Through the Looking Glass: Depicting the Conspiracy to Kill John F. Kennedy in Libra and JFK

The assassination of American President John F. Kennedy is a watershed event in American history that has provoked people to question their own beliefs and those of their government. Yet, for such a highly publicized affair there are still many uncertainties that surround the actual incident. Countless works of fiction and non-fiction have been created concerning the subject, but have done little in aiding our understanding of the assassination and the events surrounding it. As Don DeLillo comments in his novel Libra, "Powerful events breed their own network of inconsistencies." DeLillo also makes this observation in an essay entitled, "American Blood" in Rolling Stone magazine, which contains the groundwork for issues that he would later explore in more detail in Libra. DeLillo's novel depicts the events leading up to and after the assassination like a densely constructed film complete with jump cuts and multiple perspectives. This creates a strong parallel between Libra and Oliver Stone's film, JFK (1991) which covers much of the same ground and uses many of the same techniques but to achieve different conclusions.


Libra and JFK present the assassination as a powerful event constructed by its conspirators to create confusion with its contradictory evidence, to then bury this evidence in the Warren Commission Report, which in turn manifests multiple interpretations of key figures like Lee Harvey Oswald. Libra examines the conspiracy to kill Kennedy as an ambiguous occurrence filled with many coincidences, loose ends, and viewpoints; in contrast, JFK offers a more structured examination of the conspiracy from one person's point of view where everything fits together to reveal a larger, more frightening picture implicating the most powerful people in the United States government. Libra and JFK are works which present the Kennedy assassination as a moment that contains many discrepancies and misleading facts, but differ in their presentation of how this affects our perception of the event.

THE PERCEPTION OF HISTORY

"Beyond this confusion of data, people have developed a sense that history has been secretly manipulated." – Don DeLillo

For DeLillo, the Kennedy assassination is an important event not only in his life, but as an author. The profound effect it had on DeLillo is evident in an interview where he states that "it's possible I wouldn't have become the kind of writer I am if it weren't for the assassination." The assassination left him with the feeling that he had lost a "sense of manageable reality" which made him more aware of "elements like randomness and ambiguity and chaos." It is these feelings that DeLillo would later convey in the character of Nicholas Branch in Libra. Branch must come to terms with his own feelings of confusion and self-doubt while investigating the death of Kennedy and the conspiracy that surrounds it. DeLillo expresses these feelings of randomness and ambiguity in the incidences leading up to the assassination. They are often presented in an uncertain way to convey the conflict between the facts, the eyewitness accounts, and the memories that often contradict one another, obscuring the truth:

“We still haven't reached any consensus on the specifics of the crime: the number of gunmen, the number of shots, the location of the shots, the number of wounds in the President's body – the list goes on and on. Beyond this confusion of data, people have developed a sense that history has been secretly manipulated.”

As DeLillo wisely points out in this interview, history has been manipulated so that we can no longer tell the difference between fact and fiction. There is a passage in Libra where Lee Harvey Oswald gets into a shoving match with some Anti-Castro Cubans and not even Oswald can remember how it was started. There is a sense that not only the reader is being manipulated, but the characters as well. This is apparent when DeLillo writes, "Lee felt he was in the middle of his own movie. They were running this thing just for him." Oswald recognizes that the boundaries between what is real and what is not are beginning to blur. The simplest facts, like his run in with Anti-Castro Cubans, "elude authentication" because the origins of the event are unknown and we are left to theorize what the motivations were for it happening.

JFK also creates this blur of reality and fiction by mixing real footage with staged footage so that it becomes difficult to discern what really happened and what is merely speculation. Oliver Stone does this in order to create what he calls "a countermyth to the myth of the Warren Commission because a lot of the original facts were lost in a very shoddy investigation." Like Libra, JFK presents the incident between Oswald (Gary Oldman) and the Anti-Castro Cubans as a simple event which becomes obscured by multiple interpretations. Stone begins the scene in 16mm, black and white film stock and then switches to Super 8mm in color with Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner) narrating the whole scene. Stone is presenting three different points of views in this scene; one in 16mm black and white, one in Super 8mm color, and Garrison's own narration:

“It was a public event, it was seen by people, and to this day there are different versions of what happened that day. Were the Cubans really angry, or was it a stunt? Was it a staged arrest? We wanted to fracture the perception of it as a mere flashback from across the street.” – Stone

The change to Super 8mm symbolizes a different view or reading of the event as reconstructed in the mind of the film's protagonist, Jim Garrison. This is similar to what the characters in DeLillo's Libra experience, except that there is no single protagonist as there is in JFK. Instead, Stone creates different points of views or layers through the extensive use of flashbacks within flashbacks. This technique conveys the notion of confusion and conflict within evidence that Libra creates through its various protagonists.

THE WARREN COMMISSION REPORT

"Branch thinks this is megaton novel James Joyce would have written if he'd moved to Iowa City and lived to be a hundred." – Libra

One of the major sources of this confusion of data and information stems from the Warren Commission Report which DeLillo describes as "a ruined city of trivia." This encyclopedic tome is a microcosm of the assassination itself. It takes simple facts and scatters them about to create a convoluted path that both Nicholas Branch and Jim Garrison must navigate in order to find the truth. As Garrison explains, "It's all broken down and spread around and you read and the point gets lost." Garrison begins to interview people who testified in the report only to find that, as one witness points out, "It was a fabrication from start to finish." Within the report there are contradictions and forged testimonies supporting the government's theory that Oswald acted alone and that there was no conspiracy. Like the assassination itself, the Warren Report contains all the facts but distorts and presents them in such an unorganized fashion that any attempt to piece together a coherent narrative or conspiracy is "like drowning." It is up to Garrison to make sense of this mess and establish a coherent narrative which he does at the conclusion of the film when he presents his case in court.

In Libra, Branch also realizes how confusing and misleading the Warren Report is to its reader. He understands that this is its purpose:

“He questions everything, including the basic suppositions we make about our world of light and shadow, solid objects and ordinary sounds, and our ability to measure such things, to determine weight, mass and direction, to see things as they are, recall them clearly, be able to say what happened.”

Like the actual events themselves, the Warren Report blurs the line between fact and fiction so that the truth is concealed. The whole notion of a conspiracy seems uncertain because no one fact supports it, but rather leads to even more questions and theories that must be sifted through. DeLillo's Libra presents on one side the conspirators, but contrasts this with Branch, the investigator, who must make sense of the Warren Commission Report. The facts clearly aid the conspirators who, with some convenient coincidences, like Kennedy's decision to visit Dallas, create a puzzling trail for Branch to follow.

OSWALD

"'Lee Harvey Oswald' often seems a secret design worked out by men who will never surface – a procedural diagram, a course in fabricated biography." – Libra

To this extent, the conspirators even create figures like Lee Harvey Oswald, who are ambiguous in nature. From the start, the conspirators plan to put together someone, to "build an identity, a skein of persuasion and habit, ever so subtle. He wanted a man with believable quirks." The conspirators construct multiple Oswalds to support a lone assassin theory:

“We want to leave an imprint of Oswald's activities starting today and ending when the operation is complete. A series of incidents. We want to establish Oswald as a man that people will later remember. What if Oswald doesn't cooperate? We create our own Oswald. A second, a third, a fourth. This plan goes into effect no matter what he does after Mexico City. Mackey wants Oswald all over Texas.”

By creating several Oswalds, the conspirators effectively create a metaphoric room of mirrors where the real Oswald cannot be separated from the many fakes. This confusion works well as Branch realizes, "They all look like Oswald. Branch thinks they look more like Oswald than the figure in profile, officially identified as him." Branch is presented with facts about Oswald that contradict themselves. Oswald appears in several places at the same time in a rather crude fashion so that Branch no longer knows what to believe. DeLillo shows how these multiple images of Oswald, created by the conspirators, are rough but effective in masking the real man. Branch is able to separate the multiple Oswalds, but this still does not get him any closer to the heart of the conspiracy or the true nature of Oswald. It only makes him "wary of these cases of cheap coincidence. He's beginning to think someone is trying to sway him toward superstition. He wants a thing to be what it is. Can't a man die without the ensuing ritual of a search for patterns and links?" Branch has become tired of sorting through these lies and longs for a more structured path where everything is black and white.

