saves none of them -- save one (a Native American who provides the silver lining ending to an otherwise sad tale.) Meanwhile, Nicholson again has a "slow kid" to protect -- and can't(the kid kills himself ) and -- in the ultimate climax of the trilogy -- ends up dead himself, the first time Nicholson's powerlessness sounds in his death.

Three tragedies, with a shared theme -- Nicholson represents all of us who "cannot beat the system" and sometimes(The Last Detail) don't even try. Amazingly, all three films were hits -- and Cuckoo's Nest was a blockbuster. It seemed as though, in all three movies, Nicholson's capacity to project sex appeal(for the ladies), to make us laugh, and to show us a "caring man"(Chinatown especially) somehow softened the blow en route to tragic endings. Nicholson somehow made entertaining heroes out of...losers.

[–] DmitriKnipper (202) 2 years ago

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

This reminds me of my "ineffectual private detectives" mid-'70s run of "Chinatown" and "The Conversation" and "Night Moves" both with Gene Hackman. In these three neo-noirs our designated protagonist manages to make things worse through his interference and is worse off personally by the time the end credits roll.

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Ah, the 70s. These movies were "good," but not particularly uplifting. I suppose "ineffectual private detectives" were a subset of the entire downbeat "you can't win" mood of many early 70s movies. I cite 1974 as the "peak downer" year for important films. I won't name them to avoid spoilers but we had movies where the hero either failed, got someone else killed, or died. Several ended with the ruined, failed hero in a near catatonic state.

A fella named George Lucas said "I was tired of movies where you came out feeling worse than when you went in," and gave us Star Wars. AFTER another fella named Sly Staloone gave us Rocky. Both AFTER 1974.

BTW: Gene Hackman in The Conversation versus Gene Hackman in Night Moves. What a character! (Actor.) In The Conversation, he is balding, blobby, pale, mousy, dull. In Night Moves, he is playing a private NFL player, so he seems fit, strong, energetic -- macho and sexy. He wears a cooler moustache in Night Moves, too. That said, his famous Hackman anger rises in the Conversation character and his Night Movies private eye is pretty downcast near the end.

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Other 1970s' retro/p.i. movies like "The Long Goodbye" and "Farewell My Lovely," although the noir is present, the heroes get in the final word. (or "shot.")

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Yes. More "successful" endings. Though both were from long-ago Chandler novels. Gould was surprisingly forceful at the end of Long Goodbye. Mitchum, while "too old for the role" in "Farewell My Lovely," carried a lot of great memories from out of the past, AND from "Out of the Past."