Wider Screenings film review - Year of the Gun (1991: d. John Frankenheimer)

FILM FACTS

* The film's release was overshadowed by star Sharon Stone's contemporaneous sexy thriller Basic Instinct.

* Andrew McCarthy was far from the first choice - indeed, he was suggested when a number of preferred actors proved unavailable. Director Frankenheimer was initially unhappy with the casting of the leading man but in the end felt that mcCarthy did an admirable job, though conceding that much of the film's spark was due to Stone's professionalism.

* Grossing only $US1.18 million, the film was written off as another of the director's failed attempts to revive his flagging career.

CRITICAL RESPONSES

"Will the Italian politics in 'Year of the Gun' interest American audiences? In recent years moviegoers have seemed to develop a stubborn indifference to thriller plots that make them think. They prefer action and special effects. Frankenheimer's approach to this dilemma is to make Raybourne as much of an outsider as anyone in the audience. He's just a guy trying to make a buck writing a book. Too bad it's the wrong book."
(Ebert, R. [1991]. "Year of the Gun". Chicago Sun-Times. Nov. 1st, 1991. retrieved on 7/12/2011 from HERE)

"If you want to make a serious movie, why place a lightweight with such limited gifts at its center? McCarthy is the most insipid of the "St. Elmo's Fire" bunch, and watching him try to play a grown-up here is like watching a 3-year-old clomp around in Daddy's size 11s. There's nothing specific in McCarthy's acting, just a generalized atmosphere of pretension and spoiled depression."
(Hinson, H. [1991]. "Year of the Gun". Washington Post. Nov. 1st 1991. retrieved on 7/12/2011 from HERE)

"The story of 'Year of the Gun' unfolds briskly and methodically against this vibrant backdrop, which is as it should be from Mr. Frankenheimer, whose forte has always been the political thriller... But this film's casting problems work against the authenticity of its larger atmosphere and do a lot to trivialize the material. The smoothly unctuous Mr. McCarthy is never convincing or sympathetic as the rakish, much-in-demand American writer whose activities eventually stir the Red Brigades into a frenzy."
(Maslin, J. [1991]. "Year of the Gun". New York Times. Nov. 1st, 1991. retrieved on 7/12/2011 from HERE)

ADDITIONAL READING

YEAR OF THE GUN (1991)
d. John Frankenheimer; pr. Edward R. Pressman; scr. David Ambrose; novel. Michael Mewshaw; ph. Blasco Giurato; m. Bill Conti, Robert J. Walsh; ed. Lee Percy; cast. Andrew McCarthy, Sharon Stone, Valeria Golino, John Pankow (111 mins)
(updated 25-Dec-2011 0:26 AM )

His 1977 film of Black Sunday in particular marked the commencement of terrorist themes in American film. However, in the 1980s his career had hit something of a low-point. Despite attempts to rebound, his films failed to ignite either the critics or the public and barely even managed to secure proper distribution. Such was also the case with his return to terrorist themed subject matter in Year of the Gun, based on the semi-autobiographical novel by former Newsweek correspondent Michael Mewshaw, set amidst the political turmoil in Italy in the 1970s. About the operations of the so-called Red Brigades whose terrorism climaxed in the kidnapping and murder of Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro, it tackled a seminal event in recent Italian history. The Red Brigades were a group who felt Italy was headed in a horrible direction: their voice of protest against what they considered social inequality and widespread political corruption found support amongst students, but the protests soon escalated into violent armed robbery and finally outright terrorism. Provocative in context, the film sought to explore, through the eyes of visiting Americans, the interplay between reality and fiction in terms of the proper representation of, and reaction to, such terrorism. However, the film’s poor box-office saw the director return to television to rejuvenate his career.

In Year of the Gun, former Brat-Pack actor Andrew McCarthy plays an American writer arriving in Rome to rekindle his lost love (Valeria Golina) and possibly resume his position as unofficial freelance reporter for an American based newspaper.

He also continues his friendship with an Italian professor (John Pankow) who seems almost sympathetic to the local student movements which have grown in favor of the Red Brigades, whose terrorism is the topic of the moment and has led the country towards a dangerously anarchic edge. McCarthy decides to write a novel based on these terrorist operations and for reference uses the names of real people. The novel concerns a plot to kidnap politician Aldo Moro. Soon the smug writer meets an intrepid American photo-journalist (Sharon Stone) who believes that he is hiding something. The two of them develop a sexual attraction and soon Stone discovers McCarthy’s manuscript. She believes that it is fact, despite McCarthy’s denials, and wants to supply pictures for the future terrorist bestseller. Trying to extract information, she tells this to Pankow, who is now also worried that McCarthy may know more than he lets on. Soon the Red Brigades themselves hear of the novel and kidnap McCarthy and Stone for interrogation – they also begin targeted killings of the people mentioned in the manuscript: now McCarthy believes he has stumbled onto something.

