A Moral Right (The Politics Of Dirty Harry)

do you have any idea how hard it is to prosecute a cop anyone who threatens the security of the people will be executed it's not just a question of whether or not to use violence simply is no other way inspector was the style in those days - to categorize people conservative people were calling liberal people communists and liberal people were calling serve people fascist Dirty Harry was pretty representative of divisions in American society at the time of the films this wasn't a good liberal movie it didn't have any Pat homilies in it what it did have to say are some very troubling things about war and right and wrong and what you can do and what you can't do and what sometimes you have to do in order to keep the balance Dirty Harry sane we know what's right or wrong we don't care what the law says we know inherently human beings know what's right wrong they know evil when they see it when it came out Dirty Harry wasn't considered an action movie wasn't considered a popcorn movie it was like the movie to see because it was kind of controversial yeah Dirty Harry movie was a hot button movie it seemed to confront in a very unconventional way she's about race and the role of cops in law enforcement and seems to come to some very troubling conclusions Harry enjoyed a righteous kill there were political discussions about this this rogue cop you know who took the law into his own hands he's a maverick live with a badge the first time I heard the word antihero it was in reference to Clint Eastwood's character Dirty Harry he's the guy who saves the day except he's the guy who doesn't do it the way you're supposed to do it he's not squeaky clean he's not perfect he has biases I know what you thinking did he fire six shots or only five the cost a tremendous stirrer many of us who considered ourselves liberals were initially shocked or at least we we asserted that we were shocked being this is a 44 magnum the most powerful handgun in the world and would blow your head clean off get to ask yourself one question do I feel lucky well do you bunker here was this cop blowing people away with this gun perceived by many of us on the left heel fascist icon my friends in New York felt that I had sold out you know got myself involved in some fascist vision of the world there was a lot of high feeling about that in those days everything was political yeah the mantra was everything was Kalitta chol easier for us or against us I do not believe that Clint foresaw the critical eruption that that movie stirred I mean it was stirred particularly by Pauline Kael I remember Pauline Kael the critic she called it a Gestapo movie though she conceded but it was a fairly masterful cop drama she made this kind of weird charge that it was a kind of a fascist no I mean fascist is a word that's used pretty pretty loosely as we see even today discussions about this but having said that I probably do agree that there's that there's a small F fascists principle in Dirty Harry probably the best single Dirty Harry dialogue bite is shooting all the right people get shot if you're looking for evidence that there's something fascist in these movies that's a very good piece of evidence what Harry does is to be a law enforcement officer who doesn't pay attention to the fine print and who simply knows what's right and simply goes out and simply does it the Dirty Harry character represents the guy with the hunch who just had the gut sense he knew what was right he could look at you and eat now whereas the management is all about the rules and the technology and they want you to use these computers and to crunch those data and to share with the other Teknik rats and to work together and that's the new world then the cowboy hero whom Dirty Harry represents he doesn't know this world he doesn't want to work in it he wants to ride the range he wants to use a six-gun if you take that as a a mythic solution to a popular desire then it's not fascist if you take it as a real picture of how police work ought to go there definitely is fascist the fascist thing that was a take and egg put a little bit of a touch to the fact that all this was because in the controversy it became more interesting to a lot of people to go see it but it lingered there for me for for a while as far as what people everywhere I'd go people would ask me about that sort of thing I really couldn't stop to think too much or care about it because I was busy on to the next project whatever that might be whether fascist or or communist or whatever people use the word fascist too much they use the word racist too much you know they just use it as a word sometimes you know and and and it works because it gets people's attention but those word should really mean something you should just throw those words around I think that critics exist to criticize and there's an awful lot of things that are going on that are a lot more criticized about a lot more violent than a lot more horrible than then a Dirty Harry film it's not Mary Poppins and it wasn't meant to be and really it didn't seem to make much of a difference in the success of the franchise the picture had come out and it was very popular and I I didn't put too much stake and all that I figured that that person was probably writing for their own enjoyment or their own constituency to show other people in her profession how she could take a unique take on something rather than really critique the film and if you don't like certain elements of it then go ahead and point them out and really do film criticism which is critiquing on that note in the Dead Pool of course there isn't amongst the murder victims there is a movie critic off about Pauline kales age and about Pauline Kills build so Pauline Kael is murdered in a Dirty Harry movie which is highly appropriate given her critical attitudes towards Harry films what I state do you like my films you take it in the spirit it is and then you enjoy it in the spirit it is and I sort of always had adhered to the old Alfred Hitchcock you know it's a Hulya movie you know kind of a feeling and then yeah it became a little controversial but that never bothered me and I've never shied away from that and he wore demonstrators protest u.s. involvement in the Vietnam War I think it's impossible to look at anything without remembering the time in which it was done so