CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF (1958): “Lies and Mendacity”

It’s not often that we could say that a Tennessee Williams play turned movie would give the viewer a break from reality, but what poses as reality on television in the movies is so stultifying that we need to escape it by watching something with intelligent content.  For all of its melodrama, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof seems more authentic than all of the dramas being paraded across theatres as entertainment.  With Liz Taylor playing Maggie and Paul Newman playing Brick, we would think we’d be viewing a classic Hollywood romance.  Yet it is Burl Ives as Big Daddy that gives the film substance.  Big Daddy barrels through the lives of his sons and his wife in such a manner that we barely recognize until the end of this 108 minute film that he is the most emotionally stable character in the film.  Big Daddy’s son Brick drinks while Brick’s wife, Maggie, nags her husband to change.  Big Daddy’s other son, Gooper (Jack Carson), craves the affection of his father and is jealous of the attention Big Daddy pays towards Brick.  Gooper is married to Mae (Madeline Sherwood), who seems only interested in receiving an inheritance from Big Daddy when the old man dies.  One has the feeling that Mae is hoping this will occur very soon.  And finally there is Big Mama (Judith Anderson), the wife of Big Daddy, who has long endured the tirades of Big Daddy and has no idea how to please her husband.

Big Daddy and Big Mama know there are problems in the marriage of Brick and Maggie since the couple has not delivered to them a grandchild.  Big Momma accurately perceives that the lack of a grandchild is not due to infertility but rather Brick’s lack of desire to sleep in the same bed as Maggie.  Now in the original play, Brick was plagued by homosexual desires.  In the tamed down film version, it’s just that Brick cannot admit his best friend in high school (who ended up committing suicide) was actually a failure as a man.  Apparently, in 1958, a blockbuster film could not be made with any inference of homosexual desire.  Ultimately, this leaves a gaping hole in an otherwise well done movie.

Anyway, Big Daddy comes to the rescue.  Though suffering from cancer (kept hidden from Big Daddy until Brick crudely reveals the prognosis), Big Daddy provides Brick with an example of facing up to all of the “lies and mendacity” that the remainder of the family tries to thwart upon him.  Gooper in the end even admits that the example of his father is more important to him than any estate.  Inspired, Brick takes Maggie to bed and we can presume that a child will soon be born to the couple.  Big Daddy then takes Big Mama on his last look around of his vast estate.

There is a problem with the film with such major quarrels and resentments being resolved so neatly by the overbearing father.  The director, Richard Brooks, and the screenwriter, James Poe, so drastically altered the script of the original play that one wonders why everyone in the film is basically screaming at each other from beginning to almost the end of the movie.   The theme of the film is simple: at some point we need to quit lying to each other.  With each lie, our problems are only exasperated.  Unfortunately, I would say there is something disingenuous in presenting a theme in this way while the filmmakers shy away from a major theme in the Tennessee Williams’ play. 

Elia Kazan did a similar thing in A Streetcar Named Desire, another Tennessee Williams play filmed in 1951, where the seduction of a young man by Blanche and the sexual attraction of Stella and Stanley are suppressed in the film.  Yet nevertheless, Streetcar remains one of the greatest movies ever filmed because so much more was revealed in this film than anything ever released in Hollywood before.  Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is not that good because the storyline is so changed. What saves the film is that each actor plays his or her character so well that we believe the antagonism to be real for whatever reason that it was brought on.  Maggie, despite looking so lovely, often comes across as shrill.  The two sons understandably are frightened by their father’s dominance and seem unable to ever please him.  And Big Daddy is repulsed by the dishonesty of his family – the family in this case representing society in general.

August 31, 2011

©  Robert S. Miller 2011

THE GODFATHER (1972): The "Family" and America

I doubt that Francis Ford Coppola could have predicted the way his 170 minute behemoth, The Godfather, would be viewed in the subsequent decades since its release.  Coppola intended for the film to be a satire on America.  The power hungry Corleones, successful as entrepreneurs while lacking in moral scruples and who over time alienated themselves from everything they cared for and that had any meaning to them, were in Coppola’s mind representative of America itself.  Fortunately for Coppola, the film came to mean so much more than that.  The Godfather was peopled by so many individuals that we respected, cared for, or despised that we clearly identified with the characters portrayed as more than just a subset of criminals.

