addiction and abstention 
Airwolf (Airwolf: Shadow of the Hawke) USA 1983 Director: Donald P. Bellisario, writer: Donald P. Bellisario, Cinematographer: Howard Schwartz, music by Sylvester Levay, Editor: Carl Kress, Bill Luciano, Leon Ortiz-Gil
Starring: Jan-Michael Vincent (Stringfellow Hawke), Alex Cord (Michael 'Archangel "Coldsmith Briggs III), Ernest Borgnine (Dominic Santini), Belinda Bauer (Gabrielle Ademaur), David Hemmings (Dr. Charles Henry Moffet)
Synopsis: The technical with all the trimmings and the latest weapon systems equipped helicopter speed of sound "Airwolf" is at a demonstration by its inventor and pilot Dr. Charles Henry Moffet stolen and taken to Libya, where the rogue state leader Gaddafi has expressed interest in the aircraft. The person responsible for the Airwolf project, the CIA agent "Archangel", will search his former agent Hawke on - the only addition to Moffett, who can control the Airwolf - in order to win him for the reconquest of the machine. But Hawke shows persistent: After many vicissitudes and disappointments, he lives quietly in a mountain hut and wants nothing to do with the CIA have more. Because "the company" but knows the ways and means to convert the unwilling goes Hawke finally Santini, along with his friend to Libya to retrieve Airwolf Moffet and eliminate ...
RADIO HUNDD : Immediately after the undifferentiated-dimensional peace-joy-pancake strategy of THE A-TEAM has AIRWOLF like a bucket of cold water, one is early in the morning tilt in the face and a tear very rudely from sleep. To me, this is even true in two respects, for I have been following the series then never. When it was broadcast from 1986 for the first time with us on Sat.1, I had no cable television, then later there was a lack of interest. I knew KNIGHT RIDER and AIRWOLF seemed to me to cut the same line, with the only exception that It was here a miracle helicopter instead of a miracle car. A massive misconception. Even this pilot is in a completely different direction than the standard, that AIRWOLF had to compete at that time: the eponymous helicopter plays a minor role, the action is well distributed sparingly over the 90 minutes as of the events barely loosening of humor and a lot more than of a generic and standardized AIRWOLF plot is determined by a pale, sad and hopeless atmosphere. Addiction to escapist entertainment, you should probably AIRWOLF perceive as boring, but one is allowed on the pilot, you experience a big surprise: So down here is like pulling and crippling mainstream Action in the eighties was very rare. Of catharsis no trace.
The Outsider : I am with the series AIRWOLF very early come into contact, as I've seen the pilot time to 1985/86 video. However, I was disgusted just this dreary mood of the film as a nine-year-old without me explain this to me could. End of the 80s, I realized - AIRWOLF was now reached RTL - her real concept better, but it was for ununterhaltsam what I was basically in exactly the direction of spectators, who dismisses the series as boring. Only in the second half of the 90 years I finally discovered AIRWOLF for me and the reason why I wanted to discuss a second, is that in its mood of a good link between the A-Team is still and the following series. The figure of Stringfellow Hawke is a wonderful continuation of the existentialist, torn and uprooted Vietnam expatriate, the now going on any patriotic feeling and has retreated to the isolation of the North American mountains. A worst possible scenario for a positive role model or the continuation of a series.
FH: After I knew about you that we replaced all the characters after the end of the third season for the series paints a more positive to give, I expected that AIRWOLF would gradually develop into a down overcoat. I was more surprised that the show was actually already arrived with the pilot at the absolute zero. What you mention, namely that Hawke already at this early stage makes hardly any development is right: why should we describe his problem-solving strategy as the back stairs into the cave of Plato's famous parable. Hawke's basically the opposite of an action hero, first spoken by refusing any form of action completely reversed. The flip so the shape and drama of the pilot resist perfect: Hawke sits empty Look at his cabin on the boat or dock, where he tried with classical cello music to attract a bald eagle, and hopes to fall back before the knowledge. And with this relapse can also be raised by his relationship with the existentialist action heroes you describe that preceded it. If recognize Pike Bishop and his Wild Bunch their determination and with flying colors in the fall race, received her fate with open arms because they know that there is no other way, hoping Hawke escape the absurdity of the world, they lock out to be effectively : And then when he moves into action yet again, he shows neither the enthusiasm of the conviction of the offender or wiederbekehrten idealists nor did he win back the physical action of the soul and spiritual security, that he missed before. Hawke is uninvolviert, almost gelangweilt.Fast he seems to loathe from himself, because he fails to draw the right conclusions to evade the reach of the state. He may not be a body machine like other protagonists of the action film of the time - he wears it so well the Airwolf as exoskeleton - but the absence of any human involvement, the distance to the event, which sets him apart from his colleagues, made him also to the machine.