This structured path lies in JFK as Garrison and his team also sort through the multiple Oswalds. Stone presents many of the same events as described in Libra while also crosscutting footage of an unknown person piecing together a photograph. This in turn is crosscut with real photographs of Oswald and staged shots of Stone's Oswald. As the mysterious photograph is completed, it is revealed to be the famous Life magazine cover of Oswald with the rifle that supposedly killed Kennedy and that "pretty much convicted Oswald in the public eye," as one character observes. This mixing of footage, both real and staged, symbolizes Oswald's various pasts, both real and faked. By showing the famous Life photograph being doctored, Stone is using that as a metaphor for Oswald's past. On the surface it looks believable, but upon closer scrutiny there is a more complex story as Garrison wisely notes, "They put Oswald together from day one." This is true both figuratively as the montage of fake Oswalds demonstrates and literally as the construction of the famous photograph illustrates.

FILM TECHNIQUE

"We used a lot of different film stocks and formats to question the nature of reality. To a large degree, JFK is not a political film; it's philosophical. It shows how the truth is fractured until we don't know what reality is." – Oliver Stone

DeLillo is an author clearly aware of film techniques: the energy they contain and the power they convey. This is clearly established in his essay, "American Blood" where he states, "Violence itself seems to cause a warp in the texture of things. There are jump cuts, blank spaces, an instant in which information leaps from one energy level to another." This effect is used in describing the death of Kennedy. DeLillo presents four different perspectives of the event: one from Oswald's point of view, a second from another hired assassin, a third from a woman on the grassy knoll, and a fourth from Nellie Connally, the First Lady of Texas at the time and sitting in the car when Kennedy was shot. DeLillo effectively jumps from one perspective to another in order to show the assassination from all the crucial vantage points; from the casual observer, to someone right in the motorcade, to one of the assassins. Each jump cut causes "a warp in the texture of things" so that there is a feeling of chaos intruding on the event. As each account is presented, information "leaps from one energy level to another" and a disordered view of the assassination is revealed. By presenting these various perspectives, DeLillo is commenting on how an event can be interpreted differently by many people so that there is no clear cut reading.

JFK adheres to DeLillo's above statement in an even more precise fashion with its depiction of the assassination. Stone mixes real footage of Kennedy's motorcade with his own footage, while also using various film stocks to show the multiple interpretations of a public event that was viewed by many people. Stone jumps from Kennedy's arrival in Dallas to his motorcade heading for Dealey Plaza with several quick edits. He also crosscuts footage of a clock at Dealey Plaza to show that time is running out for Kennedy, he will soon be killed. This quick rhythm of editing creates an anxious mood and the tension increases. The film cuts to black followed by the sound of a gun being cocked and then fired. Kennedy has been shot. A black and white shot of a rooftop with birds flying into the sky appears with the sound of the gun shot echoing into the distance. Stone has taken what DeLillo has said in his essay and translated it visually. Stone "jump cuts" from the footage of the motorcade to a "blank space" for an instant so that "information leaps from one energy level to another" as DeLillo puts it in "American Blood." We go from the energy of the assassination to the shockwaves that ripple out by introducing the film's protagonist, Jim Garrison and showing his reaction to what has happened. This is the leap that DeLillo writes about it in his essay, but depicted visually. By mirroring DeLillo's statement with this sequence Stone creates the strongest link between his film, which seems conscious of DeLillo's essay, and Libra.

Libra and JFK are important works in the sense that they accurately portray the assassination of John F. Kennedy as a complex public event surrounded by chaos and confusion. Both works present an intricate conspiracy at the source of the killing, but diverge at how they present it. Libra reaches the conclusion that the conspiracy to kill Kennedy "succeeded in the short term due mainly to chance." DeLillo presents several points of view, ranging from the individual conspirators, who create a confusing web of information, and elaborate figures like Lee Harvey Oswald, in order to dissuade characters like Nicholas Branch from trying to make sense of it all. The conspiracy starts as a small affair discussed by a few men that grows into a large chaotic web that connects all the characters through chance and coincidence. JFK, on the other hand, contains one main protagonist who exposes the conspiracy to be an intricately constructed coup d'état. Stone does not have the time to go into as much detail as DeLillo's novel and as a result paints his canvas with broad brushstrokes and powerful images in an attempt to create "a countermyth to the myth of the Warren Commission." DeLillo opts for a more intellectual and detailed examination of the assassination as one character in Libra explains, "Let's devote our lives to understanding this moment, separating the elements of each crowded second." JFK takes a larger, confrontational stance by boldly implicating the government in the conspiracy and the mainstream media in conspiring to cover it up. Stone is using the persuasive power of film to reach the largest number of people he can in order to wake them up and to reveal how they have been deceived by higher powers. There is no mistaking the importance of the assassination of Kennedy in American culture. Based on the excitement that surrounded Stone's film, the American public was still greatly interested in the event with more and more people believing in a plot to kill Kennedy. Both Libra and JFK are proof that Kennedy's death continues to intrigue and interest people who are more open to the idea of a conspiracy that these works openly advocate.

DVD of the Week: Carlos: Criterion Collection

Notorious international terrorist Ilich Ramirez Sanchez a.k.a. Carlos the Jackal came to prominence in the 1970’s and 1980’s with several politically-motivated bombings, kidnappings and hijackings in Europe and the Middle East. He eventually became a popular culture icon with thinly-disguised depictions in films like Nighthawks (1981) and gracing the cover of Black Grape’s debut album. His image was used as a cultural touchstone rather than an accurate depiction. Incredibly, it wasn’t until Olivier Assayas’ ambitious five-and-a-half hour miniseries Carlos (2010) that the man and his times were finally done justice. Assayas wisely doesn’t pass judgment on Carlos but rather depicts how he influenced the political climate and how it, in turn, influenced him. Far from a stuffy history lesson, Carlos is an epic political thriller with a charismatic performance by Edgar Ramirez as the infamous terrorist.


Carlos is presented in three, feature-length episodes that track his rise to power and notoriety; the man at the peak of his powers and his greatest triumph; and his inevitable decline and capture. Early on, Assayas establishes his take on Carlos (Edgar Ramirez), presenting him as a vain man who, at one point, is seen admiring his own naked body in a mirror to the strains of “Dreams Never End” by New Order. We also see him espouse his personal philosophy, that true glory is “doing one’s duty in silence. Behind every bullet we fire, there will be an idea because we act in harmony in our conscience.” And initially, he seems to adhere to this but once he becomes a superstar among international terrorists, he embraces and cultivates his inflated reputation.

In the first episode, Assayas shows Carlos’ clumsy attempts to impress Wadie Haddad (Ahmad Kaabour), co-founder of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), with a bungled assassination and a failed bombing. This segment builds towards an intense showdown between French domestic intelligence agents and Carlos at one of his girlfriends’ apartment in Paris where we see just how dangerous he is when cornered. The second episode starts off literally with a bang as Carlos and his group arrives at the OPEC headquarters in Vienna and takes oil ministers from all over the world hostage in 1975. This was his highest profile operation done at the height of his powers.

By the end of the second episode, Carlos has been kicked out of the PFLP and he starts up his own terrorist organization, effectively becoming a mercenary. The third episode tracks his inevitable decline as he wages a war of terror on France in the early to mid-‘80s after they arrest his wife and a close associate. It’s costly battle for both sides but more so for Carlos who can no longer rely on his reputation to get jobs or find safe haven in countries that used to be sympathetic towards him. He becomes more vulnerable to attacks because he has more to lose, chief among them a family.

Edgar Ramirez’s magnetic presence really comes across early on as he exudes the cocky confidence of the man and conveys his complete commitment to the cause he espouses so brazenly. The actor has Carlos’ terrorist swagger down cold, showing us the smooth ladies man with his perfectly coifed looks and stylish attire. Known prior to Carlos mostly for his strong supporting turn in Tony Scott’s Domino (2005), he finally gets to be front and center, playing the role of a lifetime: a larger than life historical figure in a sprawling epic. Assayas and Ramirez’s fascinating take on Carlos is that he viewed himself as a kind of rock star, a charismatic personality who clearly saw himself as someone of importance, destined to do great things. This is evident in the way Carlos idolized and emulated Che Guevara during the OPEC raid, sporting the iconic revolutionary’s trademark beret and scruffy facial hair look as if making a statement. Also, the rock star analogy is further explored in the use of post-punk music along with the third episode, which could be seen as Carlos' “fat Elvis” period of decline. Ramirez commands every scene he’s in, especially the OPEC raid where he prowls around rooms and hallways, expertly orchestrating this attack in order to get what he wants.

