The Man in the Costume: Batman Begins (2005), The Dark Knight (2008) and The Wrestler (2008)

My two favorite films of the past year have a lot in common, though one is a multimillion dollar blockbuster superhero sequel partly shot in IMAX and the other is a grainy, quiet character study that didn't even have enough budget to pay Axl Rose or Bruce Springsteen for song rights. [Numerous spoilers follow.]

Batman Begins established a Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) constantly on the run from the shortcomings of reality. The pampered son of a billionaire philanthropist, he inadvertently causes the shooting death of his parents because of his fear of bats. A corrupt Gotham City judicial system denies him any satisfaction from justice, while a plague of depraved poverty--of which his parents' killer was a victim--makes the simplicity of political misanthropy too complicated. He flees, leaving behind his unscarred, idealistic childhood love and his abundant inheritance, and makes his way to Bhutan, where he brawls with random criminals and thugs for no real reason.

From Ducard (Liam Neeson), a philosophical samurai he meets in the Himalayan mountains, he is granted the devices that will become his superpowers: deception--using smoke, mirrors, and mechanical wizardry to appear magical and superhuman; vigilant, dexterous fighting power; and an image, a persona to embody, a source of primordial fear. He becomes a bat, his own ultimate phobia, a terrifying force beyond his own control. Ducard also gifts him with a philosophy: in a mad world, one must draw a stern line between the good and the evil and act accordingly or risk becoming a part of the chaos.

Bruce accepts the superpowers and combines them with his father's wealth and technological resources to become Batman, complete with protective costume and highly evolved gadgets.

He rejects the philosophy.

In a world of accidental killings, senseless violence, crippling poverty, psychological illness, kangaroo courts, and hotheaded revenge, there is no distinct boundary between good and bad. The righteous-minded often behave horribly. To be ultimately good is to achieve the impossible task of rising above all ill behavior. To stop crime without instigating it. To deliver criminals safely to level-headed authorities who have been officially vested with the steady hand of justice (namely, Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman)). To never kill, even when it would make things easy.

Bruce Wayne achieves this persona--frightening, stern, unstoppable, but pure. Like a Byzantine God with fierce eyes and an all-powerful palm raised both in benediction and admonition. But the task is immensely difficult, resulting in an expenditure of millions of dollars and dozens of bruises and scars. After being attacked by dogs in The Dark Knight, his confidant Alfred (Michael Caine) advises him to know his limits. "Batman has no limits," he steadfastly responds, to which Alfred warns: "But you do."

Bruce Wayne becomes secondary to his costumed crimefighter character. Bruce Wayne--celebrity socialite, billionaire playboy, womanizer, alcoholic, prodigal son--becomes the facade artificially concealing a personality that succumbs more and more each day to the unreality of a Batman superman. Friendships become impossible, his doomed relationship with childhood friend Rachel (Maggie Gyllenhaal) goes on indefinite hiatus, and the stakes continue to rise.

The cleverer criminals see Batman as a challenge to encourage them, chief among them The Joker (Heath Ledger--in the most captivating, horrifying, hilarious, and memorable roles of recent years, regardless of the fact that he's dead... his performance is no less stunning than Javier Bardem's in No Country for Old Men, though Bardem was spared all the reactive backlash simply because he's still alive), another man hiding behind an image and a costume. It would be mistaken to characterize the Joker as Supreme Evil contrasted to Batman's Ultimate Good; such simplicities would be antithetical to the complexities of goodness established in the first film. More accurately, the Joker is Chaos, opposed to Principle, and for the first time Batman's nemesis has the upper hand. Chaos is the natural order of things, the primeval soup from which all life, even principled ones, sprang. It is Principle that is artificial, forced, dictated, that must be actively fought to be preserved. Everything naturally decays into entropy, and even the plans of our complicated world with its manifold interests can be as destructive and insane as mere coincidence. As the Joker explains, in a moment of insight that proves he's not merely a nutty trickster:

You know what I've noticed? Nobody panics when things go "according to plan." Even if the plan is horrifying! If, tomorrow, I tell the press that, like, a gang banger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will be blown up, nobody panics, because it's all "part of the plan." But when I say that one little old mayor will die, well then everyone loses their minds! Introduce a little anarchy. Upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos. I'm an agent of chaos. Oh, and you know the thing about chaos? It's fair!

While Bruce Wayne runs and distances himself from the complexities of the world, the Joker embraces and emphasizes them.

Like Batman, the Joker is a costumed character. His severe facial scars could come from any meaningless or emotionally resonant event, but though he mocks the concept of villainous motivation--abusive fathers, jealous love, and whatnot--we never know anything about the original man, not even his name. His mismatched custom suit, his green hair, and his sloppy clown makeup all establish the idea of foolish, unstoppable anarchy, as comic as the Bat Man is frightful, yet infinitely deadlier. The conflict and the driving force of the plot becomes an ideological showdown in the strictest sense--which idea will prevail? Will Bruce Wayne discover who the Joker really is? Will the Joker succeed in unmasking the Batman?

