Tonight we began our eighteenth retrospective of the CSUN Cinematheque, this time we will be watching the films of Poland's most acclaimed director Andrzej Wajda (1926-2016). Wajda is not well known, but he had a long career and he influenced, with his earliest works, great American filmmakers like Coppola and Scorcese. Tonight we saw his debut film, "A Generation" (1955), the story of a young man and his friends, living in shacks in a poverty stricken section of Warsaw during WW2, who decide to join the Resistance against the Nazi occupation. The leader of their local militancy group is a politically astute young woman. The young man who stars becomes enamored of her, which provides a love story subtheme. This romance figures strongly in the ending of the movie, though I'll not reveal how.
The young man gets a job in a factory, where he meets others in the Communist movement. Director Wajda got his start in 1955 Poland, which was then under the dominance of the Soviet Union, so to even get his films made, at that time, required that he portray Communism in a favorable light. To his credit, he does not overdo it. It is clear he has no Communist sentiment himself, and he presents the characters' political beliefs objectively so as not to upset the Soviet censors. The plot depicts the growing willingness of the youths to fight against the occupying force of the Germans, and to fight in street combat, in small numbers against great odds. They have nothing much to lose, their lives are lived in squalor against a ruined landscape, with a menacing foreign army roaming the streets of their city.
Imagine such a scenario in your own city. You too might fight back.
Wajda presents their story in a romantic way, showing the inexperience of the young men, most of whom don't have jobs let alone any discipline. One of the guys steals a gun from the factory (which is hiding weapons for the Resistance), and the boys go on their first mission, a spontaneous revenge killing of a local Nazi bully who has beaten up the leader of their gang.
This plot element forms the central storyline, but really the movie is about Youth vs. War, Idealism vs. Dominance, and the seemingly permanent human condition of having to stand up against something, rather than just being able to live your life in peace, as young people would normally do if the human race were not beset by devils.
This is the story of war and violence, and how it sucks young people into it's vortex.
Wajda directs the film with considerable skill for a first-timer, using Film Noir techniques of shadow and light, close-ups on faces, and darkened scenes of underground hideouts and grim factory workshops.
I have seen "A Generation" once prior, when I found the dvd at the Reseda Libe about five years ago. Seeing it on the big screen gave me a new perspective on the visual aspect, of all the things Wajda is trying to convey in every shot. It is an incredibly visual film, with a Western photographic sensibility.
And in black and white, which rules as you know.
I will get back into the 1989 story tomorrow night, when I will be writing from home (my night off). I don't know what angle I will explore, but I think I will keep working on the Schaller aspect - the probable drug deal, because it is that aspect that seemed to blow the whole thing up to epic proportions.
The thing is, you have to ask yourself : Why in the bloody world would "X" need to make a drug deal in the first place? "X" didn't use drugs.
Now, "X" was friends with a popular band, and like all popular bands, that band no doubt used drugs. And "X" even one time told me that "X" had brought a gram of coke to the band's studio.
Howard Schaller was mainly a Speed Dealer, a methamphetamine dealer. But because he was a major dealer, I have little doubt that he could've scored cocaine if it was requested, and especially if it was requested in quantity.
And I think that is what happened. I am intuituve, and I have thought for a long time that "X", for some reason, needed to score an amount of coke. Not just a gram or an ounce, but more than that. Maybe for a band, or maybe for something else. I could be wrong, but I also could not be wrong, because something has to explain Howard Schaller's unrestrained rage at "X" on the night of September 1st 1989 in the Northridge Hospital parking lot. You would've had to have been there to see how angry he was.
So there was certainly a drug deal, and it had to have been for coke - not speed - because bands don't want speed, they want coke. And so do other party people. And in this case, the drug deal must have been for a sizeable amount of cocaine, because why else would Howard Schaller become murderous on the night of September 1st 1989?
Not over a gram or two of coke, that's for sure.
No, he was pissed at "X" for one of two reasons, or possibly both reasons.
He either feared he had just lost a lot of money or drugs because of what had happened in "T''s apartment, or he was worried that he was gonna go to jail because of what had happened in "T''s apartment.
Perhaps there was a quantity of cocaine in "T"'s apartment that night, and Howard was worried that it would be found by cops.
I had upended the proceedings that night at the apartment building, and had thrown all the plans of the drug partners into disarray.
That is my basic theory of how, and why, Howard Schaller knew "X". Because of a drug deal for cocaine, in which Mr. D was the middleman, and for a large amount that, in my best guess, was meant for a rock band, or possibly for a more nefarious purpose that ended with Mr. Rappaport kidnapping me.
That's all I know for tonight. See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxox :):)
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