Schindler's List (1993)

Steven Spielberg is the undisputed leader of popular cinema. He has been responsible for a number of the highest grossing pictures ever made (E.T., Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Close Encounters of the Third Kind). Although his work has been accepted by the public, critics and peers have been less approving. They have labeled his films saccharine, pandering and derivative.(An Andrew Lloyd Weber of the silver screen). Mr. Spielberg tried to heighten his standing by turning to adaptations of recognized books (i.e. The Color Purple, Empire of the Sun). The jury was still unimpressed. Their continued disapproval did not escape Mr. Spielberg. A few years back he even made a public allusion to his feeling slighted by the Academy. (Ironically it was while he received the Irving Thalburg Award). To this day (1/24/94) he has not received an Academy Award but all that could change on March 21 starting at 6PM (West Coast Time). Mr. Spielberg's two current releases show him maintaining his ability to produce mindless box office blockbusters, Jurassic Park, while still pursuing the artistic recognition he feels he deserves, Schindler's List. Mr. Spielberg has, once again, turned to an award winning book for his material. This film, however, stands apart from his other "serious" works. Empire of the Sun was forgettable except for the marvelous recreation of pre-Communist China. The Color Purple was simply forgettable. Schindler's List demonstrates that Mr. Spielberg is capable of producing work with staying power.

Technically Schindler's List is flawless. The attention to detail in costuming and scene-design made the setting altogether convincing. Re-creating the factory where the Jewish slave laborers produced pots, pans, hinges… must have been a particularly daunting task. It was as if one had been transported into a European version of a Lewis Hine photograph. The ghetto and the concentration camps were also tour de forces in terms of realistically re-creating a time and place. This goes beyond the mere act of choosing to shoot on location. It is the magical task of making those places live as they did in the past. One need not be an expert on mid-twentieth century European fashion and architecture to be utterly convinced. The genuineness supersedes academic or professional accreditation. The artisans who helped reconstruct this reality are truly deserving of the title of master craftsman.

Spielberg's use of color raises many issues although the cinematographer exhibits the same unsurpassed professionalism as the set designers. The bulk of the film is black & white with the exception of the closing sequence and two colorized objects. Mixing black & white and color has been a device used in many films for varied ends with mixed results. Spielberg colors the two objects (Hanukkah candles and a little girl's red coat) in order to highlight their innocence. They are beacons of hope in the dreary black and white hell. The device was used Coppola's Rumble Fish; Mickey Rouke staring into the tank watching the brightly colored fish. The problem in both films is that the black and white images, although gritty and mean, possessed a strength and beauty which made the colorization appear hokey. The little girl with the red coat is especially irksome. Instead of looking on her as a innocent amongst the carnage she becomes an annoying red splotch in a beautifully rendered image. This is the opposite of what Spielberg intends. His choice of contrasting the past and the present was also troubling. Modern film audiences associate black and white with "old movies". (Proceeds from television sales make black and white commercially prohibitive). Given this frame of reference the events depicted in the film become distant and removed. The color in the closing "present day" sequence only reinforced the remoteness of the atrocities. Perhaps intercutting black & white and color works best when illustrating fantasy sequences (e.g. The Wizard of Oz) but even in this context it can become a self-conscious distraction (e.g. She's Gotta Have It). In other respects the camerawork is exquisite. The characters are framed beautifully and the textures vary with the action. The storming of the ghetto sequence is brilliant. The frenetic camera movement intertwined with the flashes from the machine guns makes for a riveting crescendo of horror.

Schindler's List possesses a stupendous cast. All the leading players are virtuosos and the secondary cast is equally convincing. One performance should be singled out. Ralph Fiennes steals the show. His portrayal of the Nazi death camp Commandant Goethe brilliantly plays on the banality of evil. The myriad of W.W. II movies have cast SS leaders as die-hard true believers. Mr. Fiennes shatters this stereotype with the first words uttered from his mouth. He is being given a driving tour of the ghetto by two junior officers who ask what he thinks. Instead of responding with a contrived speech about the glories of Hitler… he blows his nose and yells "put up the roof of this car; it's fucking cold". Nazism becomes a job not a religion. It is a means by which school-yard bullies with mediocre minds can create hellish fiefdoms and rule with impunity. There is no sport in killing Jews; it's just a pastime; an ugly stop on the climb up the ranks. The most disconcerting aspect about Com. Goethe is how recognizable a character he is: his whimsical abuse of power, his lack of introspection, his knee jerk uttering of the party line, his greed, his narcissism, his lust…. Here is the overlooked, insecure nobody that exists in every social institution: school, camp, neighborhood, army, work force…. Nazism affords a means of acceptance and success. It's not about believing in anything; it's about pleasing the boss. His final cry of "Heil Hitler" is given as a parting nod to his own role as a dictator not the dictator himself. This single character embodies the spirit of that dreaded political philosophy.

