All is Lost

Redford at Morning/Sailor Take Warning
or
All Departing the Good Ship Hubris (We're Going to Need a MUCH Bigger Boat!)

I have a friend who once expressed an interest in sailing around the world in a small to medium sail-boat. They're a good friend, but I'd heard enough stories about their seamanship, that I could see it was a Bad Idea.  

Fortunately, I didn't have to say anything that might besmirch our friendship.  I was just finishing up Sebastian Junger's "A Perfect Storm" and I left it at his place without mentioning it.

A couple weeks later, that trip never came up again.  Manipulative?  Sure.  But, he's still around.

I should tell him to see this one as a refresher.

Now, All is Lost may have the longest, funniest and seemingly unnecessary scroll of end-credits this year, but that shouldn't discount that it is one terrific movie, with the simplest of plots, only one actor, a minimal of dialogue, and its being the most effective retort to a film-year that has been marooned in digital extravagance but minimal ingenuity.*

All is Lost begins with a "good-bye" letter, read in voice-over.  The letter gives no specific information about what the situation is, other than "all is lost now," that he's finally nearing the end of his ordeal, reassuring us that it wasn't for lack of trying and that he "fought the good fight." He'll says he will miss "all of you."

And that he's sorry.

Fade to black.  "8 days earlier."

Boom.  "Our Man" (Robert Redford)—as he's called in the credits—is awoken on a boat by a loud bang, and water pouring in.  Lousy way to start the morning.  He goes on-deck and sees that he's been rammed by a large container of unknown origin floating in the middle of the Indian Ocean.  He systematically finds what he needs to anchor the container and steer his boat away from it, so that he can take a look at the gash in the side of his boat and plan his repairs.  He grabs the electronics that have been hit with salt water—laptop, cell-phone, radio—and takes them on-deck.  Deep in some back recess of a cubby-hole he finds the fiber-glass repair kit and reads.  Then he fashions a handle out of an easily broken piece of wood, whittles it to a point and uses it to pump out the flooded cabin and bring the boat enough out of the water to make repairs, then angles his sails over to the side opposite the gash to keep it above the water-line.

Okay, so that's 20 minutes gone by.  The movie presents its protagonist a challenge with several components, which are methodically taken care of, there's no voice-over, no talking to oneself.  It's just "this guy," (and you get over it being Redford very quickly), going through the paces of being alone in the middle of nowhere and trying to maintain his only means of support.  We don't know who he is or why he's out there.  He merely is, and now it appears that instead of sailing around the world, he's up shit-creek without a paddle. Again, no words are spoken, and for the next hour and some odd minutes, there won't be, save for a repeated attempt to hail a presence on the radio, and one long, frustrated "f"-bomb that certainly can be forgiven (and given a PG-13 rating) under the circumstances.

That's everything.  A crippled ship on dangerous seas with threatening weather, no communication, and a grizzled old guy who may be out of his depth.  Toss in a cruel God with a nasty sense of humor, and set to "liquefy."

Redford has never been better.  Frequently, his failing as an actor hasn't been physical, but for some over-thought playing of his lines.  That's not here.  He's basically living this, doing the work, trying to keep the continuity and pull off a two-hour one-man show of "Sisyphus on the Water" where there's no place to hide.  And his lined, haggard face is in that nether-mind-set of showing his thoughts while never betraying them.  It's a performance of instincts, and Redford's instincts have always been impeccable.  He keeps you engrossed and enmeshed throughout the entire movie.

Credit writer-director Chandor for that (his first movie was the excellent Margin Call).  As simple a project as it might be (and the budget's listed as 9 mil') it's still very close quarters to make a movie in.  The movie does pass the suspension of disbelief rule, as espoused by Johnny Carson.**  We're in a limited space no matter where we are, and the only time we're off the boat is when a wide-shot's perspective is needed.  

The end credits are a giggle-fest because the movie is a guy on a boat for two hours, but has such a HUGE list of credits that seem to go on forever (even at one point "thanking" The Pacific Ocean and The Atlantic Ocean).  I was amused at all the ADR credits (there is a voice-over at the beginning, but virtually no dialogue to loop). At. All.

