Arthur Penn's "Night Moves" (1975) is one of the great movies of the '70s. As a detective picture about a private eye with flawed vision -- in this case, a small-time independent dick and former football player named Harry Moseby (Gene Hackman), who'd like to think he's Sam Spade -- it would make a great double bill with "Chinatown," released the previous year. Yesterday, when the news came of French director Eric Rohmer's death, a lot of people who apparently hadn't even seen "Night Moves" (or, perhaps, a Rohmer movie) were freely quoting Moseby's famous wisecrack in pieces about Rohmer without providing any context for it:
"I saw a Rohmer film once. It was kind of like watching paint dry."
It wasn't long before it even became a Twitter meme: #nightmoves. (See examples below, after jump.)
What some (not all) of the quoters didn't seem to realize or remember is that Harry's remark, as scripted by Alan Sharp, is a brittle homophobic jab at a gay friend of his wife's. (Watch the clip above.) Ellen (Susan Clark) invites Harry to join her and Charles (Ben Archibek -- that's him at the end of the clip) for a movie: Eric Rohmer's classic "My Night at Maud's" (1970), about an engaged man (Jean-Louis Trintignant) who spends a long, memorable night in conversation with a divorcee (Françoise Fabian). Moseby is asserting his macho credentials, and ends the scene by teasing Charles about going bowling again sometime. "You seem to get some weird kind of satisfaction from this sort of thing, don't you?" Charles replies. Later that night, Harry drives by the theater as the movie is letting out and sees something indicating that his wife may be having an affair.
The edge in this earlier scene suggests that his discovery may not have been entirely inadvertent. He's accused of staking her out, as he would have done for any of his sleazy infidelity cases. ("Night Moves" also stars Jennifer Warren, James Woods, Melanie Griffith, Max Gail, Kenneth Mars and Harris Yulin who, as I have pointed out many times before, should be in every movie ever made.)
It does "Night Moves" and Rohmer a great disservice when that line is quoted as if it's simply a swipe at the French director's movies, which are light on action and heavy on conversation. As Andrew Sarris famously wrote about "My Night at Maud"'s, there's nothing more cinematic than the spectacle of a man and a woman saying up all night talking.
Rohmer was asked about the Moseby line -- and the significance of American cinema -- in this 1977 interview:
(tip: NYT's The Lede)
Below are some of the 01/11/01 wittier Twitter variations on Harry Moseby's line (and some of them are pretty damn clever), submitted with the hash tag #nightmoves :
"I saw a Sirk film once. It was kind of like watching paint cry." #nightmoves
"I saw a Preminger film once. It was kind of like watching a spacious 'Scope frame articulate the divisions between people." #nightmoves
"I saw a Ruiz film once. It was kind of like watching a dry oil painting becoming wet again." #nightmoves
"I saw a Tom Laughlin movie once. It was kind of like punching Jesus in the face." #nightmoves
"I saw a Bruce LaBruce film once. It was kind of like watching dudes fuck." #nightmoves
"I saw a John Carney movie. Once." #nightmoves
"I saw a Bela Tarr film once. It was kinda like following the painter while he goes to get more paint." #nightmoves
I saw a Penn film once. It was kind of like watching Melanie Griffith dry. #nightmoves
"I saw a Dusan Makavejev film once. It was kind of like watching Grad students make porn" #nightmoves
"I saw a Stan Brakhage movie once; it was kinda like Paint watching me dry." #nightmoves
"I saw a Preston Sturges film once. It was kind of like watching paint dry...with a little sex in it!" #nightmoves
I watched a Gaspar Noe film once. It was like having my nose rubbed in shit and then being called a sissy for wanting a towel. #nightmoves
"I saw a Fritz Lang film once. It was kind of like watching the lines of a deadly trap being drawn from everyday settings." #nightmoves
"I saw an Ingmar Bergman film once. It was kind of like quietly willing oneself to grow a tumor." #nightmoves
I saw a Bay film once. It was kind of like watching CGI dry. #nightmoves
"I saw a David Lynch film once. It was like a midget soaking my eyes in gasoline and setting them on fire." #nightmoves
"I saw a Derek Jarman movie once. It was exactly like watching paint die." #nightmoves
"I saw a Rob Cohen film once. It was AWFUL!" #nightmoves
"I saw an Aki Kaurimäki film once. It was like watching humor dry." #nightmoves
I saw a Penn film once. It was kind of like watching Melanie Griffith dry. #nightmoves (This person HAS seen the movie!)
"I saw a Sokurov film once. It was kind of like watching paint dry...I liked it!" #nightmoves
Side note: The late critic Robin Wood published his monograph on Arthur Penn five years before "Night Moves" -- arguably, with "Bonnie and Clyde" (1967), his greatest film.
