Movie: Joe (John G. Avildsen, 1970)
After seeing The Panic in Needle Park you should understand why Al Pacino was destined to become Al Pacino. And if you still don't, Joe should do the trick. Here, the actor Patrick McDermott, portrays Frank Russo, a drug dealing lowlife wandering the streets of New York, shacking up with his girlfriend Melissa (Susan Sarandon) in rundown apartments. Joe was made just one year before The Panic in Needle Park, and you can easily imagine Frank being embarrassed and outhussled by Pacino's Bobby in some shady street corner. Which would admittedly be an improvement to getting killed by Bill Compton (Dennis Patrick), Melissa's dad, a rich ad executive who in a fit of rage lands one punch too many after his daughter almost OD's. His second mistake is to accidentally confess this to Joe (Peter Boyle) a raging racist hating every sign of change: "The young used to have ideals, now they protest for peace." That line alone is enough to earn the film its Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay. As for McDermott, he only appeared in three films.
In any case, after their meeting I expected Bill and Joe to go on a murder spree. Instead, they become friends, and the film becomes something of a Richard Linklater joint about the burgeoning friendship between a rich white well-adjusted family man and a working-class bigot yelling about how America is going down the drain because of the blacks, hippies and lefties. For a long while the film basically consists of seeing Joe and Bill meet in various social establishments where they have long conversations about life and listen rapturously to each other, with Avildsen showing a lot of close-ups of their highly engaged faces. Joe can't believe that someone from the upper class finally listens and maybe even gets him, while Bill is overjoyed to have some good old-fashioned 'boys talk' with someone who is not an ad executive. Things are more complicated when their wives get into play, leading to a wonderfully awkward dinner scene between the two families, but without them the two men seem have find a second youth. Especially once they end up at an orgy and discover the bong. The film paints quite a stark picture of how easy it is to break the barriers existing between fascism and polite society. Though it occasionally engages in easy stereotypes about each of the groups it depicts (the rich white establishment, the far-right households and the hippies), it takes all the characters, their ideals and life choices seriously. It wants you to know that people like Joe really exist and that they have a not inconsiderable influence over politics and society.
The one false note of the film comes when Joe and Bill do eventually go on a murder spree. And not just because it ends on a hilariously melodramatic note. Seeing a bunch of hippie haters kill a bunch of hippies is fascist fantasy wish fulfillment that doesn't even fulfill Joe's greatest wish. That is not to kill a bunch of hippies; it is to be seen and understood by Bill as someone who is wronged by society for not being able to kill a bunch of hippies without repercussions. Whether he entirely succeeds remains ambiguous, but Avildsen leaves no doubt that Bill is at least entertaining that notion. That's much more provocative than anything the film has to offer in its sensationalist ending.
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