Marathon Man

Amidst the the early morning glare of the rising sun and whatever few others are up at this time, a young man jogs along the beaten track in an attempt to keep in shape. This, as he spots a fellow jogger and begins a fairly innocent 'chase', although the individual manages to outrun our young man to some pretty ominous music. The entire exchange is eventually inter-cut in a bizarre manner with some found footage of a marathon runner completely disconnected to the events we're witnessing. Marathon Man begins with this rather simplistic sequence of a young man jogging and very slowly turns what is an everyday activity, or an unspectacular image, into something that is quite sinister. It pitches the tone of the film perfectly, establishing an everyday guy and placing him in a sinister chase situation which it is discovered is so easily to get involved in, while systematically foreshadowing the eerie turns the narrative will take to do with having to run for one's life.

Marathon Man is like that; there's something very effective behind its ability to inject terror into a relatively routine situation. That very primal sense of 'running for one's life', whatever the situation, is tapped into perfectly by director John Schlesinger, who paints a bleak and uncomplimentary picture of New York City and of the scummy, lying and double-dealing lowlifes whom inhabit it. Amongst all of this is the character of Thomas Levy (Hoffman), nicknamed 'Babe', a student of history who is attempting to follow in his now deceased father's footsteps by engaging academically in the same field. Babe will later end up following in the same footsteps as his another family member; his brother Henry (Scheider), but for all the wrong reasons. Even Henry is referred to by his nickname for a lot of the film, that being 'Doc', thus repeating the process of use of an alias and tapping into that highly consistent theme of suspicion and what one's true identity is. In a film in which a lot of people act as if they're one thing in order to garner an advantage, this use of improper name and alias to act as an alter-ego is interesting.

But Marathon Man provides us with a ray of light in the form of Babe, a down to Earth and accessible lead with whom we are able to relate in his innocence and copious levels of naivety to his situation when espionage and betrayal catches up with him. In what might appear to be a complex and rather deep story revolving around said narrative characteristics of espionage, smuggling and spies; it is ironic that mere fate brings certain people to New York for certain reasons. This, when a stark disagreement between two elderly men about something that relates to times and events far deeper than mere road rage.

If Babe is a figure cut from a stone that shy but eager in his personality and traits, then Laurence Oliver's Christian Szell, a doctor well informed in the art of dentistry, represents the polar-opposite as this elderly and frail man, but someone who has made a life out of other people's sheer misery; a man that has seemingly existed to inflict pain and suffering wherever he's gone. When we first encounter him, he is a lonesome figure in a heavily fortified and secluded place of dwelling in the middle of a South American jungle. Several newspapers are scattered around, some in English; some in Spanish and some in German which establishes a sense of expertise in language, although the items that stand out are the uncanny skulls which line the shelves, most of which contain odd shaped teeth which catch our eye. The sequence informs us of a man whom requires security and isolation as well as someone whom is most probably trilingual. In one swooping camera shot, we are left to read into as much as we can about this one individual, while a lesser film of the thriller ilk would have seen a bunch of people gather in a room; brought Szell's face up on a screen and laid out everything for the uninformed characters and audience alike.

Babe's involvement in what it is he ends up neck deep in is ultimately instigated by the unsightly sequence in which the death of somebody we do not see coming occurs in his arms. The battered and bloodied body of a blade attack victim acting as the first truly pieces of shocking imagery Babe has seen, the blood from the body staining his plain, bright white vest that he wears thus staining him, and therefore linking him to the world the departing life was connected to. The film is a tight, gripping piece; a film that clashes a world of smuggling, deceit and murder with the quieter, more routine world of a young man who's nervous around girls and just attempting to make-good out of some pretty harsh living conditions.

It progresses to encompass a series of quite extraordinary sequences, the one of which everyone remembers more fondly than others being the torture sequence involving a dentist's drill, a sadomasochistic game of fear; terror; power play; ambiguous questions; honest but disbelieved answers and sheer pain. One other passage of play sees the lead running down a street in the early hours of the morning, whatever light there is being provided by way of the street lamps, as what we perceive to be a wailing, screeching musical score encompassing this, only for it to turn out to be an approaching ambulance which hurtles past, catching us all off guard. Marathon Man is a taut thriller, drawing its audience in and gripping them with a number of basic conventions, raging from the use of a mere MacGuffin to instilling a very visceral, very effective sense of fear by way of ambiguous character intentions and pure threat. If ever there was an essential thriller to see, it may well be Marathon Man.

Quite apart from the infamous torture scene, which I found extremely difficult to watch without howling in horror (actually that's a lie, I DID howl) this film is FULL of nervous tension that occasionally boils over - the way it's been done is masterful. The bouncing-ball scene in the darkened building should be utterly prosaic, but it really isn't - the way it's choreographed and shot brings such an air of menace and trepidation you'll be biting your nails off. There's much of a similar vein in 'Marathon Man', and although the storyline is sometimes almost buried through the relentless suffocating tension, it's extremely watchable (with a cushion to hide behind at certain points) and one of the greatest non-Hitchcock thrillers I've ever seen. Don't hesitate!

