Dhe NATO is at war with the great powers in the east, nuclear escalation is imminent; the American President is shot down by terrorists over a lawless territory, and only individual heroism can save the West’s peace negotiations with the Russians and Chinese. No, fortunately this is not current news, but the starting point of a film from 1981: “The Rattlesnake”, originally “Escape from New York”, a classic of both action and science fiction cinema. John Carpenter’s dark staging thrives on the tension between global disaster on the one hand and a walled-in setting for an impossible mission on the other. Between the two, the film’s antihero, Kurt Russell, must somehow survive as former elite soldier Snake Plissken. Can a film be more up-to-date?
More people are expecting answers from heroines today than when The Rattlesnake filled movie theaters, regardless of whether the image these people have of the heroic is a president at war or a girl fighting against demonstrated climate collapse. Asylum and escape, pandemic, Ukraine war: the last few years have been characterized by emergencies and exceptional situations deep into everyday life in areas that were largely spared from the very worst after 1945. So can it be that this time is calling for Snake Plissken without knowing it? And what would he answer? We would like to discuss the film, which we will show you on the fourth FAZ film evening, but also the situation then and now and the extraordinary, gloomy visions of director John Carpenter in the tried and tested format.
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