DRIVE, HE SAID (1971)
Grade: C
Director: Jack Nicholson
Screenplay: Jeremy Larner
Starring: William Tepper, Bruce Dern, Michael Margotta, Karen Black, Robert Towne, Henry Jaglam
The student Revolution films of the 1970’s began and ended with a whimper. Films like ZABRISKIE POINT and THE STRAWBERRY STATEMENT (both released in 1970) all failed to capitalize on their timely subject matter. DRIVE, HE SAID (the last of this type of flick to be made in that decade) was Jack Nicholson’s directorial debut, an interesting, though muddled, attempt at an art film. Upon its release in 1972 the "student revolution movie fad" had ran out of steam (if there ever was any steam, audiences just weren’t interested in this type of film, much like the cold shoulder that greeted a flurry of topical techno thrillers produced in the mid-1990’s), and Nicholson received middling reviews coupled with non-existent box office.
DRIVE, HE SAID is an episodic, panoramic view of the 1970’s rising counterculture juxtaposed against the background of college basketball. The opening intertwines both. We begin with a basketball game already in progress, the camera moderately tracing the activity in a passive aggressive mode with many quick cuts, stylish zoom-ins, and spastic, uneven motion. Unlike most basketball game sequences from this era, Nicholson opts to film the action from the center of the game, rather than on the sidelines. This can be both exciting and jarring. We feel as if we’re in the midst of everything, and as such it’s more difficult to keep abreast of what is transpiring. A squad of faux-revolutionary students interrupt the game by cutting the lights and grabbing control of the microphone. We hear a reverberating voice call out in mock-military hysteria: "Turn to the person next to you and see if he has a subversive appearance". The revolutionaries are speedily apprehended and thrown into campus detention. The game resumes.
Later we meet the leader of this group, Gabriel (Michael Margotta, who starred in THE STRAWBERRY STATEMENT), also best friend and college roommate of one of the star basketball players, Hector (William Tepper). They share a room, which looks like a dilapidated bunker, mostly utilized for Gabriel's meetings with other revolutionary wannabes.
Hector is torn between loyalties to his coach (Bruce Dern) and his anti-establishment friend. He’s also sleeping with his professor's wife (Karen Black) as a form of (I guess) rebellion. As the story progresses, Hector becomes more influenced by his iconoclastic roommates irrational philosophies and begins to further rebel by disobeying his coaches orders, and becoming increasingly more belligerent towards authority.
So what we have here are two disparate stories that never converge into one. The plot line concerning rebellion is slipshod at best. At times it's played for laughs (an amusing sequence in which Gabriel behaves like a deranged Jim Carrey in order to avoid the draft), and occasionally it goes for dramatic response (an attempted rape on Hector's girlfriend). The most enjoyable bits (and most focused), are those dealing with college basketball, mostly because of Dern’s sturdy performance. He portrays the coach in a slightly different style than the quintessential movie coaches that we're used to seeing. Instead of being all bluster, Dern plays the character in a mannered authoritarian mode. He speaks in slightly intimidating measured tones, rarely raising his voice, and as such he comes across as more dissuading than if he had shouted his lines.
Newcomer William Tepper is burdened with carrying the film. He has a heavy lidded brow, just above two perpetually lazy eyes, giving him a laconic, stoned appearance. His acting is competent but never really engrossing, however, his lackadaisical disposition is believable. The character of Gabriel is not. He doesn't seem intelligent or charismatic enough to lead anyone. He appears to have been assembled as an amalgamation of counter culture rhetoric rather than as a genuine human being and as such everything he says is either metaphoric or allegorical: A taunted cop asks him, "How does it feel to be in jail," to which he replies, "You're in jail".
The narrative jumps from one discursive scene to another, never coming together to form a whole. The style reminded me of the superior MEDIUM COOL, an experimental film that was equally episodic, but eventually added up to something. DRIVE, HE SAID does not. It’s a series of elements that don’t quite hold together.
It’s hard to say if Nicholson is siding with the revolutionary’s or the "square" system. Gabriel's ideologies eventually culminate into something more sinister, but for what purpose is never clear. Nichlosen could be commenting on how counter-culture rebels eventually end up; that their prophecy is a self-destructive one. But many questions remain? Is the basketball coach corrupt for his competive nature? What’s the point of telling both of these stories in the same film? Plot lines go no where and at the end we’re left with pieces of a brainstorm that maybe if assembled correctly could have made one compelling piece.
But the film is never really boring (especially if you're as intrigued by the counterculture as I am) and Nicholson does manage to pull off some hypnotic sequences. In one particular basketball game, Nicholson films the players leaping in balletic, slow motion, as if they’re floating up to a pinnacle where the ochroid-colored ball resides.
As DRIVE, HE SAID concludes, I couldn’t help but feel that some of the problems could have been rectified if Nicholson had simply added a few more scenes to clarify his vision. He may have thought that his ending would be ambiguously satisfying, leaving the audience to contemplate what he’s trying to say. But I see it as more of a cop out. I don’t think he knew how to finish what he started.