John Woo's Cinema of Hyperkinetic Violence: From ABetter Tomorrow to Face/Off
Robert Hanke
For many North American movie gocrs like myself. Face/Off ( I997) was both a summer box-office hitand an introduction [0 director John Woo's choreography and pyrotechnics of violent action. Though I am by no means a ran of Hollywood action movies, Face/Ojfwas com pelling a nd intrigui ng, if not alway s ple asu rable, to wat c h. compared [0 other violence-laden Hollywood action films or crime dramas, such as LA Confi den fial ( 1997). For all its discomfiting violence, the fil m presen ts us with a more complicated ca se of interpreting sc ree n violen ce and understanding its social and (crossjcultural implications and meanings than the usual Hollywood fare. III thix essay, I want to argue that while Woo's llrst two Hollywood features reflect his asshuihui on into the generic conventions and formulas of the mainstream "A merican " action movie. Face/Off represents a generic transformation, For in this film, Woo carries on with concerns registered in his 1I0ng Kong films - the vicissitudes and instability of the masculinc subject- inorder 10 bring to Hollywood action fi IIII a new kind of male protagonist, one that comb ines physical violence and emot ional intensity, Having based his career on appropriating from American films, among other traditions of world cinema, Woo also picks up on recent Hollywood films which feature male protagonists who arc both violent and sensitive. who perform their own contradictions, and who struggle with themselves as much as with evil. This generic transformruion is not merely a matter of cha nging images o f the male ac tio n hero , us Woo 's hybrid aes thetic is no longer a privileged momen t within the narrat ive," Grant continues, combines a spec tac ular sty le of viole nt masculi nity with the cultura l "it is no longer redem ptive or ca tha rtic" (Gran t 7 1). For Grant. the form o f melodram a. problem is that these films depict violent action that it is neither " heroic O f course. the represent ation of vio lence in film an d television nor mo ral, because nothing is es pec ially meaning ful. nothing more has bee n a lo ng-stan d ing pu blic and scho larly co nce rn. Billig Hallg, rea l or important than any thi ng e lse " (G rant 70). Mo reo ver, the S"oOI Shoot' Essays 0/1 CIIII.\· and /' opular Culture. based on an c outcmpo ra ry ac tio n mo vi e ' s in c on seque nt ial v io le nce a nti interna tion a l conference held at Ryerson Polytechni c University last significa tion o f de ath without pai n demonstrates the "logical end of year, is s)" ~ n pto mu t ic ofthe lUI est round o f inquiry anempting to come human relations under ca pital ism" (Grant 72). In a mo vie such as Pil ip to terms with the see mingly inex plicable phenomenon o f IHI,.'d ia violence Fiction ( 199.t), where someone is shot point blan k in the face, "splatter (Pomerance an d Suken s).! E xplunuti on s, in te rp rct uri on s , a nd becomes em blemat ic of the posrmodcm co ndition, trans lat ing our assessmen ts o f the social and cultural significance o f media violence erode d subjec tivity in the graphics of the fractured head" (Grant 72), differ, depen ding on one 's scho larly paradigm , approa ch to film or Even though he acknowledges that work s of "ult ra-violence" rnay work television study, defi nition of sc ree n vio lence or conte xtual fnc turx, 10 dcmyrh ify vio lence. enabling viewers access to the truth of rea l and what so rt o f "cffec ls" one is seeking to explain.? violence. the problem with man y contemporary senal-mirrder fil ms is To beg in with. th ere is the ({1If11l1i,." of screen violence . In The that they do not offer such modern ist distanciurion: instead. they Killil/g Scrrrns: ,\I t'd ia and the Culture of \'jo lt'lI n ', ma ss uivializc or unde rmine the serio us ness with wh ich violence ought 10 co mmunic ation sc holar George Gerbncr d iscusses thi s issue fromthe be regarded. social-sc ienti fic perspective of cultivation theory. Specifically, how Within the contemporary genre of action movies, the film s o f can we account for the fact that when Holly wood act ion film s arc John Woo would certuiuly lend themselves to suc h analyses. One need remade, there is a substantial rise in the dead body count? For Gc rbncr, not conduct a content analysis to recognize that Woo 's action movies vio lence is a "cheap. indu strial ing redi ent" used 