The Best Old Movies on a Big Screen This Week: NYC Repertory Cinema Picks, May 10-16
Point Blank (1967)
Directed by John Boorman
Along with Andrew Sarris translating auteurism in 1962, a foundational moment in reshaping American cinematic identity came in 1967 when English director Boorman came to the states with a Donald Westlake novel in his suitcase. Boorman practically surfed in on British New Wave grammar, Jimmy Page with a steenbeck, and he brought noir out of shadow and into splashy pristine colours. He had Lee Marvin, a former sideman carved into a ramrod, put six bullets through the comfort of the movie-watching experience, practically shot up the movie screen, and the edit released his demons in slow-motion dreams and Godard-riff flashbacks. Boorman launched him across time, his progress, heavy footfall on the soundtrack, as he cuts a wave of destruction across San Francisco looking for satisfaction. Point Blank illustrated just how close we could come to screen violence, how alive a city could look as an action hero spread death across it like a plague. Scout Tafoya (May 12, 7pm at the Museum of the Moving Image’s Westlake series; followed by a panel discussion)