The Great Gatsby - 2013

"The Great Gatsby" - 2013
Dir. by Baz Luhrmann - 2 hrs. 23 min.

Official Trailer #2

by Clayton Hollifield

Purists are the worst, most boring kind of people.  If the entire point of a project is to faithfully recreate something in a different format, what's the point, to be a human Xerox machine?  I'm not the least bit interested in period fetishism; I'd much rather see a new take on something that keeps the core of the story true than see someone who's obsessed with making sure that each character was wearing the right socks.  Baz Lurhmann's take on F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" is the best of both worlds, treating the time period as an exotic locale, and using new technology and music to keep from falling into irrelevant reverence of it.  The result is a spectacle, in the best sense of the word.

Usually, this is where I would do a quick plot recap, but there's a very good chance that anyone interested in this movie has already read the book (or has just watched the movie), so let's skip all that this time.

I wasn't joking about what I said about purists, they're the scourge of any creative field.  The idea that any creative work was perfected at a certain point, and the slavish recreation of the previous ideals is a retreat from one's own time, and the refusal to add anything new to one's field is selfish and a waste of time.  The fact that this is a Baz Luhrmann film is significant; it's a upfront statement that you shouldn't hold on to your preconceived ideas about what a Gatsby film should look like.  There are scenes that look like they could have been taken from "300" or "The Spirit" (the driving scenes that show both the big city and the slums that Gatsby and company have to drive through to get to the city).  For one thing, the party scenes are lush, way beyond what most people could imagine they would look like.  They're meant to represent opulence, and the absolute hedonistic pursuit of pleasure, and they actually deliver on that front.  Jay Gatsby himself (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) is some kind of mythical figure, and rather than just leaving it at that, his introduction is bizarre and hilarious and overblown.  While Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire) is lost in reverence at Gatsby's smile and aura, there are literally fireworks going off in the night sky behind Gatsby.  That might be the make-or-break moment in the movie; either you're going to chuckle and then settle in for the ride, or it's just going to be too much for you, and you'll regard the entire thing as silly.

To some degree, the entire story is about that very balance.  It's easy to regard the entire thing as silly, or to think the super-rich, super-handsome Gatsby is just some frivolous orphaned playboy who's superpower is throwing awesome parties (instead of dressing up like a bat and beating the crap out of criminals).  It's easy to think that this is a story about the idle rich, and to dismiss any problems they might have as meaningless when compared to their privilege.  That's an easy, lame, and intellectually lazy approach to take.  "The Great Gatsby" is a love story at it's core, everything else is window-dressing.  It's beautiful, rich window-dressing, but getting caught up in that aspect of the story is admitting that you weren't paying attention, and that you didn't understand the story.  The characters in "Gatsby" who regard him as frivolous and nothing more than a gadfly reveal themselves to be the ones who don't know anything about what's actually going on.  And that's most of everyone; Nick is the only character who seems to have a complete picture of his surroundings, and he's also portrayed as the only one who didn't really have any ulterior motives.  He's living constantly, and contentedly in the shadow of unthinkable wealth, and seems okay with working for his share even when opportunities for short-cuts arise.  Literally every other character is constantly angling and scheming, and none of them are ever happy.

"The Great Gatsby" is also a sad story, which is hammered home in the third act.  I found myself unusually emotionally caught up in the downfall of Gatsby, which is even weirder because I've read the book twice previously.  I knew what was coming, which made the irrepressible optimism of Gatsby harder to bear.  I don't mean to imply that the first two-thirds of "Gatsby" is difficult to get through, because it isn't.  But everything comes together in a very intense way, and the intensity is sustained until the story's conclusion. Early in the film, Nick says that hope is what makes Gatsby different (and better) than everyone else, and that's backed up through his actions.  One of the things that makes "Gatsby" a rock-solid story is that the reputations that people have are earned on-screen through action, rather than just leaving it at "Gatsby's reclusive," and then never really showing that or showing what that means.  But even more meaningfully, as everyone around Gatsby changes and reveals themselves to be less than they'd appeared to be, Gatsby's hope and optimism never fades, which is one source of the emotional heaviness of the final act.

It's difficult to watch anything involved with Fitzgerald without considering his own life as part of the picture.  There's an early scene where Nick dismisses talk of his being a writer, saying that he wasn't ever any good at it.  And there's the ultimate conclusion of the movie, that everyone sucks, the girl turned out not to be worth the trouble, and that the only good guy anybody knows has been driven to alcoholism.  It's a pretty bleak summation.  But there's the alternate view, that Gatsby's hope and love for Daisy fueled him to achieve incredible financial success (albeit through shady means), and to transform his life, and put him in the position to bring moments of pleasure and joy to other people.  The ultimate question that each viewer has to answer for themselves is whether it's the destination or the journey that matters more.  Even though everyone ends up in the same place, "The Great Gatsby" is one hell of a ride.

