They say that comedy involves risk. For Shoot ‘Em Up, that risk first comes to us as Smith, our “hero,” has to use a gunshot to sever an umbilical cord after helping a woman give birth in the middle of a gunfight. Hope you set your steel will in place for this one.
Smith is sitting at a bus stop when a pregnant woman runs by him, fleeing from some tough looking characters. Reluctantly, Smith comes to her aid, taking on the strangers and trying to rescue the woman. He fails, and the woman is killed shortly after the birth. With the newborn in his arms and having no real understanding as to what is going on, Smith determines to keep the child away from the bad guys.
I’m not sure that everyone who sees Shoot ‘Em Up will perceive it as a comedy, but it’s about the only thing that makes the film palatable. Standing in the tradition of Quentin Tarrantino (I’ll leave the question of whether it is a “grand” tradition in your hands), who himself was echoing John Woo and a long line of Hong Kong cinema, Shoot ‘Em Up is a satirical action movie that prides itself in capturing the absurd. It takes a classic American action setup - the lone action hero, drawn into a battle he can’t win, finds a way to overcome through grit and determination - and stretches it as far as it can. The action sequences have a lyrical quality, serving as a kind of ballet for alpha males. Even the obligatory female sidekick, this time a “fetish” prostitute with her own bizarre business, stretches stereotypes to the limit. It eventually draws us into an even more absurd political plot that makes Watergate look like shoplifting penny candy at a drug store.
For all of its grand action, the movie is kept more captivating than it deserves because of the great actors involve. Clive Owen, playing the hero “Smith,” shows the dark hero that will be familiar to fans of Sin City, while Paul Giamatti plays a truly despicable villain in Hertz. Owen gives us an understated performance, which contrasts well with Giamiatti’s broad performance. Between the two of them, we are drawn into their dance, “enjoying” an intense and fascinatingly bizarre ride.
Shoot ‘Em Up could serve as an easy escape for fans of extreme action film, but what is a Christian to do with this kind of exploration of violence? Like the Kill Bill series, this film explores the world of extreme action cinema, but Shoot ‘Em Up doesn’t wear its social commentary on its sleeve. Unlike Kill Bill, it sustains its sense as a revenge fantasy throughout, and to the uncritical eye, one could walk away from the film with a sense of affirmation of the extreme violence that it has explored. For this reason alone, many would reject the film outright.
The problem that Shoot ‘Em Up has is that it isn’t cleanly drawn. Yes, it’s a satire, but a satire of what? The extreme action genre? American violent entertainment? We’re not sure, and as the political plot unfolds, it is increasingly clear why. It’s hard to define what’s in view in the satire because in the end everything is in view in the satire. Nothing is sacred. Nothing is worthy of admiration. Like the Ecclesiastes writer, everything is meaningless.
I’m reminded of Jim, the bully from The Simpsons. After making some snide remark, a friend asks him, “Dude, are you being sarcastic?” He hangs his head and responds, “I don’t even know anymore.” Shoot ‘Em Up is an enjoyable entertainment as far as it goes, but as it pushes the absurd, with less art and style than a more capable director like Tarantino might exercise, it runs the risk of exhausting itself on its own cynicism. The great tradition of satire and absurd comedy works best when it offers a constructive alternative to the institutions or way of life that it cuts down. Shoot ‘Em Up has no idea how to go to that place.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
3:10 to Yuma: A Review
During a couple of summers in college, I felt the lure of the West. Whether it was hiking in Colorado and Utah, or just making the amazing drive along the Tetons or across Montana, the West represented, and represents, a place for healing and renewal, a place with no memory and the promise of tomorrow. Over the years, many trips out there, now more often for snowboarding than backpacking, have proven to be just the kind of healing moments I have needed.
Because of that deep love I have for the West in my own story, I’m particularly intrigued to see Hollywood do its best to revive the Western genre this fall. 3:10 to Yuma is the first of several to come, and if Yuma is any indicator, we’re in for a treat. This is a remake of a 1957 classic starring Glenn Ford, and if you’re going to remake a classic, you would be hard pressed to find a better duo than Christian Bale and Russell Crowe, two of the very finest out there today. They deliver fine performances that are the centerpiece of this interesting drama.
