Gary Oldman & John Hurt in "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy."
By Joe Bendel. Five ghosts haunt John le Carré’s most celebrated spy novel. The shadow of the so-called “Cambridge Four” spy ring, including the treasonous Kim Philby and Anthony Blunt, looms large over the story, especially given the circumstances of their private lives. The fifth, of course, is Sir Alec Guinness, who is so closely associated with the role of mole-hunter George Smiley. However, Obi-wan Kenobi should be smiling down on Gary Oldman, who confidently assumes the Smiley mantle in Tomas Alfredson’s appropriately cerebral adaptation of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York and elsewhere.
Smiley once was the deputy chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (a.k.a. MI6, but known colloquially as “The Circus”), but he was forced out with his boss, known as “Control,” when an operation went spectacularly wrong. As a result, a field operative (or “scalp-hunter” in Circus parlance) was captured, effectively ending Control’s related mole-hunt. Unfortunately, it turns out the late spymaster was not so paranoid after all, as the minister begrudgingly admits when he brings Smiley back into service to furtively investigate the four top officers of the Circus, code-named by Control: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, and Spy (skipping “sailor” from the old nursery rhyme, because it is too close to “tailor”).
Svetlana Khodchenkova & Tom Hardy in "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy."
There are no explosions in TTSS, nor is there a whole lot of shooting, but when it happens, it is significant. Instead of pyrotechnics, we watch as Smiley pieces the puzzle together, interviewing a diverse cast of professional thugs and bureaucrats, gleaning tantalizing clues from each resulting flashback. Yet, perhaps most intriguing are the glimpses we get of “Karla,” the notorious Soviet intelligence mastermind (played by a rarely seen Patrick Stewart in the classic BBC series, no less). Smiley might be chasing a mole, but his real adversary is definitely Karla, who fully understands his retired rival’s weaknesses.
Gary Oldman is the key reason why the revamped TTSS works so well. In a way, Smiley could be considered the dark side of his Commissioner Gordon persona in the Dark Knight franchise. Like Guinness, he plays Smiley’s cool detachment in a way that makes it clear the gears are turning furiously within his head. Occasionally he even seems to adopt some of Sir Alec’s cadences and mannerisms, but that is fine. Frankly, those familiar with the prior incarnation will rather want to hear that echo.
Gary Oldman as master spy George Smiley.
TTSS also features at least a dozen genuinely first class British actors, some famous and some who should be. John Hurt’s casting as Control is so perfect it requires no explanation. Likewise, Toby Jones, Colin Firth, and Ciarán Hinds add plenty of color as the Circus’s inner circle and Smiley’s prime suspects, by extension. Yet it is the intense and dynamic supporting work of Mark Strong and the soon to be famous Tom Hardy as scalp-hunters Jim Prideaux and Ricki Tarr that really crackle and hum.
Alfredson has helmed a sleek and brainy espionage thriller (one can see a certain kinship with his frosty, Nordic vampire tale, Let the Right One In), but TTSS is definitely a product of the le Carré school of Cold War moral equivalency. Smiley himself explicitly states there is no ethical distinction between us and them. Even the mole himself eventually explains that his decision to betray his country was largely based on aesthetics (which seems bizarre, considering he should be fully versed in the glories of Socialist Realism). Frankly, given the wealth of revelations that have flooded out of the former Soviet bloc, such revisionism seems like a dated relic of the 1970’s – but at least it matches the pseudo-retro vibe of the film.
TTSS is an absorbing big screen intrigue, even though it is relatively easy to guess the mole’s identity, solely on the basis of screen-time allotment. (Frustratingly, this means one of the best actors of our day is rather short-changed in the process.) Still, watching Oldman’s Smiley is the real show, following not just in the footsteps of Guinness but also the great James Mason (who played the character, inexplicably renamed Charles Dobbs, in Sidney Lumet’s moody but effective The Deadly Affair). He is a worthy successor, deserving serious Oscar consideration. Recommended for intelligent viewers who enjoy films about Intelligence, TTSS opens this Friday (12/9) in New York at the AMC Lincoln Square and Village 7.
Posted on December 6th, 2011 at 12:04pm.
By Joe Bendel. The aliens came and they saw, so now what? That is the question in the back of the minds of the few Madrid residents who did not flee the city. However, they will be mostly preoccupied with their own issues in Extraterrestrial (trailer here), Nacho Vigalondo’s enormously clever take on an alien invasion blockbuster, which opens this year’s Spanish Cinema Now, the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s longest running film series.
