Review of Joker (2019)

Review of Joker

Joker Isn’t Wild 

“Violence! Violence! It’s the only thing that will make you see sense”

Mott the Hoople, Violence

“Better to be king for a night than schmuck for a lifetime”

Rupert Pupkin, The King of Comedy

“I have several children who I’m turning into killers. Wait till they grow up”

David Berkowitz, The Serial Murderer know as ‘Son of Sam’

The advertising campaign for Todd Phillips’ Joker suggests a downscale revamp of the demonic Hannibal Lector in Demme’s iconic The Silence of the Lambs. In reality this monster starts as a lamb, the wolf’s clothing follows.  The film, despite the pr blitz promoting deranged violence, is a portrait of mental illness run amok via cruelty and negligence. The gory, disturbing moments are merely garnish. The main entree is a bevy of serious social commentary touching on income inequality, gun control, government attitudes towards the underclass, the treatment of the indigent… Joker has more in common with political science than comic book fiction. And yet this seemingly “serious” movie made nearly $100 million in domestic box office receipts on its opening weekend. The reason can be summed up in two words, Joaquin Phoenix. The mesmerizing actor, this generation’s Jack Nicholson, has honed the portrayal of off-kilter madman to perfection. The track record speaks for itself, from the cruel cult leader Freddie Quell in The Master, to Joe, the loner serial assassin inYou Were Never Really Here. No matter how crazy the part, Phoenix rises. The momma’s boy, rent-a-clown, Arthur Fleck, becomes a disturbing force of chaos, the Joker.  

Physicality is the key to Phoenix’s rendering of the future Batman villain. Phillips takes a conventional approach to filming many of the violent sequences. The repose, the quiet, solo moments are this film.  One meditates on the breathlessness after the storm. The subway murders are conventional film gruel. The refuge in an abandoned bathroom, with the green florescent lights flickering, is the birthplace of the Joker. The soundtrack is inspired by Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings, the touchstone for melancholy classical music.  The cello plays a classical riff and our terrifying monster-clown rises above his lowly station. The movements evoke ballet, tango and Martha Graham as the beautiful, malevolent spirts embody the heretofore forgettable Fleck. The romantic string notes vanquish the dinginess of a life spent scribbling gibberish while playing the fool. Each arm twist and careful foot step crushes the darkness of his “real” home, a dirty tenement apartment which he shares with his elderly mother. This is someone who is going places. The goofy clown, being ignored while waving the ‘liquidation sale’ sign, is now on the path to being the silent “rock star” acknowledging the cheering throngs, while standing on the hood of a taxi. This film has a decent script and wonderful set design, but it is the dancer who makes the story move. 

Phillips’ cloaks the arc of the journey in a homage to the rough and tumble New York City of the late 70s and early 80s. Kudos to the set designers whose attention to detail brought back the ill-fitting cop uniforms, grubby green diesel buses and graffiti covered subways and side streets. It harkens back to Martin Scorsese’s seminal Taxi Driver, where a psychotic  loner also becomes infatuated with gun violence as a vehicle for recognition. The films also share protagonists fantasizing about public acts of violence to bolster their manhood in addition to make-believe girlfriends. 

There are numerous moments when Phoenix metaphorically acts out DeNiro’s infamous clarion call for all disaffected, macho, incels:  “you talking to me?”  Joker is also tied to another DeNiro/ Scorsese collaboration,The King of Comedy. Both films feature misanthropes, who fancy themselves as stand-up comics, whose path leads them to fixate on beloved talk show icons. Ironically Deniro, in this incarnation, plays the host himself, rather than the antagonist. His character, Murray Franklin delivers a marvelous performance that recreates the avuncular New York talk show legend, Joe Franklin. The Joker himself is hiding from a cop who bears a remarkable resemblance to Detective Sipowicz from the 90s cop drama NYPD Blue. Adding to the list of the never-ending Big Apple references is the seminal crime the Joker commits. It is a mirror recreation of an actual 1984 subway shooting that rocked the city and spurred a furious debate about vigilantism vs. heroism.  In the Bernie Goetz incident four underclass African Americans were wounded by a white working class businessman. Joker turns the tables and targets three yuppie Wall Streeters. This overt act of terrorism against the rich certainly bears down on actual current events where the income divide is a central issue in Presidential politics.  Entertainment juggernauts are even more wary than mainstream corporations in their interest in being seen as taking sides. No doubt Warner Brothers took note of Phillips’ story choices. 

The Batman storyline is clear regarding the rich pedigree of its heroes. Batman’s father, Thomas Wayne, figures prominently in Joker. He is a wealthy businessman whose bid to be Gotham City’s mayor is rooted in demonizing the poor and restoring “order”. The Joker and his young son Bruce, the future caped crusader, face-off through the wrought iron gates of his mansion. Thomas, a caricature a self-entitled blue bloods, is detestable.

