Review by Ben Bussey
Mavericks, rebels, iconoclasts, non-conformists; these are labels we tend to throw around romantically, typically in reference to those we class as heroes. Then there are such labels as freak, weirdo, nutcase, menace; more often than not these can be applied to the exact same people, depending on whether or not we agree with their stance. Little wonder, then, that pretty much all those descriptors can and invariably have been used in reference to John Milius. Hearing his name, those of us who don’t automatically say “who’s he?” will probably automatically think “director of Conan and Red Dawn” and/or “paranoid right wing militant.” It’s hard to find a reference to him from recent years that doesn’t refer to him in such terms. This being so, a great deal about him tends to be overlooked; in particular, the fact that he was one of the most respected and prolific screenwriters of the 1970s, and a member of the same crop of UCLA film graduates who proceeded to conquer Hollywood and remould it in their own image. Moreso, the likes of Coppolla, Spielberg and Lucas are even said to have looked up to Milius, considering him the leader of the pack – or, at least, that’s how it’s told in this documentary from debutante directors Joey Figueroa and Zak Knutson. Their overall tone is certainly pro-Milius, but by no means do they gloss over the less palatable aspects of their subject.
Milius infamously declared that after Red Dawn his outspoken right wing stance effectively got him blacklisted in hippy-dippy lefty Hollywood. Still, a great many of those Hollywood liberals are eager to speak in his defence: not just his fellow UCLA alumni Spielberg, Lucas and Coppolla, but younger guys like Bryan Singer. All of them seem united in celebrating Milius as, in their eyes, perhaps the greatest storyteller of that time. Even when he was just a hired hand doing a little script doctoring, he made his mark. Anthologies could be filled with the great speeches and one-liners he’s responsible for. Dirty Harry’s “Do I feel lucky.” Quint’s Indianapolis monologue from Jaws. “Go ahead, make my day.” “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.” He even contributed to Clear and Present Danger, and although I can’t find anything to corroborate this (they don’t mention it in the doc), I have to believe he’s responsible for the bit when Harrison Ford shouts “How dare YOU, sir!” at the President. (Mediocre film, badass line.)
One thing this documentary really makes clear is that, while it’s widely held up as Coppolla’s masterpiece, Apocalypse Now was absolutely John Millius’s baby. The title alone originated in his bastardisation of a hippy slogan, ‘Nirvana Now,’ that his classmates were touting back in college. Indeed, it’s suggested here that at least half the reason Milius crafted such a larger-than-life modern primitive persona was out of a desire to shake things up, piss people off, and challenge the hippy values which had somewhat become the norm in his circles. In a sense, we can almost see him as a proto-punk in that regard; he was trying to tear down flower power while it was happening.
Uh-oh, I brought up politics. Guess I’m going to have to say a little more on that subject – feel free to skip ahead, I’ll forgive you…
As I’ve spoken about in these digital pages of ours before, I am pretty much a dyed-in-the-wool liberal pacifist. As is the norm for this group, I naturally think I’m correct about everything all the time – and as such it’s a challenge to me to seperate the art from the artist when it comes to those who espouse opinions opposed to my own (see this editorial from last year on the subject, which I’m not sure I entirely stand by anymore). I’m doing my best to get over that, and a film like Milius is helpful in that regard. Once again, we see scores of Hollywood players who do not concur with the man’s politics but have no qualms singing his praises. Like it or not (and I’m speaking as much to myself as anyone else here), we need people who take oppositional stances, even on matters we hold sacrosanct. That old ‘freedom of speech’ chestnut doesn’t just work one way, and if we want to progress as a civilisation/species, we have to constantly question everything, not just the select few matters we deem significant – and that means having guys like Milius who (to the ears of lefties like me, at least) say things we might not want to hear. No, we may not agree with everything that falls out of their mouths – but who knows, they might have some valid points to make, or if nothing else, they might provide us with some entertainment.
Okay, back to movie talk. Milius is a fun watch. It’s a pretty simple talking heads documentary for the most part, plenty of movie footage, plenty of archive interview footage – and it all comes together to paint a picture of a guy it’s hard not to feel some affection for. A guy who punched out a stuck-up college professor and pulled a gun on an obnoxious studio exec. A surfer and a biker. A loyal friend and father. And, damn it all, a guy responsible for so much awesome testosterone fuelled cinema. It all winds up on a fairly sad note – recent medical dramas which I’d not heard about before, and which account for Milius’s comparative absence in recent years (and his non-involvement in The Legend of Conan, dammit). But before that there are more than enough amusing anecdotes – at once heart-warming, yet faintly disturbing – to make this a very entertaining and enriching 100-odd minutes.
If Sam Elliot’s words 30 seconds into the trailer don’t sell you, I don’t know what will…
Following a limited UK cinema release, Milius comes to DVD on 18th November, via Studiocanal.