{"id":67,"date":"2007-09-17T23:49:58","date_gmt":"2007-09-18T04:49:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/?p=67"},"modified":"2021-08-26T09:21:35","modified_gmt":"2021-08-26T14:21:35","slug":"rivers-edge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/2007\/09\/17\/rivers-edge\/","title":{"rendered":"River’s Edge"},"content":{"rendered":"

River\u2019s Edge<\/em> (1987) was produced on a budget of $1.8 million by the independent producing team of Midge Sanford and Sarah Pillsbury, who were also responsible for John Sayles\u2019s Eight Men Out<\/em> (1988) and Susan Seidelman\u2019s Desperately Seeking Susan <\/em>(1985). Based on a true incident in California in which a group of teenagers covered up a classmate\u2019s murder, River\u2019s Edge<\/em> caused considerable controversy at the time of its release. Rather than presenting the typical Hollywood tale of juvenile waywardness and redemption, River\u2019s Edge<\/em> situates the incident within its wider social context of dysfunctional suburban families, drugs and alcohol, and depersonalized, mediated experience. The film brought critical success to both its director, Tim Hunter, and screenwriter, Neal Jimenez, including Indie Spirit Awards for best feature and best screenplay, but the film\u2019s bleak view did little to enhance either of their careers within the industry.<\/p>\n

Neal Jimenez\u2019s screenplay is in many ways even darker than Tim Hunter\u2019s actual film, probably because Crispin Glover\u2019s over-the-top performance adds an additional comedic element. Otherwise Hunter\u2019s film remains remarkably faithful to Jimenez\u2019s script. It is not surprising that every major studio initially passed on such depressing material. Once Sanford and Pillsbury optioned the script, they resubmitted it again to the studios with virtually the same response until Hemdale finally agreed to finance the project. Distribution of River\u2019s Edge<\/em> proved another formidable obstacle. Island Pictures bought the theatrical rights only after the film played successfully at festivals. Surprisingly strong box-office results in New York and Los Angles led to expanded theatrical distribution in thirty cities, proving that industry experts had been wrong. There turned out to be a market for such a picture after all, mostly among college students and a younger audience. The film has become something of a teen classic subsequently. Roger Ebert<\/a> has called it “the best analytical film about a crime since The Onion Field <\/em>and In Cold Blood<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

River\u2019s Edge<\/em> weaves the interlocking stories of three different murderers \u2013 Tim, Samson (John), and Feck \u2013 which span different generations. The main plotline focuses on Samson\u2019s murder of Jamie, as well as Layne\u2019s (Crispin Glover) bravado attempt to cover it up, but the film has two other subplots involving Tim and Feck. Feck (Dennis Hopper) represents the older \u201960s generation. His murder of a woman stemmed from love, and his elimination of Samson results from a kind of moral necessity. Samson kills for the sense of power and aliveness it gives him, while Tim is perhaps the most frightening of all because his acts are seemingly without motivation. He represents the new breed of killer. In that sense, River\u2019s Edge<\/em> is a highly prophetic film. Two decades later, when teens and sub-teens routinely use their classmates for mass target practice, we are now probably a bit surprised that Samson didn\u2019t take out the rest of his friends as well.<\/p>\n

River\u2019s Edge<\/em> mixes both conventional and unconventional elements. The film uses a three-act dramatic structure, but its most significant events \u2013 turning points \u2013 actually happen off-screen. The first turning point would be when Matt (Keanu Reeves) squeals to the police, but we never see him make the phone call. While Layne and the others view the body at the river, the camera fixes on a reflective Matt fidgeting in class, and later at home he sits holding the phone. Both instances\u00a0suggest that Matt is contemplating calling the authorities, but at this point neither is\u00a0conclusive enough to serve as a turning point. We only know that someone has called the police when Layne and Samson see the squad cars in front of Samson\u2019s house. This does not happen until 36 minutes into the film. Right after that, Matt leads the police to the crime scene. During Officer Bennett\u2019s interrogation, Matt alludes to the fact that he was the one who reported the crime. This clearly reveals a change in the protagonist\u2019s motivation. Matt, however, is too much of a pothead to function as your typical goal-driven protagonist. This is probably why he has little to do with the second reversal.<\/p>\n