Unfortunately for the director, lionization of the Joker himself creates problems for the Batman franchise. The larger storyline clearly paints this character as an unredeemable villain. Warner Brothers stepped in and forced an ending to the film which clearly shows justice has been served; or at least evil has been contained. The previous scene, which I believe to be Phillips’ choice of the ending, neatly mirrors the opening sequence and fits into the triumphal arc of the storyline: the Joker has risen and is uncontainable. The “corporate” ending inoculates Warner Brothers from the accusation of glorifying a psychopathic killer. But their efforts didn’t stop there as the spin machine created a false public dialogue regarding the appropriateness of the Joker as a character. One suspects the hand of a publicity machine at work as It Chapter Two, a sequel in a slasher/horror film featuring a bloodthirsty clown, opened the month before with no debate about deranged funny men. The corporate flack diverted the public discourse to the tired hobby-horse of “violence in movies” rather than killing the rich. Obviously it isn’t the gore but the direction of the bloodlust that sparks concern for those in charge. Vengeance against the 1% is an untenable storyline for a Warner Brothers’ product. The concerns about the Batman brand and the companies reputation led to muddled choices, marring the director’s vision that go beyond the contradictory endings. Why is the vengeful mob carrying “resist” signs? Is the Joker a leader of a movement with legitimate grievances? Should he be free to be a rightful avenger? Or does that moniker link him too closely with Batman, the dark knight?

Phillips is clear that his Joker begins as a sympathetic bully betrayed by the system and his family. His initial moments of violence, although unjustified, are linked to betrayal or, in the case of the yuppie subway trio, chivalry morphing into self-defense. The director carefully omits gratuitous gore that would overtly turn the audience against the misguided clown. The fate of the “girlfriend” and her young child is never revealed. Unfortunately the empowerment of violence becomes an end in itself. Phillips never ventures into the realm of seeing the Joker aligning with others. This is a solitary figure without an agenda beyond feeling happy for the next 5 minutes. He feels genuine surprise that anyone thinks he matters. This is the stuff of lotto winners, not arch villains. It would be a leap of faith to believe the character in this film could successfully recruit others in any sort of organized endeavor, a trajectory clearly marked by established Batman history.  This is the portrait of a mascot, not a mastermind. 

The framework of this character was never built  for the weight of serious discourse. The studio’s lackluster artistic support didn’t help. Despite all this, Joker has glimmers of brilliance.  Unfortunately even its strongest attribute becomes an Achilles heal. There can be too much of a good thing. Phoenix is masterful, but how many times do we have to hear that unnatural, natural laugh? It is as if the director, overburdened by decisions about his hero, left the perplexing question of humor to hang over the audience. What is funny? How much does our fascination concern the gallows, rather than the gallows humor.  It is reported that many audience members attended Lenny Bruce performances to watch an arrest. Do we share in this dubious attribute when we read news stories for sickening carnage? Kudos to Phillips trying to make a larger statement of “what is happening is not funny”. He’s right. In the words of his hero: “She (the Joker’s  mother) told me I had a purpose to bring laughter and joy to the world”. This is spoken before the cringeworthy stand-up routines in which he violates the cardinal rule of comedy: he takes out a notebook and READS his jokes. This is the awkward voice of every disenfranchised mass shooter. The general unkindness of the world morphs into personal grievance. The solitary torture of these lonely souls knows no place of solace in our time since caring communities are the only known cure. Instead the offer on hand is a suggestion of compassion. The heartless underfunded bureaucracy of social workers bulldoze through “clients” as prominent members of society repeat bromides about self reliance and taking responsibility. This is a formula that turns meek clowns into mass killing cult leaders. In a world such as this the only cure is the coming of a caped crusader. Time to flash the bat-symbol in the sky. This goes beyond Gotham. The joke is on us. 

Review of You Were Never Really Here (2018)

REVIEW OF YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE

IF I HAD A HAMMER

“The only thing power respects, is power”

- Malcolm X

“Our fathers have painfully lost their way”

― Donovan, from the song “Susan on the West Coast Waiting”

Lynne Ramsay did something extraordinary. She mixed all the ingredients of an obvious blockbuster and produced a bomb. This film is a thriller, starring one of the most prominent actors of our time, chockablock with all manner of lurid, audience-grabbing violent spectacle. The box-office for the American theatrical release strangely aped the title, You Were Never Never Really Here. Ironically the strength of her abilities as a filmmaker will see this contemporary commercial debacle evolve into a cult classic.

All expectations in this genre were abandoned. She twinned Norman Bates from Psycho with Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver and placed them in a Hieronymus Bosch diorama. It is a stark world which oscillates from abstract, dark, extreme close ups to exquisitely rendered tableaus. The threadbare storyline is informed by snippets of non-sequential flashbacks. The most extreme moments of violence are seen through the deadpan view of security cameras. Unfortunately the trailer promoted a commonplace action drama, riddle with gore and suggesting a taught storyline. The audience was sold a boxing match and witnessed a ballet.