In an intriguing break from tradition, Assayas eschews a traditional orchestral score for source music, predominately post-punk rock. The opening track is “Loveless Love” by the Feelies, which sets the tone of the film. As the song builds so does the tension of the scene it play over – that of Carlos attempting to assassinate a pro-Israeli businessman in England. Assayas also uses a few tracks by Wire, one by A Certain Ratio and a memorable action sequence scored to “Sonic Reducer” by the Dead Boys. The attention to period detail and architecture is also excellent as Assayas takes us on a perverse travelogue through Europe and the Middle East with Carlos as our guide.

With its color-coded sequences and its objective direction that is slick and confident, Carlos resembles Traffic (2000) and Syriana (2005). These films are all ambitious and expansive in scope as they expertly blend personal politics with bigger political movements. Carlos is a towering achievement, a fascinating study of a man who was a reflection of the times in which he lived in and is embodied by Ramirez’s powerful performance spanning several decades. Assayas’ film is very relevant to our times as it examines the complex machinations of international terrorism with the agendas of terrorist groups clashing with that of the governments of countries all over the world. Carlos sees the struggle of the oppressed against imperialist regimes as a war that he helps fight. With the end of the Cold War, he is marginalized and considered a relic from a bygone era. Assayas has crafted an incredible film that is smartly written, well-acted and masterfully directed.

Special Features:

The first disc includes a theatrical trailer.

The second disc starts off with “Shooting the OPEC Sequence,” a 22-minute featurette examining how Olivier Assayas shot Carlos and his team’s raid on the OPEC headquarters on December 21, 1975. The director offers his thoughts on what he hoped to achieve with the film over footage of the cast and crew working on location. This extra provides some insight into his working methods.

There is an interview with Denis Lenoir, one of the film’s two cinematographers. He shot the second half of Carlos and talks about his approach towards the job. He didn’t prepare much for the film because he came in halfway through and goes into some of the technical aspects (i.e. film stock, lighting, etc.). Lenoir also talks about how Assayas works.

Lenoir also provides a selected-scene commentary, going into detail about the technical aspects of six scenes from the film. For example, he mentions the kinds of lenses he used, the lighting scheme and whether he used hand-held cameras or not.

The third disc features a 43-minute interview with director Olivier Assayas. He gives his take on Carlos and the times that shaped the man. The filmmaker talks about his intentions for the film. He admits that it did not originate with him because he would’ve considered too complicated a task to undertake and was actually approached to direct. Assayas talks about growing up during Carlos’ heyday and also about making the film itself.

There is also a 20-minute interview with actor Edgar Ramirez. He was drawn to the film because it dealt with the mechanics of terrorism and politics. The actor speaks eloquently about his take on Carlos and how the OPEC raid defined him. Ramirez also speaks about how he prepared for the role, including all kinds of research he conducted as well as gaining and then losing weight for the various periods of Carlos’ life.

The fourth and last disc starts off with “Carlos: Terrorist without Borders,” an hour-long documentary that aired on French television in 1997. It fleshes out many of the events depicted in the film and provides some background into Carlos’ politics as well as his rise to prominence. The doc mixes compelling news footage (including actual footage of Carlos) with talking head soundbites to paint a fascinating portrait of the man.

Also included is a 1995 interview with Hans-Joachim Klein, the German left-wing militant that was conducted by Daniel Laconte who went on to help produce Carlos. Most interesting, Klein wears a disguise and talks about how he must lie on a daily basis lest he be discovered by those who want to get him. At times, he comes across as more than a little eccentric.

Finally, there is “Maison de France,” an 88-minute documentary about the 1983 bombing of the Maison de France in West Berlin that was orchestrated by Johannes Weinrich for Carlos. It puts the incident in context with the political climate at the time. There is pretty gripping news footage of the bombing and the location is revisited in recent years to see how it has changed.

MGM MOD DVD of the Week: Hickey & Boggs

It has been well-documented how the 1970’s were a golden age for American cinema with many risky and unusual films being made and released through a Hollywood studio system in disarray after the surprise breakthrough success of Easy Rider (1969). One of the lesser-known gems from this era is the gritty detective film Hickey & Boggs (1972). Directed by actor Robert Culp, it is notable for reuniting him with comedian Bill Cosby, both of whom enjoyed considerable success on the popular 1960’s television series I Spy. People expecting the same kind of fun, exciting vibe from that show to be carried over to this film would be very disappointed as Culp served up a dark, violent tale of two down on their luck private investigators who get in way over their heads.


Al Hickey (Bill Cosby) and Frank Boggs (Robert Culp) are two downtrodden private investigators coasting through life until they are hired to find a missing woman. Hickey’s first lead ends with a dead body, killed by the woman who is also linked to an armed robbery, which is of interest to local mobster Mr. Brill (Robert Mandan) and his right-hand man Ballard (Michael Moriarty). As the film progresses, we learn more about the missing woman and her motivation, which propels the narrative and also adds a tragic dimension to the story. Hickey and Boggs start off not caring about anything but as their case progresses it becomes personal and they have something to fight for even if it is only revenge, which can only end in a bloody confrontation.

Walter Hill’s stripped-down screenplay gives us brief glimpses into Hickey and Boggs’ private lives. Hickey is estranged from his wife and kid while Boggs is an alcoholic who enjoys the company of prostitutes. Hill has always adhered to the less is more school of thought and Culp seems to understand this, complimenting the lean script with no-nonsense direction. Culp employs Hill’s trademark economy of style so well that Hickey & Boggs could be Hill’s long lost film. Yet, Culp still employs nice, little touches, like how Boggs always puts a paper bag that reads, “Out of Order” over every parking meter he leaves their car in front of.

For people that only know Bill Cosby as his cute and cuddly curmudgeonly dad in the 1980’s sitcom The Cosby Show, they will be in for quite a surprise with his turn in Hickey & Boggs as an all-business detective. He is especially effective in the last third of the film when his character takes a decidedly darker turn for the worse. Robert Culp is his ideal foil. Obviously, they had cultivated excellent chemistry with I Spy and this continues with Hickey & Boggs. They epitomize the world-weary private investigator but with a cynical ‘70s spin. These guys aren’t particularly noble – they have a job to get done and that’s it.

One of the hallmarks of a lot of crime films done in the ‘70s is the casting of actors that actually look and act like tough guys. Just think of the criminals that populate The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973) or The Outfit (1973). Hickey & Boggs is no different with the trio of thugs that repeatedly cross paths with our two protagonists. They really look like guys that could mess you up without a moment’s hesitation. They exude natural menace, which enhances all of the scenes they’re in. Look close and you’ll spot character actors Vincent Gardenia, Michael Moriarty and a young, very geeky looking James Woods in key roles.

Hickey & Boggs is one of the more underrated detective films of the ‘70s but it deserves to be mentioned among the best of that era along with the likes of The Long Goodbye (1973) and Night Moves (1975). Much like those films, it takes the private investigator archetype and tears it down in a way that reflects how jaded and cynical people had become during that decade. For some time the film was hard to obtain on home video and then eventually surfaced on DVD with a horrible transfer. In recent years, a beautiful copy has shown up on MGM’s HD Channel and has now finally been released via their MOD DVD program with the same exquisite transfer. Do yourself a favor and check out this under-appreciated gem of a film.

 
For other excellent takes on this film, check out Mr. Peel's Sardine Liqueur, also Lazy Thoughts from a Boomer, and Obscure One-Sheet.

