While reading many of the reviews written over the past thirteen years, I was struck by how many people have dismissed this film because they couldn't follow Tony Gilroy's expert construction of character and plot. I felt the need to write about the plot and casting of what I feel is another of George Clooney's expertly constructed and expertly performed films.
Michael Clayton's son Henry (Austin Williams) is playing a computer game whose landscape - in which everyone has hidden enemies and loyalties are impossible, is a perfect metaphor for the world of Clayton's law firm, currently earning $9M in fees defending a chemical firm in a case that the head of the firm acknowledges "reeked from the very start". Clayton himself is a 'janitor' for the firm, expert at cleaning up the messes his colleagues can't handle, but after 17 years he's not a partner; his firm keeps him at arm's length so that they can disavow all knowledge of his interventions. He's the son of a policeman, and a brother of a detective, from both of whom he derived a sense of responsibility that tugs at his conscience every time he applies the grease that lubricates a tricky situation for the firm. Now, he has to help the senior firm lawyer, Arthur
Edens (Tom Wilkinson), who's in charge of defending the chemical firm, when Edens succumbs to his own fit of conscience. Trying to call Clayton in the midst of a guilt-ridden moment, Edens ends up speaking to Clayton's son, learns of the computer game, Realm and Conquest, and of its amoral landscape, and realises what he must do about his years-long defense of a guilty corporation. The corporation's chief legal officer, Karen Crowder (Tilda Swinton) a fast-tracked executive who owes her allegiance to her mentor, the corporation's CEO, knows that her own career hangs upon a quick resolution to the problem caused by Edens's fit of conscience. She calls a a Mr Verne (Robert Prescott), another 'janitor' recommended by her mentor, to monitor and solve the problem. The story unfolds over a span of four days, and at the end Clayton's conscience, and his willingness to act on it, has brought a temporary resolution to the court case, as well as to aspects of his own family's life. He's still alone, though, cruising in the back seat of a Manhattan cab on $50 worth of time, wondering about the future. It's a tight, grim plot, entirely plausible in the modern world of corporate ruthlessness and self-serving legal manipulation,
Gilroy's superb script contains so many clever nuances of behaviour and motivation that I don't think they can be grasped fully in a single viewing. The framework of Clayton's weakness - gambling at cards and business because he wants some 'walking-away money - which might well have led to his divorce from Henry's mother - is grounded in his yearning to be a courtroom lawyer again, on the frontline of justice. But his firm's principal,Marty Bach (Sydney Pollack) tells him "a lot of guys are good at that. At what you do, you're great!" That means he'll have to stay where he is, helping get clients out of jams, whether or not they're guilty. He'll never be a partner, and his debts won't be paid. If he tries to get a $75,000 loan from the firm to pay off the loansharks he's indebted to, he'll be suspected of trying to blackmail the firm. There's no apparent way out for Michael Clayton. The consequences of unleashing a security team against Arthur Edens and Michael Clayton become ever guilt-inducing for Karen Crowder, and her tightrope walk between the threats presented by Edens's actions and the security of her position with the corporation's CEO and Board is increasingly tense. The addiction-fuelled decline of Clayton's younger brother Tim (David Landsbury) is at the centre of a family crisis that Clayton's actions help to mitigate by film's end, and the reminder of his brother's weaknesses makes Clayton address his son Henry with words that clarify his own yearning, and his own values. . ."on his strongest day, your Uncle Timmy was never as strong as you . . . you don't need to worry. . . You won't be one of those guys. . " It's a beautiful and moving moment in the film, capturing an intensity of hope that every father has for his young son.
The casting of this film is masterful. Sean Cullen as Gene Clayton is the perfect elder brother, a detective following in their father's footsteps who has remained outside Michael's Manhattan world. Dennis O'Hare is spectacularly good in a cameo as an executive whose weasel behaviour focusses Clayton's self-loathing. Tilda Swinton and Tom Wilkinson are both superb, and it's unjust that Wilkinson received no awards for his performance. The other cast members who create Clayton's family bring to life a world that he's left behind, but which is more stable and sustaining than the world of his law firm. And Jennifer Ehle and Skip Sudduth apply their superlative craft playing lawyers in deleted scenes which I feel should be re-inserted into the film. Finally, I salute the nuanced performance of George Clooney. One brilliant moment - the look on Michael Clayton's face as Dennis O'Hare's businessman wonders "what if (his Jaguar sedan) had been stolen" so that he wouldn't be charged for a hit-and-run. The contempt and loathing, both for 0'Hare's character and for himself as an accomplice, flicker across Clooney's eyes and mouth in a long instant as he watches his client Then his eyes and voice go dead as he tells O'Hare "There's no velvet chain, no champagne room. . . " - no dodging the consequences, in other words. It's one of many high points in this breathtaking performance, by an actor at the peak of his craft.
What must one do in an increasingly amoral world? That's a key question for artists to explore. The answer, as presented in Michael Clayton, is clear and unambiguous. The skill with which it's presented is the mark of a brilliant motion picture.
Reviews
20 Reviews
The Irishman
(2019)
The Limits of Loyalty and Power. . .
28 November 2019
A thoughtful journey through the landscapes in which the decisions and actions of a man's life bury him in layer after layer of separation from the known, the familiar, the loved, until at last he's alone in a wheelchair, IV plugged into a vein, in the corner of a single room in an extended care facility, at twilight, while the Five Satins croon "In the Still of the Night" and the camera fades to black. The story would have been richer if the men's wifes and children had been given voices to speak their perspective on the external shape of this patriarchal world. And Scorsese's yearning fascination with the energies of dark capitalism give the characters of Jimmy Hoffa, Frank Sheeran, and Russell Bufalino more grandeur than their real-life counterparts could ever have deserved. Power, and loyalty cease to be compelling when they're corrupted by flawed morality - they become frightening at first, and then a repellant conduit to the death-in-life of prison, or a hospice bedroom. The actors' craft is so fine that it deserves a more multifaceted, & ultimately more complexly truthful script.
I was thrilled by De Niro's restraint, Pacino's well-tempered pleasure in leadership, and especially by Joe Pesci's gently-expressed implacable will. Pesci's Russell Bufalino is the gravitational centre of this film's world - he welcomes the friendship with De Niro's Frank Sheeran, and accepts Sheeran's loyalty, then reveals how loyalty must give way to the application of 'justice' when hubris requires punishment. And I admire the commitment of all the members of Scorsese's troupe - Bobby Cannavale, Ray Romanow, Stephanie Kurtzuba, Harvey Keitel, Steve Van Zandt, and so many others - for their expert creation of the family, friends, and competitors in that bleak wiseguy world. I was especially pleased to see Welker White playing Jo Hoffa - her role alongside Pacino seemed the perfect fate for her character in Goodfellas as the supercilious young cocaine mule who won't fly without her lucky hat. Her presence made me wish even more strongly that she, and Anna Paquin as Peggy Sheeran, had been given extended voices in the film. Scorsese's work always contains that depth of actor/character texture, and would be richer for giving scope to both sexes.
One other caveat: I wish that Scorsese had found young actors to create the early episodes of Sheeran's story. As De Niro did for Brando in The Godfather Part 2 so someone should have done for each of the three central characters, to amplify the effects of age, time, and consequences, on the men's lives. Despite computer technology, the actors were old from the start, physically and emotionally, in a way which neutralised the effect of their progression through the lives they chose. We want to see the arc of their experiences, rather than to be lodged from the beginning in the weight of the inevitable ending.