A: The mood the movie reminded me very much of the cynicism of a THE KILLER ELITE. Also in the intelligence agencies and organizations as brutal and bureaucratic institutions are drawn, in which no place for friendship, loyalty, or feelings is. The whole thing is downright excessive Hawkes by the drawing as ill-fated in terms of his social contacts. His parents died shortly after his birth. His brother is considered missing in Vietnam. His wife died in an accident. The only person with whom he had a long friendly relationship, is Dominic Santini. This figure of Ernest Borgnine play leave, is a typical cast handle and recalls the "old glory days" of the men's cinemas be missing tooth grin seemed to help in any situation, to make improvements in mood. In AIRWOLF remains the only facade. Everything seems to be swallowed, in which there are no surprises, more of a monster, everyday life. The stoic play Jan-Michael Vincent by his facial expressions can be no doubt that Hawke, who has seen it all aims, the attempt by that very monotony of the secret get away. But he goes not only in the Diaspora in order to distance themselves from inhuman structures but also to protect the people around him who are very quick to death. In this context, one of the originally planned title of Don Siegel's THE GREAT COUP idea: THE LAST OF THE INDEPENDENT. But for Hawke, this is a condition which can not reach it. How much he has in hand, "the company" is can see to it that he will hear everything when Archangel speaks of a renewed inclusion in search of his brother. Hawke can not even attract the money, you try it with patriotic phrases. As well as refuse, is promised to redeem his personal trauma, for the hope that Saint John Hawkes brother still lives somewhere, if only in a Vietnamese POW camp, it seems to get the only one alive. But the sayings Hawke has heard often enough, and he became involved in Archangels not a tempting offer. This leaves "the company" only the extortion. They Hawke Archangels seductive assistant to the side, that he spends a week in the refuge. When the week around Hawke and fish comes from, is gone and Gabrielle Hawkes valuable art collection that was left to him by his grandfather and is the only relic of his family line, was seized by the CIA.
FH: Yes, the plot reminiscent of the secret, in fact, both the American political and espionage thriller of the seventies and the dismal € thrillers that were known mainly from France. (Vincent had even yes played by Michael Winner in The Mechanic, by far one of the nihilist action thriller of the Seventies, his first major role.) Atmospheric AIRWOLF this tradition is actually more committed than the initially targeted to surface stimuli effect of his cinema decade. It's just the eponymous helicopter, which manifests itself in a break with this tradition and then AIRWOLF but recognizable as a child his age does. But as far as Hawke, I remember another one of us discussed the other hero with whom he can be compared and points the way of the existentialist marked seventies to the eighties: Snake Plissken, the open cynicism and lethargy, however, Hawke Silence, the rebellious rebelliousness passivity he opposes. As Hawke's not even Snake freely on its mission, but more importantly to him no choice, it plays out over the whole state-totalitarian power. The world in which he lives is interested, it also no longer, he will only be left alone. is an attitude by his experiences during the film not revised, but even more pronounced: at the end Plissken sends the world that he should save it, literally to hell. The apocalyptic mood of Carpenter's Escape from is a good starting point and corresponds to AIRWOLF especially with his opening sequence, is drawn in the existence of the Super Airwolf helicopter as an intrusion into the natural fabric of the World: An iguana serves as a contrast to the war machine, but of course nothing to counter this. In the form of the very latest weapons systems, helicopter breaks the apocalypse is upon the world. Only Hawke and Moffet can control this infernal machine, but even they are barely functioning as a part of this machine. Hawkes disintegration served his activities but, ironically, even to the advantage: Because he has no emotional connection to the events (at least not initially), it can function smoothly.