The tension in the first twenty minutes of You Were Never Really Here is spawned by an uncomfortable feeling of witnessing bad things as a bystander. The claustrophobic close ups turn the audience member into a perplexed eyewitness rather than a passive viewer. What are we to make of the burning of the photograph of the child? Who is the distraught bearded protagonist? (Joaquin Phoenix as Joe). Why is he in this dingy hotel in the Mid West? When he dispatches a mugger in a dark alley it brings to mind the avengers from the 1970s, echoes of Dirty Harry & Deathwish, but with a more psychotic dimension. The root of his demons is revealed. We arrive in the daylight of New York. His solidly middle class elderly mother is the key to the mystery. This genuinely loving relationship is peppered with him secretly engaging in self-asphyxiation in moments of repose. According to opaque flashbacks this is his personal antidote to the terrifying domestic violence of his youth, which has corroded the man. He failed to protect his mother years ago, but he has certainly made up for the physical deficits of being a child. One images the father has been metaphorical killed many times over in acts of vigilantism or targeting “Charlie” during his stint in the military. His domestic world is a dichotomy of saccharine family tenderness and grim acts of violence and self destruction. Such a person must turn to a vocation that is based not on money or standing, but a compulsion to right a wrong. The focus of his professional life is to rescue the most vulnerable, exploited class in our society: young girls who have been sold into the sex trade.

Joe frees child hostages abducted by pedophile rings. Think of the premise of the films series Taken but with Scorsese’ unhinged taxi driver instead of Liam Nielsen’s button down, white collar CIA operative. This avenger is an amalgamation of brute force born of raw emotion, rather than a purveyor of sophisticated spy techniques. You give him a picture and an address and he will bash his way into getting your the children. His weapon of choice is a ball-peen hammer. This tool is designed to smash metal but it does a very good job of crushing skulls and breaking bones. His one true friend, a fixer lawyer whom he might have met in the service, makes the arrangements. The rest unfolds as a calculated set piece. Anything that gets in his way receives a physical blow or a verbal lashing. This grim routine is upended when a mission to free an angelic blond child triggers a political scandal. The powers that be, like our avenging angel, have zero tolerance for missteps. Joe and his world must be terminated. The bulk of You Were Never Really Here’s narrative is consumed by this particular battle between the evil, all powerful, ruling male elite and our troubled lone wolf righter of wrongs.

The genius of this film lies in Ramsay making you believe the unbelievable. This angry deranged vet takes on an army of police and yet the absurdity of the story is never an issue. The film works as the director’s artistry in pulling the plot along with just the right amount of obscure flashback, clever daring-do and counterintuitive staging. Whereas a lesser director would highlight the fight scene with accented choreography and special effects, Ramsay gives us the terror of a silent CVT camera. There isn’t time to consider realism. We are caught in Ramsay’s world which showcases Joe’s prison of righteousness. One of the compelling elements of his character is the knowledge that most people are soldiers and not generals. Typically in this genre the protagonist exacts unspeakable revenge on hapless bit players. Joe is all business and channels all emotion to the task at hand. Nowhere is this more clear than when he confronts the agents who have taken the life of the person closest to him. Rather than an extended scene of torture (think Hannibal Lector engaging in cannibalism) Joe divvies-out a pain-killer while asking for information. It ends with the two lying on the floor singing a duet of a pop song which is playing in the background on the radio. Such is the demise of the foot soldiers in the battle of good and evil. Personal vengeance is a luxury reserved for the ruling class.

As grim as the setting can be there are numerous moments of tenderness. Ramsay reinterprets the canonical death scene of the woman under water from Night of the Hunter in a moving sequence where Joe buries the person most dear to him. You Were Never Really Here is filled with numerous extreme close ups that linger, rendering it a re-action movie, rather than action drama. The denouement comes when our hero rediscovers his charge. Unfortunately his baby has, metaphorically, grown up.

Joe’s mission in avenging the innocent is to safeguard their goodness. He fails. He contemplates the path of all true believers in complete despair. He demands perfection in others and it would be a sin to hold himself to a different standard. His associates are judged harshly: the gun runner who is late for an appointment is knocked unconscious; the trusted liaison defies a direct order and allows his child to see Joe’s face and is therefore banished forever. So what can we expect when his beloved charge follows his path of brutality? It is HIS fault. He has accidentally spawned a spiritual progeny, rather than a saintly child. All is not lost however as this silent young girl tames the beast. They are extremely damaged and no doubt face a lifetime of emotional torture, but they are together. Two blood soaked innocents joined as father and daughter. Their past might be exorcised with the hard work of being a family. Sex slaves are liberated. Oppressors are vanished. Guardians prevail. In the end they might ask the question: were we ever really there? That suggests a happy ending.

The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf

"I can calculate the movement of the stars, but not the madness of men" - Isaac Newton, commenting on the 18th century ‘South Sea Bubble’ financial disaster. Later revealed he had invested and lost money.