Contagion

For over two decades, director Steven Soderbergh has gone back and forth from independent to studio films with personal, experimental efforts like Schizopolis (1996) and big budget crowd pleasers like Erin Brockovich (2000). He’s fashioned himself something of a journeyman director trying his hand at a variety of genres over the years, from period history (King of the Hill) to the heist film (Ocean’s Eleven) to the war movie (Che), adopting a distinctive style for each one. With Contagion (2011), he can now add the disaster movie to the list. This film deals specifically with the deadly virus subgenre as he tracks an infectious disease that affects the entire world with alarming speed. Would Soderbergh go the high road with thought-provoking science fiction a la The Andromeda Strain (1971) and Twelve Monkeys (1995), or would he go the low-budget horror B-movie route like The Crazies (1973) and Warning Sign (1985)? Whereas most of these films rely on horror and science fiction tropes, Soderbergh eschews them for a much more realistic take, albeit with a sly wink to the master of disaster films, Irwin Allen by populating Contagion with a star-studded cast of A-listers (many of whom have either won or been nominated for Academy Awards) only to kill some of them off. However, this is where the similarities begin and end as Soderbergh applies the Traffic (2000) aesthetic, juggling multiple characters and storylines to show how technology not only helps identify the threat quickly but also helps it spread rapidly thanks to globalization and disinformation.


The film starts off on Day 2 of the outbreak with infected people in England, Japan and Hong Kong where we meet Beth Emhoff (Gwyneth Paltrow) on a business trip. She comes home to her husband Mitch (Matt Damon) and family in Minneapolis suffering from what seems like flu-like symptoms. She assumes that it is nothing more than jetlag but within a day she and her son are dead. The doctors can’t tell Mitch why they died and he’s left to take care of his daughter (Anna Jacoby-Heron) on his own. The World Health Organization in Geneva begins to identify all the cities where victims of the MEV-1 virus are appearing and are trying in vain to contain it. They send Dr. Lenora Orantes (Marion Cotillard) to Hong Kong in an attempt to track down the origins of the virus. Meanwhile, muckraking blogger Alan Krumwiede (Jude Law) posts a clip of a man collapsing on a train in Japan and tries to peddle it to a newspaper in San Francisco but they aren’t interested. However, he soon assembles an impressive global readership that hangs on his every opinion and conspiracy theory, which not only spreads disinformation but also draws the attention of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. Dr. Ellis Cheever (Laurence Fishburne) is leading an investigation into the outbreak in the United States and enlists the help of Dr. Erin Mears (Kate Winslet) who travels to Minneapolis and investigates Beth Emhoff’s death. Their goal is to try and control the spread of the virus.

Soderbergh shows how the CDC interact with local and national governing bodies to identify and deal with the virus while also taking us inside their laboratories where Dr. Ally Hextall (Jennifer Ehle) is working hard to find a vaccine. Soon, Homeland Security steps in and their representative (Bryan Cranston) meets with Cheever to raise concerns that the virus could be weaponized and used by terrorists to attack the United States. However, it soon becomes apparent that the problem is much more serious, affecting a large portion of the world. Soderbergh inserts all kinds of shots of people’s hands interacting with objects and other people. Every time someone coughs you wonder is this person sick and are they spreading the virus to others?

The always-reliable Matt Damon is Contagion’s emotional core, playing the character we get to know the best and therefore care about what happens to the most. He is heartbreaking early on as Mitch watches both his wife and son die and then finds out that his spouse was also cheating on him. He then has to pull it together and take care of his daughter. Damon is given moments to show how the strain of this all is taking its toll on Mitch and the actor really grounds the film in something tangible for the audience to hold onto. Think of him as the equivalent to Benicio del Toro’s soulful border cop in Traffic. Damon is so good as the relatable everyman trying to deal with things as best he can. Without him, Contagion would come across as a little too cold and clinical.

With the help of Cliff Martinez’s brooding, atmospheric electronic score, Soderbergh gradually cranks up the dread as the virus spreads and the situation gets increasingly worse as order breaks down – bureaucratically and then everything else follows in a domino effect with looting and rioting as people think about protecting themselves. Soon, we are hit with sobering apocalyptic imagery that starts off with deserted city streets filled with garbage and abandoned cars to government officials filling mass graves with scores of dead bodies.

Soderbergh is clearly drawing a parallel between the virus and technology, both of which spread great distances and in very little time thanks to cell phones and the Internet. He explores the notion of community breaking down with people becoming isolated, even more so thanks to technology. The film matches this speed by maintaining a brisk pace but does allow for the occasional moment where key characters reflect on what’s happening and how it affects not only them but their loved ones, co-workers, and so on. It is these moments where Scott Z. Burns’ smart, ambitious screenplay shines, allowing archetypes, like Laurence Fishburne’s no-nonsense executive, to show their human frailties.

Burns has clearly done his homework as he presents a scarily plausible viral outbreak based on the rare Nipah virus, which spread from pigs to farmers in Malaysia in the late 1990’s. Contagion is eerily relevant as it evokes real-life outbreaks like SARS, avian flu and the H1N1 swine flu, several of which are mentioned in the film. The script also shows the reaction to an outbreak on a personal level with Mitch and his daughter while also showing its global impact when the fear of transmitting the virus takes hold. This is important because the film throws around a lot of technical jargon and dispenses a lot of facts but Soderbergh has wisely enlisted an all-star cast to make it more palatable. Contagion is not the horror film Soderbergh has suggested it might be, nor is it Hollywood fluff like Outbreak (1995), but rather a slick, sophisticated disaster movie that should provide the director with his first substantial commercial hit in years.

The January Man

Outside of Ishtar (1987) or maybe Gigli (2003), you’d be hard-pressed to find another more critically savaged film than The January Man (1989). And what an ass-kicking it took at the box office, pulling in just under five million dollars in the United States. Why so much vitriol directed at one film? Coming off the success of his Academy Award-winning screenplay for Moonstruck (1987), John Patrick Shanley assumed he could do no wrong and for his next film assembled an impressive roster of talent with Pat O’Connor (A Month in the Country) directing, Marvin Hamlisch (The Sting) composing the score, and a cast that featured the likes of Kevin Kline, Susan Sarandon, Alan Rickman, Harvey Keitel, and Rod Steiger. For good measure, Shanley’s Moonstruck director Norman Jewison produced the film.


With this insane amount of talent in front of and behind the camera, how could The January Man fail? Critics and audiences were not ready for the end result: a thriller with sudden tonal shifts, veering from comedy to romance to mystery, often within the same scene. Some of the cast delivered low-key performances while others chewed up the scenery. The film was deemed a mess, a disappointing misfire from brilliant artists that should have known better. Yet, the messiness of this film is what I like about it as it reflects the messiness of the protagonist’s life. The January Man is an underrated critique of the thriller genre and deserves to be rediscovered and re-assessed now that enough time has passed.

Someone in New York City is strangling and killing beautiful young women. It has been going on for almost a year with 11 women dead. When the latest victim (Faye Grant) was last seen by the mayor’s daughter Bernadette (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) and could have easily been the one dead, his Honor (Rod Steiger) leans heavily on police commissioner Frank Starkey (Harvey Keitel) to do something about it. He wants the best man the chief’s got on the job and that would Nick Starkey (Kevin Kline), Frank’s estranged brother. It turns out that Nick used to be a hot shot police detective but was screwed over royally in some sort of scandal and is now a firefighter.

We are introduced to Nick as he heroically saves a child from a burning building. After reviving the kid, the understandably exhausted man requests an espresso – the first indication that The January Man is going to be something different. It’s the absurdity of Kline asking for an espresso amidst the carnage of a raging inferno that deflates his heroic action and gives us a clue as to what kind of person we’re dealing with. Nick isn’t some glory hound but genuinely cares about saving lives at the risk of his own. Frank appeals to his brother to help him out and in return he’ll be fully reinstated and given carte blanche on the case. Nick only has one condition: to make dinner for Frank’s wife and his ex-lover, Christine (Susan Sarandon). Judging from her reaction when Frank tells her, she still has feelings for Nick.

