Review of 1917 (2020)

Review of 1917

A Good Film of the Great War

“I believe that perfection handicaps cinema”

Jean Renoir, director of La Grande Illusion

“The hero is commonly the simplest and obscurest of men ”

Henry David Thoreau

“We are not youth any longer. We don’t want to take the world by storm. We are fleeing from ourselves, from our life. We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world; and we had to shoot it to pieces.”

Erich Marie Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front

Sam Mendes’ 1917 was inspired by his grandfather’s experience as a front line soldier in World War I. Artistically this is both the film’s strength and weakness. The emotional bond to the material parallels the storyline. A brother seeking to save his brother from certain peril embarks on a seemingly suicidal mission. The military planners knew no soldier in their right mind would stay the course unless he had his family’s blood on the line. In the end the brass might view the result as favorable, but the brothers’ might see a pyrrhic victory. Artistically the same might be said of Mendes. No doubt the result is impressive, but did the director’s family allegiance blur his vision?

Subverting expectations drives the script which is wholly appropriate for a film about WW I, “the war to end all wars.” Seasoned military leaders thought the fighting would cease in a matter of weeks and deployed cavalry horses. The war ground on for nearly half a decade with trenches of soldiers obliterating each other with newly designed airplanes, tanks, flamethrowers and chemical weapons in a macabre stalemate. Mendes’ heroes, two infantrymen, are tasked with the impossible: a critical trek across enemy lines at the height of conflict to deliver a message to save a battalion of soldiers (1600) entering enemy territory.

Rather than raging machine guns, they are met with eerie silence and a vast apocalyptic landscape of carnage evoking Goya’s prints of dismembered bodies in The Disasters of War. In real life the ferocity of the battle can be illustrated by the present day Zone Rouge. This is a 500 square mile area in France that is STILL uninhabitable due to the munitions used in this conflict. While traversing this end-of-days backdrop the audience experiences the metaphorical landmines of unexpected plot twists just at the moment of repose. Our heroes discover the booby trap in the tunnel before it’s too late, then calamity strikes. They take a respite on a peaceful farm, then the unthinkable occurs. The unconvinced follower morphs into the committed leader. The refugee mother and child, are unrelated. The waters’ calm in the heretofore raging river reveals, a pile of corpses. Nothing is settled. The audience must keenly study the rubble for clues knowing they can never anticipate the reveal.

Kudos to Mendes for meticulous attention to detail. The film creates an endless meandering journey though miles and miles and miles of trenches, mess tents, holding areas, battlefield ruins, abandoned buildings, blown-up infrastructure, sylvan farms, orchards…. All is presented with the smooth glide of cameras that following everything in real time. The entire action is revealed in less than a day with a cast of hundreds of English & German soldiers and civilians caught in the middle. The expertise in World War I is twinned with a knowledge of cinematic history. Mendes applies the technique forged by Hitchcock’s Rope, a virtual one take movie, into the battle arena. There a myriad of references to other war classics such as the trench scenes in All Quiet on the Western Front, the river sequence in An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge and the singing sequence in Kubrick’s Paths of Glory.Perhaps this last reference best illustrates a shortfall in this otherwise outstanding film.

One of our heroes comes across soldiers in the woods listening to an angelic singer. The troops are about to be led into a disastrous battle and Mendes’ presents a moment of pure innocence. The voice of God temporarily pushes back the gates of hell. Compare this with the closing Kubrick’s masterpiece where a young German girl is dragged up in front of a drunken hall of French soldiers who cat-call her into performing. They are also on the cusp of battle and demand some raucous entertainment. The young women quietly starts to sing, it is barely a whisper. The crowd quiets. The men slowly morph into lonely lost boys. The yearning for bawdy sex is swept away by the sweet soothing melody. It takes the soldiers back to their lives before when they were sons, husbands and brothers. The dogs of war are tamed. There isn’t a dry eye in the house as they quietly prepare to return to hell. Mendes’ song was beautifully rendered and wonderfully portrayed but it was merely tender. We were pulled into the beauty amidst the hell-scape, but never lifted to heaven.

