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FRANCHISE ME: DEATH WISH

post #1 of 27
4/26/11 at 1:00pm
Thread Starter 
by Joshua Miller: link

Old man exploitation begins... now!
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post #2 of 27
4/26/11 at 1:08pm

Great write-up.  As you elaborate on, the film's lack of 'star turns' is it's greatest strength.  That each successive sequel gradually moved further and further into self-parody doesn't diminish the raw punch of the original.

 

Props also for the Gardenia shout out.  I consider it one of the pitch perfect New York characterizations.  Neither the Wambaugh straight-shooter type nor the thug with a badge type (a la Mann's THIEF).  Ochoa feels like he stepped into this film from the PELHAM ONE-TWO-THREE universe.

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post #3 of 27
4/26/11 at 1:26pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by soylentgreen View Post
Ochoa feels like he stepped into this film from the PELHAM ONE-TWO-THREE universe.


I almost mentioned that film when talking about my love of 70's crime "tone." I consider PELHAM the zenith of that tone.

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post #4 of 27
4/26/11 at 1:32pm

My man love for you and this series continues,  Truly great stuff man,

 

 

Fun fact Micheal Winner was once engaged to my friends cousin (she was a LOT younger), he is a total cock,

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post #5 of 27
4/26/11 at 3:18pm

I was literally writing a 7-page term paper on Death Wish 3 last night and this shows up on the site today. Awesome coincidence, had a blast reading it.

 

Just wait till you see the sequels. The first is the "best" one but 3 is my favorite and most rewatchable.

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post #6 of 27
4/26/11 at 3:47pm

Someone else just posted about writing a paper on DEATH WISH 3. It's in the air apparently.

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post #7 of 27
4/26/11 at 7:07pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Joshua Miller View Post

Someone else just posted about writing a paper on DEATH WISH 3. It's in the air apparently.


I think Mike and Hunter are the same dude. Chewers can follow along on this one, as AMC is running a Death Wish movie a night this week.

 

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post #8 of 27
4/26/11 at 7:27pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Phil View Post




I think Mike and Hunter are the same dude.


I was going to say... between them, and your own work on DEATH WISH, this was getting ridiculous.

 

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post #9 of 27
4/26/11 at 7:28pm

And godbless AMC. What a station.

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post #10 of 27
4/26/11 at 8:20pm

Death Wish 3 was the first one I saw on TBS back in the early 90's, so that's easily my favorite, but the first one is indeed a great gritty NY exploitation film. I'll also cop to laughing as well when that guy saying "I'm gonna paint her ass!" and does it. It's so crazy that you have to laugh without it disturbing you too much, then it goes even farther when Goldblum yells "I'M GONNA PAINT HER FACE!" Also bizarre and unsettling is how he keeps referring to Hope Lange as "Mother" when they're terrorizing them. Deep seated mental trauma perhaps? Can't forget about Steven Keats as his son in law that calls Bronson "Dad".

 

Great start to the column, and looking forward to the next entries!

 

I also remember reading in one of the books on action movies that I have that it was Garfield's original idea (perhaps it's in the book, I've never read it) to have Kersey die at the hands of the same 3 thugs that killed his wife and rendered his daughter catatonic.

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post #11 of 27
4/26/11 at 8:22pm

A few years back, I fronted a band as Paul Kersey --

 

www.myspace.com/bronsonwastescreeps

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post #12 of 27
4/26/11 at 8:32pm

Please tell me you had a song called "I'm Going To Emmett's Fix It Shop, To Fix Emmett."!?

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post #13 of 27
4/27/11 at 10:16am

 

Good write up, Worm.

 

 

Quote:
Originally Posted by Joshua Miller View Post
originally going to be directed by Sidney Lumet with Jack Lemon as Kersey

 

A great cinematic "what if?" there.

 

 

 

Quote:
Originally Posted by Joshua Miller View Post

I buy him as just some dude long enough to make his transformation into vigilante badass feel almost surprising.

 

 

Though I love Charles Bronson movies very much, I never quite bought him as a pacifist or conscientious objector. Maybe a bit of this was my own baggage from seeing some of his other shootemups before watching DW1, but I think it was also Bronson's limitations as an actor. Kersey's supposed 180 was always the weakest part of the movie for me, I didn't feel that transformation despite a valiant attempt from Bronson. This particular role required a kind of heavy, dramatic expressiveness that was beyond his abilities, and I'm sure Jack Lemmon would have been much better in anything related to Kersey's emotional journey or mental deterioration. Of course it goes without saying though that once Bronson gets a gun in his hand, or is making threatening gestures towards punks while smiling like the Cheshire Cat, there is literally no one else who could have done a more convincing job. That's a guy who is happy that he's getting paid to shoot muggers and who looks right at home doing it.