But, that shouldn't take away from the film.  

What does take away is the score by Alex Ebert, which is a disaster, at times, confusing one, dramatically, with music that is sonically inappropriate or merely crushingly over-the-top. "Sonically inappropriate" What do we mean by that?   Well, at one point, a rhythmic thrumming is heard as "Our Man" wakes up.  Is it a ship coming near?  Are we about to be rescued?  Why isn't "Our Man" reacting?  Why?  Because it's only the music...interfering.  We can hear it.  He cannot (and he's the luckier for it). Look, it's a rookie mistake (and it IS a mistake) to throw in some rhythmic percussion or ANY-thing with a repeating chop, because it can be mistaken for a motor moving unnaturally fast and distinctive from the slow lap of a wave.  And when you're in such a limited space, you have to be careful what you do with the music to keep it out of the timbres of the natural sound, ESPECIALLY when the audience is so attuned and taking clues about what's going on from that sound.  To add to the earache, Ebert's end-credit song is a stream-of-consciousness list of cliches that ends with "Amen." "Hallelujah," after all, having been taken.  It might have been better to leave this one scoreless.

But, that music is the only container-sized blunder threatening this movie's ability to float. And hey, if you want a perfect companion for a double bill with Gravity, All is Lost is your movie.

All is Lost is a Full Price Ticket.

* And it will continue: if one is paying attention to previews for the coming months, they are awash with dialogue-tropes that one could recite along with the movie: "I'm not afraid of you"/"You should be..." or "I've got it"/"You're going to need it..."  I'll bet those movies also contain "You just don't get it, do you?" and "They're standing right behind me, aren't they?"

** Carson remarked that he couldn't watch any of the "Survivor" shows because he knew that, just out of camera range, there was a Teamster with a maple-bar in his hand.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (George Roy Hill, 1969)  It is probably for sure that Butch and Sundance were not as entertaining (or as well-scrubbed, with feathered hair) as Newman and Redford, nor that they rode bicycles to Burt Bacharach songs.  But then the originals didn't have William Goldman writing for them, either, and though the script starts by saying "Not that it matters, but most of what follows is true" you can bet that much more of it isn't.  As it is, it's not a history lesson.  It's a grittier version of the previous season's Cat Ballou (which had garnered Lee Marvin his Best Actor Oscar).

And, point of fact, I have a hard time thinking of it as a Western, despite the desert settings, the horse-chases, the posses, the train robberies, the clapboard houses, all the traditional acoutrements of the classic westerns, but done coyly, cutely, and with an eye towards having a good punch-line (but not much point).

Where it does bear the stamp of a traditional western is its through-line of Butch and the Kid being temporary things, caught in the period between the Civil War and the Industrial Age, where the "old ways," with their easily slipped-through dependence on civilization (and the inherent difficulties achieving it in a frontier environment), are replaced by organization, technology, and machine-like precision that are a threat to outliers, dependent on improvisation and fast getaways.  The advancements of the 20th Century—bicycles and streets and (gulp!) dynamite—while all well and good, are an impending threat to scraping out an existence on the land, even if the way you do it is scraping other people's existence.  And as much as Butch and Sundance try to adapt ("Think you used enough dynamite there, Butch?"), it ends up blowing up in their faces.   It's why Butch's oft-repeated line (that always falls like a lead ballooon and a quizzically raised audience eyebrow) "I've got vision and the rest of the world needs bifocals!" only works in that context, and cluelessly ironically, at that.

No wonder they go to Bolivia.  It's still the Wild West down South, while the U.S. becomes gentrified and outgrows outlaws.  There's a serious thought in there amongst the yuck-lines and the counter-intuitive Bacharach bubba-bubba choruses glossing over action sequences.  As much as Hill, Goldman and Bacharach try to make it larky and fun, it's still doom-laden, without the inherent triumph of civilization over chaos that invigorates—and makes hopeful—most Western films. 

