The Greatest Trick

Watching Capote brought to mind – of all things – Woody Allen’s superb Bullets over Broadway. Why did this grim, serious drama remind me of a light farcical comedy? I’ll come back to this later.

Director Bennett Miller’s biopic tells how celebrated writer Truman Capote’s most famous novel In Cold Blood came into being. I read In Cold Blood whilst studying English A-level and I must confess for all its undeniable brilliance the novel left me…well, cold. During my studies, I also saw Richard Brooks’ 1967 film adaptation which again was brilliant but cold. Capote however, is a slightly different animal as it deals less with the grisly specifics of the case and more the journalistic and artistic process, which as a writer is of great interest to me.

In 1959, when Capote wrote for The New Yorker, he learnt about the horrific senseless murders of the Clutter family in Kansas. Inspired by the story, Capote and fellow author Harper Lee (her brilliant novel To Kill a Mockingbird had just been released to great acclaim), travel to Kansas to research an article on the effect the killings have had on the local town. However, as Capote digs deeper, he is inspired to write a book. In doing so he arranges interviews with the killers, and takes a particular interest in one of them: Perry Smith.

His apparent compassion for Perry prompts him to find them a lawyer to get them an appeal. However, his true motive for not wanting the killers executed is they have yet to reveal exactly what transpired on the night of the murders. Yet when Perry does finally provide this, Capote is frustrated as his book doesn’t have an ending and despite pangs of conscience, deep down he then wants to see the killers executed so he can complete his masterpiece, even if it is at the cost of his own soul.

As he works on his book, Capote finds he is writing a masterpiece which he calls “the non-fiction book of the decade”. When he says this he isn’t exactly being arrogant, simply stating what he believes to be the truth. And he was right. In Cold Blood was groundbreaking, and unfortunately opened the floodgates for all manner of lesser works – the lurid “true crime” stories that clutter up bookshops these days.

Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s Oscar winning turn is the main reason for seeing this film, and anyone who has seen archive footage of Capote will agree he has completely nailed his speech and mannerisms. Given that he was such a flamboyant homosexual, I am amazed he wasn’t himself murdered by Middle American in-bred thugs before he managed to do an iota of research on his book. Incidentally, Capote’s homosexuality is dealt with matter-of-factly in this film, unlike Brokeback Mountain’s propagandist approach, so there is nothing for Christians to get hot under their dog-collars about. However, some may object to the occasional swearing and brief but brutal and bloody recreations of the murders – necessary in my opinion, but worth warning about nonetheless.

Hoffman’s performance provides an intriguing insight into making of a seminal book, and it asks the question, how far is too far in the pursuit of art? Harper Lee provides the film’s voice of reason, and points out to Capote after the execution finally happens that at least he is still alive. But Capote never really recovered, and didn’t complete another novel right up to his death in 1984.

And here we return to Woody Allen. Bullets over Broadway dealt with the same question, how far is too far in the pursuit of art, with far more wit and entertainment value, than this worthy but sombre film. My good friend Charles Storrar summed up Capote as follows, and I have to say that despite the films undoubted merits, I think he has a point:

“It’s unfair to say the film produces insufficient emotional response. What it provokes above all is a strong desire to punch Truman Capote’s self-serving, self-obsessed, lying, arrogant, bitchy, name-dropping, effeminate, whining face… But since you can’t punch him, you might as well do what my friend did and fall asleep.”

Simon Dillon, March 2006.

After reading a few of the recent comments, I thought it might be best to state my criteria for recommending or not recommending a film when it comes to potentially objectionable content, either with regards to aesthetic or moral/spiritual worldview concerns.

Perhaps I should explain why I feel it is important for Christians to participate in debate regarding films. I consider cinema to be the modern equivalent of parables – with the potential to spread a good or bad message. To deny the power of storytelling to my mind is foolish at best, given that Jesus himself used parables to expound on his message. I think the reason he did so is because as powerful as any sermon may be, a personal story (either true or fictitious) has far greater power. Consider for example the debate over euthanasia. Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby puts that issue centre stage in a powerful story that has the potential to emotionally persuade people far more than any political speech.

To my mind, there are only four logical ways a Christian can respond to popular culture when it challenges or is in blatant opposition to their beliefs (whether in film, theatre, music or any other art form); to comply, ignore, protest, or engage.