Amidst this war is a third costumed character, and though his facade is the least realistic it is the most convincing, managing to win him an admirable lover, a democratically elected public office, and even the esteem of Bruce Wayne: Harvey Dent, who dons the role of the Ultimate Good, even though we've already learned that such cannot exist. An energetic, good-looking, and righteous demagogue, he trusts in his own goodness and heroism. Though some of his underlings vaguely refer to him as Two Face, we initially see little of his impurity. As District Attorney, he fights crime in court, openly putting his own name and life at risk while Bruce Wayne cannot. He has completely succumbed to his politician's charm, his inscrutable public image, convinced that his irresistible tenacity and ability to "make his own luck" will pull him through any tough spot.

Like I said, though, there is no "Evil" and there is no "Good," and any statue built in such an image rests on a crumbling foundation. When the Joker's chaotic momentum prods at him, killing his love, dismantling his trust, and shedding his ideas of goodness and justice, Harvey Dent embodies another chiaroscuro 50-50 split--chance, neither good nor evil, just one or the other. Formerly a control freak, he now becomes a manic livewire, the madman Two Face, reducing all complexities to a mere coin toss. Heads you live, tails you die, regardless of mitigating circumstances.

Chaos is animalistic, natural, and extremely easy. Supreme Goodness is an impossible illusion, blind to circumstance. And the Principled Life, cognizant of chaos yet striving toward an idealistic good, is extremely difficult. In the end no clear winner emerges, as questionable means--burnings of letters, invasions of privacy, rewritings of history--are used to achieve honorable ends. The end of The Dark Knight is as complex, thought-provoking, and bleak as the world it highlights. An upright life in today's world is extremely difficult, but we just know it to be right.

In The Wresler, my favorite film from 2008, two more costumed roles emerge as means of running from and dealing with reality.

Little is known of Robin Ramzinski (Mickey Rourke) before he became Randy "The Ram" Robinson, muscleclad wrestling superstar known for the crippling "Ram Jam" finishing move. The slightly effeminate name evokes a Polish immigrancy, as does his quiet, respectful attitude outside of the ring. All we know is that in the ring, in his neighborhood, and at his Acme discount superstore job, he'd much rather be known as Randy, an All-American, testosterone-fueled, heroic man's man.

Twenty years ago, in the heyday of professional wrestling, The Ram was a headlining act on Pay-Per-View, his showdown with The Ayatollah (a foolish "villain" in the wrestling world, surrounding by "evil" 80s Iranian imagery, yet really a black used car salesman) garnering millions of viewers and attendants. Now he's a scarred, crumbling hunk of meat, addicted to steroids and painkillers, living alone in a trailer home and barely making rent, working at a deli counter on weekdays, and hawking his souvenirs in church basements on weekends amongst other decayed wrestling superstars lugging around their catheter bags and canes. Occasionally he headlines in poorly-attended fights, which have become increasingly bloody as the audiences have grown accustomed to Mortal Kombat and My Bloody Valentine 3D.

These fights are staged. Supposed arch-nemeses respectfully offer up choreography ideas while rehearsing finishing moves. The victor is known beforehand. Each stage of give and take is plotted for maximum audience suspense, and a man who attacks Randy (and himself) with a staple gun addresses him as "sir" minutes later, in the back room.

The world is theatrical and completely artificial, but within it Randy--the All American with the former good looks and the boyish charm--is a superstar for his audience. A force of Supreme Good against the evil Ayatollah. The epitome of masculine strength. "Sweet Child O' Mine" by Guns N Roses accompanies his entrance parade as thousands give him a screaming, enthusiastic standing ovation. Millions fondly remember particular cage matches, certain meaningful speeches. It's soap opera for boys, but it's influential. In the ring, there's no divorce, estranged parenthood, drug addiction, poverty, or minimum wage. There's just strength and weakness, and The Ram possesses only the former.

Given that dichotomy, it's easy to see why Robin Ramzinski would lose himself entirely in the facade of Randy Robinson, yet one thing from the real world holds him back: a stripper named Cassidy (Marisa Tomei) who happens to be the love of his life.

Cassidy, with her revealing skirt, shiny earrings, abundant makeup, and flirtatious, forgiving voice, is the moneymaking exterior of Pam, a single mother trying to make ends meet. We see only the desensitized, beautiful sex object for the first few scenes, lighthearted even as perverts take advantage of her, always on the prowl for hardearned money. When Randy finally meets her outside of the strip lounge, we see a completely different woman--protective, rational, stand-offish, and--as Randy awkwardly puts it--"clean."

