Brian De Palma: Carlito's Way

I used to think Carlito's Way was, to quote the popular interpretation, an "apology" for Scarface, a toned-down, mature take on that film's criminal excess that depicts a gangster trying to redeem himself rather than climb the ranks of the underworld. After revisiting that film, however, I can better see what De Palma was doing with his first, more grandiose view of the criminal underworld and, with unorthodox focus, how it affected America's rising Latino population. Nevertheless, this film, with its ever-moving but graceful camera, bold use of color and flagrant romanticism, not only proves the superior view of criminal life but also stands as perhaps De Palma's finest achievement as a filmmaker and the best balance of his confrontationally probing camera and the mainstream Hollywood elegance of which he wanted to be a part.

This mix of the daring with the quotidian might explain why so many mistook the film for a mildly original take on a tired subject. But to see how the film subverts and analyzes clichés, one need look no farther than the opening, a monochromatic framing device that spoils all pretense at suspense by showing the titular hero murdered by way of introduction. De Palma uses the sequence not only to set in motion his aesthetic approach—using his Steadicam shots as POV representations of Carlito's view, up to and including the slow pivot upside down and pull back as Carlito's soul leaves his body—but to make sure that we spend the film not wondering what happens to Carlito but why this doomed scenario occurs.

Brian De Palma: Casualties of War

On a first viewing, I found Casualties of War to be a fitfully intriguing, if overly quotidian Vietnam film that offered up a unique story but a predictable payoff. Furthermore, the tonal upheaval that occurs in the final act turned what had been one of Brian De Palma's most solid films into a well-meaning but sappy liberal morality play. Looking at it now, however, I see one of De Palma's better films, and a slyly literal take on the illegality of war that proposes such a simple, self-evident solution that it never seems to come to mind: what if someone actually took the horror and wrongness of war to court?

Unlike a court-martial film, Casualties of War is neither about a kangaroo court to make an example of the enlisted or a demonstration of the rotten chain of command. In fact, it isn't about the trial itself but the courage to bring one's fellow soldiers to that trial, overcoming self-doubt over incriminating one's fellow servicemen and intense pressure from everyone else to let the whole thing go. Coming off the upswing of strong (and strongly critical) Vietnam films like Platoon and Full Metal Jacket, De Palma's film sticks firmly with the men on the ground. Less forgiving than Stone's semi-autobiographical film and less heady than Kubrick's movie, De Palma's feature shows the same breakdown of sanity and humanity not as the result of an officious, out-of-touch command but of the absence of any clear structure in an environment so confusing the trees themselves seem to be hostile.

The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick, 2011)

[Edited 12/28/11]

"God is closer to me than others of my art."

-Ludwig van Beethoven

In 1733, Johann Sebastian Bach, born and raised a Lutheran, premiered two pieces of what would become his Mass in B minor, which he spent the remaining years of his life expanding and honing until the liturgy used for both major Christian denominations became a full-blown Roman Catholic Mass. Composed in chunks up to his final years, his Missa is disjunctive, consisting of clashing textures reflecting both the different kinds of inspiration that drove him in each writing block as well as the altered emotional state of the composer as he drifted into blindness and illness. Yet the result is one of the undisputed masterpieces of Western classical music, the apotheosis of nearly every musical style of its time in one grand, summarizing statement.

Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life may be the closest the cinema has to its own Mass in B minor: it's gargantuan, encompassing, messy and bold. It's also exquisitely beautiful and personal on a level seemingly impossible for something that feels so vast. Bach spent about two decades tweaking and expanding his mass; Malick has been collecting ideas and images for this for 30 years, and the inspirations behind it likely stretch back even further. The Missa comprises movements under four distinct sections, and The Tree of Life incorporates the themes and styles of the director's four previous features into a film that feels infinite and minute, unwieldy yet perversely whole.

1989 Rewind: Casualties of War

For the first hour of Brian De Palma's Casualties of War, I simply could not accept it. Its characters were too savage, its dialogue too obvious and too much of it felt simply like a retread of common Vietnam tropes. Then I reconsidered it and, though the dialogue is still weak, Casualties of War contains some of the best acting to grace a war film, as well as one hell of a dark message.

Most war films introduce us to our characters as rookies or at least at a point when they still have a modicum of optimism about them. These men are grizzled, but still lighthearted, give or take a low-ranking officer or NCO. Into this group comes a fresh-faced, idealistic volunteer who will invariably act as the sole voice of reason when the more experienced men finally snap, which they tend to do when the gentlest of the veterans, the conscience of the group, fall prey either to enemy or friendly fire.