The fact that Mr. Fiennes stands-out points to a fundamental flaw in Schinlder's List. The film is uneven and ambiguous. Mr. Fiennes is wrought in stone but the rest of the cast is underdeveloped or obscure. The epitome of the former can be seen in Embeth Davidtz magnificent rendering of the domestic. It has been said that the greater part of screen acting is reaction; not action. Ms. Davidtz mastery of gesture and expression can be witnessed from her initial selection on line to her confrontation with Fiennes in the basement. The problem lies in what is missing; not from her but in the editorial development of her character. The audience is presented with this captivating figure only to have her whisked away in the behemoth of Schindler's story. She is not alone. There are others, especially amongst the secondary characters, who seem well delineated but ignored. There can be little doubt that in the interest of brevity things must be sacrificed. Given the films length, almost three hours, one wonders if the proper decisions were made. Does it really require all that time to establish Mr. Shindler as a wheeler-dealer? Should the emphasis of the story shift to make the Jewish prisoners the central focus rather than Mr. Shindler himself?

What are we to make of Shindler? Liam Neeson's portrayal, although technically superb, is unsympathetic. His breakdown at the close of the story was especially troubling. He is a war profiteer turned saintly savior. In order for his final speech to be convincing one must see the grand metamorphosis and, despite the three hour build-up, Mr. Spielberg fails. At some point Schindler realizes that the Nazis are evil. The story lacks a moment of epiphany. There are hints of a gradual change of heart but his decision to actively fight the Nazis is rooted in obscurity. Schindler is a man who has no compunction about living in a dispossessed Jewish family's house or using slave-laborers. After witnessing the massacre in the ghetto he still finds room in his heart to defend Com. Goethe. He tells Ben Kingsley that Goethe is a busy man just trying to do his job. Kingsley then recounts a grisly tale in which he tells of the Commandant's personally executing a few dozen prisoners with his revolver. In the end Schindler sees the light. He becomes born-again gallant savior who personally rescues hundreds of prisoners from the gas chambers while risking everything to build a munitions plant which supplies defective artillery shells. His new-found virtuosity extends to his personal life as well. Schindler abandons his philandering and re-unites with his wife. Is Spielberg's Schindler believable?

There can be no argument that the protagonist in this drama performed heroic deeds; but does that necessarily make him a hero? At the heart of the matter lies a question of motive. Judging by the obtrusive text, which would appear to delineate the exact time and place events were occurring, Mr. Schindler's change of heart occurred after the Nazi's war effort was on the wane (circa 1944). Might it be possible that Schindler decided to switch sides sensing a German defeat? The suitcases of money which he possessed seemed to be issued by the German central bank; what would this currency be worth if the Allied forces triumphed? These troubling thoughts spring from an unsettling ambiguity surrounding the movie's Schindler. Mr. Spielberg seems to feel it is enough to deify and forget the past. Unfortunately not even Mr. Neeson's technical virtuosity could mask this film's structural flaw. He delivers the "could have saved more" speech with heartfelt gusto. The problem lies in the fact that the Schindler of the first two and a half hours undercuts every word he utters. This is a story about a man who undergoes a fundamental spiritual re-assessment. Spielberg showed us the before and after but forgot the most essential "during". Despite the marvelous array of ingredients and wonderful presentation; the pudding lacks a theme.

There is an odd parallel between Mr. Spielberg and his protagonist. It is interesting to weigh the what might driven a director of box office sensations and unappreciated "serious" films to tackle the Holocaust. Could it be the sacredness of the subject matter forces a modicum of respectability and likewise shields him from criticism? Is there anything ethically wrong with evoking those millions of victims in order to secure artistic acceptance? Perhaps these thoughts are as blasphemous questioning the morality of Spielberg's hero. Once again there can be no argument that the Spielberg's Schindler, whatever his design, saved hundreds of people from certain death. Likewise Schindler's List, whatever Mr. Spielberg's motives, has generated important awareness about the nadir of modern civilization. In the end the tangible goodness outweighs any negative speculations. There is a wonderful moment in the film when Ben Kingsley holds up a crudely typed sheet containing all the names of those that Schindler will save. He says "This list is all good". Hopefully Mr. Spielberg will be able to do the same with his Academy Award trophy.

Pochahontas (2007)

Our American Hero

In 1973 Terrence Malick established himself as a great American auteur by writing and directing Badlands – a stunning portrait of a great American invention – the serial killer. In retrospect Mr. Malick, unlike his contemporaries of that era - Spielberg, Lucas, Coppola – never delivered the likes of an ET or Star Wars or a Godfather. In fact he not only failed to deliver a blockbuster – he failed to deliver. Since his stunning debut he has directed three features: Day of Heaven, Thin Red Line and now The New World. Three features in three decades is not what our Puritan work ethic dictates as a “respectable” output. But perhaps Malick, in the tradition of the Founding Fathers, Thoreau, the Western pioneers… is following his manifest destiny.

Let others have a career; Mr. Malick has been strolling through American history – taking in the scenery and drawing his own conclusions. He’s spent half his time in the Heartland (Badlands, Days of Heaven) wresting with desperate lost souls – dying in all the innocent beauty east of Eden. He pondered about our Great War (WW II) and drew a portrait of ambiguous soldiers wrestling with themselves as much as the Japanese. The odd thing is that all these films inhabit the American mythology while tearing at its seams. Badlands is a nightmarish foreshadowing of Lucas’ American Graffiti. Days of Heaven might be viewed as Thomas Hart Benton’s Guernica. The Thin Red Line shows Tom Brokaw’s Greatest Generation in their hour of darkness or maybe Speilberg’s soldiers having an existential crisis on their mission to save Private Ryan.

