M's Musings on MARATHON MAN

Marathon Man. Dir. John Schlesinger.  Book & Screenplay by William Goldman.  Ft. Dustin Hoffman, Laurence Olivier, Roy Scheider. Paramount, 1976.

First things first.  While Dustin Hoffman may have been almost forty years younger than he is today when he shot Marathon Man, he was already too old for the part.  I mean, he just simply wasn't awkward enough and single-focused enough to be Babe.  I liked what he did with the role, for the most part, but I wanted to see a real snivelling loser who spent so much time oogling girls and memorizing data that he had no idea how to act in the real world.

As a fellow grad student, I know what it is like to be completely absorbed in your work, to the detriment of your personality, social life, social skills and general well being.  Dustin Hoffman, you couldn't pull this off if you wanted to.  Spend three or four months in front of a laptop screen eating not-quite-expired food, and then I think you would be better able to get "inside" your character.

One thing I like about DH is that he isn't really all that good looking.  By no means is he tragic, but he isn't terrifyingly rugged in a way that is distracting and uncomfortable.  Hell, if he could pull off Tootsie and still land a lady, he has proven his masculinity (I guess?).

Hated the new ending.  The whole book is about Babe learning to be less naive and to FINISH SOMETHING HE STARTED.  Its about agency and control, which he asserts far less by watching Szell fall down the stairs.  No longer talking to shadowy imaginings, but standing up and taking charge is really important.  If he was able to kill all the bad guys, then he has actually taken revenge... or grown up... or entered the real world... or something of the sort.

Eating the diamonds was also a strange choice.  Was it because the jewels would have been stored in various Jewish body cavities to keep them from the Nazis, like Szell?  I didn't follow that.  I liked it better when the idea was that he doesn't even see the diamonds until he is in the process of throwing them away.  And, by throwing them into a body of water, instead of some treatment plant, I felt like they were returning to the earth, instead of being processed (much like the Jews in the Holocaust?).  Why did the diamonds go through the same "cleansing" process?  I don't know.  Maybe I am way off base.

I really liked the Doc character.  He was charming and didn't get enough screen time.  I wish they had shown the scene with him conversing with the other double agent.  It would have really filled out his character.  I found the transition to him being Babe's brother really awkward and confusing.  There was no build up whatsoever.

Final thoughts?  Definitely worth watching.  Maybe even more so if you aren't comparing it against the book.  I heard on the interweb it was one of the first big screen movies to use a steadicam.  A kind of interesting tidbit.

Final final thoughts?  A great read.  Definitely pick it up.  Many thanks to a dear friend for encouraging me to read it many years ago (though I didn't read it until yesterday).

T's Take on MARATHON MAN

Recorded Thoughts During:
   
M: Dustin Hoffman was a lot younger in the seventies. Or whatever.

Early on, Dustin Hoffman takes off after a real life man on his usual running trail, trying desperately to catch him, and fails. I asked M what was going on, and she tells me she thinks it was supposed to be a projection of a runner, and we suddenly see a film-grainy projection of a runner.

They did not pull that off.

T: I had definitely forgotten the breadth of this movie's narrative. It's super complicated.

Best quote of the movie occurs in front of white and orange decorative steps that lead nowhere in the fountain: "Iz ZAT zee TROOF?" Wicked.

T: How's your secret agent man? He got duped and killed in by an old Nazi dude.

M: This was different in the book. (repeat x300)


The Nitty Gritty

Running for a long time should have struck me as an incredibly useful attribute prior to this movie, but it never has. Dustin Hoffman running barefoot through rubble freshly anesthetized and tortured was completely nails. My favorite thing about this movie was that it showed people can be useless student runners in the stupid nineteen seventies and still potentially be completely Boss. Dustin Hoffman's character (whats-his-face) is sort of a dweeber who pales in the face of femininity and purposely undercuts himself as a matter of habit. William Goldman, author of both novel and screenplay, delivers an effectively complex and human character in whats-his-face. It feels much less like a staged confluence of events and more like a man wrestling with his environment, truly the mark of any movie successfully attempting intrigue.

... Except for all the secret agent stuff. Those parts felt somewhat shoehorned-in and arbitrary, but I love any work that takes stabs at government conspiracy and give theoretical insight into messy rudderless clandestine organizations. That is a very popular note to strike, and whatever shortcomings I found in the blocky, uninspired action sequences and often stiff acting from supporting characters were infinitely made up for by the realistic feeling that one is Caught Up in something plausible and decidedly Bigger in Scope.

At this juncture I would like to alert the reader to spoilers: the book, as I'm informed by M, ends with whats-his-face shooting the dastardly Nazi and throwing the rest of the diamonds into the water just as the police arrive. The movie, however, sees the Nazi chasing the remainder of the diamonds down the metal staircase and falling on his own blade, Hoffman's character absconding with his gun and tossing it (presumably along with his baggage over his father's suicide) into the water along his daily jogging route.

If I might venture a guess, it seems to me that William Goldman might have been less satisfied with a character who, when given a Nazi and a gun, thinks to himself: "Kay." and shoots the motherfucker like some kind of desperado jerkwad. I felt like the story begged a more philosophically satisfying ending. What's-his-face wasn't a killer, even if his genealogy predicted it. Torture aside, he didn't want to see people die over this, he just wanted to get on with his life and right the existing wrongs. Call me a school child, but the message is stronger, and smarter. Why would this guy murder an essentially unarmed old man (granted, knife, but whatever!) and throw a billion dollars worth of diamonds away so he can take the wrap, ruin his reputation, life and career to go to jail? It ain't murder if you didn't shoot anyone, and it's not moral highground if you shortcut. A Nazi being captured by the police or falling on his own blade is like... The universe unfolding as it should. Shooting him down from ten yards away with a Colt .45 while he begs for his life is murder, Nazi torturing fuck or no.

So given the ending, I liked the movie I watched a lot more than the book I didn't read. It made more sense to me, in any case. I would recommend this movie to anyone I like and indeed, it had been far too long since I'd rewatched it.

Watch Marathon Man.