One more word on the hypocrisy of our times

 

I’ve talked enough about the hypocrisy of this world, about powerful criminals getting away with their misdeeds, because they have an uncanny ability to con millions of people into believing they are “victims” just like they are (Donald Trump). If Elizabeth Holmes is acquitted and “Sunny” Balwani is convicted, then we can be certain that there are two standards of what constitutes “guilt” in this country, depending on your gender and skin color. Who is looking out for the people who are lied to and cheated by such people? Maybe not no one, but certainly not enough to actually be able to turn back the tide even an inch, as we have seen in the past year concerning Joe Biden’s spending bill meant to advance the cause of working people and the future of this country.

Hypocrisy is just everywhere. I hate movies that are just an excuse to sell violence, which if you watch the trailer for The 355, you get the impression that women get off on violence just as they accuse men of doing. So much for being morally “superior”; the “good guys” in films like this are paranoid schizophrenic killers who mask their true selves to gullible filmgoers. I suppose it just isn’t “exciting” not to leave a trail of bodies as John Drake and MacGyver tended to avoid; you have to use your “head” and wit for that kind of thing. And make no mistake—the people who make these kind of films are in it for the money, feeding off certain members of the public’s own fantasies of mayhem and violence in a country that is rent with violence and mass shootings. How many people fantasize about being another Kyle Rittenhouse? Do we really want to find out?

Why is violence “celebrated” these days? Why do people “get off” on this kind of thing? Revenge fantasies? The premises of films like this (as mentioned, the trailer of The 355 focused on the “violence” part to “sell” it) is for a generation that wants cheap thrills written in red. In the “old days,” the “good guys” in espionage capers faced-off against those who also thought they were the “good guys” for their cause or country. Of course we can blame James Bond for starting the trend toward body counts, but then again Bond was “human” and needed gadgets, fast cars and brain muscle to get himself out of scrapes—not phony, unbelievable “prowess.”

But even Bond sometimes felt some moral qualms about what he was doing and who was hurt by it. As I pointed out in my post on Seven Samurai, violence in reality is a dirty, ugly business where the real heroes are those who sacrifice themselves for a moral cause—not merely being the “other side” of the same bad coin, just serving another “master”—and the survivors are rewarded with nothing more than the knowledge that they fulfilled their moral duty, not the “satisfaction” merely of the “kill.”

Keeping on the subject of hypocrisy in popular “entertainment,” if you are going to do a remake of a film that has an important Hispanic theme, you could do better by remaking El Norte rather than West Side Story, since people might actually learn something rather than having their stereotypes confirmed about jobs and gangs. Stephen Spielberg’s movie—which has received great reviews from everyone who isn’t Latino—unbelievably downgraded the Puerto Rican women from garment factory workers to charwomen. And let’s observe here that the most recent big-budget Hollywood films that were Hispanic-themed trend away from addressing current issues; for me the only “current” issue that West Side Story addresses is Hispanic women choosing to be Anglo men’s strumpets.

Is anyone interested in the stories—often dangerous—of families escaping violence in some Central American country that was stoked by American economic, social and political interference over the past 100 years or so? What about making a thousand mile trek to the border (i.e. El Norte), and what those people endured along the way for some “better” life? I mean, what is inside the minds of these people, especially bringing their children? What are they thinking when their children are separated from them? Don’t we want to know the stories of these people that are not just sound bites or static images, or racist or ignorant commentary on cable news shows?

And then there was the criticism of the film version of  Lin-Manuel Miranda’s stage play In the Heights, which received great reviews but not enough interest to cover its budget (although it was nowhere near the Heaven’s Gate-like bomb that Spielberg’s film is turning out to be). This time the problem isn’t Hollywood’s failure to cultivate Latino stars (of course through violent action movies—but then again you can’t have anyone Hispanic taking vengeance on his racist oppressors), but because Miranda is not allowed to tell the story of his people without upsetting some other people, as if there isn't enough bullshit to deal with already.