I will say, however, that in The Godfather Coppola is somewhat more successful in his goal than he was in The Godfather, Part II.  Marlon Brando fleshes out Vito Corleone as someone every bit as sinister (almost bug-like) as he is cunning.  He is respected and feared to such a degree that it seems impossible for him to be truly close to anyone.  His one attempt at humor frightens his young grandchild into believing that his grandfather is some kind of monster.  It’s difficult to imagine Vito anywhere but in shadowy rooms or corridors, and the single time that he is out in the sunshine he is sprayed with pesticide by the same infant grandchild - thus causing Vito to die.  Vito Corleone, played by Robert De Niro in the sequel and as a younger man, is more heroic than sinister.  Any crimes he commits were for the protection of his family and his neighborhood and were ultimately done out of necessity or rightful vengeance.  This Vito adores his family, reveres his heritage, and honors all that help him along the way.  The young Vito is the self-made man of the American Dream and of such a noble brand that we are proud that he be considered one of us.

But though Coppola was more conflicted in the direction that he wished the character of Vito Corleone to represent, his treatment of Vito’s youngest son, Michael Corleone, played by Al Pacino, is consistent.  Michael’s transformation from the innocent war hero to someone that ruthlessly orders the murder of his brother-in-law and, in the sequel, his own brother, is readily explainable by the events that unfold in the two films.  Michael is at first not so much unnerved by the character of his father as he is revolted by him.  Michael understands exactly what kind of person his father is.  Yet even Michael feels an attempt on his father’s life was somehow unjust and is determined to take reprisal on those responsible for the assassination attempt.  Michael thus loses his innocence by killing two of the men he holds most responsible for this act.  Ultimately, the motives behind any attempt to kill his father goes much deeper than even Michael can at first comprehend, and Michael is pulled into that underworld that he has for many years despised.  The killing of Michael’s young bride and, even more importantly, the killing of his brother Santino – or Sonny (James Caan) – makes any chance for a return to innocence impossible.

There are the other siblings in the Corleone’ family subject to human failings that do not beset Vito or Michael.  Fredo (John Cazale) is Vito’s second oldest son, and Fredo feels insecure and unappreciated.  As much as anyone, he would like to be successful in the family business but he does not have the brains or vicious temperament to be so.  Connie (Talia Shire), the only daughter of Vito, was the girl that watched too many Hollywood romances and dreamed that her marriage to Carlo (Gianni Russo) would bring her everything she wanted.  Instead, Connie’s marriage becomes a nightmare as Carlo is willing to do anything (including beat Connie) to rise in the ranks of the underworld.  Sonny, Vito’s oldest son, is powerful, passionate and temperamental.  It is his temper that gets him killed after discovering that Carlo has been beating his sister.  Finally, there is Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall), the half-German and half-Irish adopted son of Vito.  Tom, an able lawyer and consigliere to the Don, is probably too reasonable and sane to be associated with such a family.  Though the mastermind behind the infamous beheading of the horse (a scene that cannot be described), Tom probably more than anyone would like for the Corleone’ business to go legitimate so that his family loyalty is no longer tested by the ordering of acts of violence.  Unfortunately for Tom, Michael will give Tom no such breaks.

After the death of his first wife, Michael marries Kay (Diane Keaton) and the couple has two children of their own.  Kay, a school teacher who has lived a sheltered life, is unprepared for what Michael is capable of doing.  After the death of Vito, Michael orders the killings of the five family heads in the New York area; also orders the killing of Moe Greene (Alex Rocco), a gambling kingpin from Las Vegas (loosely based on underworld boss, Bugsy Siegel); orders the killing of Tessio (Abe Vigoda)  (an old friend of Vito), who has made the mistake of changing his allegiance to a rival family; and finally has Carlo executed by Clemenza (Richard Castellano) (an underworld figure that has long served Vito).  Though Connie understands that Michael is behind the killing of her husband, Carlo, Michael is able to convince Kay that he had nothing to do with this action.  After all of this mayhem takes place, a number of underworld figures, including Clemenza, now swear their allegiance to Michael.