1917, despite its mind-blowing acting, direction and set design, fails to cross the into the sublime. Of course there are searing moments of horror and compassion but the protagonists are chained to the majesty of the moment. Strangely their status is anchored in their goodness. The central characters of other war classics follow the dictates of battle and engage in what civilians would consider immoral behavior. The central figure in All Quiet on the Wester Front kills a soldier in an offensive maneuver with his bare hands. Kubrick’s Col Dax executes the innocents. Renoir’s Rauffenstein kills his beloved French prisoner. Mendes’ heroes never commit the sins of war. The soldier who lies peacefully in the field in the opening and ending sequence of 1917 is more scarred, more experienced, but unsullied. The changes relate to acquisition of wisdom, rather than regrets. He will probably cherish holding this medal, unlike is badge from Verdun. Despite the unworldly, terrifying journey through the 9th circles of hell, his saintliness remains intact. Even after witnessing the death of a beloved friend he never engages in retribution. He is given ample opportunity but he chooses not to kill, even going so far as to avoid shooting an enemy soldier whom he encounters in a dark, barren cityscape. This is admirable and surely speaks to the beloved grandfather whom Mendes rightly honors. Perhaps, from an artistic perspective, a major thematic subversion of expectations was in order. Maybe the protagonists could have exhibited a chink in their moral armor. There are many cowboys with white hats, but people remember the one who wears a mask.

Mendes beautifully illustrates the evil nature of war. His exacting gaze showed us honorable men doing their best in conditions beyond our darkest imaginings. But strangely our heroes are impervious to the temptation in a land that has renounced all semblance of humanity. It is a journey of white knights on a quest. They give comfort to the enemy, endure the contumely of their superiors and even give sustenance to the innocents. It is both electrifying and inspiring, to a fault. It will bring tears in the theater, but maybe not in reflection in the following days. It is an excellent film, but misses greatness. Strangely heroes with less inspiration can be more inspiring. The evil of war isn’t born of devils, but angels who have fallen. The journey was captivating beyond all imagining, but in a worldly manner. We all know that gold doesn’t rust. But war should remind us of the possibility that it can. What if the friend wantonly killed others in revenge? What if cowardliness took hold? What if the brother blamed the friend? Your grandfather would never believe it, but this is when it is important to politely smile and say, “you wouldn’t, but others might.” In truth the elder Mendes might nod with a knowing glance. It took him decades to breach the subject of the physical horror, perhaps others moral decay should stay on the battlefield. The director gives a celebration of righteousness. He does his family proud. But maybe that is only part of the larger story of war. Just look at the faces of the soldiers as they sing along with the German maiden in Paths of Glory. They join and hum as they recognize her as more than the enemy. In Mendes recreation everyone sits in silent adoration. The voice is untouchable, angelic; maybe too much so. Perhaps a soulful visit in the other side must be part of the journey. Heavenly beings deserve our admiration but they shouldn’t mask a disquieting truth: good men can do bad things. Just ask the ghosts in the Zone Rogue.

Review of Knives Out (2020)

Not the Sharpest Knife in the Drawer

“Four Conversations are three too many”

Lillian Hellman, The Little Foxes

“Remember… to tell them… it was only a bloody game”

Milo Tindle, closing lines in Sleuth

The close of the second decade of the 21st century showcases technological dystopia, ecological collapse and global fascist resurgence. Paradoxically this is a perfect time for Knives Out, an old-timey, family who-dunit feature film. It has received critical praise coupled with financial success. Sadly, light comedy requires heavy lifting. The creators didn’t do the work.

Rian Johnson’s Knives Out revolves around the death of a family patriarch, professionally rendered by Christopher Plummer. The character has made his mark as a mystery writer. This plot is akin to the classic 1972 film Sleuth, where another detective novelist delves into a real life murder. Whereas Lawerence Olivier and Micheal Cain battle to the death in a precise, virtuosic display of writing and acting, Plummer is left out in the cold. Knives Out’s script did him in. He was surrounded by a cast of gothic family-horribles that, unintentionally, stumble through a plot that centers around the question of who killed the Paterfamilias. It is reminiscent of the board game Clue, where all moves relate to exposing the murderer within the confines of a house filled with suspects. The 1985 film version of this rainy day staple of my youth was uninspired… even with the multi-endings released in different theaters which highlighted different characters as the villains. The novelty failed to hide the same problem that plagues Knives Out: the hook is confused with the reveal. It is fine to have the goal of discovering the guilty party. However, the real driving force of the narrative is never who, but why. You can lure an audience to the theater by promising to capture the criminal, but it will be an unsatisfying excursion if the bad guy defined, solely, by their deed. The characters become tokens in a game of Clue, rather than real life bad guys.

