Margin Call (2011)

Stock Movie

“Margin Call” is a feature film that uses the 2008 financial crisis, as its main storyline. The filmmaker is faced with the daunting challenge of translating the arcane skullduggery of the securities industry into a watchable dramatic storyline. The result is an engaging, well acted, feature; no small task given the dearth of decent films about high finance.

The paradigm movie about this topic is probably Oliver Stone’s first “Wall Street”. It is ironic that the scion of a prominent banking family (his father was the “Stone” of the specialist firm Lasker Stone and Stern) would paint such a hollow portrait of the industry. Stone’s work was based on the high-flying 1980s junk bond/LBO kings. Although Michael Douglas captured the arrogance and flamboyance of the times, the industry faded into the background. It was merely stage for decadent sociopath-peacocks to strut. (In the interest of full disclosure I worked as a branch manager for a number of years at a prestigious firm) Wall Street is more complicated than Stone’s cartoon. There are good people. There are bad people. Perhaps most interestingly the industry has a way of making good people into not so good people. It’s not that they’re so bad (that would be dramatic). It’s that they’re so uncomfortably familiar. You and your friends wouldn’t do anything bad for $1,000… but what about $500,000? It’s not an area that is fertile ground for uplifting character studies. Lawyers and doctors roam the land of good and evil. That’s why we love to watch them on TV. But brokers and traders are in the purgatory of pedestrian failings… not even good or bad… just grindstone Joes and Janes trying to make one dollar into two. Whereas the professional classes have their heroes and villains, brokers and investment bankers are somewhat suspect. There are no “good” bankers or traders… just successful/unsuccesful ones.

“Margin Call” inhabits this netherworld of un-dramatic amorality by carefully undoing all the expectations established in the first half hour. The opening shows a typical Wall Street style “downsizing”. Industry outsiders would find the process appalling: your computer phone are immediately turned off while you are handed a box for personal items and escorted off the premises. The audience feels the pathos as a sympathetic soul is given the business. An industry veteran would have known that this harsh practice stems from the fact that a terminated employee could do millions of dollars of damage with a few simple key strokes. Harshness is a given and the analyst’s rage at not being able to use his phone seemed, from an insiders POV, somewhat contrived. But in the realm of storytelling, it works. Our sympathy goes out to him in equal measure to our disdain for his boss; who seems more concerned with the illness of a family pet rather than the plight of hundreds of people who’ve been terminated. One feels the dramatic stage being erected for a classic battle between a “hero” vs. the drones who inhabit “the system”. “Margin Call” might have its flaws but its ability to redraw the war makes it the first film that tackles the essence of Wall Street’s seduction. It’s not us versus them but us versus ourselves.

Kevin Spacey, who appears an archetypal heartless boss, metamorphosizes into a noble sergeant who is fighting a disgraceful war; unfortunately his allegiance is to an entity controlled by a supreme business mogul. The young risk manager who takes the reigns, Zachary Quinto, is more callow technocrat than hero analyst. One senses he might share the fate of Spacey if he has more lunches with Mr. Big; deftly played by Jeremy Irons. The management team is composed of the aggressive, heartless letter-of-the-law types who could rationalize building orphanages on top of nuclear waste dumps. Once again their awfulness is somewhat muted by the actions of the supposed “heroes”. The risk management team leader, who is terminated unjustly after exposing the crisis, falls in line with the junta. He’ll take his payoff and even sit blithely with his heretofore nemesis, Demi Moore, and wait out the storm. It’s not about exposing the truth. It’s about getting paid. In this light, with minions paid very well to do your bidding, how bad is Jeremy Irons? Even Paul Bettany, Spacey’s right hand man, loses his soul by dumping tones of worthless paper on unsuspecting buyers. But once again we are in the world of CAVEAT EMPTOR (Buyer Beware). You don’t trade with your friends – you trade with traders – who are just like you. They would do the same. Trust me they would.

The only character that failed to ring true was the young risk management analyst who makes the first cut but is eventually fired. Penn Badgley gave it his best but the character failed to rise from the crass caricature of an ambitious young yuppie. There are certainly enough horrible young people who enter the business and behave badly on and off the Street. In capturing their essence the challenge is to never pander to a sum of casual clichés. Their appalling, greedy behavior must be their own and not a sum of a widespread perception of heartlessness. But this was a small flaw in an otherwise well-drawn sketch of the business. One must admire the director’s ability to craftily deliver the complicated plot points by “dumbing down” the people in charge. Each supervisor seemed to say “give it too me straight… I’m not smart enough to understand the numbers” – this would be followed by a simple explanation of what was at stake.

