In the period where Hollywood films were reclaimed as knowingly cynical and contradictory, at the point where the American mainstream was seemingly involved in an inward, in-depth examination in self-critique, there was Michael Winner. The British director moved fully into the American film scene in the early 1970s and produced a series of significant films that ranged from nihilistic and offbeat westerns to complex political thrillers and gritty urban crime dramas. These centred on psychologically floored or morally compromised individuals forced to choose between defending existing legal structures or revelling in a brutal desire for (near criminal) retribution. In the course of their violent quests, Winner's films of the era focus on disruptive individuals whose status as 'outsiders' proves fundamental to the disruption of order within the fictional communities they depict. This brief introduction to Winner's work makes clear that I view his 1970s American cinematic output as an important body of work. However, I am also interested in exploring the extent to which critical evaluations of Michael Winner's work has been hampered by a longstanding perception of his work as containing a right-wing and reactionary inflection. Indeed, on first appearance, it may seem anomalous to include a chapter on Michael Winner in a volume so heavily geared towards the positive reconsideration of seventies cinema. This is because key theoretical accounts of the American film during the era have traditionally ranged Winner's work against the positive cinematic advances that were currently underway. For instance, Robin Wood inferred that the director should be placed in the reactionary camp when he constructed his polemical account of the ideologies behind the seventies American image (reproduced in the volume Hollywood From Vietnam to Reagan). More damaging are the comments of Michael Ryan and Douglas Kellner, whose groundbreaking study Camera Politica linked the director's work to a moral backlash against the liberal counterculture of the 1960s. Even more recent accounts such as Peter Lev's American Films of the Seventies: Conflicting Visions re-evaluates some previously marginal 1970s movies while continuing to situate Winner's work as an unsavoury extension of the right-wing crime thrillers popular during the decade.

Arguably, Michael Winner is by no-means the first British director to experience adverse publicity following a transition to the American scene. However, it is notable that at the same time his own position and output were being derided, the genres in which he was working (Westerns, political thrillers and crime dramas) were being reclaimed as offering progressive critiques of 70s America. Thus, when Robin Wood derides directors' like Winner and Thompson, he is critiquing those filmmakers whose work appears to offer a 'coherent' ideological position against the voices of radical dissent struggling for expression during this decade. These marginal forces can be identified as "the growing force and cogency of radical protest and liberation movements-black militancy, feminism, gay liberation."¹ Commenting in his Hollywood: From Vietnam to Reagan Wood identifies "Hollywood in the 70s the period when the dominant ideology almost disintegrated."² For Wood, American film of the era can be seen as bearing the traces of recent social turmoil from the United States humiliating retreat from the Vietnam war and the spectre of domestic political corruption to issues of stateside racial violence and inequality among marginal sexual and ethnic groups. In this confused and a-moral environment, the values of the dominant order were so profoundly challenged that they facilitated a 'return of the repressed' or vocalisation of the marginal social and sexual groupings that the status quo would otherwise like to contain. Wood most famously considered this subversive feature in his account of the seventies horror movies, which he noted often depicted the monster as a social or sexual Other, reflecting long-held fears surrounding the destructive impulses of groups such as women, ethnic minorities and the proletariat. Unlike previous periods in which the monster represented a force that was both punished and expelled from the narrative in its final stages, Wood notes that in many seventies horrors, the terrifying figure of the monstrous Other is often left unrestrained. Beyond its depiction in the horror genre, Wood also identified a subversive representation of the Other in more mainstream Hollywood films. Here, he identifies the category of the 'incoherent text', which is neither liberating nor repressive, but instead reveals many of the ideological contradictions and textual tensions at play in the narrative. In this respect, the incoherent text can be defined as: "Films that don't wish to be, or appear, incoherent, but are nonetheless, works in which the drive toward the ordering of experience has been visibly defeated."³

