Icebox Movies

The Pursuit of Happiness (1968) by Thomas Rogers

2012-02-05T23:50:00.000-08:00

The Pursuit of Happiness was written by American novelist Thomas Rogers in 1968, and was subsequently adapted into a 1971 feature film directed by Robert Mulligan. In this post, I will cover the book's individual chapters.

Dedication

This novel is dedicated to Elizabeth Vinsohaler Rogers and Thomas Hunton Rogers with the author's filial love.

Quote

There is a general assumption that the manner of a man's life is a clue to what he on reflection regards as the good - in other words happiness.

ARISTOTLE, Nichomachean Ethics I. v

Part One
LIFE

Chapter 1

Spring began with an unseasonal blizzard. Michigan City, Indiana, received a record snowfall and the South Side of Chicago was blanketed under seven inches. It was wet snow. Along 55th Street it turned to black slush and by the next day the gutters were running in streams. On that day of galoshes and rubbers and wet feet, Mrs. Thwett visited her nephew, William Popper.

Mrs. Thwett comes over to chat with her nephew, William Popper. They have some conversations about how she disapproves of the girl he's seeing, Jane Kauffmann, who is a Faulkner fan but, much to the aunt's disapproval, doesn't ever bother to clean up the place. The aunt claims Jane is unattractive, which is untrue; in fact, for the longest time, William didn't even notice her beauty until others began checking her out. They have some conversations about how William's father ought to divorce his mother, but that he shouldn't move into his own housing developments because it would be an insult to his wealth. Williams says of his father, "We have a fine relationship."

After Mrs. Thwett leaves, Jane comes over, and she and William talk about how they have no real causes to endorse. "These are reactionary times," William complains. "There aren't any good political forces to join." During their conversations, Jane begins calling William "Bill" (as Rogers writes, She called him Bill when they were making love and when they were arguing), because she's uncomfortable with his suggestions that they get married. The way William sees it, they're both 21, and not getting any younger.

Like Mrs. Thwett, Jane has some racial prejudices, although where Mrs. Thwett dislikes "Negroes," Jane dislikes Muslims.

They are interrupted by the drunken Melvin Lasher, who comes over to tell them the outline of a movie he's planning on making but then stumbles back out into the snowy distance. The chapter ends with William trying to get Jane to admit her father is "fat-assed" and her brother is "skinny-assed"; he disapproves of both of them, before they decide they won't let Melvin in again and will simply leave his whiskey bottle outside for him. In his best W.C. Fields voice, William concludes, "Nice guys finish last."

Chapter 2

While driving on his way to Flossmoor to see his father, William's car skids on an icy road and accidentally kills a woman named Mrs. Verne Conroy. When he tells the police he has no insurance, the cop sneers, "You're in deep." They find 20 unpaid parking tickets in his glove compartment and, on the backseat, a copy of Victor Serge's Memoirs of a Revolutionary.

At the police station, he first calls Jane, who is all but speechless. He then calls his father, who in turn calls his lawyer, Daniel Lawrence, who arrives with a bondsman named Mr. Rabin. William and Lawrence join William's father in his limousine. Lawrence is concerned when William says he didn't "cry" at the scene of the accident, and says, "That's bad." Lawrence is also displeased that he called Jane at the police station, and continues ridiculing William for not crying.

"There's a woman dead," said Mr. Lawrence.
"I know."
"I wish you had shown that you knew."
"By crying?"
"There's nothing shameful about crying," said Mr. Lawrence. "I cry myself on occasions."
"Do you?"
"I do."
"Well, I don't feel like crying. I feel horrified."
"I'm gratified to hear that," said Mr. Lawrence.
"Really, Daniel!" said Mr. Popper. "William has had a shock."

Mr. Lawrence warns William and his dad not to interact with the victim's family, and that William should show some remorse at the trial and expect a charge for involuntary manslaughter. Then, Mr. Lawrence hops out to catch a cab, while William sneers that he hope he doesn't catch one.

At his father's house, William and his dad have dinner over two bottles of red wine, and the dad drinks to the memory of the victim even though William doesn't feel like talking about her. The dad tries to sympathize with William's failure to cry. They also talk about the dad's plans to move into his housing development in Concord, which is in a natural setting. The dad says William shouldn't feel too guilty about his accident, since worse things have happened in the war, adding, "That's why it seems to me so important to live close to nature. One wants to feel there is something permanent."

William takes a train back to Chicago and joins Jane in his own apartment; she sits on the edge of her bed, he slides into an armchair and tells her about the accident. They have sex for 25 minutes and he walks her back to her dorm. Down below, he leans against a fence in the darkness but is then briefly interrogated by a campus guard, who writes down his university identification and then snaps, "Don't let me catch you hanging around here anymore."

Chapter 3

Mrs. Thwett goes to visit William's grandmother, Mrs. Popper, who suspects William's victim was a drunken Irish woman and that she must have been at fault for her own death. She demands the police do a blood test on her corpse "before the priests have time to destroy the evidence."

William's mother writes to him, telling him that God has a purpose for everything people do. She writes to him that she's sending him a painting and that her teacher, "Mr. Serapion," is teaching her to be more free in her work.

William teases Jane about the accident, comparing what he did to the poems of T.S. Eliot. This gets on her nerves.

"It's a simple question of style. Within the guiding lines of tradition, each individual works out his own style of destruction. For instance, suicide. Some students shy away from killing other people. They are withdrawn, you might say. They avoid face-to-face contact with their victims - except in the mirror. They jump out of windows or take poison. Others, like myself, lead sloppy lives. We skid into our victims. Style is the man, Jane. Nothing is accidental. You've read my mother's letter."
"Stop it!" Jane said.
William stopped.
"That poor woman's dead."
"I know," he said. "It's hard to believe."
"Well, she is."
"I know."

To show remorse, William decides to go against the advice of his lawyer and pay a visit to the Conroys. Jane says she'll come with him and wait outside, but won't go into the house - which is a wooden bungalow with plastic-stone facing.

There, William meets his victim's mother-in-law, Mrs. Conroy, who accepts his roses but doesn't seem to have an opinion on what he did; when he apologizes for not going to the funeral, she tells him that he hadn't been expected to come.

Just then, Mrs. O'Mara, the victim's daughter, walks in and reprimands William for intruding into this "house of grief." They get into a brief argument about how William claims he wasn't been careless, and that it was all just an accident.

"Do you think God makes accidents?" Mrs. O'Mara said.
"I don't believe in God," said William. It was the wrong thing to say. Even Mrs. Conroy looked startled."

Williams realizes he needs to leave, and while Mrs. O'Mara reprimands him for his "blaspheming," Mrs. Conroy thanks him for the roses. Back in the taxicab (which, as Mrs. Conroy had earlier observed, William needed because he's no longer allowed to drive), Jane asks him what happened, but William doesn't want to talk about it. On the ride home, he breathes deeply and muses, "I wonder if her ghost is laid?"

Chapter 4

Mr. Lawrence is extremely disappointed in William for disobeying him and going to see the victim's family. He has deduced that a jury trial would now not be so good for William anymore: "Juries do not not admire rich young men who live in concubinage and profess radical views." Believing the situation couldn't be any worse, Mr. Lawrence hopes the case will be heard by Judge Murrow, who, he claims, would not send William to jail; William is facing up to three years in prison and a $10,000 fine. But the state controls the vogels, which means he might have to appear before Judge Vogel. Before leaving, he warns William to dress appropriately in court.

William and his father go to visit his grandmother, who bitterly snipes at William for not coming to see her until now. Mrs. Popper, according to her butler Holmes, has been having trouble lately with black boys who run into her yard and climb on her roof; Mr. Popper suggests she allow those boys to set up a youth club in her yard, but she will have none of it (she wants to buy some police dogs for protection). She also reprimands William for his relationship with Jane: "You think I don't know how you live, but I do. I know you're living with a Jewish girl... Don't smile at me!"

After that, William insists on bringing his father home to meet Jane over dinner. They bring home some steaks and wine, and when they come home Jane is naked behind a crate that is encasing the painting William's mother, Isabelle, sent him. They break the crate open. The painting depicts some glowing green circles and a spiral nebula against a black background.

While they're eating, Melvin Lasher barges in, makes some jokes about how Mr. Popper should have adopted a Jewish boy instead of fathering William, and then suggests that Isabelle's painting represents vaginality and penis envy. While Williams quickly ushers Melvin out of the room, Jane and Mr. Popper begin talking.

They talk for several minutes, about marriage, about dreams, and at some point Jane bursts into tears, surprising Mr. Popper.

Jane stopped herself. "I'm sorry. You see, we thought - you'll think it's ridiculous - but we thought we could do something... you know" - she gestured vaguely - "to make the world better." And she put her elbow on the table, cupped her cheek in her palm, and burst out crying loudly.

Mr. Popper wonders why she won't marry William; doesn't she love him? She says she does, and dries her tears. He tells her he empathizes with her situation because his marriage to Isabelle was a lovely one, until he realized that he was hampering her artistic dreams and allowed her to move to New York. By the time William has returned, Mr. Popper feels it's best for him to leave instead of staying while Jane makes coffee.

Walking down to the limo, Mr. Popper insists William ought to persuade Jane to marry him. Inside the limo, they have a private talk, and Mr. Popper tells William he can see some of Isabelle in Jane.

Mr. Potter patted his son's shoulder. "This has been a very important evening for me," he said. "I've understood things about you, William, that I didn't quite understand before."
"I'm glad you came," said William.
"Even out of evil, good can come," said Mr. Popper. "This accident has brought us closer together as a family. And now you go up to Jane, my boy."

While lying in bed that night, William and Jane mourn about their future and their past.

Jane giggled. "You know, it was terrible, but I sobbed and sobbed with your father just because it suddenly struck me that we aren't going to change the world. He must have thought I was insane."
"That was why you cried?"
"Yes, really. It seemed so pathetic. I had a vision, that the world is just going to stagger along in its terrible old way and we can't make it better."

They talk about politics, too, and about how they kicked the Totskyites out of the SFNP but didn't have much to celebrate about it, and about how most of their friends have graduated by now. And about marriage; Jane confesses, "Maybe I'm just afraid of marrying you." She fears she;ll turn into an Emma Goldman type, but William assures her he wouldn't marry her just to save her from that (or from turning into a woman like his mother, Isabelle).

Lastly, they discuss if perhaps they should give Isabelle's painting to Mr. Popper, since, if it stays at William's place, it might get damaged during a party.

Chapter 5

On June 6, William's case came before Judge Vogel.

Vogel believes that William is at fault because his reckless driving resulted in someone being killed. He disregards the meeting William had with the victim's family, since it bears no relevance to the crime that took place, but he does say that whatever conditions the victim was under at the time of the accident are also of no relevance because William's bad driving history is the real issue. Taking William's youth into account, Vogel sentences him to one year's imprisonement at hard labor and a fine of $5,000. He sets bail and a stay of execution, and orders him to turn himself in to the sheriff of Cook County at 10:00 on the morning of Saturday, the 16th.

Mr. Lawrence and his partner, Mr. Patton, are pleased with the verdict, though the Poppers are clearly not, especially Mrs. Thwett. When William makes talk of fleeing to Canada or Mexico, the two lawyers decide to part company with the family because they refuse to endorse any criminal actions.

The Poppers have lunch at the top of the Prudential Building, where Mrs. Thwett suggests her husband, Robert (a former U.S. Rep), might be able to help out. She then has to step away to cry, and William and his dad talk in private. Mr. Popper offers to call the Gannets, who own a lodge in Illinois (on an island in Lake Huron), and let William and Jane go up and relax there.

When William returns to his apartment, a subdued Melvin Lasher walks in. William tells him he's going to prison.

Lasher continued to face Mrs. Popper's picture. "Well, look at it this way," he said. "You'll have no responsibilities, no choices to make, no exams to take..."
"No freedom," William said.
"Freedom's old fashioned, William."

Lasher even suggests "suffering" is what most counts; he claims he got this from Dostoyevsky. They begin discussing what William might be able to do while he's in prison, and the conversation leads to this:

"Well, there's God," said Lasher. "Many people have seen God in a drop of water. I don't see why you can't find Him in steel bars. After all, cells have always been associated with intense spiritual life. Think of the monks."
"I'm thinking of them."

William then says he wants to throw a going-away party, and writes Lasher a $500 check. As Lasher is claiming the party will go down in "Hyde Park history," Jane comes in (unnoticed) and asks, "What party?"

"Jane, my love," Lasher said, "the most tremendous thing has happened. William is going to prison, and we're going to give him a fantastic going-away party."
Jane dropped her books.
"It is as it is," said William.
"I'm going to leave you two now," Lasher said. "I've got to go away and think."
"What about history?" William asked.
Lasher paused in the doorway. "I've just decided it's too late to do any serious studying. Besides, as Lenin said, it's more fun to make history than study it." Then he went on out the door, leaving Jane and William alone together.

Chapter 6

Jane argues over a meal with her socialist father about William, whom he doesn't like.

The following afternoon, Jane and William fly to St. Ignace and meet up with Mr. Gannet, who takes them to the lodge, telling them he'll be back in four days.

William and Jane have some discussions, some about how William is still considering going to Canada, and how Jane disapproves of that. "I think you just want me to go to jail so you can work for TWO," William says with a smile (TWO is The Woodlawn Organization).

The next morning, William takes a swim in a the cold lake, daring Jane to come in, who refuses. They drink some champagne before breakfast and then go back to bed.

"Just think!" William said. "Millions of people are drinking bad coffee and reading bad newspapers and getting ready to go to dull jobs."
"Well, we're going to change all that, aren't we?" Jane said.
"We'd like to think so," William said.

Chapter 7

William visits his grandmother. Among other things, she tells him that in her will, she has specified that when she dies, her house will go to him.

When the party is officially thrown at the apartment, Lasher introduces William and Jane to "Bob," who doesn't say much. A stripper, Miss Camille de la Canorgue, puts on a performance in an alligator mask. Jane thinks she's awful.

At one point during the party, Lasher calls down to two blacks on the streets, calls them "nigs" and tells them the party offers "free drinks and nice Jewish girls." The two blacks (named Melvin and Howard) come up and try to beat up Lasher for this, but are stopped by Corinna, a fat, friendly prostitute who invites herself into the party.

Throughout the night, Lasher finds himself having to bribe cops not to shut the party down (neighbors are complaining about noise). Corinna gets up on a table and tells everyone about her husband "O'Reilly" and the hard times they went through ("It was eating too much and drinking too much that made me lose my shape, and that's how I became a chanteuse").

The party is finally shut down by some police who decide to arrest everybody there. The next morning, William is reprimanded by Mr. Lawrence and driven to the courthouse, but Lasher, Jane and others get in Howard's red Cadillac and they chase him, and William and Jane blow kisses at each other from opposite cars. Mr. Lawrence asks William to roll up his window because the wind is irritating his toothache. He is ignored.

When they reach the County Court Building, Mr. Popper is waiting for them. They're 10 minutes late. Mr. Lawrence is appalled by the sight of William's friends coming out to greet them, while Mr. Popper, bemused, shakes some of their hands. William embraces Jane.

"Good bye," she said.
"You won't miss me much?"
She shook her head. "Will you be all right?"
"Yes."

But Mr. Popper and Mr. Lawrence finally have to insist that William party company with them. "A cheer," said Lasher. "Hip, hip, hooray!" Wiliam's friends cheer him on as he disappears. Once he's gone, they all get back into the red Cadillac, "and then there were only the usual pedestrians on the sidewalk."

Part Two
LIBERTY

Chapter 8

William moves into a cell with Senator James Moran, who went to jail for embezzlement. Moran says that while he's not innocent, somebody named "Harkins" is supposedly at fault for him landing in prison. Moran has smuggled yakydock into the cell, but warns William that he should find some money if ever he wants to obtain any rare goods while in prison. As part of his sentence, William is assigned the duty of shoveling coal in prison.

In the showers, William meets a gay, muscular black man named George and decides to help him write a letter to a fair-haired boy who works in the prison hospital but is currently under the protection of a convict by the name of McArdle.

Now, in the shower room, William understood at once when George asked, "Would you say, 'You got the most pretty face I've ever seen?"
"No," William said. "I'd say, 'You've got the prettiest face I've ever seen."
The noise of the showers interfered with George's hearing. "How'd you say that?" he asked.
William raised his voice. "I said, 'You've got the prettiest face I've ever seen.'"
He was overheard by other bathers, who looked first at George and then at William. Blushing, William retreated under his curtain of water, while George, meditating this new verbal stroke, returned to his own thoughts.

When rumor gets around that William might be in love w/George, Moran interrogates William but is thankful when he reveals he thinks about Jane daily, and is merely helping George get acquainted with the fair-haired boy. "But one thing, Bill," Moran adds, "I'd steer clear of George if I were you. You know, that sort of stuff's contaminating, and dangerous, too. Half the knifings in this prison are about sex. You don't want to be mixed up in things like that." To further his point about "not making too many friends" in prison, Moran shows William some porn pictures he bought from a convict that he wishes he hadn't bought because they're overly vile.

A few days later, after sending the letter to the fair-haired boy and excitedly claiming he "looked" at him during breakfast, George spots a crow flying over the blue sky, which he says to William is bad luck. Sure enough, later that afternoon, George is knifed in the showers by McArdle, who flees the scene while William screams for help. A guard comes onto the scene and orders William and others to line up and face the wall.

George lay deserted in the middle of the shower room until the medical orderlies arrived. He was unconscious by the time he reached the prison hospital. Before supper he was dead.

Chapter 9

Jane talks with her roommate Bernice, then goes with Mr. Popper to see William in prison. William tells them about George's murder and that he's going to be witness at the murder trial, even though talking about such things is considered a taboo by the inmates. Mr. Popper says he'll get Mr. Lawrence to represent William at the trial.

During the visitation, they look over and notice a black woman crying while visiting her convict husband.

At once the man next to William rose and walked to the prisoner's door, leaving his wife sitting at the table, her handkerchief still held across her mouth and nose. She sat for a moment, weeping as steadily as she had wept all during her conversation with her husband. Then, still with the handkerchief at her face, she stood up and moved toward the visitors' door. William could still not decide from exactly what depth her tears came.

Eventually, William's time is up.

"Goodbye," said Jane.
"I'll be seeing you," said William. He got up and walked to the door, where he paused a moment to look back at Jane and his father. Their faces had gone suddenly blank, which made him feel worse than he had felt for a long time.

Chapter 10

Isabelle writes to William, saying how his prison sentence reminds her of her own life because "my whole life has been a sort of prison." She also says she hopes he will get out soon, and that the time he serves may even remind her of how she's felt throughout all these years.

Mr. Lawrence comes to see William in prison and insists that William not make clear at the trial that he was a friend of George. William really wants to tell the truth at the trial (he and Mr. Lawrence have a memorable debate about how William "admires" strong, muscular men like George, but Mr. Lawrence does not). Mr. Lawrence discourages against William revealing he was a friend of George's. When William ponders, "Friends aren't reliable witnesses?" Mr. Lawrence sits back in his chair and barks, "If you want my advice, please stop trying to provoke me with 'clever' questions."

They continue talking. William believes he noticed McArdle looking "surprised" upon slashing George, as if he hadn't actually meant to kill him. But Mr. Lawrence tells him to forget about this.

"In any case, you're a prosecution witness. They will try to present it as a deliberate, murderous attack, and it's not in your interest to introduce interpretations like this one."
"I'm supposed to tell the whole truth," William said.
This produced a return to the earlier atmosphere of their interview, and yet William's opinion of Mr. Lawrence had really risen. Mr. Lawrence, as far as he went, was not a bad man. And for the world beyond Mr. Lawrence, what guides were there?

After the interview, William chats with Moran about law and order, namely about how governments are important but that sometimes people should keep quiet. "Bill," he warns, "your first responsibility is to yourself."

Then, when he's taken to the witness room of the Joliet courthouse, William decides he is going to escape. When the guards allow him to go to the bathroom unsupervised, he climbs out the open window sill and launches himself twelve feet downwards to the grass.

The fall was painful. He sprawled on the grass, wondering if he had twisted his ankle. He was reassured when he got to his feet. His ankle hurt, but it functioned. Limping only slightly, he traversed the lawn, stepped over a low iron railing, and with increasing ease walked east away from the Joliet courthouse.

Chapter 11

Bernice is startled when William shows up at her doorstep; he hitchhiked his way to Chicago. He phones Jane at TWO; she at first assumes it's Lasher pulling a prank, but realizes it's William when he does his W.C. Fields imitation.

When Jane shows up, William tells her he's thinking about going to Mexico, and he wants her to go with him. She accepts. Bernice doesn't like the idea.

William and Jane get a room in a hotel (checking in as Mr. and Mrs. Millard Fillmore) and go for a swim in a lake. William wears the bottom of one of Jane's suits, which is "designed to go out where he didn't go out and go in where he didn't go in." Jane only swims briefly, but William swims out far.

The shore was not patrolled here. There was no lifeguard to blow a whistle, no prison guard to tell him to keep in line, no policeman to ask for his identity. He swam straight out, turning on his back from time to time to look out at the receding shore. The farther he swam, the more the hotels and apartment houses along the lake shore seemed to tower up. The panorama widened until he could see as far north as the Loop and as far south as the steel mills. Then he dived down as far as he could go. The water grew colder and colder the farther down he went. When the pressure on his eardrums grew painful, he turned and started back toward the surface, which looked from below like a round, shining circle. He broke the surface with a splash and then floated with his feet out and his hands behind his head. He could see nothing but the sky, and, with water in his ears, he could hear nothing but the liquid sounds of his own faint movement. He felt detached and isolated in a world of his own.

William and Jane then go to Lasher's. William tells Lasher a phony story about how he escaped from prison by growing a potato vine out the window. To which Jane adds, "William's just making this up because the truth is even less plausible."

Lasher introduces them to his new girlfriend, Monica, who is intrigued when William tells her he was in prison. 'You have?" she asks. "For pot or pacifism?" To which Lasher responds, "Neither. William killed a woman. I've told you about him."

William proposes he'll get money from his grandmother and then give it to Lasher so that he can buy a car for them.

"Sorry to see you go," Lasher said. "But I shall return with money from Grandma." He paused in the doorway to look at Jane. "Don't worry about me."
"I'll try not to," she said.
"Why should she?" Lasher asked. "Doesn't God take care of the lucky?"

Chapter 12

William goes to Prairie Avenue, where his grandmother is on alert because she claims kids are trying to break into her house, and dogs are patrolling the yard down below. William manages to climb up to her.

"William?" she said. "What are you doing out there?"
"It was the question Thoreau had asked Emerson. William could not resist saying, "And what are you doing in there?"

She is disappointed not merely because he escaped from prison, but because he is fleeing the country and is not willing to fight the system and clear his name anymore. She allows him to take money from her safe, but tells him she's going to change her will. He will probably be cut out of it.

Some black cops come in protesting that they can't guard the house anymore because the dogs in the yard bit them. They see William and are suspicious. Holmes has told them that William is their chauffeur, but this doesn't seem to convince them.

William comes back to Lasher's, where he is joined by Jane as well as Leo & Angelica. Monica has fallen asleep down on the staircase. Lasher recites a poem he wrote:

The woods decay, the woods decay and rot
The gasworks leak their vapor to the air
Man comes and fills the streets and rides beneath,
And after many a summer dies the clown.

Lasher says it's supposed to be a sad poem, a result of his "Tennysonian, not to say Vergilian, mood."

They are now all planning to go down to Mexico with William and Jane, although Leo says he might have to join them later because he has to meet a man in Ypsilanti. Lasher then agrees he will use William's grandmother's money to buy a car and deliver it to the Shoreham -- which is where they'll be going.

"And now shall we sing the Whiffenpoof song?"
"No," said William.
"Always your infallible taste corrects me," Lasher said. "After all, we're not Yalies, are we? We're Chicago men."
"We're better than that," William said. "We're Chicago men and women."

Chapter 13

William calls his father over the phone, but the call is angrily interrupted by Mrs. Twett, who demands that William turn himself in because he is disgracing the family and because his grandmother might go to jail if the police find out she sheltered him. Mr. Popper tells Mrs. Thwett, "William's chosen his own way, and I think it's too late for us to change it." But he also warns William, "What I'm afraid of is that you've used your influence to make her come with you." When William admits that that is, indeed, what he's doing, Mr. Popper asks him if that was the right thing to do, and whether it would have been better (and possible) to avoid it. To which William replies, "Why? If you lean over backward trying to not influence them, they're still going to be influenced by someone. It's a question of whose influence is best... Besides, Jane's not a puppet. She wouldn't be going to Mexico with me if she didn't really mean it. People do what they want."

When the call ends, William says to his father, "And Daddy, I hope you won't be alone," to which Mr. Popper responds, "You musn't worry about me... Take care of yourself. And take care of Jane." William also wishes Mrs. Thwett goodbye, but she replies,"I'm not going to say goodbye... I'm too angry."

Lasher has William and Jane's car parked across the street, but apparently they'll be making the trip to Mexico alone because Bernice's apartment was recently searched by police. When they reach the car, Lasher slaps William's shoulder and remarks, "Back at the wheel! The killer rides again."

There is a special intimacy about the front seat of an automobile at the beginning of a long trip. The road maps are still freshly creased. There are no half-eaten rolls of Lifesavers, no stray bits of Kleenex or candy wrappers, and the windshield is clean.

On Cicero Avenue, William and Jane pick up an 88-year old hitchhiker named George Morrison (William introduces himself as "William White"). Morrison claims he ran away from home even though his "daughter" begged him not to. He proceeds to tell William and Jane some highly unlikely stories, among them a tale that he fought in the Spanish-American War at San Juan Hill and that Colonel Theodore Roosevelt told him to "Beat that drum, boy, beat it like hell." He also claims he also fought in World War I at St. Mihiel, and that he comes from Point Pleasant, Ohio.

In one story he tells, he used to be a farmer until he accidentally shot his wife in the breast, while she posthumously gave birth to a son whom he quickly delivered with a hunting knife and "Caesarian midesction." The death of this wife made him leave the farm.

Morrison later tells an absurd story about how his "second wife" who died in a wellhead that caught fire after Morrison accidentally ignited it with a cigar, at a time when he was a "rich" oil proctor (he claims he drank away all of his money afterwards). William observes, "You've been unlucky with your wives."

Politically, Morrison says he's always voted Republican (in the election of 1913, he says he "wanted" T.R. to win but voted for Taft because he believed Taft would win, but then realized "it was Wilson all the time"). He claims he would have voted for FDR in 1936 "if I hadn't been sick this year," even though he thought Hoover would take it. He thought Nixon would win instead of JFK in the 60's but lost because of Japanese voters ("The Japanese they run out of California during the war"), which outrages him because his grandson (also named George Morrison) died while dive-bombing and sinking a Jap battleship in WWII; he was his daughter's only son.

William observes, "But if your daughter was the mother of the pilot who sank the Japanese battleship, his name wouldn't be Morrison," and Morrison replies, "That's right, only she married a man named Morrison from Battavia, a cousin of ours."

Morrison also claims he had a third wife from Kokomo, Indiana who died"in the flu epidemic of nineteen-eighteen," which was after his WWI service. He then took up a job in a Coca-Cola factory and lost his finger in a bottlemaking machine (says William: "It must have been quite an experience for the person who drank that bottle.")

Then Morrison claims he went shrimp-fishing in the Gulf of Mexico ("They've got a lot of sharks down there,") but before he can tell a possible shark story, he falls asleep.

They all check into a motel in Burlington; William and Jane book a second room for Morrison, even though they're anxious to get rid of him.

At night, William and Jane lay away thinking - Jane, about how they'll be giving up a life of politics, and William, about how he confesses he never got involved in politics like she did, and was never willing to join TWO. But despite Jane's nostalgia for the country she's about to leave, she laughs and assures William she would never return to American without him. "You really love me, don't you?" he asks. She replies, "Yes, I really do."

When they had made love, William lay back on his pillow. He was thinking of Jane's answer. It was a new conception to him that she could love him enough to give up many things that were meaningful to her. Such a feeling almost amounted to self-sacrifice, an alien phenomenon in William's thinking. And yet, the more he considered it, the more he saw that self-sacrifice had been there all the time in his father and in Jane. He wondered about his responsibility in the face of this new view of human possibilities. He wondered, too, if there was something missing in him that he didn't have this quality possessed by the two best people he had known.

They decide to see what they can of Burlington, and go to a local necking area that's being patrolled by the police. In the bushes, they're caught by some cops who ask for William's driver's license. Observing his strange gesture of searching his pockets only to realize it's not their (William has forgotten his license was revoked long ago), the cops assume he lost it in the bushes. The cops try to help him find it, but find nothing; shrugging, they suggest he go back to the station to see if they've got it there, and then warn him and Jane to be on their way.

In the morning, Morrison catches them and joins them again, but they ditch him on Route Thirty-Four; they claim they're newlyweds on their honeymoon (who aren't wearing rings because they're Christian Scientists). Morrison angrily gets out, mutters "Young folks!" then goes on another one of his tirades before spitting on the pavement, and hissing to them, "You'll see... sailing along in that car, breaking all the speed limits. They'll get you."

After they've driven through Joplin, Missouri and Oklahoma City, they finally reach Laredo, Texas - on their fourth day out of Chicago. Knowing the car won't make it to Mexico City because it's low on oil and making some awful noises, they make a plan to sell the car, send their suitcases to Mexico by Railway Express, and then hope from a tourist bus to a train on their way to Mexico. After some bargaining, they're able to sell the car to a sympathetic dealer ("I'd like to help you young folks if I could") for $125. The dealer kindly drives them to the station, where Jane's bags are shipped, and William brings along his bag full of necessities onto the tourist bus.

They looked at the exposed river bed. Jane put her arm through William's.
"Nervous?" he asked.
"A little."
"Remember, we're just tourists now."
She nodded, but her hand tightened on his arm as they approached the frontier barrier. She need not have worried. An American customs agent wearing a Texas hat climbed aboard. "Y'all citizens?" he asked. They all were. "O.K." He climbed back down.
"And that's that," said William.

Chapter 14

It was spring again. William leaned on the balustrade of his terrace and looked out at the Pacific. Frangipani bloomed in stone urns on either side of him. Fifty yards ahead, and almost at William's level, a seagull floated in the air. William watched it fold its wings and swoop down toward the village dump. Then his attention was attracted to a dusty black car that had emerged from the village and started up the road toward the villa. A plume of dust rose behind the car. Presently William could hear the engine laboring. The car disappeared behind a clump of pines, reappeared in the road directly below the terrace, and came to a stop. The driver got out and ran around to open the rear door, and Mrs. Twett emerged.

Mrs. Thwett is suffering from a bout of Montezuma's Revenge when she greets William. She believes his new home looks worse than his Chicago apartment, but he likes how the rent is only $100 a month ("Life is cheap here), and is okay with the fact that a gardener, a maid and the maid's family comes with the place. Mrs. Thwett has brought some papers; she says the Conroys are suing their family for damages, and that his father could have brought the papers himself but is too afraid to fly. She does, however, say that his father is "well." After Mrs. Thwett meets Jane for the first time, she observes, to William, "So you're going to have a child." William assures her that he and Jane will get married before that happens.

Jane talks privately with William, confessing that Mrs. Thwett "scares" her a little; William claims her husband (his uncle) is fat, hard-boiled and even less friendly.

"Do you think we're going to make good parents?"
"Aunt Anne was raising that very question."
"I think we will," Jane said. "I'm really getting sort of excited."
"And you used to have such misgivings about being married!"
"Being married and having a child are different."
"The two things are often connected."
"Not in my case."
"We're correcting that." William laughed. "You know, we've come all this way just to settle into domesticity."
"It is funny," Jane said.
"Maybe we ought to announce it at our wedding."
"I wouldn't mind it," Jane said.

They finish by discussing what possible wedding presents their families will send them. Then they go back to writing - Jane to writing her novel, William to writing his book, which started as a polemical autobiography called Under the Mushroom Cloud but is now a political analysis of American Life, perhaps to be titled Love and Violence: The American Antimonies. Writing is something William has found he enjoys.

Mrs. Thwett ate a light supper with them. Afterward they went out on the terrace, where she unfolded the business matters with which she had been entrusted. There were papers for William to sign. "And these will have to be notarized. I suppose there is such a thing down here?"
"Yes."
"And here's some money for the time being." She handed William a folder of traveler's checks.
"Will I have to pay American taxes if my income comes from a Mexican mutual fund?"
"No."
"Then we'll be rich."
"You won't be rich until Mother dies."
"How is she."
"not very well. All this business about you, and now the Land Commission wants to take her house."
"It'll give her something to fight," William said.
"She;s not who she was," said Mrs. Thwett. "I'm afraid if they do pull down house it may be the end."
William nodded.
"Ten years ago this would have been a blessing, but now she's really too old to move." She sighed. Then she lit a cigarette. "Now, William, I want to have a serious conversation with you."
"Shall I leave?" Jane asked.
"No. I want you to hear this, too."
"What is it?" William asked, though he knew what it was.
"It's this, William. We've arranged for you to receive money here in Mexico, but I hope you're not going to settle here permanently. I didn't know when I came that you're going to have a child, but that makes it just that much more important for you to return to the United States."
"And go to prison?"
"You wouldn't be in long. Robert has talked to the state's attorney. You wouldn't have to spend more than another thirty months in prison."
"Any why should I spend any time in prison?"
"In order to live in your own country again."
"And why should I live there?"
"It's where you belong."
"I don't feel that," William said.
"Then, I'm sorry for you."
At sunset, sweet-smelling breezes began to blow from the hills behind the villa. William lifted his head to catch them. It was the time of day he liked best, when he and Jane would sit on the terrace in the gathering darkness while bats began to flit overhead.
"I don't want to sound accusing," Mrs. Thwett said, "but there is such a thing as patriotism."
"I know there is. I used to be very patriotic."
"And aren't you anymore?"
"Not in the same way."
Mrs. Thwett shifted in her chair. William watched the glowing tip of her cigarette as she flicked away ashes. "And what are you going to do with your life?" she asked.
"It's hard to say."
"You're still very young," Mrs. Thwett said. "There are years and years ahead of you."
"I'm aware of that."
Mrs. Thwett gave up her attention on Jane temporarily and turned her attention to Jane. "And don't you want to go back and have your child in an American hospital?"
"I want to stay with William."
"And what sort of life will you have here? What sort of life will it be for your child?"
"If we stay here, he'll grow up loving this place, and it's really very beautiful here.
"And what about you?"
William intervened. "We're as happy here as we'd be anywhere else. Happier than if I were in Stateville."
"America isn't just Stateville, William."
"For me, it is." William couldn't see his aunt's expression anymore, but he could imagine it. "I'm sorry, Aunt Anne, but it's no good. This is just the way I am."
Mrs. Thwett leaned forward as if to pounce. "And don't you ever want to live in your own country again?"
"No," said William.

