Revolutionary Road
Middle-class ennui is probably more uniquely American than apple pie. It informs generations of writers, and the adaptation of Richard Yates’ 1961 novel into a major release – the first post-‘Titanic’ pairing of Leo Decaprio and Kate Winslet – is a triumph of unsentimental filmmaking. Sam Mendes, Winslet’s husband, directs this tale of April and Frank Wheeler, played by Winslet and Decaprio, who are the envy of their mid-1950’s neighborhood, which is wrought with hyper-conformity and the main characters’ overblown sense of themselves.
The film, despite creating the stultifying atmosphere of the ‘Man in the Grey Flannel Suit’ era, runs up against a book that obviously doesn’t like its subjects or their milieu. The opening scene, in which April bombs in a local production of ‘The Petrified Forest,’ sees the couple fighting on the side of the road about what April’s acting aspirations mean, as well as his own career. This is post-war suburban America in its own Chevrolet klieg-light setting.
The Wheelers, feeling trapped, seek release from oppressive suburbia by alighting for Paris. Their announced plan lands like a Communist plot amongst their peers, who can’t figure out why or how they think they deserve such an escape.
Their neighbors, played superbly by David Harbour and Kathryn Hahn, convey their envy of the Wheelers, who seem to embody the cool confidence that befits a resident of Revolutionary Road. They are as paranoid a group as anything that Rod Serling must have imagined during this period.
Kathy Bates steals the film with her portrayal of the upwardly-mobile busy-body real estate agent Helen Givings, who is shocked to hear that her favorite clients are about to burst her balloon. Scenes in which she introduces her disturbed son, John (played brilliantly by Michael Shannon, who was just awarded an Oscar nomination for best supporting actor), to April and Frank, in hopes of “normalizing” him, are amusingly uncomfortable. John’s rage against the Wheelers and his parents convey the only “true” moments in the film, which are operatic to a fault, and show the brittle translation of the book.
The success of the film is in its performances. The one notable exception (Decaprio) is only symptomatic of the underlying material. Leo is at once perfectly cast and altogether wrong for his role, which must hold up the burdens of his father, and his own yearning soul. Frank finds himself slaving in the company that his father served, and is hard-pressed to resist the office floozy (played brilliantly by Zoe Kazan, who starred in ‘The Seagull’ on Broadway, opposite Peter Saargsgard and Kristen Scott-Thomas when the film opened) while he succumbs to the boss man of his dreams, played with exceptional economy by Jay O. Sanders (who is another New York theater stalwart). Frank’s doubts are best conveyed by scenes in which Mendes depicts impending doom, such as the amazing beach scene, in which Frank may as well have been a Soviet paranoid citizen of, say, Romania in the same period, where the level of Cold War conformity is so oppressive that there is no narrative structure beyond suggestion.
Decaprio’s Frank Wheeler cannot escape the actor’s matinee-idol confidence; he is too outwardly symptomatic of the U.S. that “wins” (see Decaprio’s portrayal of Frank Albinder in ‘Catch Me if You Can’ to view an actor struggling against false hopes in post-war America) to convey a conflicted character. Frank Wheeler is well-matched in his mate, though: there is a strong chemistry between Decaprio and Winslet that bears second viewing. They play their individual and coupled roles so perfectly that the denouement is anticlimactic — yet, he is the one most lacking in this film, permanently flanked by the shadow of Gregory Peck’s ‘Man in the Grey Flannel Suit.’
The supporting cast is brilliant. There won’t be enough kudos to go around for this cast, unfortunately. Harbour’s lust-filled scene with Winslet at the local jazz joint is as evocative of an era as anything every filmed (you’d have to go back to ‘The Seven-Year Itch’ to find anything as truthful). Richard Easton is a masterful exclamation point on the entire period in the film’s final scene. The veteran West End and Broadway actor is a face and presence that exceed the frames he’s given.
Ultimately, the film runs up against what are obviously difficult-to-translate passages and despite filming in one of the inspirations for Yates’ bile – Darien, Connecticut, for starters – the Kodachrome tones don’t quite hold up to the arch qualities that would have truly defined the day. We just can’t handle the truth of this work and, given the times in which we now live, we can’t hold a candle to the pain that these characters must endure.
Mendes must be recognized for the strength of his translation. He has a gift for conveying American idioms, and has a cast that would make most producers give up a limb.
