Category Archives: Historical drama

Cold War, Historical drama, Up the Workers, Writers

By any other name: Trumbo ***

November 23, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on November 21, 2015)

Chris Hayes shared this Harry Truman quote on his MSNBC show, All In the other day:

When we have these fits of hysteria, we are like the person who has a fit of nerves in public; when he recovers, he is very much ashamed…and so are we as a nation when sanity returns.

–from Years of Trial and Hope, Volume 2

Hayes was doing a piece on the current political backlash and fear mongering (mostly from the Right) against Syrian immigrants in the wake of the Paris terrorist attacks. That quote from President Truman’s memoirs, Hayes pointed out, referred to the “Red Scare” of the 1940s and 1950s; his point being that, (as the French always say) plus ca change…

Speaking of “timely”, one could draw many historical parallels with the present from Trumbo, a fact-based drama by director Jay Roach which recounts the McCarthy Era travails of Academy Award winning screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, who was on the Hollywood “blacklist” from the late 40s until 1960 (the year his name appeared in the credits for Exodus, ending nearly a decade of writing scripts under various pseudonyms).

The film begins in 1947, the year that the House Un-American Activities Committee launched its initial “investigation” into whether or not Hollywood filmmakers were sneaking Communist propaganda into films; and if so, who was responsible. Trumbo (Bryan Cranston) and nine other members of the industry (now immortalized as “The Hollywood Ten”) were summoned. All ten refused to cooperate.

Their reward for standing on their convictions was…contempt convictions. This precipitated their inductions as premier members of the infamous blacklist (which, if one were to ask the studio suits that did the hiring, never officially existed). Trumbo ended up doing eleven months in the pen. The bulk of the film recounts his long, hard-won road to redemption.

Despite the somewhat rote narrative choices, I’m heartily recommending this film, for a couple reasons. First, for the performances. Cranston plays the outspoken Trumbo with aplomb; armed with a massive typewriter, piss-elegant cigarette holder and a barbed wit, he’s like an Eisenhower era prototype for Hunter S. Thompson (especially once he dons his dark glasses).

He is ably supported by a scenery-chewing Helen Mirren (as odious gossip columnist/Red-baiter Hedda Hopper) Diane Lane (as Trumbo’s wife), Louis C.K. (his finest dramatic performance to date), and Michael Stuhlbarg (as Edward G. Robinson). John Goodman (as a boisterous and colorful low-budget film producer who is suspiciously reminiscent of the shlockmeister he played in Matinee) and Christian Berkel (as larger-than-life Austrian director, Otto Preminger) make the most of their small roles.

Screenwriter John McNamara (who adapted from Bruce Cook’s 1977 biography, Dalton Trumbo) plays it by-the-numbers; with broadly delineated heroes and villains (Trumbo himself conceded years later that there was “courage and cowardice […] good and bad on both sides”). While not as emotionally resonant as Martin Ritt’s similar 1976 dramedy, The Front (it’s tough to beat those end credit reveals that key members of that film’s cast and crew actually were victims of the blacklist), Roach’s film happily shares a like purpose; it provides something we need right now, more than ever…a Rocky for liberals.

Historical drama, Up the Workers, War

Start the revolution without me: The Liberator **

September 29, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on October 4, 2014)

The stats on democratic revolutionary Simon Bolivar are pretty impressive. By the time he died at age 47 in 1830, he had waged over 100 battles against the Spanish throughout Central and South America, liberating and establishing the united territory of Gran Columbia (an area stretching south from the modern nations of Panama at one end and Peru at the other). He’s highly revered in Latin America to this day (hell, they even named Bolivia after him).

I wish I could say the same about Alberto Arvelo’s slickly produced yet cloyingly idealized biopic, The Liberator. It’s too bad, because charismatic leading man Edgar Ramirez gives it his best shot (and looks convincingly dashing wearing a waistcoat and wielding a saber), but Timothy J. Sexton’s script takes a Cliff’s Notes approach that skimps on Bolivar’s motivations.

What made him decide to give up his life as a wealthy country gentleman (who grew up on a family plantation maintained by slave labor, no less) and transform into “El Libertador“, freeing South America from the Spanish Empire? The epiphany is implied, but never fully explained; from watching the film, he may as well be Bruce Wayne donning a cape and transforming into Batman every night…and that’s all we need to know. Rousing battle scenes and lush period details are fine and dandy, but an historical epic ultimately requires some innate sense of history.