Pam embraces the facade that many women must endure in this man's world: the easygoing hooker. Unlike Randy, however, Pam does not lose herself in Cassidy, nor would she ever dream of it. Cassidy simply pays the bills; Pam is the real person--the mother, the lover, the human.

In the end, the two halves of each character fall in love with the other, though which half loves which is questionable. Pam seems to love both Randy and Robin, and Robin seems to love both Cassidy and Pam. Unfortunately, Randy can't accept Robin and the world he comes from. For him, the only world worth living in died two decades ago, when WrestleMania for the original Nintendo system was the only game worth playing and ACDC and Axl Rose were the only options on the jukebox. The ending is bittersweet and unforgettable.

The Wrestler and The Dark Knight are easily my two favorite films of 2008. The former needles into your heart and brain with phenomenal acting, a touching screenplay, a realistic, precise direction by Darren Aronofsky, and a wonderful closing song by Bruce Springsteen. The latter is a superbly-directed, action-packed thrill ride with a great support cast and a fantastic, timeless story that explores morality, justice, and chaos, all important themes currently. The former has yet to receive a wide release and the latter has been seen by everybody; I recommend you see both immediately.

Batman Begins
d: Christopher Nolan w: Christopher Nolan, David S. Goyer
(Christian Bale, Liam Neeson, Cillian Murphy, Tom Wilkinson)
9/10

The Dark Knight
d: Christopher Nolan w: Christopher Nolan, David S. Goyer
(Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart)
10/10

The Wrestler
d: Darren Aronofsky w: Robert D. Siegel
(Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei, Evan Rachel Wood)
10/10
(Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei)

Movie Review: Heat (1995)

Number 354 on the TSPDT? list is, I assume, what self-stylized "thinking men" consider their kind of crime caper: writer/director Michael Mann's Heat, a trite, overlong, dull thriller heavy on quiet scenes of obvious reflection, with a splattering of explosive, implausible weapons extravaganzas blended in, all set to the drippy, foggy synthesizers of an early nineties musical score.

Mann bloats almost three hours of screen time with a heavy-handed, terribly unmeaningful exploration of Good Vs. Evil. Al Pacino is Detective Vincent Hanna, the Good, and Robert DeNiro is Neil McCauley, one amongst the bad, a high stakes bank robber and trigger happy murderer. But, wouldn't you know it, they've got a lot in common! They both have relationship problems with obnoxious, poorly conceived women--on the one hand is a dreadfully stiff Diane Venora, whose character as Vincent's wife spends all of her scenes accusing her husband of having affairs and yelling at him for being too committed to the nonsense of his career. She apparently doesn't watch the news; after a lengthy shootout in the middle of the highway involving hundreds of bullets, millions of dollars, and several police, criminal, and civilian casualties, she decides to confront him about how lonely and pissed she is that he's been working (i.e. dodging rifle bullets in traffic and aiming past hostages) all day, confessing to marijuana use and a meaningless affair.

On the other hand is Eady (Amy Brenneman), a pushy, twangy bookseller-cum-graphic artist who lives in a "rundown" house overlooking LA (aka: in the movie world, an estate much larger and more beautiful than any house you've ever lived in). She's all alone, having migrated from Appalachia to New York to the West Coast, looking for companionship and her big break in the art world. She strikes up an awkward chat with Macauley in a diner, and soon they're having deep, late night conversation about goals and family, and next they're having sex, and eventually they're soul mates. They know each other for all of maybe two weeks (probably less) when Eady, previously convinced that Macauley was a steel salesman, realizes that he has in fact orchestrated the biggest, bloodiest shootout of all time. She contemplates fleeing but is soon convinced that she loves him so much she should run away with him to Brazil with all the loot, making her the stupidest, most implausible female in the history of cinema.

Both Macauley and Hanna are committed to their ambitions. Both are swallowed by their respective callings (as well as each other's conflicting callings). Both are prepared to kill or die when the time is right. Both are horribly boring (though Al Pacino rises slightly above on the interest meter) and surround themselves with lame people.

And on top of their problems (which, in a wiser movie, would've been more interestingly paralleled, with greater juxtaposition between what the characters were doing, feeling, thinking, with sharp editing highlighting their chiaroscuro dance... but instead we get slow pacing, plodding direction, weak acting, a convoluted plot, and that goddamn droopy score), we get the problems of two dozen other pencil-sketched ensemble actors... man with mustache, skinny gangbanger, gambling-addicted explosives expert, infidelitous police officer, black man with loving wife, and hysteric teenage Natalie Portman, who (despite only having four minutes of prior screen time) arbitrarily attempts suicide in the middle of the film's climax, in the strangest of locations, for the vaguest of reasons.

I really don't feel like writing about this obese film anymore. Usually I try to list any film's redemptive qualities, but here the two shining moments are so minor and specific that I won't even bother.

