Vanishing Point

So nobody seemed to like Vanishing Point very much. It did not have much of a plot. The acting was hardly startling. The characterization was not very strong. The camera work and the editing were interesting but not really inspired. And to top it all off, the whole thing centered around this car. A commercial for a fucking Dodge Charger, somebody put it.

Imagine, in this day and age, a movie about a car. Everyone knows that cars are the bane of our existence. They clog the streets. They pollute the air. They consume incredible amounts of our natural resources. And the public’c fascination with them has diverted attention from the bureaucrats’ schemes to construct mass transit. In short, cars are anti-city (as New York City’s Environmental Protection Agency put it), are anti-progress, are anti-...anti-...anti-..., well, the ultimate indictment is that they are just plain anti-social.

Vanishing Point seems to have almost everything going against it. No plot.

no characters, no acting, and attention seemingly focused on an object which has become the number one target of the socially conscious. In the face of all this, even I am surprised that I liked it.

I liked Vanishing Point for its theme, which judging from those, very few people understood. Vanishing Point, very simply, is about life and repression. If it has little plot, it is because the theme is very simple. Did Battle of Algiers have much of a plot? If the characters are roughly defined, it is because the story is not about a specific character, but about everyman. As for the car, it is a plot vehicle (if you will excuse the pun); did anybody claim that Easy Rider was a movie about motorcycles? As for the camera work, editing and acting, they were competent, sufficient to the task.

The task is telling a story of a man with a particular goal tenaciously following his chosen course of action. Kowalski ferries cars. After pulling into a ramshackle garage in Denver at midnight Friday, he declared his intention to drive back to San Francisco that night. Over the lame protestations of the garage owner, Kowalski jumps into a white Dodge Charger and roars out into the night. First, however, he stops to give his regards to a black friend of his, with whom he wagers that he will be on the coast by the next morning, and from whom he obtains some speed.

Enter the major sub-theme of the movie: speed. Both literally and figuratively, Kowalski thrives on speed. Throughout his trek, Kowalski is popping speed to keep himself awake. And throughout his life, Kowalski has evidently used speed to keep himself alive. Through flashbacks, we are made aware of Kowalski’s past. Kowalski is an ex-racer; he drove stockers and motorcycles, and was evidently good at it. For a time, it was his job, his livelihood. His high-speed journey to California is not, then, merely based on whim. Rather, it is but an extension of his reliance upon and selection of speed as his life’s method.

But speed is frowned upon in this society, both the noun and the verb. Indeed, both are the objects of public censure and governmental suppression––for virtually the same reasons. Speed, the drug, is banned because of its social consequences. Drug taking is an offense against the community. It is an assault on moral standards. It is contributory to the breakdown of moral authority and undermines the smooth operation of society. If everyone took speed, society would be in chaos, all order would breakdown, the community would suffer greviously. Speeding, the action, is banned because of its supposedly practical, but also social, consequences. Speeding is taken to be an offense against other drivers. It is virtually an assault on the legal system of the State. It is contributory to the breakdown of legal authority and undermines the smooth operation of one of society’s institutions, the road system. After all, if everyone speeded, the roads would be in chaos, all order would breakdown, the community would suffer greviously. Both are profoundly anti-social, the highest of all offenses in today’s America.

And both are treated the same way by the government, society’s “protector.” Both are banned. Violators of the government’s wishes are dealt with––as criminals. Government pursues both types of violators––with utter disregard to the supposed objects of protection, law, and public safety. In the pursuit of drugs, constitutional safeguards are violated. Public safety is threatened by police actions and the creation of a criminal class, a la prohibition. The application of speeding laws has resulted in general disdain for the whole system of road regulation. As for public safety, the supposed “danger” created by a cat zipping around in a Porsche is easily surpassed by the police cruiser tear-assing around city streets or highways attempting to stop him.