4 / 5 - Theatre

Django Unchained - 2012

"Django Unchained" - 2012
Dir. by Quentin Tarantino - 2 hrs. 45 min.

Official Trailer

by Clayton Hollifield

This was certainly worth the wait.  And "Django Unchained" is another on the list of films from 2012 that both played broadly and were excellent movies.  Yeah, I'm biased, I always look forward to any new Quentin Tarantino project, but this film stacks up against the rest of his work, save for "Pulp Fiction."  So let's get down to why this was a really good movie!

About two years before the American Civil War (as a subtitle helpfully explains), Django (Jamie Foxx) and a handful of other slaves are being marched through Texas to wherever they're going to end up.  A German dentist, Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz), has sought out the slave traders directing this march in order to purchase Django.  It turns out that Dr. Schultz isn't a dentist (at least not currently one), but instead is a bounty hunter, and Django can recognize the Brittle Brothers (who all have sizable bounties on their heads), and Django eventually ends up being drawn into the bounty hunting business.  But Django has a larger goal; he has to track down his wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), who was deliberately sold to another plantation out of spite for Django.  Dr. Schultz agrees to help (there is a famous German myth about a Broomhilda), and they eventually set out for Mississippi and Candieland (I promise it makes sense in the context of the movie).

There is a broad compliment to be paid to Tarantino and "Django Unchained:" this did not feel like a nearly-three hour film.  There might not be anything worse than a long, mediocre film, and "Django" was definitely not mediocre.  One of Tarantino's signature strengths is the ability to build tension within a scene, usually for way longer than you'd figure possible.  He also usually writes characters who have both a plan and a flair for the dramatic, which means that as soon as you figure out who's going to be butting heads with whom, you know that it's going to play out spectacularly.  And also, something that you'd figure is going to be the main thrust of the film (in this instance, it would have been the first act's arc of Dr. Schultz and Django tracking the Brittle brothers) ends up resolving unexpectedly and quickly, and then the characters are on to bigger and better things.  In practice, this allows for Tarantino to construct a film of mini-movies; "Django" probably could have played out over the course of three films if he had wanted to do things in that manner.

Also, as is standard for a Tarantino movie, he gets exactly what he needs from each of the primary actors.  Waltz is fantastic, playing a calm, clever man who is always one step ahead of the situation (until he gets in a little over his head with Calvin Candie).  Jamie Foxx is also fantastic, hitting the right notes all along.  Leonardo DiCaprio, who plays the biggest villain of the film in Calvin Candie, proprietor of mega-plantation Candieland, makes the intellectual duel between himself and Dr. Schultz interesting.  Candie isn't supposed to be as smart as Dr. Schultz, but he's got the home-field advantage and is vastly more sadistic.  Honestly, the worst thing you could say about any of the actors in this cast is that they did what they were supposed to, and let the stars shine.  Don Johnson and Walton Goggins also have memorable, brief roles.

As per usual, whenever there is a new Tarantino movie, there is inevitable hand-wringing about the racial language used.  And let's be very, very clear, Tarantino uses every possible slur in that vein imaginable.  It's not my place to defend or prosecute here.  Instead, I propose two things.  First, it's clear that Quentin Tarantino is not interested in making palatable "entertainment."  The vast majority of movies produced aim to go down easy, with no aftertaste.  That is not what "Django Unchained" is.  To put it into professional wrestling terms, the scourge of the industry is a "cool heel."  That means a bad guy who gets to do all the things that make someone a bad guy, but does it in such a way that he ends up getting cheered for his bad behavior.  It completely screws up the good guy/bad guy dynamic that morality tales usually are.  But it's way easier to do that than to get an audience that's pretty onto all of the tricks to still boo you.  It's a testament to a given wrestler's talent and skill to be able to genuinely get under the skin of an audience that is in on the secret.  Movies are kind of the same way.  It's way, way easier to just fill up a story with a bunch of stylish baddies than it is to build up just one villain that an audience will genuinely hate, which is necessary if you expect anyone to care about your hero and his story.

