Film: Tough Guys

Westerns, cops and robbers, war flicks— these, foremost not alone among movie categories, deal to a large extent with celluloid images of maleness. Men make movies, women rarely; men write, direct and produce films. And men run our society. As both women’s and gay lib have rather energetically insisted, our culture’s answer to the question What Is Masculinity? is usually tied up with an imposed duality of toughness and insensitivity. Since cinema reflects and also alters society, that film myth of masculinity is of some importance.

All this by way of introducing three films touching heavily on the male image. From Canada comes The Rowdyman, winningly exploring the depressing lot of Will (Gordon Pinsent, who also directed), a chap able to relate tenderly to a dying old man, in a mock-tough way to his best friend whom he later accidentally kills, but hardly at all, except in bed, to girls. I fear for Rowdyman’s chances beyond Boston where it has just premiered. Not because it’s poor; it is in fact superb. But this film is utterly lacking in titillating nudity (or any, for that matter, except Frank Converse’s chest—he’s Will’s buddy), entirely consumed by probing the reality of loneliness beneath tough-guy Will’s jovial have-a-tumble crust. Rowdyman offers little except what movies ideally should but rarely do: tremendous acting, including Will Geer as the dying man, and Linda Goranson as a girl Will could have loved, had he tried; expert photography; intelligent writing; and the solidity of a wholly convincing locale, here Newfoundland both plain and fancy.

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David Brudnoy

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Westerns, cops and robbers, war flicks— these, foremost not alone among movie categories, deal to a large extent with celluloid images of maleness. Men make movies, women rarely; men write, direct and produce films. And men run our society. As both women’s and gay lib have rather energetically insisted, our culture’s answer to the question What Is Masculinity? is usually tied up with an imposed duality of toughness and insensitivity. Since cinema reflects and also alters society, that film myth of masculinity is of some importance.

All this by way of introducing three films touching heavily on the male image. From Canada comes The Rowdyman, winningly exploring the depressing lot of Will (Gordon Pinsent, who also directed), a chap able to relate tenderly to a dying old man, in a mock-tough way to his best friend whom he later accidentally kills, but hardly at all, except in bed, to girls. I fear for Rowdyman’s chances beyond Boston where it has just premiered. Not because it’s poor; it is in fact superb. But this film is utterly lacking in titillating nudity (or any, for that matter, except Frank Converse’s chest—he’s Will’s buddy), entirely consumed by probing the reality of loneliness beneath tough-guy Will’s jovial have-a-tumble crust. Rowdyman offers little except what movies ideally should but rarely do: tremendous acting, including Will Geer as the dying man, and Linda Goranson as a girl Will could have loved, had he tried; expert photography; intelligent writing; and the solidity of a wholly convincing locale, here Newfoundland both plain and fancy.