I'm weary of the nights I've seen inside these empty halls - Jackson Browne
Over the last few days, since walking out of Reign Over Me, my mind has drifted through the past. Gin Rummy with Dave. Luther’s rib night with Sam. Madden ’92 (and ’93 and ‘94) with Kevin and Chris. The X-Files and Spades with Brien, Erik, and Kyle. The Bayou Kitchen with Jeff. Lupie’s, or the gym, or jogging, or a hundred other things with Brett. These are just a few of the friends that have walked through my paths, and some of the things that we did together.
At the core, I don’t think these kinds of associations are wrong when engaging Reign Over Me, because at its core, the movie is a reflection on the healing power of friendship. It introduces us to two men, Alan Johnson and Charlie Fineman, and lets us see the tender place their friendship has in each other’s lives.
Alan Johnson is a man that we have seen before. He’s making his way in his 40’s and is hitting his professional stride. A dentist, he has a successful Manhattan practice, a beautiful wife, and a kid that seems well-adjusted. He’s playing life at the top of his game, and of course, is completely bored with the whole experience. Alan isn’t really facing a midlife crises so much as a midlife malaise, an inability to look within and find what’s wrong when all around him seems to be going so well.
And so Charlie comes into his life. His old college roommate, Alan sees Charlie one night and tries to run him down. He doesn’t, but then sees him again, and so they reestablish their connection. It’s an odd reunion, as the Charlie he meets is a shadow of his old self, lost in a world of grief after losing his family in 9/11. Now, he is a true eccentric, spending his days constantly remodeling his kitchen, playing video games and music, and surrounding himself with his ever-expanding LP collection.
This is “Charlie World,” and for all the plot points that Reign Over Me works through, “Charlie World” is its strength. It is in this world that we get to dwell with these two men, ably played by Don Cheadle and Adam Sandler, as they fight through Charlie’s erratic madness and his inability to rebuild his life to forge a new friendship.
While the movie centers around Charlie, its success is driven in large part because it successfully develops Alan as a fully orbed character. Alan looks to Charlie with charitable eyes, but the reality is that Alan needs Charlie too. Alan loses himself in “Charlie World,” rediscovering pleasure he had long forgotten in evenings playing video games, laughing at Mel Brooks movies, and jamming to Bruce Springsteen records. For Alan, the drive of career and the responsibilities of family had left him forgetting a part of himself, and it is somewhere in the pleasures of these evenings that he starts to remember.
The movie walks a fine line, because the pieces that help Alan rediscover himself are things that could just as easily derail a man in his place. I doubt most readers think of a video game junkie, an obsessive collector, or a movie hound as the stereotype of a well-adjusted adult male. In fact, it is these very pieces that are Charlie’s escapes from reality, the fantasy world he is able to build up around himself to run from the pain that the real world gave him.
But these tools work for Alan, because in the end they aren’t the real salvation. His salvation is found in the redemptive work of real friendship. Alan’s world, with a good career and a great family was incomplete because of a lack of real male friendship. It is through his journey with Charlie that he is able to understand the ways in which he was running his life largely on autopilot, retreating into self-pity and pulling away from the very people he loved most. Charlie spent his life running away from grief, while Alan spent his running away from boredom. They needed each other to figure out how to engage the world again. The friendship that they forge is built on a healthy investment of fun time together, not on a forced and artificial intimacy that is disconnected from the basic pleasures they find in living.
Watching the movie, I was reminded of Fight Club and Lord of the Rings, two movies that have this constant theme of male friendship, as well as Wild at Heart, a book by John Eldredge that deals with “rediscovering the heart” of Christian men. When Eldredge’s book was published, I knew of a few men that misread his work and decided that they needed to spend their weekends rock-climbing to capture the essence of Christian “manliness.” I don’t think that’s what Eldredge was saying, anymore than Fight Club was an invitation to have spontaneous brawls or Lord of the Rings was an invitation to dress in elven cloaks and run to the woods. But the misinterpretations that each of these works brought about only drive home how elusive this concept of friendship, and particularly male friendship, can be.