Haywire
(2011)
the nuances of betrayal. . .
27 December 2013
Warning: Spoilers
Mallory Kane is good enough at her 'private contracting' work that clients ask for her specifically, but she's planning to leave the company after the withering of a relationship with her boss. He finds a tidy way to solve the problems her departure will cause, while fulfilling an eight-figure contract with a governmental client. As he says with an amused smile, "it's about money. It's always about money." And his plans for her are unpleasantly final. But she's too perceptive to be taken by surprise. . .
Haywire is Steven Soderbergh's extremely crisp, intelligent take on the world of private intelligence contractors operating in the shadowy world linking governments, dissidents, and national intelligence organizations, and one employee's discovery that she's the target of a duplicitous employer. Soderbergh's directorial skill draws an excellent performance from Gina Carano, in her first role, as a focused operative with a phenomenal skill in hand-to-hand combat. She may be tightly-wound - a bemused colleague (Channing Tatum) asks "Is that your idea of R&R? Wine and firearm maintenance?" - but she knows how to navigate the murky world of international espionage with the right proportion of expertise and scepticism. She's able to deal with the duplicity of her superior, Ewan McGregor, and earn the supportive trust of government administrator Michael Douglas. Soderbergh's talent for helping character become real in the landscapes of his films makes Haywire a gripping exploration of how to navigate the duplicity inherent in worlds where morality is superseded by the profit motive.
Haywire is Steven Soderbergh's extremely crisp, intelligent take on the world of private intelligence contractors operating in the shadowy world linking governments, dissidents, and national intelligence organizations, and one employee's discovery that she's the target of a duplicitous employer. Soderbergh's directorial skill draws an excellent performance from Gina Carano, in her first role, as a focused operative with a phenomenal skill in hand-to-hand combat. She may be tightly-wound - a bemused colleague (Channing Tatum) asks "Is that your idea of R&R? Wine and firearm maintenance?" - but she knows how to navigate the murky world of international espionage with the right proportion of expertise and scepticism. She's able to deal with the duplicity of her superior, Ewan McGregor, and earn the supportive trust of government administrator Michael Douglas. Soderbergh's talent for helping character become real in the landscapes of his films makes Haywire a gripping exploration of how to navigate the duplicity inherent in worlds where morality is superseded by the profit motive.
Three Kings
(1999)
What happens when naivety and cynicism are forced to confront a more complex world. . .
6 May 2013
Three Kings takes a quirky, unpredictable look at the aftermath of the first Iraq war, and shows what happens to cynical selfishness, dumb innocence, and dogged obedience when the soldiers who embody these qualities have to face the truth of what they were involved with. At first, for the characters played by Mark Wahlberg, Spike Jonze, Ice Cube and George Clooney, a chance to score some of Saddam Hussein's Kuwaiti loot looks like nothing more than a way of adding luxury to life after this last duty tour comes to an end. But as the four follow a grotesquely-discovered map to find Saddam's bunkers, they encounter the complex truths of the conflict between the ruler's Republican Guard and ordinary Iraqi citizens, they discover a morality greater than their own plans for material wealth. Finally, they make choices from a clearer understanding of what really matters in life, their choices made clearer, if not easier, by what they've seen and learned.
Newton Thomas Sigel's cinematography is superb, and amplifies the purpose and effect of George O. Russell's direction. The barren heat of the desert, and the vulnerability of soldiers and civilians trapped in the sands as enemies advance, is captured with lurid clarity. And the jagged violence erupts shockingly, visually and aurally, from moments of banal interaction, in a way which Sigel records masterfully.
Like all excellent films about war, Three Kings makes its audience confront the ambiguity of what everyone wishes was a clear-cut clash between good and evil. For American audiences, I suspect, it presets an uncomfortable vision of a nation's obedient soldiers led into war by a trite, empty rationalization, and the dramatisation of uncomfortable truths about the collateral damage inflicted by imperialism. Only Clooney's character has a larger perspective at first, and even he's bent by a predilection for the main chance. The others are innocents abroad, and that's a vision which can easily end in tears. There is redemption in this film, though, and the soldiers who exchange solemn waves with escaping refugees at the end of Three Kings are men who will live different lives when they return to the States. This is a surprising film, a must-see for everyone interested in the difference between simplistic ideology and the complexity of human experience.
Newton Thomas Sigel's cinematography is superb, and amplifies the purpose and effect of George O. Russell's direction. The barren heat of the desert, and the vulnerability of soldiers and civilians trapped in the sands as enemies advance, is captured with lurid clarity. And the jagged violence erupts shockingly, visually and aurally, from moments of banal interaction, in a way which Sigel records masterfully.
Like all excellent films about war, Three Kings makes its audience confront the ambiguity of what everyone wishes was a clear-cut clash between good and evil. For American audiences, I suspect, it presets an uncomfortable vision of a nation's obedient soldiers led into war by a trite, empty rationalization, and the dramatisation of uncomfortable truths about the collateral damage inflicted by imperialism. Only Clooney's character has a larger perspective at first, and even he's bent by a predilection for the main chance. The others are innocents abroad, and that's a vision which can easily end in tears. There is redemption in this film, though, and the soldiers who exchange solemn waves with escaping refugees at the end of Three Kings are men who will live different lives when they return to the States. This is a surprising film, a must-see for everyone interested in the difference between simplistic ideology and the complexity of human experience.
Centurion
(2010)
Another corner of the Roman world brought vividly to life.
5 May 2013
I'm really taken by this film, and recommend it most highly as a gripping evocation of military honour, administrative mendacity, and brutality on the cold northern frontier of the Roman Empire in second- century AD Britain. Neil Marshall directs a cast of wonderfully skilled actors to create the Roman military force, its territorial governor, and the Pict tribe whose territory was overrun by the Romans after Caesar's invasion.
The threads of bureaucratic necessity and military tension in this "***hole of the world" are set powerfully against the Picts' hatred of the conquerors who took their lands, killed their families, and drove them north into the wilds of what is now Scotland.
At the centre of this story is Quintas Dias, the Roman officer who comes to be in the Ninth Legion when it meets its fate on a forest track Michael Fassbender gives a perfectly-sustained performance as the soldier who realises that his task is to locate and rescue the Legion's commanding officer (Dominic West) and then to lead the small band of survivors back to Roman-held territory. The Roman's grudging admiration for the skill and tenacity of his opponents is made more complex by his discovery that the Empire he's sworn to defend is quite capable of betraying its soldiers' loyalty in the name of political expedience. Quintus Dias's final choice will be understood by any viewer who's had to ask where his or her loyalty, and sense of home, truly lies.
The magnificently-filmed landscape of Scotland is a perfect, evocative setting for the military encampments of Picts and Romans, and the journeys of escape and pursuit which criss-cross its northern territory. And the cast's discipline in dealing with the snow, wind, and icy waters, make their quests vivid and tense. Several performances stand out - Fassbinder and West as totally-focused military commanders, David Morrissey and Liam Cunningham as centurions for whom the soldier's life is the only reality, Paul Freeman as a self-serving territorial Governor who longs for Rome, and JJ Feild as a soldier whose calculated self- centredness jeopardizes his own comrades. Ulrich Thomsen, the celtic king Gorlacon, and Olga Kurylenko, the tracker Etain, shine as Picts whose hatred of Rome is relentless, and wholly understandable. I give a salute also to Imogen Poots, who plays the celtic necromancer Arianne with warmth, yearning, and strength - a necessary counterpoint to Kurylenko's demonic intensity. Anyone who values the power and craft of Gladiator will be glad to see Centurion - another journey into the world of Empire which makes clear, in very contemporary ways, the ambiguity of the conqueror's role, and the reasons explaining the hatred felt by those who've been conquered. Well done, Neil Marshall.
