the moment Peter Fonda is driving and talking about the 60's... for some reason I find it one of the most brillant moments in recent movie history(and I'm not even that much of a fan of Steven S.), it manages to be poetic but melancholic at the same time!
shareYes it is beautiful! I think the sceene is great because Peter Fonda speaks out of his own experience. Peter was one of the hottest persons in that period - partying with the Beatles, Bob Dylan etc.
John Lennon even created a song based on a conversation he had with Fonda. A drunk Fonda said during a pool party in L.A; "I know what it´s like to be dead". The song was named "She Said".
yep. that is why I was looking up this movie. It was a great scene. something in the way it was filmed and spoken
shareThat conversation occurred while he was in his bathroom, His girlfriend in the tub. In the driving scene he talks about driving his motorbike and hitting a deer.
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Spoilers ahead...
I've already mentioned this in another thread, but don't you think that the decision to cast such an iconic 60s figure as Fonda in the role of a sleezy and irresponsible ex-hippy millionaire, who kills a young woman for her "straightness", implies a criticism of the values of the flower power generation and their impact on subsequent generations? Using flashbacks, music and the Stamp character's whole attitude, the film explicitly contrasts these values with those of the mod culture of the British working class, which emerged during the same period but which made self-reliance, upward mobility and a clean-cut sense of personal pride its distinctive features.
It seems to me that the Fonda character waxing lyrical about how great the 60s were to his replacement for the murdered girl is an integral part of that critique.
If anything it is a comment in how sub cultures invariably become just as corrupt as the "establishment" they purport to rebel against. One becomes corrupted with street level crime, the other in the distribution of drugs. Thats the point of Fight Club also.
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The Wilson character doesn't really come across as particularly corrupt, although the consequences of his lifestyle have cost him dearly. He certainly doesn't come across as corrupt in comparison to the Terry Valentine character, who is the personification of sleazy cowardice. In fact, Wilson fits pretty much perfectly into the cliché of the "golden-hearted thief" who loves his family (in this case his daughter) above all else, even though she hated his way of life and had actually posed a threat to his freedom.
If anything, this is one of the film's clearest departures from the essence of the British gangster sub-genre it is trying to pay homage to. As David Mamet rightly puts it in his latest book, while American gangster films tend to deal with misguided souls who come to realise that "crime doesn't pay", the British variant is more concerned with "actually-not-very-nice people" and how-to. "The Limey" is thus an Americanised version of a distinctly non-American kind of film, and the result (at least from where I'm standing) is rather poor.
"The Wilson character doesn't really come across as particularly corrupt"
Or maybe you are just not that observant.
He is a lifetime criminal, involved in violent crimes such as armed robbery (morally/legally corrupt). Also I mention corrupt in that he got shipped to prison on account of his partners in crime/criminal friends dobbing him in to the police (a corrupt criminal sub culture). Wilson claims his innocence - "It was these other lads that should've been there in my place". Most criminals believe they are innocent, or at least profess it; its the fantasy that justifies their bad behavior. These beliefs corrupt Wilsons family in that they drive a wedge between him and the moral core of his daughter. In the flashback footage you will also notice that his wife at times may have felt the same way, but was too weak/shy to argue it. Sometimes the weakness of a parent emboldens a child to be strong in the same area.
There are plenty of other examples where Wilson shows that he become corrupted by the choices he made in his life that you may have missed.
The point of the movie is the realization that it was the life choices he made as a young man that corrupted him to the point that it ultimately caused his daughters death. It is why the movie is edited in such a way. Its a metaphor for an old mans regret and his fleeting painful memories.
It is a shame some people do not have a sufficiently high EQ to pick up on such things.
"It seems to me that the Fonda character waxing lyrical about how great the 60s were to his replacement for the murdered girl is an integral part of that critique."
You completely missed the point. He was being cynical about how the 60s was sold as a great decade. Valentine : "But it was only late 66, and early 67. Thats all it was."
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The morally corrupt nature of robbery is very clear-cut in the real world, but in Soderbergh's movie universe it is not such a black-and-white issue as you suggest. On the contrary, Soderbergh's heroes often tend to be cool and charming criminals who the audience is supposed to identify with (think of "Out of Sight" or the Ocean's movies). These are men who certainly move about in a morally corrupt world and do things which most ordinary people would find morally reprehensible, but they also live by a code and thus elicit our sympathy despite their criminal behaviour. They are tragic heroes, not anti-heroes.
