LIAM NEESON AND DEATH WISH: THE ANATOMY OF A CONTROVERSY

In the days of click-bait celebrity journalism, identity-politics opinion, and memory that extends no farther than the last hit of the 'delete' key, it was hard to figure out exactly what it was that actor Liam Neeson had done forty years ago after a 'close friend' had been raped that merited the headlines it generated. The rapist had been a black man, and the tabloids, both printed and virtual, screamed that Neeson had gone out on the streets looking to kill a black man in revenge. And of course the tabloid headlines generated more 'serious' reflection. One opinion piece in Britain's Guardian explained that Neeson confessed to having 'entertained a racist lynching fantasy' and gone 'looking for a black man to murder'.

But what Neesom had actually said was something not so subtly different, and it rang a warning bell in my head, as it should have done for anyone with a passing knowledge of popular film. Neeson told the online newspaper The Independent that he had packed a cosh and gone to black neighbourhoods hoping 'to be approached...that some black bastard would come out of a pub and have a go at me so I could kill him'. So he was a man seeking vengeance for a rape going out and making himself an obvious target so he could exact his revenge? I've seen that movie.

It was called Death Wish, based on the novel of the same name by the recently deceased Brian Garfield, and it starred Charles Bronson and was directed by Michael Winner in 1975, and thus not long before the incident Neeson described. It was a huge hit, and it's not unlikely that the 23 year old Neeson saw it. Bronson plays Paul Kersey, a New York City architect whose wife is murdered and daughter raped by a gang of intruders (including Jeff Goldblum in his first film appearance). He begins setting himself up as an obvious target for muggers, then kills them.

So rather than seeking out any black man as a revenge victim, Neeson was specifically looking for an attacker, so his vengeance might be justified. Obviously, he never acted out those impulses, possibly because his local community, normally a hothouse of revenge violence, was unwilling or unable to provide the requisite 'bastards' to have a go at him, but the whole thing is so close to the plot of Death Wish to suggest he may have been acting out a movie fantasy in his head. Which is still something for which he can indeed still feel ashamed.

But perhaps we also need to remember that although he was not an actor then, Liam Nesson is one now, and actors do tend to see the world as an extension of their movies. Let's set some more background here: Neeson gave this revealing and controversial interview on a promotional tour for his new movie, Cold Pursuit, in which he plays a snow-plow driver seeking revenge against the drug dealers he thinks murdered his son. The film is a remake of the Norwegian thriller In Order Of Disappearance, and Neeson's casting is rather like Winner's casting of Bronson, because like Bronson, Neeson is best-known for action hero movies.

In Garfield's original novel, Paul (called Benjamin) is an accountant. The book was originally adapted by screenwriter Wendell Mayes for director Sidney Lumet, the Michelangelo of New York City's urban decay in the Seventies, and was to star Jack Lemmon. In Garfield's words, the story was that of 'an ordinary guy who descends into madness'. It was meant to recall the adage about digging two graves when you embark on revenge. But when producer Dino DeLaurentis acquired the rights, Lumet backed off the project and Winner (whom Garfield called 'an idiot') was brought on board, along with Bronson, with whom he had a successful working relationship. In Winner's subtle hands, the violence was played with voyeuristic celebration, something perhaps more requiring of apology than Neeson's own fantasies. Bronson, of course, became an heroic figure. Enough to propel Death Wish to four film sequels, a fifth film based on Garfield's own sequel, Death Sentence, and a 2018 remake starring Bruce Willis, which I have not yet seen because frankly, life is too short.

In his interview, Nesson mentioned his growing up in Northern Ireland, during what are euphemistically called 'The Troubles'. He grew up seeing the urge, the constant demand, for vengeance played out all around him. His film career reflects that, especially the series of Taken movies, in which he avenges himself on kidnappers. Cold Pursuit was getting none of the buzz of a Taken film, and indeed opened to disappointing returns in the US, bringing in the worst box office for any Neeson action film since Darkman in 1990, his introduction to the genre. Which leads to the question of why Neeson felt now was the moment to unroll this forty-year old fantasy tale of revenge?

The original novel was called Death Wish because Paul Benjamin was acting out his own death wish, and, as noted, Brian Garfield wanted to show his vengeance was leading to his own self-destruction. Winner and Bronson's version was more celebratory of Paul's transformation. Ambiguity isn't a motif in Michael Winner movies.

So was Neeson's a bold confession, aimed at pointing out this futility of revenge? Or was he seeing, as Michael Winner had, a simpler vision, that, as Rap Brown reminded us,'violence is as American as cherry pie', and thus he was using his own life to bolster his standing as an action-hero purveyor of violence? Or was he conflating his fantasies conveniently with a deeper reality?