Martin Scorsese’s “The Wolf of Wall Street” brought to mind some dialogue from a 1954 film noir movie:

Criminal: Now you listen to me cop I pay your salary.
Sgt. Friday: Alright sit down. I’m gonna earn it.
Criminal: You already have... the kinda money you make... what do they pay you to carry that badge around? 40 cents an hour?
Sgt. Friday: (quiet rage) You sit down!
The criminal sits.
Sgt. Friday: (sternly) That badge pays $464 a month. That’s what the job’s worth. I knew it when I hired on. $67.40 comes out for withholding. I give $27.84 for pension and $12 bucks for widows and orphans. That leaves me $356.76. That badge is worth $1.82 an hour. So mister you just settle back in that chair cause I’m gonna blow about 20 bucks of it right now.

This snippet from the decades old, forgettable, 88 minute “Dragnet” movie, has more heart than the three hours of Scorsese bacchanal. These two films might seem unrelated as they are different genres made in different eras. Actually they are both comic book examinations of professions; the former police work, the latter banking. The 1950s sketch of life in the LAPD is well crafted and gives a fun simulacrum of detective work. Scorsese's film is a badly executed hollow portrait of awful person which bares little resemblance to the financial services industry.  The success of the kitsch police thriller is simple. Sgt. Friday is entertaining. His pithy no-nonsense staccato verbal quips ooze the righteousness of someone who fails to be ruled by the dollar. Jordan Belfort, the central protagonist of “The Wolf of Wall Street, is a dreary money grabber who secretes a potent mixture of self-pity and arrogance. Note to Scorsese: good cartoon characters are good; bad cartoon characters are good; but pathetic cartoon characters are pathetic.

All hope that the director was going to create a realistic commentary on our current financial system evaporated in the first moments of Belfort’s appearance on Wall Street.  His boss takes the novice employee, played by Leonardo Dicaprio, to lunch at a high end restaurant on top of the World Trade Center on his first day on the job. (Full disclosure: I worked on Wall Street and was familiar with his boss).  I find this account of events to be unbelievable; but not as outlandish as what follows. This meal supposedly included bouts of cocaine sniffing and lengthy advice on masterbation, virility and ‘how to fleece clients’. Matthew McConaughey’s performance as the boss might have been recreated by any number of eighth grade drama students who were given the following instructions: DRUG ADDICT /WALL STREET MONEY GUY. At this point Belfort is an earnest teetotaler as the evil demons have yet to work their black magic.  This magic seems to have affected all the patrons of the restaurant because they fail to react as McConaughey leads Dicaprio in a chest pounding incantation that includes making gorilla snorts. Guess the crowd was used to it as McConaughey is a regular lunch customer. The only time I personally knew brokers to take long lunches was either to attend financial presentations or entertain clients; neither of which were daily occurrences. The essence of being a broker, especially in the days before cell phones, is to be chained to your desk while the market is open in order to facilitate customer orders. This garish caricature of Wall Street continues after our hero is laid off following the 1987 crash. His new gig was located in a low end strip mall on Long Island.  This ‘first day’ is even more implausible than his previous debut.  He picks up his phone for his very first sales call to at complete stranger and lands an enormous order. His co-workers fall silent. One of them exclaims: “How did you do that?!!!“ Maybe “so that’s why they call you Superman!” would have been more appropriate.

The most offensive dimension of these scenes is the portrayal of Belfort as a Horatio Alger-like innocent being led astray by the evil Wall Streeters. His post-crash job transition is portrayed as a natural step for someone who had secured a brokerage license and needed to continue to work in financial services.  There is a scene where he considers bringing his talent to another industry but his wife convinces him that Wall Street is where he belongs. To be clear: a decision to transition from a ‘legitimate’ brokerage apprenticeship to working in a penny stock ‘boiler room’ is the equivalent of a mainstream actor deciding to abandon broadway for pornography. Such an individual would probably know the difference between the two worlds and understand that joining one severely limits one’s chances of rejoining the other.  It is doubtful that the ‘real’ Belfort explained this to his doting wife who might have seen his penny stock career in a different light.

The film is based on Belfort’s story as portrayed in his best selling autobiography “Catching the Wolf of Wall Street”. Scorsese is impervious to any notion that the master con man is being disingenuous. Perhaps the fact that this was written while our hero was behind bars for fraud, amongst other felonies, might have given the director pause. It’s difficult to divine the Scorsese vision for this film. Current news is a grist-mill for dramatic material about Wall Street. The morning after seeing the film the following headline was in the New York Times: “Academics Who Defend Wall St. Reap Reward” - about professors hiding pro-business funding for their pro-business research. Incidentally the week before it was revealed that Warren Buffett made $25,000 a minute in 2013. Incidentally the academics yearlong toil, worth maybe four minutes of Mr. Buffett’s time, is paid via a salary rather than from investment returns. This means the teachers, and other working people, pay double the income tax rate as billionaires such as Buffett.  Despite the myriad of outrageous inequities, Mr. Scorsese feels a circus film about an unsympathetic clown is an intelligent way to showcase the shortcomings of Wall Street.

