A long-standing favourite since I caught a TV screening in the early 80s, it was a big relief to find that my youthful fondness for this extraordinary martial arts parable has not been diminished by the passage of time. I’ve had an off-air VHS copy on hand for years, of course (and before that, an audio cassette recording in the days before a VCR was a common item of household furniture), but you know how it is …familiarity breeds contempt, and the thought of sitting down to watch an old chestnut again provokes an emotion something like rage. It’s entirely possible that I hadn’t seen THE SILENT FLUTE for around a decade when I decided to give the Blue Underground disc a spin – and I’m so glad I did. From the mournful opening strains of Bruce Smeaton’s magnificent score, I was hooked all over again.
Stanley Mann’s rewrite of the original treatment by Bruce Lee and soon-to-be-ditched disciples James Coburn and Stirling Silliphant lends a wonderfully light, epigrammic quality to the Zen teachings on which Cord’s (Jeff Cooper) adventures are based: David Carradine’s playful turn as the enigmatic Blind Man, player of the titular flute, elevates the film far beyond the violent kung fu allegory originally intended. Although the martial arts sequences belong to that oddly unconvincing school of “Hollywood-fu”, where no blows actually seem to connect with their intended target and the cameras always seem to be capturing all the wrong angles, the film boasts such an effortless elegance in its writing and performances (great cameos from Eli Wallach, a kind of ascetic cousin to his Tuco Ramirez character, and the sonorous Christopher Lee) that you really don’t care. Another boon to the production was the decision to move the story’s setting from contemporary Asian locations to a timeless fantasy world rich with allegorical significance, which combined with Smeaton’s stirring compositions really gives the film much of its impact on the imagination. As the final credits began, I re-experienced a tremendously warm rush of affection for the film – together with the pleasurable realisation that the characters I had followed so avidly would continue their timeless adventures even after the film had ended, a sensation very few films manage to evoke. (Perhaps the film speaks to a need within me for such characters and situations to exist – maybe that’s why all myths seem so powerful. They represent some sort of eternal, codified internal struggle for meaning…and I’ll stop there, before I’m tempted to make a big, fortune-cookie-aphorism-spouting eejit out of meself.)
One strange anomaly from Blue Underground’s presentation, however: the credits sequence of the SILENT FLUTE version I’ve always been familiar with is prefixed by the two amusing quotations from the Blind Man and Cord, oddly absent from this variant apparently sourced from the original negative. Even more strange is that these epigrams ARE present in the “alternate” CIRCLE OF IRON credits sequence, included on the disc as an extra. The longer credits also feature a slightly extended (and superior, IMO) intro to Smeaton’s score…so it’s a little disconcerting to start the film with the omission of a small but crucial bit of mood-setting atmosphere. If anyone knows why this difference exists…
If I'm recalling the DVD commentary correctly, director Richard Moore indicates that the opening quotes were added later by the producers (the same ones who changed THE SILENT FLUTE to the confusing CIRCLE OF IRON) and did not reflect his vision of the film. Perhaps the quotes appeared only in U.S. prints, which I think were the only ones to use the CIRCLE OF IRON title.
I liked the film too, much better than I expected, since I don't recall thinking much of it when I saw it on HBO in the 1980s. I loved the Israeli locations and Smeaton's score. Carradine is very good and probably much better than Bruce Lee would have been. I still think Coburn would have been too old to play the role of Cord; Jeff Cooper looks like he is too, but his inexperience as an actor provides him with an uncertainness that aids his character.
Yeah, aside from the fact that he rather frighteningly resembles Kathleen Turner on a very bad hair day, Jeff Cooper is surprisingly good in the role - and, you're right, more appropriate for the character than the older Coburn would have been.
Regarding the opening titles, the quotations were certainly present on UK TV versions screened under the SILENT FLUTE title; the fact that the epigrams are in the same font as the remainder of the SILENT FLUTE titles, whereas the CIRCLE OF IRON retitling stands out like a sore thumb, only confuses me all the more if the quotations were indeed added after the fact by Sandy Howard et al. I'll be listening to the commentary later this week, hopefully, so I'll listen out for the director's remarks on this...
Glad to see that I'm not the only person on the planet that really likes this film. When I wrote a review of the BU release of this movie I was called a fluffer and worse on another board because I enjoyed the movie. Ah, well.
Welcome back to Mobius and sane discussions!
http://www.eccentric-cinema.com/cult_movies/circle_iron.htm Nice review, Rod. Frankly it amazes me that anyone could NOT find this an immensely engaging and rewarding film experience, but then again, with a certain election result fresh in my mind, I realise that a hell of a lot of things in this world amaze me. Up is down and sideways is straight ahead, indeed. :D