Though never arrested, the Hole-in-the-Wall gang are products of arrested development—a better name might be the "Stuck-in-the-Mud" gang—making the whole enterprise an exercise in feeling sorry for the kids who never grew up, or wised up, making the whole show a pitiable "Peter Pan" picture.

Entertaining?  Maybe.  But kinda dumb, too.

Next week: the story continues in a forgotten, better 2011 film

Lions for Lambs

This week, we're re-publishing some reviews of the films from the post 9-11 environment.

"Never engage the enemy for too long, or he will adapt to your tactics"

Carl Von Clausewitz

There are three arenas in play, and as the film begins the protagonists are checking their ledgers and statistics: Lt. Col. Falco (Peter Berg) is checking his strategy briefings; Senator Jasper Irving (Tom Cruise) is looking at dropping poll numbers; Professor Steven Malley (Robert Redford) is checking the quarter's attendance; Reporter Janine Roth (Meryl Streep) is looking at her unopened note-book--an empty slate. Thus begins Lions for Lambs* a polemic about the current Middle-East War, the entities that package and sell it, and the public that may not like it, but won't do anything to oppose it. All the stories intersect a bit and the movie takes place over a few hours. The script is by Matthew Michael Carnehan, who also wrote The Kingdom Its director, Peter Berg, who plays Falco here, said that film was "98% Action, 2% Message." Here, that ratio is reversed, and, man, is it tedious.

 First off, there is a heavy veneer of liberal self-satisfaction (though not as much as when conservatives put the hammer down). The senator is a Republican tyro, trying to bolster his party's (and his) poll numbers by setting up a new front in Afghanistan (Senator's can do that? I mean besides Charlie Wilson?) He's given Roth a solid hour (this is supposedly a big deal) to argue his case that this attack (no, really, this one!) will win the war in Afghanistan, the war on terror, the hearts and minds of Afghans (he really says this) and presumably bring the troops back home for Christmas (he doesn't say this, but he might as well have). Cruise was bio-engineered for this role (and you just know this is the part Redford would have taken during his career in the cynical 1960's), an opportunistic-photo-op-ready politico, with flags on the desk, pants-press in the office, and flashing Chiclets in his mouth, while Meryl Streep is all shambling messiness, trying to counter the arguments (is that her job?) that Cruise spins on the head of a pin. Their section is the sort of "greased-pig" argument and obfuscation bull-session that keeps me from watching the "pundit" shows--nothing's less fun or informative than watching two used-policy salesmen, hectoring each other trying to get their feet stuck in the open door of your mind. Finally it gets down to my favorite argument when rats-on-their-hind-legs are cornered--The Multiple Choice Bottom-Liner: "Do you want to win the War on Terror: Yes or No?". ("Well, I don't know, Senator, when did you stop beating your wife?") At one point Streep asks, "When does the new offensive start?" Cruise looks at his (supposed) Rolex. "Ten minutes ago." So much for pre-selling.

And in that ten minutes, the mission is already SNAFU'd, when two grunts are bounced out of a helicopter taking heavy fire, turning the offensive thrust into a rescue mission. Not a good start to winning those hearts and minds.
And by a curious coincidence--or a heavy-handed ploy by the screenwriter--those very two soldiers were both students in Professor Malley's political science class, who, in a school project capped their volunteerism argument by enlisting. Now, Malley uses them to guilt a slacker-student who can't be bothered coming to class because he's "busy with stuff," into considering a more activist stance before the bigger challenges of jobs, mortgages, ball-games, and watching "American Idol" zombies away any chance of him doing any critical thinking for the rest of his life. That's a valid argument to make, whichever side of the aisle you take bribes on. But instead of making the arguments, Malley turns them into three-corner shots that kind of dance around the problem, rather than saying something, oh, like "I would suggest you start coming to class or I will flunk your lazy frat-ass: your call."

