Movies - Hard Times

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	Movies - Hard Times

Hard Times is a 1975 movie starring Charles Bronson as Chaney, a street fighter who travels to Louisiana during the Great Depression to make his living in illegal boxing matches. It is notable for being Walter Hill's directorial debut.

Characters

The main characters are:

Chaney – (Charles Bronson
) “a man of few words and no past” at all except for the notion that he is a man devoid of any permanent friendships and of limited financial resources.
Spencer 'Speed' Weed - (James Coburn
) an agent who represents Chaney.
Lucy Simpson - (Jill Ireland
) a woman Chaney develops a relationship with.

Plot

After arriving in town as a stowaway abord a cargo train, Chaney meets Speed and asks him to be his agent. They travel to New Orleans where Speed enters Chaney into matches against the top fighters in the state with the hopes of winning. Chaney proves himself to be an excellent street fighter, which is good for Speed because he is deep in debt with the local mob. He promises the mobsters to pay his debts in two days, but when it seems unlikely that Speed will have the money, the mob becomes more threatening. This forces Chaney to enter one last fight to get his agent out of trouble.

Analysis

Chaney shares a kinship with other Walter Hill loners. In 48 Hrs. (1982) (written and directed by Hill), the character of Jack Cates (played by Nick Nolte) is an alcoholic cop who seeks revenge after his partners are killed by a gang. In Crossroads (1986) (directed by Hill), Willie Brown (played by Joe Seneca) plays a blues musician that makes a deal with the Devil so that he can play guitar well, but the Devil curses Willie into a life spent mostly in prisons. Aside from the loner lifestyle Chaney shares with other Hill characters, he also shares their arcs. Jack learns to trust Reggie (Eddie Murphy) and together they set things right. Willie learns to trust Eugene (Ralph Macchio) and together they set things right. Moreover, Chaney learns to trust Speed (James Coburn) and together they set things right.

The titular “hard times” refer to the film’s setting; the United States (mostly New Orleans, Louisiana) during the Great Depression among the underground street fighting community. Though it is set during the Great Depression, Hard Times could have taken place during any era. Pauline Kael called the setting of Hard Times “elaborate period recreations that seem almost to be there for their own sake” (6). The film is about the personalities of local street fighters and their agents; a group that has always been on the outskirts of society. On the other hand, setting the film in the Depression might have been a way for Hill to make Chaney a more sympathetic character. Kael explains, “Put in modern clothes and he’s a hard-bitten tough guy, but with that cap on he’s one of the dispossessed—an honest man who’s known hunger” (6).

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