NIGHTMOVES

NIGHT MOVES (1975)

Starring Gene Hackman, Susan Clark, Jennifer Warren, Edward Binns, James Woods, Janet Ward, Melanie Griffiths; dir: Arthur Penn

In his 1940s heyday the private detective was a transgressor who could move across boundaries of good and evil to the dark side with ease (hence his appeal) in a society of innocents. By the 70s so much had changed that society itself was transgressive, and the dick could be the only ingenue , the last innocent. Such is the case in Night Moves.

Gene Hackman’s Harry Moseby, on the surface, has it all: material comforts, an attractive wife who’s interested in his issues but maintains her own independent career, and even a glorious past as a star athlete. But as the sixties generation from whom Night Moves finds its wellspring would discover, having it all was nothing without an emotional foundation which prepared you for life’s realities. Night Moves is actually one of the better post-60s, washup-of-the-dream, ‘no direction home’ character studies. Its strength is its genre discipline, as it never forgets it’s a thriller (in this it’s reminiscent of the similarly 60s-derived masterpiece Who’ll Stop The Rain [1978]). Moseby is a man who channels his considerable difficulties with intimacy into the male hunting gene, exemplified by his satisfaction upon finding his estranged father of just observing without engaging, exhibiting a professional’s satisfaction in achieving his aim without reflecting on the deeper motivations behind the search.

As Harry gropes through Night Moves ’byzantine plot in as unknowing a way as he deals with his emotional tumult, the ‘quest’ metaphor of the investigator is doubled back to reflect his inner state. Night Moves is riddled with depictions of a seeing that is compromised, of vision that is mediated: through James Woods’ welding goggles early on, repeatedly through the different lenses in the windows of Harry’s home to underline his domestic fragmentation, and in the brilliant climactic sequence with numerous shots of a circling plane seen looking into the sun and thus blinding the viewer, rendering the act of looking as totally counterproductive – a conclusive metaphor for Harry’s whole experience.

Compared to this profound structural inversion, other aspects of the revisionism in Arthur Penn’s self-conscious Night Moves are filigree – the Southern California irony of the supporting players mouthing pseudo-Sam Spadeisms, the opening scene where Hackman’s detective arrives in his Marlowesque office (with a fantastically cumbersome answering machine inevitably bringing to mind this device’s first celluloid sighting in Kiss Me Deadly)... These are really just gratuitous mise-en-scene elements which quickly fade away as the real action gets going.

And action, surprisingly for a film with such a reputation for an agenda , is what Night Moves is largely about. For better or worse the second half of Night Moves surrenders to genre imperatives and gives over to being a straight thriller. On this level it’s surprisingly effective, with a visceral quality recalling Don Siegel’s excellent 1973 Charley Varrick (the aircraft help), notwithstanding a script as convoluted as anything cooked up by Huston/Chandler/Faulkner in the 1940s. With abundant in-jokes (the yacht is named ‘Point Of View’) there’s enough plot info for the audience to get there before Harry – but only just.

Hackman, ego-less, is superb yet again as the great 70s Everyman. The acting at all levels, Melanie Griffith aside, is excellent, conveying a real sense of the unknowable pathos of the time.

Night Moves is generally not well remembered today, and ironically relies on revisionists for what cachet it has. Its humanized shamus would however be reprised continually ( The Late Show [1977]; The Big Fix [1978]; Cutter’s Way [1981]; Trouble In Mind [1985]; right up to Paul Newman’s Twilight [1998] and beyond) - but never bettered. By recalibrating the archetype to fit new social concerns, Night Moves recast the private investigator for modern times, extending its life immeasurably.

Roger Westcombe's own website is at: http://www.bighousefilm.com/

Further reading: Robert Phillip Kolker, A Cinema of Lonliness: Penn, Kubrick, Scorsese, Spielberg, Altman (Oxford, 1988)

Back to:

Film Review List

Crime Films

Home