Art world, Historical drama, War

Vermeer to eternity: The Monuments Men ***

September 22, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on February 8, 2014)

Saviors of the lost art: Clooney & co. in The Monuments Men

My late Uncle Irv was an even-keeled man; kindhearted, easy going, and always up for a good laugh over coffee and a bagel. In all the years I knew him, I have no particular memories of ever seeing him angry or vitriolic. Except for one occasion.

A few years before he passed, he took me aside and showed me his modest collection of personal WW2 memorabilia. I knew that he had flown bombing missions over Germany as a navigator on a B-17; but I had never pressed him for details. He was showing me the weathered photographs, uniform patches, mission plans and such, when he paused and quietly hissed, “Those fuckin’ Nazis.” It was so out-of-character that it took me aback for a moment. But I got it. He and I lost many of our mutual relatives in the concentration camps.

And when it comes to war movies, we all “get it” why Nazis are depicted as the ultimate villains. Because they were. Are. Will remain…until the end of recorded time. And you would think by now, Hollywood would have collated and dramatized all the empirical data that has led to a general consensus among decent human beings that the Third Reich was, overall, a terrible idea.

Believe it not, however, there are yet additional historically documented reasons why the Nazis are the ultimate villains (as if the mass genocide, the incursions and the wanton destruction wasn’t enough). Specifically, they looted. And they hoarded. Big time. Especially when it came to Europe’s treasure trove of great art.

Toward the end of the war, thanks to Hitler’s scorched earth directives, countless sculptures and paintings by (then) contemporary artists (like Picasso) were destroyed for not being “collectible” enough (Worst. Art. Critics. Ever.) Luckily, there was a U.S. Cavalry (of sorts) that rode in and saved the day.

The story of this little-known mission to rescue Europe’s plundered art and return it to its rightful owners has been dramatized in a The Monuments Men. Directed by George Clooney, with a script he adapted with his Grant Heslov from a non-fiction book by Robert M. Edsel and Bret Witter, the story takes place during the waning days of the war as the Allies close in on Germany from all fronts.

Clooney casts himself as museum curator Frank Stokes, assigned by FDR to hand-pick a team of qualified experts to take a crash-course in basic training and then head to the front with two directives: 1) Advise the advancing Allies about known locations containing renowned art so it is not inadvertently destroyed, and 2) Pinpoint the Nazi stashes. The resultant platoon of not-quite-ready-for-combat players is like The Dirty Dozen…with art degrees.

Initially, while I was watching the obligatory “We’re getting the band back together!” montage, I thought “Please, don’t let this be an in-jokey ancillary to the Ocean’s Eleven franchise” (especially when I noted that Matt Damon was on board) but those fears were dissipated as I got pulled into the story. In fact, Clooney and Heslov have fashioned a highly entertaining old-school WW2 adventure yarn, in the tradition of Where Eagles Dare and The Guns of Navarone.

Granted, you’re not going to see this team of art historians and professors scaling cliffs and blowing stuff up real good, but this is nonetheless an absorbing tale of courage and personal sacrifice, topped off by a fine ensemble including Cate Blanchett, Bill Murray, John Goodman, Jean Dujardin, Bob Balaban, and Hugh Bonneville (channeling Jack Hawkins). Look for a cameo by Clooney’s dad Nick. Alexandre Desplat’s rousing score keeps things rolling along.

It’s refreshing to see a WW2 angle that hasn’t been done to death. The only previous example I can think of is John Frankenheimer’s 1964 drama The Train (also set in 1944, it stars Burt Lancaster as a railroad stationmaster recruited by the French Resistance to prevent a trainload of stolen French masterpieces from reaching Germany). It’s also refreshing to see a true rarity these days: an unabashedly patriotic “rah-rah for the good guys” war movie that doesn’t ultimately involve Navy Seals blowing someone’s shit away.

When someone is trying to take over the world (pretty much Hitler’s goal), there are many things at stake. The preservation of innocent lives, of course is paramount, and the preservation of freedom. But the preservation of culture is crucial as well. As Clooney’s character says in the film “[Art] is our history. It is not to be stolen or destroyed. It’s to be held up and admired.” And worth fighting and dying for? I’ll bet if my Uncle Irv was here, he would say, “Yes.”