By comply I mean that by silence and/or compromise, the Christian viewer does not challenge the worldview of the artist by speaking out. They simply accept what they see and even praise it because of its aesthetic qualities, without raising any questions about its moral or spiritual validity. Many Christians choose this path because they perceive it to be a form of “turning the other cheek”, something I believe they are deeply mistaken about.

The second Christian response to popular culture is to ignore it completely. This is what I often term the “Amish” response; to see anything secular as fundamentally wrong. To my mind, this drives the church into religious isolation; a club that’s nice and cosy for its members but has nothing of relevance to say in the modern world, because it cannot use the language it understands.

The third response is protest, which to be fair is sometimes a valid response. However, most Christians involved in this unilaterally condemn the film (or other work of art) without even seeing it or doing any kind of research. If I had a penny for the number of times I’ve heard Christians trying to protest or get a film banned because it was supposedly offensive, yet refuse to even watch it to understand what they are protesting about, I would be a very rich man.

The fourth response is to engage, and this is what I try to do. Having seen the film (or work of art) in question, I am then in a position to respond without being accused of ignorance. This is why some of the Christians among you may question my decision to see certain films which you would otherwise choose to ignore. A good recent example would be Brokeback Mountain. I saw this film for one reason only: so that from a position of authority I could criticise the film and speak out in my limited capacity against the homosexual lifestyle. This film has had a seismic effect on popular culture and Christians need to engage with it so their voice can be heard. I am not suggesting that all Christians need to see the film, but those who publicly speak up against it ought to.

However, I do not think every contentious film requires engagement from Christians. For instance, I will not be seeing Basic Instinct 2 as I do not personally feel this to be a “culturally significant” film in the same way Brokeback Mountain was. Every Christian who feels led to engage with culture in the way I do will need to develop their own code of conduct to decide what they are and aren’t happy to expose themselves to. Given that Basic Instinct 2 is likely to contain strong pornographic imagery, I will choose not to see it, as exposure to such material would be a stumbling block for my thought life. However, as I am not even remotely tempted by the homosexual lifestyle, watching Brokeback Mountain did not cause similar stumbling blocks. Of course, what is a temptation for one person may not be the same for another and as such it is important Christians engaging with popular culture are wise in what they choose to allow into their spirits. It will not be the same for every Christian, and I am sure Mark and Heidi will have different thresholds to me for what they will and won’t watch in good conscience before God.

With that somewhat lengthy explanation out of the way, I wish to reiterate that generally speaking I will not dismiss a film purely for reasons of sex, violence, etc as I believe such things can sometimes be contextually justified. Schindler’s List, The Passion of the Christ, The Untouchables, Saving Private Ryan, The Godfather films, Munich and others are films I would happily defend as “noble, lovely and true” for their strong morality and Judeo-Christian worldviews. Jesus himself occasionally used extreme violence in his parables to make a point (such as in The Good Samaritan), and whilst I concede that there is a significant difference between word and image, I maintain that it is absurd for Christians to automatically dismiss a film “because it’s rated 18”. However, I will always point out the presence of sex, violence, bad language, etc and warn where I feel they are gratuitous, because I recognise for most people this will be a primary concern.

The most important thing for me when engaging with any film is to unpack its worldview and stimulate discussion. Obviously, I do not expect to always agree with other Christians as to what the worldview of any given film is, but debate is important, as I am sure Mark and Heidi will agree. By all means feel free to disagree with what I have written here, but I felt it was important to clarify my position.

Simon Dillon, March 2006.

There’s a warning at the beginning of The Proposition stating that Aborigines may find the film offensive. Given how staggeringly violent this brilliant but politically incorrect film is, Aborigines won’t be the only ones potentially heading for the exits. I, on the other hand, must guiltily confess to enjoying every blood soaked minute.

Ostensibly an Australian western, The Proposition is a very different…er…proposition from the morality tales of John Ford, or even the bloodbaths of Sam Peckinpah. Director John Hillcoat paints an unremittingly grim, nihilistic yet strangely lyrical and beautiful picture of an Australia not yet tamed; the Wild Down Under, for want of a better expression.

Ray Winstone plays Captain Stanley, the sometimes brutal yet essentially decent lawman who catches bandits Charlie and Mike Burns, two of three notorious brothers. Instead of hanging them both, he releases the middle brother Charlie (Guy Pierce) telling him his younger brother will be hanged by Christmas Day unless he finds and kills Arthur, the older brother who is guilty of a horrific rape and triple murder.

