The Matrix Resurrections: Sometimes Dead is Better…Sometimes
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The resurrection of dead things is an impossibility in the life of human beings, and if we’re being honest a near impossibility in our works as well. The great horror philosopher ( I say that somewhat ironically) Stephen King once wrote the words “Sometimes Dead is better” and in the reality of the creation of art this feels especially true. The current Hollywood landscape feels like a graveyard haunted by the visions, grandeur, creativity of it's past. Having long sacrificed itself to the gods of profit incentive and marketing, it spends an ungodly amount of time walking around its own cemetery in mourning looking for bodies it can excavate, and it seems in this case the Waschowski's latest effort is a rumination on that. Like old Judd Crandall, they are both hesitant and willing, but unlike the rest of that story what comes out does not feel dead, vile, and regretful, nor does it feel completely like a resurrection, and it provides a fascinating approach to this conundrum of bringing back something we and they loved, and something that maybe was best left dead.
The first and maybe most noticeable way Waschowski deals with this resurrection is to vent. Vent about their own frustrations with the work, about their own happiness and unhappiness, about their own loathing with the current job at hand, they do this rather brilliantly through the meta-conversations made through the avatars of them and us. After all this is not merely an IP to them, it has to bear some form of personal investment seeing as through it was so clearly a piece of their own transition into being, and to do it now missing your partner in crime feels even more personal and it feels that way in the movie. Neo's therapy sessions bare a kind of personal tension that transfers and registers on a level beyond that of a unique way to set up stakes, themes, and parameters. Keanu, so clearly an evolved actor adds to this a taut anxiety that makes us as unsure about this as they are, ( there is a very interesting through-line between Neo and Kohn Wick about a man who as deadened himself only to have to resurrect said self ) but then, through that tension Lana and co-writers Aleksandar Hernon and David Mitchell concoct a brilliant way into this. They do not fully resurrect their brilliant characters, its a mixture of possession and transference, they are them and they're not them. The matrix itself is both the same and different, it’s machinations have involved, it’s processes have changed, it’s inhabitants have aged and some have moved on, and it all meshes into its own unique experience culminating in a beautiful recognition by Lana and Co for a different POV into the “One” and subsequently Neos and Trinity's relationship dynamics. What comes out is a fresh feast for the eyes, and mind, one that seems almost as poised for revisits as any of the originals. What hurts and still haunts the movie is that deep sense of grief.
I have always contended that in the Matrix franchise Laurence Fishburne's Morpheus functioned as the soul of that series. Both in-and-out of the context of that franchise he was our gateway into the faith as well as a fundamental grounding rod of all of the film's large and sometimes confusing themes. Without him that series does not exist in any way -in the way that it exists to us now. It is in that lack of presence, of power, of earnesty, of love, that something is lost in this film and you can feel it again, both in the context of the film and out of it. Lana knows..there is a meta recognition of this loss in the film, it’s as if even before they sat down to write, before they saw the first dailies they felt that loss and it is written into the film, and into its imagery, and it hovers above every action, every sequence. Yahya Abdul for his part gives it a brave try, and fares damn well in another wonderfully creative resurrection, but it is no fault of Waschowski, Yahya, or the idea, it is simply the fact of the power, resonance, the massive brilliance of the actor that made the character as much an icon of cinema as is its lead and arguably more. In that way, the loss of Morpheus represents the ghost of the central tension of this film not only in how do we resurrect dead things, but how do we live with their death. What Lana gives us is a fun, funny ( this movie is actually really really funny) well thought out action movie that doesn’t bother trying to answer this, and instead deals with it, and what we get is this side of Mad Max Fury Road one of the best resurrections of a seemingly dead franchise we've seen, and proof that Judd Crandall was right sometimes dead is better..Sometimes.
The Last Duel: When Right is not Right.
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Some movies are just hard to put a finger on, and sometimes thats a natural consequence, sometimes it’s a fault within the storytelling, and sometimes it's hard to tell which is which and that is where I came out on Ridley Scott's “The Last Duel”. This is now my 2nd time seeing this film, the first time I was admittedly high, and though that usually aids my experience maybe this time it made me too focused in a singularly myopic way that hurts a movie that you need to be as open as possible about, not only because of its subject matter, but in a tonally different way because of its actors, and those actors are both the joy and misalignment of this movie. They’re casting, their performances tell on where it was I fell off of this movie as they do the bits I liked. Overall..the verdict this time around was “Meh” rather than “Oof” and I discovered details that awakened its brilliant bits, as well as more exactly where and how it went wrong for me. The entire time I watched Scott's latest of his two-fer ( House of Gucci will come soon ) I sometimes sat in this place, and sometimes was moved from this place, into various other modes of either elation or disappointment, but always I returned back to this place of disjointedness, or being off-kilter, and I was engulfed or immersed only in fits. There were too many distractions to keep me fully engaged in not only the place, but the time, and the actors well they did not help…
There is something both fascinating and off putting about the performances of the three major men in this movie, especially when set in contrast to Jodie Comer and the rest of its deep and brilliant cast. Matt Damon and Ben Affleck in this movie are somehow pitch perfect and off key, and Adam Driver has good pitch that rings hollow, and I wish I had better more definitive words, but I will attempt to explain them around these things. Damon, ( Jean de Carrouges) Affleck, ( Count Pierre de'Alencon ) Driver, (Jaques Le Gris ) and Comer ( Marguerite de Carrouges) were all in different ways anywhere from decently to sublimely interesting but only Comer was also consistent and complete. What bothers me, having seen it these two times and watched and listened to the conversations around the movie is to see regard for these performances swell to such a degree and then in that swelling leave Comer of all people sitting on the bench while “Stars” Damon, Affleck, and Driver consume most of the “hoorahs” I hope this is just a result of whom I interact with, because otherwise this conversation is criminal to a degree that literally causes fire to combustibly burn through my insides, BUT before I get into that, I want to digress a bit to lay the foundation by talking about a constant phenomenon that has been happening in the way that we discuss certain certain peoples performances. This phenomenon tends to be activated when people whose main jobs exist outside of those of this industry - Athletes, Comedians, musicians - leave their own respective career fields to try and bear fruit in this one. The act tends to leave them ripe for a specific kind of hyperbole around their performances. For me it was a musician who caused me to first notice. It was back when Justin Timberlake was getting a lot of accolades for his notably good performance in David Fincher's “The Social Network”. The talk around how natural he felt was fine at first, because he was. Timberlake seemed to really feel comfortable in his own skin, in a way very few non actors do in their first performance. Im sure his childhood helped him there, but I'm old enough to remember that all of a sudden a small push started to happen to have Timberlake's name mentioned in Oscar talk, and I had no idea why anyone would say such a thing! It was a bridge MUCH too far for me, and thankfully for most, but I theorized that what was at the core of that phenomenon was the fact that people didn't expect him to be good and when he turned out good, it turned to “great" by way of surprise, and to some extent that is what I suspect is going on here. One or two of these things should've happened in the head of folk upon seeing the trailer; A. “Matt Damon, Adam Driver ( maybe less so ) and Ben Affleck in a period movie?..Hmm.” or B. “They are so crazy for putting these three into this this particular period movie where they clearly stand out, I think is gonna be great!” , which is still at least a cousin of the original prognosis. The truth is there are actors whose faces and spirits evoke a certain timelessness, there are actors who feel as if they come from another time, and then there are actors who feel extremely contemporary. Matt Damon and Ben Affleck both look and feel like definitively contemporary actors, and they’re brand is extremely recognizable, Adam driver is more readily capable of belonging to an era other than his own, but spirit-wise he too is a very contemporary actor, making all of their placement in a period peice from a medieval era an instant form of anachronism. To place them like this feels very deliberate within that and bades the question “why?”, especially when they are the only anachronistic things in a movie that otherwise feels deliberately authentic? Maybe this is on purpose, and the purpose does to some extent lend a bit of strength to the inherent falsehood of these men, but it also leaves a discombobulated effect on this movie. It never seems to have quite the control on tone that it's seminal narrative antecedent “Rashomon” had. It comes out of the wash as a mixture of Sofia Coppola's “Marie Antoinette” and Scott’s own “Kingdom of Heaven” and while to some that may be an appealing mixture I found it troublesome. Now, I am not completely unimpressed with the choices, the allure of what it is the big three bring does come through in part. What they are doing is vital to the themes in play in this story, when you're telling a story about the minutae of male behaviors and interactions with each other and women reinforced by the socio political lens through which womanhood is viewed that is “Rape Culture” - You could find no two actors more suited to present one of the most recognizable archetypes in this culture and style and key of “bro” than Damon and Affleck whose shot to fame was playing a version of these kind of men that at the least expressed their ability to play them, and the parts of their characters that have to do with their "essence" are staggeringly effective. Take Damon for instance, I see how well suited he is to the job of Jean de Carrouges - a man who thinks he’s good but in fact is blinded by his own vanity ( Whether a conscious decision or not) through the lens of Damon’s own career moves and high profile missteps all of which provide a fascinating way into the character whether he gets it or not. Ben Affleck's own playboy lifestyle in his early career provides another (though somewhat less direct) parallel. This is why subsequently out of the male actors in this film it is Affleck who reigned supreme in my mind as the male actor of the three who is most intriguing, most fascinating, most interesting to watch work. Though there might be shades of this kind of character in previous roles he's done whether it be “Armageddon” or “Good Will Hunting”, there is a perfect balance of weight and airy-lightness baked into a more profound understanding of this character that makes this far more appealing than any of those roles, and far more affecting. Despite an accent that mostly goes out and the aforementioned contemporary nature, Affleck embodies the type of man the Count is supposed to be with such a precise and shap incision of glee, audacity, charm, and stupidity that he should also try his hand at surgery. He seems to by far be the one having the most fun with this role and it in return frees him up quite a bit to take some interesting choices in all of his scenes right from the start where a slight twinge in the neck and cutting look of the eyes provide an early look into Pierre's disdain for Jean (Damon) that told me right away “this is going to be entertaining. This wasn't “surprise”. Affleck has been on on a streak of good acting since he started directing himself, and now what he must have picked up from working with himself has made its way into not only his choices of characters but how he works within them, WITH other people. No, this was plain ol “I can tell he’s having a ball, and I can see it works and Im going to enjoy it”, particularly the scenes that take place in a dining room and his bedroom, continued the trend and proved me right, but he is also the cast member of these three that spends by far the least amount of time acting in scenes across from those who feel as if they are tailor made for the time, which is what causes the others to stick out in varying degrees. Matt Damon is secondarily effective as he brings his standard honorable commitment and honesty which in turn help make his perspective believable and just enough to fool more than a few audience members, as well as make them aware of where the cracks, crevices, and pitfalls of Jean's self deception lie, but there were moments where I found his flailing about disingenuous and unnecessary, like “Heaven and Earth!!” followed by a ornate twirl of both his finger and body when Carrouges penchant for ironic drama had more honest depictions in statements like “Can this man do nothing but evil to me!” ( this after he finds out his WIFE was raped and not he ). The parallels in Damon's career are obvious and fascinating to watch in this particular role. It’s not his first time, Damon has leaned into his own internal self dishonesty specifically in movies like “Interstellar” and “The Talented Mr Ripley” where he played something very akin to this kind of man, and it can be argued he did it better then, still it is very compelling work but especially so once we see him from Marguerite's perspective. Here Damon's real life and actorly predisposition towards a certain display of oblivious obtuse-ness, combined with a child like sensibility bring home so many of the brilliant talking points brought forth about “Nice Guys” which I dont think Carrouges fully embodies but definitely touches upon an aspect of in his dedication to chivalry, misogyny, and pouty martyrdom, all while believing hes the righteous one. For both Affleck and Damon ( though in varying degrees ) the notes and the highs of their performances pierce and pass through a stratosphere of exactitude in characterization that very few performances and actors have in the last ten years, and they appear to be having fun doing it, But make no mistake artifice matters too. When acting, the highest goal, the goal that should always be desired is a mastery of both artifice AND spirit/ essence in your character, So that even while Denzel clearly nailed down the essence of Malcolm X in Spike Lee's phenomenonal biopic, the essence is also fundamentally and foundationally aided by the fact that he also mastered much of Malcolm x's artifice, How he carried himself, how he spoke- the cadence, beats, the gestures he tended to be prone to repeating, this all emboldens, shades, and details the outline. It is enough that neither Affleck nor Damon can seem to get ahold of the accent or even decide which one they're doing, but it is even further injurious to add to the fact that there is no real sort of decisions about how these characters might walk or present themselves that says anything to the time, period, or in truth the characters, and that is a flaw that distracts and deters from full immersion. Watch a clip of John Malkovich ( who doesn't even really seem to try and develop an accent even if he did ) but look at the way he walks, the precision in his movement, right down to how he runs and of you watch, this is full bodied and integral to the character Vimcont Valmont as well as the time and space he occupies in Stephen Frear's “Dangerous Laisons”..these details are where Damon and especially Driver come up short..