Historical drama, On Politics, War, Writers

In her own write: Hannah Arendt ***

September 16, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on July 20, 2013)

A comic I worked with a few times during my stand-up days (whose name escapes me) used to do a parody song (to the tune of Dion’s “The Wanderer”) that was not only funny, but a clever bit of meta regarding the very process of coming up with “funny”. It began with “Ohh…I’m the type of guy, who likes to sit around,” (that’s all I remember of the verse) and the chorus went: “Cuz I’m the ponderer, yeeah…I’m the ponderer, I sit around around around around…”

Still makes me chuckle thinking about it. And it’s so true. Writers do spend an inordinate amount of time sitting around and thinking about writing. To the casual observer it may appear he or she is just sitting there staring into space, but at any given moment (and you’ll have to trust me on this one) their senses are working overtime.

There’s lots of staring into space in Hannah Arendt, a new biopic from Margarethe von Trotta. The film focuses on a specific period in the life of the eponymous character (played by Barbara Sukowa, in her third collaboration with the prolific German director), when the political theorist/philosopher wrote a series of articles for the New Yorker magazine (eventually spawning a book) covering the trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann.

If that doesn’t sound to you like the impetus for a slam-bang action thriller, you would be correct; even if the film does in fact open with a bit of (murky) action. A man has his leisurely nighttime stroll rudely interrupted by a team of abductors, who unceremoniously toss him into the back of a truck and spirit him away (in 1960, Eichmann was nabbed in Argentina and smuggled to Israel by the Mossad to stand trial).

The remainder of the film more or less concerns itself with the personal and professional fallout suffered by Arendt (a German Jew who fled from France to New York in 1941 with her husband and mother) after she eschews the expected boilerplate courtroom reportage for an incendiary treatise redefining the nature of evil in a post-Nazi world.

It was in this magazine piece that Arendt coined the phrase “banality of evil”, which has become part of the lexicon (god knows I’ve co-opted it once or twice in my own writing). While it doesn’t seem like such a big deal now, this was a provocative (and subsequently controversial) concept for its time.

Most fascinating to Hannah (and us, as we watch interpolated archival footage from the trial) was Eichmann’s ho-hum businesslike demeanor as he recounted sending thousands to the gas chambers; just another bureaucrat punching a clock and filing in triplicate (remember Michael Palin as the torturer in Brazil, casually removing a blood-spattered smock to affably play with his little girl, who has been patiently waiting in Daddy’s office while he’s “working”?).

Sukowa gives a compelling performance as Hannah; particularly impressive considering how much of it is internalized (she’s so good that you can almost tell what she’s thinking). While a film largely comprised of intellectuals smoking like chimneys while engaging in heated debates over ethical and political questions is obviously doomed to a niche audience, its release turns out to be quite timely.

A day or two after I saw the film, the “controversy” over the Rolling Stone Boston bomber cover was all over the media. I couldn’t help but immediately draw a parallel with the flak that Arendt received in 1960 because she dared suggest that Evil doesn’t necessarily wear horns and carry a pitchfork. There’s something about that simple fact what really pisses some people off. Go figure.

Culture Clash, Historical drama, Politics, War

MacArthur’s lark: Emperor **

September 14, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on March 9, 2013)

The heroes and villains are not easily delineated in Emperor, an uneven hybrid of History Channel docudrama and Lifetime weepie based on Shiro Okamoto’s book and directed by Peter Weber. Set in post-WW 2 Japan at the dawn of the American occupation, the story centers on the roundup of key Japanese military and political leaders to be tried for war crimes.

President Truman has appointed General Douglas MacArthur (a scenery-chewing Tommy Lee Jones) to oversee the operation; he in turn delegates “Japan expert” Brigadier General Bonner Fellers (tepid leading man Matthew Fox) to see that the task is executed pronto. Fellers is also directed to investigate whether the biggest fish, Emperor Hirohito (Takataro Kataoka) gave direct input on war strategy. MacArthur has allotted him only a week or so to conduct his investigation (no pressure!).

Indeed, the question of the Emperor’s guilt is a complex one (and the most historically fascinating element of the film). Was he merely a figurehead, kept carefully squirreled away in his hermetic bubble throughout the war and occasionally trotted out for propaganda purposes? Or did he have a direct say in military decisions, perhaps even giving a blessing for the attack on Pearl Harbor?

And there is the cultural element to consider. MacArthur (at least as depicted in the film) was shrewd enough to realize that if he could build a working relationship with Hirohito, perhaps the Emperor could in turn persuade the populace to cooperate with their overseers, thereby expediting the rebuild of Japan’s sociopolitical infrastructure. Even if he was a paper tiger, the Emperor’s words traditionally held substantial sway over the Japanese people.

