Hardcore (1979)
Directed by Paul Schrader
A conservative Midwest businessman ventures into the sordid underworld of pornography in search of his runaway teenage daughter who’s making hardcore films in the pits of Los Angeles.
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What critics compared Hardcore to
“X” is threaded with blithe references to key films — a car in a swamp like the one in “Psycho,” an ax through a door like the one that kicks off Jack Nicholson’s rampage in “The Shining,” an alligator borrowed from “Alligator” (ingeniously shot from high above in one jittery sequence), an ending that nods to the premise of Paul Schrader’s “Hardcore” (which came out in 1979).
While X points most overtly to the slasher classic The Texas Chain Saw Massacre – along with sly references to everything from The Shining to Paul Schrader’s Hardcore – what West offers up is more winking tribute than carbon copy.
…or Paul Schrader’s Hardcore…
George C. Scott’s 1979 “Hardcore” is a major influence here as well.
…pays tribute to Cruising and Hardcore…
However, the mysterious atmosphere feels tonally indebted to crime thrillers such as Roman Polanski’s Chinatown and Paul Schrader’s Hardcore (1979).
…though with an ironised hint of Paul Schrader’s Hardcore from 1979…
West, a talented, ideas-driven film-maker, makes merry with contemporaneous tropes, yet falls well short of the substance or sleaze that defined Cruising, Hardcore, or the other films referenced throughout.
Moving from the theme of vigilante dad ( Death Wish) , to the strategies of slave traders who traffic girls into prostitution on Internet auctions ( Trade ), to the tragic spectacle of a scrupulous outsider who slides down the sinkhole of an alternate underworld universe of crime, decadence and perversion (Paul Schrader’s Hardcore ), this hack job has not a shred of originality.
In the propulsively outlandish thriller Taken (it's like Paul Schrader's 1979 Hardcore with no brain and more muscle), Liam Neeson plays a retired CIA agent out to find his daughter, who has been abducted by an Albanian sex trafficker.
Neeson's readiness for worst-case scenariosand screenwriters Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen's proficiency in queuing them upfuels the high-octane lunacy of Taken, which is a little like Paul Schrader's Hardcore retooled as a Steven Seagal vehicle.
Take the Parisian American kidnapping plot of Roman Polanski's "Frantic" and cross with the father-spiralling-into-the repulsive-world-of-the-porn-industry of Paul Schrader's "Hardcore" then add a dash of "Bodyguard" and Luc Besson's penchant for carrying things way over the top and you've got "Taken," a film that impresses if for nothing else but the way it compelling turns the fifty-six Liam Neeson into an action star.
The collision of sex trafficking and politics spells do-or-die stakes for all involved, and Joe’s maddening underworld descent into the very worst of human nature, where violence is the only language that matters, recalls Paul Schrader’s scripts for Taxi Driver and Hardcore.
An angry recluse intent on rescuing a preyed-upon girl from the bowels of sexual-exploitation Manhattan hell—it’s a traditional set-up, part Scorsese’s aforementioned 1976 classic, part Paul Schrader’s 1979 descent-into-porno-depravity, Hardcore.
Each gets a George C. Scott "Hardcore " moment of tearful teeth-gnashing at what's become of their daughter but also, refreshingly, at their role in her desperate spiral.
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Basato su un corto dello stesso regista dal titolo The Dirk Diggler Story (1988), Boogie Nights è un film sul mondo della pornografia anni ’70 negli Stati Uniti, vista come mezzo di guadagni milionari per pochi e di sfruttamento di corpi maschili e femminili usa-e-getta : in questo Anderson, autore anche del soggetto, sembra volersi richiamare ai toni di Hardcore di Schrader, delineando non tanto il clima orgiastico e festaiolo in cui quel cinema veniva prodotto, quanto le successive reazioni della società, le conseguenze della normalizzazione di quelle produzioni e le discriminazioni vissute da quegli attori.
In Cat People as in his previous two movies, Hardcore and American Gigolo, director Paul Schrader explores the intricate textures of desire and the interplay between eros and animality.
After the screenplays for Taxi Driver and Raging Bull and his brilliant early work which includes Blue Collar, Hardcore and American Gigolo , Cat People was a misstep and he would not direct another decent film until Affliction in 1997.
His work so far includes The Yakuza (A Japanese style gangster film), Taxi Driver (a grim portrait of an alienated individual), Obsession (a psychological thriller), and Blue Collar (a realistic portrait of some disaffected workers who revolt against their condition).
Schrader tackled Middle American dilemmas with eloquence in the radical Blue Collar, and he had touched on incest and child sexuality in scripts like Obsession and Taxi Driver.