Behind the line
What it means
Our interpretation.
The line is the whole character: a man who refuses to answer to anyone's rank and gives you a nickname that tells you not to trust him. It has become the template for the laconic antihero, and is quoted whenever someone wants to cut a formal conversation short and be taken at their word.
Context reviewed
In context
Spoilers for Escape from New YorkShow the scene
In Escape from New York (1981), the near-future US has turned Manhattan into a walled maximum-security prison, and the President's plane has crashed inside it. Police Commissioner Bob Hauk offers Snake Plissken, a decorated former Special Forces soldier convicted of robbing a Federal Reserve depository, a deal: rescue the President within 24 hours or stay a prisoner of the city. In the briefing, Hauk keeps calling him Plissken, and the soldier corrects him with this line. Carpenter, who directed and co-scored the film, wrote it in the 1970s in reaction to Watergate.
Sources (2)
- Wikipedia: Escape from New YorkPlotReference checked
- Springfield! Springfield!: Escape from New York transcripttranscriptReference checked
Context reviewed