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Showing posts with label John Goodman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John Goodman. Show all posts
Monday, February 1, 2016
Monday, February 1, 2016
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Hollywood rarely misses an opportunity to self-mythologise. Each year sees a smattering of glossy biopics, ranging from the great (Ed Wood) to the alright (Hitchcock) to the downright dreadful (Grace of Monaco). It's a decent excuse to have some pretty A-listers swan around in tuxedos and retro frocks, vamping up that Golden Age Hollywood chic in a thick fug of cigarette smoke.
Trumbo does all that, yet sets its sights on loftier goals. Its subject is Dalton Trumbo (Bryan Cranston), celebrated screenwriter and Communist. Set in postwar Hollywood, the film explores the impact of the notorious Hollywood 'blacklist' and the creeping onset of Cold War anti-Communist paranoia.
The film is segmented into three loose acts. In the first we meet Trumbo at the height of his success; regarded by the studios as a guaranteed hitmaker and offered meaty writing contracts. He's surrounded by a loving family and living in bucolic rural luxury. Soon, dark clouds appear on the horizon as gossip columnist Hedda Hopper (Helen Mirren) 'exposes' Trumbo as a left-wing political agitator.
With the help of John Wayne (David James Elliott) and his 'Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals', the rabidly anti-Communist Hopper pressures the studios to blacklist Trumbo and his political associates - who become known as the so-called 'Hollywood Ten'.
We then slide into a 'Mr Trumbo Goes to Washington' style courtroom drama, following their legal battle with HUAC, before eventually settling into a study of how blacklisted screenwriters continued to work (and win Oscars) despite them being persona non grata.
Trumbo tells this tale with a minimum of fuss and, as far as I can tell, provides ab accurate history lesson of the darker days of Hollywood. Purely on a surface level it's novel to see a piece of contemporary prestige awards bait that takes a passionate left-winger as its hero and dares to criticise 'legends' like the truly abominable John Wayne.
Cranston is excellent as the grumpy, sardonic and undeniably talented Trumbo. He's continually evolving: the emotional and physical toll of his experiences clearly visible in his features and behaviour. Cranston captures the essence of the man, sustaining even through resigned misery of humiliating induction to prison, his amphetamine fuelled bathtub editing sessions or the many interactions with family and friends.
He's ably assisted by fun supporting turns from Mirren's diabolical hat-loving villainess, Louis CK as one of Trumbo's more committed Communist friends and, most enjoyably, John Goodman as a shouty, violent B-Movie impresario (I doubt there is a film that couldn't be improved by adding a furious John Goodman smashing things with a baseball bat.)
Great as all this is, Trumbo never rises too far above competent. It primarily falls into a familiar trap: how do you portray genius on screen? Sports and musical biopics have it relatively easy, but trying to make a genius writer cinematic often proves a tough proposition. Despite the many scenes of Trumbo slaving over a typewriter and furiously smoking, the film never comes close to analysing why his work on Roman Holiday, Spartacus et al is so magnificent. It settles for the lazy option: having practically every other character repeatedly state "this guy's a genius!" and hoping we'll go along with it.
Secondly, we get a rather shallow view of Trumbo's Communism. The deepest we get is a risible sun-dappled horse-riding scene in which Trumbo's poppet of a daughter innocently enquires "Daddy, are you a Communist?'. Trumbo proceeds to explain that if she'd share her sandwich with a hungry classmate, then she's a Communist too. I guess technically that works, but Trumbo's Communism quickly proves indistinguishable from contemporary liberalism.
Finally, there's a general lack of directorial oomph. Jay Roach, generally known for broad comedy (the Austin Powers series, Meet the Parents/Fockers and Borat) settles for a flavourless invisible style that's primarily two-shot, over the shoulder conversations. Things are further flattened out by a godawful plinky-plonky score that heavyhandedly commands you to feel emotion.
