Film should be evocative. The
proper scenery in a movie can create a mood more effectively than a
performance. That said, performance fills in the spaces and since setting and
character, it must be noted, are linked, then both of these can make a film. Really, if the
performance is done right, character, in itself, becomes a kind of setting. The
viewer finds an unusual home in the performance because it is so real that it
can be inhabited. Characters are hard to create. Actually, that’s false;
characters are easy to create, believable characters are not. Novice directors
often create characters that are simply a mouthpiece for their ideals, or that a
little too neatly convey the theme of the movie. Themes and ideals are great,
but effective cinema they do not always make. Better to have characters with
flaws, be they physical or psychological.
Seventies cinema works for this very reason. Alongside the unattractive
character might be unattractive beliefs. The character may be racist or sexist,
as, unfortunately, many real life people are. Also, they may not find these
–isms resolved in the end of the film, as also happens in real life.
I return again to Robert Mitchum’s amazing performance as
Eddie in The Friend’s of Eddie Coyle. Throughout
the arc of the film, Coyle learns nothing, he doesn’t change, he never becomes
a better person and there is no Lifetime/After School Special type resolution.
Coyle is never presented as the smartest guy, or the nicest, or the most
evolved. Possibly the only good quality he has is a desire to keep his family
off welfare and he ruins even that by making a sweeping generalization about
the kind of people who are on welfare. He is not in any way an aspirational character, nor are any of the other characters in the film. This is what makes The Friends of Eddie Coyle so compelling. It focuses unflinchingly on the interiors and exteriors of the worst types of people. Coyle clearly inhabits a certain type of
environment, as do his friends. Director
Peter Yates does a remarkable job in emphasizing these places, showcasing how
run down and shadowy and mysterious they are, as are the people who frequent
them. Coyle is at ease in these bleak spaces. It is evident in the way he
orders his beer and shots of bourbon with a subtle hand gesture that his
bartender knows, or the relaxed slump of his shoulders as he eats a hot dog in
a bowling alley.
The Friends of
Eddie Coyle is not really a plot-oriented film. Its scenes unfold,
propelled by pitch perfect dialogue. It is best described as a vague film,
something indistinct and obscure and its outcome is grim and hopeless. In this
context, this obscurity works, because the world that Yates is documenting is
one of uncertainty. The characters in
this film speak in a language of gestures. Much is revealed through signals
and glances and a misinterpretation of these can be fatal. Yates captures the dark world of Eddie Coyle
with Noirish visuals and the actors in the film permeate the settings with
their presence making The Friends of
Eddie Coyle an impressive film.
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