The bright spot in Knives Out is Jamie Lee Curtis’ performance. This is a hard-bitting, daddy-defender daughter born of the dynamic gothic families of the defeated South. One can see this tough “dame” stepping into classic blood battles such as Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof or Hellman’s The Little Foxes. These playwrights were wrestling with issues of the acceptance homosexuality or the price familial loyalty. Their stories went beyond the stated plot device of seeking money and power. Curtis, with every sharp riposte and gesture, shares this attribute of stretching the meaning of her actions. Her anger goes beyond the smallness of criminal mischief and blazes on into the realm of existential purpose. Sadly Johnson uses her sparingly and includes Daniel Craig in nearly every scene. It is difficult to convey the hollowness of his performance. It is as if Johnson’s direction was encapsulated by the instruction: “you are in a regional theater and you need to pretend to be a combination of Atticus Finch and a professional wrestler… now go out there and tear up the scenery”. If the Screen Actors Guild were to issue criminal warrants for crimes against acting this offense would garner the current “most wanted status”. Don Johnson, who plays Lee’s spouse, would join him on the list. Both have, heretofore, delivered solid performances in feature films (Johnson A Boy & His Dog, Craig in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo). One can only assume they matched the laziness of the script with the ennui of phone-it-in caliber work.

The most disturbing character is Marta, the angelic hispanic nurse companion. She is solidly played by Ana De Armas but the performance failed to hide the creative problems. Johnson wanted to give Knives Out a pastiche of social commentary. In keeping with the rest of the script the result is the opposite of what was intended. The film has a solidly progressive bent on the evils of money and the horrors of inequality. Sadly, presenting an updated “noble savage” stock character does little for illustrating the sin of avarice or the real oppression wrought by racism. The film Deathtrap is an example of a feature that incorporates the devilishness of greed in a family murder mystery. The direct action of the film, not the spoken word dialogues, give the audience a parable to ponder, in addition to heartfelt laughs. Marta, on the other hand, is merely a saintly guide amongst nefarious family factions. She and the patriarch are, ostensibly, wearing the metaphorical white hats. Unfortunately there is an opaqueness that surrounds their motivations. (spoiler alert) In the end, when Marta glances down on the family from the veranda, what is she thinking? Retribution? Justice? Comity? Rage?

As this is simply light comedy, what does it really matter? Here lies the heart of the matter. The film goes to extraordinary lengths to delineate the denouement with a careful verbal re-telling of all events that exactingly explain the “ingenious” plot to kill the man in charge. Sadly the human heart is built on emotion, not ingenuity. Clever plot twists can only reveal concrete answers which might help win a game of Clue. They will never make an imprint on the heart. My half century old childhood memories of Sleuth are clear. Ditto for Deathtrap. My impressions of Knives Out seem to fade with every passing hour. No doubt the creators will point to box office and some critical praise. It’s a “hit”, what more can anyone ask? Answer: a taut, funny, interesting comedy that learns the lessons of previous filmmakers who’ve tackled the same material. Audiences should expect more than lazy distraction. All the accolades are a sign of the craving for a reprieve from current events. Maybe boardgames will stage a comeback.

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 Ad Astra (2019)

Review of Ad Astra

The Wrong Stuff

“It was written I should be loyal to the nightmare of my choice”- Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”- Col. Saito, Bridge Over the River Kwai

“If they can send one man to the moon, why can’t they send them all”- T-shirt slogan

Per aspera ad astra, through hardship to the stars. This is a fitting summation of the hero, Roy McBride, played by Brad Pitt in James Gray’s Ad Astra. His quest to be the consummate astronaut is compounded by being the son of the world’s most revered spaceman, Cliff McBride, played by Tommy Lee Jones. The father vs. son battle is twinned with the motifs of the zealot plagued by doubt and the leader consumed by mission. All this is presented in the guise of a space action-adventure drama. The result isn’t a launch pad failure but a mission desperately in need of course correction. Rather than entering a clear dark sky of dazzling stars, everything is overcast. We are trapped in the space between “Houston, we have a problem” and “Houston, you are the problem.” It is an odd problem as Gray has a proven record of producing strong, focused, decisive genre films. Little Odessa, his breakthrough feature, is a heartbreaking, innovative, mafia saga. Two Lovers is a moving romantic tragedy set not far from the upheavals of the actual little Odessa. Ad Astra leaves the confines of this world and is, despite the flash, a step backward. It is encouraging that his next project, I Am Pilgrim, will return to the terra firma of New York City.