For all that, I liked Trumbo. I knew about the Hollywood blacklist and the anti-Communist witchhunts going in, but the particulars of how writers got around it and consequences on individuals eluded me. After this I feel that I've got a decent handle on the whos, the whats and the hows. I just wish the film had a but more bravery and adventurousness.
★★★
Trumbo is released 5th February.
Wednesday, January 15, 2014
Wednesday, January 15, 2014
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Inside Llewyn Davis is the story of a folk music Sisyphus. Swaddled in corduroy, guitar strapped to his back he pushes a boulder up a mountain, inch by painful inch. When he reaches the top the boulder rolls right back down to the bottom and the whole process begins again. The Coens have always had an eye for splicing mythology with contemporary stories; The Odyssey in O Brother Where Art Thou, or The Book of Job in A Serious Man - here they place a typically Coenesque hero within an inescapable trap of culture, time and space.
Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac) is a perpetually failing, sofa-surfing bum, though an admittedly obviously talented bum. Greenwich Village, New York in 1961 has its own set of myths, though here we see the flip side of the coin: fatigue, poverty and the icy cold - framed through an omnipresent fug of cigarette smoke. Like the best Coen protagonists, Llewyn is portrayed as the one clear-eyed figure in a world gone mad, a man who's become the butt of a cosmic joke, having to deal with a gallery of grotesques; the mine of 'funny-lookin' character actors that only Coens appear to be able to tap.
The bright spot in all the misery is a tabby cat, one of the few creatures in this frozen urban landscape to offer even a smidge of unconditional kindness to Llewyn (and even then it escapes at the earliest opportunity). Aside from the troubles caused by this disobedient cat, Inside Llewyn Davis ditches any semblance of driving narrative early on in the film. Llewyn bumbles from sofa to sofa, tossed by chance from one situation to the next, trying his best to cope with whatever miseries the universe has decided to buffet him with today.
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| Even the cat is a good actor. |
This lack of a clear narrative isn't a criticism, the subject and setting of the film reverberates around the hazy structure of the story. Llewyn sings wistful, melancholy songs about characters who are hungry, poor, cold and far from home. The wry punchline is that Llewyn is essentially living a folk song and hating every moment of it. The episodic structure of Inside Llewyn Davis, miniature stories as verses punctuated by choruses of musical numbers thus becomes a loose folk song itself.
The Coens obviously have a soft spot and high artistic regard for folk music, yet they're never afraid to poke fun at its subject matter. Folk music is, by design, a static genre. Musicians dressed in outfits that no-one would bat an eye at in 1911, 1961 or 2011, sitting on stools, pluck away at beaten-up acoustic guitars, playing the songs written by long dead and anonymous people. This lack of change isn't necessarily a bad thing, but a consequence is that it sets in stone the 'true' folk experience and mindset; an examples in the film is Llewyn's disgust at his friends treating music as a career that'll lead to a comfortable life in the suburbs, or outside the film the vitriol spewed at Dylan when he dared to go electric.
In Llewyn's misery the Coens pinpoint the paradox of folk: success equals failure. If you're a rich, popular musician touring to sold-out arenas, staying in plush hotels while singing about the melancholy of being broke and riding the rails then you're a hypocrite. Conversely, if you're playing to empty bars with nothing to your name except the clothes on your back and an acoustic guitar, tumbling through a freefall life with no parachute then you may be hungry, cold and deeply miserable but dammit, at least you're authentic .
This is an classically Coenesque, farcical situation, the film going to great lengths to convey this futile problem of trying really hard to be a success, but in that success losing what made you succeed in the first place. This psychic torment is written on the face of Oscar Isaac, whose deadpan, increasingly pissed off and sleep-deprived stare speaks volumes as to his state of mind. Isaac is a great here, and not being a big name I wondered just where the hell he came from to pull out a performance this complete. I assumed he was new to the screen, so was surprised to learn I've seen him quite a bit, most notably as ex-con Standard in Drive, where he again shares a screen with Carey Mulligan - proof of a chameleonic acting ability that can only bode well for his future in cinema.