The threads of bureaucratic necessity and military tension in this "***hole of the world" are set powerfully against the Picts' hatred of the conquerors who took their lands, killed their families, and drove them north into the wilds of what is now Scotland.
At the centre of this story is Quintas Dias, the Roman officer who comes to be in the Ninth Legion when it meets its fate on a forest track Michael Fassbender gives a perfectly-sustained performance as the soldier who realises that his task is to locate and rescue the Legion's commanding officer (Dominic West) and then to lead the small band of survivors back to Roman-held territory. The Roman's grudging admiration for the skill and tenacity of his opponents is made more complex by his discovery that the Empire he's sworn to defend is quite capable of betraying its soldiers' loyalty in the name of political expedience. Quintus Dias's final choice will be understood by any viewer who's had to ask where his or her loyalty, and sense of home, truly lies.
The magnificently-filmed landscape of Scotland is a perfect, evocative setting for the military encampments of Picts and Romans, and the journeys of escape and pursuit which criss-cross its northern territory. And the cast's discipline in dealing with the snow, wind, and icy waters, make their quests vivid and tense. Several performances stand out - Fassbinder and West as totally-focused military commanders, David Morrissey and Liam Cunningham as centurions for whom the soldier's life is the only reality, Paul Freeman as a self-serving territorial Governor who longs for Rome, and JJ Feild as a soldier whose calculated self- centredness jeopardizes his own comrades. Ulrich Thomsen, the celtic king Gorlacon, and Olga Kurylenko, the tracker Etain, shine as Picts whose hatred of Rome is relentless, and wholly understandable. I give a salute also to Imogen Poots, who plays the celtic necromancer Arianne with warmth, yearning, and strength - a necessary counterpoint to Kurylenko's demonic intensity. Anyone who values the power and craft of Gladiator will be glad to see Centurion - another journey into the world of Empire which makes clear, in very contemporary ways, the ambiguity of the conqueror's role, and the reasons explaining the hatred felt by those who've been conquered. Well done, Neil Marshall.
The Wild Bunch
(1969)
An unsparing vision of the dream of innocence, and of human failure. . . .
19 March 2013
You can ride with a gang that seems to share a rough code of honour, but you'll be pursued by a former friend who's betraying you to stay out of prison. You can try to earn an easy score through the bloody hard work of robbing a bank, or a railroad, and cross the river into the freedom of a country where no law applies to you, but once you've crossed the river you'll be consumed by the chaos that always flourishes in the absence of law. You can try to rescue a friend, but your gesture will be rendered useless by a knife blade's flash. Then, when there's no more running, and nowhere to run to, when you've given your word and found that no one values it, when you've played out your string right to the end, what will you do?
The Wild Bunch is Sam Peckinpah's exploration of that question. An artist who knew and loved life on the land, who knew well, and hated, the corruptions of 'civilization', and was compelled to cross the border into lawless territory, to seek a freedom which his own knowledge could never let him inhabit, Peckinpah made this marvellous film. It's set in a physical and spiritual landscape that any thinking middle-aged man is appallingly familiar with - the world of turning a blind eye to one's own cruelty, of watching one's hopes trashed by malevolence and stupidity, of being betrayed by friends, of fantasizing about the stroke of good luck that will let a man walk away from his compromises and failures.
And Peckinpah's refusal to accept false sentiment reflects a middle-aged man's knowledge that self-interest and cruelty tempt even the very young, that even the powerful dream of being a child again is an illusion promising no peace. The children dream of being as brave and powerful as the adults whose violent actions are so seductively exciting. In the film's penultimate cathartic moment, it's a child who pulls the rifle's trigger. So, in the face of the disintegration of his world, and the impossibility of returning to innocence, what must a man do?
No, the characters in this film are not honourable. But they dream of honourable actions - helping one's countrymen, one's village, one's friends. Yes, the idea of the frontier as an escape, and a new beginning, dies, in a welter of bullets after a man is dragged by technology across the abrasive landscape of his failure to see the consequences of his own actions. But the freedom of the frontier is its uncompromising offer of a chance to assess what's really true about existence. Sam Peckinpah knew that the assessment was the important thing. Death will happen. . . the important thing is to be ready to face death honestly, and so be able to live truly. The Wild Bunch isn't a young person's film, but for people who are ready to live in the minute details of existence faced honestly, ready to face the inevitable truth of death, The Wild Bunch is the necessary film. Peckinpah's clear vision cost him his happiness, and his health, finally, but left the rest of us a tough, miraculous, work of art.
The Wild Bunch is Sam Peckinpah's exploration of that question. An artist who knew and loved life on the land, who knew well, and hated, the corruptions of 'civilization', and was compelled to cross the border into lawless territory, to seek a freedom which his own knowledge could never let him inhabit, Peckinpah made this marvellous film. It's set in a physical and spiritual landscape that any thinking middle-aged man is appallingly familiar with - the world of turning a blind eye to one's own cruelty, of watching one's hopes trashed by malevolence and stupidity, of being betrayed by friends, of fantasizing about the stroke of good luck that will let a man walk away from his compromises and failures.
And Peckinpah's refusal to accept false sentiment reflects a middle-aged man's knowledge that self-interest and cruelty tempt even the very young, that even the powerful dream of being a child again is an illusion promising no peace. The children dream of being as brave and powerful as the adults whose violent actions are so seductively exciting. In the film's penultimate cathartic moment, it's a child who pulls the rifle's trigger. So, in the face of the disintegration of his world, and the impossibility of returning to innocence, what must a man do?
No, the characters in this film are not honourable. But they dream of honourable actions - helping one's countrymen, one's village, one's friends. Yes, the idea of the frontier as an escape, and a new beginning, dies, in a welter of bullets after a man is dragged by technology across the abrasive landscape of his failure to see the consequences of his own actions. But the freedom of the frontier is its uncompromising offer of a chance to assess what's really true about existence. Sam Peckinpah knew that the assessment was the important thing. Death will happen. . . the important thing is to be ready to face death honestly, and so be able to live truly. The Wild Bunch isn't a young person's film, but for people who are ready to live in the minute details of existence faced honestly, ready to face the inevitable truth of death, The Wild Bunch is the necessary film. Peckinpah's clear vision cost him his happiness, and his health, finally, but left the rest of us a tough, miraculous, work of art.
True Grit
(2010)
A nagging question and two wishes that alter my view of True Grit
9 January 2011
Warning: Spoilers
Owning the original, and having looked forward to seeing the new version, I find myself wondering why the Coens rewrote the script to have LaBoeuf live, instead of following the original script and letting him die of the blow to the head administered by Chaney, after guiding his horse to pull Cogburn and Mattie from the snake pit. His death makes the outcome of the journey more bleak - the attempt to bring Chaney to justice costs yet another life - and makes Cogburn's rescue of Mattie especially urgent. It gave extra texture to what had seemed like amusing superficiality in Glenn Campbell's original performance. I wondered whether star-status made the Coens, or their money-men, think "we can't kill Damon off - his public wouldn't accept it." Result: LaBoeuf's presence becomes mere comic relief, and this version of the film is weakened.