It’s an interesting note that the title, “Margin Call”, was never directly explained to the audience. It is the practice of having the lender demanding collateral on a loan that was used to purchase the financial instrument. But that’s boring. “Margin Call” is more dramatic. It sacrificed authenticity for action, but all and all, it works. After a screening you might not know what caused the financial crisis of 2008; but you will look more closely at an expert who explains the situation. After all; they might be selling something. Caveat emptor.

Melancholia (2011)

Last Moments at Marienbad

Lars Von Trier has sympathy for Adolph Hitler. Most people who harbor such thoughts might think that a crucial PR press conference touting your newest film might not be the best forum to share… then again this is the same person who thought it appropriate to call his dead mother “a slut”. Her crime was to reveal a dark family secret at an inopportune time. Discovering your father is really your step-father on his deathbed certainly would shake anyone’s emotional foundation. It come as no surprise, even with these few tidbits, that Mr. Von Trier decided to make a two hour feature call “Melancholia”. It lives up to its title and some… We see not only the dissolving of a marriage – but the end of the world itself.

It was reported that Von Trier was checked into a mental hospital some time after the unfortunate press conference due to depression. So many Hollywood types feign illness to avoid responsibility but this Great Dane seems to be the genuine article. His experimental documentary, “The Five Obstructions”, shows him interacting with a mentor Jorden Leth. Von Trier seems to expand the definition of “tough love” in this work. If humiliation was a crime in Denmark the state might want to take his mentor’s side and pursue charges. Love him or hate him Von Trier’s angst is real. Unfortunately unhappiness does not a great artist make.

The opening sequences of “Melancholia” are magical: A series of still or super-slow moving images that depict moments in the unfolding saga. The director is in full control of the startling near-paintings. One can feel him adjusting the lighting, the gesture, the expression, the subtle movements… These are magnificent, jarring miniature portraits. One would wish to sit in a gallery and walk from one to the other taking in the majesty. After this we return to earth in a lighthearted sequence feature a young couple arriving at their wedding. Not surprisingly comedy is not Von Trier’s strong suit; but this vignette surprises. We come to understand the playful dynamic of the new pair. It is also a clever segue into the storyline (such as it is). It’s when the couple arrives that Von Trier begins to miss his mark.

There is something altogether disingenuous about Von Trier’s sketch. It is unbelievable in the sense that even in the context of the stylization of the film, it rings false. There are moments. The mother is the paradigm of skepticism and bitterness. She is the perfect foil to the untrustworthy, carefree father who is the embodiment of what causes the pain of unfulfilled promises and responsibilities. He is, in a sense, the true mother of the daughter’s growing unease – although everyone will blame the harsh mother. It is ironic that Von Trier, given his own personal history, would make a film that vindicates the mother. She is unlikable – but only because she has true knowledge of the world… or at least Von Trier’s world. The two sister’s difficult “burdensome caretaker vs. all giving parent” relationship is also neatly drawn.

Unfortunately these moments are overwhelmed by a lack of focus and a continual repetitive harping. The bride’s reluctant entrance to the reception hall, after arriving two hours late, certainly showed her ambivalence about the ceremony. Her fleeing the party for naps, bathroom breaks, dalliances etc… only transferred her sense of claustrophobic entrapment to the audience. We didn’t want to be there either. The choice of frenetic camerawork to highlight the nervous tension had the opposite effect of making an uncomfortable setting difficult to digest. The opposite approach, a fixed POV, would have been more suited to delivery the shallowness of social rituals. In general the performances were strong, with the exception of Keifer Sutherland, but the dialogue and flow failed to gel. All of the friends or acquaintances were merely set pieces professionally hitting their cues and marking the gradual destruction of a storybook magic castle wedding. The sisters, the father and mother were in a better film than the myriad of sketches of “a boss”, “a maitre de”, “a group of friends”…

Perhaps the overall disappointment lies in the sense that Von Trier should have done better. He is a student of film that doesn’t shy away from visual references of other noted directors. (e.g. the hedge formation on the lawn is directly drawn from Alan Renais’ “Last Year at Marienbad”) What a pity the party sequence failed to drawn on lesson’s learned from Jean Renior’s “Rules of the Game”, Robert Altman’s “A Wedding”, Michael Cimino’s sequence in the “The Deerhunter”, Jonathan Demme’s “Rachel Getting Married”… to name just a few. The lack of humor sealed the fate of this sequence. It’s not that Von Trier fails to see the comedy in the moment. It’s just that he’s not funny; or maybe he’s funny in a Chekovian way without being Chekov.
Perhaps a reversal of the 100 to 1 “seriousness to comedy” ratio would be in order. All and all the wedding seems to have defeated Mr. Von Trier.