We are a nation of lonely men. The solitary nature of our work and commuting lives, the declining number of close friendships outside of the family, and the isolating nature of our technologies, leaves far too many of us without real companionship. And no matter how strong our marriages can be, or how devoted we can be to our families, the absence of real male friendship is a hole in our lives for which there is no real substitute.
My favorite moment in Reign Over Me came in a small conversation towards the beginning of an otherwise uneven and derailing third act. While the movie itself started to doubt its own convictions about this larger theme, as it attempted to solve all of the problems in a formulaic and broad manner, it gives us this small conversation between Alan and Charlie. Alan is playing the role of tender friend, speaking with candor about some of his own frustrations with his own life before turning to Charlie’s problems, probing for a way to help his friend. Charlie, looking down and giving a classic Sandler wry grin, says “Man, I’m more worried about you.”
Did you hear that? Charlie, who threw the rest of his life away when tragedy took its best parts, is more worried about his friend who has the success and family that are miles away from Charlie’s life. The success of the movie, though, is that his statement rings true. Friendship does that, making us care more about the other guy than we do about ourselves.
Jesus himself said that the greatest love we can have is to “lay down our lives for our friends.” His vision, a vision which Reign Over Me echoes in the palest of fashions, is that of a self-denying love, a love that finds its greatest satisfaction in the well-being of the other person.
I walked out of the movie (alone, appropriately enough) with a sense of gratitude for the friends that have made their way through my paths, some for a season and some for a lifetime. I miss them, and am reminded that the gadgets that pervade my existence, the priority of family and ministry, and the tyranny of busyness, schedules, traffic and excuses must not keep me from pursuing that basic need for male friendship, a need for which there is simply no substitute.
Anyone up for barbecue?
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Thursday, March 15, 2007
300: A Review
300 is a difficult movie to review. I got into the experience, which is primarily a 2 hour testosterone-fueled adventure. Perhaps the most faithful response to the experience would be to simply offer a pronounced, guttural roar and move on. Certainly that response would be consistent with the intent of the marketing machine behind the movie, and perhaps of the director’s purposes.
The source material for 300 is a graphic novel by Frank Miller, a beloved comic book artist turned film director. That the movie grounds itself in the graphic novel rather than the famous Battle of Thermopylae, where a Spartan-led small army held off the Persian army for days, is significant to understand the movie’s ways. Miller made a name for himself in the world of graphic novels (read “comic books” for the less sympathetic) as a master of mood, drawing people into his worlds and stories through visceral art that captured the imagination, at times regardless of the strength of the story he was telling. This emphasis on the visual, a major reason why the comic book medium itself translates well into blockbuster films, comes through in 300. The movie is exciting storytelling, building on the fascinating and unique images from Miller’s work, much like Miller and Robert Rodriguez accomplished in the masterful Sin City, but expanding on the novel with a more interesting back story and character than the book originally offered.
That being said, historians will no doubt scoff at the picture. The movie takes huge liberties with the events themselves, the characters who played a part, and the cultures in view. Indeed, it is this last part that is currently catching the world’s attention, as the Iranian press proclaimed that “Hollywood declares war on Iran” through its depiction of the Persian Empire and its king. For those who have a love for history or an affinity for the cultures that are this movie’s villains, there are a lot of toes to step on, and 300 dances away.
But 300 doesn’t dance on these toes merely to offend, as these realities are a byproduct of the efforts to turn the participants in the Battle of Thermopylae into caricatures of heroes and villains. The Spartans are intensely devoted and passionate warriors, creating a culture that is perfectly geared to fight. King Leonidas, our film’s hero, is a passionate idealist, devoted to the freedom of Sparta and to his wife and child. His sacrifice, and the sacrifice of the other 300, is centered around their fight for freedom, for the triumph of “rationalism” over “mysticism.” The heroes of 300 wear no warts, and present a courage that is as sculpted as their bodies.
