Jack Wallace | Through the Shattered Lens

Based on a one-act play by David Mamet, 2005’s Edmond tells the story of Edmond Burke (William H. Macy).

Edmond shares his name (if not the actual spelling) with the philosopher Edmund Burke. Edmund Burke was a strong believer that society had to put value in good manners to survive and that religious and moral institutions played an important role in promoting the idea of people treating each other with respect and decency. Edmund Burke knew what he believes and his writings continue to influence thinks to this day. Edmond Burke, on the other hand, doesn’t know what he believes. He doesn’t know who he wants to be. All he knows is that he doesn’t feel like he’s accomplished anything with his life. “I don’t feel like a man,” he says at one point to a racist bar patron (played by Joe Mantegna) who replies that Edmond needs to get laid.

On a whim, Edmond steps into the shop of a fortune teller (Frances Bay), who flips a few Tarot cards and then tells Edmond that “You’re not where you’re supposed to be.” Edmond takes her words to heart. He starts the night by telling his wife (played by Mamet’s wife, Rebecca Pidgeon) that he’s leaving their apartment and he won’t be coming back. He goes to the bar, where he discusses his marriage with Mantegna. He goes to a strip club where he’s kicked out after he refuses to pay $100 for a drink. He goes to a peep show where he’s frustrated by the glass between him and the stripper and the stripper’s constant demand that he expose himself. He gets beaten in an alley by three men who were running a three-card monte scam. Edmond’s problem is that he left home without much cash and each encounter leads to him having less and less money. If he can’t pay, no one wants to help him, regardless of how much Edmond argues for a little kindness. He pawns his wedding ring for $120 but apparently, he just turns around and uses that money to buy a knife. An alley-way fight with a pimp leads to Edmond committing his first murder. A one-night stand with a waitress (a heart-breaking Julia Stiles) leads to a second murder after a conversation about whether or not the waitress is actually an actress leads to a sudden burst of violence. Edmond ends up eventually in prison, getting raped by his cellmate (Bookem Woodbine) and being told, “It happens.” Unable to accept that his actions have, in one night, led him from being a businessman to a prisoner, Edmond says, “I’m ready to go home now.” By the end of the film, Edmond realizes that perhaps he is now where he was meant to be.

It’s a disturbing film, all the more so because Edmond is played by the likable William H. Macy and watching Macy go from being a somewhat frustrated but mild-mannered businessman to becoming a blood-drenched, racial slur-shouting murderer is not a pleasant experience. Both the play and the film have generated a lot of controversy due to just how far Edmond goes. I don’t see either production as being an endorsement of Edmond or his actions. Instead, I see Edmond as a portrait of someone who, after a lifetime of being willfully blind to the world around him, ends up embracing all of the ugliness that he suddenly discovers around him. He’s driven mad by discovering, over the course of one night, that the world that is not as kind and well-mannered as he assumed that it was and it all hits him so suddenly that he can’t handle it. He discovers that he’s not special and that the world is largely indifferent to his feelings. He gets overwhelmed and, until he gets his hands on that knife, he feels powerless and emasculated. (The knife is an obvious phallic symbol.) It’s not until the film’s final scene that Edmond truly understands what he’s done and who he has become.

Edmond is not always an easy film to watch. The second murder scene is truly nightmarish, all the more so because the camera remains on Edmond as he’s drenched in blood. This is one of William H. Macy’s best performances and also one of his most disturbing characters. That said, it’s a play and a film that continues to be relevant today. There’s undoubtedly a lot of Edmonds out there.

To quote “Dirty” Harry Callahan, “I’m all broken up about his rights.”

In 1972, a novel by Brian Garfield was published. The novel was about a meek New York City accountant named Paul Benjamin. After Paul’s wife is murdered and his daughter is raped, Paul suffers a nervous breakdown. A self-described bleeding heart liberal, Paul starts to stalk the streets at night while carrying a gun. He is hunting muggers. At first, he just kills the muggers who approach him but soon, he starts to deliberately set traps. Sinking into insanity, Paul becomes just as dangerous as the men he is hunting. Garfield later said that the book was inspired by two real-life incidents, one in which his wife’s purse was stolen and another in which his car was vandalized. Garfield said that his initial response was one of primitive anger. He wondered what would happen if a man had these rageful thoughts and could not escape them.

The title of that novel was Death Wish. Though it was never a best seller, it received respectful reviews and Garfield subsequently sold the film rights. At first, Sidney Lumet was attached to direct and, keeping with Garfield’s portrayal of Paul Benjamin, Jack Lemmon was cast as the unlikely vigilante.

Lumet, ultimately, left the project so that he could concentrate on another film about crime in New York City, Serpico. When Lumet left, Jack Lemmon also dropped out of the film. Lumet was replaced by Michael Winner, a director who may not have been as thoughtful as Lumet but who had a solid box office record and a reputation for making tough and gritty action films.

