Secondhand Seventies

Sometimes my reading and viewing choices form unpremeditated themes. This week three in a row evoked “life in the 70s.”

The 1970s were my favorite decade: I don’t mean in the history of the world, but just in the portion of it (starting in the 1950s) through which I personally lived. Partly that has to do with my own age (17 to 27) at the time. If that isn’t a vital time of life you are either very unfortunate or doing something wrong. But there was more: the 70s really were unlike any other decade. The sexual and cultural revolutions of the 60s went mainstream in the 1970s without the PC constraints of the 2010s. (As minor examples, it’s hard to imagine Blazing Saddles or even Animal House being greenlighted today; for a thorough account of the decade's mores, see Thy Neighbor's Wife by Gay Talese.) The Baby Boomers, all of whom spent at least some of their teens or 20s in the decade, by weight of numbers dominated the popular culture like no generation before or since. (The Millennials slightly outnumber Boomers in 2018, but they are a much smaller percentage of the total population than Boomers were 40 years ago.) Such youthful abundance ramped up the already hedonistic zeitgeist to a degree hard to believe to anyone who didn’t experience it.

First up was a short story collection by Ian McEwan, which actually dates to the 1970s. Not so the two movies that followed; they were released in 2016, but both are set in the 1970s. I think the common decade in all three was a coincidence, though it’s possible some unconscious selectivity on my part was at work. As that may be, together they synced nicely. Quick reviews are below. By the way, two short stories of my own set in the 1970s, one fiction and one nonfiction, can be found at my Richard’s Mirror site: Brown Acid and The Roxy Caution.

First Love, Last Rites by Ian McKewan

Ian McKewan is a superb British writer who creates detailed characters and images in finely crafted sentences. Those characters and images can be pretty dark, however, and never more so than in this early collection from 1975. There are tales of adolescent incest, murder, betrayal, an aunt’s theatrical perversity with her young nephew, and an infantilized man who sleeps in a cupboard. McKewan humanizes his characters – even the most criminal – in a way reminiscent of Nabokov. This differs from the modern tendency to demonize those guilty of wrong-think along with those who fail to join in the demonization for being “part of the problem.” In truth, though, such darknesses are, quite naturally, in all of us (even if we don’t act on them), which is precisely why McKewan’s stories are so disturbing.

All but one of the short stories were new to me. I recognized the exception as one I had read in the 1970s, but I don’t remember in what publication. It is a clever and darkly humorous tale that (alone of the bunch) verges on science fiction: “Solid Geometry” in which a mathematician discovers how to fold an object (including potentially a person) out of 3D space.

Recommended.

**** ****

The Nice Guys (2016)

Despite the presence of Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe, this neo-noir comedy didn’t make much of a ripple when it was projected on screens in 2016. It should have. In decadent and tawdry 1977 Los Angeles private detective Holland March (Gosling) and enforcer-for-hire Jackson Healy (Crowe) are allied on the same case. Amelia, who objects to being called a porn actress for her work in politically significant porn, is missing. People connected to her and her last movie are dying. The reason involves corruption involving auto companies and government officials including Judith Kuttner (Kim Bassinger), chief of the California Department of Justice, who happens to be Amelia's mother.

The movie, directed by Shane Black (screenwriter of much straight-up noir including Lethal Weapon and The Long Kiss Goodnight), hits the right notes of action, humor, and camaraderie. It also catches the feel of the ‘70s (at once shiny and seedy) accurately enough to ignite the nostalgia evident in my intro to these reviews.

Thumbs Up.

**** ****

Free Fire (2016)

Once again we are in the disco decade: 1978 this time. One reason, quite aside from atmosphere, is that cell phones would disrupt the whole plot: a significant portion of the action involves attempts to get to a land line in order to call for backup. The primary reason, though, is the atmosphere, coming through in speech, style, and attitude. Free Fire does indeed have the look of a 70s action film minus all the usual plot and character development between the episodes of violence. Director Ben Wheatley doesn’t make the audience wait long for the gunfire to begin, and that is the rest of the movie.

The set-up: Twelve men and one woman (Brie Larson) meet at night in an empty warehouse near Boston for the sale of assault rifles to the IRA. Unfortunately, a few of the people involved on opposite sides of the trade know each other, are hot-headed, and have unresolved issues. For reasons completely unrelated to the actual trade, tempers flare and shots are fired. From that point there is no going back, and for the next hour and a half the shootout continues. Everyone is a lousy shot. So, despite the intensity of the action, wounds accumulate slowly and fatalities are long in coming. There actually are some character revelations in the midst of all this and, against all odds, a degree of offbeat humor. Who, if anyone, will survive to walk out with the money and/or guns is the question to be resolved at the end.

Thumbs warily Up: Definitely not for everyone, but it keeps the viewer’s attention more than one might imagine. At least this one didn’t make me nostalgic.

**** ****

What unplanned themes will emerge from future reads and views? I don’t think it will be the 80s – not quite yet anyway.

Trailer: The Nice Guys (2016)