The villains also are as simple to understand. The Persian army is literally held up on the backs of slaves. Xerxes, the giant God-King, draped in gold and speaking with a thundering bass voice, reminds us of this as he steps on the slaves heads and backs as he walks down his “stairs” to meet Leonidas. Sexuality becomes one of the ways 300 depicts good and evil, as the Persians offer a decadent culture with apparent widespread homosexuality. One of the Spartans even makes reference to the Athenian “boy-lovers,” presenting us with the Spartans as the one noble, and heterosexual, culture. This, too, is a complete change from the historical realities for the Spartan culture. But this isn’t about their culture anymore. It is about ours.
What makes a hero? This is a question that could be asked of many movies, and especially of the summer, blockbuster fare (of which this movie fits in extraordinarily well). For 300, that answer lies in the clarity of conviction, in a courage to stand, in passionate love within monogamous (and apparently, heterosexual) relationships. Within Sparta, evil is found in the mystics who rely on superstition (that is, religion) rather than logic, in politicians who use their power to pursue their own ends at the expense of their people, and a deformed traitor who refuses to accept his place supporting the Spartan army.
These are clear lines that I expect many would resonate with, so long as it is not their own ancient culture that is the object of the caricature. These clear lines and defined roles make for enjoyable movie-viewing. It is fun at times to escape into a world where the lines between hero and villain are so easy to see, and all that is left is for the hero to draw the only line that he can draw. This is unambiguous and a place where good can triumph before the credits roll.
The Iranian response to the film, misguided though it may be, is a reminder of the limits of this hero’s journey. The reality that we live in rarely offers the kind of clarity that 300 depicts. The mistake comes when we attempt to draw the untextured reality of a world like this and bring it into our own world. Our current political climate, which seems to be sustained on polarization and radically simplified analysis of the world, commits this exact kind of mistake every day, as it asks us to divide the world into heroes and villains, to see the issues we face with a black-and-white clarity, and to stand firm against the evil that we face.
It is not that I disagree with this last value, only that I question my clarity on the first two. I want the kind of courage, loyalty, and heroic faith that Leonidas and the heroes of 300 embody. But I want to bring that character into a world where the politics are complex, and where my personal call is to love my enemies and to demonstrate to the world the love of God through the love that I have for other people. The “cowboy” hero, which is what the 300 hero embodies, has little room for these kinds of values, and so my search for heroism must go deeper, and will look different, than the heroes that emerge from the vivid world of the big screen. It is not, then, that 300 fails, in fact in many ways it is a great success. It is only that is asking questions that need deeper answers than what it is prepared to offer. Some of our answers will be written with periods rather than exclamation points, and most won't need a roar to accompany them.
The source material for 300 is a graphic novel by Frank Miller, a beloved comic book artist turned film director. That the movie grounds itself in the graphic novel rather than the famous Battle of Thermopylae, where a Spartan-led small army held off the Persian army for days, is significant to understand the movie’s ways. Miller made a name for himself in the world of graphic novels (read “comic books” for the less sympathetic) as a master of mood, drawing people into his worlds and stories through visceral art that captured the imagination, at times regardless of the strength of the story he was telling. This emphasis on the visual, a major reason why the comic book medium itself translates well into blockbuster films, comes through in 300. The movie is exciting storytelling, building on the fascinating and unique images from Miller’s work, much like Miller and Robert Rodriguez accomplished in the masterful Sin City, but expanding on the novel with a more interesting back story and character than the book originally offered.
That being said, historians will no doubt scoff at the picture. The movie takes huge liberties with the events themselves, the characters who played a part, and the cultures in view. Indeed, it is this last part that is currently catching the world’s attention, as the Iranian press proclaimed that “Hollywood declares war on Iran” through its depiction of the Persian Empire and its king. For those who have a love for history or an affinity for the cultures that are this movie’s villains, there are a lot of toes to step on, and 300 dances away.
But 300 doesn’t dance on these toes merely to offend, as these realities are a byproduct of the efforts to turn the participants in the Battle of Thermopylae into caricatures of heroes and villains. The Spartans are intensely devoted and passionate warriors, creating a culture that is perfectly geared to fight. King Leonidas, our film’s hero, is a passionate idealist, devoted to the freedom of Sparta and to his wife and child. His sacrifice, and the sacrifice of the other 300, is centered around their fight for freedom, for the triumph of “rationalism” over “mysticism.” The heroes of 300 wear no warts, and present a courage that is as sculpted as their bodies.
