I thought it strange that J. J. Cord, in the final scene, was so cool and just said "what if I was" when Richard (Bridges) asked if he were the killer. He said that with a .45 pointing straight at him. DEATH WISH?
Mountain Man
I'm sure I could be wrong, but I really don't think he believed Bone would pull the trigger. I think that was the point of the scene.
shareWell if I were guilty and had two guys out to get me, and they had been fighting with my security staff and riding a horse through a plate glass window to get to me, I just might possibly think they wanted more than just my autograph. And there he is, with a cocked .45 in his face and he's sweating about as much as an icecube in a deep freeze. Would you be calm if someone pointed a .45 with the hammer cocked at you? I would wet my pants.
Mountain Man
Cord knew about Bone's non-commital background, and doubted he would have the stones to pull the trigger.
shareExactly. I couldn't have said it better myself.
sharei don't think he thought he would do it.
shareExactly again. Cutter says to Bone at one point that Cord's people have been watching them and know them. Cord clearly knew Bone was a weak man, plus he was overconfident in his own wealth and stature. That's what makes Bone's final act so remarkable and ultimately moving.
share***SPOILER ALERT***
Cord is also ice-cool when he's speaking to Bone in that whole scene, without any emotion at all, tight lipped, saying, "I'm willing to talk to your friend if you think it will do any good. Do you think it will do any good?"
And, I don't think Bone would have had the guts to do it hadn't Cutter crashed through that window and died with the gun in his hand trying to do something about two murders. Plus, Bone wasn't absolutely sure it was him until he'd spoken to Cord face to face. Bone had nothing to lose with the gun in Cutter's hand. The last scene of him pulling the trigger is unforgettable, though.
Did he pull the trigger with Alex's finger? It would look like that Alex pulled the trigger. The gun was in Alex's hand when he shot.
shareI think that it's fairly obvious, it's a great(classic that is criminally unheard of,
shareThe flaw of the film is it's storytelling. It just doesn't really work in certain key scenes. The above responders are right: he realised from Cord's overly cool reaction that he was guilty and he finally took decisive action, which Cord wasn't expecting. But the fact there's a whole thread of questions about this shows the makers didn't do a very good job of getting that across to the audience. It's nice to be left with questions after a film, but too many things in this film felt sloppily-handled rather than mysterious.
shareI don't think it's sloppy filmmaking at all. The director and script do emphasize character over plot, though. The plot takes a backseat to showing these characters, but then in the end, the plot comes back to the forefront and it makes sense why they spent all this time explaining what type of people Alex and Bone were.
sharenothing sloppy about the filmmaking!!!!
the film actually NEVER answers the question whether Cord is responsible (also not for the burning down of the house), the sentence "what if i did?" in keeping with this
we never know whether Cutter & Bone are right.
and that's the whole point
great film
No innocent person would say "What if I did?" under those circumstances.
Not in a million years.
The movie may be vague and elliptical in other places, but on this score it is not remotely ambiguous. Cord is unequivocally guilty.
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I think most of the posters on this board are being too literal. The film is a metaphor: Cutter, Bone and Mo are lost souls looking for SOMETHING meaningful, some reason to go on living. When Cutter and Bone think they've stumbled onto a murder by Santa Barbara's leading citizen, it gives their lives purpose again.
The climactic scene, when Cord says "What if I did?" and then puts on his sunglasses before Bone shoots him, seemed to say "Look at me. I'm a rich, fat cat, and with these sunglasses on, I look like any other rich fat cat. You can kill me, but I will be replaced, and someone like me will always be pulling the strings, and will always get away with *beep* on little guys like you. Even if you kill me, your life will have still been meaningless. So go ahead. Shoot." BANG!
So his murder in the end was meaningless, which is why this film is ultimately a tragedy--and an unheralded mini-masterpiece!
I agree with Alwood's assessment to some extent.
JJ Cord typifies the arrogant, snooty, patronizing, contemptuous, "here's looking down at you" attitude of the filthy rich. (just speaking stereotypically of course). Even though Richard Bone is pointing a gun at him, I believe JJ Cord is not afraid because of his powerful status. He believes that nothing bad can possibly happen to him - he's rich, important, etc.
As Cutter said earlier in the film, "it's never their ass on the line". Heck, just think where our current president spent his time in the military when the Vietnam War was being fought.
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************************** Possible Spoiler ***********************
Just to be precise, it seems previous postings have misquoted JJ Cord just a bit.
Bone: "It was you."
JJ Cord: "What if it were?"
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Well, fwiw, flying fighter jets anywhere is pretty hazardous, so you could argue that Bush's ass was on the line to some extent.