What a disappointment.

Heat
d/w: Michael Mann
(Al Pacino, Robert DeNiro)
4/10
TSPDT? #354

I am 8,694 days old.

So it's fairly common knowledge that I'm obsessed with lists and tabulations, statistics and spreadsheets, complete documentation. It hasn't yet reached the point where I'm like Nicholas Feltron, recording every beer imbibed and every subway trip traveled, but if you'll look in the right hand column then you'll see that I've racked my brain to recall and rate every movie I've seen and every book I've written (EDIT: read, haha). I have a detailed, scored, sortable inventory of all the 900 or so books in my library with aspirations of adding additional denotations for place purchased and date read and price paid and pagination and condition and god only knows what else I can imagine. I've considered writing an encyclopedia of all of my memories and impressions of every person I can ever recall meeting, and at one point a couple years ago I was writing a maximalist autobiography of all my life's details, both personal and trivial--from my first day of kindergarten to the temperature and wind speed at the time and location of my birth.

I've used the Social Security Death Index to research the obituaries, Myspace pages, newspaper articles, etc. of all 66 of the American citizens who were born on my birthday and have since died. I've expanded my family tree from about 15 known people to over 300. I know unillustrious ancestors ten generations back; I know every address my maternal, maternal great grandfather has ever lived at. Eventually I'll probably draw up some formula to calculate what my genetic life expectancy is.

I'm sentimental. I cling to arbitrary documents. I have most of the movie tickets I've ever purchased. Until twelfth grade I saved every receipt from every purchase I ever made with my own money, and when I started smoking I saved every empty cigarette pack for almost a year.

I've obsessed over canons--which is the point I'm eventually getting to. Time's 100 greatest novels of the twentieth century. Harold Bloom's Western Canon. The 1001 Movies You Must See Before You
Die. The Nobel laureates. The Pulitzer winners. The largely bullshit IMDb Top 250. The AFI 100 Greatest American Films. All of the 78 Academy Award Best Picture winners, which eventually grew to the over 400 Best Picture nominees, which is in the process of growing into the thousands of movies that have ever been nominated for any Oscar whatsoever--as if I really care to see U-571, unsuccessful contender for Best Sound in 2000.

I realize all the list-making and trivial documentation is a national plague. The Wall Street Journal recently did a very forgiving analysis of the trend. Life used to be simple, I imagine, with religious duties and physical science and local warfare imposing all the necessary duties and order. Now we're bombarded with lists of the Greatest Snowbound Horror Movies, trying to figure out how this somehow has anything to do with our place in the world. It's a way to waste time while being active, a time-consuming form of procrastination, a way to make sense of an extremely complicated world, and a way to hold onto memories and ideas and personal mementos in a throwaway, consumerist culture.

But, alas, I'm getting too serious. I wanted to talk about the They Shoot Pictures, Don't They? list of the 1000 greatest movies of all time as determined by a consensus of all international film critics and publications of merit. It's a list that's updated about once a year, which is good because it's kept current but also bad because each year, when about 100 movies are swapped out for new, supposedly better choices, the number of movies I've seen on the list tends to drop. I've more or less seen 225 of them at this point, and it'll take me almost 62 days of nonstop watching to see the remaining 775.

I've never ascribed any particular motive to this blog, which though called Bibliophonic is more about movie reviews, often about book reviews, occasionally about gender and media studies, and much less frequently than I'd hoped about my own fiction writing. I just wanted to state that my journey down the TSP list is going to be one of my new foci.

And goddammit, I'll try to post more fiction, too.

Farewell, My Doppelganger: Vertigo (1958) and Mister Foe (2008)

When Vertigo initially met with critical and financial failure in 1958, Alfred Hitchcock blamed his long collaborator and screen star Jimmy Stewart for looking too old and failing to be romantic, truthfully vowing to never work with him again. The movie fell behind legal obstructions for three decades and in the 1980s was reintroduced with acclaim, many people hailing it Hitchcock's masterpiece. They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?, which tabulates the opinions of international critics, currently ranks it as the second greatest film of all time.

I can't say that I agree. When I saw the movie in my seventh grade film studies class, I remember being turned off by the bizarre romance, the sudden ending, and Kim Novak's strange performance. Now that I've finally revisited it, expecting a greater appreciation, I can understand my apprehensions.