Marathon Man starts off rather slowly, and for the first hour at least, it feels as if you're watching a human drama rather than a thriller. However, unlike a lot of thrillers; Marathon Man uses this time to create characters and establish the situation, which ultimately pays off later on in the film when the movie really gets going. When the film does step on the gas, it is as thrilling as any thriller you will ever see; Dustin Hoffman is subjected to all sorts of things, most notably an excruciating torture sequence. This scene is powerful and painful on it's own, but it is made more so by the fact that we have already gotten to know the character and therefore we feel sympathy for him, as well as cringing at the images we see on screen. That scene alone is enough to propel the movie in the realms of greatness, as it is simply one of the most powerful that cinema has ever given us; but this movie is a hell of a lot more than just a torture sequence.

The plot revolves around a car crash that takes place in downtown New York. One of the men in this crash is the brother of the infamous Nazi war criminal, Szell, who has some diamonds hidden in a safety deposit box. From then on, many members of a US defence organisation, known as "The Division", begin turning up dead and soon after, Thomas Levy, a college student, obsessive runner and the brother of one of The Division's members, becomes embroiled in the plot. It is easy to see the parallels between the plot movie and World War 2, from the withered ex-Nazi (indicative of the state of the actual regime), to his enemies being American; the movie has world war 2 written all over it. The film is excellently directed throughout by John Schlesinger. Schlesinger, probably best known for "Midnight Cowboy" does a fantastic job of keeping the audience on the edge of their seat for the duration of the movie. A constant foreboding feel is created, and you're never truly sure of what will happen. This is exactly what you want in a thriller, as nobody likes it when they can predict what will happen next.

Dustin Hoffman takes the lead role of Thomas Levy. Dustin Hoffman is a fantastic actor, and he certainly gets to flex his acting muscles here, in a film which sees him go through all manner of unpleasant scenes and also hold up lots of relationships with various characters, as well as drawing sympathy from the audience to accent his situation. Roy Scheider (of Jaws fame) stars opposite Dustin Hoffman in the movie. Scheider doesn't get a great deal of screentime in the film, but he still manages to do good things with the time he does have. The third lead role, that of the Nazi war criminal, is taken by Lawrence Olivier, who is also a fantastic actor and gives a great performance in this film. He gives his character just the right atmosphere, and we can tell just by looking at the man that he is cold and uncaring, and also past it; which is the crux of his character.

The film ends with a spectacular sequence, which sees the movie and the two centrals characters come to a satisfying conclusion. The characters are the central theme in this movie, and had the movie have ended differently it could have unravelled everything that it had created, but the movie's end is absolutely perfect and does the entire movie justice. A brilliant piece of cinema.

1970s movies are so cynical, aren't they? Dark, depressing, and often grainy-looking and washed out. "Marathon Man" fits that description. It's good, of course - very good - but it's not exactly a good time. Know what I mean?

William Goldman, one of Hollywood's few celebrity screenwriters, wrote both the original novel and the script for this film version. I find him a bit overrated, but here he does a good job of elevating hack-level thriller material into a sort of art form. The beginning of the film is particularly well-written and intriguing, since it's full of creepy and cryptic events that are not immediately explained. But, alas, I find the ultimate explanation of these events to be rather prosaic and disappointing.

So, I think the movie's strengths lie in the acting and directing, more so than the story. Olivier and Scheider give particularly great performances, and Marthe Keller comes across as appropriately sweet and sexy (her big "secret," though, should be really easy for anyone to guess!) I'm a little less enamored of Dustin Hoffman, whose character is inexplicably nicknamed "Babe." He's just way too old to be a typical graduate student (almost forty years old, to be precise), and he simply doesn't have much charisma to me. Usually I like normal-looking, non-glamorous actors, but somehow Hoffman doesn't float my boat.

Still, it's hard not to sympathize with the poor guy while he's being pursued, beaten, tortured etc. The "dental horror" scene is still quite effective, though it's rather short; I was more impressed by the subsequent chase through the dark streets of NYC. (The city, by the way, looks like a hellish, crime-infested, debris-strewn pit in this movie - like it does in most 1970s productions!)

In the end, "Marathon Man" isn't quite another "French Connection," but it's got more than enough suspense to crush a lot of the dross that infests theaters today. It's worth watching just for the terrifying scene when the bad guys start tearing Hoffman's door off its hinges - it's good stuff.

THRILLER

Marathon runner and grad student Thomas "Babe" Levy (Dustin Hoffman) unknowingly crosses paths with Nazi (Lawrence Olivier) attempting to disguise himself as a regular citizen posing as a dentist, for the intention of retrieving some jewels. It was quite an effective chiller during it's time, from director John Schilsinger, especially the well-known drilling of the teeth scene that can be painful to even watch. Dentists were not too popular after the film's release this is part of the reason why. Roy Schneider also stars as Dustin Hoffman's brother Doc Levy as a government agent. Acting veteran received another Best Oscar nomination for this role. The second of 2 movies director John Schlesinger made with actor Dustin Hoffman.