Kin Hankman

Chauncey 2021-12-08 08:01:44

Jin Hankman is one of my favorite actors. The first time I saw his movie was not his most famous tough guy character, but a gay comedy "Bird Cage," in which he played an extremely conservative Republican senator, a serious hypocritical and utilitarian character. At the moment when he fell for that outspoken, funny and charming housewife, Hankman showed the warmth and the authentic nature of his diligent performance when he suddenly hit the weak underbelly of a married man. After learning that the beautiful woman was actually a gay man, he performed the ignorance of a conservative man just right. It was so wonderful that when I came to see his famous work "The Male and Female Thief" later, I couldn't believe it was performed by himself. His tough guy and macho roles reached the top in "French Relations". It was a role full of male hormones and could only belong to Hankman. Later, he played mostly villains and gradually became singular. It's the "Superman" series that combines the villain with the comedic genius. It's self-contained. In short, tough guys, comedies, and villains can cover almost all his roles.

In Coppola's "Dialogue", I saw a Hankman I had never seen before.

He is by no means a tough guy. He is an eavesdropping expert, carefully protecting his privacy. Even going to his girlfriend's house is full of doubts and fears. This is not a villain either. He does the job of monitoring other people, and at the same time he tries his best not to get involved in murder and blood. His role is even more unrelated to comedy. This person who has been deprived of his basic sense of security, his first-class monitoring technology makes him feel that there is nothing in this world that can be kept secret. His life disappeared in the conversation of others. This middle-aged man wore a low-quality single-layer raincoat all day long, and only the word pitiful can describe him more accurately.

This movie reminds me of the German movie "Other People's Lives" a few years ago. In the end, the monitor cannot separate himself from the life of the person being monitored. Even if it is not for money and career, if each of us is given a chance to peek into other people's lives, we are probably eager to try. But this kind of voyeurism is not without a price. It's like reaching out to explore a bottomless cave, and it's possible to bring out mushrooms, rabbits, or poisonous snakes, or to be eaten by the arm.

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Extended Reading
  • Alexzander 2022-03-26 09:01:05

    The sound version of "Amplify" is closer to Cortazar's original work in style. Even at the end, we don't know what happened. The movie makes the male protagonist's moral guilt complete the devouring of his sanity at the end of one fifth. Knowing to push delusional symptoms to the audience doesn't tell the difference between the real and the fake even if we know it. Different from Antonioni's presentation of the contradiction between photography and film on the murder scene, Coppola's voice seems to be declaring his absolute objectivity. The voice that becomes identifiable after a few episodes of debugging clearly expresses the possibility of premeditated murder. The point where the audience cuts in and the subsequent sharp turn puts the audience in a situation similar to that of the male protagonist. On the one hand, no one around them cares about the relationship between eavesdropping itself and the truth, and it is more of a gossip for entertainment. On the other hand, it is the boundless conspiracy that the mysterious employer seems to be brewing. The moral collapse of the male protagonist's professional belief and the inability to resort to religion are all in order to cling to the belief until delusional monitoring is all that is needed. Magically coupled with Watergate to achieve its off-screen status, it seems ironic today

  • Violette 2022-03-20 09:01:45

    In the end, Harry Cole was sitting in the house he demolished playing the saxophone. Gene Hackman's acting in this movie is amazing~~

The Conversation quotes

  • [repeated line from the recording]

    Mark: He'd kill us if he got the chance.

  • Martin Stett: [Final Line] We'll be listening to you.