Wasted Knights
Like congenitally affable lap dogs, all too many
current mainstream films work overtime to ingratiate
themselves with the audience. Nothing must get in the
way of their providing unadulterated pleasure from one
moment to another. Nothing must give rise to
complexity or complication. This particularly applies
to the behavior of the central characters. It is not
simply that they come across as one-dimensional, but
more that they rarely surprise or upset our
expectations.
One reason for this phenomenon is the public's
unquestioning acceptance of the U.S. star system.
Audiences appear to require only the narrowest range
of possibilities from characters embodied by their
idols. Take, for example, the fact that Julia Roberts
chose to portray the mousy assistant in the current
comedy America's Sweethearts rather than the
abrasive movie star played by Catherine Zeta Jones. By
doing so, Roberts reincarnates the Cinderella she
played in Pretty Woman (1990), rather than
stretching anyone's expectations.
Ivan Passer's 1981 thriller, Cutter's Way, now being
released on DVD, dispenses with virtually all obligations to satisfy audience inclinations toward dependable characters and undemanding plots. The three
central individuals in Cutter's Way are dissolute
slackers who ordinarily hesitate from committing to
anything more demanding that another drink or sexual
conquest. Richard Bone (Jeff Bridges) is a gigolo gone
to seed, living off the good will of his professional
benefactor, George Swanson (Arthur Rosenberg), for
whom he sells expensive boats. Bone's best friend,
Alexander Cutter (John Heard), has lost an eye, an
arm, and a leg in the Vietnam War and keeps the world
at bay through his excessive consumption of alcohol
and a steady stream of vitriolic sarcasm. Completing
the trio is Cutter's wife, Maureen (Lisa Eichhorn),
who puts up with his indolence by means of her own
brand of defensive irony.
It takes a murder investigation to rouse these three
from their customary inertia. Bone has accidentally
seen someone disposing of a the body of a murdered
teenaged girl, and comes to the conclusion that the
perpetrator is the town's leading citizen, J.J. Cord
(Stephen Elliott). When Bone refuses to act on his
suspicions, Cutter takes over the quest against Cord
and relentlessly pursues the matter to a tragic
conclusion. Cutter believes that convicting Cord will
not only resolve the murder, but also the injustice of
a world in which the innocent are subject to the whims
of the wealthy and powerful. Bone ambivalently becomes
involved in this quixotic quest, and finds in this
alliance a means to achieving the sort of commitment
he has avoided all his life.
Passer expertly laces this compelling character study with all the intrigue and narrative complications familiar from classic film noir of the 1940s and '50s. Like those films, Cutter's Way has a memorable
look and sound, the images and score planting
themselves as indelibly in one's mind as the events in
the narrative. Something is rotten in the elegant
oasis of Santa Barbara, California, and Jordan
Cronenweth's atmospheric cinematography visually
dissects the rot beneath the wealth of sunlight and
clear skies. When Bone and the sister of the murdered
girl take a spin out on the idyllic Pacific,
Cronenweth incorporates two oil extraction platforms
in the frame, a telling recognition of the presence of
commerce in the midst of paradise. The eerie and
haunting score by Jack Nitzsche also hints at the
characters' alienation and disorientation in the midst
of Southern California's apparent serenity.
Passer began his career in Czechoslovakia as a peer
and collaborator of fellow expatriate Milos Forman,
who directed One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1977).
Passer's American pictures are for the most part
low-budget affairs or television productions that have
achieved more critical approval than box-office clout.
Cutter's Way was itself a commercial failure on its
initial release, even though United Artists tried to
market the picture as both a mainstream feature and
art-house fare. The original, early 1980s audiences
appear to have been perplexed by the sympathetic
treatment of Passer's dissolute protagonist, perhaps
put off by the characters' theatrical displays of
drunken excess. Little about Cutter's commitment to
solving the crime drew these audiences back into the
narrative. However, the masterful manner with which
Passer crafts the narrative and the expert
performances he draws from his three leads has won me
over. Cutter's Way is certainly the best film of
Passer's career, as well as one of the most memorable
pictures of the 1980s -- and since then.
Cutter's Way is most effectively a character study,
and the delineation of the three principal figures
amounts to some of the finest screen acting in recent
years. Jeff Bridges has always been one of the most
dependably accomplished and criminally underrated of
all American film actors. Initially, Bone seems a kind
of second cousin to his laid-back Dude in the Coen
brothers' The Big Lebowski (1999), yet Bridges
reveals the shades of chivalry and substance beneath
Bone's non-responsive surface. Heard has a broader
range of behavior to map. Cutter at first comes across
as a kind of latter day Long John Silver: all bluster
and bravado without any effort at restraint. However,
as the narrative begins its final descent into
heartbreak, his command of the screen is breathtaking.
Heard draws out the tender core of Cutter's hardened
cynicism without playing on the audience's
heartstrings or obliterating the character's fearsome
anger and passion.
The dominant female presence in the film, Lisa
Eichhorn, holds the screen with a dynamism equal to
her male cohorts. Her Maureen is never the victim of
the two men in her life, however much it might seem
like she habitually acquiesces to their moods and
schemes. Eichhorn's cracked, world-weary voice
combines with an inspired use of gesture and silence
to rivet one's attention every moment she is on the
screen. One is at a loss to understand why Eichhorn
never made another film of note following Cutter's Way.
The film insinuates its way into one's consciousness,
much as Cutter's certainty of Cord's guilt eventually
convinces Bone. Furthermore, as intricate and
absorbing as the plot and performances
are, the refusal by Passer and scriptwriter Jeffrey
Alan Fiskin to make Cutter a one-dimensional avenging
angel brings still more intricacy to the film. It is
left up to the audience whether Cutter's assumptions
about Cord are verifiable, or are the pathetic
ramblings of an alcoholic, paranoid war veteran. It is
even more a matter for our appraisal whether the
actions Alex takes in pursuit of Cord are heroic or
half-witted or both. For a film that places at its
center the resolution of a mystery, Cutter's Way
surprisingly ends in the conditional tense. "What if
it were?" are the last words spoken. The impact of
that statement leave viewers in a position to
re-examine all that they have seen from a variety of
perspectives and eager to watch Cutter's Way again
and again. The reissue of this overlooked film on DVD
allows this opportunity, although it certainly would
have benefitted from commentary by the actors and
director. Cutter's Way has been marketed by MGM as
part of their "Contemporary Classics" series. For
once, this kind of promotional language is anything
but hyperbole.
