Filmlog
Reporting and Deciding
A review of The Hurt Locker (produced by First Light Production and Kingsgate Films; directed by Kathryn Bigelow; screenplay by Mark Boal; distributed by Summit Entertainment).
At last we have a movie that makes us feel the full obscenity of the Iraq war. Other films have been well intentioned but have either given in to the temptation to preach (Lions for Lambs) or taken aim at the wrong targets (In the Valley of Elah and Redacted). The Hurt Locker takes an entirely different tack.
In Flight
A review of Up in the Air (produced and distributed by Paramount Pictures; directed by Jason Reitman; screenplay by Sheldon Turner, adapting Walter Kirn’s novel) and The Road (produced and distributed by Dimension Films; directed by John Hillcoat; screenplay by Joe Penhall, adapting Cormac McCarthy’s novel).
George Clooney, well-groomed and exceedingly fit at 49, seems perfect as Ryan Bingham, the conscienceless protagonist of Up in the Air. He’s a man who disposes of people for both profit and recreation. By day he is a frequent-flying hatchet man or, to use the preferred term in America’s ever-expanding dictionary of euphemisms, “transition counselor.” He flies wherever needed 320 days a year to fire people whose bosses would rather not swing the ax themselves.
Faust
German movies of the 1920’s receive a remarkably poor press in conservative circles. Some critics regard them as little more than obvious reflections of Weimar decadence, as some of the lesser films doubtless are. Sometimes even the ubiquitous use of expressionist technique is presented as definitive proof that the mental derangement of souls in pain means that the art itself is deranged—a genuinely confusing subject with object. German expressionism in film is often merely the best kind of indigenous romanticism (the tradition of Novalis or Hoffmann) reacting to the psychological breakdown of its own culture.
More Resistance Movies
My two earlier commentaries on resistance films—movies that portray the heroism of outnumbered people under brutal invasion by great powers—brought forth a good deal of attention and discussion. It might be worth continuing the theme a little longer. For me it is a high priority of faith that every genuine nation, no matter how small in size, has a right to its self-government. After all, every real people has come into existence for some reason by the workings of Providence in history. (I mean a genuine historical people—not, for instance, Chechens, who are not a nation but merely an arm of Dar-al-Islam. Nor cultureless Africans who are better off under Christian rule.)
Cupidity
A review of The Informant! (produced and distributed by Warner Brothers; directed by Steven Soderbergh; screenplay by Scott Z. Burns based on Kirt Eichenwald’s book)
“Radix omnium malorum est cupiditas,” Chaucer’s pardoner warned his guilt-ridden audiences: The root of all evil is greed. Steven Soderbergh’s The Informant! serves as a latter-day illustration of this admonition.
In The Informant! cupidity expresses itself as avoirdupois. In this true story of the 1990’s international price-fixing scandal at the agribusiness behemoth Archer Daniels Midland, all the company’s executives are overweight, especially when compared with the modestly paid FBI agents who pursue them. It’s what a medievalist would call a pictorial exemplum. Fat denotes exorbitant acquisitiveness; thinness, virtuous moderation.
War Movies and the Human Heart
In a previous contribution to Chronicles‘ Filmlog, “Three for the Resistance,” I discussed movies portraying the plight of small nations—Norway, the Netherlands, and Finland—overwhelmed by ruthless Nazi and Communist force during the World War II era.
The column evoked an extended discussion about war movies in general, including thoughtful comments by combat veterans. The veterans undeniably have a point that the experience of battle in modern warfare cannot be adequately conveyed in any medium. Yet war is one of the decisive factors of human history and and contains elements touching on the universal and eternal in regard to our experience and nature. The subject cannot be avoided by art.
Three for the Resistance
World War II has provided a vast amount of material for cinema in Europe, America, and Japan. Some if this is superb. Much of it is hokey entertainment and propaganda. We perhaps did not realise how hokey until the horrors of D-Day were portrayed in Saving Private Ryan. That useful dose of realism deserves to be set off against Stephen Spielberg’s many sins against culture
Making War
Wake Island (1942)
Directed by John Farrow, B&W, 88 Minutes
Go Tell the Spartans (1978)
Directed by Ted Post, Color, 114 Minutes
Saigon: Year of the Cat (1983)
Directed by Stephen Frears, Color, 106 Minutes
Americans learn their wars primarily through the movies. Who, except for the few who were actually there, can imagine World War II without thinking of John Wayne? The popular medium gives us a way to digest what would otherwise be too terrible to contemplate, to absorb it into the national psyche.
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1964)
The Soviet Union in 1964 was about the last place on earth where anyone could find respect for traditional ways and reverence for ancestors. For the most part, the thuggish bureaucracy controlling that unlamented establishment exuded an almost eager desire for drabness that was downright studied in its gleeful love of the ugly. Sir Kenneth Clark, I think it was, once said that to understand a culture, look first at its artifacts. The only good art worth talking about in Bolshevik lands strenuously defied its prevailing soullessness and silenced many of the best artists, imprisoned them, or both. The case of Solzhenitsyn and the troubles of Shostakovitch are well-known examples.
The Ponderous and the Fleet
A review of Watchmen (produced and distributed by Warner Bros. and Paramount Pictures; directed by Zack Snyder; screenplay by David Hayter and Alex Tse) and Duplicity (produced and distributed by Universal Pictures; directed and written by Tony Gilroy)
The title of Alan Moore’s 1986 comic-book series Watchmen alludes to the Roman satirist Juvenal, who asked, “Who watches the watchmen?” He was cynically warning that there was no way to control an inconstant wife since she would easily beguile any guard put in charge of her. Juvenal’s question has often been invoked in purely political discussions ever since. How does a society protect itself against its supposed protectors? In the aftermath of the Bush administration’s expansion of executive powers following September 11, the query’s contemporary relevance is quite patent. But as I watched Zack Snyder’s adaptation of Moore’s comic book, it occurred to me that the question might be leveled with yet a different purpose. Just who is watching this film? And how is it affecting them?
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