If we get beyond the gifted acting of Brando, Pacino, Cazale, Talia Shire and even James Caan (who has rarely ever been credited with great acting), we still have a larger cast of memorable characters in this film than any other movie I can name.  We have Bonasera (Salvatore Corsitto), the mortician that comes to Vito to avenge the beating of his daughter; Virgil Sollozzo (Al Lettieri), the Turk that was good with a knife; Captain McCluskey (Sterling Hayden), the corrupt police man and complete lout; Luca Brasi (Lenny Montana), the deranged killer totally devoted to Vito Corleone; and Jack Woltz (John Marley), who is loosely based on Harry Cohn, the founder of Columbia Pictures, and who doesn’t seem to at first understand that he shouldn’t mess with the Corleone’ family.  The characters and the faces of the characters in the first two films of this series are unforgettable. 

The fortunate mistake that Coppola made in the making of The Godfather was that he actually ended up romanticizing a group of figures that would otherwise have been viewed as having no set of redeeming values.  Yet through the film we understand these characters well beyond their disreputable side.  In some of them, we even see their warmth and humor.  Sonny for example, guilty of many infidelities and murders, is honorable in the manner that he cares for Michael and Connie, and there is no more terrible scene than to see him gunned down due to the treachery of Carlo. 

Coppola has publicly complained that America provides no social safety net for its vulnerable people.  According to Coppola, we are supposed to be upset that weak but essentially good people such as Connie and Fredo can only be protected by the likes of Vito and Michael Corleone.  We are supposed to be aware while watching the film that Tom - intelligent and talented as he was – would have been left homeless if Don Corleone had not taken him in.  All of this may or may not be true.  Coppola has had a lot to say about America, and there comes a point when he probably has said too much.  Coppola bemoaned that America truly was not a pluralistic society, but The Godfather introduces so many diverse and colorful characters populating the American landscape that the film contradicts Coppola’s own claim.  It’s remarkable that a director could so badly blunder in his aim for making this movie and yet still make a film that is close to perfection.

If The Godfather was only taken as a satire on American life, than the film would be a failure.  If it was only taken as the portrayal of the destruction of a family, than it would be a much more limited film than it really is.  There are many things in The Godfather that give us no cause for celebration.  America has at times through its history been a violent and bigoted nation.  But without putting aside those blemishes, it has also been a nation of innovation, diversity and vitality.  That some of its most powerful men have been ruthless and exploitive is incontrovertible, but the same is true of every nation.  Both Vito and Michael pay the price for their lack of humanity and thus the message of The Godfather is far less cynical than some critics would lead us to believe.  As saddened as we are to see what happens to Sonny, we are also saddened by what becomes of Michael.  In his last conversation with his son, Vito told Michael that he had hoped for so much more for him.  Many who watched the film shared that sentiment.

Like Gone With the Wind and A Streetcar Named Desire (starring a very young Brando), The Godfather is one of the films that changed our culture.  It’s fortunate that Coppola was so much better an artist than he was a political thinker or this film could have been much more insignificant.

July 20, 2011

© Robert S. Miller 2011

MICHAEL CLAYTON (2007) : Lawyers and the Evil Corporate Client

The plot elements of Michael Clayton contain too much intrigue, suspense and the latest electronic spy ware to be much different than a thousand other movies that are being shown.  And it contains the sort of crowd pleading “I gotcha” ending that annoys moviegoers who are less discriminating than I am.  This is too bad because there are times when watching this movie I’m almost convinced that I’m sitting in a corporate boardroom or listening to the dialogue of two or three lawyers mapping out a case strategy.  This movie not only occasionally realistically portrays what is going on behind the scenes of a major case involving a large corporation, it almost picks up the spirit and the sentiment of the characters involved in it as well.

 

This is Tony Gilroy’s directorial debut.  The movie stars George Clooney as Michael Clayton, but in my opinion the best lines in the movie belong to Sidney Pollack as Marty Bach, the senior partner in a large downtown Manhattan firm named Kenner, Bach & Ledeen.  Michael works for Marty as a “fixer” or “janitor” as he calls himself because he is involved in cleaning up messes.  Marty is smart enough and good enough at what he does to not be fooled by much of anything, let alone the merits of his client’s position – the client being a manufacturer of pathogenic pesticides named U-North, that is involved in a class action lawsuit with individuals allegedly injured by their product.  Marty at one-point comments to Michael his real thoughts about the U-North lawsuit by saying: “This case stank from day one!  How do you think we pay the rent?”