Unfortunately, screenwriters Vera Blasi and David Klass shoot themselves in the foot and sidestep this potentially provocative historical reassessment by injecting an unconvincing romantic subplot involving Fellers’ surreptitious search to discover the fate of a Japanese exchange student (Aya Shimada) who he dated in college (the young woman, whose father was a general in the Imperial Army, returned to Japan before the war). The flashback scenes recapping the relationship are curiously devoid of passion and dramatically flat, grinding the film to a halt with each intrusion.

While Fox has a touch of that stoic Henry Fonda/Gary Cooper vibe going for him, his performance feels wooden, especially when up against Jones, who makes the most of his brief screen time (even he is given short shrift, mostly relegated to caricature and movie trailer-friendly lines like “Let’s show them some good old-fashioned American swagger!”).

I get the feeling that at some point during the film’s development there was an interesting culture-clash drama in here somewhere. But when the denouement is a re-enactment of an historic photo that slowly dissolves from the actors into the actual photo? That is almost never a good sign…

Historical drama, On Politics, War(s) on Terror

Bring me the head of you-know-who: Zero Dark Thirty **1/2

September 13, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on January 5, 2013)

“Whadaya think…this is like the Army, where you can shoot ‘em from a mile away?! No, you gotta get up like this, and budda-bing, you blow their brains all over your nice Ivy League suit.”

–from The Godfather, screenplay by Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola

If CIA operative Maya (Jessica Chastain), the partially fictionalized protagonist of Zero Dark Thirty had her druthers, she would “drop a bomb” on Osama Bin Laden’s compound, as opposed to dispatching a Navy SEAL team with all their “…Velcro and gear.” Therein lays the crux of my dilemma regarding Kathryn Bigelow’s film recounting the 10-year hunt for the 9-11 mastermind and events surrounding his take down; I can’t decide if it’s “like the Army” or a glorified mob movie.

At any rate, by the time I reached the end of its exhausting 157 minutes, any vicarious feeling of “victory” (intended or otherwise) I may have experienced watching Maya’s (that is to say, “America’s”) long-sought quarry go down in a hail of bullets was Pyrrhic at best; the same curiously ambivalent reaction I had watching Hitler and Goebbels getting blown to bits by another all-‘Murcan hit team in Quentin Tarantino’s 2010 WW2 revenge fantasy, Inglourious Basterds (and neither film’s denouement made me feel, you know…patriotic). Or, as I wrote regarding this peculiarly post 9-11 form of Weltschmerz in my review of Nuremberg: Its Lesson for Today, Stuart Schulberg’s 2011 doc about the Nazi war trials:

Unfortunately, humanity in general hasn’t learned too awful much [since 1946]; the semantics may have changed, but the behavior, sadly, remains the same […] “Crimes against humanity” are still perpetrated every day-so why haven’t we had any more Nurembergs? If it can’t be caught via cell phone camera and posted five minutes later on YouTube like Saddam Hussein’s execution, so we can take a quick peek, go “Yay! Justice is served!” and then get back to our busy schedule of eating stuffed-crust pizza and watching the Superbowl, I guess we just can’t be bothered. Besides, who wants to follow some boring 11-month long trial, anyway (unless an ex-football player is somehow involved).

But that’s just me. Perhaps Zero Dark Thirty is intended as a litmus test for its viewers (the cries of “Foul!” that have emitted from both poles of the political spectrum, even before its wide release this weekend would seem to bear this out). And indeed, Bigelow has nearly succeeded in making an objective, apolitical docudrama.

Notice that I say nearly. Here’s how she cheats. After opening with a powerfully affecting collage of now sadly familiar audio clips of horrified air traffic controllers, poignant answering machine adieus and heartbreaking exchanges between frustrated 911 operators and hapless World Trade Center office workers, Bigelow segues into those torture scenes you have undoubtedly heard about.

Tugging at our heartstrings to incite us to vengeful thoughts? That’s not playing fair. “Remember how terrible that day was?” she seems to be saying, “…so the ends justify the means, right? Anyone? Bueller?” The rub is that by most accounts, none of the intelligence instrumental to locating Bin Laden’s whereabouts was garnered via torture…unless the director knows something the rest of us don’t. That being said, the harrowing scenes (around 10 minutes of screen time) would not be out of place in a film about, say, Abu Ghraib (maybe Bigelow is making an oblique reference?).

However, if you can get past the fact that Bigelow or screenwriter Mark Boal are not ones to necessarily allow the truth to get in the way of a good story (and that The Battle of Algiers or The Day of the Jackal…this definitely ain’t), in terms of pure film making, there is an impressive amount of (if I may appropriate an oft-used phrase from the movie) cinematic “trade craft” on display.