Adam Driver represents the worst of this even while being arguably the most capable of these three, because he is the reverse of their work, the artifice is more readily available, but interestingly enough the character is not ( Driver worked alot this year and I dont care what anyone tells you, anyone working this many roles round the same time as an actor, it is a guarantee that one of the roles is getting less of themselves consciously or not ) but I can say nothing else about Adam Driver in this film until I state that for me he was miscasted. I understand the temptation and it's not all bad, there are parts of this where you see exactly why someone would fall for Driver in this part. There is something in Driver that makes him juicy in roles that ask or call for seedy, passive aggressive ambition. He has an incredible and uncanny balance of both repulsion and attraction that I think is perfect for this role if based purely on artifice, but he rarely finds the profound in this movie, in fact only once was it that he seemed to find the marrow of this man and that was in his reaction to the accusation. The rest of the movie Driver is just Driver, there's no sense of the sort of deeper objectives that don't come from the script itself, and the very distinctive cadence and tonality to which Driver can’t seem to escape overpowers what seems to be the most concerted effort of the three to sound the part. That too though lives in that space of repulsion and attractiveness, and it's the attractiveness that he as an entire entity occupies with ease. It's powerful, engrossing and compelling in and of itself, a self sustained support system for the rest of his body, But it also limits Drivers range. To this point in his career Adam Driver is being treated like he is a shape shifter, when in reality he’s more presence and emotive power than transformation. More Robert DeNiro than Joaquin Phoenix. The role of Jaques Le Gris requires presence, and charm, and in that Driver hits very capably, his holding court is quite believable becaue of this, as is the superficial nature of his class and meager upbringing, but though it’s not necessarily an emotive role when it does get emotive it calls for a different energy, a more potent version than what Driver offers for the most part and when it seems the moments are rife with it Driver brings no profound insights from his class into the essence of Le Gris. It’s not that his is terrible, it’s just not as powerful as it could be. I would love to have seen what a James McAvoy, Jonathan Rhys- Meyers, or Nicholas Hoult might've done here, especially after seeing the latter's underrated work in “The Favourite”.
Driver may be the more interesting of these men for something that feels just outside of that paradigm type choice, but you already ran that up with Damon and Affleck, and here Driver just feels like more than was necessary. Especially since it was his line readings in this film that I found the most disinteresting. Out of ALL actors in this movie I really didn't walk away with any particular scene that I felt he necessarily carried, even with actors that were supporters, there were many moments where it felt they were more interesting than anything Driver was doing, for instance when hes being spoken to by the man of the cloth (The always good Michael McElhatton) about the nature of his predicament. Le Gris is a social climber, a man who is an outsider only by the default of his birth but for all intensive purposes he functions the same as many of these others in that he feels equally as entitled in this life as any, and from what we’ve seen in films like” Star Wars”, “Logan Lucky”, “Frances Ha” and definitely “Marriage Story” Driver has that energy to pull this off, but he has to be completely committed and here I just don’t see it. He takes most of his scenes to the precipice of discovery and never leaves the cliff, when this role requires some leaping to truly find something subtly but devastatingly dastardly, I shudder to think how a young Jeremy Irons wouldve crushed this into dust. Driver's lack of transcendent intensity leaves me with and to Jodie Comer…
As Marguerite de Carrouges Jodie Comer borders on revelation if not exactly that. She brings that same thorough complicated layering she brought to Villanelle in the outstanding initial seasons of “Killing Eve” opposite Sandra Oh. She is a complete actress giving a complete performance and it puts the boys to shame while also in a funny way exacerbating, or actually better put - bringing to light the inconsistent tonal problems in this movie. Comer plays her role with an adeptness and brilliance that is hard to articulate save to point out where it shows up at. Such that it is she that ends up the most believable not only through narrative details but through the details in her varying performances as she plays each of these men’s fantasy while maintaining the through line and essence of her character. Damon and Driver are inconsistent in this regard and float in-between character and caricature especially in the chapter where they definitely should feel completely authentic..( Affleck is not in the movie enough and his perspective is not a factor ) which is Marguerie's. When they replay what she was actually feeling or how she actually responded, Comer plays it hauntingly authentically, like something that still existed right there even in the men’s fantasy, and this is important so as not to dilute the narrative and overdo your job in fooling the audience. Though mostly minor there has been some discussion about the idea that some people can't tell whether or not Marguerite's perspective is meant to be the definitive one, and while I agree with Scott and others that this is mostly pretty obvious, I don't think it's as obvious as they might have you believe. In a movie that's 3 and a 1/2 hours long with the ongoing theater problem of hearing dialogue, without aid of subtitles, and with alot of details to focus on, I think it’s quite possible when adding the ways in which Driver, and Damon’s acting muddles up the point, for some people… some people to come out of a one time viewing not sure as to if this movie might not be about how perspective can differ and these things can be tricky, rather a clear statement about the precarious nature of womens lives in the cruel thicket of patriarchy and misogyny, especially if the viewer is a man. And because in this male society its possible someone would as director take that political view, especially in light of the way so many have responded to #metoo and in light of similar treatments to race in movies like Martin McDonaughs “Three Billboards” and The Farelly Brothers “The Green Book” - I gotta be honest, though I have pretty good faith in Scott's sensibilities in this regard, his “Muhammad such and such” statement alone is enough to prevent me from having air tight confidence in his inability to be that goofy. No, what let me know that “The Last Duel” was clearly about confirming Marguerite was the fact that it spent that much time on her perspective and more importantly Comer’s acting. To me when you want to know the truth look for the most consistent pattern, especially in a story like this and also in this case the most consistent acting. Because Comer's performance had such a distinctive through line it enabled you ( when paying attention to it) to understand and see clearly and without a doubt that it is Marguerite who is telling the truth. It is communicated in her eyes, in her body, in her line readings, and in all the layers she provides underneath those, many times by way of those wonderfully interpretive eyes. It is Comer's performance so central to not only the movie's quality but the movie's morality that should've set tone for the others, and thus her casting should’ve been the initial, basing the casting of the rest off how to compliment and counter that energy. I find it telling as to those initial missteps I spoke of at the top - that she was casted after Damon and Affleck, and that sums up my issues with this movie. It’s a movie that plays too much of a back and forth game with a subject that needed to be very clear even while the events take place in an opaque manner on purpose. It’s a movie filled with contradictions and they're not all the good kind, and THAT unfortunately becomes the duel at play that knocked me off my horse and left me not necessarily cold but indifferent to a movie that could've been powerful even as it upholds and confirms Jodie Comer ( A FAVE of mines ) as a real..well.. Comer.
The Harder They Fall Gave us something we’ve been in dire need of in Black Filmmaking.
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I want to start with a quote from a 2014 interview with Chris Rock from The Hollywood Reporter ; “I think they’ve been better in the last few years, too — a little more daring, a little funnier. But look, most movies suck. Absolutely suck. They just do. Most TV shows suck. Most books suck. If most things were good, I’d make $15 an hour. I don’t live the way I live because most things are even remotely good. But when you have a system where you probably only see three movies with African-American leads in them a year, they’re going to be judged more harshly, and you’re really rooting for them to be good a little more so than the 140 movies starring white people every year.”. I start with this quote because it shaped my feelings around the latest Netflix offering from newcomer Jeymes Samuel “The Harder They Fall”. For about maybe the first fifteen minutes of the movie I found myself grading it by the standard of its peers, “Moonlight”, “Get Out”, “Widows” , “Miss Juneteenth” …Thing is those movies arent this movies peers. Its peers are films like Tombstone, The Quick and the Dead, and Posse, and Django Unchained. I bring this up because I believe its important that black movies be free of the shackles of having to be great. That they be allowed to be irreverent, experimental, and anything from pretty good to only decent to just dumb fun. The Harder They Fall, wasn’t about much, it featured some elements about black capitalistic behavior that could be easily construed as critique. There is a bit more potent conversation about generational trauma, the fruits of past sins, and true accountability, but none of those are strong enough, last long enough or are repeated enough to stick. What does stick when it comes to Jeymes Samuel's western are its images, it's music, it's performances, it's stylized action. The point of this movie is not necessarily in any political thrust, it's in the ability of its imagery in and of itself to conjure a certain power that revels in its blackness and the love of its predecessors in a genre that could use a good comeback into the mainstream, and this is what people who lean towards needing some sense of poignancy or political ideology, always end up tending not to like in certain directors, this stylized emptiness for them is too much, and that particular lack of connection to these kinds of stores I understand . I also do think there are certain kinds of movies that don't in any way seem to connect with him to any particular aspect or philosophical principle in any fully realized way, that still maintain a primal and visceral power in their constant and consistent use of imagery and language that appears on the surface to be superficial but finds a rather deep power in the beauty of “Cool”….See Tarantino.
