{"id":17645,"date":"2018-03-22T12:05:18","date_gmt":"2018-03-22T16:05:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=17645"},"modified":"2018-03-22T12:05:18","modified_gmt":"2018-03-22T16:05:18","slug":"dvd-dutchman-1966","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=17645","title":{"rendered":"DVD: Dutchman (1966)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Film<\/strong>: Excellent<\/p>\n

Transfer<\/strong>: \u00a0Very Good<\/p>\n

Extras<\/strong>: n\/a<\/p>\n

Label:\u00a0<\/strong> Image<\/p>\n

Region:<\/strong>\u00a01 (NTSC)<\/p>\n

Released:<\/strong>\u00a0 July 4, 2000<\/p>\n

Genre:<\/strong>\u00a0 Drama \/ Suspense<\/p>\n

Synopsis:<\/strong>\u00a0A highly unstable woman toys with a demure black man, bringing racial tensions to an explosive exchange in a NYC subway car.<\/p>\n

Special Features:<\/strong>\u00a0 (none)<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Review:<\/strong><\/p>\n

After starting off as an actor and later establishing himself as a noted editor for directors like Stanley Kubrick (Lolita<\/a><\/strong>, Dr. Strangelove<\/strong>) and Bryan Forbes (The L-Shaped Room<\/strong>), Anthony Harvey selected a most unusual script for his directorial debut \u2013 Amiri Baraka\u2019s (aka LeRoi Jones) 1964 play Dutchman<\/strong> \u2013 in which a white, highly unstable woman (\u201cI never tell the truth\u201d) worms her way into the life of a young black man on a quiet subway ride, and by the end of the 50 minute journey, one of them is quite dead.<\/p>\n

Shirley Knight is terrifying as batshit loony Lula, ostensibly a serial killer who targets young black men by being provocative in body and words to tease and establish a faux connection, and Al Freeman Jr. handles the transition of Clay\u2019s reluctance to full explosion beautifully. Baraka\u2019s script is a performance piece for the actors, and marks one of the frankest, most verbally graphic statements on race relations in American film \u2013 an in-your-face alternative to the polite Guess Who\u2019s Coming to Dinner?<\/strong> (1967) Columbia production packaged for more sensitive general admission audiences.<\/p>\n

Clay\u2019s doom is ensured at the beginning when he glances at Lula as she poses with sunglasses on the platform. They make eye contact, but she enters the car from the rear, startling him and slowly invading his space by approaching from behind, easing to the adjacent seat, and then the other half of his two-seater; Clay\u2019s forced to reassign his bag to another seat, and he readjusts his composure when she keeps swooping close to his face, eventually wrapping her legs over his thigh.<\/p>\n

The two soon dine on the apples she carries in her long bag, but Lula\u2019s constantly dropping hints of her dangerous ways, and Clay\u2019s attraction to her wildness ultimately quashes his internal radar that should\u2019ve told him to get off the train, or move to another car and avoid her manic extremes.<\/p>\n

Lula may not formally know Clay, but she knows his type and has Clay convinced that she\u2019s met some of his friends. Her ability to peg his background and ultimately exploit his vulnerabilities are what lead to the first of two explosive scenes in the short film\u2019s second half. By the midpoint Clay has become so hypnotized by her moods and bold verbiage that he\u2019s unaware they\u2019re no longer alone in the car, but the two continue their close chatter and fondling, isolated in a bubble which Lula soon bursts in a tirade that drops a slew of racist epithets.<\/p>\n

Clay ultimately explodes and smacks her in the face, dropping his polite diction and initially perplexed reactions to Lula\u2019s slithering & pole-grinding, and he chastises her and the onlookers, berating white appropriation of black culture, and the naive expectation that several hundred years of racism have been neutered by voting rights.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s logical that Clay, a literature student who still fancies himself a closet Beaudelaire, would unleash his rage in a poetic stream of argot rather than profanity, and it\u2019s a torrent of graphic contrasts and shock words which give Freeman a tour de force moment that also has his character telling Lula she\u2019s essentially full of crap. When the end comes it\u2019s not quick and fast, but a sharp blade to Clay\u2019s chest that stays firmly in place, because he\u2019s already noted she\u2019s “strong” for such a thin figure.<\/p>\n

When Clay falls dead onto Lula, he\u2019s pulled off like a sack of trash, and carried towards the camera for a forced fadeout, followed by a reset as Lula enters another car on another day, ignoring an older tougher black man, but eyeing a more demure, Clay-like figure who\u2019s a little awkward, but easily turned on by her aggressiveness.<\/p>\n

