Chekhov's Mistress
I thought I was the only one who liked The Warriors
I’ve lived in New York City for 11 years now, but like many, my conception of the naked city was formed by film long before I ever stepped foot here. The Warriors is one of my favorite movies that I still talk about but haven’t seen in over 20 years; it’s dark imagery and odd characters (actually only a few were truly memorable, the rest were dressing) and otherworldness stick in your brain. But honestly, I didn’t know anyone else really cared about it until I saw this notice in the New York Times:
The Warriors: Ultimate Director’s Cut
Walter Hill’s 1979 film, an updating of Xenophon’s “Anabasis,” follows members of a Coney Island gang as they battle their way from the Bronx back to their home turf. The movie has become a canonical text for the hip-hop movement, is frequently quoted in lyrics and is faithfully imitated in stage demeanors. Its continuing notoriety has given Mr. Hill the chance to create a new version of “The Warriors” for its second DVD release, but rather than making any major alterations in this “Ultimate Director’s Cut,” Mr. Hill has contented himself with inserting some new transitions – frames that freeze into comic book images, with dialogue balloons and explanatory captions. The effect is to emphasize the film’s stylized approach and to underline its connections to classical literature – in other words, to back off from the violent immediacy that was blamed for a handful of gang incidents in theaters during the film’s first engagement.
It’s an admirable humanistic gesture, but it does distract from the dark, ravishing beauty of Mr. Hill’s hallucination of New York City in the down-and-out 70’s. In “The Warriors,” subway cars are still thick with graffiti, parks are deserted except for potential muggers and undercover cops, and the streets are eerily empty, all honest folk presumably cowering at home in bed. One of the movie’s many balletic set pieces takes place in the Union Square subway station, well before its transformation into a shiny white public art project, and while you’d have to be crazy to want to return to that dismal, dangerous New York City, it sure does look seductive on film. Paramount Home Entertainment, $19.99, R.
I’m looking forward to seeing it again, now that I have my own experience of the newer, more Nora Ephronesque New York City.
D.J.: Be lookin’ good, Warriors. All the way back to Coney. You hear me babies? Good.
comments
Same here. I loved that movie--it was seductive in its own 70’s way.
– Stuart Greenhouse (10/11 at 11:31 PM)
Yeah, Stuart, I really love 70s movies. We’ve been revisiting some of them lately -thanks to Netflix - only confirming their value.
– Bud (10/12 at 09:43 AM)
Richard Price is one of the best writers around. The Warriors, Clockers, you name it.
– David Thayer (10/13 at 09:36 AM)
Page 1 of 1 pages of comments
Creative Commons License Deed Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported
You are free:
- to Share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work
-
Attribution. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).
-
No Derivative Works. You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work.
- For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work. The best way to do this is with a link to this web page.
- Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder.
- Nothing in this license impairs or restricts the author's moral rights.
This is a human-readable summary of the Legal Code (the full license):
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/legalcode
This site employs rank-denial and other anti-spam measures.
Your link here will do nothing for your rankings or traffic. Off-topic comments will be deleted.
Previous entry: “Gee, have you heard of that great new novel, Specimen Days?”
