469 The Hit

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TheRanchHand
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Re: 469 The Hit

#26 Post by TheRanchHand » Tue Aug 18, 2009 12:43 am

Yeah, I didn't hate the film but did think it was going to be more promising. The idea sounded like it was going to a great philosophical road trip with hitmen. The whole ending with Stamp's character I felt did not pay off the direction he was headed in. I almost blind purchased this but rented instead. I am glad I saw it but very glad it was a rental.

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Re: 469 The Hit

#27 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Thu Sep 10, 2009 5:08 pm

Wood Tick wrote:To my mind the strongest moment is the freeze frame of Braddock just before the title frame, with Eric Clapton's Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking-era guitar stylings. It seemed quite Roeg-ish to me, with Clapton standing in for Ry Cooder.
I heard a rumor somewhere that the other musician in the title theme is none other than Roger Waters himself playing the synthesizer behind Eric. It's logical, since the album was being recorded right around the time of the film's production. Saw this today and was quite impressed. I'm a sucker for road movies, and found Stamp's character quite charming despite the imminent cloud of death on the horizon for him.

Edit: It is indeed Roger Waters that is the other musician on the main titles. While listening to the commentary over the end credits, it lists Roger as assisting Eric. So, for now the first direct Floyd connection to the CC.
Last edited by flyonthewall2983 on Sun Sep 13, 2009 10:10 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Matango
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Re: 469 The Hit

#28 Post by Matango » Fri Sep 11, 2009 1:39 am

On the subject of music..anyone else notice 1970s middle-of-the-road tear-jerking ivory-tickler-cum-crooner Lennie Peters as Mr Big? Nice to see him in the Collection. Sort of.

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colinr0380
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Re: 469 The Hit

#29 Post by colinr0380 » Wed Oct 28, 2009 5:38 pm

TheRanchHand wrote:Yeah, I didn't hate the film but did think it was going to be more promising. The idea sounded like it was going to a great philosophical road trip with hitmen.
It is interesting to hear the reactions to the film, and even have some sympathy towards them at times (I do feel that the film is a little rough in parts - I particularly cringe at the cliched binoculars point of view shot...and then cringe even more when the character looking through the binoculars is shown to be wearing sunglasses. Shouldn't the image itself have been tinted? Or maybe the character should have lifted his sunglasses up before using the binoculars? It's these little moments that I can't find a logical workaround for that end up gnawing at me more than massive plotholes!) For me the concept of the film just manages to carry it over the bumps, along with the cast and the relatively novel setting for the time.

The aspect I like most about the film is the way that all the characters delude themselves into thinking that they are in control – the short termism is an aspect of their characters that has simultaneously gotten them through tough scrapes up to the time the film begins, but it is also the aspect that is inevitably going to destroy them one day (see The Queen for similar). The new recruit is still too young and eager to think that one day things might go wrong, so has no compunction about starting pointless bar fights just for the thrill. His death feels a little more tragic because he never had the chance to mature, but was swiftly punished without ever feeling a moment of guilt or remorse for his actions.

Braddock is calm and methodical but also cold, and the film shifts from Willie to focus on him suddenly feeling strange emotions for the first time, feelings that prevent him from doing his job properly in a way that is obvious to everyone around no matter how much he tries to keep the façade up. Being thrown off balance in that way is what causes him to start looking to Willie as a kind of mentor, especially with Willie being someone who has briefly ‘escaped’ from the criminal world. In a way the decision to kill Willie at that particular time and place is sort of the final test he gives to see if Willie keeps his cool, and an attempt by Braddock to reassert his dominance (especially after the waterfall scene where Willie could be seen to be condescending to his captors by not even attempting to escape when given the opportunity). It makes me wonder if Willie is aware of this and puts on a show to either taunt Braddock or to prevent Braddock from having a neat ending to the hit. At the same time it is left open that Willie could be truthful in his final despair.

Even the girl, who is constantly described as ‘an innocent’ throughout the film is nothing of the sort. She is basically a gangster’s moll at the beginning of the film, a position with its own trappings of power which get overturned when her man is killed. Then she does end up as a kind of possession, remaining passive while the two gangsters tussle over her – the initial failed attempt to kill her providing the fatal (for the gangsters) knowledge that she is likely not in immediate danger if she can play her cards right (although as Willie shows there is such a thing as being over confident in your predictions!) It might be sexist for her to use her sexuality as a bargaining tool, but then that’s really all she has to use during the film to keep herself alive. It’s a sad comment that it works on everyone in the film, even the police!

