Welcome everyone to the Movie Club 2—the 2002 extension (to read this discussion from the beginning, click here). I don’t know about you, but I’m relieved to be out of 2001. Bad, bad year.
Except, oddly enough, for movies. Much better than anticipated, I think. Maybe as good as 1999. Nowhere near as good as 1971.
Let me throw this out: Have you all been reading these dorky meditations on the films of the ‘70s? Tom Carson does his usual too-hip-for-the-room act (I like it on TV and music, but it’s sour on movies) in a recent magazine article (I guess inspired by the passing of Pauline Kael), concluding that the so-called masterpieces of the ‘70s weren’t all that great. On the other side, David Thomson weighs in to say that the films of 1971 were, on the whole, much more inspiring than those of 2001. I agree, but Thomson’s inclusion of Hannibal among the top films of 2001 doesn’t inspire much confidence in his aesthetic. (Thomson concluded a couple of years ago that Altman’s ‘70s films were really very underrated—although it seems that the only person who underrated them was Thomson.)
Were the ‘70s all they were cracked up to be? Many of the moviemakers who began their careers in the late ‘60s and ‘70s remain critical touchstones. It is possible, of course, that tomorrow’s critics and buffs will have a different set of models—say, John Woo or David Fincher (or let’s not be so cynical and go with potential greats—David O. Russell or Alexander Payne). But the simple truth is that production costs and expectations of financial return were much lower, and writers and directors didn’t have to run the same sort of middle-executive/development gauntlet that drains the life out of most studio-backed products today. Such uncompromising financial and critical successes as Bonnie and Clyde, M*A*S*H, Midnight Cowboy, the Godfather films, Cabaret, and Mean Streets at least made it possible for executives who backed ambitious work to show their faces in their boardrooms (and at their country clubs) in the event their picture tanked.
A Beautiful Mind. I admit it, I wept. In Part 1 wept because Russell Crowe’s impressive, fully lived-in portrait of John Nash is so eerily reminiscent of a brilliant and talented West Virginian pal who died in willed obscurity in 2001, the victim of a genuine illness and (I think) pride. But the picture jerks tears even without the personal connection—it’s a great tear-jerker. I also was surprised that Ron Howard gave himself so earnestly to Nash’s delusions, and that he allowed us to be so disoriented for so long. But Tony’s Times review and Chris Suellentrop’s in Slate are good correctives. Think how much more than just an inspirational schlock tear-jerker the film might have been if it had showed the real strains on that marriage.
Speaking of strains on marriage, I went to see In the Bedroom again two nights ago, and Armond White’s asinine and racist tirade in a recent film critics’ poll prompts my final, spoiler-ridden word on the movie (for today, anyway). How can a film be pro-vigilantism when the vengeance killing itself is incited by a lie? The turning point of In the Bedroom comes at the end of its protracted second act, when Sissy Spacek’s Ruth begins to weep, disarming her husband (who has already been softened up by the appearance of a young girl selling chocolate bars at the door), and then tells him that she’d seen Richard Strout that day in town and that he’d smiled at her. But of course Strout did no such thing: He saw her at the same instant she saw him, appeared stunned and a little frightened, paid for his drink, and rushed out of the store. I will admit that the first time I saw the movie I wanted Strout to die so badly that I didn’t even think about her lie (or maybe delusion—we don’t know if she believes that’s what she did see). Does the audience’s desire to see him suffer make In the Bedrom pro-vigilante? No more than Hamlet or The Revenger’s Tragedy and a hell of a lot less than Unforgiven. Although the killing allows Ruth to begin the process of real grieving—which has been choked off by her rage, which is the point of her response to the story relayed to her by the minister about another woman’s vision of a cosmic line of mothers who’ve lost children—it leaves her husband a wrecked human being. He’s not purged; he’s doomed. He has realized that Strout acted (insanely, moronically, cruelly) to save his marriage and that they have many similarities as well as differences. They both followed “natural” instincts, to their damnation.
Damnably yours,
David