Casualties of War follows this to a T, but where it takes a bold step is in its decision to kill that calm vet (Erik King) in the first act. Cpl. Brownie takes a bullet to the neck when the VC ambushes the squad on break, immediately driving a wedge between the noble youth, Pfc. Max Eriksson (Michael J. Fox), and the rest of the troops, led by Sgt. Tony Meserve (Sean Penn). For the first stage of the film, there is an unspoken, underplayed struggle for the soul of Brownie's replacement, Diaz (John Leguizamo).

"War is hell," as the old adage says, but De Palma really puts it to the test when Meserve takes his men to the nearest village looking for revenge for both the deaths of his men as well as the attack cutting their leave short. The troops devastate the village looking for Viet Cong, and Meserve at last snaps and takes a young girl with the squad in retaliation. Eriksson reflects our horror when Meserve announces that she'll "tend to the men's needs."

De Palma structures Casualties of War around a terrifying gang rape scene, one of the most disturbing and repulsive (yet not exploitative) ever filmed. Eriksson tries desperately to sate the men before they cross that line, and even manages to convince Diaz. Then the other three, who have been waiting for their moment, pounce on him. Meserve, driven totally insane at this point by the jungle, cannot understand why Eriksson can't be a team player, so he lobs insults at the young soldier. He must be a communist sympathizer or, worse, a homosexual. Meserve makes open death threats as his two lackeys chuckle. Diaz, cowed by the lashing, falls in line with the others, and Eriksson must watch as the four men take turns with this poor, shrieking girl. Later, the squad stages a fight with some VC soldiers, and during the fight all four of the rapists end up shooting her for trying to escape.

The stark horror of the rape sequence might seem enough to burn the film into our retinas, but really it works because of the actors. Fox might be typecast as the wholesome kid just trying to do the right thing, but he's a believable soldier, one sent to die simply because his name came up in a "lottery." Leguizamo, King and John C. Reilly excel in some of their earliest performances (this was Reilly's debut) and round out the cast nicely. But Sean Penn's deranged Meserve will keep people coming back for more. As we are dropped in the middle of their tours with these men, we don't see Meserve slowly fade into some sort of animal: he's like that from the start. On the surface, he looks like the sort of soldier the Army would be desperate to prop up as a poster boy: loyal, uncompromising, intimidating. Yet he is a force of darkness, everything wrong and amoral concerning the US involvement in Vietnam personified. He's so deluded that he actually convinces himself that his sex slave is a VC prisoner. A recurring theme of De Palma's work is his linking of the man's sex drive and his capacity for shocking violence, and it's unforgettably displayed here but it wouldn't have worked if you didn't fully buy Penn's madness.

This second act is riveting and horrifying. It paints the jungles of Vietnam as a place where the American ideal, the human ideal even, died slowly and painfully. That's why the third act feels so tacked on, a paltry excuse to give the film some sort of uplifting coda, possibly to avoid outrage over the depictions of these soldiers. Upon returning to base, Eriksson pleads his case to all who will listen, but the top brass, in profane, definite terms, tell him to drop the matter. The last thing they need is another PR nightmare. But Eriksson persists, and justice is had.

After everything that preceded these last 40 minutes, the ending feels hollow. De Palma did such a great job of laying bare the atrocities good old American boys could commit when placed in a situation entirely beyond their ken, and this might have been one of the great Vietnam films had it simply ended with the men returning to base, leaving all the evidence back in the jungle but carrying everything with them. To show the nightmare of their existence and try to say "Oh, but one person really can make a difference" after the second act does nothing but viciously repudiate this brings the film to a screeching halt. And it certainly doesn't help that the actors must deliver David Rube's lines; Rube is a playwright and it shows, as the characters seem to be projecting their lines at an audience instead of interacting with one another. As a result, Casualties of War starts strong but finishes with a whimper, one that in no way affects the excellent work from its actors. Sean Penn fans, or even detractors, should find this an excellent find, as it contains one of his best performances.

The Thin Red Line

In the mid-70s a director named Terrence Malick graduated from the American Film Institutes's conservatory with a master's degree, and set about making two of the finest films in the richest decade of American cinema. Badlands (which I have not yet seen) and Days of Heaven (which is one of the best films I've ever watched) established Malick as a master filmmaker, one who could capture images of endless natural beauty and mix them with meditative scripts that were uniquely his. Days of Heaven in particular defied just about any convention you'd care to name, with its passionate love triangle filtered through the eyes of a teenage girl forced to grow long before she should have. With that film, Malick was on top of the world.

Then, he disappeared. For twenty years the world wondered where this visionary filmmaker had gone and, of course, rumors circulated. "I heard he died." "No, man, he's just living on an island somewhere." Finally, in 1995, Malick began casting for a war movie. Three years later, The Thin Red Line hit theaters, and it looked as though he'd made it right after Days.