The Calvin Candie character manages to pull that off.  You're not supposed to like him, even as he displays his hospitality and seems stuck on 100% charm for much of the story.  If he uses abominable language, treats people poorly (which would be a vast understatement), and tries to pretend he's smarter than he actually is, and then you (as an audience member) react negatively to him, that's the entire point.  Calvin Candie is the bad guy, and when he punishes a runaway slave by letting a pack of dogs rip him apart, you're not supposed to chuckle.  Candie is a bad man, and not in the complimentary manner that term is often used.  You are not supposed to like him.  You might be able to argue that some of the things presented in this movie are overkill, but that's a matter of personal taste.  It's enough, in the context of the film, that Dr. Schultz is playing along with Candie in order to achieve a larger goal, which requires a circuitous approach to the matter at hand.  It's clear that there is some judgment being made by the characters in the story that all of this is distasteful and not okay.

My second point is that if you're going to set a story, any story, in any given setting, then white-washing that setting is worse than lying.  If you want to be edgy and write a story set in a strip-club or something, all of the girls are not going to spend the entire film with their nipples covered.  One of my primary concerns with "Lincoln" was the soft-pedaling of tobacco.  "Django Unchained" is set in the south, before the American Civil War, which was fought over the issue of slavery.  Tarantino is okay with writing this film with frank language, language that would have been used without a second thought in that place and that time.  If you, as a viewer are not okay with that, then don't go see the movie.  Understand that this is going to be an uncomfortable three hours, and it's better for you to stay at home than to ask filmmakers to bowdlerize material so that it's a lumpy, tasteless bowl of oatmeal for you to consume with no pesky flavors or aftertaste to worry about.

"Django Unchained" goes by fast, has memorable and spectacular scenes, and concludes excellently.  I fully understand if this isn't your cup of tea, but you've got to understand that Quentin Tarantino has been making movies for a couple of decades now, and probably doesn't give a flying fuck if you like what he does or not. That's one of the things that makes his films so interesting; he's making movies for himself, primarily.  If he's got a taste for genre trash, he's also got the ability to turn it into something that no one else can.  "Django" is more evidence for that case.

4.5 / 5 - Theatre

J. Edgar - 2011

"J. Edgar" - 2011
Dir. by Clint Eastwood - 2 hrs. 17 min.

Official Trailer

by Clayton Hollifield

At this time of the year, it seems like most of the movies turn very, very serious.  Part of that is the Oscar-bait strategy (as in, no one remembers what came out in January).  "J. Edgar" is no exception to that strategy.  It's a very serious biography (of a sort) film of the man who brought legitimacy to the FBI.  I have to admit that, while I enjoyed the movie quite a bit, I think that I would have enjoyed it more if I wasn't staring down the prospect of two months of ultra-serious, heavy films, placed primely for awards.  That might not seem fair to director Clint Eastwood or "J. Edgar," but no film exists in a vacuum.

Depending on how much you know about J. Edgar Hoover (and the opinions that you might hold of him, based on how much you know), you might be surprised with the restraint that Eastwood shows here.  Hoover was, to put it simply, a complicated man.  He was also a driven man with few friends, and was highly successful in taking the FBI from an organization with a lowly reputation to one of the most highly-funded organizations in all of government.  He was an early pioneer of finger-printing and forensic science as crime-solving tools.  One of the aspects that this movie captures is that Hoover didn't do that through straight-up means; he held secret files on many notable Americans, and didn't seem shy about using the dirt contained within to extract favors from whomever he wanted to.  And also, the movie speculates on why Hoover didn't trust much of anyone, and why he never married over the course of his life.

This is a pretty well-rounded portrayal of a man who may not have deserved as much empathy as this film offers him.  There many times where Hoover toes or crosses lines to get done what he wants done, and he comes off like a petty tyrant at times.  At the same time, it's clear that he truly believed in what he was doing, which is probably why he was willing to go to the extremes that he did.  If you despise being lied to by politicians, your stomach might curdle as some of the things that Hoover did as an un-elected official.

The best traits of this film are exactly what you'd think they might be going in.  Leonardo DiCaprio does a good job with the character, humanizing someone who has become a bit of a caricature in history.  Clint Eastwood's direction is also outstanding, implying and nudging the story along without hitting you over the head.  It's a movie that asks you to pay attention, and rewards you for doing so with details that really enhance the story.  And the central figure to the movie, J. Edgar Hoover, is a compelling, secretive figure that could use a little light shed on.

And if you really enjoy historical biography films, this is going to be right up your alley.  It's quality through and through, another hit for Clint Eastwood.  It's not his finest work, but it's also pretty damned good for something that's not in a director's top tier of work.  I don't want to short-change that in any way.  But in a larger sense, it also feels like the beginning of a season of films that take themselves very seriously.

3.5 / 5 - Theatre