As with the burning of Atlanta scene in Gone with the Wind,
construction and destruction also highlights how Hollywood represents stunt
artists and ecology as expendable, an attitude most evident in films like
Hooper (1978). In Hooper, the impact of stunts on the stunt artists who perform
them is both made transparent and critiqued. The film also shows us the
environmental impact of the special effects that accompany each of those
stunts, occasionally commenting on their negative effects on ecology. Hooper interrogates
the consequences of attitudes that construct human life and the environment as
expendable, even as it climaxes with a spectacular and awe-inspiring scene
meant to capture audiences: a representation of the destruction of Los Angeles
that is parallel to the Atlanta fire scene and residents’ reactions to it in
the production of Gone With the Wind. With this special effects-driven scene
and others, Hooper shows us how complicated critiques of film production
practices become in an industry where entertainment is the goal. Yet, in spite
of this conflict between spectacle and critique, Hooper stands out as a film
that exposes how dangerous film productions can be to both stunt artists and
the environment.
Hooper highlights the impact stunt work has on the stunt
men’s bodies while foregrounding the insensitivity of directors willing to
sacrifice human lives for spectacular effects in most of the “gags” on display
in the film. But the last “gag” in Hooper (and “The Spy Who Laughed at Danger”)
most powerfully illustrates how both human lives and ecology are seen as
expendable in this filmic world, as long as movies make enough money. Ski’s
ideas have inspired the director, according to the film’s producer, Max Burns
(John Marley), so he rewrites the script’s ending and adds lots of stunts
culminating in the destruction of L.A. on screen. The stunts Roger constructs
to end the film seem outlandishly impossible in a 1978 film without access to
computer-generated graphics. When Roger explains the new ending to Hooper and
Ski, it sounds like a nightmare on screen. According to Roger, Hooper and Ski
will drive through “the biggest earthquake ever,” but a bridge will blow up, so
Hooper and Ski will need to rappel down the mountain to escape—and Roger will
capture this stunt in one shot. The ending stunt sounds spectacular enough, but
Ski, the young “immortal,” wants more and suggests, “Why not jump a car across
the gorge.” After speculating about the distance a rocket car might jump, even
Max thinks this stunt is too risky. But Hooper sees the stunt as a way out of
the stunt business: They can do this last stunt for $50,000 each, and then
quit.
The big stunt goes as planned: Roger watches from a
helicopter and yells, “Action.” Then we hear and see an explosion, and a
building collapses. Crashing cars are everywhere. Hooper and Ski keep driving
past exploding gas stations and a series of explosions on the road. Cars
overturn and collide with one another. Then another series of explosions pours
out spectacular fumes of fire and smoke. A tanker goes through a building and
another set of explosions cracks open the other side of the road. Hooper and
Ski continue driving their rocket car, now racing through a line of collapsing
smokestacks that nearly hit their car. They’re almost to the bridge and watch
as a truck full of explosives blows it “to shit.” The pressure in their
nitrous-powered rocket car seems too low for the jump, but Hooper demands they
continue, and they fly across the ravine, landing safely on the other side.
This spectacular filmic event destroys the set and looks like it destroys the
city of Los Angeles. It nearly kills two stunt men, who barely make it across a
ravine in a car built to fly half the distance across. Max fires Tony, the
assistant. And Ski and Hooper look at the fallen bridge at the bottom of the
ravine in awe. Yet Roger, the director, merely exclaims, “Spectacular,
wonderful. I knew you could do it!” As Roger sees it, they have captured a
“tiny piece of time” on film, so the stunt, no matter how dangerous or
destructive, was worth that strip of film.
Hooper at least marginally critiques the exploitation of
human flesh for effect, since it shows us the injuries and chronic physical
damage Hooper and Jocko endure after performing risky stunt work. The film’s
narrative sets up Roger as a villain willing to sacrifice stunt men for a good
show and the film industry as an economy where greed runs rampant. The film
gives a nod to both nonhuman nature (a dog with a Humane Society advocate is
saved by Hooper) and to the environment (Tony mentions pollution and smog in
L.A. as a reason to quickly extinguish a fire). But ultimately, the stunts
themselves capture our attention, just as Roger suggests when ruminating on the
power of film as a medium that can capture time. In the context of the film,
the last, most dangerous, and (consequently) most spectacular stunt also
“saves” Hooper, since it provides him with the funds he needs to buy his ranch.
The effects in Hooper are not only critiqued in the film’s construction of “The
Spy Who Laughed at Danger” but also valorized in their own right. Hooper was
nominated for an Academy Award in the sound category. Walter Frith calls the
movie “action on laughing gas.” In “Excessive Disclosure in Burt Reynolds’ Star
Image,” Jacob Smith sees drunk scenes as “prolonged excuse[s]” for laughter
(29). Smith highlights the promotional image for Hooper, an “iconic cowboy with
mustache, squinting eyes, and cowboy hat, but with mouth obscured by a pink
balloon of bubble gum,” (30) to support his claims about Reynolds’ image as an
actor seeking fun, not work, in both film and life.
But the image also showcases the stunt man’s roots in
Western lore—cowboys willing to take risks and live isolated lives on the range
just like stunt artists sacrificing themselves for spectacular effects on the
screen. The film seems to validate that individualist image rather than a
communal one connecting humans and nature. Smith asserts that Hooper “ridicules
environmental activist and humane society representatives,” those advocates
working for nonhuman nature. The film praises the work of individual stunt men
willing to take risks, overcome obstacles, and provide awe-inspiring spectacle
on the screen. Hooper critiques “the conceited dramatic actor and pretentious
director,” according to Smith. It does not seem to critique the work of stunt
men. Instead, it valorizes the spectacular results of their stunts. Still
Hooper examines the filmmaking process in a unique way, since it highlights
stunt men and their work, showing us a behind-the-scenes view of the effects
these stunts have on both the stunt artists and the environment. By making the
consequences of stunt “gags” transparent, Hooper provides a critical reading of
the filmmaking process and its negative effects on its stunt men and the
environment their stunts destroy. Even though the critique is couched in the
film’s own rhetoric about the entertainment value of spectacle, it provides a
space in which we can begin to discuss the impact of filmmaking on both human
and nonhuman nature.
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