 

So at the beginning of the movie we listen to a rambling monologue and this makes us understand immediately that someone has snapped.  That someone is a lawyer in the firm named Arthur Edens (Tom Wilkinson), and Arthur has been working six straight years on the U-North class action sacrificing all nightlife and personal pleasure in the service of his client.  The problem is that Arthur knows the ins and outs of this lawsuit better than anyone else, and he’s suddenly become conscience-stricken upon discovering that more than 400 people have contracted cancer due to exposure to pesticides manufactured by U-North.  “I am Shiva, the God of death!” he at one point tells Michael (paraphrasing a quote once allegedly made by Oppenheimer after the first bomb was dropped on Hiroshima).  Arthur’s breakdown goes a bit too far when he disrobes during a videotaped deposition of one of the class members and then starts begging her for forgiveness for what his client, U-North, has done to her.  Needless to say, the inside counsel for U-North, Karen Crowder (Tilda Swinton) is mortified by the turn of events, so Michael is called in by Marty to do the cleanup job.

 

Now Karen is an interesting one.  She’s insecure almost to a neurotic degree and almost goes into convulsions preparing for meetings.  Her two assets as far as U-North is concerned are the long hours of preparation she puts into doing her job, and her willingness to please her supervisors towards any end.  The latter trait ends up being her undoing because she’s willing to take every measure to prevent U-North’s reputation ever from being besmirched.  She’s unimpressed with Michael (whatever assurances that Marty may give her that Michael is best at what he does), and decides she needs to take matters into her own hands.  Unfortunately, this is where realism of the movie ends and the bogus intrigue begins.  Karen hires some professionals to do surveillance work upon Arthur’s apartment and, when they discover Arthur’s intention to sabotage the class action, Karen orders that the hit men have Arthur murdered (they do this by making it appear like Arthur accidentally overdosed on drugs).  However, Karen vastly underrated Michael, as Michael is the only one to figure out that this was no accident.  Karen then also attempts to have Michael killed after it’s discovered that Michael is in possession of materials that Arthur was going to turn over to the other side.  After the unsuccessful hit attempt, Michael confronts Karen, gets her to unknowingly confess what she had attempted to do over a cell phone, and the cops (including one officer who happens to be Michael’s brother) come in and arrest all the evil executives at U-North.

 

There are also a number of meaningless subplots involved.  For example, Michael has a gambling problem and owes a debt of $75,000 resulting from a card game and bad business investment, thus forcing Michael to put long hours into the firm doing a job he does not believe in.  Michael is a single parent of a young son that he adores.  Michael has another brother who drinks too much.  These subplots are so casually thrown into the movie that we don’t pay much attention to them.  The only thing important to remember in relation to these subplots is that Michael is struggling to make a life for himself outside of his life at the law firm.

 

Michael Clayton is significant as a character study of a certain subculture in our society that’s probably not well understood.  Lawyers receive a bad reputation for their profession primarily because they do not view circumstances in terms of one side is good and the other side is bad.  There is a good and bad to every side of every case or else there wouldn’t be any lawsuits.  Every competent lawyer needs to understand the strengths and weaknesses of his every case in order to win.  The image of the crusading lawyer is good stuff for television drama, but it contains little connection with reality.  There really are no winners in a court of law.  Lawyers neither have the time nor the money to pick and choose every case to be exactly how they desire it.  And more often than not, a lawyer is even sympathetic towards those on the other side.  They just happen to be a bit more sympathetic towards the side they represent.  Sometimes this could just be a matter of who is being paid by whom, but it can also be tied up in the belief that every side deserves an advocate – just as every side has its attributes.