The kidnapping of Aldo Moro is incidental to the main thrust of this story, which is primarily concerned with the interplay between reality and fiction. Replete with levels of deception and betrayal, it depicts an unstable world and emphasizes terrorism as an anarchic social catalyst.

Yet McCarthy remains a smug, naïve dupe through much of it; a weak man – somewhat self-deluded, he must always live in reaction to events beyond his control. He is awkward, despite his intellectual remove and his over-confidence. His novel, a blending of the real and the fictional, is thus seen as rather irresponsible – the kind of perspective possible when non-committed journalism becomes something approaching selfish political opportunism. But for Frankenheimer, such is the almost necessary process of fictional representations inspired by actual events, and his film addresses precisely that point where fact and fiction have still so much in common that they are in the minds of many people – terrorists in this instance – inseparable, and thus able to set new chains of events in motion. It is a film fully aware of the layers of media representation of “the truth” in terms of the response to terrorist activity, a responsibility that McCarthy exploits, must be punished for, yet finally profits from. Even if it does provide him with a defiant gesture, the film is arguably structured according to the ultimately ironic course of the protagonist’s self-aware pride.

There is little analysis of the terrorists’ motives, the film instead seeking to explore their function as a kind of precipitating factor around which the various machines of fact and fiction congregate.

In its mixture of these discourses, the film is, especially in its latter two acts, quite tantalizing and provocative, an exploration of the responsibilities that people have to face when dealing with objective fact from within a personal frame of reference – is objective reportage even possible or is there always some element of self-aggrandizement (as the film seems cynically to move towards)? When does fact become speculative fiction? And can this in turn affect history? Stone’s character reveals the almost addictive thrill of danger found in the outré realms of journalism: both she and McCarthy profit personally and professionally from terrorism, arguably exploiting it. Yet although the director is almost willing to concede that terrorism may have originated in social upheaval, he insists on revealing the terrorist leaders as caught up in their own self-importance – indeed, this seems to be the curse of all the characters, the reason for the lack of meaningful trust in their relationships. Terrorism thus offers potency, in support or opposition, although by the time McCarthy makes a stand against the betrayal around him, it is too late for his redemption, the film coming to a very cynical, downbeat and complex conclusion.

The visual transfer on this DVD is a middling disappointment. To begin with, it is released in 4:3 fullscreen only: the cover says a ratio of 1.66:1 but this is not only incorrect, it is not even apparently the film’s actual release ratio.

It is also an oily transfer, with flesh tones out of proportion to the otherwise bold color design: indeed, it often seems garish and unstable. Frankenheimer’s style has always been a fascinating fusion of grotesque distortion and documentary authenticity (which can be hard to adjust too) and here perfectly matches the theme – his wide angles and looming close ups are still present and the Steadicam work was much remarked on. In color, camerawork and location, the film achieves an almost coldly fevered sense of reality. Locations become an overwhelming presence, especially in the chase scenes towards the end. The film is sleek and glossy, but is rather undermined by a murky, indistinct, greasy transfer which is little better than higher grade video. The director’s fascination with frames within frames and television screens is evident, paramount in the concluding scene’s motifs of separateness and proximity. The riot scenes are convincing in their view of social anarchy and the suddenness of the violence makes it quite effective. McCarthy’s final (and futile?) moment of action is well prolonged, even abstracted, in slow motion. The sense of stylized authenticity runs throughout the film.

The sound transfer on this DVD is an effective two channel Dolby surround, at its fullest with crowd scenes and an unusual score.

Quieter scenes work well although there is a fine sense of living in a world of danger – of unseen explosions of terrorist bombs. Indeed, the idea of an off-screen chaos occasionally coming into clearer focus for the characters (and viewers) is well achieved in sound and vision, making for an unstable and untrustworthy world of impending anarchy. The mix is quite adept at fleshing out this background activity with the main voices dominant and mostly centered. Sound distortion adds to the resonance of McCarthy’s defiant slow-motion charge, so as to make the gesture potentially cathartic – the point where the timid McCarthy mounts enough outrage to act unhesitatingly. There is a nice street ambience, but the score tends to over-emphasize the more dramatic moments, a constant but perhaps appropriate reminder of dramatic artifice in a highly self-reflexive film. Individual locations have distinct aural presences (from the solace of McCarthy’s room, where he is free to think – which we hear in voice-over – to the echoing corridors of the American newspaper building) and directional effects can seem odd and disconcerting. The intrusion of television broadcasts and long scenes in un-translated Italian all contribute to the important condition of bewilderment.

By way of special features, there are trailers for Year of the Gun as well as two other Sharon Stone films, The Quick and the Dead and Gloria. The DVD cover lists production notes under special features, but no such notes were found on the disc used for review – however, there are informative general notes elaborating on Italy, Moro and the Red Brigades on the fold-out booklet provided with the DVD. As mentioned, the back cover indicates a widescreen 1.66:1 transfer, which this isn’t.

At time of writing, the film has been released on r4 in a widescreen transfer and it seems that this may be the better version for collectors: at time of writing, however, this release is now OOP.

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