MY WEEKEND AT THE MOVIES
By Joel Johnson
Recently, I watched three films over one weekend. This
was an amazingly successful weekend at the movies as I was able to see three
outstanding films.
CATCH A FIRE
Directed by Phillip Noyce; written by Shawn
Slovo; directors of photography, Ron Fortunato and Garry Phillips; edited by
Jill Bilcock; music by Philip Miller With: Tim Robbins, Derek Luke, Bonnie
Henna, and Mncedisi Shabangu. Rated PG-13. Running time: 102 minutes
Catch a Fire is the latest film from Australian director Phillip Noyce (Patriot
Games [1992], Clear and Present Danger [1994], and The Quiet
American [2002]). No stranger to films that mesh adventure thrills and
political sensibilities, Noyce has traveled to South Africa to tell the true
story of reluctant revolutionary Patrick Chamusso (Derek Luke). Chamusso was
a young, black oil-refinery worker who was apolitical. He was interested in
being a father to his two daughters, a husband to his beautiful wife
Precious (Bonnie Henna), and coaching a youth soccer team. When African
National Congress terrorists try to blow up the refinery, Chamusso falls
under the suspicion of South African police detective Nic Vos (Tim Robbins)
because he can’t account for a certain period of time the night this
happened. What happens during this time ends up changing the entire course
of Chamusso’s life. Although African American actor Derek Luke does an
admirable job of portraying this black South African, and the film feels
accurate as a portrayal of South Africa during this time frame, the film is
not entirely satisfying. One senses that it suffers from trying to tell too
much story in too little time. It tries to truthfully cover Chamusso’s life
from 1980 to the present as well as giving us the counterpoint of his police
tormentor (Robbins). With so much ground to cover, the film has to rush
through the most dramatic part of the film when Chamusso has gone back to
South Africa on a mission to destroy his former worksite. Still, despite
squandering the thriller potential of this part of Chamusso’s life, the film
does touch on some very thought-provoking issues that clearly have
contemporary resonance. There is a cost of having a disconnection between
the values one espouses and the actions one takes. Vos and his family
clearly show this as his own daughters question his hypocrisy. Taking action
against oppression clearly has ramifications that may go well beyond what
one anticipates. The young man who ignored politics to focus on his wife and
children eventually loses his wife and is unable to be a father during most
of his children’s formative years. Most important, the film shows how
maltreatment can turn a peaceful individual into a revolutionary. This makes
thinking about Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib,
and countless unnamed prisons so chilling.
FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS
Directed by Clint Eastwood; written by
William Broyles Jr. and Paul Haggis, based on the book by James Bradley with
Ron Powers; director of photography, Tom Stern; edited
by Joel Cox; music by Clint Eastwood
With: Ryan Phillippe, Jesse Bradford, Adam Beach, John Benjamin Hickey, John
Slattery, Barry Pepper, Jamie Bell, Paul Walker, and Robert Patrick.
Rated R. Running time: 132 minutes
Flags of Our Fathers is Clint Eastwood’s latest film. Though Eastwood is
best known for his work in front of the camera, he has established himself
in recent years as one of the best directors in the business. His last two
films (Mystic River [2003] and Million Dollar Baby [2004])
both garnered lots of Oscar-buzz and a good share of the statuettes.
Personally, I preferred the layered story of a childhood trauma dividing
three young boys resurfacing years later in a contemporary tragedy in
Mystic River to the highly manipulative Million Dollar Baby with
its boxing story hijacked into a film about which lives are worth living.
Interestingly, although Flags of Our Fathers is one-half of
Eastwood’s films about the American and the Japanese views of the battle for
the island of Iwo Jima, the film is also about the power of images and how
they can be used to manipulate people. The particular image in question is
the iconic picture taken by war photographer Joe Rosenthal of the American
flag being raised on Iwo Jima’s Mount Suribachi. Eastwood has created a
powerful film about war, the horror of its violence, our human need for
images and stories that give it meaning, and the way that they can be used.