I wish Tommy Lee Jones had been given the part rather than Jeff Bridges. Anyone who's seen Lonesome Dove or In the Valley of Elah (or No Country for Old Men) knows that Jones would have made a brilliant Cogburn, free of the Dude-ish baggage which burdens Bridges.
And I wish also that the Coens had used that boarding-house scene from the original in which Mattie, after all her pugnacious bravery, at the livery stable and with Cogburn, cradles her dead father's pocket watch and weeps, becoming a little girl again. Kim Darby made that moment real, and it lent extra power to her resolve when Cogburn and LaBoeuf tried later to ditch her. The Coens let Hailee Steinfeld look sad, but mere sadness isn't enough, and the opportunity was lost.
Much to appreciate and think about in the look of this version, but some sense of the opportunities missed.
I wish Tommy Lee Jones had been given the part rather than Jeff Bridges. Anyone who's seen Lonesome Dove or In the Valley of Elah (or No Country for Old Men) knows that Jones would have made a brilliant Cogburn, free of the Dude-ish baggage which burdens Bridges.
And I wish also that the Coens had used that boarding-house scene from the original in which Mattie, after all her pugnacious bravery, at the livery stable and with Cogburn, cradles her dead father's pocket watch and weeps, becoming a little girl again. Kim Darby made that moment real, and it lent extra power to her resolve when Cogburn and LaBoeuf tried later to ditch her. The Coens let Hailee Steinfeld look sad, but mere sadness isn't enough, and the opportunity was lost.
Much to appreciate and think about in the look of this version, but some sense of the opportunities missed.
Get Carter
(1971)
Mike Hodges and Michael Caine have made a timeless film.
9 August 2010
Jack Carter, the reserved London gangster, travels north to Newcastle, his home town, to find the cause of his brother's death. He's warned by his bosses not to go, but refuses to obey them. We, and he, discover the reasons for the warning, which are intertwined with the details of his brother's fate, and watch Carter's quest for revenge reach its logical conclusion. The underworld life sets a kitschy vision of glamour - music-box decanter sets, flashy bespoke suits, and garishly decorated villas - against the grotty reality of arcade slot machines, pornographic 8mm films, and the claustrophobic grubbiness of Newcastle's industrial tenements. Carter, who prides himself on a style of detached shrewdness, navigates both worlds, until he discovers that they're intertwined, sickeningly. The corruption which provides him his living has tainted his own family. I think the centre of the film is the brilliant moment when Carter sits in bed in the flickering light of a projector, discovering the truth about his world. He weeps, silently, knowing what he must now do. But vengeance is all he knows, and it consumes him.
This story captures with great subtlety the coarse truths about poverty, and crime, which are as true today in Canada and the US as they were forty years ago in England. There's no heroism, no loyalty, no glamour. We feel a kind of sorrowful revulsion at the squalid reality of Carter's world, even as we fear the intensity of his quest for his brother's killers. And we realise we've seen a perfect film of its kind - exceptionally skillful acting, cinematography and editing, bringing to life a taut script. Never again will we fall for the false romanticism of crime.
This story captures with great subtlety the coarse truths about poverty, and crime, which are as true today in Canada and the US as they were forty years ago in England. There's no heroism, no loyalty, no glamour. We feel a kind of sorrowful revulsion at the squalid reality of Carter's world, even as we fear the intensity of his quest for his brother's killers. And we realise we've seen a perfect film of its kind - exceptionally skillful acting, cinematography and editing, bringing to life a taut script. Never again will we fall for the false romanticism of crime.
The Limey
(1999)
"That's the time when I was loved. . ."
20 September 2009
The older we get, the more fascinated we are by time's elasticity, and history's ambiguity. "That moment in my past; what happened, exactly? And when? What did it mean?", we ask ourselves. The answers contain the meaning of our lives, the meaning we yearn to discover. Then, the challenge is to accept the truths revealed to us.
Steven Soderbergh's "The Limey" explores those three questions in a perfectly-filmed-and-edited blend of past action and present recollection. A man sits in the cabin of an airplane, remembering the letter and clipping he received, and the trip to Los Angeles which followed. One question resonates for him: the circumstances of his daughter's fate. 'Tell me about Jenny.' Wilson (Terence Stamp)needed to find out what had happened to his daughter, and flew to L. A. Events unfolded; now he's returning to England, and remembering.
Soderbergh uses the clips from "Poor Cow" (1967) to give Wilson's memories the vivid clarity that our own home movies convey. It's solemn magic to see and hear family members, lovers and friends of thirty years earlier. Alive and present in a living past. Soderbergh understands the importance for Wilson's story of seeing that past as it was, seeing Jenny as she was, so that we can see her charm, share his love for her, and share the urgency of his search.
And its this vivid use of the older film that makes powerfully clear the lesson Wilson discovers. Terry Valentine (Peter Fonda) answers a question, and Wilson realises that the answer he's been seeking lies in his own past. More than one man bears the responsibility for Jenny's fate. It's painful. We understand exactly why Wilson walks away, thoughts of revenge abandoned.
Some elements of the film lie outside Wilson's memory. Avery (Barry Newman), Terry Valentine's 'security director' hires Stacy (the superbly dangerous Nicky Katt) to deal with Wilson, and the sequences of pursuit are aspects we don't share with the English visitor. A formalist might ask how we can know about Stacy if Wilson doesn't, until they meet in a parking lot, but it's insignificant, because the flow of the story is so clear, and the plot details intertwined so cleverly.
Soderbergh's editing, with the overlaps, repetitions, and shifts from present to past, is the basis of that intertwining. He's created a convincing model of the way our memories work when we reflect on our lives - significant moments keep returning, being viewed from shifting perspectives, so that what seemed puzzling becomes clear; what seemed random now reveals its connection to our own choices.
I admire also the ways in which Soderbergh has cut moments of action to create the film's jarring rhythm of shock and stunned stillness. Violence erupts, planned and unplanned, and we know right away that we don't understand what's happened. It'll take time and much mulling over to discover the meaning of what we've experienced.
At film's end, we're back on the airplane with Wilson, wondering whether he can accept what he's learned. He seems not to; in the politeness of a brief conversation with the woman seated beside him, he says " I shouldn't have been there. It was these other lads should have been there in my place." Wilson's talking about prison, but to us it sounds as though he doesn't want to take responsibility for what's happened to his daughter, as if someone else was really to blame. That effort to dodge the implications of his own behaviour is the criminal's protective strategy, and it's reinforced with great irony when the young Wilson sings 'Colours' in the film's last frames. "Freedom is a word I rarely use without thinking of the time when I was loved". Wilson was loved, but he couldn't accept the responsibility that love entailed, and he's implicated in the death of someone who loved him. Now he's alone, high above the earth, in the pressurised tube of a transatlantic jet, forever about to land, never quite free of his past, trapped in the loneliness of his own making.
Steven Soderbergh's "The Limey" explores those three questions in a perfectly-filmed-and-edited blend of past action and present recollection. A man sits in the cabin of an airplane, remembering the letter and clipping he received, and the trip to Los Angeles which followed. One question resonates for him: the circumstances of his daughter's fate. 'Tell me about Jenny.' Wilson (Terence Stamp)needed to find out what had happened to his daughter, and flew to L. A. Events unfolded; now he's returning to England, and remembering.
Soderbergh uses the clips from "Poor Cow" (1967) to give Wilson's memories the vivid clarity that our own home movies convey. It's solemn magic to see and hear family members, lovers and friends of thirty years earlier. Alive and present in a living past. Soderbergh understands the importance for Wilson's story of seeing that past as it was, seeing Jenny as she was, so that we can see her charm, share his love for her, and share the urgency of his search.
