Arctic Shores Contemporary Reviews

RAGING BULL (1980): Jake La Motta

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 13:51:30 GMT

About the time that he wrote his book I Never Played the Game, Howard Cosell made the statement that he despised boxing while still maintaining his respect for the fighters who participated in the sport. Though self-delusional, Cosell was probably only being slightly hypocritical in saying such a thing. Cosell made millions off of announcing professional fights, and he continued to enhance his earnings by doing play-by-play for amateur fights while confessing to having a "loathing" for the sweet science. And Cosell did highly praise fighters Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard (both media darlings), though he had little good to say about many great but less colorful fighters like Marvin Hagler. But in principle I think Cosell was being honest. He’d been around long enough to know the lasting impact all of the blows had upon many fighters. He also was familiar with the extreme poverty that fighters were raised in, and their great determination to better their position. It’s a fair statement to suggest that fighters probably chose their profession because there were not a lot of professional opportunities out there for them to pursue. Cosell understood that and probably wished that many fighters could have stayed away from the game completely. I’m not sure what he would have made out of the movie, Raging Bull. In Raging Bull, we neither see any respect for the fight nor for the fighter.

At the beginning of Raging Bull, we see Jake La Motta (Robert De Niro) shadowboxing to Intermezzo from Pietro Mascagni’s classical composition, Cavalleria Rusticana. Thus, from the outset we should understand that Raging Bull is not so much a realistic depiction of boxing as it is an Operato about the fight game. To be frank, this may be the only scene in the entire movie where De Niro actually resembles an authentic fighter. We then go to La Motta’s Bronx’ apartment where he is in an argument with his first wife Irma (Lori Anne Flax) over the way his steak is being cooked. We then meet Jake’s brother, Joey (Joe Pesci), who is only slightly less insane than his older brother. Joey is about as close to a fight manager as Jake will ever have. Jake prefers to train on his own and this does not please Tommy Como (Nicholas Colasanto), the Mafioso leader that controls who does and who does not get a shot at the welterweight and middleweight championship belts. Now Tommy knows that Jake has the talent to be a champion. He’s been watching Jake fight since he was a kid. Jake's championship caliber becomes especially obvious when Jake becomes the first fighter ever to defeat the great Sugar Ray Robinson (Johnny Barnes) in 1943. Unfortunately for Jake, the welterweight championship is reserved for others and he is going to have to move up in weight if he hopes to fight for the title.

Jake’s marriage to Irma does not last. Jake is a tad bit abusive. And at the same time that he is married to Irma, Jake casts his eyes upon a fifteen-year old neighborhood girl by the name of Vickie (Cathy Moriarty). The two become involved in an affair and are married a couple of years later after Jake his granted a divorce from Irma. Anyway, Vickie is a just too good looking for someone with the temperament of Jake. Jake suspects her almost from the beginning of having affairs with other men. When Vickie makes a comment that one of Jake’s future opponents, Tony Janiro (Kevin Mahon), was supposed to be good looking, Jake is on the verge of punching her in the face and probably would have if Joey did not also happen to be present. Joey, himself, aware of Jake’s possessiveness of his wife, assaults Salvy Batts (Frank Vincent), a smooth talking Italian from the neighborhood who engages Vickie in a conversation. Anyway, Jake fights Tony Janiro and, as the fight comes to a close, Tommy Como comments that Janiro “ain’t pretty no more.” (Just for the record, Janiro actually did go the distance with La Motta, which you could never tell from watching this film.) In late 1947, Jake would throw a fight with Billy Fox (played by former light-heavyweight champion, Eddie Mustafa Muhammad) in order to get a shot at the middleweight championship. It was so obvious that Jake was throwing the fight that Jake’s license to fight was temporarily suspended. (Incidentally, the real Billy Fox did go on to fight for the light-heavyweight championship only to get knocked out in the first round.) In any event, Jake did finally get his chance to fight for the middleweight title and made the most of it by defeating Marcel Cerdan (Louis Raftis). Jake has a brief moment of joy, though of course it doesn’t last.

Jake’s jealousy erupts shortly after winning the championship and he badly beats Joey up (and Vickie) because he’s convinced that Joey has been sleeping with Vickie. And a year-and-a-half after winning the title, he loses it to his nemesis, Sugar Ray Robinson, in the infamous 13^th round where Jake is badly beaten. Shortly after this, Jake retires, buys himself a bar down in Florida and is arrested for serving liquor to two minor girls. Vickie separates from Jake and eventually divorces him. Since Jake is unable to raise the money for bail, he is sent to the hole in a Florida prison where he punches and head-butts the concrete wall until he is covered in blood. Eventually, he gets out, moves back to New York, and after a couple of unsuccessful tries finds a bit of success by running a night club and by reciting lines from Marlon Brando’s role in On the Waterfront.

What makes Raging Bull a borderline great movie is the fact that Scorsese tries to do so much with the story that he is given. Raging Bull is not only a character study of an unappealing individual, it is also an indictment of a society that made such a character possible. Whatever draws a viewer in to see a violent movie, few can watch this film and feel that it in anyway affirms a violent sport. Almost everyone behind the scenes is corrupt and the movie shows that fight fans are themselves responsible for the bloody spectacle. When La Motta’s face is cut-up by a combination of punches from Robinson, the resulting blood is sprayed across the fight fans in the first row that paid big money for their seats. The very intensity of the fight scenes makes boxing seem like a vicious and dangerous sport. We are never sure if La Motta endures the fights he participates in because of his great personal courage or because of his own inner rage that drives him into insanity.

Jake La Motta consulted in the making of Raging Bull, but he was not entirely satisfied with the results. Few film biographies in history have painted the lead character so unredeemably bad as does Raging Bull. Yet La Motta did admit that he was almost as much of a bastard as is portrayed in the movie. Probably he made such a confession in part because Scorsese’s movie about him once again made him famous (if not notorious). (It also made his wife, Vickie, famous, and it gave her an opportunity to pose nude for Playboy magazine.) Director Martin Scorsese occasionally does attempt to soften the portrait slightly, though this is mostly unnoticeable. For example, both Jake and Joey can be extremely funny in an obscene sort of way. And Jake and Joey did seem to actually care for each other when Jake wasn’t besieged by jealousy. Jake and Vickie could be extremely passionate towards each other as evidenced by the hilarious scene early on in the movie when Jake is trying to resist the seduction of Vickie and stick to his training regimen. Scorsese attempts in part to psychoanalyze Jake and explain away some of his bad behavior by trying to make us understand that Jake was punishing himself for his past actions. Indeed, Jake seemed willing to take on an incredible amount of pain that was inflicted upon him by other fighters. And Jake at times seems genuinely remorseful for the pain he has inflicted upon Joey and Vickie. Like in the movie Rocky, imagery abounds including crucifixes and religious paintings. However, unlike in the earlier movie, religion holds no lasting influence upon La Motta save the constant reminder that he is a sinner beyond redemption.

A little more complexity and less one-sided negativity may very well have turned Raging Bull into one of the greatest movies ever filmed. I read some interviews of Jake La Motta years ago and was surprised at how he came across as a fairly intelligent man. Obviously, he was not Harvard educated. Still, he showed a great deal of insight into himself in these interviews, which almost never comes across in the film. (I once spoke to a boxing referee who evidenced the same kind of surprise when he discovered that Mike Tyson displayed to him a similar intelligence. Supposing what the referee said was true, there would have to be a great disconnect between what goes on in Tyson’s brain versus the way he actually behaves outside and sometimes inside of the ring.) At the same time you have a fighter like George Foreman, known mostly as a thug in his pre-fighting days, that has now seemingly developed a sweet disposition. Maybe boxers are more complicated than either the positive Rocky Balboa or the negative Jake La Motta of movie fame would make us believe. (Let the viewer remember that the fight scenes from Rocky and from Raging Bull were choreographed almost identically.)

