Viking Night
The Warriors
By Bruce Hall
January 26, 2010
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Anybody who knows me knows that I can't stand musicals. I don't like musical theatre, I don't like musical films, and I've never been a big fan of Opera. It isn't that I can't appreciate these things as expressive forms of art; it's just that when it comes to visual entertainment, I'd prefer you either sing me a song or tell me a story – but not both. I do think it is important we learn to appreciate forms of expression that don't necessarily appeal to us, because elements of these things just might appear from time to time in things that we do enjoy. In real life no, people do not break into song in the middle of conversation in order to express themselves. At least, nobody I know does. But the point of a musical is for the song, dance, dialogue and visual to convey a unified and visceral message to the audience. In other words, it's allegorical - an associative storytelling technique that is not meant to be taken literally.
Allegory is probably the oldest and most effective storytelling device that there is, and it requires that you not let the surface presentation obscure the underlying intent of the material. For example, I can appreciate Chicago as a good film despite the fact that I don't enjoy the singing. It's an amusing story about the seductive nature of fame, and how a lie can become the truth if you present it in an appealing way. Sure, I get it. My point – in case you're wondering – is to prove to you that I am capable of overcoming aesthetic prejudice, because I am about to ask you to do the same. Suspension of disbelief is necessary for almost any film, but in the case of one that is entirely symbolic from beginning to end it is a must. Thus begins my case for The Warriors, a little known 1979 movie with a stylistic presence decades ahead of its time. Based on a clever mix of influences ranging from comic books, mythology and contemporary pop culture, The Warriors proves the old maxim that what's old is new again and what seems new is often based on something very, very old.
On the surface, The Warriors is the story of a Manhattan street gang – called The Warriors - forced to clear themselves of a crime they didn't commit. The film is set in a semi-futuristic version of New York where garishly clad rival street gangs rule the Five Boroughs amidst an uneasy city-wide truce. Called on to attend a peaceful meeting of all city gangs the Warriors send emissaries, as do scores of other clubs – all unarmed. Once there, they're addressed by Cyrus, the leader of Manhattan's largest syndicate. Cool and charismatic, Cyrus briefly delivers a thoroughly memorable monologue in which he suggests that all gangs unite as one massive army of opportunity. Outnumbering the police, they will be able to operate unopposed in the city for generations to come. Cyrus' ideas are well received, but one rival gang has other ideas, creating a violent disturbance and destroying the truce. They frame the Warriors for the disaster and soon the police, along with every gang in the city are in pursuit of them. Outnumbered, on the run and with Cyrus' syndicate coordinating the manhunt (with the help of a seductively snarky radio deejay and her ironic playlist), the Warriors race against time through the bowels of Manhattan to their home turf, desperate to turn up the evidence they need to clear their names.
Even though The Warriors is an action film, it's no accident that I drew a parallel with musical theater earlier. It wasn't just because of the story's inherent symbolism; elements of The Warriors actually remind me of West Side Story, at least in one way. Despite the fact that the film takes place in the brutal world of inner city street gangs, the level of vice and violence apparent in it are minimized. Guns are uncommon, drugs are almost nonexistent and most confrontations are resolved using a combination of fists, harsh language and retro-Bronze Age diplomacy. This is because The Warriors isn't really a story about gangs any more than West Side Story was. And where West Side Story was an obvious adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, The Warriors is a movie version of a novel that drew its inspiration from the ancient story Anabasis.
Written by the Greek warrior Xenophon, The Warriors is the tale of a badly outnumbered Greek army stranded behind Persian lines, forced to fight its way home without reinforcements or supplies. Next to the legend of the Spartans at Thermopylae, it is perhaps the best known story of courage in Greek antiquity. Largely lost on audiences in the late '70s was the fact that The Warriors wasn't a gratuitous narrative on street violence, it was a fantasy about bravery in the face of insurmountable odds and valor in the face of treachery. But the film was also irreverently subversive and very visually unconventional so not surprisingly; it wasn't exactly a commercial success. But in the intervening years, it has acquired a devoted following and proven itself to be a more forward thinking project than even its creators had envisioned.
Whether you find yourself fascinated or frustrated with the recent glut of comic book inspired films, you can't deny that the genre is currently at its peak. What you may not realize is that while films such as 300 and Sin City strive to ape the look and feel of their hand drawn source material, a rudimentary attempt was made at something similar a quarter century in advance. While The Warriors itself is not based on a comic, the novel from which it's adapted does make use of them as a storytelling tool.
While on the run, one of the gang members happens to be reading a comic book based on Anabasis, and the parallels are used as a narrative device throughout the novel. The film version pays homage to this by using animated wipes and cel paintings for scene transitions, giving the film a distinctive comic book flavor. This lends itself well to the rather elementary story structure, which is not unlike that of an ancient epic. As they journey home across a hostile wasteland, our heroes are faced with a series of obvious trials and those who take the moral high road pass, while those who do not are punished. But much like an ancient parable or many a 1970s comic book yarn, there's a gentle undercurrent of absurdity to the tale. The question isn't so much which characters will make it to the end of the movie but how they'll have changed when they arrive.
I'm already pretty familiar with The Warriors, but in screening it again for this article I couldn't help but notice that it doesn't feel like a movie that's as old as it is. The look and style of the film is in some ways distinctly '70s but in many more ways it feels as though it might have been filmed very recently. The dialogue (which – be warned – is the primary reason for the R rating) intentionally avoids more than a handful of contemporary colloquialisms and as a result, still sounds remarkably modern. In fact, the entire film takes place in a distorted version of Manhattan that could never possibly exist, and it's this effective use of alternate reality that keeps the film from feeling as dated as it probably should. But more than anything it is the thematic cues that keep The Warriors feeling as fresh and fun as the first time I saw it. The film is shot primarily at night, and it rains for a good part of the time. But there's a sense of playful enthusiasm beneath it all and the time and location of the final scene is by no means an accident.
What separates the Warriors from their peers is their optimism and obvious belief that their sense of brotherhood will pull them through anything. The other gangs the Warriors encounter on their gauntlet home are primarily obsessed with tribal matters - recognition and power – they are thuggish automatons that have no sense of family. But it's clear by the end that the Warriors have grown from their experience, and that whatever becomes of them – whatever becomes of the Five Boroughs – Cyrus' vision of unity just might have a chance.
Can you dig it?