The trouble here is that the issues are so immediate that the arguments the film is making were too late four years ago. So, it's a bit like soft-ball preaching to the choir. The arguments are sound, but they have very little relevance to extricating us from the tar-pit of this conflict, and, yes, people are getting chewed up by it, but that's the business of war, and why you try to avoid it, rather than rush in like a damned fool. It's great to be able to say all this with 20-20 hind-smugness, but it's essentially useless. Now tell us something we don't know, and how we can avoid it the next time. "Is he failing you?" a fellow frat asks the student about his meeting. The movie certainly is.

"Lions for Lambs" is a cable-flick.

* The title derives from a phrase from World War I, but, the exact nature of the quote is subject to debate, and its history, like the film, is a bit muddled.

The Conspirator

"What About the Woman?"
or
"Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges"

Robert Redford's last film—Lions for Lambs—was a self-indulgent tract on the tearing down of constitutional law in times of crisis—the short-cuts in due process and individual freedoms that occur when authorities are more concerned with short term results, rather than demonstrating the strengths that underpin the foundations of the Nation under attack.  War is a very danerous time; one must guard against attacks from without and within.

He needen't have bothered.  History was already there with the same lessons, but distanced by time to demonstrate, rather than lecture and ostracize.

I was always fascinated by the Lincoln assassination and its aftermath.  As a grade-school student, I'd read books about those hysterical days following the surrender at Appomatox ending the Civil War, culminating in John Wilkes Booth's assassination of Lincoln (who, in trying to preserve the Union, had already done enough damage suspending habeas corpus during the course of the War), the man-hunt for the conspirators (whose intentions were to kidnap the President in exchange for Rebel prisoners) when Booth was killed, trapped in a burning barn, thus robbing the Nation of a cathartic trial (which probably would have been a kangaroo court anyway, to prevent the vain-glorious actor from speaking and fomenting discord in the wake of an uneasy truce).  Short-cuts were made...civil trials disbanded in favor of more stringent military tribunals (sound familiar?)...and the conspirators deprived of any rights of the accused.*

Justice was thrown out the barred windows in the sake of revenge.

The Conspirator focusses on only one of the accused, Mary Surratt (played in the film by Robin Wright Penn), mother of conspirator John Surratt (who had fled to Virginia) and owner of the boarding house where much Virginia venom was pit during the war, along with some of the conspirators' planning sessions.  Surratt was widowed, Catholic, a woman, Southern and sympathetic to its cause, all strikes against her.  But that she was the mother of John was what damned her—his association with the plotters made the location of their meetings, planned or otherwise, a foregone conclusion, and her arrest and trial was national news—maybe the government could coerce the son to surrender to save the mother.

That might have worked if the government wasn't operating in the same manner the Rebels feared it would.  The new President Johnson, under advisement from Secretary of War Edwin Stanton (played by Kevin Kline, and more than making up for his performance in No Strings Attached) insured that the South would pay for Lincoln's death, just part of his crack-down on the South after the war.  No insurrection, no slight would be tolerated, and justice would move fast and frequently recklessly. 

Redford's film of the proceedings is austere, but leaves no parallel with modern times (post 9/11) unparalleled.  The facts are there, supported by generous newspaper headlines from the period bridging sequences, focussing on Surratt's defense by legal aide to Senator Reverdy Johnson (Tom Wilkinson), Frederik Aiken (James McAvoy, whose American accent is superb).  The film is front-loaded with young stars (Evan Rachel Wood, Alexis Bledel, Justin Long) as acquaintances of Aiken's, all urging him to be cautious in his precipitously uphill battle to have Surratt acquitted, lest he fall under suspicion of the government as well.  But, there are also good turns by Colm Meaney, Danny Huston, and Stephen Root, who is fast becoming one of my favorite character actors.

There is little humor in the film, save bitter irony, but given the circumstances of the case, that is hardly unexpected.  There are some subtle touches as well.  Like sunshine.  Watch how Redford—always the Nature-boy—uses the sun throughout the movie (and the lack of sun).  So many darkened, shuttered rooms reflecting that time of skulkers and hidden agendas.  One doesn't have to make to big a leap remembering that the light of day is a natural disinfectant, especially in scurrilous times.