10 project ;1 sense of di splay a fire power and body count that e xceeds the most violent ma le power and to hype up othe rwise dull prognnns or films. Whi le Hollywood ac tion films. His films a lso seem 10 be structured around violent media fare may not be the most popula r, violence is used 10 Sl't pieces whe n: a hype rkinetic choreography o f gu n violence and ensure that mo vies will "travel we ll" in the glo balized media market ex plosive pyrote chnics seem to be privileged o ver plot , narrat ive, or since physical action, unlike dia logue. docs not requ ire translation , character. Woo's cross -over from the New Wa ve o f Hong Kong cinema and humor ma y be culturally specific. In con trast 10 " legit ima te artistic to Ho llywood is no doubt due to the need fo r Holly wood stud io c reatio ns" where vio lent repre sentatio ns may show us tragedy. pai n, executives to increase the dosage o f vio lence in orde r 10 disti nguish o r destruc tion, Ho llywood act ion mo vies, Gcr bner posits, present their prod uct from what is alread y on television or what we have already " happy violence" thut is "entertaining" 0' 'thrilling," In this approach. see n in the mo vie theatres. In thi s sense, Woo 's ex pe rtise in, anti his the c h ief as sum ption is that sc ree n vio lence is not simply th e pe nchant for, the spec tacle o f o verkill presen ts us with an other case o f rep resent ation of physical acts but soci al relation s of po wer. T hus, fihu prod uction that is part ofthe "social problem " of med ia violence. sc ree n violence. for heavy viewers of television, is a svmbclic lesson His cinema of hyperkinetic vio lence may be read as ye t another grap hic a bo~t agg ressors and victims that reinforces rela tioll~ of power and e mb lem of the dea th of the hum an ist subject. However. while Ge rbne r's and Grant's attent ion to the quantity cu ltivates a sense that the wo rld is a dangerou s place to live in. ' Other sc ho lars ha ve focuss ed on the shift in the tll/alitr of screen and qualit)' of violence in Hollywood action movies is insightful . these vio lence. From the perspecti ve ofhum anistic 111m studies. Barry Grunt c ritica l po sition s neglect important c ult ural aspects o f Woo ' s deicers a "ne w tone of violence" in con temporary Hollywood action filmmaking pract ice . First of a ll, whi le wo rking within the realm of mO\:ics; k i l l i ~l g . he observes, is so common place that it no longer shocks popular film, he has been cred ited with contributing to the "heroic but IS me t with "bemused detachment " (Grant 70), " Because violence bloodshed" subgcnrc of Hong Kong ac tion film (Baker; Logan).
'0 "' lndced. in so me film critics' and film makers' eyes, he has co me to multipcrspective cultural study of Woo's filmmaking pra ctice, and his occupy the unique position of auteur of "art-action" movies. But the act ion films. as produced in. throu gh. and in respo nse to variou s stylistics. thcm anc s, and structure offeel ing that Woo put into comotion discourses of indu stry, gende r. capitalism, and eve n religion. in his Hong Kong action films are not so much ..m ex pression of his Woo's Hong Kong action film s. including their style of violent individual vision o r ge nius as they are an articulation of filmmaking imagery. have already been discu ssed in terms of their geohistorical practice with local/global. Easl!\Vest dynamics. On the local side. Woo, spec ificity. as well as in rela tion to cultural and political fac tors. Most who was born in Guandong Province in South China in 1948 but gre w accounts ge nerally agree that for ,III the ir spectacular viole nt action. up in Hong Kong, co-directed his first im'ependcnt low-b udget fe ature his post-1986 films e xpress Hong Kong's co llec tive cultural anxiety film, n u: Young Dragons ( 1973: released 1975) at age twenty-six for over the historical trauma of reunification with China in 199 7. Woo's Golden Harvest. Th e film lost money and was e ventually banned in film s, despite the ir bloody shoo t outs. arc infused w ith ro man tic Hong Kong for being too viole nt. Woo's films have roots in the Chinese nostalgia for Hong Ko ng at the very moment the te rritory anticipates ' martial c hivalry' genre of the I960s and the films ofZhang Chc. with its future as pan of China. Rather-than simply being vehicles for "happy whom Woo worked as assistan t director (Boxerfrom SIlllIIgllmg. 