Of all the nights Julia could take home a strange man, she picks the eve of the alien invasion. She and Julio are a bit slow rousing themselves in the morning, which is how they miss the military evacuation. Initially she is only worried about her possessive boyfriend, Carlos. However, as soon as she and Julio spy the huge spinning discs in the sky, she lets the smitten Julio stay, settling on a cover story to explain his presence. Before long, they are sharing a wickedly uncomfortable dinner with Carlos, a madman (but not necessarily an abusive one) and Ángel, a creepy torch-bearing neighbor.
The inevitable conflicts of this soiree are obvious, regardless of the alien invasion apparently underway. However, the not-as-dumb-as-he-looks Julio takes advantage of the resulting paranoia. Indeed, what transpires is sheer gleeful lunacy, powered by jealousy, resentment, and all possible shades of love, most certainly including lust.
Granted, Extraterrestrial is not as wildly inventive as Vigalondo’s instant classic Timecrimes (stream it now, thank me later), but it is still toys with and subverts genre conventions in a richly idiosyncratic manner. This is hardly your typical sci-fi programmer. Frankly, Julio, Carlos, and a rogue band of UHF broadcasters do far more damage to the city of Madrid than the armada of aliens. Yet, Vigalondo nurses our V and X-Files honed fear and uncertainty, creating suspense out of whole cloth. The entire film is quite a nifty trick, but not without a heart. Indeed, Extraterrestrial is surprisingly bright and upbeat compared to the seriously noir Timecrimes.
Michelle Jenner in "Extraterrestrial."
Despite the outlandish premise, Michelle Jenner, Julián Villagrán, and Raúl Cimas play their respective sides of the love triangle with absolute conviction. Villagrán is particularly effective, smoothly pulling off each surprise as Julio, the ostensive everyman. Though more broadly comic than his ferocious star turn in The Last Circus, Carlos Areces also still finds some pathos and madness in poor, perennially frustrated Ángel.
As his sophomore feature, Extraterrestrial should firmly establish Vigalondo as an international genre film cult-superstar. It is a truly original way to address some of the oldest themes in recorded storytelling. Highly recommended, it screens this Friday (opening night, 12/9) and the following Thursday (12/15) at the Walter Reade Theater during the 2011 edition of Spanish Cinema Now.
Posted on December 6th, 2011 at 12:03pm.
LFM Co-Editor Govindini Murty was on Lars Larson’s national radio show Friday talking about Twilight, the new John Carter trailer, and her Huffington Post interview with Werner Herzog as his Cave of Forgotten Dreams arrives on Blu-ray/DVD.
Special thanks, as always, to Lars and his staff for inviting Govindini on. She always has fun appearing on his show.
Lars’ show is broadcast on over 200 stations nationwide, and runs at different times across the country, so to find his show be sure to check out his website here.
Posted on December 6th, 2011 at 12:02pm.
Kelly Macdonald as reporter Della Smith.
By Joe Bendel. It is hard to say who is more unsavory in this morality play: big business, the press, or the Labour Party. For what it is worth, the journalists are the ostensive protagonists of State of Play (promo here), which makes its American broadcast cable debut this Wednesday as part of BBC America’s Dramaville showcase.
This should not be difficult, but viewers must absolutely forget anything they might know about the 2009 Hollywood feature adaptation. The original 2003 BBC series, written by Paul Abbott and directed by David Yates (of Harry no joke Potter fame), is far more intricate, intelligent, and murky. Nobody comes across looking heroic here, except maybe the poor beleaguered coppers.
MP Stephen Collins initially appears to be the Labour Party’s version of the litigious Gary Condit, when the apparent death of Sonia Baker, his staff researcher and mistress, thrusts his private into the headlines. Collins comes from the left wing of his party, though, and is considered an up-and-comer, “tipped” for the next cabinet. Much to the surprise of the Party’s top fixer, the elders duly circle the wagons around Collins rather than cutting him loose.
The cast of "State of Play."
Though never very forthcoming, Collins starts talking to Cal McCaffrey, his former campaign manager now working for one of the more reputable tabloids. When Collins links Baker’s death to a street murder previously dismissed as a drug-related crime, he begins to get a sense of the conspiracy’s scope. However, he somewhat jeopardizes the story when he takes up with Collins’ estranged wife, Anne. It is safe to say this displeases his old school editor Cameron Foster, but he is stuck with McCaffrey when the reporter starts connecting top government officials and a giant multinational oil company to the affair.
However, this is not a simple corporate malfeasance story. While we identify with the Herald journalists as our primary POV characters, it is hard to consider them noble crusaders. Frankly, the way they deceive and manipulate many of their sources would be appalling if they were not already so ethically compromised. Yet, Abbott spares Collins least of all with his agonizing drip-drip-drip of revelations. Of course for viewers, this is all juicy salacious fun.