Finally, both types of speed are similar in one other respect: thay are inherently moral (immoral being that which infringes on the rights of another). In this society, they represent optional values, individual preferences, choices which every man must make to live, choices which every man must make to be a man. Life without choice is no life. Rational selection of options is what man is all about. Speed represents one of man’s choices. The choice of speed is not immoral itself. The individual who speeds and violates no one’s rights is not immoral. Immorality enters the picture with the government’s suppression of both. Violent intervention in an essentially peaceful action is the real violation of individual rights, the true threat to social order, and the ultimate example of anti-social behavior.

This is the main theme of the film. Kowalski is a man who has set himself a goal and chosen a method. His goal is San Francisco in the shortest amount of time, and his method is speed. He is like millions of other men who undertake purposeful action, action which is personally rewarding and harmful to no one. And Kowalski is also like millions of men who undertake purposeful action only to be repressed by men who do not understand him, do not want to understand him, or understand him only too well.

Kowalski is chased by police across three states. He is speeding, and that is against the law. For that, he is hounded, hunted, and, ultimately, killed. Although he has injured no one, endangered nobody, he is the object of a massive application of State power--in the form of dozens of police cruisers, patrolmen, troops, helicopters, and even bulldozers. He is sought as a criminal, yet his only crime was to refuse to bow to the caprice of others, to refuse to negate his own will. Against this man, engaged in highly peaceful, yet legally defined anti-social action, is applied the violence of coercion.

Vanishing Point underscores this point about violent intervention into peaceful endeavors numerous times. In a flashback, a policeman attempts to rape a girl, apprehended for a marijuana violation, in the back of a cruiser; Kowalski, then a cop, slugs the other officer and frees the girl. A blind, black DJ and his black engineer are attacked and beaten in their station by a red neck gang led by policemen; the reason for the attack: they were monitoring the police band, broadcasting information on police actions to Kowalski, and supporting Kowalski on the air (thus making him somewhat of a cause celebre). The Nevada police dispatcher tells the Colorado police that speeding is not illegal in his state and that Kowalski could only be picked up on, at most, a misdemeanor; the Colorado police reply that they just want him, regardless of the charge. A man who captures snakes and lives alone in the desert also hides from the police; the reason: he does not want the police keeping tabs on him.

The police want Kowalski ostensibly because he has broken the law. Yet, the massive mobilization reveals deeper motives. Kowalski has violated the letter of the law, but more importantly, he has violated the spirit of the State. He has not only engaged ‘criminal activity,’ but he has also rejected the authorities’ right to define crime. The police simple want Kowalski because he exists outside of and refuses to recognize, their control. Colorade, for instance, simply wants him, regardless of the legality of his actions in Nevada. All three state police forces involved manifest a deeper understanding and more basic reaction to his run. They are chasing Kowalski because he is a threat to them, and, since they represent society, society as well. His actions display no social responsibility. In fact, his actions are downright anti-social. His actions are damaging to public order, are bringing ridicule down on the police, and are expressions of anarchy. If everyone drove like Kowalski, where would the roads be? If everyone acted like Kowalski, where would the Stae be?

The Charger must be stopped, and the full resources of three police agencies are marshalled to achieve precisely that end. To catch the criminal, to protect the public from speeders, the police forces send dozens of cruisers barrelling over the roads. To safeguard the sanctity of law, the Colorado police instruct the Nevada police summarily to invent laws. To defend society, to catch one man, the police launch a land/air assault and spread chaos and damage across three states.

In cowboy movies, transgression is quelched by moral action. In Vanishing Point, moral action is quelched by transgression. The criminal is righteous, while the “righteous” are criminal. The point is made explicit in Kowalski’s “escape” to California: he drives through the road block with the external accoutrements of the forces of justice, a blinking red roof light and a blaring siren (provided by another “anti-social character he met on the road, a long haired, hippie bike rider.

Although Kowalski makes California, his goal, San Francisco by Saturday Morning, is destroyed. Instead of enjoying a peaceful journey, Kowalski suffered continuous police harrassment, forced deviation from his chosen route (at one point, into the desert), and exposure to extreme peril. He made California, but the police exacted a high toll, his life.