Importantly, Wood notes that the strength of such works remains the fact that they deny any cohesive position on the social and sexual subject matter under review. Rather, the Other loses its troubling distance from society's mainstream and instead becomes a troubling reflection of what often passes for normality. Once again, this curious position reflects the troubled period from which these narratives emerged. It also explains why the 'incoherent text' is often accompanied by startling images of violence as well as an overwhelming sense of nihilism and negativity. For Wood, this reflects the fact that while catastrophic events such as Vietnam, Watergate and civil unrest fundamentally shook the public belief in the state and social institutions, it did not lead to their replacement or the extremes of social revolution envisaged by the counter-culture of the 1960s. If the incoherent text is thus defined by a contradictory (and essentially negative) impulse, it seen by Wood as functioning to blur the boundaries between normality and abnormality as well as using established genre codes as a way of critically reflecting on contemporary events within America. For instance, his account of Taxi Driver (1976), Wood indicates the extent to which the quest of the film's crazed hero Travis Bickle mimics the Western figure of the lone gunman/avenger whose violent actions reconstitute a legal and moral order. However, as Wood notes, Bickle's role remains far more ambiguous than that of the classical Western hero, who is traditionally defined as separate from the depravity of their prey. Rather, Taxi Driver presents an incoherent vision of its hero as both victim and aggressor, legal agent and illogical executioner. As Wood states: "the central incoherence of Taxi Driver lies in the failure to establish a consistent, and adequately rigorous, attitude to the protagonist. We can see the film in relation to both the Western and the horror film. With the former, Travis is the gunfighter-hero whose traditional function has always been to clean up the town; with the latter; he is the psychopathic monster produced by an indefensible society. The latter option appears fairly unambiguously dominant through most of the film, but the former is never totally eclipsed. The film cannot believe in the traditional figure of the charismatic individualist hero, but it also cannot relinquish it, because it has nothing to put in its place."⁴

It is this increasing ambivalence toward the validity of the hero's quest that is also present in key examples of Michael Winner's 1970s work. Far from being reactionary, these texts contain the grain of 'incoherence' that writers such as Wood applaud in the more challenging Hollywood films of the decade. These are works in which "incoherence is no longer hidden and esoteric: the films seem to crack open before our eyes." As with Wood's discussion of the splits within Travis Bickle's psyche, Winner's often constructs contradictory protagonists as a way of drawing unsettling parallels between the chaotic and the civilised, the legal and illegal, whose depictions point to a longer and more disturbing series of conflicts behind contemporary American crises. Indeed, it seems relevant that in the same era the revisionist Westerns were being reclaimed for offering a nihilistic readings of its mythical roots, Winner produced two downbeat entries into the genre that undercut accepted readings of an American past while offering a mirror to recent national ills. For instance, The Law Man (1970) depicted the introspective and yet psychotic legal figure of Maddox (Burt Lancaster), whose relentless quest to bring a group of near-sympathetic killers to justice exposes the potential for violence that underpins the most tranquil and civilised areas of the American West. In so doing, The Law Man poses important questions of legality, retribution and personal responsibility, while its depiction of an apparently peaceful community whose boundaries and values can easily tip over into chaos provide an incisive comment on the internal conflicts of America during the 1970s.