this is the early and mid 70s a time of political upheaval and right smack in the middle of that you know two years after the Summer of Love comes Harry Callahan who is as blunt as straight as politically incorrect and as effective a cop as there ever is and ever was there is no decade in Hollywood history like the first part of the 1970s for pessimism there were a lot of liberal movies at that time and the liberal movies were movies of dissolution all these kind of neurotic people who quite often were like losers in the characters that they play quite often died it was a time that was hard for Heroes and a more right-wing audience a more conservative audience was really missing some kind of principle of the right in both the political sense and just dictionary sense for a character like Clint Eastwood and Dirty Harry to come along in that environment and to assert himself to take control of the story to take control of all the things that were happening in the world around him was something that was much appreciated was really needed by the audiences it's very interesting that Dirty Harry exists in San Francisco which then is now as viewed as one of the most liberal cities in the country and therefore it is the perfect place to put a character that you want to show as the most a liberal on first glance carroty to possibly have he's right in the enemy's citadel here uh so you know he can he can act out in this liberal hippie environment and everybody in his audience is just gonna love it that much more because he's gonna be sticking it to these these you know well fill in the blank for what bad thing you want to call people in fear of a certain group political persuasion there was a hint of political correctness then it wasn't called political correctness but the genius didn't talk about those kind of things and cops being constantly called pigs stuff like that they loved her caring and there was a whole side of America that loved Dirty Harry people who Nixon characterized as the silent majority responded to it with tremendous enthusiasm and were able to disregard anything negative at all in those films and simply appropriate this kind of heroic Savior like quality that attached attached to her these days a cop kills a hoodlum on the street he might as well just dump the body someplace because house knows young bastards down at the DA's office will crucify in one way or another a hood could kill a cop at a cop killer would Dirty Harry comes right after the Miranda decision and right before Watergate it really is ground zero of the gray area of what is morality he doesn't like Authority which is a very conventional heroic attribute in all American movies but when the authority seems to be repressive Lee liberal his anti-authoritarianism becomes exhilaratingly troubling it really gets you thinking about where you're at and where he's at the film obviously has a big issue with liberal law enforcement practices Miranda and Escobedo both mentioned by name in the original Dirty Harry movie the idea that criminals are being allowed to run rampant and society has emasculated itself I think people were still picking up their paper and say why are we coddling these criminals what is this explain the legal technicality dealing with a lack of admissible evidence that's a legality that can't be explained at this time his difficulties in obtaining an indictment against this Andy Robinson character we said really is that though is it that hard you know many of us who just didn't we just didn't know the very heinous Nisour the bad guys crime allows him to get away because what he's done is so awful bury a girl with a limited time to breathe Dirty Harry has to use unconstitutional methods to get to her so now the critic gets back on the street the evidence is thrown out and that angers us that really addresses everything we hate about how society coddles the criminal and blames the victim [ __ ] the courts that's what I think anyways look you got damaged I'm worried about the rights of killers on the street because we saw the dark side of the villain we were willing to overlook any small transgressions against the law that he would make go on out and get some air fatso such as stepping on Annie Robinson's leg where's the girl I have a rifle right audiences cheered he was a guy who was brutalizing a suspect but said but again because we saw what this guy did throughout the entire film the audience went with Harry every step of the way in doing what he had to do to bring this guy to justice I've got nothing personal against you Callahan but we can't have the public crying police brutality every time you go out in the street well you just might need me on a job like this you know what makes you think of the Aaron Sorkin line from a few good men you want me on that wall you need me on that wall much as people might not want to admit it people are pretty quick sometimes to put down police until they hear a noise and something goes bump in the night and then you want Harry Callahan there I think deep in the heart of every liberal you know burns this conservative that you would just like to bypass the court system and bypass everything and just shoot a guy and get it over with I'm a fairly liberal thinker in fact I could see myself reasonably liberal on just about all things with the exception of law enforcement I think I can become the biggest right-wing Warhawk when it comes to the police and allowing them to kind of enforce that which separates us from complete anarchy and I think that certainly Harry Callahan with one of the forefathers of that movement look I'm coming down there at five minutes you better have those files open you pencil-pushing son of a [ __ ] one thing you know about dirty Harriet is these angry and that's the that that violent anger is the thing that people are able to associate he'll be charged a movie man you're just a maggot who sells dirty pictures I mean if somebody cuts us off on the freeway we can't do anything about it but you know thirty how he can shoot them you know it's just great and he was always on the side of right we're talking about a certain kind of ethic an edgy ethic between right and wrong what do you do with the lawless how do you maintain a world in which the law controls the great statement that's attributed to Churchill up is to be a great man you can't be a good one Harry Callahan