My Top 10 of 2011

2012-01-22T09:00:00.000-08:00

More than any other moviegoing year in recent memory, 2011 was a year of emotions. The films I loved most were the films involving me completely in their stories, their characters. Such an outgrowth of great films, I believe, hasn't happened since 2007, when No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood rendered me so speechless I could hardly muster my praise for them. Since then I had been yearning for another cinematic experience of that kind. This year, I saw many wonderful films, and I can say with certainty that at least one of them rendered me speechless.

For the past three years, it seems, I've been rather cynical in my selections for the best movies of each respective year. In 2008, I was so disillusioned with the majority of the year's output that my favorites were two critically-panned box office flops, Synecdoche, New York and Revolutionary Road. In 2009, I embraced two films (A Serious Man and The Road) that got slightly better reviews, but were still largely ignored by critics and audiences, perhaps because they were rather gloomy, Kafkaesque works. In 2010, same thing: Shutter Island and The Ghost Writer topped my list, and they were so pessimistic and politically-vicious that it's no wonder audiences walked out of them feeling miserable. All of these were great films, but the fact that I kept praising them above sunnier, more energetic works may be proof that my faith in in humanity must have been slipping a bit.

Now, of course, There Will Be Blood and No Country for Old Men were angry movies as well, but those two milestones came out during a year (2007) when I was still in high school, and well-situated in society. 2008-2010, however, was less certain, because I was about to graduate from high school and had to think seriously about my future. Those three years weren't exactly bright. Some difficult day jobs, some severed relationships with friends, some uneasiness at having to go to community college (although I do not regret the latter at all; it was cheap, and it got the hard part of college out of the way for me)... all of that made those three years less-than-satisfactory (aside from one experience that was life-changing). I guess you could say I was an angrier young man during those years than I am now, so, naturally, my taste in movies was different.

2011 was another story. I began it with an amazing trip to Sundance, and, gradually, it only got better from there. In the fall, I got accepted into film school. And, well, now, life is good. Really good.

So maybe it was just perfect timing, but somehow I really, really liked a lot of the movies released in 2011. I think a large part of it is because some of my all-time favorite filmmakers made fantastic comebacks this year, some of which I didn't really anticipate. If you'll remember, 2007 was such a year; a year in which some notable directors (Coen Bros., P.T. Anderson, Fincher, Cronenberg, De Palma, Coppola) made some outstanding films.

Similarly, consider the directors who came out with all barrels blazing this year: Spielberg, Scorsese, Malick, Cronenberg, Fincher, Polanski, Godard, Von Trier, Herzog. Some of their movies I didn't see (and some I didn't even like), but c'est la vie. Many were great.

As always, the ones I can't thank enough for such a good year are my friends and family. That includes those of you in the blogosphere who have supported my site since its conception. You guys are the ones keeping me energized.

1. War Horse (Steven Spielberg)

We need more American directors like Steven Spielberg, and we need more American movies like War Horse. It's a masterpiece, pure and simple. Rarely have I ever loved so much a film that is so unabashedly classical, Romantic and, yes, even a little optimistic. But in 2011, I could make an exception.

Spielberg and screenwriters Richard Curtis and Lee Hall have succeeded in locating a highly compelling, cinematic narrative in Michael Morpurgo's book. In telling the stories of the Narracotts (Peter Mullan & Emily Watson), their son Albert (Jeremy Irvine), his horse Joey, and the nightmarish struggles faced by both Albert and Joey in the trenches of World War I and beyond, Spielberg is, somehow, finally able to reach a profound catharsis of love and survival at the end—without ever shying away from the carnage of it all. "It would not be enough for me to say that this is my favorite movie of the year," I wrote in my review. "This is one of the best movies I've ever seen."

2. Hugo (Martin Scorsese)

I walked out of Martin Scorsese's fantasy with stars in my eyes, and then wondered how much of it was true. I then decided that it didn't matter. Scorsese had accomplished his mission: to bring back the sad story of Georges Melies (Ben Kingsley) to the public limelight in a way that could be both moving and entertaining—not to mention the best experience with 3D I've ever had in a theater.

Because this was released around Thanksgiving, I was too lazy to write an official review, but in the meantime check out the glowing reviews by some of my colleagues: Craig Simpson, Jake Cole, Tom Hyland and Kevin J. Olson. Like me, they came away enchanted.

3. The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn (Steven Spielberg)

The year's greatest entertainment. Speaking as a born-again fan of the Herge comics, this movie gave me everything I wanted from it, and more. It's also the collaboration between Spielberg and Peter Jackson we've been waiting for, after their god-awful The Lovely Bones (2009).

I've only seen The Secret of the Unicorn once, and someday plan to write an official review of it, but for now, these words of praise by David Edelstein will suffice: "Spielberg’s punchy foregrounds and multiple planes of action (a joke or nutty curlicue on every plane!) will have you goggle-eyed...You can imagine Alfred Hitchcock — who famously praised the young Spielberg as the first director who "doesn't see the proscenium arch" — rocking with laughter, belly heaving, coughing out cigar smoke."

4. The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick)

I saw Terrence Malick's latest feature twice in theaters. That is almost a moral necessity when dealing with films as unique as this: you cannot see them just once and expect to formulate a credible opinion afterwards. And I expect my appreciation for it to deepen in the years to come. My review here.

5. The Descendants (Alexander Payne)

Sometimes you don't realize just how much you love a movie until weeks after you've seen it. I saw The Descendants over holiday break, found a great deal about it to admire, rated it positively and moved on. But the fact is that the personal tragedy suffered by Matt King (George Clooney) and his grieving daughters stayed with me; I hadn't even realized, until fairly recently, how strongly I identified with them, and how greatly I wanted to see them find happiness in the end.

What it boils down to is this: Alexander Payne is one of America's most exciting living directors. He is often accused of being condescending and, yes, even sympathetic towards characters who are normally undeserving of our sympathy (in this case, rich people). But because I recognize so much of real-life in his fictional stories, I have no reason to complain. He's one of the last filmmakers alive who truly, honestly understands people, their demons and their difficulties.

6. A Dangerous Method (David Cronenberg)

In his 1983 cult classic Videodrome, one character asks another, "You know what Freud would've said about that dress?" So, in many ways A Dangerous Method is the film David Cronenberg has been working up to his entire career, although I'd argue it's most characteristic of the films he made in the mid-90's: M. Butterfly (1993) and Crash (1996). Like those films, it's about desires that cannot be satisfied and loves that are lost forever.

As with many other films on this list, I've only seen A Dangerous Method once, but I expect my appreciation of it to grow with repeated viewings. Cronenberg also showcases five outstanding performances: Michael Fassbender as Carl Jung; Viggo Mortensen as Sigmund Freud; Sarah Gadon as Emma Jung; Vincent Cassel as the perverted Otto Gross; and Keira Knightley as Sabina Spielrein, in a performance so masterful in the way it captures hysterics (and wild facial expressions) that it reminds me, oddly enough, of Thandie's Newton's performance in Beloved.

7. How to Die in Oregon (Peter D. Richardson)

This documentary may have only been released on HBO in 2011, but I don't care: it deserves a place on this list, theatrically-released or not. I saw it at Sundance last year, after it won the U.S. Documentary award. It's a very important film, one that is unafraid to tackle the subject of physician-assisted suicide but respects the patients (like Cody Curtis, pictured above) who decide to go through with it, and honors their right to choose.

8. If A Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front (Marshall Curry)

Another great documentary that I had the pleasure of seeing at Sundance last year, If A Tree Falls covers the little-known activities of the Earth Liberation Front, an organization that once made its living going around burning down lumber factories in order to help save forests.

In particular, the film covers the life of one Daniel McGowan, who has been branded a "terrorist" for his crimes and is facing a long prison sentence. The film finally asks us: is "terrorism" a fair charge for individuals, like McGowan, who seek to conserve, not to kill? As the great critic Steven Boone writes in his review, "It's so moving, the way it all plays out, in hugs and tears and the remorse of a man in his mid-30s, still young, still radiating decency and idealism, but branded for life."

9. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)

It's only been a few days since I watched this, but I'm having a hard time shaking some of its images. And I don't intend to, either (you got to admit it: that whole catfish-sex thing is pretty original). It's the first film by Apichatpong "Joe" Weerasethakul I've seen, and hopefully one of many more in the future.

Although it has slow stretches here and there, as a whole it finally comes together as a film so surreal, so haunting, that it's near-impossible to dismiss. In short: Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives is one hell of a trip, and I'm happy to have watched it.

10. Melancholia (Lars Von Trier)

Or, as I like to call it, The Legend of Lars von Trier: Majora's Mask. Believe me when I say that Von Trier's latest psychosexual epic is the real thing. Forget those idiotic comments he made at Cannes. Forget all of that. If it helps, I hope I should hasten to add that Melancholia is NOT the work of "a Jew who found out that I was actually a Nazi." Not at all. It's a serious attempt to envision what it would be like if the world did, indeed, come to an end someday (with, yes, some striking similarities to a certain Zelda videogame). On top of that, it showcases the best and bravest performance Kirsten Dunst has ever given.

As my colleague Tom Hyland wrote in his own review, "The end of the world has been the subject of many books and films before; now Von Trier gives us his vision, one that's deeply satisfying, especially in terms of trying to understand the human psyche."

Honorable Mentions

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (Brad Bird)
Moneyball (Bennett Miller)
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (David Fincher)
The Future (Miranda July)
The Conspirator (Robert Redford)
The Artist (Michel Hazanavicus)
Meek's Cutoff (Kelly Reichardt)
Of Gods and Men (Xavier Beauvois)
Midnight in Paris (Woody Allen)
Corman's World: Exploits of A Hollywood Rebel (Alex Stapleton)

Some Great Movies I Saw at Sundance That Still Haven't Been Theatrically Released

Vampire (Iwai Shunji)
Jess + Moss (Clay Jeter)

Guilty Pleasures

Cars 2 (John Lasseter, Brad Lewis)
Don't Be Afraid of The Dark (Troy Nixey)

Disappointments

Film Socialisme (Jean-Luc Godard)
Margin Call (J.C. Chandor)

I Might Have Been Too Hard On...

Super 8 (J.J. Abrams)

Still Need to See...

Shame (Steve McQueen)
Carnage (Roman Polanski)
Cave of Forgotten Dreams (Werner Herzog)
Into the Abyss (Werner Herzog)
Pina (Wim Wenders)
Drive (Nicolas Winding Refn)
Take Shelter (Jeff Nichols)
A Separation (Asghar Farhadi)
J. Edgar (Clint Eastwood)
Kinyarwanda (Alrick Brown)

Proud to Admit I Did NOT See...

Machine Gun Preacher (Marc Forster)
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (Rob Marshall)
The Iron Lady (Phyllidya Lloyd)
Sucker Punch (Zack Snyder)
Transformers: Dark of the Moon (Michael Bay)
The Help (Tate Taylor)
Breaking Dawn (Bill Condon)

Alrighty, folks, that just about wraps it up! Now bring on 2012, the year in which we will, hopefully, see the light of day of Francis Ford Coppola's Twixt, Steven Spielberg's Lincoln, William Friedkin's Killer Joe, Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and Brian De Palma's Passion. And, of course, the year in which... the world may end?

My Exciting Live-Tweeting of the Boring 69th Golden Globe Awards

2012-01-16T15:03:00.001-08:00

It was the most boring Golden Globes telecast I've ever seen, and I say that as one who remembers those disastrous 65th Golden Globe Awards from 2008, in which the awards were announced at a "press conference" instead of on an actual show. But at least that horrorshow was short and to the point. This one--the 69th Golden Globes--was so boring, so dreadfully BORING, that it was redeemed only by a handful of pleasant and surprising wins. To borrow a completely unrelated quote from Roger Ebert, "Some great winners, a nice distribution of awards, but the show? Dead. In. The. Water."
Gervais simply didn't do anything. Granted, I missed his entire opening gig (it took me a whole fucking hour to find a television on my college campus that was actually airing the show), but people have told me it wasn't as radical as his opening gig from last year. You will remember at last year's show (the 68th Golden Globes), Gervais was so unrelentingly nasty ("Ashton Kutcher's dad, Bruce Willis!") that he actually managed to provoke a response from his fans and critics; Matt Zoller Seitz dubbed it "the Golden Globes of hatred."

Honestly, as uncomfortable as last year's show was, at least it was brilliant television. At least it had an attitude, as bitter as it may have been. This time Gervais just seemed to be on a leash. Either that, or it was entirely his decision to go easier this time. In his recent interview with Matt Lauer, Gervais indicated he accepted the offer to host the Globes a third time so that he could prove a point; to demonstrate to his critics he wasn't afraid of doing it one more time.

So... was that the only reason he was there? To just, you know... be there?

I mean, I guess a few of his jokes were decent. I liked his whole diss of Madonna as still being "like a virgin," and Madonna's comeback was unexpected gold: "Why don't you come over here and doing something about it? It's been awhile since I last kissed a girl." His later diss of Natalie Portman as making the mistake of "putting her children before her career" had some of the same enticing venom to it, although Portman, unlike Madonna, didn't make a comeback.

The jokes were simply too far and few between. Gervais would diappear for long periods of time, and you'd wonder, What happened to him? As Lou Lumenick complained via Twitter, "Free Ricky Gervais!"

So, for me at least, there was only one thing saving the show: the winners. Scorsese winning Best Director for Hugo was one of those big WTF moments that you secretly pray will happen, but which only happens 99.9% of the time in the history of award shows.

Spielberg winning Best Animated Film for The Adventures of Tintin was a joyous moment, too, since everybody thought Rango might be the spoiler in that category (Spielberg spent so much time thanking the filmmakers who worked on the film that he almost forgot to thank his wife, Willie Scott herself, Kate Chapsaw; the kiss he blew to her at the last moment was priceless).

As for The Descendants winning Best Drama, although I obviously would have preferred a War Horse win, I liked The Descendants all the same, and seeing Alexander Payne win his first Globe since Sideways was a nice tough. If the Oscar race is, as they truly say, going to be a horse race between The Artist and The Descendants, I'll be rooting for the latter. Though I do hope War Horse gets a Best Picture nomination of its own...

All in all, good winners, lousy show. We still have Billy Crystal to look forward to at the Oscars, so I have high hopes for that. But as my Twitter feed below indicates, this year's Golden Globes was a depressing exercise indeed.

Albert Brooks @AlbertBrooks 18h Reply Retweeted Favorite · Open
Just found out on Twitter that I lost. Shit.
Retweeted by Adam Charles Zanzie
Nick Gass @NickGass 21h Reply Retweeted Favorite · Open
That was...unexpected. Am I right, @adamzanzie?!?!? #GoldenGlobes
Retweeted by Adam Charles Zanzie
IFC.com @IFCtv 20h Reply Retweeted Favorite · Open
RT @kristenschaaled: I know 2 Globes that didn't show up: Ricky Gervais' BALLS! Not rude enough! #goldenglobes
Retweeted by Adam Charles Zanzie
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Final verdict: some pleasant wins in an otherwise lousy show.
7:59 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Last year, Ricky ended by thanking God for his atheism. This year... some bullshit about gold and champagne. Whatever. #goldenglobes
7:58 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
I mean, this isn't a bad thing. "The Descendants" was excellent. But it ain't even in my Top 5 of the year. #goldenglobes
7:56 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Ah, well. #goldenglobes
7:55 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Okay, here we go... #goldenglobes
7:55 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Harrison Ford presenting Best Drama! Yay! #goldenglobes
7:54 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
In fact, I'm gonna start chanting right now: GIVE BEST DRAMA TO "WAR HORSE"! PLEEEAAASE!
7:52 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Actually, Clooney's win probably spells out a win for Descendants in Best Drama. Unless War Horse proves to be a dark horse. #goldenglobes
7:51 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
So... what's left? Just Best Drama? Ooh, the suspense.
7:51 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
IFC.com @IFCtv Reply Retweeted Favorite · Close
RT @timeculture: Fourth d--k joke of the night, if we're counting right.
Retweeted by Adam Charles Zanzie
3
RETWEETS
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7:50 PM - 15 Jan 12 via HootSuite · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Clooney's thank-you to Payne was nice. #goldenglobes
7:50 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Funny remark about Fassbender's full-frontal. Clooney should roast more often. #goldenglobes
7:50 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
And yes, he deserves this award. Payne was right-on to cast him. #goldenglobes
7:49 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
You know, I actually used to REALLY hate George Clooney, but after "Michael Clayton" I had a change of heart. #goldenglobes
7:48 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Natalie won't respond to Ricky's diss? She's no fun :( #goldenglobes
7:48 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
I... guess that Portman diss was decent. But I still think Ricky can do better. #goldenglobes
7:48 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
I still don't understand why a Marilyn Monroe show is touting an Aguilera song in its ads. #smash
7:47 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
I will say, this telecast has had some better winners than last year. #goldenglobes
7:45 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Nick Gass @NickGass 20h
@adamzanzie Which one is that?
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
@NickGass I told you, "No Strings Attached"!
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7:44 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Nick Gass @NickGass 20h
@adamzanzie Hmm...maybe. I think that's the likeliest choice, but I don't know.
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
@NickGass Hopefully the winner will be... the one that I want to win. Lol
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7:43 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
The dog is standing up! #goldenglobes
7:42 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Nick Gass @NickGass 20h
Okay...well...good. The Artist! Formidable! #GoldenGlobes
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
@NickGass Hey, what do you think will win Best Drama? I have no idea, honestly. Maybe "The Descendants"?
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7:42 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
The dog from The Artist! Yay! #goldenglobes
7:41 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Okay. I'm REALLY curious to see what wins Best Drama now. #goldenglobes
7:41 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Just give it to The Artist already. #goldenglobes
7:39 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Jane Fonda. She still exists. #goldenglobes
7:39 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
"Everybody in England let me trample their history." Ya think? #goldenglobes
7:39 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie 20h
What are Fincher and Clooney doing...? #goldenglobes
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
@adamzanzie Oh. lol
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7:38 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
What are Fincher and Clooney doing...? #goldenglobes
7:37 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie 20h
@adamzanzie Oh. lol
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Streep just got bleeped. #goldenglobes
7:37 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
You know, I actually would have preferred Gervais play Thatcher. #goldenglobes
7:36 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Meryl Streep wins for playing an English dictator? Whatever. #goldenglobes
7:35 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
What's funny about calling Firth a racist? Christ almighty, Gervais. #goldenglobes
7:34 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie 20h
Is Dujardin the first since the silent era to winBest Actor for a mute performance? Usually these awards only go to actresses. #goldenglobes
ckoh @ckoh 20h
@adamzanzie unless arkin won for the heart is a lonely hunter decades ago, you may be right
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
@ckoh Did he? I thought Arkin didn't win anything until Little Miss Sunshine. I may be wrong, though.
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7:31 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
ckoh @ckoh 20h
@adamzanzie don't know, just trying to remember mute male roles
Nick Gass @NickGass 20h
@adamzanzie But he spoke...a line, but still..
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
@NickGass To be sure, Patty Duke won this sort of award too for The Miracle Worker, in which she managed to say "waaaaah" (water).
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7:29 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Nick Gass @NickGass 20h
@adamzanzie But he spoke...a line, but still..
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
@NickGass What's the one word he says in the movie? "Gladly," or something.
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7:28 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Is Dujardin the first since the silent era to winBest Actor for a mute performance? Usually these awards only go to actresses. #goldenglobes
7:27 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
ckoh @ckoh 20h
@adamzanzie unless arkin won for the heart is a lonely hunter decades ago, you may be right
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie 20h
@ckoh Did he? I thought Arkin didn't win anything until Little Miss Sunshine. I may be wrong, though.
ckoh @ckoh 20h
@adamzanzie don't know, just trying to remember mute male roles
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Maybe Dujardin will give a speech in French. #goldenglobes
7:26 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Ryan Gosling isn't there? Hmm. #goldenglobes
7:25 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Lou Lumenick @LouLumenick 20h
Can we please shoot WAR HORSE right now and put it out of its misery? #goldenglobes
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
@LouLumenick NO!
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7:25 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
"Epic filmmaking." Amen. #goldenglobes
7:24 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Oooh, nice. Michelle Pfeiffer introducing "War Horse". #goldenglobes
7:23 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Confession: that "Cheers" theme song in the State Farm ad used to make me cry when I was little. (don't ask)
7:23 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Well, damn. "Luck" looks like a pretty beastly show. Too bad I don't have Showtime.
7:22 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
This is like the 3rd time I've seen this Diet Pepsi ad. I miss the days when Coke sponsored the #GoldenGlobes.
7:20 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
When did this telecast become bilingual? #goldenglobes
7:19 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Jaime Grijalba @jaimegrijalba 20h
@adamzanzie stop being so... snarky. Es un show internacional, chico, sé un poco más abierto!
Nick Gass @NickGass 21h
What did Ricky say? #GoldenGlobes
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
@NickGass I think he got bleeped or something.
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7:17 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Richard Roeper @richardroeper 21h
Nobody loves Scorsese more than I do. But how the f--- does he watch his own movie in 3D with those glasses?
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
@richardroeper What do you mean? "Hugo" was perfectly fine in 3D.
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7:16 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
ckoh @ckoh 21h
hey marty won! liked his george harrison doc much more but glad a real director got it
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
@ckoh Man, I still need to see his Harrison doc. Missed it when it was on TV.
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7:16 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
ckoh @ckoh 21h
@adamzanzie it's amazing especially if you love the Beatles as much as I do
ckoh @ckoh Reply Retweeted Favorite · Close
hey marty won! liked his george harrison doc much more but glad a real director got it
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7:15 PM - 15 Jan 12 via TweetDeck · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie 21h
@ckoh Man, I still need to see his Harrison doc. Missed it when it was on TV.
ckoh @ckoh 21h
@adamzanzie it's amazing especially if you love the Beatles as much as I do
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
As bad as this whole telecast is, I'll forgive the HFP for awarding Scorsese and Spielberg in the same night.
7:14 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Okay... I was kind of *not* expecting Scorsese to win at all. But he did! HAPPY DAY! #goldenglobes
7:14 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
HOLY SHIT! #goldenglobes
7:13 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Give this one to Scorsese. Or Payne. #goldenglobes
7:13 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Downey Jr. just referred to The Artist as "daring". I think he just spoiled the winner for Best Musical/Comedy. #goldenglobes
7:12 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Guess not.
7:11 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
will Downey Jr. roast the girls in the audience like he did last year? #goldenglobes
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7:11 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Tom Bergeron @Tom_Bergeron Reply Retweeted Favorite · Close
Ricky Gervais just found being tied to a bed at the Beverly Hilton by Madonna.
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6:58 PM - 15 Jan 12 via Twitter for iPad · Details
Quina Gonzalez @ANIUSHKA 20h
@Tom_Bergeron omg hahaha
Synthia Charbonneau @synamelya 21h
@Tom_Bergeron you make me laugh......so much
Duffy M...... @DuffyM__ 21h
@Tom_Bergeron They may have given him carte blanche this year, but they sure didn't give him much stage time AT ALL. #BOOOO
AmyRose @blmcnty 21h
@Tom_Bergeron Never said Hollywood wasn't going to get even this year!
steve baxley @lugnuts6 21h
@Tom_Bergeron with seth rogan watching ? (sorry about that, had to be done)
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
THIS is Ben Kingsley's current wife: vivoluxury.com/wp-content/upl…
7:09 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Apparently I missed a great shot of Kingsley with a babe on his lap. Oh, well. #goldenglobes
7:08 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
As much as I love Andrew Stanton, I can't get too much worked up about "John Carter".
7:07 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Why is Freeman bringing up "Red" again? Christ, don't give that movie any more love. #goldenglobes
7:05 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
gtripp @gtripp 17h
@adamzanzie I loved Red!
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
"And Sidney... MR. POITIER!" #goldenglobes
7:04 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Nick Gass @NickGass 21h
That Morgan Freeman clip from The Electric Company is going to give me nightmares. #GoldenGlobes
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
@NickGass Me, too...
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7:03 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Out of all these Freeman clips I'm only excited pleased to see an "Unforgiven" tribute. #GoldenGlobes
7:03 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
I only saw a little of "Red" when I worked at AMC, and it was so atrocious I swore off Freeman AND Helen Mirren for months. #goldenglobes
7:00 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
I kind of want to see Poitier winning this award tonight instead of Freeman, but he probably already won it years earlier. #holdenglobes
6:57 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
That was a fitting standing ovation. Virgil Tibbs himself deserves nothing less. #goldenglobes
6:56 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
POITIER!!!!! #goldenglobes
6:56 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
"The Descendants" was certainly well-directed by Payne, but is Reese right to call it "masterfully" directed? I dunno. #goldenglobes
6:55 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
This telecast might even be worse than that one they did were the winners were merely "announced" due to the writers' strike. #goldenglobes
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6:54 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
ckoh @ckoh 21h
@adamzanzie it's certainly even more dull. plus the films are worse
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Coretta Scott didn't like "Mississippi Burning", after all. #goldenglobes
6:50 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Spencer just thanked MLK, but judging from those reviews I doubt MLK would have liked "The Help" much. #goldenglobes
6:49 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
These nods were pretty bad to begin with. They didn't even nominate Chastain for the right movie. #goldenglobes
6:48 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Give it to the Descendants gal. #goldenglobes
6:47 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Jake Cole @notjustmovies Reply Retweeted Favorite · Close
Matt Leblanc wins for his fantastic performance in zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. #GoldenGlobes
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6:45 PM - 15 Jan 12 via TweetDeck · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
@egallion Meh. I rarely watch the stuff he exec-produces because his heart is rarely in them. Anyway, he's not writing or directing it.
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6:45 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
I didn't even hear the "penis joke" Fey/Lynch allegedly just made. That's how bored I am. #goldenglobes
6:44 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
@egallion I... dunno. Maybe I'll watch it, but I've never watched a musical show before. You think it'll be good?
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6:42 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Will somebody explain to me why a show about Marilyn Monroe features a Christina Aguilera song? #smash
6:42 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
*sigh* Well, at least we have Billy Crystal to look forward to in the spring, right?
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6:40 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Oh, yeah: "Homeland", right? Duh. #goldenglobes
6:37 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Nick Gass @NickGass Reply Retweeted Favorite · Close
Fun fact: Someone once texted me claiming to be Claire Danes. #GoldenGlobes
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6:36 PM - 15 Jan 12 via TweetDeck · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
I'm sorry... what did Claire Danes just win again? I'm losing interest in the show, it seems. #goldenglobes
6:36 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Dustin H. thanking his wife and his agent for making him a presenter? I don't get it. #GoldenGlobes
6:35 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Benjamin Kramer @voraciousfilmgo 21h
@adamzanzie a joke?
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Good speech. We hear so many bad things about Iran these days, so it's nice to hear something good. #goldenglobes
6:34 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
jim emerson @jeeemerson Reply Retweeted Favorite · Close
Who is this foreign woman introducing the foreign films?
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6:32 PM - 15 Jan 12 via Tweetbot for iPhone · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
So, I guess I really need to see "A Separation" now... #GoldenGlobes
6:32 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
If Ricky doesn't come back at Madonna I will be super-disappointed. #GoldenGlobes
6:32 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Gotta hand it to Madonna: that was a fine diss. But there was no competition, really. #GoldenGlobes
6:31 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Oh, come on, Ricky. Is that the best you can do? #GoldenGlobes
6:31 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Elton PWNED. #GoldenGlobes
6:30 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
My gut tells me "The Descendants" might win. And that's okay; I mean, it's not my favorite of the nominees, but I liked it. #GoldenGlobes
6:30 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Okay, bring on the early predictions: what do you all think will win Best Drama? #GoldenGlobes
6:29 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Thanks you, News Channel 5, for keeping us up on snowy weather in the STL.
6:28 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Nick Gass @NickGass 21h
@adamzanzie It's the remake...would you expect anything else?
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
@NickGass Weeeeelllllll... I liked Jackson's remake. But not Guillermin's.
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6:27 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Wait, what? Jessica Lange previously won for that god-awful Kong remake? Or am I mishearing things? #GoldenGlobes
6:25 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
@egallion Methinks they're both doing equally well, but you know that already ;)
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6:23 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Macy and Huffman singing. I like this. #GoldenGlobes
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6:23 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Oh, wow: Woody didn't show up. What a surprise. #GoldenGlobes
6:23 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Give it to The Descendants. #GoldenGlobes
6:22 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Fake Armond @ArmondWhite Reply Retweeted Favorite · Close
Good. TANTAN won for Best Fuck You Spielberg.
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6:20 PM - 15 Jan 12 via Twitter for iPhone · Details
Lou Lumenick @LouLumenick 22h
Sorry, I don't think a #goldenglobe win is going to sell TINTIN to the animation branch for #oscars
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
@LouLumenick That's what I'm afraid of. I hope it does, though. The only spoiler might be "Rango".
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6:19 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
edgarwright @edgarwright Reply Retweeted Favorite · Close
Go Spiels!
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6:18 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
agnesnutter @agnesnutter 21h
@edgarwright you at the globes?
Robb Clarke @robbclarke 21h
@edgarwright Congrats
Drew Manning @DrewManning 21h
@edgarwright Go Spiels! - He couldn't have done it without you, Mr. Cornish and Mr. Moffat!
Rena @library_vixen 21h
@edgarwright @nickjfrost @simonpegg My kid told me that 3 of her favorite British people were involved with Tintin! :D #namedropsarecool
Liliana kekalih @owheylily 21h
@edgarwright congrats to you and your pal @simonpegg for Tintin win!
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Spielberg almost forgot to thank Kate. Glad he remembered at the last minute. #GoldenGlobes
6:18 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Simon Pegg @simonpegg Reply Retweeted Favorite · Close
Steven Spielberg just name checked me and @nickjfrost, I jumped off the bed and hurt my thigh. #swingsandroundabouts
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6:16 PM - 15 Jan 12 via TweetDeck · Details
Karen Brown @kannbrown 21h
@simonpegg @nickjfrost Aww, so cool! Congrats getting the Spielberg shoutout!
Logan Michaels @Logan1275 21h
@simonpegg @nickjfrost #ActorsProblems You work out for schwimmer, but get out of shape for Speilberg?
Adam Ostegard @OZ1313 21h
@simonpegg @nickjfrost Hey, remember that time when Spielberg dropped your names! That was cool!
Nathaniel Ochoa @NateTheGreat84 21h
@simonpegg @nickjfrost Hopefully that is just what it takes for you two to finally get some exposure in Hollywoodland :)
Rachelle @Samhaeyn 21h
@simonpegg @nickjfrost #Proudmoment I would have loved to have seen you guys there though.
Nick Gass @NickGass 22h
This is probably the earliest in an award show Spielberg has accepted an award. #GoldenGlobes
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
@NickGass Yeah, I think the last time he won it was w/Eastwood for "Letters from Iwo Jima".
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6:16 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
YEAAAAAAAAAAAH SPIELBERG! #GoldenGlobes
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6:14 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
TINTIN, PLEASE! #GoldenGlobes
6:13 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Oh, come on, Ricky. There are a million ways to roast Clooney, and you didn't use any of them! #GoldenGlobes
6:12 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Gervais returns! #GoldenGlobes
6:11 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
They're playing music on Dinklage? #GoldenGlobes
6:10 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Confession: I thought the dwarf in "In Bruges" was Dinklage. But it wasn't. #GoldenGlobes
6:09 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Dinklage FTW! #GoldenGlobes
6:09 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Again, these are great actors, so I don't care who wins. #GoldenGlobes
6:08 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Lou Lumenick @LouLumenick Reply Retweeted Favorite · Close
Free Ricky Gervais! #goldenglobes
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6:07 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
jim emerson @jeeemerson 22h
About time Meek's Cutoff won something!
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
@jeeemerson Lol. A particularly impressive feat after Tarantino called it one of the worst movies of the year!
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6:07 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Everyone does seem to be kissing Harvey Weinstein's @$$ tonight. #GoldenGlobes
6:06 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Question: why do they give awards like this if they're just gonna play people off the stage w/music? #GoldenGlobes
5:59 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Give it to Bill Nighy. #GoldenGlobes
5:57 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Is @ebertchicago not live-tweeting the #GoldenGlobes. Not that he's missing anything...
5:57 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Maybe they should hire Calvin Klein to direct "Shame 2".
5:55 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
There's a lot of globes (i.e. cleavage) on this telecast, in the show and in the ads. #dietpepsi
5:54 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
At first I thought this Cadillac ad was a "Tree of Life" promo. #GoldenGlobes
5:53 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
ckoh @ckoh 22h
guess nobody cares about the vertigo flap wrt the artist's score. also why wasn't tintin's score nominated? better than war horse's
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
@ckoh I like the "War Horse" score, but yeah, "Tintin" deserved a nod, too.
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5:51 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Nick Gass @NickGass Reply Retweeted Favorite · Close
Isn't the #GoldenGlobes supposed to be the fun awards show?
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5:47 PM - 15 Jan 12 via TweetDeck · Details
Nick Gass @NickGass 22h
There's a movie called Machine Gun Preacher. #GoldenGlobes
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
@NickGass That was a movie I'm proud I didn't see last year!
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5:49 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
I can't believe "Machine Gun Preacher" got a nod of any kind. #GoldenGlobes
5:49 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Jake Cole @notjustmovies 22h
Really? The WAR HORSE score got nominated for anything? #GoldenGlobes
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
@notjustmovies It also has a Best Drama nod.
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5:46 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
GIVE IT TO JOHN WILLIAMS!!!!!!!!!!
5:46 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Jimmy Fallon and Adam Levine, 2 of the biggest douchebags ever, introducing Best Original Score? WTF? #GoldenGlobes
5:45 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Nick Gass @NickGass 22h
This #GoldenGlobes really lacks any sort of energy. At least last year's had a darker, hostile tone. This one is just...nothing.
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
@NickGass I agree. How was Gervais' opening piece? Did he go easy or something? I missed it.
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5:43 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Lou Lumenick @LouLumenick 22h
This show is alarmingly boring on balance so far. Is Ricky holding back? #goldenglobes
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
@LouLumenick I missed Gervais opening thing, but so far I agree with you. Nothing exciting is going on...
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5:43 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
"Soup Opera." How original. #GoldenGlobes
5:42 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Bilge Ebiri @BilgeEbiri Reply Retweeted Favorite · Close
As much as I love THE GODFATHER, I will always hate it for bringing the word "consigliere" into the common lexicon.
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5:40 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Baran Zoral @baranzoral 22h
@BilgeEbiri equally hate the "leave the gun, take the cannoli" references/jokes
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Damian Lewis is famous on Homeland now, but I well remember him from "Dreamcatcher". #GoldenGlobes
5:41 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
I was gonna say these TV awards are boring, but I seem to say that every year. #GoldenGlobes
5:40 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Nick Gass @NickGass 22h
@adamzanzie Yes, Breaking Bad. Not much of a Grammer fan, anyway.
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
@NickGass Because of his politics, right? lol
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5:39 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Sean Bean in "Game of Thrones" looks more like... well, Boromir, I guess. #GoldenGlobes
5:38 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Nick Gass @NickGass 22h
Steve Buscemi or Bryan Cranston. If not...I will be angry. #GoldenGlobes
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
@NickGass Wait what was Cranston nominated for again? Breaking Bad, right? Or something else? #GoldenGlobes
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5:37 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Kelsey Grammar winning instead of Jeremy Irons and Steve Buscemi? Heresy! #GoldenGlobes
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5:36 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie 22h
It just occurred to me: the only thing by Todd Haynes I've seen is "I'm Not There", and nothing else. #GoldenGlobes
ckoh @ckoh 22h
@adamzanzie safe, poison & far from heaven all worth watching. velvet goldmine has redeeming facets as well
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
@ckoh Yeah, I don't know why I've neglected Far From Heaven for so long. It's on my list.
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5:34 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Jake Cole @notjustmovies 22h
Nicole Kidman looks like she just bathed in virgin's blood. #GoldenGlobes
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
@notjustmovies Ha, yeah I noticed that.
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5:33 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Harrison Ford sitting next to Nicole Kidman? Hmm. #GoldenGlobes
5:33 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
JEREMY IRONS! And... some other chick! #GoldenGlobes
5:32 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Dear Frank Martinez, whoever you are: If you know what's good for you, you'll stop working for McDonalds. They. Are. Evil. #GoldenGlobes
5:29 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Bilge Ebiri @BilgeEbiri Reply Retweeted Favorite · Close
"Good potato." That is all.
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5:28 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
john lichman @jlichman 22h
@BilgeEbiri was waiting for "Brought to you by Scientology."
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
It just occurred to me: the only thing by Todd Haynes I've seen is "I'm Not There", and nothing else. #GoldenGlobes
5:26 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
ckoh @ckoh 22h
@adamzanzie safe, poison & far from heaven all worth watching. velvet goldmine has redeeming facets as well
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie 22h
@ckoh Yeah, I don't know why I've neglected Far From Heaven for so long. It's on my list.
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
It seems I keep forgetting to include the #GoldenGlobes tag. Starting now.
5:25 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Richard Roeper @richardroeper Reply Retweeted Favorite · Close
Oh great, now Kate Winslet's probably gonna do some fake British accent...
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5:25 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
AshleyOhAshley @AshleyDidIt 22h
When actors become #famous they always get a British accent you didn't know ? LOL ~ "@richardroeper
Lisa Manna @LisaManna 22h
@richardroeper Like Madonna and Johnny Depp?
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
*Mildred
5:25 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Oh, well. I didn't watch "Mildren Pierce", but I still think Emily should have won instead of Kate.
5:24 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Emily Watson better win this award, whatever it is.
5:24 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Oh, Julian Fellowes! I haven't seen him win something since his "Gosford Park" Oscar.
5:22 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
"When was the last time you did a cold reading in front of Steven Spielberg"? Well... she *was* in "The Lost World", Rob Lowe, so STFU.
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5:21 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Yeah... Rob Lowe kind of shouldn't even be breathing the same air as Julianne Moore.
5:20 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Goooooooooooooooooooold!
5:18 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Who shot this Trop50 commercial? Brian De Palma?
5:18 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Why do I get the strange feeling L'OREAL will be sponsoring the Globes for another eternity?
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5:17 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Kenji Fujishima @kenjfuj 23h
I'll consider Laura Dern's win for ENLIGHTENED as a sideways honor for INLAND EMPIRE. Just because I feel like it. #GoldenGlobes
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
@kenjfuj So will I! ;)
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5:16 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Benjamin Kramer @voraciousfilmgo 23h
@adamzanzie @kenjfuj I'll take it as a lifetime achievement award
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Did Laura Dern just thank Frank Capra...?
5:16 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Wait... *what* did Laura Dern just win for? I wasn't paying attention.
5:14 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Glad to see Plummer win
5:14 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Sadly, I missed Gervais entire opening monologue :(
5:13 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Okay... WOW. I finally got access to a TV on campus with the Globes airing.
5:13 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
I'm a weird position right now. I can't watch the Globes because NBC isn't streaming them online. HELP!
4:09 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details
Adam Charles Zanzie @adamzanzie Reply Delete Favorite · Close
Does anyone know any websites that are streaming the #goldenglobes right now?
4:02 PM - 15 Jan 12 via web · Details