Malick has decided to begin at the beginning. The tale of Pocahontas and Capt. Smith is the bedrock of the American experience. Most Anthologies of American Literature begin with Capt. Smith’s tales about the “New World”. Interest in the story has reached beyond academics with the Walt Disney Company producing an animated feature, Pocahontas, within the last decade. Recently William T. Vollmann has dedicated a entire volume of his seven part History of America to Smith’s founding of Jamestown. The element of this story that pulls together academics and patrons of popular culture is the relationship between the swashbuckling Smith and the young Native American princess. That such a relationship existed at the moment of America’s conception vaults the historical into the realm of the mythic. Hollywood couldn’t have given the country a better script of its beginnings.

The “real” Capt. Smith lived through war, starvation, imprisonment, enemy-capture, enslavement… One wonders however, if he would have survived the 21st century American debate about what constitutes fact and fiction in a memoir. The following is the portrait Capt. Smith paints of himself in “The General History of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles”:

“by his own example, good words, and fair promises, set some to mow, others to bind thatch, some to build houses, others to thatch them, himself always bearing the greatest task for his own share, so that in short time he provided most of them lodgings, neglecting any for himself.”

One can feel the other residents of Jamestown flocking to their blogs to refute the wise Captain in the early stages of his book tour. Malick is unconcerned. The director is smart enough to know better but the Smith-myth is central; not the actual history. Malick paints a very realistic portrait of the new Americans despite the fact that the valiant Captain might have taken the same liberties as the author of “A Million Little Pieces”. But in the end isn’t Capt. Smith the great great grandfather of James Frey and Oprah?

Ambition is the driving force in Jamestown. This group will stop at nothing to get ahead. The internecine struggles over rank and authority will be hideously familiar to any modern American office worker. Its not that our distant cousins over in Europe wouldn’t be petty and awful – it’s just that our fore-fathers were, in Ross Perot’s words: the people working the third shift at the Dairy Queen. In such an environment manners and a sense of civility are signs of weakness. This was a group that certainly knew the word “Roanoke” – the nearby colony that two decades earlier disappeared with the 90 men, 17 woman and 9 children never to be heard from again. Yet they willingly made the choice to go on this voyage. Makes you wonder about their lives in the motherland. The Lords of the Manor and the Captains of Industry knew better. Capt. Newport, played by a very blue-blooded Christopher Plummer, was on the first boat back home while Jamestown “took shape”. Given what followed he certainly made the right choice. The new colonists resort to eating their leather belts to stay alive. Maybe Smith was right to implore everyone to stop wasting time digging for gold.

Malick’s harsh portrayal of this world of Joe Shmoes and John Smiths certainly undercuts the primness with which we revere the Founding Father’s fathers. These people weren’t blue blood or even blue collar – they were red-neck through and through. Capt. Smith, however, is a stand-out. He is aware that he is on a journey to, in the great American tradition, re-invent himself. He is our first Bruce Springsteen – a sexy poet repulsed by the grimness of his culture and surroundings but accepting the fact that he is a character in Jungleland. One can hear Capt. Smith rollicking on some boulevard serenading a modern-day Pocahontas with the promise of a new life if she’d just stop listening to her Chief. We can also see the young maiden crying in the back seat of the beat-up Camaro asking the driver “who are you?”.

The unanswered question in this film is: who are the Indians? There is a disturbing asymmetry to The New World. The young Americans are drawn with precision yet the Native Americans remain elusive. Malick no doubt did his homework and the costuming and set designs are outstanding. The backdrop is authentic – but not the people. The “naturals” are more akin to fairies in an expensive production of A Mid Summer Nights Dream rather than actual aboriginals. The initial reaction to Smith is certainly genuine – they want to kill him. Unfortunately for them they make a series of very bad choices. They spare his life and then adopt him as a tribesman and let him frolic with the Chief’s favorite daughter – the prettiest girl in the tribe. The implausibility of the situation is secondary to the super-human genuineness of the natives. Pocahontas and her father seem implausiblely plausible – people make bad choices and pay the price – but the other Natives and their society appear other-worldly. As the good-captain says “they are without jealousy or malice”. Certainly after months of living with the Jamestown crowd “the naturals” – a successful traditional society living in sync with their surroundings – would appear to be super-human. There is a palatable sense of horror when Smith returns to the world of the violent, mean-spirited, petty, desperate gold-diggers. It would have been interesting to Malick had found a way to paint the Powhatans as real – but where would he find a source? These poor people were annihilated. The lack of a record left Malick with all the trappings of the Powhatans without the Powhatans themselves. The father-chief and Pocahontas are plot devices to further the narrative of Jamestown. John Smith’s world is grimly real whereas the Powhatans “are the stuff that dreams are made of”. In this case Capt. Smith is the dreamer.

