Capsule Reviews: In the Heat of the Night, Something Wild, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

In the Heat of the Night (Norman Jewison, 1967)

I put off watching this film for years because it struck me as Hollywood moralizing that would inevitably resort to stereotypes and a skewed sense of self-righteousness. (I know it's wrong to pre-judge a film, but come on, didn't I just describe 99.9% of Hollywood racial dramas?) But In the Heat of the Night was everything I thought it wouldn't be: even-handed rather than polemical, nuanced and not bludgeoned, artistic rather than cheaply ripped from the headlines. Virgil Tibbs, the displaced Philadelphia homicide detective, wants to get out of the Mississippi town in which he finds himself involved in an investigation as much as the local cops want him gone. The chief, Gillespie (Rod Steiger), doesn't hide his prejudices, but he also notes Tibbs' own to goad the officer he knows is talented into staying. He knows that a man like Tibbs would like nothing more than to solve the mystery and prove himself better than all these country hicks, and Poitier's steely gaze cannot hide his agreement with the assessment.

This revelation of Tibbs' own racial hangups is not an attempt to soften the whites but to deepen and humanize the racial commentary. Admittedly, Jewison's action scenes somewhat undercut the wisome and depth of the dialogue and acting with such on-the-nose visual cues as a Confederate flag emblem on the front fender of a car pursuing Tibbs to some obvious angling of shots of lynch mob members. Nevertheless, this is a powerful document of racial tension that has aged remarkably well, buoyed by two dynamic performances by Poitier and Steiger and scripted with intelligence. I'd like to mull this over a few more times before I'd write a full-length review, but in the meantime read Adam Zanzie's excellent piece on the film. Grade: A-


Something Wild (Jonathan Demme, 1986)

Jonathan Demme's stylish descent into yuppie hell plays like a more class-conscious take on Martin Scorsese's After Hours. Where Griffin Dunne eventually wound up right back where he started, forgetting his mad fever dream, Jeff Daniels' Charlie does not get off so lightly. His corporate VP  gets swept away by a dynamo who goes by the name of Lulu (Melanie Griffin) and endures such a mad and, eventually horrific, plunge off the deep end that he must reevaluate everything he believes in. The three main characters (including a striking Ray Liotta as Lulu's insane ex-husband) are all white, but they move trough a background of multiracial and multiclass people, and Charlie's interactions with them change him. On the flip-side, the more they stick together, the more Lulu begins to domesticate, becoming the sort of bourgeois trophy wife that the normal Charlie would love to be with, though he's already become used to the wild minx version.

Demme turns the film into an exercise in duality: The film's tone switches from comedy to horror. The cinematography transitions from pastel-colored romp to cold, metallic tones so quickly the effect is at once barely noticeable and deeply unsettling. "What are you going to do now that you've seen how the other half lives?" Lulu asks, furthering the dualism by clarifying "The other half of you." The other film that makes for an easy point of comparison with the film is David Lynch's Blue Velvet, a connection made in their mutual view of small-town America as no bastion of morality in the face of rotting cities. Yet unlike Lynch's despairing suburban hell and Scorsese's expressionist frenzy, Something Wild has a real sliver of hope running through it, the idea of recognizing one's duality and finding spiritual middle class in the sharply divided racial and class system of the '80s. That's such a lofty idea I nearly forget you have to fight your way past a crazed Ray Liotta to get to it. Grade: A

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (Howard Hawks, 1953)

Howard Hawks' brassy, vibrant Technicolor musical at first glance seems a depiction of vacant gold-digging, but the more one pays attention, the more one can only see the film as a vicious attack on the commercialized notion of romance, a deconstruction brought about by its two female leads. Russell and Monroe are so dynamic and forward they seem to grab a hold of the camera itself and manipulate our view of them. They make an unstoppable duo, Russell's Dorothy consumes every hunk in sight, while Monroe (cannily satirizing her own public image) uses airy, wide-eyed bimbosity to set traps for rich schlubs looking for a trophy of her caliber. I don't know if a film has ever torn down the male gaze so thoroughly, not only hijacking it to show how women have sexual desires (the "fairer sex" has always been more sexually experienced than the men in Hawks' films, but here they are almost unfathomably to the males) but in the pair's manipulation of that gaze to position men right where they want them. Even if the men are sitting in a theater.

