Cockfighter
A Monte Hellman Film
Warren Oates stars as Frank Mansfield, a master cockfighter whose reckless behavior has cost him the bloodsport's highest honor. Taking a vow of silence, he struggles to rebuild his career through the savage pits of the deep South. But in a world of mad gambles and broken dreams, some cockfighters are born to kill while others have only a fighting chance at redemption.
Warren Oates gives one of the greatest performances of his career in this controversial classic directed by acclaimed cult filmmaker Monte Hellman (Two Lane Blacktop), produced by Roger Corman and written by Charles Willeford, based on his powerful novel.
Member Reviews
2 stars for the culture;forget the rest - bosoxx
With all the hysteria over Michael Vick one forgets that cockfighting, whether one agrees or not, is a southern cultural institution & this movie does a good job in depicting that. Unfortunately,the movie is a mess.I like cult films & actors/directors as much as anyone but a defintion of a cult figure is one who, while doing the odd interesting thing, is a mediocrity. Hellman was a hack director, and the same can be said for actors Oates [despite a laughable attempt to say otherwise in a tedious "extra"], Stanton & Donahue.The film has amateurish acting [Oates portaying a "mute"is embarrassing], awkward edits, & strained dialogue.Too bad, in the hands of a good director &b actors who had an acting range of more than a millimetre, this could have been a fine film & not an eccentric period piece.Cockfighter of the Year!! - HARRYLIME
If you know about Cockfighter, and are reading this, I will assume you are a fan of Warren Oats as well as Monte Hellman. If not…you have made quite the discovery.
The words “Underrated” and “Underappreciated” are thrown around a lot when describing good movies that have been forgotten or were never popular. But Monte Hellman’s movies truly are underrated. Warren Oats really is one of the most underrated actors in all of movies. Cockfighter is, unfortunately, a forgotten masterpiece. It comes from a great time in American movies, one that gave us something different and exciting, in a gritty disturbing sort of way. Cockfighter belongs up there with all the great movies of that time or any time.
In 1974 the tagline for the film was "He came into town with his cock in hand, and what he did with it was illegal in 49 states." Warren Oats plays Frank Mansfield, a cockfighter whose every breath is spent trying to crawl back to the top of the southern cockfighting world. He will not utter a single word until he wins “cockfigher of the year.” Once Frank was a wild man, he lost his best cock in a drunken stupor late one night, and is now haunted by the loss. He drops everything, literally everything, on a mission that only he can understand.
It’s impossible for a woman to understand what Cockfighter is about. I admit it; this is a sexes statement, and I apologize, but its true. It’s about the very depths of a man. At the end of the film Frank knows that once his girl has seen him in the ring, at his best, in his element, she has to love him. It’s a vicious and brutal sport, and she hates it, she may hate what it does to him, but he now knows that she sees what he is, and she loves him for it.
Note: the DVD transfer image quality is anything but good. But it somehow adds to the grittiness of the film. The DVD also includes “Warren Oates: Across the Border” a 55min documentary about Warren Oats. This documentary is like gold for me.Cockfighter - Coco
Another Western-by-any-other-name masterpiece from Monte Hellman, the most neglected auteur in the vast canonical Monument Valley of American cinema. Warren Oates’ performance as Frank Mansfield, trainer of fighting cocks, is his greatest bar none (the mythopoetic mastery on display in Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia notwithstanding), and to this humble reviewer, unrivaled by anything done by any of his contemporaries. A pure poetry of silence is on display here, with Oates uttering his first non-flashback line at the film’s denoument (a line I hope to affix to my tombstone someday for want of any other suitable epitaph). The character’s self-imposed silence is both a lesson in humility and a demonstration of the beauty and grace to be found in symbolic castration (this would, of course, be news to the average Western Hero); instead of laughing he raises his leg and slaps his cowboy boot, instead of arguing or fighting he nurtures his murderous roosters. Issues of gender, class, and community are handled with such subtle knowing that they almost evaporate into the rarefied air of DOP Almendros’s frames, here at the top of his low-tech game. The counter-humanist humanity at the core of the film bring it light years above the cloying Hollywood liberal humanism of Kazan and his endless successors. Roger Corman never produced anything else half this good before of since, and if it is not the greatest American narrative film of the 1970s then that is only because the title may have to go to Two-Lane Blacktop, another Hellman film with an epochal turn by Mr. Oates. Of the two, this one means far more to me. Frank Mansfield represents everything it means to be alive on this planet without a y chromosome. Add Harry Dean Stanton and the ruffle-haired Miss Bird shortly before her suicide.Unbeatable.
cOcO2
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2 stars for the culture;forget the rest - bosoxx
With all the hysteria over Michael Vick one forgets that cockfighting, whether one agrees or not, is a southern cultural institution & this movie does a good job in depicting that. Unfortunately,the movie is a mess.I like cult films & actors/directors as much ...Cockfighter of the Year!! - HARRYLIME
If you know about Cockfighter, and are reading this, I will assume you are a fan of Warren Oats as well as Monte Hellman. If not…you have made quite the discovery.
The words “Underrated” and “Underappreciated” are thrown around a lot when describing ...Cockfighter - Coco
Another Western-by-any-other-name masterpiece from Monte Hellman, the most neglected auteur in the vast canonical Monument Valley of American cinema. Warren Oates’ performance as Frank Mansfield, trainer of fighting cocks, is his greatest bar none (the mythopoetic ...