It's impossible to imagine a film like Night Moves being made today. With an ending as bleak as that, with the female lead decapitated(!) and the hero both figuratively and literally adrift, today's producers would confiscate the film, recut it and reshoot it so that in the inevitable sequel Harry Moseby would have to "avenge" her death by going after the "real" killers and at movie's end, "find happiness", all to a wildly-praised Hans Zimmer drone. It is to puke.
Not to congratulate myself or anything, but man oh man do I have the cynical S.O.B. "thing" down pat!
You have to love how Gene Hackman's characters in both Night Moves and the previous year's The Conversation, despite being likable fellows thanks to Hackman's charisma, go from one cock-up to another as they set about doing their detecting. Yay to 1970s realistic & mature cinema - even in genre movies.
And listen to director Arthur Penn, from the featurette on the DVD, delineate Hackman's Harry Moseby's limitations: "That's why we used the detective form. No matter how smart or how all-knowing the detective may be, he only deduces up to a point and then life is a far better detective than he is and comes up with many more inventions than he has still to wrestle with - in this case his own life."
Still no word on the recovery of Small's original soundtrack recording?
And listen to director Arthur Penn, from the featurette on the DVD, delineate Hackman's Harry Moseby's limitations: "That's why we used the detective form. No matter how smart or how all-knowing the detective may be, he only deduces up to a point and then life is a far better detective than he is and comes up with many more inventions than he has still to wrestle with - in this case his own life."
Still no word on the recovery of Small's original soundtrack recording?
None, although that statement was made by Lukas in 2007.
It's impossible to imagine a film like Night Moves being made today. With an ending as bleak as that, with the female lead decapitated(!) and the hero both figuratively and literally adrift, today's producers would confiscate the film, recut it and reshoot it so that in the inevitable sequel Harry Moseby would have to "avenge" her death by going after the "real" killers and at movie's end, "find happiness", all to a wildly-praised Hans Zimmer drone. It is to puke.
Not to congratulate myself or anything, but man oh man do I have the cynical S.O.B. "thing" down pat!