wasn't gonna be a good man and follow the lines he was gonna be great man in terms of taking these people down that somebody had to do this job there was a right way to do things and there was a wrong way and he didn't really concern himself with the gray areas of the middle ground the law is a very poor instrument for enforcing the right what you need is some figure who has the right ideas imbued in his bones and somebody who's strong enough to enforce that I think with a big misperception that he's a Republican and he's you know this right-wing guy and if you look at a movie it never comes across his morals are very clear yet he has issues but he's not gonna put them upon you but if you're a freak and you're getting online anyway in trying to screw people over in a dangerous way he's gonna do you in the very clear line there Harry does have a code well at least he's being consistent in his approach to the universe and that's an admirable thing where it gets a little dicey is well where how far is he allowed to go on his own that he would not suddenly become the very thing that he's fighting against go ahead make my day I think what that comes down to is the perceived necessity to fight fire with fire one reason there have been so many interesting chapters to the Dirty Harry saga is that each movie finds a different refraction of this Cove with which he acts and which feet reacts to given the circumstances that last one was a good guy if you cross the line whether you're a policeman or a criminal he'll still come after you and I think the example is Magnum force where he goes after some of the best officers in his own department in guys that you think that he would identify with and maybe even be on their side but no he takes them down because they're criminals and they're doing the wrong thing you heroes have killed a dozen people this week what are you gonna do next week kill a dozen more let's do an interesting sequel we've done one side of this coin let's do the other what happens when we go too far how do we deal with it where is that line I thought that was very interesting the idea of examining where that line is it's as though when pauline kael and other reviewers said that Dirty Harry was fascist Magnum force sets out in response to these accusations by saying knowing no no you want to see fascists I'll show you fascists and it gives you these traffic cops in their black uniforms and their white helmets and they look like Nazi storm troopers that's a fascist a fascist is not Dirty Harry magnum force almost stands out amongst equals in that is sort of an answer this is deliberately the other side of the coin think he's going in one way in fact goes to me exactly the other and that's exactly what he did with Magnum force so he thinks that this is some sort of right-wing law and order picture now he's gonna make a picture where law and order e itself is compromised and call into question what was great about that was I mean that even Dirty Harry had a had a line that he wouldn't cross I'm afraid you've misjudged me and then there were a bunch of guys who were out there really crossing a line those guys were just out now fascist and he wasn't about that but they were the antithesis of Harry see cuz they were essentially doing the same thing that he was setting out to do he was just gonna clean it up and they started to do kind of the same thing but it wasn't right it was an interesting balance it really I think kind of looked solidified the Dirty Harry character Evo for Evo Harry retribution that's just fine how does murder fit in you know please start becoming their own executioner's where's it gonna end how Briggs pretty soon you start executing people for jaywalking and executing people for traffic violation then you end up executing your neighbor cuz it's dog this is on your lawn the fact that the second movie puts Harry and opposition to the cops makes Harry's own flinty morality stand out in even stronger relief than the first one but has tried to show there that is that he was a police officer who didn't dislike the laws and set up the way was he just dis liked how it had disintegrated into a bureaucratic nightmare but he wasn't contesting the Constitution of the United States got a chance to join the team but two brothers Briggs I hate the goddamn system until someone comes along with some changes it makes sense I'll stick with it Elsa this was a good really good idea a period and uh and a good dramatic idea because there then you you get into a situation where Dirty Harry becomes conflicting within himself what do I do it's just something sequels don't do it all now sequels today will be lesson you know how can we have more of the same thing let's just do the same thing and have more special effects that's to the same thing and have longer car chase or more wisecracks or something like that later on in the Dirty Harry series the moral dilemmas that Harry Callahan faced where it became considerably more complex there's a pattern in Dirty Harry movies the first Dirty Harry movie has a nightmarish exaggeration or caricature of a left-wing villain Scorpio with his famous peace symbol belt buckle and all of his hippy mannerisms his left-wing villain in Magnum force you have a caricature of right-wing villains vigilante cops of fascist cops in uniform when you get back to hoarser now we're back on the left for the set of villains who are modeled on the symphony's Liberation Army and various other kinds of organizations of extreme left-wing violence that happen in that general area and then sudden impact all you go back into the direction King and you have a right-wing vigilante killer there is that alternation left right left right in the first for Dirty Harry movies like many great American movies Dirty Harry is a very serious film masquerading as a major candidate for box office but it turned out to be not only a big hit but a lot more than just a another piece of genre filming what more can you do than raise a moral issue give this broad draw constantly tense narrative and present one of the greatest and most powerful iconic figures in the history of crime fiction you

Channel: Jason Gibson

Views: 618,201

Rating: 4.8269491 out of 5

Keywords: Dirty Harry, Clint Eastwood, Documentary

Id: irRUrjPtMqc

Length: 24min 13sec (1453 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 02 2014