While lukewarm as a political thriller, it does make a terrific detective story, and the recreation of the SEAL mission, while up for debate as to accuracy (only those who were there could say for sure, and keeping mum on such escapades is kind of a major part of their job description) is quite taut and exciting.

Chastain compellingly inhabits her obsessive character, and there are excellent supporting performances from Jennifer Ehle, Jason Clark, Kyle Chandler and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’s Mark Strong (who is becoming one of my favorite character actors). If this sounds like a mixed review-well, I suppose it is. But hey, I still support the troops!

Documentary, Historical drama, On Politics, Religion

And justice for some: 12 Years a Slave 1/2 & The Trials of Muhammad Ali *

September 5, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on November 2, 2013)

One of the lighter moments in 12 Years a Slave.

Let me make this perfectly clear. It is my sincere personal belief that slavery is evil. There is nothing that justifies robbing human beings of their freedom and treating them as chattel. And I do take the subject of slavery throughout the history of mankind (whether in discussion, literature, theater or film) seriously, from what the Pharaohs did to my own ancestors 5000 years ago, to the odious exploitation of Africans by European and American slave traders over a 300 year period.

I offer this disclaimer to any of my fellow liberals who may be offended that the following review is not going to be a fawning one, no matter how noble and righteous the filmmaker’s intent.

Somewhere around the halfway mark of British director Steve McQueen’s latest wallow in human misery, 12 Years a Slave, one character begs the protagonist (in so many words) to “Please…kill me now.” Oddly enough, those are the exact words I was silently mouthing as I stole a glance at my watch to assuage a suspicion that I may in fact now be living in the year 2019.

However, in polite deference to my fellow moviegoers in the packed, reverently hushed auditorium (and my sworn duties as your film reviewer), I took a deep breath, girded my loins for the 6 remaining years of the film’s running time and kept mum. I did hit a rough patch about 7/8 of the way through when one of the characters says (to the best of my recollection) “…and do you agree, sir, that slavery is evil?” To which I nearly leaped to my feet to exclaim “YES! Thank you for finally saying it! Now…for the love of god, please roll the end credits!” No such luck.

The film is based on an 1855 memoir by Solomon Northup, an African-American resident of upstate New York who was kidnapped and sold into slavery in 1841, remaining in bondage until his rescue in 1853. Now, I have not read this source book, which I gather to be one of the earliest detailed first-hand accounts to shed light on the machinations of the American slave trade (most significantly, from the victim’s perspective), as well as an inspiring account of survival and retention of dignity in the face of such institutionalized horror.

Sounds like perfect fodder for a multi-dimensional film that could personalize an ugly chapter of American history traditionally glossed over (at least when I was in grade school back in the Bronze Age).

Unfortunately, McQueen and his screenwriter John Ridley have chosen to fixate more on the “horror” than anything else. We are barely introduced to Solomon (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a genteel, well-educated, top-hat tipping gentleman who supports his family with his skills as a carpenter and accomplished fiddle-player, before he is bamboozled by a pair of con men with a laughably simple ruse and shanghaied into slavery by the next morning (if I didn’t already know that this was a Very Serious Film, I might have begun to suspect I had been bamboozled into a sneak for the latest Hangover sequel).

What ensues is not so much a tangible story arc as it is a two-hour aversion therapy session (how many repetitive scenes of beatings, lashings, and lynchings can you sit through with your eyes pinned open like Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange before you beg for mercy? Start the timer!) As the years tick by, Solomon is bought and sold and loaned and traded and sold again. Then more beatings, lashings, and lynchings…different plantations.

Occasional Malick-esque interludes offer some respite, with painterly antebellum dioramas that would make James Lee Burke moist. Using a sliding scale of evil, a few of the white folks Solomon encounters are “better” than others (including a sympathetic owner played by Benedict Cumberbatch and Brad Pitt as a Canadian abolitionist), but mostly cartoon villains (Paul Giamatti, Paul Dano and McQueen veteran Michael Fassbender try to out-Snidely Whiplash each other).

I sense there is a really terrific film here, screaming to get out from underneath all the ham-fisted torture porn. I understand that a film doesn’t have to be a “comfortable” experience, especially when dealing with an uncomfortable subject. I get “provocative”. I get “challenging”. That’s what makes good art. But a film also has to tell a story. I don’t care if it’s a happy story, or a sad story, or even a linear story. But a film shouldn’t be merely something to endure (unless you’re a masochist and into that sort of thing; I won’t judge you).