Miranda, it seems, felt obligated (or was forced) to apologize to black activists because not everyone in the film is Afro-Latino. There are in fact plenty of “Afro-Latinos” represented in the film version, in fact two out of the four main characters are black, so that makes 50 percent. But no, they have to be all black in Washington Heights, or you’ll be accused of “colorizing” the neighborhood. Everywhere in the media, whether in films, television programming or commercials, blacks are represented to the point of being vastly over-represented. See, we are not “racist” says the white people who produce and bankroll the media; but no: you only have to be racist against one group to be one, and here we see black activists being racist too.

Blacks do not go to Hispanic-themed films—even “Afro-Latino” films. There were plenty of black faces in Encanto, but the demographic breakdown of theater goers to see the film was less than five percent black. Why should anyone be surprised? Remember when a baseball player, Tori Hunter, claimed that Afro-Latino players were “imposters”? But they can still be used to make a racial politics “point” if necessary. Secondly, the people indigenous to Latin America didn’t originate from Africa but from Asia (Afro-Latinos were originally “imported” for slave labor by Europeans).

But more important is the fact that American prejudice against Hispanics is not directed at “Afro-Latinos” but at those of “brown” skin for political and social reasons, and that is largely because they have no representation in the news media, and so their stories are not being told the way they want to tell their own realities. We only have to look at the differences in the way the media portrays black and Hispanic migrants: the media was so “outraged” by border agents using horses and lassos to “round up” Haitians that the Biden administration banned their use—but only in regard Haitians, when for decades no one seemed to have a problem with border agents using horses and whips on brown-skinned people—and apparently still don’t. What hypocrites.

I realize that people have a right to their own concerns, but that doesn’t give them the right to deny others their right to do so out of petty grievance, selfishness and “entitlement.” After all, “brown-skinned” people were here tens of thousands of years before some other people—and the “invaders” act like they still don’t know that, or want to; they've already spent their "guilt" on other groups they fear more. 

Cutter's Way and the fool's errand of the powerless to fight the powerful

 

As I have insinuated before, the 1970s has been unfairly derided as a time of “mellow” tastes. I mean, this was the decade of Watergate, the oil embargo, the Munich Olympics hostage crisis, the American Indian Movement, the Weather Underground, the Iranian hostage crisis, Jimmy Carter’s “malaise” speech—real fun times. The only thing that kept people from losing their minds was that it was the decade with the best popular music. Films, on the other hand, did reflect the reality of the times, especially the paranoid thrillers, like The Parallax View, The Long Goodbye, Chinatown, Night Moves and—although it wasn’t released until 1981—possibly the best of them, Cutter’s Way.

Although it was released at the turn of the decade, the sensibilities of Cutter’s Way, directed by Ivan Passer, is unmistakably Seventies, which probably explained why it didn’t find an audience at the time. It was time for Ronald Reagan’s “Morning in America,” and filmgoers were not interested in being told how unfair life was. The reality was that Cutter’s Way was more in-tuned with what was happening than people wanted to believe. The film's cynical view of how the rich and powerful got away with their crimes while those on the lower end of the spectrum were powerless to stop them or being victimized by them was even then about to be confirmed and hastened by the Reagan administration’s policies which restarted the massive of growth in the gap between the rich and everyone else.

Cutter’s Way opens with a parade in Santa Barbara which proceeds in slow motion, accompanied by a haunting Jack Nitzsche score, giving it an almost nightmarish quality which  already suggests something sinister is afoot:

 

 

We sense from the start that Richard Bone (Jeff Bridges) is a wastrel from a well-off background, doing "odd jobs" on the side like small-time gigolo gigs, which isn’t fooling his older “client” who he asks for a “loan” to help a “sick friend”:

 

 

Bone’s former and current state of existence is apparent when the valet brings his car around; it is an expensive Austin-Healey (a British sports car) that has seen better days. Of course, the engine is bad too, so he uses that as an excuse not to leave a tip:

 

 

For some reason he ends up in an alley where his car stalls in the pouring rain; while he is trying figure out what to do, another car drives into the alley, and hoping for assistance, Bone observes the profile of a man who gets out of the car, does something near some garbage cans, and then drives off in a hurry:

 

 

Realizing he isn’t going to get any help, Bone finds his friend Alex Cutter (John Heard) holding court in a bar; Cutter is a badly crippled Vietnam War veteran:

 

 