Jimmy Stewart as Detective Scottie Ferguson is too old to be romantic--at that point a wiry man of fifty, lamenting his bad back, hobbling with a cane, tossing curmudgeonly remarks to his smitten friend Midge (a giddy, bespectacled Barbara Bel Geddes), and downing highballs of bourbon. When a college friend enlists Scottie to spy on his delusional wife (Kim Novak), Scottie pursues the task too eagerly, gazing transfixed in prolonged, hypnotic sequences as she purchases flower arrangements, visits an art gallery, and drives the hilly streets of San Francisco. When wife Madeleine, convinced she's possessed by the suicidal spirit of her great grandmother Carlotta Valdez, leaps into the frigid San Francisco Bay, Scottie rushes valiantly to the occasion, taking the unconscious woman not to a hospital nor to her husband's home but to his own small apartment, where he disrobes her, dries her body, unpins her hair, and puts her snugly in his own bachelor's bed. When she comes to, his lingering stares far surpass that of a procedural private investigator. He's downright perverted, and when his hand "accidentally" cups hers while he reaches to refill her coffee mug, its an awkward gaffe full of tension but no romance. She rightly grabs her clothes and flees.

Feeling a sense of obligation to her savior, they begin to see more of each other. He's a self-professed career wanderer, and she does so by insane compulsion, commenting that when two people wander together they are always headed somewhere. The somewhere, predictably but very unnaturally, is a state of love, and when they embrace, sloppily, smearily pressing their lips against each other, passionately declaring their love for each other, the moment comes across more disturbing than anything else. He's a freelance stalker whose private and professional lives overlap, and she's a married millionaire in need of either a headshrinker or an exorcist. They barely know each other beyond strange interrogations where he conceals his real identity and she slips between dizzy spells and memory lapses. It's not exactly a match made in heaven.

I'm entering major spoiler territory when I say that he eventually takes her to the source of her crazed hypnosis, a Spanish fortress south of San Francisco. She slips into a bout of hysterical mania, races to the top of a bell tower where he--suffering from a crippling fear of heights--is unable to prevent her from flinging herself to her death.


The abrupt termination of his strange love affair and his guilt over being unable to stop it riddles him with "acute melancholia," a state of mute catatonia that lasts over a year and plagues him with surreal nightmares. Released into the real world, he sees her apparition everywhere, eventually attaching himself to a dark-haired Kansas girl (also Kim Novak) who physically resembles his lost love. He enters her hotel apartment, doggedly imposes himself upon her, and endures no qualms about unwillingly transforming her into the woman he lustfully desires her to be. "The man certainly knows what he wants," a department store clerk muses as he clothes his body double in the original's exact attire. It's sexist, possessive, and completely insane. The new relationship is made all the more deranged by the creepiness of the first.

Which is where my only hesitation about the greatness of Vertigo lies. One isn't accustomed to viewing Jimmy Stewart characters--nor protagonists in general--as off-kilter perverts, but once adjusted it's quite interesting. What fails to make sense, though, is the motivation behind Kim Novak's Judy Barton, who throughout the entire film is in fact one supposedly sane woman from Kansas--an aspiring actress who pretends to be Madeleine/Carlotta in order to aid the husband in offing his wife. She's later discovered by Scottie and attempts to show him her real self, wanting him to love her true personality and forget about the murdered, artificial doppelganger, but she never manages that. It's like a famous character actress falling in love with her biggest fan. Eventually her desire to be loved allows her to subsume herself entirely in the rehearsed role of Madeleine. She dyes her hair; she changes her mannerisms.

But why? There's guilt involved, of course. And maybe some loneliness--the small town girl lost in the big, crazy city. But she repeatedly claims that her one flaw in the operation was falling in love. She loves the sexist, possessive, twenty-five-years-her-senior Scottie. It's a misogynist development from a director who delighted in having Kim Novak repeatedly jump into the cold bay even when he knew he'd gotten the right shot already. It's a weakness in character development only possibly explained by dismissing Judy Barton as insane--a frail womanly creature willingly submitting to an abusive relationship and seeing suicide as the only possible escape.

And that's why this isn't the second greatest film of all time; though it's intriguing and original and the cinematography is meaningful and beautiful, it's just a tad outdated and offensive. Perhaps the screenwriter or the original French novelist is to blame; maybe Hitchcock himself. In any case, the film is visually stunning with its timeless, technicolor-rich sets, its spiraling, dizzying camera angles, its steep, vertiginous San Francisco landscape, and its unnatural use of ever-changing lighting with characters occasionally fading into dark obscurity, their physical presence shadowed by the idea of their presence.

Vertigo
d: Alfred Hitchcock w: Samuel A. Taylor
(Jimmy Stewart, Kim Novak)
8/10

***

On the same day I watched Vertigo, I coincidentally watched the largely overlooked Scottish film Mister Foe (aka Hallam Foe), which in many ways is a spin on Vertigo (get it--spin? vertigo?), with even a sly reference to the original thriller at the end.