Unfortunately, La Motta’s admissions notwithstanding, Raging Bull is in many ways an exaggeration of the truth. There is virtually no realistic depiction of any actual boxing matches going on here. If the fight scenes in Raging Bull were realistic than boxing should be relegated to history the same as gladiator combat. The real Jake La Motta was a light puncher by championship standards and managed to knock out less than thirty percent of his opponents. Though he was able to take a punch, he also won his championship by boxing technique. La Motta had a very good left jab, but from watching the movie I don’t think that Robert De Niro even knew what a left jab was (though he is very good at flailing away at opponents who don’t seem to know how to fight back). If anyone is under the impression that the fight scenes are believable, they should just go to the Internet and watch some of the actual fights involving Jake La Motta. Even the “St. Valentines Massacre” on February 14, 1951 where Robinson stopped La Motta in the 13^th round will come across much more sedate than anything that is shown in the movie. The reason many movie reviewers refer to Raging Bull as realism is quite simple: in their spare time when not attending movie theatres or writing movie reviews, they spend their time watching Broadway plays like the stage production (versus the movie version) of Mamma Mia. Any athletic endeavor they could have participated in has been replaced by popcorn and soft drinks from the concession stand and so they know little about any sport.

Without question, Raging Bull contains some of the best acting ever put on film. It isn’t simply because De Niro put on fifty pounds during the filming turning him from trim and muscular looking young man to a fat slob. That’s not giving De Niro enough credit. I could quibble and say that Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci are basically playing the same parts that they have performed in other movies when they were teamed up together. Yet whatever shortcomings there may be concerning other aspects of this movie, the rage that is elicited from the two actors seems believable in every scene. And the remainder of the cast is as good as the two leads. I read one critic refer to the acting of Cathy Moriarty as being flat. I disagree. She comes across as many such women from close neighborhoods that remain emotionally guarded because they understandably want something better. Moriarty kept her emotion in check, which was probably more difficult to do than if she became slobbering and sentimental.

As it is, viewing Raging Bull amounts to 132 minutes of an unrelenting wrenching of the gut. It is almost too much to watch. Even so, it still was superior to almost every other film made during the 1980s, and it certainly was more deserving in 1980 of a best picture award than Ordinary People. (Just as Raging Bull is considered a realistic depiction of boxing, Ordinary People is considered a realistic depiction of marriage because: (1) the two spouses hate each other, and (2) they have a suicidal son. I guess anything shown in the worst possible vein is considered realism.) It’s impossible to watch Raging Bull and feel bored. We talk down the movie by only discussing its film technique or its black and white photography. Whatever his limitations, the Jake La Motta of the movie does seem frighteningly human. Joey and Vickie also seem genuine in their own sad way in that they cannot seem to escape the neighborhood in which they grew up. Thus one has to conclude: If the final truth about man is that he can never truly escape the environment in which he was formed, than Raging Bull is a work of genius. The film portrays a human train wreck molded by a violent and negative culture almost perfectly. If we feel that mankind is capable of more than this and can rise above his surroundings, we must still hope for another and better film.

MY LIFE AS A DOG (1985): Swedish Warmth

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 13:42:33 GMT

We don’t endow the stereotypical Swede with a sense of humor. Generally we think of a Swede as being stoic, somewhat priggish and too much of a conformist. Even its greatest filmmaker, Ingmar Bergman, made the typical Swede appear as someone almost frightening. Yet My Life as a Dog is a sensitive, passionate, comic and bit too cute depiction of life in a small Swedish community.

Ingemar (Anton Glanzelius) is a twelve-year old boy with a sick mother, absentee father and angry brother in 1959 Sweden. The mother (Anki Liden) has tuberculosis. The father is in South America loading bananas. The brother, Erik (Manfred Serner), receives almost no joy out of life save in humiliating Ingemar in front of his mother. Ingemar indeed is a troublesome creature in that he can’t drink his milk without spilling it, he allows himself to be talked into many things that cause him shame, and he enjoys nothing more than making others (especially his mother) laugh. He’s caught playing doctor with a local girl, a chase with his dog turns the apartment they are living in into shambles, and he accidentally sets a fire in the town dump – all of which drives his otherwise charming mother into a rage. (Yet in her stable moods, we feel his mother adores Ingemar for his very unSwedish attributes.) Eventually, Ingemar is sent away to stay with his Uncle Gunnar (Tomas von Brommen) to prevent his mother’s health from worsening.

Gunnar is almost as much of a buffoon as Ingemar. Gunnar builds a hut for Ingemar that resembles a space ship. (Ingemar is obsessed with thinking about the Russian dog Laika that was sent up by Sputnik only to starve to death in space.) Gunnar also flirts with the local women and drives his wife crazy by playing the same nonsensical song over and over on a phonograph. Gunnar works in a glass factory in the small Swedish town where Ingemar comes to stay. A co-worker of Gunnar is named Berit (Ing-Marie Carlssen), who makes money on the side while posing nude for a famous Swedish artist. Berit talks Ingemar into accompanying her while she poses for the artist. And Ingemar meets Saga a prepubescent tomboy that develops her first crush on the young boy. She hides her affection for Ingemar by engaging him in boxing matches.

Though life in the small town is better for Ingemar than it was living with his mother at home, nevertheless tragedy does occur. Ingemar’s mother dies and, we are led to believe, his pet dog is disposed of. Ingemar does not have his brother’s stoic disposition, so he takes the losses hard. Only through the zany goings-on of the community does Ingemar recover. In fact, it is Ingemar that adds as much to the lives of people like his uncle, Berit and Saga as they add to his life. This small collection of lunatics we are led to believe have little in common with the remainder of Sweden as a whole, though they celebrate their Swedish heritage as much as anyone else. They sing Swedish folk tunes and perform acrobatics to entertain each other. They go for swims in the icy river. They admire the sculpture made of Berit, though it is eventually banned for its “indecency.” Most importantly, they celebrate the great victory of another Ingemar (Ingemar Johansson) when he wins the World Heavyweight Championship from Floyd Patterson on June 26, 1959. (Johansson would be defeated by Patterson in two later fights and would never again fight for the heavyweight crown.) Finally, the almost clumsy relationship between Ingemar and Saga in the end turns into young love.

Director Lasse Hallstrom should be commended for his choice of actors and actresses for this movie. If not perfectly acted, at least everyone in the cast looks their part. Berit, Saga and Ingemar’s mother are beautiful, though not in the same way as beauty would be defined in an American magazine. The three look too refreshingly human. And Ingemar, Gunnar and many others of the males making up the supporting cast are likeable oddballs and eccentrics. They never quit trying to bring some happiness to those in their lives – however annoying they may be to them. The movie is 101 minutes long, short by modern standards. Director Hallstrom avoids the temptation of saying too much by making it any longer. Yet the movie is not an escape from the real world. With all of its charm, it also portrays anger and death and abandonment and loss. Erik, Ingemar’s older brother, does not handle the hardships any better than Ingemar. He simply stuffs it away in Swedish pride and only shows his real side when he’s angry. Ingemar’s mother tries to hide in the books that she reads, but Ingemar is too much of a real presence for her to ignore. The only one in the movie that does not appear remotely human is the bureaucrat that shuffles Ingemar around whenever Ingemar seems to be getting in the way.