He attracts the attention of two black men playing pool after deliberately using a racial slur; Cutter asks them what they expect him to call them these days, since the terms keep changing over the years:

 

 

Bone scolds him on his apparent racial insensitivity, but Cutter reminds him of the time he used racial slurs when his car was stolen. Bone leaves the bar and visits the home of Cutter’s neurotic wife, Mo (Lisa Eichhorn), who has had to deal the Cutter’s anger at the world, and to help her get through the day is working on her second bottle of Vodka:

 

 

Mo critiques Bone’s life style, and reminds him that it isn’t such a bad thing to have a place to go when he doesn’t have anywhere else. Bone, however, mistakes her reaching out her hand as a gesture of shared humanity; but she only wants the bottle back:

 

 

Mo claims that despite the way things turned out, she still would have married Cutter rather than Bone; she says, perhaps more as a critique of Bone rather than her life with Cutter, that she's “real happy” about the way things “turned out.” Meanwhile the garbage men discover the body of a teenage girl in one of the garbage cans in the alley:

 

 

Bone’s car is still there, which of course makes him either a suspect or a witness:

 

 

George Swanson (Arthur Rosenberg), a mutual friend, brings Cutter home after being out the entire night:

 

 

George seems to have a guilt complex in regard to Cutter for some reason, and he is needled about trying to be a “saint,” which he needs Cutter to be one:

 

 

After Cutter makes insinuations of Bone and Mo having sexual relations behind his back…

 

 

…detectives arrive to request Bone’s presence at the station for questioning:

 

 

Bone insists he didn’t see a face, or anything except in silhouette because of the darkness:

 

 

Meeting the sister of the victim, Valerie Duran (Ann Dusenbery) doesn’t jog his memory. During another parade, Cutter comments on the hypocritical “celebration” of white supremacy and tries to annoy Mo with comments about the teenage cheerleaders:

 

 

Then Bone sees a man on horseback, which seems to remind him of something:

 

 

It is J.J. Cord (Stephen Elliot), who is a rich oil baron:

 

 

He’s the man he saw that night, Bone says:

 

 

However, when Cutter presses him on the matter, Bone is no longer “sure”—belatedly realizing this may be something too big for him to be involved in. Later at a restaurant, they discuss the matter, with Cutter pointing out the circumstantial evidence—including Cord’s car mysteriously getting torched 90 minutes after the time Bone observed the incident. This suggests the possible guilt of Cord, but Bone now says it is just Cutter’s “imagination." Cutter, however, points out that Bone was certain it was him at one point:

 

 

That night Cutter deliberately hits his neighbor’s car, who he apparently is not on good terms with. Cutter, because of status as a war vet and a cripple, seems to think he has a “right” to do these things:

 

 

When the police show up, Cutter manages to get away with the fact he has an expired license and lapsed insurance by using his war-related disabilities to his advantage for sympathy as he invents a story explaining that it was an “honest mistake,” while the victimized party doesn’t help his case by insulting the officer:

 

 

Soon, Cutter informs Bone that he has been doing some investigating; the murder victim, Vickie Duran, was at a disco club while Cord was across the street at the El Encanto hotel that night attending an oil people reception, leaving around 11. What else did he find out? That’s it?

 

 

Cutter insists that he is going to uncover the truth, the world doesn’t have enough heroes. Bone says count him out:

 

 

The next day while Bone is playing tennis with George—who employs him as a part-time salesman at the marina—Cutter shows up with the sister, Valerie:

 

 

They want to know if he’s changed his mind about whether Cord is the guilty party or not. Of course he hasn’t, and it’s “nice” that Cutter has gotten her involved in this scheme of his:

 

 

George offers to pay for lunch for them at a new French restaurant, where Cutter further discusses his theory about the murder. He claims to have read a quote from Cord, who said he liked to pick up young hitchhikers for their “input.” Bone “congratulates” him on his sleuthing ability; it’s an open-and-shut case now and he should take it to the DA and he’ll even get a medal.  But there is more. Cutter found out that around midnight a man in a “funny hat” had purchased two gallons of gas. Bone is unimpressed, but Cutter continues with a scenario about happened: A drunk Cork picks up a cute teenybopper who demeaned his sexual prowess, he hit her and accidentally killed her, dumped her body in the alley, and purchased the gasoline to set his car on fire to hide the evidence:

 

 

A concerned George arrives to warn them that the woman sitting at a nearby table…

 

 

…is Mrs. Cord (Patricia Donahue):

 

 

After they leave, Cutter and Valerie reveal their “plan”: They are going to blackmail Cord; if he gives them money to shut-up, it will prove that he is guilty and they will go to the police. Bone, of course, thinks this is a crackpot scheme:

 

 

Bone and Valerie go on a boat trip. They try to convince the other of their view of the matter, but neither budge:

 

 

Later Bone and George discuss Cutter’s bizarre ideas and vague threats. George says that Cutter demanded $50,000 from him in exchange for not damaging his boats. They both agree that he is “crazy”:

 

 

Bone then discovers Cutter and Valerie composing a blackmail letter. He decides to get in on the scheme, probably in the hopes of stopping this plan before it gets out of hand:

 

 

Mo, of course, thinks this is the biggest load of BS that Cutter has come up with yet, but he is insistent that this is about justice for the murdered girl:

 

 

The gang arrives at Cord’s corporate headquarters, marveling at how high it goes, intimating Cord’s power:

 

 

Bone volunteers to go into the building to deliver the letter personally to Cord, but with his dark sunglasses and uncertain movements he draws suspicion from the security guard:

 

 

Bone eventually returns, and claims he handed the letter to employee who promised to give the letter to Cord, and that they are supposed to call back later:

 

 

Cutter and Valerie are excited about getting some  money, but Cutter becomes impatient and uses his gun to “win” a prize at a shooting gallery to get it over with:

 

 

Bone calls a number in a payphone. After the call he tells Cutter that it was “no dice,” that there was no response from Cord. We suspect that he “faked” the call, but Cutter is furious that Cord is so arrogant to think he can get away with murder. Bone eventually tells him that he never actually gave the letter to anyone, and the call was faked:

 

 

After Cutter goes into a rage, he and Valerie leave to cook up another “plan”:

 

 

Meanwhile, Bone is back with Mo, who seems to having nothing do in her life but get buzzed. Cutter calls to inform them that he has given the letter to Cord himself. Whatever, "congratulations." Bone asks Mo if she wants to sleep with him. Whatever, they have nothing left to lose:

 

 

Afterwards, Mo wonders now that Bone has slept with her, that he has no use for her now, but he shouldn’t concern himself about her feelings, because she knows what he is about. She sometimes wonders if she is still alive sometimes, given the emptiness of her existence, especially since Cutter never seems to be around. Bone assures her that he won’t leave her this night…

 

 

…but of course he does what he does best, and when he thinks she is asleep he slips away:

 

 

The morning finds him in his boat is putting on an outfit to play polo, and George arrives with some bad news:

 

 

After Bone had left, Cutter and Mo’s house burned completely to the ground:

 

 

Cutter arrives with vengeance written on his face; he knows who is responsible for this:

 

 

After identifying Mo’s body…

 

 

…at the polo match Cutter accuses Bone as being the reason why Mo was killed. “They” saw his picture in the papers and at the Cord building, and Cord was having him watched, and intended to kill him. “They” set the house on fire, but “they” had assumed he was still in the house but did not notice that he had left. What was Cutter going to do now? That doesn’t matter; what does matter is what Bone does with the time he has left:

 

 

Cutter sees the arrogant Cord on the field…

 

 

…and he rushes as best he can across the field toward him, but is stopped by Bone:

 

 

Mrs. Cord is watching this, and we suspect that she is not going to let this behavior go on any longer:

 

 

George calls in Bone, and being an employee of the Cords he warns him that he and Cutter need to stop this business now. Bone still insists that he is innocent and has no quarrel with Cord. George reveals why he feels he “owes” Cutter, because after his mother died, Cutter’s mother took him in. But he owes Cord as well for setting him up in business, and this trouble is a whole different ball game. They play for keeps. This is now serious, and he needs Bone to put a stop to it, which Bone agrees to:

 

 