Two movies immediately shot to my mind or rather one immediately sprang forth and the other one came more as an after thought. The first is of course 1993's “Tombstone”. George P. Cosmotos violent re-telling of the events that led up to and came after the Shootout of OK Corral, had as its kickstand a story of deep friendship and some interesting revisions around classical ideas of good and evil and righteousness, but Much like “The Harder They Fall, this isn't why you think of that movie, this isn't why we love that movie, that mostly extends from its ability to be a riveting, visually powerful yarn about the good guys and the bad guys, and that done through potent characterization and acting. The thing you connect with most in both of these movies is not story but character. It’s Ike Clanton ( Stephen Lang) Johnny Ringo (a bit of a wonderful departure for Michael Biehn) its Trudy Smith ( Regina King ) and Bass Reeves, (Delroy Lindo) these characters and the actors who breathe life into them are the driving force of the story along with its visual language. There are some very interesting parallels here as well, they are not one for one but they are nonetheless pieces of unconscious connections and bits that make you feel like one movie stood as a sort of antecedent for the other. There is not only the fact that between the sides the most interesting characters, the deepest bench per se comes from the bad guys ..That's somewhat par the course, but there's also how these bad guys act, and what they represent. Though Idris Elba's Rufus Buck has a lot more of a motivational impetus then Powers Boothe's William Brocious who is much more of a sort of agent of chaos flying by the seat of his pants - both of them bring a similar sort of sly charisma to some extremely dark deeds that calls back again other people that preceeded even them like Jack Palance in “Shane”. The gun slinging rivalry between RJ Cyler's Jim Beckworth and LaKeith Stansfield's Cherokee Bill bares some commonalities with that of Doc Holiday and Johnny Ringo. Though executed differently there is for instance a similar sort of setup and method for both Beckworth and Ringo in the not necessarily non confrontational, but non combative reaction they get from their rival upon first meeting. Ringo in the infamous “tin-cup” scene, Beckworth in the middle of town, when Cherokee Bill walks away. Though tombstone was obviously more factual in that it does stick to and keep to the events as they unfolded, it does take a lot of dramatic license and plays a little fast and loose with the facts. Buy, it was the usage of real historical figures to non historical ends that reminded me so much of Tarantino's “Inglorious Bastards” . It's not only the use of an incredible dramatic license to unjail the story of real players in history, from their actual history and push it to a more satisfying bloody and wildly violent end, There were stories and visual parallels there. For instance you have the marking of the forehead, and inversion of the normally accepted connotation of the symbology. In this case the swastika becomes righteous, the cross vile. Story-wise you have two stories that begin with a childhood trauma, both openings a bit of a slow burn before we get to wanton violence, which set up a tale of revenge. The build up of certain moments whether in the opening, or later on with the “bear jew” or Rufus Bucks town beating of Wiley Escoe (Deon Cole) show similar taste for for power of anticipation and stern faced violence. Ultimately though, what stands out on all these movies is the way they make style substance. Still images hold power, they commute messages, and speak to us unconsciously. So too for moving images, and great performances, they hold power, commute messages, and speak to us unconsciously, and it’s perfectly okay for those images to be smuggled in a vehicle that is more than anything else a good time.
This is my main take away from the film. In an era and especially a year now where we have seen in multiple films featuring mainly if not all black cast the failure and in some cases catastrophic ( Two Distant Strangers anyone?) of some of these films to get across what they wanted to get across because of an insistence on a thrust especially in this particular time and Zeitgeist - of messaging towards racial politics from Queen and Slim to the most recent re-telling of Candyman, I think it's important to acknowledge a feeling and experience that “The Harder They Fall has given us exactly what we've been asking for and needed in this time as these stories have worn and grated on us with consequences I think beyond just disappointment. The Harder They Fall is a welcome reprieve from that, it's ultimately more than anything else a popcorn movie where we can sit back and just watch a bunch of talented people from the director to the musicians involved in some of the music, to the actors, spin us a good old fashioned yarn involving some historical figures that many of us knew very little about but not tied to telling that deep dark and sometimes difficult history. Rather, just taking them and giving us a wild good time. Its allowing us to enjoy that freedom of just seeing great black characters on screen interacting with each other on screen for no other reason then propel a tried and true story about good and evil, the guys in the white hats and the guys and the black hats, in one of the most popular and in recent years underused genres of film. We may very well be in our 4th iteration of a sort of black Renaissance on film, and hopefully this is one that actually sticks, but something that its frequently lost in these Renaissance's most especially from a historical perspective is all of the movies that were made in these times that were just meant to be a good time that we're just meant to be potent forms of entertainment not lazily constructed bits of profiteering, but good times. Sure there was “Coolie High” and “The Learning Tree” in Blaxploitation, but there was also “Let’s do it Again” and “Three the Hard Way”. Sure there was “Menace to Society” and “Boyz in the Hood”, but there was also “The Inkwell” and “Friday”. Black people could use a “Neverending Story” or “The Goonies”, every bit as much as a “Daughters of the Dust” or “To Sleep with Anger” . It's not important we all like these movies but it is important that we don't get into the trap of value hierarchy's and creating genre ghettos, where certain types of films that provide certain experiences are dismissed off hand in favor of others. That to me is the importance of the harder they fall and subsequently the importance of so far the good cheer and love the film has received from our community. It leads me back to the Chris Rock quote. it's very important that we continue to make space for those movies even even if we don't necessarily celebrate them all. That we allow and continue to push Hollywood to believe that there are wider spaces for black entertainment than just that that relies upon our socio realities and it is for that, that I’m grateful to see a film like Jeymes Samuel's and hope it’s a beacon for others to create experiences similar to it.
The Radical Existence of Queen and Slim
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In the opening of Audre Lorde's Zami she speaks of a black woman whom she admired when she was a child. A woman who strolled the streets with her hair unkempt, her stomach on full display , her joy undimmed. It's a beautiful example of isolated black freedom in the midst of a detailed and exhaustive commentary of the macro oppression of black folk in America. The same can be said of Lena Waithe's and Melina Matsoukas's film “Queen and Slim”. The central political focus of the film is not the black resistance as a whole, or black martyrdom, but an isolated tale of two people finding their own freedom from the daily reduction of black lives by living their lives on their own terms despite their impending doom. Phenomenal cosmic power in an itty bitty living space. It is supremely well acted, well shot, photographed and written, and it's ultimate message is one I received with relish and glee.
There has been much talk of comparison around the film. The most oft repeated being “Bonnie and Clyde”, though “Thelma and Louise” and “Set it Off” also readily come to mind, but the film or at least the quote from a film that first came to my mind after watching Queen and Slim was from Ridley Scott's Gladiator, “What we do in life, echoes in eternity”. Despite the chasm of difference between those two films, The matter at the heart of the both in my mind, is not how best to die, but how best to live. Gladiator from under the weight of one type of oppression, Queen and Slim from under the weight of a more modern, and layered form of oppression. The fates of the protagonist in each of these films are not nearly as important as the way they live, and I wonder how much of our own real reductive and restrictive lives in this nation play a role in the reduction of the power of this film to hinging on their fate. From the moment of the event that sets the film in motion, the two protagonists are on a journey of self discovery, and bonding that is as graceful, organic, and honest as any film about love and more to the point black love has ever been. The resistance in the film is not one of physical or political actualization, but one of self realization, and expressive defiance of the shackles of blackness in America. Ones put in the place by the consuming nature of white supremacy, and the stifling nature of black existence from under it. Throughout the movie we see both. As the police state drags a net around them, and as black folk respond to their plight in both positive and negative fashion. Meanwhile all Queen and Slim really want to do is just live for themselves in both the most literal and figurative fashion. Their desire not to die is the focus of the first quarter of the movie and extends itself naturally as more of a underlying motivation as it continues, while the figurative living becomes the thrust of the second half. This portion of the film becomes about the two learning how to do as much without worrying about the consequences of such behavior. We watch them stop by a night club for some impromptu dancing, ride horses, and hang outside moving vehicles. We also watch them heal old wounds, resolve issues they were previously afraid , or too stuck in the quagmire of a fatalistic existence to deal with.
The nature of their situation, the near inevitability of their destiny awakens Queen and Slim to a sense of urgency about life they previously could not see. For lack of better words They have nothing to lose, so they're willing to risk everything. Their senses are heightened, and their focus is tightened. Their resistance, or their form of fight back is the way they decide to live regardless of possible outcomes. In Yamamoto Tsunetomos “Hagakure” there is a quote about life and death that I think ultimately applies best to the resistance of Queen and Slim.
“If a warrior is not unattached to life and death, he will be of no use whatsoever. The saying that “All abilities come from one mind” sounds as though it has to do with sentient matters, but it is in fact a matter of being unattached to life and death. With such non-attachment one can accomplish any feat.
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It is easy to mistake this sort of approach and attitude with a macabre fetishization or fascination when death when in fact it is the opposite. In setting ones mind to making peace with the looming shadow of death, one is able to best live ..
“If by setting one’s heart right every morning and evening, one is able to live as though his body were already dead, he gains freedom in the Way.”
“Freedom in the way” …. Freedom. Three quarters of the way through the film Queen and Slim end up on a sort of guided tour with a young boy from town who admires them, and what he feels they're doing. While talking with them, he says something to the effect of don't worry you'll make it, but even if you don't it will be okay because you'll be immortal”. It's important to note two things about this boys words in the context of the film and it's message, because there are some who have identified this as the gist of the movie to which I disagree in part. I say in part because if you only use the latter half of what he said, you're taking his own zealous misinterpretation of what it is Queen and Slim are accomplishing, and what they desire as the thrust of the narrative, when it is merely a response to what is the actual narrative. It's a response to the daily marginalization endured by black folk in America and a hyper reaction by an immature mind to a display of freedom rarely if ever seen before by black people. Hearing this young boy, and watching his reaction which is rooted in his own misconceptions about rebellion, I couldn't help but think on Ernest Dickerson's 1992 film “Juice”. Tupac's character Bishop is similarly a young black male who is tired of the daily compression of his life, and rather than watching real life “Outlaws” as does the boy from Queen and Slim he watches James Cagney's Cody Jarrett in “White Heat” and has a very similar reading of what it is he's seeing…
For Bishop, and for the young boy, freedom is found in the ultimate control. Control of one's own destiny, or one's own narrative. Immortality, Glory, these are about being remembered, being seen, and for those of us who feel the burden of life as a black person in this country may be predetermined and destined as one of little value, it's a way to have an impact, to upend the order of things. But that is not what our two protagonist are seeking. Queen and Slim have a burning desire for freedom as do many of us, but it is much more isolated, and it concerns itself with how best to live while accepting the ever present possibility of death, not with immortality, revenge, glory, or how best to die. Through these things undoubtedly have places where they intersect, they are not one in the same. The proof of this is everything Queen and Slim do afterwards. This is not Bonnie and Clyde, Set it Off, Natural Born Killers, or Thelma and Louise. They are not on an larceny filled road trip to a poetic destiny over the grand canyon, or on a socio-political revenge spree on corporate marginalization by way of banks, or even a psychopathic bloodlusty whirlwind across state lines, they are two people connecting as the world burns around them, thus the love scene that coincides with the political rally put together on their behalf. In those other movies each one of them keeps pushing the line further and further along the way. They, (like the boy) were hurdling their bodies towards immortality. In Queen and Slim they are merely trying to live their best life with a pure hope that they will make it to Cuba and live full lives there, (something they mention over and over again) while learning to make peace with the specter of death. The movie is about learning to live , not exist but live while fighting oppression. It's resistance is found in the rebellious nature of refusing to be confined to anxiety, anger, malcontention, repression, and respectability.