Bale plays Dan Evans, a Union veteran and partial amputee who has made his way to Arizona with his family to make a new start as a rancher. Suffering under a brutal drought, he has buried himself in a debt to a local landowner who is set on getting Evans’ property out from under him to sell it to the railroad. He is a man without allies, fighting to survive in a harsh world where everyone is using his back as a stepping stone to bigger things.
While riding to town to deal with his debt, he comes across Ben Wade, a notorious outlaw who is in the process of robbing a stagecoach. Evans’ survives his encounter with Wade and his gang, and continues on to town, only to find that Wade has beat him there. The gang is in process of throwing the sheriff off their trail, but Wade shows his weakness, delaying because of a woman, allowing them to capture him. A representative of the railroad company, who was the victim of the robbery, recruits several people to take Wade to a nearby town, where he must make a prison train that is coming through the next day. Short several men, they recruit Evans to accompany them, giving him the chance to make some desperately needed cash.
It is a somewhat convoluted setup, but what it leaves us with is a long trail ride for Evans and Wade to interact. They are fascinating characters, defying many of our stereotypes from Westerns. Wade is certainly a villain, but he is also a charmer, drawing Evans’ wife to declare that he is “not what [she] expected.” His charm and engaging conversation could easily leave one disarmed, feeling safe around him. He takes advantage of that, of course, reminding us several times of the core brutality that has made him such a feared outlaw.
Evans can be frustrating to figure out. He seems to be trying to stand for the right thing, but at times it isn’t clear why. Is his intensity born out of stubborn pride or selfless nobility? The film eventually unveils more of his motivations, but even as we learn more of his past, the relative purity of his motives aren’t always made entirely clear. Perhaps in the end he is simply a man of mixed motives, as it is for almost everyone in the film’s universe.
I expect that people’s response to the film will be grounded in their ability to deal with the ambiguity of the moral universe. Similar to Unforgiven and other modern interpretations of the Western genre, we are not given many characters who are fully sympathetic or purely evil. Our hero and our villain each can at times be imminently likable and imminently detestable. This is appropriate, as it sets us up for a fascinating last action sequence, as our hero and villain remind us more of Butch and Sundance than Marshall Kane and his showdown. Their unlikely partnership with an unlikely goal allows us to see their best come out. We start by rooting for Evans, and wind up rooting for both of them.
This kind of ambiguity, reflective of many of the films of our more cynical age, is something I find myself resonating with. It is easier for me to relate to a flawed hero than a pristine one, easier for me to comprehend the villain with a spark of humanity than the wholly depraved one. The more we glimpse visions of sinner and saint coexisting within the same human being, the more the characters invite us to hold up a mirror next to them. We are indeed complex souls, shaped by forces both within and without, given to sin but not wholly devoid of that mark of true humanity that was our divine gift in creation.
Where I want to depart from this ambiguity, though, is when it comes to its vision of redemption. The film leaves us with an uncertain conclusion, as we are not sure what is going to happen or whether there was real redemption at all. I think it’s fair that many would leave the film with the sense that there was no redemption at all, merely the end of a single chapter that would repeat itself down the road with a new cast of characters. Others may find the promise that characters have grown and changed, and will be different because of their experiences. Either way, where I find hope is that the complexity and ambiguity that this film captures is not the end of the story. We are not doomed to forever be sinner and saint, but have the hope that there is an Outside Force stronger than the shaping winds in our lives that can yet decisively win this battle within us.
Because of that deep love I have for the West in my own story, I’m particularly intrigued to see Hollywood do its best to revive the Western genre this fall. 3:10 to Yuma is the first of several to come, and if Yuma is any indicator, we’re in for a treat. This is a remake of a 1957 classic starring Glenn Ford, and if you’re going to remake a classic, you would be hard pressed to find a better duo than Christian Bale and Russell Crowe, two of the very finest out there today. They deliver fine performances that are the centerpiece of this interesting drama.
Bale plays Dan Evans, a Union veteran and partial amputee who has made his way to Arizona with his family to make a new start as a rancher. Suffering under a brutal drought, he has buried himself in a debt to a local landowner who is set on getting Evans’ property out from under him to sell it to the railroad. He is a man without allies, fighting to survive in a harsh world where everyone is using his back as a stepping stone to bigger things.
