Sunday, 30 April
Atomic Café Cinema: Tracks
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Doors open at 20.30. Film starts at 21.00. TRACKS, 1977. Directed by Henry Jaglom. 92 minutes. In English with English subtitles
Between 1971 and his return with Apocalypse Now in 1979, the wild-man actor Dennis Hopper was basically thrown out of Hollywood. Why? Because he wouldn't follow the rules. As he put it "I don't think it's a big secret that I have a hard-on for renegades. I just love people who go in and upset the apple cart." Since he was considered persona non grata, during this period he went into exile here in Europe Europe and made a few films in Germany and France. The only ones who would work with him in his homeland were totally off-beat no-budget alternative directors. This is a weird period of his career, and many of these films have a beautifully edgy quality. They are more surreal somehow, they feel like twilight films, almost apocalyptic.
Here is a forgotten movie from that twilight-zone period. It splits audiences like crazy... some feel it's a hallucinogenic masterpiece that catches the mood of post-Vietnam war America perfectly. Others find it too off the map, too odd-ball. But what both its detractors and supporters agree on is the fantastic performance of Dennis Hopper, giving one of the best of his career.
In Tracks, Hopper plays a traumatized Vietnam war veteran who is on assignment, escorting a soldier's coffin back to his hometown in California for burial. The film mostly takes place on a train as it travels across the great American countryside, and it slowly becomes a deranged journey as our main character becomes unhinged. The movie throws you into a dreamstate, where you have no idea what is real and what isn't any longer. Besides Hopper, the film also boasts a brilliant performance by Dean Stockwell (the two would later work together in Lynch's Blue Velvet). Stockwell's role is haunting in this movie. Hopper described Stockwell as "another of these good looking kids who got sick of playing by Hollywood's rules."
So this is a movie made by rebels... Hopper, Stockwell and director Henry Jaglom. The entire movie was made without permits, stealing as many shots as possible before the guards would throw them off the train. They would get on the next train and continue. I should also mention Taryn Power as the young woman falling in love with a troubled soldier... she is a great actress, but somehow was never taken seriously by the industry. Denis Hopper himself felt that Tracks was the most important of all his "underrated gems."
Here's the Vonderbunker campaign again, and here's their program.
Date & Time:
Category:
- film
Price:
- free