That ‘Revolutionary Road,’ one of several late-20th century literary works that were long considered unfilmmable (remember, ‘The Moviegoer,’ from Walker Evans, and ‘The Ginger Man, ‘from J.P. Dunleavy, have yet to be faithfully committed to the screen), has been brought to bear with the laudable treatment it has received, is a miracle.
At the Q&A – which included Baker, Harbour, Winslet, Mendes, Decaprio, Shannon, and Kazan – the talk extended to how the film could be made without completely dragging the audience down. That this screening (the week after Thanksgiving) was well-timed said something about how this film will ultimately be seen. Winslet’s character bears the brunt of the hopes and fears of the ‘Revolutionary Road’ crowd – she does this with as much aplomb as could be expected, but still fails to deliver something that would be poignant to a 2008/2009 crowd. Shattered dreams are a dime a dozen; Vietnam and a host of other ills are so far from these characters’ late-‘50s lives that the emptiness of their vision is forgiven.
Let us view it in the film in this regard. And hope that another version (Canadian, perhaps?) is someday in the offing.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The triumph of ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’ is so caught up in Hollywood that it can easily blur the more poetic aspects of the work.
While poring through ‘The Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald’ and other tomes to find the original source for this film, the futility of this effort must yield to a greater side of the studio and independent producer in 2008/2009: tenacity.
If ‘There Will Be Blood’ is any indication, the P.T. Anderson “adaptation” of the Sinclair Lewis story ‘Oil’ works on a level that should be an easy jumping-off point for this film. ‘Button’ is as much the Kathy Kennedy/Frank Marshall juggernaut at work as any other fulcrum: the story of the making of this film would fill a 2-hour (Laurent Bouzerau) insider DVD as anything one would see on the big screen. To add, this was a 15-year effort.
And, given the evolution of technology, that is a beautiful thing.
For ‘Button’ is a testament to adapting to the visual reality as much as the everyday 5-minute pitch reality.
Though, to be sure, Brad Pitt and Cait Blanchett (as close to the parody pitch duo Julia Roberts and Bruce Willis in Altman’s ‘The Player’) are not the stuff of any average wannabe’s dreams, but they make this story hum. And, if anyone doubts the real-world Hollywood aspects of this tome, note that Julia Ormond (yes, the once-ascendant Michael Ovitz protégé of the mid-90s who previously starred opposite Pitt in the 1994 flopper ‘Legends of the Fall’) sits patiently as the daughter of Blanchett in the Hurricane Katrina-threatened New Orleans of 2005, as a hospital visitor. Yep – you can’t write this stuff; it works magically on its own.
‘Button’ depicts New Orleans in such colorful regard – with Benjamin Button as a growing/descending character – that the post-World War II scenes (in which Pitt and Blanchett reconnect and forge a loving marriage) are glorious for the 21st-century review of what made America great: the care-free ability to review one’s dreams without being destroyed or trapped. Benjamin Button’s youthful aging speaks to the American Dream (and Ponce de Leon) with a visual quiver of tricks: the special effects are so much a part of the narrative, much of it accompanied by voice-over, that the story cannot be ripped from its delivery. Scenes of the “old-man” Benjamin on the church stage, or his transformation into the (gorgeously) younger Benjamin, are part of what is an epic love story. This is a “different” Hollywood work, with the lyricism of a Faulkneresque tone and a massive-budget SFX team.
‘Button’ is brilliantly directed by David Fincher, whose sweeping works – particularly the recent ‘Zodiac,’ which is as much a valentine to San Francisco as it is an unearthing of the dark side of San Francisco’s hippy dream – are well-suited to his panorama. To re-cap, ‘Button’ tells the tale of the titular character, who ages backward, a son of the New Orleans of voodoo and American gumbo – as much a reflection of the 20th-century American experience as any other character (that the script was written by ‘Forrest Gump’ writer Eric Roth has been a strong talking point in Hollywood).
After the Q&A, I spoke with producer Cean Chaffin, who discussed her work with Fincher on ‘Zodiac’ and ‘Button’ (she has also worked with him on ‘Fight Club’ and ‘Panic Room’). The ‘Button’ production was captured with the JVC Viper camera, which has as powerful a low-light digital acquisition block as any on the market. Chaffin is as much a part of ‘Button’ as any crew member; the continuity and the overall visual direction owes as much to the narrative look as anything. This film, to me, marks a watershed in sophisticated VFX production for a sophisticated story. That memory and redemption play a role in this film is well-crafted by the stars and supporting cast; Pitt and Blanchett are pictured in every way imaginable (and, yes, Pitt’s “body actors” are due their credit as anyone else).