Urban Legend: Rape, Revenge and Rightwing Misreading

If critical reaction of Winner's work effectively muted a positive re-reading of their features, opposition to his work was nowhere more evident than in the reception of his controversial 1974 rape and revenge drama Death Wish. The movie cast Charles Bronson as Paul Kersey, a middle class professional whose liberal views on social injustice are radically altered following the violent rape and murder of his wife and the mutilation of his daughter. In response, to the police's inability to catch the gang responsible for the act, Kersey begins to stalk the subways and slum areas of New York in searching out muggers and criminals whom he violently dispatches. With its theme of a law-abiding citizen who is forced to take the law into his own hands, Death Wish appeared to strike a cord with an increasingly militant and reactionary white, middle-class of seventies America. Upon first appearance, these reactionary tendencies would appear to be confirmed by the film's ending, when the police unofficially release Kersey after discovering his identity as the vigilante killer, thus allowing him to pursue a quest against the urban poor in neighbouring American cities. It is this right wing 'reading' which is certainly evident in the press accounts of the film at the time of its release. For instance, writing in the New York Daily News, Rex Reed isolated Death Wish's ability to draw out "a controversial and violent reaction from both audiences and critics" ⁵, which he linked to a growing anti-liberal Stateside sentiment. As he noted, "Even the most militant liberals are applauding like kids at a Saturday afternoon Punch and Judy show." ⁶ Bruce Williamson's review for Playboy went even further, commenting that after viewing the film, "righteous citizens will surely fantasise about rushing outside to form a posse." ⁷ Other reviews of the era also linked the film to an authoritarian approach to tackling urban crime. For Fred McDarrah the film satisfied "all the fantasies of thousands of helpless New Yorkers"⁸, while Gene Shalit commenting on WNBC-TV, defined Death Wish as "a rouser for everyone who wants safer cities, what I call the fed-up generation" ⁹. If the press reporting of Winner's film assisted in constructing it as a right-wing narrative, it in part explains why theorists such as Michael Ryan and Douglas Kellner, have linked Death Wish to a 'Hollywood counter-revolution' that marked a return to conservative and moral values during the era. Writing in Camera Politica, the pair argue that whereas 1960s American film can be defined as an era of cinematic experimentation and liberal political concerns, it was replaced by a decade of fictions which stressed the need to counter an otherwise chaotic world with an aggressive moral and legal order. This conservative move was seen in the filmic flourishing of 'rightwing' police dramas such as Dirty Harry (1971), as well as the emergence of vigilante 'rape and revenge' movies such as Straw Dogs(1973) and Death Wish. As Ryan and Kellner comment, by beginning of the decade: "a meaner, more cynical discourse began to emerge as the dominant mode of Hollywood film. In 1971 alone, The French Connection, Dirty Harry and Straw Dogs articulate an anti-liberal value system that portrays human life as predatory and animalistic, a jungle without altruism." ¹⁰

Ryan and Kellner have conceded that a return to enforced legal morality is not the only form of Hollywood recuperation seen in the era (other examples including a return to sentimental and 'unproblematic' love stories). However, what is significant is the way in which the Hollywood counter-revolution often used crime narratives as "vehicles for conservative counterattacks against the liberalism that many conservatives blamed for crimes in domestic order brought about by the sixties." ¹¹ Not only was this trait evidenced by the repeated theme of liberal beliefs that allow violent criminals out of jail to commit further transgressions, it was also indicated by the way in which such "law and order" thrillers inverted the symbols and signifiers of 1960s counter-cultural revolution for threatening effect. For instance, Ryan and Kellner's analysis of Dirty Harry emphasises the detective hero's violent quest as premised on the ill-informed liberal court structures which allow a psychotic killer named Scorpio back on the streets after he claims that Detective Harry Callaghan (Clint Eastwood) has violated his civil rights. As the authors' note, with his long hair, prominent wearing of peace symbols and effeminate and 'unmanly' ways, Scorpio is clearly associated with the signifiers of the 1960s counter-culture. While the narrative drive clearly validates Harry's brutish methods, other films that Ryan and Kellner identify in this cycle (such as Straw Dogs and Death Wish) depict the transition of passive, law abiding males into potent and disenfranchised killing machines. For Ryan and Keller, these protagonists, "regress from civility to bestiality, and to be a man." ¹² In so doing, their violent transition indicates the ambivalence with which the 1960s social advances of marginal sexual and racial groups were viewed. Thus in the case of Straw Dogs, the film's theme of a meek college professor reacting violently to the rape of his wife reveals an underlying ambivalence towards female sexual liberation. For Ryan and Kellner, "the woman in the film is portrayed as a treacherous sex kitten who betrays her wimpy husband Peter" ¹³, after her attempted seduction of a former lover turns into a gang rape. The film responds to the event by sanctioning Peter's violent revolt against this gang of locals who dominate the small town to which he has retreated. However, it is noticeable that the film also extends a form of punishment to Peter's wife whose presence is increasingly marginalised in the film's finale. Thus, it is noticeable that after a climactic battle with the local thugs, Peter deserts his partner and the ruins of his home, along with a local retard who has sought shelter with the couple. For Ryan and Kellner, the final shots of the pair driving away reconstitute the family unit in the form of an all-male utopia, devoid of any disruptive female presence. While Straw Dogs uses a strategy of excluding woman as a way of dealing with problematic issues of female sexuality, Ryan and Kellner see Death Wish as isolating womanhood in the domestic space, while promoting masculinity within a violent public sphere. For the authors, the film can be seen as the most conservative of the 1970s crime dramas for its combination of "ironic cynicism with romantic sentimentalism." ¹⁴ Here, women are associated with idyllic locations (such as Hawaii where Paul and Mary Kersey undertake a vacation in the film's pre-credit scene). These picturesque spaces are counter-posed to the grim and violent urban space of the city (these are literally seen to dwarf the couple as they ride in the back of a New York cab in the opening of the narrative).

