I agree with the article's description of driving as a means for freedom. My favorite thing about my car is the fact that I can get in it and just drive, which I do a lot. When the author mentioned that driving offers great power but the speeding laws limit that power, even though I knew it was true to begin with, seeing it written down made me really mad and I wanted to rebel by driving 90. If Kowalski's life hasn't been great, and he can only feel power behind the wheel, so why would he want to slow down, especially because the police, who ruined him, want him to? I'm not sure there really needed to be a reason for his speeding, for him as a person or for the plot of the movie,because going fast seems reason enough.
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Vanishing Point
This movie was very easy to watch. Throughout most of the movie, I found myself simply enjoying the driving and the music and the strange people in the dessert. Occasionally something would catch my attention, but for the most part I just went with the flow. At the end, just before Kowalski crashed into the barricade, I felt a strange tension but I didn't know what was about to happen until I saw fire. After about 5 seconds, everything about the movie had changed because I had to ask myself why he had done that. There was very little that could give me a clue, but the more I thought about it, the harder it was to come up with a reason. That led me to wonder why I couldn't answer the question and I realized that was probably the point. Throughout the movie the audience just watches the action, but for the most part it's pretty shallow. As moviegoers we are trained to find meaning behind almost anything in a film, but when the main character kills himself in such a spectacular way there should be SOME meaning or reason behind it. If we can't figure it out, does that mean that his life had no meaning or his death had no meaning? Someone in class said that his death was the only thing that made his life anything interesting/meaningful (or something to that effect), but how can a meaningless death (because he really hadn't done anything wrong so there was no reason for him to die in a police roadblock) give meaning to a life that was at best mediocre?
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I really enjoyed reading your thoughts on Kowalski’s death. I loved how you described his death as “spectacular.” Explosion scenes of fire really are spectacular and I think audiences like to see that. The way he dies seems to go back to the fact that Vanishing Point is an exploitation film.
ReplyDeleteI think his death has meaning because it is so “spectacular.” He went out with a fiery bang in front of on lookers at top speeds. Your right, his life was mediocre and the way he died gave it meaning because it was so fantastic. The means in which he dies gives his death, and life, meaning.
I too really liked how you called his death spectacular, because it truly was. This moment, right here, in the movie is what makes it a beautifully done exploitation movie:)Many of us were shocked by this ending as well as left to find meaning to why it had ended in this fashion.
ReplyDeleteHis death has meaning because the crash justified his life. Nothing else he ever did really mattered. Certainly not to the amount of his high speed chase he led on state to state. People will remember him not for his achievements in the war (which earned him a medal) but for the high speed chase that resulted in his "spectacular" fiery suicidal death.
The big fireball death is pretty typical for exploitation movies--it's the thing you watch the whole movie for, those big pointless adrenaline moments. But consider what we saw of America at the time, and how and why people reacted to Kowalski as they did. Consider also his own life and where it had led him.
ReplyDeleteThe reading takes off into some complexity after raising the point about driving for a sense of freedom. What's the difference between the freedom people feel while driving and the actual facts?