Like Scottie, seventeen-year-old Hallam (Jamie Bell) is a career voyeur, though his peeping is a way of life more than just a career. A lonely kid, he spends his time huddled in his impressive tree house, spying on his neighbors with binoculars and recording their activities in his journal. He knows a lot of secrets but never attempts to profit off them, and though he does a lot of creepy things Bell manages to convey an unusual charm rather than an off-putting perversion. He's a creep whose company you can enjoy; a watchful guardian angel rather than a shadowed masturbator.

Hallam is haunted by the death--possibly by suicide, possibly by a homicide involving the husband and his lover--of his one true love, who happens to be his mother. When suspicions of his ladder climbing stepmother (Claire Forlani) and his oddly cold father (Cieran Hinds) become too unbearable, he flees with his treasure trove of odd knickknacks (including his mother's passport, earrings, and dress) to a homeless life in London, where he discovers a hotel concierge (Sophia Myles) who looks exactly like his mother. Using his charisma and ample detective skills, he insinuates himself into her life (both secretly and openly), eventually becoming her bedfellow.

Their relationship is just as complicated as the one between Scottie and Judy Barton (even more so when you consider the Oedipal aspect), but here the involvement of Kate, a self-confessed slag and relationship-phobe, is far more convincing. "I like creepy guys," she drunkenly confesses at one point before trying to bed the resistant admirer, who'd rather just sleep with her than sleep with her. Mister Foe is Vertigo with humor and sex appeal, and though Hallam and Kate are just as weird as their predecessors, one can maintain a certain optimism for both of them. Their complexes are kinks to be worked out, not inevitable agents of death.

The exuberant pacing and indie soundtrack are great, as well as the talented ensemble cast, Jamie Bell especially (in his only good role since Billy Elliot) as a generally good-hearted kid riddled with some peculiar affinities and difficult growing pains. When he finally solves the mystery of his mother's death, its a heartfelt realization about the impact of suicide on the survivors, tied up with a sloppy bow.

It's Oscar season and a lot of undeserved attention is being flung on Clint Eastwood and Leonardo DiCaprio as potential Best Actor nominees. It's unfortunate that this eccentric movie, which never even got a wide release, has been completely overlooked. Jamie Bell certainly gives one of the more convincing and complex turns of the year. Maybe even Hitchcock wouldn't have been disappointed.

Hallam Foe
d/w: David Mackenzie
(Jamie Bell, Sophia Myles, Claire Forlani, Cieran Hinds)
8/10

Movie Review: Milk (2008)

A couple of months ago, I expressed an optimistic excitement for the Harvey Milk biopic that recently came out. Having now seen the movie, I thought I'd clarify my disappointment.

Milk isn't a terrible movie--it's not even a bad movie--but it's nowhere near the level of gay masterpiece I hoped it would be. It's a conventional, unambiguous rallying cry with no real impact.

Gus Van Sant has done some very original, highly stylized, downright weird films in the past decade. My Own Private Idaho was Shakespeare's world populated by gay prostitutes, with still life sex scenes and split screens and over-the-top dialogue; Psycho was a more surreal (and more scandalous) shot-for-shot replay of the Hitchcock original; Elephant was a hyper-realistic photograph of teenage violence starring no-name high school actors; and so on. His most conventional film was Good Will Hunting, but that at least was moving and had momentum, as well as a terrific soundtrack. Milk is just plain standard. Each character--though based on real people--can be summed up in a simple sentence, such as Emile Hirsch's Cleve Jones, the tenacious queer who... well, I don't even need a full sentence. That's about it.

Sean Penn is convincing and sweet as the 40-year-old New York insurance man who realizes how boring his life is and decides to head west and make an impact. He seems to settle on a life of gay political activism simply because it's the most convenient; the attention, the theatrics, and the social bonding seem almost as important--if not more so--than the actual revolution.

Which is an interesting idea, but not one that the movie really allows you to dwell on. Milk, with its fast-paced biopic structure (here's one important event... then here's another one a year later... then a close friend dies... and then there's a small triumph... and then...) and its attention to political activism, wants to be a cry for equality, not a complex, ambiguous character study. Harvey is reduced to the role of hero, champion, martyr. You're not allowed to be skeptical of his background, his relationships, his motivation, his manipulative methods. You know he's the good guy because he's on the side of equality--the ends justify the means and all that--and so you have to root for him, and that's that.

But I don't enjoy that. I like rooting for villains. I like feeling sorry for the assholes. I like believing, even for just one turbulent moment, that what the psycho killer is saying makes perfect sense. And I can't stand a flawless hero. I can't stand being forced to side with someone.

And as for Harvey Milk as portrayed in this film--well, he just wasn't that inspirational. Look, I'm queer and I'm liberal and all of that. It's a subject that's very close to me. Plus, I'm a sucker for inspiration, and I cry several times a year in movie theaters. But his speeches and his rallies never made me feel anything other than mildly interested on an intellectual level. The bad direction is part of that--the cinematography choices were dreadful, with very little camerawork standing out as exceptional. With each march and protest, a still camera looks head-on at the faces of the few stars as they march forward. Why? If we're supposed to be immersed in the riot, to feel like we're a part of it, why would be facing the rioters? Why would we be so still? Why not throw the camera into the action, shakily following behind the other marchers? But there's none of that.