On Torture and Revenge in "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" (2011)

2012-01-04T16:00:00.000-08:00

I was loving every minute of David Fincher’s new remake of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, up to a point. What bothered me a little [spoilers] was the way Fincher handles the climactic scene at the end, in which the movie’s villain finally gets his comeuppance. In the scene, the villain, Martin Vanger (Stellan Skarsgard), has just escaped, and Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara) asks her partner, Mikael (Daniel Craig), “May I kill him?” Mikael nods. What follows is a high-speed chase between Martin and Lisbeth that ends with Martin’s car tumbling off the road and catching on fire. Lisbeth approaches the overturned car, gun in hand, and is about to shoot the wounded Martin when the car suddenly blows up. He’s dead.

Those of you who have seen the 2009 Swedish version, directed by Niels Arden Oplev, will remember this scene played out differently in that film. In that version, Lisbeth (Noomi Rapace) walks towards the overturned car while a dying Martin (Peter Haber) starts crying out to her for help. She is not sure what to do. Should she help him? No, she decides to let him burn. Later, Mikael (Michael Nyqvist), who—in this version—did not give Lisbeth permission to kill Martin, wonders how she could be so insensitive. “He was an evil motherfucker who hated women!” she roars. Mikael is startled by her outrage and decides to back off, realizing that Lisbeth probably acted the way she did because of her own personal experiences. She did not rescue Martin from the burning wreck because she has been too wounded by men, in the past, to allow her heart to bleed for sadistic criminals like him. And she is grateful to Mikael when he decides not to question her motives any further.

Even though I wasn’t a huge fan of the 2009 film, I appreciated the inclusion of that small little argument between Lisbeth and Mikael because it addressed a genuine concern: the morality of killing. And torture. And revenge. Oplev’s film finally asked audiences: if you were watching even the most despicable criminal dying in a car wreck, would it really be okay to simply let him burn to death? Wouldn’t it be more righteous to save him instead, and turn him over to the authorities? Or do our personal biases color our decisions either way? Oplev’s film seemed to engage this question, but Fincher’s film seems not to.

In all fairness to Fincher, that scene in Oplev’s film—where Mikael and Lisbeth argue about Martin’s death—was written on the spot by the screenwriters and was not, in fact, present in the original Stieg Larsson novel (which I haven’t read). And yet I was greatly disappointed that Fincher decided not to include the scene in his own version, because without it, the two films are saying two wildly different things about the morality of killing. In Oplev’s film, Mikael is appalled by Lisbeth’s indifference at the scene of Martin’s death; in Fincher’s film, Mikael is the one who gives her permission to let Martin die in the first place.

I'm not giving Fincher enough credit, though. There are other areas of his version that are actually a vast improvement over the Oplev version, even as a commentary on torture and revenge. In particular, I think Fincher has done a better job, than Oplev did, in his handling of the controversial scenes between Lisbeth and her sadistic guardian Bjurman, a conflict that begins with Bjurman torturing and raping Lisbeth and ends with Lisbeth doing the same to him. You will recall that these scenes in the Oplev film were rather simplistic; Bjurman (Peter Andersson) seemed overwhelmingly sinister—and deprived of all humanity—before Lisbeth finally reduced him to tears in the big torture scene. The filmmakers did not provide him with any background or any redeeming factors.

Fincher’s version improves on these shortcomings significantly, perhaps because screenwriter Steven Zaillian has humanized sex-crazed psychos in his scripts before; think Amon Goeth in Schindler’s List or Bill the Butcher in Gangs of New York. Fincher and Zaillian have a much different take on Bjurman (Yorick van Wageningen). In an earlier scene, when he’s harassing Lisbeth in his office, we notice that there is a photograph on his desk of what appear to be his kids. I don’t recall this detail in the Oplev version. By including it in his own version, I think Fincher is trying to make a point that Bjurman is not just some random rapist pig. No, he’s an otherwise normal man who’s most likely had evil rape fantasies built up in his psyche for quite some time now. Later in the film, after he’s already raped Lisbeth, he is surprised when she turns up on his doorstep again. If you listen very carefully, you’ll hear a slight whimper in Yorick van Wageningen’s voice; it’s like he’s under the deluded impression that his rape of Lisbeth has made her fall in love with him or something. He even tries to express a little guilt for the way he treated Lisbeth the last time. And then—BAM! She tazes him. It’s too late for an apology.

Well, I’m not sure about the rest of you, but this kind of reminded me of David Lynch’s forays into similar material; think Frank Booth in Blue Velvet, or Leland Palmer/BOB in Twin Peaks. I believe the reason why Fincher and Zaillian wanted to humanize Bjurman a little more is because they see him, like Lisbeth, as a victim of sorts, though obviously not in the same way. Rape is more than just a cultural atrocity—it’s a cultural disease. It poisons the minds of men who fall under the spells of their own hideous fantasies, believing that violent domination of women will somehow convert them into falling for them. It’s disgusting stuff, but it’s necessary to comment on it. Mass audiences will no doubt cheer when they see Lisbeth torturing Bjurman and sticking a dildo up his ass, which isn’t an entirely misguided response; after what Lisbeth has just gone through, a little audience catharsis in her vengeance is to be expected. But when Lisbeth stares into Bjurman’s eyes and forces him to nod his head and confirm that she’s insane, I think Fincher and Zaillian are finally asking us: what do you, as an audience, think? Is torture an effective antidote to rape? Or is it just another problem?

I don’t know. I have very mixed feelings about this movie. At times I loved it, with its eerie Trent Reznor/Atticus Ross score, sublime Jeff Cronenweth cinematography and stark performances by all (including a wonderful Christopher Plummer as Henrik Vanger), while at other times I wasn’t so sure how it was supposed to make me feel. Faithful readers will recall I was troubled last year by what I perceived to be a pro-capital punishment stance in True Grit. But now, despite some lingering reservations, I guess I don’t have a lot of problems with the way The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo addresses cultural practices I detest (like torture and revenge), because I think Fincher and Steven Zaillian know exactly what they’re doing. I especially like the way they end the film. Lisbeth is about to return to Mikael, with a gift, when she spots him in the arms of his lover (Robin Wright). Heartbroken, she throws her present into the garbage and speeds off into the darkness, isolated. It turns out Mikael isn’t so grateful, after all, for Lisbeth rescuing him from Orinoco Flow-induced suffocation. We probably shouldn’t be surprised, of course, since he spends most of his time in the movie flirting with a house cat instead of her.

It’s a sad and poetic ending, one that not only improves on the icky happy ending of the Oplev version, but also confronts us with the consequences Lisbeth will have to endure. Fincher and Zaillian play fair. They let Lisbeth have her vengeance, they let her torture her guardian, they even let her have the pleasure of watching a serial killer die in a car explosion, but there is a price to pay. For the life she lives and the ruthless methods of justice she embraces, she will have to go back to her solitary existence—without Mikael—and wander the streets alone.

War Horse (2011)

2011-12-28T09:00:00.000-08:00

When this movie was over, I wept. It was nothing for me to be ashamed of. Steven Spielberg’s War Horse is a painterly masterpiece, woven together with beauty and sadness, strength and heartbreak, triumph and love. It tells the story of a horse that is plunged headfirst into the cauldron of World War I, and the teenage boy who descends into the hells of the trenches to find and it bring it home. But it is more, too. It invited me, like a warm blanket, into its world of green pastures and smoky battlefields, and introduced me to characters—both human and animal—that I began to love and adore with great emotion, as if they were real presences in my own life. It would not be enough for me to say that this is my favorite movie of the year. This is one of the best movies I've ever seen.

All great filmmakers have one thing in common: they expand on ideas that worked for them in the past. From there, they create new and unexpected works of art. Steven Spielberg is no exception: he is our finest poet of communication breakdowns. We remember, from his films, Elliot, Gertie and Michael teaching E.T. how to talk; Nettie teaching Celie how to read; Adams, Joadson and Baldwin teaching Cinque about American customs; Viktor Navorski teaching himself how to speak English. But War Horse is a horse of a different color, and in more ways than one. Spielberg has always had a penchant for challenging his audiences to invest their care in the narratives of unusual protagonists. This time, he has mounted his most compelling narrative challenge for us since A.I., by centering his latest film around a teenage boy learning to communicate—intimately—with a creature that doesn’t talk at all.

Jeremy Irvine plays Albert Narracott, a young English lad growing up on his family’s farm in Devon in 1913. In the opening passages of War Horse, Spielberg and his world treasure of a cinematographer, Janusz Kaminski, soar over the lime-green fields of England, in a merrily nostalgic evocation of John Ford’s The Quiet Man, before settling down to a starry-eyed Albert watching, through a fence, while a pregnant mother horse gives birth to a baby fawn. The boy can hardly hold back his excitement. This could very well be the first time he has ever born witness to an event of profound, natural beauty.

The newborn horse is not as amused with its own surroundings, which Spielberg makes palpably felt in a harrowing little scene where it is taken, kicking and screaming, away from its mother, whom it will never see again. It has been purchased by Albert’s father, Ted (Peter Mullan), who snagged it at an auction for no good reason other than to smite his bourgeoisie landlord, Lyons (David Thewlis), while they were both flexing their muscles in a futile game of prewar class warfare. Spielberg, indeed, bookends War Horse with two sequences set at auctions: the first one, a bet for the horse’s ownership, and the second, a bet for its life. His basic point is that horses, no matter if they’re impressive or unimpressive creatures, will always be at the mercy of us. We are the ones who determine whether they are destined for happy lives or as fodder for the meat grinder, and sometimes, he argues, we do it in the names of greed and masculine pride. In war and in life, just because horses are beings of a lesser intelligence, they are not afforded the luxury of choice.

What Albert Narracott does want to establish, between himself and the new horse, is a system of trust. Remember Elliot having to bait E.T., with Reese’s Pieces, in order to lead him into his house? Spielberg replicates some of that magic here, when Albert realizes he’s going to need to bait the new horse, somehow, in order to earn its friendship. Why not turn his back, and allow the bucket to resonate more like a breakfast waiting patiently for its customer, instead of like an intimidating instrument of force-feeding and torture? Albert tries this out, and it works. The horse quietly steps up, eases its snout into the bucket and chows down, and remains admirably calm while Albert pets it and bestows upon it a name: “I’m gonna call you Joey.”

Albert’s family, the Narracotts, is one of the most lovable movie families in recent memory. Albert is an idealistic young lad; Ted is alternately a drunken fool and an observant farmer who knows what to do in a time of economic panic; and Rose (Emily Watson) is a headstrong wife and mother (the most fully-realized heroine in Spielberg’s career since, well, ever) who maintains the family’s sanity even while struggling to maintain her own. In one of the funniest and, at the same time, most touching shots composed by Spielberg in the film, the director places Rose in the foreground, allowing her to have a private moment all to herself while the farm goose waddles in the lower right-hand corner of the frame, minding its own business. This goose likes to act as man of the house in Ted and Albert’s place, and has the freedom to do what they are in no position to do—that is, chase away unwanted authorities, like Lyons, whenever they descend on the Narracott homestead and give the family a hard time.

The first hour of War Horse is a joyous one, allowing the audience to get to know the Narracotts, and the rest of the village, as they slowly but surely rally behind Albert’s efforts to raise Joey as a farm horse that can plow through even the hardest of stone and mud. But this barely even begins to describe the range of Spielberg’s film, which reaches a turning point after Ted realizes what must be done to save the family farm: sell Joey to the English cavalry. Over the course of the film, Joey will fall into the custody of a host of different characters, all of whom are impressed by the power and strength of this horse, and many of whom, no doubt, would like to take it home with them after the war is over. We follow Joey and, later, Albert—when he enlists in the war in hopes that Joey will be recovered—as their adventures carry them from forests to hillsides, windmills to No Man’s Land, against a nightmarish depiction of trench warfare that invites comparison to Kubrick and Paths of Glory.

The film remains true to the 1982 children’s novel by Michael Morpurgo, which I have already read and covered, and also, presumably, to the recent London stage play by Nick Stafford, which I haven’t yet seen. To adapt Morpurgo’s complicated story, Spielberg has hired two of England’s most talented screenwriters, Lee Hall and Richard Curtis, whose resumes look almost tailor-made for a project of this emotional magnitude. Hall was the one who located the human story in Billy Elliot, making that film one of the surprise indie hits of the late 1990’s. Curtis is more well-known in the industry, perhaps because of his enjoyable romantic comedies (Notting Hill, Love Actually, The Girl in the Café), although it wasn’t until 2009’s Pirate Radio when I thought he finally managed to reach a kind of cinematic brilliance. Spielberg may have also hired Curtis because of his involvement with the 80's television show Blackadder Goes Forth, which I haven’t watched, but which, evidently, was the work of a filmmaker who already knew a thing or two about the first world war.

Together, Hall and Curtis lay the ground plan for Spielberg’s vision: to make a film about the war in which all sides are granted their dignity. Captain Nicholls (Tom Hiddleston) and Major Stewart (Benedict Cumberbatch) are gentle, commanding officers of the British cavalry who treat Joey and his eventual horse companion—a black beauty named Topthorn—as fellow soldiers deserving of their respect, while the young, sickly Emilie (Celine Buckens) and her doting grandfather (Niels Arestrup) represent the spirit of France, welcoming Joey and Topthorn into their windmill home with open arms. But there is a sympathetic portrait of Germany here, too; Spielberg does not fall into the same trap Howard Hawks and John Huston fell into, in Sergeant York, when they inadvertently reduced Kaiser helmet-wearing Germans to a nameless, anonymous enemy. Gunther (David Kross) and his 14-year old brother Michael (Leonhard Carow) attempt to free Joey and Topthorn from the madness of the war, while risking their own lives in the process. And it is the jolly, bearded gunman Friedrich (Nicolas Bro) who remains by Topthorn’s side at a crucial moment, and screams for Joey to run for his life just when a Panzer is about to unleash all hell on No Man’s Land.

There are no villains in this film. Why would there be? World War I was a superfluous, pointless war, and it would have been a mistake to demonize any of the world powers because none of them were guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors; the war was fought not for world freedom, but for class and politics. As Lyons, David Thewlis plays an antagonist who, despite being an upper-class bully, allows the Narracotts their chance to raise Joey, even while he remains somewhat justifiably skeptical of the horse’s skills. Lyons has a son, David (Robert Emms), who intimidates Albert with his cars and hot babes until he finds himself being rescued—by Albert—in the heat of battle, later on in the film. Brandt (Rainer Bock), the cigar-smoking German major who makes life difficult for Joey and Topthorn, is really just a hardened soldier who has taught himself to adhere by a commonly-accepted rule: don’t ever dote on horses and give them names, or else you’ll get too carried away with grief once you've seen them die on the battlefield.

Spielberg has cast every actor in this movie to perfection. I am tempted to describe how much I admired the performances by all of them, but that way madness lies. I’ll limit to myself to the Narracotts. Jeremy Irvine is quite a refreshing new discovery as Albert; he’s the kind of younger actor that directors like David Lean loved to work with, so I guess it’s not a surprise to learn that Mike Newell has cast him in an upcoming Great Expectations remake. Peter Mullan is an actor who’s never made a great impression on me until now. I don’t seem to recall his role in Braveheart, although I well remember him as the corrupt cop in Children of Men. Here, he bravely takes upon the role of a father who has kept his own memories of war heavily-guarded, and finds himself sometimes having to go against the wishes of his wife and son in order to protect the family. And Emily Watson, perhaps my favorite living actress, is a true blessing in the canvas. In one of the film’s most quietly moving moments, when her husband asks her how she will react if he does the unthinkable, she pointedly replies, “I may hate you more… but I will never love you less.” Even she is prepared to condone that decision which she fears the most.

In the past, Spielberg and his usual team of technical collaborators (Janusz Kaminski, Michael Kahn, John Williams) have managed to tackle extraordinary narratives of an awesome variety, but here they face a considerable challenge: how do you mount an epic in which the main protagonist is an animal? The original Morpurgo book relied on narration from Joey’s inner thoughts, but Spielberg has resisted that approach here, perhaps because the last time DreamWorks distributed a film narrated by a horse (2002’s Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron), it was a resounding box office flop. Spielberg has taken a wiser approach, I believe, by trusting his audience enough to let us figure out, for ourselves, what Joey is thinking in key sequences. When Albert, for example, teaches Joey, through clever visual expression, that there’s nothing dangerous about putting on a harness, Joey is able to silently pass this knowledge onto Topthorn later on, in a wonderfully understated moment. Or consider the climactic scene in which Joey finds himself cornered by the approaching Panzer (in a startling quotation of Saving Private Ryan’s finale), and his frightened neighing conveys to us what narration wouldn’t have needed to. In fact, Spielberg enlisted no less than 15 different horses to play Joey, but you wouldn’t know it from the finished film. By the end, Joey has emerged as the most three-dimensional character in the story.

I went into War Horse expecting Spielberg to mount a war odyssey on the scale of Empire of the Sun. I did not anticipate a film that would both remain true to the source material and surprise me with scenes that came out of left field; the pivotal sequence in which an English and German soldier (Toby Kebbell and Hinnerck Schonemman) must put aside their differences to rescue Joey from a web of barbed wire in No Man’s Land has already been much discussed in other reviews. I went in already familiar with Morpurgo’s story, but was amazed at how captivated I finally was with the way Spielberg had reimagined it. He closes the film, fittingly, with a visual reference to Gone with the Wind (his first tribute to Victor Fleming since Always in ’89) that, I believe, will be remembered as a classic movie ending in itself: one that asks us what Joey and Albert have finally accomplished, even as we are already cheering them on for their accomplishments.

War Horse is Spielberg’s Christmas gift to us. More appropriately, it’s his reward to us—a reward for our natural wisdom as moviegoers. To fully appreciate Spielberg's achievement, however, there is catch: you must see this film with a mass audience. Watch how everybody in your theater falls under its spell, one by one. I know I did. I saw it with an audience that broke into applause after it was over, and I never wanted the applause to end; movies like this deserve all the applause in the world. It doesn't matter that this story is set during another period in our history. War Horse is a movie for our time.

The Adventures of Tintin: Red Rackham's Treasure (1945)

2011-12-08T07:00:00.000-08:00

A man named Bill walks into a bar, The Anchor, and tells a friend named George that he's sailing aboard the SIRIUS in a few days with Tintin and Captain Haddock. George is familiar with them because they cracked the Bird brothers case, and Bill tells him he's going treasure-hunting with them. They are overheard by a Daily Reporter, who publishes the story in the news the next day (Haddock bumps into a pole while reading the paper, alarmed that an ad on the pole descripes the Daily Reporter as "news which hits you").

A man claiming to go by the name "Red Rackham" drops by Tintin's place and claims he's entitled to half a share; others claiming to go by that name drop by as well (one carrying a "family tree" with him). Haddock scares them off when he reveals himself as Sir Francis' descendant. By the time Thomson and Thompson have dropped by, another man -- Cuthbert Calculus -- has dropped by. He is hard of hearing, and when Haddock demands that he give "YOUR NAME!", Calculus replies, "Gone away?... What a pity! Never mind. I'll come again. I particularly wanted to speak to Mr. Tintin himself..."

Calculus tells Tintin (with some difficulty) that he's invented an underwater sub that could help Tintin avoid sharks during his journey. Much to his annoyance, he practically invites himself along for the ride (assuming Tintin has invited him, even though Tintin has tried to yell to him that he doesn't need him). After a bit of slapstick at Calculus' place, and accidentally breaking his own sub machine in half, Tintin and Haddock leave, with Calculus assuming (wrongly) that they want him to build a two-seater sub for them.

Some days later, Tintin and Haddock buy a diving suit from a merchant who warns them, "Beware, young fellow, beware! Money is the root of all evil!" and "I see that you intend to go treasure hunting... I read it in your face." Haddock accidentally breaks a mirror in the shop, which makes him paranoid the next day about the voyage. Thomson & Thompson come to inform them that Max Bird has escaped. Haddock receives a latter from his doctor stating that he has a bad liver condition and should avoid alcohol. Just then, Calculus appears and says his ship is ready, but Haddock draws a message on a wall for him: WE ARE NOT INTERESTED IN YOUR MACHINE! Haddock is still resistant about going on the voyage before the Thomsons suggest he is afraid, and he explodes, declaring they'll lay anchors tomorrow.

When they set out the next day, the Thomsons catch up with Tintin/Haddock on motorboat insisting they come with them to make sure Max Bird isn't stalking them during the voyage. "Now that we are aboard you will be able to feel that you are perfectly safe," says Thomson. "To be precise," adds Thompson, "perfectly safe."

There is trouble onboard when Bill accuses Snowy of stealing biscuits and chicken. Meanwhile, Haddock thinks there's a bomb onboard in some crates, when actually it's just steel plates. Haddock also suspects Snowy of stealing whiskey, and although they find Snowy clearly drunk, it's only because Snowy has been licking smashed whiskey from the deck. Up top, they find Calculus sleeping in a lifeboat with a box of biscuits. It turns out Calculus removed the bottles of whiskey from the crates and replaced it with the parts of his sub machine.

No islands are sighted. The Thomsons insist the Captain may have made a mistake on his calculations, and point to where they think he is on the map. Haddock takes off his hat and "prays", then explains, "I mean, gentlemen, that according to your calculations we are now standing inside Westminster Abbey!" Tintin and Haddock privately try to figure out what they're doing wrong with the calculations, and Tintin realizes that Sir Francis probably used a French chart -- which may mean that they're too far west.

They finally find an island, but they wait until morning to explore. In the morning, they find the remains of Sir Franc's old jollyboat, which may mean that they're near their goal. In the jungle, Snowy finds a bone and leads them to the remains of jungle natives beside an "idol" of Sir Francis. When Tintin impersonates how Sir Francis might have talked to the natives long ago ("Ration my rum!"), he is replied to by some parrots saying the same thing on the trees above. They also have trouble with some monkeys that temporarily steal Haddock's gun. They decide to take the Francis idol back to the ship.

On the way back, a shark attacks their boat, and others follow suit. Haddock shoots at them, but Calculus appears in his shark-proof sub and scares the sharks off. This persuades Tintin to try operating the sub himself; Calculus tells him a red button can be used to release smoke in the water when he's found the treasure. Tintin descends the sub with Snowy, only for the sub's propeller to get caught in some seaweed. Believing he's found treasure, Haddock and Calculus now out, but are bemused when Tintin fails to rise to the surface. Haddock decides to use the anchor to hook onto the sub and, after some struggling, frees the sub to the surface. Snowy thinks to himself, "Weeds or not, I don't set foot in that thing again!", to which Tintin replies, "Snowy and I are setting out again immediately!"

With his pendulum, Calculus tries to tell Haddock that the Unicorn wreck is not in the area they're searching. However, Tintin does manage to find the wreck, and dives down to it in his diving suit. The air temporarily stops working when the Thomsons stop pumping, which incites Haddock's wrath. When Calculus asks what's going on, Haddock snarks Tintin is "picking daisies down below", which Calculus reads as "having a row." So when Tintin emerges to the surface with a gold cross, encrusted with precious stones and a cutlass, Calculus is rather angry, believing Haddock lied to him.

When Haddock himself dives, he comes up with a bottle of rum, gets drunk, dives back down without his helmet and is prepared to rage at the Thomsons because they "forgot to pump again!" But of course, his suit is now full of water, which Tintin and the Thomsons demonstrate by tipping him over. Having a drink of rum that evening, Tintin expresses disappointment over having not found the treasure, but Haddock says, "Oh, we'll find that tomorrow, won't we Professor Calculus?" To which Calculus, still hard-of-hearing, replies, "Perhaps, but I'm inclined to think it is rum." They then realize the Thomsons are still pumping air outside, and order them off to bed.

The next morning, Tintin finds a casket and wonders if it's treasure when, suddenly, he is attacked by a shark that swallows it. Using a rum bottle as a weapon somehow makes the shark drunk, and Tintin uses the opportunity to tie the ship's rope to the shark and have it dragged up to the deck. When the shark is cut open, they find the casket in its stomach, and Haddock tries to use a case opener to open it. Inside, all they find are old documents "half eaten away by damp!" More treasure-hunting down below proves useless.

Calculus spots a cross on the island, and they row back to dig under it, which confuses Calculus: what on Earth are they digging for? They find no treasure. Calculus says the pendulum points westwards, but Haddock, in a fury, grabs it and stomps on it (Snowy then treats the pendulum like a fetch ball and brings it back to Calculus). The Thomsons, curiously, stay behind to fill in the hole ("people never look where they're going..."). By the 15th, they are at least able to raise the Unicorn figurehead, which surprises Calculus -- whose pendulum, apparently, was wrong all along. By the time they return on the 22nd, a reporter, Ken Rogers of the Daily Reporter, is desperate for an interview, and Haddock turns his "secretary" Calculus over to him for any questions. The Thomsons, meanwhile, confident that Max Bird never appeared because they were onboard during the voyage, decide to "spend a few days in the country with a farmer friend of ours."

Some days later, Calculus pays a visit to Tintin with the documents from the casket, believing he's been able to figure them out. Indeed, the documents reveal that King Charles II bestowed Marlinspike Hall to Sir Francis. This delights Calculus, who says he has enough government money (for the patent on his sub) to buy the estate back. They buy it, and in the storeroom they find a statue of St. John the Evangelist ("the Eagle of Patmos"), which is equipped with a stone globe that -- when Tintin points to the island they journeyed to - pops out a lid to reveal Red Rackham's treasure. Hearing footsteps, they run and hide, only to realize it's just Caulcus following his pendulum. This allows Haddock to set up a Maritime Gallery, where relics of the Unicorn ship will be on display in Marlinspike Hall.

HADDOCK: Well, what do you say now, my friends? All's well that ends well, eh?

CALCULUS: Just as I always said: more to the west!

HADDOCK: Yes, yes. But I said: all's well that ends well. Don't you agree?

CALCULUS: Your maritime gallery? ... I think it is very successful!

HADDOCK: Thanks. But I was just saying that our adventures had a happy ending. They've ended, and happily!...

CALCULUS: No thank you. Never between meals.

HADDOCK: No, no! Blistering barnacles! All's well that ends well! ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL!

CALCULUS: Without any doubt!

CALCULUS: ...and this is just the moment to quote that old saying: All's well that ends well!

The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn (1946)

2011-12-07T08:00:00.000-08:00

Pickpockets are about! Thomson and Thompson are keeping their eyes peeled for the "well-organized gang" believed to be stealing wallets in Old Street Market. There, they run into Tintin, and are about to buy some walking sticks before they realized both their wallets have been stolen. Tintin pays for the sticks himself. When Thomson and Thompson start harassing others in the crowd to see if they are thieves, they are arrested.

Tintin and Snowy come across a ship being sold. "I say, Snowy, isn't that a fine ship!" Tintin remarks. He wants to buy it for Captain Haddock (price is a quid), and is told "it's a very old... er... very old type of galliard." Tintin bids seventeen and six for it and it is sold to him, but then a bearded man comes on the scene and asks to buy it from Tintin, who refuses to sell it. Then a chubby mustached man tries to buy it from Tintin, and he, too, is rejected. Tintin leaves.

A few minutes later, the bearded man appears at Tintin's place again, still asking to buy the ship, claiming to be a collector of models. The man gives Tintin his card and leaves. Snowy accidentally knocks the ship over, and Tintin fixes it just in time for Haddock's arrival. Haddock is alarmed, asks where Tintin bought the ship, and rushes with Tintin back to his own flat, showing him a portrait of his ancestor Sir Francis Haddock... with a similar-looking ship in the background. In tiny letters it reads: UNICORN. This prompts Tintin to rush back to his place to take another look at the model... only to find it gone.

Looking at the card the bearded man gave him (IVAN IVANOVITCH SAKHARINE; Collector; 21, Eucalyptus Avenue), Tintin visits Sakharine's place, where the man claims he's been "expecting" Tintin. Tintin spots a similkar model on the man's table, but Sakharine claims this is a different model that he's had for 10 years. Tintin checks to see if it has a broken mast like his own model, and, lo and behold, it doesn't.

Leaving Sakharine's place, Tintin tries to phone Haddock (annoyed that a fat lady is in the booth already, but only so she and her dog "Fifi" can stay out of the rain for a quarter of an hour), but Haddock doesn't answer. Tintin returns to find his flat ransacked; did the other man from the market do this? "Burgled twice in one day... Not bad at all!" Tintin complains. Nothing, however, was actually stolen.

The next morning, Thomson and Thompson visit Tintin to pay him back for the sticks, only to realized they've been mugged again. Tintin knows it couldn't have been the burly man from the market because he couldn't have stolen their *new* wallets (which they only bought that morning). Meanwhile, Snowy finds a scroll of parchment under the drawers. It reads:

Three brothers joynes. Three Unicorns in company sailing in the noonday Sunne will speak.