While riding to town to deal with his debt, he comes across Ben Wade, a notorious outlaw who is in the process of robbing a stagecoach. Evans’ survives his encounter with Wade and his gang, and continues on to town, only to find that Wade has beat him there. The gang is in process of throwing the sheriff off their trail, but Wade shows his weakness, delaying because of a woman, allowing them to capture him. A representative of the railroad company, who was the victim of the robbery, recruits several people to take Wade to a nearby town, where he must make a prison train that is coming through the next day. Short several men, they recruit Evans to accompany them, giving him the chance to make some desperately needed cash.
It is a somewhat convoluted setup, but what it leaves us with is a long trail ride for Evans and Wade to interact. They are fascinating characters, defying many of our stereotypes from Westerns. Wade is certainly a villain, but he is also a charmer, drawing Evans’ wife to declare that he is “not what [she] expected.” His charm and engaging conversation could easily leave one disarmed, feeling safe around him. He takes advantage of that, of course, reminding us several times of the core brutality that has made him such a feared outlaw.
Evans can be frustrating to figure out. He seems to be trying to stand for the right thing, but at times it isn’t clear why. Is his intensity born out of stubborn pride or selfless nobility? The film eventually unveils more of his motivations, but even as we learn more of his past, the relative purity of his motives aren’t always made entirely clear. Perhaps in the end he is simply a man of mixed motives, as it is for almost everyone in the film’s universe.
I expect that people’s response to the film will be grounded in their ability to deal with the ambiguity of the moral universe. Similar to Unforgiven and other modern interpretations of the Western genre, we are not given many characters who are fully sympathetic or purely evil. Our hero and our villain each can at times be imminently likable and imminently detestable. This is appropriate, as it sets us up for a fascinating last action sequence, as our hero and villain remind us more of Butch and Sundance than Marshall Kane and his showdown. Their unlikely partnership with an unlikely goal allows us to see their best come out. We start by rooting for Evans, and wind up rooting for both of them.
This kind of ambiguity, reflective of many of the films of our more cynical age, is something I find myself resonating with. It is easier for me to relate to a flawed hero than a pristine one, easier for me to comprehend the villain with a spark of humanity than the wholly depraved one. The more we glimpse visions of sinner and saint coexisting within the same human being, the more the characters invite us to hold up a mirror next to them. We are indeed complex souls, shaped by forces both within and without, given to sin but not wholly devoid of that mark of true humanity that was our divine gift in creation.
Where I want to depart from this ambiguity, though, is when it comes to its vision of redemption. The film leaves us with an uncertain conclusion, as we are not sure what is going to happen or whether there was real redemption at all. I think it’s fair that many would leave the film with the sense that there was no redemption at all, merely the end of a single chapter that would repeat itself down the road with a new cast of characters. Others may find the promise that characters have grown and changed, and will be different because of their experiences. Either way, where I find hope is that the complexity and ambiguity that this film captures is not the end of the story. We are not doomed to forever be sinner and saint, but have the hope that there is an Outside Force stronger than the shaping winds in our lives that can yet decisively win this battle within us.
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
The Lives of Others: A Review
“To think that people like you once ran a country.”
The story is told of Lenin, who reached a point in the midst of the Russian revolution where he could no longer listen to his favorite musical work by Beethoven. Listening to it, he said, made him want to hug people instead of strangling them, something that the revolution required of him. What if he kept on listening? Could things have turned out different?
In the midst of the late August movie doldrums, I enjoyed the absolute treat that was The Lives of Others, last year’s well-deserved Oscar for Best Foreign Film, which sought to deal with this very question. This film transports us to 1984 in East Germany. Taking place not long before Gorbachev’s election as Soviet president, the words glasnost and perestroika are still unfamiliar to most people, and for the people we meet, from artists to politicians to members of the Secret Police, the communist state is well-entrenched and is here to stay. Within that bleak backdrop, we are introduced to Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler, brilliantly played by Ulrich Mühe, who sadly passed away from stomach cancer a few weeks ago. A long-standing member of the Stasi, the East Germany secret police that monitored the activities of GDR citizens throughout its existence, our first glimpse at Wiesler shows him teaching a group of new recruits about the art of interrogation. Taking them through the brutal and unrelenting methods that bring out the “truth” from unwilling suspects, we see the cold and calculating approach that has made him brutally effective at his job over so many years.