A : Your comments on the helicopter, its amalgamation with the Decade, and the man-machine fusion bring the matter to the point. Had the 70's and their warnings about the dehumanizing left behind, there was at the beginning of the new decade, a hysteria about new weapons technology from the Soviet Union, area-wide upgrade, stronger implementation of computer systems, wants the war to lead from space and other forcing-infantil militaristic ideas, its enemies with saber-rattling in the knee. This hope for a "joystick-war" we have manifested with Airwolf for each militarists downright gorgeous. What could be better than a to own aircraft, which are elements of a combat helicopter - agile in the field, can easily fly under the radar penetrates unobtrusively into any air space and may disappear as well once again - as well as a jet - flies Mach2 is loaded with nuclear weapons - connects and beyond the other benefits to be by his armor virtually indestructible suitable for conventional weapons and technology for long-haul flights? Airwolf uses little fuel, which enables it to be used without a carrier or other power stations around the world, and he can fly over a short period of time in virtual silence. The implications of this technology are striking not only politically, but even go into the realm of our inner, as Airwolf, and here we have the pairing of man and machine that you control, "by the power of thought." Like a mixture of EEG and ENG from the helmet Nervenleitströme can be measured, which demanded the pilots the highest level of concentration. The pilot "one thing must be" with the machine in order to master them. This brings me finally to the spiritual father Airwolf, Dr. Charles Henry Moffet, who met the criteria of the classic mad scientists . Because of the failure of another project he was in the early 70 classified as mentally unstable and had then worked with the CIA in secret at the Airwolf project. When it left the government should be presented, a catastrophe occurs. can the tradition of the mad scientist is eventually traced back to the horror films of the silent era (and:
FH : is your Mad-Scientist-Note helpful identical in several respects: it shows the sources from which the action genre feeds further if one considers his literary sources). Moffet and his predecessor are for the evil that arises from an imbalance of mind and soul: intelligence is a danger if they not subordinate to the moral. In the action film, which tells of the attempt to bridge the human doubt with the tools of physicality, joins the mad scientist whose ingenuity against humanity runs amok, fits perfectly into the ranks of the political desk workers and corrupt public servants, from geographically mental distance as well take decisions on life and drunk on their power. He is from the "normal life" has long since completely alienated, follows only his own principles. In the case of the alienation AIRWOLF Moffet expressed in treason, if he made of pure avarice transactions with the Libyan leader Gaddafi makes the time represented the specter number one in the Middle East. The madness of the mad scientist is also linked most directly with his invention, for which he received a spiritual, almost symbiotic bond. Moffet, as you describe very nice one with the Airwolf - it must be there to control the machine. It is typical of the mad scientist that he wants to blow open with his invention of the limits of their own physicality: He wants to be bigger than his body, that wish is finally ensures that he is completely lost. Moffet writes, then, is not only in the machine, by using his brain and the brain of the helicopter is, conversely, took the Machine possession of him. The destructive principle, which embodies the Airwolf, the human defeated in Moffet. The question that inevitably arises: Why can not withstand the Hawke machine?
A : This is where we are at a super cultural positioning of the (action) heroes and a property that he in any culture, no matter which ideology, no matter which cultural background or development, no matter which apply religion there may possess, must be: abstinence. I try very deep dive into this area in order to make clear just how fundamental level, this property is a prerequisite for the Ability of survival is: All forms of art and cultural forms are originally native forms, which have developed in the course of our phylogeny and led through the filter of rational and civilized Utilitarismusstrategien to the complex system that we now call cultural history. Survival in prehistoric times was backed by a balanced distribution of resources, but those who were also in times of scarcity in a position to remain celibate and still enough thought energy for hunting in reserve, the best genetic material featured dar. important here is Now, not to be intoxicated by the power and the decisive moment to let go again. This corresponds to automatically an ideal for others. So they want to be, so it combines evolutionary egoism and altruism. No wonder then, that in religion, myth and arts, this figure such a memorial has been set. John Ford, arguably the ultimate inspiration for our discussed here, genre, his characters can be "savages" are going to learn from them, this "heroic" survival, but back in civilization have his characters no place in civilized society ( The Searchers), or their own demise (THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE). Absolutely prototype can be found at Stringfellow Hawke all these ingredients. He knows when to hold back himself.
FH: Actually, seems to find the ideal of abstinence in all heroes in one form or another. In our genre and the films discussed so far from us it is manifested primarily in a distance to power - the heroes are satisfied with their role as helpers, do no greater responsibility or material reward - in the choice of means - Rambo takes off in RAMBO II - CONTRACT his high-tech equipment and instead uses the archaic bow - a moral rigor - they all follow a strict Code, which revolves around the values of friendship and loyalty and they are often in trouble brings. Hawke may be tempted by the power embodied in AIRWOLF both by helicopter and by the CIA to resist, because it's peace in the retreat inward looking. His hermit life reflects this form of asceticism and emigration, which we know from many action movies: The hero is always on a spiritual mission, which aims to consolidate the state of asceticism. The hero is not only why such because he is celibate, but mainly because he has to face his abstinence time and again. The temptations are everywhere. That's the difference between the hero and his adversary, the villain, in AIRWOLF particularly striking in the eye stabs: Moffet, actually on the side of good, experienced a fall, because he can not resist the temptation any longer. If this limit is exceeded once, literally, breaking all barriers. Of asceticism, it is only a small step in the megalomania.