Charlie reluctantly agrees, but will he really betray his older brother to save the younger? This central dilemma unfolds in an almost Shakespearean fashion, but with a staggering amount of violence and relentless pessimism. I am no fan of screenwriter Nick Cave’s music (far too bleak for my tastes), but he has fashioned a brutal yet eloquent screenplay. The rich atmosphere is also complemented by a fine cast. Ray Winstone is superb as a man desperate to “civilise this land”, whilst at the same time mollycoddling his well-to-do wife Martha (the always excellent Emily Watson). Richard Wilson (not the Richard Wilson from One Foot in the Grave) and Danny Huston are very good as the younger and older Burns brothers respectively, and there’s an amusing, hilariously OTT cameo from John Hurt as an embittered, cynical bounty hunter. The only false note comes from David Wenham’s one-dimensional Pommie Eden Fletcher.

But the film really belongs to Guy Pierce, whose melancholy brooding and ambivalent performance glues the story together. Proving once again how far he has come since appearing in Neighbours, this is the latest in a remarkable slew of first-rate performances from LA Confidential to Memento and now this. He is a fantastic actor who just seems to get better and better.

However, it must be said that despite my love for westerns, I cannot recommend this film to anyone. For a start, its violence will prove prohibitive to all but the strongest stomachs. One particular flogging scene attempts to match The Passion of the Christ for sheer brutality, as townsfolk gather to watch a young man being lashed to a bloody pulp. Sitting through this scene, one feels as luridly complicit in the brutal punishment, as those standing watching.

But it isn’t so much the violence that caused me problems as much as its relentlessly pessimistic and explicitly anti-Christian worldview and those familiar with the compositions of Nick Cave are unlikely to be surprised by this. Given how few and far between westerns are these days, I found it a shame that despite being something of a guilty pleasure, I will not be adding this film to my collection when it comes out on DVD. Despite being an undoubted work of art, it can’t be described as “noble, lovely or true” – the criteria given in the Bible for what Christians should fill their minds with.

However, I do predict The Proposition is destined to become a cult classic.

Simon Dillon, March 2006.

It seems like an age since we have watched a film we really loved from our DVD rental service, but finally, here is one that can really fit into that category. There were plenty of things we didn’t like about it, but overall it was gripping, well-acted and totally engaging.

Jamie Foxx is Max, friendly cabbie with an encyclopaedic knowledge of how to get around LA at night and big dreams of owning his own limo company. Into his cab one night steps Vincent (Tom Cruise), perceptive and smooth-talking hitman, whose true colours are only revealed when one of his targets falls onto Max’s cab from an upper floor. Forced into driving Vincent from hit to hit, Max is drawn into an increasingly dangerous milieu of drug dealers, nightclub owners and armed bodyguards which he is desperate to get out of but doesn’t know how. Meanwhile we track the cops on the case as they piece together the events of the night - always just one step behind, of course.

The first thing one is supposed to notice about this movie is Cruise’s hair I think. Dyed grey for some reason, it adds an icy quality to the character in the most obvious way; Heidi, sadly, was distracted by it as she felt the hairdresser who did it wasn’t worth what he/she was paid. But then you actually notice the character he plays and the dialogue he speaks, which crackles and sparks like nothing I’ve seen for a while. Irritatingly, lots of the dialogue is lost underneath some poorly-mixed music and sound effects. On the Cruise front, Heidi thought he was miscast and that his performance wasn’t up to much; personally, I didn’t have a problem with his work here at all, and in fact thought that he added a good performance to his recent run of fine movies. But there we go, that’s what being amateur movie critics is all about. The rest of the main cast works brilliantly in my opinion; Foxx is fantastic, and Jada Pinkett-Smith, as another fare/love interest/point of tension is also good to watch, and the scene between her and Foxx at the start is surprisingly light and sensitive, as well as being very funny.

The eclectic soundtrack, held together by a score by James Newton Howard, is one of the best things about this movie; you get the impression that director Michael Mann is taking some of his cues from Martin Scorsese’s slightly less recent work (I’m thinking Goodfellas in particular), but never in a bad way. Mann has a great eye for his favourite city at night; see Heat for further evidence. There are some scenes where we quibbled with the delivery. For example, the nightclub scene where two factions of police, several bodyguards and Vincent are all shooting at one another gets a little tricky to follow, because we haven’t actually seen many of these people before. As well as this, as Max transforms himself into someone with enough oompf to actually put up a fight in the end, so Vincent follows suit by basically becoming the Terminator. This is a shame, as it spoils the drama slightly and undoes the sense of authenticity that had been so meticulously created by the rest of the film.