Before detailing the myriad shortcomings some accolades are in order for the teams behind the the escape and chase sequences. Soon into the opening minutes we see astronauts cascading off a “sky elevator” that stretches from earth’s surface to the stratosphere. The dangling bodies mingled with crashing infrastructure brought to mind Cuaron’s wonderful meteor pummeling of a space station at the beginning of Gravity. The Mad Max inspired moon buggy battle will also keep audiences appropriately tense. In addition there is the gruesome rescue sequence where no one would have suspected the monster hiding behind the pulsating astronaut’s back. It is also impossible not be rooting for our hero as he battles 4 advesaries in zero gravity after crawling through a rocket ship during lift off. The audience is swept up into the visceral hardships. Unfortunately the reflective moments have a monotonous fixed orbit.

The denouement of the father/son reunion is particularly awkward, in all the wrong ways. To paraphrase father-Cliff: “thanks for coming out here.” I’m surprised he didn’t follow up with: “was it a rough trip?” It is as if the filmmakers took all the emotional heft of a pulp romance novel and grafted it on to a torturous family encounter. No doubt this is a family with issues. No doubt they would never utter any of this dialogue. This moment is the most stilted in a parade of encounters Roy has with fellow travelers, pilots and officials. His steely, coldness seems contrived. Unfortunately this creates questions about the action. One begins wondering if certain scenes were scripted to illustrate his bravado, rather than being simply part of the narrative. Space Command’s only option in transporting the key man in a “save the world” mission is to ride him on a moon buggy through bands of terrorists? There was no way to avoid the, nearly deadly, SOS rescue? These plot anomalies would play if there wasn’t an opaqueness about our hero. Roy, unfortunately, has a dissonant quality that wears badly on an action hero. As an example: no one questions whether James Bond is trying to kill himself when he jumps from a building, helicopter, train…. If Gray wants an ambiguously motivated protagonist, he should have not have made an action movie. 

The younger McBride finds solace in reflecting on the sole emotional connection he has made on earth’s surface which brings to mind a Joni Mitchell song. Joni’s male partner says, “I am as constant as a Northern Star”. Her retort sums up the experience of being Mrs. McBride of either generation: “Constantly in the darkness. Where’s that at?”. Adding to his emotional misery is the specter of the dead hero dad, who turns out not to be dead or a hero. Strangely whether the father is dead or a hero is more ambiguous than one might assume. Herein lies the heart of this strange amalgamation of plot lines: What is it that makes people good? To whom does one owe allegiance? The director appears to be heading in one direction, then, akin to many plot points in the narrative, we are whip-lashed back to earth. In every sense, not just emotionally, this script is nothing, if not peripatetic.

After the title sequence, we see Kubrick’s HAL, the monster in 2001. We note the military uniforms of the NASA-like institution have black shirts over black jackets evoking the SS or other fascist armies. The dystopia also has a 1984-like master computer system that does mandatory psych evaluations. It is all give and no take. The astronauts are plumbed to their deepest fears and given a pass/fail at the end of the session. It isn’t therapy but rather the Facebook/Google scheme of personal information disclosure being mandatory for gateway access. Strangely the human bleakness of the earth is no match for the dingy creepiness of the moon and Mars. The latter is a dressed up truck stop and the former is akin to a worn-down Mall of America. At one point McBride confesses that if his father had seen what they’d done to the lunar landscape he’d have wanted it destroyed. This is one of the rare moments that the younger McBride, or others, disclose personal details about the older astronaut.