A: Well I had to think a little bit about the approach I "These abstinence" and am amazed at how she is steadfast. It was your mother-in radio, which brought as a counter-example of James Bond in conversation and has just delivered so that the final stabilizer element. As much a character like James Bond all the amenities of the jet set enjoy, and this is also one would give her so popular with the public benefits, just prevents indoctrinated public service culture that Bond ever the temptation to hit himself on the side of evil. Already in the first Bond film JAMES BOND - 007 Dr. No, this can be in the dialogue between Bond and his opponent find Dr. No: No is extremely fascinated by the top British agent who has succeeded so well as yet no other to penetrate into the upper parts of the organization SPECTRE. For a luxurious dinner - even though Bond is now in captivity - Dr. No makes him the offer, actively participate in it, a nuclear disaster between the East-West powers and thus trigger a power shift in favor of Spectre. Dr. No known that plenty of political impact
provided terms "East" and "West" no longer as "points on the compass." Thus, should a reorganization of the world in terms of ideology, organization SPECTRE to be achieved, which means that monopoly to the outside world as a group and controlling oligarchy inside for the elite. But Bond rejects this laconic quickly so from that mental hospitals are full of people who thought they were Napoleon or God. The heroes emerge to ease and end the principle of abstinence Bond makes this opportunity offered to him, world domination fantasies not to fantasize only psychoanalytically but to live real, not a second draw serious consideration. According laconically counters Dr. No, Bond is able to recognize this important characteristic of public service culture immediately, with the words: "I was wrong Mr. Bond. They are only a small police officer. "Accordingly, and by the media then presented each time a barrel, if Bond is different from that principle, and more officers working for yourself. The cause of this is then often EPMs (Evolved psychological mechanisms) as revenge for the death of his wife in On Her Majesty or Almost the killing of his only friend, Felix Leiter in LICENCE TO KILL. As a great counterpoint to Bond's motto "Of all the finest" or even the award of the family coat of arms "The world is not enough," we learn in the same Bond film, is a conservative, casually, almost as narrow-minded to be designated self-flagellation, regulated by A civil service system, the British secret service. Probably just this systemic regulation, Bond makes a domesticated Playboy, the element that made sure that my character was increasingly unsympathetic. I had always been more to the Ford'schen archetypes that have turned the system back, and consequently, unlike Bond, not even have access to its amenities. Bond said to me again then it could be interesting if he, like most of us here on the blog described (anti) hero, again more to the archaic principle fell and lacerated by "filth and fat" had to fight. Stringfellow Hawke corresponds to the type of Ford'schen hero types. Because he wants to be reinforced by a system more because they have all betrayed him, he withdraws. His abstinence is not determined by a system, but by his own will. For this he has to compromise to live a hermit's existence go, (like Rambo).
FH : Nice that you exact bond sample is again invaded, because it is also very well illustrates how the attitude of asceticism, the hero makes a loner - and in so doing, paradoxically, to control for the powerful . The British Empire can count on blind loyalty to Bonds because he desert nor shall ever higher demands are: the low-double-zero agent waits for over 40 years to finally promotion. Quite characteristic is the position of the hero for the Copfilm, who makes his supreme dramatic catalyst: The police officer is a servant of the state a possible small Cog in the machine, he risked his life without getting much, and is usually still constrained by his superiors. And in private he is by his job also an outsider, may also cause there are not more correct: He has to keep secrets, and is also in casual wear still bound by certain rules that make his family suspect. The policeman lives in his own world, which in Copfilm quite literally becomes appreciably drawing their very own subculture represented: The cop has to do with his peers around in special bars, he visits with them shooting ranges, and will meet on weekend with his partner grilling. The "officials" as Dr. No, Bond is called, has its Employment contract signed with his own blood, he can not unsubscribe. The spoken commitment to the cause, meat (which is why the hero lost so ever with their own bodies - just think of the body narbenübersähten Rambo). Hawke also can escape the obligation only by the complete withdrawal from society, as you correctly. He has to leave the sphere of the state and go into the wilderness. Nevertheless, there's a connection to his old life, he feels like a phantom pain. This shows, in my view in the image of the bald eagle, the Hawke attracts with his cello playing: In the spirit Hawke is still "in the matter," say in his country, where "land" here should be more as the embodiment of certain ideals, less than geo-political space to be understood. Hawke still believes the same thing, only he knows that can not realize his faith in this world. His hermit life is something like the self-imposed drought of the alcoholic: A drop would be enough to let the disease break out again. If then with Archangel Gabrielle in tow, flying in, to deceive the Hawke and this must be a kind of double seduction, the very obvious attempt to Hawkes body for the State to recover.
A: In terms of physicality You are here designating a key basic motif of the genre, which we in the following texts should start writing more accurate. More remains for us to say at the moment and I'm really looking forward to MIAMI VICE.