1972 ; violence." there is a strong sense that violence. once the shoo ting has rile Blood Brothers, 199 3)(Ray ns 260). In 1976, be directed the kung fina lly ended. docs not pay. that it entails ext reme suffering, pain. o r fu film Hand ufD(·(I111. featurin g a young Jackie Chan. Yet Woo. whose loss. that it destroys male bonds. or that it only leads to further violen ce. sense of spectacle was inspired by Pek ing Opera. has also suued. "In The c ross-c ultural recept io n of his film s a lso co m plicates our some ways, I' m not very Chinese. My tech niques, my themes. my understanding of how Woo's films may be perceived and what gun film language arc not traditionally Chinese" (Woo, I993a, 25) . He has violence may signify to film spectators. At the same time, his reputation acknowl edged the influence of US directors such as Scorsesc and Pen n. amon g Western audi ences and critics, as well as his subse quent success his familiarity with European di rectors such as Bergman and BI... rtolucci. in cross ing o ver into mainstream Holl ywood filmmak ing. has a great and his udmi nnion of Jean-Pierre Mel ville an d Akira Kurosuwa. deal to do with his representatio ns of mascu lin ity. His action film Between making film s for Golden Harvest. Woo aha researched classic conce rns are not o nly ab ou t the futu re of li ang Kong; they a re thrillers such as Jean Pierre Melville's LeSamonmi ( 1967) and Cluzor's "ideolog ica lly of a piece wit h recent masculinist traditions of the The m l,l(' ('S of Fear ( 1953) (Bey 116). Thi s co mbination of dispanuc conuncrciul Nort h Ame rica.. c inema" (Stringe r 26). influences sugges t that Woo's filmmak ing pract ice is nOI reducible to Woo 's A Hettrr Tomorro w ( 198 6) is cons ide red to be his authorial intenti on. or techniques or de vices that "uestheticize" violence. breakthrou gh film . as it became the top-grossing film in Hong Kong but is more adequately understood as hyb rid cult ural practice and an history and marked Woo's brenk from estab lished com mercia l genres "aesthetic of poliricul. historical, and cultural dcnsity" (Williams. Winter of li an g Kong commerc ial ci nema. Befo re 1986, he directed fifteen 1997. 67). features films, including 1: ollg [II films, comedi es, satires. a Can tone se So in o rder 10 understan d the nature an d dynam ics of the opera. and a mercenary drama. With A Brita Tomorrow. Woo joined representation of violence in the films of John Woo, we must go beyond the New Wave of Hong Kong cinema; yet. un like his more mod erni st the analysis of'the commodificution and valorization of violence (wh ich counterparts, he always re mained closer to a popul ar. hybrid aesthetic . renders it inaut hent ic. shallow. and dece ptive ) or an ana lysis which mixing elements and co nve ntio ns from action . buddy films. gangsters. posi ts a flattening of the image ofviole nce (w hich renders it in affective Westerns, romantic rrelodmmas. and comedy (Sandel l. 1996).The New and nihilistic ). Such anal yses presume that as film viewe rs our only Wave mo vement to modernize Cantonese cinema. which began in the mode of implication in screen viole nce is alicmuion." Some viewers late 1970s, was mark ed by greater realism and tech nica l competence, may feel alienated by Woo's efforts to push the limits of screen violence, more openness 10 Hollywood genres such as the crime thriller or while others may be thrilled by how Woo's rhythm and mise-en -scene gangster film , as well as exploitation of violence and se nsationalism induce visceral feci ings. In any case, what is required is a marc nuanced. (Che uk-To 709). Th e New Wave films also ex hibited gre ater visual
4J sophistication and favored shoo ting on loca tion in urban settings. Woo 's In Tunney' s view, Woo fails to ri..c above the action cate go ry and particular co ntributio n was the development of the " hero film," a distinguish him self fro m " workaday stra ight 10 video directors like "modern variation on the old marti al arts movie" in which gun play Aaron Norris and Crai g R. Baxley" (47). Films by Scorsese. Pccki npah, replaced sword play and kun g fu themes and choreography we re Mili us also usc action , but manage 10 "creative ly blur the distinct ion adapted into rhcatriculized gun fights, explosio ns, and acu on stunts between safety synthetic screen action and the kind ofgut-wrenchingly (Cheuk-To 71 1). Woo 's films, along with those of Jackie Cha n and physical