For 'tis from the Light that Light will dawn. And then shines forth.
42 A o 1 ?

the Eagle's t

"But it's all gibberish!" complains Tintin. "And where on earth did this parchment come from, anyway?" Then he realizes it must have fallen under the ship and rolled underneath the drawers when Snowy knocked it over. Tintin deduces that whoever stole the ship must have been after the parchment. Snowy thinks, "Tintin, you're a real Sherlock Holmes!"

Tintin and his landlady are unable to get into Haddock's room, but after some struggle, Haddock comes bursting out dressed like a ship captain, complete with a hat and sword. He seems to be, in Tintin's words, "play-acting", when in fact he's enacting the journeys of his ancestor, Francis Haddock. It seems Haddock has found his ancestor's old manuscripts from the year 1676 (the Unicorn was a vessel of King Charles II's fleet). He goes on to tell a story of Francis' ship being attacked by the pirate ship of Red Rackham. The ship was hijacked, and Francis was tied to the mast while Rackham and his pirates transfer their cargo to the Unicorn (their own ship is sinking). "Regard me well, dog: I am Red Rackham!"

Haddock continues to tell the story to Tintin while Snowy gets drunk on rum ("That's funny! Now there are two glasses!"). In the story, Francis breaks free, fights Rackham down below (while Haddock tells of Francis extinguishing the fuse on some powder kegs, he steps on Snowy's tail, causing Snowy to yelp, "WOOOAH!"). And then Francis kills Rackham -- "That's that! May heaven forgive your wicked soul!" -- before lighting the power kegs again, fleeing to an island and watching the ship blow up.

According to Haddock, Francis lived w/the island natives for the next 2 years and then was carried home by a ship, but left a Will on the last page of his manuscript bequeathing a model to each of his three sons. His manuscript instructs the sons to move the mainmasts on each model: "'Thus,' he concludes, 'the truth will come out.'" To which Tintin exclaims, "That's it, Captain! ...Red Rackham's Treasure will be ours!"

Unfortunately, Tintin's wallet has been stolen, so he has lost his parchment, but he does remember the message. He knows they will need to acquire all three scrolls. They find Sakharine "murdered" at his place, according to a hysterical old lady, when in fact he's only been chloroformed. But his parchment has been stolen, too. Thomson and Thompson arrive and anger Haddock by accusing him of commiting the crime (they claim it's an "experiment" of theirs). While Sakharine wakes up, Thompson is burned by his own magnifying glass, much to Thomson's amusement. Thomson reveals he's developed a system of keeping an "elastic" wallet in his pocket from now on.

Sakharine claims the burly man from the market came to visit him. Tintin and Haddock go back to Tintin's place, where the burly man is awaiting them and tries to go inside w/them before he is shot in a drive-by, croaking to Tintin, "Take care! ...They... they will kill you... too..." Befofre passing out, he points to some sparrows eating crumbs on the sidewalk. It is made to look like murder in the papers, when in fact he is still alive in the hospital and the press has been lied to in order to fool the crooks. That night in the market, the Thomsons are nearly mugged again, but the elastic trap works. However, the thief escapes when Thomson crashes into a street pole. But they do manage to retrieve his coat as well as Tintin's wallet from him. Tintin reminds them they can identify the thief by which cleaners the coat has been to.

At Tintin's place, Tintin encounters some "dinner service" men who chloroform him and stuff him in their crate. Snowy barks at them from the window, falls and lands in Haddock's arms (he just arrived onto the scene), then chases the thieves' van. The landlady is confused, since Snowy is known never to leave his master.

Held prisoner in their hideout and tormented by an unseen voice claiming to be "the ghost of the captain of the Unicorn," Tintin is confused when the voice accuses him of stealing the other two parchments. Tintin never did have more than one. Wanting to get out, Tintin uses a long beam as a battering ram tied to a ceiling ring with blanket sheets (his handkerchief is stuffed in the voicebox to prevent the thieves from hearing), while Snowy meanwhile treks across the road in the rain and mud, bathing in a creek but still getting splashed by more mud along the way.

The battering ram successfully punctures a hole through the brick wall (this is weirdly similar to that Well of Souls scene in Raiders, isn't it? No wonder critics thought Spielberg was a Herge fan at the time -- even though he wasn't!), and hears music on the other side, coming from a music box. On the other side is a bunch of memorabilia. The thieves play cat and mouse with him, but he staves them off by breaking an abacus that spills some balls which they trip over. Locking them in, Tintin finds out from an envelope in the house parlor that it's the estate of one "G. Bird", explaining the meaning of the burly man pointing to the sparrows earlier. It was his way of identifying his attackers, the Bird brothers, a pair of antique dealers.

From the voice box, the thieves alert their butler Nestor to what Tintin is doing, claiming he's "a young ruffian" trespassing. Nestor wrestles with Tintin while he's on the phone w/Haddock informing him he's atMarlinspike Hall. Tintin escapes to the woods, where the thieves release a dog after Tintin that is caught by the leash in some branches. Tripping the thieves, Tintin takes their gun and makes them go back to the house, but Nestor knocks Tintin out from the window with a bat, and the thieves take him hostage. But Snowy appears, bites one of them, and Tintin punches them out. Haddock and the Thomsons arrive, and Tintin tells them to let Nestor go because he is innocent and was lied to by his bosses.

The more dangerous of the two Bird brothers, however, gets away. But they learn from the one they have captive (who decides to talk when they reveal that the burly man, Barnaby, is still alive) that they had found the Unicorn model in the attic of their house 2 years ago. Barnaby was one of their spies, and was the one who ransacked Tintin's place and chloroformed Sakharine, but broke from the Bird brothers after he demanded more money, which provoked the more dangerous brother, Max, to decide to try to have him whacked. Tintin is then told that Max still has Tintin's scroll.

The next morning, Tintin and the Thomsons visit the home of Aristides Silk, the suspected pickpocket, who claims to be a "kleptomaniac" who takes wallets in order to sort them out in alphabetical order. One of them is Max Bird's wallet, which already has two scrolls in it. When the Thomsons finally find Max Bird and arrest him (he had been caught trying to leave the country), it is discovered he has the last scroll in his possession.

When Tintin puts the three parchments together, he discovers that they form a latitude and longitude:

20 37 42 N. 70 52 15 W.

With that, they realize that Rackham's treasure is within their grasp. Haddock says they can charter the SIRIUS, which belongs to his friend Captain Chester.

"But of course it won't be easy," Tintin reminds his readers, "and we shall certainly have plenty of adventures on our treasure-hunt... you can read about them in RED RACKHAM'S TREASURE!"

The Adventures of Tintin: The Crab With The Golden Claws (1953)

2011-12-03T08:00:00.000-08:00

Tintin and Snowy are walking around one day when Snowy starts digging in a garbage can, finds a can with a crab painted on it inside and digs it out. Tintin scolds Snowy for this, since the can could have cut him, and throws it away. They meet up at a cafe with Thomson and Thompson, who are investigating a case of counterfeit coins. When Tintin follows them back to their office, he notices that they have half a picture of a crab on their table. According to Thomson and Thompson, it came from police headquarters--from a man who drowned at sea and had five counterfeit coins in his pocket.

Tintin rushes out to find the picture, and Thomson & Thompson follow him. They rummage through some garbage cans but are unsuccessful; the garbage man tells a random Asian man notices they are searching for a crab tin and the Asian remarks to himself, "A crab tin! Are they indeed!"

Tintin takes the crab picture back to his house. He tries to examine it with a magnifying glass but initially confuses the glass with Snowy's bone. When he does manage to examine, the picture, it reads: Karaboudjan. Tintin thinks it's an Armenian name. Later, Tintin's landlady is attacked, and she says an Asian man tried to reach Tintin earlier and give him a letter before being kidnapped by some gangsters.

Thomson & Thompson call, saying that the drowned body has been identified as Herbert Dawes; he was a sailor on the merchant-ship Karaboudjan. Tintin and Snowy rush to the docks to find the ship and are nearly killed by a falling crate (which Tintin manages to avoid after being distratced by seagulls). Thomson & Thompson follow Tintin up to the ship to investigate, and while they are busy Tintin is knocked out and imprisoned; Thomson & Thompson leave the ship.

The ship sails, and the gangsters receive a telegram asking to "send T to the bottom". A gangster, "Pedro", has already gone down to Tintin with food, and when Tintin asks to be untied to eat with his hands, he uses the opportunity to tie Pedro up and escape. Tintin and Snowy break into a room filled w/crates of crab tins filled w/opium and bottles of champagne. When night falls, Tintin and Snowy rope they way up to the window on the floor above them, where they run into a drunken Captain Haddock -- who professes innocence to the opium charges. Haddock suspects his first-mate, Allan, is guilty.

The gangsters come upstairs, but Tintin is hiding under the bed, while the gangsters are "shot at" by the champagne bottles downstairs. Meanwhile, Tintin, Snowy and Haddock have escaped via rowboat. While Tintin sleeps, Haddock, drunk, builds a fire in the middle of the boat to keep warm, causing a struggle between him and Tintin that sends the boat toppling over. A seaplane then appears and shoots at them. With Pedro's gun, Tintin shoots the plane down, dives under the water, appears from the surface to take the pilots by surprise and takes control of the plane.

Up in the air, the gangsters refuse to talk, and Tintin tries to steer towards Spain. Haddock, who gets drunk on another bottle of whiskey, throws a fit to seize the controls from Tintin, smashing the bottle against his head. The plane crashes into some sand dunes, but Tintin rescues the pilots from the burning wreck. The pilots then disappear, Tintin and Haddock suffer hallucinations and fall out cold before being rescued by Muslim riders in the serve of Lieutenant Delcourt, who is in command of the outpost at Afghar. He offers them some spirits, but Tintin says, "No thank you. I never drink spirits." To which Haddock adds, "Er...er..no thank you, Lieutenant, I... I don't either. I... I never touch spirits." On the radio, they hear a report that the Karaboudjan is lost at sea and may have sunken, but they are skeptical.

They leave that day with two guides, but are shot at by 20 Arab riders. Haddock rushes at them and apparently scares them away, when in fact the Lieutenant's army is the one repelling them. Several days later, they reach Bagghar, a large Moroccan port, hoping to hear news of the Karaboudjan from the harbor master. Tintin thinks he sees one of the gangsters and runs after him, accidentally losing Haddock but also losing the person he's chasing after. Haddock apparently spots the Karaboudjan disguised as the "Djebel Amilah", but gets in trouble with the police during a drunken disturbance at a cafe and is arrested. Then he's released -- only to be captured by the kidnappers, which Tintin witnesses. Tintin's attempt to chase at their car in a cab (while he scares a passenger out of the cab with the "rabid" Snowy) proves unsuccessful.

In the marketplace, Tintin runs into Thomson and Thompson, and together they spot a shop selling crab tins. These tins do, in fact, contain crab, and the merchant says he got them fro Mohammed Ben Ali, who in turn says he got them from Omar Ben Salaad, "the biggest trader in Bagghar." Tintin, dressed as a beggar, manages to locate Salaad's headquarters (Snowy sneaks in through the ventilator shaft), and they find a secret entrance in a barrel that takes them down to where Haddock is being held.

A struggle ensues, and Tintin and Haddock and Snowy barricade themselves in a wine room, where the fumes of spilled wine intoxicate them (and puts Haddock in a drunken rage that sends the gangsters running out screaming). Thomson and Thompson, meanwhile, interrogate Salaad, who is outraged when they accuse him, but the Captain appears from behind a bookcase and Salaad's secret entrance his leg and he accidentally shoots a chandelier that lands on his head, knocking him out. The police take Salaad into custody while Tintin goes on a boat chase after the escaped mate, "the most dangerous of the lot", finally managing to capture him in a fishing net.

Afterwards, Tintin is approached by Bunji Kuraki of the Yokohama police force, aka the Asian man. He apparently was imprisoned in the hold of the Karaboudjan the whole time. He tells Tintin that the dead man Herbert Dawes had alerted him to the drugs in the Karaboudjan and that Dawes, before getting whacked, had had the label with "Karaboudjan" written on it in his pocket in order to tell Kuraki the name of the ship (but he had never actually given Kuraki the paper itself).

Some days later, on the Home Service radio show, Captain Haddock is supposed to read a broadcast about "drink, the sailor's worst enemy." At the same time, Snowy receives a package containing an oversized bone ("from an admirer"). On the show, however, Haddock is "taken ill", and when Tintin calls to inquire, he is told that the Captain "was taken ill after drinking a glass of water."

My 15-minute video response to Terry Gilliam's criticisms of "Schindler's List"

2011-11-04T12:00:00.000-07:00

If you have 15 minutes to spare, I would very much appreciate any feedback on this video I uploaded onto YouTube yesterday. It's basically my response of sorts to some criticisms Terry Gilliam made of Schindler's List (1993) in an infamous interview for Turner Classic Movies.

In the video, I address various topics, including Stanley Kubrick's own alleged remarks about Schindler's List as quoted in a book by Eyes Wide Shut co-writer Frederic Raphael, and how that book has been discredited by several of Kubrick's friends and family members (thus instilling some ambiguity into the question of whether Kubrick's comments about Schindler's List are actually legit). Christiane Kubrick, Jan Harlan, Steven Spielberg and Michael Herr have all publicly dismissed the book as a work of fictional malice.

Other things are addressed in the video, too, including Gilliam's accusation that Steven Spielberg's movies "always" leave audiences with "answers instead of questions."

Some of the people who have watched this video have accused me of being snarky. This is true. But since Gilliam is snarky in his own interview, I see no better way of getting his attention than to respond in a similar tone. It's like what Flannery O'Connor once said: when you're talking to the deaf, you need to shout.

So far, the video has gotten a lot of angry comments; somebody has even called me a "tool" on another social network for making it. What many of these comments prove, to me at least, is that there are still thousands of people out there on the Internet who dislike Schindler's List with such a burning passion that they absolutely refuse to consider arguments in defense of the film. Even after concrete evidence has been laid out before them.

A Tribute to Robert Mulligan (YouTube video)

2011-10-13T13:59:00.000-07:00

Every critic has a director -- recently deceased-- whom they wish to God was still alive. For me, it's Robert Mulligan.

This is a 10-minute montage I've created in honor of Mulligan that includes pics from each and every one of his films. It also includes the music from To Kill A Mockingbird, The Stalking Moon, Summer of '42, The Other and Same Time, Next Year.

The clip from 8 Simple Rules at the very beginning is the one I'm most proudest to include here, since Ritter's little homage to Mulligan (who cast him in a minor role in The Other) would have been all-too-easily missed by viewers who normally watched that show.

War Horse (1982): Chapters 16-21 (The Last Chapters of the Book)

2011-10-04T22:49:00.001-07:00

Before I conclude my summaries of War Horse, I'd like to show everyone the new trailer that was posted today:

This trailer is a huge improvement over the last one, in my opinion. It's more visceral and tragic.

But without further to do...

Chapter 16

As Joey walks around the battlefield, he is cheered on and beckoned by both sides. Eventually, a German in a gray uniform and a Welshman in a khaki uniform both advance towards Joey before regarding each other with silence for some moments. They decide to determine Joey's fate over a coin toss, and the Welshman wins. Proud that they have been able to resolve the matter peacefully, the Welshman remarks that if more people were like this, the war would be over faster. To which the German replies, "If we did it that way, then it would be our turn to win. And maybe your Lloyd George would not like that."

Chapter 17

Due to his wounded leg, Joey enters the Welsh army gravely ill. When he is greeted by a group of excited soldiers in a stable, a large, mustached sergeant tells them to mind their own business and get back to work. Then, when the sergeant orders one soldier to get Joey cleaned up for "Major Martin", to the point where "you could use him as a shaving mirror," the unseen soldier replies, "Yes, Sergeant" -- and Joey recognizes the voice.

It is Albert. Although Albert begins talking to Joey about the horse he lost in the war, he does not seem to recognize Joey. Then Albert's friend David enters the scene and helps clean Joey up; he is all too familiar with Albert's horse stories. But when David takes a close look at Joey for himself, he realizes it may be him. Though Albert thinks it's a joke, David declares, "Berty... I'm not teasing, honest I'm not. Not now."

Once David describes Joey's features, Albert circles around Joey and looks into his eyes. "Joey?" To make sure it is really him, Albert walks to the gateway and whistles in his familiar owl whistle, somehow freeing the pain in Joey's leg for an instant. And Joey trots toward him and buries his nose in his shoulder.

"It's him, David," Albert said, putting his arms around my neck and hanging on to my mane. "It's my Joey. I've found him. He's come back to me just like I said he would."

"See?" said David wryly. "What did I tell you? See? Not often wrong, am I?"

"Not often," Albert said. "Not often, and not this time."

Chapter 18

Despite the constant monitoring of Albert, Major Martin and Sergeant "Thunder", Joey does not get better. He has bad forelegs and loses his appetite. Even the sight of Albert makes him flinch. Major Martin suspects that shrapnel wounds have affected Joey terminally and that nothing can be done for him. For it seems as though Joey has been stricken with tetanus, or "lockjaw".

Though the major and sergeant suggest Joey be euthanized, David reminds them that a horse is just important as any soldier in the cavalry. The sergeant orders David not to talk back to them, though the major knows he means well. But Albert and David vow to help Joey in any way they can, and their wish is granted.

To save Joey, they have to put his legs in a sling, keep in a whisper around him, make him a bed of straw, keep him in the dark and feed him only oatmeal and milk. As the days pass, Joe's pain spreads, but he is kept alive by Albert's presence.

Finally, on a winter night, Joey's pain in his throat loosens, and he is able to neigh again, waking up Albert. "Was that you, Joey?"

The entire regiment is amazed, and soon Joey is walking again. The pain in his back is gone.

"You've done it, Joey. You've done it. Everyone says the war's going to be over soon -- I know we've been saying that for a long time, but I feel it in my bones this time. It'll be finished before long, and then we'll both be going home, back to the farm. I can't wait to see the look on Father's face when I bring you back up the road. I just can't wait."

Chapter 19

Joey may be healed, but the war is not over yet. Albert and Major Martin go back into the battlefields with him, and he is used as the lead horse in the tandem team. David predicts that the war could be over by Christmas as long as the "Yankees" do a little more to help.

Albert likes to talk to Joey about his sweetheart up in the village, Maisie Brown, who "bakes bread like you've never tasted before," and who has "eyes as blue as cornflowers, hair as gold as ripe corn, and her skin smells like honeysuckle -- except when she first comes out of the dairy. I keep away from her then." He says that although Maisie Brown cried for Albert when he volunteered to go to war, she was the only one who believed he was right to want to go find Joey.

They receive news one evening that David has been killed by a stray shell. According to Albert, David was once a manager of a fruit cart in London, outside Covent Garden. "There's just you and me left now, Joey," mourns Albert, "and I tell you we're going to get home, both of us.* I'm going to ring that tenor bell again in the church, I'm going to eat my Maisie's bread and pastries, and I'm going to ride you down by the river again. David always said he was somehow sure that I'd get home, and he was right. I'm going to make him right."

There is not much celebration when the war finally does end. People seem more relieved than overjoyed that it is over. Albert still appears to be unhappy over David's death. Major Martin announces that everyone might be home by Christmas, but Sergeant Thunder asks whether the horses will go home on the same boat as them. To which the major replies, "No, Sergeant... I'm afraid the horses won't be coming with us at all." Instead, the horses will stay in France. Because most of the horses are sick and can't really be looked after, they are to be sold at a courtyard auction, which can only mean one thing: they will be sold off to butchers and chopped up into meat.

Albert's voice rang out across the yard. "What, all of them, sir? Every one of them? Even Joey that we brought back from the dead? Even him?"

Major Martin said nothing, but turned on his heel and walked away.

Chapter 20

Sergeant Thunder rallies up a conspiracy amongst his fellow soldiers to raise money to save Joey for Albert. Coins are collected in a small tin box. The sergeant reveals that this is actually the major's idea, but cautions the soldiers not to speak of it to anyone. Allegedly, the major has even "given us every penny of his pay that he had saved up -- every penny."

Albert realizes he can no longer promise Joey that he'll save him from certain death. He thinks only God can help them now. "I remember old Miss Wirtle telling me once in Sunday school back home: 'God helps those that helps themselves,'" Albert remembers. "Mean old devil she was, but she knew her scriptures well enough." The next day, Albert leads Joey into the courtyard auction. He is the last horse to be brought out.

When the price on Joey's head raises, the only two people left bidding are Sergeant Thunder and"a thin, wiry little man with weasel eyes who wore on his face a smile so full of greed and evil that I could hardly bear to look at him." The bid eventually rises to twenty-seven pounds, at which the sergeant realizes he cannot pay for Joey. The greedy man -- Monsieur Cirac, a butcher from Cambrai -- has been buying horses all morning, and it seems as though he will have Joey, too.

Then, "a white-haired old man leaning heavily on his stick", whom Joey recognizes after some hesitation, bids twenty-eight pounds. Declaring that Joey is "my Emilie's horse", the man declares he will bid 100 pounds if he needs to.

No one said a word. The butcher from Cambrai shook his head and turned away. Even the auctioneer had been stunned into silence, and there was some delay before he brought his hammer down on the table and I was sold.

Chapter 21

Although the major and the sergeant are speaking privately to the old Frenchman, Albert is not convinced that Joey is falling into a safe pair of hands. His friends try to console him, insisting that it could have been worse, but he is uncertain. According to the old man, Joey would stay peacefully on his farm and would never have to work again.

When they all come over, Albert thanks the major for at least trying to secure Joey's sale. The major and the sergeant act like they have no idea what he's talking about, the sergeant condescendingly remarking Albert might only be saying such a thing because farmboys are "raised on cider instead of milk." Puzzled by their levity, Albert asks what the old man means by saying Joey is "Emilie's horse." To which the major turns to the old man: "Maybe you would like to tell him yourself, monsieur?"

Emilie's grandfather looks stern at first, but then smiles, telling Albert he realizes that they both have a lot in common, despite having different nationalities. He recognizes that Albert must have been the one who trained Joey to be a farm horse. Then, he tells Albert the story of how Joey came to live with him and Emilie on their farm, revealing that after Joey and Topthorn were taken away, Emilie "lost the will to live" and "faded away and died last year" at the age of 15. But she had made her grandfather promise that he would find the horses somehow and take care of them. Although he never found Topthorn, he has now found Joey.

Referring to Albert as a "Tommy" (slang for a Brit?), Emilie's grandfather then says that he believes it was noble of the major and the sergeant to try to buy Joey for Albert, and that he recognizes how much Albert loves Joey. He doesn't believe that, being an old man, he could take care of him very well, and he believes Emilie would have liked that and "would want me to do what I will do now."

He proposes to sell Joey to Albert. Sell? Albert has very little money. But Emilie's grandfather chuckles, "You do not understand, my friend... you do not understand at all. I will sell you this horse for one English penny, and for a solemn promose -- that you will always love this horse as much as my Emilie did and that you will care for him until the end of his days. And more than this, I want you to tell everyone about my Emilie... that way she will live forever, and that is what I want. Is it a bargain between us?"

At first, Albert is silent. He holds out his hand, but the old man instead puts his hands on Albert's shoulders and kisses him on both cheeks. "Thank you," he says. He then says to Joey, "Goodbye, my friend," touches him lightly on the nose with his lips, and adds, "From Emilie." Before leaving, he cracks a joke about how English people are "meaner" than the French -- because the Sergeant has not yet paid him his English penny. The sergeant produces a penny and gives it to Albert, and when Albert runs over and hands it to Emilie's grandfather, he replies, "I shall treasure it... I shall treasure it always."

And so I came home from the war that Christmastime with my Albert riding me up into the village, and there to greet us was the silver band from the village and the rapturous pealing of the church bells. Both of us were received like conquering heroes, but we both knew that the real heroes had not come home, that they were lying out in France alongside Captain Nichols, Topthorn, Friedrich, David, and little Emilie.

My Albert married his Maisie Brown as he said he would. But I think she never took to me, nor I to her for that matter. Perhaps it was a feeling of mutual jealously. I went back to my work on the land with dear old Zoey, who seemed ageless and tireless, and Albert took over the farm again and went back to ringing his tenor bell. He talked to me of many things after that, of his aging father who doted on me now almost as much as on his own grandchildren, and of the vagaries of the weather and the markets, and of course about Maisie, whose crusty bread was every bit as good as he said. But try as I might, I never got to eat any of her pastries, and do you know, she never even offered me one.

War Horse (1982): Chapters 11-15

2011-10-03T13:00:00.000-07:00

Chapter 11

Joey and Topthorn now have the ability to come to Emilie whenever she calls them. She is still sick, however, and sometimes has to heave herself onto Joey's back in order to ride him. Climbing Topthorn is harder, and sometimes she has to use Joey as a "stepping stone" in order to mount him.

One evening, Joey and Topthorn are greeted with good news from Emilie after she and her grandfather speak with a doctor. "They don't need you anymore to pull their cats," she tells them. The doctor, apparently, has agreed to let the horses stay with Emilie. She vows never to let the army take them away from her.

The grandfather sets Joey and Topthorn to work cutting and turning hay on the farm, insisting to Emilie that they "like to work. They need to work." But then an artillery troop enters the farm one evening, demanding that they need to take Joey and Topthorn because they're short 2 horses. Emilie cries that they can't, but the grandfather says there is nothing he can do and tells her to shape up and say goodbye to Joey and Topthorn.

She walked directly toward the officer and handed over the reins. "I want them back," she said, her voice strong now, almost fierce. "I'm just lending them to you. They are my horses. They belong here. Feed them well and look after them and make sure you bring them back." And she walked past her grandfather and into the house without even turning around.

Chapter 12

Back in the war, Joey and Topthorn are saddled alongside other horses, including the hulkish Heinie and the nasty Coco ("When Coco was eating," Joey recalls, "no one -- neither horse nor man -- ventured within biting or kicking distance"). Also with them are two ponies with blond manes and tails whom the soldiers dub "the two golden Haflingers." They have to ride in the winter, when the mud has begun to freeze. It is a cruel existence, full of hard work and lacking good food for the horses, and the only nice soldier in the bunch is "the kindly old gunner I had noticed that first day when we were taken from the farm," who likes to feed Joey and Topthorn black bread and talks to them more than he talks to the soldiers.

The horses begin deteriorating. Heinie is shot by the vets one morning and left in the mud ("a collapsed wreck of a horse"), and when Coco is hit in the neck with shrapnel, he is euthanized as well. "No matter how much I disliked him -- and he was a vicious beast -- it was a piteous and terrible sight to see a fellow creature, with whom I had pulled for so long, discarded and forgotten in a ditch."

Joey notices that Topthorn's health is failing when he starts having trouble pulling the gun, and when he starts lying in the mud having coughing fits. When he is inspected by a vet, the vet protests to the spectacled officer that Topthorn is too fine to pull a gun and that he needs rest.

"He will have to do what the others do, Herr Doctor," said the major in a steely voice. "No more and no less. I cannot make exceptions." If you pass him fit, he's fit and that's that."

He's fit to go on," said the vet reluctantly. "But I am warning you, Herr Major. You must take care."

Chapter 13

Although they survive into the spring, Joey notices that Topthorn's health is still deteriorating. Luckily, they are both so fat that they are never plunged into any battles due to being fattened up.

The old gunman, "Crazy Old Fredrich", tells Joey and Topthorn that he thinks himself "the only sane man in the regiment." He scoffs at the fact that so many men in the army don't know what they're going to war for. "You two are the only rational creatures I've met in this stupid war," he rails, "and like me, the only reason you're here is because you were brought here." Joey believes that Fredrich had more affection for Topthorn than for him.

"If I have to die out here away from my home," Fredrich confided to Topthorn one day, "I would rather die alongside you. But I'll do my best to see to it that we all get through and get back home -- that much I promise you."

Chapter 14

Tophorn is admired by two young soldiers, Rudi and Karl. But then tragedy strikes.

As Frederich takes the horses down to the river to drink, Topthorn drinks a lot of water, then begins stumbling as they make their way back up the hill. Suddenly, Topthorn stumbles to his knees, falls, breathes heavily and looks up at Joey. Joey narrates, "It was an appeal for help -- I could see it in his eyes. " Then Topthorn slumps over and dies, his tongue sticking out.

Fredrich is saddened and angry at Topthorn's death, but Rudi tells him there's nothing he can do. When the vet comes to inspect, he is just as upset. All the soldiers gather around, mournful.

Just then, there is an explosion. Several men bathing in the river are hit by shells. Fredrich tries to pull Joey away, yelling at him, but Joey is too transfixed by Topthorn's death, and upon trying to escape by himself, Fredrich is struck by a shell and dies beside Topthorn.

The last I saw of my troop were the bobbing blond manes of the two little Haflingers as they struggled to pull the gun up through the trees with the gunners hauling frantically on their reins and straining to push the gun from behind.

Chapter 15

The next day, tanks roar down the hill, and Joey runs away from them, crashing into the river. He runs through "deserted, ruined villages" before reaching a meadow. When he awakes, the night sky is alive with gunfire.

Falling into a crater, Joey is snagged by barbed wire that wounds his leg before he manages to break free. "This was to be the longest night of my life," he remembers, "a nightmare of agony, terror, and loneliness."

Eventually, Joey hears voices and stumbles into the mist towards them. He can hear soldiers bickering over whether they can see a cow or a horse in the distance.

Once the mist clears, Joey realizes that he's in a battlefield surrounded by barbed wire, much like the one he was in earlier.

I remembered I had been in such a place once before, that day when I had charged across it with Topthorn beside me. This was what the soldiers called "no man's land."

War Horse (1982): Chapters 6-10

2011-09-27T00:54:00.000-07:00

Chapter 6

Joey and Topthorn have boarded the ship to France. By the time they arrive, "the wounded", remarks Joey, "were everywhere -- on stretchers, on crutches, in open ambulances, and etched on every man was the look of wretched misery and pain." Topthorn remains the greatest solace for Joey during this time, even going so far as to wake him up in the aftermaths of battles.

During the charge of a following battle, Captain Nicholls is killed, and Joey runs and runs until he reaches Captain Stewart and Tophorn on the other side. Horses lie dead everywhere.

"He'd have been proud of you, Joey," said Captain Stewart as he led me back to the horse lines with Topthorn. He'd have been proud of you, the way you kept going out there. He died leading that charge and you finished it for him. He'd have been proud of you."

Chapter 7

Joey is introduced to his new rider, Trooper Warren, "not a good horseman" according to Joey. Eventually, however, Warren starts talking to Joey, revealing that his previous horse had been shot out underneath him and that he had been scared to ever ride a horse again. Though Warren looks after Joey "with great devotion", Joey secretly wishes somebody else would ride him in the battles.

In the winter, Joey and Tophorn keep each other company. Warren receives letters from his mother but not from his girlfriend Sally, who can't write -- "well not very well, anyway." They are able to make it to the spring, ready to face the war again.

"Do me proud, Joey," said Trooper Warren, drawing his sword. "Do me proud."

Chapter 8

In the ensuing battle, Trooper Warren is horrified when he realizes that the field is surrounded by barbed wire. Several horses run into the wire, and one trooper, just before dying on the wire himself, is forced to shoot his horse when the wire impales it. Joey follows Topthorn as he jumps over the lowest portion of the wire, and they all find themselves surrounded by the enemy.

"Throw down your sword, Trooper," says Captain Stewart to Warren. "There's been enough useless slaughter today. No sense in adding to it." They look back and watch as the Germans begin shooting the horses still impaled on the wire, one by one. Warren and Stewart are forced to give Joey and Topthorn to the enemy since, after all, they are POWs just like them.

There was no time for long farewells -- just a brief last stroke of the muzzle for each of us and they were gone. As they walked away, Captain Stewart had his arm around Trooper Warren's shoulder.

Chapter 9

"Two nervous soldiers" lead Joey and Topthorn away before they are tied up to a hospital tent, as several wounded soldiers "gawk" at them. A limping German officer in a gray coat with a bandage around his head orders the soldiers to stop staring at the horses, commanding them to find the horses some blankets. The man's name is Herr Hauptmann.

Hauptmann is outraged when a doctor in a bloody white coat reveals that the horses will be put to work pulling carts. The doctor understands, but reminds Hauptmann that the horses need to be put to work in order to help all the Germans and English who are already dying on the battlefield. Hauptmann is still annoyed: "When noble creatures such as these are forced to become beasts of burden, the world has gone mad. But I can see that you are right." The importance of this scene is that it shows the nobility between the Germans who fought in the war.

What the doctor does ask, however, is that Hauptmann volunteer to manage the two horses while they pull the carts. Hauptmann accepts. Noticing that Joey and Topthorn pulls the carts with ease (they've obviously done this sort of thing before), Hauptmann remarks, "I always knew the British were crazy."

Impressed, the doctor allows Joey and Topthorn to have "the luxury of a stable." That night, while they are trying to sleep, Joey is frightened by the sight of somebody coming into the barn -- it reminds him of Albert's father -- but it is actually just "a bent old man in rough clothes and clogs, and beside him stood a young girl, her head and shoulders wrapped in a shawl."

"There you are, Grandpapa," she said. "I told you they put them in here. Have you ever seen anything so beautiful? Oh, can they be mine, Grandpapa? Please, can they be mine?"

Chapter 10

The German soldiers take a liking to Joey and Topthorn because they are helpful in pulling carts of those who are wounded. One soldier hangs an Iron Cross around Joey's neck in admiration. The Iron Cross is hung on a nail outside their stable door.

In the evenings of the summer, Joey and Topthorn are visited by the little girl and her grandfather. The little girl's name is Emilie. She dreams of riding them through the fields when the war is over. Come winter, however, she stops coming to see them, and the grandfather eventually reveals to them why. Emilie is only 13, but her parents were killed only a week after the war began and her brother was killed at 17. She prays for them all despite the fact that she is dying of pneumonia herself. Primarily, however, she prays for two things: that Joey and Tophorn survive the war and lived into old age, and that Emilie can grow up with them. "If you can understand anything of what I said," the grandfather says, "then pray for her to whatever horse god you pray to -- pray for her like she does for you."

On Christmas night, the grandfather feeds them extra mash, telling them that Emilie has been trying to get out of bed to see them.

"The only way that German doctor could get her to stay in bed was to promise to go on with them as long as the cold weather lasted. So go inside, my beauties, and eat your fill. We've all had a Christmas present today, haven't we? All's well, I tell you. All's well."

