April 9th, 2008
Link of Interest
Around this time last year, in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech shootings, Washington Post Film Critic Stephen Hunter wrote an article that made some egregious arguments linking the actions of madman Cho Seung Hui and John Woo movies — in particular, THE KILLER. While it may be difficult for some Asian film fans to take anything Hunter has to say seriously after that article, he has written an excellent obituary for Charlton Heston. Here are the opening paragraphs:
He was the hawk.
He soared. In fact, everything about him soared. His shoulders soared, his cheekbones soared, his brows soared. Even his hair soared.
And for a good two decades, Charlton Heston, who died Saturday at 84, was the ultimate American movie star. In a time when method actors and ethnic faces were gradually taking over, Heston remained the last of the ramrod-straight, flinty, squinty, tough-as-old-hickory movie guys.
He and his producers and directors understood his appeal, and used it for maximum effect on the big Technicolor screen. Rarely a doubter, never a coward, inconceivable as a shirker, he played men of granite virtue no matter the epoch. He played commanders, biblical prophets, Jewish heroes, tough-as-nails cowpokes, calm aviators, last survivors, quarterbacks and a president or two.
Later in his life, he took that stance into politics, becoming president of the National Rifle Association just when anti-gun attitudes were reaching their peak. Pilloried and parodied, lampooned and bullied, he never relented, he never backed down, and in time it came to seem less an old star’s trick of vanity than an act of political heroism. He endured, like Moses. He aged, like Moses. And the stone tablet he carried had only one commandment: Thou shalt be armed. It can even be said that if the Supreme Court in June finds a meaning in the Second Amendment consistent with NRA policy, that he will have died just short of the Promised Land — like Moses.
Even if you think that Hunter is a complete idiot for trying to tie John Woo to the Virginia Tech tragedy, you have to admit that this is great writing.
I’ll be back later with the HKFA Best Actress preview.
April 9th, 2008 at 4:27 pm
I would actually have to agree with Hunter in his first article. Both Oldboys and The Killer influenced the VA Tech shooter. He posed and acted like those characters. We all love Asian cinema and can differ between fantasy and reality. But we can’t dismiss it either where there is that 0.00000001% possibility that someone is copying these violent movies.
April 10th, 2008 at 7:45 am
I live in the D.C. area and read Hunter’s reviews usually every week.
I resented tremendously his piece on the Va. Tech shooting mainly because he tried to make a connection to Old Boy and other films but then backed away from it for fear of offending anyone.
Either prove the point or do not. Hunter’s insinuations served no one.
Personally, I am sick of people trying to blame films for lone acts of obviously mentally ill people; if Old Boy was the problem then there would be thousands of shooters, right?
And what films did Charles Starkweather or Lee Harvey Oswald obsess over?
AND the supreme irony in all of this is that Hunter wrote a novel which became the basis for the Mark Wahlberg film Shooter.
I guess his opinion would be different if Cho had been a white guy who was emulating Wahlberg’s poses in that film