Ep4: Podcast
It was
supposed to be a new dawn, but the sun was taking its time to emerge from the
presidential orifice. So, in 1984, the 40th POTUS, Ronald Reagan,
declared that, if re-elected, it would be ‘Morning in America Again’. A former
Hollywood actor turned politician, Reagan bombarded the airwaves with his
version of the good news. He seduced the electorate with promises of prosperity,
stability, jobs and economic growth. Sound familiar? Reagan’s ‘back to the 50s’
pitch for a second term was whiter than white— his most famous campaign ad
featured a white wedding, white picket fences, the white house itself and lots
of white people raising the red, white and blue. Meanwhile the post-industrial
Badlands of LA were awash with disenfranchised blacks, Latinos and other
members of the working poor who were waiting for the promised trickle-down
wealth that never came. Discontented punks, many the children of the Boomer
generation, were pissed off with their parent’s hypocrisy, bland consumer
culture and Reagan’s empty promises. Repo
Man records this moment in American history with Punk attitude. So, in this
episode we’re taking a metaphorical ride back to the future in a Malibu Chevy
and the world of Repo Man.
Glenn
"Repo Man was based on the activities of Mark Lewis, friend
and roommate of the Edge City actor Ed Pansullo. Ed occasionally went out with
Mark to earn a few bucks in the exercise of Mark’s profession. ‘It can get real
weird,’ Ed told me, ‘Either real weird, or real boring. But if he snags the
vehicle, he’ll pay you 20 bucks to drive his car home.’ I rode around with Mark
for the next three months or so. He’d call me and pick me up, and we’d drive
out to wherever the defaulter’s car was rumoured to be parked, or to his home,
or to his girlfriend’s residence, or to a place where the defaulter had been
seen. Often we cruised downtown in the Watts and Vernon areas, where Repo Man
was ultimately made. Other times we’d head north into the far reaches of the
Valley. We’d stop at liquor stores and refresh ourselves with canned, pre-mixed
cocktails called Clubs. If we snagged a car, Mark would pay me $20 to drive his
vehicle back to Venice, or to the tow yard. The money was appreciated, as were
his stories of the repo trade."
Cox, Alex. X Films: Confessions of a Radical Filmmaker. Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle
Edition.
"Repo Man was a
hard-edged script that came from a punk sensibility. The script was a bit of a
mess narratively. It didn’t have an ending—or rather it had three endings, and
like a person with three watches who can’t tell what the time is exactly, the
ending was vague. The opening, however, was nearly enough on its own: On a
lonely road in the desert a single 1964 Chevelle Malibu weaves, crossing back
and forth across the center line. A motorcycle cop spies the car and quickly
pulls the driver over. The driver is obviously under high stress, on drugs, or
drunk, and barely conscious. The cop demands to see in the trunk. The driver,
soft-spoken and very far out of his normal state, gently pleads, “Oh, you don’t
want to look in there.” The cop demands the keys, walks to the rear of the car,
and slowly opens the trunk. As he does, a light appears in the crack and gets
brighter and brighter as the trunk opens until the light is brilliant
high-intensity cosmic laser-greenish-white, as bright as the sun—and the cop
vanishes. That was on the first page, and I asked myself, Do I want to see the
rest of this movie? The answer was a resounding yes! Clearly, one way for that
to happen was to produce it myself. I also found something of my own sense of
humor in it. My humor had ranged free in Elephant Parts and I’d been in
absurdist’s heaven while making it, but Repo Man took a step I didn’t know how
to take artistically. It was unrestrained and had an angry, dangerously
hilarious undertone that expressed a sincere yearning for understanding in the
same breath as a punitive impatience for politics or malfeasance. It would be
an easy film for me to back artistically, but I also decided I wouldn’t throw
money at it, as I had with Timerider, and expect the Throw-Money-At-It god to
make it all come."
Nesmith, Michael. Infinite
Tuesday: An Autobiographical Riff (pp. 226-227). Crown/Archetype. Kindle
Edition.
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