On DRIVE, HE SAID and basketball in the movies
Jack Nicholson, 1971. US.
Appropriate viewing following Olivier Assayas’s Carlos, Jack Nicholson’s debut work as a director tells the story of a college basketball player as his life is inspired by the revolutionary politics of those around him. Set within the campus revolutions of the early 1970’s, Drive, He Said is a hidden gem from within Nicholson’s extensive oeuvre.
Here at Hope Lies at 24 Frames Per Second it has been noted on several occasions in the past just how strong Jack Nicholson’s body of work was during the early to mid 1970’s. Between Easy Rider and One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest Nicholson racked up some of the all-time great performances of the cinema, working alongside the likes of Michelangelo Antonioni, Mike Nichols, Roman Polanski and Hal Ashby on films as downright great as The Passenger, Chinatown, Five Easy Pieces and The Last Detail. In between this run he found time to try his hand at directing, and Drive, He Said is the result of that experiment.
The charting of a disillusioned ball player, cut to the backdrop of the campus revolutions, Drive, He Said impresses on several fronts. The strikingly staged basketball scenes in the movies pushed me into thinking of other great films portraying the sport. Karel Reisz’s The Gambler immediately sprung to mind, as did Steve James’s powerful documentary, Hoop Dreams, and while there are the likes of Teen Wolf and White Men Can’t Jump, which are guilty pleasures at best, few concrete classics are set within the world of the sport. Oh, and lets not forget the purely of their time Harlem Globetrotter and Michael Jordan vehicles, although it should probably be said that they concerned themselves with a mainstream, none-sports concerned audience, plying spectacle as their ware, as opposed to analysis or commentary on the actual sport. That being said, Drive, He Said might be accused of the same, but while Nicholson’s film has aspirations that veer wildly from what one might deem to be a commentary on the sport, the placement of said sport, and the protagonists role within that is completely integral to the wider scope of the film. The veracity of the ball game contrasts perfectly with the inner turmoil of the grad-school terrorists, with the ballplayers acting as channels of sorts for the thoughts of the “revolutionaries”, albeit not in any literal manner. The film calms itself using footage of ballet dancers, imagery which directly counters that of the basketball court. The realism of the basketball sequences is reinforced by Nicholson’s use of real basketball players (real appears to be a running theme throughout the film, with many of the riot sequences cut together from footage of an actual campus riot that took place during filming).
Hector is an awkward character, and William Tepper an interesting screen presence. Gangly and passive looking, Hector isn’t your standard protagonist, but the New Hollywood was all about deconstructing cinematic expectations. The character of Gabriel, Hector’s draft-avoiding flat-mate portrayed by Michael Margotta reminds of Nicholson’s Randall McMurphy from One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. His encounter with the army is genuinely hilarious, with his self-inflicted deteriorating mental state proving a solid secondary narrative stand throughout the film, which in turn aptly reflects Hector’s own story arc, as the two roles spiral toward one another.
The film is notable in its representation of the media. Set at a time when the mainstream media was a target of the counter-culture, the corporate media act as a deus ex machina within Hector’s tale. Requests for Interviews act as punctuation points of sorts anytime confrontation becomes too much (most notably in the moments following the game “invasion” at the opening of the film, and during Bruce Dern’s wonderful half time pep talk). Television cameras block the route to the basketball court and autograph hunters break the most dramatic scene in the film in half, again reinforcing the films subversive streak. Likewise, the film is full of in-jokes and references. Robert Towne, a famously awful actor, shows up as a neglected, reverse — mentor of sorts, with his character in many ways reflective of the attitude of the New Hollywood towards the old guard. There is a shot that is clearly intended as homage to Robert Bresson’s Pickpocket too, like for like in its construction. The biggest crime that the revolutionaries commit is the releasing of the leopard mascot during the ball game, with the image of the leopard one forever etched in the Hollywood slapstick hall of fame thanks to Hawks’ Bringing Up Baby. The film also recalls Godard’s La Chinoise, that other classic of college revolutionaries.
Nicholson also subverts expectations of television sports coverage by splicing in the occasional snippet of slogan bearing jingoism that again reminds of Godard (with he and the rest of the nouvelle vague a major influence on the New Hollywood). He also subverts concepts of nudity and its place within cinema. At the time of the films release boundaries regarding the use of sex within films were being broken, yet the films sole sex scene is presented fully clothed. Elsewhere, nudity is presented, pun intended, in full swing, with the opening sequence shot in the post-game locker room originally envisioned as a “Symphony of junk” (Nicholson’s term, not mine), and much of the third act concerned with the plight of a naked young man. In a truly horrendous final sequence, a naked Gabriel “frees” the wildlife of the science department in a drug induced decision to bring himself “back to wildness” in the words of Nicholson himself. Snakes, rats, lizards and all manner of creatures fill the laboratory, in a genuinely affecting and memorable scene, with Nicholson channeling post-Charles Manson imagery to create a genuinely alarming character.
Nicholson has had some ups and downs as a filmmaker, but this is certainly at the top of the proverbial pile when it comes to order of quality. Nicholson shows a genuine voice (however confusing) in Drive, He Said, displaying a similar depth in his vision as a director to that of his work as an actor. For example, the wonderful scene scored to the Star Spangled Banner is a great moment, acting a prelude to the chaos of the second half of the scene.
One of the hidden gems of the New Hollywood, Drive, He Said is finally available on home video for the first time courtesy of The Criterion Collection.
