Film Plot. True Love. The Gauntlet. Amera Ziganii Rao
The Gauntlet. Clint Eastwood reminds me once again, first what an extraordinary artist he is and second, what the beginning of The Return is. Male Macho and Female Macho. When I write about the Mars archetype woman (psychotic), one thing is inaccurate. Their macho is pseudo. The machine type of pseudo macho in maternal solicitude. The machines and colluders. Not mine. My macho is real. Passionate, intelligent, strong and powerful. Panther like Venus macho to his Mars panther macho of the same kind as it happens. His macho is pure too. It's the autocracy that we have been dealing with. The profanity and indeed, stupidity. So many times, Gus Mally's character, the female (prostitute) in The Gauntlet, scoffs at Ben Shockley's (policeman) stupidity - he takes ages to understand that the police force that he is a part of, is setting him up, ie the symbolic Patriarchal Toilet Tribe and the so called Beloved Son. She really takes him through the mill all the way through the story. It made me see again on another level, what I have been doing and how proud of myself I feel and how much courage I had to find to do that, to be real and to lose him in the process. Because of course I never had him, because he was Henry Vlll all along. That's okay. The dictator tosspot will end at last, and then the beauty of macho remains. As it should. Macho + heart + equality = whole love. Clint Eastwood. Respect.
Amera Ziganii Rao ©
The Gauntlet
The Gauntlet is a 1977 American action film directed by and starring Clint Eastwood. The film also stars Sondra Locke, Pat Hingle, William Prince, Bill McKinney, and longtime personal friend Mara Corday who would appear with Eastwood in another three films.
Ben Shockley (Clint Eastwood), an alcoholic cop from Phoenix, is well on his way to becoming a down-and-out when he is given the task to escort witness Gus Mally (Sondra Locke) from Las Vegas. Mally protests that they are both set to be killed in a hit, which a jaded Shockley doubts. Mally soon reveals herself to be a belligerent prostitute with mob ties and is in possession of incriminating information concerning a high figure in society. Her suspicions are confirmed when the transport vehicle is bombed and Mally's house is fired upon. Shockley and Mally are then pursued across the open country with no official assistance and with the police force regarding them as fugitives.
They eventually run into a gang of bikers which whom Shockley threatens with his gun sending them on their way, steals one of their choppers and takes off on it with Mally. The two ride into a town where Shockley and Mally are ambushed by a helicopter filled with cops sent by Shockley's corrupt superior Commissioner Blakelock (William Prince) who pursue the two away from the town and onto the open road, firing at them from above. During the high-speed pursuit, the helicopter accidentally crashes and explodes and the two then ditch the chopper and hop on a train where ironically the same two bikers whose chopper they just stole are on. As an act of revenge, the bikers attack and assault Shockley and later attempt to rape Mally (who try to sacrifice herself long enough for Shockley to set himself free), who they pin to the ground but the wounded Shockley soon grabs hold of his gun and subdues the bikers, roughly knocking the two bikers and their girlfriend off the train. The two then prepare to enter the gauntlet of armed Police Officers that corrupt Police Commissioner Blakelock has set up to stop Shockley and Mally from entering Phoenix.
The two hijack a bus and are about to enter town when Maynard Josephson (Pat Hingle), an old friend of Shockley's, warns the two of the gauntlet Blakelock has set up for them. While stepping out of the bus to discuss the terms, Josephson is shot dead by police snipers from a nearby building and Shockley is hit in the leg. Now with no other option, the two enter the town and are shot at until the bus can no longer move. The two surrender and Shockley is shot and wounded by Blakelock who in return is shot dead by Mally. The film ends with Shockley and Mally walking away from the gauntlet of cops.
Wikipedia
Shockley’s jaded and quite conformist views are shaken and stirred by Mally, as she shows how she believes in what she believes and not in society’s rules or what she has been told to believe in. Shockley is the consummate policeman, who is loyal to the team and doesn’t believe a word she says. Until he does. And of course it turns out that ‘his own’ want him dead and are using him as a stool pidgeon, I think is the term. They deliberately send him to his death by getting him to accompany Mally. Hence the bus they drive into the city together at the end, to deliver her as a witness. Shockley is liberated and so is Mally, just by the fact she is allowed to stay alive and testify.
Amera Ziganii Rao ©
Other Link
Film Plots. Individuation and Becoming Soul as Passion as Compassion. Amera Ziganii Rao
Amera Ziganii Rao. A Profile
Amera Ziganii Rao ©
Thank you to Wikipedia for the film plot and to outside source for the photograph.
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