scanners is, as david cronenberg will freely admit, a mess. it was his tax bracket movie. he had no real plot. he did, however, have the good sense to cast patrick mcgoohan in a somewhat pivotal role, and this is good enough for me. the paddy is always at his best when he is acting sort of like an confused, uptight, weirdo asshole i think, and he does that very nicely with his opening line, which is:
'you’re 35 years old mr. vale. why are you such a derelict? such a piece of human junk.' seriously, all he needs to do is open his mouth and the awesomeness comes forth. it’s that weird, no-man's-land accent and the diction and the delivery. he is literally spectacular.
it's sort of like when he's the warden in escape from alcatraz, always grooming his fingernails with this weird tight smile on his face, or when he has his freakout as number six in 'the prisoner', ripping off that ape mask and leering at himself in this positively fucked up manner, or when he's playing red in hell drivers and pasts stanley baker a good one just for fun, or even when he's longshanks in braveheart and pitches his son’s no good lover out a window. he's just good that way.
he also makes some odd acting choices, like slouching whenever he can, but you know, people do those things sometimes, and in the context of the scene where he's slouching, i think it makes sense. he's annoyed by these consec tools. he knows that the scanners will break your fucking backs, and he's simply having to reiterate said position for what is probably the eight thousandth time. so he's a bit sleepy about the whole thing.
in the book 'cronenberg on cronenberg', there’s this awesome bit about scanners where d.c. admits to the fact that it's basically a piece of shit, and then goes on to talk about what a coup it was to have gotten the paddy to act in it. he talks about how he'd aged so magnificently, how absolutely wonderful he looked. you'd almost think he wanted to hump the paddy in much the same way i do, but i digress. he also talks about how the paddy one day confessed to him on set that not only was he terrified that he would fuck up on camera, but also that he was terrified that if he wasn't drunk enough, he’d kill someone.
why didn't i work on this film? god is patently not my friend. i would have gone out and gotten good and fucked up with the p. whenever he wanted me to, and i would have taken my clothes off for him at the barest hint of a request.
but anyhow, scanners: one massively lovely head explosion, one actor who can't act to save his ass even under duress (stephen lack), lots of nosebleeds indicating psychic strain, one actor eating hunks of scenery at pertinent moments in the film (michael ironsides), one script with some loose ends and an unnecessary death (the paddy's), but honestly, one of the best roles patrick mcgoohan had in the eighties. he gets to be the 'luke, i am your father guy', he has a heroic meltdown right before his death, he gets to be a snarky fucker. all the good stuff, and all the stuff he was the best at.
am i saying anything i haven’t said before? likely not. but i had to get drunk tonight, and this is what you get when i’m drunk—-epiphanies about the unending glory of patrick mcgoohan.
the good doctor, paul ruth:
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