Hawks' use of musical interludes in his films (think Rio Bravo and To Have and Have Not) has always been rich in character, and the grand sequences here are as clever and telling as they are dynamic and artistic. From the opening moment, as Monroe and Russell appear in ruby-red sequins to instantly monopolize the attention, Hawks positions the musical numbers to demonstrate their utter power over men and the uninhibited expression of their own desires. Perversity gets stacked on top of perversity here, but maybe I only use that word because it's so unorthodox to be shown the female desire instead of the male gaze. This is damn near a perfect picture, as funny as it is transgressive, and one of my three favorite Hawks pictures, along with Rio Bravo and Only Angels Have Wings. Grade: A+

The Silence of the Lambs

In my ongoing quest to grow the hell up and get over my childish fear of the horror genre-- though I believe most horror filmmakers would be delighted that I spent the first 17-18 years of my life desperately avoiding the genre-- I've been going through the classics and finding most of them to be too entertaining to frighten. When I watched Alien about a year and a half ago, it served as my gateway into the genre, a beautifully crafted example of how a gifted filmmaker could actually get scares out of something other than things popping in front of the screen (though there's plenty of that). Well, after slowly working my way through some of the more notable names, I've finally gotten to The Silence of the Lambs, the horror thriller renowned for giving us what, for many, is the greatest screen villain of all time.

I became less eager to see this film a while back when I heard Lecter only shows up for 16 minutes of screen time, and I'd seen at least half that on any TV show that mentions him. However, having watched it, I agree that Anthony Hopkins' performance is justly famous. The film is about Clarice Starling, and the villain is Buffalo Bill, but Hopkins walks away with the show. His Lecter is mannered, erudite and fiercely intelligent, which makes it all the more shocking when he suddenly reaches out to eat someone's face.

His performance is so good that it sadly overshadows the excellent work put in by both Jodie Foster and Ted Levine. Foster plays Clarice Starling as a cauldron of insecurities and trauma simmering under a collected yet clearly nervous exterior. At the start of the film she's in training to become an FBI agent and, for reasons that somewhat escape me, her boss Crawford sends her to interview the infamous, cannibalistic psychologist Hannibal Lecter in order to gain some information on a serial killer known only as 'Buffalo Bill.' Before she leaves, Crawford warns her "Don't let him inside your head."

She visits Lector's maximum security cell and, of course, immediately lets him inside her head. But he does not do so because Starling is some bubbly fool like most horror females; instead, we see how he uses his psychological knowledge to weaken and destroy his victims. The scene is less an insult to Clarice as it is a testament to Lecter's fearsome reputation. After all, with 16 minutes of face time, you have to hook the audience fast.

The two enter into a sort of a waltz; Lecter speaks in cryptic riddles and slowly extracts pieces of Starling's past and persona, while Starling solves his misleading advice. Starling uses that nugget of information, then the process starts again. You get a sense from Lecter that he's almost proud of Starling; after all, he got into her head early and stayed there, but she never backed down and she's learning enough about him to figure out his lies.

Demme cranks up the thrills as the film goes on. Buffalo Bill, a wannabe transsexual who, instead of elective surgery, has chosen to kill women and piece together a suit out of their skins, captures a senator's daughter, suddenly putting even more pressure on the Feds. Meanwhile Lecter stages a bold escape attempt, and at some point the psychological drama kicks into action overdrive. Eventually, Clarice finds Buffalo Bill, and it plays out in moments of incredible suspense aided by Craig McKay's skillful editing.

Overall, I found the film to be taut and intelligent. Though people always refer to it as a horror, I don't know if I'd call it one. A thriller certainly, but just because there's a cannibal and a killer doesn't make it a horror film. Then again, true horror stems from suspense, I think; I derive much more visceral terror from, say, North By Northwest than I do The Exorcist. The Silence of the Lambs isn't perfect, but it boast stellar acting, great writing and great direction, and I imagine it'll entertain audiences for generations to come.