When we meet them they are on a rather awkward Tinder date, that seems merely okay, much like their existence up to that point. They live their lives for others , to (like so many of us) be an example that distinguishes itself from so many tropes and attitudes about us and sometimes by us. Slim doesn't drink, doesn't smoke, and attends the same diner regularly because it is black owned. He exist but he doesn't live. He holds it in, he denies himself certain joys because he feels such things impair not only his senses, his responses, but his armor. Slims lives his life as a protection from and against the very thing that happens to him anyway under white supremacy. Such is the feeling that all to often arises from being black in America. Queen is no different in that regard. She denies herself time to enjoy things, to fully realize people, to be average at things, or even bad at it. She is filled with a righteous anger (which she puts into her work as a defense lawyer) and an acute eye for red flags and danger, but has no idea when it is safe to let her guard down. This is justified by the reality of being black in America, but it is not living. I've often thought of marginalization as an existing in a state of righteous paranoia. Paranoia being defined as delusions of persecution in this case, the righteous being in front of it making it justifiable by way of a history of actual persecutions. Some of us know this feeling all too well even if we don't consciously recognize it. We are in a constant state of hyper-preparedness and alertness that leave us unable to truly live in the moment, to allow for all the variations in behavior, perception, and outcome that are possible because doing so is a risk in an already risk filled existence. The triggering event in the movie is like a snapped finger after a long trance. It wakes them up to all they have been missing, and their sense of the moment and of time becomes heightened. All the quicksand, the murk, the cobwebs, and caked on dust of a frail, and cold existence begin to shake themselves free, and warmth slowly but surely makes its way into the film which Matsoukas and cinematographer Tat Radcliffe highlight with increasingly textured and open shots as the film goes along. Queen opens herself up. She shares the weight and the wounds of her life with family, and to her mother, and to Goddess, and to Slim. She shares the burden, learns to take chances, and most importantly to enjoy the moment, irrespective of the presence of death in her life , of her mother, of her client, and now of herself. Slim takes a drink, smokes some weed, rides a horse. He begins to open himself up to vulnerability, to being less armored, and to take chances, and risks. The presence of death, the shadowy gnarled fingers of white supremacy are ever present in black lives. Despite our best efforts, they are always there, and our responses to it are fragmented and many, as this movie depicts to some degree. Despite the best efforts of the protagonists in this film when we are introduced to them, both white supremacy and death nearly snatched each of their lives, and in the aftermath they learned how to live fuller expression of their lives out from under, rather than just exist within it. Their fates, the varying responses to their plight, their resistance, were not of their own making, and it is not the movies intention to guide them there to make a point. These were simply the outgrowth of their own bold defiance. Thusly Queen and Slim becomes not a destination movie, but a movie about the journey. Not a meditation on black death, but an instruction on, and inspiration of what black life, black love, can look like free. It's an extension of any black persons desire (and especially artists) to be free from what is expected, or even from having to do what isn't expected. Queen and Slim is not about being ultra realistic, if it was there would be fewer people helping them, more scenes with cops in them. It's not only a political movie either, though the politics of black lives are present nonetheless. It's not about shocking us, or disavowing us, it is a film that just wants to tell a story of two people who find each other in the world and despite all that goes on around them and all that has happened to them - decide to hold on to each other and let go of the rest, and I love Lena and Melina for it. For giving us an adventure, a thriller, a love story, that expresses both fantasy and reality, imagining a radical existence for it's protagonists that transcends tragedy and struggle, rather than just living in and meditating in it and on it.
3 Personally LIfe-affirming Quotes from "The Shawshank Redemption"
/“Get busy Living or Get Busy Dying”
Lyrical by aesthetic, poetic in its simplicity, and powerful because of both, “Get busy living or get busy dying” feels like something that would fit snugly in the smarmy self congratulating mouths of certain gurus of the day . Morgan Freeman's delivery of the line demonstrates the veracity of the saying “It’s not what you say it’s how you say it, and why he's one of the greatest of his generation. His command over his voice implies strength in pliability. It's not a gravelly subwoofer barking out his consonants, and raising his vowels as if trying to command them from death (Tony Robbins I’m looking at you). It’s softer, more as if he is trying to lull his E’s to sleep, with the G nearly falling asleep from being in proximity. He doesn’t state it like so many guru’s as if he’s reading his own plan for one of the greatest heists ever, and he doesn’t necessarily throw it away either. He simply seems to say the words, following the advice of the great Katherine Hepburn to Anthony Hopkins on the set of “The Lion in Winter” …
“Don’t act just speak the lines”. Seems like the perfect summation of what makes Morgan’s performance as “Red” in the film so deeply affecting. His words are not affected or even infected with acting. They are simply understood, and spoken in a way that only Morgan could understand and speak them. So that what they are infected with is Morgans lyrical quality. His every-maness which follows in the vein of those before him like Jimmy Stewart, or has as its peer in someone like Tom Hanks. Freeman over his career has had a pinpoint accuracy for finding the barest of truths in a word or a line, and The Shawshank is near or at the top of the list of films where he does so with uncanny consistency. “Get Busy living, or get busy dying”. It is has both the quality of prose, and poetry, of something that implies both closure and finality, and of something more open to interpretation. In my last apartment I was given to posting 3 x 5 index cards with quotes over my walls, doors, and cabinetry. I wanted my apartment to speak to me, to chatter, to whisper in my ear at night those words I felt I needed to hear to become or remain the person I wanted to be in life. This quote from the film was one of only two quotes that wasn’t from a teacher, a friend, a philosopher, or a book (none of which Im proud to say came from that disreputable discipline known as self help). Its power is in understatement. If it’s said with this kind of dramatic implication, or in a way that addresses its power in any way it loses it, like a magical friend that only appears as long as attention is not drawn to it. It is one of the few statements that though drenched in absoluteness, feels applicable to anyone and to everyone without bias. The “living” or the “dying” are left to interpretation. The word that precedes them is busy, and though it clearly implies working at, or through, or on, or all of the above - it too opens itself up to the personal, but you are either doing one, or you are doing the other. There are many cases in my life where either/or doesn’t work for me. Either/Or is simplification, and it’s a kind of power grab, but I wrench my power in life from understanding I am not in ownership or possession of a great deal of things, but my life, and how I choose to frame it, how I choose to see it, is one of those that qualifies as either or. You are either going about the business of living, and especially for oneself, connected to others but through the self , or you are going about the business of dying for oneself, or for others with no connection, or too much connection, slow, or fast, but it is one or the other. That like so much of what comprises absolutism is the power ( and in many cases, but not this one, the weakness) of it… simplicity..”That’s Goddamn right”.
“How Can You Be So Obtuse”
I’ve always found myself attracted to anger in film. Anger pretty much in all it’s forms, but indignant , and righteous anger the most. It’s the driving force of attraction in a lot of my favorite scenes and lines from movies. That could be because there is a lot of anger inside me, pent up, unaddressed, unencouraged, but I tend to think it’s not so much the amount as the quality of the anger. When I was a kid, maybe in the seventh grade, I had a geography teacher who couldn’t be bothered to teach. The kind that just hands out cumbersome long form reading assignments from the book while he plops his well worn loafers on top of the desk and commits himself to crossword puzzles, and flirting with the World History teacher next door over a cigarette. I was on the way to school to which there was no bus, because of a racist zoning system which quite skillfully zoned it so every single one of the very few black kids on my block were sent to the very black and latino school in San Bernardino, rather than the white one right around the corner, so my mother had to drive me. The car (a beat up datsun I believe) broke down on the way, and I ended up missing one class and being late for this one. When I arrived, his loafers seemed to spot me from their perch on top of the desk before he did, as they sort of perked up, and then rose from their stationary position as the protectors of the crossword in front of the paper. As his finger motioned me over to his desk, I felt positive I would have no issue here, because obviously what happened could not be helped, and I had the school equivalent of diplomatic immunity by way of a note from my mother. Turns out neither mattered to this, burned out cross between Hitler, and Kevin Nealon. Upon hearing my story of trail and tribulation just trying to make it to a school I shouldn’t have had to make the Indiana Jones map trip to in the first place, he merely raised an eyebrow, and uttered the words “Yeah, you just have to get to school on time, so Im going to have to write you up, and any continuance of this behavior will affect your grade”. A little shook at the word “behavior” I replied, that though I understood that timeliness was important (Obviously, not but a few days before he had read my name off on the perfect attendance list) there was no way I could’ve prevented this. To which he replied in exactly the same tone, with exactly the same facial expression, exactly the same words. The whole thing reminded me of John Malkovich repeatedly stating “It’s beyond my control” in Dangerous Liasons, except that at least had feelings attached despite its blatant cruelty. This was much more like the warden in scene above, bereft of any feeling, any empathy, sympathy, or understanding. My incident wasn’t anywhere near the vicinity of the stakes at play in this scene, but as an adult I seemed to have more run ins with this exact kind of callous indifference to actual circumstance and facts than I ever would’ve cared to have had (especially during my tenure in the military) or even on the phone with bill collectors, or to slumlords in Los Angeles. People who who either by design or by default couldn’t be bothered to in the words of the great Otis Redding try a little tenderness. People who willfully seemed to block out the obvious, to state a rigidly preposterous position due to either unyielding belief in a system, or a desire to hurt. My anger in those times was much like what Tim Robbins so acutely depicted (It may be my favorite bit of acting by Robbins in the role I felt should’ve gotten him an Oscar). Righteous anger, not hateful anger, anger confused and obstructed by a face on the other side that seems either pure in its ignorance, or defiant and destitute of humanity. Andy/Robbins barely raises his voice in this scene until he is dragged away by guards, and even then its more akin to pleading disbelief, and to makes sure he’s being heard, than it is pure unadulterated anger. And I understand it, I identify with it in a way that goes beyond both sympathy and empathy. The words “How can you be so obtuse” attach themselves to, and affirm my flesh, they infiltrate and affirm my spirit, they embody and affirm my pain. When Timothy Robbins/ Andy Dufresne utter those words, I just….get it.