viole nce that we recogni ze as rea l" (47). Such a j udgement. Tsui Hark , opened up ne w market s in Japan and Sou th Korea, and which makes a ..elf-evident distinctio n be tween "synthe tic sc ree n received releases in Europe and America. Yet, Woo's success in the actionund vgut-w rcnc hingly physical vio lence," ulti matel y rests upon WCSI has not been without controversy in li a ng Kong, whe re critics a notion of e mpirical, rather than emot ional, real ism. Like measures of have dism issed his "cult status among Engli sh-speaki ng aud iences as acceptable qua ntities of violence, gauging the quality ofscreen violence ye t an o t he r exam p le o f Oricntalism, or ut best as c u lt ura l may be " purd y arb itrary and differ betwee n cultures" (Ta n, 48). T hus, misundersta nd ing" (Reynaud 23) . ot her co mmentato rs. Jess concerned with making auteurist arguments, Woo's third film , The Killa (1 989), crossed-over from Chinatown haw noted how Woo's characteristically violent films have been , with theatres and film festivals into the Weslern main stream theat rical release the exception of /Julin ill tilt' Head ( 1990), "paradox ically compelling in North America . An hom age 10 Jean Pierre Melville 's U' Sflllloll mi and pleasurable ," in large part because of Chow 'run-Fat's performances and a rewor king of Mart in Scorscsc and Japanese YCkll:::ll·t'(t:1I motifs, (Sa ndell, 1994 ). Thr Killer ach ie ved cull status amo ng Weste rn aud iences and crit ics It is not only that Chow 'run-Far's characters per form violence ; and see med to cl inch Woo's auteur status. Howeve r, with his final and rather. screen vio lence is a representation of his relation ship to other most refl exive gangs ter film, Hard Boiled ( 1992), not all reviewers men, and his sc reen body is a spec tacle of pain and suffering. Jilliun have accepted Woo as a I}(majidt' auteur. For example, Tom Tunney Sandel l, for example, maintains that Woo docs not "celebrate thi s writes: violence, but rather uses it to rep rese nt a nostalgia for a lost code of The act ion num bers certai nly are immense. with a honor and chivalry that he sees as necessary for human survival" (1994). prodigious body count and a dy namic fluency in their Throug h an a na lysi s of the role s played by Chow-Yun Fat , his c horeography , e d it ing a nd sheer spee d rhur is relat ion ship to legal organizations (the police) and illegal ones (the frequently stun ning. Per hap s no other director can triads), as well as soc ial codes ofhonor, she interpre ts these films as an c urre ntly mat c h Woo 's hea vy ca libre finesse ill "allegory of male anxiety over Hong Kong's future" (Sande ll, 1994 ). co mbining gun-play and movement. Characters allnus! She reads Woo's film s as representing "the fantasy of a relationship alwa ys run . leap and di ve wh ile firing. Bullets weave bet ween equ als ...rather than between uncquuls" (Sande ll, 1994 ). intricate patterns of blasted bod ies. windows, furniture, Violent actio ns, she notes, arc coded as "romantic't through the usc of and fluncring masses of pape r. Slow motion frequently soft- focus, slow-mo tion , and subtle colors. Sandell concludes with a extend.. pivota l moments and emphasizes the grace of standard psych oanalytic ex planation : "To watch, and enjoy, a Woo film destru ction , the beauty of disintegration and the raw involves a kind of masochism... the pleasure of participating. via power o f pyrote chnics. T he fi lm 's mu sical-like identification, in a rela tionship bet\\"L"Cn equals is always premised upon choreog raphy and the overall rhyth mic qualit y of the the pain of violence" (Sandel l, 1994). To ide ntify wit h the characters dest ruction suggest a directing sty le that has as much portrayed by Chow Yun-Fat is thus to ide ntify with a c haracter "whose in co mmon with Busby Berkeley as it do cs with Sam Sl.' IlS~ of indiv idualit y is always premised upon subjecting his body to Pcckinpnh. It's an css cuti ully decorati ve aesthet ic uf excessive pain and vio lence" (Sand ell , 1994). In this critical strategy, destru ct ion in whic h pyrotech nics and firepower arc Woo's films arc texts of ma ll" masoch ism ; to watch and enjoy a Woo celebrated for their ow n sake (Tunney on). film is a kind of masochism, and viole nce is a form of male bonding that encodes the un reprcscntuble . unacceptable " homoe rotic" desire "al ien urcd brothers w ith c o m pa ra b le codes o f loyalty and bet wee n men, Images of men blasting away wit h and at each other is profe ssionalism now obsolete wit hin late ca pitalism" (Williams. 