Knight won a Best Actress Award after the film screened at the Venice Film Festival in 1967, and it was Dutchman<\/strong> that led Peter O\u2019Toole to select Harvey to helm The Lion in Winter<\/strong> (1968), another fierce two-character drama, with forceful performances by O\u2019Toole and Katherine Hepburn.<\/p>\n

What Dutchman<\/strong> meant in 1966 and means today may vary due to Baraka\u2019s use of a serial killer premise, but there\u2019s a sense Lula\u2019s game is fair play: the victim can leave at any time, and he can choose not to explode and not reveal his suppressed rage to a cabin of passengers before he\u2019s bladed, but Lula knows her type, and like an adept tracker, she tests and creates a safe zone where both share from her bag of apples until it\u2019s time for the dressing-down.<\/p>\n

Baraka\u2019s prose and Freeman\u2019s tirade are still arresting because they\u2019re not filled with F-bombs \u2013 they\u2019re rhythmic streams of contrasts. Clay\u2019s outrage rips everything inside-out, tossing false ideals and caricatures onto the floor that\u2019s already littered with the pieces of apple Lula\u2019s spat out or chucked aside like hunks of rotten fruit.<\/p>\n

Morsels of her dialogue with Clay involve aggressively biting into apples and displaying the figurative pound of flesh she\u2019s masticating and occasionally sharing with her target. Lula\u2019s manic behaviour and Clay\u2019s insistence on seeing his ride through is the hardest part for any urbanite to accept \u2013 if someone\u2019s having an episode, you move away and keep moving until you\u2019re in a safe zone \u2013 but taken as a stark, high-pitched seduction, the film works.<\/p>\n

Harvey\u2019s direction and editing aren\u2019t showy or kinetic, and he relies on the performances to propel the drama. He wisely cuts to a short montage of subway stations and passing trains to force a time jump, as Clay will become just as puzzled as us that while the two have carried on in their own world, fresh riders kept entering, seating themselves, and listening to their chatter from a safe distance.<\/p>\n

John Barry\u2019s singular theme works very well for the eerie drama \u2013 not unlike his Lion in Winter<\/strong> score, the tone and rhythms are about entrapment, plus the horror of realizing you\u2019re done for \u2013 and Gerry Turpin\u2019s stark cinematography is appropriately claustrophobic, especially when the lights dim for lengthy periods. (Camera operator Ronnie Taylor would eventually move to full cinematographer, including Ken Russell\u2019s Tommy<\/strong> and Dario Argento\u2019s Opera<\/strong> and Sleepless<\/strong>.)<\/p>\n

A somewhat broader attempt to dramatize urban tensions in a subway car emerged a year later in Larry Peerce\u2019s The Incident<\/a><\/strong>, itself based on a 1963 teleplay by Nicholas Baehr, and you could argue a greater distillation of confined conflicts became the backdrop in the subway heist thriller The Taking of Pelham One Two Three<\/a><\/strong> (1974) in which everyone<\/em> is having a really, really<\/em>\u00a0shitty day.<\/p>\n

Dutchman<\/strong> was released on bare bones DVD in 2000 and is deserving of a new edition with some restoration (the source print is pretty worn around the reel changes), sound clean-up, and extras that contextualize this unique film. Baraka and Knight reportedly participated in a documentary titled Dutchman Revisited<\/a><\/strong> (2018) which at present remains unreleased.<\/p>\n

To close, here’s a pastiche of campaign art for the short film which was apparently double-billed during its release in certain cities (see last).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"

Dutchman (1966) poster.<\/p><\/div>\n

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\"\"<\/p>\n

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\"\"

UK double bill of Dutchman (1966) + Tonight Let’s All make Love in London (1967).<\/p><\/div>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a9 2018 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

External References:<\/strong>
\nEditor’s Blog<\/a> — IMDB<\/a> \u00a0— \u00a0Soundtrack Album<\/a> —\u00a0Composer Filmography<\/a>
\n\u00a0<\/span>
\nVendor Search Links:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Amazon Canada<\/a>\"\"\"\" \"\" —\u00a0<\/span> Amazon USA<\/a>\"\"\"\" \"\" —\u00a0<\/span> Amazon UK<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After starting off as an actor and later establishing himself as a noted editor for directors like Stanley Kubrick (Lolita, Dr. Strangelove) and Bryan Forbes (The L-Shaped Room), Anthony Harvey selected a most unusual script for his directorial debut: Amiri Baraka\u2019s (aka LeRoi Jones) 1964 play Dutchman…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[18],"tags":[5603,5604,5601,5600,283,5605,5602,2884],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-4AB","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17645"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17645"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17645\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17700,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17645\/revisions\/17700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}