I found the film had less of a structure of a gangster film than of a strange kind of serial killer road movie – a similar atmosphere to much later films like Butterfly Kiss, Kalifornia, Natural Born Killers or Perdita Durango. Like those films the primary focus is on the road trip/killing spree couples (usually with co-opted prisoners who in their attempts to call for help often end up getting even more people killed) yet set against that there are often rather ironically pathetic scenes of the police wearily investigating the aftermath, always a couple of steps behind and too late. Eventually it is the flaws of the protagonists that end up either destroying each other and/or allowing the police to catch up for a final climactic confrontation.

It was nice to see the Parkinson interview with Terence Stamp, which was an excellent inclusion even if I was disappointed it couldn’t have been the Scene By Scene interview from the late 90s! (However Mark Cousins didn’t talk about The Hit with Stamp at all in that programme while the Parkinson interview did provide that surprising anecdote that Stamp was apparently cast in his role in Wall Street after Oliver Stone saw the Frears film)

I also enjoyed the commentary, finding the Penelope Cruz comment (of being appropriate casting for a Hit remake set in Mexico) at the end quite funny as I had been wondering whether the enormous bull shaped sign that the group pass by in their car about halfway through the film could have been the same one that Cruz’s character rips the rather prominent testicles off of in order to have something to shelter herself from a rain storm with in a later film, Jamón, Jamón! According to imdb they both had sequences filmed in Aragón so perhaps this is a coincidental appearance of the original pre-castrated sign! (EDIT: Also Alex Cox's introduction to Brazil for the Moviedrome season was filmed next to the sign!)

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Last edited by colinr0380 on Wed Jul 15, 2020 5:25 pm, edited 3 times in total.

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zedz
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Re: 469 The Hit

#30 Post by zedz » Wed Oct 28, 2009 6:28 pm

I saw this for the first time the other night and quite enjoyed it as well. Nothing extraordinary, but a taut, generally well-filmed little movie with fine, nicely contrasting performances. The movie I thought this would pair off with well is Bava's Rabid Dogs.

I'm halfway through the commentary and really enjoying it - a great example of the Criterion technique of collaged comments working beautifully to create a lively virtual discussion - and the Stamp interview is great, simply because you get to see more of him. Even though there's only a glancing reference to The Hit it's really interesting to see how his role in that film plays off his own public persona in the interview. Also interesting to see how Stamp gently insists that his dalliances with Fellini and Pasolini were absolutely central to his 'proper' career, after Parky seemed to have casually assigned them to the 'wilderness years'.

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Re: 469 The Hit

#31 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Wed Oct 28, 2009 11:53 pm

Back to the title music for a sec, I wonder if Danny Elfman used Clapton's theme as inspiration for his own theme music for Midnight Run. Exact instrumentation, similar styles.

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domino harvey
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Re: 469 The Hit

#32 Post by domino harvey » Wed Jul 15, 2020 12:48 pm


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Re: 469 The Hit

#33 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Thu Jul 16, 2020 10:45 am

Finally. Didn't this originally come out just when Criterion started putting out Blu-rays?

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swo17
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Re: 469 The Hit

#34 Post by swo17 » Thu Jul 16, 2020 10:50 am

Yes, like 5 months after their initial run

Fortisquince
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Re: 469 The Hit

#35 Post by Fortisquince » Thu Jul 16, 2020 11:17 am

They really went all out on this upgrade.

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acroyear
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Re: 469 The Hit

#36 Post by acroyear » Sat Jul 18, 2020 1:57 pm

"New cover by Jason Hardy"? Was that quote always on Criterion's announcement page? I never noticed it before.

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CSM126
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Re: 469 The Hit

#37 Post by CSM126 » Sat Jul 18, 2020 2:07 pm

acroyear wrote:
Sat Jul 18, 2020 1:57 pm
"New cover by Jason Hardy"? Was that quote always on Criterion's announcement page? I never noticed it before.
Most of their pages list “New cover by…”, with exception for covers derived directly from existing posters, which say something to the effect of “Cover based on theatrical poster”.