This is the first film of The American Film Company, founded in 2008 by the Ricketts family, and even though it might seem tempting for the owners of the Chicago Cubs to re-write history, the purpose of the film-house is to present accurate portrayals of American History without the issuance of dramatic license.  It's a noble mission, but given that manifesto it guarantees that most of their films will not have a happy ending—I can't even think of a treaty that this Nation has agreed to and honored.  One hopes that it can stay in business long enough to produce some great, accurate films about the hidden corners of the past. 

The Conspirator is a Full-Price Ticket.

The documentation of the hanging. 
Mary Surratt is on the left.

* Redford makes a cogent observation by also placing all the Ford Theater actors in custody, as well—they were, after all, associates of Booth—along with with the suspected assassins.

Now I've Seen Everything Dep't: Robert Redford

"Golden Boy"

Throughout his career, as actor, producer and director, Charles Robert Redford, Jr. has seemed to choose projects that were personal and conflicted.  You look at movies he starred in like Downhill Racer and The Way We Were and The Candidate, with their gilded, priviledged, clueless protagonists, and you see the man playing the parts rebelling against the "easy" "golden boy" persona, trashing it, criticizing it, while also, to be truthful, personifying it.  Redford was just too much the California golden boy, smart and handsome, to have it rough getting parts in movies or on stage—so he picked carefully.*  He chose anti-heroes in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Jeremiah Johnson, and Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here.  And although his acting range was limited, his determination to challenge himself, and his boyish good-looks-image early in his career is reflected in his choices as a director.  Carefully, precisely, he picked challenging material ...and true to form scored gold with his very first effort.  He must have been very pleased, then questioned why he won it. 

Redford has never been complacent, even when he's made very complacent movies.  One gets the idea that he goes into each movie, sparkly-eyed, wondering how much damage he can do with the project, upsetting the status quo.



Ordinary People (1980) Intimate family drama of coping with tragedy in the hopes of trying to stave off another one.  Strong cast with Donald Sutherland (whose amazing work in this is too-often neglected), Judd Hirsch, Elizabeth McGovern, and Academy Award winners Timothy Hutton and Mary Tyler Moore.  Everybody's great, but Moore got the most attention for her fine work as a wound-too-tight grieving mother, whose grief over losing one son in a boating accident, threatens to destroy the life of the surviving son.  Casting "America's sweetheart" as a control-freak exposed the vibrating neurosis at the heart of Moore's comedic acting that could turn hysterical in dramatic turns.  Redford also won Best Director that year, and the film—his first—took home top honors as Best Picture, too.

It proved both a blessing and a curse, it took Redford eight years of careful choosing to find a second effort that might top the first.



The Milagro Beanfield War (1988) Milagro, New Mexico is about to die and only the residents of it object.  A farming community, it depends on water for irrigation, but Big Business and their glad-handing lackey politicians agree to divert water only for development.  That means the water in a ditch running by the beanfield of Joe Mondragon (Chick Vennera) can't be used for it.  Coming across a valve that diverts water from his father's property, Joe kicks it, breaking it, and flooding the field.  Hilarity, irony, and civil disobedience ensue.  Redford probably wasn't the right guy to make this one, an adaptation of John Nichols' best-selling novel, as, at this point in his career, his attempts at fanciful film-making come across as deadly earnestness.  And so, though it wants to be a kind of cautionary folk-tale, it comes across as heavy-handed preachiness.  Plus, for all the attempts at ethnically correct casting, it's a little top-heavy with Anglo stars (Christopher Walken, Daniel Stern, John Heard ...Melanie Griffith???) in an attempt to generate income, which, in its way, is Hollywood's version of swamping a town under.  Redford would become surer with a lighter hand, but still manage to be heavy-handed later in his career. 