In any case, it is not the corrupt nature of the background Wilson comes from which I was questioning, but rather the corruptness of the character evidenced in the time we spend with him during the movie. As I said, Wilson has come to realise that "crime doesn't pay" - the standard message of the American gangster movie - but his quest for revenge is portrayed as a righteous crusade for retribution rather than a reflection of his moral degradation. I may be mistaken, but I don't think the movie ever really questions the moral appropriateness of Wilson's vendetta. It never seems to dwell on the rightness or wrongness of talion. The film seems to imply that Valentine deserves to die, and that Wilson is right to want to kill him. (Contrast this with Mike Hodges' "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead", which IS a film about moral corruption in the underworld and the futility of revenge).
I have to say that I'm intrigued as to how you concluded that Wilson's life choices "ultimately caused his daughter's death". Those choices certainly cost him his relationship with his daughter, but I fail to see how they led to her death. Her death was caused by a combination of her own poor judgment in hanging around with such a creep as Valentine, her law-abiding honesty and (above all else) Valentine's cowardice and greed - his utter moral corruption. Following on from your argument I suppose you might say that had Wilson not been a career criminal his daughter would not have developed the same strong sense of morality, but again, I fail to see how this is something we are supposed to hold against him.
This links up with my original point: the movie's comparison between the mod 60s and the hippy 60s and their impact on subsequent generations. Despite his criminal career and morally corrupt surroundings, Wilson produced a daughter who was a law-abiding citizen, willing to shop her own father to the police. Moreover, he was strangely proud of this, despite the taboo against snitching which exists in all criminal cultures. He seemed to admire his daughter's strength of character, independence and rebelliousness against her own social background, all of which were integral features of the mod ethos. Valentine, the make-believe gangster and representative of the hippy tradition, killed Jenny for the very same qualities that Wilson admired in his daughter. Valentine played around in the drug business and then refused to accept responsibility for his own actions after being confronted by someone young and innocent. Like I said, I think this can be read as an allegory which refers to the impact that the flower power revolution and its ultimate sell-out have had on subsequent generations.
Lastly, I don't take Valentine's reference to "66 and early 67" as a critique on his behalf of how the 60s have been marketed as a great decade. That wouldn't make sense, since he so obviously lives off the reputation of that decade and uses its mystique to lure young and gullible girls. I think he means that the pure essence of what to him the 60s were all about was concentrated in that very short period of time, nothing more. He clearly refers to "66 and early 67" as a golden age.
All of this is just my take on the movie, I don't think there's any need to make it a personal issue.
"I have to say that I'm intrigued as to how you concluded that Wilson's life choices "ultimately caused his daughter's death". Those choices certainly cost him his relationship with his daughter, but I fail to see how they led to her death."
It did cause her death, of course indirectly, in several ways:
1) She was attracted to criminal, dangerous men, like her father
2) She had adapted the "I will turn you in trick" even when she did not mean it -- she didn't anticipate it will end badly with Terry Valentine
3) Arguably, had Wilson been around, none of this would have happened
I think part of the film is how the both guys are similar and how both failed Jenny. That's why Wilson doesn't kill him in the end. He realizes he is no better.
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I enjoy the substitution of "EQ" for IQ in thewholebrevitything's post.
This implies an ability to tune one's perception to highlight some things by tuning out others; in memory we can re-run the track and change the equalization, but of course if the original perception has been over-eq'd parts will be too diminished to be cleanly recovered.
EQ, IQ, iceberg, Goldberg, who cares?
The sixties were where this ending began.
Many still don't realize it.
What I had in mind was boxing the compass.share
I think that is a brilliant point.
The Fonda character represents those that wasted what they had and have become corrupt. The Mods enjoyed their moment of uniqueness and then re-joined the world; re-joined the human race.
~~~~~Using flashbacks, music and the Stamp character's whole attitude, the film explicitly contrasts these values with those of the mod culture of the British working class, which emerged during the same period but which made self-reliance, upward mobility and a clean-cut sense of personal pride its distinctive features.~~~~~
It was one of the few times in English history when poor peoples's standard of living was increasing. Wilson and Callaghan put a stop to that. Hippies were a far more middle-class phenomenon, hence Fonda being soulless.