Nick returns home to find his best friend Ed (Alan Rickman) painting with a nude female model and a kitten as his subjects (let’s not forget a talking parrot commenting on the action in the corner). Coming off his classic villainous role in Die Hard (1988), Alan Rickman goes completely in the opposite direction with this hilarious low-key character full of dry wit. The actor proceeds to steal the scene (and every other one he’s in) with a simple look he gives Kline while defending his intrusion in Nick’s apartment. He goes from defensive to warm and inviting when he agrees to clear out so that Nick can prepare his dinner for Christine. What also makes Ed such a memorable character is how he speaks, like the way he tells the model, “Just languish there, darling. Don’t molest anything.” It’s how he emphasizes the words, “languish” and “molest” that make this bit so funny. It’s an incredible example of what a great actor can do with a bit of dialogue just by how he says a word a certain way. Apparently, Ed is some kind of computer expert in his spare time and Nick hires him to help out in his investigation.

The scene where local precinct captain Vincent Alcoa (Danny Aiello) confronts the mayor about reinstating Nick under his watch is a master class in over the top profane scenery chewing. Danny Aiello comes in bellowing (“Don’t bullshit me besides screwing me!”) and then takes it up another notch. Not to be outdone, Rod Steiger cranks it up to a whole other level (“You think I’m your wife, you wanna fuck me?!”) and becomes so enraged that you swear his head will explode at some point. Harvey Keitel wisely plays it low key as he does throughout the entire film. So much so that it’s kind of spooky, like he’s sleepwalking his way through the film – uncustomary for the usually intense actor. There is a method to Shanley’s madness, however, as this scene satirizes the hot-tempered chief chewing out a subordinate by showing how ridiculous it is to have two grown men yelling at each other.

The dinner scene between Nick and Christine also subverts convention. One assumes that he is trying to win her back and would prepare food that she would like. But no, he has made the most unusual culinary challenged meal that includes octopus, which Christine is clearly not thrilled with eating. What’s odd about this sequence is its placement in the film. Shanley stops the thriller story cold and inserts this scene that is straight out of a romantic comedy as Nick and Christine rehash old times. Coming off her earthy, sexy role in Bull Durham (1988), Susan Sarandon plays a very different character – one that is cold and distant as she is part of an unhappy marriage. This sequence feels like a different film entirely but it works if you understand what Shanley is trying to do: subvert the conventions of the thriller genre by plopping down a tonally different scene from a disparate genre. It’s a ballsy move on Shanley’s part and a potential deal breaker for an audience expecting a standard thriller. However, what he’s doing is what Quentin Tarantino would excel at in the 1990’s (see Pulp Fiction) so maybe it took audiences a few years to catch up to what Shanley was doing in The January Man.

During his investigation, Nick befriends and then becomes romantically involved with Bernadette, which complicates things on two fronts: she was friends with one of the murder victims and she’s the mayor’s daughter. Their initial meeting is interesting in the sense that it’s a meet-cute right out of a romantic comedy except that their conversation veers from the murder to Nick’s relationship with Christine to him hitting on Bernadette and then having sex with her in the next scene. She’s upset over her friend getting killed and he’s feeling vulnerable after the uncomfortable dinner with Christine. They find a bit of solace together, a brief respite from the ugly murder that they’re both linked to. The script alludes to a rich backstory for Nick with a complicated past that involves his brother and Christine. The details aren’t particularly important, just the fallout and how it informs their relationship with one another in the present.

What I like about Kevin Kline’s character is that he’s a thinker. Director Pat O’Connor shows him studying evidence, observing people and their behavior, all the while analyzing the case in his head. Nick is definitely a left-brain person who thinks outside the box. The role also allows Kline to show off not only his comedic chops (of which are superb) but also his aptitude for drama, like when Nick begins to delve deeper into the case, or the complex relationship with his brother Frank. Kline is a versatile actor able to go back and forth from comedy and drama, often in the same scene, making him the ideal choice for this role. I’ve always found Kline to be an offbeat leading man. He’s not traditionally handsome, like Brad Pitt or George Clooney, but he has a very likable persona that is charming and disarming. Only Lawrence Kasdan (I Love You to Death) has really been able to consistently utilize him to his full potential. The actor had just come off his Academy Award-winning turn in A Fish Called Wanda (1988) and with The January Man played a radically different character – an intelligent romantic as opposed to the outlandish buffoon as in Wanda.

When Kevin Kline read the screenplay for The January Man, he thought it would be fun to do. “It’s so outrageous, it’s got such panache. It’s not really a murder-mystery thriller, it’s about family and betrayal and the individual outside the system.” In addition, producer Norman Jewison described it as “a romantic comedy thriller.” The film was shot over ten weeks in Manhattan and Toronto. With a background in documentaries, director Pat O’Connor made sure the precinct featured prominently in the film looked authentic, right down to the layout and the way the extras looked. He hired Ed Zigo as a consultant. He was one of the police detectives who helped catch David Berkowitz a.k.a. the Son of Sam. Zigo took some of the cast and crew on tours of precincts in and around New York City. By all accounts, principal photography went smoothly so what went wrong? Perhaps something during the post-production phase? The most telling comment came from screenwriter John Patrick Shanley who saw three cuts of the film. “One time I saw it, I didn’t like it. One time I saw it and I really liked it. And then the third time I saw it I was confused and wasn’t sure how I felt.” Guess which version was released.

It is a gross understatement to say that critics savaged The January Man when it was released. Roger Ebert gave the film one out of four stars and wrote, “Nothing fits. Every role seems to have been faxed in from a different movie, and the actors are on such various planes of emotional intensity that sometimes you can catch them, right there on the screen, looking at each other in bewilderment.” In his review for The New York Times, Vincent Canby wrote, “Pat O'Connor, the director (Stars and Bars, A Month in the Country, Cal), has imposed no risible order on this minor chaos, nor has he been kind to Mr. Kline. He allows this very gifted comic actor to work so hard trying to be funny that one alternately sweats and cringes while watching him.” USA Today gave the film one out of four stars and Matt Roush felt that “the movie is all concept, with little ingenuity applied to the execution.” Time magazine gave the film a mixed review, addressing Shanley’s script: “His busy plotting may require a suspension of incredulity, but he is well served by good actors; by a director, Pat O'Connor, with a taste for the acrid flavors of big-city life; and by his own delight in human eccentricity.” In her review for the Washington Post, Rita Kempley wrote, “Eliot called April the cruelest month, but then he hadn't seen The January Man. Billed as a mystery with romance and comedy, it is a damp sock of a movie that makes you wish for leap year.” The Globe and Mail’s Rick Groen wrote, “There are isolated scenes (bantering with his artsy sidekick, confronting an old flame, seducing a new) that sail along marvelously. But, each time, our raised hopes are quickly dashed, and apparent redemption ends as merely a momentary reprieve.” Newsweek magazine’s David Ansen wrote, “The whodunit is spectacularly implausible, the comedy misjudged, the romance forced.” Finally, in his review for the Los Angeles Times, Charles Champlin came the closest of anyone to giving the film a positive review when he wrote, “You are left with some genuine laughter, with a renewed awareness that Shanley is a special and considerable talent, and with an equally renewed feeling that nobody wins 'em all.”

Shanley casts a discerning eye upon the thriller genre without beating the viewer over the head with its conventions. Most thrillers are plot-driven but The January Man is inhabited by characters that you care about – you want to see Nick end up with Bernadette at the film’s conclusion. The film critiques the police thriller by presenting all of its conventions – the loose cannon cop who doesn’t play by the rules; the gruff boss who’s tired of his screwball antics; the ex-lover who creates romantic tension; tantalizing hints of political corruption; and the serial killer following a specific methodology – and then proceeds to subvert them by confounding our expectations, like the killer turning out to be a nobody just following his own sick impulses, or making the cop protagonist an artsy bohemian type. Even the climactic showdown is unusual – a messy, amusing sequence that goes on longer than you’d expect as Nick is portrayed as not the most adept at physical combat. The film’s intent is best summed up by its most memorable line of dialogue that Nick says to Christine when he realizes that he doesn’t love her anymore: “I loved an idea I had that looked like you.” It’s like Shanley loved an idea he had of a thriller that looked like the one that is the film. As if anticipating the critical shellacking his film was going to take upon its release, Shanley has Ed say at the end of the film, “The world’s either great or wretched, isn’t it? So many people are just finished.” He could so easily be talking about Hollywood and what I always assumed to be Shanley’s love/hate relationship with it.