The father’s opaqueness mirrors his son’s. These are dedicated career men who are at the top of their game. They are also brimming with hopelessness. The young McBride’s psych profile exhibits clinical depression. He is careful never to express his general rage at the system. He wants to continue his mission as a “good soldier”. Even during the darkest moment of mutiny, he has allegiance to “the system”. The director’s vision of earth “sometime in the near future” is familiar. The technology and information gathering is appropriately futuristic but certainly tied to the trajectory of the present. The Ad Astra world has stopped asking big questions in favor of the convenience of technology. There is nary a mention of religion, politics or philosophy. It is mere factional fighting over resources and information set amidst brutal controlling authorities. Our hero’s American-like regime is peopled with loyalists who never ask too many questions. The McBrides are absolutely perfect soldiers, until they aren’t. The father/son spacemen are strangely united in a sense of duty to a system they love so much that they feel they, alone, can dictate the rules. It is on odd contradiction cradled in the psychosis of wanting to preserve the system by completely destroying it. 

The junior McBride knows that there is discord between himself and the space fleet. Once he realizes he has been betrayed, he seeks, not vengeance, but a path to righting what he sees as the wrong path to neutralizing his father. This involves murdering those who go against him. Meanwhile his father has gone mad and liquidates those who appose his “pure” view of loyalty. Ironically that mission involved making contact with those with the ultimate outsider point of view, aliens. It is almost as if the elder McBride realizes humans have become morbidly self-involved. His messianic obsession with making contact is admission that he cannot abide by humanity in its present condition. Perhaps this is the seed for his desire to destroy the earth. Ad Astra’s humans certainly give credence to the idea of exiting to the stars. Unfortunately there is no respite. They need an escape from themselves.

There is a dreariness to the depiction of space life. Rather than expanding conceptions of humanity all the grand engineering seems to have knocked mankind off the tower of babel, metaphorically depicted in the opening sequence. Everyone is a cog in a technological web. Roy’s peers seem happy enough with the drugs and comfort rooms, where images of nature are projected on the walls. Perhaps Donald Sutherland, who plays an elder mentor can shed light on the father’s sense of purpose. He is the perfect character to illuminate the son as he was an intimate of his father. In fact he jokes about his father’s single-mindedness in thinking that Sutherland lacked patriotism. This is an odd notion as the elder officer has been specially chosen to represent the government in supervising the son. This puts distance in their fast friendship. Is Sutherland a true friend or merely an extension of the every present “psych evaluation”? In the end Sutherland is as indecipherable as everyone else. Rather than illuminating Cliff McBride he breaks the cult of worship with evidence of the father’s psychotic crimes.

The Space Force took the path chosen by all states who discover their idols have clay feet: they masked the betrayal and doubled down on the motif of “national hero”. Roy is merely bait to lure the grand prize, Cliff, to his death at the hands of a government wanting to keep up appearances. Roy’s realization of his pawn status sparks a curious reaction. He turns out to be every bit his father’s son. Roy has every reason to loath papa. He was a cruel, negligent father. He is also a deranged murderer. Did I also mention he has killed scores in an effort to destroy planet earth? Yet Roy manages to hatch a redemptive plan that attempts to “save” the father in addition to the home planet. He is completely devoid of any anger towards the space force that has treated him with contempt. The logistical absurdity of his mission is an equal match for the utter lunacy of his state of mind. In the end our hero saves planet earth, but not the father. He returns a hero, despite defying orders and killing four colleagues. He is now ready to find the meaning of life by cuddling with his sweetheart. It sounds as unsatisfying and unrealistic as it plays. All the grandness of the film is overrun by the movie ending equivalent of Hallmark greeting cards. What are we to make of all the interstellar Strum und Drang?

Most villains are self-serving monsters who wish to bend the world to their own egotistical ends. The senior McBride’s evil, like Heart of Darkness’ Kurtz or Bridge Over the River Kwai’s Col. Nicholson, is cloaked in extreme dedication to a cause, seemingly outside of themselves. The quest to be uber-heroes creates the human equivalent of emotional black holes. Their madness is rooted in spending too much time in the vastness of the outer reaches of “civilization”. The human mind breaks when confronted with constant exposure to the metaphysical voids of outer space or unmapped continents. The writer Borges wrote, “here is a concept that corrupts and upsets all others, I refer not to evil, whose limited realm is that of ethics; I refer to the infinite”. The hardship of isolation brought them to the darkness of their imaginary worlds. This is fertile ground for artistic reflection. Unfortunately our hero, McBride Jr., is bereft of any real introspection. He is mired in the relentless drumbeat of despair coupled with idealized domesticity. This is the stuff of soap opera rather than myth.

