“Ontology! I’m just
telling you a story
about this projector, that’s all.”
telling you a story
about this projector, that’s all.”
Edward Dorn, Gunslinger, Book II
Gun Crazy (Joseph Lewis, 1950)
Another case of Godard getting
it right. Perhaps all you really do
need is a girl and a gun. Plus thirty
days and a black-listed ghost, star-
crossed by mutual obsession. Soak
and stir in delirious metaphor: trick-
shooter, gun stealer, carnival contest
winner, to prove whose is bigger, if
not best. Sleazily slipping on silk
stockings, threatening to walk if her
boyfriend isn't with the programme,
ready to swim in her hapless pit of
anxiety. Together seeking redemption
in a one-shot heist, from, not in,
the back. Why show the teenage
robbery- with ghost-laden precision-
when you can depict trembling smirks,
gazing into the past, while making
plans to finagle the future. Adrenalin
pumping gaggles of personas: tight
sweater, cowboy gear, beret, like
shapes of things to come, breathless,
amidst soiled prurience: quote “Your
cock has never been...a female dog
in heat." Perhaps that's just stating
an obvious ellipsis. Better, if possible,
to scam the studio, Das Capital in
their pockets and Fuck you, League
of Decency on their backs.
anxiety. Together seeking redemption
in a one-shot heist, from, not in,
the back. Why show the teenage
robbery- with ghost-laden precision-
when you can depict trembling smirks,
gazing into the past, while making
plans to finagle the future. Adrenalin
pumping gaggles of personas: tight
sweater, cowboy gear, beret, like
shapes of things to come, breathless,
amidst soiled prurience: quote “Your
cock has never been...a female dog
in heat." Perhaps that's just stating
an obvious ellipsis. Better, if possible,
to scam the studio, Das Capital in
their pockets and Fuck you, League
of Decency on their backs.
The Hitch-Hiker (Ida Lupino, 1953)
Fear of the other, past and
present. From picket-fence
and fishing trips to inflagrante
hitch-hikers with psychotic
tendencies. Is that tough love,
or, if pushed, simply physical
deformity- the hitcher's drooping
eye which, like Pinkerton's,
never closes. Breaking in this
new smog of paranoia, dragging
those hostages all the way to
Baja, tortured by a survival-of-
the-fittest spiel and the irksome
inadequacies of everyday life.
Like sharecropping desolation
row. If you don't believe me,
check the map: Lone Pine, not
far from the source of L.A.'s
water. Manzanar, where other
others were interned. Ida,
geographically sussed, riffing and fishing trips to inflagrante
hitch-hikers with psychotic
tendencies. Is that tough love,
or, if pushed, simply physical
deformity- the hitcher's drooping
eye which, like Pinkerton's,
never closes. Breaking in this
new smog of paranoia, dragging
those hostages all the way to
Baja, tortured by a survival-of-
the-fittest spiel and the irksome
inadequacies of everyday life.
Like sharecropping desolation
row. If you don't believe me,
check the map: Lone Pine, not
far from the source of L.A.'s
water. Manzanar, where other
others were interned. Ida,
on the dangers of an outstretched
thumb and proverbial obsession:
a stranger asking for help could
be a killer, a commie, or, worse,
a commie killer. But when have
non-drivers not been suspect?
Like paying in cash, thumbing
is a state of mind lacking in
negotiable currency. And Ida,
air-brushed, herself a hostage,
stuck in another kind of desert,
released for a price only after the
world had all but passed her by.
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