My Life as a Dog is not a movie that would probably ever be made by an American director, and it probably would never catch on with an American audience. There is innocence to the movie that has mostly been lost on our western shores. That’s not to say that one culture is superior to the other. America, at least in its arts, tends to express itself more forcibly and directly. American art is tougher, more independent and cynical. No Swede could have ever written a novel like Moby Dick or direct films like Apocalypse Now. On the other hand, probably no American moviemaker will ever create anything closely resembling a Bergman film nor make a movie like My Life as a Dog. Americans have to appear sure of their selves and will never take the risk of making their selves appear foolish. The educated American to maintain the respect of others must speak knowingly about war, culture, violence, rape, abortion, the economy, science and especially politics. You will never hear him say in a public setting, “I don’t know.” Thus, we have that irritating pontification in American films by directors and producers whose very point of view would be in question if they didn’t manipulate the story to fit their bias.

My Life as a Dog is never so self-conscious. There’s barely anything we would even call a plot to the film, and it’s mostly just a short sketch about the life of a young boy. Ingemar, in My Life as a Dog, is adorable in that he doesn’t worry about appearing foolish. He doesn’t understand why his mother has to die or why his dog has to be taken away to the kennel or why the Russians had to launch a dog into space only to see it starve. Despite the anger of his mother, he only wants to hear her laugh and feel good. He’s like the fighter, Johansson, the 5-1 underdog described as an undisciplined playboy that goes to Yankee Stadium and wins the world championship – though no one had even taken him seriously as a heavyweight fighter. However short-lived his championship, Johansson became a Swedish icon and a sometime ridiculous one at that. Ingemar in this film is also a fighter in his own small way in his own small community by never letting his spirits fail him and by remaining unconcerned about propriety and the small thoughts of others.

THE CANDIDATE (1972): A Cute Political Movie

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 14:22:08 GMT

The tagline for the movie posters of The Candidate went like this: “Too handsome. Too liberal. Doesn’t have a chance. He’s perfect!” The promoters of the movie also threw in a cynical aside when advertising the movie by saying, “Nothing matters more than winning. Not even what you believe in.” And the reviewers (and practically nobody else) bought into the hype of this movie as much as the voters of California bought into the political promises of candidate, Bill McKay. Here’s an example: Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, writing for Spirituality and Practice, say of this “timely and aesthetically unified view of the contemporary political scene” the following in their February 13, 2002 review:

“ ‘The Candidate’ hits the bull’s eye revealing the hollow center of a campaign manipulated by media mercenaries and political Machiavellis who value victory over integrity and substantive moral issue.”

So, since we are now once again in election season, and since the two major parties have already revealed the names of the candidates running for President in 2008, I felt like being the only reviewer to suggest some thirty-six years later that The Candidate is neither a major motion picture nor a prophetic piece of work.

Bill McKay (Robert Redford) is a crusading attorney that defends labor and environmental interests from the corporate bad guys. Like Jerry Brown (who was the California Secretary of State at the time this movie was released and who soon was to run for Governor of California), McKay happens to be a lawyer that is also the son of a former governor, John J. McKay (Melvyn Douglas). The father and son at first are not really on speaking terms because John is a realist and Bill is an idealist. All that is about to change. Marvin Lucas (Peter Boyle – with a beard) comes up with a brilliant strategy to unseat the current California Senator, Crocker Jarmon (Don Porter). Lucas persuades Bill to enter the Senate race by telling him that, since he has no chance of winning in any case, Bill can speak out on any issue during the campaign as forthrightly as possible. Bill likes the idea. Bill’s gorgeous wife Nancy (Karen Carlson) also likes the idea. And so, predictably, he decides to run. Equally predictable, all the incendiary comments that Bill would like to tell his audiences are toned down to make him more palatable as a candidate.

The campaign staff is made up of a cranky media consultant (Allen Garfield) and a bunch of Bill McKay groupies (one of which seduces Bill inside of a hotel room). By the time that Bill receives the Democratic nomination for the senate seat, most everyone wants to vote for him because he’s so damn good looking. The voters don’t really seem to care that he’s no longer speaking about the issues. Bill does have one problem, however. His father does not seem to be all that supportive of his son and this is being noticed in the media. Somehow or other, the campaign staff has to get John McKay on board. This is done in two ways: (1) Bill, if elected, implicitly agrees to give political favors to a labor leader that happens to be a friend of John McKay in return for the labor leader delivering to Bill a large number of blue-collar votes; and (2) Bill does such an outstanding job in a televised debate with Senator Jarmon of avoiding speaking directly about any issue that John McKay now becomes convinced that his son has a chance to win. Bill almost let the debate slip away when he suggested that the United States was on the threshold of a violent revolution in the streets, but his father assured him that nobody would notice this gaff. Anyway, Bill with his good looks and impeccable demeanor made Senator Jarmon look folksy and unsophisticated.

Bill, of course, wins the election. In the words of former Minnesota Governor, Jesse Ventura, he “shocked the world.” At the end of the movie, he corners Lucas in a hotel room and asks him what he’s supposed to do now since he’s the only one in the state of California that didn’t realize that he might just win.

Most critics were in awe of this film’s credentials. Jeremy Larner, a former speechwriter for Eugene McCarthy, wrote the screenplay for this movie. However, the reviewers should keep in mind that it was directed by Michael Ritchie who also directed The Bad News Bears, The Golden Child, Fletch and Fletch Lives (speaking of “cute”). If one looks at the list of movie critics on the Rotten Tomatoes website, the movie The Candidate receives a 100 percent approval rating from those critics so inclined to provide a review. (I’m ineligible to provide any reviews to the Rotten Tomatoes website since I am not affiliated with any film critics’ society. Thus, from my own biased perspective, it seems implausible that a truly independent take on a movie can be given by joining such a cooperative.) In any case, the unanimity of praise for this movie that only political junkies have ever even discussed makes one suspicious that critical acumen is lacking in the analysis of this film. At one point in the movie, Melvyn Douglas as John McKay utters a line to his labor leader friend as to why he’s convinced his son will win the election: “Because he’s cute.” Granted, it’s a good line, but the same thing could be said about this film - it being cute. The Candidate is too perfectly packaged to be believable. Redford is too polished, eloquent and attractive to be running for political office. Even JFK was not this perfect in his outward presentation. And Don Porter as Crocker Jarmon so instantly appears so insincere that we’re practically convinced he was a used car salesman that has violated the California State Lemon Law. To sum up, this movie is totally slanted. Even if the voters knew in advance everything about Bill McKay that the movie audience knew, they would have voted for McKay in any case when the alternative was Crocker Jarmon.

To be fair, the film has its strengths. For example, I don’t have a problem with the storytelling technique. The Candidate does not become sidetracked by meaningless side dramas (like marital tiffs or petty underworld schemes) to make the movie unwatchable. It instead tells us a simple story. Being 114 minutes in length, it actually moves well. Melvyn Douglas and Peter Boyle are both well cast in their roles, and Redford even excels here and does an average job of acting. (A mild criticism is that The Candidate does have a somewhat dated feeling in that none of the characters make us forget that we’re watching a 1970s movie.)

Unfortunately, there are many more serious flaws with this film. The Candidate is simply not as timely, contemporary or relevant as the many critics would like us to believe. For one, rumors about fixed elections, voter fraud, dirty tricks, manipulation of the issues and voter gullibility have been present for as long as we have had democracy. If Bill McKay did not understand in advance that some packaging was essential for running for political office perhaps he truly was as big of a rube as Crocker Jarmon. For two, it uses a dated formula that has more successfully been used in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (however naïve the ending of that movie may have been) and All the King’s Men. The voters in political movies are always duped by the bogus pleasantries of the candidates. And finally, The Candidate suggests no solution. It’s easy to imply that our system for selecting candidates is imperfect. It’s another matter to come up with a solution any better that does not allow for the appointment of politicians by a relatively small number of people.