 

As is shown in Michael Clayton, lawyers often work long hours and are subject to human failings.  The failings in this movie just happen to be a bit more dramatic than any I’ve ever observed, though breakdowns, addictions, and crisis’ of conscience among attorneys are not uncommon.  Most dramas portray lawyers as immaculately polished in their deliveries and smooth in their interactions with others.  I’ve almost never seen this in real life.  For the most part, litigations take so many unanticipated turns that lawyers blunder from one motion or hearing to another without ever particularly impressing their clients.  Yet there are very good attorneys out there that go largely unnoticed because they have the discipline to think for themselves and not be intimidated by the opinions of others.  And there are bad attorneys who just go through the motions or, worse, are so wrapped up in their own narrow perspective of the case that they represent that they fail to take into account that a jury or a judge may see things differently.  Sidney Pollack as Marty Bach believably comes across in Michael Clayton as the rare attorney who understands the entire landscape (his first line in the movie when he addresses a reporter on the telephone reveals his silent reserve).  That he may be greedy points more to his defects as a person rather than his ability as a lawyer.  Greed is not a vice relegated to lawyers only.  And Tilda Swinton (whose acting surpasses everyone but Pollack’s in this movie) as Karen Crowder exemplifies the more common type of lawyer who does not appreciate the limitations of her own case or even understand that there is only so much she can do to prevent catastrophe from coming down upon her client.  There are attorneys like Tom Wilkinson as Arthur Edens (in his hammed up role), though generally they only tend to be eloquent in their own minds and usually become more pathetic than effective after the personal problems in their lives become noticeable.  And there are attorneys like Michael Clayton (adequately acted by George Clooney) who can be very effective at their jobs so long as they don’t talk (and smirk) too much.

 

Also, there are class actions like the one in Michael Clayton brought against corporations almost every day.  And if the death of hundreds of people becomes a circumstance (even if not by specific design and which unfortunately sometimes does occur), it probably could be the responsibility of a corporation.  Many of these class actions against corporations are settled for little compensation for the plaintiffs involved.  It must be noted, however, that Hollywood has not quite gotten a handle on the notion that corporations can provide benefits to society such as a thing called employment.  And unlike what happens with U-North in Michael Clayton, corporations almost never open themselves up to criminal liability as well as civil liability by doing something stupid like trying to have an attorney murdered.  Billions of dollars in assets gives the corporations lots of leverage to influence or even silence individuals by more effective legal (if not ethical) methods than overt criminal behavior.  They can hire the best lawyers, create the best advertisements, and employ the best lobbyists to get the job done without having to hire a hit man.  One is probably not going to bring down an entire corporation as easily as what occurred in Michael Clayton in any case. 

 

Michael Clayton was disappointing because it was a good movie that could easily have been done up much better.  If it would have stuck to the internal working of the attorneys and left it up to television dramas to add all of the extracurricular activity, we could have seen the best courtroom drama since ‘Breaker’ Morant was released in 1979.  Instead, we have a movie slightly better than Erin Brockovich – the crusading legal assistant who dressed like a streetwalker.  Hollywood will not back up a movie whose entire intrigue is based upon intelligent depictions of real life.  Instead, they require sensationalism to be thrown in with the hopes of drawing in a larger audience.  Here, in Michael Clayton, it didn’t work.  Unfortunately and even so, Michael Clayton is still one of the best movies of 2007.

 

December 3, 2007

 © Robert S. Miller 2007

OPRAH WINFREY: There’ll Never Be Another Like Her – Thank God!

She’s contributed to charities, had scholarships named after her, promoted acceptance and tolerance, and has promoted literacy.  Though this may be in poor taste, it needs to be said that Oprah can afford such philanthropy as she has done well for herself.  Born to a single mother in the south, Oprah has accumulated $800,000,000 in savings.  Her television show (scheduled to end today) has been on television for twenty five years and she is in the process of owning her own network.

