Sweeney Todd

One would assume that Tim Burton would be the perfect choice to bring Steven Sondheim's horror-musical "Sweeney Todd" to the big screen, but, though stylish, the end result is not particularly imaginative. Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter are made up to look ghoulish and overcast Victorian London looks right out of "Heart of Darkness," but, considering that the play is about a vengeful barber who slays his customers so that the pie-shop proprietress below can have meat for her pastries, this all seems like playing it straight. The movie is not very evenly-plotted either; it moves at a surprisingly lax pace until the third act, which is so fast that it seems truncated.

There are, however, enough good qualities to keep the movie perky and enjoyable. Alan Rickman relishes being an upper-crust villain, even if the important dynamic between his character and Todd is underdeveloped; Carter plays her Cockney as wonderfully dubious--like her pies, she's sweet and tasty, but full of bad things, our moral compass gone haywire; and Sacha Baron Cohen gives the movie a hammy lift, although, like Rickman, he's not around for long enough. Depp is okay--he channels Todd's gloom in the talking parts, but there's not much else he can get out of the single-minded barber. He gives singing the old college try, but seems to be nervously looking about for direction while doing so. And, as a grubby sailor that Todd's daughter inexplicably falls for, Jamie Campbell Bower is plopped down and he thuds into his scenes as though edited in from another movie. But, even if "Sweeney Todd" is not an expert film, it's an agreeable potboiler--and, because Burton transcends the film with an elegant final image, I left the film with some degree of satisfaction.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

“The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” is almost as long as its title, but it may be the most valiant attempt at truly literary filmmaking in a while. It is a film that earns its elegantly archaic photography (shot by Roger Deakins, the Coen Brothers’ frequent cohort) and, perhaps, its slow deliberation over each and every frame. Although the setting is long past—in what remained of the Old West by the eighteen-eighties—the movie goes beyond the easy acceptance it could have had as simply another handsome period piece; the movie is surprisingly relevant today.

The film opens with the last train robbery perpetrated by the James gang. It is here that Deakins is at his most indulgent; the dreamlike, fuzzy-edged cinematography is at an apex here, pairing the sumptuousness of Terrence Malick films with the blurry decay of old photographs. Bob Ford (Casey Affleck), an awkward nineteen-year-old raised on Jesse James (Brad Pitt) dime-novels, insists that he take part in the venture. Jesse’s father—and later his wife—get the creeps from the naïve teenager, but the boy is admitted, nonetheless, and, on the train, he gets his first taste of Jesse’s violent temper: an engineer who refuses to kneel down before the bandit is bludgeoned mercilessly.

Bob never gains the respect of the rest of the gang, which is picked off one-by-one by Jesse for their acts of treason against him. By the end, only Bob and his dim-witted older brother, Charley (Sam Rockwell), remain. Bob idolizes Jesse, but he’s like a fanboy who meets William Shatner and then realizes that the starship Enterprise has never lifted off the ground. His first-hand experience is nothing like the cheap romances that he still keeps hidden in a shoe box under his bed. The true Jesse James is lunatically violent and paranoid; in one scene, he almost tears off a young boy’s ear when pumping him for information, but, by covering his mouth, never even gives the boy an opportunity to reply. The movie, however, has the decency to not peg the icon as simply a raging monster; at the end of the scene, the celebrated outlaw breaks down and cries.

The film is just as much Bob’s as Jesse’s, though. Charley forces an anecdote out of his brother about the long list of comparisons Bob has compiled between himself and Jesse; when his hero—who constantly tests his minions’ allegiance—mocks him for this, the railway bandit’s fate is sealed. The titular assassination makes the perpetrator as well-known as the victim—just as he always dreamed—but his celebrity is tinged with infamy and allegations of cowardice. Jesse James, the overly-romanticized brute, is immortalized as a folk hero; his slayer becomes a folk villain.

It is either remarkable fortune or the sign of pure genius that Brad Pitt, arguably today’s most established male star, performs the role of an over-hyped tabloid celebrity of yesteryear. He does not need to be Brando; as the mercurial, mysterious James, he needs his star’s presence—and, costumed in black and sporting the smile of a charming roué, he gives James the larger-than-life power that made him a myth. (In a nod to one of James’s successors, he slips into an impersonation of Warren Beatty’s Clyde Barrow from time to time.) But he culls the right degree of sensitivity, too, in a much practiced performance. Everything that James does is minutely tooled; he’s blasé about his celebrity, but thrives on living up to his reputation. His alpha-male instinct for self-protection eventually drives him mad and Pitt plays James as a troubled existentialist, whose unpredictable bursts of malice are intertwined with moody desperation. James’s fate has the weight a tragic hero’s; his own eccentricities lead to his downfall and the lives around him collapse like dominoes.

