Trade Publication Article

Death Wish (Michael Winner, 1974)

Buck, Douglas

2018

Overview

Other than revealing an embarrassingly clueless lack of compassion (and sheltered upbringing) on my part (I kinda hope I’ve had a bit of enlightenment over the years… and not in the direction of Paul Benjamin, aka, Paul Kersey in the movie), what it also indicates is the timely wellspring from which sprang Brian Aldriss’ original, somewhat underwhelming and fairly reactionary (whether he recognizes that fact or not) 1972 novel (well, more of a slightly inflated novella) Death Wish (from which the above quotes are from) and its 1974 cinematic incarnation, brought to life by the occasionally talented, late and – okay, not so great, but certainly unique in his, dare I say, oft-charmingly shameless and sleazy opportunistic way — director Michael Winner, who happily went even more zealous right-wing with the fable about a relatively successful white man who, after being shockingly victimized by some of the criminal thugs who menace the streets, breaking into his home and viciously assaulting his wife and daughter, finds his liberal shell peeling away as his helpless anger turns into a driving desire to reclaim the streets as a gun-toting vigilante. The film is an anomaly from the usual book adaption in that instead of paring back the various events and subplots from the source, Death Wish, while holding true to almost the entire narrative of Aldiss’ novel and its slow psychologically evolving (or devolving) lead character, expands on it, adding in plot elements that while not always believable (I argued as we watched with one of my compadres the reality of there being a whole slew of international reporters – Italian, French, and so on – all excitedly reporting back from the City Hall briefings on the vigilante whose actions appeared to be singlehandedly lowering crime in New York, but afterwards thought – nah, if the rest of the world wasn’t really drawn in on the David Berkowitz Son of Sam shooting spree in the summer of ’76 in which the local newspapers all did their best to convince every city and nearby suburban dweller to be ‘gripped in fear’, they definitely wouldn’t have given a care about this guy), certainly ratcheted up the stakes. Yet, watching his initial suffering through the disbelief of the attack, on into growing rage, and then slowly taking the law into his own hand (with the scene of him clumsily breaking the sock of coins as he triumphantly swings around in his apartment after confronting his first mugger out on the street by hitting him in the face with it is perhaps the most memorable, amusing and human moment in the entire film) to actually arming up as a killing vigilante (which takes an impressively long amount of screen time getting to – considering that I, along with a small coterie of fellow film travelers, plan to now delve into the entire five film Death Wish franchise — and whatever related offshoots that arise along the way – it’ll be interesting to see if they dare take the same path of slow build in the recent Bruce Willis remake though I’m guessing they won’t and that also – largely because it’s directed by that Trump-sized con artist and showman Eli Roth himself – the entire venture will be vacuous and despicable), he not only achieves a level of pathos and vulnerability (even in the later scenes, where his character is feeling so ‘mythically’ empowered in his vigilante role he quotes western movie clichés, just like the old movie style ‘gunfight in the OK Corral’ he watches earlier re-enacted while in Arizona – another really smart addition allowing a some interesting resonating notions on the dividing line between the myth of the iconic American individualist cowboy gunman and the reality of the nervous modern urban white man way out of his element), but constructs a nice arc with his character, without overdoing the softer mild-mannered early stages of his character (though I’m not sure Bronson would be capable of overdoing that part if he wanted to without falling into parody) nor losing the humanity during the later transition into street fighter cleverly evading the cops on his tail (something Bronson could easily have simplified but fortunately didn’t). With little to no perspective (other than that lip service quote delivered by Paul’s son-in-law from the novel presented above) on the economic conditions and repressions towards minorities that breed crime infestation in the first place (and also positing a world where right-wing vigilante justice would lessen crime rates, as if urban crime is a matter of choice and simple bad behaviour, rather than arising from victimizing despair, desperation and lack of hope), Death Wish, both book and film (though Winner pumps up the gun-toting excitement for sure, which I guess is what so disturbed the author Aldiss whose book, while embedded with an underlying reactionary quality, admittedly reaches a more ambiguous conclusion on the meaning of Paul’s vigilante path, leaving the gunman free on the streets, so flush with power he’s now shooting simple unarmed car thieves, where in the film we end on the audience-rousing Bronson finger-point), certainly is right-wing fantasy material.

• Publisher: Donato Totaro
• Subject: Conscientious objectors / Motion pictures / Novellas / Winner, Michael