Porn Scorned

By RICHARD SCHICKEL

HARDCORE

Directed and Written by Paul Schroder

The production notes for this film say that Paul Schrader was born in Grand Rapids, where Hardcore's modest, acutely observed opening sequences are set. They also tell us he was raised in the stern Calvinist tradition that sustains the heroic father figure (George C. Scott) as he searches for his runaway teen-age daughter. The girl has disappeared into the demimonde of pornographic film production in California, with its attendant agonies of drug addiction and prostitution. Schrader's feeling for the small-town society and values of his youth is respectful, never patronizing. There is an authenticity in his visualizations of family, religious and even business life in Middle America that deserves the highest praise. This loving accuracy of representation was one of the virtues of his Blue Collar last year; he knows what kind of furniture these people like and even how they place it in their living rooms.

Schrader is making an attempt to redeem an American heroic myth. He is trying to say that in the simple perceptions of unsophisticated people there are a strength and decency too often underestimated by media pundits who have lost touch with the values by which most of America still lives. When we see Scott's anguish as he witnesses a porno film starring his daughter, then watch him plunge bravely into that awful and degrading world searching for his child, we cannot help being moved.

And yet it is precisely here that the film begins to go wrong. There can be no doubt that Schrader has earnestly studied the porno underworld and that he is genuinely appalled by what he found. But tie does not know it in his bones, as he does that other world. The lighting is wild, when it is not harsh, the better to illuminate wasted faces. The dialogue is sometimes tough, sometimes fantastical. People struggle to express their pathetic rationalizations for what they are doing and their equally pathetic dreams of escape. But Schrader never seems to get beyond his own shock; he keeps having Scott get beaten over the head with more horrors. The material finally becomes repetitive and boring, and no amount of frenzied technique can compensate for that.

The plot lacks inventiveness. The young prostitute (Season Hubley) who helps Scott in his quest is really just another hooker with a gold-plated heart. And a private detective (Peter Boyle) who also helps out remains an ambiguous, unfocused figure. The porn merchants and heir handimen are all stock figures. The

Frenzy in the meanest streets.

only interesting development in this later portion of the film is Scott's decision to pretend to produce a porno film so he can interview some studs who come looking for a job, hoping they will lead him to his daughter. There is strong irony here, a sense of real narrative movement that momentarily revives the picture.

But it's not enough. Even an actor as powerful as Scott cannot make up for the paucity of invention. And the frantic action of the conclusion seems more confession of failure than release of pent-up emotion. Sensational though Hardcore is, unblinking as it is in examining a tawdry scene, it is a serious effort, not an exploitation film. Its failure is entirely honor able, and its successful moments make it worthy of attention. But it is, regrettably, a failure.

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