A River Runs Through It (1992) Redford directs—and narrates—this superb adapatation of Norman Maclean's late-in-life debut novella.  The story of two Montana brothers (Craig Sheffer, Brad Pitt), sons of a Presbyterian minister (Tom Skerritt, never better) who, despite ever separating fortunes, are united in their love of the land...and fly-fishing.  Sheffer plays the good, dutiful son living a correct life as a teacher and courting a proper girl (Emily Lloyd), while Pitt (looking eerily like a young Redford) takes his chances on a roustabout's life in sensationalistic journalism.  It's a story of conflicts that disappear on the river, as the brothers and their father compete, learn and share secrets for "the perfect cast" that will simulate Nature enough to lure a fish.  It's life-lessons in miniature, writ large but humbly, but the interpretations by the two brothers of finding their bliss could not be more different.
Simple story simply told.  With McLean's way with words managing to make a successful transition to the projected image and a shimmering soundtrack.



Quiz Show (1994) Redford started his acting career right at the end of "The Golden Age of Television," so he knew the milieu of this fact-based story about the "21" game show scandal.  Wasp-ish golden boy Charles van Doren became a TV sensation across the country with his winning streak on a popular prime-time game show during the 1950's.  What the public didn't know was that the game was rigged in Van Doren's favor in order to generate drama and higher rating numbers, so he was getting the answers and being coached on how to act as if he was struggling to remember them.   Ralph Fiennes plays van Doren, John Turturro the contestant not attractive enough to compete (according to the producers), Rob Morrow as the investigator looking into the chicanery, but the best scene is between Fiennes and Paul Scofield as the elder Mark van Doren, a poet laureate who is incensed by all the easy fame his son has achieved.   Redford's direction is more self-assured in this, taking on more of a jazzy editing rhythm than the simple, careful presentations his earlier films had.

The Horse Whisperer (1998) The first novel of Nicholas Evans starts with an intriguing idea, resolves it, then splashes down into turgid soap-opera material that completely negates the earlier tense story of healing the wounds, psychological and physical, of a girl and horse, received in a horrific riding accident involving a 18-wheeler.  The girl loses a leg and becomes problematically depressed, the horse is scarred and hysterical, and the girl's mother—a pre-occupied fashion magazine editor (Kristin Scott Thomas, probably based—again—on Vogue's Anna Wintour) can't cope.  She hires a "horse whisperer" (Redford) to deal with both, frustratingly, because he insists on his rules, his terms, dragging the family to a remote Montana location (the film is beautifully filmed by the eclectic Robert Richardson), where conflicting emotions get churned up.  Evans has the characters act on them.  Redford, knowing that all parties in the story, are disciplined and have histories, just ends the story before the romance novel aspects start.  Smart choice, that.  It was Redford's first time directing himself, and the first major role of a young actress named Scarlett Johansson.



The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000) Imagine that.  Redford abandons reality for a moment to dabble in Myth and Folklore.  It's a Tall Tale twice removed: an old duffer (Jack Lemmon) has a heart attack on the golf course, and recalls the story from his childhood of Savannah's favorite son golfer (Matt Damon) who goes to WWI and loses his way, then is coerced into a celebrity golf-match to help publicize a course owned by an old flame (Charlize Theron).  Already the narrator may be unreliable due to health and the distance of time, but it's a good variation of the Western tale of the war vet who comes home and regains a family after losing himself.  Sure, Bagger Vance (Will Smith) may be a little bit Obi-Wan, and the kid (J. Michael Moncrief) a little "Say it Ain't So, Joe," but Redford's take is funny, sad and sublime, a far better film about golf and the struggle with self than, say, Tin Cup.  Redford's direction is sure, not staid, taking chances and occassionally doing something amusing with it.  And for a golf movie, there's a haunting after-image of the purely artificial golf course as a living entity that affects play, and that the director emphasizes with a persistent sound-design that accentuates Nature.  Really much better than its reputation. 



Lions for Lambs (2007) Redford's first film post-"9/11" is a polemic mis-fire that feels like a sociology lecture.   As it is, directed carefully by Redford, with Big Stars Tom Cruise (who produced), Meryl Streep, and himself, it feels talky, staged and stacked in the favor of one side over another—negating any persuasion the movie might actually create.  All the anti-Bush sentiment Redford built up over the Iraq/Afghanistan War and it's "selling" to the American public must have boiled over in the deadly earnestness (that phrase again!) in which this film is presented.  It could have used a bit more humor—even gallows humor would have sufficed.  One leaves with the Daniel Dennett quote (that Jim Emerson has prominently displayed on his Scanners movie blog): "There's nothing I like less than bad arguments for a view that I hold dear."  Full review here.