That said, I'd much rather have someone like McCain in the oval office, as opposed to the express draft-dodgers like Clinton, or the quasi-avoiders like Bush.
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The film is a metaphor: Cutter, Bone and Mo are lost souls looking for SOMETHING meaningful, some reason to go on living.
The beauty of this thread is Cord became Alex's symbol of everthing that was putrid in us of a at his time. Fitting end. Hope it was agonizing.
The second beauty is the book/movie make it clear that Cutter was accidentially right: it was Cord. "What if I was" suggests a man monitoring Cutter/Bone, killing Moe, fully aware of these three losers (meant by conventional standards but actually my kind of people.)
This was also accidentially one of the greatest movies ever made.
There are not enough clues to suggest Alex and Bone were incorrect in their deliberate pursuit of Cord.
All opinions of course. It's make believe and fiction, so it does not serve me as intelectually honest either way: just saying more evidence, however sparse, suggests Cord killed teenagage hitchiker and even Moe, than there is evidence that argues against it. And that's from reading the book once and seeing the movie several times.
well brent-webster.....you're post only supports my argument:
we just don't know
which is a much stronger ending than answering the whodunnit question
That's mostly what I said. Enough evidence MAKES me want to believe Cutter and Bone were on-target in their pursuit of Cord. But Passer will not give one concrete clue (either would the book).
You are absolutely correct that it's the ambiguity that matters most. In the end, Bridges/Bone makes what he knows is the defining moment of his life: to give value and real meaning to his friend Alex's life. And (the late) Moe's.
It's a doomed gesture. The ending of this hits me in the solar plexus like Peter Weir's freeze-frame at the end of Gallilopi.
I just really love Cutter's Way--it politically heralded the things to come in the USA. It was filmed, acted, and scripted as unconventional as I've ever seen. And it worked. For this I adore it.
(I don't know Passer's filmography, but I know Bad Lt. w/Keitel. That was as unambiguous as Cutter was ambiguous.)
Cutter's Way is an aquired taste.
I also agree this is a very interesting film, and in many respects a period piece.
However, I would disagree that this "heralded things to come" in the U.S. -- rather, it was kind of a last gasp of the 60's - 70's mentality, which was fortunately dying out at that time.
But that mentality never really vanished, did it? It just slipped into the shadows for a couple of decades... before returning in force around 2005 or so.
Like Obi Wan said to Darth Vader, "If you strike me down now I will just return stronger than ever."
He could've been talking about flower child liberalism.
Cuz it's back, kids. And stronger than ever.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/bensmith/welcome-to-liberal-america?utm_term=.crR8xkmZR1#.onlXVLW4nl
I think it's unlikely that the guy would say "so what if he did" if he was really innocent. And even if that were the case, it clearly shows a completely indifference to the deaths of the people they care about. Either way, it arguably justifies his killing Bone.
Maybe the point is that everything in life is somewhat ambiguous (including the Vietnam War), and ultimately you have to take a stand, even in the face of remaining ambiguity. This is what Bone did, and in so doing, he grew up somewhat.
I think we all know the guy was probably guilty, and therefore probably deserved to be taken out. And I don't think you have to read the more negative implications into it -- by "sharing" the killing with cutter (helping him do it), he's also likely exonerated himself. Pretty upbeat to me.
I believe that J. J. Cord knew it was highly possible that he was going to die and that is why he put on his sunglasses; to go the egotistical way he wanted to go ... cool, calm, successful and devious. I was so happy when Alex finally died; geez, he was in a LOT of self-inflicted pain!
Don't sweat the small stuff
[deleted]
He did seem to be bracing for something, perhaps death, when he put on his sunglasses. I for one was very surprised the gun was loaded, but that's generally the case in films even when they say there are no bullets.
shareI originally thought the sunglass moment was kind of cheesy, but now I think he was just cocky and didn't think Bone was going to do it. What do you all think happened to Bone afterwards? Seems like Cord's security would barge in the room immediately and blow him to bits, even though he made it look like Alex did it, but I don't know.
shareCord was a big cog just as Bone, Cutter and the dead etc were small cogs. He made himself impersonal when he put his sunglasses on because he was little more important than them. None of them matter.
Marlon, Claudia and Dimby the cats 1989-2005, 2007 and 2010.
indeed, if Cord is a metaphor, which I think he obviously is,
metaphor for corporate, government, status quo, the windmill (Don Quixote), giants etc.
the sunglasses represent "you can look at us, but you can't see us, can't see into us, our soul, (we have no soul)"
we are anonymous, but we are in control,
of especially little folks like you (Cutter, Bone, Mo, ) the infantryman.
Did he enjoy dying? Its not a question, the giant hardly ever dies.
think so.
A day without sunshine is like, you know, night.