War Horse (1982): Chapters 1-5

2011-09-26T10:00:00.000-07:00

Author's Note

The book begins with a notice by Michael Morpurgo describing a "dusty painting of a horse" he once saw in an English village schoolhouse. Across the bottom of the bronze frame at the bottom of the painting, according to Morpurgo, reads the inscription, "Joey. Painted by Captain James Nicholls, Autumn 1914."

Chapter 1

War Horse opens with a bit of narration by Joey the horse, at a time when he was barely six months old: "My earliest memories are a confusion of hilly fields and dark, damp stables, and rats that scampered along the beams above my head. But I remember well enough the day of the horse sale. The terror of it stayed with me all my life."

Joey remembers being separated from his mother at an auction ("I screamed for my mother and heard her reply echoing in the far distance") to a mean, alcoholic old "owner" who lumps him in with an older horse named Zoey. The owner's 13-year old son, Albert Narracott, takes a liking to Joey despite his mother's insistence that he leave him alone.

I knew then that I had found a friend for life, that there was an instinctive and imemdiate bond of trust and affection between us.

Chapter 2

Albert raises Joey over a period of winters and summers. "His whistle," claims Joey, "imitated the stuttering call of an owl -- it was a call I never refused and I would never forget." Albert's father is sometimes kind, but is often nasty, especially when drunk. Because of this, Albert begins putting Joey in the stables with Zoey to ensure that he is kept safe during his father's drunken rages.

One night, Albert's father makes a bet with some other farmers that he can have Joey "pulling a plow before the end of the week." Joey resists, kicking Albert's father and accidentally injuring him. He considers killing Joey for this, but Albert, now 15 and taller than his father, protests. His father than warns him that he'll sell Joey if he can't get him to pull a plow. Albert inists that he can train Joey to pull a plow as expected.

Eventually, Joey pulls through, and Albert's father wins his bet. Albert's mother tells him that a war is coming.

"If it comes to that, you'd make a good war horse yourself, wouldn't you you, if you ride as well as you pull, and I know you will. We'd make quite a pair. God help the Germans if they ever have to fight the two of us."

And then war is declared. Albert assumes that it will "be over in a few months", but quite the contrary.

Chapter 3

By now, there is "a growing tension on the farm", and Albert is getting in more and more arguments with his mother and father. The mother insists that his father only drinks so much because he worries about the farm mortgage, and because he's getting older. "Albert and his father scarcely spoke to each other on those days," narrates Joey, "and Albert's mother was used more and more by both as a go-between, as a negotiator."

Then, on a Wednsday morning, Albert is asked to return a saddleback boar to the valley. He agrees only if he's allowed to take Joey out in the evening to train him for hunting season, which his father responds to with silence. After Albert leaves, his father uses it as an opportunity to go behind Albert's back.

"You'll be all right, old son," he said softly. "You'll be all right. They'll look after you -- they promised they would. And I need the money, Joey; I need the money bad."

Chapter 4

Albert's father leads Joey into the village, baiting him by taking Zoey along, too. Albert's father then sells Joey to Captain Nicholls of the British army for 40 pounds.

Joey narrates, "I had just about give up all hope, when I saw Albert running toward me through the crowd, his face red with exertion. The band had stopped playing , and the entire village looked on as he came up to me and put his arms around my neck." Realizing he cannot stop his father from seeling Joey, Albert begs Captain Nicholls to let him ride Joey in the war, but the captain refuses. Joey is too young for the war -- to enlist, you have to be seventeen.

Captain Nicholls apologizes for not being able to help, reminding Albert that his father needs the money in order to run the family farm. But he also urges Albert to come and join the cavalry when he's older, saying he can use his name as a reference.

"Your horse belongs to the army now, and you're too young to join up. Don't you worry -- we'll take good care of him. I'll take personal care of him, and that's a promise."

Chapter 5

Joey is trained by the army to be a cavalry mount, and doesn't like it one bit. "Gone was the gentle snaffle bit that I was so used to," he complains, "and in its place was an uncomfortable, cumbersome barbed bit that pinched the corners of my mouth and infuriated me beyond belief."

He specially dislikes his rider, Corporal Samuel Perkins, sort of a macho show-off who is feared by the other soldiers; although he doesn't beat Joey or lose his temper with him, he is not above whipping him to keep him going. Joey claims that his only "consolation" during this period is Captain Nicholls, who has held to his promise to take good care of him, and has even started sketching Joey as a hobby.

He tells Joey that he's preparing a portrait of him: "I can't take it with me to France -- there would be no point, right? So I'm going to send it off to your friend Albert, just so that he'll know that I meant what I said when I promised I would look after you." At one point, the captain confesses to Joey that he's pessimistic about the outcome of the war, and that he and a person named Jamie are the only ones who think the Germans might actually win.

Corporal Perkins gets into a debate with the captain over the merits of Joey complaining that "he has to learn and obey instantly and instinctively. You don't want a prima donna under you when the bullets start flying." The captain encourages the corporal to treat Joey better, reminding him that "a horse may carry you through, Corporal, but he can't do your fighting for you." The captain also tells him to feed Joey more. From then on, the corporal is less harsh towards Joey. The first battle takes place on Salisbury Plain.

I remember mostly the heat and the flies that day because there were hours of standing about in the sun waiting for things to happen. Then, with the evening sun spreading and dying along the flat horizon, the entire regiment lined up in echelon for the charge, and the climax of our last maneuvers.

During the battle, Captain Nicholls rides Joey alongside his friend Captain Jamie Stewart on a black stallion. They easily overtake the "enemy" position ("enemy" is put in quotes by Joey himself, perhaps ironically), and Nicholls proudly tells Stewart that the conflict could not have been won without Joey's great agility. Stewart counters with insistence that his black stallion, Topthorn, "is the finest mount in this regiment or any other." If Joey is the faster horse, he says, then Topthorn has more stamina.

Currently Reading: War Horse (1982) by Michael Morpurgo

2011-09-19T19:02:00.000-07:00

We won't be seeing Steven Spielberg's War Horse until December, so in order to prepare, I've decided I'm going to read Michael Morpurgo's 1982 children's book of the same name in advance. This will be an interesting experience because, in the case of Spielberg's films, the only time I can ever recall reading the book before seeing the movie was when War of the Worlds came out in the summer of 2005; I had made sure to read the H.G. Wells book first. It's funny because Spielberg isn't particularly thought of as a "literary" director criticized for his adaptations of certain books. Unless, of course, your name is George Jonas.

One might ask, "Why spoil a perfectly good Spielberg movie for yourself? Don't you want to go into the movie without knowing what happens?" True. And after all, War Horse is a children's book; it's not like it's supposed to be high-class literature or anything. At the same time, I will always regret my not reading The Color Purple or Schindler's List before checking out Spielberg's adaptations of them. Don't get me wrong: they're both wonderful films (especially Schindler's List, which -- as everyone knows -- I'll defend to the death). But by the time I finally picked up the Alice Walker and Thomas Keneally paperbacks, respectively, the images from Spielberg's films had already colored my perceptions of the stories. I don't think that's exactly what Walker and Keneally had in mind. Like any other literary giant Spielberg has collaborated with (a list that includes Richard Matheson, Peter Benchley, J.G. Ballard, Michael Crichton, Phillip K. Dick and Frank Abagnale), they relied on their readers to visualize their stories in their imaginations, and could only hope that Spielberg would come close to those visions. That's why the mediums of movies and books have remained friendly with each other for so many generations now. It's, like... an understanding, you know?

Another reason why I'm reading Morpurgo's book in advance is because I won't be getting to see the Tony Award-winning play that's making the rounds on Broadway as we speak. For some reason, the play isn't coming to St. Louis, so... yeah. I'll be sticking to the book.

But I guess the most important reason why I want to read the book/know the story in advance is because I don't want to be the guy who sees the movie in December, then gets in debates with devotees of the story and can only muster up a defense of, "I didn't read the book or see the play, so who cares about either when the movie's so good?" It's a Spielberg release, after all. We don't get as many of those as we used to. I won't take it for granted.

To keep up with what I've read from the book, over the next coming weeks I'll be uploading one post for each chapter, summarizing what I liked about each one. Quotes from the text will be included.

In the meantime, feast your eyes on this luminous theatrical trailer...

Jurassic Park 300 Mash-Up Trailer

2011-09-08T15:10:00.000-07:00

The idea for this mash-up video first came to me in the summer of 2008. At the time, I didn't possess the technology and equipment necessary to complete it. So, in a way, this video is a fulfilled dream of sorts.

I actually had to go through about four cuts of this before deciding on a cut that I could live with. My hope is that Spielberg would be proud. And Zack Snyder, too, although I could care less what he thinks.

Inglourious Basterds (2009): Two Years Later

2011-08-21T12:00:00.000-07:00

So here I am, returning to Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds exactly two years after its release. I have never written about the film before, but today I’m going to put my thoughts on Inglourious Basterds to rest with a definitive review, and then that will be that. To do this, I am going to have to be completely honest. And I will need to be clear on why I hated the film so much when it first opened on August 21, 2009.

Inglourious Basterds came out during a dark period in my life. My memories of the summer of 2009 are not fond. I had just graduated from high school, had found myself stuck in a demanding summer job and had watched all my friends venture off to faraway universities while I had to stay in town and attend the local community college. Our nation had elected a President I had faith in, but we were still facing the same political hardships every night: war in Iraq, torture at Guantanamo, a broken healthcare industry. I desperately wanted lasting peace—in my life and in my country—and it wasn’t happening. America was still wrapped in the blankets of political cynicism.

Now consider what happened when Inglourious Basterds came out. At the time, I was not yet sold on the concept of Quentin Tarantino being a great filmmaker, as I hadn’t yet responded strongly to any of his films. All I could see in his movies was the work of a filmmaker obsessed with violence, vengeance and buried right-wing fetishes. I was skeptical about the prospect of him directing a World War II epic. I had read an interview, conducted by Jeffrey Goldberg, in which Tarantino was asked his feelings about Holocaust films and had responded, “I hate that hand-wringing shit.” It sounded to me like he was quietly criticizing Schindler’s List (1993) with this comment. And I grew irritated after reading J. Hoberman’s early review of Inglourious Basterds in the Village Voice, in which he suggested that Tarantino was overturning the image of WWII as portrayed in Saving Private Ryan (1998). The more I read, the angrier I got.

So, you can imagine how angry I was when I finally saw Inglourious Basterds for myself on the night it opened. Oh, that was a bad night for me, indeed. I attended the film with a bloodthirsty audience that cheered at the onscreen images of Nazi soldiers being beaten to death with baseball bats and having swastikas carved into their foreheads. I could only interpret this as Tarantino’s apologia for torture and capital punishment; a crass attempt to appeal to the audience’s basest mob instincts. Was I supposed to feel guilty for not joining in the fun? I left the theater that night feeling miserable, furious and, above all, wounded. I saw Inglourious Basterds as a celebration of politics I despised and as an attack on movies I had loved. It was simply not a film I was ready for.

But then a funny thing happened. The movie wouldn't go away. People simply couldn't stop talking about it. How did I deal with this? Well, I began reading defenses of the film—one by Jim Emerson, another by Ryan Kelly—that helped me glance at Tarantino’s vision in a new light. I learned not only that Tarantino had, in fact, admired Schindler’s List, but that he had even cited Saving Private Ryan as an influence on his film. Fast-forward to Oscar season, and I was taking special notice of Tarantino’s unexpected appearance on The Rachel Maddow Show. He had suddenly acknowledged the credibility of the theory that his film was a partial response to Al-Quaeda terrorist attacks. And he reminded Maddow that his film was far from an infantile glorification of violence. “It would be easy,” he said, “to just set up a situation where we just go oh, kill the Nazis… rah, rah, rah in the audience. It would be like watching Rocky. But, you know, that‘s too easy for what I‘m trying to do.”

Now, it’s August 21, 2011. I’ve managed to see Inglourious Basterds two more times since then, and I like it much better now. It’s certainly a good film. But is it a great film? That, I don’t know. The movie is notorious for its violence: characters shoot each other, scalp each other and burn each other alive. How does Tarantino want us to respond to the material? One of the things I still find so maddening about Inglourious Basterds is how inconsistent the film’s tone is. In some scenes, Tarantino allows us to meditate thoroughly on the consequences of the violence depicted in the film. In other scenes, he seems to welcome our enjoyment of it—and our cheers. Is this simply because he felt like he had to adhere to the common rules of the WWII action movie genre? The film opens with a shot of a man burying an axe into a stump of dead wood, and ends with a shot of two men digging a knife into a living man’s forehead. It is, thus, a film in which matters of life and death are determined on the edge of a blade.

Take the film’s brilliant opening sequence, set in Nazi-occupied France, in which the dairy farm of LaPadite (Denis Menochet) is invaded by Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz) and his stormtroopers. Landa, nicknamed “the Jew Hunter”, has reason to believe LaPadite is sheltering a Jewish family under his kitchen floorboards. Watch how Tarantino builds suspense when LaPadite invites Landa into his home. They sit down. They smoke pipes. They switch off from French to English—an “acknowledgment of the blockbuster audience's limited patience for subtitles,” writes critic Ed Howard, “and, it turns out, also a component of Landa's forward-thinking plotting, since the family beneath the floorboards can't understand English.” A glass of milk gleams in the sunlight, illuminated by Robert Richardson’s eerie cinematography. Juxtaposed close-ups of Landa and LaPadite’s faces, edited by the late Sally Menke, indicate that the game is up. And Christoph Waltz, a Lambert Wilson lookalike, single-handedly steals the show from this point onwards; not since Ralph Fiennes’ portrayal of Amon Goeth had we ever seen such a memorably deranged portrait of a Nazi in an American film. “I’m aware of the tremendous feats human beings are capable of once they abandon human dignity,” Landa warns LaPadite. We know he is not kidding.

Another of the film’s strongest story threads involves the doomed relationship between Shosanna Dreyfus (Melanie Laurent) and Fredrick Zoller (Daniel Brühl). Shosanna owns a French movie theater; her family was massacred by Landa’s troops, and she was the only one who escaped. Zoller is a war hero—the “German Sergeant York”—now starring in a movie, entitled Nation’s Pride, based on his own exploits. He is bored with his newfound fame. His true passion lies in film appreciation, and he delightedly makes conversation with Shoshanna outside her theater one night: “It’s been a pleasure chatting with a fellow cinema lover.” Shoshanna despises Germans and wants nothing to do with him: “If you are so desperate for a French girlfriend, I suggest you try Vichy.” Although Zoller tries to impress her by arranging to have Nation’s Pride screened at her theater, he mistakenly believes he will win her love in the process. Shosanna sees it, instead, as an opportunity for sweet revenge, and hatches a plan to burn the theater down on the night of the screening—and trap all of the attending Nazis inside. The subplot involving Shosanna and Zoller provides us with a most thought-provoking contrast: a woman, consumed with hatred, killing in the name of liberty; and a man, seeking love, who inadvertently serves evil.

The film’s third most successful story thread is unique in that it transforms a film critic, Lieutenant Archie Hicox (Michael Fassbender), as well as an actress, Bridget von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger), respectively, into action heroes. As Hicox, Fassbender sports a memorable Errol Flynn accent and generally serves as a mouthpiece for Tarantino’s infatuation with G.W. Pabst—though, at one point, Hicox’ knowledge of German cinema actually saves him, when his familiarity with the work of Leni Riefenstahl allows him to pass himself off as a native of the Piz-Palu. Kruger, far more convincing here than she was in Troy (2004), portrays Hammersmark as skilled in the art of handling people but inexperienced in the craft of setting up a rendezvous. The scene that follows, in which Hicox and Hammersmark find themselves pinned down in a basement bar by the leering Major Hellstrom (August Diehl), has been criticized by some as being overly-talky. Actually, it mirrors the film’s opening sequence quite well, especially if returned to on repeated viewings. Of particular interest is how both Hicox and Hammersmark accidentally give themselves away. Hammersmark leaves some important evidence behind. And when Hicox holds up his fingers to order three glasses of whiskey, watch how Tarantino is quick to catch Hellstrom’s reaction. Only an English man would up his fingers that way.

Now we come to the most problematic story thread of the film: the Inglourious Basterds themselves. They are a Jewish-American commando ordered by Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) to launch a campaign of terror against the Nazis—a campaign founded on scare tactics and threats of capital punishment. I have always held the opinion that the scenes with the Basterds are the most uninteresting and gratuitous scenes in the film. It’s a nice touch for Tarantino to name one of them, Sergeant Hugo Stiglitz (Til Schweiger), after a B-movie actor, but did we really need that repugnant insert of Stiglitz shoving his fist down a Nazi’s throat? And why did Aldo Raine have to be reduced to such a ruthless, mean-spirited archetype? Pitt doesn’t have very many opportunities with the role, and the character is not likable.

Despite the Basterds’ similarities to Al-Quaeda, Tarantino doesn’t appear to show much disdain for anything they do in the film—in fact, he practically exonerates them. And he never establishes them as anything less than heroes we’re meant to root for. Take what I consider to be the weakest sequence in the film, in which Raine and the other Basterds play mind games with a German sergeant named Werner (Richard Sammel), threatening to have him executed if he doesn’t cooperate with them. Werner respectfully declines. “You can’t expect me to divulge information that would put German lives in danger?” he muses. This allows the Basterds the satisfaction of summoning the Bear Jew (Eli Roth) to beat Werner to death with a baseball bat, in what is perhaps the film’s most controversial moment of violence.

I was offended by this scene when I first saw it, and I still feel the same way today. On one hand, Tarantino instills some audience identification into Werner by having him stare up at the Bear Jew without blinking an eye, proudly insisting that he won his iron cross for bravery—not for murdering Jews. On the other hand, when the Basterds continue to harass Werner, he launches into a pathetic, anti-Semitic tirade, which exists for no other purpose except to relieve any lingering guilt the audience may have over their enjoyment of his death. The logic presented here is that he is an anti-Semite and, therefore, deserves to die. It’s like Tarantino is trying to have it both ways: to satisfy liberals who believe he is satirizing gung-ho American “justice” in war, and to satisfy conservatives who would cheer at the scene, happy to see a Nazi getting his brains bashed in.

The Basterds’ storyline doesn’t fit in very comfortably with the other three narratives, which begs the question: what kind of WWII action movie was Tarantino trying to make, exactly? Further research shows that Tarantino is particularly enamored with two films: The Guns of Navarone (1961) and The Dirty Dozen (1967). Certainly the Basterds have a lot in common with the superficial American criminals Robert Aldrich gave us in the latter. Like the Basterds, the Dozen enjoyed killing, had no regrets about their actions and appealed to the basest mob instincts of audiences. But in The Guns of Navarone, J. Lee Thompson and Carl Foreman gave us a band of heroes who were sick of the war and tired of fighting; at one point, they even despaired when faced with the task of having to kill a prisoner of war. Characters like Shosanna, Zoller, Hicox and Hammersmark certainly fit that description in Tarantino’s film. But this, then, is perhaps the biggest problem with Inglourious Basterds: Tarantino has tried to merge a pro-war perspective with a more complex, apolitical perspective, and the result is a film that doesn’t know what kind of WWII action movie it wants to be. It’s because of this defect that I’m still not sure if Inglourious Basterds is a great film.

And yet, the movie has so many pleasures to offer—for cinephiles and for common moviegoers alike—that one need not ponder for an eternity over such a question. Tarantino has always had a knack for wacky humor, and Inglourious Basterds offers plenty of laugh-out-loud moments: Colonel Landa’s insistence that Shosanna “wait for the cream!” before digging into her breakfast strudel; the outrage of Joseph Goebbels (Sylvester Groth) at the mention of “Lillian HARVEY!”; the Bear Jew’s endless pronunciation of “Margheriti!” at Landa’s request; or Landa’s boyish squeal of “Ooooh, that’s a bingo!” when he makes an offer Aldo Raine could never refuse. An appearance by Mike Meyers, as General Fenech, is more impressive than I had initially feared; and Rod Taylor, fondly remembered from Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963), has a wonderful cameo as Churchill. As expected, Tarantino packs the film with references to films engineered for the Third Reich, but he doesn’t stop there: his range extends from Merian C. Cooper’s King Kong (1933) to Paul Schrader’s Cat People (1982), the latter allowing for an amusing (if arbitrary) excuse to smuggle David Bowie onto the soundtrack.

I should mention, too, that despite the cruel images layered throughout the film here and there, Tarantino does not allow Inglourious Basterds to revert into a one-dimensional, anti-German horrorshow. “Tarantino's Nazis,” writes critic Jason Bellamy, “are something that Nazis are almost never allowed to be in American movies: intelligent.” And true to his word on Maddow’s show, Tarantino tries not to go for easy Nazi villain cliches. He goes to great pains to point out that Wilhelm (Gedeon Burkhard), a drunken corporal unfortunate enough to get stuck in the middle of the confrontation between Hicox and Hellstrom in the basement bar, is just a man providing for his wife and his newborn son. When he holds Hammersmark hostage and Raine comes down to negotiate, we hope that—as Raine claims—“you’ll go your way, we’ll go ours, and little Max gets to grow up playing catch with his daddy,” but it is no use. We know he is going to get shot. But Tarantino also finds other, subtler ways to humanize the film’s Nazis. Watch how moved Goebbels is, for example, when Hitler himself (Martin Wuttke) tells him that Nation’s Pride is his best work yet. We know that they’re both going to get sprayed with bullets in the film’s finale. But when that moment comes, we’re fully aware that we’re seeing humans, not cartoons, being slaughtered.

Let me explain what I mean by that. I must admit that despite my ugly experience with Inglourious Basterds the first time I saw it, I vividly remember how greedily I anticipated the film’s infamous final sequence, which attempts to revise history as we know it. I don’t know what it was, but I remember wanting to see what would result from barbecuing the Nazi high command in one giant auditorium. If I respond differently to this sequence than I do to Werner’s execution earlier in the film, it’s because I think the two scenes are dealing with two different issues. Werner’s execution is the result of pointless, vitriolic capital punishment—it’s unnecessary, it accomplishes nothing, and it saves no lives. On the contrary, the burning of the theater in the film’s finale arguably does save lives. No doubt humanity is capable of better, and wars are certainly never, ever won in such a crude fashion. But what if they were? Some of the most memorable movies show us things we may only get to witness once every millennium—or things we may never expect to see at all. “But,” as Colonel Landa explains, convincingly, “in the pages of history, every once in a while, fate reaches out and extends its hand.”

Of course, there’s a catch. In Tarantino’s alternate universe, villains usually don’t get off scot-free, and sometimes the heroes don’t, either. Hicox and Hammersmark both die because of their own carelessness. Both the Bear Jew and Ulmer (Omar Doom) die willingly, with dynamite attached to their legs. Marcel (Jacky Ido), Shosanna’s black projectionist, presumably dies in the explosion right along with them, but dies knowing that Shosanna has a place in her heart for him. Shosanna herself dies because she overreaches herself in her obsessive attempts to secure vengeance. Zoller dies because he cannot decide if he wants to embrace his own celebrity or disown it. “My exploits consisted of killing many men,” he confesses to Shosanna at the screening. “Consequently, the part of the film that’s playing right now… I don’t like watching this part.” In one of the purest moments in the film, Shoshanna and Zoller wind up shooting each other dead—but their faces are still up there on the screen, in Nation’s Pride. They will no longer be able to deliver “a message for Germany” in real life. But in cinema, they still can.

I have one more detail to gripe about. It concerns the film’s final scene, in which Colonel Landa strikes a deal with Aldo Raine to help accomplish “Operation Kino” and end the war. Landa is recognized by the U.S. government as a double agent and is rewarded with a Congressional Medal of Honor, American citizenship and a lush property on Nantucket Island. Then, Raine and the “Little Man” (B.J. Novak) have Landa’s driver, Hermann (Michael Kranz), shot and scalped—deliberately going against the terms in the deal Landa and the U.S. government made with them. One wonders: why does Raine have to murder Hermann at the end of the movie? What point is he trying to prove? Is it to show off to Landa? Is it so that he can get one last scalp to add to his collection? Or is it for a reason I suspect: that Tarantino is offering Hermann’s death as collateral for sparing Landa, so that the audience can have the pleasure of seeing just one more Nazi getting shot and scalped, for one last bit of catharsis to top off a film that already has more violence than it needs?

I could go on and on complaining, but it wouldn’t do any good. To be fair, it is undeniably brave of Tarantino not to kill off Landa, of all people, at the end of the film, despite all the atrocities we’ve seem him commit and condone. Part of the reason why I intensely disliked Tarantino’s previous feature, Death Proof (2007), was because he intended for the film’s highpoint to be a scene in which a suffering, screaming villain was kicked to death. Surprisingly—and thankfully—he doesn’t that again in this film. While we do get a rather disturbing shot of Raine and the Little Man carving a swastika into Landa’s forehead while he screams in pain, we understand why they’re doing it; it is not, as I once believed, an apologia for torture. “He’s a Nazi,” Tarantino explained, in the interview with Jeffrey Goldberg. “They’re giving him a scar. I don’t know if I would even go so far as to call that torture. He’s scarring him. He’s not torturing him.” Interestingly—with the exception of the Little Man, of course—Landa and Raine are the only two major players to emerge all in one piece at the end. And they’re the two most ruthless people in the movie.

The night I left that initial screening of Inglourious Basterds, I wondered how the movie would age. And I wondered if I would ever start liking the film a little better than I did. Two years later, to my relief, I have. I still hesitate to proclaim the film a masterpiece—as several of my colleagues have already done—but that’s not what’s important. This is a good movie. It has ambitions—some of them dubious—but most of them exercised in an attempt to encompass all that has been said about World War II in cinema’s history. And all that has been said about the Allied efforts. And, yes, the Nazis, too. "I sure as hell didn’t come down from the goddamned Smokey Mountains, across 5,000-mile water, fight my way through half of Sicily and jump out of a fucking aeroplane to teach the Nazis lessons in humanity," barks Aldo Raine, in an early scene. "Nazi ain’t got no humanity." But Quentin Tarantino has made a film that believes otherwise, and Aldo Raine is wrong.

Please disregard my old Yahoo Movies reviews

2011-08-08T00:00:00.000-07:00

We've all Googled ourselves. Admit it. I do it all the time. Rarely am I ever proud of reading the stuff I wrote millions of years ago on the Internet. In fact, I've been publishing "reviews" on the Internet ever since 2004 -- when I was 13 years old.

President Obama has warned our nation's children that much of what they post on the Internet is going to be permanent. Listen to your President, kids. Seriously. In the future, we'll all probably have special archive machines allowing us to find things other people posted eons ago. So if you're going to pursue a career in politics, be especially careful.

Now, for all us wannabe filmmakers/film critics, the stakes aren't so high. Nobody much cares what we've said in the past about movies -- except, of course, our own rivals.

Because of that, I wince when I think of what my own "rivals" are thinking when they've Googled my own name (which they probably don't, but you never know) and have found some seriously old reviews I wrote for Yahoo Movies, from 2003-2006. That is not a moment in my amateur career as a film critic I am proud of. The reviews were terrible, I didn't know what the hell I was saying, and I mindlessly tried to make up my own memorable catch-phrases. Worse, I can't go back and delete those reviews. Even worse is Yahoo's despicable crime of changing the dates on those reviews, to make it look like I wrote some of them in 2008.

I'll stop rambling though, and provide some of the links to these awful old reviews of mine. As a bonus, I'll include some of the hilarious things I wrote in the reviews. If the dates on the reviews are correct, I'll leave them unchanged. If not, I'll let you know when I really wrote them.

I'm sure my "rivals" will probably go to town with this stuff. Erm... be my guest.

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

-Published in May 2005

"As long as HAL is talking or as long as someone is referring to HAL, this movie is able to stay on track and avoid boredom."

Alien (1979)

-Published in Summer 2004, though Yahoo incorrectly claims April 2008

"Alien is a much better experience than AvP, a MUCH better one. And to think that this masterpiece was created in the late 70's!"

The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

-Published in June 2005

"The battle of Hoth begins, and the soldiers fight gigantic, four-legged steel machines called AT-ATs. This incredibly visualized battle is given life by Joe Johnston’s visual effects and Dennis Muren’s effects photography. The good guys win the battle, and when it’s over, Luke and the droid R2-D2 (Kenny Baker) set off for Degobah."

[What's particularly embarrassing about the review above is my 14-year old self claiming that the rebels win the battle of Hoth, even though -- if you watch the movie -- they clearly do not.]

E.T. The Extra Terrestrial (1982)

-Published in June 2005

"E.T. is today the third highest-grossing film of all time. I wonder why so many people wanted to see it? Maybe they loved Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Raiders of the Lost Ark so much that they wanted to see more from the director who was at the time just beggining. People don't seem to think that today though, because not everybody wants to see his new films and they're not afraid to critisize them. Why would anyone ever do that? Every one of Spielberg's films are perfect."

Blade Runner (1982)

-Published around Summer 2005, though Yahoo incorrectly claims May 2008

"Blade Runner is a very enjoyable movie that has only one flaw that keeps it from quite becoming great. I was disappointed with the way Leon was killed off."

Return of the Jedi (1983)

-Published in Summer 2005, though Yahoo incorrectly claims February 2007

"Return of the Jedi is the greatest Star Wars movie, in my opinion. It is one of my all-time favorite movies, and it’s one of the very best times you’ll ever have watching science fiction in your life. Not a movie that a moviegoer should be without. Great finale, it is. See it, you must. That’s what Yoda would say."

The Color Purple (1985)

-Published in Summer 2005, though Yahoo incorrectly claims April 2008

"Variety reviews did not love this movie. They quoted, "Over produced, overly manipulative Spielberg drama is saved by outstanding performaces". WHAT A TERRIBLE THING TO SAY! This film is not over produced OR overly manipulative."

The Name of the Rose (1986)

-Published in May 2005, though Yahoo claims May 2008

"Christian Slater’s performance as Adso is remarkable; he was 15 when he performed it. I know, you’re probably wondering how, at that age, he was able to do that sex scene. The truth is, he didn’t know that that was what he would be doing (only Valentina Vargas was instructed about what would happen in it), and so Christian was not really acting in that scene. Strange, huh?"

The Untouchables (1987)

-Published around Fall 2004, though Yahoo incorrectly claims March 2008

"Yep, this is a glorious movie. One of the hottest mob movies out there. And definately Brian De Palma's greatest achievement ever."

Rain Man (1988)

-Published sometime around Summer 2004, though Yahoo incorrectly claims December 2006.

"It makes sense that Rain Man was the Best Picture winner of 1988, because the story is great, the acting is great, and I just loved it!"

Born on the Fourth of July (1989)

-Published in Summer 2005, though Yahoo incorrectly claims August 2006

For a while, I thought that Cruise' best performance was in "Jerry MaGuire", but today, on the Fourth of July, I saw Oliver Stone's "Born on the Fourth of July", and my opinion has been turned around."

JFK (1991)

-Published in May 2005

"It’s easy to disbelieve the Warren Commission report, but “JFK” also dares to claim that Lyndon Johnson may have also been part of the conspiracy. Not very many people would take that lightly. I do believe that Johnson was a part of the conspiracy, and there even is a possibility that J. Edgar Hoover was also involved, which the movie does not suggest."

Hollywood Homicide (2003)

-Published around late 2004, though Yahoo incorrectly claims August 2006

"This movie was not well-received by critics because of the whole action/comedy thing. But actually, you'll get very entertained around when the movie reaches 50 minutes or something."

Mary Badham's Memories of Robert Mulligan

2011-08-05T11:00:00.000-07:00

When I realized, last year, that one of my all-time favorite American filmmakers was the late Robert Mulligan, I became obsessed with wanting to find out more about him. From 1957 to 1991, he made at least a dozen great American movies before his death in 2008 at the age of 83. I was curious about that long gap between the completion of his final film, The Man in the Moon (1991), and the time of his death. I wanted to know why he spent the last 17 years of his life away from filmmaking, and who better to ask than Miss Jean-Louise Finch herself?

I was thrilled when I learned that Mary Badham, who played young Scout in Mulligan's To Kill A Mockingbird (1962), would be coming to my college on May 1, 2011. Most people, I figured, just wanted to be there to listen to her stories about Gregory Peck. I must have been the only kid (well, the only person) who wanted to hear her talk more about the filmmaking aspects of the movie. Now, I should have known from my previous experiences with meeting a director and an actor that you're normally supposed to asks these sorts of questions to directors, and NOT actors, but what the hell: it's Mary Badham. I went ahead and tried it anyway.

I've spent all summer procrastinating on sharing the full details of that afternoon when I drove out to Meramec Community College, so to make a long story short I'll just stick to the important details. The event started out in the Meramec Theatre, with the Meramec Symphonic Band, conducted by Gary Gackstatter (pictured above), performing the theme from The Great Escape (because the late Elmer Bernstein once insisted to Gackstatter that no matter what Bernstein themes the Band performed at various concerts, they had to perform that amazing Great Escape theme). Then the Band quietly segued into the true purpose of the event: to perform Bernstein's lovely Mockingbird music, from beginning to end.

Sometime after Mary Badham came onstage, she told a story to the audience that I absolutely cherished. As you can probably tell from the pic of Mulligan above (in which he poses with Gina Lollobrigida, star of his Come September), he was quite the chain-smoker, and could rarely ever be found without a cigarette on his sets. On the Mockingbird set, a bit of mischief swirled when young Philip Alford (who plays Jem in the film) began secretly putting out Mulligan's cigarettes with water. This happened for a while until Mulligan began to catch on as to who was committing the sneaky deed.

Then, on the day the crew began filming the scene by the jailhouse (when the kids flank Atticus Finch from the angry mob), Mulligan gleefully turned the tables on Alford and the rest of the kids. Once the scene was finished, Mulligan quickly whispered to Gregory Peck that he step aside. Before the kids could react, a bucket of water on top of the jailhouse was dumped forward and Alford, Badham and John Megna (aka Dill) were all completely soaked!

We watched clips from that making-of documentary that's now on the film's DVD, and we listened to Badham's stories about the production (she still refers to Gregory Peck as "Atticus" to this day). As icing on the cake, she finished by reading from Scout's final monologue in the book. At one point, I recall conductor Gackstatter telling the audience about just how much he loved To Kill A Mockingbird in general: "I can't name a better movie. I can't name a better book."