Rupert Pupkin
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Re: 469 The Hit

#38 Post by Rupert Pupkin » Sun Jul 19, 2020 12:35 am

flyonthewall2983 wrote:
Thu Sep 10, 2009 5:08 pm
Wood Tick wrote:To my mind the strongest moment is the freeze frame of Braddock just before the title frame, with Eric Clapton's Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking-era guitar stylings. It seemed quite Roeg-ish to me, with Clapton standing in for Ry Cooder.
I heard a rumor somewhere that the other musician in the title theme is none other than Roger Waters himself playing the synthesizer behind Eric. It's logical, since the album was being recorded right around the time of the film's production. Saw this today and was quite impressed. I'm a sucker for road movies, and found Stamp's character quite charming despite the imminent cloud of death on the horizon for him.

Edit: It is indeed Roger Waters that is the other musician on the main titles. While listening to the commentary over the end credits, it lists Roger as assisting Eric. So, for now the first direct Floyd connection to the CC.

very interesting. I did not know that this recording preceded the "Pros And Cons Of Hitchhicking" album. This is a fascinating album (had it be chosen instead of The Wall, I would have been very curious to listen to the result). We only have a few examples on The Wall immersion box set. This is such a intriguing album was a non-linear structure/non-narrative, trying to "convert" into music what is the night/dream (including the odd-timing of paradoxal dream sequences) - which is radically different to flashforward or flashback (like in movies) or album with a narrative structure like let's say "Tommy", "The Wall", or the great "Berlin" which was produced by Bob Ezrin.

I know that Eric Clapton (who was in fire on stage - some great guitar playing during the first tour in 84 of Pros And Cons) toured with Roger Waters against the advice of his "team".

Could be this title opening sequence of "The Hit" - with supposedly Roger Waters on keyboard/synth an outtake of the Pros and Cons of Hitch-Hicking album ?

The funny thing is that for Wim Wenders, Ry Cooder kind of reminds me John Lennon's guitar lick on "Working Class Hero" on "Paris Texas". And later David Gilmour recorded a kind of Ry Cooder - influenced soundtrack too (before The Division Bell)

you mentioned Nicolas Roeg : I'm still wondering who sings "Mother" on "Track 29" by Nicolas Roed (sounds like it is George Harrison's voice, but regarding his point of view about "God" on POB I doubt it could be him; however Handmade movies, this is George Harrison, so who sings it?) no info in the credits besides de John Lennon credit. And the arrangement sounds almost like a backing track of "Mother" (the original John Lennon 1970's LP)

This is indeed a first-Pink Floyd connection, but I can see a lot of Criterion-Pink Floyd connections : the joke about the self-credited song to the character in "The Squid and the Whale" (the funny thing is that "his" "Hey You" sounds predated Roger Waters-"Flickering Flamish" arrangement a-la Bob Dylan of his recent songs from the last decade)
The cute girl playing "Wish You Were Here" (with bad chords, but cute) in "Boyhood"
and the epic final of Michael Mann's "Thief" (and what a Gilmourish solo for The Beach" superb guitar solo done by Edgar Froese; he succeeded to do it with his own style but achieve some incredible bigger than life bends which are typical of David Gilmour's peak after The Wall - on The Final Cut). Michael Mann wanted badly "Comfortably Numb". Craig Safan did a great version with "Confrontation".
I still wonder what if Pink Floyd after "More" and "La Vallée" would have done a proper soundtrack for such caliber movie (not "Hackers" (not the Michael Man movie) (with an uncredited tracks cowritten by Guy Pratt and played by David Gilmour)

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Re: 469 The Hit

#39 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Sun Jul 19, 2020 4:32 pm

I wouldn't be surprised if Mann knew he couldn't get "Comfortably Numb", but suggested it to his music guys during Thief this is the kind of vibe he wanted for the finale. (we get into all the Criterion-PF links in the Floyd thread here).

As for this movie I think Roger plays the low-grunting guitar behind Clapton's more bluesy lead.

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Re: 469 The Hit

#40 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Mon Sep 14, 2020 6:42 am


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