By Joe Bendel. In 1989, the Romanian military received the orders all soldiers serving behind the Iron Curtain dreaded most. They were commanded to fire upon their fellow countrymen. Some did so, to an extent, but many more sided with the Revolution. Radu Muntean captures the chaotic anarchy in the hours immediately following the fall of Ceaușescu in his distinctly anti-heroic The Paper Will Be Blue (trailer here), which screened as part of a Muntean retrospective on the closing night of the Sixth Annual Romanian Film Festival, co-presented by the Romanian Cultural Institute and the Film Society of Lincoln Center.
Blue’s flashback format tells viewers right up front this night will end badly. Muntean then rewinds a few hours to show how events reached this point. Though Ceaușescu has been deposed, the military is not sure what to make of it. The revolutionaries have seized the television studio and many officers and enlisted men have volunteered to defend it from Communist Loyalists – or as the call them, terrorists. If you are wondering how to tell one side from the other, then you have just pinpointed the crux of Blue.
Militia (state copper) Lt. Neagu’s armored squad vehicle has been assigned to patrol a sleepy suburb well away from the action. However, one of his men from a politically connected family, Costi Andronescu, has deserted to join the forces defending the TV station. Fearing he will be disciplined for the actions of his subordinate, Neagu and his men venture into the maelstrom, hoping to bring back Andronescu in time for morning roll call. As they careen through the streets of Bucharest, allegiances become increasingly confused.
With its gritty docudrama-style and Kafkaesque absurdity, Blue bears many of the hallmarks of the so-called Romanian New Wave. However, there is no slack in this picture. It is tight and tense, holding a firm grip on viewers even though they know exactly where it ends. Muntean vividly captures both the claustrophobia within the armored car, and the disorienting commotion unfolding outside. The film also resists easy political labels, revisionist or otherwise, but as is often the case in the Romanian Wave, bureaucracy and authority figures take a real skewering.
Adi Carauleanu is fantastic as the world-weary but compulsively cautious Neagu. Through his fatalism and wariness, the audience gets a sense of the pent-up frustration resulting from decades of service under Communism. Though a bit stiff on-screen, Paul Ipate has some finely turned moments as Andronescu as well. More than anything, though, Blue is about conveying the in-the-moment feeling of a particularly time and place, in all its madness.
Blue is an excellent representative of Romanian film for a number of reasons. It certainly dramatizes a critical moment in recent history, but it also proves that the films of the Romanian New Wave are not necessarily long, slow, or moody. Raw and visceral, Blue packs a punch. Its title also makes perfect sense in retrospect, but to explain why would be telling. Blue closed the 2011 Romanian Film Festival at the Walter Reade Theater this past Sunday (12/6), with a special post-screening Q&A with Muntean.
By Joe Bendel. Consider this as Upstairs, Downstairs in its darkest manifestation. In a secluded Tunisian mansion, Aïcha is squatting in the basement servants’ quarters with her domineering mother and world-weary older sister. It is not much of a life, but at least it is quiet, until the original owner’s grandson arrives with his lover. The inadvertent intrusion of differing values and lifestyles profoundly disrupts their dysfunctional family unit in Raja Amari’s Buried Secrets (trailer here), the gala selection of this year’s African Diaspora International Film Festival.
Largely uneducated but devout, Aïcha’s family barely earns a subsistence living through embroidery work. At least their cloistered existence allows Radia and her mother to keep Aïcha under control. They clearly consider her somewhat off, but it is initially unclear whether she really is a tad slow or has simply never had any outside social interaction. When Ali and his girlfriend Selma arrive, she is magnetically attracted to their fashionable clothes and open affection. Needless to say, her mother considers the “interlopers” indecent, but since they have no right to be there, the three women can only surreptitiously cower in the cellar. Inevitably, Selma discovers their presence in the crumbling manse, prompting the older women to take a rash course of action.
Ironically, the downstairs goings-on are considerably more scandalous than anything happening upstairs in Buried. Though viewers might guess at some of Aïcha’s family secrets, their revelation takes the women to some pretty shocking places. Amari clearly suggests the mother’s ultra-traditional Islamic upbringing has a stunting effect on Aïcha’s sexual maturity, but this is not a reassuring tale of female empowerment. What starts as a class-conscious social issue film morphs into a dark fairy tale, before finally settling into a psychodrama. Yet, somehow Amari maintains a consistent mood while keeping the audience off-balance.
The grand old home is wonderfully cinematic (sort of like a Tunisian Grey Gardens), anchoring the film in a specific, strange and isolated place. However, it is Hafsia Herzi’s remarkable performance as Aïcha that makes it all come together. Simultaneously vulnerable and unnerving, it is impossible to take your eyes off her. Arguably though, Rim El Benna’s work is even braver, portraying Selma as a sympathetic, emotionally complex modern woman. Her more revealing scenes also likely generated the predictable disapprobation from Tunisia’s intolerant religious quarters.
