Last Sunday night we headed to the Ford Amphitheatre for a screening of The Harder They Come, Perry Henzell's 1973 film starring Jimmy Cliff as a Jamaican country boy turned Kingston gangster who'll stop at nothing to make an album and die a legend. I was born in 1973, and from the looks of it Quentin Tarantino has seen it more than once. The most memorable line was Jimmy Cliff yelling "Don't fuck with me!", with each syllable accentuated by the knife in his hand cutting up the face of his former boss.
The film itself was enjoyable, starting off as a study of life in Kingston in the seventies and then turning into a crazy gangster movie that, while dramatic, doesn't seem very plausible.
The screening was preceded by a concert by the Melodians, a Jamaican band invited onstage for a few songs to set the mood. But they played, beautifully, for over an hour. It was impossible to get them offstage though, and once they invited their friend, Sammy Dreadlocks, I thought we would never get to the film. It finally started, though there was probably more potsmoking at this screening at the Ford than what the ushers are normally used to.
It's almost impossible to have a bad night at the Ford Amphitheatre and this screening was no exception.
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