There is a film that squares the circle of combining the low art of the chase, with the high aspirations of sketching the complicated duality of monster/heroes. Not Ad Astra but rather a relatively obscure film Sunshine. It is the paradigm Heart of Darkness space thriller. The two films share crews on “save the earth” missions complete with nuclear bombs. They also encounter a fellow traveler who has gone mad in by gazing into infinity. Cliff McBride faces the darkness of space whereas his doppelgänger gazes directly at the sun. Sunshine, however, has a taut plot and simple motivation. The heroes save the planet. Roy’s story drifts into the dangerous territory of asking “who is a hero? What is worth saving?” It is valid to raise the questions. Unfortunately it is unsatisfying to hide answers with spectacle.

Stripped of the dazzle of big name performers and excellent special effects, Ad Astra’s hero is the benevolent version of the deranged dad. The film SUGGESTS a journey of emotional growth. Unfortunately the stasis is masked with the dazzle that only a big budget feature can provide. The movie twists, turns and explodes but its hero remains embedded in his father’s repellent isolation. Roy obviously fails his father, but more significantly, he fails himself. How long will the reunion with his partner last before he exits in an escape pod? It is easy to imagine him back on the space elevator or the moon or mars or just in space. No doubt he will “constantly be in the darkness”. This film wallows in hardship. It is all pain without the escape of the heavens. Duris in laboribus, through hardship to hardship.

Review of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019)

Review of Once Upon a Time In Hollywood

The Good, The Bad and the Careerists

“A longtime ago being crazy meant something, nowadays everybody is crazy” -Charles Manson, Interview with Diana Sawyer

“Going through life with a conscience is like driving your car with the brakes on” Budd Schulberg, What Makes Sammy Run?

Quentin Tartentino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (OUATIH) is a paean to the entertainment business in Los Angeles in the late 60s. It would be difficult to think of a more perfect union of the director’s oeuvre with this era of tumult and violence. Now the creator of the martial arts styled Kill Bill could deliver Bruce Lee in the flesh. The auteur behind the WW II inspired Inglorious Bastards could show the star of The Great Escape poolside. The writer/director of the dystopian Pulp Fiction could give his portrayal of Charles Manson and his family roaming LA looking for prey. Ironically the burden of telling an inside story of his forebears clouded Tarantino’s vision. His brand of action requires taught storylines and moral clarity. OUATIH is an interesting 85 minute film buried in a meandering 2 hours and 41 minutes of gossipy sidetracks. Tarantino put a great deal of homework into this feature and it shows. There is a heavy carefulness to all the lightness and horror. Behind the wonderful acting, exacting set design and costuming is a script that never settles on a direction. Is this a film about Hollywood? Is this a buddy film? A commentary on the past? A parable about success and/or failure?

OUATIH is brimming with wonderful sequences that recreate the TV shows, promotions and tableaux of the era. Who doesn’t enjoy DiCaprio’s character yucking-it-up with the Hullabaloo Dancers or the recreated scenes of the nearly forgotten TV Westerns Bronco and Lancer. There are also many fun filled joy rides and walks through the airport while a superbly curated 60s soundtrack blares. He chooses the magical Jose Feliciano take on California Dreamin’ rather than the universally familiar original version. Unfortunately Tarantino tries to shoehorn a couple of actual linear narratives into the mix. For those who remember the times it is fun seeing Steve McQueen gossiping about Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski. The director shot at the real location, Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Mansion. It is all pitch perfect, yet somehow out of tune. How can anyone, connoisseur or novice, latch on to these colorful recreations? The conceit is that Tarantino wants to raise the offscreen shenanigans to the fever pitch of low budget melodrama.