The link between films and reality is especially strong in Neeson's own life, where the tragedy of his wife Natasha Richardson's death recalled one his own most moving roles, in the days before he became the Charles Bronson de nos jours, in Ethan Frome. Eschewing cynicism, it would not be unreasonable to believe that Neeson was not simply promoting his latest, that he would feel drawn to unburden himself of a memory of great unpleasantness in order to remind viewers that his characters in films are just that, only characters in only movies, and reality is much more cruel. If that be the case, he should be faulted only for not realising that the sins of the past are today grist less for deep reflection than for the internet mill of short-lived high-flame outrage.

NEIL SIMON: MY FRONT ROW TRIBUTE (and MUSING ON THE MUSE)

I went on BBC Radio 4 Front Row last night, forming part of an odd couple with Samira Ahmed to discuss Neil Simon. I am sure Samira saw me as Oscar, as played by Walter Matthau, but there are worse thing. Apparently on Today the previous morning, my old friend John Lahr had pointed out Simon was not a major playwright, in the sense of Arthur Miller, say, and there was some consternation that this issue needed to be dealt with. But overall, the brief segment was intended to pay tribute to very good comedy writer. As you can hear if you click here to find the episode on IPlayer, I compared Simon to Alan Ayckbourn; not only a very funny playwright, but one whose humor is often built on the reactions of staid, secure people to the changing mores around them.

Hence my mention of Prisoner Of 2nd Avenue, which given that it deals with recession, unemployment, crime and malfunctioning government in New York City, might be considered the socially darkest of his plays, though he tris very hard indeed to keep that darkness under control with recognisable husband/wife Jewish humour. It starred Peter Falk, one of the actors who did very well by Simon, and vice versa, but the film, which was directed by Mike Nichols (who could spot the darkness) starred Jack Lemmon (and Anne Bancroft, whose husband Mel Brooks also wrote for Caesar) in a role you might see as a pair with Save The Tiger. Though I always thought it should be shown in a double-feature with Death Wish.

I won't summarize the rest of my talk, have a listen. But I will mention a few things I didn't get in. One is how Simon will be remembered: if Oscar the Grouch on Sesame Street isn't a lasting legacy I don't know what is. Had we gone deeper into the relevance stakes I might have noted Larry Gelbart, another alumnus of Sid Caesar's show, got points for MASH, though its social comment was much stronger in Robert Altman's film.I didn't mention Simon's Laughter On The 23rd Floor, which came after he'd won the Pulitzer for Lost In Yonkers and is maybe his last major work. It's his reminiscence of those days writing as part of a team; it exists as a TV movie, though if you're really interested in that era the movie My Favorite Year is more entertaining.

I might have made a comparison of The Odd Couple to Hemingway's Men Without Women - it's certainly about the difficulty of male life in a world of changed mores about divorce. I wished I had seen the original Broadway production of Barefoot In The Park, with Elizabeth Ashley opposite Robert Redford. She would have provided some necessary spark that Jane Fonda, who got the film role because her name wasn't Jane Smith, didn't.  I mentioned his funny Agatha Christie parody, Murder By Death, but loved Peter Falk as The Cheap Detective. Colombo anyone? I wonder if a discussion of Simon the screenwriter as maybe being superior to Simon the playwright might be in order. Take The Goodbye Girl, which he wrote for his then-wife Marsha Mason, and re-wrote when Robert DeNiro and Nichols left, replaced by Richard Dreyfuss and Herbert Ross.

Yes much of his work is slight, some of it repetitive, lot of it centered on the inevitable struggles of Jewish New York life, especially in the wider scene, such as the Eighties trilogy, of which Biloxi Blues may be the most interesting, if somewhat cliched entry. But he could write funny, and that is not to be frowned upon. Writing funny for an entire play, or movie, as opposed to a comic sketch, is a rare talent, and Simon had it.

What was especially frustrated was to be sitting in the studio during the discussion of 'the muse' and inspiration. I was bursting because I wanted to interject--at one point Louisa Buck was talking about our image of the muse and I wanted to ask her, is there any middle ground for women between muse and femme fatale, something she said after the show she was trying to get to. Similarly, as Matt Thorne made trenchant points about the changing nature of muses in modern society, it occured to me that it was an equivalent of the death of God: our muse is now more within ourselves rather than an inspiration granted by a figure beyond us. In that area between inspiration and obsession, but perhaps no longer a muse. Or in Neil Simon's case, amuse.