Though still a relative unknown—despite his big brother—Affleck will hopefully not be overshadowed. He mumbles through his role like the emo, misunderstood youngster that Bob essentially is, but his antisocial creepiness is made to be very sympathetic. He teeters on having a gay crush on James, which is an effective piece of playing because of Affleck’s internalization; his inability to conflate James the Legend, who he loves, with James the Man, who he fears, is what makes him so inarticulate. Although Bob learns his lesson to a degree, society never reconciles the murderer with their myth; this fatal flaw is Bob’s downfall. As his yokel brother, Rockwell shows the same ability to curry the audience’s good will, but uses a different technique. Rockwell’s sharp, nervous features make Charley seem consistently on the verge of breaking down. He’s someone who, unlike James, cannot mask the high volume of thoughts sputtering in his brain. His childlike inability to process information makes one fear for his safety throughout the picture; he seems like a defenseless sheep pitted against James’s wolf.

Perhaps because the director and screenwriter, Andrew Dominik, is a New Zealander—and not an American—he has a more objective understanding of a celebrity culture that is American in origin. An American may be more apt to turn this material into a garish satire, but Dominik is thoughtful enough to make his characters sufficiently imperfect and three-dimensional to inspire empathy and has enough restraint to let his commentary slip in as subtext. The movie’s main problems occur when it is too obvious and self-conscious; Dominik piles on too much redundant exposition in the voice-over and has a tendency to let shots linger for an added meaning that simply isn’t there. He does, however, let little things—like warped glass panes—bubble up with open metaphors and, for a sophomore director (his first film was an Australian movie that I’ve never heard of), that is a significant gesture of enlightened respect for the audience. He’s got a feel for dialogue, too. I’m not sure how much credit is due to Ron Hansen, who authored the novel, but the script captures the duplicitous dialect of Southern chivalry when not strewn with meaning-pounders. Dominik even slips in some subtle malapropisms, which are quite welcome in a movie that is largely devoid of humor.

“The Assassination of Jesse James” is not quite poetry; Dominik is far too controlling. Every emotion, every blink, is planned and I wouldn’t be surprised if the director required fifty takes for the simplest shots. Calculation can be stifling in movies—and yes, “The Assassination of Jesse James” is indeed calculated. But it’s set apart by an august sympathy behind the painstaking craftsmanship. The director may have O.C.D., but he imparts on his movie a warmth that keeps one from feeling cramped by the frostbitten setting. He makes a statement without implicating the audience or our society; Dominik allows us to know his characters intimately and his movie laments their plight. He shows that romanticization can be a façade, but romanticizes about the America of frontier times like a child enraptured by his history class. Dominik remains skeptical without insulting our intelligence or stepping on our dreams.

So, even though one may get weary at a lengthy epilogue that makes one feel the movie’s 160 minute runtime, “The Assassination of Jesse James” is a remarkably insightful, empathic and strikingly-beautiful film. If this isn’t nominated for Best Picture, we’re in for the best Christmas movie season in decades.

No Country for Old Men

[Spoiler Alert!]

Until the end credits, there isn't one bar of music in the Coen brothers' "No Country for Old Men." In fact, the bulk of the first third of the film is as visually empty as the soundtrack; it's Middle-of-Nowhere, Texas, 1980: beautiful in it's bleakness--untamed, unpopulated. The photography, by the brothers' longtime associate, Roger Deakins, is always sumptuous, but it works better here than in most of their films; this film needs to be implacably picturesque and distant--the world of this movie isn't quite real, not quite full.

The story follows around Llewellyn Moss (Josh Brolin) who, on a solitary hunting trip, stumbles on the remains of a mass execution of drug dealers in the desert. We never figure out much about them--and neither do the police--but they were certainly the victims of Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), a merciless killing machine whose ties with the victims are never made clear. Moss is the kind of man who un-self-consciously sees himself as a modern day cowboy, but, in actuality, is just a Vietnam vet living in a trailer park. He is so deadpan that his wife, Carla Jean (Kelly Macdonald), doesn't believe him when he says off-handedly that the valise he's brought back from his hunting expedition is loaded with cash. Moss does not realize, however, that his cash came equipped with a tracking device and, after Carla Jean is safely away with her batty mother, he finds himself stuck playing cat-and-mouse with Chigurh. Though he's no Rambo, the vet is resourceful; and his laconic understatement makes him the perfect foil for Chigurh, the latest word in sardonically unfeeling inhumanity. While not perfect, Llewellyn is scrappy and not easily frightened; he acts the way we'd like to think we would in the face of robotic evil.

And then he's killed off.

As the trusty old sheriff, Ed Tom Bell, Tommy Lee Jones enters into the movie relatively late. Dealing only with Carla Jean, he's almost like a bystander; he's never directly involved in the A-plot, but only watches from afar. Jones' character is a particular specialty of the Coens--like Frances McDormand's cop in "Fargo," he's old-fashioned, glib and utterly straightforward. On the surface he may seem like a typical Tommy Lee Jones part, too--his Man in Black without the zazz--but he's not. Like the rest of the Texans here, he's dry and laconic, yet older enough to think he's seen it all--but he's never seen this. In the beginning, his understatement makes him seem as dead as the deathly flat landscape, but he's not; something dies in him later on. (And Jones lays it to rest gracefully.) Like all cowboy heroes, he has to be internalized and stoic, but he, like Llewellyn, is out of his league. Unfortunately, that seems more troublesome than any of the graphic murders Chigurh commits; are the Coens really saying that mechanized evil (a singleminded clockwork orange) has rendered traditional American goodness obsolete? This apocalyptic revelation leads Bell--a sheriff so old and craggy that the bags under his eyes couldn't be taken as carry-on--to finally retire.