We are led to believe in The Candidate that it would have been better for Bill McKay to stick to his ideals, even if it meant losing. Never mind that it is possible to value victory and integrity at the same time. The voters would have lost here in either case because neither Bill McKay nor Crocker Jarmon gave us much to be desired. As far as Bill McKay was concerned, I’m not sure remaining a fuzzy minded idealist would have enhanced his qualifications in any way (idealists of that type have a difficult time ever comprehending that they might be wrong), but victory was not the worst thing that could have occurred for him or his party. Most Democrats still regret not achieving victory in the 2000 Presidential election some eight years later. And we can rest assured that Republicans would be bemoaning their fate to this day if Al Gore had been elected President for two terms. Right or wrong, most voters want something specific from a candidate when they go into the voting booth (as long as they know the candidates at all – which is not always the case and I guess is the point of the movie). They’re voting for what they consider the lesser of two evils. That’s not to say that the voter’s analysis of the issues was precise, or that they’re not prone to error. It’s just that there are a lot worse methods for choosing a leader. Besides, holding elections every four years means that no mistake in choosing a leader is likely to become permanent. The positive side of the way most elections are held is that if the voter does recognize to making an error, they can take that vote back in the very next election. You don’t get that sort of benefit when only a small number of people (however qualified) make the decisions for the rest of us. Though it doesn’t happen often enough, we are still one of the few societies to run a head of state out (Nixon in 1974) without having to resort to “revolution in the streets.” Yet The Candidate almost sends out the unintentional message that what the voter thinks is of no value because he is being duped in any case. The Candidate is a piece of witty nonsense wrapped up in the cloak of something profound. It contains some clever satire along with the pretension of some insight.

INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL (2008): Phone Home, Indiana Jones

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 13:58:46 GMT

I didn’t find the latest sequel to be much of a letdown because, frankly, I went into the movie expecting it to be anti-climatic. What else could we expect? Two earlier sequels to the original Raiders of the Lost Ark (released in 1981) failed to impress the critics, so why should we feel that the 65-year old Harrison Ford could play the identical role with any more vitality? The best that the director and executive producer could do with the material was to repeat their selves. Watching Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is like watching a highlight film of some sporting event we saw years ago. This one just happens to be 124 minutes long.

So we’re in Nevada in 1957 at the height of cold war hysteria where it is discovered that the Russians, led by Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett), have taken over a military installation that houses among other things the Ark of the Covenant that was put into storage. But it is not biblical artifacts that the Soviets are after. They are instead after a skull made out of quartz that supposedly will enhance anyone’s psychological powers. The clues left at the installation concerning the location of the skull baffle the Russian authorities, but Irina understands that the one archaeologist that can assist them to find the skull is none other than Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford). Indy, temporarily captured, escapes from the Soviets and continues to elude his captor through the assistance of young Mutt Williams (Shiaf LaBeouf), who rides his motorcycle like Brando rode it in The Wild One. Indy, his protégé Mac (Ray Winstone) and Mutt then make their way to Peru in search of the Lost City of Gold, where the skull is apparently located. In Peru, Indy meets up with another old colleague, Professor Oxley or Ox (John Hurt), who happens to be in possession of the skull. Ox, who has been staring too much at the mystical skull, has gone mad and now speaks mostly in riddles. However, his riddles give enough insight to allow Indy to locate just where the skull must be returned. The skull, by the way, looks like the head of a space alien because it indeed has been modeled after the skull of a space alien. If the skull is not returned to the aliens that originally possessed it, there could very well be a global catastrophe. (Admittedly, we’re never quite clear as to what that catastrophe could be other than it would be used by sinister powers – like the Soviet Union – to control the minds of the rest of mankind.) Most significant for Indy, we again get to see Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen), Indy’s old flame that just happens to be the mother of Mutt. So it’s not surprising to find out that Indy happens to be the father of Mutt. Marion has been captured by the Soviets as bait for Indy and Mutt.

Anyway, Irina and her gang try to prevent the skull from being returned by trying to confiscate it for their selves. So we have dramatic chases by jeep through the jungle, a ride over several successive waterfalls, an expedition into a deep cave inhabited by various jungle natives and lots of gun fire – all of which occurred in one form or the other in the previous movies in this series. We also have a betrayal by Mac, who ends up dying a gruesome death. Irina almost gets her hands upon the skull, but she looks too closely into its eyes and loses her brain. Thus, Indy and his friends return the skull to the proper place, and we see the space ship take off no doubt with the skull in its possession. Indy and Marion then, as is appropriate, get married in a church.

I don’t care that the movie is far-fetched or doesn’t have much of a plot. And I’m not bothered by the space alien angle, as overused as it may be. Part of the appeal of Raiders of the Lost Ark was that the cast and characters seemed to make it all up as the filming went on – very little planning and lots of spontaneity. Director Spielberg again teams up with George Lucas and hopes to recreate the fun. And since the movie was meant in fun, it certainly is much less pretentious than the endless number of blockbusters we’ve been condemned with these past several years. How can it not compare with all of the other bad sequels currently in the theatre? It just does not compare with the original. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull doesn’t even come close to being as good as Raiders of the Lost Ark because it has absolutely nothing original to say.

Making the third sequel in the series is not the worst idea that Hollywood has ever had because we knew the movie was going to pull in millions. The movie is, of course, a reunion of the two best characters in the series – Indiana Jones and Marion Ravenwood. But since we don’t really want to see the two characters almost thirty years older there’s not a lot of character development for either one of them. Despite the few jokes about Indy being the grouchy old man, we want Indy and Marion to be exactly the same as they were in 1981. So we have them talking the same and, as much as possible, looking the same. We even have Indiana Jones performing the same stunts without breaking any of his old bones.

Certainly, of all the adventure movies to come out of Hollywood in recent years, few characters were more memorable than Indiana Jones. Indiana Jones is the epitome of the American Icon. He is the loner - tough, courageous and not so angelic. He breaks the rules. He follows nothing other than his not always so logical whims. Yet the character is endearing to audiences because he is something that every American male endeavors to be. And he even gets the girl he always wanted in the end. So why not give the audience what it has been asking for?

The problem is that as little character development the major characters have (characters we have already been introduced to in the prior movies), none of the newly introduced characters have any character development at all. The remaining cast is thrown in to compliment the only two characters we already know, and without much success. Mutt doesn’t have a lot of charisma when put side by side with his newly found father. And Irina, dressed and made-up like the villainess in the Bond thriller, From Russia With Love, is merely a type without much genuine personality at all. I think even the general public has sensed something is wrong. The movie brought in sixty or seventy million dollars the first week it was released. After that, we haven’t heard much about it. So, like so many other sequels, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull will be a footnote - just as the previous two sequels in this series have already become footnotes.

THE FOUNTAINHEAD (1949): Ayn Rand in Hollywood

Tue, 27 May 2008 14:01:13 GMT

Ayn Rand has both been overly criticized and overly praised. She spoke so highly of herself that she never escaped notice. Her most famous novel, Atlas Shrugged (apparently to be made into full length movie in the next year or two), is about as bloated and full of inconsistencies as any piece of fiction ever written. It’s not that Ms. Rand was insincere. It’s more likely that she was self-delusional. Add stubbornness as one of her traits and you have someone who succeeds because she simply doesn’t know that she’s supposed to fail. She wrote the novel, The Fountainhead, in 1943, and she also wrote the screenplay for the movie of the very same name. I read one critic who referred to the novel as preposterous, but that isn’t fair. Take away the soap opera qualities of the novel and it’s little different than any tale about a starving artist. Take away the political overtones that are inevitably read into the text (because it is written by Ayn Rand after all) and you have a protagonist in the novel that was as much of a nonconformist as any character penned by Jack Kerouac. Her brand of politics (a.k.a. laissez-faire capitalism) was and still is unpalatable for most people, but her dismissive approach to anyone that disagreed with her is what truly caused her to grate upon others. And she wrote into her novel and screenplay the character of an architect almost as unappealing as herself.

