COLORS

US, 1988, 126 minutes, Colour.
Robert Duvall, Sean Penn, Maria Conchita Alonso, Don Cheadle.
Directed by Dennis Hopper.

Colors caused great controversy in the United States on its release. It is a blunt and brutal portrayal of gangs in East Los Angeles and the police working to control them. The action is vivid, violent, brutal. The language is tough.

The film was directed by Dennis Hopper, actor for so many decades and then director, especially with Easy Rider in 1969. After a mixed career, problems with drugs, Hopper rehabilitated himself in the mid-'80s and moved back again to direction and a great deal of character acting, including an Oscar nomination for Hoosiers.

Robert Duvall is very good, as usual, as the senior policeman. Sean Penn is his arrogant self-confident partner. The drama is not strong - rather the film is a series of episodes highlighting the life of the gangs, the Los Angeles people's disgust, the need for police work. The subplot of the personal lives of the policemen is very subordinate. There is a grim ending with Duvall's death but his memory living on in the rather crude, but effective, story of the two bulls. Vivid police story.

1. The impact of the film? Brutality and violence? Strong language? The work of the police? The Los Angeles gangs? The protest in the film? The work of Dennis Hopper?

2. Los Angeles locations, the streets, East L.A? The precinct? Homes? Authentic atmosphere? The stunts and the special effects?

3. The title, the recitative of colours, the gangs and the symbolic colours they used?

4. The introduction to Los Angeles, the familiar city, the different city? Urban suburbs, the racial mix, education and lack of education, unemployment, the homes, gangs and their violence, the attacks, the age of the members of the gangs, the drugs?

5. The portrait of police and their work, the precincts, the bosses, the patrols and buddies, tough, dangers, confrontations, battles, weapon attacks, holding the groups, those running away, violence, interrogations?

6. H6dges and Danny, Robert Duvall and Sean Penn: work, experience and the rookie, seeing them in action, tough, attitudes towards the criminals, to the gangs? Danny and his push, wanting to be in a rush, despising the gangs? Hodges and his restraint, more human touch, experience, his story of the two bulls looking at the field of cows?

7. The gang members and different personalities, families, the deaths, funerals, the passing shooting and the attack on houses? Contacts and deals? Personal and impersonal? Building up to the fights, the final massacre?

8. The sketch of Louisa, at work, friendship with Danny, pleasant, together, sexual biography, at Hodges' home, with the children? Her prostitution, his disillusionment, her final comments on him?

9. Hodges at home, the wife and children, ordinary, the barbecue? Danny and Louisa?

10. The mistakes, the attack on the house, the man having sex and his being shot? Life as easy? The edginess of the police? Investigations?

11. The finale, the desperation, Hodges and his work, the trigger-happy gang member and Hodges dying? The pathos of his death, needless, the end of his work?

12. The continuity, the new rookie, member of a gang in Los Angeles? Danny telling him the story of the two bulls?

13. The comment on the times, the problems - the people at the meeting and their desperation?

14. In the tradition of films about police and buddies, about gangs? The attempt at realism?