One may be lead to think that "No Country for Old Men" is a tract about evil, but it's not. The evil embodied by Bardem is rarified to the point of absurdity. He and his motivations are more primitive than any of the other characters. I can only recall one shot from the entire movie that might lead one to believe that Chigurh is layered--his reaction to Llewellyn’s actually having the gumption to fight back. Bardem's portrayal is quietly effective, but one-note; he's too much of an allegory to be believable. One can surmise from "A Clockwork Orange" how the evil inside of Alex has come to a boil, but Chigurh lacks a past or even a context. He's menacing, but too far removed from the reality of evil to be rationally feared. The Coens are talented enough to ratchet up the suspense in ways that befit such a proficient thriller, but Chigurh is a monster better suited for horror films.

The movie is more accurately about fate than evil; it is a significantly more powerful force in this world. Much of this fatalism is probably due to Western-gothic writer Cormac McCarthy, on whose story this movie is based; but that's not to say that the Coens haven't had a long and solid history of fatalism in their movies. Criminals, in particular, seem to lack control over their destinies--as in "The Big Lebowski" or "Fargo," crimes are always being botched by imperfect miscreants. In "Barton Fink," John Tuturro's screenwriter is entrapped by the old Hollywood system. There, however, the hero's flaws and missteps partly brought him to his downfall; here, Llewellyn only makes one mistake--being bold enough to take a stand against Chigurh. Unlike several minor characters, Llewellyn meets his demise off-screen; the motivation behind that device is obscure, but ultimately cruel--he never even had a chance.

Fortunately, the Coens are smart enough filmmakers to allow room for caveats. There is some semblance of love and compassion and human feeling here, even if it's piled under layers of toast-dry Texan drawl. And, though defeated, Bell ends the movie on a note of tentative faith; maybe he's not been destroyed after all.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

There's so much to say about this Oscar-sweeping early showcase of future stars (Danny DeVito, Christopher Lloyd, Brad Dourif, et al), but, because it has probably already been said, I'll just be satisfied with recommending that you frame "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" by looking at its context. Made in 1975 and set in 1963 (right after Ken Kesey's book came out), the story is not only sympathetic to victims of the old psychiatric institution, but is part of a larger framework of people bucking against the system. Jack Nicholson's McMurphy is no revolutionary--in fact, he's really just a conscientious ne'er-do-well--but he sees through the unfairness of the system, as embodied by the stuffy, obstinate Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher, unfortunately in her largest role to date), and refuses to be a sheep. It's in the triumph-of-the-human-spirit vein, but Milos Forman treats it just right; it ends on a hopeful note and never gets sappy or bombastic. It's a great film from a great time for films.

I'm Not There

In one of the key scenes of "I'm Not There," one of the five quasi-Bob Dylans (the primary one, Cate Blanchett) ducks the queries of a British reporter (Bruce Greenwood) with layers upon layers of bullshit. Unfortunately, that's the closest you get to him--by being so adamant about not being pigeon-holed, he becomes a flat character and, though Dylan is not exonerated for behaving so arrogantly, the reporter is penalized for asking straightforward questions. Even if this jives with the real Dylan's behavior (as I'm told is shown in the 1966 D.A. Pennebaker documentary, "Don't Look Back"), it's incredibly unsatisfying, especially in a fiction film. It's a shame, too, because there's a lot commendable in this movie. The director, Todd Haynes, successfully combines three strands of the folk singer--and two abstracts: Heath Ledger as an actor who played a singer like Dylan and Richard Gere as Billy the Kid--without leaving the audience confused.

The Blanchett part, the heart of the movie, is particularly good. She's great in an off-hand, here-for-the-ride type way and David Cross makes a brilliantly absurd Ginsberg; even the goofiness--stylistic cues and references to "A Hard Day's Night," "Masculin Féminin" and "8 1/2"--works as a kind of wacky pastiche of Swinging London. Some of it, however, is terribly blah: Heath Ledger's divorce melodrama does not only seem to not pertain to Dylan, it seems like it belongs to a lamer movie. (One scene, where he turns chauvinist-pig and hippie sell-out, however, is right on.) But the movie throws in heavy-handed symbols (like Billy the Kid seeing footage of L.B.J. and Nam flash across the Old West landscape) which wouldn't work even if they weren't counter to the movie's resistance to paint a fuller picture of Dylan. It's a smart, proficient and stylish movie, but it wants to answer questions and then refuses to. To be fair, I can't count myself as anything more than a casual fan of the musician, but even if "I'm Not There" (a fitting title) reflects his real attitudes, it seems like a cheat. Dylan obviously means to say something in his music; if he denies that, he's got more problems than this movie suggests.