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| Freewheelin' turns out to be less fun than it looks. |
The rest of the cast fits snugly into their roles as only the Coens (and perhaps Tarantino) can accomplish. One of the best arrows in the Coens directorial quiver is the ability to cast the perfect actor in the role, be it A-listers like Justin Timberlake as a more pop-minded folk musician who seems destined for financial success or character actors like Sylvia Kauders, who's great as a faintly absent-minded receptionist. Perhaps the most oddly touching performance is also the most restrained. Stan Carp plays Llewyn's apparently catatonic father, who does literally nothing other than looking wistfully out of a window and slightly changing his facial expression, yet manages to instil this most minute of movements with impossible sadness.
I suspect Inside Llewyn Davis is going to divide audiences. If you prefer a traditionally structured story with a beginning, middle and end you're going to be disappointed. This is essentially all middle, or, to be reductive, 'just a bunch of stuff that happens'. But what beautifully written, performed and intelligent stuff! Even if you're turned off by the loosely structured narrative it's difficult to imagine not being seduced by the great soundtrack, which ranges ranging from the heartfelt to the dopey. This is a dreamily smart watch, quietly brave watch, and one that slots neatly into the Coen's impressively consistent filmography.
★★★★
Inside Llewyn Davis is on general release from 24 January
Monday, July 1, 2013
Monday, July 1, 2013
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Monsters Inc was and is a fantastic film. It deftly creates a complex, surreal and comprehensible world that makes a weird amount of sense. I imagine there's tonnes of stories that can be done within this universe, yet Monsters University focuses on one of the more prosaic and (frankly) kind of dull. Was there anyone that walked out of Monsters Inc dying to know just how Mike and Sully got their qualifications? Does Pixar imagine that this is the story we're clamouring to hear? Do they picture people idly wondering either they went to technical college or university, what they majored in, perhaps even speculating on the subject of Mike Wazowski's no doubt meticulously researched dissertation. Now, finally, we learn the answers to these burning questions.
Friday, May 24, 2013
Friday, May 24, 2013
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INT. BRADLEY COOPER’S HOUSE - EARLY MORNING
Chaos reigns. The detritus of BRADLEY COOPER's life is scattered everywhere. Broken glass fills the hall, the broken light fittings spark. Embedded in the wall is a gigantic, gently smoking golden cross. ED HELMS is lying on his back on the parquet flooring. His body is spattered in a neon blue liquid and we see two enormous barbed insectile mandibles have been grafted to his jaw. Rapper CHRIS BROWN is splayed naked on the sofa, his fists covered in blood and glittering sequins. ZACH GALIFIANAKIS is spasmodically jerking on the floor. We see that he’s clutching a wheezing, suffocating, yet still gently chittering bottlenose dolphin tightly in his arms. THE BORING ONE, DOUG OR SOMETHING I DUNNO is nowhere to be seen. Finally we see BRADLEY COOPER face down on an enormous four poster bed covered in sticky black viscera of indeterminate origin. An Oscar statuette reading “Best Actor 2013 Academy Awards: Daniel Day Lewis” protrudes from his anus, the head and shoulders enveloped within him. Slowly, red-eyed and blinking, he comes to.
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
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In the astonishingly intense opening sequences of ‘Flight’ a passenger jet loaded with 102 people is plummeting nose first towards the rapidly approaching ground. The co-pilot is screaming, the head air stewardess is weeping, instruments all around the cockpit are angrily sounding out tinny warning beeps, the very body of the plane seems to be crying out and on top of all this there’s the incessant whistle of the wind. At the centre of this nightmare sits Captain Whit Whitaker (Denzel Washington), calm as a zen monk. He’s steadily relaying nonsensical gobbledegook air traffic information down the radio as he coolly puts his flying skills to the ultimate test.