UPDATE (01/12/10): Jaime N. Christley (@j_christley) informs me that he was the one who started the #nightmoves meme. (I didn't know how to determine where it began, so I'm glad he told me.) At his blog Out, damned spot! he writes:
While I recognize that the line's context may change its impact, I don't agree that it scales back the stupidity of its message. A writer doesn't just invent a line like that without a wee bit of him genuinely feeling it, and partly because so many people do feel that way. As a line of dialogue, its context transforms it from direct commentary to weighted dialogue because that's something screenwriters do. Godard is one of the only filmmakers who issue raw praise or dismissal to filmmakers in spoken dialogue, and even in Godardworld, nothing is un-complex.
But I wasn't incensed by "Night Moves" so much as annoyed by those who picked up the line and waved it about as their only response to Rohmer's passing.
That's the way I felt, too, JC, and thanks for weighing in. Writers were actually quoting the Harry Moseby line in obituaries without explaining where it came from, who wrote it, and how the character used it. As for the meme itself, as you can see above, it resulted in some pretty funny responses -- that had nothing to do, of course, with Eric Rohmer. (BTW, I came up with my first Twitter meme last week -- less successful, but RT'd and compiled in various circles: #sammendesbondtitles. I guess you can still look it up...)
16 Comments
In an interview, Arthur Penn commented about that specific line. He loved Rohmer, and he felt Harry Moseby was precisely the type to blow Rohmer off with that offhand wisecrack.
Ummm Hackman's character is fictional. Has it not occurred to anyone to mention this? I don't understand why his 'opinion' has become an issue. He does not exist. His 'opinion' is instead something written into the script to give his character a certain trait. But maybe we have reached an age where we cannot distinguish people on the screen from people in real life. Those are funny twitter posts, though.
@MattL: I saw a Rohmer film once. It was like watching paint dry. This is of course quoted from a fictional character, so I can therefore not share his opinion.
Nope, over 140 characters.
It counts if someone real says it. Then a debate can begin. However, by saying this you're not actually thinking for yourself. HA!
Are you saying you think fictional characters make up their own lines?
That makes sense.
Speaking of which, Jim. I think you should take down the Keaton, Dennett, and Scorsese quotes from the top right. By including them, you're not thinking for yourself. HA!
Yes, it's fictional, but he does raise an interesting point. Persoanlly, I don't disagree with him, although I do find Rohmer films to be a little more exciting than watching paint dry.
I don't think they're refering specifically to the movie (yes the quote comes from Night Moves, but as you pointed yourself out, not all of them watched), rather they find that this little quip is a good quick sum-up of their views about Rohmer.
I don't specifically agree. I know that a lot happens in a Eric Rohmer movie. But somehow, I can never get past the stilted acting style, with the actors delivering their lines in this affectless, flat monotone that you can hear in the clip at the end of your second video (but I love to hear him talk about movies. It's riveting...). And even though they seem to spell their motives, I always that I miss something.
Jim, thanks for this post. I myself never really caught the remark as being a homophobic dig. I always just thought of it as one of many instances in which Moseby brings his incompitance into plain view, seeing as the entire movie seems to revolve around his inability to solve a case on his own, of course leading to that final image of his boat spinning around endlessly in figure eights. Only a narrow-minded man of such little culture could liken a filmmaker's work like Rohmer's to watching paint dry. That was always my take anyway. I'll have to check out the film again.
I'm with you about Harris Yulin. I saw him star in a Guthrie Theatre production of Tartuffe in Minneapolis, early 80s, I think it was. Great actor.
I saw a Zemeckis film once, it was like watching paint render
I saw a Keaton film once. I couldn't hear him.
I saw a Warhol film once. It was like watching dry paint.
As Tom charitably implies, paint drying is not a situation where nothing happens. It simply happens slowly and (almost) imperceptibly. So I would say it's a pretty good description of Rohmer films, if one is speaking relatively. It's also why I really like his stuff, especially after 50 movies in which paint is splattered all over my face. And I agree that "Summer" best fits the description and is my favorite, though I haven't seen more than six or seven, yet.
Interesting that nobody has credited the writer of the Night Moves meme, Alan Sharp (Ulzana's Raid, Rob Roy, The Hired Hand). Having seen him interviewed, I think it's the kind of macho quip that would come easily from the man himself, though as a fan of his work I prefer to give him the benefit of the doubt as to the distance he would put between himself and Moseby.
Interview with screenwriter Lem Dobbs, who has, it seems, read the original script of Night Moves - in which the auteur cited was Claude Chabrol, not Rohmer!
http://www.cosmoetica.com/DSI21.htm
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