Forgive me for bursting the bubble here momentarily, but I feel like I ought to express how I, personally, feel about such a broad statement. I know, I know: we're all entitled to our own opinions, and I'm being a jerk for pouring rain on the Meramec Band's parade. But, as an amateur film critic who's reviewed To Kill A Mockingbird in the past, I couldn't help but wince at this dubious praise for Mockingbird as being the best of all books, the best of all movies.

Hell, the movie that beat it at the Academy Awards was better. Hell, Mulligan himself made a handful of movies that, I might argue, were better: The Stalking Moon (1968), Summer of '42 (1971) and The Other (1972), for example. Don't get me wrong: I love To Kill A Mockingbird, the movie AND the book, but it's hard not to look past the painful flaws in Harper Lee's story. I read Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man for the first time this year, and couldn't help but see how much more superior it is as a treatment of racism, tolerance and the problems of vigilante justice. Case in point: Invisible Man ends with the unnamed hero accepting the story's villains (Dr. Bledsoe, Ras the Destroyer, Brother Jack) without letting them ruin his life; To Kill A Mockingbird can't end without the piggish Bob Ewell getting a knife stuck up his gut before everyone can be happy.

This is just me going on a pointless rant, though. A rant that will probably have to be saved for another day, and another Mulligan-related discussion. To wrap up my memories of this particular event, I'll get to the best part. After the concert ended (and, I tell you, I almost didn't want it to end; I can't get enough of Bernstein's Mockingbird score), many of us lined up outside the lobby to meet Badham. As I neared the table, I discovered, to my dismay, that autographs were $20. Here, then, was when I learned the sad truth about retired actors/actresses: this is how many of them make their living. Not that I wanted Badham's autograph; I wanted a picture taken with her, since I've always preferred pictures. Since I didn't want to look like I was planning to walk away with a free lunch, however, I went ahead and planted my $20 bill on the table and asked somebody in line to snap a pic for me.

Of course, I needed just one more thing. I felt awkward doing this, but I lowered myself to Badham's level (since she was sitting down), told her I was a huge fan of Mulligan and asked her if she knew why he left Hollywood after 1991. She showed an expression of uncertainty on her face as I was asking this. Which, I'm sure, is a natural reaction: Why the %#@& is this kid asking this question to me, of all people?

Admittedly, as I expected, she couldn't give me a definitive answer. Part of it might have been because there was a long line of people there, and she hadn't the liberty to give too much thought to the matter during that moment. Part of it could have been that she simply didn't know. Still, she gave me an answer of some kind, and it's the only professional answer I've heard from anyone to date.

"I think he was just done with the business," she said, "and wanted to live a quiet life."

The Tree of Life (2011): Stairways to Heaven

2011-07-18T12:22:00.000-07:00

“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the Earth?”

-Job 38: 4, 7

Here is a movie in which everybody, everywhere is asking that question, in one way or another. People who ask this question always want an answer. Children want an answer from their parents. Parents want an answer from God. Where were parents when a boy drowned? Where was God when a son died?

I’ve been spending the past month—literally, the entire month—trying to figure out how to construct a definitive review of Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life (2011) around this central theme. Now, after having seen the film twice, I am faced with the prospect of actually writing that review, and nothing… nothing is pouring out of my mind. For this is one of the most flooring cinematic achievements in recent years; so speechless and in awe have I been of Malick’s accomplishment that I still cannot yet bring myself to thoroughly address it.

Here is what I will do instead. From the notes I took on the film (in a darkened theater) during my second viewing, I’ll break down the most important details I picked up from The Tree of Life, from beginning to end. I’ll try to stay on topic.

The movie’s first scene depicts a young, red-haired little girl embracing the farmland out in her backyard. As we learn from the scene that follows, this little girl will grow up to be Mrs. O’Brien (Jessica Chastain), the kindly matriarch of a family of baby boomers blooming in the 1950’s. She remembers what it was like to be a minor, running through green pastures, blessed with the liberation of childhood. Her life is now dominated by marriage, religion and industry. People her age have to look out for themselves.

She receives a telegram. One of her three sons has died. He was only 19. She admits she wants to die so that she could see her son again, one last time. Her husband, Mr. O’Brien (Brad Pitt), is shell-shocked. “I never got the chance to tell him how sorry I was,” he says, bowing his head down in shame. Both parents are now burdened with unbearable grief: Mr. O’Brien with his fatherly guilt, Mrs. O’Brien with her suicidal thoughts. The only thing that could permanently end their pain is to die and join their son in the afterlife, regaining that spiritual freedom which is only, truly ever experienced in childhood.

Their oldest son, Jack (Sean Penn), left the family a long time ago. In his younger years (played by Hunter McCracken), he went to mass with them, and he listened in the pews while the local priest read from the Book of Job and warned his audience of churchgoers that even good people are capable of corruption. And he would watch his father light the red candles in the corner of the church, making wishes. Now Jack is an adult, and the only trace of religion left in his life is a single blue candle that resides on the dinner table at his house. He works in a business world defined by profits. “World’s gone to the dogs,” he complains in a voiceover. “People are greedy. Getting worse.” It’s an environment dominated by industry and machines. Down in the courtyard below, a single tree grows in the corporate square, the last trace of nature left in this man-made world.

Jack’s parents were better than some parents in the 50’s. His mother tended to WWII veterans still suffering from their wounds, and his father attended barbecues with black families, resisting the racism that infested the times. But the O’Briens were not without conformity. When he was just a toddler, Jack’s mother lifted him up in her arms, directed his attention towards the sky and told him, “That’s where God lives.” A typical thing to say to a child back then. This queues a moment for Alexandre Desplat’s soundtrack to make lovely use of Smetana’s “The Moldau”, a Russian ballad about rushing rivers, which signifies key moments at which water appears in the film. It can be spotted bursting out of hoses, flowing calmly in a river on the outskirts of town, and even encased in ice cubes used to wake up the O’Brien boys at daylight. Water, not God, is the only factual source of life that we know, and in later scenes Malick will remind us that there is nothing up there beyond the sky—only stars and space. By the time Jack is older, even the birds that fly outside his building know that there’s no God up there, and they challenge the patience of the heavens by moving in waves, like daredevils, across the kind of sky Malick loves: an eos rodoctolos, the “rosy-fingered dawn”.

Like his parents, Jack is still pained by the death of his brother. In a scene in an elevator, he calls his father on the phone and apologizes for something he said. Maybe it was something about the brother. We don’t ever find out how the brother died, but the mother blames it on God in a voiceover of her own. “Lord… why?” she begs. “Where were you?” The once-pious O’Brien family is gradually beginning to lose its faith.

None of us truly know why God—if there is a God—allows such evil to happen. That’s what we have Philosophy 101 for. And Malick has no definite answers. What he does seem to believe is that time itself is like life itself, and he suggests this by rewinding time all the way back to the prehistoric age, where Douglas Trumbell’s CGI dinosaurs threaten to tear each other to pieces before reconsidering their actions. A velociraptor has every opportunity to squash a sleeping herbivore’s head open, and instead it elects not to. It chooses not to commit evil. Yet God allows a meteor to strike Earth and eliminate the dinosaurs anyway. How good must we be—humans and animals alike—until God will step in to help us? Where has he been all this time?

In a visual device I am still in the process of figuring out, Malick suggests that the rewinding of time is like the birth of a baby. While the dinosaurs are dying out, a fetus is kicking inside a mother’s womb—in this case, the fetus of young Jack. After he is born, he grows up to learn how to seize property for his own, defiantly sobbing, “It’s mine!” when an adult threatens to take his belongings away. Or how to throw tantrums and knock bowls over when his mother is paying more attention to his baby brother than to him. He learns, in essence, the true meaning of rebellion. Mrs. O’Brien raises Jack to be generous, but Mr. O’Brien sternly objects: “Your mother’s naïve. It takes fierce will to get ahead in this world.” He constantly presses on this truth by gripping his fingers on the back of Jack’s neck in every other scene, making it clear to his son who’s in charge in the family. Like Colonel Tall reminding Sergeant Staros of the cruelty of nature in Malick’s The Thin Red Line (1998), a universal truth is being demonstrated: in this world, the bully always has the upper hand.

Is Malick blaming all of this on God? His characters certainly do—the adults, at least. They have no other superiors to turn to as a reliable scapegoat. The children in The Tree of Life, raised to love and honor God, see things differently: it’s the adults, not God, who are the ones at fault. Childhood allows children a more simplistic worldly output. Thus, when a boy suffocates at the local pool, and Jack’s father is unable to save him, Jack is unforgiving: “Where were you? You let a boy drown.”

So, Jack starts thinking of his father as a man of despicable evil. Mr. O’Brien was a failed musical composer whose dreams were shattered after he impregnated his wife and was forced to raise a family on hard labor. He restricts his three sons with a long list of house rules, and it doesn’t take long for Jack to realize that his father’s rules are full of contradictions: “He says ‘don’t put your elbows on the table’… he does!” At one point, Jack is so full of hatred towards his authoritarian old man that he asks God to “kill him, let him die, get him out of here.” He confesses in voiceover, “What I want to do, I can’t do. I’d do what I hate.” And since Jack can’t kill his father, he starts inflicting his torture fantasies onto his younger brother R.L. (Laramie Eppler), unaware that he now shares his father’s penchant for cruelty.

But Malick goes to great pains to make it clear that Jack and Mr. O’Brien are not alike in wholly negative ways. Throughout the film, they are both confronted with delays and obstacles, which Malick presents, predominantly, in the form of staircases. Each set of stairs that appears in the movie—and there are a lot of them—presents a towering obstacle from each character’s point of view. Jack is climbing staircases from the moment of his youth, whether they be to the second floor, to the attic, or even to the forbidden floors of a wealthy family’s house that he has broken into (marking yet another turn of rebellion against greed in Jack’s life, symbolized from the moment he steals a white gown from the wealthy family’s dresser and casts it into the river on the town’s outskirts). But Jack’s father is climbing staircases of his own. He climbs the same steely staircase up to the upper floors of his plant every day. And whenever he's involved in a court case, he's always faced with the same damned spiral staircase leading up to the courtroom floor. It’s a never-ending climb to the top of prosperity and the American Dream—a climb he will never finish.

“I wanted to be loved because I was great,” Mr. O’Brien mutters. “A big man. Now, I’m nothing.” He muses over his own personal failings during a scene in which he and Jack tend to the vegetable garden in their backyard, ripping from the soil the plants that have been devoured by aphids. Significantly, this occurs during a moment in the film when O’Brien’s power plant has closed down, and he is forced to take a job nobody wants. God has now betrayed him to the point when all forms of plants—whether they be edible vegetables or electrical factories—cannot thrive in society. Nature does not even allow its own kind to thrive forever.

But there is a glimmer of hope for the O’Briens, even hope for the strained relationship between Jack and his father. “I’ve been tough on you,” Mr. O’Brien admits. “I’m not proud of it.” Jack, reflecting on the effect his parents have had on him, tries to hold back the pain: “I’m as bad as you are. I’m more like you than her.” Here, Malick implies that the closing down of the power plant has brought Jack closer to his father. The O’Briens will have to move to another neighborhood, and they will even have to leave behind the tree that grew in their backyard all throughout their lives—but hope remains. For indeed, sometimes it heals wounds when industry is abandoned. Maybe wounds can even be healed when nature is abandoned.

All of this is assembled by Malick in a cinematic canvas so full of cuts and quick moments that you’ll have to return to the film multiple times to catch the ones you’ve missed. One of the most thoughtful negative critiques of The Tree of Life to have appeared in the blogosphere recently has been published by Peter Tonguette, the esteemed Orson Welles/James Bridges biographer, who dislikes Malick’s recent editorial preferences. In his review, Tonguette compares Malick’s style unfavorably to Robert Mulligan’s The Man in the Moon (1991), another wonderful film about life growing up in the American South in the 50’s and 60’s. “The differences in style between The Man in the Moon and The Tree of Life,” Tonguette writes, “are vast. Mulligan respects Jenny Wingfield's brilliant, subtle screenplay much more than Malick seems to respect his own. Mulligan's visual choices reinforce, rather than obscure, the point of a given scene.”

It’s true, a more classical filmmaker like Robert Mulligan probably would have judged Malick’s film to be a little unorthodox. There is no doubt that Malick’s intention with The Tree of Life has been to change the form of cinema as we know it. Unlike The Man in the Moon, it is not instantly recognizable as a great portrait of human nostalgia. Since I intend to pay The Tree of Life repeated viewings in the years to come, I’ve only caught a handle of significant cuts in the film as of late, but so far I’ve been astounded by what I’ve found. Consider the volcanoes that appear in the time sequences. And consider a later scene, in which Jack lies awake one evening gazing over at the ominous nightlight on his bedroom wall. Now consider the scene that comes immediately after that scene, in which Jack is at school taking a spelling test, and two of the words assigned for him to spell are “volcano” and “socket”.

And bridges. There are only two bridges in this film, but Malick must have put them there for a reason. The first bridge is a bridge traversed by Jack during a sunny day in his youth. The second bridge is a much longer, quieter bridge—the Verrazano Narrows Bridge in New York, to be exact—that stretches across the screen in the final shot of the film. Even a child is well aware that a bridge is infinitely more difficult to traverse than a staircase. Wherever they take us, they take us to turning points in our lives, always.

What we have, then, is a film about bridges and staircases. We don’t always realize it when a staircase is climbed, or when a bridge is crossed. Once we’re across, and once we’re at the top, the fantasy is over. Our childhoods end. School, sex and stress all get in the way, and then we are forced to take jobs and raise families. We miss our liberties, but that is all we will ever do: miss them. Somewhere along those lines in our lives—when we weren’t looking—we grew up. Where were we?

A shorter version of this review is now available at Examiner.com.

The Great Mouse Detective (1986)

2011-07-02T16:00:00.000-07:00

The Great Mouse Detective (1986) is not a Disney movie about good vs. evil but, rather, a Disney movie about two, fiercely-opposed egos. On the one hand we have charming, energetic Basil of Baker Street: lives under Sherlock Holmes’ floorboards, cross-dresses in Japanese fat suits, plays his violin whenever miserable. On the other hand, we’ve got menacing, charismatic Professor Ratigan: lives in the waterfront sewers, dresses in kingly get-ups, despises it when people call him a “rat”. They’ve both spent their entire professional lives trying to hunt each other down. Nothing is more important to them than the long-desired satisfaction that comes with a superior mind.

Disney specialized in movies like The Great Mouse Detective in the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s, back when the studio used to believe in making films that stressed themes of intelligence and character study. Then the 60’s and 70’s gave us a series of movies that were significantly less-inspired (101 Dalmatians; The Sword in the Stone; The Jungle Book; The Aristocats; The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh; The Rescuers), and it was as if Walt Disney’s long-term artistic promises had all but evaporated. Had it not been for Disney’s short-lived nirvana in the 80’s and early 90’s, it seems likely that the studio would have been gone for good. Thus, The Great Mouse Detective ranks with The Fox and the Hound (1982), Beauty and the Beast (1991) and Aladdin (1992) as one of the last truly excellent 2-D films released by Disney—before the studio grew into the corporate monster that it is today. The movies have gotten cheaper in quality again, and the concepts are no longer fresh. Without the beneficial support of Pixar, we would probably forget that Disney still plays a major role in our lives as moviegoers.

The Great Mouse Detective is interesting, then, in that it’s a Disney movie primarily concerned with character instead of story. The movie came out before I was born, and yet having watched the 1991 VHS tape ever since my childhood, I’ve come to develop a strong familiarity with the film’s heroes and villains. The plot is a basic story of kidnapping and government siege, but the characters in The Great Mouse Detective keep me engaged no matter how many times I see it—and I’ve seen it roughly over a dozen times. This is why I’ve even grown to prefer it to a more popular contemporary classic like The Lion King (1994), in which the villain was always more intriguing than the hero. In The Great Mouse Detective, we get an intriguing hero and an intriguing villain, ensuring that we’ll be pleased with the final results no matter who wins in the end (even when, this being a kids’ movie, we all know who’s going to win).

The movie provides, in Basil of Baker Street (Barrie Ingham) and Professor Ratigan (Vincent Price), two of the most perfect foils ever written into a Disney feature. Like Sherlock Holmes and his arch-nemesis Moriarty, Basil and Ratigan believe not in the power of brawn but in the power of wisdom: neither one could possibly stand the humiliation of being outsmarted by the other. In private, Ratigan weeps over Basil’s intrusions into his affairs, and his henchmen weep with him. And Basil is so broken by his consistent failures to bring Ratigan to justice that a failed bullet test is enough to damper his spirits for the rest of the day. In one of those rare Disney movies where everybody drinks beer and champagne, and where female mice strippers heat up the nightlife with variations of Melissa Manchester’s “Let Me Be Good to You”, Basil and Ratigan—mortal sinners that they are—share only one other thing in common: they’re both heavy chain-smokers. Nicotine helps them concentrate. One has to wonder: are they smoking rat poison? But never mind.

They know each other’s weak points. “Ratigan,” chuckles Basil, in a face-to-face encounter, “no one can have a higher opinion of you than I have. And I think you’re a slimy, contemptible sewer rat!” He is aware of how sensitive Ratigan is to being called a rat—even though that’s what he is, after all—and Ratigan is particularly aggravated when Basil calls him a rat in front of an entire audience of London citizens. But Ratigan has some tricks of his own. When Basil accidentally abandons common sense and walks into one of Ratigan’s traps, he is utterly devastated. And when Basil is subjected to one of Ratigan’s absurd, James Bond-style execution ceremonies—in which a variety of lethal weapons are timed to strike Basil’s body all at once—he is too ashamed to be terrified. He simply gives up. To him, death would be the only fitting medicine for the stupidity he has suffered by walking into Ratigan’s painfully obvious trap.

They are supported by an unforgettable team of supporting characters, all of them lovable. There’s little Olivia Flaversham (Susanne Pollatschek), who comes to Basil for help after Ratigan has her father (Alan Young) kidnapped; a running joke in the film is that Basil can never get her name right, calling her things like “Flanchester” and “Flangerhanger”. She is eventually intercepted by Ratigan’s right hand, Fidget (Candy Candido), a peg-legged, broken-winged bat who makes two frightening appearances in the film—one in the opening scene, one in an ominous sequence set in a toy shop—but is otherwise pathetic and hopelessly unorthodox: he would probably be a nervous wreck if Ratigan weren’t sending him on missions with a helpful checklist. And then there’s Dr. Dawson (Val Bettin), who has just returned from service in Afghanistan and is taken by surprise when Basil not only determines, correctly, his origins and occupation, but asks him to come along and help him solve the case.

The character of Basil, adapted from Eve Titus’ children’s book Basil of Baker Street, is modeled—in part—on the late Basil Rathbone, who was most famous for playing Sherlock Holmes in the 1940’s and is paid tribute to in this film. One scene has Basil wearing a blue sailor’s disguise in a bar; a similar disguise was worn by Rathbone’s Holmes in Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon (1943). In another scene, Rathbone himself makes a posthumous cameo as the voice of Holmes during a scene in which Basil listens, from behind the walls, to Holmes’ investigation of a “frightfully dull” German concert; the cameo was made possible when the filmmakers ripped Rathbone’s voice tracks from a 1966 radio broadcast. Basil is voiced in the film by Barrie Ingham, who had a small role in Fred Zinnemann’s The Day of the Jackal (1973) but has a lot of fun here, and makes the character into a most delightful Disney hero.

Vincent Price’s work as Ratigan is sublime. When you consider that the actor had long desired to work on a quality animated film—Richard Williams had already wasted his voice talents for the role of Zigzag in Arabian Knight, which took 30 years to finally formulate into the abysmal The Thief and the Cobbler in 1995—the timing couldn’t have been better. Listen to his devilish voiceover work as Ratigan, as in the scene in which he subjects a drunken rodent to capital punishment in the jaws of his pet cat, Felicia. Or when he triumphantly declares, “I’ve WON!” when it seems as though he’s outsmarted Basil at last. Price, who would have turned 100 this year, once said that Ratigan was his favorite role.

The film makes some notable references to other Disney classics. Dumbo makes a cameo as a bubble-blowing toy. Bill the Lizard, the ill-fated chimney sweeper from Alice in Wonderland (1951), appears here as one of Ratigan’s henchmen; it is anyone’s guess why he has turned to a life of crime after being catapulted out of Wonderland in the last film (to quote critic Martin Goodman, “One would think that there were plenty of chimneys to sweep in 1897 London!”). Even London itself is presented with the same, Disney-style romanticism it had in Peter Pan (1953), 101 Dalmatians (1961) and Mary Poppins (1964), since, after all, the Brits have always shared an impenetrable Disney love with their Yankee neighbors on the other side of the ocean.

The final chase sequence is kind of magnificent. Ratigan and Fidget ride away, with Olivia as hostage, on a mini-blimp that trudges through London’s night skies, and I remember, as a young child, being amazed at how Basil, Dawson and Flaversham are able to pursue them—on a hot air balloon made out of books, balloons, and a Union Jack stolen from Buckingham Palace. Even more impressive is the climatic duel between Basil and Ratigan inside Big Ben, where they find themselves nearly crushed by the gears and chains bearing down on them inside the clock’s face—this was the first time CGI had ever been used in a feature-length animated film. In the end, though, it all comes down to brains over brawn. Ratigan may be strong enough to knock Basil off the clock’s hands. But only Basil is smart enough to mentally remember the moment when the clock strikes midnight—and the difference that moment will make.

It is but one great instance in a Disney movie that contains several underrated instances of emotional power. When Ratigan brings Olivia and her father back together again—only for him to cruelly separate them again—that hurts like nothing else. When Dawson is brought to tears over his failure to protect Olivia from danger, Basil stops ridiculing him, comforts him and assures him, “We’ll get her back.” Even when the case is solved and Dawson prepares to leave Baker Street for good, we are overjoyed when Basil finds a way to convince him to stay. They are immortal characters, and we love them.

The Great Mouse Detective came out the same year as Don Bluth’s An American Tail (1986), another animated film in which a mouse was the hero. If An American Tail seems like the better movie today, that’s probably because it was an immensely personal work—Bluth, a former Disney employee, had structured it, deliberately, as a critical response to Disney’s more conservative way of working. By contrast, The Great Mouse Detective is a more cerebral film: it was a collaborative effort worked on by 4 directors (Ron Clements, John Musker, Dave Michener, Burny Mattinson) and, thus, lacks An American Tail's consistency of vision. But 25 years after its release, The Great Mouse Detective continues to endure—perhaps because the fight for intelligence waged between Basil and Ratigan has kept it so remarkably alive. When you can communicate such a fascinating character conflict to a level so that kids will understand, you’ve got yourself an intelligent kids’ movie.

Submitted to The House Next Door's Summer of '86 series.

In the Heat of the Night (1967): The Hands of Virgil Tibbs

2011-06-26T21:01:00.000-07:00

Everything was going so well in Sparta, Mississippi. A factory had just been built. Business was booming, and new jobs were being created. The factory’s owner was murdered, but the police had the situation under control. The fact that the town was called Sparta in the first place told you everything you needed to know about the police themselves: they dispatched justice quickly, asked questions later, showed no mercy, paid no attention to the advice of outsiders.

All of that changed one hot summer night, when a stranger entered town and meddled in their affairs. He began touching everything. Their evidence. Their witnesses. Their suspects. And the police were appalled—because his hands were of a different color than theirs.

That’s one way of interpreting Norman Jewison’s In the Heat of the Night (1967), one of those great American classics which nobody ever forgets. Winner of the 1967 Academy Award for Best Picture, it is sometimes dismissed as a film that won the Oscar out of sheer political correctness, but far too many moviegoers in recent years have overlooked the significant accomplishments of the movie Jewison actually made. The first two times I saw In the Heat of the Night, I admired it as an entertaining but seemingly conventional murder story. A third viewing enlightened me to what the film really was: an aesthetic portrait of a black cop’s gradual deconstruction of a white justice system. When Jewison told Senator Robert Kennedy about the project at a New Year’s Eve party in Sun Valley, Idaho, the former U.S. Attorney General was astonished. “It’s very important, Norman, that you make this movie,” Kennedy advised him. “The time is right for a movie like this. Timing is everything—in politics, in art, and in life itself.”

In the Heat of the Night works so well, I think, because Jewison is one of those special directors with a talent for determining the creative differences in a narrative. The film’s mostly-white cast (Rod Steiger, Warren Oates, Lee Grant, Larry Gates, Scott Wilson, Anthony James) is broken by the commanding entrance of Sidney Poitier, who steps off a train in the film’s opening scene and leaves behind a shadow so dark it obscures a puppy trailing curiously outside the train station’s screen door. One of the pleasures of In the Heat of the Night is in watching as Poitier’s presence slowly begins to throw off the film’s white supporting characters, one-by-one. Jewison’s camera is primarily in love with Poitier’s black hands, which serve multiple purposes in the film—whether they’re inspecting a white corpse, consoling the white hands of a witness, examining the white hands of a suspect or returning the blows of a man’s white hand with a counterblow to that man’s white face.

If this sounds like a far-fetched interpretation, consider one of the first scenes in the film. The police have found the dead body of Colbert, the factory owner from Chicago whose murder will probably cause an upset in the town’s economy (“He came all this way to build a factory, make something out of this town, before they got him,” mutters an undertaker). The undertakers are alarmed, then, when Virgil Tibbs (Poitier) walks in out of nowhere to inspect the body for himself, and Jewison’s camera closes in on Poitier’s hands as they slowly move up and down the dead white flesh, in Tibbs’ attempt to determine Colbert’s time of death. From this point onwards, Jewison signifies the crucial direction in which the film is headed: that the delivery of justice for a white man’s death now rests in a black man’s hands.

Virgil Tibbs is a police officer from Philadelphia. He has come to Sparta to visit his mother, and is not a happy camper when the Sparta police pounce on him just hours after Colbert’s murder; with his black skin, well-dressed appearance and wallet chock-full of money, he sticks out like a sore thumb in town, and that’s all it takes for the Sparta police to arrest him as a suspect. The first time Tibbs meets Gillespie (Rod Steiger), Sparta’s burly old police chief, Gillespie is first amused, then annoyed, then embarrassed, then outraged by Tibbs’ presence. Amused that a well-dressed black man appears to have murdered Colbert. Annoyed that Tibbs professes ignorance when Gillespie excitedly asks him, "What'd ya hit him with?" Embarrassed when Tibbs reveals he’s a cop from Philly. Outraged when Tibbs proudly declares that he makes “a hundred and sixty-two dollars and thirty-nine cents per week.” It is only after Tibbs makes a phone call to his supervisor in Philly that Gillespie considers, hey: why not let Tibbs stay in town and help them solve the case?

Here, then, is the movie’s second running theme: the fluctuations in mood and decision-making of the Gillespie character, who doesn’t want a black man helping him track down Colbert’s killer but doesn’t really have much of a choice. Whenever Gillespie enlists the help of Tibbs, he makes progress; when he doesn’t, he makes none. It is Gillespie who allows Tibbs to inspect Colbert’s corpse, and it is Gillespie who allows Tibbs to question Endicott (Larry Gates), who would rather see blacks working as fieldhands out on his plantation than listen to one interrogate him in his own greenhouse. But Gillespie also wants to hurry up and be done with the case, and, thus, acts irrationally whenever Tibbs is quick to invalidate his evidence. When Tibbs, for example, proves that Harvey (Scott Wilson) is innocent, Gillespie throws Tibbs in jail; and when Tibbs proves that Officer Sam (Warren Oates) is innocent, Gillespie angrily orders Tibbs to take the next train back to Philly. In a town where the air conditioner never works and everybody drinks Coca-Cola to stay cool, Gillespie has no patience for Tibbs and his process of logic and reason.

The town itself (actually, Sparta, Illinois) serves as an exhilarating backdrop for the Tibbs/Gillespie conflict at the center of story, and Jewison and his cinematographer, Haskell Wexler, take advantage of the crisp Southern setting. In the daytime, their camera zooms in on convicts running across high suspension bridges while Hal Ashby’s editing allows them to transition to POV shots of dogs charging through the grass down below. At night, they use optical close-ups of the taillights of Officer Sam’s police car to signal the danger that lies ahead. Aided by a jazzy Quincy Jones score, which boasts a now-famous title song by Ray Charles, their technical contributions help to enhance the conflict between Tibbs and Gillespie, which seems to grow worse and worse with each passing day.

They don’t like each other, clearly. Jewison boldly suggests that they both harbor prejudices. Gillespie may not be a full-fledged racist—he’s on good terms with a black mechanic (Khalil Bezaleel) who resides on the outskirts of town—but he nevertheless takes offense at the prospect of Tibbs, this “nigger boy from Philadelphia,” telling him how to do his job. Tibbs, during his phone call to his supervisor, insists, “No sir, I’m not prejudiced,” but later salivates over the prospect of showing every white man in Sparta just how stupid they are (“You wanna know something, Virgil?” hints Gillespie, “I don’t think you can let an opportunity like that pass by!”). Both men are egged on by their superiors—Tibbs by his supervisor, Gillespie by Sparta’s mayor (William Schallert). But the supervisor in Philly probably just wants Tibbs to play the role of the good Negro archetype; and the mayor of Sparta later wonders why Gillespie doesn’t shoot Tibbs in “self-defense” after Tibbs starts getting on the townspeople’s bad side.

Not a single major player in the movie is without prejudice, either, as demonstrated in the movie’s best-remembered scene, in which Tibbs and Gillespie come to question Endicott, the bigoted plantation owner. Endicott thinks it will be easy to handle Tibbs; he lives by a code in which black people, like orchids, “need care, and feeding, and cultivating—and that takes time.” Tibbs remains cool, continues with his line of questioning, and that’s when Endicott snaps. You cannot call yourself a knowledgeable moviegoer and not be familiar with that famous moment when Endicott walks up to Tibbs and slaps him across the face—and Tibbs smacks him right back.

If you have to, look at this scene twice. Notice the differing ways in which characters in the background react to the two consecutive slaps. Gillespie shows minimal alarm at Endicott’s slap, and even greater alarm at Tibbs’ slap; never before has he ever seen a black man strike a white man. Endicott’s colored butler Henry (Jester Hairston), meanwhile, can be seen in the background reacting with utter horror at Endicott’s slap; he’s obviously seen that kind of bigoted mistreatment on the plantation before. We don’t get to see Henry’s immediate reaction to Tibbs’ counterblow, but once Tibbs and Gillespie are out of the greenhouse, here’s what we do see: Henry shaking his head, disapprovingly, at the pathetic Endicott, who is left sobbing over his orchids.

This scene alone is enough to earn the movie its place in the history of American cinema. If Endicott has charged that it “takes time” for blacks to be cared for, fed and cultivated, then Virgil Tibbs’ slap—a slap heard all around the world in 1967—effectively fast-forwarded through that “time”. We saw a black kid beat Steve McQueen at penny-pitching in Jewison’s The Cincinnati Kid (1965), and now here was Jewison allowing a black man to strike a white man across the face. It was as if Jewison had ripped ten, twenty or maybe a hundred pages out of American cinema’s future, thus eliminating the convention of the loyal, obedient black character that would have plagued movies for the next decade. No: not this time. You couldn’t have later moments in cinema like Mookie’s destruction of the pizza parlor, in Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing (1989), if Poitier’s assault on the plantation owner had not helped paved the way for it.

Certainly the rest of the movie holds up well. Poitier and Steiger are flanked by an impressive supporting cast, with each character afflicted in one way or the next by Virgil Tibbs’ interference in their private affairs. Observe Lee Grant as Colbert’s wife, nearly panicking over her husband’s death before Tibbs clasps her hand in his, in a quiet maneuver to ease her pain. Or Warren Oates as Sam, embarrassed to admit to Tibbs that he’s a Peeping Tom. Or Scott Wilson as Harvey, loudly distrustful of Tibbs until Tibbs silences him with his index finger, assuring him that he’s on his side. Or Quentin Dean as Delores, the buxom babe who delivers a speech about sex on gravestones in Tibbs’ presence. Or Beah Richards as Mama Caleba, the black abortionist to whom Tibbs warns, “There’s white time in jail and there’s colored time in jail—the worst kind of time you can do is colored time.” Or Anthony James as Ralph, the diner owner who fiddles with a rubber band, hides lemon meringue pies from his customers and dances to imaginary songs like “Fowl Owl on the Prowl” when no one’s around. He’s the bad guy.

And then, of course, there’s Gillespie, played by Steiger in a towering, Academy-Award winning performance. Steiger had worked with great filmmakers before (Fred Zinnemann on Oklahoma!; Elia Kazan on On the Waterfront; Samuel Fuller on Run of the Arrow; Sidney Lumet on The Pawnbroker; David Lean on Doctor Zhivago), but his work with Jewison on In the Heat of the Night would spawn a lasting friendship that led to two more collaborations, on F.I.S.T. (1976) and on The Hurricane (1999). Here, he plays Gillespie as a man with credible authority but a dismal social life, loathed by the townspeople, ostracized by his deputies. It isn’t until 50 minutes into the film when he actually manages to get Tibbs to smile, when he threatens to “horsewhip” Tibbs and Tibbs responds with a burst of laughter: Gillespie’s threats remind him of his own father. Steiger has a great scene in which he invites Poitier over to his house, and the two men have a revealing moment in which Gillespie admits he’s a miserable man, and asks Tibbs if he’s got a girl. “Don’t you just get… a little lonely?” Gillespie asks, only to be insulted by Tibbs’ sincere reply: “No lonelier than you.”

The final scene is the only scene in the movie that doesn’t really work. Tibbs and Gillespie don’t get to have the profound moment of reconciliation they should have had, and all Jewison and screenwriter Stirling Silliphant can muster up is a last-minute handshake between the two men, with Gillespie wishing that Tibbs “take care.” It’s a curiously emotionless moment. Even though the movie has already broken a lot of significant ground up to this point, an emotionally-powerful ending would have been icing on the cake. We get, instead, a thankless, insignificant parting.

Such an ending may have something to do with the movie’s unpopularity amongst moviegoers who don’t think it deserved to win so many Oscars. Looking back, 1967 was, indeed, a strong year for cinema, and many feel—not without good reason—that either Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde or Mike Nichols’ The Graduate should have walked off with the top prize instead. Even something like Richard Brooks’ In Cold Blood, which wasn’t even nominated, looks like a better movie today.

