‘I don’t drink. You know, the routine grind drives me to drink. Tragedy, I take straight…’
When people describe ’70s cinema as dull, what they mean is that there is less plot and more character development. Appreciating this style of cinema doesn’t make someone more of a cinephile, but it does take some getting used to. It took me about a decade of sitting through all the classics of the ‘decade’70s to finally pick up what most of the films in that decade were putting down. Cutter’s Way, perhaps the most prominent American film from noted Czech director Ivan Passer, is a great example of this. While the plot does amble into view from time to time, this film is much more interested in its characters than its narrative…
Vietnam veteran Alex Cutter (John Heard) and laid-back playboy Richard Bone (Jeff Bridges) become embroiled in a murder plot when the latter witnesses a murdered body being dumped in a garbage can. That’s pretty much it.
While this is very much Heard’s film, his manic performance is both unconventional and mesmeric; film fans will no doubt enjoy Bridges delivering the prototype version of his performance in The Big Lebowski. Passer’s film was clearly a huge influence on the Coen brothers’ classic and the seeds for The Dude were surely planted with Bridges’ languid and likeable performance here.
Acting and cinematography can only take you so far, however, and while Cutter’s Way has that incredible ’70s aesthetic, low lighting and muted colours in a kind of neo-noir style, the lack of a coherent narrative does eventually harm the film. That being said, this may be the kind of film that requires multiple viewings to really appreciate; the dialogue is certainly verbose enough to lend itself to a rewatch, and Jack Nitzsche’s score is excellent also.
Despite being released in 1981, this film is 100% ‘of’ the ’70s in its aesthetic and its sensibility. Lebowski heads (such as my good self) should definitely check it out.
