By no means a great film, Rolling Thunder (John Flynn\Jordan Cronenweth, ASC) is nonetheless a great revenge film. Representative of its harsh theme, the visuals are moody and foreboding. The violence – and there’s plenty of it – is brutal and intense and goes a long way toward hitting that primal movie-watching spot, if indeed you’re partial to that sort of thrill.
I hadn’t seen it since its initial release until recently stumbling upon it while searching for something new in the streaming wasteland. Coming to it as a clean slate, I was in for a bit of a surprise regarding the look. Almost everything about it ran counter to where my taste currently resides. What stood out most were the extremes to which Cronenweth carried the film’s contrast. Don’t get me wrong – I’m a huge fan of his work and very much enjoy wide variations in tone. But these days, I find myself partial to shadows that retain enough detail to render them silky rather than hard. Rolling Thunder is on a course all its own. Its blacks are impenetrable and more often than not occupy the greater part of the frame. They’re powerful compositional tools and in those pre-live monitoring days must’ve taken a lot of nerve to reach for. I stand in awe of the way they’re used here.
Color makes a strong statement, too. It’s very much of its time, in that 1970’s, Kodak 5254-low-con texture we’re all familiar with. It’s anything but pretty, but is so perfect for this story that I can’t imagine it appearing any other way. Digital technology has lulled us into a certain complacency as viewers; we’ve become conditioned to seeing antiseptic images, almost devoid of the human touch. The presence of film grain (rather than electronic noise) in Rolling Thunder is refreshing. Although options for look-creation were limited at that time compared to today, what’s on display reminds us of how simple combinations working in tandem can accomplish momentous things. It would be disingenuous to claim I liked all of them or would’ve used the same approach. Fortunately, it was Cronenweth who was at the helm, not me.
Yeah, they don’t make ’em like that anymore. Yet, despite any misgivings, I came away with one impression I can’t seem to shake, no matter how hard I try.
I pray that I soon get the chance to make a movie that looks like that!
Great post as usual, Richard.
The seventies had many looks; indeed, something for everyone.
Thanks for the tip, Richard – I’m going to seek it out. I’m completely unfamiliar with this film.
It’s a good one, Dave. Let me know what you think once you see it.
Richard,
Back in the mid 80’s, while making my first documentary, Finally A Voice, about veterans. I was invited to speak to a bunch of NY state bureaucrats in Albany, NY about how Hollywood films had created a negative image of Vietnam vets. I used clips from Rolling Thunder and other films of that period to illustrate my point. The film contains one of my all time favorite lines said by a Mexican thug, who was mercilessly tortured by the films hero, William Devane. “I WAS ONLY LYING!” he shouted. In the context of the scene its a pretty great line. Back in the day I used to use the public perception of Vietnam vets as ticking time bombs to deal with people who really annoyed me I’d let them know that I was Vietnam vet and as such could explode at any second…TICK, TICK, TICK, TICK, TICK. These days it wouldn’t work. Not too many years ago a twenty-something asked me what side we were on.
I’ll have to watch the film again and look at it more cinematically and concentrate less on the message.
Good meeting you at Tiffen recently. Cheers, JG
PS For the uninitiated, “Rolling Thunder” was the term we used for B-52 strikes.
John –
It was good meeting you as well. Thank you for reading the blog and getting in touch.
Although I like Rolling Thunder, I hesitated over posting it. On top of everything else, Vietnam vets have gotten a bad rap in terms of movies and TV treating them as deranged psychos (RT did them no favors, either!). The irony is that statistics show that as a group Vietnam vets exhibited very little anti-social behavior upon returning home; the vast majority reintegrated with society very successfully. But I was so fascinated by the look that I let myself off the hook by commenting primarily on the cinematography. I hope I didn’t piss anybody off. You guys were my heroes when I was in grammar school during the ’60’s!
Thanks for your kind words. I did go back and watch the film again this week. so I have to correct myself. The line wasn’t “I was only lying”. It was “I was just lying.” As if he was equating lying and breathing. Much stronger.