The second turning point occurs when Feck shoots Samson at 75 minutes. This important event is again not played for its full dramatic effect, but happens off-screen. Feck picks up the gun and Matt hears a shot in the night. The information is conveyed associatively. We do not know for sure that Samson is dead until Layne finds his body, an event which functions as the film\u2019s climax. Another way to view this would be to see Feck\u2019s shooting of Samson as the climax of this subplot, just as the family subplot involving Tim and Matt peaks toward the film\u2019s end when Tim nearly shoots his older brother. Either way, excluding credits, the first act would be 36 minutes long, the second act 39 minutes, and the third is the shortest at 21 minutes.<\/p>\n

There are other unconventional aspects, which have to do with character. Matt is the protagonist, Layne functions as his antagonist or opposition (with Tim playing that role in the family subplot), and Clarissa serves as the romance figure in the story. Typically, the protagonist and romance character would be at cross purposes, especially during Act Two. In terms of motivation, Matt\u2019s romance with Clarissa would serve to alter his goals \u2013 his love for her would be the factor that causes him to change \u2013 but that is clearly not the case here. Matt decides on his own to report Samson\u2013 his decision has nothing to do with Clarissa.<\/p>\n

In conventional dramatic terms, Layne would pose more of a threat to Matt, but Matt actually defies Layne without the risk of any consequence. Layne turns out to be more posture than substance. Once Matt finks on Samson, there is not much else at stake for him, other than stealing Layne\u2019s girlfriend, Clarissa. This turns out to be rather easy to do once Layne dumps her out of his car, especially because Layne more or less also invites Matt to go with her. On some level, it is not actually Layne who serves as Matt\u2019s antagonist. Layne simply personifies the mores of the teenage group, in which friendship matters above all else, including human decency and the law. By snitching on Samson, Matt risks ostracism from his friends. As with most teenagers, this is what he fears the most. Clarissa underscores this point by asking Matt, “Weren\u2019t you scared of people finding out?”<\/p>\n

River\u2019s Edge<\/em> has a complicated plot structure as well as richly-drawn characters. Matt may be a complete stoner, but he is a sensitive one. The design on the back of his jacket \u2013 a peace symbol combined with a skull \u2013 is wonderfully emblematic of his ambivalence, and it is part of his youthful naivet\u00e9<\/span> that he thinks he can balance such contradictions. Jamie\u2019s murder changes all that because the ensuing situation forces Matt to choose between Eros and Thanatos. Not only does Matt rebel against Layne\u2019s attempt at control \u2013 which mirrors Samson\u2019s murderous impulses \u2013 but he\u2019s the only one who seems to be able to feel anything for Jamie. This is evident when Matt confesses to Clarissa that the reason he informed on Samson is because the look on her face continues to haunt him. Matt is also kind to his little sister and protective of her when Tim drowns her doll, Missy, and desecrates Missy\u2019s grave. He is also repulsed by Tim and Moko\u2019s target practice on defenseless crawfish in a water bucket. Matt also complains to his mother about letting Tim hang out with Moko. Although Matt throttles Tim, he is actually the only one who cares enough about Tim to discipline him. His mother\u2019s boyfriend, Jim, is hardly a role model. Jim talks about discipline, but he lacks the moral authority to impose it.<\/p>\n

All of the kids in River\u2019s Edge<\/em> have a mediated view of the world, a point that is underscored by the television-like image of the river that opens the film. When the teenagers hang outside school and fantasize about splitting for Portland, Tony\u2019s reference is to Easy Rider<\/em>. Layne, in particular, seizes upon Samson\u2019s murder of Jamie as if it is a movie or television plot. As Samson and Matt and Layne drive back from viewing Jamie\u2019s body for the first time, Layne turns it into a Hollywood pitch: “It\u2019s like some fucking movie, you know? Friends since the second grade, fuckin\u2019 like this \u2013 (he proudly raises crossed fingers to demonstrate the unity of their friendship) \u2013 and one of us gets himself in potentially big trouble, and now we\u2019ve got to deal with it. We\u2019ve got to test our loyalty, against all odds. It\u2019s kind of exciting. I feel like Chuck Norris, you know?” As Layne and Matt drive around later and discuss who might have finked on Samson, Layne tells him they are a team and compares them to Starsky and Hutch<\/em>. And when Clarissa argues with Layne for calling her a bitch, he tells her that “in a time like this, where every fucking second counts, a man can\u2019t waste his time choosing words.” Clarissa responds, “What is this, Mission Impossible<\/em>?” as Matt hums the theme song from the back seat. Clarissa also complains to Matt that she feels terrible for not crying over Jamie like she did for the guy in Brian\u2019s Song<\/em>, the TV movie about the star football player who died of cancer.<\/p>\n