After the film, Kathy Kennedy was electric in her discussion of the production’s history; her producing and life partner, Marshall, was smiling and supportive. They have created a work that is a great artistic triumph, and one hopes that they realize the monetary return on this effort. Given their tremendous career success, one can’t imagine anything otherwise. Kennedy was very open in her response to the look-and-feel of the film; she disclosed that she is working on Spielberg’s ‘Tintin’ project, which is enough of a difficult adaptation/transformation as anything she unveiled in ‘Button.’
We must clearly acknowledge that ‘Button’ has crossed a bridge that the Zemeckis films ‘Roger Rabbit’ and ‘Forrest Gump’ crossed in the late-‘80s and early-‘90s (and, yes, he has a direct link to Kennedy/Marshall): Hollywood’s finest producers can turn long-tail gold out of complex stories with the complement of stunning and groundbreaking technical supervision.
Finally, the directorial choice to include Katrina in this film is an epitaph for the America that once believed it would never age, nor would its ideals ever be destroyed. The final shot conveys an epochal Mother Nature that has as much to do with Benjamin’s life as the outward world does (and more so, as we know). It is Benjamin’s remarkable story that makes us believe that we can re-write history. Our own history, that is.
Frost/Nixon
There are few meteoric Broadway plays that have been so quickly turned around, with as strong a screen adaptation result, as ‘Frost/Nixon.’ We saw the Broadway production in 2007, with the same cast, and were stunned to see that the Brian Grazer/Ron Howard film was as spot-on as the stage production.
We saw a November 15th (2008) screening at the DGA Theater in Manhattan, and were able to capture a film in the post-Bush era with a clear light as to the true Cold War paranoia of the protagonists. I use the plural here, because anyone who saw the original broadcasts of the David Frost-Richard Nixon interviews in 1977 will recall how perilous the times were. Frost was on a limb, and Nixon was barely clinging to one. The combination of these two characters – both real and imagined – only reflects the brilliance of the Peter Morgan play and screenplay.
Frank Lagella makes Nixon even more profound a character in the film than he did on stage, which is really saying something. Anyone who saw him on stage can easily recall how commanding and how hollow the presence of Richard M. Nixon was, without caricature (the ghost of Dan Ackroyd fades). The Michael Sheen portrayal of Frost was equally impressive. H e managed to choreograph the staff of Sam Rockwell and Oliver Platt with a commanding spark that was as much ‘Macbeth’ and ‘Lear’ without kowtowing to celebrity worship.
The Ron Howard touch is strongly at work in ‘Frost/Nixon.’ ‘By that, I mean that history is rendered as poetically as an American can write his own country’s fate on film. Howard has conveyed one of the most intense moments in American history – ‘Apollo 13’ – while conveying real drama (will those astronauts make it back?) and has portrayed one of the most accomplished American geniuses, John Nash, in ‘A Brilliant Mind,’ with pathos and reverence. What he does with ‘Frost/Nixon’ is a snap-shot of history with true detail to the characters. He makes a film out of dire historic necessity (two “celebrities” in desperate need of each other).
As the screening was co-sponsored by the WGA, Peter Morgan was the man in the spotlight at the Q&A. That this was a Saturday night screening meant that the crowd was even more intrigued as to the human struggle required to bring a great story, and a play at that, to the big screen. Morgan was more than up to the task of rendering the conflicts in his personal and professional life with regard to the job. He talked about his work on the ‘The Queen,’ and how he hadn’t been paid for so long for that job that the ‘Frost/Nixon’ gig was just another possibility in his life.
The Morgan stories were worth the trip to the W. 57th Street locale on a cold, damp evening. He discussed the contradictions in the characters; how he approached the adaptation, and also mentioned his upcoming Tony Blair project. We were lucky enough to speak with him afterward, for about 30 minutes, on how the play was so wonderfully extended, and how the actual San Clemente scenes actually made for grand theater in the film. He recalled the scenes that Howard shot that made for even greater effect on film (namely, the famous late-night conversation between Nixon and Frost, invented for the play). The “conversation” scene, he divulged, was actually shot live, on two separate sets, with Howard mediating as an early-20th-century version of a live t.v. director. Howard walked by just as we were discussing this, and he sheepishly confessed that he felt that it might have gotten out of control (the result was brilliant, and no one who knew otherwise would have suspected that the filming was done this way). He said that he felt as if he was a ‘50s director in this film, to which I said that he had at least some inkling of what that took (Opie Griffith, anyone?).