Marlon, Claudia and Dimby the cats 1989-2005, 2007 and 2010.
I don't see how Fonda/Terry Valenting is being soulless.
He clearly loves his girls at least.
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Not to take anything away from him, but it's (somewhat) worth noting that the Beatles didn't especially like Peter Fonda. From the "She Said She Said" entry of Wikipedia:
"Later in the day, the group passed time in a large sunken tub in the master bedroom. Fonda brought up his nearly fatal self-inflicted childhood gunshot accident, writing later that he was trying to comfort a frightened George Harrison. Fonda said that he knew what it was like to be dead. Lennon snapped, "Listen mate, shut up about that stuff," and as Fonda recalled, "You're making me feel like I've never been born." Lennon explained, "We didn't want to hear about that! We were on an acid trip, and the sun was shining, and the girls were dancing (some from Playboy, I believe) and the whole thing was really beautiful and Sixties. And this guy - who I really didn't know, he hadn't made Easy Rider or anything - kept coming over, wearing shades, saying 'I know what it's like to be dead,' and we kept leaving him because he was so boring. It was scary, when you're flying high: 'Don't tell me about it. I don't want to know what it's like to be dead!'" "...[H]e was showing us his bullet wound. He was very uncool," Harrison added.
McCartney recalls, more charitably: "Fonda seemed to us to be a bit wasted; he was a little out of it. I don't know if we expected a bit more of Henry [Fonda]'s son, but he was certainly of our generation, and he was alright.""
EDIT: This is in response to ivar-ber saying that Fonda was one of the "hottest persons in that period" who was partying with the Beatles, Dylan, etc. I wasn't just randomly tossing that out there.
"Did you ever dream about a place you never really recall being to before? A place that maybe only exists in your imagination? Some place far away, half remembered when you wake up. When you were there, though, you knew the language. You knew your way around. *That* was the sixties.
[pause]
No. It wasn't that either. It was just '66 and early '67. That's all there was. "
Terry Valentine
the pause and the "No. It wasn't that either. It was just '66 and early '67. That's all there was."
brilliant!
Bit late I know, but an interesting point RE: the mod and hippy cultures...
shareThat works towards the idea that Valentine deep down feels guilty about his success. Lesley Ann Warren brought it up early, describing him to Wilson as someone who "took the 60's zeitgeist and ran with it, making out like a bandit." But Valentine has become cynical about the decade, the 'golden moment' as his current girlfriend called it. He knows it was just a brief part of the whole decade (66 and early 67) and tells her, but she's too young and doesn't get it. He's lived off the past for too long; that's why he let Avery take into a drug trafficking deal to bring in some needed revenue.
share[deleted]
he knows what he knows!
Hey, sprechen sie talk?
Nah, I liked another scene better... the one where he's cleaning his teeth in the bathroom, and his g/f is taking a bath, and he says something like "you ever have a dream that you half remember when you wake up? something foreign to you when you're awake, but in your dream you know the language? you know your way around? that was the 60s."
I never understood what that really meant, I mean, was he saying the 70s or 80s was like being awake, and the 60s was like being in a dream? Or was it that the 60s was being truly awake, and the rest of time was just a dream? Whatever he meant, I liked the way he put it. More than the car scene, I'd say.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFtYpLV4EPo
I think people wrongly think of the Sixties as something like an opening scene from Austin Powers. That collage may represent the distilled Swinging Sixties etc, but when people look back dewy-eyed, are they really remembering their own sixties as they were or as they wished them to be ?
Remember Britain in the Sixties ? Bitter winters, brink of nuclear confrontation, inflation, strikes, student unrest ? Of course none of that mattered if you were the new breed of teenager, but cummon, it wasn't all end to end mary-quant-style partying and fab gear and food and drink either. We still ate cold meat and beans, drank tea and drank pints down the pub.
