BBD Comments:
Well, I’d like to start by apologizing for staying silent on the back to back brilliance of ‘The Apartment,’ and ‘WAoVW,’ but I’ve been finding the effort tedious of late (all the more so for the fact that our Membership no longer seems to even bother reading the reviews let alone writing them). This review will be brief as well, but as Netti and Nubs routinely point out a small word about the Pick is much better than nothing.
While we lost a great artist in Roy Scheider, it is of great relief that he has left such fine work behind for us to enjoy. It is somewhat eerie that in his record six appearances we have seen him die three times, and be zipped up in a body bag twice.
As to the MacGuffin question. I have spent a great deal of time discussing the device on this Site (with some depth in my analysis of ‘The Third Man,’ and will reassert that the diamonds in ‘Marathon Man’ are a classic example of the technique. Sir Hitchcock maintains that a MacGuffin need not be defined to serve its purpose, but that doesn’t mean that if it is defined it no longer functions in the story as a MacGuffin. The briefcase in ‘Pulp Fiction’? MacGuffin. The non existent secret agent and his mission in ‘North by Northwest’? MacGuffin. The stolen money in ‘Psycho’? MacGuffin. The diamonds in ‘Marathon Man’? MacGuffin. That we know what the diamonds are, who they belong to and where they come from does not make them any less a MacGuffin then any of the other examples. The diamonds are the thing that drives the story, influences the characters behaviors, and serves as an engine to the plot. That is what a MacGuffin is. The fact that the diamonds have thematic resonance beyond the heavy lifting of trapping our main character in highly dramatic circumstances doesn’t make them less of a MacGuffin - it makes it a particularly effective one. In ‘Psycho,’ we realize that the MacGuffin was a trick to make us think we were watching a story about Janet Leigh, Hitchcock disposes of the money when he disposes of the character so that we can refocus our attention on the real story. The diamonds in ‘Marathon Man’ exist till the end of the story because our focus doesn’t veer away from the tale the diamonds drive. We realize they were a MacGuffin only when Olivier dies. Babe is now safe as our story ends and the fate of the diamonds (at the bottom of a sewer) is as irrelevant as it was to begin with. Here endeth the lesson.
If I have a critique of Slim’s Pick it is that the picture for ‘All That Jazz’ was the perfect cap on his five performances, and that elegance has now been thrown out of whack by his sixth turn on the Stucco/Sheet/57 inch Sony (he is the only actor in Movienight History to appear in all three of our venues). I fully expect his record will stand in the annals of Movienight for sometime. I will end this briefest of summations with the plea that no matter how lucky the number seven may be I sure hope no one rolls with ‘Blue Thunder,’ however appropriate a helicopter movie may seem for our sometimes very noisy venue.
Well done, Slim. A very solid Pick.
RIP Roy.
Onwards.
Netti Comments:
Great pick by Slim. Whenever this film is mentioned it invariably invokes the same telling of the Olivier comments to Dustin Hoffman during the shooting of it. A proper send off to Roy Scheider indeed. Man he was ripped. Tight athletic and spry, yet finished and mature, Scheider was never closer to physical perfection. A fine actor has passed.
This is the second time I've seen this film, but the first on a big screen. I have to say I was unimpressed. There were some wonderful moments of tension and humor: the opening fight between the old men is delightfully amusing in its unreality with an an undercurrent of authentic gravity; yet it is still quintessentially quotidian NYC. "Quintessentially quotidian" is exactly the kind of preciousness that this film suffers in its execution. The throwing of the gun over the fence at the end, the dropping of the clove-oil, the skulls and artifacts of torture in the cabinet. Jesus Christ could you hit things a little more on the head? It was positively effective technically speaking, but a little restraint in the visual metaphors that are drilling into us with the development of Thomas Levy's character journey was sorely needed. Oh, incidentally there was a spirited discussion about the MacGuffin(s) in this film, which began with Tooda's comment that this may have been the finest example of the use of the MacGuffin in cinema history. I believe it is a very associated use of the term MacGuffin, and largely untenable when it involves character development, with which is something that I hope Hitch agrees. Nothing heavy handed about a MacGuffin.
Nubs Comments:
I knew as soon as Wildcard said, “honor our fallen soldier”, we would be getting ‘Marathon Man.’ I was frankly surprised that Slim hadn’t brought it earlier, since it fits his Movienight wish list so well. It’s too bad Nick Nolte and Roy Scheider never made a movie together so Wildcard could have all his treasures in one locker. I personally agree with MONA, for once, that we had already given Roy his due by giving him the unique status as the only performer to have 5 appearances.
Well, now that he has 6, I see it as a personal challenge to make sure Wildcard’s nemesis, Tim Robbins, gets to 7. ‘The Player’ would have been perfect during the writer’s strike, but those selfish bastards ended it before I could make my timely pick. It’s not going to be easy, especially since ‘Shawshank’ is too long. I’m going to have to be creative. ‘Prêt a Porte’?
‘Marathon Man’ is a movie I have not seen since I was a young teenager. If you had seen it as a young teenager, would you be anxious to watch this tedious, politically torture driven, action movie a second time? Seeing it now, I have to admit it seems to take itself very seriously at times to the point of ridiculousness. The opening car chase between feuding old Jew and ex-Nazi, I found comical. Most of the movie’s attempts to make a moral or political statement landed about the same to me. I’m not sure about the MacGuffin, I just think it’s a genre of our golden age of cinema that has passed its time for me. Movienight is doing it’s best to teach me the genre, and from a film history standpoint, I appreciate it.
Slim, I’m glad you got to show you’re hero die on screen again for us. ‘Blue Thunder’ might have been more appropriate to our West Hollywood plight though. Perhaps for the one-year anniversary of Roy’s death you can bring it. I really hope Amy’s not bringing anything to honor Brett Favre’s retiring this week.
SELECTOR Comments:
According to Wikipedia, a “MacGuffin” is a plot device that motivates the characters or advances the story, but the details of which are of little or no importance otherwise….Its importance is accepted by the story’s characters, but it does not actually have any effect on the story.
According to Slim, much like the interpretation of a MacGuffin, the interpretation of the importance of the diamonds in ‘Marathon Man’ is open to debate as well. Do the diamonds bring all three major characters together? Yes. Do the diamonds drive the characters in the story? Yes. In my opinion, just because Dustin Hoffman doesn’t take the diamonds in the end, nor does he even really know the diamonds exist until the last act, does not render the diamonds a pointless plot pusher. The diamonds become their own character in the film—they’re the sole reason Dr. Szell leaves his South American exile for the states, the only reason Scheider’s Doc is involved, because he’s the “delivery man,” and the major reason Hoffman is tracked, tortured and pursued.
And my last point of the MacGuffin controversy is this: “a [MacGuffin] does not actually have any effect on the story.” In ‘Marathon Man,’ the diamonds are the reason Hoffman is tortured, the reason Scheider is killed, the reason Elsa is introduced into the film, and the reason Szell accidentally kills himself at the end…for the sake of the diamonds.
But Damn! What a thriller!
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