Howard Roark (Gary Cooper) was expelled from architectural school while his polar opposite, the mediocre Peter Keating (Kent Smith), became the school’s valedictorian. Keating met with one success after another while Roark faced almost nothing but rejection. Roark (whose character was loosely based upon Frank Lloyd Wright) for a short time found employment with the great architect, Henry Cameron (Henry Hull) (whose character was loosely based upon Louis Henry Sullivan). The problem was that Cameron was now a souse and no longer respected in a profession he at one time dominated. Roark learned all that he could from Cameron before Cameron eventually succumbed to all of his vices. Keating, on the other hand, worked for one of the most upscale architectural firms in New York. Keating eventually came to the attention of the premier architectural critic (top hat and all), Ellsworth Toohey (Robert Douglas). Now Toohey is a first-class bastard that scorned all greatness in others and only wished to see the rabble rule – with him of course providing the guiding hand. Toohey did this by praising the likes of an incompetent architect like Keating while scheming in every underhanded way to bring down a brilliant artist like Howard Roark.

After the death of Cameron and with no professional prospects, Roark works for a short time in a granite quarry owned by Keating’s boss. The boss had a voluptuous daughter and temptress by the name of Dominique Francon (Patricia Neal). This is when the movie gets steamy. Dominique sees Roark working in the quarry, once strikes him across the face with a riding crop when she feels that Roark has been brash, and the end result is that she gets herself raped by Roark in her home near where the quarry is located. As can only happen in Hollywood, she was actually hoping this would occur. So we have the love interest in the movie. But as is needed in every melodrama, the love interest soon enough must become a love triangle. Enter the newspaper tycoon, Gail Wyand (Raymond Massey).

Wyand, like that other great newspaperman on the opposite coast, William Randolph Hearst, practically controlled all public opinion in the area where his newspapers were published. Wyand, convinced that no such thing as greatness existed, has his life transformed by chance meetings with Dominique Francon (who he marries) and with Howard Roark, who he hires to build his home. Ellsworth Toohey (who works for the Wyand’ papers) personally would like to see Gail Wyand and Dominique destroy each other in a messy divorce. But the individual he would like to bring down the most is, of course, Howard Roark. Toohey understands that he will never achieve the power he so much desires so long as a talent such as Roark has goes unchecked. Toohey thus schemes to have the threesome work against each other. Part of the scheme involves the pitiable Peter Keating.

Keating, having spent his life, selling his soul at every opportunity suddenly discovered that he was almost out of options. Like every other man, he had been in love with Dominique Francon only to discover that she despised him. His clumsy attempts at architectural design were no longer drawing in the best clients. For the first time in his life he felt alone and wished for acceptance. His one opportunity was to design a public works project for renters on limited incomes. Other architects had tried to submit designs, but all of them were rejected for failing to meet all of the specifications. Keating knew of only one architect that could possibly pull the project off. He thus approached Roark and asked him to design the complex for him. Roark agreed. Roark knew that the complex would not otherwise be built because Roark would not be allowed to present a submission. With the designs all complete, Keating then proceeded to start on the building but contracted the various tasks out to all of the wrong people. The contractors were all stooges for Toohey. Thus, Roark’s brilliant design was distorted into one gigantic mess. Not to be outdone, Roark had one simple solution to the dilemma: he dynamited the building.

Roark was thus brought up on trial. Roark had few defenders. The Wyand’ papers at first defended him, but then even the great Gail Wyand deserted Roark when it became apparent that all of Wyand’s shareholders would desert his enterprise. Roark was left alone to defend himself, but Roark was used to facing great odds. Roark then gives a rousing summation at the trial and he is acquitted. Toohey is furious because he knows that he has now been defeated. Wyand has one last meeting with Roark. He hires Roark on to build the tallest skyscraper in the world. Once the contracts are signed and Roark leaves Wyand’s office, Wyand then pulls out a revolver and shoots himself in the head. This leaves Roark and Dominique free to marry.* Roark then went ahead and completed the construction of the world’s tallest building.

The Fountainhead in its 114 minutes does not come even close to being a perfect production. The novel was just a bit too abstract to come across entirely interesting on film. Not surprisingly, Rand blamed just about everyone but herself for the movie’s shortcomings. She thought Gary Cooper was too old to play the part of Roark and Patricia Neal (at age 24 and only in her second movie) too inexperienced to play the part of Dominique. She blamed Director King Vidor for making the movie too campy to give the theme of the movie the respect that Rand felt it deserved. Rand at least had some justification in being miffed. Gary Cooper had a long history of expertly playing the tall and accommodating type that saves the day in the end. He had no experience playing the hero with an anti-social slant that defies the expectations of everyone. Cooper and Neal did look the part, but the steaminess of the movie (with all the phallic symbols like a jackhammer and skyscrapers) overshadowed Rand’s message about the role unbridled individualism needs to play in a free society. Rand, of course, would never admit that she was part of the problem. It was Rand’s insistence that Cooper give the more than five-minute speech in the courtroom that most viewers failed to get. Rand was too convinced that her own eloquence would win over reviewers and critics alike.

Still, this strange hodgepodge of a movie is being watched sixty years later despite the fact that it was mostly panned when it first came out. Though most of today’s Hollywood would be reluctant to give Ayn Rand credit for anything, it was her very insistence that she had final say on any changes to the script that changed the way movies are now made. She took away the power of Warner Brothers to do anything they wanted with someone else’s written work. She made only the most minor concessions to the censors and this made possible for more controversial movies to be made. She attempted to make a movie (admittedly not completely successfully) with an intellectual theme that was being presented to a wide audience. And she could give a damn whether the movie was a financial success or not.

Ayn Rand was a controversial figure, and as all such controversial figures she was wrong about many things. She preferred seeing billboards along the roadside as opposed to having an unobstructed view of nature. Until she developed a spot on her own lung, she felt statistical evidence that smoking caused cancer was misleading. She was convinced that she lived by reason alone, but her passions dragged her into an affair with someone twenty-five years younger than herself that practically destroyed two marriages. She claimed to despise all religions, but her reverence for all things individual almost suggests that she believed in something called the human soul. She believed in precision, yet her writings were seldom concise or to the point. Though always preaching against compulsion of any sort, she had meetings with followers that she personally berated in the manner of a leader of a cult. Worst of all, she had almost no empathy for the suffering of other individuals though she often suggested that her own sufferings (as a millionaire) were somehow profoundly greater than others. Yet I can’t fault her for her courage or for her absolute insistence upon the need of integrity within the individual soul – even if she occasionally failed to live up to her own standards. She came to the United States from the Soviet Union in her early twenties and she never hesitated to speak of the crimes committed in her native land. With no connections whatsoever, she was determined to get her novel, The Fountainhead, published at all costs. Twelve separate publishers rejected it before it became a bestseller. In The Fountainhead, she presented a hero, Howard Roark, with as many blemishes as heroic traits. Though hardly a feminist, her strong female characters were unencumbered by the prohibitions that society had placed upon most women. In Ellsworth Toohey she created a villain, however one-sidedly evil, that nevertheless is remarkably real (I once knew a motivational speaker that could have been the prototype for Toohey). Shortly before she died, she appeared on television with Phil Donahue and to the end, no matter what the audience reaction may have been, she was determined to give her view on life in her own uncompromising manner.