My brother was a Mod in Scotland 1965-67. He looked smart as a tailor's dummy and went around on his light blue Lambretta series 3. I was too young then but just got into the local Mod scene for a few months at age 14/15 in 1968, just before Modernism evaporated. I liked dressing sharp as I could for the money I could get from my after-school job and "borrowing" from my mum. I liked the dancing and fitting in with my mates. It wasn't all the peace and love of the hippies though, fights still broke out, usually about girls. After modernism retreated, I still clung to Mod items for a while like my desert boots etc but in time I became more mainstream sixties. I never liked the hippy thing. I might have converted into the newly-developing skinheads, as some Mods did, my my mates never went that way - a bit too aggresive I thought. But I did get more into heavy rock such as Deep Purple as well as some glam rock for a while. But I missed the Mod look. But I did get one last chance in 1978-81. Because I looked younger than my years, I decided to flirt with modernism one more time, though being a lot more sophisticated than before. It meant I wouldn't hang around with the teenage Mods who appeared, I hung around with my latest mates around my age, but I had much more access to nice clothes etc and when I did rub shoulders with Mods in general, they admired my clothing and style. They had no clue about my age being mid-20's. I didn't go to the frankly depressing Mod-run discos which were bare halls meant for hordes of teens and didn't serve alcohol. I went to smart discos/clubs for people my age, but dressed as a Mod in one of my suits, smart shirt and knitted tie and slip-ons or Chelsea boots - sometimes a Jamaican pork-pie too. It seemed popular with the ladies and I did get to show off my ska sometimes ! I converted my style to a little more contemporary with the arrival of the likes of Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet and entered a magical time as a Mod with a nod to smart-dressed romantics. That was my best time, the best of everything and it seemed to click with the girls very well ! My favourite time ever !
So all in all, people from the Sixties love the sixties because it was their time, before life's responsibilities kicked in. But for a lot of people, even teens, the sixties were far from being Austin Powers.
For me, 1978-81 was best. But my memories of "junior" mod discos of 1968, with lots of soul music from Mowtown and Stax, plus Brit pop like Love Affair do make me tingle inside too.
I'm sure the scenes now are just as exciting for young people, when my son goes to a school disco, I feel happy for him and hope he gets the same excitement.
"S h i t happens in mysterious ways, its wonders to peform"
It's funny to see this thread. I feel exactly the same way. That moment is by far my favorite in the film. One of my all-time favorite movie quotes. It has meaning beyond the film, for me at least.
When looking back on one's life, it is easy to see time periods as exaggerations of what they actually were. The sixties were not all flower children, in fact the first few years of the decade were far more like the 50's. But as we grow older, our most tangible memories from a period become our dominant feelings when we look back upon it. We have all had moments where we seemed truly synchronized with our environment. When looking back, we tend to remember those moments as even more perfect than they actually were. Sometimes when one looks back, it seems as if those moments were so perfect that they could not have been real, they had to be from a dream. Life is never perfect, and whatever period we remember was not quite as great as we remember it. But it lives on in our minds, an exaggeration of how wonderful it is to be truly in sync with one's surroundings. For me, college was awesome. Possibly the best time in my life. Towards the end of it, however, I was ready to move on. Now, when I look back, those memories are rosier and more perfect than my actual life was. But that does not dull the glow of my memories. I did not finish my second major, because I did not need too and was sick of school by that point. I was ready to move on, ready for a different environment. But for a brief moment in time, Santa Barbara was a perfect. Or maybe I was perfect. Or maybe I was just right in my element.
Regardless of whether life actually was a perfect as we remember, we still have our feelings from perfection of our memories. They drive us forward, inspiring us to live our lives fully, in search of that next perfect moment. At the time, of course, we won't know that it is perfect. But it's idealized recollection will surge us forward through the rip current of life, inspiring us to search for a perfect harmony that is only possible in our memories.
I like what a female writer once said when interviewed in the LA Times (it was the 80's/early 90's when I read this). I don't remember who she is, but here is the quote as I recall it: "Nostalgia is the past filtered through the imagination so that is seems mystical."
sharei thought he caught a great vibe in that scene. i notice it every time i see the movie
the point he makes is a deep one, i think that's the thing that gets people with this scene. the comment about dreams and real life and mixing the two together
i like that scene
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behold, sublime genius: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLPe0fHuZsc
58:50 To Steppenwolf!!!!!
"I'm issuing a restraining order: Religion must stay 500 yards away from Science at all times!!"
[deleted]
Peter Fonda and his girlfriend had excellent scenes, their on screen chemistry seemed pretty great and the dialogue, how it was spoken really flowed well. Everything about him was kinda charming and likeable but not in a forced way, you could see he really did live the 60's kinda thing
That car scene and the scene in the rope bed thing down by the beach both really worked for me, just very good stuff.