FIGHTING MAD

US, 1976, 90 minutes, Colour.
Peter Fonda, Gino Franco, Philip Carey, Noble Willingham, Scott Glenn, Lynn Lowry.
Directed by Jonathan Demme.

Fighting Mad is a standard, but well-made film, produced by the king of the quickies, Roger Corman. Corman had begun his career in the 1950s with mini-budget and genre films and built up quite a reputation so that by the 1960s he was making more respectable films like The St Valentine’s Day Massacre. In the succeeding decades he continued to produce films – and supported quite a number of directors who became very prominent including Francis Ford Coppola and Jonathan Demme who went on to win the Oscar in 1991 for Silence of the Lambs.

The film is about a farmer who is staging a war against land developers and strip miners who want to get rid of him from his father’s farm. He and his neighbours stand up for their rights. The advertising line probably reveals all: the story of a man who dares to stand his ground – until they blow it out from under him.

Peter Fonda had built up a career in Roger Corman films, especially bikie films such as The Wild Angels. However, he continued for the next decades consolidating his career as a character actor including films like Ulee’s Gold and Ghost Rider.

1. Audience expectations from title, tone of the title, Peter Fonda film?

2. The atmosphere of the credits? The atmosphere of the American South and its music? The highway and the towns? Audience sympathy for Hunter or not? The boorish atmosphere of drivers? The initial fight and its reasons? Hunter's irritability and yet helping others in danger? A setting of tone and atmosphere?

3. The film's presentation of Hunter as a character? Did he engage audience sympathy, was this necessary? His failed marriage? his love for his son Dylan? The quality of their relationship as visualized? The joy of his return home, his father, brother, friends? A powerful atmosphere and one of hope? Audiences identifying with ordinariness?

4. The film's contrast with Crabtree and the Senator, their flight, survey of the land, business issues, development, factories? The target of the Hunter farm? Audience reaction to that in the light of meeting Hunter?

5. How real and contemporary wore the issues of the film? What were the main social issues? The issues of justice? Oppression and the violent reaction? Protection of one's own home and property? The question of the ultimate recourse to violence to save oneself? Vengeance? What were the stances that the film took?

6. The presentation of the Hunters and the reaction, it happening to Hunter himself and his girl friend, his brother and his wife and their relationship, the horses? A way of life that had value as against greedy development?

7. The brutality of the death of Hunter's brother and wife? The love-making and then the violence? The ugliness of fixing deaths like accidents? The Sheriff and his attitude? Crabtree's hold over him? The rousing of the Hunter opposition?

8. How angry was the audience in watching this? Could it change Hunter's provocation to violence? The temptation to vengeance? The coming futility?

9. The film's further endorsing the oppression by the sequences of the bull-dozing of the graves, the blasting and the rocks hitting the houses? The thugs roughing up the characters, especially Hunter?

10. The importance of the legal recourse and the decision handed down? Crabtree's arranging the murder of the judge? The visualizing of this as he rode his bike through the park? The television reporters?

11. How credible a villain was Crabtree? Does this ruthless kind of businessman exist? His way of life, ambitions, threats, wanting his own way? His work? His reaction to the destruction of his equipment?

12. Mutual violence leading to terrorism? The terrorism on Hunter's house? The man going in to shoot Crabtree after his men were destroyed by the boulder? The old people moving out? Old Hunter's refusal?

13. The inevitability of the burning of the Hunter farm? This as a build-up to the final stages? Did Hunter do the right thing to carry on against Crabtree? In his own home? Crabtree's protection? His death?

14. The human contribution for the quality of the film in the personalities, the father with his attitudes towards life and death, his death, Hunter's girlfriend? The boy? The neighbours? Crabtree's henchmen? The Sheriff and his change of heart and trying to get evidence?

15. The authenticity of the locations? The realism for this kind of story?

16. The film's exploration of the right to violence? understanding of human nature, or brutal and fascist In its outlook? Reflecting the issues of modern America?