There is nothing like a deadly doomsday planet hurtling towards the earth to give a director clarity. One senses box office gold if Von Trier had traded in his art-house shtick for disaster movies. “Meloncholia” rises above the dreariness of the wedding to come alive with the crucible of the two sisters facing the end in the golden cage of the chateaux. Von Trier is at his best with small groups in excruciating situations. The symbolism is heavy – the moon and the deadly blue planet rising above the dark and fair sisters… It was enjoyable seeing the fair/dark sister stripe down to face the deadly blue planet and rise from her stupor. The dark/fair sister’s reverse breakdown was also captivating. The inclusion of the child softened the harshness of the message of facing a world of sound and fury. It was good that Von Trier understood that children known the truth and adult’s responsibility is to play along and yet, never lie. It was a surprising insight in that the other characters seem bent on illustrating fairly mundane truth’s about adult’s ability to lie to themselves.

“Melancholia” is a savage assault on the comfortable ruling class. They join their less economically fortunate brethren in deluding themselves with pantomime plays in order to soften the blow of life’s harshness. Unlike the working class, however, the rich can afford to extend the delusion. They can pretend by delving into “Paradise Lost”, or owning a Breugal painting, or watching poetic European art house movies that make cultural references that only they would understand. The audience at the showing I attended could have acted as extras in the wedding scene. Von Trier’s Achilles heel is that his anger never rises above the small pettiness of a petulant child screaming at his parents for being “phoney”. It is no wonder he was lost in the party crowd of adults during this film. His rage is invested in a bi-polar world where “honesty is good” and “deceit is bad”. Western civilization has been struggling with the question “what is truth?” since Pilot posed it to Jesus in the Gospel of John. Albert Camus wrote a play based on the pursuit unvarnished honesty. Perhaps Von Trier should peruse “Caligula” and weigh whether he would want to live in a world of absolute “truth”. A crazed demonic tyrant would be the least of his worries. There would be the endless encounters with disagreeable egoists: such as the bride who decides to urinate on the lawn in view of the reception. Social norms are cumbersome. Unfortunately human beings lack the prelapsarian innocence of animals. A society with manners is bad. A society without manners fails to be a society.

A certain degree of tolerance of other’s delusion is the bedrock of being a healthy adult. That’s a more subtle and demanding theme. Von Trier hides behind the grandiosity of a planet called “melancholia” in seeming to make a big statement. If only he realized that his strength lies in those small vignettes at the beginning of the film. His oeuvre paints small portraits of truth. He recaptured some of that honesty when the child crawled into the make-believe stick frame hut… but he spent too much time in the overwrought stone castle banging his head against the wall and complaining about having to wear and suit and tie. The end result of this monumental earth shattered drama is the response one gives to a child on a long car trip who perpetually asks the question: are we there yet? Hold your anger. Be re-assuring and know that you were once the youngster singing the same tired song. One can only feel a degree of pity for the adults who never evolved beyond endless boredom with social norms. An artist who dedicates a two hour feature? Be re-assuring and hope his next work will be more mature.

Contagion (2011)

How to Survive the Plague and Keep Working

Steven Soderbergh is more interested in film than show business. He took the world by storm in winning the Palm d’Or in 1989 with a meditation on post college angst. His follow up? Kafka. Yep a feature about… Kafka. I am one of the few living people who sat through it on the big screen. It brought to mind the line from “Stranger Than Paradise” when one of the characters brags about seeing the latest European movie titled “Days Without Sun”. “Sex Lies and Videotape” was dark and funny. “Kafka” was dark and… dark. In defense of the director – he wasn’t looking for box office gold – and he didn’t find it. Mission accomplished.

Life presents the problem of making a living. Mr. Soderbergh has sought to balance the art vs. manna conundrum. His career has oscillated between two poles: projects that flesh out ideas of interest to a curious boy raised in an academic setting (his father was a University administrator) and projects designed to get asses in the seats. It mirrors his life experience. Rather than go to college he went to Hollywood and worked holding cue-cards for game shows. This was the crucible for a very cleverly conceived first feature. One senses he might have wanted to make “Kafka” out of the gate – but that apprenticeship on daytime TV must have made the young auteur save his bullets. Remember it’s show BUSINESS.