The characters in River\u2019s Edge<\/em> have a hard time differentiating between what is real and what isn\u2019t. Feck, for instance, treats his rubber sex doll, Ellie, as a substitute person. This parallels Kim\u2019s doll, Missy, whose drowning represents a certain emotional reality for the child. But Feck is an adult, not a child \u2013 he\u2019s expected to be able to negotiate the difference. And, in fact, he does when he\u2019s interrogated by Samson as to whether he\u2019s a psycho. Feck responds defensively, “No. I\u2019m normal. She\u2019s a doll. I know that.” On the other hand, Samson\u2019s aunt has gone completely over the edge and lives in the world of Dr. Seuss\u2019 The Cat and the Hat <\/em>and Green Eggs and Ham<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The teenagers have similar problems with determining what\u2019s real. Layne\u2019s response to Jamie\u2019s naked corpse is to poke her body with a stick. Dumbfounded, he says, “This is unreal. Completely unreal.” Samson also struggles for control over reality, which is why he murders Jamie. He tells Feck: “I had total control of her. It all felt so real, so . . . real. She was dead there in front of me, and I felt so fucking alive.” And the crisis involving Jamie and Samson provokes Layne to fabricate his bond of friendship with Samson, but Samson later tells Feck: “Layne was never a friend anyway. He doesn\u2019t know me.” At the end of the film, Matt levels with Layne about Samson: “I fucking know you, Layne. You get these ideas in your head, and you don\u2019t think, and this idea \u2013 helping Samson out \u2013 it\u2019s not a good idea.” But it is also interesting that Layne, who has trouble distinguishing between reality and illusion, justifies his concern for Samson over Jamie to Clarissa by an argument based on the distinction between the animate and inanimate. This occurs when Layne throws Clarissa out of his car for suggesting she ought to inform the cops about Samson\u2019s whereabouts. She pokes a hole in Layne\u2019s specious reasoning by responding: “And who\u2019s next on his list.”<\/p>\n

Of course, there\u2019s also an element of misogyny in Layne. Not only does he call Clarissa a stupid bitch, but earlier at Feck\u2019s door, when Feck warns Layne and Matt that the reason he killed a woman was that she had it coming, Layne humors him: “Right Feck. Women are evil. You had to kill her.” Yet Layne, despite his flaws, is a wonderfully wacky antagonist who, in many ways, overshadows Matt in terms of character interest. Perpetually decked out in death-rocker black leather, he is the kind of obsessional loser who will find a place for himself eventually in the ultraconservative right wing. At one point, as Layne and Samson are driving around, he attempts to give Samson an inspirational lift: “It\u2019s people like you that are sending this country down the tubes, you know? No sense of pride, no sense of loyalty, no sense of nothing. Why do you think there are so many fucking welfare cases in this country? Why do you think Russia\u2019s gearing up to kick our ass?” Layne attempts to turn friendship into his ultimate value. For him, it takes precedence over the law. But, like his political analysis, it is not based on honest feeling, but rather something that he has picked up from the media.<\/p>\n

Clarissa probably has the best insight into his character. When she gets together with Matt, she quickly deflates Layne\u2019s bravado image by suggesting he has problems with alcohol abuse and that “They could make a movie out of him.” This is the same guy who, early in the film, makes a display of pinching Clarissa\u2019s ass in front of his friends. When Layne discovers Samson\u2019s body, he lets out a pathetic moan, and assumes a foetal position in front of the body. His line \u2013 “They fucking killed him”\u2013 reeks of a right-wing paranoid conspiracy. He\u2019s becomes completely deflated and pathetic at the end. In our last image of him, he sprawls face down on a large rock. He is also conspicuously absent at the funeral. Although we don\u2019t see him being arrested, we can assume he\u2019s been being held as an accessory to Samson\u2019s crime.<\/p>\n

The other major characters, Samson and Feck, present a striking contrast, and part of the script\u2019s brilliance is to put these two psychos together and allow them to interact. We know only the basics about Samson. His has no parents. His mother\u2019s death is an apparent sore point \u2013 he found her dead in the shower \u2013 which suggests that she probably committed suicide. In any event, he lives with his crazy aunt to whom he reads children\u2019s books by Dr. Seuss. The original explanation of why he kills Jamie is that she said something about his dead mother, but Samson later reveals his motive to Feck. He kills because it gives him a sense of power and makes him feel real. One other aspect of his character is only hinted at, and that has to do with the sexual component to his killing, since Jamie is fully clothed in Samson\u2019s murder flashback, but naked when we first see her. When Clarissa suggests this to Layne when they\u2019re driving around, Layne denies Samson\u2019s a “sex maniac,” but then kicks her out of his car shortly afterward.<\/p>\n

Samson does little to help himself throughout the film. He cannot even spare the energy to help Layne dispose of the body. There is also a suggestion that Samson was drunk when he killed her. Samson, as his name implies, is a lumbering giant, who uses drugs and alcohol in an attempt to numb his repressed rage. Whereas Feck only wastes dudes in self-defense, Samson has a different mode of operation. He tells Feck: “Me, I get in a fight, I go crazy. Everything goes black, and I fuckin\u2019 explode, you know? Like it\u2019s the end of the world, and who cares if the guy fucking wastes me, I\u2019m gonna waste him. The world\u2019s gonna blow up anyway, so I better at least keep my pride.”<\/p>\n

Samson becomes very aggressive when he\u2019s around Feck. Numerous times he seems to challenge the older biker. He needles him about the doll and brings in the cat against Feck\u2019s wishes. Later he pretends to force Ellie to perform oral sex, another parallel in terms of his character. Samson also tries to badger Feck into shooting off his gun, while Feck insists he doesn\u2019t believe in shooting a gun without a reason. Feck has managed to evade the law for twenty years, but Samson hasn\u2019t the will or desire to keep going; only Layne has delusions of saving him. Samson already recognizes he\u2019s a dead man and that they are going to fry him for committing such a brutal murder.<\/p>\n

None of the adults in River\u2019s Edge<\/em> turn out to be terribly good role models. Madeleine (Matt and Tim\u2019s mother) is a pothead living with her boyfriend. The kids\u2019 real father has split and Madeleine at one point cries that “they\u2019re all accidents, anyway.” Clarissa\u2019s parents are portrayed as disembodied voices. We never see Layne\u2019s parents at all. Tony\u2019s father appears to be a psycho when he fires a shotgun at Layne and Matt when they show up at this house. Samson\u2019s mother probably committed suicide, while Aunto seems certifiably mad. After Clarissa leaves Matt to go to class and he kids her about having the hots for Burkewaite, she tells him that she “respects” him. Matt answers in mock disbelief, “You respect an adult? I really do need to get stoned.” Clarissa\u2019s respect is especially misguided because Burkewaite turns out to be another demagogue like Layne. He waxes nostalgic about knocking pigs on their asses, and later espouses vigilantism as the proper response to Samson.<\/p>\n

Feck, for all his craziness, is the only sympathetic adult character. He provides the moral center to the film. A pot-smoking rebel rouser, who brags he “ate so much pussy back then my beard looked like a glazed donut,” Feck is also the only one who seems to feel real compassion for Samson and his fate. When Samson insists that “they\u2019re gonna fry me for sure,” Feck reminds him that Layne is trying to help out. But Samson has a forceful comeback: “What\u2019s he gonna do? Send me off to Portland? Hide me out in some dark room for twenty years so I can end up like you, Feck? You think I want that?” Feck answers: “No. You don\u2019t.” Feck may be slightly crazy and pot may help to numb his pain, but Feck knows full well the price of murder. He articulates this to Samson early on: “You kill a person and they stick after you like ghosts. They can\u2019t let you forget. They won\u2019t believe you when you say you\u2019re sorry. They want you to pay somehow.”<\/p>\n

Feck is a murderer, but he claims to have at least loved his victim. Later at the riverbank, he not only refuses to fire his gun without reason, but for sentimental reasons as well. The gun with which he kills Samson is the same gun he used in the murder. Feck\u2019s shooting of Samson is double-edged. On one level, he does it because Samson is a psychotic murderer \u2013 as Samson puts it, “what other excuse do I have” \u2013 who kills for the power and sense of aliveness it gives him. Feck explains his own motivation: “. . . because there was no hope for him, no hope at all. He didn\u2019t love her. He never felt a thing. At least I loved her. At least I cared.” But Feck\u2019s murder of Samson is also an act of compassion.<\/p>\n

Throughout River\u2019s Edge<\/em>, the teenagers express a fatalistic awareness of death and\/or annihilation, which justifies their party-while-you-can, nihilistic behavior. Yet Feck clearly has the greatest sense of life\u2019s absurdity. This is manifest in the scene where Feck and Samson discuss how he lost his leg:<\/p>\n