Maybe Van Sant was trying to prove that gay people are just as normal and boring as straight people, that their inspirational biopics can be just as color-by-numbers and boring as straight biopics. But who wants to see that? Harvey was loud--"My name is Harvey Milk, and I'm here to recruit you!"--Harvey was theatrical. The gay movement at that time loved to shout out loud. So why such a stifling story?

There's only one aspect of the film that's interesting, and that's the relationship between Harvey Milk and Dan White (Josh Brolin, in a fine performance), the straight-laced police officer and political rival. Their awkward dance is compelling--Dan "the man" tries to please and work with, however distantly, his minority colleague, while Harvey desires only to destroy the competitor who represents everything he detests and opposes. Dan keeps promises that Harvey breaks. Dan drunkenly stumbles in the shadows of his fading conservative beliefs--beliefs he doesn't even necessarily understand or trust anymore--while Harvey milks up the limelight. It's a sad and scary battle of wits, and one that paints a dark, political tinge on the otherwise spotless Harvey, but the theme is confined to a few short scenes and left largely unexplored.

As a movie focusing strictly on Dan vs. Harvey, this could have been a good film, but by expanding this into an eight-year-long historical examination of how great San Francisco is and how wonderful and downtrodden gay people always are, the movie strays into the realm of simple, sweeping statements. I'm disappointed by how much critical acclaim this film is getting; aside from Penn and Brolin it's rather lackluster.

Milk
d: Gus Van Sant w: Dustin Lance Black
(Sean Penn, Josh Brolin)
6/10

In which I complain about US Airways

I made plans over three months ago to go camping under the stars at Death Valley National Park, the darkest, deepest, driest, hottest place in the country (or is it the world?). The night sky is so unpolluted by light and clouds that you can see pretty much any star you'll ever be able to see with the naked eye, plus the Milky Way galaxy on its side, stretching across the horizon.

I was excited. I very much have a romantic attachment to stargazing, as well as campfires and uncomfortable tent sleep. I eagerly anticipated abandoned mines, paleolithic artifacts, coyotes, and seventy degree sunshine in December. I also cautiously anticipated a thirty-nine degree night by packing a suitcase full of blankets, sleeping bags, sweatshirts, insulated jeans, a tent, and some pillows. A bag so heavy and big that I had to check it while my carry-on contained little more than a book (I'm working on Middlemarch by George Eliot now, and it's not very compelling three hundred pages in, but it's okay).

Paul, who's staying with his family in Las Vegas this week--Las Vegas, a city I despise, full of hungover, miserable tourists who have been drinking and gambling and eating at buffets for thirty-four hours straight, miserable tourism industry employees who have to deal with said tourists, no notable cuisine, no common fashion sense, giant blinking billboards of Bette Midler's airbrushed legs, overpriced everything, immigrants thrusting out litter describing women with stars on their nipples, people convinced you really can get something for nothing, hundreds of obese people in cowboy hats, and for some reason my sister and her daughter whom I miss--and I had made all the plans, reserving the rental car, getting the directions, figuring out the campsite, packing the bags, and timing everything so that I could arrive Tuesday evening, we could camp Tuesday night, hike Wednesday morning and afternoon, and hang out with my sister Wednesday night all before I had to fly back Thursday morning (a total of eleven hours of travel, plus the time zone differential) to return to work today.

Fifteen dollars to check the bag each way on an airplane that didn't even offer complimentary water or in-flight entertainment of any kind. (Not even headphones? Come on!). I arrived in Las Vegas. My baggage did not. Not until six hours later, when it was too late to do anything involving a national park. So I spent two nights in Vegas. Two nights in motherfucking Vegas, and I barely got to see my sister. All this money I spent... for two nights in Vegas.

And the woman in the baggage claim office says, "No, there's no refund. The baggage claim only guarantees the transportation, not the time." Are you fucking kidding? What does that even mean? What kind of customer service is that, US Airways? You ruined my goddamn vacation.

I shall seek retribution soon.

Of course she never has breakfast at Tiffany's!

I remember seeing Breakfast at Tiffany's in my "film studies" elective class in seventh grade, though I don't really remember much of it other than daffy, romantic banter, a cutesy moment centered on a Cracker Jack box, talk of a guy in Sing Sing, and a bespectacled Mickey Rooney screaming down a flight of stairs. I also distinctly remember having no idea what the title meant and deciding that it was an intentional non sequitur serving only to confuse. She never has breakfast at Tiffany's! How could she? It's a jewelry store.