Intriguing in many respects, Buried creates an eerie vibe of life in a state of twilight-limbo, implying rather than showing the great repercussions of its accidental clash of cultures. Fittingly, it is another challenging cinematic statement handled by Fortissimo Films, the focus of a recent retrospective at MoMA. Definitely recommended, it screened as part of the ADIFF gala with a regular festival screening to follow next week (12/11).
Posted on December 5th, 2011 at 2:44pm.
Director Werner Herzog.
[Editor's Note: the post below appears today at The Huffington Post.]
By Govindini Murty. In Part I of my interview with Werner Herzog, we discussed his new movie Into the Abyss and its searing exploration of evil in human society. Now in Part II we turn to the world of nature, which Herzog sees as even more dangerous. In Les Blanks’ documentary Burden of Dreams, Herzog famously spoke out on the “obscenity” of the jungle, its “harmony of overwhelming and collective murder.” In Herzog’s documentary Encounters at the End of the World, he expressed skepticism toward “tree huggers and whale huggers,” while in Grizzly Man, he documented the fate of a man literally killed by his unhealthy obsession with wild nature. Herzog has even criticized the romanticizing of nature in Avatar, calling the film “an abomination because of its New Age schlock and bullshit.”
Obviously Werner Herzog has strong feelings about the proper relationship between humanity and nature. One sees this, for example, in Herzog’s stunning documentary Cave of Forgotten Dreams, released this week on DVD. Cave of Forgotten Dreams offers an extraordinary look at the 30,000 – 32,000 year-old Paleolithic cave paintings inside the Chauvet Cave in southern France – currently considered to be the oldest cave paintings in the world. As Herzog told me in Part I of our discussion on the concept of “the abyss,” “I’ve always tried to look deep inside of what we are – deep into the recesses of our existence, of our prehistory – like in Cave of Forgotten Dreams. So it is some sort of a theme that runs through quite a few of my films.”
The Paleolithic cave paintings of Chauvet.
In Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Herzog speaks eloquently of the Paleolithic cave paintings of Chauvet and their relationship to the surrounding landscape:
“These images are memories of long-forgotten dreams. Is this their heartbeat, or ours? Will we ever be able to understand the vision of the artists across such an abyss of time? [Camera shows a massive natural stone arch in the landscape.] There is an aura of melodrama in this landscape. It could be straight out of a Wagner opera or a painting of German Romanticists. Could this be our connection to them? This staging of a landscape as an operatic event does not belong to the Romanticists alone. Stone Age man might have had a similar sense of inner landscapes …”
And yet despite these poetic sentiments, Herzog vehemently denies being a Romantic; rather, he defines his approach to nature as being similar to that of the artists of the late Middle Ages.
Ultimately, if one were to search for a theme that unites Werner Herzog’s diverse body of work, it would be that respect for human life and its limits is what holds us back from the brutality of amoral nature – the abyss into which humanity’s natural instincts might otherwise plunge. As Herzog told me, he is concerned above all with civilizational breakdown – with how humanity can abandon its own heights to descend into unfathomable depths of madness and annihilation. Equally importantly though, Herzog’s love of art, of literature, of joyful exploration of the world and its peoples points to a hopeful way out of the abyss and into the light of day.
Klaus Kinski treks into the Amazon in Herzog's "Aguirre: The Wrath of God."
Thus, in Part II of this interview, we tackle such colorful subjects as Herzog’s anti-romantic views on nature, why he can’t help ranting about Avatar, his excitement over his Rogue Film School (in which he teaches such crucial skills as “lock picking” and “neutralizing bureaucracy”), and his belief that Wrestlemania and reality TV offer vital clues to understanding civilization. The interview has been edited for length.
GM: There is this sense in all of your films, whether they’re historical dramas or contemporary documentaries, that you wish to explore the extremes. You go from examining the molecular world in scenes from Encounters at the End of the World to these broad vistas of Antarctica or the desert or the Himalayas in your other documentaries. Do you feel that you’re part of what could be termed the German Romantic tradition in terms of having this approach to nature – seeing it both as a place of danger and a place of inspiration?