So maybe, on an emotional level, In the Heat of the Night lacks the power of those aforementioned films. On an analytical level, however, it can be argued that Jewison’s film holds a candle to them. Watching the movie, we are, essentially, watching a color barrier being smashed to pieces before our very eyes. Whether Poitier is running his hands across a dead white corpse, or the cushions of a car, or the stems of a fern twig which he promptly twirls in front of the camera lens, he’s doing something that would have been unheard of in the 30’s, 40’s or 50’s: he’s permeating an entire town with his touch. For the first time ever in an American movie, a black actor was taking control in a story about the South.

“They call me MISTER Tibbs!” Poitier roars, in that famous shouting match with Steiger. And he means it. Until he came to town, everybody thought they knew how to handle things. But Sparta, Mississippi doesn’t know Virgil Tibbs.

Behold A Pale Horse (1964)

2011-06-10T00:51:00.000-07:00

There is an unforgettable moment in Behold A Pale Horse when Fred Zinnemann brings two of Hollywood’s greatest action stars together at last, in an unforgettable sequence of unrelenting tension. We see Omar Sharif, dressed in a black priest’s robe, walking peacefully down a road in the French countryside when a car suddenly pulls up beside him, and Gregory Peck steps out. Angry and impatient, he grabs Sharif by the arm.

“Get in, priest!” he growls.

“Beg your pardon?” Sharif asks, confused.

“I said GET IN, PRIEST!” Peck roars.

He shoves Sharif into the car with two other people, interrogates him, mocks him and—at one unexpected moment—smacks him hard across the face. Up until now, we haven't been too involved in the movie. But now Peck and Sharif have finally been brought together, and suddenly we're drawn in.

A $3.9 million movie headed by a strong director with an impeccable cast, Behold A Pale Horse was a notorious box office flop in the summer of 1964, grossing a mere $900,000 and embarrassing Columbia Pictures’ reputation in international cinemas overseas. The movie, a political thriller about the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, was made at a time when Franco was still in power in Spain; the Spanish government was reportedly so offended by the film’s subject matter that Columbia was even forced to sell its Spanish distribution business. Advertised as a reunion between Peck and Anthony Quinn after The Guns of Navarone (1961), and also as a reunion between Quinn and Sharif after Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Behold A Pale Horse promised audiences an action-packed Hollywood vehicle and gave them, instead, a moody, meditative morality play.

If Behold A Pale Horse has been all but forgotten today, it’s easy to see why. Shortly before his death in 1997, Fred Zinnemann admitted, “The film didn’t really come together… it was interesting, but it did not really feel right except in a few spots.” Zinnemann may have been ruminating over the film’s disappointing finale, in which Peck—portraying an aging Spanish assassin—walks out to San Martin for a final showdown with Anthony Quinn, who plays a military police captain. We expect Peck to kill Quinn at the end. Instead, Peck wastes his ammo on a former friend—a “traitor”—and dies in a hail of bullets, while Quinn walks off scot-free.

The movie's ending was not a happy one, but that's not the only reason why audiences didn't take a liking to it. The ending was bad for a variety of reasons. It offered no catharsis. It failed to deliver on the promise of the film's earlier, greater sequences. Most importantly, the dying actions of the protagonist were not in the least sympathetic. The Day of Jackal (1973), arguably Zinnemann's richest masterpiece, is another film that ends with the hero getting killed immediately after failing his mission, but at least in that film the hero has an excuse: he simply misses his target. The same cannot be said for Behold A Pale Horse, in which the hero fails not because of bad aiming, but because of his own stupidity; it doesn't make for very exciting cinema, nor does it do much in the way of inspiring intelligent critical perspectives. The film’s central question (why doesn’t Peck shoot Quinn at the end?) is not a very compelling one.

Watching Behold A Pale Horse today, I’ve found that the most compelling aspect of the film is the onscreen relationship between Peck and Sharif, both of whom are, in a sense, playing quintessential Zinnemann-type heroes in the film. Peck’s character, the Spanish bandit Manuel Artiguez, is a lone gunman plagued with feelings of self-doubt, much like Robert Ryan’s Joe Parkson in Act of Violence (1949) and Gary Cooper’s Will Kane in High Noon (1952). Sharif’s character, an innocent young priest named Father Francisco, is torn between following the customs of his church and doing what is right for his country. He might as well be a cousin to Audrey Hepburn’s Sister Luke in The Nun’s Story (1959). Whenever Peck and Sharif are onscreen, playing Artiguez and Francisco, respectively, they succeed in delivering material that is pure Fred Zinnemann. The other characters in the story—the ones played by Anthony Quinn, Marietto Angeletti, Paolo Stoppa and Raymond Pellegrin—are not nearly as interesting: they are bland, uninspired and two-dimensional, and they have no business being in a Zinnemann film.

Zinnemann’s decision to cast Gregory Peck as Artiguez (a role originally meant for Quinn) caused bitter sniping amongst critics at the time. They didn’t take too kindly to seeing Peck cast against type as a crotchety old Spanish mercenary. Richard Schickel complained in Life magazine, “What is needed is the internal stimulus of a powerful performance from Artiguez… what we have instead is gentle, attractive, intelligent Gregory Peck, an actor who sometimes smolders but is quite incapable of bursting into angry flame.”

It is possible that critics like Schickel were too accustomed to Peck’s image as Atticus Finch in To Kill A Mockingbird (1962) to imagine him playing tougher characters by that point in his career. While Peck might not have been the right ethnicity for Artiguez (the character was based on a real-life anti-Franco rebel named "Zapater"), he got everything else nailed down perfectly about the character: his laziness, his grumpiness, his method of viciously pulverizing all those who lie to him or stand in his way. Zinnemann, who in his autobiography praised Peck as having turned in a “riveting performance," was right to cast him.

Peck’s performance in the film is matched by the equally riveting performance of Omar Sharif, whom Zinnemann had met through David Lean at a screening of Lawrence of Arabia. Zinnemann thought Sharif was a “terrific” actor with “an enormous capability.” Many of the best scenes in Behold A Pale Horse depict Sharif, as Father Francisco, reflecting quietly on individual circumstances, choosing his words carefully and responding to arguments with effective counterarguments. Consider the scene in which Captain Vinolas (Anthony Quinn) captures Artiguez’ ailing mother (Mildred Dunnock), and then asks Francisco—who witnessed her death—to reveal her dying words to the police. Francisco refuses, warning Vinolas, “If you try to force me to tell you something my vows forbid me to tell, then you are also desecrating the church.” Or look at the scenes in which Francisco is accidentally separated from his party of priests during a trip to Pau, as he finds himself wandering helplessly in the menacing streets all around the French underworld. In each of these scenes, Sharif’s panic and desperation are essential in order for the audience to identify with him.

Both Artiguez and Francisco are suffering an unbearable crisis of conscience. Artiguez is afraid he’s grown too old to kill Vinolas. Francisco wants to warn Artiguez of the trap Vinolas is setting up for him in San Martin, but isn’t sure if doing so would violate the doctrines of his church. Zinnemann first attempts to bring the two characters together when Francisco stops by Artiguez’ apartment to deliver a letter, which—for complicated reasons—finds itself flushed down a toilet. Normally the delivery of a letter in a Zinnemann film means bad news: think the opening sequences of High Noon or A Man for All Seasons (1966). When Artiguez and Francisco finally do meet, however, it results in the film’s single-greatest sequence, in which they sit across from each other in Artiguez’ darkened apartment, breaking bread and exchanging religious disagreements. When Francisco, for example, brings up the subject of a brain-damaged priest (Jean-Paul Moulinot) who may have been assaulted by Artiguez during a bank robbery, Artiguez is unsympathetic: “Priests should stay out of banks!” A discussion about a neighborhood in Lorca, however, leads to smiles, a toast over wine and an area of mutual understanding.

Unfortunately, when Zinnemann is left with the other characters, he finds less dramatic ammunition. The character of Paco, a 10-year old boy who asks Artiguez to kill Vinolas for executing his father, is admirably portrayed by Marietto Angeletti, but harbors a burning desire for vengeance that he is too young to fully understand. The occasional father-son type rapport between Peck and Angletti, while amusing, has none of the depth that we got between Montgomery Clift and 9-year old Ivan Jandl in Zinnemann’s The Search (1948). Both Paolo Stoppa, as the bandit Pedro, and Raymond Pellegrin, as Carlos—Artiguez’ best friend who is secretly Vinolas’ mole—are left with thankless parts.

But the most disappointing character is far and away Anthony Quinn’s Captain Vinolas, a surprisingly boring villain. We see him romancing a mistress and lighting candles asking God to help him slay Artiguez, but that’s it as far as his psychological troubles go. Zinnemann also fails to draw striking parallels between Vinolas and Artiguez. You’d think Quinn and Peck would have a lot in common, but the most Zinnemann can do is make them both out to be incredibly salty, lecherous men who can’t seem to resist checking out a fine woman’s ass.

To be sure, it sounds like everyone had a lot of fun making the film. Anthony Quinn would often bring his newborn son onto the set to watch bull fights; Zinnemann described Quinn as "colorful", “cooperative”, “professional” and “very entertaining" on the set. Omar Sharif was thoroughly impressed with Zinnemann’s directorial technique, raving in the New York Herald Tribune about how he believed the director had “a marvelous rapport” with his actors (Sharif would later dismiss Behold A Pale Horse as one of many “bad movies by good directors” he made late in his career, long before his excellent comeback in 2003's Monsieur Ibrahim). Gregory Peck’s biographer, Gary Fishgall, reports that the actor considered the overall shoot to be “a marvelous experience”; he was allegedly so impressed with Zinnemann’s technique that he believed it to exceed even that of Hitchcock.

The film’s technical aspects have aged nicely. The score by Maurice Jarre, while not one of the composer’s most memorable efforts, makes chilling use of drums and isolated guitar chords. The black-and-white cinematography looks beautiful today, although Zinnemann hated working with DP Jean Badal, admitting, "On occasion, I had wish-dreams about putting a match to his beard." The film's story was adapted by J.P. Miller (scribe of Days and Wine and Roses) from the book Killing A Mouse On Sunday by the great Emeric Pressburger, although Zinnemann, fearing the title sounded too Disney-like, had it changed. The current title of the film, taken from the Book of Revelation, is just as misleading, although perhaps it makes for a more appropriate title for a political thriller.

And yet, despite the solid craftsmanship of the film, one thing has always kept Behold A Pale Horse from going down in history as the masterpiece it should have been: that damned ending. It stops the movie from taking off around the tracks, just when it’s gaining momentum.

Oh, it starts out well. Artiguez sneaks into San Martin, climbs up a rooftop, aims his sniper rifle and locates Vinolas in his sights. Then he takes aim… only to shoot Carlos instead. It’s a truly crummy anticlimax—although Zinnemann, at the time, went to great pains to defend it. “In my opinion,” he told reporters, “Manuel, when faced with the choice of killing a lifelong enemy or somebody who he considers a traitor, would kill the traitor. Perhaps in some way his enemy is an honorable adversary, but a traitor is like vermin.”

A valid defense, but Zinnemann ignored the central problem behind Artiguez’ decision: how selfish it is. By refusing to eliminate a totalitarian Spanish dictator, Artiguez is not only doing Vinolas a favor—he’s depriving the people of Spain of the democracy they won’t be getting for several more decades. His decision to shoot Carlos, instead of Vinolas, feels more inspired by stupidity than anything else.

One striking detail of the ending that is often overlooked, however, comes in the seconds just before Artiguez dies in a hail of bullets on a hospital staircase. As Zinnemann’s camera spins faster and faster around the hospital ward, the last image that pops into Artiguez’ head is the memory of young Paco kicking a soccer ball into the air. It seems like a random image, at first, but maybe it’s reminding Artiguez of a time when he was younger, and was happier—before he devoted himself to a life of crime.

In a sense, the movie is Zinnemann's most potent description of a man whose entire life has ended in failure. Manuel Artiguez had this one chance to eliminate a lifelong enemy, and he blew it. He had a grand opportunity to lead his country one step closer towards freedom, and he threw it away. Life as a bandit, it seems, has condemned him to one sorry disappointment after another. Consider that scene between him and Father Francisco, in Artiguez' darkened apartment. The young priest can do nothing more except stare in amazement at this tired, pathetic old man. “Go ahead, priest,” Artiguez raves, “tell me I’m a bandit!” And Father Francisco has a simple, five-word answer for him: “You know what you are.”

The Thin Red Line (1998): Nature's Cruel

2011-06-04T13:00:00.000-07:00

Some people are born on the wrong side of war. They were once like you and me: happy, nonviolent individuals who thought that God was on their side. Then, one day, a military knocked on their doors, took them away from home and threw them into the line of fire—to fight for a cause they didn’t believe in. Although Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line (1998) is told primarily from the points of view of soldiers on the “right” side of war, there is one scene where we listen to the words of an enemy Japanese soldier—crushed beneath a mound of rubble—who speaks directly to the audience in a voice beyond the grave. “Do you imagine your sufferings will be less because you loved goodness?” he asks us. “Truth?”

Nature, you see, has a wicked way of determining who will have the opportunity to fight for truth and justice in war, and who will not. The Japanese soldier didn’t choose to be born on the side that lost the war; Nature chose for him. And we, as Americans, were fortunate enough to be on the winning side of the war because of sheer, dumb luck. This is the central philosophy at the heart of The Thin Red Line: that wars are won by soldiers who just so happened to be there at the right place at the right time. Nature selects winners and losers, and we have no say over the matter. It’s all processed by default. Consider another moment in the film, in which a soldier looks up curiously at a mammoth-sized jungle leaf, opens his canteen, and pours water down the leaf’s edges to see where the droplets will fall. The way he pours water onto that leaf, you’d almost get the impression he’s testing out his own brand of chaos theory.

Ever since its release in 1998, The Thin Red Line has worked wonders, captivating not only those who fondly remembered Badlands (1973) and Days of Heaven (1978) but also a whole new generation of moviegoers, those of whom are being introduced to the world of Terrence Malick for the very first time. Malick’s film is based on a 1962 novel by James Jones, a book I once attempted but never finished; Jones’ prose struck me as uninspired and pedestrian, and I slowly began to realize that it actually had very little in common with the Malick film. The Jones book, which had been “cheerfully dedicated to these greatest and most heroic of all human endeavors, WAR and WARFARE”, was vehemently antiwar; the Malick film is more insightful, and open to all kinds of arguments. Critic Matt Zoller Seitz has called it “the greatest antiwar movie ever made—not in the sense that it is against war as a practice, but that it is an anti-War Movie.”

Though Malick retained some elements from Jones—he screened Fred Zinnemann’s film version of From Here to Eternity (1953) for the cast and crew (which may explain why Tim Zinnemann, the son of the aforementioned director, is thanked in the end credits of Malick’s film)—the truth is that the worldviews behind The Thin Red Line have more to do with Malick’s experience as a philosophy major than with Jones’ own personal experiences in WWII (the story’s title comes from Kipling, who once said, “It’s ‘Thin Red Line’ of ‘eros’ when the drums begin to roll”). The film seeks to illustrate the culture clashes between two kinds of individuals in wartime: realists and romantics. To do this, Malick tells three parallel stories. One has Private Witt (Jim Caviezel) being chastised by Sergeant Welsh (Sean Penn) because he is always going AWOL. Another has Captain Staros (Elias Koteas) being hounded by Colonel Tall (Nick Nolte) for caring more about the lives of his men than the importance of his mission. And yet another story has Private Bell (Ben Chaplin) writing letters of love to his wife (Miranda Otto) back home, unaware that she no longer takes his soliloquies very seriously.

What Malick illustrates with these three parallel stories is a universal truth: that war is no place for a dreamer. Both the realists and the romantics in the film are burdened by their decisions, but ultimately the romantics are the ones who pay a heavier price. Romantics see too much beauty in wartime; they are blindsided to the actual horrors at hand, and their awareness to these realities often comes at a moment that is too little and too late.

Take the subplot involving Private Bell and his wife, for instance. Bell gave up his career as a ranking officer for his wife, and writes back to her, “I want to stay changeless for you.” His lovestruck devotion to her, he claims, helps him to stay alive. But his wife is finally granted the upper hand: tormented by sexual frustration, she runs off with an Air Force captain and sends Bell a request for a divorce. She recognizes her own human weaknesses, and yet Nature ensures that she act on impulse: “I can’t stop myself,” she writes back. Nature has dictated that, realistically, a wife can only stay celibate for her husband for so long.

The conflict between Captain Staros and Captain Tall is even more troublesome. Staros has a deep bond with his men, puts them ahead of his mission and wishes them luck in Greek. Tall, perhaps envious of Staros’ bilingual abilities, touts that he’s enamored with Homer and Greek history, even though he is clearly not; he seems to identify more with the Roman Empire, as one of his own self-doubting voiceovers (“The closer you are to Caesar, the greater the fear”) helpfully illustrates. But in the middle of fierce combat, Nature dictates that no matter which of the two men is smarter, the one who should ultimately prevail is the one who’s not afraid to run away from a fight. And Staros, the guy who tearfully prays over candlelight for heavenly help from above, is certainly not that kind of soldier; as Tall tells Staros to his face, he’s “too soft-hearted” and “not tough-fibered enough.” It doesn’t matter if Tall doesn’t know how it feels to have a comrade die in his arms. Tall, at the very least, understands that the fight must go on—even if lives are lost—and that Nature wouldn’t have it any other way. “Look at this jungle,” he says. “Look at those vines, the way they twine around the trees, swallowing everything. Nature’s cruel, Staros.”

Perhaps most complex of all is the relationship between Private Witt and Sergeant Welsh, this time because the realist himself is captivated with the romantic, and admits it. Welsh cynically believes that “we’re in a world that’s blowing itself to hell as fast as everybody can arrange it” and that the best thing anyone can do is “look out for himself.” At the same time, he admires Witt’s incredible optimism in the face of death: “You’re like a magician to me,” he confesses. The fact is, however, that Witt, a pacifist, is plagued with far greater difficulties than Welsh. Witt has gone into the war seeking immortality, and is disappointed not only because he never finds it, but because even the local Melanesian children are said to “always fight”. The conclusion Witt finally draws is that he can only achieve immortality through death, kind of like the one his mother had: peaceful, quiet, calm. But Nature dictates that Witt should instead die a bloody death at the other end of a Japanese rifle; an “immortal” death cannot be achieved in a war as destructive as this one. “Where’s your spark now?” Welsh sneers over Witt’s grave. He’s not proud to be a realist, but at least his cynicism helped him survive the war.

And that’s what war is, really. It’s full of betrayals, back-stabbings and barbarians on either side of the battlegrounds. As the soldiers in The Thin Red Line move across those tall, green fields, under an “eos rotodoctolos — rosy-fingered dawn”, Malick catches individual moments of characters who must think fast and—sometimes—make ruthless decisions in order to survive. Storm (John C. Reilly) survives because he no longer feels any pity for the dead. Doll (Dash Mihok) promises to the dying Keck (Woody Harrelson) that he’ll write home to his wife, but then goes back on that promise; he’s not going to sacrifice his machismo by letting his heart bleed for some dead guy’s gal. Ash (Thomas Jane) drops out of battle due to a busted leg, and retreats happily on the other side of the island. Not so lucky are others like the disoriented McCron (John Savage), who waves a handful of grass at his fellow men and cries, “That’s what you are. That’s all there is for us. That’s us—that’s us!” Originally, I assumed that Malick might have cast Savage in this part because of his electrifying performance as a crippled veteran in Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter (1978). A quick glance at the actor's online bio reveals a more personal reason: Savage's own father fought at Guadalcanal.

Some of Malick’s other decisions with the cast members are strange. A last-minute cameo by George Clooney has always felt arbitrary: apparently, 20th Century Fox had forced it down Malick’s throat in order to boost the film’s struggling publicity campaign. Even stranger is Malick’s decision to give most of the film’s voiceover narration to the decidedly minor character of Train (John Dee Smith), who orates the film’s opening monologue (“What’s this war in the heart of nature?”) as well as the final monologue (“…all things shining”). Giving the narration to Train, of all characters, has never made much sense to me; I can’t help but wonder how much more effective the film's narration would be if it had been given to a more recognizable minor character like Fife (Adrien Brody), or Gaff (John Cusack), or even Savage’s McCron. A compelling defense has been offered by critic David Sterritt, whose Criterion essay on the film argues that Malick “wants to underscore the fact that human beings are bathed in language at every moment, and that language may ultimately be the best, most lasting facet of human experience, able to glide and soar even when the bodies associated with it are dying and decaying in killing fields below.”

Now we come to the matter of the competing war films. Much like the High Noon/Rio Bravo debate, there has always been a temptation amongst cinema-literate fanboys to compare Malick’s approach with The Thin Red Line to Steven Spielberg’s approach with Saving Private Ryan, in a rather futile attempt to determine which of the two films is better. One of the most absurd arguments thrown around by critics and fans is that Malick’s film is supposedly designed for hippies and that Spielberg’s film is supposedly designed for lovers of war. This is the sort of opinion generated by partisans who refuse to go into both films with an open mind. One little known fact is that Malick and Spielberg actually complimented each other during the summer of ‘98, blessing each other’s productions with war-oriented props. In a commentary track on The Thin Red Line's new Criterion DVD, Jack Fisk, Grant Hill and John Toll all reveal that Malick sent Spielberg a Japanese battle flag during production; Spielberg then returned the favor by affectionately sending Malick a crew jacket.

The humorous aspect about all of this is that Spielberg is one of the few filmmakers alive who can actually claim to have made contact with the elusive Malick, and yet there was no tension between the two directors. Odd, considering that they wound up competing against each other for Best Director at the Academy Awards the following year. In actuality, the two films aren't that much different in perspective. Both The Thin Red Line and Saving Private Ryan have aged gloriously; rather than waste time determining which of the two films is better, moviegoers should, instead, examine how closely-related they are, in worldview and in theory.

Both Malick and Spielberg recognize that Word War II was a necessary conflict, but that it was also skewed, difficult and ugly. Both films are quick to illustrate that the war reduced men to dogs—to creatures that were incapable of fully comprehending the horrors around them. The one distinctive difference between the two films lies in their narrative, aesthetic approaches, arguably predetermined by their settings and their subjects.

On Spielberg’s side of the globe, in Normandy, men have raped, pillaged and torn up Nature, and have taken the rules of war into their own hands. On Malick’s side of the globe, in Guadalcanal, Nature is still the dominant factor in war. The birds are alive, the bats are alive, and the Earth swallows the soldiers up whole.

Agnes of God (1985)

2011-05-19T15:19:00.000-07:00

Norman Jewison’s Agnes of God (1985) was a profound work of bravery in the religiously-obsessed Hollywood of the 1980’s. The director of The Cincinnati Kid, In the Heat of the Night and A Soldier’s Story had alarmed studio executives when he came to Columbia Pictures in 1985 with a proposal for his next film: an adaptation of a Broadway play about a murderous nun. It was not the first time he had asked to adapt a religiously-themed play to the big screen; his Fiddler on the Roof (1971) was a masterfully-directed story about a threatened Jewish family. But Jewison, a Catholic, had not yet made a successful film with similar insights into Christianity. With Jesus Christ Superstar (1973) he had achieved a musical that was glossy and exuberant, but also astonishingly banal and impersonal—given the director’s Catholic roots. Agnes of God allowed Jewison to go back and try again.

In his 2005 autobiography, This Terrible Business Has Been Good to Me, Jewison devoted individual chapters to each of the films he made in his 40-year career, carefully explaining how they were made and how he was able to get studio executives to greenlight them. It was particularly challenging for him to convince Columbia president Guy McElwaine to greenlight a project as fundamentally disturbing as Agnes of God: where was the dramatic appeal? Could the story be as provocative on the big screen as it was on the stage? What could audiences possibly get out of the experience? Adamant that he could film a successful adaptation of the play, Jewison responded that the film would have the potential to “test our ability to believe in miracles.” That did the trick.

Other great filmmakers had made fantastic pictures about nuns before, particularly Michael Powell with Black Narcissus (1947) and Fred Zinnemann with The Nun’s Story (1959). But as Jewison explains in his autobiography, he had another plan entirely in developing an approach to the subject matter. “I think most people,” the director wrote, “regardless of their religion, regardless of logic, want to believe in something outside of their daily lives. Outside of themselves. Agnes of God gave me the opportunity to explore that timeless human conflict between believing what we can see, and believing what we can’t see or experience. It seemed to me then, as it does now, that the world is in dire need of angels.”

Nevertheless, Jewison realized that John Pielmeier’s play, which had starred Geraldine Page and Elizabeth Ashley on Broadway, would require a major do-over if it was going to make a successful transition to the screen. To do this, Jewison decided to recast the whole show: Ashley was replaced with Jane Fonda, and Page was replaced with Anne Bancroft—after Bancroft convinced that Jewison that she was no longer a sexy Mrs. Robinson and was now capable of playing older, harder characters. And Jewison armed himself with industry professionals: Pielmeier, whose screenplay was adapted from his own play; Georges Delarue, who composed an eerie musical score; and Bergman veteran Sven Nykvist, whose cinematography sets up the mysterious visual atmosphere almost immediately, as the movie opens with a shot of a chapel sitting peacefully out in the woodsy Canadian distance. In a haunting title sequence, a group of nuns roam around a crucifix, praying softly—before the lights go out and a scream is heard in the night. Nuns run frantically up stairs, a door is burst open, and there is a brief glimpse of someone’s hands wrapped in a bedsheet. Covered in blood.

A serious crime has been committed. One of the nuns, Sister Agnes (Meg Tilly), has strangled a newborn baby and has stuffed it into a wastebasket. The church calls for justice, Sister Agnes won’t talk, and Dr. Livingston (Jane Fonda), a psychiatrist, is appointed by the court to investigate. At first she protests, but the court is insistent: “They want a woman.” Nobody wants the case to go to trial or for Sister Agnes to go to jail, so Livingston is given a simple task: find out who fathered Agnes’ baby, and find out why she strangled it to death. On the first day she visits the convent, she is greeted by a smiling Mother Superior (Anne Bancroft), who allows Livingston to call her "Sister" because the term "Mother" “brings up the most unpleasant connotations in this day and age.” It is only a matter of seconds before the Mother Superior suddenly breaks character, warning Livingston not to corrupt Sister Agnes with her unpopular psychiatric methods. “I know what you are,” she hisses. “I don’t want that mind cut open.”

I’ve seen Agnes of God twice now, and on both viewings I’ve found that the movie works best during scenes of quiet, unsettling ambiguity. Consider the scene in which Livingston first meets Sister Agnes, who—like a child—always smiles, always reacts merrily to everyday situations, always claims innocence to occurrences that seem to be her fault. She is maddeningly unhelpful when Livingston inquires about the murdered baby, which Sister Agnes claims ignorance to: “I never saw the baby, so I can’t talk about the baby, because... I don’t believe in the baby.” The performance by Meg Tilly, which netted the film one of two richly-deserved Oscar nominations (the other for Bancroft), is one of the film’s strongest assets. Cleverly masking the dark secrets of the Sister Agnes character, Tilly finds a way of her own to make Jewison’s nightmare of depraved piety become a reality.

Another important factor in the movie’s narrative is the side-story of the character of Dr. Livingston, played by Jane Fonda as an atheist whose involvement with the case shines a light on her recent loss of faith, among other skeletons in her closet. Her personal life is in disarray, and we get the obligatory sequence of the lonely heroine going home alone on the night of her birthday, with nothing left to do except play out the endless string of messages on her answering machine. We learn that she once had a sister who became a nun and later died in a convent, and this is a predominant theme in the film: the consequences that arise when a family gives up one of its own to the church. There is a scene towards the end of the film in which Fonda watches another girl being inducted into the church as a nun, hugging her family goodbye.

What makes Agnes of God so remarkable is how it sets up a system in which the Catholic Church has both rewarded and ruined the families of all three of these women. The Mother Superior was married for 23 years, and admits that “my children won’t even see me anymore. That’s their revenge. I think they tell their friends that I’ve passed on.” The Fonda character had a falling out with her Catholic parents in the wake of a teenage abortion, and her senile mother now spends her days watching Spider-Man cartoons at a local nursing home. Sister Agnes, it is revealed, is the Mother Superior’s niece, rescued from an alcoholic mother who molested her as a child. She seems to have found salvation in the church, but her murdering of her baby may suggest otherwise.

Of course, the scenes focusing on the murky details of the murder case, as mentioned above, are the best scenes in Agnes of God; it is only when the movie goes off-topic and shows its stage origins that it begins to go wrong. A scene in which Fonda and Bancroft share a forbidden cigarette out in a gazebo, musing about whether “the saints would have smoked”, completely takes the viewer out of the movie. A subplot involving Fonda and her boyfriend, a district attorney, is boring, and reveals nothing more about her character that we don’t already know. These arbitrary scenes feel like they were concocted by John Piehlmeier during individual moments of writer’s block, and it’s a mistake for Jewison to keep them in the film.

There are sequences that feel inspired by elements of film noir, as when a discreet nun drops by Fonda’s door, gives her a helpful bit of advice about the convent records and then leaves without a trace. Or when Fonda, in trying to determine the father of Sister Agnes’ baby, discovers the location of a secret entrance to the convent’s attic: “That’s how he got in! Or how she got out!” Other sequences feel inspired by Hitchcock: there is a sly nod to Vertigo when Fonda and Sister Agnes climb a spiral staircase all the way to the top of a bell tower. And there is a flashback sequence in which Sister Agnes goes hysterical after her hands begin bleeding in a stigmata of sorts, and the blood is as nerve-racking as the blood which so terrified the innocent heroine in Marnie.

But the movie’s highpoint, it must be said, is the climatic sequence in which the Mother Superior and the Fonda character interrogate Sister Agnes and force her to reveal the true identity of the man who fathered her child. This sequence has Agnes flailing around the room and smearing bloody handprints all across the white walls; it’s by far the goriest sequence in Jewison’s career, even in comparison to the cyberpunk violence of Rollerball (1975). In a speech that shares an uncanny resemblance to Harriet Andersson’s speech in Bergman’s Through A Glass Darkly (1961)—in which God rapes the heroine in the form of a spider—Agnes claims that God raped her in the convent attic after taking the form of owls and doves. This can only suggest one thing: that God, not Agnes, is the one who is truly responsible for the death of Agnes’ baby.

It was this incendiary plot point of the film that so infuriated Roger Ebert, who launched a vicious attack against Agnes of God in a thought-provoking 1-star review during the movie’s initial release. In the review, Ebert lambastated the film for disguising a theological morality play in the form of a murder mystery. “This is a very badly confused movie,” he wrote. “If God indeed conceived the child in Sister Agnes' womb, then why did he in his omnipotence allow her to kill it? But of course (you argue), God also gave Sister Agnes free will, so she was free to kill the child no matter what the details of its conception. True, and yet then, we must ask, why did God create a baby to be killed? Here we enter, of course, into the still larger question of why God has created all of us and placed us in this life where we will most assuredly all die.”

Ebert’s criticisms are valid, and, unhappily, I am unable to produce a convincing counterargument. It’s certainly an element against the movie’s favor that Agnes of God leaves some important questions unanswered: why did God want a baby to be killed in the first place? On what grounds does the judge finally rule that Agnes “was in no way responsible for her actions”? Who is the movie blaming, exactly, for the baby’s death? The movie provides no straight answers. And while some of those questions are best left unanswered, others feel like they were left unanswered simply because the filmmakers took the day off.

Perhaps some of those answers lie in the last scene of the film, in which the Fonda character declares, over an ambiguous voiceover, that she wants to believe that Agnes may have been a saint after all. That there’s room in the world for miracles. That, in the unforgettable final shot of the film—in which Agnes catches and releases a dove into the wintry distance—another miracle is being released into the world once more, ready to be used again. As Jewison writes in his autobiography, perhaps this is what Agnes of God is really about: a Lamb of God who takes away sins and, through her own personal sacrifice, helps bring a doubtful psychiatrist back into the church. The comparison isn't a coincidence, either—because “Agnes”, in Latin, means “lamb”.

High Noon (1952): Fred Zinnemann and the Hawks/Wayne Backlash

2011-05-14T19:05:00.000-07:00

It had been twelve years since the release of High Noon, and Fred Zinnemann was getting fed up. For over a decade now, he had had to stand by and watch helplessly as his masterpiece was subjected to one of the harshest backlashes in the history of film criticism. Francois Truffaut had called it “facetious”. Manny Farber had dismissed it as “white elephant art”. Then, director Howard Hawks, upon finishing Rio Bravo in 1959, raised eyebrows after proudly stating, "I made Rio Bravo because I didn't like High Noon… I didn't think a good town marshal was going to run around town like a chicken with his head cut off asking everyone to help. And who saves him? His Quaker wife. That isn't my idea of a good Western."

Finally, Zinnemann could not take it anymore. In an interview with James R. Silke in 1964, Zinnemann responded to Hawks’ criticisms with an anguished rebuttal: “I admire Hawks very much. I only wish he’d leave my films ALONE!” Zinnemann was puzzled as to why so many critics over the years were starting to complain that High Noon centered on a protagonist—Marshall Will Kane—who behaved more like a human everyman than a traditional, all-powerful Western icon. “If you say this is not a Western character,” Zinnemann retorted, “it’s true. I wasn’t there in 1860. Neither was Mr. Hawks.”

Zinnemann had spent his whole career defending High Noon as a film that stressed a universal theme: a simple story about the individual pitted against an overwhelming majority. As he later described the film in his 1992 autobiography, “It is a story that still happens everywhere, every day.” Indeed, this was the kind of theme that dominated all of Zinnemann’s greatest films, from the paranoid POW escapees of Act of Violence (1949) to the impoverished pioneers of The Sundowners (1960); from Thomas More’s hopeless fight for justice in A Man for All Seasons (1966) to a love triangle tested by the icy crevices of the Alps in Five Days One Summer (1982). It was an overlooked filmmaking career, founded on an underlying sympathy for the underdog; after High Noon, everyone in Hollywood would remember Fred Zinnemann’s name.

