Citizen Kane

12 Angry Men

The Godfather, and The Godfather Part 2

Targets.

All american movies, all speaking to the american character, three of them debut films from their respective directors, all of them among the greatest films ever made.

The first 4 movies are not uncommon choices on All Time lists, but “Targets”, a 1968 feature from Peter Bogdanovich, is rarely if ever listed in the same caliber. But after watching it recently, and marinating on nearly every aspect, I’ve come to the conclusion that not only is “Targets” worthy of all time status, but it’s also a contender for The Great American Movie. That sounds like hyperbole, and some of you may be thinking, “Great, another user claiming some little seen movie is actually the best ever,” but that’s what I hope to convince you of, that “Targets” is worthy of that acclaim, and I want to do so by focusing on three aspects.

1. It’s formal perfection and ambition

2. The conditions it was made in

3. Its comments on American Society.

First off, some context. “Targets” follows two storylines that occur parallel to each other. One is about an aging horror actor named Byron Orlock, played by none other than Boris Karloff, most famous for playing the Frankenstein monster. The movie opens with Orlock watching a movie he was in called “The Terror,” (a real Karloff movie), and deciding that he wishes to retire from the industry, citing the movies he’s in as being hopelessly out of date. He reminisces on his past, his future, and the relationships to the people around him, as they all try to convince him that he still has something to offer the world of film.

The other storyline is about an all american man named Bobby Thompson. He’s mild mannered and polite, prays with his wife and parents before dinner, sits down to watch sugary, feel good tv, and owns a large assortment of guns, which, thanks to his experience in Vietnam, he’s quite skilled at using. Halfway through the movie, out of nowhere, he decides to take his arsenal and go on an unprovoked shooting spree. The two storylines, at first only tangentially related, end up intersecting and ultimately colliding at the very end, in one of the most nerve-shredding, creative, and stirring climaxes in movie history.

Heading the production is Peter Bogdanovich, who was also the producer alongside none other than Roger Corman. Bogdanovich furthermore wrote the script with pointers from Samuel Fuller, and was the uncredited editor. He also had his then wife Polly Plat as Production Designer (as well as a story by credit), Verna Fields as sound editor, Lazlo Kovacs as cinematographer, and Frank Marshall as an assistant. This veritable motley crew of artists merged their talents to make a movie as formally audacious as anything Welles or Hitchcock would ever create. The cinematography and lighting frequently employs POV shots and camera moves that emphasize the psychology of the characters, whether it's the simmering darkness and loneliness of the sniper, the warm reveries of Orlock, or the sheer random, unfair horror of the sniper’s victims. Long tracking shots, subtle lighting, and clever use of space is the name of the game here. It’s so captivating that you’ll hardly notice that there’s no score for the picture. Instead, the soundtrack is a carefully layered collection of sounds that tell their own stories, and imply dreadful actions happening beyond the frame of the camera. Have it all edited together with shocking precision and fluidity, and the result is a thoroughly engrossing 90 minute horror-thriller with zero fat, and a style that feels classic and fresh at the same time. Bogdanovich and other directors who wear their influences on their sleeve, like De Palma and Tarantino, are often accused of aping other director’s styles and stories (Bogdanovich as Ur-Howard Hawks, De Palma as Ur-Hitchcock, Tarantino as Ur-whatever obscure exploitation flick he watched that week). However, I believe that it’s perfectly fine to acknowledge the past so long as your work is not a mere retread of familiar themes and narratives, and is done best when taking as much influence from other sources. Here, Bogdanovich synthesizes Wellesian camera moves, Hitchcockian suspense, Fritz Langian horror, Hawksian dialogue, and then injects those sensibilities into a classic genre piece that is unlike anything that’s come before or sense.

On its own merits, Targets is an incredible achievement of filmmaking. But where it goes from incredible to awe-inspiring is when you find out the conditions in which it was made. The producer, Roger Corman, is famous for two things: the insane efficiency and productivity of his B-movies, and his giving chances to filmmakers that would go on to be incredibly famous. Bogdanovich was not the first or last to go to the so-called Roger Corman school of filmmaking, but the fruits he produced there were far and away the greatest. So the story goes, Corman came to Bogdanovich and told him that Karloff owed Corman two days worth of work. Not only that, but the previous Karloff film, “The Terror,” flopped at the box office, and seeking to recoup his costs, Corman asked Bogdanovich to use footage from “The Terror” alongside newly filmed Karloff footage, to create a completely different movie. Sounds like a damn film festival challenge. Corman no doubt expected the young director to construct another gothic period horror flick around the existing footage of “The Terror”. And that was how Bogdanovich and Polly Plat initially approached the challenge, but for the life of them, they could not come up with a satisfactory idea. Eventually Bogdanovich got so frustrated that he joked that their movie should just open with Karloff watching “The Terror,” and saying that it was the worst movie he ever saw. That simple throwaway idea caught on, and, in a vein similar to “Sunset Boulevard” and “Contempt”, the movie became a self referential film about the changing tastes of an audience that no longer found gothic horror stories scary. This in turn led to the addition of the modern day “monster”, a shooter directly inspired by the man who had recently climbed a tower in UT Austin and indiscriminately shot at pedestrians below, the ancestor to the modern day mass shooter. This ingenious idea, centered around two very different types of “monsters”, and it all came about because Bogdanovich was told to retool “The Terror” into something else. That 2 day work schedule for Karloff became 5 days, and ultimately the film was shot in a total of 22 days and on a 125,000 dollar budget. The end result is perhaps the greatest example of doing and saying so much with so little, matched only by 12 Angry Men and Rear Window.

