Escape from New York

John Carpenter – 1981 – USA

Escape from New York may or may not be John Carpenter’s most perfect film, but I consider it to be his quintessential film, a testament work that incorporates the full range of substance that makes up his cinema. Alternately affecting, thrilling and bleak, it’s a masterpiece of practical design, combining massive dressed sets on locations in St. Louis, breathtaking matte paintings and composite shots, and punk-tinged costuming and characters. It includes, for the only time, contributions by all of his greatest collaborators, from Debra Hill, Nick Castle and Dean Cundey behind the scenes to actors Kurt Russell, Adrienne Barbeau, Donald Pleasance, and even the voice of Jamie Lee Curtis. Cundey’s moody yet glowing cinematography and Joe Alves’ production design burst the limits of what was deemed possible on a shoestring budget. Carpenter’s music underscores feelings of both dread and contemplation in a borderline sci-fi story that culminates in one of the most comically pessimistic finales in a movie since Dr. Strangelove, expressing Carpenter’s fiercely anti-authoritarian views. The U.S. president’s mysterious British accent, the Marxist plane hijackers, the feral subterranean “Crazies” gang, and the positively eerie areal approach to the World Trade Center towers are all indicative of Carpenter’s antennae being tuned in to the terrible absurdity inherent in the world’s dual addictions to technology and fanaticism. Snake Plissken’s eyepatch covers the wink that Russell and Carpenter give the viewer throughout, sharing in the pleasure of a seemingly lean action film that is also subtly layered with lore, world-building, social satire and genuine pathos. Devoid of telegraphed motives and ham-fisted speeches, somehow Carpenter’s simple message comes though clearly; that corruption and callousness may be baked into humanity’s DNA, resulting in horrors in any possible manmade culture, but talent, ethics, humor and strength of personality in certain individuals make life worth living in spite of society’s cold machinery.