But no matter how many times he insists he wants no further part of Cutter’s games, Bone still can’t help but involve himself. He finds Cutter with a new plan, to confront Cord personally, and he wants Bone there. Cutter reveals that George’s father once owned the marina, and he wouldn’t sell to Cord. His wife was “offed” and he went after Cord, but was beaten senseless and eventually died. Cord, to keep George from thinking of revenge, put him through school and set him up at the marina:

 

 

After they have gone, George arrives at the guest house and realizes with all the news clippings of Cord about that something dangerous is afoot, rushes off to stop Cutter:

 

 

But with Bone acting as his chauffeur, they are on their way to a house party at the Cords'. Bone tries one more time to dissuade Cutter; whatever he has planned, it’s not going to bring back Mo or assuage their guilt. But Cutter has a back-up plan if “talk” fails:

 

 

Cutter gets out of the car before they reach the house. After he parks the car, Bone decides to look for Cutter and stop him:

 

 

Mrs. Cord recognizes Bone, who gives her a fake name. She hopes he has a good time, but is seen conversing with a couple of security men to watch him:

 

 

Bone finds Cutter at the buffet table, and tries to persuade him to give up his gun:

 

 

Instead, Cutter goes into the house looking for Cord…

 

 

…and security catches up with them…

 

 

…Cutter gets away…

 

 

…while Bone is nabbed…

 

 

…and Mrs. Cord hopes he isn’t “hurt” by the punch in the stomach he has just received:

 

 

Meanwhile, Cutter escapes through the crowd:

 

 

Bone is taken to Cord, who asks what can be done to “satisfy” his friend, since what he is doing is very “unpleasant.” Will talking to him do any good?

 

 

Meanwhile, security has tracked Cutter to the stable…

 

 

…but he gets away on a horse…

 

 

…making his way to the house like the Lone Ranger on his white steed…

 

 

…and crashing through the window of the very room that Bone and Cord are in:

 

 

Seeing Cutter dying on the floor, Bone looks at Cord and says “It was you”:

 

 

Cord replies in a sinister tone “And what if it were?”:

 

 

Holding Cutter’s gun in his hand and pointing it at him…

 

 

…Bone watches Cord puts on his sunglasses, which like at the parade reveals him in profile as the man Bone recognized in the alley…

 

 

…and the screen blacks out as we hear a shot. We are left to ponder if Bone actually did kill Cord, that "good" triumphed over "evil."

Cutter’s Way, like many other films of its type, doesn’t have a “happy” ending, and that is at it should be, because as in real life, nothing really changes: the rich and powerful are still rich and powerful, and the poor and powerless are still poor and powerless. Way never allows you for a minute to believe all of this is going to end well; until the very end, Bone’s lack of commitment leaves the viewer with the feeling that if left to the devices of a seemingly deranged Cutter, there is no way that justice can be served. As much as we admire Cutter’s commitment to justice, without a “sensible” hand to guide him, there is no way that he can triumph against seemingly impossible odds.

There is a certain “sadness” that permeates the film, since we know that this quest is bound not to end in real justice. Cutter seems more than anything else motivated by revenge against those who sent him to war and left him crippled. Yet even if we wanted to cheer him on, his behavior is difficult to take, and he seems to want to make life impossible for those around him, including his wife. Bone on the other hand wants nothing to complicate his life, which amounts to little but getting by having a good time and having nothing interfere with that. When he does involve himself in Cutter’s schemes, he is more hinder than help, and sometimes he makes things worse by his pretenses.

But the reality is that their quest was a fool's errand from the beginning. Even if Cutter and Bone did actually work together instead of at cross purposes, they were up against something that they had no resources to fight on their own, especially since Bone did not cooperate with the police. They were up against a power that killed before and had no qualms about doing so again, even the innocent like Mo. We live in a society where seemingly the only recourse of the powerless against the powerful is violence, but they are really just amateurs. The rich and powerful can always find ways to dispose of those who wish to expose their crimes, one way or the other. 

While Cutter’s Way allows us to believe that “justice” may (or may not) have been served against all odds, that is not only not certain, but its cost was probably not worth the effort. And we see even today, the rich (like Donald Trump) get away with their crimes, and if you give them enough money, even Democrats-in-name-only will forsake working people and serve the interests of the rich, and only increasing their power and immunity.