It is a quest to recreate these hallowed and unthreatening spaces (and the memories of the women they evoke) which transforms Paul from a liberal to into life-taker. As Ryan and Kellner note, it is actually Paul's visit to a "sunbelt rightist" ¹⁵ in another idyllic location which implants the protagonist's desire to become a vigilante after being given a silver Colt pistol as a present. Upon his return to New York, Kersey receives the holiday photographs of him with his dead wife and this recollection becomes the final trigger in his violent transformation. Implicit in Ryan and Kellner's critique of the film's division of idyllic and unsafe spaces is the fact that Kersey's extermination campaign has a distinctly racial edge to it. The pair comment, "Paul separates from others by exercising violence against them" ¹⁶, noting that the movie visually separates Bronson's character from the predominantly black muggers in the film-frame as if to underscore the moral, racial and socio-economic distinctions between them. In his recent book American films of the 70s: Conflicting Visions Peter Lev has drawn similar conclusions, noting that there is "no ambiguity" surrounding the film's view of Kersey's quest: "About the only complexity in Death Wish lies in the way Kersey stalks his prey. He appears to be a victim, ripe for plucking, but he is instead a ruthless predator. The title Death Wish seems to mean 'a desire to kill'. ¹⁷" Despite such criticisms, what remains underexplored by both accounts is the disturbing degree of overlap that emerges between Kersey and his prey. Indeed, the film extends the view of violence as underpinning the civilising and social order found in earlier Winner movies such as The Law Man, by drawing parallels between professional and urban underclass fears surrounding economic servitude. These connections are established early in the film when Paul returns to his profession as an Architect and is informed by his colleagues about the spiralling crime wave that has occurred during his visit to Hawaii. When one of Kersey's companions comments that more cops is the answer to urban disorder, his superior replies that it would only make peoples taxes too high. His comments about the potential for economic insecurity are juxtaposed by a close-up of a cash till register which the camera pulls back to reveal as being located in a (distinctly downtown) local supermarket where Mary Kersey and her daughter, Carol are shopping. The link between these two sequences proves pivotal to Bronson's quest as it is this location where the gang of muggers meet the Kersey women before following them home to their apartment to rob them. Although much of the controversy surrounding Death Wish centres on the brutal rape and assault of the Kersey women, the focus of their humiliation remains economic rather than sexual. Indeed, when one of the muggers comments that he "hates rich cunts" he points to a financial disdain that is confirmed when they gang inform their hostages they will not be harmed if they have money. Indeed, the siege only degenerates into sexual violence when the gang discover that the Kersey's do not have the disposable income associated with their presumed standard of living. By juxtaposing these two scenes, Death Wish establishes a pattern where fears around economic insecurity become a troubling factor that links the professional to the proletariat and indicates a process of doubling between the middle-classes and the muggers. This paranoia around capitol is further underscored in many of the character's encounters following the assault on his family. For instance, when he visits his wife in hospital, Kersey is shocked to discover a poor urban dweller whose wounds are left unattended because of his low social standing. Thus, rather than isolating him from his social prey as Ryan and Kellner might suggest, Paul Kersey is gradually exposed to the harsh realisation of his vulnerability within the brutal economic regime of seventies America. From observing crime victims left unable to pay their rent, (as well as comic vagrants whose incomes have been reduced by the abduction of 'paw-painting' poodles), to the hero's own fears about funding the future health care of his daughter, the film reveals economic desolation as spreading across all levels of the social strata. When Kersey uses a sock full of dollar coins to lash out against one potential attacker, the scene represents not the triumph of one dominant class over the other, but rather the protagonist's literal and nihilistic realisation of the violent power underpinning capital relations. (A similarly ironic statement linking capitol to violence is given in the scene where looters outside Kersey's apartment disturb his television viewing during a bank advertisement claiming to liberate the lives of its customers.) For Michael Winner, Paul Kersey's increasing economic empathy towards the disadvantaged was central to the effect he wished to create in Death Wish.