Rachel Getting Married

Watching "Rachel Getting Married," I couldn't help but notice there were so many ways this film could have gone wrong. It could have gone the route of cloying melodrama meant for a Lifetime Original Movie, or it could have become the typical (and typically unfunny) wedding comedy, or it could have even made a open grab for Oscars; instead, Jonathan Demme crafted a understated film containing equals amounts of uncomfortable humor, family drama, and fun.

Don't let the title fool you: Rachel (Rosemarie DeWitt) does get married, but this is not her show. The story mainly centers around her sister Kym, a recovering addict who's finally found a treatment program that seems to work and who gets a day pass out of rehab to attend her sister's wedding. Anne Hathaway imbibes the character, infusing her with a sharp wit and a completely selfish personality. Not many are happy to see Kym at the house, and you quickly get the feeling that it's not because of her habit, or at least not directly.

The first half of the movie is a fairly dark comedy; Kym is offended that she is not the maid of honor, she wants all the attention, and she is, of course, the token disastrous toaster. So many movies about weddings make practically every character do their best to ruin the whole affair, but writer Jenny Lumet knows that it really only ever takes one.

The third act of the film is where the tensions finally come to a head the night before the wedding. Kym must confront her biggest demon and how it affects her family, and it threatens to rip them all apart before Sidney and Rachel make it to the altar. Hathaway, whose been so biting and self-centered the whole time, suddenly taps into some powerful emotions that expel a great deal of pent-up self-hate in a way that seems totally realistic. All that talk of her Oscar worthiness is true: as clichéd as it may be, she is Kym, and at no point during the near two hour running length did I even think "Hey, she was in The Princess Diaries."

The wedding itself is both wholly irrelevant and the fundamental triumph of the film. For Kym, whose story drives the film, it serves as little more than a device, yet the wedding and everything concerning it contains the ultimate subject of the film: marriage and its affect on family. Rachel, who has been locked into her own personal hell more or less because of Kym and her effect on the family, has a chance at a new and happy life with Sidney. My absolute favorite part of the film, even beyond the actors, is the fact that Lumet not once comments on Sidney and Rachel's interracial relationship. Hollywood loves to pat itself on the back when it comes to social issues, but we see a couple and their families simply interacting; there is no racist grandmother, no initial distrust between the two clans. Sidney's family immediately treats Rachel's family like their own, as does Rachel's. If nothing else, "Rachel Getting Married" hopefully points to a future in which race is a non-issue like it truly should be.

Also deserving mention is Demme's hand-held camera work. He gets in close to the actors, and you feel like that guest who awkwardly stumbles into a party where you don't really know the people or, worse, into a family situation. The way the camera sort of finds itself in the middle of an argument has a humor all its own. Demme gives Lumet's superb script a bit of an Altman-esque feel; he does not examine the background characters like the master did, but Demme does do a good job of exploring people other than Rachel and Kym. As much praise as Hathaway is (deservedly) getting, attention must be paid to both Rosemarie DeWitt and Debra Winger as Rachel and Kym's emotionally distant mother, who has one scene with Kym of great power. Personally, I think DeWitt deserves a Supporting Actress nomination more than Winger, but the Academy loves to pick supporting noms based on scenes, and Winger has the best I've seen of a supporting actress this year.

"Rachel" is not quite perfect; Kym moves through her path just a bit too quickly and there are some scenes that Demme might have bettered served with more traditional shooting. But it is a painfully honest film that, in true Altman fashion, weaves together a tapestry of potential stories, many of which remain unexplored, as they do in real life. Lumet, Hathaway, and DeWitt all deserve Oscar nominations and, barring some great revelations in the last few weeks of the year, wins. It is far and away the best wedding movie I've ever seen, and to understand just how much it breaks the usual mold, just consider that Hathaway's next project is called Bride Wars.