There is clearly violence in the film, and some appropriately-used strong language, but don’t let that put you off seeing a solid and fascinating film. It satisfies on so many levels, and more than that, brings pleasure to your eyes, ears and brain. What more could you want from a movie?

A friend of mine recently sent me his one word review of Syriana: Boring. I thought that was a little harsh, but I can understand why he felt that way.

For its first hour and a half, director Steven Gaghan’s political thriller about US corruption over access to dwindling Middle East oil is intermittently exciting, but too often gets bogged down as multiple plotlines vie for our attention. In one, CIA agent Bob Barnes (an extra porky George Clooney) finds himself set up for a fall once he questions a key assassination designed to improve oil flow. In another, energy analyst Bryan Woodman (Matt Damon) takes ruthless advantage of family tragedy to mine a golden opportunity with an idealistic Arab prince. In another, Jeffrey Wright plays Bennett Holiday, a Washington lawyer refereeing a merger between two US oil giants and uncovering corruption at every turn. And most interesting of all, Ahmed Kahn (Shahid Ahmed), a young Muslim immigrant worker, is laid off when the Chinese take over the oil company at which he works, causing him to drift into terrorism as he looks for new work.

All of these stories converge towards the end, once the narrative finally gains clarity and momentum, leading to a powerful finale. But it’s too little too late, and most audiences will either be scratching their heads or asleep. To be fair, it’s extremely well acted and directed, making great use of locations, but one wishes Gaghan’s rambling screenplay could have been less confused. Stylistically, he seems to be trying to evoke Steven Soderbergh’s excellent Traffic, but it has little of that film’s excitement or emotional impact. I must also add cautions for swearing and violence, particularly in one very nasty torture scene. These moments are not gratuitous, but neither are they for the faint hearted.

So Syriana isn’t exactly boring, but it is a slight disappointment. However, it still provides food for thought as it provokes revulsion in the viewer at the extraordinary and all too believable greed of Western oil companies.

Simon Dillon, March 2006.

Well, I’m going to have to come clean and confess to falling asleep for a fair portion of this film, so when Heidi leaves some comments, believe her rather than me. And it wasn’t necessarily because it was rubbish, but probably because we started it at 10:30pm after a full meal on a Friday night, and I just needed to sleep. Anyway…

Pitch Black (one of the best sci-fi films of the past 20 years in my opinion, and one I must review on here soon) detailed the attempts by the crew of a downed transport ship to survive on a planet full of nasty beasts. Vin Diesel more or less made his name as Riddick in this movie, an anti-hero so compelling that you forgave him his murderous past and urged him and the rest onwards as they got picked off one by one. He managed to save a couple of them, and at the start of this film is reunited with the holy man from 5 years previously, whose family is under threat from the ‘Necromongers’ (lazy name), a Borg-alike army who convert humans into soulless warriors or kill them. Judi Dench floats in to explain all this, apparently because Diesel desperately wanted her for this film (goodness knows why. She’s fine, of course, but seems a little out of place). So anyway, Riddick is recruited to do battle against the foe, because he’s of a particular race with special shiny eyes and heat-sensitive vision, and so he goes into action. From then on in my memory fails me until the last half hour, which I won’t reveal here of course.

There were some nice effects (Judi Dench’s aforementioned floating), some interesting conceits (the leader of the Necromongers and his ability to control/separate himself from his soul) and some more fun use of light and dark (in Pitch Black it was the darkness you had to run from; in this movie it’s the scorching sun). But largely it’s an excuse to have Diesel run around with muscles bulging engaging in some (admittedly impressive and kinetic) fights and turn the CGI computers up to maximum (”Look, our bleached-out-planetscape generators go up to 11!”). The review you get when looking up the film on IMDb says ‘Why compare when you can enjoy?’ I’ll tell you why. Because Pitch Black was FANTASTIC and this is a most unworthy sequel.