SAMSON: That when you lost your leg?
\nFECK: Yeah. Motorcycle accident.
\nSAMSON: Cool.
\nFECK: The rest of the gang ditched me, kept on riding. My leg was in the street. I remember lying there in the gutter, all bleeding and shaking, staring at my leg, next to the beer can, and I remember thinking: that\u2019s my leg. I wonder if there\u2019s any beer in that can?
\nSAMSON: Wow.
\nFECK: I also thought: Maybe they can sew it back on, but then the ambulance came, ran right over it.
\nSAMSON: Wasted that leg.
\nFECK: But who needed it. I got another one, right?<\/p>\n

Jimenez has a tremendous facility with language as well as an ability to write both realistic and visually-rich dialogue. As has already been pointed out, Jimenez deliberately chooses not to show certain important dramatic moments and situations, such as Matt\u2019s phone call or Feck\u2019s killing of Samson. He also creates an anti-dramatic climax to the family subplot between Matt and Tim. Logically, Tim ought to pull the trigger, especially considering how he encourages Moko to beat Feck over the head with the numbchucks. But Jimenez\u2019s decision to withhold certain dramatic elements is actually a deliberate stylistic device in River\u2019s Edge<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Jimenez is perfectly capable of creating drama, as is evident in certain highly dramatic individual scenes in River\u2019s Edge<\/em> that bristle with tension. A great example of Jimenez\u2019s ability to create such scenes is Officer Bennett\u2019s interrogation of Matt. The scene is emotionally charged for a simple reason. To Bennett, Matt is the prime suspect. But when Bennett attempts to treat him like a suspect, Matt reacts with the righteous indignation of the wrongly accused. In informing the police about Jamie\u2019s body, Matt has placed himself in a vulnerable situation vis-\u00e0<\/span>-vis his teenage school friends. Bennett uses his veiled accusations as a way of pricking Matt\u2019s most vulnerable sore spots. Like any interrogator, Bennett keeps pushing Matt\u2019s buttons until Matt explodes finally at the attempt to turn him into the reprehensible figure of a murderer or accomplice.<\/p>\n

Virtually every scene involving Matt and his mother\u2019s boyfriend, Jim, also escalates quickly into dramatic conflict. After Madeleine and Matt get back from the police station, Jim is there to greet them. It doesn\u2019t take much to set off their Oedipally-charged rivalry, but Jim relishes the notion that Matt may have played a part in Jamie\u2019s murder. And Matt once again gets blame rather than credit for his actions, which reinforces his indignation and fuels his anger. But Jim also hits Matt at another point of vulnerability, since Matt actually does know where Samson is hiding out. As Matt stalks off, Matt yells after Jim: “Mother-fucker! Food-eater!” The literalness of the lines add a comic touch to the confrontation. Earlier when Matt takes his BB gun back from Tim for shooting crawfish, Tim screams after him: “Pothead fuckbrain.” This line is also funny, mostly for the unintended self-hatred it implies.<\/p>\n

Jiminez and Hunter show a firm grasp of dramatic conventions throughout River\u2019s Edge<\/em>, but the drama, as I have argued, is subverted or down played at key moments, including at the film\u2019s understated ending. After Clarissa and Matt view the body, they file into the first-row pew. Matt takes Clarissa\u2019s hand \u2013 that\u2019s the extent of it. The camera winds up framing Jamie in her casket. Matt has been spared death from Tim, the brothers have settled temporarily, and Matt and Clarissa attend the funeral together, with Layne no longer in the way. But the ending refuses to provide us with the false security that everything will be okay now for these disaffected young people. In fact, there is an earlier scene, that deliberately parodies such Hollywood clich\u00e9<\/span>s. After Matt and Clarissa have made love for the first time, Matt says, “So now we get married, right?” Clarissa answers, “No. Let\u2019s get stoned instead.” The integrity of River\u2019s Edge<\/em> is precisely its grim realistic picture of suburban teenage life, as well as Jimenez and Hunter\u2019s steadfast refusal to sugarcoat it for greater mass consumption.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

River\u2019s Edge (1987) was produced on a budget of $1.8 million by the independent producing team of Midge Sanford and Sarah Pillsbury, who were also responsible for John Sayles\u2019s Eight Men Out (1988) and Susan Seidelman\u2019s Desperately Seeking Susan (1985).Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":68,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4273,"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67\/revisions\/4273"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}