Some commentators have suggested that Oprah has succeeded in a field saturated with talk show hosts due to her own positivity.   Unlike Jerry Springer, she has focused on “upbeat” stories rather than displays of human depravity to draw in her viewership.  Having said that I can only take Oprah in small doses - having never viewed an entire episode of her show.  Oprah is annoyingly loud and panders to popular culture.  Outside of the reason why she has never married, we imagine we know everything about her.  We know about her many attempts to confront her yo-yo weight problem, her many relationships, her hopes, her dreams, her struggles, her history (including being a victim of a sexual assault), her brief experimentation with drugs, the books she supposedly read and loved, and her empathy for every forlorn soul she has met.  Oprah feels qualified to publicly comment upon war, religion, politics, love, literature, psychology and (most importantly to her television audience) fashion.  It would be best not to ask what qualifies her to discuss all of these matters.  Her single area of genius is her ability to pull in a fan base and so she will always have an audience to assent to her every utterance.  But rather than making difficult concepts comprehensible for her audience members, she has dumbed each particular subject down.

Probably no talk show host has made public confession seem therapeutic as Oprah.  We follow the travails of her guests from victimhood to later episodes where all seems to have ended happily.  She has given those she has invited upon her show a forum for making fools of themselves without shame.  Witness Tom Cruise hopping up and down on the couch and discussing his relationship with Scientology while Oprah nods her head knowingly.  (In her New-Aged way, Oprah is very open-minded to all things religious.)

Probably the most amusing endeavor of the diva is her book of the month club.  Her public persona wouldn’t seem compatible with a reclusive author such as William Faulkner, yet The Sound and the Fury and As I Lay Dying are two novels that contain Oprah’s sign of approval.  That Oprah has read (let alone understood) the two books is debatable, but smart business woman that she is this would be in the realm of believability.  That the typical audience member could make heads or tails of his writings is a stretch.  I’ve heard individuals that have felt what Oprah has done is admirable if she managed to encourage anyone to read at all, but I disagree.  Nothing damages an author’s reputation more than to have his works discussed by individuals that have no understanding of the subject matter to begin with.  As Josh Billings once said: “It is better to know nothing than to know what ain’t so.”  Anyway, in Oprah’s book club we now have Anna Karenina setting side by side with the books of Bill Cosby.

I think even Oprah would acknowledge that wandering into the realm of politics may have been a mistake.  Oprah endorsed Barack Obama in the 2008 Presidential campaign and she has a right to her opinion.  Why anyone should care is another matter.  Oprah has a tendency to tell people what to think rather than encourage them to think for themselves.  In any case, Oprah has been less inclined to praise the President since the election than she did during the campaign.

I wish Oprah well – or as well as anyone can wish someone that has close to a billion dollars closeted away.  I just hope with the end of her show the public confessional will let up a bit.  Little has done more damage to our culture in recent years than to take seriously celebrities that feel the need to speak out on every issue.  Fame and fortune apparently are enough to give them credibility and so we have the asininity of Hollywood stars visiting dictators in Iran and Venezuela and pronouncing that such regimes are misunderstood.  Worse, we have college educated idiots believing them.  So please, no more reading of your “private” diaries on the air; no more weight loss tips on how to take off twenty pounds only to put them back on six months later; and no more gut wrenching, appalling confessions on the air from your guests.

Farewell, Oprah!  I hope that private life is as fulfilling for you as was your public one.

May 25, 2011

© Robert S. Miller 2011

OF GODS AND MEN (2010): Religion and Tolerance

Of Gods and Men is one of the most thoughtful movies I have ever seen.  I’d probably go back to The Apostle – Robert Duvall’s extremely undervalued 1997 production – to find a film that would have forced a viewer to so question their own assumptions concerning a particular subject.  In both films, religion has been treated respectfully to such an extent that one has to marvel as to how either came to be filmed.  It goes without saying that neither movie was made in a major Hollywood studio.

In Of Gods and Men, we have a group of Cistercian Trappist monks performing good works to a small and impoverished community located in Algeria.  The members of that community also happen to be Muslims.  Headed by a priest named Christian (Lambert Wilson), the monks partake in the religious rituals of the local people, provide mainly practical rather than religious advice, and never seem to proselytize. An elderly monk named Luc (Michael Lonsdale) is particularly loved by the people for his humor and for his efforts to provide medical care to anyone that happens to be in need of it.  When not helping members of the community, the monks sing their chants and comply with their priestly rituals.  These monks also happen to be in a country torn by civil war between a corrupt government and certain Muslim factions that are deemed to be terrorists. Near the monastery there was a slaughter of civilians that brought the area under the scrutiny of the government.  That the monks are willing to provide any humanitarian assistance at all to the local population is viewed with suspicion by government leaders. 