1995, symptomatic o f a displaced ho moeroticism . However, the plausibi lity -l5). Woo directs and shoots these characte rs. using still framing and ofsuch a thesis-the homoeroricization of violence-c-dcpcnds entirely slow-motio n. 10 emphas ize the bondi ng betwee n men and a different . on whether one accepts the premises and assum ptions of psychoanaly tic byg on e. temporal o rde r. Acco rdi ng to Wo o, his killers a re not film theory.' co ntemporary: "he 's a killer from se veral centuries ago , when they Alt ernat ivel y, Ju lian Stringer has oro vidc d a mo re histori ca l, killed fo r a reaso n" (Woo, 199J a, 25). So although ac tion sequences genre-oriented. textual analysis of Woo 's masculi nist action film s that move very fast, leavi ng little time for con templation, Woo is "no slam departs from the psychoanalytic model rnat dominates much Ang lo bang d irect or"; a long wit h the dy namic monta ge used in ac tion US di scu ssion o f Hollywood masculi nities. St ringer approaches the seq uences. his work presents "quiet moments resembling Eisen stein's sce nes of blood shed in terms o f how they fun ction within a textual lyrical tonal montage xequenccs't that prov ide his heroes " with moments sys tem and how they rela te to an d "give meaning 10 othe r aspects o f of reflection on thei r contemporary histori cal situation" (Williams, na rrative articulatio n" (Stringer, 30 ). Woo's films, he argue s. collup..e 1995, -l5). As William s also notes, infl uenced by Chinese classica l two genres into o ne: the male ac tion o r "doi ng" ge nre and the female tradit ions and heroes (Kwan- Yu, who wa s known 1'0; loya h y an d "s uffering" ge nres. As "male melodramas," Woo's lI ong Kong action frie nds hip ; Jin g- Kc. who tried 10 assassinate the empe ror of Qin in films combine doing and suffering heroes , oscillating between violen ce 220 BC) as we ll as mo tifs fro m Ca tho licism and Budd hism , Woo's and "scenes o f melancholic sadness and longing" (Stringe r. 30). Thi s heroes empha..ize ma ll' sensit ivity rather than macho qual ities. Sa nde ll doing and suffering, he also notes. arc ca rried primarily through formal (1996). 100, notes that Woo's post-I986 Hong Kong films present a means. su ch as the use o f Cantonese pop music. For St ringer, Woo's vision of mas culinity thai combines physical and emot ional presence. films are a variation of the paradigm of mascu line repro..en tation, one revi sing "stereotypic al notion s of what it means to be a male action that registers the instab ilities o f ma sculine subjectivi ty respond ing to hero" (24). the histor ical trauma o f Hong Kong 's reunification with China . Prom otional stills of Woo 's fil ms , rep rod uced in the film press, But wha t o f some o f Woo's other formal techniques and devices? arc often taken from the point blank guns- to -the- head momen ts that Running through the film press are reference s to the John Woo shot occur within Woo 's gun-ba tde ..equence s. Such stills. which claim to (the close-up followed by a rack foc us) or the John Woo "way" of repre se nt a typi cal moment of C how Yun-Fat a nd his adversa ry filming ac tio n sequences: "due lling do llies" with multiple cameras threatening each other, suggest nothing of these cu ltural connections run ning, usuall y at each othe r. at va rious speeds while thousands o f nor anyt hing of how they function within Woo 's tex tua l sy stem as rou nds of ammunition are ex plodcd (Scha rres). Woo himsel f contributes metap hors for a "ruthle ss world of paraly sing choi ce s" (MacDonag h to such formali st di scourse wh e n he answers quest ions ab ou t his 49). In abst racting such images fro m theircontex t. they ma ke it harder "c horeographed ballet s of viole nce" in the fo llowing terms: " In those 10 ma ke con nec tions between who is killin g or being killed and the sequences I wa s very influenced by mu sicals, like Sil/giJl ' ill the Rain po litic...1sit uation o f Iiong Kong before reunificat ion. and Uh f Sit/(- ShU)'. and da ncers like Fred Astaire and Gene Kelley, In A b etter Tomorrow. Mark (C ho w 'run-Par ) i.. a gangster who. They have the rhyt hm of life. and I shoot action scenes ju..t as though instead of fleeing Hong Kong with the mone y afte r he has been