Not going to waste my time comparing Paul Schrader to Marcantonio Scorcese because that's a lot like comparing Paul Auster to F. Scott Fitzgerald, but in 1982, at Cannes, film artist Jean-Luc Godard uttered these words: "The porno movie is a pretext to invite over a girl and it avoids the real work of talking to her about love." Now I'm going to paraphrase philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche because I can't exactly remember the quote, "You can't go off fighting monsters without the risk of becoming a monster yourself." Link those two ideas up and you have a conceptual summary of Paul Shrader's, Hardcore (1979).
Hardcore is one of those travel-to-the-heart-of-darkness-and-confront-your-worst-fear movies popular in late 1970's American Cinema. These movies inherently "other-ize" and isolate before victimizing a particular minority group such the United States adult entertainment industry. One also finds, for better or worse, in films like Hardcore, a reproduction of the Vietnam War narrative. In this instance, Schrader brings it back home to the streets of LA.
So really when you approach this picture you're required to think about the guys up in Washington that look and act not unlike George C. Scott; guys who harbor a similar right-wing system of beliefs as they all converge around a large roundtable to debate kicking the crap out this marginal group-nation "over here." Think about how these men will all arrive at a legerdemain-justification for war that's usually in the name of preserving innocence. But as we learn in the final moments of Hardcore, just like out here in reality, you can't rid the world of terrorists and you can't exactly rid the world of pornographers either. Conclusion: "there's nothing you can do (George)" but "go home."
Yet with all, there are a lot of daughters out there doing that and why? One notices an attempt to answer that question in that George C. Scott, who can't seem to find the precise locus of the set, must necessarily wait until the scene is over (a roll of 8mm only last about two and a half minutes) before he screams, "Turn it off. Turn it off!" Oh, and how about that? Did old George C just a just pay a hundred dollars to watch a snuff film that seemed pretty tangential to the discovery of his daughter's whereabouts? Not that a guy like George, the number one customer, really needs an excuse to kick it with prozzi's and seek-out Snuff; but he'll always have one. Won't he? George is on a mission. You know why it is: it's because he can't stop watching. And that's what keeps this money wheel rollin' my friends round and round we go: the Lookielookiewatchiewa. So why not just let the girl have her life out there in LA?
Hardcore is one of those travel-to-the-heart-of-darkness-and-confront-your-worst-fear movies popular in late 1970's American Cinema. These movies inherently "other-ize" and isolate before victimizing a particular minority group such the United States adult entertainment industry. One also finds, for better or worse, in films like Hardcore, a reproduction of the Vietnam War narrative. In this instance, Schrader brings it back home to the streets of LA.
So really when you approach this picture you're required to think about the guys up in Washington that look and act not unlike George C. Scott; guys who harbor a similar right-wing system of beliefs as they all converge around a large roundtable to debate kicking the crap out this marginal group-nation "over here." Think about how these men will all arrive at a legerdemain-justification for war that's usually in the name of preserving innocence. But as we learn in the final moments of Hardcore, just like out here in reality, you can't rid the world of terrorists and you can't exactly rid the world of pornographers either. Conclusion: "there's nothing you can do (George)" but "go home."
Yet with all, there are a lot of daughters out there doing that and why? One notices an attempt to answer that question in that George C. Scott, who can't seem to find the precise locus of the set, must necessarily wait until the scene is over (a roll of 8mm only last about two and a half minutes) before he screams, "Turn it off. Turn it off!" Oh, and how about that? Did old George C just a just pay a hundred dollars to watch a snuff film that seemed pretty tangential to the discovery of his daughter's whereabouts? Not that a guy like George, the number one customer, really needs an excuse to kick it with prozzi's and seek-out Snuff; but he'll always have one. Won't he? George is on a mission. You know why it is: it's because he can't stop watching. And that's what keeps this money wheel rollin' my friends round and round we go: the Lookielookiewatchiewa. So why not just let the girl have her life out there in LA?