Chapo Trap House - Movie Mindset 09 Teaser - Gene Hackman in Eureka

Episode Date: June 21, 2023

Will and Hesse discuss the transcendent sequence of Gene Hackman striking gold in Nicolas Roeg’s Eureka (1983). Subscribe today for access to the full episode and all premium episodes! www.patreon.com/chapotraphouse

The first 20 minutes of the movie follows Gene Hackman before he strikes at Rich. And it's like the 1920s in like the absolute frozen tundra of Alaska. And contrasts that with most of this movie takes place on a tropical island in the Bahamas. But I mean, like in the imagery that we see in the opening 20 minutes is the imagery of alchemy.

Like we see fire, water, earth, and here the wind quite a bit. But the first thing we see in the movie is, Hackman is fighting with a man and a woman in like, you know, over like a tent in the middle of nowhere in like the frozen wastelands of Alaska. And he screams at them, I don't need partners. And he says over and over again, what becomes his mantra in this movie that has repeated over and over again,

which is, I never earned a nickel from another man's sweat. Yeah, and it's used, it's used magnificently. And actually, the, it really like explodes at you from the, from the opening credits. It's the first two seconds. There's a woman screaming murder and their Gene Hackman and this guy are fighting over a knife and just because this guy's like,

no, we'll split it 50-50 in Gene Hackman's like, fuck you. I think the first thing you see in the movie is like, gold dust flickering in total darkness, like almost like stars in our universe. And then you see the planet Earth itself. And it's imagery that's returned to over and over again in the suicide that we see very early in the movie.

And like the sort of, the swirl of gold dust, snow, fireworks, it's just these kind of like, like moats of dust cast in a light beam, flickering around. And it has this, like, as you said, acid casualty, really psychedelic quality to his movies that like, you know, like that elevates like, oh, this is about like some crusty gold prospector

or whatever, it's like, no, the first 20 minutes of this movie are just like a tablo of like heaven, earth, alchemy, and like a man in the universe, basically. The elements, Kabbalah, it's like crazy. So after delineating his policy on partners, he sort of rambles into this like ramshackle ghost town and retreated to immediately almost the first part of this movie, one of the most unforgettable and disturbing

images I think I've ever seen in a movie, which is that he comes across. It's like this freezing fucking town. And in front of the like the claims office, he sees this man with this like frozen hunted smile on his face. And he's barefoot. He is just bare feet or out and he's just smiling the look of death. And he just looks at him and he goes like, what are you smiling about? And he says, the end. And then he just takes out a gun, sticks in at his mouth and blows the top of his head off.

And like, but like to describe it that way really doesn't do justice to the way Rogue does this. You see, the top of this guy's skull fly off. And in the same cuts, there's so many awesome match cuts in this movie. They match cut that with fireworks exploding and more gold dust scattering. And then the blood spraying all over the wall behind him. And it's really insane. And then like as he sees that rather disturbing scene, he sort of like, you know, a trudges off elsewhere and then broke shows it to you again. Yeah.

You see it twice. He's just like, case you didn't get it the first time, I'm going to give you another shot of fireworks exploding as the top of this guy's skull shoots off like a frisbee. But like what we see here, I think in the in the first part of this guy's skull shoots off like a frisbee. But like what we see here, I think in the first part of this movie, is Hacman's the character Jack McCann, the gold digger. We see his fundamental disconnect from humanity. Like he doesn't want partners, he doesn't want to be around anyone or anything. All he cares about is like this this maniacal pursuit of the ecstasy of goal, of striking it big.

And like he's been doing this for years and is like, you know, has doesn't have much to show for it. And there's just really a movie of like, it's like a movie of dichotomy. There's like the cold and the warm. There's the gold versus flesh is another dichotomy kind of presented and rich white people and the black people that work for them on this tropical island is another one. It's very... It's got a lot of juxtapositions. There's a lot of juxtapositions between father and daughter in this movie, between the father and his son-in-law played by Rutger Howard. But we get to that.