WH: I think that’s a common misconception [that] I had an affinity to romantic culture – no I don’t. I do not feel much affinity with it. I don’t feel at home with it. I’m much closer to poets like Heinrich von Kleist, Georg Büchner who wrote Woyzeck – in the early 1820s he wrote literature that belonged to the early 20th century, that was almost like Expressionism. Or Hölderlin the poet, and he’s not a Romantic poet either. He’s somewhere completely unique. He’s like a continent of his own – not really comparable to other Romantic writers of his time…
And when you look at how I depict nature – wild nature for example in Grizzly Man, it’s quite evident that it’s a completely anti-Romantic view. Timothy Treadwell who was protecting bears and who was killed and eaten by a grizzly bear together with his girlfriend, he has this kind of watered down Romanticism … that’s what I’m completely against. I would stop the course of the film even and in my comment I would have an ongoing argument with Treadwell: “Here I differ from Treadwell.” I do not see wild nature as something benign and beautiful and the bears fluffy like little pets. No, they are dangerous and aggressive and nature itself looks rather chaotic and hostile. You look at the universe – it’s very, very hostile out there.
For example in Les Blanks’ Burden of Dreams I deliver a speech/rant about the jungle and you’ll never see anything so clearly against Romanticism and the romanticizing of landscapes, romanticizing of wild nature. … It’s funny because being a German everyone immediately thinks yeah yeah he must have an affinity with Romantic culture. No, I don’t.
GM: I think I see multiple sides to Romanticism. It’s such a complex movement. What I was thinking of was not so much the warm, romantic with a small ‘r’ approach to nature but the approach that sees it as terrifying and overwhelming. For example, even going back into 16th century German art I think of Albrecht Altdorfer with his landscapes towering over very small figures, or of Bruegel’s Landscape With the Fall of Icarus with the human figures very small in the distance, on through Caspar David-Friedrich’s work [in the early 19th century] where you have the two extremes – you either have humanity dwarfed by nature, as in The Monk on the Seashore or you have humanity standing titanic over nature, as in The Wanderer over the Sea of Clouds. So it was in that sense I was asking about nature. Your quote was very striking [in Burden of Dreams] where you mention the jungle as being “full of obscenity … nature here is vile and base.”
From Herzog's "Fitzcarraldo": Kinski in nature.
WH: Yeah. Obscenity – that was because Kinski kept saying everything is erotic. And he would hug a tree and fornicate with it. [Laughs] Which is really against my inner convictions.
GM: But this comment about the ‘harmony of overwhelming and collective murder’ – setting aside Kinski’s comments, is that how you would see that particular jungle, or nature in general?
WH: No, you would have to be a little bit cautious. It’s a rant ‘against’ the jungle, but it came at a time of enormous strain on me – weeks and weeks and weeks where there was every single day a major disaster. And when I speak of major disaster I mean disasters like two plane crashes. Two consecutive plane crashes, and on and on and on. So, yes you have to see it in the context. But otherwise, thinking about the jungle, it’s not completely wrong what I said. But the ferocity of the rant is in a way a result of enormous pressure of disasters one after the other. … And it’s OK, I still like my rant.
GM: It’s achieved a cult status on-line. People enjoy it a great deal.
By Joe Bendel. It has long been considered one of Shakespeare’s most divisive tragedies. Though academic appraisals remain quite mixed, Coriolanus always had its champions, including poet T.S. Eliot. As a result, there are few cinematic predecessors against which actor Ralph Fiennes directorial debut might be compared. In the Olivier-Branagh tradition, Fiennes also stars in his contemporary retelling of Coriolanus (trailer here), which begins a one week Oscar qualifying engagement in New York this Friday.
In a Balkan city that “calls itself Rome,” Caius Martius has earned the honorific title “Coriolanus” for his victory over the city-state’s bitter rival, the Volsces. At the behest of his proud mother Volumnia and her ally Senator Menenius, the general consents to campaign for the office of Consul. The approval of the Senate is assured, but Coriolanus’s candidacy must also be accepted by the masses. This is a taller order, especially given the officer’s refusal to pander to the lowest common denominator.
Nonetheless, with Menenius’s help, Coriolanus appears to win over the people. Yet just as quickly, the deceitful senators Brutus and Sicinius turn the crowd against him, with the help of a cadre of professional activists. Venting his outrage, Corilanus’s contempt for the fickle masses leads to his banishment. It also drives him to Volsces, where he makes common cause with his old nemesis, Tullus Aufidius. Dead to everything except his rage, Coriolanus will have his revenge in a manner befitting Shakespearean tragedy.
Given his abruptly shifting loyalties and his un-Shakespearean lack of introspection, Coriolanus is a difficult figure for many to get their heads around. However, Fiennes’ portrayal really unlocks his character. We can understand how his rigid conception of honor compels each action he takes. Despite Corilanus’s reticence, it is a big, seething performance of great physicality that commands viewer attention. Clearly this is a man of action, not given to soliloquizing.