In truth Hollywood in the 60s certainly had its share of “action.” Tarantino has adapted the darkest horror moment, the Manson killings, and replaced the senseless carnage with his interpretation of a “happy ending.” All the self-righteous justice of the TV cop shows and spaghetti Westerns is channeled to right the wrongs. The bad guys are the ones who are butchered and incinerated. The ingenue and her entourage, including her unborn child, are spared. The long-struggling B movie hero Rick Dalton (DiCaprio) is freed from the purgatory of commonplace stardom. He and his loyal companion, stunt double Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), now have entree to the A-lister, Polanski, whose wife they have rescued. The only problem is that Tarantino forgets that heroes or anti-heroes need to be heroic; or at least their journeys must include meaningful quests. The classic feature All About Eve, the definitive statement on reaching for the stars, has characters who put their “goodness” on the alter of fame. OUATIH, by contrast, brings to mind the Springsteen lyric, “its just winners and losers and don’t get caught on the wrong side of that line.”

The most morally compelling figure is Pitt who, literally, takes the fall for DiCaprio. In addition to being a loyal sideman he, unlike the rest of the cast, shows his chivalry on many occasions. He refuses sex with an underage Manson devotee. He tries to come to the aid of an elderly friend he feels is being taken advantage of by the Manson crew. He puts an arrogant movie star, Bruce Lee, in his place by physically defeating him and never complains when he is fired for Lee’s transgression. Strangely, Tarantino includes a plot point that undercuts all the warm fuzzy admiration the audience feels for this embodiment of brute force and justice. We learn in a flashback that Pitt is guilty of killing his wife for being annoying. The fact that Dalton sees uxoricide as a small blemish in Pitt’s character plays out in his treatment of his trusted confidant. After finding redemption as a spaghetti Western hero, Dalton replaces his buddy with an Italian spouse. The new found financial security doesn’t spare Pitt a pink slip. This is a world where everything revolves around being on the right side of the “in” and “out” crowd. This attribute makes all the players unsympathetic pawns in an abusive hierarchy. It starts to narrow the divide between those who worship a sociopathic cult killer and those who build their lives around the whims of studio executives.

Everyone, from grimmest slovenly hippie to the slickest Kung Fu icon, is a hustler with an agenda. Tarantino’s fails to slide these misfits into the entertainment rubric of “good guys” and “bad guys.” The scenes at the Spahn ranch are supposed to evoke the white hatted cowboy against the mob. Despite wonderful performances from Bruce Dern, as the demented Spahn landlord, and a truly terrifying rendition of Squeaky Fromme by Dakota Fanning, the set up fails to inspire anything other than passing fits of horror and glee. Spahn is getting laid. Fromme is accredited leadership status by her guru. Pitt meanders on main street, a pale ghost of Charles Bronson in Once Upon A Time In The West. It is fun to see Pitt kick ass after his car is vandalized, but what is at stake? A creepy errand boy beating wayward cult member does not make for high drama. Sadly it doesn’t make for low drama either. Whose side are we on when Bruce Lee picks a fight over, literally, nothing. There is a quick burst of adrenaline while Cliff takes down the egotistical jackass but, like the rest of the film, it never grabs the heart. The zeitgeist of pulp fiction, Tarantino’s dramatic muse, relies on simple plots and clear victories.

The moment of where one feels a heroic note is when Dalton is struggling as a guest actor on the downhill slope of stardom. He interacts with a child actress. The little girl is a monster of the overly-efficient, almost robotic, future. She is ALL BUSINESS and mean beyond her years, almost a parody Sammy in the devastating indictment of show business, Bud Schulberg’s What Makes Sammy Run? DiCaprio is vulnerable and brilliant as he digests the hard-core professionalism of the child-upstart. In spite of the endless banter and the unfortunate sharpness of the child, one feels the pain of the over-the-hill star and his outdated simplicity. It is worth the price of admission to watch Dalton tear up his trailer after woefully blowing his lines. DiCaprio’s recovery scene, in which he hurdles the child to the floor, shows the star (and the man playing the star) on the top of their game. After “cut” is called he apologizes for being rough with the she-devil of efficiency. She actually thanks him as she knows a good performance when she sees one. Dalton’s brilliance isn’t about money or status but…. dignity. He wears his own white hat and shows us how it is done.

