The Long Good Friday through the window darkly
Recently rewatching the 1980 crime masterpiece The Long Good Friday, I was struck not only by the catharsis of witnessing capitalist failure, but also the amount of looking through glass the director John Mackenzie employed throughout the film. A barrier between the viewer (sometimes us, sometimes characters in the film) of action as a metaphor for distorted understanding of reality. Let's explore several of my favorite... let's call them "action through glass"? scenes and dig into what is going on in each.
Before I begin, I want to share that I only saw this film for the first time a couple years ago and instantly felt betrayed I hadn’t heard of it sooner. Bob Hoskins steaming with brash, cocky confidence centers the film around his flailings, but its Helen Mirren that really gives it a soul. According to all the interviews and special features I poured over, it seems she fought to expand her character into a human being instead of a typical gangster's moll, and her presence elevates the film beyond its original intent.
Categorizing The Long Good Friday as a crime genre film is diminishing in a way, and its main core is an examination of the violence inherent in the capitalist system. Bob Hoskins as Harry Shands is so charming and scrappy in his brutal way, there is a dichotomy of rooting for him even while he’s being terrible. Real estate investment capitalism is an especially gnarly topic in the world of today, with rents too high to exist and house prices beyond the reach of most human beings, so that adds to the weight of the film for me.
I don’t know if you have this kind of time lying around, but if you haven’t seen it, jump in and come back. Put subtitles on if you have trouble with accents but between the performances and the practical special effects, it’s a worthy addition to your memory. At the very least, jump into the soundtrack by Francis Monkman, it is an all timer (I'd say check it out while reading this article/essay/thing and soak in the vibes).
Slow zoom on a country home in an unnamed idyllic countryside, we see the briefcase we’ve followed across a few quick cuts behind a cross barred window, stacks of money laid out on the table. Seeing but not hearing, we are completely disoriented. Just some guys we’ve never seen before messing with this briefcase and then a long gun smashes through the window, breaking our barrier but not really expanding our understanding. This quick little scene plants a seed that germinates through the entire movie, and it’s so brief, it might just wash over us and not stick as the film continues to roll.
Breaking the translucent barrier doesn’t immediately grant any additional understanding.
View from inside the fake pub constructed for the film to be blown up (which I heard from director John Mackenzie in the commentary track that people kept trying to come in and buy a pint and had to be shooed away), the cars roll toward their destination into explosion seen through the windshield.
Witnessing action through glass; a barrier, some safety, some distortion, potential for refraction, sound muffling, what does it mean? How involved are we with a piece of art we interact with? How many barriers do we encounter? The artist's vision, our own biases and indoctrination, personal taste and any number of additional factors we can stack up and deconstruct.
Thinking of the filming of The Long Good Friday in 1979, the year of the conservative takeover by Thatcher the Milk Snatcher (a name earned in the 1971 for spearheading the end of free milk for school children from ages 7 to 11) and burgeoning follow up in 1980 of Reagan in the USA, the dismantling and growing resentment of social services (enacted by people from behind the window of intense privilege) and rise of these governments clearing the way for developer and real estate investor windfalls that directly led to our subsequent climate of houselessness and wage stagnation that we can trace to today. They've stolen our world, now they run the place.
Beyond the possibilities of refractions, with light bending and distorting, reflections offer even more variables of perception. Capitalist worldview begins with the supposition that economic action based on self-interest will naturally increase prosperity of society as a whole. Even to believe this, what happens when two people's self-interest reflected against each other are in conflict? Or if information is withheld due to fear of consequences, who will suffer? Which direction are we headed in a reflection? Are all items inversed? The sky is below, the clouds are a blanket both angular and fluffy, a car heading right is facing left, British car with American orientation, layered reflections.
Washing the blood off, existential dread remains. The violence of the capitalist system explodes unexpectedly, even when witnessed by the most trained and cynical observer. A global effect of the fragility of masculinity, suppressed only in so far as profit can be gained, and even then, only paused. Ten years of hidden violence to keep everyone in line paused for the payoff. Every item we buy made with wages too low for workers to afford food and shelter while we shame them for needing the job and not making enough of themselves. They aren't exploiting the loopholes properly and acting in their own self-interest well enough.
Watching the demolition derby in the weirdly windowed box, separated and looking down. Layers of violence separated by a wall of windows, upper class and lower class, as above, so below. Can self-interest be stacked? Does it serve the community to develop land and charge astronomical prices for rent or mortgages that grind people into dust? Does the self-interest of the investment money made from such an endeavor improve society given what a majority of humans can afford?
These questions do stack, and a certain point of view will see only success and failure. Success as measured by investment dividend payout, failure as measured by reliance on social services. These terms serve so few, we feel catharsis when we witness bills coming due and being collected on a worldview based on conservative capitalist stacked deck exploitation politics, even when the central figures are oozing with charisma and a death cult part of our brains is rooting for them.