In an odd bit of kismet, I recently devoted several successive evenings to watch all 9 ½ hours of Claude Lanzmann’s 1985 Holocaust documentary Shoah. It is, hands down, the most harrowing, emotionally shattering and profoundly moving film I have ever seen about man’s inhumanity to man. And guess what? In 9 ½ hours, you don’t see one single image or reenactment of the actual horrors. It is people (victims and perpetrators) simply telling their story and collectively creating an oral history. And I was riveted. To be sure, Solomon Northrup had to endure 12 years of pure hell. I get that. But I’ll bet you he also had a story to tell. Sadly, I get no sense of it here.

Rope-a-trope: The Trials of Muhammad Ali.

“My conscience won’t let me go shoot my brother, or some darker people, or some poor hungry people in the mud for big powerful America. And shoot them for what? They never called me n***er, they never lynched me, they didn’t put no dogs on me, they didn’t rob me of my nationality, rape and kill my mother and father… Shoot them for what? How can I shoot them poor people? Just take me to jail”

-Muhammad Ali

There have been a number of films documenting and dramatizing the extraordinary life of Muhammad Ali, but they all share a curious anomaly. Most have tended to gloss over Ali’s politically volatile “exile years” (1967-1970), during which the American sports icon was officially stripped of his heavyweight crown and essentially “banned” from professional boxing after his very public refusal to be inducted into the Army on the grounds of conscientious objection to the Vietnam War. In a new documentary, The Trials of Muhammad Ali (not to be confused with Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight, the 2013 made-for-cable drama that HBO has been running in heavy rotation) filmmaker Bill Siegel (The Weather Underground) fills in those blanks.

As we know, Time heals (most) wounds…and Siegel opens his film with a fascinatingly dichotomous illustration. We witness a young Ali in a TV talk show appearance as he is being lambasted by an apoplectic David Susskind, who calls him (among other things) “…a disgrace to his country, his race and what he laughably describes as his profession.” (Ali deflects the insulting rant with a Zen-like calm).

Cut to 2005, and footage of President G.W. Bush Jr. awarding Ali the Medal of Freedom. It’s easy to forget how vilified Ali was for taking his stand (scars from the politically polarizing Vietnam era run deep; I know a few folks who still refer to Jane Fonda as “Hanoi Jane”).

Sigel then traces the evolution of Ali’s controversial stance, which had its roots in the early 60s, when the wildly popular Olympic champion then known as Cassius Clay became interested in the Nation of Islam, guided by the teachings of the movement’s leader at the time, Elijah Muhammad. Interviewees Kahlilah Camacho-Ali (Ali’s first wife, whom he met through the Nation of Islam) and a longtime friend only identified as “Captain Sam” provide a lot of interesting background on this spiritual side of Ali’s life, which eventually led to the adaptation of a new name and his refusal to serve in Vietnam.

As you watch the film, you begin to understand how Ali the sports icon transmogrified into an influential sociopolitical figure, even if he didn’t set out to become the latter. It was more an accident of history; Ali’s affiliation with the Nation of Islam and stance against the Vietnam War put him at the confluence of both the burgeoning Black Power and anti-war movements.

Either way, it took balls, especially considering that when he was convicted of draft evasion (later overturned by the Supreme Court), he was not only stripped of his heavyweight title (and primary source of income), but had his passport taken away by the government. This was not grandstanding; it was a true example of standing on the courage of one’s convictions.

Sigel has dug up some eye-opening archival footage from Ali’s three years in the wilderness. He still had to pay rent and feed his family, so Ali essentially found a second career during that period as a professional speaker (likely making him the only world-famous athlete to have inserted that phase of life usually associated with post-retirement into the middle of one’s career). During this time he represented himself as a minister of the Nation of Islam, giving speeches against racism and the Vietnam War (he shows to have been quite an effective and charismatic speaker). One mind-blower is footage of Ali performing a musical number from a Broadway play called Big Time Buck White. Wow.

It’s hard to see this film and not draw parallels with Edward Snowden; specifically to ponder how he will be viewed in the fullness of time. Granted, Snowden is not as likely to get bestowed with the Medal of Freedom-but god knows he’s being vilified now (remember, Ali didn’t just catch flak from the usual suspects for standing firmly on his principles, but even from dyed-in-the-wool liberals like Susskind).