He’s the perfect pilot, and he's also sleep-deprived, drunk and mildly coked up. Despite his condition, or tantalisingly, because of his condition, he’s able to stay calm enough to land the plane in an open field with 96 survivors and 6 fatalities. If it wasn’t for him everyone on the plane would have died, we later learn that in simulation no other pilot could fly their way out of that situation. Laid out bruised and battered in a hospital bed, Whip is a hero, but has also become a pawn between huge forces. The airline wants to blame the manufacturer of the plane for mechanical failure, and the manufacturer wants to blame the airline for pilot error.
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| Denzel Washington as 'Captain Whip Whitaker' |
It’s a hell of a set-up, not least because Captain Whip Whitaker is a self destructive, depressive alcoholic. Denzel Washington is an utter powerhouse here, his performance so personal he feels like a loved one struggling with addiction. We inwardly cheer him on when he takes a shaky step towards sobriety and are disappointed when he slides backwards. Whip is not a particularly pleasant character in his depression, my opinion of him ranged from admiring his audacity to utter exasperation. Much of the dramatic power of 'Flight' is derived from this swinging emotional pendulum, one moment you sympathise with this tragic and grimly realistic figure of man, the next you find yourself incredulous at his selfishness and arrogance. Throughout this emotional gamut he's an utterly compelling figure, a complex mixture of good and evil. And, lurking at the back of your mind, despite his heroic flying skills, you find yourself questioning just how culpable he might be for the crash occurring in the first place, and anyway, flying a passenger jet drunk is kinda sorta hugely irresponsible.... right?
As events progress we realise that Whip is heading towards a moral event horizon, one that we implicitly understand will be his downfall if he crosses it. Physically Washington is an imposing presence, grumpy, heavy built and fierce. It's bulldoggish the way his face hangs, like a handsome boxer who’s taken a few serious whacks to the face yet refuses to fall to the canvas. In many ways he’s got much in common with the doomed plane of the opening sequences, plummeting towards rock bottom with near impossible odds of recovery.
The script, by 'Real Steel' writer John Gatins is good material, and Washington brings out the best in it. He’s ably supported by a great supporting cast, among them a fiercely disapproving yet ultra-professional turn from Don Cheadle. John Goodman gets a memorable role as a friendly yet highly strung drug dealer cast very much in the mould of Walter Sobchak from ‘The Big Lebowski’. Goodman is great, but his cartoonish presence feels a bit tonally out of step, and considering he’s enabling the very behaviour that’s destroying Whip, it’s questionable as to whether we should like the guy so much.
The biggest supporting role, goes to Kelly Reilly as Nicole, a woman battling her own addictions. As Whip wrestles with the plane directly above her apartment, she’s ODing on some extremely potent heroin. Nicole provides a neat counterpoint to Whip’s downward spiral of addiction, someone who has faced up to their problem and is taking serious steps to move on with her life. But in comparison to Washington’s richly textured performance Reilly’s ends up feeling very slight. Despite some promising opening scenes, Nicole quickly becomes a vehicle to make a point with rather than as a character in her own right. As a result, she disappointingly vanishes two thirds of the way through the film, never to return.
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| Kelly Reilly as 'Nicole' |
This is Zemeckis’ first live-action film since 2000s ‘Castaway’, the last decade or so being wasted on a series of failed uncanny valley CG experiments like ‘The Polar Express’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’. It might sound harsh, but I think it’s accurate because on watching ‘Flight’ it’s clear that Zemeckis is wasted in an entirely computer generated world. 'Flight' is jampacked full of tiny, careful details that demonstrate a seriousness and care about his craft. All the CG special effects in the world aren't even close to being nearly as emotionally hard-hitting as the blood stained tear that rolls down Washington’s face as he learns about the fatalities on his fateful flight. It’s a small yet visceral moment that showcases the precision with which Zemeckis constructs his world.
