The French Connection based on the book by Robin Moore, with Gene Hackman in the leading role http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/06/night-moves-written-by-alan-sharp.html - 10 out of 10

 

The French Connection based on the book by Robin Moore, with Gene Hackman in the leading role http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/06/night-moves-written-by-alan-sharp.html

10 out of 10

 

 

This is an iconic motion picture, one of the Best 100 of All Time, with a stupendous Gene Hackman dominating the big or small screen, in the leading role of Jimmy Doyle aka Popeye, for which he has won one of his two Oscars…the other was for the astonishing Unforgiven http://realini.blogspot.com/2020/07/one-of-realini-top-20-best-movies-ever.html Gene Hackman was nec plus ultra

 

However, it is interesting to see how things have changed, and some of them have not, in that they could not make a French Connection by saying that the aggressive Doyle is a positive character, he would be the villain, in a movie made now, given that from the start, he kicks and hits a suspect, granted, the latter had just used a knife against his partner, Buddy Russo aka Roy Scheider- this is another glorious artist, the star of All That Jazz http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/08/note-on-all-that-jazz-written-and.html

Our hero – maybe the anti-hero – had to extract important information from the underworld, but this is what they all say, and they justify violence using the philosophy of Bentham, do something to benefit the most people, and if that affects one individual, then you have to go ahead…there is this example they have in lectures available online, from Yale I think they are, in which they ask students to consider a test

 

You have a railway line and a train is coming, if it takes one track, it will kill one person, on another, there are more, I forgot the details, but it is in the power of the individual to change the course, so what would you do…things can be more complicated, and this is not as obvious a choice as it sounds, in circumstances where, fro instance you have a group of thugs who pressure, torment or worse a single man, who has the keys or access to the vault of the bank, from which they want some millions of dollars.

In theory, it is a few, maybe as many as fifty five ghouls that would rejoice with stolen money… we can even multiply this and I am thinking of Trump and his cult members, their happiness would be to steal elections (they have tried it, and their spiritual guru is facing indictments now, but the fools do not care, they want to dismantle the FBI, DOJ anything that stands between the White House and their dinosaur)

 

What do we do then, let the world explode, because an idiot and a sick fool with Narcissistic Personality Disorder has to play with the red buttons, pretend he is an adult and the ‘very stable genius’ he claims to be?

 

Let us come back to the French Connection, where they are using a technique from Influence http://realini.blogspot.com/2016/05/influence-by-robert-cialdini.html a classic of psychology by Robert Cialdini, exposing the six principles, social acceptance, reciprocity, respect for authority, the one that applies in this instance appears to be reciprocity, though it could well be a combination of factors

Doyle seems to be frantic, always tense, ready to fight, you would say definitely a neurotic character – this reminds me of Scoop http://realini.blogspot.com/2018/07/scoop-by-evelyn-waugh-adapted-for-bbc.html by Evelyn Waugh, one of the greatest writers, with a series of extraordinary books listed among the masterpieces of history, Brideshead Revisited, Decline and Fall, The Loved One, vile Bodies, Black Mischief

 

The list longer, but nevertheless, in Scoop, we have a journalist that travels to Africa, to cover events there, and he works for Lord Copper, some of the dialogue has made history and I have read about it in The King’s English http://realini.blogspot.com/2023/07/the-kings-english-guide-to-modern-usage.html by His Majesty Kingsley Amis – when telling the employer something authentic, an assistant he has says ‘definitely Lord Copper’, but when it is not true, the same man only dares ‘up to a point, Lord Copper’, which is both excruciatingly funny, and so deep, truthful, for this is what happens

We can see it with this tragicomic spectacle in America, with Trump -such a leit motif here, some criticize this ‘obsession’, but I retort that this is arguably the most important show that we can watch, for once the gorilla (and they are such nice animals) is back in the White House, then all hell will break loose, and we will all be affected, unless you live on the space station, and even then you are not safe, the creature will sell this part of the world to Putin, for peanuts and some compliments from the czar, and then he will avenge what he sees as ‘witch hunt’, but it only an effort to make the criminal pay…

 

The most tempting thing is to say I cannot believe it still, after all these years of a permanent circus, this degradation of America – let me put here the red states, but they are many, then they could well be enough, again, in 2024, even when the ‘popular vote’ is lost by millions, to get the pterodactyl anointed ‘king of the free world’- which has this basic flaw, that they have an electoral system that allows for the minority to rule, in that Hilary Clinton would have been president in 2016, in another democracy, where they count all the votes, and the one who has more wins, well, not so fast in the USA…

This was supposed to be about The French Connection, but then it was about the US, which even now has a major drug problem, but as I insist ad nauseam here, there is another one, a potential calamity that awaits us all…

 

 

Now for a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/unique-in-world.html?q=unique+in+the+world    – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se

 

As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html