And its this vivid use of the older film that makes powerfully clear the lesson Wilson discovers. Terry Valentine (Peter Fonda) answers a question, and Wilson realises that the answer he's been seeking lies in his own past. More than one man bears the responsibility for Jenny's fate. It's painful. We understand exactly why Wilson walks away, thoughts of revenge abandoned.
Some elements of the film lie outside Wilson's memory. Avery (Barry Newman), Terry Valentine's 'security director' hires Stacy (the superbly dangerous Nicky Katt) to deal with Wilson, and the sequences of pursuit are aspects we don't share with the English visitor. A formalist might ask how we can know about Stacy if Wilson doesn't, until they meet in a parking lot, but it's insignificant, because the flow of the story is so clear, and the plot details intertwined so cleverly.
Soderbergh's editing, with the overlaps, repetitions, and shifts from present to past, is the basis of that intertwining. He's created a convincing model of the way our memories work when we reflect on our lives - significant moments keep returning, being viewed from shifting perspectives, so that what seemed puzzling becomes clear; what seemed random now reveals its connection to our own choices.
I admire also the ways in which Soderbergh has cut moments of action to create the film's jarring rhythm of shock and stunned stillness. Violence erupts, planned and unplanned, and we know right away that we don't understand what's happened. It'll take time and much mulling over to discover the meaning of what we've experienced.
At film's end, we're back on the airplane with Wilson, wondering whether he can accept what he's learned. He seems not to; in the politeness of a brief conversation with the woman seated beside him, he says " I shouldn't have been there. It was these other lads should have been there in my place." Wilson's talking about prison, but to us it sounds as though he doesn't want to take responsibility for what's happened to his daughter, as if someone else was really to blame. That effort to dodge the implications of his own behaviour is the criminal's protective strategy, and it's reinforced with great irony when the young Wilson sings 'Colours' in the film's last frames. "Freedom is a word I rarely use without thinking of the time when I was loved". Wilson was loved, but he couldn't accept the responsibility that love entailed, and he's implicated in the death of someone who loved him. Now he's alone, high above the earth, in the pressurised tube of a transatlantic jet, forever about to land, never quite free of his past, trapped in the loneliness of his own making.
Saving Private Ryan
(1998)
Years later, the propaganda emerges more clearly. . .
19 September 2009
I saw "Saving Private Ryan" in a theatre in its first release, and still watch it five or six times a year, for all sorts of reasons. Eleven years later, I'm starting to know more clearly what I'd like to say about this important film.
First, the mastery of cinematic technique shown by Steven Spielberg and his entire production crew is still exciting, and moving to me. A viewer's sense of being on the Normandy beach, panic-stricken in the thick of the chaotic energy, has not been dissipated by ten years of other films' computer effects and three-second jump cuts. The randomness of events, on the beach and after, is a kind of nightmare in a ruined pastoral landscape, and clarifies each soldier's need to withdraw to a sense of what to do, right now, to stay alive - right up to the moment when the impulse to take care of a friend, or a child, overrules common sense and the discipline of self-preservation.
Second, though, I'm more saddened every year by the myopic focus on American myth-making which Mr Spielberg embraced. He's made a wholly self-centred film about D-Day, and a generation of moviegoers will never know from this movie that the British, Canadian, Australian, and other Allied troops were landing up and down the French coast at the same moment. The Canadians, in fact, advanced considerably farther inland than the Americans that day, under equally heavy fire. Tom Hank's character mentions British Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery leading his troops toward Germany; Ted Danson's character says "That guy's overrated!" and Hanks's character says "No argument from me." That's the total mention of the Allied participation in the invasion, and Montgomery's stature in defeating the Germans in North Africa a year earlier is erased for a whole generation of film goers, even though his excellent leadership in North Africa earned him command of the British troops on June 6th. The omissions, and flip judgments reflect badly on the scriptwriter, and on Mr Spielberg.
Third, the halo of sanctity which this film bestows on the members of the special mission has become cloying. The soldiers of this film seem to me to justify an American myth of charming immaturity, and "Saving Private Ryan" dodges completely the documented ways in which American soldiers' unpreparedness during and after the invasion was an acknowledged problem during the last year of the war, especially in the Battle of the Bulge, when American troops collapsed in the face of the German attacks.
I'm realising that, for me, "Saving Private Ryan" clashes seriously with the historical record, and that in this sense, it's a meretricious fantasy, however grippingly filmed. I'll still watch it, and feel the adrenaline flow on the beach, below the machine-gun nest, and in front of the bridge, but I won't subscribe to the myths.
First, the mastery of cinematic technique shown by Steven Spielberg and his entire production crew is still exciting, and moving to me. A viewer's sense of being on the Normandy beach, panic-stricken in the thick of the chaotic energy, has not been dissipated by ten years of other films' computer effects and three-second jump cuts. The randomness of events, on the beach and after, is a kind of nightmare in a ruined pastoral landscape, and clarifies each soldier's need to withdraw to a sense of what to do, right now, to stay alive - right up to the moment when the impulse to take care of a friend, or a child, overrules common sense and the discipline of self-preservation.
Second, though, I'm more saddened every year by the myopic focus on American myth-making which Mr Spielberg embraced. He's made a wholly self-centred film about D-Day, and a generation of moviegoers will never know from this movie that the British, Canadian, Australian, and other Allied troops were landing up and down the French coast at the same moment. The Canadians, in fact, advanced considerably farther inland than the Americans that day, under equally heavy fire. Tom Hank's character mentions British Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery leading his troops toward Germany; Ted Danson's character says "That guy's overrated!" and Hanks's character says "No argument from me." That's the total mention of the Allied participation in the invasion, and Montgomery's stature in defeating the Germans in North Africa a year earlier is erased for a whole generation of film goers, even though his excellent leadership in North Africa earned him command of the British troops on June 6th. The omissions, and flip judgments reflect badly on the scriptwriter, and on Mr Spielberg.
Third, the halo of sanctity which this film bestows on the members of the special mission has become cloying. The soldiers of this film seem to me to justify an American myth of charming immaturity, and "Saving Private Ryan" dodges completely the documented ways in which American soldiers' unpreparedness during and after the invasion was an acknowledged problem during the last year of the war, especially in the Battle of the Bulge, when American troops collapsed in the face of the German attacks.
I'm realising that, for me, "Saving Private Ryan" clashes seriously with the historical record, and that in this sense, it's a meretricious fantasy, however grippingly filmed. I'll still watch it, and feel the adrenaline flow on the beach, below the machine-gun nest, and in front of the bridge, but I won't subscribe to the myths.
The Friends of Eddie Coyle
(1973)
A time capsule, superbly performed.
18 September 2009
I had to watch the new Criterion DVD release of "The Friends of Eddie Coyle" a couple of times before I could stop comparing it to the novel I've been re-reading for thirty-seven years, and see it clearly. Verdict: excellent, bringing to life the relentless deceptions of everyday life in a criminal context where every 'friend' takes care of himself first, and where there's truly no honour among thieves. The '70s landscape is perfectly filmed, and if the low-key tempo bothers some viewers it may be because their viewing metabolism has been artificially juiced by the quick cuts and big bangs of contemporary action pictures. The methodical unfolding of the bank robberies, the gun-running, and the negotiations with a federal agent to keep out of jail, take place in what feels like real time. When violent action occurs it jars even more because it ends in an instant, with unsuspecting citizens walking or driving past who have no idea that something's been stolen, someone's arrested, someone's dead.