The New World takes an extended journey to the old world in the second half of the film. The plot takes on a Shakespearian edge: the princess goes to meet the King and Queen of England and is re-united with her lover. They come to their senses and she returns to her true love. The comedy turns tragic, however, when the Princess suddenly dies. The banality of the narrative is beside the point. Shakespeare’s forte was language not story. By the same logic assessing Malick’s in terms of the plot-driven narrative is to be deaf to the visual feast. There is a small sequence where the Native American escorting Pocahontas walks amongst the trees in the formal gardens at one of the English palaces. In a sense this small scene of this traditionally dressed native wandering around the formal hedges and rigid tree-lines is a metaphor for the entire film. This exquisite tableaux is a tile in a cross cultural mosaic painting the birth of America. It’s not about “story” or “romance” but the romance of the myth of our founding. Malick, with his usual flair for excellent acting, photography and craft, has given us another one of his American visions. We are a brutal, savage people who touched a prelapsarian (in our view) world and beat it down to our level. There is always something tragic/heroic in our quest despite our venal actions. Badlands is successful in spite of the loathsome protagonist. The audience is drawn to the killer in Days of Heaven even though he schemed against an innocent man. The soldiers in The Thin Red Line are too uneasy about their brutality to be the usual World War II heroes… and yet there is a hallowed of innocence surrounding these ambiguous warriors.

Malick is, at heart, a Texan. This part of the country tends to root for the guys in black hats. He has a soft-spot for Cain. Abel was a favored son, we are a nation of Cains. We are the second sons busting our asses to make the right sacrifice for the all powerful. We loathe introspection in direct proportion to our love of THE LAW. Rules are made up of isolated facts that create abstractions so we can live with ourselves. Pocahontas’ constant refrain to Capt. Smith is “Who are you?” The Captain might not have an answer, but he shares Cain’s disdain for his brother’s good fortune. Malick knows that in Smith’s quest to rise above his station lies the heart of the American experience and his hideous ambition to be the favored son will lead to his downfall. No matter how hard we Americans will it, the fact remains: God has rejected our offering. God preferred our brother’s sacrifice because it was more than mere fruits of the field – it contained blood. Well if its blood God wants – its blood he’ll get. Fratricide was our answer to God’s rejection – only sending us further into the wilderness. Europe and the Natives have Kings, Queens, Chiefs and Princes whom God looks upon with favor. America has the hardscrabble, hard-luck Capt. Smith. The treason-filled, self-promoter struggling to better himself. One can hear the Captain reflecting on his plight by singing a Bruce Springsteen song about Starkweather, the “hero” of Malick’s first feature:

I saw her standin' on her front lawn just twirlin' her baton
Me and her went for a ride sir and ten innocent people died

From the town of Lincoln Nebraska with a sawed off .410 on my lap
Through to the badlands of Wyoming I killed everything in my path

I can't say that I'm sorry for the things that we done
At least for a little while sir me and her we had us some fun

The jury brought in a guilty verdict and the judge he sentenced me to death
Midnight in a prison storeroom with leather straps across my chest

Sheriff when the man pulls that switch sir and snaps my poor head back
You make sure my pretty baby is sittin' right there on my lap

They declared me unfit to live said into that great void my soul'd be hurled
They wanted to know why I did what I did
Well sir I guess there's just a meanness in this world

Badlands might be seen as a modern day version of what would have happened if Capt. Smith had run away with Pocahontas.


The American curse is to be thoughtful and reflective. The greatest threat to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” is those who question “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. The tycoon, the worker bee and even the dispossessed are as truly American as mom, the flag and apple pie. But those who step back and question the process are dangerous. They start asking questions about right and wrong. There is no good or bad just THE LAW. If Smith can escape hanging he can go on to become a penultimate Founding Father. If Starkweather gets the chair; well he deserved it. That’s that. That’s the law. That’s what happened. Don’t think too much about it or we’ll suspect you’re a communist or worse yet an artist. Don’t think, just act. Just make the movies and have a career. Malick seems to take the challenge. You want blood? I’ll give you blood. I’ll dress it up and show it off. In reality Starkweather was pigeon-toed, cross-eyed but Malick sees him as a young Charlie Sheen. The real Pocahontas & Capt. Smith could never compete with the sex appeal of Q’Orianka Kilcher and Colin Farrell. But these are merely facts. Bits of history that can be molded in the same fashion as other uncomfortable truths: our beloved land of freedom was founded by a savage group of marauders who invaded, pillaged then annihilated “everything in my path”. Pocahontas visit to the King and Queen is really the ultimate humiliation for a Princess robbed of her culture and whose subjects were already falling under the sword. The institution of slavery took root a little more than a decade of the founding of the colony. But once again these are mere facts. Smith was just another hard-luck soldier trying to have fun amongst all the smoke and bodies. Malick takes it all in and smiles. He strolls through the carnage and studies all the hardworking ill-fated sons of Cain. He’s not going to excuse the mess by becoming another mega-star in the pantheon of the American Entertainment Heroes. He’s sitting down with that ever-expanding group of alienated American thinkers who love this country but loathe all the crassness born of a desire to forget. His job is to entertain.. and entertain he will. Long after Spielberg, Lucas and Coppola have faded from the public consciousness Malick’s band of American anti-heroes will be delighting and horrifying future generations. Somewhere, centuries from now, a young person will look at this body of work and remark: “What a bunch of savages”. And Malick’s spirit will tip his black hat and say “but you gotta love’em”.