 

 

Quote:
Originally Posted by Joshua Miller View Post

Winner understands that we need to hate these guys and what they did to be able to support Kersey turning to the dark side

 

 

Generally I always saw him as a big old hack, but sweet Christ he knew how to make a sensationalist, reactionary, button pushing call-to-arms revenge movie (DW1 is arguable since it paints Kersey as losing his marbles, however DW 2 especially in full uncut form is not, ditto the sequels). In a Winner flick, the key to hating the bad guys and wanting to see them dead is going to be the rape scene, and what's kind of hilarious is that DW1's ass-spraypainting Brundled up home invasion would probably not exist without that great anti violence film, A Clockwork Orange.

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post #14 of 27
4/27/11 at 1:24pm

Definitely a direct (and clumsy) riff on Clockwork.

 

I think it is our own baggage that sees Bronson as an unlikely pacifist, but in 1974, he was definitely a "that guy" character actor, one with which American audiences were only casually familiar, not a household name in the States. Death Wish is practically Bronson Begins* - the start of his iconic persona, and the end of his acting career.

 

*BTW, both Nolan Batfilms stop to copy the "bourgeois dinner party where rich assholes debate the merits of a street viglante" scene originated here.

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post #15 of 27
4/27/11 at 2:58pm

I bought him as a pacifist. In as much as I bought anything in the film (it's not an ultra-realistic slice of life picture). The fact that his reasoning was tied to a childhood tragedy and not just his own hippie viewpoints made it plausible for me. Plus being a conscientious objector pre-Vietnam had a different flavor. I actually found his liberal viewpoints on class/society and crime more clunkily handled in the film than his pacifism.

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post #16 of 27
4/27/11 at 3:04pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Joshua Miller View Post

I bought him as a pacifist. In as much as I bought anything in the film (it's not an ultra-realistic slice of life picture).

 

Some critics I read described the film as "a tourist's nightmare of New York City", and I think that's pretty accurate.  It's straight up revenge fantasy (as you said, the muggers lurking around every fucking corner seem completely unaware of the vigilante that's making headlines), though compared to the sequels it's remarkably subtle.
 

 

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post #17 of 27
4/27/11 at 4:11pm

I've never seen parts 4 and 5. If they manage to continue off the rails in the same direction as 3, I am pumped.

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post #18 of 27
4/27/11 at 5:12pm

Joshua Miller, You haven't seen...4 and 5?  I guess you didn't have enough of a...Death Wish!  I...Love, all the Death Wish films, and look forward to the other segments.  I re-watched them all last year, as I had a bad cold, and AMC, ran...All the Death Wish films in one day.  The next day, the cold was better.  It was like watching Death Wish...Killed the illness...Dead!

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post #19 of 27
4/27/11 at 6:08pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Joshua Miller View Post

Someone else just posted about writing a paper on DEATH WISH 3. It's in the air apparently.

Yeah, that's me. I was so jazzed when I saw your article posted within 24 hours of me typing the paper up.

 

Quote:
Originally Posted by Joshua Miller View Post

I've never seen parts 4 and 5. If they manage to continue off the rails in the same direction as 3, I am pumped.


The magic of Death Wish 3 is that it basically takes place in a post-apocalyptic backdrop and how they dial every character and situation to its kitschy, cloying maximum. The first time I saw Fraker get taken out, I rewound the tape a good four or five times from how much I was laughing.

 

Neither of them even remotely touch the third one in terms of that as well as merit, but Death Wish 4: The Crackdown is awesomely bad in the best way possible. It's the Cannon boys' first of two efforts that blatantly exploit the Reagan-era war on drugs (the other being the equally glorious Crack House, which is on Netflix Instant) with all the violence you don't see in an anti-drug PSA of that era. Just you wait till Kersey makes his sandwich.

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post #20 of 27
4/27/11 at 7:45pm

I dislike that 4 and 5 become "man against the mob" movies. Bronson's best when he's taking on the street savages.

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post #21 of 27
4/28/11 at 3:04pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Phil View Post

Definitely a direct (and clumsy) riff on Clockwork.

 

I think it is our own baggage that sees Bronson as an unlikely pacifist, but in 1974, he was definitely a "that guy" character actor, one with which American audiences were only casually familiar, not a household name in the States. Death Wish is practically Bronson Begins* - the start of his iconic persona, and the end of his acting career.

 

*BTW, both Nolan Batfilms stop to copy the "bourgeois dinner party where rich assholes debate the merits of a street viglante" scene originated here.



I rewatched Death Wish about a year ago and was shocked to see just how much of it shows up in The Dark Knight Returns, that and Magnum Force. My problem with Death Wish isn't so much the film's politics, which are bothersome, but it's star. I just don't care for Charles Bronson that much, he was never my guy (I do have a great love for 10 till Midnight, but I attribute that more to the quasi-slasher ambiance and Gene Davis' performance).