I respect Ayn Rand, though I disagree with her on most of her stances. Her insistence upon everyone’s need to absolutely be their selves is something unappreciated by those who criticize her for her far right positions. Whatever she did concerning her personal life, she was a consistent critic of compulsion of any sort – and I do understand that in her mind this included the compulsion to help anyone else. She was not the great writer or philosopher that she claimed to be, and she liked to criticize individuals in both those fields that were far greater than herself. Yet she was unique, which was the message she so insistently tried to hammer through with her novel and her movie, The Fountainhead.

* In 1949, Warner Brothers (that produced this movie) was under pressure to have all scripts conform to the standards of the Production Code Administration of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA). Those standards did not permit the depiction of a marital affair in such a manner as to make the infidelity seem justifiable. Director King Vidor and screenwriter Rand got around this requirement by ending the marriage with one party committing suicide. Apparently, this was more acceptable.

IRON MAN (2008): Where Have You Gone, Ozzy Osbourne?

Wed, 07 May 2008 13:59:47 GMT

Marvel, of Marvel Comic Book fame, now makes movies. Looking at their last few efforts including Iron Man and the Spider Man series, their studio has been quite successful. Iron Man made over $100 million in the first weekend that it was released, and Spider Man 2 and Spider Man 3 both made around $120 million each. I can’t begrudge Marvel this because Paramount Pictures gave us Titanic, 20^th Century Fox gave us Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, and Warner Brothers gave us the Batman and Harry Potter movies – all of which are the top grossing movies ever and are movies that I take much less seriously than any cartoon. There’s even some positive news to take from the success of Iron Man as a movie debut. It stars Robert Downey, Jr. as Tony Stark (a.k.a. Iron Man), now off of heroin and cocaine and who now appears fit. It co-stars the 5’9”Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts, and for perhaps the first time in her career Ms. Paltrow appears to weigh more than 100 pounds. Finally, it also stars the great Jeff Bridges as the evil Obadiah Stane, and Bridges, despite the goatee and shaved head, seems to have aged gracefully.

Iron Man, of course, is based upon the comic book by the same name that first appeared in 1963. The hero of both the comic book and the movie is Tony Stark, the wealthy industrialist and inventor whose genius was already apparent when he graduated from MIT at the age of 15. Stark makes a fortune selling the weapons he invented to various nefarious guerilla groups throughout the world including the Afghan warlords that helped bring down the Soviet Union. Unfortunately, these same warlords did not prove to be all that good of guys when the Soviets left. So Tony, while entertaining the American troops and engaging in various business deals during a trip to Afghanistan, is captured by these same warlords. But Tony, rather than make the missile system to help the warlords achieve dominance in the area, creates an iron suit for himself, escapes from the warlords and returns to the United States to a heroes’ welcome.

Tony is not content, however. Having seen the suffering of the Afghani’ people and understanding that the very weapons that he created made their subjugation possible, Tony feels guilty for having made his fortune in such a way. Rather than continue to develop weapons, he decides instead to use his talents to develop a body armor that somehow or other is supposed to help the beleaguered people of Afghanistan achieve liberation. This at first distresses his loyal, beautiful and amazingly upright secretary, Pepper Potts. However, she trusts Tony because she sees something noble about the man that no one else can observe. Unfortunately, Stark’s business partner, Obadiah Stane, is not so forgiving because he foresees Tony’s new change of heart as the end of all profits for Stark Industries and, what’s worse, the end of his own designs to achieve world domination. Obadiah learns of the iron suit Tony created for himself in Afghanistan through the warlords. Obadiah creates his own iron suit. There is a clash between Tony in his iron suit and Obadiah in his imitation iron suit. Tony, through the assistance of Pepper, outsmarts Obadiah and defeats him in battle (probably killing Obadiah, though there’s always the possibility that he will show up in a sequel). Tony and Pepper then for the second time in the movie almost kiss each other, though each can’t get over the awkwardness of the situation.

I admit that I’m not a comic book fan, but I understand that some people are smitten by the superheroes portrayed within them. At least these movies based upon the comic books usually contain a bit of humor. It’s the lack of humor that makes these same comic books painful reading to me. In any case, Iron Man is better than most of the other movies of the same genre, though I’m not going to go so far as to say it’s unique. It’s got a decent cast and Downey does an excellent job of portraying the playboy turned good. The story is relatively simple and the cast is small enough to keep the characters straight. It doesn’t overdue the special effects which is a turn-off for me. And at 126 minutes, the pace only occasionally plods along.

The plot obviously doesn’t make any sense. Though Tony doesn’t want to make any more missiles, he doesn’t have the same inhibitions using a set of body armor that shoots bullets and other deadly projectiles. It really doesn’t seem like the body armor he designed would be anymore safe in the possession of the wrong hands than if he delivered them a nuclear weapon. (Tony proves this by blowing up and killing about as many people while outfitted in his iron suit as if he launched a ballistic missile.)

Outside of the Robert Downey, Jr., the cast turned out to be mainly made up of underachievers. Gwyneth Paltrow playing the part of a maid is a stretch. We’re somehow supposed to believe that she’s the small town girl next door that we adored so much that moved to Malibu to find steady employment. This also wasn’t one of Jeff Bridges better roles. (My favorite movie starring Bridges was Thunderbolt and Light that came out almost thirty-five years ago.) There’s not enough character development with the Obadiah Stane character to keep us interested in him, and we’re not sure what made him turn evil anymore than villains in other superhero movies. The fourth major character in this movie, Terrence Howard as Jim Rhodes, did nothing for me. Rhodes was supposed to be an air force commander that looked like Colin Powell. As the straight man to the outlandish Tony Stark, Rhodes had as much personality as Frank Gifford doting upon his wife, Kathy Lee. The movie is all about Robert Downey, Jr. Downey appears physically fit for this role, yet Downey’s personal history as a hard drinking sophisticate makes the Stark character seem credible.

Still, Iron Man is not as good as Robocop, Conan the Barbarian, or any of the Terminator movies. Iron Man is too literate to be considered more than just a superhero adventure movie. It’s the best of a current genre that is made up of a large number of mediocre movies. We can’t take Tony Stark seriously when telling everyone that he wants to become a peace loving man. We can’t take him at his word for anything because his actions belie everything he says. This results in any humor in the movie not poking fun at anyone of importance. Director Jon Favreau is at fault for this because he does not have anything satirical to say – at least about anything of significance. Iron Man is a movie for the kids to enjoy, and it’s also a film safe for the parents to sleep through. If you like generic superhero movies, than this flick is for you. By saying this, I don’t mean to sound snobby, however. Iron Man still is as good as a movie like Atonement - or about any other current film that critics pretend should be treated as something special.

LITTLE BIG MAN (1970): And the Strangeness of the White Man

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 14:04:29 GMT

It was common for the United States government to make promises to Native Americans that were to remain in effect “for as long as the wind blows, the grass grows, and the sky is blue.” But as the 121 year-old narrator in Little Big Man reminds us, “Sometimes the wind don’t blow, the grass don’t grow, and the sky ain’t blue.” There was no getting rid of the white man, and language of the treaties promising the American Indian that he could retain ownership of something like eighty percent of North American land obviously was ignored.