Winner immediately realized that audiences would not be interested in seeing an anti-vigilante film. Instead of casting an actor with an intellectual image, like Jack Lemmon, Winner instead offered the lead role (now named Paul Kersey and no longer an accountant but an architect) to Charles Bronson. When Winner told Bronson that the script was about a man who shot muggers, Bronson replied, “I’d like to do that.”

“The script?” Winner asked.

“No, shoot muggers.”

At the time that he was cast, Charles Bronson was 52 years old. He was the biggest star in the world, except for in America where he was still viewed as being a B-talent at best. Bronson was known for playing tough, violent men who were not afraid to use violence to accomplish their goals. (Ironically, in real life, Bronson was as much of an ardent liberal as Paul Kersey was meant to be at the beginning of the movie.) Among those complaining that Charles Bronson was all wrong for Paul Kersey was Brian Garfield. However, Bronson accepted the role and the huge box office success of Death Wish finally made him a star in America.

To an extent, Brian Garfield was right. Charles Bronson was a better actor than he is often given credit for but, in the early scenes of Death Wish, he does seem miscast. When Paul is first seen frolicking with his wife (Hope Lange) in Hawaii, Bronson seems stiff and awkward. In New York City, when Paul tells his right-wing colleague (William Redfield) that “my heart does bleed for the less fortunate,” it doesn’t sound natural. But once Paul finds out that his wife has been murdered and his daughter, Carol (Kathleen Tolan), has been raped, Paul gets mad and Bronson finally seems comfortable in the role.

In both the book and the original screenplay, both the murder and the rape happened off-screen. Never a subtle director, Winner instead opted to show them in a brutal and ugly scene designed to get the audience as eager to shoot muggers as Bronson was. Today, the power of the scene is diluted by the presence of Jeff Goldblum, making his screen debut as a very unlikely street thug. Everyone has to start somewhere and Goldblum got his start kicking Hope Lange while wearing a hat that made him look like he belonged in an Archie comic.

With his wife dead and his daughter traumatized, Paul discovers that no one can help him get justice. The police have no leads. His son-in-law (Steven Keats) is a weak and emotional mess. (As an actor, some of Bronson’s best moments are when Paul makes no effort to hide how much he loathes his son-in-law.) When a mugger approaches Paul shortly after his wife’s funeral, Paul shocks himself by punching the mugger in the face.

When Paul is sent down to Arizona on business, he meets Ames Jainchill (Stuart Margolin), a land developer who calls New York a “toilet” and who takes Paul to see a wild west show. Later at a gun club, Paul explains that he was a conscientious objects during the Korean War but he knows how to shoot. His father was a hunter and Paul grew up around guns. When Paul returns to New York, Ames gives him a present, a revolver. Paul is soon using that revolver to bring old west justice to the streets of New York City.

As muggers start to show up dead, the NYPD is outraged that a vigilante is stalking the street. Detective Frank Ochoa (Vincent Gardenia) is assigned to bring the vigilante in. But the citizens of New York love the vigilante. Witnesses refuse to give an accurate description of Paul. When Paul is wounded, a young patrolman (Christopher Guest, making almost as unlikely a film debut as Jeff Goldblum) conspires to keep Paul’s revolver from being turned over as evidence.

The critics hated Death Wish, with many of them calling it an “immoral” film. Brian Garfield was so disgusted by how Winner changed his story that he wrote a follow-up novel in which Paul is confronted by an even more dangerous vigilante who claims to have been inspired by him. Audiences, however, loved it. Death Wish was one of the top films at the box office and it spawned a whole host of other vigilante films.

Death Wish is a crude movie, without any hint of subtlety and nuance. It is also brutally effective, as anyone who has ever felt as if they were the victim of a crime can attest. In a complicated and often unfair world, Kersey’s approach may not be realistic or ideal but it is emotionally cathartic. Watching Death Wish, it is easy to see why critics hated it and why audiences loved it.

It is also to see why the movie made Bronson a star. Miscast in the role or not, Bronson exudes a quiet authority and determination that suggests that if anyone could single-handedly clean-up New York City, it’s him. An underrated actor, Bronson’s best moment comes after he punches his first mugger and he triumphantly reenters his apartment. After he commits his first killing, Bronson gets another good scene where he is so keyed up that he collapses to the floor and then staggers into the bathroom and throws up. Garfield may have complained that the Death Wish made his madman into a hero but Bronson’s best moments are the ones the suggest Paul has gone mad. The real difference between the book and the movie is that the movie portrays madness as a necessary survival skill.

This Friday, a new version of Death Wish will be playing in theaters. Directed by Eli Roth, this version starts Bruce Willis as Dr. Paul Kersey. Will the new Death Wish be as effective as the original? Judging from the trailer, I doubt it. Bruce Willis or Charles Bronson? I’ll pick Bronson every time.