JUDGING from last year's cinema successes (in the midst of a declinine industry in general. it should be added), one could be forgiven for thinking that a tilm about a gun-toting, devil-possessed rapist who bites people's legs off underwater must be the ideal movie for the coming year.
Certainly the crisis-ridden year of 1976 carved out two or three reactionary themes in the cinema which connected very closely with mass hopes, fears, confused solutions and repressed desires, and Enus mace monev. in uimes oi crisis the film industry has never Deen averse to pumome tne deoms or crawling on its belly to make a JasDUK. S ECuCra CoursCiluC present crisis is no exception.
The first theme which has emerged in the past vear is gratuitous graphic and individual violence, often linked to rape or sexual repression - the ciassic examoles have been Texas Chain Saw Massacre, beatn weekend ana lo a lesser extent the more "artfully" DroCuCed tane smarketedr Driver.
Such films have been dubbed "exploitation movies' by the filmworld itselt, and inat is an apt ues сприоп. They do exploit in a anrcct manuer an uic Icars. Colu sion and loathing which lurk in people' s consciousness, particularly at times of uncertainty.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Death Weekend both resurrect for example the woman in jeoparay mneme or holywood in ine exone ane couoy nate u con text. Their function has been to reassure une nsecure psyche through parading the preVIously Covert unrcar or rase Taxi The influence of feminism and the women's movement in the cinema has not been space for itself, but largely to produce woman-hating reaction on the part of Hollywood's directors. The use of rape, analysis or a feminist perspective, has been a particularly nasty feature of the recent crop.
A second and related theme has been that of the vigilante, ClOnIC avenger Death Wish in 1975, we have had Lipstick, Trackdown, Force, Breaking Point, Taxi Driver and many others. Of these only Lipstick tried to put the violence in any social context and to transcend the purely sensational.
But the vigilante theme should come as no surprise to those with some knowledge of American social history. In the USA, more than anywhere, individual solutions are still proffered as ideal - collective social answers anatnema bo mne inervaua soru tion of the gun, to rid society of its Tapiary growing mountam or socia. problems, is being increasingly ofactive.
but sets it in a modern, be the norm. mascu ne Previous Greek fascists break up a New Years Eve party in the The Travelling Players Who crcale pre-feudal divorced times of economic crisis.
Britain and the USA, - IOlOWInE on producing it!
Vigilante Odeon.
are regarded away and al best passive and In In such a context indiviaual, violent and al rool reac tionary solutions to the problems of late capitalism will continue to himself.
The third theme, started by the year's boomer, Exorcist, and continued in 1976 by The Omen. is that of the occul "supernatural". The ten- for three acney to turtto une super natural or 'dark forces' (beliefs which are themselves remnants of feudal and ideology)
ICCUES It is a general feature now in particularly amongst the youth, and the cinema has not been slow to latch on to its appeal. However it is interesting to note that six times as much was to date. spent on promoting The Omen as But despite the dark clouds of reactionary gloom which seemed to dominate the cinema in 1976 there were glimmers of hope and oolimisin lor a renet. revo unon ary cinema. Unfortunately the best oi mesc are unukciy Lo back unen in nightly at your local ABC or But one film worthy of mention did have a mass release - Milos Forman's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Despite its undertone •ПОЇ of sexism and the identification of the principal female figure with re- -LnE oine pression and authority, it dealt in a refreshingly progressive way with TSc nAnontonareond