Hello fellow humans. Beautiful misfits and weirdos. This is Ágoston Hajnal speaking from the wilderness of London in the United Kingdom. I am a film enthusiast with many different passions and curiosities, a Master's degree in Film Studies and another one in journalism. I call this podcast my film odyssey. It's been a while since I have put these episodes together then life took over and I was only able to finish a few of them, but here they are. Whether I will continue with this remains to be seen.
If you are listening to this right now I'm glad we have bumped into each other in this over-saturated landscape of sound. Thank you for listening and I hope you enjoy.
The very first episode is about an old favourite of mine, the 1992 undercover cop thriller Deep Cover starring Laurence Fishburne and Jeff Goldblum and directed by Bill Duke. In appropriating the genre of spoken word poetry and rap from African American culture I have attempted to express my thoughts and emotions regarding this film. This is dedicated to all the great hip-hop artists whose music I grew up on. Credit must go to www.zapsplat.com for the soundscapes and sound effects. The music has been sourced from www.pixabay.com and was composed by Mariokhol and by an artist curiously named 22505087. Without further ado here it goes...
Penned by Michael Tolkin and Henry Bean and directed by veteran actor-director Bill Duke, Deep Cover is an arresting crime drama and morality tale.
Cincinnati street cop Russell Stevens Jr. gets recruited by the DEA to work undercover in Los Angeles and bring down the biggest drug suppliers on the West Coast.
Just like the protagonist, the film is multi-faceted and by the complexity of the screenplay and the visual eloquence of Duke's direction, it works on numerous levels. It's a neo-noir, a fable about the dark underbelly of city life, a character study about the elusiveness of identity, an astute political commentary on institutional racism, and the contradictions and hypocrisies of the Sisyphean war on drugs. It is also implicitly critical of the Bush Sr. administration. The hand of fate can be felt on the character's shoulders as they are often guided by devils in the city of angels.
There is a thunderous rush in the tale being told
Through the dark alleys drugs and souls are sold
The beast of naked need proclaims its territory
The choice of a sinful life appears to be the only
If you wanna make your life float, apply some density
Temptations on the corner, it's the devil you're dancing with
All steps on your life's road lead to the same destiny
You are who you are, there is no proven recipe
The noirish narration, delivered in deep soft tones by Shakespearean actor Laurence Fishburne is gritty and poetic. It establishes our identification with the lead character while also serving as a guide for the milieu that Duke paints with jump-cut montages, wipe cuts, tilting and tracking cameras, and striking angles. Exhibiting a remarkable control of tone, he mixes naturalistic street scenes with highly stylized compositions and lighting and has his characters occasionally quote the poetry of pimp-turned-writer Iceberg Slim, somehow making it all fit together. He is beautifully assisted by the late Michel Colombier whose alternately engrossing and haunting score is one of the most memorable aspects of the film. He is also helped by ace cinematographer Bojan Bazelli whose 35 mm spherical lens images are alternately realistic and lyrical.
Like the private detectives of Mosley, Chandler, and Spade, John is smart, violent, vulnerable, and doomed. He's also African American, carrying centuries of injustice and othering on his skin with all the pitfalls of inequality. As in Otto Preminger's 1950 noir Where the Sidewalk Ends, the predestination of the anti-hero for a path of perdition instigated by modernity's alienation, is shaded further by family dynamics. John, failed by both the system and his junkie criminal father, tries his hardest not to follow in the old man's footsteps but everything seems to conspire against him - primarily his own nature he can no longer deny.
Fishburne gives a powerhouse performance. He brings magnetism, intelligence, soulfulness, danger, and gracefulness to the part of John. He is a man constantly transformed by his circumstances, not knowing anymore who he is than his criminal associates. He operates on pure instinct and the confidence of knowing how to stay alive in a harsh environment. He deals drugs. He graduates from being clean all his life to smoking, then alcohol, then narcotics. He kills. It is a purifying descent into personal madness and a complete loss of identity, almost daring himself with a reprobate's grin to see if he can still come out the other side.
Equally impressive is Jeff Goldblum as shady and buffoonish Jewish lawyer and criminal David Jason. His transformation is of a narcissist quickly affects the mask of a big-shot gangster. In his humiliation suffered at the hands of Barbosa; his self-loathing drives him to murderous revenge. From a timid but cunning businessman, he snaps into a reptilian leather-jacketed maniac, then into a calm, pragmatic sociopath. A wife and a daughter in the suburbs cannot satisfy his voracious appetite. He cheats, deals, and snorts his way to an extravagant life, where blackness is sexy, cool, and dehumanized - An objectified, fetishized, exoticized product, a spicy other to be devoured, a culture to be appropriated, an aphrodisiac, a dirty little secret.
Smoke clouds emanate from gas pipes
Drug dens are brightened by red lights
Concrete glistens from the raindrops
The crowd gathers now at fiend spots
Undercover cop hides and eavesdrops
Grace turns its back, and it leaves us
Women are almost an afterthought in this man's world. In Victoria Dillard's effective characterization, Betty wears the icy armor of a femme fatale but melts by John's seductive powers. Later as things go south her confident exterior reveals a scared little girl using drugs as a crutch. Can she and John save each other?
In the scene at the docks, John's identity comes full circle. Even under the fog and night's darkness, all is bathed in the ghostly white light of reckoning. The religious cop Taft is like an angel on Hull's shoulder, fighting a battle with the Faustian David for the soul of our protagonist. Earlier he called John Judas and saw in him himself, for the path of the unholy is 100 times more damning if you are black. By betraying yourself you betray all brothers and sisters. One bad apple is taken to represent the whole basket framed by racism and the minority context, and the process of redemption and equality screeches to a halt and gets stuck in the past.
David is gross capitalism personified as he draws the ultimate line between rich and poor that go beyond identity politics and only uses it as an opportunistic tactic of distract, divide, and conquer. At this point, John and David have become one. When John's conscience kicks in, and Russel Stevens returns, he must kill the only friend he's got and a part of himself.
In the end, Deep Cover puts the question to the audience. Are we victims of fate and our circumstances or does personal responsibility rule above all?
What choice do you have in a world of corruption?
Push for survival using all your gumption
You cannot escape the loss of your innocence
Might as well dive in and face your virulence
Responsibility has rarely led to opulence
Rich is the one who can keep their inner balance
Hello, fellow humanoids! True originals. If you are still listening or just joining us now I am Ágoston Hajnal and this is my film odyssey. Please check out my website for more content. It is www.agostonsfilmodyssey.com. That is A.G.O.S.T.O.N. You can also follow me on Instagram, X, and Facebook, links are in the description. Thank you for coming with me on this journey and I hope to see you next time.