Another takeaway is that there was more going on than cloaked racism; Ali’s vilification was America’s pre-9/11 flirt with Islamophobia. Ali was “safe” and acceptable as a sports celebrity (as long as he played the face-pulling, poetry-spouting ham with Howard Cosell), but was recast as a dangerous black radical once he declared himself a Muslim and began to speak his mind on hot-button issues.

As one interviewee comments on the Islam quotient “…Since 9/11, ‘Islam’ has acquired so many layers and dimensions and textures. When the Nation of Islam was considered as a ‘threatening’ religion, traditional Islam was seen as a gentle alternative. And now, quite the contrary […] Muhammad Ali occupies a weird kind of place in that shifting interpretation of Islam.” Welcome to Bizarro World.

Historical drama, Royal Intrigue

SIFF 2013: The Horde **

September 4, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on May 18, 2013)

The Horde is an historical epic from director Andrey Proshkin based on a relatively obscure event (well, outside of Russia) that occurred in the 14^th century, when the Metropolitan of Moscow (a monk also known as St. Alexius) saved his city from destruction by the Mongolian Golden Horde by “healing” the Khan’s mother, who had been stricken blind. The first half is involving, with royal intrigue and (literal) backstabbing among squabbling members of the Khanate, but once the story shifts to the endless suffering of St. Alexius as he wends his way home (we get it…he’s a saint) the film suffers too. Lavish production design and fine acting helps makes up the deficit.

Historical drama, Royal Intrigue

Start the revolution without me: Farewell My Queen **1/2

August 31, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on July 28, 2012)

From family trees the dukes do swing: Farewell, My Queen.

Benoit Jacquot’s Farewell, My Queen is the type of period film that critics love, because it gives them carte blanche to drop descriptive phrases like “handsomely mounted” and “sumptuously detailed” with abandon. OK, so it is a handsomely mounted, sumptuously detailed period film that achieves verisimilitude by occasionally soiling the hem of its petticoats with (to paraphrase from Monty Python and the Holy Grail) “lovely” (and authentic!) 18^th century filth.

That’s exactly what happens when an otherwise poised young lady named Sidonie (Lea Seydoux) goes unceremoniously ass over teakettle while scurrying to attend to the whims of one Marie Antoinette (Diane Kruger). The year is 1789, and that would be the same Marie Antoinette who was Queen of France at the time. As any history major would tell you, 1789 wasn’t the best year to have that particular gig. Indeed, it is July of 1789, and there’s a sizable coterie of disgruntled (and filthy!) 99 per centers days away from donning tri-corner hats and brandishing pitchforks to storm the Bastille.

But the Queen currently has more pressing concerns. For example, where oh where is her “finery book”? She’s just had an epiphany for a new dress design, while Sidonie (her personal reader) reads an article aloud to her from a fashion magazine as Marie wistfully ogles the pictures (you have to understand, they didn’t have cable back then). You are probably getting the picture that, despite the fomenting revolution on the streets of Paris, life within the Société Particulière de la Reine is continuing unabated. At least at first glance.

Through Sidonie’s eyes (she is one of the Queen’s primary “ladies in waiting”) we are given an upstairs/downstairs peek at the doings at Versailles during the waning days of the French monarchy. In the drawing rooms, it’s all curtsies and hushed deference, but as we move farther out of royal earshot and closer to the servant’s quarters, gossip and rumors rule (as well as furtive bodice-ripping).

It’s nearly impossible to observe the disconnect of these privileged aristocrats carrying on in their gilded bubble while the impoverished and disenfranchised rabble sharpen up the guillotines without drawing parallels with our current state of affairs (history, if nothing else, is cyclical). The director seems sharp enough to “know that we know” this already, so he doesn’t hit us over the head with it. His screenplay (co-written by Gilles Taurand) manages to contemporize the emotional life of the characters, whilst managing to avoid the anachronistic conceits that plagued Sofia Coppola’s 2006 misfire, Marie Antoinette.

The film is carried primarily through earthy, believable performances fby Seydoux and Kruger (who also worked together in Inglourious Basterds). Kruger conveys Marie’s spoiled frivolousness, but avoids broad caricature; there’s a resigned melancholy lurking beneath the veneer, adding an interesting layer to her performance. Kruger’s subtlety is particularly highlighted in a memorable scene where she confides to Seydoux regarding her “special” friendship with Gabrielle de Polignac (a duchess in the Queen’s court rumored to have been her lover). The dialog is strictly innuendo, but Kruger’s delivery and facial expressions say it all (it’s quite reminiscent of Laurence Oliver’s infamous “snails and oysters” conversation with Tony Curtis in Spartacus). This isn’t the first time we’ve seen this story, and it won’t be the last, but somehow…I never tire of watching the oligarchy crumble (pass the popcorn!).

