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BLOW
STICKS ITS NOSES INTO THE LIFE OF AN EARLY SUPPLIER FOR THE
RECREATIONAL LIBERATION
 The
sexual liberation, which began in California during the 1960s,
was accompanied by the recreational liberation. A weed from
México brought temporary Nirvana to consumers and vast wealth
to kingpins. In the 1970s, however, a powder from Colombia
gradually replaced marijuana as the drug of choice among the
affluent population. That drug was cocaine, colloquially known
as "blow." Blow tells us about the American
who was primarily responsible for the shift—George Jung (played
by Johnny Depp). Indeed, thanks to voiceovers throughout the
movie, Blow is Jung’s autobiography, though
the screenplay is based on the book of the same title by Bruce
Porter, with the subtitle How a Small-Town Boy Made $100
Million with the Medellin Cartel and Lost It All. When
the initial credits roll, we see how the coca leaf is harvested
and processed into white powder. We next see Jung assuring
several men that the cocaine is of the highest grade, but
that scene is repeated later in the film. The movie then reverts
to Jung’s life as a child in Weymouth, Massachusetts. He observes
his mother Ermine (played by Rachel Griffiths) hysterical
about the minimal income earned his father Fred (played by
Ray Liotta), who served as Jung’s role model and emotional
supporter throughout his life. Nevertheless, when his father
takes momentary bankruptcy philosophically, Jung resolves
that he will earn a lot of money so that he will never experience
economic hardship. In 1968, while in his early twenties, Jung
and his close friend Tuna (played by Ethan Supliee) move to
Manhattan Beach and meet pretty girls, all stewardesses. One
of the girls, Barbara Buckley (played by Franka Potente),
falls for Jung and introduces him to marijuana. When Jung
realizes that easy money could be made by selling the weed
around town, Barbara introduces him to the local supplier,
foppish Derek Foreal (played by Paul Reubens), who is too
busy with the world’s first male hair salon to sell the stuff.
Jung and Tuna, however, have no job, so they have the time
to be drug pushers, and they are extremely successful. Next,
an old friend, Kevin Dulli (played by Max Perlich), arrives
on vacation from Massachusetts.
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On learning about Jung’s lucrative business, he offers to
be the New England distributor, pointing out that the offspring
of the rich who attend small colleges near Weymouth have a
lot of spending money but nothing much to buy. Stewardess
Barbara and her friends offer to serve as mules from Los Angeles
to Boston, and the business booms. Jung realizes that he can
cut out the middle man (Derek) by buying directly from the
source in México, so he charters an airplane, meets a grower,
and soon profits soar. In due course, however, Jung is arrested,
sent to a prison that is a school for crime, and meets Diego
Delgado (played by Jordi Mollà), who is from Colombia. Upon
release from prison, Delgado introduces Jung to Pablo Escobar
(played by Cliff Curtis) in Medallín, and Jung becomes the
principal supplier of the new drug to the United States, depositing
his millions into Panamanian bank accounts, which are later
expropriated by Manuel Noriega. After various doublecrosses,
he is again arrested, skips bail, but is eventually betrayed
by friends in a sting operation, and is imprisoned for a much
longer sentence than before. Credits at the end say that he
will be released from Otisville Penitentiary in 2015, if he
lives that long; he appears senile in the final frames of
the film. Interlaced with the story about Jung’s criminal
activities is a depiction of his human qualities—his love
for his parents; his love for his wife Barbara, who dies of
cancer, presumably from too much snorting; his romance with
golddigging Mirtha (played by Penélope Cruz): and his steadfast
affection for his daughter. Directed by Ted Demme, the ying-yang
portrayal shows that Jung was in many ways a product of his
upbringing, a child of the 1960s, and a victim of the effort
to criminalize substances that are sold only because Americans
want to buy them. Blow provides an in-depth
look at how the drug industry operates upstream (production,
processing, transporting). For a look at the downstream drug
trade, of course, we already have Traffic
(2000). MH
WENDELL
BROADWELL CONTRIBUTES A NEW WORKING PAPER
Wendell
Broadwell of Georgia Perimeter College has donated Contrasting
Images of the American Presidency in Two Recent Movies: Independence
Day and Mars Attacks! His contribution, the 24th Working
Paper of the Political Film Society, is available for $5.
To obtain his essay, send a check to the above address. For
information on the other Working
Papers, see the Political Film Society website.
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