Sonderbergh can sell tickets when he wants to: Erin Brockovitch, Traffic, Ocean’s 11, 12, 13, The Informant!… but he can also work on his craft: Schizopolis, Full Frontal, Bubble, The Girlfriend Experience… Not sure what to make of his two part bio-pic about Che Gueuevra – this was , unlike many of his more experimental works, real money with big stars – hard to believe he would think this would bring home the tocino. Maybe Che is indirectly an inspiration for “Contagion”: a disastrous film forces the director to make a disaster film.

Contagion is Soderbergh’s first crack at this tried and true Hollywood formula for box office gold. This genre isn’t exactly an auteur’s dream. I doubt there are very many articles in Cahiers du Cinema about “The Towering Inferno” or “Deep Impact”. Previously Soderbergh has lowered himself to re-hashing film noire or road films… but this is unpretentious ca-ca. The pay off is bodies dropping; the more you scare the shit out of everyone – the better. We’re closer to “Night of the Living Dead” than “The Maltese Falcon” or “Some Came Running”. One can only imagine the teamsters on set, not to mention the producers, wondering if the kid can deliver the goods. In short – he does… sort of.

Contagion is all dressed up… with absolutely nowhere to go. The problem with this film is in the DNA of the disaster movie. There can never really be a good one. The cities burns… or doesn’t. The meteor hits… or misses. The boat sinks.. or stays afloat. The plague rages… or is contained. In between the set up for there are sundry good/bad people riding out the threat. Some die. Some live…”. The spectacle of mass Armageddon is only of interest to young audiences that are callow enough to believe this is entertaining. Older people have seen enough of the world to be more invested in the characters within the spectacle of calamity. Unfortunately the disasters always snuff out whatever hope there is of having been touched by actual human interactions. By definition a “disaster movie” prevents you from caring about the characters in the story.

The first hour of Contagion works. We see a top director working with a talented cast uncovering the nightmare. The threat looms and the actors cower. The struggles are real. Matt Damon, the decent family man, accepts loss and rises above rage to protect his daughter. Kate Winslet, the paradigm of the “good doctor”, faces off against small- minded bureaucrats and rushes to stop the spread. Laurence Fishburne faces the contumely of press coverage and struggles with the demands of his job and his role as a friend, lover and good citizen. Jude Law hits all the marks as a self-righteous, get rich quick, Internet conspirator…. It’s good stuff that gives a telling glance at contemporary political and social mores. Ironically these sketches are too good. The logic of this genre demands a less compelling group of lab rats. In great films plot and character take center stage. In disaster movies the spectacle is the thing.



Sonderbergh should have remembered “Friday the 13th” – the serial killer never reveals his face. The power of the threat lies behind that white hockey mask. In “Contagion” the disease finally lays bear its deadly secrets and “poof” the dramatic arc of the story vanishes and all that is left is a dreary waiting game. Who is going to get the dreaded sniffles? Who is going to get the magic vaccine? Which begs that eternal question which haunts everyone working in the arts: Does anyone care? Ironically, the dynamism of cast/script undercuts the last half of the film. Sonderbergh might have been able to make a really dumb movie interesting. Unfortunately he made a somewhat interesting movie tedious. Maybe the approach should have been to MERELY present a less authentic, less studious, more bombastic feature: more creepy scenes of bodies dropping, less character introspection and most important of all – don’t reveal the deadly virus’ secrets until right before the credits role… but this is a dangerous endeavor for a director who has built a career as being a reflective, alternative filmmaker.

Maybe there is heroism in trying to be deep in the shallow end of the pool. Perhaps if he had kept the virus going he might have a franchise on his hands. Then again a cynic might accuse him of pimping himself while retaining the mantel of the cool, clever director. There were snippets on the news that some health officials lauded Contagions realism – i.e. this isn’t merely entertainment – this is IMPORTANT. Let me inoculate you against any notion that this film is as healthy as spinach – it’s a chocolate bar… better than a Milky Way…. Maybe as good as Lindt…. But candy at heart. Fighting plagues and hosting revolutions are not so sweet. Failure can lead to bitterness, isolation and, even worse, a career in daytime television. Contagion plays it safe. The result is neither awful nor fantastic. Soderbergh’s career and standing are intact. The audience can cheer or cry at the protagonists brimming with greed, heroism, vanity, integrity – and leave feeling unfulfilled. Film critics might carp at what might have been. In the end Soderbergh is neither a hero nor a villain… just a filmmaker trying to make a living.