betrayed they were da nce sequences" (Woo, 1993b. 52 ). Howe ver. the \VOO style by hi.. gangs ter bosses, return .., is crippled in a shoot -out. and gets is not merely a rnau er of c horeography and pyro technics o f action killed in the vio lent finale , Th e allia nces forged between Ma rk, 110, his sequences: it is also the "composit ional split screen in which apparent partner in crime. and Kit, Ho's brother and an ideal!stic cop, who join oppos ites m irror one another, e ras ing the line between protago nist and together to fight their co mmo n enemy, was read by mallYco mmentators antago nist, love r and friend. cop and c riminal" (McDon agh 49), Woo as a ca ll 10 young people 10 forge a llia nce s and fight the Chinese uses the stoc k charac ters of cops and robbers but portrays them as take over of 1I0ng Ko ng, Th e ir a llia nce across the lines of good cop/
.7 screeni ngs. concerns o ver the level of violence, and a desire to market villains are eliminated by Haley and Ca rmichael befo re their final the film as a n " Ame rican" action mo vie to American audiences confrontation with Deakins, who is gunned do wn by a nuclear missile. (presumed to be unfamiliar with Iiong Kong cinema or John Woo films). Completely absent is the clash of values that infuses Woo 's Hong Kong Wha t rem ained of woo'sstyle was his choreog raphy of the gun fights. film s and the a lliances men make to figh t a co mmon enemy. Yet. in heretofore un se-en act ion stunts, the injectio n of the act ion hero with one review er 's es timation: "Broken Arrow rises abo ve the run -of-the Chinese knight ly va lues. an d the po rtraya l of his ad ve rsa ries as mill action films in that instability is registered visua lly as we ll as co mpletely co rru pted by capitalist values. narratively. The cl ima x of each set-piece ge ne ra lly invol ves slow Chance Boudreaux (Claude Van Dar nmc) is the knightly hero who motion, balanced co mpo sitio ns. and excel le nt cho reography" (Arroyo is " trapped in a late-capitalist world with its o wn exploitative version 40). "To argue," he continues, " that these representations arc beautiful of the 'most dangerous gam e'" (Williams, Fe bruary 1997 44) . In this is to say that chaos is counterbalanced by order inherent in the elegance "game," a tea m of mult inatio nal villa ins led by Fouchon (Lance of the film's fo rmal elements." Such comments no doubt helped to Henriksen) arrange for ric h men to hunt down and kill homeless men. certify Woo 's expertise as a dir ector of bea utiful action seq uences, but Unlike Woo 's Hong Kong Film..... in which the male hero is paired with exuctly what the dept h or the se riousness is, behind the surface of chaos other men, Boudreaux teams up with Natusba Binda (Yancy Butler) and order. o r the visce ral kick of the stunts and explosions. is difficul t to track down the villains. Duri ng the fight sce nes. C hance and his to apprec iate. At best, Broh 'l l Arrow is a competent piec e of genre ad versary Pouc bon arc film ed in slow mot io n, a device which i... not work that may be read as anii-nuclear proliferation cau tio nary fable merely used to glamo rize violence but to con note
52 The density of Woo's aesth etic in Face/Off is in part due to the "male melodram a" and the "do ing and suffering " heroe s into the multiplication of his prev iously preferred dram atic structure of three Hollyw ood ac tion film, where the male body, its wo undi ng, surgical male characte rs, who at one point or another, will threaten each other transformation, and restoration , is a condensed signifier of masculine at gun point. In enl argin g the dramatic struc ture to include female subjectivity in crisis. As Coulthard suggests, Face/Off represents a characters (w ives, partn ers, and dau ght ers) and in bringing attenti on masculinity "th at is not separate fro m a melodramatic femininity, but to domesti c, married, family life , Woo has moved beyond simply which incorporates - even di ge sts - such an es sen ce into a male intro duci ng fe ma le c ha rac ters for "emoti on al effec t only to be masochi sm and ethics of suffering" ( 14). In this way, the film amplifies summa rily whisked off the screen to make way for another burst of spec ifically masculin e anx ieties being played out in recent Amer ican gunfire, anoth er fallen so ldier, another radiant ca tastrop he" (Dargis films, particu larly around fatherhood and marri ed, professional