The villains also are as simple to understand. The Persian army is literally held up on the backs of slaves. Xerxes, the giant God-King, draped in gold and speaking with a thundering bass voice, reminds us of this as he steps on the slaves heads and backs as he walks down his “stairs” to meet Leonidas. Sexuality becomes one of the ways 300 depicts good and evil, as the Persians offer a decadent culture with apparent widespread homosexuality. One of the Spartans even makes reference to the Athenian “boy-lovers,” presenting us with the Spartans as the one noble, and heterosexual, culture. This, too, is a complete change from the historical realities for the Spartan culture. But this isn’t about their culture anymore. It is about ours.
What makes a hero? This is a question that could be asked of many movies, and especially of the summer, blockbuster fare (of which this movie fits in extraordinarily well). For 300, that answer lies in the clarity of conviction, in a courage to stand, in passionate love within monogamous (and apparently, heterosexual) relationships. Within Sparta, evil is found in the mystics who rely on superstition (that is, religion) rather than logic, in politicians who use their power to pursue their own ends at the expense of their people, and a deformed traitor who refuses to accept his place supporting the Spartan army.
These are clear lines that I expect many would resonate with, so long as it is not their own ancient culture that is the object of the caricature. These clear lines and defined roles make for enjoyable movie-viewing. It is fun at times to escape into a world where the lines between hero and villain are so easy to see, and all that is left is for the hero to draw the only line that he can draw. This is unambiguous and a place where good can triumph before the credits roll.
The Iranian response to the film, misguided though it may be, is a reminder of the limits of this hero’s journey. The reality that we live in rarely offers the kind of clarity that 300 depicts. The mistake comes when we attempt to draw the untextured reality of a world like this and bring it into our own world. Our current political climate, which seems to be sustained on polarization and radically simplified analysis of the world, commits this exact kind of mistake every day, as it asks us to divide the world into heroes and villains, to see the issues we face with a black-and-white clarity, and to stand firm against the evil that we face.
It is not that I disagree with this last value, only that I question my clarity on the first two. I want the kind of courage, loyalty, and heroic faith that Leonidas and the heroes of 300 embody. But I want to bring that character into a world where the politics are complex, and where my personal call is to love my enemies and to demonstrate to the world the love of God through the love that I have for other people. The “cowboy” hero, which is what the 300 hero embodies, has little room for these kinds of values, and so my search for heroism must go deeper, and will look different, than the heroes that emerge from the vivid world of the big screen. It is not, then, that 300 fails, in fact in many ways it is a great success. It is only that is asking questions that need deeper answers than what it is prepared to offer. Some of our answers will be written with periods rather than exclamation points, and most won't need a roar to accompany them.
Zodiac: A Review
There is a moment later in the movie Zodiac where Robert Graysmith, the political cartoonist turned self-appointed investigator, ably played by Jake Gyllenhaal, shows up at the home of Inspector David Toschi, played by Mark Ruffalo. Energetically offering ideas and asking questions about the investigation of a serial killer now several years stale, he is rebuffed by the detective, who asks him if he knows how many murders have been committed in the San Francisco area since the Zodiac killer’s last murder. “Hundreds,” the inspector answers his own question. Hundreds of grieving families. Hundreds of killers to bring to justice. Hundreds of cases with the same degree of importance as the case that both fascinates, then consumes, then haunts these men. Why, then, should they continue to chase trails that grow ever colder in pursuit of a resolution that may never be found?
This is the question that stands at the center of David Finch’s exceptional Zodiac. Having offered a genre-defining psychological exploration of a serial killer in Seven, he returns to the genre years later with a radically different approach. Moving away from the dark mood and the seedy world that inhabited his earlier effort, he instead offers us a way into a vibrant and energetic San Francisco of the late ‘60’s. The characters he brings to life on screen must be an actor’s dream, offering rich variety and texture. From the flamboyant and self-destructive reporter Paul Avery, played by Robert Downey, Jr., to Graysmith’s clean-cut family man and quiet cartoonist, to the detectives each filled with personality. These are generally likeable people, who come to the case with their own interests and objectives, their own histories, each to be molded by a case that will never be solved.
