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by Leonard Heldreth

Heroes, monsters, villains and the mundane
Two films nominated for Academy Awards, an animated epic and an Irish independent film are covered in this month’s offerings.

 

Michael Clayton
The seven Academy Award nominations received by Michael Clayton were completely justified—best male actor, best supporting male actor, best supporting female actor, best director, best music, best original screenplay and best picture. It’s one of the most gripping, interesting, well-acted films of the year.
This legal thriller with multiple subplots hinges on the attempt to settle a class-action suit brought by a group of farmers against a large chemical corporation whose product may have caused physical damage to anyone coming in contact with it. Told mostly in flashback, the film opens with several seemingly unrelated incidents and then backs up four days to explain what led to them.
Karen Crowder (Tilda Swinton) is the chief legal counsel, Arthur Edens (Tom Wilkinson) is the lawyer who has been on the case for many years, and Michael Clayton (George Clooney) is the firm’s “fixer” who is called in to straighten things out when Arthur comes apart.
Additional complications arise from Clayton’s need to raise $80,000 to pay off his share of a restaurant that went under, from the possible merger of the law firm with a British law firm, and from Michael’s relationships with his brother, brother-in-law, son and Arthur.
A fantasy-gaming “vision quest” adds an interesting touch and leads to a lovely (and critical) scene with horses in a field at dawn.
While the film has an excellent script, it really is the acting that gives it premiere status. Clooney continues to solidify his claim to being the best “leading man” actor, the successor to people like James Stewart and Clark Gable, who could play comedy, romantic lead and almost any other noncharacter male part.
Clooney’s performances in films as varied as Out of Sight; Intolerable Cruelty; Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?; Syriana; Good Night, and Good Luck and Solaris were excellent, and his role as the compromised and double-crossed Michael Clayton may be the best work he has done yet.
Wilkinson as Arthur is simply outstanding. His out-of-control scenes are sandwiched with scenes in which, off his meds and wandering the streets, he still can outsmart almost anyone the firm puts up against him as he follows his vision quest.
Swinton won an Oscar for her performance as Karen, and while this may not be her greatest part, it’s solid as a rock, and I see this Oscar as a cumulative nod for previous roles where she was passed over. Sydney Pollack plays Marty Bach so well it’s easy to forget he’s essentially a major director, not an actor, even though he acted equally well in Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut.
Having seen the film once while confined to an uncomfortable airline seat and then again at home, I found it holding my attention as well the second time as the first. Knowing what would happen, I could enjoy the care and professionalism apparent in virtually every aspect of the film’s presentation. Even though legal thrillers have glutted the market on television and in films, this is the one that sets the standard. Don’t miss it. Top