Jack Crabb (Dustin Hoffman) and his sister, Caroline (Carole Androsky), were taken in by the Cheyenne Indians (or “Human Beings”) after the remainder of their family was killed by a band of wild Pawnee. Caroline, after discovering that the Cheyenne tribe had no intentions of ravaging her (Caroline’s appearance being almost indistinguishable from any man), disappointedly got on a horse and left Jack there to fend for his self. Jack was then raised by the Cheyenne and learned their ways. His real education came from Old Lodge Skins (Chief Dan George) that Jack referred to as “Grandfather.” Old Lodge Skins gave Jack the name of “Little Big Man.” (The attention that Jack gets enrages a fellow Indian by the name of Younger Bear, played by Cal Bellini.) Inevitably, Jack was returned to the custody of the white people after a battle that the Cheyenne tribe had with some white soldiers ended in disaster. Jack was for a short time then raised by the glutinous Reverend Pendrake (Thayer David) and his sexually frustrated wife, Louise (Faye Dunaway). Between being beaten by the good Reverend for various moral lapses and discovering the ease in which Louise could be seduced by other men, Jack ended the religious phase of his life by running away. Next Jack associated himself with Allardyce T. Merriwhether (Martin Balsam), a huckster and “medicine man” who Jack admired both for his intelligence and a “brand of honesty” superior to that of the Pendrakes. However, after being tarred and feathered, Jack left the business to become reunited with his sister, Caroline. Caroline taught Jack how to shoot a gun and had high hopes of Jack becoming a great gunfighter. In his gun-fighting phase (where he never actually shoots anyone), Jack became friends with Wild Bill Hickock (Jeff Corey). After witnessing Hickock actually gun down another man, Jack realized he did not have the stomach to pursue this line of work.

Jack then takes a Swedish wife by the name of Olga (Kelly Jean Peters), tries to make a go of it by running a dry goods store, and then is swindled out of everything he owns by his dishonest partner. It’s at this point that he first lays eyes on General George Armstrong Custer (Richard Mulligan) who advises Jack to go west. Like everything else, Custer was wrong about this, too. Olga is kidnapped by a band of Indians and Jack spends a number of years in search for her. Jack also runs into Old Lodge Skins on a number of occasions and is continually impressed by his wisdom. In contrast to the presence of Old Lodge Skins, Jack also sees the cruelty and stupidity of the white people making their way west. Merriwhether, because of his various scams, has lost a number of limbs because of the outrage he has caused when selling his phony cures. A young kid Hickock has never met shoots Hickock in the back. Jack discovers Louise performing services in a house of ill repute and receiving no pleasure in return. Worst of all, Jack was to discover the insanity of Custer and his men in regards to his dealing with the native people. For Jack, after returning to the Cheyenne people and taking on a young wife, Sunshine (Aimee Eccles), his next contact with Custer was at the Washita Creek massacre where Jack’s wife, her three sisters and her children are all killed.

Jack becomes a drunkard and a hermit. But when he’s at his lowest point and ready to commit suicide, the opportunity was presented to him to take revenge upon General Custer. By playing upon Custer’s megalomania, Jack convinces Custer to take his men into the valley at the site of Little Big Horn. The rest was history. However, Jack was rescued from the battle by his old enemy, Younger Bear, and is then returned to the presence of Old Lodge Skins. It is then towards the end of the movie that Old Lodge Skins tells him: “There is an endless supply of white men, but there has always been a limited supply of Human Beings [Cheyenne' Braves]. We won today. We won’t win tomorrow.” Thus, the sole white survivor of the Battle of Little Big Horn ends his narration on a sad note.

Little Big Man is one of those ambitious movies that attempt to tie up all loose ends concerning relations of the white man and the American Indian. Of course, no movie (nor book) can be ultimately successful at accomplishing that, but director Arthur Penn’s efforts deserve merit. The American Indian is greatly romanticized in Little Big Man, though it does not come even close to the tripe that is delivered to us in Kevin Costner’s Dances With Wolves. The Indians (and especially Old Lodge Skins) are given dignity by being recognizably human. In Costner’s movie, every Indian is portrayed as a somber plaster saint. There is some ambiguity in Little Big Man. Younger Bear’s quest for glory goes so far as to cause him to be a “Contrary” type of warrior (a warrior that except in battle does everything in reverse). A character named Little Horse (Robert Little Star) becomes a Hemani, meaning that he resembles a transvestite in Christian society without receiving any of the condemnations of his peers. In Little Big Man, these characters at least have a chance to work their idiosyncrasies out. Actually, the accusation of romanticization in Little Big Man is not altogether fair because it’s being used against a movie that for once (and almost for the first time) looks at the Indian as being endowed with wisdom, a sense of humor, sadness and sense of decency. With the exception of the flawed and sometimes compelling Hombre that was released in 1967, no other movie before Little Big Man made any attempt to populate Indians with anything but stereotypical qualities.

Beyond being a romanticization of the American Indian, Little Big Man is a satire about certain segments of white culture – segments that unfortunately are too obviously still here. Caroline is never able to come to terms with her own gender. Reverend Pendrake is never able to see the inconsistency of his moral outrage while preaching the gospel of forgiveness. Louise Pendrake can find no happiness either in religion or in a bordello. Merriwhether, an intelligent man, cannot escape his own cynicism and belief that a “vision of moral order in the universe” fails to exist. Hickock, in his own way a decent and perceptive man, cannot escape his violent past. And Custer’s ravings are taken seriously by others and lead to him being promoted to the position of General. Old Lodge Skin, while showing to Jack a scalp that was taken, sums up the difference between the white man and the Cheyenne brave: “Do you see this fine thing? Do you admire the humanity of it? Because the Human Beings, my son, they believe everything is alive. Not only man and animals, but also water, earth, stone. And also the things from them like that hair. The man from whom this hair came, he’s bald on the other side because I now own his scalp! That is the way things are. But to the white man, they believe everything is dead. Stone, earth, animals, and people. Even their own people! If things keep trying to live, the white man will rub them out. That is the difference.” I recognize the flaws of every white man portrayed in Little Big Man. But I also recognize the goodness of Old Lodge Skins that is not so remote as to be unattainable.

The book named Little Big Man (written by Thomas Berger in 1964) is a remarkable read even for those who have seen this movie. The book concerns itself to a much greater degree than the movie with historical accuracy, and the white characters are rounded out to a much greater degree. Jack Crabb in the book is not quite so innocent as he is while portrayed by Dustin Hoffman. Yet in the book, we do not see the beauty of the Cheyenne people to near the degree that we do in the movie. Perhaps Chief Dan George’s acting with his laughter and small smile of contentment makes the character of Old Lodge Skins more real to us. Both the book and the movie compliment each other and are well worth any intelligent person’s attention. Critics have complained that the movie was not complimentary or even fair to the memory of George Armstrong Custer. Most of this criticism came out when the movie was first released in 1970 and is no longer taken quite so seriously. For whatever else we say about the numbers of women and children actually killed, the massacre at the Washita River did actually take place with Custer at the head. Equating this massacre with the massacre at My Lai (which apparently was the intention of the director) that occurred in 1968 does not seem farfetched. Certainly, Arthur Penn throws in some one-liners for Custer to utter mostly at Custer’s own expense and for laughs. But the Battle of Little Big Horn could not have in anyway been enjoyable for those who followed Custer’s orders, and however it happened there is no question that Custer bumbled into that one.