This attention to detail is perhaps most apparent in Whip’s father’s house in the countryside, his hideaway from the press attention of the outside world. Purely through outstanding set design we learn all about our characters, and particularly Whip’s relationship with his father. I loved the detail of there being a new, flat screen television perched on top of a huge boxy, wooden 1960s black and white television. It’s almost a blink and you’ll miss it detail, but manages to encapsulate the way that Whip lives in the shadow of his war hero father, unconsciously living his life on foundations laid out by someone long dead.
With Washington and Zemeckis firing on all cylinders it’s a bit disappointing that the film runs out of steam towards the end. It’s hard to pinpoint precisely when it happens, but the film shifts gears from an individual’s examination of a struggle with alcoholism into a societal one. It’s annoying because ‘Flight’ was doing a great job of subtly giving us an important lesson, and it's diluted by the sudden onset of preachiness towards the end. The film is so narratively strong that we don’t need to have the message spelled out in a saccharine ‘lesson of the week’ monologue. It’s a real shame that ‘Flight’ ends on such a bum note, because practically all of what comes before it is great cinema.
***/ *****
'Flight' is on general release from February 1st.
Monday, January 7, 2013
Monday, January 7, 2013
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Whenever
Pixar re-release one of their films in 3D there’s a faint whiff of the
cash-in about it. It’s unattractive
in a company that prides itself on originality and the pushing
forward of boundaries.
These aren’t films designed with 3D in mind, and these releases are partly a result of the fact that post-converting a computer animated film into 3D is a relatively easy
one, at least compared to a live action film.
For some
reason I’ve always viewed ‘Monsters Inc’ as one of Pixar’s lesser creations. For me, Pixar are at their finest when they’re
taking the audience on epic journeys: all three ‘Toy Story’ films have their
characters covering huge distances (relative to their sizes anyway), ‘Finding
Nemo’ takes us halfway around the world and ‘Wall-E’ explores the universe as a
whole. ‘Monsters Inc’ is far more
static, a comedy taking place in a handful of locations, maintaining a
tight focus on character development rather than high adventure.
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| The monsters go to work. |
The conceit
of the film is to examine the life and world of the ‘monster under the bed’. Children’s closet doors worldwide are
actually portals to ‘Monstropolis’, a city inhabited by monsters of all shapes
and sizes. The city is powered by the
company, ‘Monsters Inc’ by the screams of children, which are collected by blue
collar monsters spending their days popping into children’s bedrooms, scaring
the hell out of them and then hopping back through the portal. The ‘top scarers’ in this system are Sulley and Mike (voiced by John Goodman and Billy Crystal respectively).
Sulley
and Mike are absolutely perfectly designed.
They are overtly monstrous, but also relatable enough to get the audience’s
sympathy almost immediately. At first
glance the fuzzy blue Sulley seems incapable of scaring anyone, he’s got big
expressive eyes and a modest, friendly demeanour. But he is
a good scarer, as we see later in the film when we see him at work. He’s the straight man to Mike, a one eyed green
bowling ball with limbs. Mike is a
fantastic creation, frazzled and somewhat justifiably self-centered, yet also
deeply in love with a receptionist.
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| Mike and Celia's relationship is genuinely sweet. D'aww. |
As the story begins they’re at the top of their game and life is good, but soon a spanner is thrown
into the works, namely the arrival of the human child ‘Boo’ into their world,
who arrives clinging to the back of Sulley.
Children are seen as a terrifying, poisonous and toxic presence in the
monster world, so Sulley and Mike endeavour to get her back to her bedroom
without anyone realising that she’s in their care. It’s a
compelling scenario, one is executed flawlessly. They've harnessed some dark arts over at Pixar; writers and artists with direct access to my heartstrings that
they’ll pluck relentlessly without me ever feeling manipulated. ‘Monsters Inc’ is for the most part a broad
comedy, and channels Warner Bros animated shorts in a big way. But it all hangs together as a whole due to
the relationship between Sulley, Mike and their unexpected charge,
Boo.