La Dolce Vita (1960, reviewed in 2007)

Midlife Crisis: La Dolce Vita

I was standing inline in the local post office when the two people in back of me began to sing along with the music playing over the loudspeaker. I suddenly realized it was Bob Marley. I wonder whether this icon of rebellion from my youth would welcome the ultimate in conventional acceptance: Not only to be recognized by a random group of Americans of various ages but sanctioned as entertainment by the hallmark government institution. This in turn made me think about the DVD I’d seen the night before: Fellini’s La Dolce Vita.

I’m two years younger than this Fellini classic. The tagline for the film was: “The world's most talked about movie today!” Four decades later they’ve stopped talking. The work would be recognizable to people interested in film. I’m sure even Blockbuster Video has a copy on hand for that odd-ball who wanders into the foreign film section. But I don’t think the Bob Marley fans on line at the post office would have anything to say. They would, however, know the term “Paparazzi” a bastardization of the name of a minor character in the film: Paparazzo. It would be interesting to know if during the Hurley-Burley of production Fellini would have guessed that this word would be his legacy and not the film itself. Given the themes he was wrestling with it probably would not have come as a surprise.

With so many people living “la vida loca” it is ironic that this masterpiece has lost its currency. It begs the question: How does a director capture the height of fashion without falling victim to it? I remember black and white TV’s and commercials that ran over a minute. “La Dolce Vita”, despite reflecting on the timeless battle between progress and tradition, is rooted in the specific period of post WW II Europe. Marcello Rubini’s (Mastroianni’s character) struggle must be seen through the eyes of an audience that had witnessed the devastation their land in a conflict that ended only a decade and a half prior to this film’s release. In this prism the characters’ behavior in this new-found land of plenty was profoundly disturbing evoking questions of morality. The work was banned in Spain and the Catholic Church and right wing elements in the motherland tried to prevent its distribution. Others were enthralled by Fellini’s circus/gallows humor. Here was a ringmaster who knew how to present the decline of Western civilization with a smile. (None of Antoniono’s starkness – it is interesting to note that his L’Aventura premiered the same year). But to a contemporary audience it all seems quaint: The well-fed, stylishly quaffed moderns always with cigarettes or clunky phones, float along in landscape of 1950’s kitsch buildings in their classic sport cars. The struggles with fidelity, artistic integrity and loneness have the ring of Everly Brothers’ songs about teenage angst. Instead of shock and repulsion there is a sense of nostalgia.

That Fellini’s world of misery and decadence would strike cords of longing for a simpler time is a harsh comment on the present. A decade BEFORE 9/11 Hunter Thompson was commenting: "What is there left to a generation that has been told that there is poison in the rain and sex is death? Nothing but TV and relentless masturbation.” Now we have the additional layers of terrorism, never-ending category 5 storms, rising sea levels and continuous Hieronymus Bosch carnage. It is as if the horrors of World War II are no longer freakish but enmeshed in the landscape. Imagine Marcello viewing the smoldering World Trade Center, wandering through a post-Katrina New Orleans or traveling a few hundred miles south to the genocide in Darfur? After the trip Marcello would be smiling and saying without a hint of irony: “I’m very lucky… I live in Rome and I’m a hack writer for tabloids… it’s a good life”.

There is a scene in La Dolce Vita in which a young sickly child is trampled to death by a mob. This horrifying accident is sparked by a sensationalist press who prime a hysterical crowd to follow the directions of a group of farm children who claim to have seen a vision of the Virgin Mary. I heard the following on the radio as I write: 73 people were trampled to death in the Philippines while lining up to be contestants on a game show. The grand prize that these unfortunates died for: less than $20,000 US. The following day in NYC a young father of three, who was hired to guard the jewelry of a rap star, was gunned down during the taping of a music video when the performers squared off over who could be in the recording studio. How can Fellini compete? Reality seems to trump even his most decedent creations: Paris Hilton is exponentially more ridiculous and obscene than anyone who appears in this film. The aristocrats in Fellini’s world, although idle and moldy, possess taste and a measure of dignity. The Garden of the Finzi-Continis might be filled with drugs, depression, incest and suicide but they stand apart from mall rats and porno stars.

If Fellini’s Infero lacks the ability to burn our post-modern sensibilities there are two characters who strike a cord: Paola, the innocent, and Steiner, the doomed intellectual. Steiner famous quip “Salvation doesn’t lie within four walls” squares with Paolo’s association with the beach. In the closing scene of the film Marcello is viewing the dead fish while Paolo shouts from across the water. Marcello smiles knowingly but chooses not to hear her. The sound of the ocean drowns her out but it is really Marcello’s desperate, decadent life that makes Paolo unapproachable. It’s been another night of ridiculous people partying till they cry – what could he say to this innocent? Marcello’s plight is with the lifeless, grotesque sea monster not with the salt-of-the-earth hardworking people who hauled it to the beach. Paolo could be one of their daughters for all he knows – she certainly isn’t familiar with anyone at the party. This harkens back to the scene in which Marcello tries to seduce the movie-star by driving her into the countryside. They are out of place in the land of Eden. The dog starts barking and Marcello worries that the hardworking farmers might start to gather. They are intruders from the city. They flee back to Rome where Marcello is greeted by a drunken boyfriend who, prompted by the Paporizzi, punches Marcello in the face. A cartoon fight over nothing only to be equaled by Marcello’s pathetic attack on the woman in the party with a feather-filled throw-pillow. How could any of this be explained to Paolo, the farmers, the fisherman? Marcello’s fate is to know that he has become as absurd as the people who fill his stories; more so in fact because there is the hint that he possessed the ability to rise above it all.

