Cutter's Way

A classic of cynicism and paranoia

It's Neo-Noirvember! All this month I will be featuring movies from that genre, including some of my favorites and a few I have yet to watch.

What is Neo- Noir? Generally, it is noirish movies produced after 1960, in color. One of the distinguishing elements of original Film Noir was the use of expressionistic black and white cinematography to underline the dark psychological tone of the films. Obviously that is out for color movies, although you can also also use color cinematography to express a mood and some Neo-Noirs do just that. However, I don't focus on the visual aesthetics much in this newsletter, I prefer examine the themes and characters of Noir.

By 1970, when the Production Code was killed and replaced with the ratings system, young filmmakers who grew up in love with Film Noir and a new generation of crime writers came together to create a new genre that drew on the conventions of the older forms of Film Noir and Hard Boiled Fiction. They brought this perspective to a new age. To me, for a film to be classified as a Neo-Noir, it must incorporate the narrative and thematic elements of Film Noir. Neo-Noir is a revival of the old form in modern trappings.

This is certainly true of Cutter's Way.

(spoilers) Richard Bone (played by Jeff Bridges during his handsome hunk era) is a former Ivy leaguer turned slacker who supports himself by selling sail boats and working as a gigolo. On his way home one evening from one of his assignations, he witnesses a man emerge from the darkness to dump something heavy into a garbage can. The next day, a young woman's body is found inside and he becomes a key witness in her murder. He relates the incident to his friend Alex Cutter (John Heard's best performance), an embittered Vietnam veteran who lost an arm, leg, and eye in the war. A few days later, while watching a parade with Cutter, Bone spots a man he thinks was the one who dumped the body: J. J. Cord, a local wealthy oil man.

Cutter becomes obsessed with the case, while Bone begins to doubt his identification. Cutter meets the dead girl's sister and between the two, they uncover circumstantial evidence implicating Cord. Cutter drives them forward with his righteous, misdirected wrath while Bone resists going along with their hare brained schemes to nail Cord. Bone asks Cutter why he hates Cord; Cutter answers:

"Because he's responsible."

"For the girl?"

"For everything. Him and all the motherfuckers in the world like him. They're all the same. It's never their ass on the line."

It all climaxes at a party in Cord's mansion. Cutter is killed, and Bone winds up in Cord's office, confronting him "Did you kill her?" he asks. Cord answers: "Would it matter if I did?" The movie ends with Bone pulling the trigger on Cutter's gun and the screen going black.

Cutter's Way is based on the novel Cutter and Bone, by Newton Thornburg. The initial setup is the same as the movie, but in the novel, Cutter and Bone travel across the country to confront Cord in his company's headquarters in the Ozarks. The ending is basically a rip off of Easy Rider. The movie works better by keeping the story condensed in one location and focusing the theme on the power of wealth and how it corrupts our system.

Originally titled after the book, as Cutter and Bone, the movie fell victim to studio politics at United Artists. The executives that green-lit the movie left and the incoming management had no faith or interest in it. They dumped it into the market with almost no publicity budget and pulled it from theaters shortly after it's release. However, glowing reviews from prominent critics led the studio to re-release the film under a new title and send it to film festivals, where it won awards and acclaim, cementing its position as a modern classic.

There are basically two types of Noirs: ones where an innocent person is dragged down into the dark corners of society, and those where damaged and flawed characters struggle to succeed but seem fated to fail. Cutter's Way is definitely the latter. Cutter is a deeply cynical and acerbic character; he constantly abuses his long suffering wife (played beautifully by Lisa Eichhorn) and propels the story forward with reckless, selfish behavior. Bone has abandoned his wife and children to pursue an aimless life leeching off of others. He sleeps with Cutter's wife; she weeps while they make love.

J. J. Cord is a classic Noir villain: the rich man who operates above the law, a sadist and murderer (maybe). He personifies the corruption of society and the pointlessness of pursuing justice against accumulated wealth. He literally towers imperiously above everyone on a white horse in several scenes. What I find very commendable about the movie is that it never really conclusively answers the question of whether Cord actually killed the girl. Viewers are prevented from completely empathizing with Cutter and Bone's quest for justice by this ambiguity and by Bone's wavering identification of Cord. I think this uncertainty is what really elevates Cutter's Way to classic Neo-Noir status.

Like another movie I recently reviewed, Who'll Stop the Rain?, Cutter's Way is a reflection on not only the Vietnam War, but the death of hippie idealism in the 1970s. Cutter embodies the cost of the Vietnam war and the corrosive effects of its dishonesty on the ideals of America. He's intelligent and witty, but that is all buried by searing bitterness. Bone drifts through life, unanchored to any sense of responsibility or morality. He avoids the burden of his role in the murder until the very end, when it's too late for his only real friend. Like any good Noir, there are no real heroes, only broken people caught up in their own failures who stumble forward in an unfair world.