Morgan’s next work will be much anticipated, given the current political climate. That one writer could so strongly capture transatlantic zeitgeist in the past decade is remarkable. This man needs an award (of a higher paycheck).
The supporting cast of ‘Frost/Nixon’ is outstanding. Toby Jones, who must win the Alec Guinness Award for human transformation in 2008 (he portrayed Karl Rove in ‘W.’), plays Swifty Lazar so well that you’re not sure if you’re looking at a hologram or the real thing. Rebecca Hall plays Caroline Cushing, Frost’s girlfriend, so smoothly that you don’t wince at the ‘70s settings at all. Kevin Bacon’s Jack Brennan is brilliant (and somehow wincingly recalls Bacon’s debut in ‘Animal House’).
The most memorable answer to any Q&A question was Ron Howard’s recount of “where he was” when Nixon resigned. He told the story of waiting in New York’s LaGuardia Airport with Anson Williams (who played Potsy Webber to his Richie Cunningham in the t.v. sitcom ‘Happy Days’) when Nixon appeared on t.v. to announce his resignation. He and Williams walked over to a bar that was surrounded by t.v.-watches, and they viewed the historic moment with a crowd of strangers. When the moment ended, everyone looked at Williams and Howard (who were en route to a Boston autograph-signing gig at a department store, prior to the second season of their show) and were too stunned to react to the rising celebrities in their midst. Similarly, Howard recounted, he and Williams just sat jaw-dropped on the plane for the entire flight to Boston. The story somehow captured the entire essence of what he and Morgan had created on screen.
The effect of ‘Frost/Nixon’ is a time capsule of celebrity culture nipping at political power, and its contrast to today (can you imagine Larry King taking on George W. Bush?) is striking.
W.
The last days of the Bush administration were witness to an Oliver Stone film that is a classic American parable: the striving son, eager to overcome his father’s powerful presence. This is the stuff of great literature, and yet it is rendered to its American essence with a figure so giddily pitiable, as portrayed by Josh Brolin, that it deserves its own award category: best performance of a character inspired by a true idiot.
Stone’s film is much more brilliant than its box-office returns or its reviews would portray. Then again, this is the story of his career. ‘World Trade Center’ and ‘Salvador’ were strokes of contemporary genius (with, respectively, Nicholas Cage and James Wood pulling off great performances) that were little recognized in their time, and hopefully won’t sustain that level of neglect. So it is with ‘W.’
The Brolin portrayal of the George W. Bush character is buffeted by great performances all around – from Richard Dreyfus’ Dick Cheney to Jeffrey Wright’s Colin Powell and Thandie Newton’s head-shaking Condie Rice, as well as the great James Cromwell’s George H.W. Bush – and this sets an easy stage for the emergence of the W. persona – a politician who is as reluctant and befuddled as any in American history.
The tragic-comic flair of the character owes as much to the Brolin study of a president who eats with his mouth open, scratches his head at every given second, and twitches at the mere thought that his father is watching over him as anything else. It is a sympathetic portrayal, ultimately, which only makes us sadder for our post-Bush predicament. The recurring nightmare sequence of the W. character, dressed in Texas Rangers baseball garb in an empty stadium chasing a deep fly ball in right field is daunting: we are somehow the character and the spectator, fearing that the orb will overcome the defender.
The chronology, from the ‘Axis of Evil’ speech to the post-Iraq/pre-re-election period, and the early Bush years, is a masterful stew of a character study that has more to do with grandiose, fictionalized reality than the stuff of statesmanship. The W. character is a real person, to be sure; an American fuck-up who fails upward given the power of his family and his erect posture. He is a boy-king, with no sense of others. That he lives in the stark backwaters of Texas for most of his life has as much to do with his perceived rage against his father’s patrician bearing as anything else. ‘W.’ depicts a protagonist who is the walking untreated, in a comical turn. We could not swallow the story otherwise.
The film is a character actor’s dream: everyone from Rod Corddry (as Ari Fleischer) to Noah Wyle (as Don Evans) shows up. Bruce McGill’s George Tenet and Scott Glenn‘s Donald Rumsfeld are worthy of one-man shows.
The 129-minute film moves at a rapid pace, if only because we are so familiar with the hagiography that we want to see how it is assembled and treated. It does not disappoint. In the same year that ‘Harold and Kumar Escape from Guatanamo’ portrayed Bush in somewhat fanciful terms, the Stone film ‘W.’ is connected in similar tissue: the son who is at once Prince Hal and Richard III, with manners yet to learn.