And speaking of being above it all – there is Steiner. He plays Bach beautifully, knows everything and everyone that really matters… and yet. The play “Amadeus” is a meditation on the perils of being a brilliant hack in the face of genius. Steiner has the same murderous reaction but unlike Saliari he turns on his children and himself. Marcello responds to his mentor’s rampage/suicide by abandoning any pretense of being “a writer”. The scene in which he accompanies the police chief to break the news to the unsuspecting wife is particularly gruesome. The paparazzi gouge on the startled mother/wife turned grieving widow with a ferociousness that foreshadows the standard operating practices of our present day tabloid press. (note: California passed a law against “stalkerazzi” who slam their cars into celebrity’s vehicles in order to take photos of their anger). Marcello’s retreat into being a Press Agent, a godfather of hack writers, is a sad coda to his friend’s demise. The tragedy of this film is that these two character fail to connect. Steiner possessed gravity while Marcello wallowed in levity. Somewhere they might have found balance in each other; instead both these men set our to destroy themselves and those around with guns and pillows.

What to say in the present? Where is Paolo? The sad fact is that our Beatrice has left us in the Inferno. In fact the idea of a “Beatrice” has become quaint. We stopped waiting for Godot. The hope is that we can regain Paolo’s innocence amidst all the rubble. We must take heart in the fates of Steiner and Marcello. The motto of our current age was spoken by a contemporary of Fellini’s: Winston Churchill said “Success is going from one failure to the next failure without loss of enthusiasm”. That Paolo’s secret: “enthusiasm”. And if Marcello and Steiner thought it was hard in post-war Rome they might want to join me online in the post office. Marcello would like the Bob Marley music while Steiner studied the harried people in their mis-matched outfits. The two foreigners would exchange a knowing glance - “we need to get back home”. Marcello would ask Steiner in aristocratic Italian “maybe we could get the singer will come with us to Rome”. Steiner would say “the singer is not of this place”. Meanwhile a teenager would carry his package to the counter and say “There are these two middle-Eastern guys talking in Arabic, smokin’ cigarettes and pointing at people”. The clerk behind the counter would nod “I’ll get security”.

In the Shadow of the Moon (2007)

Shoot the Moon

I was seven years old when Neil Armstrong took his first step on the lunar surface. My mother tried to wake me to watch the event on TV but I decided to stay in bed. My initial indifference gave way to the universal space frenzy. Months later I was one of thousands who stood in line for hours at the Museum of Natural History in New York to witness one of the great marvels of the moment - a moon rock. This unimpressive pebble now sits, barely noticed, just across town in the lobby of the United Nations. It would be impossible to explain to today's seven year olds why anyone would patiently cue-up to see a rock; just as it is hard for middle aged Americans to recreate the unabashed national optimism which they felt as young children. Looking back on that time today's adults know that they lived in a world as far away as the moon.

Ron Howard started his career in feel-good nostalgia. He was a child actor in Andy Griffith's "Mayberry RFD". This 1960s family drama, although set in the 1950s, recreated an ideal small town America of the 1930s. This soothing paean to simple times and easy living was a huge hit in the days of revolution, hippies, race riots and an unpopular war. Mr. Howard continues this formula of success. He documents the unabashed exuberance generated by NASA's moon missions for a contemporary public awash in economic uncertainty, religious fanaticism, environmental catastrophe and an unpopular war.

"In the Shadow of the Moon" is the reality version of Howard's popular dramatic feature "Apollo 13". Here are the men behind the mission. It is unfortunate that Presidents Eisenhower's formula for "the right stuff" demanded respectability and education. No doubt the founding fathers of test flight, Chuck Yeager et al, would have made for a more exciting film. Yeager broke the sound barrier while flying with broken ribs from a riding accident a few days before. He hide his injury from his superiors and was in such pain that he was unable to close the hatch of his Bell X-1 without assistance. He was chosen for the flight because another pilot was suspended for buzzing a friend's car in a fighter-jet the day before. The politicians felt that to muster the funds for this Cold War era moon extravaganza the leading men needed to be "college men"; not "crackers". The Apollo crews certainly possessed the same gritty verve and courage but also had education and a sense of decorum. You could count on them to attend a White House dinner and not wreck the furniture or make a pass at the First Lady. The polish, which certainly won the hearts of the public, makes for slow-going in a behind-the-scenes look. There is nothing overtly disagreeable about these obviously accomplished, brave, faithful men but creating dramatically compelling characters requires a bit of "the wrong stuff". It is no wonder that the 19th century actors cued up to play the villains and avoided the pious "George Washington" incarnation. The filmmakers obviously sensed that the main event needed garnish - hence the large card titles which dutifully explain something along the lines of: THESE ARE THE ONLY MEN EVER IN THE HISTORY OF TIME TO ACTUALLY EXPERIENCE A COMPLETELY OTHER WORLD. It appears not only in the opening sequence but returns before the closing credits to remind audiences who might feel a lack of lift-off after the Apollo men have spoken. Ironically there is a layer of disquietude in the sea of tranquility. In between the faded off-color grainy stylishly unstylish flashbacks and the formulaic TV show talk-head interviews, is a strange silence. It's name is Neil Armstrong.