Redford's next film is a true-life historical drama based on one of the great miscarriages of justice done in the name of national tragedy and patriotic fervor: the trial and hanging (the first of a woman by the U.S. Government) of Mary Surrat (whose crime was that she owned the boarding house where the conspirators met) after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.  It's clearly meant to be addressing the knee-jerk trash-canning of basic principles of jurisprudence in the face of the 9/11 attacks ("Military tribunals" and indefinite incarcerations without charges), but, taking a lesson from the failure of Lions for Lambs, cushioning it with an example from the past.  Whatever the reason, it is one of those stories you wonder why it had never been made before.**

* Mike Nichols, who directed Redford in the Broadway production of Neil Simon's "Barefoot in the Park," wanted Redford to play Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate, as Ben is described in the book as a golden-haired California boy.  But Redford balked, saying that a privileged handsome kid wouldn't be so sexually awkward.  So, Nichols hired schlumpy Dustin Hoffman instead...away from playing Nazi playwright Franz Liebkin in Mel Brooks' The Producers.  Brooks was only too happy to help.  Mrs. Brooks, Anne Bancroft, was also starring in The Graduate.

** It has, but on TV, in the long-forgotten "The Joseph Cotton Show."

The Natural

"The Natural" (Barry Levinson, 1984) Bernard Malamud's novel "The Natural" took America's penchant for mythologizing its sports-heroes, and combined it with Arthurian legend to create one of the great sports novels of all time. The tale of a baseball player, Roy Hobbs (Robert Redford) appearing in Major League Baseball, seemingly effortless of bat and glove, creating miracles in the field, has all the elements of nature and the Divine (his bat, "Wonderboy", was carved from a tree struck by lightning), the contest (he strikes out "The Whammer" (based on "Babe" Ruth), trials (his father's death, a near-fatal shooting, lost love) and battles which weaken him and threaten his reputation. Malamud completes the connection with Legend, by making Roy Hobbes vulnerable to attack from within and without, finally defeated by the passing age and his own failings.

The film made of "The Natural" is all about the myth; Caleb Deschanel's pristine picture post-card cinematography, lovingly back-lit by a dying sun makes a past perfect to the eye. There are few films as lovingly shot as "The Natural," and Barry Levinson, learning to be a pictorial director rather than just a shoot-and-run cast-coordinator of his own material, turns the film into an article of his devotion as a sports lover. In fact, despite the intrusion of some adult material—the hanky-panky with a team "widow" (Kim Basinger) and Hobbes' earlier indiscretions, it is a small child's view of baseball, where grown men playing a kids' game are larger-than-life heroes, miracles happen on one's own efforts and the glories last a life-time. From such a viewpoint—at about the strike-zone—everything looks Legendary.

The cast is crowded with good actors doing some great work—not just Redford, whose own mythical presence of Aryan American brings its considerable WASP-ish weight to the story, but also Glenn Close, Wilford Brimley, Richard Farnsworth, Robert Duvall, Barbara Hershey, Joe Don Baker, Darren McGavin and Basinger. Layered over the top of the confection is Randy Newman's score—a combination of boogie-woogie, keening Americana and heraldic brass.*

Front-loaded with so much talent one would think of the natural as a grand-slam, the mythology built up to accentuate suspense** (Will Hobbs hit the game-winning home run? Will it kill him? What about his new-found family? Will the gambling interests destroy him, no matter what?) It comes down to the last pitch and a finale so overblown that the only thing that could top it would be Hobbs ascending into Heaven, forget the impossibility of the stadium-wide natural fireworks display of the type pulled off by Levinson and crew. The crowd I first saw it with burst into spontaneous applause at the denouement, so, obviously it was a hit with audiences, despite what I considered an error on the play. Me? I thought the game was rigged.