This article was inspired by Mr. Peel's thoughtful examination of the film over at his blog.
 
*note: these fantastic screencaps were taken from the Movie Screenshots blog.

Ronin

Most big budget spy films are often cartoonish action fare with an emphasis on spectacle (explosions, gunfights and car chases) and very little intelligence or interesting characters. Aside from the smart, visceral Jason Bourne films, the only mainstream film to credibly mix brains and brawn in the last fifteen years has been Ronin (1998). This is due in large part to the efficient direction of veteran filmmaker John Frankenheimer, a lean, no-nonsense screenplay written by J. D. Zeik and by David Mamet (under the guise of Richard Weisz) and a solid cast featuring the likes of Robert De Niro, Jean Reno, Stellan Skarsgard, and Sean Bean.

The set-up is this: a group of mercenaries from all over the world assemble in France and are given a mission to steal a briefcase with unknown but what they believe to be very valuable contents inside. The group consists of an American driving expert named Larry (Skipp Sudduth); Spence (Sean Bean), a British weapons man; Gregor (Stellan Skarsgard), an ex-KGB computer expert; Vincent (Jean Reno), a French equipment man; and Sam (Robert De Niro), a veteran tactician from America. They are in turn briefed by a mysterious Irish woman named Deirdre (Natascha McElhone) who we later learn gets her information from a fellow IRA operative, Seamus O’Rourke (Jonathan Pryce).

Because they are all doing this for money no one trusts each other and there is palpable tension under a façade of bravado, dry humor and professional respect. This is exemplified by great one-liners, like when Spence asks Sam, “You ever kill anybody?” to which he responds dismissively, “I hurt somebody’s feelings once.” I love the scene early on where the newly assembled team sniffs each other out. This is where Mamet’s dialogue shines as the various personalities of the team surface: Spence is the cocky Brit; Sam is the sarcastically evasive American; Vincent is the quietly confident Frenchman; and Gregor is the no-nonsense ex-KGB man.

The first action sequence involves a gun deal that goes sour. What stands out in this scene more than the superbly staged action are the little details, like the look on Sam and Vincent’s faces when they realize that they’re walking into a set-up. Afterwards, Vincent thanks Sam for protecting him and a bond develops between the two men that comes from surviving intense, life and death situations. Their relationship is well-played by the two-actors. I also like that Frankenheimer takes the time to show Sam and his team discussing the plan to steal the case. They talk about tactics and, at one point, Sam and Deirdre scout the target and the team protecting it in order to get an idea of the exact number of opponents, how skilled they are and so on. We see just how clever and experienced Sam is in this scene. We also see that a lot preparation goes into a job like this and one can never be too prepared, especially when they are not given all the information.

The group gets the case but one of their own betrays them and takes off with it. This kick-starts a thrilling cat and mouse game through the streets of Paris as Frankenheimer orchestrates action sequences with the kind of ruthless efficiency that would make Michael Mann green with envy. For the most part, they are realistically depicted. Nobody wastes hundreds of rounds before reloading, the actual battles don’t last long, and innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire are killed. Ronin was justly praised for its very exciting car chase sequences. No laws of physics are grossly violated as these guys pursue each other in and around the narrow streets of Nice or through the streets of Paris. You can tell that actual stuntmen drove these cars at high speeds and they were actually crashed, not done later with computer graphics. These sequences work so well not just because they are exciting, well shot and edited, but because they are just as important to the narrative of the film as everything else. They have a purpose as opposed to many other action films where car chases are used as filler to distract the audience from the lack of story, character and so on. It should also be pointed out how cleanly executed these scenes are with refreshingly fluid camera movements so that you get an idea of what his going on and where. There is a nice lack of disorienting hand-held camerawork and these sequences are not hacked to pieces with frenetic editing but done in a way that conveys speed and urgency.

Ronin is also refreshingly free of simple good guy/bad guy roles. They don’t exist in this world because all of the characters are imbued with both of these qualities. For them, this job is strictly business and when it becomes personal that is when mistakes are made. Robert De Niro turns in his last truly great performance to date as the experienced soldier-of-fortune. Like his character in Heat (1995), he’s all business and dedicated to the job at hand and nothing else. He’s ably supported by the always watchable Jean Reno as the steadying hand of the group. He plays the reliable guy so well and exudes a quiet dignity that is fascinating to watch. Frankenheimer wisely plays up the mutual respect between De Niro and Reno’s characters. One wishes that by the film’s conclusion these guys would do another project together, especially as the characters in Ronin.

David Mamet’s lean script reflects the characters it depicts. These are professional soldiers who don’t have time to waste on idle chit-chat. They have been hired to do a job and do it well – that’s what they’re getting paid for. His screenplay also provides a window into the post-Cold War espionage world (as he would also do later on with Spartan). It’s an open market with all sorts of ex-soldiers from all over the world selling their services to the highest bidder. After all, what do career soldiers do in between wars? Mamet only hints at this early on when Vincent laments to Sam about their profession, “Seven fat years and seven lean years.” The “fat years” would seem to refer to the time when these guys were employed by their respective governments and enjoyed all kinds of perks. Now they are in the “lean years” doing jobs purely for money. This exchange also establishes early on the bond that begins to form between these two veteran warriors.

At the heart of Ronin is an intriguing discussion between Sam and Jean Pierre (Michael Lonsdale), Vincent’s former boss and the man who tends to a gunshot wound Sam receives in a skirmish. While resting from impromptu surgery to remove the bullet, Jean Pierre relates to Sam the story of the 47 samurai and the Warrior Code:

“The Forty Seven Ronin, do you know it? Forty-seven samurai whose master was betrayed and killed by another lord. They became ronin, masterless samurai, disgraced by another man’s treachery. For three years they plotted, pretending to be thieves, mercenaries, even madmen (that I didn’t have time to do). And then one night they struck, slipping into the castle of their lord’s betrayer, killing him … The warrior code, the delight in the battle. You understand that, yes? But also something more. You understand there is something outside yourself that has to be served. And when that need is gone, when belief has died, what are you? A man without a master.”

Sam speaks of surviving to retirement even though most of his friends have died before they could achieve it because in their line of work longevity is a rarity, eventually everyone’s luck runs. It’s a topic Mamet would explore in greater detail in films like Spartan (2004), Red Belt (2008), and the television show The Unit.

In 1997, president of United Artists Lindsay Doran met with director John Frankenheimer about a project shortly after she received the screenplay for Ronin. She was a big fan of his films and felt that Ronin was perfectly suited for him: “I’m a supporter of the idea of hiring people who have practically been forgotten. There are an awful lot of filmmakers who stop getting hired when they’re 60 or 55 or even 50.” When Frankenheimer read the script it reminded him of action films from the 1960’s and 1970’s: “What appealed to me too was that it was an intelligent suspense thriller. At heart it’s a film that questions our ethics and the meaning of honor and what it means to ‘do one’s job.’” Doran and United Artists decided to hire Frankenheimer based on his work on Andersonville (1996), television miniseries for TNT in which he won an Emmy for direction.

In terms of camerawork, Frankenheimer eschewed a stylized approach to create what he called a “heightened reality” and achieved this with wide angles and a depth of field. The director hired French cinematographer Robert Fraisse based on his work on the HBO film Citizen X (1995): “I saw that Robert knew how to work within the confines of a schedule, and knew the demands of an American production.” Ronin was shot in a brisk 78 days with an additional 30 days of second-unit work done by Frankenheimer and Fraisse.

For the three car chase sequences, Frankenheimer employed the same techniques he utilized on Grand Prix (1966). According to one of the film’s stunt coordinators and professional race car driver Jean-Claude Lagniez, 150 drivers were used with cars going as fast as 120 miles per hour. Approximately 80 cars were wrecked in scenes where whole sections of Nice and roadways in Paris were temporarily closed down. He and Michael Neugarten were among the drivers hired to do the stunt driving. The director had clearly done his research as both men had won their respective categories at Le Mans the year before. Lagniez said that Frankenheimer insisted the cars during the chases travel at full speed: “If I’m going to do a car chase, I’m going to do a car chase that’s going to make somebody think about whether or not they want to do another one!” The director did some shots with the actors in real cars by using English right-hand drive vehicles. The stunt driver would be actually driving the car and a fake steering wheel on the left would be for the actor. This allowed Frankenheimer to photograph the actors “driving” the cars. The director storyboarded all three chase sequences, generating hundreds of drawings that were used as a guide on location, allowing him to improvise at a given moment if he were so inclined.