The director requires three hours to tell Belfort’s ponderous story. Early on we are treated to our hero snorting cocaine from the anus of a call girl before greeting his first wife who is patiently waiting at home. Much of the remaining two and a half hours oscillates between variations on the anus snort and passionate sales pitches. Once again kudos to Leonardo as his adrenaline filled rants, whether he was pushing stocks, downing whisky, hitting his wife.... were altogether convincing. A full third of this film is made up of the sales monologues.  The best salesman I ever knew was the fuller brush man who visited our house every month when I was a child. He sold various soaps and brushes. Dramatically speaking he would have been a more interesting subject which, in turn, should give a strong indication as to the weakness of the theatrical backbone of this movie. As a twelve year old the drug and sex orgies might have had some appeal. As a middle aged movie goer these carnal flashes have the sustaining power of fiery car crashes or exploding buildings. Despite being saddled with playing this absurd character, Leonardo manages to deliver moments of brilliance. There is a scene in the lobby of a waspy country club where he summons the seemingly lost art of physical slapstick comedy. He mimicks the effects on the human body after downing a handful of quaaludes. One felt transported back to the golden era of silent films where body movement was paramount. Scorsese himself, despite his fateful decision to bring this film to life, has some interesting moments. Noone outdoes this director in capturing the swagger of outcast, underclass New York dudes; think of the men featured in “Mean Streets” and “Goodfellas”. They are repulsive losers and yet there is a strange dignity that keeps the audience glued to every donut chomp and insipid comment. In addition he expanded his brilliant voice over exposition, which often includes a freeze frames, to include Belfort actually speaking directly to the audience. (A nod to ‘House of Cards’?)  The supporting cast managed to outshine the big name stars.  Every fat roll of Jonah Hill exudes a feckless perversion that leads the audiences to wonder what will come out when he reaches for his pockets: a crackpipe? a pen? his penis? Margot Robbie shines as the second wife. Her blond locks boldly proclaiming, this has nothing to do with Farah Fawcett - it’s a classy hairdo. The ‘Lawng Iwland’ accent was pitch perfect evoking the brassy sparkle of McMansions whose interiors evoke Versailles via Ralph Lauren. Another highpoint amidst the drawn-out sex and screaming is the taciturn FBI man Kyle Chandler.  He brings a steely calm to all the endless visual indigestion.  Unfortunately Scorsese ends the film with a odd but revealing sequence. The hero G-man, who flaunts his proud working man credentials, seems overcome with the dinginess of his subway commute. Meanwhile our hero is out of prison and racking up money with his newest venture “Straight Line Persuasion System”, a course on training salesmen. Chandler’s melancholy is rooted in the injustice of life. The director seems to forget that our FBI man is an exalted untouchable in a world of mammon.

Having the G-man feel his life’s work unrewarding compared to Belfort’s material riches shows the intellectual dishonesty of the story. Scorsese has always had a dark vision - probably best illustrated in his cameo as the misogynistic passenger in Taxi Driver who verbally fantasizes about butchering his wife. “The Wolf of Wall Street” shows that he’s finally crossed Kurtz’s line of sanity. What is the audience to make of the endless minuscule documentation of Belfort’s debauchery?; or the never-ending sequences of frenzied speeches to the duped customers/employees? Belfort is the master persuader and perhaps his most prized victim is Scorsese himself. The master salesman fooled the master film director into giving him a starring role. The truth is that the lead protagonist is merely a grotesque worth documenting in a footnote about fringe excess. The real villains are the operators who successfully integrate themselves into polite society. People such as Ken Starr the notorious Ponzi schemer who targeted celebrity clients; including MARTIN SCORSESE. Such figures are nowhere to be found in “The Wolf of Wall Street”. It is hard to know how much Scorsese personally lost in his dealings with Starr but it is interesting that he would decide to focus his artistic gaze on Jordan Belfort. Unfortunately  the choice is rooted in the “madness” of anger. It is easy to understand the rage of being taken by a slick suited Wall Street con man. It is also understandable that discussing the fact that real wages haven’t risen in the US since the 1970s might not appear as dramatic red meat. Ironically the fury of our current political divide rests in the bedrock of this income inequality. Scorsese overwrought need to definitively nail this towering bad guy is a personal revenge statement rather than a universal story. “The Wolf of Wall Street” fails to give answers to the raging crowds of Tea Partiers or 99 percenters. The lack real insight into our current centralization of wealth makes this film a private artist statement that has little resonance. Mr. Scorsese self righteously points the finger at this monster while the far more pernicious attitudes are unchallenged. Four years on from the 2008 financial crisis there have been no substantive reforms to address the concentration of wealth and power in our financial institutions.  To quote former labor secretary Robert Reich repeating Justice Brandeis: “We can either have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both.”  A vast majority of people are feeling immobility rooted in economic stagnation while a select few enjoy exponential financial success. Jordan Belfort is a ridiculous sideshow. A charismatic hustler who happened to land in the financial sector rather than health care (Richard M. Scrushy, HealthSouth Corp), energy production (Jeffrey Skilling, Enron) or media (Robert Maxwell, Mirror Group).  Their stories might hint at institutional trouble, but it always becomes about the specific brand of sociopathology. In short, good businessmen are alike; crooked businessmen are crooked in their own fashion. Conflating the individual with the vast behemoth of the industry might lead to the wrong conclusions about a remedy. Wall Street’s problems are not rooted in hookers and quaaludes.