Robert Mitchum's effortlessly modulated performance is a gift to the other actors; his generosity in underplaying Eddie Coyle's dim desperation enhances the power of the characters created by Peter Boyle, Steven Keats, Richard Jordan, Alex Rocco and Joe Santos, and gives the film a rare balance of distinctly different personalities.
One small protest: the novel's been compressed, and the nature of the final betrayal altered. I think the book's plot point works better, and shouldn't have been cut to save five minutes' running time. That's a reader's complaint, though. The film brings to life, unforgettably, the shoddy world of cops and robbers, in one time and place. It's a period masterpiece - thank goodness it's come to life again.
Robert Mitchum's effortlessly modulated performance is a gift to the other actors; his generosity in underplaying Eddie Coyle's dim desperation enhances the power of the characters created by Peter Boyle, Steven Keats, Richard Jordan, Alex Rocco and Joe Santos, and gives the film a rare balance of distinctly different personalities.
One small protest: the novel's been compressed, and the nature of the final betrayal altered. I think the book's plot point works better, and shouldn't have been cut to save five minutes' running time. That's a reader's complaint, though. The film brings to life, unforgettably, the shoddy world of cops and robbers, in one time and place. It's a period masterpiece - thank goodness it's come to life again.
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
(1988)
I break up just thinking about Ruprecht, the young prince!,
14 September 2008
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is a comedy with impeccably graceful pace, and inspired characters, made brilliant by the zany energy of Steve Martin playing against the suave craftiness of Michael Caine. Certain moments, especially the first visit to Ruprecht, and the examination technique of Dr Emil Schoffhausen, get me absolutely screaming with laughter every time I watch the film - in fact, every time I think about them! But the perfection of the cast - notably Anton Rogers's laconic police chief, Ian McDiarmid's long-suffering butler, and Barbara Harris's 'Lady Fanny of Omaha' - and the lighthearted beauty of the Mediterranean landscape, are added aspects of the film's perfection. It's a masterpiece of the genre, and you'll watch it with increasing pleasure for the rest of your life.
Burn After Reading
(2008)
Too clumsy; too bleak; ultimately disappointing.
14 September 2008
Saw the film last night. Wondered why no one's commented on the unfunny reliance on the f-bomb rather than on more skillful dialogue revealing the characters' self-centredness. Wondered why no one's mentioned the deep unpleasantness of two characters meeting violent on-screen deaths which are meant, apparently, to make the audience laugh uproariously. Really couldn't figure out why the only character with a heartfelt sense of loving attraction to another human being meets a gratuitously nasty end. Decided, finally, that in this case the Coen Brothers have gone tone-deaf. They seem to think that graphic violence is just a kind of entertaining energy. They've lost touch with what's truly amusing about egocentric naiveté. And they've forgotten that an audience tricked into laughing at violence, anger. and stupidity ultimately feels manipulated rather than entertained. I heard last night's audience grow increasingly confused, and uncomfortable, when trying to decide how they were expected to respond to the bleakness of the moral landscape of the film. Intolerable Cruelty shows that the Coen Brothers know how to write and direct screwball comedy; Burn After Reading is evidence that they've missed the mark this time. It's as though they've stopped being interested in the humanity of other human beings.
Closing the Ring
(2007)
Older audiences will understand this film.
4 September 2008
The story of love lost to death during the second world war will never be tiresome for anyone whose family was touched by the war. The question is, can writers and actors still make the story real? For those of us in the audience tonight at The Screening Room in Kingston, watching Closing the Ring, the answer was a very satisfying 'yes'. Young actors were able to create the unselfconscious optimism and sense of honour of their 1940s counterparts heading off to war; the older cast members knew exactly how to portray the knowledge, understanding, and forgiveness that the present-day characters had learnt from their wartime experience, and kept in with such punishing self-control. If you don't like this film, I suspect you're under thirty. I'd suggest you prepare to discover its truth, and its very fine acting, in your later age. And be thankful if you're not on the verge of great loss in your youth. But then our soldiers are fighting and dying overseas as I write; perhaps young Ethel Anns and Teddys are making promises to each other at this very moment. In that case, open yourself to the possibility that this story might be about to unfold in your own life, even as you reject its apparent unreality.
Downhill Racer
(1969)
The pursuit of success - this time, on the mountain.
12 October 2007
Downhill Racer is about Olympic skiing, but it's also about American society, and about how sport gives the illusion of being an escape from the loneliness of being undereducated.
Dave Chappellet (Robert Redford) grew up in the isolation of rural Colorado, where the career option after high school is working on a ranch or going to Denver to take a hairdressing course. His talent on skis has earned him a call to the US national ski team as a replacement after one of the members fractures his leg in a European race. When he arrives in Germany after what seems to have been his first airplane flight, he meets his new roommate, a Dartmouth graduate, one of several team members from that same Eastern undergraduate world.
Chappellet remains cautious and defensive as he tries to navigate the manners, attitudes, and values of the team and of the European civilization he encounters. He's made even more prickly by the code of team play which he's required to accept from his demanding coach, Eugene Clair (Gene Hackman). Clair believes that good sportsmanship and team solidarity are the basis for success in international skiing, and that's important because success is what will achieve financial support for the team from American business. But Chappellet refuses to play the sportsmanship game - partly because he knows he can't speak the Ivy League language his teammates have mastered, and partly because he knows that winning is the only way he'll stay on the team, and Clair's concept of sportsmanship won't help him win, any more than would the attitude or values of Chappellet's embittered father back in Colorado. Dave Chappellet know he's going to have to ski his own race, always.
Downhill Racer features a variety of exciting ski races filmed and edited with great skill, and they reveal very powerfully that, in the midst of all the thousands of spectators, each skier is alone on the mountain, and that winning comes from a combination of relentless focus and arbitrary fortune. With this truth presented so clearly and compellingly, Chappellet's refusal to play his coach's game is validated. On race day he has to ski faster than anyone else. No one else can help him. And neither will membership in the right club (or school, or social background). He has to do it on his own.
But being on your own is very lonely. Chappellet begins to want to belong, and chases after a kind of club membership in Europe, pursuing the very attractively worldly Carole Stahl (Camilla Sparv), executive assistant to a German ski manufacturer. He catches her because he's becoming famous, and thus useful, but discovers that he's not important to her. He's a pleasant diversion, but he can be discarded as easily as a pair of gloves. He receives praise from his coach, but only after winning races. Until he wins, he's the target of Clair's angry lectures about not thinking of the good of the team. Hackman's strangled speech and look of frustrated disgust as he berates the uncooperative Redford for having taken an unacceptable risk after practice create a high-water mark in American film acting, as does the surly self-centredness of Redford's response.
At the end of the movie, narrowly dodging defeat in the most important race in his career, Chappellet is hoisted on the crowd's shoulders in a frozen moment of apparent triumph. But only one value exists - winning. And his win is already history. There's no love in it, no acceptance more profound than his coach's praise, the crowd's shouts of excitement. And tomorrow's winner is already eyeing him in an unspoken challenge. Dave Chappellet is going to be skiing down this mountain alone for the rest of his life.