Starring an ensemble cast including Nick Nolte, Sean Penn, John Cusack and future torture porn star Jim Caviezel, The Thing Red Line documents the Battle of Guadalcanal through the eyes of a fictionalized group of soldiers, some fresh-faced, others old. Yet the age gaps don't mean as much in this film as they normally do in a war film; many of the educated officers are just as green in the field as their cannon fodder.

The film opens with Caviezel's character, Pvt. Witt, living AWOL with a Melanesian tribe. For him, the tiny village on the edge of the sea is Eden, a location Malick alludes to throughout the film. His paradise is short-lived; a patrol boat tracks him down and Sgt. Welsh (Penn) sends him to join the front line. As the company prepares to invade Guadalcanal, we meet yet more characters on the boat and learn more about the characters.

Even before the first battle, Malick crams two films into one. One film is a war story that subverts some war clichés without calling attention to itself, and the other is an existentialist search for spiritual truth. We start with a peek of Witt's heaven, and on the boat we learn of Colonel Tall's (Nick Nolte), a career-soldier who's never seen a battle. He speaks proudly of how he read Homer in the actual Greek, and cannot wait to see what a battle will actually look like after reading of them for so long. In his voice-over he mentions that this battle could be his last shot for a promotion before retirement. War is not necessarily his Eden, but he clearly looks forward to it.

The two aspects of the film create a dichotomy that most directors could never reconcile, but--and I humbly beg you forgive the cliché--Terrence Malick is not most directors. He captures the reedy hills of Guadalcanal with pristine detail, yet he breaks up the long, pastoral takes with quick cuts that leave the audience as confused as the soldiers. They land to find a deserted beach, but when they attempt to move in the center of the island a hidden machine gun nest mows down every advance. Even so, Tall orders his men on.

This all could have very easily devolved into the usual war archetypes, but Malick doesn't take the easy way out. Yes, Tall callously orders his men on a suicide run without considering the consequences, but when a field captain refuses he wonders if he might be wrong and heads to the front lines to see for himself. He realizes his error and the men change plans and take the bunker.

But just as Malick took much of the passion out of Bill's scheming in Days of Heaven, so too does he break up the visceral battles. Now, his battle scenes are chaotic, grand, and every bit as exciting as Spielberg's in Saving Private Ryan, but he spaces them out between meditations. If I had to hazard I guess, I'd say The Thin Red Line is Malick's way of saying that all creatures kill, and that Earth itself is our Eden, but we can never regain it. After the first grand battle, Witt disappears to another village but no longer finds comfort in it, for he sees the violence and evil even there. Malick inserts shots of crocodiles and a bird, injured by crossfire, dragging itself along the grass. In voice-overs, the characters search for meaning and they always lead to death.

I wouldn't call the film realistic, or at least not aspects of it. It gives us fleshed-out soldiers, but I doubt these kids were thinking about the nature of evil and death as mortars exploded around them. Personally, I'd be thinking "Don't die, don't die, duck! Don't die." But, of course, I can only speak for myself. However, Malick is a surprisingly adept action filmmaker; armed with a team of editors, he splices together rapid cuts to keep the viewer disoriented without ever going hog wild like more recent action purveyors. Combined with his more epic long takes, it makes for just about the most beautiful looking war film I've ever seen.

This is not my favorite war film. Hell, it's not even my favorite war film of 1998. However, it's maybe the most original and singular entry in the genre. The original running time clocked in at about 3 1/2 hours, but Malick recut the film down to just under 3, and it shows. He clearly aims for a more holistic approach rather than touching on each character individually, but even then some characters come off as barely cameos for special celebrity guests (Travolta and Clooney come to mind). I also would have liked to see some perspective from the side of the starving Japanese soldiers, but I cannot complain since we eventually got that film in the form of Clint Eastwood's masterpiece Letters From Iwo Jima (which plays not entirely unlike a companion piece to this film). Nevertheless, this is easily one of the finest war movies ever made, one that adds an approach entirely its own and, though that perspective creates some disconnect, makes for thought-provoking moments to compliment the carnage.

The Game

Written by: John Brancato and Michael Ferries
Directed by: David Fincher

I can't imagine anyone but David Fincher making this movie. He displayed with his preceding film Se7en (as well as his recent masterpiece Zodiac) an uncanny ability to twist ordinary crime procedurals that get driven further into the ground every week on CSI and various Law & Order spinoffs into taut, gripping thrillers. The Game follows such a pattern and, even though it does not quite enter into the top tier of Fincher's work, it remains an excellent film and one of the director's better works.

The basic theme of The Game is humility. The film opens on the extremely wealthy Nicholas Van Orten (Douglas), a successful businessman who got ahead in life by being relentlessly obsessive in his control of it. He adheres to schedules and runs a tight ship; the moment an employee fails to meet projections he finds himself on the street. For his 48th birthday, he meets with his carefree, recovering addict brother Conrad (Sean Penn), who gifts him with an application for a mysterious program called The Game.