And so two greatest sins that White America has inflicted upon other peoples was their inability to abide by and live side by side with the Native American. The other sin, of course, was the ownership of slaves. Yet we do need to be reminded that the American Indian was capable of committing atrocities as well as the white man. More than 800 people were killed in raids in southern Minnesota towns during the 1860s and many more were killed in northern Iowa (in particular, Spirit Lake, Iowa) during that same period. The American Indian as a people has historically been a male dominated society, and a typical Indian male was generally of stoic disposition, warlike and highly individualistic. That last trait I do not find to be a fault, but it’s a trait of the Indian not well understood by those who admire the typical Hollywood fare such as Dances With Wolves. It is shown throughout the 139 minutes of film in Little Big Man, but comes across to an even greater degree in the Thomas Berger novel.

Still, there’s something refreshing about a people that had no numeric measurement of distance or specific time. “Near” or “far” were the adjectives they used while traveling, and time was measured by the sun or moon. Though somewhat dated (meaning that it is too innocently naïve), the movie Little Big Man provides both a critique and an alternative way of looking at things for modern man. Old Lodge Skins humor (often ribald), contentment and vision are substitutes for modern anxiety. Rather than look at his attitude as quaint and antiquated, it could be suggested that he simply came to his conclusions because he did not allow his self to be distracted by unimportant details that the white men deemed vital to their own life. Old Lodge Skins was not a primitive, or if he was he understood modern man better than most of us. “The elementary impressions and emotional stirrings that wake the spirit of the ‘natural man’ proceed from incidents – experience of a being confronting him – that are relational in character. He is not disquieted by the moon that he sees every night, till it comes bodily to him, sleeping or waking, draws near and charms him with silent movements, or fascinates him with the evil or sweetness of its touch.” Thomas Berger did not write these words but instead were written by Martin Buber, a Jewish Philosopher and Theologian. Still, the quote catches the essence of Little Big Man – both the movie and the book.

A FACE IN THE CROWD (1957): “Demagogue in Denim”

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 14:11:49 GMT

A Face in the Crowd reminds me both of All the King’s Men released a few years before and Hud a few years after this movie was made. If it’s not as good as either of these movies, this is in no way due to the quality of acting by the two leads. Patricia Neal, as in all of her roles, is tough and brittle at the same time. Andy Griffith may ham it up, but the sinister nature of his character is never masked by his easygoing charm.

“Lonesome” Larry Rhodes (Andy Griffith) starts out as a bum who spends more time in County Jail than he ever does doing any work. Marcia Jeffries (Patricia Neal) interviews Rhodes while in a small town Arkansas jail for a drunk and disorderly charge, and this interview broadcast upon the local radio station is widely admired by a certain segment in the community. Rhodes antics offend the sponsor and many of the leading citizens, but he develops a following among the “ordinary citizen.” Joey Kiely (Anthony Franciosa), a promoter and opportunist, meets Rhodes and arranges for him to do a show in New York City. Soon, “Lonesome” Larry Rhodes is famous. Eventually, Rhodes becomes an advisor for Senator Worthington Fuller (Marshall Neilan), a politician with Presidential ambitions. Rhodes converts Fuller from being a stiff and scholarly politician into a populist that espouses right wing causes.

Marcia watches the rise of Rhodes. At first she admires his nerve in his willingness to say and do almost anything, and his refusal to be tied down to any cause. She finds herself falling in love with him. Eventually, however, she discovers that refusal to commit to anything does not prevent Rhodes from using anyone to get what he wants. Rhodes breaks all promises and mocks people that previously had helped him out. Rhodes proposes marriage to Marcia before it is discovered that he still has not divorced his prior wife. He flies to Mexico to get a divorce, but arrives back married to someone named Betty Lou (Lee Remick). Not even a newspaperman friend, Mel Miller (Walter Mathau), who thoroughly understands Rhodes’ character, can give her any consolation.

In the end, Rhodes has his comeuppance. Joey Kiely has an affair with Betty Lou. Rhodes can only take it out on Betty Lou since Joey has business arrangements tied up so tightly that Rhodes can only make money with Joey’s assistance. And Rhodes finally slips up. Marcia, upon hearing Rhodes insulting the very common people he claims to represent, allows these comments to go out live on the airwaves. Joey, Senator Fuller and Rhodes’ many sponsors abandon him. Mel Miller gives Rhodes a preachy send-off while realizing that at some point Rhodes will be back. And at the end of the movie, with Rhodes being little more than a raving lunatic, “Lonesome” Larry Rhodes yells out the window for Marcia to come back (much like Stanley Kowalski yelling “Stella, Stella!” at the end of A Streetcar Named Desire).

Though the story is far fetched, this is a terrific movie. And for being fifty years old, it’s not so dated as one would suspect. Some people credit the cinematography (which even I feel is remarkable) for making the movie unique, but this only plays a small role. Again, it’s the acting. Griffith, without Paul Newman’s looks, comes close to being a precursor to Newman in Hud. Neal, of course, played a similar role that she plays here in Hud. Both of them project characters that have a great deal more below the surface than any dialogue could ever bring across. With one exception, everyone else in the cast was excellent and never got in the way of the two leads. I was disappointed in Walter Mathau. He comes across as much too righteous and forgettable, and he always seems to be pontificating at the wrong time. Fortunately, Mathau’s a minor distraction.

The real weaknesses in this movie concern the directing of Elia Kazan and the screenplay by Bud Schulberg, the two who had previously teamed up together in On the Waterfront. Elia Kazan is marvelous in bringing out the best in the performers on the screen, but I’ve never felt his movies hold together that well unless the movie has a great storyline behind it. Schulberg does not deliver that great storyline here. Just as in On the Waterfront, Schulberg created a script to fit the political leanings of its director. On the Waterfront gave justification to Kazan’s testifying in front of the McCarthy’ hearings. (Schulberg, by the way also testified.) And A Face in the Crowd smacks of Kazan’s elitism. The movie projects the message that the average man is more swayed by populist rhetoric than any reasoned consensus.

Kazan claimed that the reason he testified in front of the House UnAmerican Activities Committee was because of his disillusionment with “Stalinist” Russia. He stated he had a history of supporting liberal causes, and even after his testimony he maintained that he held onto those liberal beliefs. Never once did he ever suggest that he caved into pressure to testify for the Committee. The Soviet menace, he maintained, was more detrimental to the liberal beliefs of his colleagues than the HUAC. Not surprisingly, his contemporaries never really believed him, and some are not willing to give him the benefit of the doubt to this day. Despite what Kazan said, we can only guess at the reasons for why he testified because Kazan never educated anyone further. Kazan apparently was a difficult man to know. Many actors and writers in Hollywood and elsewhere probably never even knew exactly what Kazan believed. Like “Lonesome” Larry Rhodes, Kazan probably espoused anything that was most convenient to his career. He did leave everyone in doubt just enough to allow the Academy Award Committee in the 1990s, shortly before Kazan died, to present him an honorary Oscar – an Oscar that many in Hollywood protested.

To be fair, there’s no denying that Kazan did have talent. Two movies that he directed, A Streetcar Named Desire and East of Eden starring James Dean, I consider to be a couple of the greatest movies ever filmed. Even On the Waterfront and A Face in the Crowd are still being watched because these films project worthwhile entertainment. Next to John Huston, he maybe the greatest movie director in Hollywood history. It’s too bad it is so difficult to now watch one of his movies without thinking about how he continued to get work in the film industry while others were completely left out.

Finally, I wish A Face in the Crowd had remained a character study of an unsavory sort of person rather than turn into a cultural indictment. The character played by Andy Griffith projecting a type of unsavory person that exists in America provided us with greater insight than any of the platitudes uttered in the last fifteen minutes of the movie. Everyone knows someone that resembles “Lonesome” Larry Rhodes. Still, despite the stumbling climax, this 125-minute movie moves quickly, and can be both humorous and disconcerting to the viewer.