Wiesler is tasked to open up monitoring on Georg Dreyman, a playwright who is introduced to us as the only East German artist read in the West that isn’t a subversive and remains loyal to the state. Started because of Wiesler’s prompting of his former classmate and now boss, Anton Grubitz, we witness the astoundingly thorough manner in which the Stasi would conduct their surveillance. The writer/director, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, apparently meticulously researched the methods and technology of the Stasi, and so what we see is a remarkable reenactment of their work. Wiring Dreyman’s home with microphones and cameras, Wiesler then began a surveillance of every conversation, every phone call, and every visit, throughly documenting Dreyman’s life so that senior officials might find out the truth within this national treasure.
What should have been a routine surveillance, though, goes awry for both the listener and the suspect. For Dreyman, he is surrounded by other artists who have found different ways to express their dissatisfaction with the state. Most of these efforts have cost them, as friends are being denied the ability to publish, are being restricted in travel, and are undergoing other threats and intimidation to bring them in line. Although initially resistant to the temptation to criticize the state, Dreyman is brought to question his loyalty with the suicide of his friend and mentor, another playwright and artist. With the questions coming, Dreyman sets out to publish a criticism of the GDR in the West, bringing to light some of the dark underbelly that hasn’t been exposed to the world.
Meanwhile Wiesler is undergoing his own conflict. Our exposure to his superiors leaves us convinced of their inadequacies. For all of their talk of the great socialist state, his boss is an ambitious politician, who spends most of his time placating his superiors and planning his ascendancy to greater things. The party leader he is trying to win the favor of is a repulsive man who is more interested in seducing Dreyman’s girlfriend than he is in providing meaningful leadership. This is the painting of corrupted power that Orwell gave us in novel form. Slowly, we see Wiesler quietly observe this hypocrisy and, generally without verbalizing it, start to challenge their world.
In contrast, Wiesler is secretly drawn to Dreyman. He hears his music, he reads his books, he listens to his passionate relationship with Christa-Maria, and he seems to find himself wanting more. We get few glimpses into Wiesler’s world beyond his job, but what we see makes us understand that there is a desperation and a loneliness that defines his existence. The more he observes, the more he is drawn in, and so we see Wiesler start to cross boundaries. He orchestrates Dreyman’s discovery of Christa-Maria’s relationship with the party leader. When she declares that she is going to be with this party leader, he confronts her, persuading her to go back to Dreyman without exposing his relationship. As Dreyman’s questioning of the system becomes more profound, so Wiesler finds himself risking more and more to protect Dreyman.
I will leave the details for your own discovery, but within this journey lies the point that some found offensive about the film. For those that lived through life with the Stasi, the notion that there was a gentle and kind person inside an agent waiting to be brought out, a kind of “hooker with a heart of gold,” is difficult in the extreme. From what I’m reading, some want to see the people that participated in this evil regime as irredeemably wicked.
I remember an article a few years ago written by a Rabbi that had a title that was something like “Why the holocaust teaches us nothing about evil.” Essentially, the argument he was making was that the evil of the holocaust was so extreme that it could not be categorized alongside other examples of evil that we encounter. It was evil of a different stripe, not just a more extreme version of evil we encounter.
I hear echoes of this argument in the negative response to The Lives of Others. The brilliance in the movie is that it draws us into Wiesler’s world, letting us see the emerging conflict as he saw a different way of living than the way he had spent his career. His heroic acts, made all the more heroic because of the silent way that he endures their consequences, offer a glimpse into an emerging sense of humanity, a struggle with a moral universe that doesn’t seem satisfied with the choices he has made.
Much like Downfall and Letters from Iwo Jima, Lives lets us glimpse at the perspective of “the enemy.” What we see gives us hope. Hope that evil can be seen for what it is, and that good can emerge even in the darkest of backdrops. Hope that the glimpses of good are worth the heavy price they can exact. Hope that people can change, even if systems seem like they can’t.
The story is told of Lenin, who reached a point in the midst of the Russian revolution where he could no longer listen to his favorite musical work by Beethoven. Listening to it, he said, made him want to hug people instead of strangling them, something that the revolution required of him. What if he kept on listening? Could things have turned out different?
In the midst of the late August movie doldrums, I enjoyed the absolute treat that was The Lives of Others, last year’s well-deserved Oscar for Best Foreign Film, which sought to deal with this very question. This film transports us to 1984 in East Germany. Taking place not long before Gorbachev’s election as Soviet president, the words glasnost and perestroika are still unfamiliar to most people, and for the people we meet, from artists to politicians to members of the Secret Police, the communist state is well-entrenched and is here to stay. Within that bleak backdrop, we are introduced to Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler, brilliantly played by Ulrich Mühe, who sadly passed away from stomach cancer a few weeks ago. A long-standing member of the Stasi, the East Germany secret police that monitored the activities of GDR citizens throughout its existence, our first glimpse at Wiesler shows him teaching a group of new recruits about the art of interrogation. Taking them through the brutal and unrelenting methods that bring out the “truth” from unwilling suspects, we see the cold and calculating approach that has made him brutally effective at his job over so many years.