It is this last fact that will shape much of the response to the film. I’m not spoiling anything, mind you, or at least it isn’t the kind of spoiler that should count. I still laugh at the friend who walked out of Titanic and said to his friend, “I’m glad they finally sunk that ship,” only to have a patron in line shout, “Thanks for telling us!” You’re on notice when you’re dealing with history, and your own wiki-research, if not your own knowledge of the events, will quickly turn up that no one was ever charged in the cases that are the subject of the movie. Fincher takes a particular spin on this case, and that I won’t spoil, but he doesn’t abandon entirely the futility and madness that must define this case.
Instead, what he offers us is a long tale that slowly draws in person after person, all having their own season of fascination at the case’s mysteries. Early on, we see vivid portrayals of two of the murders. Their violence isn’t gratuitous, but they are excruciating to watch. In taking us through this, he captivates our attention as much as the people who became consumed with the case. Tossing back and forth between the investigation of the San Francisco Chronicle, the paper who received the killer’s letters, and the detectives who inherited the case when the killer turned his attention to San Francisco, we are never invited to settle on a single hero, but instead walk through various perspectives, each person finding their own end of futility.
The experiences of these different players struck me vividly and personally. I can remember, working as a prosecutor, the first time I saw a judge work his way to a wildly incorrect decision (it only took about a week on the job to see this). Watching the defendant walk out the back door when he should have been taken away in cuffs was absolutely dumbfounding. Of course, seeing things like that happen on a near daily basis, the shock grew muted, which may not have been a good thing. That “adjustment,” though, was the common coping mechanism I witnessed among most who lived and worked inside the system. Indeed, it was a survival skill that they had to have to come back to work the next day.
Zodiac has its share of these kinds of people, those who have a realistic perspective on the limits of the system and of their own abilities to ascertain and expose truth. I was impressed that Fincher was able to bring this to bear with a relatively uncynical eye, something I rarely could do in my own time as an insider. But he also provides us with the bystander’s view, through Gyllenhaal, who is driven to find truth without the incentive of career or acclaim. Indeed, as Avery points out to him early in the movie, he is the one “hero” in the movie that has no “angle” to be involved in the case.
In this sense, then Gyllenhaal is the voice for most of us who stand outside of the world of crime and must only read about it, or watch the cleanup efforts on television. As we see evil come before us, there is an innate cry for justice, and what we expect from those insiders, as we should, is their own best efforts to pursue the ends of justice, with all the complexities that that entails.
And here is where the movie succeeds most. It draws us into the madness of world of crime and the intricacies of the world of evidence and investigation, and then lets us experience in some way the frustration that insiders see every day. At the end of the day, injustice reigned because the system just couldn’t find the killer. No evil judge, or incompetent jury, no sadistic cop, or prejudiced prosecutor killed this case. All of those things may happen, but here, the limits were experienced mainly by people who were depicted as competent and conscientious, dedicated to their jobs and serious about finding the killer. They just couldn’t do it.
The reality of our world is that we will know injustice. We will see it, and if we aren’t seeing it, it is probably simply because we are closing our eyes. The best system that we can assemble, and ours is far from that, will not be able to change all of the realities of injustice. Just as we will always have the poor with us, we will always have injustice with us. And so, like Zodiac, the impulses that drive the Toschis and the Graysmiths to lay down their lives in the pursuit of truth and justice will necessarily encounter an ellipse when that search is confined to this life. We know injustice in the end because the source of Justice has not made His final move. And until He does, we will know more of these long journeys that offer only an unsatisfying ending.