This is definitely Shakespeare at his manliest (no tights or sonnets here, thank you very much). Indeed, Gerard Butler matches Fiennes’ testosterone as Aufidius, while Vanessa Redgrave nearly outdoes them both as Volumnia, the motherly Lady Macbeth. Yet the real soul of the film comes from the great Brian Cox as Menenius, whose humanity leads inexorably to pathos. Though a relatively small part, it is also interesting to see South African actor John Kani, who projects a suitably stately presence as Coriolanus’s former superior officer, General Cominius.
Shakespeare as exercise in machismo.
Though Fiennes’ effectively streamlined the film adaptation, it is also obvious why the original play troubles so many critics, given its scathing depiction of the Roman masses as no more than a weapon to be wielded by the unscrupulous. Frankly, in Coriolanus, “the people” get what they deserve. Indeed, the film comes at a time when it rather inconveniently begs comparison to uninformed masses occupying Zucotti Park.
An impressive directorial debut, Fiennes stages some vivid scenes of warfighting. His resetting of the story works more often than not, though the cable news flashes in Shakespearean English can be a bit jarring. Strikingly cinematic, the Belgrade locales also add the weight of contemporary historical tragedy, heightening the on-screen drama. One of the better recent Shakespearean films (considerably more satisfying than Taymor’s Tempest, for example), the unexpectedly timely Coriolanus is definitely worth seeing. It begins a special one week New York run for Academy Award consideration today (Friday, 12/2) and then opens more widely on January 20th.
Posted on December 2nd, 2011 at 10:56am.
By David Ross. Andrew Rossi’s Page One (2011), a sleek, self-important infomercial for The New York Times, largely involves Times partisans whining that the dinosaur carcass of the Gray Lady is being picked clean by the mammalian swarms of the new media. There are cursory nods to the Jayson Blair and Judith Miller scandals, but essentially nothing in the way of real introspection or self-criticism. The Times‘ complaint largely goes like this: “What kind of world fails to recognize the inherent nobility of our enterprise! O fallen mankind, repent your shallowness!”
Do these apologists have a point? To some extent, yes. As numerous interviewees stress, aggregators, bloggers, and citizen journalists cannot cover certain kinds of news. War zone coverage, international political coverage, and intensive daily coverage of the political process require expertise and institutional funding. These are not part-time callings, nor activities that can be undertaken on the cheap. Those who bay for the demise of the mainstream media have to take seriously that news does not coalesce out of the internet ether, as it seems to. It must be dug up, run down, and eye-witnessed as mortar rounds collapse the available ground cover. This ferreting process is crucially enabled by the kind institutional pressure that only billion-dollar media entities can exert. Foreign potentates and corporate barons do not return phone calls placed by self-proclaimed smart guys in their pajamas (e.g., us). Eliciting a response requires the veiled threat intrinsic to newspapers that are in their own way players on the world stage. News depends on credentialed news people in the traditional sense: this is reality, like it or not.
Michiko Kakutani.
On the other hand, the mainstream media, and the Times in particular, has done everything conceivable to hasten its own demise. The postmodern Times is a cavalcade of inaccuracy, omission, myopia, flagrant political bias, outrageously lousy writing, latent snobbery, and superficial urban sophistication. All the shallowness of the modern elite university has come home to roost at the Times. The worst offenders are surely the editorial sections (prose sinkhole) and the culture sections (lapdog of everything transgressive), but I reserve special ire for fellow Yalie Michiko Kakutani, the Pulitzer-winning book reviewer who’s done much to instantiate a self-important middle-browism as the default mode of the literary culture. The novelist Jonathan Franzen, for one, calls her “the “stupidest person in New York” and an “international embarrassment.” He continues, “Everyone in Europe says to me, “How can The New York Times let a person who is so patently tone deaf, who is so screechy rhetorically, so clearly unequipped to appreciate interesting books or even to enjoy them — how can that person be the lead reviewer?’” Kakutani had the chance to rise to a historical occasion following the suicide of Franzen’s friend David Foster Wallace in 2008. Her ‘appreciation’ (here) is pat and rote by turns, utterly nerveless, utterly unmoved or inspired by the circumstances. “Laugh-out-loud funny”? “Both brainy and visceral”? An opening quote from Robert Plant! Are these sophomoric clichés what the mighty New York Times has come to? Was ever an era’s chief writer so lazily eulogized by an era’s chief reviewer?
Basic points first. The Times is no longer dependable in terms of fact, grammar, or idiom (“whipping post” for “whipping boy” just this past week, as I happened to notice at the supermarket – and on the front page no less). Ponder the Onionesque aspect of this correction from July 22, 2009:
An appraisal on Saturday about Walter Cronkite’s career included a number of errors. In some copies, it misstated the date that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed and referred incorrectly to Mr. Cronkite’s coverage of D-Day. Dr. King was killed on April 4, 1968, not April 30.