A man, forcibly prevented from achieving his rightful goals, is deprived of humanity. The repression of ego’s rightful expression is the negation of human life. A man, prevented from acting in his own best interest in violation of no one’s rights, is reduced to the position od a chattel, a piece of property, a non-human. Kowalski, although he crossed the California border, was reduced to such a state. By thwarting his action, by destroying his goal, the police reduced Kowalski, removed his humanity, For, even though they did not catch him, they had him caged for a day. His “escape” into California was not a failure for the police, nor a victory for Kowalski. On the contrary, the police succeeded in finally catching Kowalski. His every action was monitored by the California Highway Patrol. He had not broken free. He was watched, regulated, channelled to his death.

Kowalski had to die. He was doomed. The blind DJ, Super Soul, said it all when he called Kowalski “Super Ego.” While most men are walking dead, Kowalski was life on the highway. He took orders from no one and gave orders to nobody. He was sublimely innerdirected, self-assured, and moral. But, as Vernon L. Parrington put it, “In a society of serfs, a masterless man must be counted as an outlaw.” Kowalski was the masterless man, and he faced repression as all men must ultimately face it, alone. And he died, as many who seek to express their will die, by crashing into the immovable wall of society, or the State—as a result of their own momentum.

Kowalski had to die because he was alive. While most men in this society never experience life, never live as men (free, with goals, without restriction), Kowalski had. And being alive—making decisions, selecting values, striving to attain ends, free from and never initiating violence—in a nation of death, can only result, in the end, in the extermination of that life. Kowalski had to die.

Paradoxically, Kowalski had to die because he was already dead. Kowalski’s death did not occur in the fireball which was his car after collision with the blades of bulldozers. He died, his humanness was removed, the moment the State destroyed the chance of achieving his goal. He died, as all men do, when their humanity is denied by the violent suppression of their wills’ expression in a peaceful action. The very composition of the movie emphasizes this point. Vanishing Point opens with Kowalski crossing the California line at 10:02 Sunday morning. The next scene is Kowalski pulling into the Denver garage at midnight Friday. The rest of the movie follows Kowalski to California. Only at the end is Kowalski’s death revealed as occurring at 10:04 Sunday morning. Thus, the whole movie takes place after his death.

Vanishing Point, despite the fiery death of Kowalski, is very much a pro-life film. Most of the music is driving gospel passed through a rock filter. Light abounds; very little of the movie was shot at night. Open spaces fill the screen. The blind DJ, Super Soul, is a bundle of movement, wailing out his pitch and breathing encouragement to Kowalski. And, of course, there’s this white Charger, moving, roaring, well….just plain charging down roads, over deserts, across the country.

No, the movie is not technically great. The camera work is not terrific. There are loose ends, especially in the flashbacks. The editing could have been tidier. And it may have been over simplistic as a result. of the basically one dimensional characters (even the visual white/black division is used--white Charger vs. black police cruisers).

But it sure as hell ain’t no Dodge commercial. It is social commentary of a fairly subtle nature, subtle enough to elude most critics. If it has got a car at the center of the action, well, too bad.

Maybe it was panned because the critics could not understand what was happening. Or did not want to know what was happening, or knew too well what was happening. After all, social consciousness is the highest ideal, anti-social man the worst enemy.

In the era of the movie anti-hero, the hero has been spurned. Kowalski is a true hero, striving and failing by his own action and choice. In an era of the cinema portrayal of individual alienation, the man with his head together is forgotten. Instead of a man alienated from society, Vanishing Point is about a society alienated from man. It is surprising, however, that in an age of personal liberation, a movie precisely about self-liberation goes unrecognized. Who knows, maybe despite the rhetoric of freedom, critics really do believe that the masterless man is a criminal fit for elimination.

But in any case, a Dodge commercial it ain’t.