A bunch of conniving British toffs and their servant-people (as well as an American movie producer and Ivor Novello) gather in a country house for a hunting weekend and the chance to badger the owner of the house, Sir William McCordle, for money in one way or another. We mainly follow the experiences of ladies’ maid Mary Macreachran (played by Kelly Macdonald), as she works out how to see to her mistress’ needs and deal with the pressures of the downstairs life with the rest of the butlers, maids and cooks. Characters, both minor and major, are flickered over by the camera and we pick up hints of stories and relationships, which slowly (really slowly) build until the moment when an affair is revealed (which is a great moment), someone is murdered (which is predictable), and then the guests all try to deal with the death (which they do strangely), while the police investigation goes on, led by Stephen Fry as an incompetent detective.

Emily Watson - good value. Ryan Philippe - glad he’s dropped off the radar since 2001. Maggie Smith - had loads of fun. Kelly Macdonald - fine. Michael Gambon & Kristin Scott-Thomas - icy. Charles Dance - played a character you barely saw, and didn’t know which name to put with him for ages. Bob Balaban - writer and played American TV producer - came up with not particularly inventive or post-modern conceit of having said producer shout the plot of the movie he was actually in to someone in Hollywood down the phone. Helen Mirren - fine performance, especially at the end. Clive Owen - first thing I’ve seen him in that I thought he was worth all the bother. Tons of other actors - must have been irritated with director Robert Altman after seeing how little they were on screen in the final cut.

It wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t all that previous reviewers seemed to make out. Overloading the film with stars and characters is Altman’s thing; I don’t know how much value it really adds, to be honest. Why not just tell one story really well rather than trying to inject ‘real meaning’ into about 50?

I’m going to keep this short, sadly, because I’ve got three movies to review and would like to get them all done in a very short space of time. Sorry, because this film deserves a lot more. Vera Drake is a loving wife and mother who keeps her husband and two grown-up children going in a pokey flat in 1950s London through a mixture of endless cups of tea and jovial conversation. She is genuinely pleasant and hardworking, and makes a point of visiting elderly relatives and neighbours just to brighten their day a bit. She has also been performing backstreet abortions with disinfectant and a syringe for girls ‘who need help’, totally free of charge, for years. When one of her ‘patients’ ends up nearly dying, the police get involved and the Drake world is shattered.

We thought this was going to be unremittingly grim; it wasn’t, thanks to Mike Leigh’s lightness of touch with sensitive material. We thought we weren’t going to agree with the final message from a Christian standpoint; what we found was that the film was probably the most balanced piece of work you could ask for in this day and age, and that despite making a decent argument favouring the legalisation of abortion, it also didn’t flinch from the truth of what this operation involves. Vera’s self-deception actually forces the viewer to consider what it is she’s doing for themselves.

Acting-wise, the film can’t be flawed, and my favourite shot is one of the most powerful moments in the movie; as her family and friends see the police enter the house, with no clue as to what’s going on, and the detective simply asks to talk to her, Imelda Staunton’s face falls like you’ve never seen before, and the camera just stays on her. It’s astonishingly powerful.

There’s so much more to say, and I haven’t done the film justice, for which I apologise. Please watch it, and comment when you have. We welcome discussion at all times, and after the Million Dollar Baby review and its aftermath, we are curious to know what readers think of this.

Postscript: for some reason comments I’m leaving are being Spaminated, so I’ll just add a bit here which relates to the comments below: I’d just like to emphatically echo what Sarah says about the societal factor of the film; it is clear from the very powerful script that one of the major reasons why these girls sought out backstreet abortionists was because of the stifling, ‘can’t possibly mention sex in any way, shape or form’ attitudes of the era. And it wasn’t just the poorly educated either; the inclusion in the film of a rich girl who’s ‘got herself in trouble’ and can’t bring herself to explain that she was raped because it just isn’t spoken about in society is heartbreaking. None of which means I condone abortion, even for rape victims.

One of the most affecting parts of the film for me in fact was watching Vera’s son come to terms with his mother’s clandestine activities; righteous indignation is what bubbles up first (”But they’re little babies!”), and then a chat with his dad leads him to realize that he’s going to have to find forgiveness for his mum. That was so powerful to me as a Christian, and just shifted the way I watched the rest of the film. I don’t know if God views killing an unborn baby differently to killing, say, a teenager who hasn’t fulfilled their potential yet, or a fifty-year old who hasn’t fulfilled theirs; but what I do know is that if that killer, whoever he or she is, repents and accepts Jesus, God forgives him/her unconditionally.