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ACF#5 Predator
The American Cinema Foundation movie podcast is back with an anniversary piece. Back in ’87, on the same day Reagan gave his famous “Tear down this wall” speech in Berlin, June 12, John McTiernan’s Predator premiered in America. This was his first studio picture and remains a contender among the best movies about manliness. What starts as a “special forces doing foreign policy in the third world” sort of story, winning the Cold War on screen as it were, threatens to turn into horror as the jungle comes alive and begins to kill these special forces operators, just as we start to admire them.
This gave John McTiernan a remarkable opportunity to put on display the strengths of the action movie. The fear and practical care about what can be done to defend or take a life that give the action movie its realism are a natural vehicle for the metaphysics of human dignity. Manliness shows up as an attempt to say that human beings matter because they can install order in chaos, become a source of causation, and thus master the consequences of their actions. Manliness also seems to be an alternative to a doctrine of providence. Men do not look up to God or to gods in gratitude, but with a view to competition. They naturally want to overcome nature, and thus reach up to the limits of humanity. John McTiernan puts this on show for his audience and shows whoever can learn, how a plot unfolds an argument: different men with different opinions, who live by different principles, meet their end. The varieties and the hierarchy of manliness both emerge quietly.
You’re supposed to leave the theater impressed with the destruction, and a little afraid of these manly men and of the end to which their manliness brings them. This story is all about getting you to ask yourself if manliness is a virtue after all, and then whether it’s possible to do without it, too. It may be unexpected to see an action movie that educates skepticism about the love of action that sends you into the theater in the first place, but McTiernan could honestly say that he was as interested in manliness as any of his audience–he just saw farther than most did.
So give this podcast a chance folks, and if you like it, please share it. This is the start of what will be an on-again, off-again series on the big action movies of the ’80s and ’90s, some directed by John McTiernan, others written by Shane Black–who acted in the original Predator and who is writing-directing the next iteration, coming out in 2018. Felix and I are trying to give arguments in defense of the dignity and wisdom of the action movie, not least to see a return of it. Being that I’ve never seen anyone attempt what we have attempted here, please give the argument a chance. Movies with explosions are unjustly dismissed as thoughtless, and we’re trying to fix that, while rewarding the attention of our audience with occasional, shocking insights.
Published in Podcasts
Love it. I’m looking forward to more action movie discussions. The 80’s and 90’s represent the height of the action movie genera which has over time degrade as a genera in and of itself and now can only be found in hyphenated forms Action-Comedy, Action-Suspense, Action-Sci-Fi.
& then superhero movies–& after that, I dunno, what the hell worse could happen?
Thanks for the kind words.
Of course, I agree about the epitome & if I can get away with it, I’ll write a book about John McTiernan, who’s all-American, eccentric, all about manliness, & interested in the erotic side–Thomas Crown affair remake, Basic–all at once. Remarkable guy, only once stepped falsely in the movie-making business. I mean, while making movies, not in Hollywood–both as a professional & as a human being, he burned out badly.
So have we moved from these to super heroes because super heroes are gender neutral?
That’s surely part of it.
Wait for my upcoming insights on Lethal Weapon. It might make the non-offensive-at-all-costs-crowd in America blush, but manlines has been outlawed socially for a generation, easy.
There’s a class element, too: The action movies often–or very often–showed heroic Americans who really took risks, or faced danger, & were often working class or part of a middle class that took work seriously also in relation to other Americans, not just for oneself & one’s family. Not tech billionaire-eccentric-male models.
Very enjoyable podcast. If you take requests, please put me down for either The Thing or Blade Runner.
I think what drives super heroes, is financial incentives of having all of this pregenerated IP. Also from a technical perspective we are in an era where we can make these movies in a believable way.
I’m certianly doing Blade Runner–probably when the new one comes out, in November.
Yeah, both things seem true & somehow interconnected. It’s a kind of safety move by an industry that doesn’t see much future ahead…
Safe indeed, but for my own taste not unwelcome. The great limitation of movies has been their inability to represent the fantastical in a manner that an audience can find believable, and thereby suspend their disbelief. Perhaps only in animated features was this ever achieved on a consistent level up till now. While in live action the limitation of special effects either only briefly allowed for a convincing depiction of the fantastical or in failing to be convincing was in the best instances endearingly comic, while in the worst confusing. There is so much great literature, and possibility in the realm of fantasy, that I think would be amazing to see on the Big Screen.
This has sent me thinking. I agree that there’s gotta be some correlation between taste & the way the industry works, including technology.
I wonder whether there will be an upsurge of fantasy movies. Will then people have turnd to nostalgia full-time?
I wonder also about this matter of what’s plausible on screen. Is the requirement for realism tied up with an unwillingness to slip the bounds of the quotidian or is it a hope that the quotidian can be energized or rendered mysterious –charged with powers that would make it interesting…