The post movie Belfort is currently hawking his “Straight Line Persuasion System”. This training advice kit for salesman has a website (http://usa.jordanbelfort.com/) which asks the question: Can You Really Use The Wolf of Wall Street’s Sales Tactics to Ethically Persuade People And Make Money? (His emphasis) He is also shopping a reality TV show featuring himself. Belfort makes me crave the comic book villains of yesteryear who were less pathologically tiresome. Creeps who didn’t turn their depraved egocentric criminality into another business. As Scorsese shows these people can get under your skin and into your head. Even the FBI man wondered if he wasn’t stupid for simply cashing in and not worrying. If they can get to Chandler and Scorsese... are we all next? Where have you gone Joe Friday, our nation turns it’s lonely eyes to you. Perhaps Jack Webb could be hologrammed into this years coming Oscar ceremony. He could approach the microphone in a simple. ill-fitting, off-the-rack tuxedo. “Thank you members of the Academy. I wasn’t the most famous actor or the best paid... but I wouldn’t trade places with a movie mogul or a superstar. I tried to do my job well. I got paid fairly. I looked out for the other guy... it might seem corny but.... (pause, clears his throat)  And this years Oscar for missing an important opportunity: Martin Scorsese, director, “The Wolf of Wall Street”.

The Age of Innocence (1993)

The Age of Slumber

   
   
     The paradigm Martin Scorsese fiction film is a beautifully stylized work which features violent, street-wise New York life. (e.g. Mean Streets, Raging Bull, Taxi Driver and Goodfellas). He has strayed from this motif with varied results. Certainly Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore was artistically successful. After Hours, The Color of Money and Cape Fear were plagued with problems. New York, New York, The King of Comedy and The Last Temptation of Christ were problems. Mr. Scorsese has, once again, trained his eye on New York. This time it is the genteel upper class world of the 19th century. Choosing to adapt Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence is his most radical thematic departure since he told the story of Christ. One could argue this is even more bold because of the lack of violence.

    Edith Wharton writes about the duplicity of polite society. The central protagonist in her novel is a young lawyer who knows the rules. His professional insights are not as significant as his social prowess. He knows how to play the game outside of the office. He lives in a world of men to whom work is merely a sport. They are beyond caring about money. The huddled masses are light years away. In this framework his social skills are survival tools which he has mastered. No gesture goes unregistered. No slight unnoticed. This young man falls victim to the velvet glove brutality he is expert at overcoming. Mr. Scorsese movie is about props (i.e. white gloves, waistcoats, earrings, ball gowns, cigar cutters, oil paintings and food and food and food…) and customs (i.e.greetings, bows, table arrangements, dances, music, expressions…). Mr. Scorsese deserves credit for the research. The homework must have been exhausting. He realistically re-created the ethos of 19th century New York. The task at hand, however, was to translate Ms. Wharton's words to the screen. Mr. Scorsese forgot the assignment and he became a filmic Liberace: everything was showy but nothing was in context. The scenery cannibalized the scene. The performers and the thrust of Ms. Wharton's novel lingered in the background. Appearances are everything in fashion but fiction features require more than a facade.

    It is hard to imagine that the same director who devised the brilliant narration of Goodfellas could allow the intrusive voice over which permeates The Age of Innocence. Mr. Scorsese was meant to bring life to Ms. Wharton's words. Instead he chose to have them read by Joanne Woodward. Ms. Woodward can read. Ms. Wharton can write. Mr. Scorsese should have directed. The narration indicates countless emotions which needed to be enacted. A small example is a moment when the Countess crosses the room to talk to the protagonist. As she walks towards him the narration dutifully indicates she is committing a social faux-pas. This might seem trivial but it underscores the central flaw in the film. It would be difficult to discern that any grievance had occurred by simply watching the action. Mr. Scorsese seems to believe that since these people were discreet and subtle there is no way to convey the sense of the scene without Ms. Woodward's play-by-play. Since the crux of the novel hinges on the delicate balance between societal perceptions of events vs. the actual reality of what is occurring, this choice is fatal. It leads to Ms. Woodward's intrusive explanations of what all the protagonists are feeling in the course of the climatic final dinner party. It begs the question: if Ms. Woodward reading of the words is such an integral part of understanding the film why not simply read Ms. Wharton's book?

    Other movies have demonstrated that it is possible to portray the sub-text of a scene without resorting to the vulgar use of voice-over. John Huston's The Dead, based on the James Joyce's short story, is a case in point. This film also contains a dinner party in which people are interacting on a myriad of levels. The scene shows the party and yet it told many other stories. It lacked narration. Including it would have been a needless intrusion. The director worked with the performers and created an ensemble piece which clearly delineated the sub-text. This dinner party enacted the reality of Mr. Joyce's words. Mr. Scorsese chose to indicate what was occurring in Ms. Wharton's book. Adding insult to injury was the choice of Ms. Woodward as narrator. She is a talented reader but the story is told from a man's point of view. It is true that Ms. Wharton was a woman but the sex of the author is irrelevant when compared to the gender of the central protagonist. The all-knowing female voice was a peculiar distraction in interpreting the thoughts of the young man. It became yet another reason to disregard first hand perceptions of events presented and focus on what the omnipresent narrator was instructing the audience to feel.

