The Ghost Writer

Polanski's The Ghost Writer is not a great movie.  Most of the shots are pretty, in that muted New England beach landscape kind of way,  and there are moments of suspense, but it is ruined both by the actors and it's half realized effort to be politically relevant.  The acting is not great, but that's not really what I'm interested in talking about.  What made the film feel unfinished, forced and at times silly, was the attempt to make parallels with reality and the political world created in the film.  At one point, a news conference with Adam Lang, the former British Prime Minister who is hiding in the US to avoid the ICC and allegations of war crimes, played by Pierce Brosnan, and a black woman who looks like Condoleeza Rice actually elicited laughs from most of the audience at the Union Square theater, which was more than half full.  Lang is maybe Tony Blair and some oblique references are made to a stupid American president, who could only be George W. Bush, and a weapons/defense manufacturer called Hatherton, a stand in for Halliburton.  Lang is under attack by the media for supposedly allowing terrorist suspects to be tortured, illustrated in the news with a really unconvincing reenactment of water boarding.

The decision to use these barely veiled correlative characters and events is a strange one.  Clearly there are significant enough differences in the the story of the movie and the real events of the British involvement in the Iraq war that the film probably couldn't getting away with using the actual names of Bush, Rice and Halliburton, but Polanski doesn't give his viewers much credit, making his fictional versions so obvious as to be embarrassing.

I don't think the movie was intended to solicit laughter at any point, but there was quite a bit.  The plot balances on the content of a memoir written by Lang's former ghost writer, who died mysteriously, which contains clues to the truth behind the war crime allegations and Lang's entire career.  Ewan McGregor, an unnamed writer known only as "the ghost," stumbles upon some of the former ghost writer's research materials which reveal certain holes in Lang's story, and begins an investigation.  At one point about two-thirds through the movie I remember thinking, "Oh, god the manuscript is going to have some secret code or something," but was relieved when it didn't, only to be more disappointed when this turned out to be true at the end of the movie.

It's unfortunate, because the movie had a lot of the right elements to make a cool conspiracy-esque story, CIA and all that, but it seemed confused as to how far it wanted to go into a full conspiracy movie, versus a political thriller or whatever.

I would just watch Chinatown again.

Before seeing I called my parents because it was Easter.  I told my dad I was going to see the movie, and he said that my mom wouldn't let them go because Roman Polanski is a pedophile or something.  "I didn't realize you guys were so ethical," I said.  "Well, if you see his movie then you're supporting him, so I guess we're not going do to that."  "But you liked Chinatown," I said, "before you knew he was a pedo."

ALSO:

STOP-LOSS

Guns scare the shit out of me. I've never shot one or even touched one (had the opportunity to in Alabama one summer with friends, but declined (I think they thought I was being ideological)). If it was my decision to make, I would destroy all guns. Invariably when I leave movies like "Stop-Loss," I will make this comment to friends: That movie was lame, but the way they portray the danger of guns is amazing. Blood Diamond comes to mind. In keeping with earlier posts, I missed this film in theaters, so I watched a pretty terrible bootleg copy online, at like three in the morning. "Stop-Loss" is basically a melodrama, so formulaic that you can predict each new scene down to the smallest of details, but there are several scenes where guns play a central role, and they all freaked me out.

Go here and click on the fifth video. It's the one with a dude with a buzz cut and no shirt holding a big rifle. It's intense, even at this resolution.

I found the ending of the film kind of frustrating.

Spoiler alert.


I guess I think it sucks that he just goes back to the army. I think it's realistic, and it doesn't necessarily cheapen the earlier drama. But it still kind of sucks. To me it presents a quite nihilistic view of human nature. Ryan Phillippe's character, Sgt. King, goes back to Iraq because he realizes he can't start his life over. He's obviously not against war as a concept, his flight is motivated by self-preservation, and the feeling that he's being treated unfairly. He goes back because he would rather risk his life than try to live it without his family, his hometown, and his country. I sympathize with the decision (who knows what I would do in his situation), but can't help thinking that the film-maker, Kimberly Pierce presents a depressing view of people (articulate, eh?).

Though I didn't care for the narrative of the film, I found the cinematography good and thought the acting was compelling (I don't really know anything about acting, but still). But it is most successful in it's unbiased use of an incredibly contentious political topic to produce a thought provoking narrative experience. The viewer is forced to wonder what they would do in Sgt. King's situation, a degree of empathy not often required by film.

I could also talk a lot about the representation of masculinity in this film, but I think I'll save it. I still need to download "Redacted" and "In the Valley of Elah."

Guerilla journalism

I finally finished reading Shooting War, a really disgusting comic book--nay graphic novel, this book truly deserves the lofty graphic novel distincing--after putting if off for a long time. When it first came out I had no intention of reading it, and then I started this blog, and it seemed like an interesting piece to use. It was painful to get through. Anthony Lappe's writing is cliche, annoying and at time just plain boring, while Dan Goldman's art is actually hard to look at, and so trenderized it's depressing. A representative panel of both collaborator's shortcomings:

I'm not going to waste my time writing a pseudo academic essay like I have in previous posts, but I'll take a stab at analyzing Shooting War's use of politically relevant material as a device for plot and style after the jump.

Shooting War is set in 2011, when John McCain is president and the war in Iraq has continued with no success or end in sight. The protagonist is Jimmy Burns, a renegade video blogger who has gained a name for shocking stories and footage. His catch phrase: "I have a knack for being in the right place when people are going to die." That line is worthy of Hombre or Fistful of Dollars, but I can only wish that it is meant to be read with at least some degree of irony. The plot of the book is pretty similar, if greatly lacking in originality, cohesiveness and continuity, of those seen in books coming out of the big houses, Marvel and DC, and imitates the edgy style of DC's Vertigo imprint (I am all too familiar with these plots after doing a soul crushing stint in the Marvel editorial department). Perhaps its difficulties with continuity in plot are due to its origination as a serialized web comic, but this does not forgive the confusing and lazy way a relatively straight forward plot is related. Time seems to progress forward randomly. The characters and dialog are extremely flat. I guess I've already told you that this is a bad book.

Apparently Lappe is the executive editor for the Guerrilla News Network's website, which I visited occasionally in high school, but found boring even then. Lappe is a little like Aliza Shvarts, who I discussed last post, in that he is clearly interested in being edgy, but seems unsure of how to do it. The politics of Shooting War aren't exactly ambiguous, but they are certainly incomplete and a bit over the top. In the conclusion, President McCain is so moved by the footage broadcast by Jimmy Burns of Iraqis being tortured that he decides to withdraw American soldiers. It seems like a joke, but the book doesn't end any other way. The combination of trendy liberal politics, trendy graphic art and absurd masculine fantasy, all of which seem incomplete in their conception, makes this work seem like even more of a get noticed quick scheme than Zeitgeist. What is sad is that the creators actually seem earnest in their efforts. But what can you expect from a couple of guys that look like this: