Film Friday: Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)

Let’s talk about John Carpenter’s second film: 1976’s Assault on Precinct 13. This is one of those films that film-buffs love, and deservedly so. Indeed, this film is fascinating in so many ways. What interests me, however, is just how deeply conservative this film is, especially given the fact that Carpenter is rather liberal.

Plot

Heavily influenced by Howard Hawks’s westerns, particularly Rio Bravo, Assault on Precinct 13 involves exactly what the title suggests. As the story opens, newly promoted Lt. Ethan Bishop (Austin Stoker) is ordered to oversee the Anderson Police Precinct in the Anderson ghetto of Los Angeles for the night. The station has been moved and only a handful of staff remain at the Anderson Station to shut it down.

As background, we are told that a ruthless gang, who call themselves Street Thunder, has stolen automatic weapons and is now in a war with the police. After seeing a group of gang members gunned down, we see the multiracial leaders of the gang swear a blood oath and then drive around looking for people to kill.

Meanwhile, we see two other subplots unfold. First, a group of prisoners, including multiple-murderer Napoleon Wilson, are being transported from one prison to another so he can wait on death row. One of the three prisoners becomes sick and their bus stops at the Anderson Station.

The second subplot involves a man who takes his daughter into the Anderson ghetto with the intent of asking their housekeeper to move in with them. I suspect Carpenter makes a gay reference here but I have no proof (the man and his daughter plan to tell the housekeeper that they have a spare room now that his male roommate is dead). As the man stops to call for directions, his daughter sees an ice cream truck. She goes to get ice cream, but the gang leaders stop and kill her and the ice cream peddler. The girl’s father races over, grabs the gun the ice cream peddler had in his truck, chases the gang bangers, and kills one of them. They then chase him until he runs into the Anderson Station.

A siege begins, with the gang cutting off the power and phones to the Anderson Station and periodically trying to rush the building. It is a hopeless fight the defenders must win, though they are short on ammunition and people.

Why This Film Works

This is such a fascinating film to me on many levels. For example, on a purely technical level, this film is awful. Much of the writing is stilted and ridiculous. The actors are often wooden. The action is poorly staged. The plot is far-fetched. And so on. Yet, this is a really good film.

What works here are the “buts” to each of the complaints I just listed. The visual style is muddy and pedestrian and the action is poorly staged, but it makes the film feel honest in a way that smoother choreography and artistic shots of doves flying through windows as the heroes draw their guns in slow motion simply cannot provide. The actors are often wooden, but at other times they are brilliant. Co-leads Austin Stoker and Darwin Joston in particular provide some very subtle, excellently done moments that say so much more than the dialog conveys. A good example of this is how Joston, who goes through the whole film asking for cigarettes, conveys subtle shock when Stoker becomes the first cop to apologize for not being able to provide a cigarette. His shock at being treated with respect tells us reams about Stoker’s character as a genuinely good guy.

Continuing, the plot is definitely far-fetched, but it’s not implausible or so unlikely that you doubt it. What’s more, the plot is streamlined and provides just enough explanation to understand the film, but not enough to make the film feel convoluted. The writing is interesting too. Much of it is stilted and kind of silly:

Convict: “Aren’t you going to wish me good luck?”
Cops: “Good luck.”
Convict: “Two cops wishing me good luck? Now I know I’m doomed.”

But much of it is rather clever and much of it is funny. Joston in particular tells good stories throughout and he has some witty lines, such as when the woman who falls for him asks what to do with her final bullets:

Leigh: “I have two shots left. Should I save them for us?”
Joston: “Save ‘em for the first two assholes that come through that vent.”
Leigh: “What do I use on the rest of them?”
Joston: “Then you have to wing it.”

What really makes this film work, however, is the three male leads. Each of these guys Austin Stoker (Lt. Ethan Bishop), Darwin Joston (Napoleon Wilson) and Charles Cyphers (Special Officer Starker) are treated as leading men rather than supporting actors. Each has a strong back-story, gets solid screen time, and has lines which make them the focus of the story when they are in it. And each actor takes these opportunities and handles them perfectly. The result is that you end up with three strong stories that intertwine to form the main story rather than one story with some minor characters providing filler. This makes for a strong film because you are constantly interested in what is happening.

Conservative? Oh Yeah!

For those who haven’t followed Carpenter’s career, there is a definite liberal bent, particularly as it relates to the issue of feminism. This came in large part from his producer Debra Hill, but Carpenter ran with it voluntarily. He’s also done some anti-Reagan work, some pro-environmental work and he’s done some bizarre smears against religious conservatives. So one would assume that his film about a multiracial gang arising in the ghettos of Los Angeles would tread heavily into liberalism and liberation theology. Interestingly, however, it doesn’t. Instead, it presents full-on conservatism. Observe...

The story involves a mixed-race gang of “youths” who have gotten their hands on automatic weapons and are now considered a menace. This gang arose in the ghetto. The standard liberal treatment for this is that the gang was formed because of a combination of white oppression and economic hopelessness. None of that is the case here, however. Instead, the only clue we get as to why the gang formed is that several of their leaders dress in Marxist garb similar in appearance to what Che Guevara wore. That’s highly unusual because (1) it fails to imply that the gang was forced to turn to crime by evil rich whites, and (2) it implies that Marxists are indeed dangerous. With this being the 1970s and Liberation Theology and “root causes” policing being so prevalent, this is a significant jump to the right.

What’s more, compare the gang to what is going on inside the station. Bishop is black and he too came from Anderson. Liberation Theology says that such people must be on the side of the revolution, only Anderson is presented as firmly pro-law and order. He is even shown to believe in heroism, another thing the left was trying to eliminate. What’s more, the police side is a multiracial group who mix freely, never judge each other on the basis of race, and let a black man lead the group. These are all things leftists tell us cannot exist in the real world.

Moreover, as a direct blow to the root causes argument, we are told clearly but indirectly that the reason Bishop is such a sterling character despite growing up in a ghetto is because his father instilled in him strong values including respect for his mother. Again, liberals routinely claim that minorities cannot overcome their root causes. Carpenter says the opposite here. Bishop even notes that “no one got me out of Anderson, I walked out on my own.” Again, self-help is an illusion in liberal circles.

Further, the gang appears to be leftists. Yet, they are interestingly shown to be vicious and without any noble principles. They kill blacks, as well as whites. They kill a little girl for no reason at all. Their first killing is an ice cream truck driver, i.e. a working man. At the police station they kill cop and crook indiscriminately even though liberals would tell us that the crooks are only locked up because the police are an occupying army used by the privileged elite to keep order.

Finally, Napoleon Wilson becomes a hero in this film, but there is no suggestion that his crimes should be forgiven just because he proves to be a good guy. Nor does he ever disclaim his own actions or their significance. In fact, he doesn’t even bother to explain them even as people ask: the message to that is that intent doesn’t matter, only the act matters. That’s highly conservative.

It’s interesting to me that a leftist director could create a film that is perfectly set up to be very liberal, but ends up being strongly conservative in values.

Thoughts?