This is the question that stands at the center of David Finch’s exceptional Zodiac. Having offered a genre-defining psychological exploration of a serial killer in Seven, he returns to the genre years later with a radically different approach. Moving away from the dark mood and the seedy world that inhabited his earlier effort, he instead offers us a way into a vibrant and energetic San Francisco of the late ‘60’s. The characters he brings to life on screen must be an actor’s dream, offering rich variety and texture. From the flamboyant and self-destructive reporter Paul Avery, played by Robert Downey, Jr., to Graysmith’s clean-cut family man and quiet cartoonist, to the detectives each filled with personality. These are generally likeable people, who come to the case with their own interests and objectives, their own histories, each to be molded by a case that will never be solved.
It is this last fact that will shape much of the response to the film. I’m not spoiling anything, mind you, or at least it isn’t the kind of spoiler that should count. I still laugh at the friend who walked out of Titanic and said to his friend, “I’m glad they finally sunk that ship,” only to have a patron in line shout, “Thanks for telling us!” You’re on notice when you’re dealing with history, and your own wiki-research, if not your own knowledge of the events, will quickly turn up that no one was ever charged in the cases that are the subject of the movie. Fincher takes a particular spin on this case, and that I won’t spoil, but he doesn’t abandon entirely the futility and madness that must define this case.
Instead, what he offers us is a long tale that slowly draws in person after person, all having their own season of fascination at the case’s mysteries. Early on, we see vivid portrayals of two of the murders. Their violence isn’t gratuitous, but they are excruciating to watch. In taking us through this, he captivates our attention as much as the people who became consumed with the case. Tossing back and forth between the investigation of the San Francisco Chronicle, the paper who received the killer’s letters, and the detectives who inherited the case when the killer turned his attention to San Francisco, we are never invited to settle on a single hero, but instead walk through various perspectives, each person finding their own end of futility.
The experiences of these different players struck me vividly and personally. I can remember, working as a prosecutor, the first time I saw a judge work his way to a wildly incorrect decision (it only took about a week on the job to see this). Watching the defendant walk out the back door when he should have been taken away in cuffs was absolutely dumbfounding. Of course, seeing things like that happen on a near daily basis, the shock grew muted, which may not have been a good thing. That “adjustment,” though, was the common coping mechanism I witnessed among most who lived and worked inside the system. Indeed, it was a survival skill that they had to have to come back to work the next day.
Zodiac has its share of these kinds of people, those who have a realistic perspective on the limits of the system and of their own abilities to ascertain and expose truth. I was impressed that Fincher was able to bring this to bear with a relatively uncynical eye, something I rarely could do in my own time as an insider. But he also provides us with the bystander’s view, through Gyllenhaal, who is driven to find truth without the incentive of career or acclaim. Indeed, as Avery points out to him early in the movie, he is the one “hero” in the movie that has no “angle” to be involved in the case.
In this sense, then Gyllenhaal is the voice for most of us who stand outside of the world of crime and must only read about it, or watch the cleanup efforts on television. As we see evil come before us, there is an innate cry for justice, and what we expect from those insiders, as we should, is their own best efforts to pursue the ends of justice, with all the complexities that that entails.
And here is where the movie succeeds most. It draws us into the madness of world of crime and the intricacies of the world of evidence and investigation, and then lets us experience in some way the frustration that insiders see every day. At the end of the day, injustice reigned because the system just couldn’t find the killer. No evil judge, or incompetent jury, no sadistic cop, or prejudiced prosecutor killed this case. All of those things may happen, but here, the limits were experienced mainly by people who were depicted as competent and conscientious, dedicated to their jobs and serious about finding the killer. They just couldn’t do it.
The reality of our world is that we will know injustice. We will see it, and if we aren’t seeing it, it is probably simply because we are closing our eyes. The best system that we can assemble, and ours is far from that, will not be able to change all of the realities of injustice. Just as we will always have the poor with us, we will always have injustice with us. And so, like Zodiac, the impulses that drive the Toschis and the Graysmiths to lay down their lives in the pursuit of truth and justice will necessarily encounter an ellipse when that search is confined to this life. We know injustice in the end because the source of Justice has not made His final move. And until He does, we will know more of these long journeys that offer only an unsatisfying ending.
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