Wiesler is tasked to open up monitoring on Georg Dreyman, a playwright who is introduced to us as the only East German artist read in the West that isn’t a subversive and remains loyal to the state. Started because of Wiesler’s prompting of his former classmate and now boss, Anton Grubitz, we witness the astoundingly thorough manner in which the Stasi would conduct their surveillance. The writer/director, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, apparently meticulously researched the methods and technology of the Stasi, and so what we see is a remarkable reenactment of their work. Wiring Dreyman’s home with microphones and cameras, Wiesler then began a surveillance of every conversation, every phone call, and every visit, throughly documenting Dreyman’s life so that senior officials might find out the truth within this national treasure.
What should have been a routine surveillance, though, goes awry for both the listener and the suspect. For Dreyman, he is surrounded by other artists who have found different ways to express their dissatisfaction with the state. Most of these efforts have cost them, as friends are being denied the ability to publish, are being restricted in travel, and are undergoing other threats and intimidation to bring them in line. Although initially resistant to the temptation to criticize the state, Dreyman is brought to question his loyalty with the suicide of his friend and mentor, another playwright and artist. With the questions coming, Dreyman sets out to publish a criticism of the GDR in the West, bringing to light some of the dark underbelly that hasn’t been exposed to the world.
Meanwhile Wiesler is undergoing his own conflict. Our exposure to his superiors leaves us convinced of their inadequacies. For all of their talk of the great socialist state, his boss is an ambitious politician, who spends most of his time placating his superiors and planning his ascendancy to greater things. The party leader he is trying to win the favor of is a repulsive man who is more interested in seducing Dreyman’s girlfriend than he is in providing meaningful leadership. This is the painting of corrupted power that Orwell gave us in novel form. Slowly, we see Wiesler quietly observe this hypocrisy and, generally without verbalizing it, start to challenge their world.
In contrast, Wiesler is secretly drawn to Dreyman. He hears his music, he reads his books, he listens to his passionate relationship with Christa-Maria, and he seems to find himself wanting more. We get few glimpses into Wiesler’s world beyond his job, but what we see makes us understand that there is a desperation and a loneliness that defines his existence. The more he observes, the more he is drawn in, and so we see Wiesler start to cross boundaries. He orchestrates Dreyman’s discovery of Christa-Maria’s relationship with the party leader. When she declares that she is going to be with this party leader, he confronts her, persuading her to go back to Dreyman without exposing his relationship. As Dreyman’s questioning of the system becomes more profound, so Wiesler finds himself risking more and more to protect Dreyman.
I will leave the details for your own discovery, but within this journey lies the point that some found offensive about the film. For those that lived through life with the Stasi, the notion that there was a gentle and kind person inside an agent waiting to be brought out, a kind of “hooker with a heart of gold,” is difficult in the extreme. From what I’m reading, some want to see the people that participated in this evil regime as irredeemably wicked.
I remember an article a few years ago written by a Rabbi that had a title that was something like “Why the holocaust teaches us nothing about evil.” Essentially, the argument he was making was that the evil of the holocaust was so extreme that it could not be categorized alongside other examples of evil that we encounter. It was evil of a different stripe, not just a more extreme version of evil we encounter.
I hear echoes of this argument in the negative response to The Lives of Others. The brilliance in the movie is that it draws us into Wiesler’s world, letting us see the emerging conflict as he saw a different way of living than the way he had spent his career. His heroic acts, made all the more heroic because of the silent way that he endures their consequences, offer a glimpse into an emerging sense of humanity, a struggle with a moral universe that doesn’t seem satisfied with the choices he has made.
Much like Downfall and Letters from Iwo Jima, Lives lets us glimpse at the perspective of “the enemy.” What we see gives us hope. Hope that evil can be seen for what it is, and that good can emerge even in the darkest of backdrops. Hope that the glimpses of good are worth the heavy price they can exact. Hope that people can change, even if systems seem like they can’t.
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