So when I decided to read the novella a few days ago, I actually didn't expect much insight. In fact, when gabby, beautiful Holly Golightly--to a certain extent a New York City escort, to another extent a social butterfly and starlet, but quite possibly none of the above--first drops the titular line, it is indeed a non sequitur. She confesses:

I don't mean I'd mind being rich and famous. That's very much on my schedule, and someday I'll try to get around to it; but if it happens, I'd like to have my ego tagging along. I want to still be me when I wake up one fine morning and have breakfast at Tiffany's.

At that point it's not even clear if she's talking about the store or some friend's house, though other than her big dumb lovable brother Fred--long estranged by the trials of adulthood--she doesn't seem to have any real friends she thinks of by name and would make such plans involving. But soon after, hugging the cat that lives in her transient apartment, she clarifies:

Poor slob... poor slob without a name. It's a little inconvenient, his not having a name. But I haven't right to give him one: he'll have to wait until he belongs to somebody. We just sort of took up by the river one day, we don't belong to each other: he's an independent, and so am I. I don't want to own anything until I know I've found the place where me and things belong together. I'm not quite sure where that is just yet. But I know what it's like.... It's like Tiffany's.... Not that I give a damn about jewelry.... It calms me down right away, the quietness and the proud look of it; nothing very bad could happen to you there, not with those kind men in their nice suits, and that lovely smell of silver and alligator wallets. If I could find a real-life place that made me feel like Tiffany's, then I'd buy some furniture and give the cat a name.

Tiffany's is home, and as revealed throughout the book through the eyes of a nameless neighbor narrator she lovingly calls Fred (for a while), Holly spends her whole life looking for it, abandoning her abusive childhood, slipping away from an empty teen marriage, escaping all ties and titles (her business card simply states, "Holly Golightly, traveling"), and eventually fleeing the country to South America and then onward to third-world Africa.

Holly and the narrator are cursed by their excessive talent and their overwhelming ambition. In a world populated by pudgy-faced millionaires with baby complexes, huge, flat-chested women who seductively accentuate their speech impediments, and other such absurdities, they are two smart, young souls bursting with life and ability and unwilling to be imprisoned by anything less than their desert. The narrator, it's assumed, succeeds because he's able to focus his energy on the singular goal of being a published writer, but Holly is unable to align her broad array of exceptional talents and gifts, which brought her from an impoverished life in the deep south to the upper echelons of fashionable New York society.

She despises zoos for their cages, lives out of a few hastily packed cardboard boxes, never seems to sleep, and talks several interesting pages at a time. Breakfast at Tiffany's is hilarious, scandalous (I'm curious to see how the G-rated Audrey Hepburn movie was even made, now that I know about the drugs, sex, and language that proliferate the source material), and rich with modern absurdities, but Capote treats his shy, nameless narrator and his wayward star with a heartfelt tenderness. Their relationship is sweet though not quite romantic, and their peaceful success is yearned for by the reader.

In the end, as Holly prepares a hasty departure, she unleashes her moniker-less feline friend (the cat is like the narrator, who she first calls Fred and then calls Buddy, never bothering to learn the real name because she knows she's destined to lose him in short time), who runs off to find his own Tiffany's while she, perhaps tragically, continues her quest for a sense of belonging and a chance to stop and breathe.

***

There are three additional short stories compiled with Breakfast at Tiffany's, all of them very diverse: "House of Flowers," a fable about Haitian prostitutes and Carnivale that reminded me of Black Orpheus; "A Diamond Guitar," a precursor to The Shawshank Redemption; and "A Christmas Memory," a beautiful recollection of a perfect friendship.

Of the three, the last is by far my favorite. Capote writes of two friends and distant cousins, one a septuagenarian and the other a seven-year-old, the former as youthful as the latter is wise, preparing for an advancing Southern Christmas by baking fruitcakes for distant acquaintances (motorists who once broke down at the driveway, the bus driver, the President of the United States) and crafting gifts and decorations. Capote's images are precise, as in this scene where the two misfits, neither with any source of traditional income, dig out their savings to prepare for grocery shopping:

Dollar bills, tightly rolled and green as May buds. Somber fifty-cent pieces, heavy enough to weight a dead man's eyes. Lovely dimes, the liveliest coin, the one that really jingles. Nickels and quarters, worn smooth as creek pebbles. But mostly a hateful heap of bitter-odored pennies.

The pair enjoy Christmas richly without material goods, savoring the smells of good cooking, the warmth of companionship, and the taste of adventure. Yet for all its tenderness and tranquility, in spite of its familiar theme and message, the story never comes off as schmaltzy, moralistic, or falsely nostalgic. It's a terrific snapshot of a sweet spot from childhood, and it deserves to be a Christmas classic by now, though unfortunately I'd never heard of it before.