Film Pairings – Danger In Small Places

These two crime films run against the trend. No special effects. No gratuitous violence.  And only one pitiful car chase between them. Instead we get literate, intimate stories about how crime affects those whose lives are intertwined with the victims, and stellar casts to tell the stories.

Philip Seymour Hoffman, John Torturo

In God’s Pocket — Philip Seymour Hoffman, who died shortly after the film was released last year at Sundance, plays the guy who tries to clean things up after his particularly nasty stepson is killed. While director John Slattery fails, in my mind, with the humor side of dark humor, he does effectively render the culturally incestuous city neighborhood, God’s Pocket, as a place where murder, racism and xenophobia rule. Hoffman captures the well-intentioned but powerless poor soul with every movement and every utterance. His every action makes a bad situation worse.  John Torturo, and Richard Jenkins give their usual fine performances. The film is based on Pete Dexter’s novel.

Sissy Spacek

In The Bedroom — This is about as literary as a film can get.  I didn't read Andre Dubus’ short story, “Killings,” on which this film is based. Sissy Spacek and Tom Wilkinson play the parents of a young man who is about to embark upon his life. The youth, played by Nick Stahl, is killed by his girlfriend’s (Marisa Tomei) ex-husband. The event is devastating as we witness, moment by moment, the collateral damage. The killer, whose defense is self-defense, is out on bond and is hardly invisible in the tiny town. His presence and the likelihood his sentence will, if he is convicted at all, be light, is beyond the grieving parents’ ability to cope. I mentioned this film to a friend of mine.  A parent herself, she said this was one of the best movies she’d ever seen and that it is on her list of films she’d never, ever see again. Field, Spacek, Wilkinson and Tomei were nominated for nearly every award imaginable. The film was directed by Todd Field and released in 2001.

Refreshments: We can go from beer – PBR is okay – for the first film, which takes place in a seedy, insular, explosive city neighborhood to, considering the change of scenery, a modest white wine for the second, which has a charming emotionally repressed northeast lobster-trapping village as a backdrop.

Film Pairings — True Crime Brought To The Screen

Sissy Spacek, Martin Sheen in Badlands

For those who watch crime films about serial or mass murderers for the “kill” moments, Badlands and Zodiac will disappoint.  And I’m betting I’m not the only viewer to feel that both films are tremendously well done and worthwhile, yet unsatisfying because they convey only the senselessness of the acts. There is no answer to the question, why? Because of this, I suspect they more honestly convey the sad truth of it all.

Director Terrence Malick’s Badlands (1973) takes us back to the 1950s to tell the story of real-life spree killer Charles Starkweather and his 14-year-old girlfriend — outcast and naive romantic.  The beauty of this film certainly isn’t the story, nor any powerful lesson one can learn from it.  It is the way the story is told. There is a great deal of quiet, minimal dialogue and powerful cinematography. We are there with them, sharing their isolation, their connection with each other and their disconnection from the world.  The Starkweather role is played intentionally and effectively with shades of James Dean by a very young Martin Sheen. I’m not sure anyone but Sissy Spacek could have convinced us that a smart sensitive young woman could overlook cruelty for so long, despite the charming package that contained it.   In any event, the audience might find itself lost in time and suspended in a place where only the two characters exist.

 

While Badlands is kind of a gritty fantasy, Zodiac, (2007), despite attempts to market it as a “thriller,” is neither fantasy nor thriller. It is as close to a documentary as a scripted, acted film can be. Directed by David Fincher, Zodiac takes us back to 1969 when a killer began to focus his senseless killings in and around San Francisco.  We are witness to the inevitably gruesome aspects to remind us of the level of the horror, but we are given much more information on how the killings affected those – the police, the media and their families and the entire city — who are drawn into and for some, destroyed by the madness.  Here, detail is important and the filmmakers get it right.  We are inside the city’s Hall of Justice where investigators feel the immense pressure of a city scared out its collective wits.  We are inside the offices of the San Francisco Chronicle to witness its internal struggles and moral dilemmas. And we, the audience, never know more than was known as the story unfolds.  Expert casting: Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey, Jr. and Anthony Edwards. Brian Cox also appears as San Francisco’s legendary lawyer, Melvin Belli.  The film was based on the book by Robert Graysmith.

As an accompaniment, beer strikes the right mood for Badlands.  So, to bring San Francisco into the picture, go for Anchor Steam.

Film Pairings — The Razor’s Edge: Between Comedy And Tragedy.

Fargo is far more gruesome than Affliction, but one leaves you with a smile even as a body goes through the wood chipper.  The theme here is winter, one last look at snow as irises bloom in our gardens and the barbeques dot the green lawns of suburbia.

Nolte, Coburn and Dafoe

What we have for your frosty double bill today are two Academy Award winning films — Affliction and Fargo.  Part of the interest, I think, in seeing these two in tandem is looking at both sides of the mask — tragedy and comedy — as they are presented in stories of similar tones, in relatively similar settings, and with highly talented actors, directors and writers.  The interest for me is, given the darkness they reveal about human nature, how the two are actually very different? 

Affliction, based on the novel by Russell Banks, is actually less gruesome, but far darker.  Not better, but more “serious.”  Nick Nolte and James Coburn give extraordinary performances as a troubled failure as a son and a cold, brutal father, respectively. Willem Dafoe gives a masterful understated interpretation as Coburn’s other son. Both sons, even as adults, were cowed by their abusive alcoholic father. Dafoe’s character escapes, physically at least.  Nolte’s character doesn’t. He   remains pretty much badgered by the father and also, as the part-time cop in a small town in New Hampshire, by the town manager. Paul Schrader wrote and directed this powerful and relentlessly fascinating drama. The movie is about a deal gone wrong, a murder, integrity friendship and power.  But the central focus is becoming whole. And what the cost of that might be.  Sissy Spacek, as Nolte’s loyal girlfriend, is excellent.

Speaking of a deal gone wrong and a murder, well several of them, let’s end the evening on a lighter note  — sort of.  At least we will laugh. A lot.  Of all the Joel and Ethan Coen’s great films, this might be at the top of the list.   Where Nolte and Coburn propel the story in Affliction, Frances McDormand and William Macy are the essence of this one.  Steve Buscemi gives us still another well-drawn, well-acted character.

Macy’s character wants to rid himself of his wife.  He hires two goofballs to carry out the plan.  McDormand, from all appearances, including being seven months pregnant, isn’t exactly fear inspiring and, at first, one might not believe she has the savvy to ferret out the culprits as incompetent as they are.  But first impressions are deceiving.  Much like Affliction, we’re not in urban America. No subways, traffic jams and high-rises. Instead, we get cafeterias, used car lots, tacky motels, long lonely snow-laden highways, lots of blood and glimpses of our police chief with her stay-at-home poet of a husband.

Fargo won a ton of awards, including multiple awards for McDormand and the Coen Brothers.  Affliction was recognized as well.  Coburn picked up an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.  Nolte was nominated for best actor awards, including the Academy Award and Golden Globe for Best Actor.

The drink of the night?  Brandy, preferably brought to you by a big St. Bernard.