“Andy Dufresne, who crawled through a river of shit, and came out clean on the other side”
I could pick any number of words, or sentences from this entire section of the film. Its a small, but profoundly well crafted bit of dialogue, that expertly moves the story along in time, while keeping the integrity of the themes and values at play, and its gorgeously written. “I just miss my friend” chokes me up just thinking about it. It’s so achingly relatable to anybody who has ever lost a really great friend to time, space, or death, and its delivered by Freeman with devastating poignancy, and the same plainness aforementioned. But it’s “Andy Dufresne, who crawled through a river of shit, and came out clean on the other side” that personifies the ultimate message of this film so precisely. Hope…hope that any of us, maybe even all of us, can make it through the yards and yards of muck, grime, and fecal matter life, society leaves behind. That we can survive years in the dark, dragging ourselves up and out of horrible family trauma, poverty, crushingly inept leadership, lack of upward mobility at work, social inequality, and hatred, and come through it all clean, liberated, and possibly stronger. Hope that we can make it through our own shit, ego, entitlement, self degradation, or depreciation, self pity, over compensation, and analyzation, and on and on. In the film the words urgently calls you back to remind you of everything you’ve seen on screen, and off screen. Of all the inhumanity that Andy has had to endure without aide of a montage, so that as you see Andy now in his car , wind blowing through his hair, the same silly smile on his face as was on it when he scored beer for all the men on the roof detail, (another impossibly well written scene and moment) it reminds you that of the power of his resolve, and that he did it all with his humanity in tact. It reminds me that I can do the same. I shouldn’t have to , but nonetheless I can. It’s about endurance. Not the kind that makes you an inactive spectator in your own life, waiting on your piece of “pie in the sky” as Malcolm X would so often allude to. But the active kind. The kind that allows you to endure while you act. Andy had a plan, and he worked at it, and he adapted, and he endured, and he never gave up hope to cynicism, and pessimism. Yeah.. “Andy Dufesne, who crawled through a river of shit and came out clean on the other side”.
Revisit: 48 HRS is a Masterpiece.
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A farm midday sits in the middle of the frame, tanning itself in the heat of a quiet afternoon. The first few notes of music that become so vital to the lure, and the subsequent lore of this film are still searching for their rhythm. As of right now they're just disparate sounds, not quite yet working in unison, much like the two men around whom the rest of this story will concern itself. Horses graze, workers work near a railroad track, as a vehicle used for either repair or construction of a train passes by. The frame clears, save for dust, the notes of music begin to pick up beginning with a two count, and the words "48 hrs" flash across the screen. The memorable opening to this film could feel somewhat disconnected from the rest , it doesn't signal the setting , or the main themes at play, but it does signal us to its inspirations, as well as its intentions. The Western, Kurosawa, Don Siegel. The weather, the landscape, the elements, and even the musical cues are clues as to this films muses, and the ingredients that converge to form its greatness. So too does its overt overtures to plainness, in structure, tone, and character. Like the genre it most closely resembles, (The Western before it became a sub genre of it's own) 48 hrs makes it bones on characters, and set up, and the settlement myth of the lawman..not necessarily by making them complicated, or misunderstood, more-so by making them interesting, resourceful, and consistent . One interdependent on the other. The setup is clear right from the opening, maybe even from the title itself, resembling its cinematic antecedent High Noon. We are introduced to the bad guys first. Both through exposition and most impressively through action. We will come to know Albert Ganz, and Billy Bear are audacious and care little for the law because its takes both to commit to an armed prison breakout in broad daylight. If we doubted it still, they further the notion by murdering a friend on a park bench in the city, again in broad daylight. The reveal of this murder is the first of this films many brilliant story telling decisions. Ganz is on a pay phone casually setting up an escort for himself, while Billy sits reading a paper next to a man who appears to be asleep on a park bench. Hill and the camera do not seize the opportunity to provide detail, this is purposeful. It is noticeable that something is off, and if the audience chooses to focus on the man on the bench , one might for instance take note of his hands laying so incredibly limp as to imply next to no bones, but again the casualty of both of the men involved would delay any real conclusion as to the nature of this mans predicament. Billy gets up from his relaxed position on the bench, asks for his own escort through Ganz. Ganz gives a name that is not his own, and he and Billy calmly walk away. The camera now pans back to the bench where it is clearly revealed (“Henry Wong” we will be told later) , is indeed dead. It a scene with no exposition as to the nature of these men, that provides exactly that kind of insight into their psyche. It is also a callback to the trope of the lawless wild west of which the movie is set (San Francisco no less) where the outlaws commit murder callously and without remorse, where a man can be left for dead right where he sits. Next we are introduced to Nick Nolte's Jack Kates who provides subtle exposition as to the nature of performing law in this town. Waking up with his girlfriend in bed, an argument immediately ensues over the nature of their relationship status, (law men in precarious relationships with women in film was by now a cliche ), but it is his comment about it being a "crummy day" the day not having even started that gives insight as to at the very least Kate's feelings about the state of law enforcement in this town. We will find out later it's not just a feeling , it will in fact be a crummy day for Kates. The shootout at the Walden is the introduction of good to evil, ethics to psychopathic nihilism, its overly simplified, leaning heavily in the direction of the law, but in that simplicity it finds its complexity (take for instance the hostage scene involving another cop). Kates decision to try and stale the inevitable is both an example in context of the impoverished nature of trying to play fair with people who have no interest in doing so, but out of context of the film its deployed as “copaganda” a way to tell the audience cops have to be cruel because its a cruel world. It has alot more questions and is alot less strident than its predecessor “Don Siegel's San Francisco classic “Dirty Harry”. Cinematically it is expert crafting of an action sequence, and a continuation of the films western themes. Outlaws, lawmen, prostitution, violence, courage, and moral dilemma. The last of which is personified in Kates choice between dropping his gun, and taking the shot, ( a decision which will impact the ending of the film, and infer Kates rather small learning curve).
You don’t know Jack.
Jack Kates and thusly Nick Nolte's performance loom large over the makeup, feel, and resonance of the movie despite the larger than life appearance of Eddie Murphy as Reggie Hammond. In this way the film resembles "The Man who shot Liberty Valance " not so much in where the two main players were at this point in their careers, but in the false perception that might easily be arrived at without careful analysis that one person out shined the other, (Stewart over Wayne, or Murphy over Nolte ) or that the film belongs to one or the other. Kates ideologically walks a line between the kind of lawmen emphasized in Anthony Mann films - the more thoughtful and complex, and those in Ford, more resolute and simple (although not without their own complexity). Kates feels remorseful about his role in violence and abuse of the people around him in ways that never occurred to many of the typical John Wayne characters in Ford films like Rio Bravo, (another western to which this film shares genetic traits with which was made as a direct repudiation of the themes on High Noon ) again, furthering the idea that Jack Kate's is a fusion of the two. Nolte for his part embodies much of Wayne's straightforward earnestness, and like Wayne cuts a similarly imposing figure with as much charisma, and even a comparable gait. It’s an actor in a movie star’s apparel type performance. Nolte unlike his cinematic alter ego in the movie is also a fantastic listener, and I mean fantastic when I say fantastic. Working with a newcomer to the discipline of acting could not have been easy, even more-so one so prone to bouts of furious improvisation, and yet when one pays close attention Nolte is acutely attuned to every last word, and his spot on reactions in the most honest and authentic spirit of who and what Kates represents is a testament to it. Especially as it pertains to cutting off or interrupting another actors dialogue. A key component in creating realism in conversation, as well as establishing chemistry. Nolte expresses this skill best in the dialogue between Kates and Hammond as Hammond complains about hunger, and later in his refusal to admit he is holding back information that would be key to Noltes investigation outside of "Torchy's " Nolte cuts off Murphy in ways so natural and organic it's hard to tell whether there was actual written dialogue or if this was pure improvisation either of which would be extremely impressive. Nolte's abrupt disruptions are also key to deciphering his portrayal of Kates. Kates, at least in his own mind considers himself a simple man, someone not far from the space Popeye Doyle occupied in The French Connection. . He likes it cut and dry, brevity is his calling card, so of course he’s not going to be into Hammonds long winded bullshit. Equally important to Kates character as is Nolte's performance of it, is improvisation. He won’t break the rules but hes not against bending them, or forgetting them, especially in the moment. There is a scene that takes place in the police station as Kates comes back from the shootout at the Hotel. One officer in particular continues to deride and berate Kates about his ego, and goes too far when he implies Kates doesn't care about the loss of his fellow cops. Kates immediately forgets himself and Nolte again shows a flair for brilliant timing and preternatural instincts for making a moment feel organic. I've watched him fly up from that chair several times and it's as difficult to time as Bryson Tiller's last "Don't" in the song titled the same. It is a moment indicative of just how deeply Nolte understands and gets his character, and the improvisation, as his code of ethics regarding police work that allows him to give Hammond back his money are as part and parcel to the bonding of Kates and Hammond as Nolte's own skill at improvisation and ability to give is to the chemistry of he and Murphy in the film.
Torchy’s.
Torchy's is an iconic , landmark moment in film that serves as the centerpiece of 48 hrs and the foundation of one of the most storied careers in American movies. There are several factors that play into what makes the scene so legendary; the stakes, the racial overtones and tensions being addressed, the set design, the characters, and most importantly and obviously Eddie Murphy. The stakes are clear and made in the moments before and uncharacteristically after the scene takes place so that it sets up what goes on inside via the conversation that precedes the scene. These stakes are inter-stitched with the racial tension. 48 hrs is a ticking clock movie, so time is of the essence and for both Kates and Hammond, it’s important something come of this scene and we the audience are now on notice. Whether for Murphy’s insatiable libido, his money, or Kates case. The racial tension is the obstacle, and again is infused in yet another factor.. the set design. Torchy's is a movie bar that actually looks and feels like a place you might find in real life. That is in sharp contrast to most movie bars or clubs which feel overly dressed and exaggerated in anything ranging from attendance to dressing. Take for instance "Club Hell" in another Buddy cop film I love, “Bad Boys”. That club is built more like a theme park than a club. It looks far too costly to cover its overhead, has too much going on, is ridiculously crowded for a place of its size, and it's far too lavish for its targeted crowd and themes (The fish tank feels particularly preposterous).
Torchy's on the other hand is just right, the female dancer maybe the most garish and outlandish but she still doesn't feel completely out of the question in a place such as this. The design is impeccable from the confederate flag, (even the quantity feels fair and not exaggerated) to the sign outside, to the bar itself. The people and their reactions are classic, from the bar tender (played to uncanny perfection by frequent Hill player Peter Jason) to the understandable idiot who tries to flee the scene because he’s on parole, to the redneck who mouths off to Eddie. These people (Especially Jason) feel genuine, even as template caricatures, a balance incredibly hard to pull off. Then finally there is Eddie. What he is about to do feels now like going back and watching one of the greatest pitchers ever pitch a no hitter in their first outing. No one’s touching him in this scene, they can’t get a read on what he’s throwing, every remark finds a different speed, a different touch. He shows a remarkable amount of control, and follow through, with a variety of retorts, and comebacks as pitches. The curveball:
“You said bullshit and experience is all it takes right? Come on in and experience some of my bullshit.”
The Sinker (A pitch designed to take the power away from the batter, resulting in a hit that never quite leaves the ground, ) :
“Hammond: “I’d like something to drink, preferably some vodka.
Bartender: “Best have a (beat) Black Russian.