Looking back across nearly forty years to watch this excellent film, we can already begin to hear the question asked by Robert Redford's character in The Candidate, "What happens next?" The answer may be bleak - more competition, more loneliness - but the film helps us discover the answer in a fascinating way, because it puts us on those skis, rushing at impossible speed down the mountain, in a cocoon of our own heartbeats, our own laboured breathing. We're forced to ask ourselves, "Would we make the team? Would we win? And if we did, would it mean anything?"
Dave Chappellet (Robert Redford) grew up in the isolation of rural Colorado, where the career option after high school is working on a ranch or going to Denver to take a hairdressing course. His talent on skis has earned him a call to the US national ski team as a replacement after one of the members fractures his leg in a European race. When he arrives in Germany after what seems to have been his first airplane flight, he meets his new roommate, a Dartmouth graduate, one of several team members from that same Eastern undergraduate world.
Chappellet remains cautious and defensive as he tries to navigate the manners, attitudes, and values of the team and of the European civilization he encounters. He's made even more prickly by the code of team play which he's required to accept from his demanding coach, Eugene Clair (Gene Hackman). Clair believes that good sportsmanship and team solidarity are the basis for success in international skiing, and that's important because success is what will achieve financial support for the team from American business. But Chappellet refuses to play the sportsmanship game - partly because he knows he can't speak the Ivy League language his teammates have mastered, and partly because he knows that winning is the only way he'll stay on the team, and Clair's concept of sportsmanship won't help him win, any more than would the attitude or values of Chappellet's embittered father back in Colorado. Dave Chappellet know he's going to have to ski his own race, always.
Downhill Racer features a variety of exciting ski races filmed and edited with great skill, and they reveal very powerfully that, in the midst of all the thousands of spectators, each skier is alone on the mountain, and that winning comes from a combination of relentless focus and arbitrary fortune. With this truth presented so clearly and compellingly, Chappellet's refusal to play his coach's game is validated. On race day he has to ski faster than anyone else. No one else can help him. And neither will membership in the right club (or school, or social background). He has to do it on his own.
But being on your own is very lonely. Chappellet begins to want to belong, and chases after a kind of club membership in Europe, pursuing the very attractively worldly Carole Stahl (Camilla Sparv), executive assistant to a German ski manufacturer. He catches her because he's becoming famous, and thus useful, but discovers that he's not important to her. He's a pleasant diversion, but he can be discarded as easily as a pair of gloves. He receives praise from his coach, but only after winning races. Until he wins, he's the target of Clair's angry lectures about not thinking of the good of the team. Hackman's strangled speech and look of frustrated disgust as he berates the uncooperative Redford for having taken an unacceptable risk after practice create a high-water mark in American film acting, as does the surly self-centredness of Redford's response.
At the end of the movie, narrowly dodging defeat in the most important race in his career, Chappellet is hoisted on the crowd's shoulders in a frozen moment of apparent triumph. But only one value exists - winning. And his win is already history. There's no love in it, no acceptance more profound than his coach's praise, the crowd's shouts of excitement. And tomorrow's winner is already eyeing him in an unspoken challenge. Dave Chappellet is going to be skiing down this mountain alone for the rest of his life.
Looking back across nearly forty years to watch this excellent film, we can already begin to hear the question asked by Robert Redford's character in The Candidate, "What happens next?" The answer may be bleak - more competition, more loneliness - but the film helps us discover the answer in a fascinating way, because it puts us on those skis, rushing at impossible speed down the mountain, in a cocoon of our own heartbeats, our own laboured breathing. We're forced to ask ourselves, "Would we make the team? Would we win? And if we did, would it mean anything?"
Winter Kills
(1979)
The novel deserved a mini-series - the film's too compressed.
11 December 2006
Richard Condon's novel takes all the conflicting theories about who murdered John Kennedy - the Cubans, the Mob, a lone assassin - and ties them together with a satirical vision of the real motives for that epochal killing. The book is a black vision of American society's values and energies in the '60s and a stimulating read for anyone who remembers the craziness of those years. The film, released in 1979, is necessarily compressed, and so the various threads pursued by Jeff Bridges, playing the half-brother of the dead President Keegan, are less clear and allusive as echoes of what might have happened to Kennedy, and so less interesting. If this story were made as a multi-hour miniseries, with all the (as it turns out, misleading) visions of what really happened given the detail that Condon created for the novel, then both the book and its cinematic adaptation would be better-known. In spite of skilled and nuanced performances by all the cast members, especially Bridges and John Huston, the real horror of the assassination and its aftermath aren't given sufficient satirical power in the film. Still, it's worth watching. Then, you must read the novel.
The Queen
(2006)
An intriguing blend of character perspectives.
6 November 2006
A new prime minister who feels sympathy for his monarch's fustiness, and saves her from the consequences of her reserve; a royal family happy to be rid of an unseemly daughter-in-law; a prince hoping that his mother will realise the cost of withheld affection; a speech-writer angling to give his boss leverage over the guardians of conservatism and privilege. A queen who feels more sympathetic regard for a hunted stag than for her hunted former daughter-in-law, and is shocked to her core by the discovery that her subjects' love has turned to suspicion and scorn. "The Queen" imagines the interplay of feeling among the residents of Buckingham Palace, Balmoral Castle, and 10 Downing Street, during that late summer week in 1997 when a car crash in Paris punctuated the grim second act of the royal story that began as a fairytale engagement and marriage in 1981. We see a literal application of correct funerary protocol driving a huge, and unexpected, wedge between the English royal family and its subjects. We see a Prime Minister, flushed by the success of his new vision for Britain, and bolstered by his iconoclastic wife, regarding his Queen at first as a relic of the past he's received a mandate to revitalize, then working to save her from the consequences of her seeming coldness, and finally coming to admire her powers of discernment and endurance. We see the loneliness within a family taught for generations to perform the role of calm, dispassionate leadership by example, but never allowed (and never allowing itself) to reveal true inner feeling. One thing made clear to me by the film: Diana's gift of apparent naturalness and emotional honesty, which endeared her to millions of people, were perceived as unworthy of her station, by many others. The public response to her death was regarded by many upper-class Britons as confirmation of the public's emotional instability and a predictably tacky empathy for her own excess of sentimentalism. These feelings were manifest in the royal family's behaviour at the time. What they did not realise was the depth of loving admiration which Diana had kindled in peoples' hearts during her marriage, and the depth of sorrowful loss which her death created. So their adherence to strict protocol - the death of a former family member was to be grieved privately and without show - caused their subjects to judge them as cold and cruel. The Prime Minister knew that the moment was altogether more significant, and pivotal. He counselled an acknowledgement of the immense public grief, and his counsel saved the queen's stature. It's altogether admirable that the excellence of the film's performances, especially those of Helen Mirren and Michael Sheen, take us back inside this time, not so long ago, in which a young woman's death transfixed the western world, and an ancient and respected institution was, for a time, distrusted and almost despised by the very public on whom it depended for its authority.
The stage comes alive on film: the play reaches a new audience.
31 October 2006
What a supremely expert and well-balanced cast, and what a beautiful capturing on film of the experience of watching an excellent play production. I say 'beautiful' although the pain of a son's disappearance in the Pacific three years earlier, and the events of two families' lives since then, are overwhelmingly painful to an audience.
I used this production for eighteen years while teaching All My Sons to senior high school Dramatic Arts students, and have seen it make them weep with sorrow and understanding at each playing. The ensemble virtuosity of Michael Learned, James Whitmore, Aidan Quinn, and Joan Allen motivated my students more powerfully than any other examples of acting which I was able to provide for them.