Neil Armstrong does not participate in a THE documentary feature which purports to tell the story of NASA's Moon Mission via interviews with living astronauts. In other words - we're going to examine Niagara Falls: without the water. There are no explanations as to the space star's absence except for the cryptic allusion in one of the interviews to his need for privacy. Hmmm. Perhaps Mr. Armstrong realizes that the best way to play George Washington is to never appear on stage. Mr. #2, Buzz Aldrin, only expands the void. Ironically the apex of his appearance he is talking about #1 - no not Mr. Armstong - the OTHER #1. After Armstrong descends the ladder and delivers the "small step" line Buzz decides to desecrate the holy scene. Buzz gleefully explains that his long pause on the ladder prior to becoming Mr. Penultimate: "I was urinating - no disputing that was a first". There are apocryphal stories about Buzz photographing Armstrong ONLY while Buzz himself gleamed in Armstrong's visor. After viewing this film they are completely believable. In fact one wonders if Mr. Aldrin was the inspiration for the saying: "if they can send one man to the moon... why can't they send them all?" The ole space wizzer's creepiness manages to seep through all the filmmaker's best gloss. Aldrin describes the difficulty in actually landing the Eagle and can't help mentioning how "those guys at MIT didn't listen to me" - something about the computer. No doubt the boys from Boston were not alone in receiving advice from the space sage. He also manages to drop in the fact that he gave up pipe smoking and alcohol very soon before the launch. One can only imagine how his fellow travelers endured the extra spice that nicotine and booze withdrawal gave to the Buzz-less Buzz. Mr. Armstrong isn't talking and Collins isn't dishing any dirt. Collins somehow managed to escape the NASA slick filter. Here is a guy who would have happily fit in with Chuck and co. in the test pilot hanger. Collins is Frank Purdue flying a spaceship. The filmmakers rely on him to deliver the goods. He is affable and self-deprecating; in stark contrast to the undisputed first lunar jackass. There is an interesting segment in the film where they show Nixon reading a speech that was prepared in case the eagle couldn't leave the nest. Apparently there was great fear that Neil and Buzz might end up being the first 'lunar human sacrifice' due to questions about blasting off from the surface. If that had happened one can imagine Buzz immediately re-enacting the scene from the first fraternal feud. In this case Cain would be screaming; "How come they didn't pick me to go first!!!!!!!!!"

It is interesting to note that the crew of the first Apollo mission to orbit the moon chose to read aloud from Genesis on their first lunar orbit in view of the earth. The test pilots would have cracked open the beer they'd sneaked on board. There is a surprising open-minded religiosity one would not expect from the paradigms of 1950s white apple-pie male America. One of the scripture reader's talked about a lawsuit complaining about their literally "universal" global incantation. He said he had nothing against atheists and maybe it was inappropriate but that it really was meant in the spirit of universality. Another man spoke in almost Buddhist terms about the singularity and oneness of the world - something "beyond religion". There was a traditional "born again" who talked about finding his faith. Interestingly this occurred AFTER his space career and one wonders if his faith is rooted in a search for the ultimate "mission control".

At the heart of this films lies the question of what really makes an explorer. If the definition of coolness is "grace under pressure" you'd have to award all these men top honors. Sometimes their derring-do bordered on the pathologically frigid. The anecdote about a fellow-astronaut dropping in on Neil Armstrong. The visitor casually discovers that the future first moon-man had bailed out of an exploding aircraft a few hours before their encounter. Neil didn't think it worth mentioning and deadpanly answered "yeah" that did happen that morning and went on to shuffle papers on his desk. This certainly beggs questions about the borders between coolness and insanity. There was another astronaut who's heart rate remained at 70 beats a second DURING LIFTOFF. Hmmm - it would be interesting to know what makes him break a sweat - or maybe not. The more the film progressed the Neil's non-appearance becomes self-explanatory. It's really best to savor those heroes in those scratchy, faded newsreels. They were the men of that time who most effectively speak to us IN THAT TIME. They are all heroes - even #2. Buzz reflected on the responsibility of being a man who walked on the moon. He spoke about living up to expectations. It obviously weighs on all of them. Perhaps its would have been best if they'd all sat in a room and answered one question: Are you the only men ever in the history of time ever to experience another world? They could have dutifully stood at attention and answered "yes sir" or "yes ma'am". The test pilots might be heard cackling in the next room; Chuck could enter and moon the moon-men. Run credits: These are the only men.......

Gone Baby Gone (2007)

Beantown Afflecked

Picasso supposedly said that every good portrait painter needs a person standing behind him with a revolver pointed at the back of his head ready to pull the trigger at the right time. The same might be said of film directors. The tendency to overdraw, over-explain... is a trap for first time movie directors and it is especially noticeable when actors get behind the camera. It is as if the performer, brimming with all the hard work of creating their character, is now taking revenge on every director who said "That's okay - I think we have it covered". Recently DeNiro's "The Good Shepherd" comes to mind - although in that case maybe the shot should have been fired in pre-production. (other examples: Marlon Brando's "One Eyed Jacks", John Nicholson's "The Two Jakes" and all of Sean Penn's directorial efforts). Films, unlike plays, are not driven by the spoken word. Visual reaction is the heart of all good dramatic features. Performers have a difficult time understanding that if pictures say 1,000 words - moving pictures say 1,000,000 - even if there is no dialogue.