life, at 12). This new struc ture allows Woo to ex plore the emotional concern s the same time it contributes to the newly hegemonic pa radigm ofwhite of hom e and famil y. male as victim (best exemplified in the male characters port rayed by With the int roducti on of the domesti c sphere, Woo's ea rlier Michael Douglas)." These victim films imply that within late capitalism co ncern with loyalty and trust between men is shifted onto male Ifemale - a sys tem based on economic and symbolic violence- men are not relati onships. When Troy as Archer arrives on the hom e scene, he brings the only aggressors (and women are not the only victims). Masculine his wildness into the relationship as romance and revives their dorma nt subjects may alternately occupy the positions of vic tim and victimizer. sex life. Th ough there is a hint of possible sex ua l inte rest in his first What is unique about Face/Off, however, is that " violence is not distinct encounter with Eve's daughte r, instead of dispensing with authoritative from or external to the melodramat ic inten sity of feeling" (Coulthard advice , he empathizes with her rebelli ousness. From their perspecti ve, 17). In these terms, Woo's stylistics of excessive vio lence , including then, he represents a new, improved husl.and and father. But from the his focu s on the visual and sound effects of prolonged, rapid gunfire, audi ence's perspective, he represents the threat of dom estic violence is a kind of melodramatic excess that may be read as "a special form of against Eve and her daught er. Wh en Archer as Troy finally man ages to displaced, external expression of inner suffering" (Coulthard 17). Wh ile return hom e, the question is whether his wife will recogni ze him for the film's narrat ive closu re sugges ts a resolution of the crisi s of who he trul y is and who the real th reat to the fam ily is. T he truth of his masculine subjec tivity, the most striking feature remains the surfeit of ident ity is only revealed to her when she trusts him enough to test Troy violence and emo tionalism. Archer is the wound ed hero who suffers as Archer 's blood. both somatically and affectively; through his suffering , he reaffirms Moreover, the narrative of the destru ction and recuperation of the his connections to wife and daughter, and eve n traditional family values Ameri can wh ite, middle-class famil y intersects with a terrorist bomb as Adam repl aces the lost son Mi chael. With the focu s on the domestic plot which puts America under siege. Here, Face/Off shares ideological sphere, the male hero is not redeemed by jo ining his mal e friends in territory first staked out in Die Hard ( 1988), which interweaves co p/ gun battles (as in Woo's Hong Kong film s), nor is the " wounded and terrorist plots with the co ntradictions of married professional life. The suffering male hero cured by his own indi vid ua listic actions and by ce ntral concern of Face/Off is more priva te than public, as the major the interference of external institut ional forces of fam ily, work , and public concern -the bomb threat to the Los An geles Co nvention medicine," as Coulthard suggests ( 17). Rather, I would argue that famil y Center-is diffused by Troy him self. Though Troy as Archer accepts, and hom e are represented as the institution and the place which will rath er than reject s, the acc olades of bein g a public hero, his conflict give meaning and value to men's work and professi onal life (rather with Archer nonetheless continues , but it moves into the private sphere. than the co mmendations and award s we see hanging in Archer's office). The narrati ve is thus less co nce rned with threats to global capitalism Archer as Troy appeals to Eve on the basis of her professiona l iden tity than Arch er 's personal passage from wounding to healing, and from when he asks her to usc her medical expertise to verify his identity es trangement to reconcil iation . claim. The film 's excesses are not so much a "critique of the stability In generic terms, Face/Off exe mplifies the infusion of Woo's of the American bourgeois famil y and the mastery and role of the family