    The central performers added to the need to seek outside opinions in determining the nature of the film. All three leading players were flawed. Michelle Pfeiffer is an American born European Countess who feels alienated upon returning home after many years. Unfortunately those many years in Europe failed to leave any residue. Ms. Pfeiffer seemed more American than Daniel Day Lewis, the supposedly All-American exemplar of old world New York. Mirages of modern day California appeared whenever she uttered a word. The combination of the two was awkward and unconvincing from the moment they met at the theater during opening sequence. She boldly holds out her hand for him to kiss and he merely shakes it. Is he trying to instruct her on American etiquette? Is he re-kindling a past romance?  Is he suddenly struck by cupid's arrow? It is difficult to know. This confusion only increased as the film progressed. Was he dutifully supporting his wife or was he willfully a part of the world which conspired against his true love? In the end is he a pathetic weakling who was duped into remaining married or a man upholding tradition as a religion? Mr. Lewis's sphinxlike performance leaves no clues. He and Ms. Pfeiffer are talented performers who exhibit many skillfully executed moments of passion/hate/warmth/love. Neither, however, could convince an audience that they were together in spirit. These were two mis-cast virtuosos not a desperate love-struck couple. The third part was the most challenging. It required a ingenious blending of callow innocence and ruthless cunning. Winona Ryder was not up to the task. She wallowed in the basics. She never reached beyond mastering the manner of the age. In a sense she embodied Scorsese whole approach to the novel. A true rendering of Ms. Wharton's complex antagonist required more than speaking without contractions and handling the props properly. An audience must know that this smiling waif has the will and cunning to massacre the innocents. Ms. Ryder only proved that she could recite her lines with a minimum degree of unpleasantness. 

    Mr. Scorsese had the same ill-luck with the implementation of special effects. Raging Bull and Goodfellas take full advantage of the film medium. The fades, freeze frames, tints, colors, shading, dissolves, textures, framing, sound… all worked beautifully in rendering the stories. The special effects in The Age of Innocence were self-conscious distractions. A notable example would be Daniel Day Lewis's entrance into the ballroom. The camera was placed on a steady-cam and swirled hysterically over all the lavishness as Mr. Lewis mingled with the guests and Mrs. Woodward's droned on explaining the action. It was as if Mr. Scorsese felt the endless photographic roamings over all the extravagance would shed light on Mr. Lewis's disposition. Compare this to Ray Liota's arrival at the Coppa Cabana in Goodfellas. Here is essentially the same scene, the initial moments of an important social function rendered with the use of a steady-cam.  Mr. Loita's entrance, however, told the audience his relationship to that world: the endless stream of people greeting him and clamoring to shake his hand while knowing his first name… The steady-cam gave the sense of excitement and power to his movement thus re-enforcing the underlying thrust of the scene. Mr. Lewis' arrival, on the other hand, only told the audience that the host for the evenings entertainment had expensive taste in art and a large exquisitely furnished house. Little of Lewis's standing or attitude could be gleaned from the entrance. The same lack of artistry was shown in the vignetting and highlighting of characters in the midst of important discussions. When Mr. Lewis seeks out Ms. Pfeiffer at the opera they are magically highlighted and all the other voices are silenced. By separating them from the rest of the crowd, i.e. the society, Scorsese fights the central focus of the novel which is how society digests their clandestine love. Their struggle would be better served if the couple was placed in the midst of the group where they would be forced to show the nature of the conflict. The ramifications of the consequences of their actions would be better understood. It is not their love which is intriguing but how the society reacts to it. Society must be given equal weight (e.g. Huston's The Dead). Separating and highlighting, by whatever means, should never have been employed in the telling of this story. The other two techniques which were used, fading to primary colors and presenting mini-montages (e.g. when people responded by letter declining the party), seemed contrived. There were a few moments when Mr. Scorsese showed that he possesses a master's control of the medium (e.g. the camera choreography and editing in the opening scene) but these were pearls in a very, very large desert.

    This is a long, long movie by someone who must know better. What is behind this behemoth? There are rumors that Mr. Scorsese has been incensed by his perennial snubbing by the geniuses at the Academy. The success of the Merchant Ivory formula must have hit home. Ironically the thinking is  sound. He might walk away with a best-director trophy for one of his worst films. Elite societies reward those who play by its rules. Certainly Edith Wharton knew that to be true. It would be curious to know if she would applaud or smile wryly if Mr. Scorsese secured the award. Judging by her writing one would have to say the latter.