Mr. Cronkite covered the D-Day landing from a warplane; he did not storm the beaches. In addition, Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon on July 20, 1969, not July 26. “The CBS Evening News” overtook “The Huntley-Brinkley Report” on NBC in the ratings during the 1967-68 television season, not after Chet Huntley retired in 1970.
A communications satellite used to relay correspondents’ reports from around the world was Telstar, not Telestar. Howard K. Smith was not one of the CBS correspondents Mr. Cronkite would turn to for reports from the field after he became anchor of “The CBS Evening News” in 1962; he left CBS before Mr. Cronkite was the anchor. Because of an editing error, the appraisal also misstated the name of the news agency for which Mr. Cronkite was Moscow bureau chief after World War II. At that time it was United Press, not United Press International.
How do you misstate the dates of the moon landing and MLK’s assassination in a single article? Don’t Times reporters have access to Wikipedia? Was the reporter in a condition of drunken mania? Were the editors? At The New Haven Register, where I spent four years as a cub reporter, three corrections within memory were enough to get one fired. Five-plus corrections in a single article would have been beyond anybody’s worst nightmare. The night desk’s sleepiest, rummiest old coot would have caught at least some of the above errata (MLK, moon landing, Telstar). I had to acknowledge perhaps three or four factual mistakes in my four-year career. Each was a humiliation, entailing a stern lecture and a day or two of frowns.
By Joe Bendel. It was hard being part of Romania’s Saxon minority, particularly in the immediate post-war years. Emboldened by the Soviet suppression of the Hungarian Revolution, the Romanian Communists began targeting the German-speaking minority. Though as a group they were disproportionately anti-Communist (and for good reason), this was not the case for young leftwing student Felix Goldschmidt. His lengthy imprisonment, interrogation, and trial testimony are dramatized in Radu Gabrea’s Red Gloves (trailer here), which screens today (Thursday, 12/1) during the 2011 Romanian Film Festival, presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Romanian Cultural Institute.
Goldschmidt tried to believe the excesses of Romania’s so-called “obsessive decade” were an aberration that would soon give way to true socialism. He also craved acceptance. That would be more than enough for his interrogators to work with. In truth, Goldschmidt’s politics were a little slippery. He had associated with several nonconformist elements, but his relationship with them was somewhat ambiguous. In particular, he claims to resent the now banned author Hugo Huegel for stealing his girlfriend, but viewers witness decidedly intimate scenes shared by the two men.
Frankly, Goldschmidt is fairly wishy-washy, which makes him more vulnerable to the tactics of his captors. He seems especially eager to please the German speaking Major Blau, yet for a time he resists denouncing his friends and colleagues. Still, even a strong personality can only hold out for so long—and Goldschmidt is not such a man.
Based on fact, but adapted from the novel by Enginald Schlattner, a Saxon-Romanian Lutheran pastor, Gloves is a deeply and pervasively tragic film. Arguably, Gabrea has become something akin to Romania’s cinematic conscience, having helmed a adaptation of a previous Schlattner Saxon-Romanian novel – as well as the Holocaust-themed drama Gruber’s Journey – and documentaries about Romania’s Yiddish cultural legacy.
From "Red Gloves."
With Gloves, Gabrea focuses squarely on the interrogation process, vividly portraying the breakdown of Goldschmidt’s soul. Though there are frequent subsidiary flashbacks within the main narrative flashback, it is all a bit stage-like, featuring its cast of characters in a confined setting. Yet it is an effective arena to explore the terrors of Romania’s communist past, particularly through the hard insights offered by a former judge and a priest who briefly share Goldschmidt’s cell.
Though it is essentially by design, Goldschmidt is still a rather hollow figure nonetheless, never really brought to life by Alexandru Mihaescu. In contrast, Udo Schenk is absolutely electric as Blau. He deserves to be an internationally star, but the SS and Communist officers he has played for Gabrea are difficult to embrace, despite the screen charisma he brings to them.
Bitterly ironic and brutally honest, Gabrea’s film is—to use a loaded term from Gloves—a “cathartic” work. It is also a high quality period production that might come as a welcome respite to patrons tiring of the Romanian New Wave aesthetic, even with its grim subject matter. Respectfully recommended, it screens Thursday night (12/1) during the 2011 Romanian Film Festival at the Walter Reade Theater.
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German poster for "Danube Waves."