A minor controversy broke out brief over screenwriting credit. J.D. Zeik wrote the original script and then David Mamet was brought in to either do a bit of script doctoring or rewrite it completely, depending on who you believe. Frankenheimer claims the latter as he said an interview, “We didn’t shoot a line of Zeik’s script.” Zeik’s attorney claimed that Mamet was brought in at the last minute before principal photography to “beef up De Niro’s role,” added Deirdre as a love interest for Sam and rewrote several scenes. The lawyer claimed that rather than give his client – a then-up and coming screenwriter – sole credit Mamet included his name in order to receive greater residuals. Zeik’s attorney appealed to Mamet’s lawyer to let his client have sole credit but was rebuffed. Mamet tried to apply for sole writing credit but the Writer’s Guild ruled that credit should be given to both Zeik and Mamet. Already burned by the WGA over credit for Wag the Dog (1997), and in protest, Mamet used the pseudonym of Richard Weisz on Ronin. Furthermore, Zeik’s lawyer then accused Frankenheimer of dropping his client “to curry favor with David Mamet.”

Ronin received mixed reviews from critics at the time. Roger Ebert gave the film three out of four stars and praised Frankenheimer’s handling of the material: “Here, with a fine cast, he does what is essentially an entertaining exercise. The movie is not really about anything; if it were, it might have really amounted to something, since it comes pretty close anyway.” In her review for The New York Times, Janet Maslin raved about the film’s car chases: “Proving that the greatest excitement an action film can offer is the spectacle of real derring-do performed by real people, Mr. Frankenheimer stages three sensational French chase sequences in settings that prove astonishing, under the circumstances … these scenes are nothing short of sensational. Mr. Frankenheimer directs them in fast, efficient, no-frills fashion because no extra frills are needed.” Time magazine’s Richard Schickel wrote, “Unvexed by boring details, which usually just compound the implausibility of action movies anyway, we are free to appreciate the sheer stylishness of Ronin. This derives from the counterpoint between Mamet's verbal manner—weary, knowing, elliptical—and director John Frankenheimer's bold visual manner.”

However, Entertainment Weekly gave the film a “B-“ rating and Owen Gleiberman wrote, “I wish Frankenheimer had done more with Stellan Skarsgard's icy genius sociopath. Ronin is ''well-crafted,'' but it's also empty — a joyless thrill ride … In a movie like this one, speed itself starts out as excitement and ends as desperation — as a race out of the void.” In his review for the Washington Post, Michael O’Sullivan wasn’t nearly as taken with the film: “Despite some ingenious touches, as when Sam and Deirdre pose as tourists to snap photos of their elusive quarry, much of the time Ronin feels like a high-brow Steven Seagal film, with massive gun battles that casually disregard civilian casualties and too many overlong car chases through the twisty streets of Paris and Nice.” New York magazine’s David Denby concurred: “Ronin is well-made, but it's an act of connoisseurship for people who have given up on movies as an art form.”

Frankenheimer and Mamet created a fascinating world of international mercenaries that at once seems realistic and also very cinematic in nature with its exciting car chases and gun battles. The director brought years of experience as an excellent journeyman director to Ronin. He didn’t waste time with needless exposition and showy style. Like the characters in the film, he’s there to get the job done while also delivering an entertaining movie, harkening back to his Classic Hollywood contemporaries like Don Siegel. Ronin would be one of Frankenheimer’s last films (the less said about Reindeer Games the better) and it is a fitting swan song for the man who unfortunately died in 2002.

 

Flatliners

Flatliners (1990) may be best remembered as a film that featured a cast of young actors either on the cusp of being bonafide movie stars (William Baldwin) or who were already there (Julia Roberts). Featuring the likes of Kiefer Sutherland and Kevin Bacon, you’d be hard pressed to assemble this cast now but back then the film’s director Joel Schumacher had the Midas touch, making his name with the Brat Pack dramedy St. Elmo’s Fire (1985) and the popcorn thrill ride cum horror film The Lost Boys (1987). Flatliners was an attempt at more serious, weightier fare albeit filtered through his commercial sensibilities. It features a top notch premise: five medical students attempt to cheat death by killing themselves for several minutes so as to uncover any evidence of an afterlife. However, once they’re revived what they experienced while dead comes back to literally haunt them.


Flatliners came out at a time when Hollywood was fascinated with death and the afterlife as similarly-themed films Ghost (1990) and Jacob’s Ladder (1990) all came out in the same year. Flatliners resides somewhere in the middle as it shares some of the romantic aspirations and notions of forgiveness with Ghost while also including some of the otherworldly thriller aspects of Jacob’s Ladder. Art directed within an inch of its life by Schumacher, Flatliners was a commercial success (with that cast how could it not?) and received mostly positive notices. It has by and large disappeared from the public consciousness only to pop up occasionally on television. I’ve always been fascinated by its overtly stylish look and its thoroughly unlikable protagonist. Actually, all of the main characters typify the materialistic “me generation” that came of age in the 1980’s. I also admire Peter Filardi’s awkward attempts to tackle substantial issues, like life after death, bullying, and infidelity, in his screenplay even if he isn’t always successful or we’re distracted by Jan de Bont’s atmospheric cinematography.

Schumacher sets the right tone visually as he introduces the film’s central protagonist, Nelson Wright (Kiefer Sutherland), clad in the ‘80s uniform of sunglasses, trenchcoat and black shirt and pants because, y’know, he’s a got a dark side. The camera zooms in on Nelson who says to no one in particular, “Today is a good day to die.” While all of this is happening, the soundtrack blasts an ominous beat straight out of a John Carpenter film only to inject a pretentious choir vocalizing over top. Fortunately, we’re spared any more of this sonic claptrap as Schumacher slam edits us right in the middle of an emergency room as David Labraccio (Kevin Bacon) frantically tries to save a poor woman in bad shape. She’s wheeled into a room so painfully stark white that it resembles the strange bedroom at the end of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). Labraccio is a brilliant but impulsive medical student who goes ahead and saves the patient’s life anyway when the doctor doesn’t show up fast enough. He is the brilliant yet angry rebel. He’s such a non-conformist that when Nelson goes looking for him he finds the guy rappelling out his dorm window and down the side of the building because, y’know, he doesn’t have time for the stairs.

Rachel Mannus (Julia Roberts) is the smart med student who keeps her colleagues at a distance. She’s fascinated with life after death because her father committed suicide. Rachel does rounds in a ward with a few elderly patients whom she dotes on, hoping to get some insight into what it’s like to be so close to death. The romance between Labraccio and Rachel feels tacked on. In one scene, they’re good friends and in another they’re sleeping in bed together. It feels like a scene was edited out somewhere in post-production that showed them getting together. Joe Hurley (William Baldwin) is the ladies man with a thing for videotaping his many conquests in-between classes with his fellow med students. Joe’s past is the weakest of the bunch because of its abrupt conclusion. He only seems remorseful because he got caught.

Nelson is a master manipulator who knows exactly what to say to the four other med students so that they will help kill himself all in the name of fame and fortune – oh, and science, of course (that’s merely a side effect). We are introduced to Randy Steckle (Oliver Platt) repeatedly reciting his future job title as he is already self-mythologizing himself. The film quickly and efficiently establishes the main characters and everyone but poor Steckle gets a backstory that provides motivation for why they are willing to kill themselves for a glimpse of the afterlife. I guess, since he’s the only one who doesn’t die and is then resuscitated, he gets marginalized, which is too bad because Oliver Platt is such an intriguing actor to watch and he’s basically reduced to the role of whiney complainer with the occasional comic relief. He is the handwringing Mother Hen with a sarcastic sense of humor, like when he calls Nelson on his ulterior motives for what he’s doing: “This isn’t for mankind, this is for Nelson. Why do I suddenly see you on 60 Minutes sandwiched in-between Andy Rooney and a Subaru commercial?”

