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This is something I've been thinking about for awhile now and hopefully it comes out somewhat coherent and cogent. Lately, I've been watching Sam Peckinpah films and also films that feature Warren Oates (Badlands, Two Lane Blacktop, In The Heat of the Night, etc.). The other day I rented "Cockfighter" and was tempted to watch "Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia" because Oates stars in that as well. Anyways, after "Cockfighter" there was a documentary on Oates. And the theme that ran throughout the documentary was that Oates might not have been pidgeonholed into a certain type of part, but that he played every part with what Ned Beatty described as "a glorious failure". Characters that lost not because they were lacked ambition but because they refused to win on someone else's terms. Like the protagonist in "Lonliness of the Long Distance Runner" who purposly loses the big race or Billy The Kid who refuses to put aside his outlaw ways in order to fit into the newly civilized, not so wild west. Or Toshiro Mifume in an Akira Kurosawa samurai flick who refuses to join a side because he shuns the propriety of a steady job (and, of course, to make more money).
And when I mull over why they're losers, alot of times it comes down to some form of pride. Whether it's arrogance, stubborness, or tenacity, it's usually the cause of their undoing. Yet so many movies made nowadays don't have this element to them, should the protagonist(s) be "losers" at all. If they're losers, it's because they're incompetent or the odds are against them in some fashion. And feel free to argue this point, but it seems that alot of films of this type that are from the UK fall into this category. If someone in Nil By Mouth (or a Ken Loach film or Rosencrantz & Guilderstern Are Dead or whomever) is a loser, it's because they're 1) working class and 2) usually got a couple of vices to compound the failure. And I'm no expert, but with the exception of The Boxer (more will come to me later probably), none of the losers are fallen characters, people that attained some degree of success (whether it's by their definition of sucess or the definition of others), but had some sort of fall from grace happen to them.
Wes Anderson's films are kinda in the same boat. The characters are flawed and failed to inact a pathos for them, but they don't fail because of other circumstances. They fail because that's what they are--failures. The robbers in Bottle Rocket aren't bright, Max Fischer was a hack playwright & one of the worst students in Rushmore & the kids in The Royal Tennenbaums just all cracked at once. Actually, it could be argued that Tennenbaums belongs in the first category because the kids put too much hubris in their genius that they never learned how to deal with real life. Kinda like the toddler in "Parenthood" that is really bright, but freaks out when she can't comprehend the "removable thumb" trick isn't reality.
Aaanyway back on topic, I know this is alot to chew on and if this comes off as scattershot, it's because I'm still trying to sort it out myself. All I know for sure is this: I love losers. These people have always been my heroes and I'm just trying to understand why It's been ages since I saw a film and though "I feel for that guy* and wished I had that kind of grace & sense of self--even if he is a loser or an asshole."
*It should be duly noted that, with no exception that I can think of, all of these types of characters are men (or some might say, boys with mens bodies). I'm curious to read why it is y'all think that there's so few women in this type of genre. I've got my own theories, but they're not even close to being fleshed out yet. |
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