Walker (Cox, 1987): BFI Southbank, NFT1, 3.10pm
This screening, with an introduction by Alex Cox is part of the great Moviedrome: Bringing the Cult TV Series to the Big Screen season. Another screening of Walker takes place on July 29th.Chicago Reader review:
Like Alex Cox’s previous films (Repo Man, Sid & Nancy),
this delirious 1987 fantasy about William Walker, the American who
ruled Nicaragua from 1855 to 1857, is all over the place and excessive,
but as a radical statement about the U.S.’s involvement in that country
it packs a very welcome wallop. The witty screenplay is by novelist Rudy
Wurlitzer (Nog, Slow Fade), whose previous screenwriting forays included Two-Lane Blacktop and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid; Ed Harris plays the crazed Walker, Marlee Matlin (Children of a Lesser God)
is his deaf-mute fiancee, and Peter Boyle is Cornelius Vanderbilt.
Deliberate and surreal anachronisms plant the action in a historical
version of the present, and David Bridges’s cinematography, combined
with a liberal use of slow motion, creates a lyrical depiction of
carnage and devastation. Significantly, most of the film was shot in
Nicaragua, with the cooperation and advice (but without the veto power)
of the Sandinista government, and Edward R. Pressman—whose previous
credits include Badlands and True Stories—was executive
producer. One can certainly quarrel with some aspects of the film’s
treatment of history, but with political cowardice in commercial
filmmaking so prevalent, one can only admire this movie’s gusto in
calling a spade a spade, and the exhilaration of its anger and wit.
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Here (and above) is the trailer.
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