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
New Zealand-born director Andrew Dominik has adapted Ron Hansen’s novel into a dark, epic western whose long silences, stunning landscapes and complex psychology extend its length to 160 minutes.
For some viewers, the silences and subplots will add to the film in a way that had some reviewers labeling it a masterpiece; other, more action-oriented viewers may find themselves dozing in the middle section where the minor characters experience the psychotic side of James’s personality.
Dominik’s first movie, Chopper, dealt with an Australian criminal, and while favorably received, gave little indication that his second movie would be compared favorably to Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven.
Like Malick, Dominik turns each scene into an artful composition, deals with the ambiguities of male relationships and distances the action with a voice-over narrator who supplements or disagrees with what is on the screen.
The time is September 1881, and Jesse James (Brad Pitt), thirty-four years old and middle-aged for the time, is recruiting new outlaws to help with what will be his last major crime, the Blue Cut Train Robbery. James already is a legend, the hero of dozens of dime novels and the so-called “Robin Hood of the West,” even though he has killed some seventeen people; when not robbing trains, he lives with his wife and two children in a modest house in a Missouri suburb using the surname Howard. He associates with other successful people in the town, and always moves on before people can become too suspicious.
Among the people recruited for the upcoming train robbery is nineteen-year-old Robert Ford (Casey Affleck), brother of Charley Ford (Sam Rockwell), already a member of the gang. While Jesse says Robert would have trouble pounding nails into snow, his younger brother seems even less competent, or, as he puts it, “I got qualities that don’t come shinin’ through right at the outset.” Despite the ridicule of Frank James (Sam Shepard), Jesse lets Robert join the gang, and, after the train robbery, even invites him back to the house to visit, an error that eventually will cost James his life.
Short on action, the film attempts to explore what leads to Ford, seven months later, shooting James in the back of the head in his own living room with a gun that James gave him. The most obvious answer for a contemporary audience is Ford is a stalker like Mark David Chapman, a young man so obsessed with James’ legend the only way he can participate in it completely is to kill James.
Ford has a collection of dime novels written about James and other memorabilia that he keeps hidden in a shoebox, rubbing his hand on the covers of the books as though he were touching flesh.
James slowly becomes aware of Ford’s obsession and seems both repelled and intrigued by it. As James bathes in a tub and Ford watches him, James says, “You want to be like me or do you want to be me?” James even may be obliquely aware of Ford’s danger and toys with it.
Perhaps complementary to Ford’s obsession with James’ fame is a homoerotic attraction—Roger Ebert argues this point, citing the bathing episode. Before killing James, Ford also pokes around the outlaw’s toiletry articles and slips into his bed, smelling the “lavender and talcum” according to the voice-over narration. Murder may be the most intimate contact Ford can have with James.
Another motive may be James’ paranoia and his ruthless murder of anyone he feels has betrayed him. The central section of the film details how James terrorizes and shoots any member of the gang suspected of being disloyal.
Ford may feel it is just a matter of time before suspicion falls on him. When James places a knife at Ford’s throat and then pretends it is a joke, Ford may feel he has to take action.
James even may accept the fact that Ford is not trustworthy, but goes along with it. What does a middle-aged living legend who has stopped robbing banks do for an encore? The best way to complete the legend is to go out with a bang, literally. With a price on his head and a violent death relatively inevitable, James simply may be closing his eyes to the obvious.
For whatever reason, Ford murders James, collects the reward and is lionized temporarily for his deed. He travels about the country and presents, with his brother Charley playing Jesse, a dramatized version of how he shot the outlaw. Within a short time, however, the power of the legend takes over, and Ford is seen as a “coward,” ridiculed, and a few years later is assassinated himself.
Pitt is effective as Jesse James. He stares at people as they talk to him, letting them read into him whatever they want, and he manages to combine cunning with a back-slapping quality that makes all his motives suspect.
Affleck was nominated for an Academy Award for best supporting actor, although whether he was the supporting actor or the major one is not clear. Affleck gives a complex performance, playing a man who is far smarter and more single-minded than he wants people to believe. The supporting players are solid, and the settings and dialogue are well done, although some of the voice-over narration seems strained.
Roger Deakins was nominated for an Academy Award for photography for the film, and he clearly deserved it. From the opening scenes with the bare dark trees and the men, not much more than shapes crouched in the snow, through the pictures of James’ body posed after death to the final scenes in Ford’s saloon, he is right on the mark. The bleak, almost abstract quality of the narrative is generated as much by Deakins’ photography as by the acting and the story. The music by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis is nonintrusive and effective.
If viewers can keep interested during the slow middle section, they should enjoy this epic, revisionist account of the death of America’s most famous outlaw. Top