Unfortunately even in this magnificent sequence one feels DiCaprio’s Dalton battling choices made by Tarantino. The interaction with the child could have been half the length and made twice the impact. The humiliating scene where he flubs his lines is carefully played opposite a nemesis, an actor who is rising in the ranks due to scoring the lead role. The comeback would have been more effective if DiCaprio’s brilliant retort was played against this spiritual rival. Instead Tarantino was locked into the original TV show script, which demanded a cameo. No doubt it was fascinating to see Luke Perry in his final performance but sticking to the other actor would have made Dalton’s recovery more poignant. Furthermore there is an odd amount of camera time spent on the fact that the lead actor leaves the set on motorcycle. This references the original star’s tragic motorcycle crash which left him without an arm and a leg. This fact is never covered in the film leaving yet another layer of clues for the experts of the era. All this extra padding works against the thrust of the action. It is as if Tarantino is a telling a story and constantly turning his head to gossip about inside-baseball minutia. The director sacrifices smooth clarity to the static of being cool and clever.

Tarantino is never is able to step over his narrow conceptions of the era. It is hard not to avoid the misogyny label when you make the good guy in your film a wife killer. But it goes further. Aside of the annoying child, the film is devoid of powerful actresses. That era had many important female leads, not to mention a burgeoning women’s rights movement, but Tarantino is only interested in a relatively obscure starlet whose fame is based on being butchered. Margot Robbie gives a great performance but her contributions to the films are limited to giggling in a movie theater while gauging the audience’s reaction to her work. More importantly she buys the novel Tess of the d’Ubervilles for her husband, Mr. Polanski. It is not covered in the film but he went on to create a much heralded feature based on the book. Of course that detail is exclusively crafted for those who have more than a passing interest in Hollywood.

OUATIH is not made for the general public but rather industry insiders who get the extra layer of jokes and messages. Tarantino’s denouement of the actual story, after exacting real-life detail for the first 2 1/2 hours, shows a strange defense of his own perceived demons. The Manson family descends on the house according to schedule but decides, rather than attack Tate, they will get Dalton. This affords the director to “righteously” focus his, much criticized, depictions of violence on a “just” cause. It might have been deemed tasteless to record the actual murder of Tate, her fetus and the friends. The real events included the painting of slogans in their blood all over the walls. The director, however, innoculates himself from criticism by turning the savagery on the demons themselves. It is hard to object to someone being roasted alive, or having their head bashed in, knowing the true life actions of these monsters. There is, however, a caveat to all the seemingly justifiable carnage. The director might be using this film as a way to erase his own morally dubious actions.

Tarantino’s Manson monsters have a confrontation with Dalton at the foot of Tate’s driveway. They recognize him as their childhood TV hero. One of them suggests perhaps they should turn their murderous rage on the TV god that “taught them how to kill”. In this light Tarantino might defend his own track record of onscreen violence as merely being the product of an apt pupil. All the gore in his own work has been past down from past masters. His Manson clan are abandoned on the driveway by the very member who made the suggestion to perpetrate VT violence against the TV good guy. The actress playing that part is Maya Hawke. She is the daughter of Tarantino’s former leading lady, Uma Thurman. During the filming his Kill Bill feature the director bullied Thurman into performing a dangerous car crash sequence. She was seriously injured. This obviously put a damper on their relationship as she went public about his abusive, nearly fatal, behavior. But she never took formal legal action against him. Furthermore she tweeted support for her daughter’s appearance in OUATIH. It is reported that her former husband, the actor Ethan Hawke, help secure the part for Maya.

Most people would have qualms casting their daughter in film by a director who nearly killed her mother, your ex-wife. Most children might avoid working for someone that put your mother’s life in danger. Most people would avoid praising the work of someone who nearly killed you. Many parents would think twice about their child being part of the production given Tarantino’s track record. Many people would feel squeamish about appropriating gruesome real life events to buttress personal demons. But these people will never make it Hollywood. It is a land peopled by those who play the parts of rescuers, Calvary riders and good people in white hats. But all this is ON SCREEN. Their real life actions are equally ambitious and shocking, but not melodramatically captivating. Audiences want Superman, not an in depth look at the process of become a cosplay Superman. Tarantino never fully understands that the off screen sourness cannot be excised with clever plot twists, fancy art direction and a wonderful soundtrack. He thinks that his formula of flash and violence will mask the hollow center. It might have worked for 85 minutes. But not for over two and a half hours. Note: more of the dreams; less of the dream factory.