"I heard you were dead..."

As a kid growing up in Brisbane, there wasn't much science fiction to be found in the early 1980s. Fortunately for me, the local newsagent kept up with each new edition of Kerry O'Quinn's Starlog magazine. It was Issue 49 that caught my eye for a number of reasons. First was the striking pose of +Roger Moore as James Bond exclaiming 'Bond is back!' There was also a reference to +George Lucas and +George Takei, Star Trek's Mr.Sulu. So, for a 9 year old who loved Star Wars, Star Trek and James Bond, this issue seemed to have all the bases covered.

Issue Number 49 of Starlog.

The other thing that stood out on Issue 49 was a photo of a guy with an eye-patch and a machine gun. Underneath it read 'ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK Exclusive interview with Kurt Russell'. What the interview contained I can't remember, as I sold off my Starlog magazine collection several years ago. What I can say is that Escape From New York has stuck in my head ever since and it's one of those guilty pleasures that I indulge in every once in a while. I was travelling with my work recently and had stopped to have a cup of coffee. I noticed that the shopping mall's K-Mart had a sale on, so I went in to see if there were any cheap Blu-ray discs. Sure enough, I found a +John Carpenter Blu-ray triple pack featuring special editions of The Thing, The Fog and Escape From New York for $16!

 

I've always admired John Carpenter's films, especially his late 70s and early 80s work. Halloween, The Thing, Big Trouble In Little China and Escape From New York are all highly entertaining and, by comparison to today's films, were made with little money and a lot of film-making ingenuity.
 

So, what do I make of Escape From New York?
 

Escape From New York, like Blade Runner the following year, is set in the near future and is an action fiction that also makes some passing commentary on the the escalation of government in the United States. Set in 1997, the USA has become an authoritarian state embroiled in an ongoing war with China and the Soviet Union. New York has been turned into a maximum security prison with 50 feet walls surrounding the entire island. Any attempt by prisoners to leave is met with with lethal force.
 

The central character is Snake Plissken, a former soldier who has turned to crime, played by +Kurt Russell. A failed bank robbery has resulted in Plissken being sentenced to life imprisonment in New York. On the night Plissken is being processed into the prison, Air Force One is hijacked and the President of the USA, played by Donald Pleasance, is forced to use an escape pod to get off the plane before the terrorists crash it.
 

Unfortunately for the President, his escape pod lands in the prison and a rescue mission is sent in to recover the President and the retrieve a taped message that he intended to play to his Chinese and Soviet counterparts at a summit meeting. The initial rescue, led by Prison Warden Hauk, played by Lee Van Cleef, is unsuccessful. Hauk is told to get off the island by Romero, an underling of The Duke, played by Issac Hayes, who tells him that they have President and proves it by handing over his severed middle finger!
 

Returning from the island, Hauk, realising that time is running out, tells Snake that, if he rescues the President, he will receive a full pardon for his crimes and be a free man. To make sure he completes the mission, Hauk has Plissken injected with micro-charges that will blow a small hole in his arteries if he fails to complete the mission in time.
 

Once Snake is in New York he goes from one encounter to another, meeting an array of characters along the way; enlisting their help to get him closer to the President. This part of the film relies upon a number of coincidences to move the plot forward and it's at this point the viewer has to make a decision to suspend disbelief and go with the unfolding events.
 

Ernest Borgnine's Cabbie enters the story and becomes central to moving the story forward until close to the end of the film. Cabbie saves Snake from an encounter with the zombie-like Crazies who have taken over part of the city. He then takes Snake to see +Harry Dean Stanton's Brain, who he claims will know the location of the President because Brain works for The Duke.
 

I think the biggest challenge in this part of the story is to believe that Snake and Brain character have been partners-in-crime at some point in the past. Without the Brain character, the story goes nowhere, but the pairing of Snake and Brain is as an unlikely one as any. I am happy to suspend disbelief at this point because the preceding 40 minutes of the film has been setup so well that I want to see Snake get out alive.

 

Kurt Russell as Snake Plissken "asks" Harry Dean Statnton's Brain for some help ...