Hammond: (mock laughter) “Black Russian, (taps another patron) You hear what he said? Black Russian, that’s a funny joke, I get it I’m black” No, that’s, that’s funny. No i’d just rather have plain old vodka” ”
The joke is dead on arrival, but more importantly Murphy’s sly sarcasm, and wit, drains the power of both the insult and the insulter. This is the ultimate theme, and power of the entire scene. This is followed up rather quickly by the change-up:
“Hammond: You know, as long as we standing here talking and being all friendly. Im looking for a (pulls out badge) good ol boy by the name of Billy Bear. I was wondering if you might be able to help me find him?
Bartender: (Clearly disinterested in helping) “Never heard of him.”
Hammond: “Never heard of him before? Never heard of Billy Bear huh? (Takes shot) Looky here, (immediate change in tone, throws now empty shot glass through a near by mirror, grabs bartender by collar) Fuckin heard of him now man?
Hammond”
The fastball, Murphy’s most reliable, commentary, wit, sarcasm that comes at you so fast you can’t hit back:
“Hammond: (searches patron, finds wad of cash) “You loaded here. Where the fuck did you get this?”
Patron: “Tax Refund.”
Hammond: “Bullshit, too fuckin stupid to have a job”
Hill for his part makes sure to capture the reactions to Murphy’s brilliant use of a steady stream of weaponized wit, and vulgar profanity in this bar filled with white people that as Kates remarked earlier “Would cut your black ass right up”. Hill’s most brilliant move though was understanding and knowing that this was the time to take the pin off of Eddie. I don’t know for sure because there’s not much out there about the construction of this scene, but this does not feel like a scene that was directed in any way that doesn’t have to do with technical aspects. Acting-wise, more-so than any part of this film this scene feels the most hands off, which is a direction technique in and of itself. Something people from Wyler to Scorcese have repeatedly alluded to in their work. It’s a credit to both Hill and Nolte who both had the task of turning a first time actor with NO background in acting into a credible actor, and a credit to Murphy’s natural instinct, star power ,and willingness to be schooled, and molded. The fact that the scene never for a moment derails from its call to action, and its sense of urgency to make way for Murphy’s comedic brilliance, while feeling so improvised, is a combination of conscious direction, generous acting by Nolte, and impeccable timing by Murphy. Exemplified in the cut to Nick Nolte knocking down a patron thereby returning the scene for a moment to its objective. Nolte’s almost meta line delivery “Some of us citizens are behind you all the way Officer” is apropos, indeed this scene feels like both Hill and Nolte had Murphy’s back in a collaborative effort to construct a great scene and by proxy a great movie.
Stay in your lane.
This has been said repeatedly in reference to many films, but knowing exactly what kind of movie you want to be, and maybe more importantly properly guessing what kind of movie you have on your hands is a cinematic superpower. Any detectable amount of confusion or unsureity as to the identity, or what it is you can or can’t pull off and it hurts your film in degrees that vary depending on the amount of confidence in a bad idea, or the lack of confidence in a good one. I think Hill knew exactly what he wanted 48hrs to be and because he chose correctly the film is a masterpiece of its genre. One in which it partially reinvents, creates, and firmly establishes the genres, and themes it borrows from. It reinvented and invigorated the western. It is in fact quite comparably a modern western, replacing the angst of the sanctioned violence of an immoral white western expansion into indigenous territory and replacing it with the angst of the expansion of the modern city landscape. It establishes the capabilities, and themes of the modern action flick, and it created a sub genre of its own in the buddy cop film, which would continue to be imitated years later. It also knows itself socio-politically. What's so fundamentally righteous rather than right about 48 hrs approach to race, class, the struggle between right and good - is its unwillingness to to approach anything nearing an answers. It understands that it is not that movie, and yet its unafraid to deal in good faith with what the conflict clearly suggest is going on here. What's shockingly gratifying about the Torchy's scene for instance is how much it backs ideologically much of what Hammond implies, while never appearing to fully back him. When Hammond suggests that the police are sanctioned bullies , who get away with a lot because they are backed by the state, not because they are actually bad asses, Torchy's then becomes a controlled experiment of Hammond’s hypothesis. And though narratively Hill doesn’t come down on a side, he doesn’t intervene, and the dots connect themselves. It's a very interesting turn of the screw to watch Murphy berate, bully, and terrorize white folk in a way that mirrors perfectly the kind of callous and cruel behavior exhibited by cops daily in black neighborhoods. It’s the cinematic extension of the slap in “In the Heat of the night”. I’m your worst nightmare a n****a with a badge” is the poignant cover page of an angry black manifesto. But maybe the films best exhibition of its deft handling of race , and where not to go is near the end of the film when Kates and Hammond make possibly the closest argument anyone can have that they are anything but inconvenient partners….
“Kates: “ You Know I...Well, nigger, and watermelon, I didn’t mean that stuff. I was just doing my job, keeping you down.”
Hammond: “Yeah, well doing your job don’t explain everything Jack.”
Kates: “Yeah you’re right”
This is not closure, it is not an answer, it is a beginning. Throughout all they have been through in this movie this is Kates and Hammond actually introducing themselves to one another, Kates especially. It’s a truce, a cease fire in lieu of a moment of mutual respect. Kates and Hammond are no more friends after this than Colonel Saito, and Lt Colonel Nicholson are after drinks in “The Bridge over the River Kwai. The difference being their goals align a great deal more. The authenticity of Kates , both for better and worse, the lack of humility in the face of anyone, but especially white people from Hammond, is an example of something much more significant than buddies in a cop film, and much more sophisticated than some sense of closure between a racist and a classically trained black musician on a road trip (The Green Book Im looking at you). It is a masterpiece of that genre (Action/ Buddy Cop), and unless you commit to the idea that any one category or genre of movies is inherently less than another is it not then a masterpiece of cinema? The movie has no fat, there is not a scene I would throw away. Though the story is familiar (a dubious criticism to make if not expounded upon because most stories in film are familiar especially at this point.) It finds so much of its own rhythm and personality that it feels new and at the very least unique even now after all its copies. It’s rare that films are so unique, that that uniqueness is what makes us fall in love with them, its usually in the approach that we find love. Besides that, sometimes the sum of a films parts are so great , it too is a classic by committee. Hill’s direction is great, the acting (mostly by men) is outstanding, from its two stars to James Remar as Ganz, (I could write a separate piece as to his importance to this film, and his wonderful brand of acting) Landham, and David Patrick Kelly ( a firebrand of a character actor , and a frequent Hill contributor), and James Horner’s Jazz infused score is as wild, gritty and meticulous as the movie itself. It’s not the smooth and seamless score that Lalo Schafrin’s built into “Bullit”, it has much in common with its star Eddie Murphy - its boisterous, and prone to improvisation which caused the potential for distraction, and incongruency, but again like Murphy ends up becoming a star in the film. The way it goes beat for beat with the beats in the film, complimenting, providing its own exposition, informing, while sounding like a impromptu jam session of the some awfully great performers is magical. Watch the subway scene and take note how it does all of the above…
How many elements in a film have to be classic, before it is held up as a classic itself. I know fully well that if some pop culture magazine decides to do a countdown of the greatest “Action” films of all time, or if someone brings up the buddy cop genre that 48 hrs will be at or around the top of the mentions. I ask why that would come at the expense of serious academic thought about what went into making this film so monumentous in the memories of the average american, and so thoroughly copied and mimicked years after it had its time in the sun. In a time where good to great pure action films of which John Wick is almost the only game in town that qualify as either good or great, this year it may serve us to reinvigorate public interest in genres like Fantasy, Action, (and to a lesser extent Horror, and Sci-Fi, one who never really left, but is still frequently underrated, and the other which is not as popular, but generally received a little better when it is. ) There is a power in the deep simplicity of 48hrs, from its story to its relationships, and how organically they're built in arresting, and convincing truth. In establishing how a director can prove that the most interesting stories dont always have to come from someone who so passionately wants to be right, and of course in dissecting what a star being born looks like in black, and 48 hrs provides all of that and more. The film presents expert craftsmanship of the story it tells, and excels in just about every fashion that isn’t tied to the actual plot. It gives the audience exactly what we want, while never dumbing itself down, because the film knows exactly where it wants to be, and hones its art from that position. It brings together the sensibilities of the artist, and the financier as did the films it borrows so clearly from, and therein lies its strength, beauty, and legitimate sense of humor. A cinematic classic well worth revisiting, and reappraising for its full value.
We Need Mr. Smith Goes to Washington Now More than Ever.
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When I first watched Mr Smith Goes to Washington, Frank Capra’s seminal classic, (it now dawns on me) I was biased against it from the outset. I had heard about this film , about its sentimentality, its optimism, and moral fortitude and I wanted to laugh considering what I knew not only about the time it was made in, but about Stewart's political leanings, and of the the slave holding, sometimes rapist creators of the documents the movie so lovingly upholds, and beholds. I barely made it through my first viewing, in fact it could barely be called a viewing as it was more like a court hearing where one side has already clearly made up its mind. I rolled my eyes at the statements about Lincoln, and audibly guffawed at wide eyed ridiculousness of the final scene. My cynicism, my embattled realism and infatuation with realism wouldn't allow me to appreciate any part of this fantasy, a particularly white one at that. I don't know if it was age, the softening that can happen over multiple viewings, or the age in which we live in, (my belief right now is all of the above, but especially the latter ) but this last viewing rocked me. I didn't lose any of the frustration or contempt for the pancake batter whiteness of its aesthetics, from the marble of Washington to the privileged obliviousness and superficiality of some of its claims, I just gained appreciation for its characterization of what Dr Cornel West calls "Prophetic fire" in Jeffrey Smith, and for its imagination. Its willingness to engage in the fantasy of things never before seen. Strategies which have no basis in precedent or known reality. In a lecture available on YouTube titled "How does Change Happen" Angela Davis articulates the connection between imagination and grand social movements, and combats the idea that because things in essence have not changed over the years, that resistance and the work done was futile. That one should find themselves discouraged and disenchanted by the seeing futility..
This time I made the connection, this is the very heart of Mr Smith. It is not merely wide eyed naivety, and white liberal sentimentality, but it is fantasy, the best kind. The kind the conjures and kindles in the audience a fire , an angry fire that given the right amount of open minded air, can consume the entirety of the viewing experience with the want to go out and yell, to fight, to act. It's as much a fantasy as the idea of America set apart from the reality. The importance of Mr. Smith goes to Washington In any era and especially in this time and space we exist in is its message that the fantasy is as important as the actuality. That America is both the ideas that formed it, and continue to elude it, and the reality that made it what it is. Jeffrey Smith's idea of America is a fantasy, and he is an idealistic bull in a China shop that runs head long into the reality of a wall of Pragmatic cynics and thugs that almost break him in two as they promised they would.