Boo is a
brilliant creation. Voiced by
2 year Mary Gibbs, she cutely babbles and wanders her way through scenes
with an innocence that hilariously undercuts a lot of the tension the
characters try to create. Her good nature powers the central bit of character development in the film, that of Sulley dealing with the responsibilities of unexpectedly becoming a surrogate
father. This change in Sulley directly impacts upon Mike. At the
start of the film they’re on the same page, but Sulley’s priorities shift so far
that the two come into conflict with each other; Mike wanting everything to go
back to normal whatever the cost, and Sulley wanting the best for Boo.
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| Boo, in a monster costume. |
Technically the film is nearly flawless. To 2013 eyes there are a few slightly ropey looking creations in the background, but Pixar have always known both the limitations and possibilities of their technology and nothing jumps out as obviously dated. The big technological step forward when this was released 12 years ago was Sulley's fur, this being the first time that they'd dare to try rendering a lead character covered in long hairs. The effect looks as impressive as it did then, so realistic you want to reach out and stroke it.
The voice work remains superlative. Generally voice actors perform their work alone, and the dialogue is spliced together at a later date, but Goodman and Crystal performed together at the same time, resulting in beautifully natural back and forth dialogue. I guess when you're recording dialogue for animated films, you use your voice actors when they've got free time in their schedules, and generally don't bother to get them all in at once at extra expense. 'Monsters Inc' shows that sometimes, this expense is worth it for the uplift that the spontaneity gives to the performances and the characters.
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| Billy Crystal and John Goodman together in the recording booth. |
'Monsters Inc' is interestingly plotted, the villains being an ambitious scarer who develops a sinister new way of extracting screams from children and Henry J Waternoose, a rapacious capitalist who cares more about the survival of his business than the human cost running it entails. I had only a vague memory of the plot from watching it on its release, and I was surprised to see a neat little anti-capitalist critique fuelling much of the main plot. The film presents us a classically styled besuited and portly boss, running a factory that literally runs on the screams of children. It's like a cartoon from the 'Socialist Worker'. Our heroes are blue-collar workers with an innate paternalistic trust in their boss as someone who has their interests in mind. Naturally he doesn't; he's developing a more inhumane yet more efficient method of extracting screams that will put Sulley and Mike out of a job.
"I'll kidnap a thousand children before I let this company die, and I'll silence anyone who gets in my way!" - Henry J Waternoose
I particularly like that after they've defeated this nefarious plot and saved the day, our heroes head outside to find that they have indeed put the company out of business and left the entire workforce unemployed and miserable. It's nice to see a film that considers the consequences of the actions of the hero, pointing out that even doing what is obviously the right thing can have unintended results on the wider community. Fortunately Sulley has realised that the sound of children's laughter is even more potent than their screams and reconfigures Monsters Inc. to harness this instead of their terror. Sulley replaces Waternoose as the factory boss, signified by his donning a tie and a clipboard to examine his workers.
Sulley's tie has disturbing implications. Throughout the film he's the epitome of the blue-collar worker (even down to literally being blue), but now he's begun to elevate himself above the other monsters. He's now his best friend Mike's superior and employer, a situation that can only inevitably lead to conflict between these two former buddies. In addition, while times are good in the factory at the moment and labour relations are positive how we are to know that the situation is sustainable? The desperate and sinister Waternoose was once a worker on the 'scare floor', and from the initial respect he has from his employees may have once been like Sulley. Is our furry, gregarious blue-furred hero destined for a slow transformation into a warped, manipulative, profit margin obsessed fat 'kitty'? Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Perhaps if the monsters working on the scare floor had been properly unionised they'd have had the wherewithal to reorganise Monsters Inc as a worker's co-operative to prevent history inevitably repeating itself?
