Follow TV Tropes

Following

Context Film / Hardcore

Go To

1[[quoteright:310:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/5844cdb5_976b_4a00_aa35_0ccb9cc7f6ed.jpeg]]
2
3''Hardcore'' is a 1979 crime drama film directed by Creator/PaulSchrader and starring Creator/GeorgeCScott.
4
5It begins with the disappearance of Kristen Van Dorn (Ilah Davis), the teenage daughter of conservative, Calvinist Michigan businessman Jake Van Dorn (Scott), while on a church-sponsored youth trip to California. When a private detective (Creator/PeterBoyle) turns up evidence that Kristen is now working in the pornographic industry, Jake is horrified. Unable to rely on the slow pace of the investigation, Jake resolves to find and bring back Kristen himself. His attempt to trace her whereabouts inside California's seamy underworld of pornography and prostitution exposes him to a previously-hidden subculture that strains his religious convictions and outlook on life.
6
7----
8!!Tropes:
9* TheSeventies: The 1970s marks the era when the adult subculture began to spill out of its niche and infiltrate "mainstream" society more and more.
10* AuthorAvatar: In an early scene, the adults of the Van Dorn family hold a theological discussion at the table while a little boy listens solemnly. Schrader, who grew up in a [[WriteWhatYouKnow Calvinist family in Grand Rapids, Michigan]], [[http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/hardcore-1979 has said]] that he intended the little boy to be his own past self.
11* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:There is hope that Jake and his daughter Kristen will reconcile. However, Niki, the porn star and prostitute who helped Jake find Kristen and bonded with him in the process, rejects him and returns to life in the sex industry because it's all she knows.]]
12* BlackIsBiggerInBed: The black porn star Jake turns away from his phony production does a ''lot'' of boasting about well-endowed he is.
13* BrainBleach: This is what happens to Jake when he is shown the video of his daughter acting in a pornographic film.
14-->'''Jake:''' Turn it off. Turn it ''off''. ''[Screaming]'' TURN IT OFF. ''[Begging]'' Turn it off, please...
15* BrokenTears: Jake, on two occasions. The first is when he is shown the pornographic film starring Kristen. The second occurs [[spoiler:during his reunion with Kristen, when she reveals that she ran away because she felt he never cared about her]].
16* CallingTheOldManOut: [[spoiler:Kristen accuses Jake of never having loved her and of having constantly disapproved of her choices.]]
17* ControlFreak: Early on in the film, Jake is shown persuading one of his employees to accept his preference for an advertising colour scheme. It reveals just how controlling he is. It is {{implied|Trope}} that the reason Jake's wife and then daughter left him is that he was extremely repressive and judgmental, without being actually emotionally abusive.
18* DreamingOfAWhiteChristmas: The opening of the film in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
19* EgocentricallyReligious: [[ZigZaggingTrope Zig-Zagged]] with Jake. While Jake believes that, as a practicing Calvinist, he is one of those predestined to be saved by God, his behavior with other people doesn't suggest that he looks down upon them. The only people he much holds in contempt are some of the people in the sex industry who behave particularly vulgar in his presence.
20* EmotionallyTongueTied: Jake. It contributed to his wife and daughter's perception that he was unloving. However, as Jake admits at the end:
21-->'''Jake:''' I do love you. I just never knew how to show you. It's very difficult for me - not being able to talk. I'll try. It's just my damnable pride.
22* FanDisservice: Most of the scenes are rife with explicit material but the purpose is to show the ubiquity of sex as a "product" for consumption in the adult industry. The viewer, like Jake, may initially be shocked by the crassness, but will soon be jaded to these settings.
23* TheFundamentalist: Jake is a strict Calvinist who doesn't drink, smoke, gamble and is sexually conservative all around, making him even stricter than his likewise straight-laced relatives (who are shown smoking at the film's opening's Christmas gathering at his house). The film rather [[{{deconstructed|Trope}} deconstructs]] the negative stereotypes of this kind of character as it invites us to sympathize with him as he does some soul-searching regarding his religious beliefs while dealing with prostitutes and pornographers. The ending [[{{Defied|Trope}} defies]] this trope altogether: [[spoiler:while he doesn't approve of any of these occupations any more than he did before, we see how much he genuinely loves his daughter as he's pleading with her to return to him, even though he now realizes she ''chose'' to be in the pornography industry rather than being coerced into it]].
24* HookerWithAHeartOfGold: Niki initially agrees to help Jake find Kristen only for the money. But once she hears that he is neither a pornographic film producer, nor a private detective, but a father looking for his daughter, she genuinely begins to sympathize with him.