One Christmas Eve, the monks are visited by a group of men led by Rabbia (Sabrina Ouazani) that the government suspects of being terrorists.  Christian prevents the group of men from occupying the monastery by demonstrating his knowledge of Islam, and by asking Rabbia to respect their religion as Christian and the other monks respect theirs.  Though Christian refuses to allow Luc to go with Rabbia’s men to treat one of the group members that happens to be wounded, Christian does allow Luc to provide medicine and medical advice to this group of men that the monastery can afford.  When local government officials discover that medical care is dispensed by members of the monastery (without the monks inquiring about the politics of individuals receiving such medical aid), the government withdraws all protection of the monastery.  The monks understand that they are now in danger.  The members debate their situation and some of them argue that they should leave.  However, any dissension among the monks is soon put aside out of concerns for the people living in the community, and the monks democratically and unanimously vote to stay there.  Eventually, the monks are abducted by a militant Islamic group.  After this abduction (which took place sometime in 1996), those monks abducted are never seen from again.  The film ends showing the monks marching single file with their captors through the mountains in the snow.  Two monks (that hid in the monastery) did survive to tell their story.

Filmed in French and directed by Xavier Beauvois, Of Gods and Men is 120 minutes long.  Probably this is too long for those turned off by displays of religious piety, yet without question the dignity and simplicity of the life of such monks is deftly displayed.  The monks exhibit poise and even humor in their day to day interactions with a community that does not share their faith.  The confrontation with Rabbia comes across as authentic rather than forced.  Rabbia may or may not have been involved in the earlier slaughter, but Christian and his monks are able to bring out Rabbia’s humanity.  The acting of Wilson, Lonsdale and Sabrina Ouazani is superb, but then so is the acting of every other member in the cast.

The movie is highly critical of the Algerian government’s approach to the terrorist issue in their methods of fighting the power of the terrorists only with the purpose of maintaining their own power.  It is clear that virtue did not belong in either case to those wielding the power.  The example of the monks provides an alternative vision for the Algerians under their care.  It’s not their religious faith but their tolerance and compassion that make this alternative desirable.  And this film sends a message that communication between two faiths that at first seem so different may be bridged by compassion and decency.

A few critics dismissed Of Gods and Men because they wanted more cynicism.  In their jaded world, cynicism passes for sophistication.  Even Roger Ebert, who does not completely dismiss the film, seems befuddled by the film’s message.  Ebert is troubled by the monks’ decision to stay at the monastery in the face of known danger.  “Did they make the right choice? In their own idealistic terms, yes. In realistic terms, I say no. They have the ability to help many who need it for years to come. It is egotism to believe their help must take place in this specific monastery. Between the eight of them, they have perhaps a century of life of usefulness remaining. Do they have a right to deprive those who need it of their service? In doing so, are they committing the sin of pride?” 

I could see Ebert with this pretzel logic coming to some similar conclusions about the film Schindler’s List.  Why did Oscar Schindler confront Nazi authority to try to rescue 300 members on his list that were inadvertently shipped to Auschwitz when he could instead have been supplied (and thus possibly saved) 300 other workers for his factory that were also facing deportation?   Fortunately, Ebert is a movie reviewer and not someone that others depend upon for their lives. Schindler had made a promise to those he kept on his list just as the Cistercian Trappist monks had made an implicit promise to those in a small Algerian community.  Ebert seems to feel that the monks should have chosen the intelligent (i.e. prudent) course of action rather than one that was courageous and compelling.  What truly would have been the intelligent course of action under such circumstances of course could be debated, but there is no question that the monks chose to take a great risk.  In the face of torture and death by marauding terrorists, I doubt very much that pride had anything to do with the decision that they made.  Yet in a world filled with such danger and risk, what smaller lives we would live if we allowed circumstances to force us to live less beautiful lives.  And that is what Ebert is asking us to consider doing.

Of Gods and Men is a film about genuine greatness of character.  That the film demonstrates this in such a truthful manner demonstrates greatness in storytelling as well – something that is unfortunately rare in the history of moviemaking.

April 23, 2011

©  Robert S. Miller 2011