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| Times are good... but for how long? Notice that Sulley is no longer 'Sulley' now. He's James P. Sullivan CEO. |
It's also worth recognising that Disney itself has parallels to the fictional corporation of 'Monsters Inc'. While Monsters Inc makes money from using children's screams as a source of energy, Disney Corporation makes money exploiting child labour in China, and considering that there are reports of colleagues committing suicide as a result of being scolded by factory bosses may well literally be running a corporation reliant on the screams of children. It's for reasons like this that at the back of my mind I always feel that even when Pixar make wonderful films with an anti-materialist or environmental message, that there's a nugget of hypocrisy lurking deep down at the core.
But that's enough politics. 'Monsters Inc' is a classic of animation that's perhaps unfairly overlooked compared to some of Pixar's more overtly ambitious technical and narrative ventures. It's a rock-solid comedy with a brilliantly original premise that executes it perfectly. It's also astoundingly self-contained, telling us all we need to know about the characters and their world in an hour and a half. There's a sequel due this summer, 'Monsters University', which I have reservations about. Is it going to be a 'Toy Story 3' or a 'Cars 2'? While I'd rather Pixar be putting out original films, if anyone can make the subject matter work its them.
The 3D adds nothing of note by the way, but it doesn't distract either.
****/*****
****/*****
'Monsters Inc 3D' is on general release from January 18.
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Thursday, October 25, 2012
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‘Argo’ is a film that tells you a story so preposterous that it must be true. It’s a very funny film that gets seat-grippingly tense. One that tries its level best to do justice to some pretty complex geopolitics but also fumbles the ball a bit in a few aspects.
The film is set in Iran at the time of the Iranian Embassy hostage crisis. The Shah had just been deposed and was been granted sanctuary in the US. The Iranian people wanted to put the Shah on trial, but the US refused to turn him over. The boiling point came when a mob stormed the Iranian embassy in Tehran, and took 52 embassy staff hostage. So far, so well known. What’s less well known is that six embassy staff managed to escape onto the streets in the confusion, and took refuge in the house of the Canadian Ambassador. Eventually the Iranians realised that they’re short six staff members, and came hunting for them. The USA had got to get them out of there, and their best bet was Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck) an ‘exfiltration’ expert. His plan was to smuggle them out of the country under the guise of a Hollywood location scouting crew for a fake science fiction film called ‘Argo’.
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| Ben Affleck as Tony Mendez |
It’s a hell of a good story, and Affleck has done a great job bringing it to life on screen. There are some bravura directing moments in this film, particularly the opening sequence showing the embassy being stormed. The film begins with a quick run-down of the C20th history of Iran, before moving straight into the midset of an furious mob demanding justice. Almost immediately we get a sense of the geography of the situation through aerial shots of the building and the crowd. As the situation becomes worse, and the protesters begin climbing the walls a well drilled panic sets in that gives way to chaos very quickly. We see the Embassy staff frantically destroying as much classified information as they can, and the military desperately trying to work out how to contain this situation without pouring petrol onto an already out of control fire.
Affleck quickly cross-cuts between the embassy staff, and the crowd outside who are swarm ing the building from top to bottom. The sense of things rapidly spiralling out of control is captured perfectly. Suddenly there are people on the roof, in the cellar and before you know it, through the front door. The mixture of aerial shots (which may be really great CG), and handheld grainy film gives everything a feeling of intense authenticity. The scene is given added power by the recent embassy attack in Benghazi. The similarities seem clear; staff initially taking the mob for granted ‘after all, there’s protests every day’ to the sudden cold sweat of panic when they realise all barriers have been overcome, and there’s nothing between you and an angry chaotic mob.