Ok, so the movie is a supremely well made horror/thriller, and the fact that it was created in such second rate conditions makes that fact even more extraordinary. But what exactly makes this a contender for “Great American Film”? When I say that, I mean it in the same way people talk about the Great American Novel. Whether you think it’s Moby Dick or The Great Gatsby, the Great American Novel speaks to the very identity of what America is, and has a literary prose to match that ambition. The same must be true for the Great American Film but instead of literary techniques, it should instead use filmic ones. Citizen Kane speaks about wealth, politics, and a burgeoning mass media through revolutionary techniques that are now standard. 12 Angry Men dissects working class individuals from different walks of life, as well as the justice system, in a style that is subtle but affecting. The Godfather films speak to America’s immigrant roots and the strive for more power and influence, all while under the crushing weight of family and society’s expectations, with moody lighting and a delicate score. So why does Targets belong to that same class? Because using the aforementioned techniques, it dissects the two most famous American products: Movies and Guns.

The USA did not invent either one, but it did create world famous, million dollar industries out of both, in the process becoming part of our cultural identity. Both have grown exponentially, but both are also mired in deep controversy, ESPECIALLY the guns. “Targets” shows how easily not just the main killer can acquire a weapon, but how ANYONE is able to. It conveys this point in a way that isn’t obvious, or as a message film (although those types of movies can still be effective, ala “Polytechnique” and “Nitram”). It doesn’t sensationalize the violence, but it’s frequent POV shots of the sniper and the razor sharp editing frequently puts the audience ill-at-ease. At the same time, the movie industry is examined as well, with a nostalgia for Hollywood’s past and a disenchantment with Hollywood's present. It’s no secret that Bogdanovich worships classic Hollywood, and if the frequent allusions and use of classic techniques wasn’t enough of a give away, Bogdanovich’s self insert character flat out says, “All the good movies have been made already.” If these issues only existed in a vacuum, as products of the time they were made, then Targets would be nothing more than a curiosity. Instead, those issues have grown and metastasized, with more mass shootings than ever, and an industry becoming more sterile and risk-averse. Not only does it examine the subjects separately, but in the climax of the movie, combines the two in ways that are equal parts insane and ingenious. No spoilers here.

Those are the principal themes of the movie, but it also speaks more broadly to the emptiness of modern American living and a dogged refusal to accept death as a part of life, even as so many people, including our two main characters, constantly dance with it. I don’t want to go into it right now, not only because it would require discussing the climax in great detail, but even more so because it’s difficult to put into words. But that’s what the best films do. Yes, they can be surface level entertainment, or even spark intellectual debate. But the absolute greatest stir emotional investment and reaction in an audience, captivating and rousing them in a way they never thought possible. That’s a level of filmmaking excellence that so many films strive for, but very few ever reach. “Targets” is one of those special few.

This all leaves one question: if “Targets” is as great as I say it is, then why is it so underseen, even by many film buffs? Well, when the movie came out, it was on the heels of the assassinations of MLK Jr. and Bobby Kennedy, which made the executives shy about releasing it. They ultimately gave it a limited release and added a pro-gun control message at the beginning of the film, neither of which helped it at the box office (although the distribution deal alone covered its costs). Still, Bogdanovich was finally noticed, and off the back of this debut he went on to make the films for which he remains most renowned: “Last Picture Show,” “What’s Up Doc,” and “Paper Moon”, which largely overshadowed his debut, (and the rest of his filmography for that matter). These kinds of romantic comedy drama films, or romantic dramedies, became what his oeuvre remains most known for: movies about the ecstasy and grief of human relationships, mostly between couples, paired with a healthy nostalgia for old Hollywood. Aside from the movie-about-movies aspect and its formal audacity, “Targets” is very much the outlier of Bogdanovich’s filmography, with him even admitting that horror movies are, alongside sci-fi, his least favorite genre of film. This movie ultimately existed to prove a point: that Bogdanovich could make something interesting out of limited resources. But perhaps the key factor in why Targets is so underseen is that, despite being a horror/thriller, it doesn’t fall into any neatly preconceived categories, and is quite a disturbing movie that doesn’t provide the traditional thrills of even the most deranged horror flicks. But that’s just another feather in its hat, as most of the great movies transcend their genre to become so much more. It may be disturbing at times, but for those that can stomach it, I hope I’ve been able to convey why I think so highly of it. I highly recommend the recent Criterion Blu-Ray release, which hopefully results in more people watching it.

For the record, I consider the Great American Film to be “The Godfather Part 2”, for reasons I should save for another time, but the least I can say is that it is equal parts grand and personal, making for something larger than life, but mirroring real life at the same time. “Targets”, meanwhile, is purely real life, examining two characters so different in their modes of living, but connected in ways they could never imagine. I guess the best way to think of it is that if “Godfather Part 2” is analogous to “The Brothers Karamazov,” then “Targets” is analogous to “Notes from Underground”. The former is vast and epic, leaving few stones unturned about the big questions, while the latter is incisive and intimate, obsessively focusing on a narrow slice of modern life. Both are great for different reasons, and in my eyes, “Targets” is the complete package when looking for short and sweet horror thrillers: An engaging story told with audacious craft despite difficult circumstances, all the while commenting on the psyche of a nation longing for the past in order to escape the present. In more ways than one, “Targets” is THE unsung American classic.