25* IAmNotPretty: Kristen claims that she wasn't "pretty or good enough" to be Jake's ideal daughter.
26* InelegantBlubbering: One of the most iconic cinematic examples, wherein Jake breaks down sobbing while watching [[BrainBleach the porn movie starring his daughter.]]
27* LeaveMeAlone: {{Invoked|Trope}} and then {{averted|Trope}}. [[spoiler:On their reunion, Kristen asks Jake to leave her alone in her newfound world. Jake asks if she really wishes it, at which point Kristen relents.]]
28* MeaningfulName: Van Dorn means "of the thorn" in Dutch, which was a deliberate reference to the Crucifixion on Schrader's part.
29* MissingMom: Mrs. Van Dorn. [[spoiler:She isn't dead, but at least separated from Jake. Kristen uses her name, Joanne, as her porn name.]]
30* MistakenForRacist: Jake while pretending to a porn producer is accused of bigotry when he turns away the black porn star.
31* MoodWhiplash: This isn't a funny movie by any stretch of the imagination, but the "Big Dick Johnson" scene is hilarious. With a badly disguised Jake being absolutely befuddled by Johnson's "boasts" and having to gently tell him he's not right for the movie he's pretending to produce.
32* NotDistractedByTheSexy: Jake, although Niki and other sex workers do their best to distract him.
33* NotSoDifferentRemark: Sex-worker Niki and Calvinist Jake hold views that occasionally sound quite similar.
34** One example:
35--->'''Jake:''' ''[speaking about Calvinist doctrines]'' I'll admit, it's a little confusing when you look at it from the outside. You have to try to look at it from inside.\
36'''Niki:''' Well, if you look at anything from the inside, it makes sense. I mean, you should hear perverts talk. A guy once almost had me convinced to let his German shepherd screw me.\
37'''Jake:''' It's not quite the same thing.
38** Another example:
39--->'''Jake:''' You and I, Niki, have very different ideas about sex.\
40...\
41'''Niki:''' How important do you think sex is?\
42'''Jake:''' Not very.\
43'''Niki:''' We're just alike. You think sex is so unimportant you don't do it. I think sex is so unimportant I don't care who I do it with.
44* OffstageVillainy: Ratan, the man with whom Kristen supposedly is, is attributed with organizing services that are so perverted that even mainstream sex workers are afraid of him. However, his "on-screen" villainy is confined to [[spoiler:an appearance on a SnuffFilm, and slashing at Jake with a knife (without severe consequences) before he is shot down]].
45* {{Overcrank}}: For some inexplicable reason, the action sequence in the climax is filmed in slow motion, completely out of keeping with the tone of the rest of the film.
46* PapaWolf: {{Deconstructed|Trope}} with Jake. His attempts to "protect" his daughter from the big bad world fail miserably, as she is initiated into the pornographic industry and there is nothing he can do to preserve her innocence. [[spoiler:Moreover, it's what she chose.]]
47* ParentsKnowTheirChildren: {{Averted|Trope}}. [[spoiler:Jake thought he did]].
48* PornStache: Lots of these. Most notably, Jake wears a fake PornStache while pretending to be a producer who is interviewing actors for roles in his upcoming film.
49* ReactionShot: Jake's [[BrainBleach brain-bleached]] reaction to watching the footage of his daughter in a pornographic film has undergone [[MemeticMutation memetic mutation]] and is regularly mashed up with artistic works that, in the opinion of the compilers, deserve the same reaction as Jake's. The results are videos [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d07v7fAeKz0 such as this one]].
50* RoaringRampageOfRescue: Jake embarks on one of these. He beats up one man, slaps a woman and breaks through the partitions of a building while chasing another man. All in [[{{Overcrank}} slow motion]].
51* {{Sadist}}: Andy Mast, the PrivateDetective hired by Jake, has shades of this trait. For instance, he makes Jake watch the pornographic footage of his daughter a lot longer than is strictly necessary for identification, and only turns the projection off once Jake has collapsed in tears and is begging him to stop.
52-->'''Jake:''' You enjoy this, don't you, showing me this?\
53'''Mast:''' [[BlatantLies I hate it.]]
54* SnuffFilm: Jake has to look through one to see whether or not the victim in the video is his daughter. [[spoiler:It isn't, thankfully]].
55* SoundtrackDissonance: Susan Raye's "Precious Memories" plays during the opening and closing credits. It serves to show how Jake's closed-off Calvinist community carries on blissfully unaware of and uninterested in the nature and existence of the pornographic underworld. The Calvinist community is something of an extreme metaphor for the members of mainstream society.
56* WholePlotReference: Paul Schrader once again cribs the plot of ''Film/TheSearchers'' as he did with ''Film/TaxiDriver''.
57* WouldNotHitAGirl: {{Averted|Trope}}. [[spoiler:Jake slaps Niki to make her tell the address of a man he is tracking.]]
58

Top