Kiefer Sutherland is a little too good at playing a Preppie prick (also see Bright Lights, Big City) as Nelson is an egomaniac looking to make a name for himself. He has never been afraid to play unlikable characters (see Stand by Me or Mirrors) and despite his karmic comeuppance, there is no real indication that Nelson will change all that much despite gaining closure on his past. There is a delicious irony that we get to see a little kid kick the crap out of him – something I’m sure we won’t see on his career reel if the American Film Institute ever decides to celebrate his filmography. One can see what might have drawn Sutherland to this role as he gets to literally shed his pretty boy image by becoming increasingly battered and scarred over the course of the film. Kevin Bacon is good as the skeptic who goes under in order to put his atheism to the test. He plays the voice of reason. Blessed with his family’s good look, William Baldwin is well-cast as the narcissistic pretty boy. The success of this film led to him headlining Ron Howard’s ode to firefighters, Backdraft (1991) and Sliver (1993), an erotic thriller with Sharon Stone. Julia Roberts makes for a credible caregiver but I don’t quite buy her as a brilliant med student.

Flatliners features one ridiculously over-art directed set after another. For example, the room where our med student protagonists practice on cadavers resembles the Metropolitan Museum of Art, not a med school, but it does look fantastic and creates a semi-solemn mood with its impressive-looking Gothic architecture. Check out Nelson’s “apartment” with its high ceilings, ornate paneling and stunning window frames that look like it came out of an Architectural Digest magazine photoshoot. How does a med student afford a place like that? Of course, he could be a trust fund baby born with a silver spoon in his mouth. In case we didn’t get the whole life and death thing that the main characters wrestle with through the entire film, Schumacher makes sure we do by repeatedly lingering on statues of angels and an engraving of a man in a tug of war with Death while that damn choir sings on the soundtrack again! Hell, we even get a shot of Nelson standing right next to a statute with angel wings. Ok, Schumacher, we get it! The night scenes feature slick city streets and smoke billowing in the background for no apparent reason but it does look cool.

The film’s concept of the afterlife consists of the sins of our past – with Nelson it is accidentally killing a young boy when he was a child; Labraccio verbally abused a little girl when he was in grade school; for Rachel it was witnessing her father committing suicide; and for Joe it is all of his sexual conquests coming back to haunt him. Flatliners equates going to the afterlife with an adrenaline rush – the ultimate extreme sport. The flatline/afterlife sequences are obviously the highlight of the film and are beautifully shot by then-cinematographer, later film director, Jan de Bont who expertly utilizes the widescreen frame. He helps give the streets of Chicago a nightmarish look right out of Dante’s Inferno with alleyway fires and then switches to a cool blue look when Nelson goes through a maze of underground passages in the city subway system.

Labraccio’s afterlife sequence looks frightening enough as it takes place on an atmospherically-lit subway but becomes unintentionally funny when he is trash-talked by a little black girl. It’s supposed to be scary but illicits belly laughs as opposed to chills. Much more successful is Rachel’s nightmarish visions of her father’s suicide. She interrupts him in a bathroom saturated with hellish red light as he shoots himself up with heroin. Roberts’ reaction to this primal scene is pretty bad as her attempt at emoting fails. The most extravagant afterlife sequences are reserved for Nelson, of course, because he is the central protagonist. His childhood nemesis is much more intimidating because of his vengeful demeanor.

Then-unknown Boston screenwriter Peter Filardi got the idea for Flatliners in 1988 based on two sources of inspiration. A close friend of his had an allergic reaction to the anesthesia after an operation and had a near-death experience. Filardi was shaken up by what had happened and it “shook up my imagination too.” He realized that death hadn’t really been explored for his twentysomething generation and thought, “What is more intriguing than death itself?” He wrote the script during the Irangate scandal and the United States elections with words like “accountability” being used a lot. From this, he conceived of a group of “young, ‘90s kids who would learn a lesson,” from experimenting with death. He researched medical technology and CPR techniques. Filardi wrote the first draft in two months but wasn’t sure if it was ready to be read. He continued to work on it while writing screenplays for television.

Meanwhile, his former agent Ben Conway shopped the Flatliners script around Hollywood in January 1989 where it quickly became a hot commodity with a six-figure bidding war breaking out among several major producers. In one week, five bids were received with producer Scott Rudin, who had a production deal with Columbia Pictures, coming out on top. However, he reportedly violated protocol by bidding against another producer on the lot – Michael Douglas and his production company Stonebridge Entertainment. Then studio president Dawn Steel stepped in and gave the project to Douglas while Rudin left Columbia for Paramount Studios. Douglas sent the script to director Joel Schumacher during the summer of ’89. The director was in pre-production on his passion project, an adaptation of the Phantom of the Opera, but found himself drawn to the themes of atonement and forgiveness in Filardi’s script.

Schumacher was hired to direct and worked with Filardi to fine-tune the script, including changing the setting. The screenwriter had originally set it in his hometown of Boston but the director changed it to Chicago because he preferred the locations. Filardi also originally envisioned a more realistic approach but Schumacher went for a more Gothic look. Before the start of principal photography, Filardi asked Schumacher about this and the director told him, “I want the film to look as daring as the characters are daring.” To his credit, the director had the screenwriter on set every day doing rewrites when necessary and listening to actors’ suggestions, sometimes incorporating them into the dialogue. To prepare for the film, Schumacher read books on near-death experiences and listened to tapes of people relating their experiences. The cast did some medical research and acquired video tapes of medical procedures. There was also a doctor and a nurse on standby when the actors were on set dealing with needles and CPR equipment.

Flatliners enjoyed most positive reviews among mainstream critics. Roger Ebert gave the film three out of four stars and wrote, “There were some hazards in this project – with the wrong note, they easily could look silly – and yet they take their chances and pull it off. Flatliners is an original, intelligent thriller, well-directed by Joel Schumacher. In her review for The New York Times, Caryn James wrote, “But when taken on its own stylish terms, Flatliners is greatly entertaining. Viewers are likely to go along with this film instantly or else ridicule it to death. Its atmospheric approach doesn't admit much middle ground. The Washington Post’s Rita Kempley wrote, “Flatliners is a heart-stopping, breathtakingly sumptuous haunted house of a movie that takes off where Dracula and Dante left off and CPR began.” In his review for the Globe and Mail, Jay Scott wrote, “The cast is similarly exemplary, a quintet of outstanding equals, and for all the deadliness of its conservative conclusion, Peter Filardi’s script, his first to be produced, is alive with smart med school talk.” USA Today gave the film three out of four stars and Susan Wloszczyna wrote, “Director Joel Schumacher taps his strengths: the ensemble work of St. Elmo’s Fire combined with the neo-gothic scares of The Lost Boys.”

However, Entertainment Weekly gave the film a “D” rating and Owen Gleiberman wrote, “Julia Roberts' fans will be disappointed to see that her follow-up to Pretty Woman (this one was made before anyone knew she was a star) is such a dud, and that she has a relatively minor role in it. The part doesn't give her much of a chance — but then she doesn't do much with it except to stand around and look beautiful and concerned.” In his review for the Los Angeles Times, Michael Wilmington felt that the cast was trapped “in this great cavernous museum of a movie, with a dry little pea of an idea rattling down echoing hallways. It almost seems a cheat that the filmmakers don't show any inkling that emptiness and flashy camp may tinge their ‘philosophy.’”

It may seem like I’m criticizing Flatliners for its unrealistic stylistic flourishes but they are an important reason why I continue to be fascinated with this film after all these years. It is such a product of its times and has a fantastic premise as well. It’s hard to sympathize with most of these characters because they are self-absorbed in nature and so it is up to the actors and their natural charisma to get us to care about what happens to them, hence the casting of people like Bacon, Roberts and Sutherland who were all popular movie stars at the time. Roberts and Sutherland in particular were front and center on the pop culture radar having recently become romantically involved during filming. Ultimately, Flatliners is about sins that must be absolved and perceived guilt that must be eliminated. Both of which stem from their respective childhoods. Once they confront the sources of these issues and apologize or get closure only then are they able to be redeemed.

 
For further reading, check out Erich Kuersten's awesome review over at his blog, Acidemic. His article is actually what inspired me to write my own.