There's like, you know, another like moment of just like, real, like, I don't know, magical realism. I guess you would call it in the scene where basically like a philosopher's stone is like disgorged from the earth in a column of flame. As Hacman basically lies dying underneath a frozen tree, surrounded by wolves who were like, you know, just testing them out a little bit in a sort of prophecy of things to come later in the movie

on his life in the Bahamas. There's quite a lot of wolves that surround Jack McCann in his life. But like the Earth. It's like moment was crazy in the movie too because like the tree does not look normal. It's like a witch tree. It's like a shit.

Yeah, and the wolves' eyes have this really, I don't know how they did this, or if they just used real wolves that were actually starving, but the wolves, there's a look in their eyes that is really horrifying. Yeah. It's just Jean Hackman making eye contact with them.

And I was just like, I was genuinely concerned for it. I was like, fuck. But like, it's this mythic moment of like the earth, discouraging this pale stone that he keeps with him for the rest of the movie that is like evidence of either his, his like being favored or like cursed in some way. Because that opens things up to him is this divine intervention of this stone, this talisman which orders his life and sets it on a completely different path. He then trudges into a frozen brothel.

He's like an icicle and he just walks into a brothel. And he has like a prior relationship with sort of like the madame turned fortune teller. And she tells him that like the stone was given to you, it's your destiny. It's your destiny that everyone pays. And he tells another one of his, one of the great line that is like,

that is repeated over and over in this movie or a couple times is gold smells stronger than a woman. And the fortune teller, we see flashbacks of their relationship. And just in this scene, it's just the rhythm of the camera, the edits, the movement. It's hypnotic. And she tells him that you'll find what you're looking for, but after, it's different. Like his luck has changed. He's not an ordinary man anymore.

And he, like, he tells him, like, you know, between us, there used to just be like, your cock, my pussy. But now, like, that's all been replaced by gold. But he only have a lust for gold. Like, not the lust of a man, the only the lust for gold. But your luck has changed. And it's this, like, prophecy that is fulfilled as, like, okay, has to, like, this, it has to like,

this scene where he actually strikes gold is so un-re-loosinatory and unbelievable. I was like, oh, Paul Thomas Anderson was fucking stealing from this movie like it was a riot, and he needed a new TV or something. Like, literally like the entire sequence of Daniel Plainview finding oil is just pretty much lifted from this, except it's a lot more hallucinogenic and visually insane in this.

And it's just like, it also reminded me of the elevator scene from the shining, like the way the blood kind of washes out, she's out of the elevators. And except it's just with pure liquid gold that. Yeah, and this is all happening, like set to the score is of Wagner's Dazrine gold. So it's this like, it's this mythic encounter. Like we see like fire as this primal force, like literally bursting forth from the ground.

And then Hackman's character sort of falls into a crevice and like into this cavern that is just like littered with gold dust. And he digs into the wall and discorges literally a river of gold that like washes him away. And like he emerges from the ground itself. Like like a like a like a like a hedge, like a woodchuck or like a groundhog, but covered in gold dust. But like as this moment of his, like the total consummation of his ecstasy, it's cut back, it's, it cuts back to the fortune teller, the name Frida. And it's in this moment of like,

his discovery of the gold, the gold, the gold, the gold, the gold, the gold, the gold, the gold, the gold, the gold, the gold, the gold, the gold, the gold, the gold, the gold like his discovery of the gold slash child of the track house. He kind of almost orgasmic and like like get last gas of her life. And it's almost like that like for the prophecy to be fulfilled that like her his love for women or his love for other human beings has to literally die. Mm-hmm. And there's the moment when he, like, finally, like fully emerges from the ground and looks back at the goal for the full episode. Subscribe at patreon.com slash choppo trap house.

Oh, he was born to play like a prospector. Who's struck gold. He really has that quality to him. Hackman should have said the line, Concern it in this movie. Yeah. has that quality to him. you