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| They may not look it in this picture, but trust me, those Iranians are FURIOUS |
One of the main reasons why this scene works so well is that the Iranians are represented as more of an unstoppable force of nature than as individuals. We see them seemingly acting as one, their faces twisted in anger, practically foaming at the mouth. Affleck seems to use a lot of the same directorial tricks as you'd see in a zombie film, particularly Zack Snyder's remake of 'Dawn of the Dead' (2004). Meanwhile, the embassy staff get quickly sketched character moments over the course of their escape. These sketches evolve throughout the film, we quickly engage with the personalities of these six and sympathise easily with their plight. Meanwhile, the Iranian people are generally represented by large mobs, and if we do get to see individuals, they are generally shouting aggressively in Farsi and terrifying our leads.
This obviously is a bit problematic, but to be fair the film seems conscious of the somewhat murky tools its using to create suspense. As mentioned, it takes care to contextualise the story in the history of the country in a comic book style that seems to take direct inspiration from Marjane Satrapi’s ‘Persepolis’ (2007). So, theoretically the film justifies the anger of the mob, it's at least partly successful in explaining why these people are so angry and upset at Americans. It’s less successful when it comes to the sole entirely sympathetic Iranian in the film, a loyal servant who sacrifices herself to aid her Western masters. In going to so much trouble to outline her as ‘the one good Iranian’, they perversely make everyone else look much worse.
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| The embassy staff trapped in the Canadian Ambassador's house |
Ben Affleck seems like a conscientious film-maker (he even added a postscript praising Canadian involvement in the operation this film depicts after people got upset), but at the heart of the production process here is a catch 22. To make it as tense and effective as possible, it’s dramatically necessary to portray the Iranian people as a single-minded, violent horde. For narrative purposes they sort of have to be extremely otherised, the more sympathetic they become, the less we're scared of them. I don’t believe Affleck sincerely wants to paint an entire people with an understandable political grievance as monsters, but he's in the difficult position of doing just that.
For me, this was a hard stumbling block to get over, as were the general politics of the film. I’m not exactly inclined to buy into any narrative that posits the CIA as fine, upstanding, noble people when all evidence points to the fact that they’re one of the most sinister and immoral organisations of the 20th century. What I have to concede is that in this instance they seem to be acting justifiably, and anyway, I'm not going to side with the Ayatollah.
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| US exceptionalism clocking in for the day |
It’s fortunate then, that the central plot of this film is so compelling and unique (well, maybe ‘Three Kings’ is a little similar). ‘Argo’ uses the central plot device of a ‘fake’ movie shoot as a way to shine a light on the way intelligence services spar with one another. In a fantastic sequence we see a fake press event for ‘Argo’, complete with bombshell actresses dressed in unlikely, cheesy looking Flash Gordon gear cross cut with footage from the hostage crisis. The message seems clear, this is all theatre. The difference is that if the hostage's performances aren't convincing enough then they're going to be killed.
This comparison raises the film up from being just another espionage thriller, and the audience knowledge that all this really happened only adds to the feeling of import. The film only really falters when it decides to artificially make things more exciting. In the final sequences there are perhaps one too many hurdles placed in front of our intrepid heroes, one too many unlikely coincidences or times when they look doomed, and then are saved in the nick of time. This adds up, and the fact that the film becomes a bit more self-consciously unrealistic saps some of the tension from the end of the film. What should be a sudden, intense relaxation of tension ‘merely’ becomes a happy ending. It’s a little frustrating, they had me! I was on the hook for much of the film, fully involved with each little idiosyncratic twist the plot took, but you get the feeling they felt that their amazing real-life tale wasn't quite amazing enough, and had to embellish it a bit.
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| Ben Affleck and an angry, unnamed Iranian (one of many in this film) |
So this is a film with issues, but ones that it’s possible to overlook. It’s a fantastic achievement in direction for Ben Affleck too. His performance in this is perfectly serviceable, playing as he does a man whose skill is in blending in, but it’s behind the camera where he shows some real élan. This directorial confidence, coupled with a top notch supporting cast means ‘Argo’ is a fascinating snapshot of a rarely explored part of recent history.
'Argo' is on general release from the 7th of November 2012
'Argo' is on general release from the 7th of November 2012
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