Historical drama, On Politics

Having a wild weekend: Hyde Park on Hudson ***

August 25, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on December 8, 2012)

Lister: (looking out a prison cell window) They’re all just lining up in some kind of firing squad. Whoa, whoa, hang on, someone’s being brought out. They’re tying him to a stake. It’s Winnie the Pooh.

The Cat: What!?

Lister: Winnie the Pooh, I swear. He’s refusing the blindfold.

The Cat: They’re tying Winnie the Pooh to the stake?

(Gunfire erupts from outside)

Lister: (sinks, looking shell shocked) That’s something no-one should ever have to see.

-from Red Dwarf, written by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor

Let me tell you something else that no-one should ever have to see: FDR getting a hand job. Even if it is tastefully photographed in a field of clover, in a long shot, accompanied by romantic music…that’s just something that no-one should ever have to see. I’m no prude, and I realize he was only human, and we’ve heard the rumors about the philandering, but still. I guess it’s the liberal idealist inside me that wants to have at least one progressive icon to truly believe in.

Oh well. That being said, there’s still a lot to like about Notting Hill director Roger Michell’s Hyde Park on Hudson, an engaging (if lightweight) “fly on the wall” dramedy recounting events (documented and speculative) surrounding a 1939 visit by the British King and Queen to Roosevelt’s New York estate.

Rendered in the style of Upstairs, Downstairs (with echoes of Cold Comfort Farm), Michell and his screenwriter Richard Nelson (who adapted from his own play) filter their narrative through the situational observances of a peripheral participant. Her name is Daisy Suckley (Laura Linney), and she is the President’s sixth cousin.

While historians still debate whether there ever really was anything nasty going on in the woodshed between the real-life Suckley (who died in 1991 at age 99) and FDR, for the purpose of the film the two are assumed as being romantically involved. Their relationship is loosely chronicled through her voice-over narration (Linney, a fine actress, is handed a thankless task at times, wrestling with breathless schoolgirl prose like, “…how I longed for him!”).

The film opens with Daisy being summoned by the President (Bill Murray) to Hyde Park, where aides, staffers and family members are all atwitter about the pending visit from the royal couple. FDR, however, is currently more focused on his stamp collection, and his cousin’s visit. Alone with her in his study, he invites Daisy to come closer to his desk, so she can better appreciate some of his, ah, collectibles (this must run a close second to “Would you like to come up and see some of my etchings?” as a seduction line).

At any rate, it’s the genesis of a long-running love affair…at least according to the filmmakers. The affair, which takes up the first third of the 94 minute running time, is actually the film’s weakest element; luckily things pick up considerably in the second act, once King George VI (Samuel West) and Queen Elizabeth (Olivia Colman) arrive for the weekend.

The tone of the film shifts at this juncture for the better, transforming it into more of a comedy of manners and of political protocols. West and Colman are charming as the royal couple. The Queen is quite appalled at the collection of vintage American political cartoons that hang on the wall of their guest room (dating from the War of 1812, the depictions put the British in, shall we say, a somewhat negative light), as well as the prospect of dining on hot dogs (the horror!) at an impending picnic luncheon.

On the other hand, Bertie (being a good sport), is more bemused than bothered. In the film’s standout scene, the King and FDR loosen up and bond over drinks in the study. The scene is augmented by the best monologue in the screenplay, in which FDR assuages Bertie’s self-consciousness about his stutter by speaking in a self-deprecating manner about his own inability to walk. At once funny and moving, it’s wonderfully played by both actors.

Murray makes for a surprisingly credible FDR, likely bolstered by the fact that the script doesn’t require him to portray FDR the statesman. In a sense, by so convincingly channeling FDR’s celebrated personal charm, he does give us a fairly insightful glimpse of what made him such a successful politician. There are notable supporting performances from Olivia Williams as Eleanor Roosevelt (she’s so good that I wish they had written her a meatier part with more screen time) and from Elizabeth Marvel as FDR’s personal secretary, Missy Lehand.

Political junkies and history buffs are forewarned to not expect Michell’s film to be in the same league as Sunrise at Campobello, or the 1976 TV series Eleanor and Franklin; if anything, it shares more in common with Woody Allen’s A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy. You could do worse.