Nineteen-sixty-seven was the year Hollywood supposedly grew up. Sixties youth culture, adapted French New Wave innovations and Roger Corman's exploitation flicks combined to produce the 'Seventies Movie' phenomenon, with Bonnie & Clyde the linchpin.
But another '67 release, not part of that clique but in a class all its own, has had an equally lasting, more subtle impact, cited as key by Jim Jarmusch, Quentin Tarantino and a slew of Hong Kong action directors: John Boorman's Point Blank. As he lies dying, Walker (Lee Marvin) dreams of getting even with the ex-naval buddy who betrayed him and is back in with 'The Organisation'. One by one its members, more corporate officers than mob soldiers, wind up dead, but not, ironically, by Walker's hand; for Point Blank is about the futility of violence. Charged with erotic tension
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Unlike most screen hardmen, Lee Marvin knew violence well, says george rafael
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it hardly seems dated despite period touches.
Point Blank is also an exploration of Marvin's relationship to violence, which enthralled yet deeply shamed him. A marine sniper in the Pacific during WWII, he was nearly killed in a Japanese foray that wiped out most of his platoon. He never fully recovered. As Boorman, who became a close friend, wrote, "He knew the depth of our capacity for cruelty and depravity from his war experiences. He had committed such deeds, had plumbed the depths, and was prepared to recount what he had seen down there."
At his best Marvin was frightening in his clarity, razor sharp in movement and gesture; his acting was down to bare essentials, his deep, resonant voice carried a sardonic undertone. Unlike most screen hardmen, Marvin was the real thing. 
FIRST POSTED FEBRUARY 15, 2007
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