54 55 patriarch ," as Coulthard (18) concludes. so much as a representational violent. dangerous. and mean world of late ca pitalism. strategy for reiterating hegemonic masculinity. While it uses melodrama (and melodrama is associated with a critique of the family). Facd OJf Notes also splices together the "w ild. violent, mortified white male body" at I This essay is a revised version of a paper deli vered at "Bang Bang the cen ter of male rampage films with elements of "sensitive-guy" Shoot Shoot! Film, Television. Guns," a conference held at Ryerson f il ms (Pfe il). The film undoubtedly shares with melodra ma the territory Polytechnic University. Toronto. Onta rio. Canada . May 16- 17. 1998. of victimage . but its hero-as-victim also qualifies as anot her icon of I would like to thank Lloyd Michaels and various anonymous reviewers the white male as victim and victimizer (Savran ). Woo's wounded and for their helpful suggestions. healed male hero-a s-victim reiterates hegemonic masculinity by 2 For the latest effort to produce a comprehensive scientific study of redefining the stereotypical male action hero as a beleaguered, white. television violence, see the Nationa l Television Vio!£'IIC(' Study, rnnle. professional. baby boom father. conducted by Ellen wartella and her associates. and summarized in Face/Off not only represents the masculine subject's uneasy "The Contex t of Tel ev ision Viole nce ," T he Ca rro ll C. Arn old accommodation 10 the interdependence of emotional, family life and Distinguished Lecture, Speech Communication Association Annual professional life; the fil m's spectacularization of the male body's Convention, Novembe r 23. 1996. San Diego. California . mutat ions makes us awa re tbur masculin ity seeks to pre serve its \ This fear effect. cha racterized as "Mea n World Syndrome." is one of hegemony by being fluid and ope n 10 redefinition. Traditionally. action three major "e ffects" eme rging from the body of existing television movies have defined hegemonic masculinity in relation to physica l effe cts resea rch. the othe r two being the learning effect and the strength. invulnerability. deci siveness. and violence, cut off from any emotion. In FacdOjJ, however. viole nce is also linked to emotional desensitization effect (wartella). intensity ami visceral feeling. to states of vulnerability and passivity. ~ Walter Benjamin observed long ago that in fascist aesthetic s "self blurring the boundary between mind and body, rational and irrational, alienation has reached such a degree that it can experience its own male and fema le. The choreography, rhythm. mise ('1/ .\"("('1/('. and bodily destruction as an aesthetic of pleasure of the first orde r" (242). destruction of the gun battles may be read as a hyperbolic fonn of , In a subsequent essay. Sa ndell ( 1996) seems to have reconsidered her nonverbal co mmunication among men concerning "pa in. suffering and violence as disp laced homoeroticism thesis. reinterpreting Woo's the impact of the past on the present" (Coulthard 12). Yet. while denying images of male bonding through violence in relation 10 the structure us the usual images of "happy violence," Faa /Off docs end with an of values (honor. chiv alry) found in Chin ese literature and martial arts image of the Archer family made whole. secure. and happy.Thu s, Faa / films. Based on a reexamination of Woo's Hong Kong films. as well Off is a generic transformation of the action genre that reinvents as all close-reading of Woo's first two Hollywood films. she goe s on to masculinity as a dialectic of viole nce and sensitivity."[Fllawcd and argue that Woo's 1986-1 992 films exp ress a "c ultural fantasy about da ngerous masculi nit y" (Coulthard 18) is made abject when the gender and sexuality in which intimacy is valorized and celebrated as exh austed Troy as Archer dies, not from gunfire. but from a cruc ifixion important and necessary to all relationships - both sexual and platonic" like harpooning. Whereas narrative often depends on a structure of (24). clear-cut oppositions. Pfl cd OJJ 's spectacle of masculinity remi nds us (, For further discussion of recent work on newly hegemonic Hollywood that external violence and inner feeling are not opposites, but always masculinities. sec Hanke ( 1998). Douglas was also executive producer implicated with each other. At the same time. what is preserved by of p(/cdqlI this dialectic is made abundantly clear in the final scene. which redefines "a better tomorrow," not in term s of a non- or counter-hegemonic masculinity. but in terms of a rehabilitated family patriarch and an American family that has been restored as a haven within the wider
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