Today, it is fashionable to think of High Noon as dated and worthless—a film that still has the AFI and the Academy Awards on its side, but not much else. Jonathan Rosenbaum once called it “overrated”, and Roger Ebert confessed as recently as 2007 that it’s a film he “doesn’t like very much.” Much of the recent dislike for the film appears to stem from a bizarre insistence by critics to cite Howard Hawks and John Wayne’s own criticisms of the film. In his Great Movies essay on Rio Bravo, Ebert had attempted to pan High Noon by quoting from his 1972 interview with Wayne, who sputtered, "What a piece of you-know-what that was! Here’s a town full of people who have ridden in covered wagons all the way across the plains... and then when three no-good bad guys walk into town and the marshal asks for a little help, everybody in town gets shy. If I’d been the marshal, I would have been so goddamned disgusted with those chicken-livered yellow sons of bitches that I would have just taken my wife and saddled up and rode out of there.”

What Ebert seems not to have realized is that John Wayne actually had a more personal reason for disliking High Noon, a reason which he rarely expressed in public: the fact that the film's screenplay was written by Carl Foreman, a former Communist who had been blacklisted by the House Un-American Activities Committee, an organization Wayne vehemently supported. Foreman made it no secret that High Noon was basically his allegorical slap at McCarthyism; Wayne was reportedly so outraged by Foreman’s intentions that he criticized High Noon as “the most un-American thing I've ever seen in my whole life!” Both Wayne and Howard Hawks felt that the movie violated their macho code of honor; they believed there was something fundamentally wrong with making a Western about a hero who was capable of feeling fear. Here was Gary Cooper playing a decidedly anti-Gary Cooper character: Will Kane, frightened town marshal, ostracized authority figure, humiliated husband. Something was happening here. Something about the Western was about to change forever.

Another problem with Wayne’s criticism of High Noon was his charge that Kane could simply leave town, rather than staying and facing the evil Frank Miller and his gang. But the thing is, Kane can’t just get out of town. He and his wife, Amy (Grace Kelly), are planning on opening up a general store once they find a place to settle, and they can’t risk the possibility of Miller’s gang tracking them down. “We’d never be able to keep that store, Amy,” Kane tells his wife. “They’d come after us, and we’d have to run again—as long as we live.” The fact that Kane will also have to turn in his badge and guns if he leaves town poses another problem: how he could he possibly fight Miller outside of town without his authority? Or without guns? The Foreman screenplay is designed to ensure that Kane has no alternatives. He’s got to stay.

Nobody in town is willing to help him. Everybody has some kind of excuse. Martin (Lon Chaney Jr.), the retired town marshal, says he can’t assist Kane because of his arthritis and complains, “People got to talk themselves into law and order before they do anything about it, maybe because deep down they don’t care. They just don’t care.” Harv Pell (Lloyd Bridges) won’t help him because of a jealous intuition that Kane has feelings for his girlfriend, Helen Ramirez (Katy Jurado), and vice versa. The town judge (Otto Kruger), who sent Miller to prison, hurriedly leaves town and takes the city hall American flag with him, thus stripping the town of all its democracy. Mayor Henderson (Thomas Mitchell) deprives Kane of any possible allies by seducing an audience of churchgoers with a speech about how blood in the streets might do significant damage to the town’s economy and tourism. Even Amy turns her back on Kane: both her father and her brother were casualties of gun violence and, as a Quaker, she refuses to stand by her husband as long as he continues to fight.

Because the movie questions pacifism as an alternative, High Noon is sometimes dismissed as an apologia for violence, but a deeper reading into the film indicates that the story’s violence doesn’t come easy. For one thing, Foreman’s screenplay offers an insightful (if often-missed) critique of the death penalty. At first, Kane is bitter about Frank Miller going to prison instead of the gallows, but then considers the possibility of Miller returning to town nonviolently: “Sometimes prison changes a man...” In another scene, when the local bartender (Larry J. Blake) cracks jokes about Miller shooting Kane dead, an enraged Kane knocks the bartender to the ground, then feels bad about it and tries to help him up. This scene critiques the myth of the marshal as a slap-happy, vigilante Western hero. And out of all the people refusing to help Kane, the local minister (Morgan Farley) is perhaps the only man in town with a good excuse: “If you’re asking me to tell my people to go out and kill, and maybe get themselves killed… I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry.”

The film’s long-awaited finale, in which Kane prepares anxiously for Miller’s arrival, is developed by Zinnemann with a montage defined by three lingering visual elements.

The first element is the sense of urgency, symbolized by obsessive close-ups of the many clocks in town, all of which seem to get ominously larger as the noon train approaches.

The second element is the film’s victim, Kane, walking helplessly through the streets before stopping and being regarded in a rising crane-shot of the entire town; Zinnemann achieved this complex shot through the use of a long Chapman crane.

The third and final integral element to the film’s visual style is the railroad tracks themselves. They are always static, always threatening, always waiting patiently for Miller’s train. When the train finally arrives, it chugs black smoke and blows a loud whistle, reminding us of the train in the finale of Zinnemann’s Act of Violence. And when we finally see Frank Miller (Ian MacDonald), he has the face of a Tin Man and the burning revenge fantasies of your typical Zinnemann-esque villain. He is flanked by three bad guys: Pierce (Robert J. Wilke), the second-in-command; Colby (Lee Van Cleef), silent but deadly; and Ben Miller (Sheb Wooley), who is loud, horny and reckless—and, naturally, is the first one to die.

Zinnemann did not agree with Carl Foreman that that the story was an allegory for McCarthyism. “With all due respect, I felt this to be a narrow point of view,” the director wrote in his autobiography. “To me it was the story of a man who must make a decision according to his conscience.” Nevertheless, Zinnemann, like Foreman, became embroiled in the controversies surrounding the film. During a disastrous screening in July 1952, Zinnemann's son, Tim, overheard an executive in the bathroom muttering, “What does a European Jew know about making Westerns, anyway?” And the debate over the film’s allegorical subtext has always refused to go away. Although some conservatives—indeed, the film’s own star, Gary Cooper—admired Carl Foreman’s insights into violence, patriotism and human weakness, other conservatives cried foul. Howard Hawks and John Wayne took their hatred of the film to their graves. There is a still a temptation today to compare High Noon to Rio Bravo and determine whether or not one film is better than the other.

Why do we have to choose between the two films? Rio Bravo is one kind of Western. High Noon is another. Rio Bravo is a triumph of invisible style; High Noon is a triumph of real-time, documentary style. Hawks specialized in films about professionals; Zinnemann specialized in films about characters suffering a crisis of conscience. One film was a love letter to Westerns as they used to be; another film marked an attempt to bring Westerns into strange, unfamiliar territory. A marshal like John T. Chance knew exactly what he was doing. A marshal like Will Kane makes it all up as he goes along.

High Noon is one of the best movies ever made. That much must be said, right now, in case it isn’t clear. In the end, Fred Zinnemann delivered a film that was meditative, innovative, and just as American as apple pie. It was true to the complex feelings that all gunslingers have ever shared in the Old West (and beyond). It still has relevance for all parties—whether you’re liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican, Green or Libertarian. One way or another, you’re guaranteed to find something to love about the film. Take your pick and choose your villains: this is a story for everyone.

Reviews Archive

2011-04-22T23:10:00.000-07:00

Lately I've noticed that a handful of my fellow cinephiles in the blogosphere have taken to including "Reviews Archives" on their sidebars so that followers can better keep track of the films they have written about since the conception of their sites. I founded this blog in July 2009, and since it isn't exactly getting any smaller I figured it's about time I made it an easier place for all of my followers to navigate. Hey: better late than never, right?

From now on, new reviews will be added to this page every time a new review is published. In alphabetical order...

A

Act of Violence (1949)
Adventures of Milo and Otis, The (1989)
Agnes of God (1985)
Amblin' (1968)
An American Tail (1986)
Annie (1982)

B

Behold A Pale Horse (1964)

C

Caretakers, The (1963)
Casino Jack (2010)
Cincinnati Kid, The (1965)

D

Dead Ringers (1988)
Death Proof (2007)

E

Edvard Munch (1974)

F

Fear Strikes Out (1957)
Finian's Rainbow (1968)
Frantic (1988)

G

Ghost Writer, The (2010)
Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The (2011)
Great Mouse Detective, The (1986)

H

Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957)
High Noon (1952)
Hill, The (1965)

I

Inglourious Basterds (2009)
In the Heat of the Night (1967)

J

Jaws (1975)
Jonathan Livingston Seagull (1973)
Jurassic Park (1993)

K

Kingdom of Heaven: The Director's Cut (2005)

L

Land of the Pharaohs (1955)
Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, The (1972)

M

Man Who Would Be King, The (1975)
Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, The (1977)
Monsieur Ibrahim (2003)
Murder a la Mod (1968)

N

O

Other, The (1972)

P

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010)

Q

Quintet (1979)

R

Redacted (2007)
Repulsion (1965)

S

Saving Private Ryan (1998)
Schindler's List (1993)
Sinful Davey (1969)
Spider-Man 2 (2004)
Shutter Island (2010)
Summer of '42 (1971)

T

Thin Red Line, The (1998)
To Kill A Mockingbird (1962)
Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The (1948)
Tree of Life, The (2011)
True Grit (1969)
True Grit (2010)

U

V

W

War Horse (2011)
Wise Blood (1979)

X

Y

Yearling, The (1946)

Z

Zero Hour! (1957)

TOERIFIC: Jonathan Livingston Seagull (1973)

2011-04-06T05:00:00.000-07:00

One day in 1973, Hall Bartlett walked onto the set of his latest movie with a smile of confidence and self-assurance. He was in a good mood. For the first time ever in his career, he knew exactly what he was doing. He was adapting a best-selling novella by Richard Bach about a prophetic seagull, and he was going to turn it into a major motion picture. It was going to be an independently-financed film with as little studio interference as possible. And by the end of the ten-month shooting schedule, Bartlett had mortgaged his home and invested every last one of his savings into the film’s $1.5 million budget; he was willing to do anything to make his dream project a reality. “I was born to make this movie,” he declared. He was absolutely right.

Hall Bartlett (1923-1993) was one of Hollywood’s most underrated writer/directors. He wrote and directed ten feature films: Unchained (1955), Drango (1957), Zero Hour! (1957), All the Young Men (1960), The Caretakers (1963), Changes (1969), The Sandpit Generals (1971), The Children of Sanchez (1978) and Comeback (1983). Some of his films were bland studio projects, while the others had intriguing concepts but were often unsatisfyingly executed. In his entire 30-year filmmaking career, Bartlett helmed a series of flops, misfires, close calls, small gems, and at least one masterpiece: Jonathan Livingston Seagull (1973).

Richard Bach’s enormously popular 1970 book had first come to Bartlett’s attention after his wife had presented it to him as a gift. The timing couldn’t have been better; after the critical and commercial failure of his hospital drama The Caretakers in 1963, Bartlett had watched his career devolve. “I’ve been through about ten years of hell,” he told an interviewer on the set, “up until very, very recently, where everything went wrong. I couldn’t make a right move. The fear was on me that I would never make a picture again… then came a woman with such love to share, and then Jonathan, and suddenly everything was right.” He hoped that, with Jonathan Livingston Seagull, he would finally get the attention he deserved. Nobody ever once realized that the film he was making was very, very ahead of its time.

The film was absolutely reviled when it came out. Reviews were terrible. “The sort of garbage only a seagull could love,” wrote Judith Crist. “Interminable,” said Art Murphy in Variety. “Bird droppings!” snorted Jay Cocks in Time magazine. “Strictly for the birds,” quipped Frank Rich in the New Times. And in a particularly negative 1-star review, Roger Ebert was perhaps the most scathing of all: “This has got to be the biggest pseudocultural, would-be metaphysical ripoff of the year.”

The reviews hurt the movie’s commercial chances significantly; at the box office, it grossed only $1.6 million, just short of the $2.1 million Paramount had spent to purchase the film from Bartlett’s studio. And five years later, Harry Medved and Randy Dreyfuss excessively panned it in their 1978 book The Fifty Worst Movies of All Time (a book that also trashed such supposedly awful titles as Eisenstein’s Ivan the Terrible and Peckinpah’s Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia). So drenched in vile cynicism was their review that Medved and Dreyfuss even mocked Bartlett for making his picture “in the true auteur fashion,” as if they considered themselves superior to a filmmaker who had spent all his savings on a personal project they had not even bothered to try to comprehend.

Jonathan Livingston Seagull is one of my all-time favorite American movies, and I hasten to say that because the horrid reception that this film received during its release—and ever since then—has angered me to no end over the years. There is no reason why this film should have flopped as it did. There is no reason why this film should have been dismissed as quickly as it was. As far as I can tell, nobody gave this movie a chance. Nobody was willing to appreciate Hall Bartlett’s directorial vision or take him seriously as a filmmaker. Not one review mentioned anything nice about the film’s story or technique. Everybody walked in with a closed mind, completely unwilling to embrace the movie’s unique perspective. Ebert proudly began his review by announcing that he walked out of the film “some 45 minutes into” it, but then ended his review by revealing that he had left during the sequence in which “Jonathan had dragged himself, groggy and bleeding, onto some flotsam.” Judging from the actual running time, it appears as though Ebert must have, in fact, walked out of the screening approximately 21 minutes into the film.

Then there was the ridiculous series of lawsuits that were deliberately launched to hurt the movie’s success. Why did Richard Bach feel the need to sue Bartlett just because of the film’s short running time? Why did Neil Diamond threaten to sue Bartlett if he didn’t incorporate more of the music from the soundtrack into the film? How did Ovady Julber, the director of 1936’s La Mer, ever jump to the conclusion that Bartlett’s film might have plagiarized his work? No doubt Bartlett must have been astonished that there were so many hurt feelings in reaction to his efforts to craft a surrealist art film designed for his generation and beyond.

But surrealism, we must remember, has always been a tough sell for American audiences. Jonathan Livingston Seagull belongs right up there with Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), David Lynch’s Eraserhead (1977) and David Cronenberg’s Naked Lunch (1991) as one of the greatest American surrealist films released in the later half of the 20th century. It is a rich, liberated celebration of a writer/director’s artistic sensibilities, free of any constricting narrative rules. Like those aforementioned films, it expands even more in dimension with repeated viewings. Never mind whether or not you’ve read Richard Bach’s novella. Never mind whether or not you're a fan of Neil Diamond. What Hall Bartlett did with Jonathan Livingston Seagull is special: he recognized the visual opportunities in Bach’s story—a story that was always heavily cinematic to begin with—thus allowing him to adapt it into a visually powerful cinematic experience that offers images quite like nothing ever produced before or since. Indeed, so effective is Jonathan Livingston Seagull as an aesthetic trip that, in this writer’s opinion, it actually works much better as a film than it ever did as a book.

The film even has the audacity to open with the dedication that appeared on the first page of Bach’s novella: “To the real Jonathan Livingston Seagull, who lives within us all.” These words appear as onscreen text that burst in bright blue hues alongside an opening shot of white clouds, enhanced with the help of the cinematography by veteran cameraman Jack Couffer. Couffer, who was hired by Bartlett after his impressive work on Walt Disney’s True Life Adventure series, is largely responsible for the sensational aesthetic effect of Bartlett’s film, from his explosive footage of crashing tidal waves to his unbelievable tracking shots of the film’s title character—whether he be flying above the clouds, near the rocky shores or into the cores of deserts and snowy mountains. That Couffer’s cinematography netted the film one of two Academy Award nominations is not surprising in the least: it remains one of the finest examples of natural footage ever captured on celluloid.

Getting that footage was sometimes dangerous. Couffer was allegedly attacked by one of the seagulls during filming, prompting Bartlett to have his crew members wear baseball catcher’s masks in order to prevent further accidents. We get a good glimpse at just how vicious the seagulls were during filming in one of the movie’s first sequences, which provides us with a glimpse of seagull life. As a tugboat sits out in the middle of the ocean, dumping piles of fish into the water, hordes of seagulls begin fighting all at once for the rotten, filthy chum. In a sequence marvelously edited by Frank P. Keller and James Galloway (thus netting the film its second Oscar nomination), the seagulls bite, claw, gnash and bloody each other’s throats; if this continues, we fear, they may start decapitating each other. It’s an ugly, hostile, disgusting existence, and that’s why we sigh a breath of relief when Bartlett and Couffer suddenly whisk us away into the sky—where we take the point of view of a figure bursting its way through the clouds. Then we see what it is: a lone seagull. An independent. That’s him. That’s Jonathan.

Jonathan is voiced by James Franciscus, that suave, handsome actor who starred in Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970) and in Dario Argento’s The Cat o’ Nine Tails (1971). In his day, Franciscus was an irresistible ladies’ man, a Rod Serling look-a-like and a fitting Apes replacement for Charlton Heston. But Hall Bartlett must have recognized that there was something oddly appealing about Franciscus’ voice, a voice which sometimes tended to sound hoarse and monotone. That proved to be the perfect fit for the voice of Jonathan, who is quieter and more observant in the later scenes of Jonathan Livingston Seagull but who has a boyish squeal in his voice in the earlier scenes—as he struggles to determine the secret to “perfect speed.” Jonathan's problem is that he too often lets his doubts control his destiny and, what’s more, lets fear get in the way of his ambition. “Maybe seagulls… can’t fly faster than 62 miles per hour,” he considers. “But wouldn’t it be great if we could?”

His parents are not pleased. Mother (Dorothy McGuire) fears for his safety: “I’m afraid for you. I’m afraid of what you’re doing.” Father (Richard Crenna) is even less helpful: “We were meant to live the way we live—accept it! Take your place. Will you try, son?” Yet Jonathan continues to be interrupted with inspired revelations. What if he were to dive, for example, on the wingtips only? This results in one of the film’s genuinely funniest moments, when Jonathan hits 170 at the short dive but then disastrously attempts to dive at 10,000 ft, loses control, spirals into oblivion and screams, “OH GOD, THE FLOCK… LOOK OUT!!!!!” But then Bartlett segues into a scene that is not so funny, as Jonathan is forced to stand trial before the head Elder (Hal Halbrook), who is cruelly unforgiving to the young independent. “Jonathan Livingston Seagull, the brotherhood is broken!” the Elder roars. “Never again will you see any of your Flock! Never again will you have the protection of your Flock! You are henceforth and forever… outcast!” Thrown out by the Flock, the Elders and even his own parents, Jonathan has gone from a social deviant to something that is even worse: a bastard.

This is where one of the director’s key themes as a filmmaker comes into place. Bartlett loved to make films about illegitimate children disowned by their parents. Think of Janis Paige’s speech in The Caretakers, in which she sobs about being taunted as a “little bastard” all her life. Or Anthony Quinn’s final monologue in The Children of Sanchez, in which he condemns all of his children as “bastards” during a spoiled picnic dinner. In contrast, Jonathan Livingston Seagull deals with the theme of illegitimacy more subtlety. “Outcast” is substituted for “bastard," and yet the term is no less painful. The sequence in which Jonathan departs for his life of solitude, set to the tune of Diamond’s “Lonely Looking Sky," is quite simply one of the saddest sequences of the 1970’s, and it is all the more tragic if we realize, in hindsight, that Jonathan will never see his parents again. He will die without them at his side.

Neil Diamond’s score for the film has often been dismissed as “overbearing”, but I’ve always begged to differ. Among the other songs used on the soundtrack, “Be” represents Jonathan’s independence, while “Dear Father” epitomizes his self-doubt and “Skybird”, his liberation. To me, Diamond's soundtrack remains exhilarating, and it is also a reminder of Hall Bartlett’s often-overlooked talent for juxtaposing the right kind of music with his cinematic stories.

Bartlett’s masterful filmmaking is demonstrated even further in the 13-minute sequence that follows, in which Jonathan attempts to “know all there is to know of this life” and embarks on a long stretch, midway through the film, that takes him all the way to the ends of the Earth and, finally, to his death. All Bartlett does here is follow Jonathan while he flies from one habitat to another, as he observes fellow animals and keeps to himself; in fact, in the last 13 minutes of his life, Jonathan never says a word. There is no doubt in my mind that Bartlett must have been influenced by Kubrick in crafting this sequence, for it invites startling comparison to the famous “Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite” sequence from 2001. Like Dave Bowman, Jonathan passes through scene after scene of enchanting realms before settling into his own demise and, then, being reborn as a kind of supernatural being. From that point on, the film folds onto itself like a Chinese box, and suddenly it’s a new kind of film altogether.

At the time, the film was suspected by some critics to be an allegory for Christ’s suffering and resurrection; Time magazine claimed that Bartlett had tarnished Bach’s story with “Billygrahmese” dialogue. Were these critics not paying much attention during the film? Listen carefully to the conversations between Jonathan and his mentor, Chiang (Philip Ahn), particularly their discussions about the afterlife. When Jonathan asks Chiang if they are in Heaven, Chiang simply replies, “Who said it was? Heaven isn’t a place. Heaven’s perfection, wouldn’t you think? And we don’t go there, as much as we express it.” Or consider Jonathan’s conversations with Maureen (Juliet Mills), who asks him, “Didn’t you say you know me from somewhere? I believe there were many somewheres!” Her comment, of course, implies reincarnation. In retrospect, the film is about as Christian as the Star Wars films; interestingly enough, Richard Bach’s mythology of “perfect speed” predates George Lucas’ “Force” mythology by about seven years. But a story like Jonathan Livingston Seagull has more in common with something like, say, Buddhism, than it does with Christianity.

Furthermore, Jonathan, unlike Christ, does not fully understand the meaning of love. Chiang’s parting words to Jonathan are literally, “keep working on love.” A truly allegorical Christian figure would have no need for this kind of advice. Jonathan’s romance with Maureen is also one of the more significant changes which Bartlett makes from Bach’s novella. In the book, Jonathan is accompanied by a best friend, Sullivan, who—like one of Christ’s disciples—doubts his master’s success in the face of danger. By inventing the character of Maureen, however, Bartlett makes Jonathan more "human," shall we say, not to mention more likely to give into temptations of the flesh. A case might be made that Maureen is supposed to represent Mary Magdalene, but surely the relationship between Jonathan and Maureen is far warmer than the relationship which Christ and Magdalene ever might have had together. And as Jonathan embarks on a journey to free his old flock, Maureen’s last words to him (“Jonathan, go with my love”) resonate beautifully without carrying a religious context of any kind. My guess is that Bartlett sensed audiences would warm up to the story somewhat more if he were to give the hero a love interest—it should be noted that Bach’s novella lacked any such significant female characters.

The film’s most obvious rejection of blind Christian ideals, however, occurs after Jonathan and his new apprentice, Fletcher Lynd Seagull (David Ladd), try to win over the cynicism of the Flock and are, instead, nearly swallowed alive by their outrage. To be sure, it is not an unexpected reaction: practically everybody in the movie assumes Jonathan is either a heavenly or a hellish force of nature. Fletcher believes he might be a Christ figure. The Flock's Elders believe he’s the Devil. Jonathan dismisses all of these theories. In one scene, he chuckles over the rumor that he’s “oh, yes, yes, I know: the only Son of the Great Gull, I suppose.” And the final request he makes of his apprentice is modest, indeed: “Don’t let them spread silly rumors about me or try to make me some sort of a god, will you, Fletcher?” Clearly, Jonathan considers himself to be just like every other seagull, just as Richard Bach believes there is a Jonathan who lives within us all.

And so, for that matter, did Hall Bartlett. He believed enough in this story to pour his heart and soul into it, confidant every step of the way that he was on the verge of completing an important film. Jonathan Livingston Seagull was not embraced by critics or audiences, but I have a feeling that Bartlett himself always knew, deep down, that he had left the public with a masterpiece. Maybe he knew that he wouldn’t live to see the film get the attention it deserved. Maybe he was aware that the film’s mediocre reception would outlive him.

I wish he were alive to know how much I love this film. I wish he knew how much it has changed the way I look at movies. I wish he knew how much I cherish the way he ends the picture with Jonathan’s immortal closing monologue: “Look with your understanding. Find out what you already know. Use it, Fletcher. Teach it… show it forth. And you’ll know the way to fly.”

Know the way to fly. After Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Hall Bartlett would only go on to make two more films. Then, like Jonathan, he spread his wings, flew off, and never, ever looked back.

Tomorrow: The TOERIFIC discussion on Jonathan Livingston Seagull (1973)

2011-04-05T09:00:00.000-07:00

It's almost time! The discussion on Jonathan Livingston Seagull (1973) begins tomorrow! Can you taste the excitement!??

If you haven't already, please promote the event on your blog with one of the two banners provided above. I expect this discussion to last over a period of days, and not just one day--it's very likely that not everyone will have seen the film by tomorrow. So if you haven't seen the movie yet, don't worry. You can always come back later.

The discussion on Jonathan Livingston Seagull begins tomorrow at 9:00AM, right here at Icebox Movies. In the meantime, be sure to watch Jonathan Livingston Seagull if you haven't yet. If you already have, then be prepared to put your critiquing caps on: this will be a film discussion you won't soon forget. Thanks!

Spider-Man 2 (2004)

2011-04-02T18:49:00.000-07:00

And so I return to Spider-Man 2 (2004), my love for the characters of Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson reinstated; my fascination with Spidey’s web-slinging superpowers reinstalled; my nostalgia for Sam Raimi’s superhero trilogy reawakened all over again. One by one, my memories of going to see these movies as a preteen in the early years of the 21st century come swimming back to me, encouraging me to think long and hard about why the trilogy was initially so successful, and how it eventually went so wrong. Spider-Man (2002) seemed too little, and Spider-Man III (2007) was far too much, yet Spider-Man 2 was always—for lack of a better phrase—just right. After seven years, it is still the best superhero movie ever made.

Since we’re now able to look upon the entire trilogy as a whole, it’s perhaps easier to critique Spider-Man 2 today than it was back then—at least, for those of us who were too young to understand what made it such a strong film. As a preteen, I knew there was intellectual genius in Spider-Man 2 but was never quite sure if intellectual genius was what I actually wanted out of the movie; both the fast-pace of Spider-Man and the nonstop action spectacle of Spider-Man III seemed far more desirable at the time. Looking back, however, the first Spider-Man, with its cartoonish CGI and its superficial David Koepp dialogue, has not aged very well at all. And Spider-Man III, a considerable work in many respects, suffers from an overload of villains and side-stories, plus a convoluted screenplay that emphasized on Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson as a bickering couple, rather than a couple dealing with realistic problems. By the third movie, their relationship had run its course.

But the second film is different. It’s real. While just as much a great entertainment as the bookending installments in the trilogy, Spider-Man 2 is infinitively more wiser about its characters than the other films. I think Raimi, a director with an often-overlooked talent for emotional storytelling, must have been more at ease working on this film than he was at any other time during the trilogy. The movie certainly offers plenty of rousing action set-pieces—a bravado sequence in which Spidey desperately tries to stop a runaway train is among the finest Raimi has ever filmed—but the emphasis this time is more on the human drama at stake. The screenplay was worked on by no less than four writers: Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, the scribes behind Smallville, developed the central screen story; Michael Chabon, the author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, was hired to incorporate his expansive knowledge of all-things comic books; and veteran Alvin Sargent, who has written scripts for so many legendary filmmakers (from Robert Mulligan’s The Stalking Moon to Fred Zinnemann’s Julia), was able to weave all the material into a final draft. Not since Jaws (1975) have so many writers been able to combine their differing visions into such a compelling, big-budget studio screenplay.

Spider-Man 2 works so well, I think, because the inner feelings of the superhero’s alter ego felt so tangible this time around. We were not necessarily watching a movie about a superhero’s disastrous conflict with his arch villain: we were watching a movie about a young man who kept to himself, who let his supernatural powers corrupt his personal life, who spent much of the movie refusing to pour out his troubles to his family and friends because to do so would have put them in jeopardy. Spider-Man 2 shows us that Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) is just like you and me, and Raimi presents him with the usual daily affairs: a lazy academic record; a demanding job at a pizzeria; hectic part-time photography work for the loudmouth J. Jonah Jameson (J.K. Simmons), who wants Spider-Man slandered on every front page; rent issues with a Russian landlord (Elya Baskin), who has “ears like a cat and eyes like a rodent!”; and, of course, girl troubles with his best friend, Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst), who has always wanted to be more than just a friend to Peter. But she has now turned to the companionship of Jameson’s son (Daniel Gillies), an astronaut touted as “the first man to play football on the moon.” It’s a false relationship borne out of MJ’s impatience with Peter’s failure to act: “I can’t keep thinking about you. It’s too painful.”

All of this might have coalesced into an emotionally-draining cinematic experience, but Spider-Man 2 is not a depressing film. So many superhero movies in recent years have strained to take on a more “serious” tone but have failed miserably due to the sheer idiocies of their principal characters. Spider-Man 2 finds a way to elevate itself above such redundant material. Like Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993), it is the real thing. Raimi sets up the film’s more human moments quite remarkably—watch the scene in which Peter is forced to “confess” his secret to MJ over a dead phone. Notice, too, the brilliant story device of having MJ star in a Broadway production of The Importance of Being Earnest. Peter, like Algernon and Jack (or any other Oscar Wilde character—Dorian Gray not excluded), lives a double life, and cannot reveal any details to the ones he loves. The moment when Peter finally shows up at MJ’s play, bringing an unexpected smile to her face onstage, ranks among the subtlest, most touching moments of Raimi’s career. “I’m not an empty seat anymore,” Peter tells MJ after the show. “I’m different. Punch me—I bleed.” And in a later scene, in which they meet again in a coffee shop and MJ demands of Peter, “Do you love me, or not?” Raimi yet again makes the pain of their unspoken love feel unbelievably palpable. By keeping them apart for so long, he makes their relationship one of the great Hollywood romances.

In a sense, the film is a portrait of loves which are lost, found, broken, recovered, destroyed and then healed. Some of the relationships are star-crossed: Aunt May (Rosemary Harris) never thought that her husband would be shot dead in a drive-by shooting. She has lived in self-shame since that incident, and can’t help but find ways to blame herself. It is liberating, then, when Peter finds the courage to tell her the truth about what happened, admitting his own guilt and thus allowing Aunt May to move on. She is able to finally break free of the consequences of her star-crossed love with her fallen spouse and start a new life: “I’m quite able to take care of things myself,” she assures Peter. Not so lucky is the star-crossed love between Dr. Octavius (Alfred Molina) and his wife Rosie (Donna Murphy), which ends in an incident that is even more grisly: Rosie is impaled by incoming shards of broken glasses—as a result of Octavius’ failed fusion experiment—and Octavius has nobody to blame but himself. In this scenario, the film’s villain is born: Octavius reawakens from a deadly slumber equipped with four “actuators” attached to his back, which writhe around like snakes, eliminate enemies and even seem to communicate with each other. They have far more personality than, say, the disembodied hand which gives Ash the finger in Raimi’s Evil Dead II (1987).

Undercutting the strong passions in the film is a quirky, always delightfully wicked sense of humor, informed largely by the incredible cheapness of the characters. A bank examiner both evicts Aunt May from her house and denies her the free toaster promised in the ad. An usher (Bruce Campbell—Ash himself!) won’t let Peter into the theater because “no one will be seated after the doors are closed—it helps maintain the illusion.” Jameson offers a garbage man (Brent Briscoe) 50 bucks for the purchasing of the famed Spidey suit, and the garbage man stares at him incredulously: “I could get more than that on eBay!” Cheapest of all, perhaps, is fate itself, which never explains to Peter why his web-slinging technique sometimes fails him as he’s flying in midair; Raimi and his screenwriters wisely refrain from explaining the reason behind this unexpected superhero defect, and it’s one of the funniest (and most haunting) ambiguities in the film.

One aspect of the film that I never took much notice of during previous viewings is the striking cinematography by Bill Pope. During one of the earlier scenes, in which MJ rests her hand on Peter’s face, studying him, Pope illuminates a blinding white light across the two faces of the actors. The effect makes Dunst look as ravishing as ever, while having a decidedly different effect on Maguire; the white light looks almost as if it’s helping conceal Peter Parker’s "mysteries," if you will. Pope’s cinematography comes equally in handy during the fight scenes, in which it’s even more important for the cinematography to be discernible—so that the audience can make out the fullest details of the action. Whenever Spidey and Doc Ock drop through the air, the camera drops along with them, and yet the image is never confusing or stomach-churning. As always, Pope’s cinematography goes together like bacon and eggs with John Dykstra’s CGI, which has dated somewhat but was largely innovative at the time (and won the film its only Oscar).

The performances are just as stirring as they were in 2004. Tobey Maguire remains for me the ultimate Peter Parker, which is why I can’t get too excited about Andrew Garfield taking on the role in the upcoming series remake. Kirsten Dunst has come a long way since starring as the McCoy’s young daughter in De Palma’s The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990), and wound up delivering, in this film, one of the signature performances marking her evolution as an actress. Rosemary Harris makes Aunt May not into the thankless old aunt she could have been, but a loving, iron-willed woman ready to enter the next phase of life. James Franco has fire in his eyes as Harry Osborn; it’s odd to look at his performance today, considering how much his career has skyrocketed since then. Raimi also finds time for amusing cameos. Willem Dafoe makes a ghostly appearance as Norman Osborn, and his cry of “AVENGE ME!” still chills to the bone. The great Cliff Robertson appears in one of Peter’s dreams as Uncle Ben, who reminds him from the grave, “all the times we’ve talked of honesty, fairness, justice… out of all those times, I counted on you to have the courage to take those dreams out into the world.” Alfred Molina’s portrayal of Octavius belongs somewhere in the pantheon of the cinema’s comic book villains. He is cursed from the moment he puts on those actuators, but we feel like cheering when he finally takes the initiative, and gives his life to destroy his own mad creation.

The movie opens with a shot of MJ’s smiling face on a New York billboard, so it is curious when Raimi elects to end the film with yet another shot of MJ’s face—showing, this time, an expression of concern. Tobey Maguire notes on the DVD commentary that the ending of Spider-Man 2 bears a strange resemblance to the ending of The Graduate (1967). While it may be just a coincidence (the parallels of the two films' endings never did occur to Raimi), the two parallels remain thought-provoking. In a contrived but undeniably delightful finale, MJ flees her own wedding and reunites with Peter at the last minute. “Isn’t it about time somebody saved your life?” she asks him. That allows him to spring back into action, thus providing a chance for the audience to break out into applause—but not before the film closes with a shot of MJ looking out into the distance, her smile fading to an expression of uncertainty.

No doubt her expression means something else to those who are already familiar with the third film. But if we forget the third film for a moment, and if we simply look at Spider-Man 2 all on its own, what does that final shot mean to you—as a viewer? For all we know, Peter can only be with MJ for so long. How long will it be before his web technique starts failing him again?

Submitted to Bryce's Wilson's Raimifest.