Beowulf
A combination of the techniques of Shreck, Sin City and 300 are used to bring to life the old English epic, Beowulf, complete with the hero, the monster Grendel and his mother. Director Robert Zemeckis (Back to the Future, Castaway) has combined the pieces of the Beowulf story—his fights with Grendel, Grendel’s mother and the dragon that mortally wounds him—and linked them together ingeniously to tell a unified story.
The animation, however, is less satisfactory than the plot narrative. In the closeups and medium shots, the effect works well enough, giving Ray Winstone (Beowulf) a muscularity far beyond the rotund figure he exhibits in films such as Sexy Beast; in action shots, however, when people are leaping around, the figures look wooden and clunky, as though they don’t bend well at the waist. The women, who should be supple, demonstrate this mechanical quality more than the men.
Screenwriters Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary have linked the episodes through Grendel’s mother (Angelina Jolie), whose ageless beauty seduces Hrothgar, Beowulf and his successor; she also assumes the form of the dragon for the final battle. Sporting a serpentine tail, she morphs from stunning beauty to ravening beast with little effort, and Jolie brings an elegant but menacing quality to her role.
Winstone, a fine actor, has less to do dramatically as Beowulf, and Anthony Hopkins portrays Hrothgar as a hard-drinking, wenching despot whose mead hall is little more than an expensive fraternity house for carousing.
Grendel (Crispin Glover), created almost entirely through computer graphics, is so deformed and inhuman as to be almost unbelievable; he is more revolting than frightening. John Malkovich as Unferth, Robin Wright Penn as Queen Wealthow, and Brendan Gleeson as Wiglaf serve well in what essentially are stock parts
Whether it’s to give a barbaric quality to the situation or to lure in the audience, the film has more nudity than usual. Beowulf fights Grendel in the buff, his genitals concealed through the tactful (and sometimes humorous) placing of various objects in the frame, and Jolie appears in the animated all-together as she rises from the lake in which she lives (“graphic nudity” has a literal meaning in this film).
The computer graphics, however, do create a bleak world that looks far removed in time—the mead hall, the castle and Grendel’s lair all are effective. Most impressive is the scene at the end in which a funeral ship carries Beowulf’s body out to sea through a waterfall of molten gold. The film originally was released in 3D, and those who saw it in that form say it was more impressive, with weapons and bodies flying out of the screen.
While purists may lament the liberties Zemekis has taken with the story, the additions are logical and effective, bringing a unity to what essentially are three fragments about one man.
The computer graphics, while sometimes impressive, still have not captured the fluidity of human movement, but the current state of the art as seen in Beowulf is a far cry from Ray Harryhausen’s stop-motion animation. Some time in the future, settings may be completely artificial and actors may be replaced entirely by their computer generated images, at least in the nude scenes. Top

Once
Although a musical, Once is about as far from the Hollywood extravaganzas as it is possible for a film to be. A low-budget ($100,000), small-cast, independent production from Ireland, Once nonetheless fills more than half of its short length (eight-eight minutes) with music.
The film has a simple story. A street singer in Dublin (known only as “The Guy”) and a girl from Czechoslovakia living in Dublin (The Girl) meet and find they share a mutual interest in music. He plays guitar and sings in the style of Van Morrison; she has been trained in classical piano. She likes his music and offers some romantic lyrics for a tune he has written; he appreciates her encouragement; they get some friends and make a demo tape which he takes to London.
That’s it. Of course, much of the interest in the film is in the relationship that develops between The Guy and The Girl, but that’s too complicated to go into.
John Carney’s debut film was made on a shoestring with support from Ireland’s film board, and it has all the charm and some of the drawbacks usually associated with independent films. The lighting often is dark, the camera work is utilitarian and the sets are realistic because they use real settings.
The stars are Glen Hansard, lead singer of a group called The Frames, as The Guy, and Marketa Irglova, another professional singer, as The Girl. Despite their lack of acting experience, both leads are quite credible in their roles.
The songs are pretty decent, especially if you’re a Van Morrison fan, and they have the usual laments about misplaced love, etc. While the plot and dialogue often are charming in their originality—substantial parts are ad libbed—the director couldn’t resist using the clichés of The Guy and The Girl riding around on a motorcycle, and everyone running and playing on a beach at dawn—there’s even a frisbee-catching dog.
Despite these problems, the film has a sweet quality that carries it along and makes it work to the degree that some viewers thought it was a documentary. It’s a film in which nothing hugely dramatic happens to anyone—no injuries, murders, car chases or even big successes. How many films can you just relax and watch as entertainment? This is one of them. It’s a good primer on how to make a solid, low-budget independent film that people will like. Top
—Leonard G. Heldreth

Editor’s Note: All films reviewed are available on DVD or VHS from local stores. Reviews of earlier films cited can be found at www.mmnow.com

 

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