 

Also, I saw the uncut version of Death Wish 2 awhile back as well. The film is seemingly so po-faced about its subject matter, but stuff like the rape of the maid is so heightened and goes on for so long and is shot in such a way that while one can argue back and forth about the first film, there is almost no argument as to what the sequel is going for.

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post #22 of 27
4/28/11 at 4:39pm

Feast! http://www.chud.com/50066/franchise-me-death-wish-2-nsfw/

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post #23 of 27
4/28/11 at 4:50pm

Joshua Miller, Another excellent article of...Death Wishes!  It is too bad, that there was never a...Death Wish Shot In 3D!  Friday the 13th 3 and Jaws 3 had...3D, installments!

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post #24 of 27
4/28/11 at 5:26pm

Laurence Fishburne boombox fail FTW!

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post #25 of 27
4/29/11 at 8:24am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rene (Mr.Eko) View Post

 

I also remember reading in one of the books on action movies that I have that it was Garfield's original idea (perhaps it's in the book, I've never read it) to have Kersey die at the hands of the same 3 thugs that killed his wife and rendered his daughter catatonic.


Not in the book. Garfield had Paul return for a sequel, Death Sentence, which Phil reviewed over in the Charles Bronson thread. The Kevin Bacon/James Wan movie claims to be based on the second novel but, not surprisingly, has nothing to do with it.

 

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post #26 of 27
4/29/11 at 11:38pm

If we're talking modern vigilante tropes that originated in the Death Wish films- Sheriff Brackett letting Kersey walk away after he hilariously murders Nirvana, was one of those things that got repeated a bunch of times, most recently in the last season of Dexter in a scene involving two vigilantes, a cop, and a convenient plastic sheet.

 

And yeah, Nirvana is the best thug in DW2. The funniest scene with him (not counting that hair raising electrocution) is when he's in court and turns around to exchange smiles with his dear old ma, who seems oblivious to the fact that her son is an unrepentant rapist/murderer. Stomper is very good too though, so scummy and sadistic at the start but then suddenly becoming a total pussy during that great "you believe in Jesus?" scene. He closes his eyes before the fatal shot like it's going to help!

 

As for the rape of the maid, I first saw that scene at an age when I should have been watching Star Wars and Indiana Jones flicks, and it was pretty much the most horrifying thing ever. Trivia time: "Rosario" is the real life wife of Billy Drago, who somehow inexplicably was never a bad guy in a Death Wish movie.

 

And I love Jimmy Page's score. It makes Kersey's stalking scenes cooler, the sleazy scenes sleazier, and all in all it's absolutely the perfect music for a film like this.

 

P.S. Bronson's cunning knit cap/Great Depression Hobo disguise is the most awesome vigilante costume ever

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post #27 of 27
4/30/11 at 10:38am
Quote:

“[Winner] was very charming,” Gallardo explains. “He wasn’t wishy-washy at all. He was very clear and very exact and very precise about what he wanted. He surely could not tell me anything about how to play the rape scene, because that was just real. I mean, it wasn’t real real, but it was real for me, so I just responded.”

Gallardo had spoken with rape victim Inez Garcia prior to playing her in the television movie and drew on that material while shooting her infamous violation scene in Death Wish II, which took six grueling days to get on camera. The thugs were played by young actors Thomas Duffy, Kevyn Major Howard, Stuart K. Robinson, Laurence Fishburne, and E. Lamont Johnson. Winner, who prefers actual locations, filmed the scene in an occupied neighborhood. “You could hear [my] screaming and I thought, ‘Oh, the poor neighbors,’ Gallardo says. “It was very difficult. [Winner] had to shoot like five different versions of it. It was pretty intense. [It was] mostly improvised. I had to get pushed and so forth. You’re very vulnerable. I had a few black and blues. I was tired. I had never done anything like that. [The other actors] were very careful to cover me up immediately after [a take]. I hated the still photographer. He kept taking pictures even after they had called, ‘Cut.’ I didn’t like that. It was an experience to last a lifetime. It was good for me to do. I had to let go of a lot of fears. It was hard for the [actors], too. I think one of them really got sick on the set. He threw up, or was going to, because it was so violent. [Laurence Fishburne] said it was the most horrible, awful scene he had to do.” (Death Wish II’s original cinematographer, Thomas Del Ruth, was replaced early in the shooting by Richard Kline. One rumor has it that Del Ruth and his crew left because they were offended by Winner’s graphic staging of Gallardo’s rape scene.) 

 

Piece of an interview with Silvana Gallardo / "Rosario."

 

More...http://www.cinemaretro.com/index.php?/archives/271-EXCLUSIVE-INTERVIEWS-THE-WOMEN-OF-DEATH-WISH-II.html 

 

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