JOE

US, 1970, 105 minutes, Colour.
Peter Boyle, Susan Sarandon.
Directed by John G.Avildsen.

Joe created a good deal of controversy when released. Made by a director of 'skin-flicks' it is a strong social comment using some of the techniques of the blue movies.

Joe, played excellently by Peter Boyle, (Oscar nomination, 1970) is a loudmouthed, right-wing U.S. bigot from the working class who befriends and supports well-to-do potential bigot who has killed a hippy in anger. Joe turns himself and his friend into self-righteous cleansers of America, shouting down unclean parasites of society, but not before they have shown themselves as men of double standards, not afraid to do what they loudly condemn.

The picture the U.S. is ugly and neither youth nor age is presented attractively. However, youth becomes the victim of the extreme righteousness of the 'Middle American' There is plenty in the film to shock and plenty to annoy. But in its energy, vulgarity and crudity, and in the utterly convincing performance of Peter Boyle, there is so much to wonder about and reflect upon. A necessary shocker!

1. How did the credit sequences set the tone of the whole film - the flag, t, face, music, mood?

2. Did this film take sides - was it in favour of the older generation, or the young? Did it refuse to take sides? Which sequences give the best indications? Why?

3. What did the opening sequences of Frank and Melissa in their pad say about some of the attitudes and behaviour of modern youth - the room, lack of inhibition, sex, drugs, relationship, attitudes to outsiders, Frank using Melissa? Here they likeable or admirable at all?

4. Why had Frank and Melissa dropped out of conventional society? Did they have any convictions about this?

5. What was the purpose of showing Frank in the drug-peddling sequences - in the bar and with the teenagers? Was it meant to arouse audience antipathy so that Compton's anger and murder would be comprehensible? how?

6. What did the sequences in the hospital reveal about Melissa, about the Comptons as individuals and as parents, their standards, beliefs, capacity to communicate?

7. Why did Compton get into such a rage with Frank? Did the showing of his scrutiny of the pad build up to this rage? Were his actions plausible as he covered up the murder and fled? Why did he tell his wife, and why did the decide to conceal it?

8. What was the impact of our first meeting of Joe and his lengthy diatribe about America? Was Joe 'typical'? Of whom? How would you categorise his attitudes? what were his main prejudices and what did he believe in?

9. Why did Compton need to tell someone about the murder? Why did he and Joe 'click'? Is it true to say that the two of them represented the major cross-section of American men? How many attitudes and prejudices did they share despite appearances, manners and income?

10. Did Joe really believe it was a good thing to kill people like Frank? Why did Compton come to believe it? How did the film build up the relationship between the two - in conversation details, in situations?

11. What role did the sequences at Joe's home have in the whole film? How accurate and 'realistic' were these sequences? What did you learn about Joe and his wife? How much of "the man in the street" was there in Joe? How did this couple contrast with the Comptons?

12. What role did the visit play with the contrast of the couples and the observations on middle-age attitudes and behaviour, snobbery, patronising adulation, etc?

13. How important was the scene with Joe's guns? Why?

14. What did you learn about Compton in the scenes at his office?

15. Was the scene where Melissa overheard the truth about the murder well-handled dramatically? What did it reveal about the Comptons? Where were the audience's sympathies? Why?

16. What was the purpose of the film spending so long on the search for Melissa? What impact did the scene of the New York joints and people have? How was the clash of values between these people and the Joes and Comptons highlighted? Was the seamier side of New York presented sympathetically?

17. Why the orgy? Did it follow from what went before? Was it a satisfactory comment on the double standards of the Joes and Comptons - 'sex on the side' and drug-taking to avoid being called chicken? Was the style of these scenes too psychedelic or did it highlight their unreality? How did the robbery and turning on of the lights change the mood?

18. Was the finale well developed? Why did Joe and Compton go on an orgy of slaughter? Was it the logical outcome of their attitudes throughout the film? Did you expect that Melissa would be shot by her father? Why did the film end there?

19. Many commentators said the film was too sensational at times. How necessary a shocker was it? What comments on the U.S. society of the late sixties did it make?