Today's entry comes with a serious SPOILER warning. If you have not seen John Boorman's Point Blank, there is no point in reading this post. It discusses major plot points, one large-ish twist, and the ending of the film, as well as a possible interpretation that would ruin the first time experience of the film.
You have been warned. Continue if you a) have seen Point Blank, or b) think you'll be okay.
Question #8:
About his film Point Blank, director John Boorman said that "one should be able to imagine that this whole story of vengeance is taking place inside [Walker's] head at the moment of his death." Explain.
(note: during editing the first paragraph, which sets things up a little bit, was cut in order to fit the two page limit. I have not been able to locate the earlier draft, but this should not hinder your ability to read the essay)
Only upon viewing Point Blank a second, third or fourth time does the construction of Boorman’s first act make sense. If Walker is in fact dying, the initial flash of memories will be chaotic, even if Boorman must also catch the audience up quickly. Viewers need to learn (if not understand) that Walker and Mal are associates, and that Lynne, Walker’s wife, betrays him. In rapid succession, these jagged memories bleed together, until Walker’s imagination takes over.
As an audience, it is more convenient not to ask why Walker is not bleeding as he crawls out of Alcatraz, or how he could survive the swim (which is impossible, according to narration which accompanies his “escape”). Boorman weaves a series of disorienting sound bridges and flash forwards as Walker returns home, most notably the “footsteps” sequence, where the sound of his feet continue well after it is clear Lee Marvin is no longer walking.
The first true key that the story is happening in Walker’s mind comes the morning after he finds Lynne dead, when the abstract style of editing moves from disorienting to hallucinatory. Walker (who to this point has not spoken to anyone other than a man named Yost), washes his face off in her bathroom, and finds a bottle of perfume he broke the night before sitting on the shelf, untouched. He breaks it again, and walks back to Lynne’s room, only to find the bed empty. No sheets, no pillows, no Lynne; only a white cat.
Inside the living room, Walker opens the shades to find Yost in the driveway, but the sunlight drives him backwards, into a suddenly empty living room. Walker is alone, living in the world of his mind, reminded in flashes that this fantasy cannot continue indefinitely. By the time Stegman’s stooge arrives, the house is back as it was. Walker’s imagine is not permanent, but it is nevertheless powerful. The quest for vengeance is a personal one, yet he includes other characters, but always ones connected to Mal or Lynne.
Walker’s ability to infiltrate The Organization, for that matter, hinges on the presence of Yost, who is in fact Fairfax, the third member of the operation Mal is willing to kill to get back into. Fairfax facilitates Walker’s ability to get home, provides him with information Chris could not possibly know (the whereabouts of Brewster), and appears to have his own agenda, providing a possibility of two vengeful spirits. Fairfax, like Walker, is supposed to be “dead”, as Carter and Brewster put it.
Nowhere in Point Blank is Walker directly responsible for the death of those who wronged him: Lynne overdoses on sleeping pills, Reese falls from a penthouse suite, Carter is shot by an assassin, and Brewster is killed by Yost / Fairfax. Walker roughs up some of Carter’s men, injures Stegman, and goads Chris into trapping Carter, but he is only unintentionally involved in Carter’s fall.
At the end of the film, after a “love scene” that demonstrates Walker’s conflation of reality with fantasy (a Walker/Carter/Lynne/Chris series of rollovers in bed), Brewster brings Walker to what we assume is Alcatraz to finally get his money back. Walker obscured in shadows, watches Fairfax and the mysterious assassin kill Brewster and call out for their spectral partner.
Even as Fairfax leaves the money for Walker, he does not re-emerge. As the audience asks themselves “well, where did he go?” the camera rises to show the actual Alcatraz across the San Francisco Bay. Walker went to Alcatraz, or rather, he never left.
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