I have had the pleasure of paying my compliments in person to Layne Coleman, who plays neighbour Frank Lubey, when he was performing in David Mamet's "Oleanna" in Kingston, and to Michael Learned when she was in Toronto performing on stage in Edward Albee's "Three Women". Miss Learned told me that her performance as Kate Keller in this production was the work for television of which she was most proud. I still wish for an opportunity to pass this praise along to Mr Quinn and Miss Allen.
Watch this production of "All My Sons" to see the way in which the forms and energies of classical tragedy - the 'disease', the search for a healing act, the faith in the stars, the power of Nemesis - are blended seamlessly with a Shakespearean understanding of the failure of human imagination. Watch to see a cluster of actors at the height of their powers who achieve the miracle of making a work of art new half a century after its creation.
I used this production for eighteen years while teaching All My Sons to senior high school Dramatic Arts students, and have seen it make them weep with sorrow and understanding at each playing. The ensemble virtuosity of Michael Learned, James Whitmore, Aidan Quinn, and Joan Allen motivated my students more powerfully than any other examples of acting which I was able to provide for them.
I have had the pleasure of paying my compliments in person to Layne Coleman, who plays neighbour Frank Lubey, when he was performing in David Mamet's "Oleanna" in Kingston, and to Michael Learned when she was in Toronto performing on stage in Edward Albee's "Three Women". Miss Learned told me that her performance as Kate Keller in this production was the work for television of which she was most proud. I still wish for an opportunity to pass this praise along to Mr Quinn and Miss Allen.
Watch this production of "All My Sons" to see the way in which the forms and energies of classical tragedy - the 'disease', the search for a healing act, the faith in the stars, the power of Nemesis - are blended seamlessly with a Shakespearean understanding of the failure of human imagination. Watch to see a cluster of actors at the height of their powers who achieve the miracle of making a work of art new half a century after its creation.
Flashpoint
(1984)
come for the plot-decoding challenge; stay for the characterizations.
12 September 2006
Eight hundred thousand dollars buried in desert sand in a wrecked Jeep just might be a ticket out of a Border Patrol job turning more bureaucratic and stifling by the moment. Agents Kris Kristofferson and Treat Williams try to find where the dollars, and the Jeep, and its dead driver,have come from. They'd like to split with the money and escape the irritating changes about to drive them off the Texas desert they know so well, but honesty and curiosity compel them to make sure the money's not tainted. Federal agent Kurtwood Smith, in from Washington knowing all the answers full well, has other plans for them.
I saw this film in its first release in 1984, and admired the way in which the script explored nuances of the conspiracy-fuelled '60s in American society and politics. I also liked the skill with which the script dropped hints and clues that, by film's end, were perfectly clear and coherent - a pleasing adjunct to the major puzzle of the decade. But in the years of watching it since, I've come to like best the acting skills which the cast, ably directed, demonstrate with texture and charm. Kristofferson and Williams are among the most appealing buddies you'll find in any thriller - in fact I can't think of a better pair; they complement each other as well as Al Pacino and John Goodman do in Sea of Love, and that's the highest praise I can offer. I can't think why Kristofferson and Williams (or Pacino and Goodman, for that matter) haven't been paired again by an enterprising producer. Jean Smart and Tess Harper are equally charming and nuanced in smaller roles made large by Smart's fiery energy and Harper's thoughtful attractiveness. Miguel Ferrer and Guy Boyd are perfect as a pair of amiably corrupt colleagues. On the dark side, Smith and Patrol boss Kevin Conway, as well as "Department of Public Safety" (ie. Texas Ranger) marshal Rip Torn, show how true villains are simply focused career men who believe implacably in the warped values they've espoused. Torn, at least, has the grace to change. At the end, he makes a statement to Kristofferson which might be our beacon too, our rationale for keeping up the search for truth in this lie-filled first decade of the new century: Looking back at his own choices, and forward to Kristofferson's tense future, Torn barks "Do it! Be the one who got away! Whatever happens, should've happened years ago." A very fine action film, remarkably well-performed.
I saw this film in its first release in 1984, and admired the way in which the script explored nuances of the conspiracy-fuelled '60s in American society and politics. I also liked the skill with which the script dropped hints and clues that, by film's end, were perfectly clear and coherent - a pleasing adjunct to the major puzzle of the decade. But in the years of watching it since, I've come to like best the acting skills which the cast, ably directed, demonstrate with texture and charm. Kristofferson and Williams are among the most appealing buddies you'll find in any thriller - in fact I can't think of a better pair; they complement each other as well as Al Pacino and John Goodman do in Sea of Love, and that's the highest praise I can offer. I can't think why Kristofferson and Williams (or Pacino and Goodman, for that matter) haven't been paired again by an enterprising producer. Jean Smart and Tess Harper are equally charming and nuanced in smaller roles made large by Smart's fiery energy and Harper's thoughtful attractiveness. Miguel Ferrer and Guy Boyd are perfect as a pair of amiably corrupt colleagues. On the dark side, Smith and Patrol boss Kevin Conway, as well as "Department of Public Safety" (ie. Texas Ranger) marshal Rip Torn, show how true villains are simply focused career men who believe implacably in the warped values they've espoused. Torn, at least, has the grace to change. At the end, he makes a statement to Kristofferson which might be our beacon too, our rationale for keeping up the search for truth in this lie-filled first decade of the new century: Looking back at his own choices, and forward to Kristofferson's tense future, Torn barks "Do it! Be the one who got away! Whatever happens, should've happened years ago." A very fine action film, remarkably well-performed.
Havana
(I) (1990)
A pleasingly subtle depiction of the pain, and nobility, of all sorts of revolutions.
13 December 2005
Warning: Spoilers
In this extremely underrated 1990 film the worn glamour of gambler Jack Weill, played with expert subtlety by Robert Redford, is a perfect echo of the attractive corruption of Havana on the brink of the 1959 Cuban revolution. Locked in the pursuit of his big game, "with guys who don't even think how much they're playing for", Redford's character is unapologetically self-centred. "How many guys do you know who are really crude?" he asks with a charming leer. But Jack is drawn into a different climate of feeling when he encounters the earnest, committed revolutionary social consciences of Roberta and Alberto Duran, played flawlessly by Lena Olin and the uncredited Raoul Julia. Jack falls in love with Roberta, and begins to commit himself to a world larger than the circumference of his poker table. The betrayals and cruelties of the Batista regime are echoed in miniature around that table, and we can see Jack's growing understanding that, however he avoided it in the past, his world is indeed political, filled with kinds of suffering and commitment that he can't avoid any longer. When he makes his choices, and lives with the consequences, we watch the brave sadness of a man who knows that if he'd faced then what he understands now, he might have won. The excellent performances by Alan Arkin, a perfect illustration of the world to which Jack once aspired, and Tony Plana, as the Cuban reporter who yearns to be brave enough to act on his knowledge, expand the textured subtlety of this picture.
Why was the film spurned in the US when it first appeared? I have to think that American audiences found it difficult to accept a film presenting both a sympathetic presentation of Castro's revolution and a clear condemnation of covert CIA support for Batista's government. Jack Weill's story is a parable of the pain and glory of growing up. That's a process that American audiences seem unwilling to face.
Why was the film spurned in the US when it first appeared? I have to think that American audiences found it difficult to accept a film presenting both a sympathetic presentation of Castro's revolution and a clear condemnation of covert CIA support for Batista's government. Jack Weill's story is a parable of the pain and glory of growing up. That's a process that American audiences seem unwilling to face.
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