For in Malamud's novel, Hobbs strikes out, is damned by the press and public and fades away, a passing moment of the age, when miracles happened unsullied by the evils of the world like the Knights of Olde. Hobbs is defeated by the times. Not the movie-Hobbs, who is given his triumph and more, a return to simplicity, the sinking sun of previous shots now giving him a roseate glow,*** a Disneyfication of Malamud's intent.

* Redford, according to Newman, wasn't fond of the score: "I don't like horns" he was reported to have groused to the composer. Cooler heads prevailed. During an interview broadcast on Bravo, Newman said that there were half-hearted lyrics for the fanfaric Main Theme: "Look at that man/The Nat'ral/As nat'ral a man as can be/He hits the ball/And that's not all/So Na-tu-ral/Is he."

** I would put a "Spoiler Alert" on this review, but, really, the outcome is never in doubt, telegraphed by the score's hushed anticipation, and that everything joyous in the film, is presented in weighty slow-motion. Besides at that point in his career, Redford didn't want his characters to be weak—he had turned down "The Verdict," which pal Paul Newman snapped up and won a Best Actor Nomination.

*** The term used for those hours of twilight and dawn with the sun at its lowest point, providing long shadows, and a rose-colored glow is "Magic Hour."

An Unfinished Life

An Unfinished Life (Lasse Hallström, 2005) There may be no director more genteel than Lasse Hallström. Whether his subject is incest, abortion (The Cider House Rules), depression (The Shipping News), disassociation (What's Eating Gilbert Grape?), he manages to sap any dramatic life right out of it, even beating out the Merchant/Ivory films for taking drama and making it blandly digestible. Hallström is a director for the blue-haired old ladies who attend matinees who like to be titilated with racey subject matter, but not shocked. Never shocked. What's Hallström's social drama of the week? It's family abuse. Jennifer Lopez grabs her daughter and flees her abusive husband (the always reliable Damian Lewis, who seems stuck playing heavies now), to her verbally abusive father-in-law (from her previous, child-bearing marriage). He's an old coot (Robert Redford, mussed up) crusty with scabs of bitterness from the death of his only son/her first husband, blaming her for the drunken car accident that killed him. Heaped onto that guilt is his own for being too in his cups to keep friend Mitch (Morgan Freeman) from being mauled by a bear (no, really, that's the story). It's all about taking reponsibilty and letting go of recrimination. By the end, even the bear has a change of heart and is forgiven his trespassings. It's all very neat, and very tidy and well-played by all. All it seems to lack is "Hallmark" watermarked on it. Still, one could do worse watching it.

Charlotte's Web

Charlotte's Web (Gary Winick, 2006) E.B. White's children's classic comes out in a live action version (there was an animated musical in 1973 with Debbie Reynolds as Charlotte the spider, Paul Lynde as Templeton the rat, and Henry Gibson as Wilbur the pig--Rex Allen narrated), which could just as well be called "Babe II," if there's wasn't already one. Not to worry, though. As movies of children's classics go, this one's really good--a bit awash in celebrity voices, but the kids won't care, and it does give the parents something to do ("Who's doing the cows do you think?") Since I've given you the '73 version, I'll tell you who does the same for 2006--a very sober Julia Roberts as Charlotte, Steve Buscemi as Templeton, and kid-actor Dominic Scott Kay as Wilbur--Sam Shepard narrates. Dakota Fanning ably shoulders the role of Fern, and while she's not as scarily real in this one, she's not annoyingly sugar-coated , either. Director Winick keeps the special effects unflashy, although there are some intricate CGI spider-web moves (left over from Sam Raimi story-boards, no doubt) that are over quickly. It feels properly home-spun, and Danny Elfman's score, though it brings on the "Edward Scissorhands" Choir, still manages to evoke the joys of simple gifts without beating you over the head with them. I remember one of my grade-school teachers reading "Charlotte" in class, and at one pivotal point, the entire class weeping. That point in the movie brought tears to K., so it did its job. The bonus is you get to hear Robert Redford doing an out and out comedy turn. How rare is that?