Shutter Island (2010)

Not Spellbound

Martin Scorsese was 3 years old when Hitchcock released his psychological thriller “Spellbound”; choc-a-bloc with Freudian dreamscapes with Salvador Dali art direction. The same year one of the first Technicolor noir films,“Leave Her to Heaven”, featured Gene Tierney drowning her character’s husband’s paraplegic brother in a lake. Two years later Richard Widmark made his debut in “Kiss of Death” by guffawing while pushing an old wheelchair-bound biddy down a flight of stairs. When Scorsese turned 18 Hitchcock gave birth to Norman and his dear mother. Two years later Robert Mitchum would terrorize the upstanding Gregory Peck and his virtuous family in “Cape Fear”. Scorsese was so moved by the psychotic jailbird that he had Robert DeNiro reprise him in his remake nearly 30 years latter. Scorsese spent his youth devouring these and a slew of other dark movie classics centered on tormented, psychologically damaged, people struggling with the world. His childhood viewing would have an impact in his later work in addition to “Cape Fear”. One senses that the goodfellas in the mean streets would be very much at home being in “Public Enemy”; There is a raging bull in every “Scarface”.

What’s an old director to do? He’s finally got his statue with “The Departed”. There is an irony in being awarded “best director” for one of your lesser works (does this film compare to “Raging Bull”, “Goodfellas”, “Taxidriver”?) – but after so many years of being snubbed; it’s well deserved. But now that you’re a cultural icon, a popular success, lauded by your peers…. how do you avoid becoming irrelevant? It’s easy for someone born three years after “Gone with the Wind” to feel ill at ease in a world of iPhones; especially when you have made your name being one of the top feature film directors. It would be very dangerous to try and compete with the present. Do what you know: return to the past.: not “The Age of Innocence” but YOUR age of innocence: those Film Noir years when televisions were props in Sci-Fi movies or trinkets in exclusive homes. Bring it back and show everyone that past is prologue. However mesmerizing and dizzying our present world seems – nothing can compete with the timeless verities of well - crafted demons. This old man will scare you just as much anything on Grand Theft Auto or “Avatar”.

The only episode of Saturday Night Live not available for re-broadcast is Milton Berle’s 1979 appearance. This is especially significant since other hosts were banned from re-appearing but their original shows have been grinding through syndication for years. Berle earned the extraordinary banishment for making the hippest show on Television seem “old fashioned”. Mr. Television of the 1950s needed to be excommunicated by the young Turks who’d taken over the medium. We need to underline the fact that this is NOT your father’s Oldsmobile. The cardinal sin in cutting edge entertainment extends beyond merely being bad: it’s being old, stale AND BAD. No doubt Scorsese, a show business vet, knows the horrific scorn of appearing “old news”. “Shutter Island” is a bid to dispel any hints of being long in the tooth. It’s ironic to break out the old, to establish yourself as new – but like his “best director” Oscar shows – the world is filled with irony.

“Shutter Island” doesn’t work. Despite box office success this is a jumbled grandiose mess with enough craftsmanship to make the 2 hours pass moderately quickly. Mr. Scorsese, the master of small thugs in big worlds, tries to master the big world. This film touches on crime, punishment, Freud, the holocaust, justice, eternal love, revenge…. If you thought Scorsese had bitten off too much in “The Last Temptation of Christ” you’re eyes will roll when you see the first flash-back of Dachau. One wonders if Scorsese had seen episodes of the current entertainment industry Island fixation, “Lost”. That show does a marvelous job of keeping everyone in the audience, and on the island, guessing. In Scorsese’s Island the mood is more ponderous. Is not so much “what is going on?” but “what the hell is this?”. A serious parody/tribute? A stylized commentary? A meditation on old time movies? The justice system? Contemporary America’s anger towards the mentally ill? Maybe all. Maybe none. But the overarching question becomes: who cares? Not me. I’m glad he’s doing well financially. I’m happy he’s able to attract top rate talent but, judging by this work, his time has past.

Unfortunately one might think that “I didn’t get it”. Well let’s just say that I felt that I could have rented myself out to many groups of perplexed audience members as a guide to the action. I have no special talent – I’d say, judging by the mystified chatter, that 1 out of 6 people could actually follow the plot – not that this ability is the “end all” in movie appreciation. I still don’t know what happens in the last 1/5 of “2001” – but like the film. No, this is a more basic failure. “Shutter Island” is all dressed up – with absolutely nowhere to go. The endless music swells, superb acting, wonderful set design fail to mask that this pudding “lacks a theme”; or maybe it’s the potpourri of themes: The parallels between the protagonist’s crime and the perceived wrongdoing of others; the links between the Nazis in his mind and the actions of 1950s psychiatry; the line between cop and criminal – yep… check, check, check…. Ahhhhh what a bore it all is – I’m actually looking forward to one of Scoresese’ contemporaries newest production. Yeah I know he’s a rapist – but as someone who actually experienced the holocaust he’s smart enough not to drag it into a B movie. It used to be that when Scorsese asked the question “You talkin’ to me?”. It produced a shutter – now it’s just polite nod. Yep.