Re-watching the movie this time around, I arrived at the scene where Jefferson watches his beloved mentor, his shining knight, Joseph Paine betray him, and I’m reminded of Angela’s warning against the idea of change as purely the result of any one individual, especially as a leader . Stewart conjures up a man so understandably heart broken I feel almost ashamed I was so blinded by my own version of cynicism I missed the poetic beauty, and furious vigor of this performance. By the time he arrived at the Lincoln memorial head so low he almost resembles a man half into a somersault, face in hands, sitting on the baggage he brought with him crying, I was a mess myself. I don't know if it was age, the softening that can happen over multiple viewings, or the age in which we live in, (my belief right now is the latter ) but this last viewing rocked me. I thought about President Obama's promise, and the audacity of hope, and also of all the ways he fell short, and then of the crushing finality of the night we found out Trump had won, and Jefferson Smith was no longer the silly bright eyed, bushy tailed white idealist who should've known better , he was all of us who hadn't completely given ourselves over to cynicism, avarice, hyper individualism, and apathy. Especially those who had given themselves over the cotton candy optimism of Obama's presidency. Maybe many of the rest of us wanted to weep, but instead quickly fought back our tears, stiffened up our necks , and signed ourselves over to the devils of pride, cynicism, and pragmatism. We looked down at those bewildered, unmoved, and told them frankly "This was always America", as if there was nothing else to believe but that, and only that. We in many ways were right, and righteous even, but we weren’t anymore whole than they, and we weren’t seeing the whole picture. We were right just like Jean Arthur’s Clarissa Saunders was right when warned Jefferson Smith to go back home, that he would be broken by these men, and she didn't want to watch it, but like Clarissa we just wanted to protect ourselves from the same. After all that's what cynicism, and sarcasm are best at..protecting us from vulnerability. The shame of feeling fooled, the pain of being hurt, but what we forgot as Clarissa had somewhere along the way, and as Jefferson had for a moment, (until he was reminded of it by Clarissa who was reminded of it by him) is that there is nothing wrong the audacity of hope, the primacy of optimism over skepticism and cynicism. That just because we find out Obama, our black Claude Rains was actually a weathered practitioner of pragmatic ideologies that sustain the status quo, doesn't mean we need toss out his hope with the dirty bath water of neoliberal politics. It doesn't mean that every time somebody brings up the greatest, and most high flying of American ideals to say or remind us what America isn't supposed to be about , that we must shoot them down with the mortar shells of what America is, or always was, because it's only a half truth. America is both, always has been. The ideal, the fantasy of America is every bit as important as the reality because if we never had the former, and the collective Jefferson Smith's who had faith in the promise of America despite the continued deference of the dream, and despite evidence to the contrary we wouldn’t have made near any of the progress we have. We have to stop insisting people who are willing to fight, wear the exact same armor as us. Jefferson Smith is no soft peddling coddler of injustice or even unfairness merely because he believes in the dream. He's out there punching out journalists for their mockery of the profession, and literally standing up to corporate bullies like Taylor, literally, the difference is what's underneath it all...”A little bit of plain ordinary kindness, and a little looking out for the other guy too”....
Ultimately when I found in this revisitation of Frank Capra’s beloved classic is the same love many others had found before me . I found three of the greatest performances in American film history. James Stewart as a dandelion beautiful and fragile, but susceptible to a the violent winds of indifference crashing against his extremities, and then as a whirlwind himself of frustration, righteous anger, and indignation. When he yells out "I will not yield!" I shook with relatability rather than a callous sarcasm that snapped back "about damn time". It’s a no holds barred, all encompassing impassioned performance that embodies the physical, and mental, as well as the spiritual. I seen Jean Arthur right there with him, dealing out searing, rattling téte-a-téte sarcasm with multiple beats that hung in the unspooled spaces of my mind well after they were said before being crashed into by the next. I saw her transforming to a woman bustling with fervent renewed, revitalized energy rooted in pure hope, so that when she was praying that Jefferson would be able to make it through the final hurrah, it was embedded in a sincerity so rare I forgot she was acting. And finally I saw Claude Rains as Senator Paine serving up one of the most complex villains (If he could be called such ) I've ever seen. He reminded me of cinematic folk like Jack Vincennes from LA Confidential, or even Aaron Eckhart from the Dark Knight , charming, noble, with vicious undercurrents. Men who lost their nobility running into the same walls of futility as the Jeffersons of the world, all the more engraving in my mind the importance of Jefferson Smiths, and more importantly of hope. I found Hope, incorrigible, and defiant, I found optimism in its most sincere form, righteous anger, great camera shots, and the ethos of what it could be to be an american if we dream big enough, without feeling the least bit corny or dated...
Men and Women and all other Identifiable folk who go to bat for the lost causes should be the last to give up on kindness, or as Dr. Cornel West said sweetness in the struggle, nor imagination, or fantasy, not only on art but in our everyday lives. Capra and Lewis R. Foster before him imagined a scenario where someone would stand up to the machine, in the belly and seat of its power, and win and win big, and we need to see that, we need to be reminded of it, because as Angela Davis said, many movements started as just that a fantasy, a dream. Because after all the lost causes aren't only the people, but the ideas that in truth helped to shape this country. The native American as much as the bill of rights. The African, Asian, and Latin American, the gay, lesbian, queer, and Bi, as much as the constitution. Mr. Smith is a reminder of the best of us, the highest of our goals, which may never be attained, but should always be reached and fought for with passion anger and of course kindness. It's okay to want that, it's okay to believe in that, and it's damn sure okay to fight for that. I don't know that TCM added this to their programming because it felt so apropos of the moment, the age of Trump, but I do know that I like so many others know to forge on for those that are the least of us.. what I hope I learned, and continue to carry with me is to continue to fight and feel invigorated by the ideals that represent the most within us. I don't know if it was age, the softening that can happen over multiple viewings, or the age in which we live in, (my belief right now is all of the above, but especially the latter ) but this last viewing of Mr Smith Goes to Washington rocked me, because I needed it now more than ever.
Creed II : Exhilarating, but dangerous.
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Boxing was the sport I was introduced to the earliest in my life. it's probably the earliest memory I have of any sport. My father put gloves on me and my brother at a very early age, and to this day one of my favorite pastimes is sitting with him and my little brother, watching the fights. Boxing is one of the last remaining bastions of some of the worst aspects of masculinity, but also it is representative of some of the best. I disagree with those who would merely reduce and dismiss it as a gross, bloodletting, savage event for the entertainment of the masses. but I also understand why they would feel that way. There is though, a science to boxing, there is an art. The training, the honing, sculpting of the body to turn it into an instrument capable of taking damage and inflicting it. An instrument designed to act when it needs to act, to react when he/she needs it to react. Watching these two men sculpt themselves in order to eventually sculpt each other, interacting with each other in a dance with each other, becoming something wholly new in and of itself is truly art to me. As Bruce Lee once remarked it is a form of expression through the body, and its earliest stages, at its best the indelible Rocky franchises capture the best principles of the sport, of sport itself. Trail and error, baptism through fire, finding, testing, reaching, and then surpassing your limits. What it means to be these modern day gladiators, that put their bodies on the line for the sake of our entertainment. The original Rocky interrogated that place against the backdrop of a forlorn city and the people from within the city who have been forgotten, trying to make a name for themselves. From that point on though the iconic boxer and the franchise began the slow non linear path to losing its way. Sometimes this led to incredulously entertaining results (Rocky 4), sometimes to pure disaster (Rocky 5) and everywhere in-between.
Once it was announced that Ryan Coogler, Michael B. Jordan, and Sylvester Stallone would come together to tel the story of Apollo Creed's son Adonis, I was both intrigued and leery. The first Creed was both what I expected ( an uninteresting re-hash of tired boxing tropes) and some things I didn’t (some interesting exploration of some of those same boxing tropes). The second installment in the franchise without Coogler’s deft touch (Director Steven Caple Jr, takes the helm) turns into a two hour version of a music video. Mind you it’s one of the good ones, but much like a video it delivers its punches in shorthand. Much like Floyd Mayweather, there is very little power behind these cinematic punches, but they come fast and sharp. Mostly at this point the Creed franchise is a solid one, but a missed opportunity. A missed opportunity to discuss the current state of boxing, to subvert the toxic masculinity within the sport, to create an interesting character study of a boxer in the new era trying to navigate his way through the trauma of loss. Interestingly enough, one of those aforementioned punches engages in some of this, but it’s not our titular hero and his world weary trainer (himself formerly our titular hero) but rather his sworn enemy and his progeny Ivan and Viktor Drago.
The under written, but best storyline in this movie is not that of Adonis Creed which sets up (a lesson that Creed will never learn and yet overcomes anyway) but Ivan and Viktor Drago. Their father son dynamic, Drago’s forlorn hopes and dreams gnarled and entangled in a great ball of pent up and toxic anger and frustration that lives within his son who lives and breathes to avenge his fathers defeat, provided both of the most memorable moments to b found in this film. One takes place at a dinner hosted in honor of the rousing beat down Viktor hands Adonis in their initial match. When a surprise guest shows up it becomes all to clear what the source of the Dragos trauma and frustration is. It is also where (for the first time I’ve ever seen on screen) Dolph Lundgren flexes some serious acting muscles. The second takes place in the exhilarating finale. Both are welcome respites from the toxic form of masculinity that goes unchecked in this second offering. These are genuine challenges, displays of affection, and cathartic release of the hurt and pain that brought them this far, that if explored more effectively, rigorously, and consistently throughout this film could’ve made it an Oscar contender.
“Creed II’s lack of desire to interrogate the worst of the sport, cuts short its ability to effectively interrogate and challenge our hero adonis. I remember watching “Star Trek II Into Darkness”, and amongst other things being entirely disappointed that I was played. An intriguing plot line was introduced that suggested the movie was about Kirk learning to be a captain by learning to balance his tendency to fly by the seat of his pants, allowing his emotions and unchecked ego to get the best of him. Kirk spends the rest of the movie doing everything but and being rewarded..(Insert face palm here). I see the same problem in Adonis’s arc in this film. Adonis begins the film as much to toxic a man to ever be a good boxer, husband, friend, and if we we’re being honest in this movie - father. He is selfish, impulsive, and guilty of that all too common tendency of men to suppress their pain. When Adonis utter the words “Im Dangerous!” I though to myself “Yeah to yourself and everyone around you”. All of this plays out to disastrous physical results in his first fight with Viktor. Adonis is pulverized by his own refusal to confront his pain in ay meaningful way and if not for all the razzle and dazzle of this film, it would’ve crushed the movie too.