It has added power because it is based on a true story originally chronicled
in the book with same title by James Bradley, the son of one of the Iwo Jima
flag raisers. Eastwood’s film has a complicated structure with the film’s
focus moving between James Bradley’s posthumous discovery of his father’s
role in the flag raising and then gathering testimonies for his book, the
events leading up to and during the battle for Iwo Jima, and then what
happened back in the States on the war-bond promotional campaign
highlighting the flag-raising “heroes of Iwo Jima.” The reluctant “heroes”
are Medical Corpsman John “Doc” Bradley (Ryan Phillippe), Rene Gagnon (Jesse
Bradford), and Pima Indian Ira Hayes (Adam Beach). Eastwood has carefully
cast this film with a minimum of star-power so that no one’s persona
overshadows the film, yet each performance is solid. Cinematographer Tom
Stern has drained most of the color from the battle footage so that it
resembles the archival footage that was used during the war and since to
teach us about World War II. The battle for Iwo Jima was very violent,
bloody, cost several thousand American lives, and exacted an even steeper
cost in Japanese lives. Eastwood doesn’t shy away from showing that with
authentic-looking battle footage that is second only to Steven Spielberg’s
Saving Private Ryan for visceral impact with Ryan’s edge being
the sounds of the bullets making the audience feel that like the troops they
too were under fire. This is an outstanding film that has an epic sweep and
a complicated, thought-provoking perspective on war and the nature of
heroism. It is probably more Oscar-worthy than his Best Picture––winner,
but this kind of thing has happened before, and that’s show biz.
INFAMOUS
Directed by Douglas McGrath; written by
Douglas McGrath, based on the book by George Plimpton; director of
photography, Bruno Delbonnel; edited by Camilla Toniolo; music by Rachel
Portman
With: Toby Jones,
Sandra Bullock, Daniel Craig, Peter Bogdanovich, Jeff Daniels, Hope Davis,
Gwyneth Paltrow, Isabella Rossellini, Juliet Stevenson, Sigourney Weaver,
John Benjamin Hickey, Michael Panes, and Lee Pace. Rated R. Running time:
118 minutes
1/2
Infamous is
the second movie about Truman Capote and his quest to write In Cold Blood,
telling the story of two men who shot an entire Kansas family. Director and
screenwriter Douglas McGrath (Emma [1996] and Nicholas Nickleby
[2002]), despite the disadvantage of following the five-time Oscar-nominated
Capote (only Philip Seymour Hoffman took home a statuette), has
produced a film that need not offer any apology for existing. Frequently,
two film projects that tell very similar stories have a quality discrepancy
such that one is worth seeing, and the other is cinematic “chopped liver.”
Toby Jones’s portrayal of Capote is every bit as remarkable as Hoffman’s
Oscar-winning performance; however this film is much more of an ensemble
production than the Hoffman-dominated version. Among the key supporting
players are Sandra Bullock, Juliet Stevenson, Sigourney Weaver, Peter
Bogdanovich, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Jeff Daniels. There are some key
differences between Capote and this film based on George Plimpton’s
Truman Capote: In Which Various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintances and
Detractors Recall His Turbulent Career. Quite simply as one might assume
from the book title, this film provides much more detail on his New York
society life. Consequently, we have more context on his life. The film also
gives us greater intimacy on Capote’s relationship with Dick Hickock (Lee
Pace) and, especially, Perry Smith (Daniel Craig) as well as more
information about Hickock’s and Smith’s lives. This is definitely a film
that is worth seeing. In the early going, the film is light-hearted,
gradually metamorphosing into profound tragedy. Despite these differences in
perspective and tone, the well-established terrain of horrific murders and
the arduous machinations to put the killers’ stories into a book makes this
film a hard sell to many filmgoers. As compelling as this story is to watch,
this is not the kind of story that one simply wants to see again and again.
Take the challenge and seek this film out; you will be amply rewarded.
Joel Johnson
grew up in Hallowell, Maine. Not even poor typing skills can keep him from
inflicting his opinions about movies on unsuspecting readers, but his “day
job” in state government does get in the way.