Ben Affleck's unfortunately titled "Gone Baby Gone" is a strong case in point. The title sequence and setting of the scene is absolutely magical. Ben and his brother Casey, who stars in the project, are natives of Boston. This fact dovetails with the plot which revolves around a young private detective who is hired because of his familiarity with the gritty streets of an insular Beantown neighborhood. Casey's character knows the territory and his older brother demonstrates in the first 10 minutes that he is also the real deal. One of the greatest films of all time is a short documentary primarily shot by still photographer Helen Levitt (often credited exclusively to James Agee) entitled "In the Street". Affleck's painting of the hood concisely reveals the pride, poverty, anger, joy, pain, pathos in much the same way Levitt did in her lower east side neighborhood half a century earlier. There is a trust in these images which outsiders would fail to capture. Whereas Fellini often delivered the grotesque as a punch-line or a means to shock; Affleck shows the overweight, the disabled, the down & out with the care of a guardian. Don't laugh - these people are ugly, loud and fierce - but these are my people. Bravo. There are other aspects to this film which also deserve praise. The cast is superb. The best performances occur while everyone bunkers down in the endless bitter family interactions or step rigidly into Catholic ritual. Its interesting to contrast this with Scorsese's recent Boston saga "The Departed". All things aside - Affleck manages to make you feel like you've been to Fenway. Aside of Mark Wahlberg (the genuine article) all of Scoreses' cast seemed to be "from away".

Unfortunately "Gone Baby Gone" fails. Its demise is rooted in misunderstanding the power of his home-grown knowledge. Mr. Affleck trusts editorializing. He should have stuck with his gut.. A clear illustration of this lies in a scene in which Casey and Ed Harris have a drunken heart to heart following a shooting which critically injures Harris' partner. There is a long back and forth regarding the question of action, justice and guilt. The film is a meditation on what it really means to "Do the right thing". Spike Lee's ambiguous answer at the end of his feature, quoting both a pacifist and a violent activist, matches Affleck's conflicting feelings. Putting philosophy aside and focusing on mechanics: does the long dialogue between these two good actors really make the point? Ed Harris is a great performer who is endlessly called upon to deliver the blue vein popping out of the red face rage-scream. It would have been better to play this scene in a different octave - can Mr. Harris whisper? It's too bad Mr. Affleck, along with many other directors, never tests this range. But the problems are more than tone. The audience at this point knows that Casey is guilt-ridden and looking for answers. The audience is also aware that Harris is the old hand brimming with bitterness and wisdom. We know that - we don't need to hear it. In fact hearing it undercuts these feelings - its as if lovers suddenly read Hallmark cards aloud to each-other to demonstrate affection. An actor's training slavishly drives him to the script which in an performer's mind translates to the spoken word. The first 10 minutes of this film illustrates that the two are not the same. Words can drive a stage-play but here we need more matter, less talk. Think more of Antonioni's "Blow Up" instead of Kurosawa's "High & Low" (a Japanese homage to Joe Friday?). Affleck is compromised by a script which has more twists than a pretzel and a need for plot driven exposition. Throw it all to the wind. This is Boston. There is a reason detective story's are traditionally set in cities that are loaded with psychiatrists' couch (New York, LA or San Francisco). Boston is a schizophrenic combo of old line Brahmin and gangsters - neither group prizes verbal introspection. Lonely heartfelt speeches are contrived in this setting. The Yankees might win every other year but would the fans show up if they didn't? In Boston they have proof that they do - they'll show up in droves even if they win the big one once a century. They'll also go to church no matter what they say about the Cardinal. This is about duty, history, honor - not talk. You might wonder why - but asking the question out loud? Bestiality would be more acceptable. Unfortunately "Gone Baby Gone" is an endless verbal-fest of questions peppered with plot points.

Affleck would have been better with minimal plot and a meandering meditation on Boston. Its unfortunate he didn't tackle Freedomland. This Boston drama also centered around a missing girl but it was a device to examine race relations. Unfortunately the director failed to capture the nuances of the city and the film devolved into a endless set-piece of racial characters harassing each-other. Despite its shortcomings it was a truer representation of racial issues than Affleck's work. All the teenagers who chanted "here we go Southie! here we go!" during the busing crisis of the 70s grew up and they didn't become Civil Rights lawyers at the Justice Department. The iconic image of the white blue collar worker beating a suited black attorney at Boston City Hall does not represent where things are either. But it a leap of faith to believe that a West Indian gangster would have a white thug as his #2. It is equally difficult to swallow that a blue collar Joe from the South End would reprimand someone for using "racial epithets" in his house. Com'on Ben - there are still bigots in beantown. It's not the whole story - but lets not pretend. As one of the police cadets says in the Scoreses picture : you're a black man in this town - isn't that tough enough?

This film gives Casey Affleck a vehicle. Not the road the riches but he's good enough to play with his older brother. The brother needs to keep at it. Lets hope the horrific flashbacks towards the end of the film were a studio exec trying to make things better. Ben has a clue - there are real moments in his debut. He's proved can work with actors. He didn't win this time but as a Red Sox fan he knows - there's always next year.