Creed 2 hits many of the right beats to make it an intoxicatingly cool, if not emotionally manipulative (rarely authentic) but spirited sequel. Sylvester Stallone is still the best actor in these movies, and I’d easily hand him another Oscar nod for his portrayal of Rocky in this film. Stallone takes some really interesting beats, and continues to surprise me with some of the inspired choices he makes on screen. The movie is extremely well paced, which ensures you won’t feel a moment of its over two hour runtime. The fight choreography is some of the best and most realistic Ive seen ever, but the fights themselves are some of the most over-the-top and ridiculous in the entirety of both franchises since Rocky III. Creed II fetishizes pain to the detriment of its other characters, (especially if they are WOMEN ) the story, and the authenticity of its fights. Adonis does not learn anything by confronting both his physical, and more importantly psychological pain, he merely heaps more on and finds his way out after a corny after school special pep talk. The punishment he takes in this film is beyond brutal, and would have real life ramifications that would end at the very least his career, and they are not interrogated in this film nearly enough, instead they are glorified. This coming from a person who has watched boxing for almost the entirety of my life. The movie is still a good time, and manages to leave you buzzing once the final bell rings, but it also left me with a queasy feeling about the poor messaging it might leave for future boxers, and ultimately unsatisfied with the way it sidelined some of its more interesting characters, and plot points (Russell Hornsby’s shady promoter, and subsequently what he does to or for the sport is also thoroughly under explored) like Tessa Thompson’s Bianca and the Drago’s in favor of a retread of a kind of heroism that needs to die.
Widows: Steve McQueen and Gillian Flynn Keep the Rules, but Change the Game
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The heist film is one of my favorite sub genres in movies. The hard boiled (usually male) lead, the crews made up of assorted personalities , with varying skills and crafts, the technical aspect on display both in the story and behind the camera in the good ones. The capers usually involve a high level of difficulty which require the lead have a high degree of intelligence, and thusly an intelligent script. The lead is usually unflappable, although not always (Al Pacino’s Sonny from “A Dog Day Afternoon” comes to mind) there is usually a betrayal, and some element of a “ticking clock. ” These movies are about time, relationships, and craft. When done well, they explore the humbling nature of the former, the importance of the middle, and the beauty of the latter. What these films don’t usually explore (save for F. Gary Gray’s criminally underrated “Set It Off” which is much better than “The Italian Job” remake ) is any perspective not firmly within the realm of a very familiar hyper masculine ethos. What director Steve McQueen and master craftsman Gillian Flynn have done with “Widows,” is take the very masculine heist film and inject it with some much needed feminine perspective and energy. I've seen a lot of comparisons of this film with Michael Mann's 95 classic “Heat.” On some superficial level I agree that this film does have some elements in common with Mann’s oft-imitated heist caper. However, I don't agree with any oversimplification that would label Widows as a female “Heat.” Most of its similarities are due to the fact that it also a heist caper, but outside of that these films aren't truly that similar. It's not just “Heat” with women in it, or comparable to “Ocean's Eight” (the other comparison I’ve seen). Widows is truly its own thing. This is not a buddy caper film, or a cops vs robbers caper film. Most of its key characters don't really know each other and the movie is not really about their coming together, or an intricate game of cat and mouse. “Widows” is not even about the caper coming together, it's about what makes the caper important to these women. Then extending from there, it plays with all sorts of themes and motifs about its titular widows, the men that abandoned them, and the city they live in. It gets to have a conversation with us from within a very well done heist film. A conversation about the institution of marriage, the oppression from within it and the freedom one can find without it. It's about these women reclaiming their lives. Lives spent living in the shadows of their husbands worlds. Lives spent building and erecting their dreams on the foundations of their husband’s lies. Lives spent putting men first who never placed near the same importance on their lives. The heist is a means to prove to the world and to themselves that they have worth beyond what was predestined and assigned to their gender. Through plotting, crafting, and training, they learn to demand respect from themselves, each other, and ultimately from the world. The same kind of men that are usually at the center of a film like this. That same male world that has ignored them, that has told them to sit it on the sidelines and be content with cheering as these men formed the world into their own without any attention as to what any of these women think or feel. Gillian Flynn's crackling whip smart script in combination with Steve McQueen’s soft touch makes sure to punch that ticket so that the audience can see the ways in which these men deal and interact with women. We understand what it is ultimately these women are fighting for because it is captured in the way Daniel Kaluuya looks at Colin Farrell's aide the entire time they're talking. It's in the way Robert Duvall dismisses this same woman. I think it's partially the reason the women who catches them in the act of the robbery ( probably some abused aide herself ) closes the door. It is in a conversation that takes place between Elizabeth Debicki (Alice) and a woman at a gun convention. These women refused to be sidelined anymore. They step out into the game, and with the stakes properly set, this film sets us up for the 4th quarter touchdown, and it scores.
Secondarily there is the politics of the Broken city, and the broken men that run it. The white legacy family, and the working class black men are both criminals extorting the least powerful in this ward of the city. As it slowly decays, its mostly black constituents are treated as pawns in a chess match between men for power. Much like the husbands of these women, men like Colin Farrell’s Jack Mulligan and Brian Tyree Henry’s Jamal Manning feign being caretakers of their city when in actuality all they seek is their own upward mobility from within the institutions they work for or against. They steal from their city, they lie to their city, and ultimately they kill in their city to amass more power. Convincing themselves along the way it’s about using that power to help the city. The film extends out from these women’s lives and paints a portrait of the city in moral and physical decay. Of the haves and the have-nots, of what the designs and machinations of the boys’ club do to all of us, and of the outlaws who decide to take what is theirs.
Steve McQueen is currently my favorite director working. He understands decay, whether in a man in “Hunger,” or morality in “Shame.” He also understands our will to ascend beyond our current circumstance or an institution. In both “12 Years a Slave,” and “Widows” the leads find themselves in situations not of their own making and it is through sheer will and determination that they find a way out. McQueen sets the stakes, the danger, the emotion, and the desperation though a bevy of interesting shot choices. These shots are never just for the sake of style and any argument to the contrary is incomplete. The shot choices are political, and are not meant to manipulate emotions, because they are emotion. Represented in a whirling shot around Daniel Kaluuya as he intimidates a cohort in the gym. Cemented in the choice to shoot from outside the vehicle straight into a black driver as the white people he drives around for a living (Colin Farrell) engage in a pointless and covertly racist conversation about whether or not his aide has ever slept with a black guy. It’s in point-of-view shots he uses during the heists that reinforce the emotion of his actors when they cant speak. Steve McQueen in collusion with Gillian Flynn’s script crafts one of the great heists thrillers in movie history. “Widows” not only plainly plays out the state of these women's live while setting up its superbly realistic caper, but delivers punch in-between with the sharp, clever, highly intelligent dialogue that has become Gillian Flynn's signature in many of her books. It is superbly acted from top-to-bottom (Viola Davis should be in heavy contention for an Oscar as ell as possibly Elizabeth Debicki) and the wardrobe and costume design is also magnificent. In the doing both McQueen, and Flynn have woven something entirely unique to the story type and I think setting its own standard. Placing itself quite snugly alongside films like Heat, Thief, and even A Dog Day Afternoon. Centering the women in it, and proving both from within the celluloid and from outside of it why they deserve to be there.
Revisiting: Angelina Jolie's ethereal, enchanting meditation on the ruins of beauty.."BY THE SEA"
/“STYLE AS SUBSTANCE”
Call me a Stan, but By the Sea (or moreso the response to by the sea in my own opinion) is proof positive of implicit bias and the uphill battle women and minorities face in art while trying to demonstrate their own ability to create important works. From Oscar Micheaux to the Hughes Brothers and Kasi Lemmons, Shaft to Friday, and in this particular case Angelina Jolie - we have seen the struggle for them to have their work properly validated, and critiqued. By the Sea as directed by Jolie is a jarringly patient and accurate portrayal of the ways in which a relationship can become an exercise in cruelty and tedium. But critics lambasted it as merely a “Vanity project” to show off how good she and Brad could look in various couture. Since the beginning of this medium women and minorities have had to suffer the petulant dismissal of their work as inferior under the guise of coded language like pretentious, crude, some version of incomplete or in this case the " Vanity project". A term especially reserved for those folk who sought to rise above their station in our collective perception of them and create a body of work independent of the niche carved out for them by the industry or the audience. Like most slights these words tell us more about the mentalities of those writing them than they do their subjects. With Jolie’s luscious By the Sea, It seemed to upset a great deal of reviewers that these two gorgeous people (Most especially Jolie as director) dared to try and make something of substance. As far as I'm concerned it was perhaps even more upsetting that Jolie was successful in her endeavor. The consistent use of a term like vanity as a descriptor involving a woman with whom the public largely considers one of the most beautiful women in the world is just strikingly lazy. What ever would lead one to make such an assumption considering…I wonder ? There has long been a kind of bias implicit in society that pretty people should and can only be pretty. That trying to do anything else is merely a pursuit of vanity linked to feelings of invalidity outside the realm of the superficial. Now while on some level this may have SOME truth it ignores the flip side of that coin. That we the bourgeoisie, and peasant class of white patriarchal standards of beauty also seek validation through the insistence and persistence of this kind of labeling and sorting. Style without substance is a phrasology itself rooted in this kind of prejudice. Because when used so ubiquitously without interrogation it denies the fact that as one friend said to me in conversation “in many ways style itself can become a substance - or of substance”.
“bullitt” , “the warriors”, “drive”, and “mad max” are all examples of style as substance, and of course all directed by white males.
Jolie's film was routinely accused of that very overused and under interrogated sentiment, and then dismissed as vain and self serving because “look at her”. I would ask how much of this is our fault? I think its fair that as critics we admit our own biases, our own prejudices. Admit that even though we have studied film, and criticism for varying amounts of years, and generally act in good faith - that we too can be obstructed from taking in a movie the way we should. Would this common critique be the same with anyone else in the role in this same ostentatious attire? Would we be talking about eye shadow and not the eyes themselves (which I believe Jolie puts to great use throughout much of the film)
Jolie is almost always distracting in some way which is all the more reason for us to get over our preoccupation with her “otherworldly beauty” and focus on her actual performance, as well as her direction. Yes “By the Sea” is a gorgeous, sumptuous, mesmerizing, and at times meandering film, but so was Godot’s Breathless. But go beyond all that physical beauty and you will find a film doing quite a lot more than being statuesque and beautiful. You will find something that peers through the veil of otherness from within a couple’s tragedy. A deliberate and pensive visual study into style over substance. The hypnotic allure of the aesthetic. The austere view from a distance, ostentation as banal, beauty as devastating, and familiarity tediously played out as the exact tragedy between two lovers . The gross luxury, the scenic fantasy, the long excruciating beats all aided in telling a stirringly bleak story about the ways in which wounds are inflicted, get infected, and then fester in the dead space between desire and possession. The lack of communication is not meant to be merely an stylistic choice, it's a narrative decision meant to illuminate the amount of damage done. By design, the artifice of beauty takes the edge off the “in your faceness” of the hurt. The depression, the anger, the discomfort. And if this was some pigeon faceded white male, drenched in self depreciation, and faux "aw shucks- ness" we might be discussing the intentional space between objects, words, and between the couples. Or the purity of the melodrama and it's effective utilization as a narrative device. Or acknowledge that the set design wasn't just some left over shoot from a forgotten cover story in Architectural Digest, but an intentional focus meant to make us aware of the sterility, and of what isn't there in the relationship. Instead critics were content lobbing our own insecurity out over the plate and letting our egos drive a shot over the fence for a home run of the same kind of vanity Jolie is accused of.
Jolie’s film consistently explores the distance between things.