The Tree of Life (2011)

The Land of Nod

Let’s go back to the cosmic origins of Terrence Malick-the- filmmaker. In the beginning the young Malick gave us the masterpieces Badlands and Days of Heaven. These films were poetic allegories about the American experience. They achieved a resonance much larger than their thread-bare narratives would suggest and touched us in a manner that approaches the sublime: a fugitive and the young girl playing house in the forest in Badlands; a locust-fire in the wheat fields in Day of Heaven. In his first feature, Badlands, one senses the young director choosing the salacious Starkweather murders as a way of establishing broad appeal. A topic such as that would guarantee acclaim beyond the low earth orbit of film critics and art houses. His second feature, Days of Heaven, is less approachable but the sheer force of artistry dazzles us within the strict confines of the story, which is a retelling of Genesis. It is far more substantive a work to be merely a show-piece – but make no mistake – Malick wanted to impress… and he did.

But Malick’s penchant for favoring poetry over plot seemed to be gaining momentum. The Thin Red Line and The New World, his next two films, are visually arresting but seem rooted in a murky private language. They fail to reach the lushness of Days of Heaven and lack the narrative pull of Badlands. The Tree of Life brings this unfortunate movement to its apex. Not surprisingly the story, such as it is, is based on autobiography. It is as if the director has fallen so far inside himself that life-long personal demons take over the filmmaking.

One can view many over-arching themes in Malick’s work: youthful innocence searching for the garden, fraternal strife, the ever-present goddess (usually a strawberry blond)…. The Tree of Life brings us back to the genesis of Malick himself: an emotionally devastating childhood in post WWII Texas. There are few societies that reward introspective sensitive young people. The Lone Star State certainly follows this trend. Everything is big in Texas – including the clash between warm human emotions and hard driving relentless individualism. The Malick family had a casualty in the struggle: the suicide of the second son. The echo of Malick’s brother’s gun shot to the head over 50 years ago seems to be still echoing in the director’s head. Pain of this kind is cannot be quantified… but the artist has a duty to try. One would think a film about this paradigm of tragedy would be the chef d’ouerves of a visionary filmmaker of the caliber of Terrance Malick. Ironically the effort to illustrate universe- shattering pain diminished the force of the work.

Malick is at his best with an exquisitely crafted simple story with classic types: the sensitive loving mother, the brutal oppressive father, the beloved Christ-like brother. The moments, in Tree of Life, of the children interacting with the angelic mother and hard-bitten father rank with the best of his work. It is enough. The director, on the other hand, felt the need to embellish this heart-breaking story with poetic commentary and National Geographic slideshows of “creation.” It is almost as if the director was insecure about the beautiful simplicity. There is a sense that the audience would fail to feel the gravitas of the single most painful event in Malick’s life. One can hear the director shouting at his audience through classical chorus’ and flashy maudlin images – sunsets, butterflies, sunflowers, sand and surf -- including the touchstone of all cinematic clichés: flying seagulls. I suspect Malick doesn’t own or watch television. If he did he would have known that all his visual pandering had been co-opted by mainstream TV advertising 30 years ago. The closing sequence, the emotional peak of the film, was supposed to feature a transcendent display of all the characters in a heavenly afterlife. Unfortunately for Malick, modern audiences equate this sort of thing with Verizon super-bowl ads. The saddest aspect of this work is the magic of the pitch-perfect montages of family life. The genius of his spare exposition and seemingly simple moments hint at what this film might have been.

The denouement features the father figure reflecting on his own failure to recognize the treasure in his life: his sons. Brad Pitt, who appears as a fierce red-neck from a Robert Frank photo, quietly speaks to the fact that despite the blow of losing his house – he has his family. It is especially poignant as this hard-luck would-be artist fell into the trap of listening to Dale Carnegie rather than Brahms. But one doesn’t expect someone living the dark side of the American dream to have the insight to see the real road to the pursuit of happiness. As he says to his oldest son “I was hard on you and I’m not proud of it”. This “hardness” was rooted in a dogged hope of shaping everyone around him to the same sad hopeless vision. The father wanted everyone in his family to feel the desperation of his quest. His verbal barrages were designed to shape his family so they would understand the true meaning of success. The insidious nature of his father’s cruelty was blindness rooted in isolation. The man was hurting and stopped being able to see those near and dear. Such arrogance cost the father his son. I believe the same thing may have cost Malick his audience.