 

The action moves quickly once Snake, Brain and Brain's girlfriend Maggie, played by +Adrienne Barbeau, encounter The Duke and rescue the President. Their first rescue attempt ends up with the three of them being caught by The Duke's men, with Snake having the fight in gladiator-style tournament where the loser pays for his life. As The Duke watches on, Brain and Maggie manage to rescue the President again but leave Snake to fend for himself. Cabbie happens to be in the right place at the right time and gives Snake a ride as the two of them set off after Brain, Maggie and the President.
 

After a shoot-out on top of the World Trade Centre, Snake battles his way out of the building and heads to the 69th Street Bridge, with the President, Brain, Maggie and Cabbie all close behind. In pursuit is The Duke, who is determined to make sure the President doesn't make it over the 69th Street bridge to freedom. The finale on the bridge see the demise of Cabbie, Brain, Maggie and The Duke. One of the interesting story points is that Snake does not kill The Duke. That is left to the President, who uses an automatic rifle from atop the prison wall to take retribution for what The Duke has made him endure earlier in the film.
 

Once outside the prison, the President's attitude to what has happened seems glib and uncaring. This doesn't sit well with Snake, so instead of handing over the taped message for the summit meeting, he hands over a tape of Bandstand Boogie that had Cabbie had been playing in his taxi. After exchanging words with Hauk, Snake walks away a free man shredding the real tape in disgust and leaving the fate of the world in the balance.
 

John Carpenter has stated that Escape From New York was a reaction to what had happened with Richard Nixon and the Watergate Scandal. It's not allegorical, as this is not a thinly-veiled political film, but the theme of future government influence over the citizenry is a part of the back story. The film suggests that certain types of government emerge under certain types of conditions. In this example, escalating crime and world war have allowed an authoritarian government to emerge in the United States, allowing authorities to enforce the law with lethal brutality.
 

There's also the story point of the taped message for the summit. Richard Nixon's Presidential tapes were responsible for his resignation, so the emphasis on the tape throughout Escape From New York is a reminder to the audience of recent history for all the wrong reasons. Snake's unravelling of the tape at the end of the film demonstrates that in his opinion a lot is wrong with world he lives in and something has to change.
 

Snake's own back story suggests that Carpenter intended the film to raise the viewer's awareness of some social issues confronting the US at the time. Plissken is a decorated war hero, but at the start of the movie, he's being sent into prison for robbing a bank. Plissken is written as a mercenary, but there's a message in his back story relating to the treatment of war veterans. In 1981, Vietnam war veterans were still fighting for legitimacy, as public opinion was against what had happened and the war itself had only been over for 6 years. Perhaps I'm looking too hard, but I do feel that Carpenter is saying to the audience that the country needs to look after the men who fight for their country.
 

As far as the technical production goes, it's hard not to like the performances in Escape From New York. Kurt Russell embodies Plissken with minimalist-macho and does great justice to the term 'anit-hero'. Lee Van Cleef as Hauk is great. Van Cleef had experienced all the ups-and-downs an actor could have, but his work for Sergio Leone alongside Clint Eastwood had cemented his reputation for playing tough characters well. Ernest Borgnine, Harry Dean Stanton and Donald Pleasance all bring authenticity to their characters which, at the time, must have been difficult because the outrageous nature of the material. If there's one misstep, it's the casting of singer Isaac Hayes in the role of The Duke. The man has a distinctive voice but he doesn't have the physical presence of a real villain. Adrienne Barbeau is a breath of fresh air, as the tough but sympathetic girlfriend of Harry Dean Stanton's Brain. 

The question that I ask myself about Escape From New York is whether or not this is actually a science fiction film?

What makes me question the film's status as genuine science fiction is the time frame in which it is set. The film is set in 1997 and I'm writing this blog in 2013. The reality is that nothing like what is depicted in the film has taken place; not that I expected it to... As a piece of speculative near-future fiction, Escape From New York doesn't even come close to accurately predicting what was happening in 1997. It's an entertaining film; there's no doubt. It does have some social messages woven into its story; but nothing that's too 'on-the-nose'. Why then did Starlog, a magazine dedicated to science fiction & fantasy films, cover it so prominently in 1981? Despite it being more of an action film set in the future, Escape From New York does make the point that there will always be people who want to change for the better. Snake Plissken, for all his anti-hero machismo, turns out to be one of those people and, as much of the great science fiction that has come before and after it, it's Plissken's actions that make Escape From New York a worthy piece of near-future science fiction.