Given Romania’s shifting positions during WWII, it was a bit tricky setting a Communist-era propaganda film during that time, but the recently deceased Liviu Ciulei managed to do just that. For his second feature, the renowned theater director combined Casablanca with Wages of Fear, adding a pinch of Party propaganda for seasoning. A ripping tale of war and intrigue, Ciulei’s Danube Waves screens as part of the sidebar tribute to the filmmaker at the 2011 Romanian Film Festival, presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Romanian Cultural Institute.
Mihai is barge captain who does not trouble himself over politics. Nor is he much concerned about the poor substitutes for sailors he forces to sweep for mines. He just wants to get home to his young wife Ana. Though expendable crewmen are getting harder to recruit, the Germans are willing to provide a prisoner for his use. He chooses Toma, because the supposed criminal is certainly able-bodied and claims to have served on a ship before.
However, Ana can tell right away Toma does not know port from starboard, but he is a quick enough study to fool Mihai. Suspecting he is more than a common thief, a conspicuous sexual tension develops between Toma and Ana that Mihai deals with through heavy drinking as the barge loaded with German arms approaches a known minefield. Continue reading »
[Editor's Note: Cyril Tuschi's Khodorkovsky is available free in its entirety at Vimeo.]
By Joe Bendel. Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder is now the chief lobbyist for Russian energy concerns. It may explain his less than vigorous interest in the political persecution of Mikhail Khodokorvsky, the chairman of the Yukos Oil Company and a leading bankroller of Russian opposition parties. It certainly helps explain how the Putin regime does business. Unfortunately, not even eight billion (with a “b”) dollars could protect Khodorkovsky from Kremlin persecution. German filmmaker Cyril Tuschi examines both the man and the dubious case brought against him in Khodorkovsky, which opens tonight in New York at Film Forum.
As any Russia watcher knows, Khodorkovsky is complicated individual. He was once an ardent Communist, which is how he was allowed to take control of Yukos during the fixed privatization process. He was not just an oligarch, he was the worst of the lot by any standard of open corporate governance. At this time, he enjoyed close relations with the Kremlin. Around the turn of the millennium, he radically changed the Yukos corporate culture, embracing openness and capitalism. He also started supporting democratic reformers. He is now serving a prison sentence in Siberia, as the result of what Schröder reportedly called “a thing between men.”
Though fascinating and not a little bit scary, this basic story is all well documented. However, Tuschi uncovers new (or criminally under-reported) information (particularly regarding the suspicious murder of a provincial mayor making trouble for Yukos) and scores legitimate interviews with Khodorkovsky himself, mostly conducted via letters but also hurriedly shot in between sessions of the Siberian kangaroo court. Aside from his subject, Tuschi also talks on camera to almost all of Khodorkovsky’s close associates not currently behind Russian bars, notably including his insightful early business advisor, Christian Michel, as well as a surprising number of Russian officials.
Tuschi’s German perspective hardly burnishes the former Chancellor’s image, but it gives the film an intriguing twist. He also includes dramatic black-and-white animated interludes that unmistakably evoke the Orwellian nature of the Khodorkovsky case. A classy package, Arvo Pärt’s fourth symphony, which he dedicated to Khodorkovsky, serves as the film’s soundtrack. Even Tuschi’s commentary is rather sharp. About all that is missing is a happy ending. Indeed, the documentarian had to know he was onto something when his laptop containing the film’s final edit was “mysteriously” stolen from his home.
Frankly, Tuschi’s documentary is timely beyond the prosecution of Khodorkovsky, reminding audiences wealth cannot provide a lasting defense against a government wielding unchecked power, as the case in neo-Soviet Russia. In fact, the circumstances of his imprisonment are so egregious, Milan Horáček, the German Green Party Human Rights delegate to the European Parliament, adopted his cause, stating unequivocally: “One can’t distinguish between human rights for the young, old, poor or rich.”
More documentaries should aspire to be like Khodorkovsky. Never smug or snarky, it is a bold, and sometimes artful film that truly challenges the powerful, An important and engrossing work of big-screen journalism, it is highly recommended when it opens tonight (Wednesday, 11/30) in New York at Film Forum, with Tuschi scheduled to attend the 7:50 screening.
Posted on November 30th, 2011 at 11:42am.
By Jason Apuzzo. We like to periodically put a spotlight on short films here at Libertas, and this recent short film above called “The Arab Spring” caught my eye over at Vimeo. The film is essentially an abstract representation of the historic events of the Arab Spring, and is quite polished in terms of its graphic design and sound. Take a look. We wish filmmaker Raoul Marks the best with it.
[UPDATE: The filmmaker has made the decision to remove the film from Vimeo. See the comments from filmmaker Raoul Marks in the comments section below.]
[UPDATE #2: The film is now back up, with a minor alteration.]
Posted on November 30th, 2011 at 11:40am.
