Hidden Flick: Intermission Pts. IV & V

Robert Redford plays the well-read CIA employee who happens to be out of the office when his entire department is murdered. For the rest of the film, he is not only trying to avoid the very CIA that employs him, but find out why they killed his co-workers. Needless to say, this being a film starring Redford, one is assured that the man gets his answers, but what is also intriguing is the incredibly nuanced and sublime performance by Max von Sydow who plays a mercenary hit man, gun for hire. The Swede cinema icon is a tremendous treat to watch in this film for some odd reason; maybe, because of the weird streak of desultory and isolated patience he gives his craft—the devil toiling in his field, always present, always seeking an end to his task, but never rushing its outcome. His portrayal is a dark and twisted beauty to behold—a tangled and mysteriously frightening tree in a haunted forest; yet, still a wondrous performance by a gifted actor.

I have often noted intricate characterizations within the Hidden Flick editions, and that is mainly done because I appreciate an actor or actress who has taken the time to get into the mindset of a particular person that either you or I or some other cinema patron may not ever know, nor even want to know. Let’s face it—most of us don’t have a conversation with a hit man, and if we do, we are unaware of the assassin’s profession.

What is also notable about Condor is the way the lead character is somehow allowed to kidnap another character simply because it seems justified due to the horrible situation he happens to find himself at the time. I mean…it’s Robert Redford in his prime. Why shouldn’t he be allowed to commit a felony, one of the most heinous crimes a human could do to another human—a full-on actual kidnapping—just for the sake of one’s own safety? What? He couldn’t John Doe himself into a hotel? What, indeed, forgives him?

I know. I champion the hit man, but question the kidnapper. Strange world, innit?

Part V – The Caan Man

He seemed to get misty-eyed when he spoke of how long he had owned the tiny outdoor venue—it had been used for concerts by no name acts for years, with seats up front, and then a lawn, which stretched out far and wide in the back, all leading up to a lot where patrons could park, walk through the entrance booth, and go find a seat, a seat on this night, not to catch a concert, or hear any music whatsoever from any band, but to see a series of films in what is now known as “my little Hidden Theatre at the end of the road,” according to the owner, a gracious chap on this refreshingly mild early-summer eve.

Michael Mann’s 1981 thriller Thief centers upon the lifestyle of a man who is torn between settling down and raising a family and also maintaining the craft he has conquered and mastered over a period of time. Yes, the consequences for a failed mission out on the boards of thiefdom are either prison, death, or worse—the loss of loved ones.

Mann’s film would setup the template for his future, arguably galvanized by the first season of Miami Vice starring Don Johnson, Philip Michael Thomas, and Edward James Olmos, but never more rooted in all of its singular purity as it was in Thief. Yes, he would achieve somewhat of a cinematic thief masterpiece with Heat in the early 1990s, but it may not have been so good if Thief hadn’t been canvassed in the early 1980s.

Which is all water under the old bridge at this point. What also held Thief together was the towering cynical and barbed performance of the lead character played by James Caan. Arguably, other than The Godfather, Caan had never been more suited to a role that required so much fire and machismo, and he pushed the outer boundaries of what a lead character can get away with in a role, and still seem somewhat likeable to an audience.

Also, of note, was the heady placement of a whole slew of Tangerine Dream-scribed music that would also signal a hallmark of further Mann productions—televised or cinematic—in his career after 1981. Mann had and still has a fine ear for which sounds color a scene, and his use of the Dream in Thief was certainly a well-chosen match. The soundtrack seeps into the film, and etches an ethereal drawing of its own—never shifting the focus away from Caan and his protean display of pure and complete balls-out chops.

I know. I champion the thief, but ignore the crime. Strange dream, innit?

Hidden Theatre – Exit

The owner turned away from his creation, and walked behind the theatre. I wondered if I would ever see him again, let alone have any sort of real discourse with him. He glanced back one last time, and I caught the bemused sparkling look in his eyes in the darkness.

Had he even existed? Or, was this Cinematic Guru in my imagination? Bread crumbs in the forest to another peak, another deep look inside what makes good cinema, and what makes something worth seeing in a strange and secret location like the Hidden Theatre, a place one goes to escape time? Or, was it to find hidden truth in the sands of lost time?

– Randy Ray