No Sense Makes Sense: Peter Bogdanovich’s Targets
Posted in Films, Retrovirus, Underground/Cult |Conversely, the sound in Targets is as naturalistic as a documentary. The best example of this is in the sniper sequence from the water tower, but as Bogdanovich notes, they couldn’t afford a sound crew, so those scenes were shot in silent, with sound effects being added in post-production. It’s a testament to the extraordinary skills of sound editor Verna Fields, who used 28 different tracks to create this realism.
This realism continues in the cinematography: none of the driving scenes use rear projection and all were shot on the California freeways, despite that being illegal at the time. Bogdanovich jokes that this is a lesson from the “Roger Corman School of Guerrilla Filmmaking.” He also seems to have learned that economy may be dictated by budget, but with ingenuity, it can lead to exceptionally riveting films. Lazlo Kovacs, the director of photography, used natural light throughout the film, which adds to the sense of real and impending doom, particularly the drive-in scenes which are as murky as ink.
Bogdanovich filmed the two gun shop scenes from the movie in actual gun shops. In order to do this the crew told the employees they were filming a movie about a guy hunting with his father. Interestingly, this was the same ruse Charles Whitman used.
Time Magazine reported that on the morning of August 1, Whitman told a clerk in a hardware store that he was purchasing ammunition to “shoot some pigs.” (5) Targets amends the line to “gonna shoot some pigs.” It’s a startling and unintentional foreshadowing of the Tate-LaBianca murders committed by members of the Manson Family in August of 1969.
Although the word “pigs” had been used to describe police officers since the 19th century, Charles Manson intercepted another vibe from the Beatles song “Piggies.” George Harrison intended the song to be a commentary on upper-class greed, but Manson saw his victims as “pigs” because he thought his Family members were the outcasts that society created and then refused to take care of.
Norman Bates
Similarly, Thompson is depicted as an outcast in his own life, someone who goes horribly wrong, much like Norman Bates in Psycho only not confined to the Bates Motel. This is an effective metaphor for the late sixties.
But what did go wrong? What is most disturbing about Targets is that we are not given any solid answers, only speculations that don’t necessarily make sense.
And if sense makes no sense, then it follows that, as Manson himself was fond of saying, “no sense makes sense.”
Sources:
1. Wikipedia, “Opposition to the Vietnam War.”
2. Wikipedia, “Richard Speck.”
3. Wikipedia, “Charles Whitman.”
4. Lawrence Russell, “Targets,” Culture Court. July 2003.
5. “The Madman in the Tower,” Time Magazine. August 12, 1966.