To redeem his gift, Van Orten visits Consumer Recreations Services and meets with a shadowy man who entices the wary and meticulous Nicholas into agreeing to enter into The Game, despite offering no real details of what to expect. That night Nicholas returns home thinking about his father, who committed suicide on his own 48th birthday, and soon all hell breaks loose.

The consultant from CRS told Van Orten only that The Game offered "what is lacking" in the lives of its participants. Thus begins a steadily building series of chaos designed to knock Nicholas down a few pegs. First it starts slowly: his pen leaks, someone spills wine on his shirt, etc. Then it builds and builds into a frenzy that leaves the audience wondering if The Game is designed to humble Nicholas or outright kill him.

With a simple tweak this could have easily been a comedy. The lead could have overacted too soon, peaking emotionally before things got really tough, or the nature of The Game could have been too absurd. Indeed, most of their machinations are flat-out impossible or at least certainly improbable; after all, why go to all the trouble of draining bank accounts, taking assets, and even staging deaths just to teach someone a lesson?

Yet it's a testament both to Fincher's gift for pacing and Michael Douglas' subtlety that the exercise never devolves into farce. Douglas reacts as a man of his position would, with initial disbelief ever so slowly mounting into madness. There's a scene late in the film when Nicholas, broke and beaten, asks the patrons of a diner for a ride to San Fransico in a defeated tone that contains a tattered remnant of dignity that is his only tether to the life he knew. Few could have pulled this off as well as Douglas.

Also worth noting is the look of the film. As with Se7en, Fincher and his crew have crafted a terrifying, Gothic expressionist nightmare for the characters. This dreamscape makes the implausibilities of The Game (as well as John Doe's horrific crimes in Se7en) seem possible because if the world itself is off, who are we to say what can logically occur in it?

By the end of the film I felt as drained as Van Orten. Because Douglas keeps his madness largely behind his eyes and only lets on with the occasional look of panic or confusion I remained on the edge of my seat. Though the ending isn't as ambiguous as it might seem, it still makes you wonder.

Funnily enough, the film feels like a Gothic thriller version of Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Like Scrooge, Van Orten is a successful businessman who defines himself by his work and whose life is thrown into disarray by forces beyond his control -- the architects of The Game seem as supernatural as the Christmas ghosts. These forces conspire to improve their victim through horrors; Scrooge had to confront his troubled childhood and face a terrible future, while Nicholas must contend with losing everything. Though Nicholas may be more traumatized than enlightened by his experiences, he's finally been given an alternative to his way of living.

Overall, I'd name The Game as Fincher's fourth best, scarcely behind the triumvirate of his masterpieces Se7en, Fight Club, and Zodiac and ahead of his latest The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. It's not quite perfect, but few thrillers grabbed me like this.

Milk

It’s hard to watch the story of Harvey Milk and not think about recent issues in the country, particularly in California, the state where he left his mark. The recent passing of Proposition 8 is sure to weigh in the minds of all who watch this biopic, and it lends an importance to an already great film. As a matter of fact, a lot of Harvey Milk’s life eerily ties in with today’s events.

We meet Milk as a closeted Republican living in New York City in 1970 patrolling subways for potential partners, one of whom (Scott Smith, played by James Franco), becomes his boyfriend. The two decide to move to San Francisco in the hopes of being able to live out of the closet. However, as they move in and set up a camera shop only to find that even San Francisco is no haven. Slowly, Milk builds ties in the predominately gay neighborhood. Before long, he can rally the denizens of Castro Street for anything, from helping unions to driving anti-gay establishments out of business. You might call him a sort of “community organizer.” Hmmm.

After the police raid Castro Street and beat homosexuals for no reason, Milk is incensed to the point of running for city supervisor and, after a number of failed bids, finally wins it in 1977. Surprisingly, yet perhaps not altogether unexpectedly, this final act of the film, the one in which Harvey Milk made history, doesn’t feel quite as important as his days running the Castro Street like a friendly, nonviolent mobster. As with most idealists, he must deal with the cold, sobering reality of bureaucracy. His biggest political enemy is Dan White, a fellow city supervisor and an ardent conservative.

Dan White is most interesting character in all this tragedy, even moreso than Milk. He is played by Josh Brolin, who has been on a hot streak for the last two years and shos no signs of slowing down. Rumors abound concerning White’s sexuality, and whether his role in the assassinations could be perhaps traced to his own self-hating homosexuality. Van Sant certainly hints at this; White is ever opposed to gay rights, but seems to genuinely want to befriend Harvey. He even seems open to voting with Harvey, provided he backs some of White’s proposals of course. When Milk backs out his end of the bargain, White grows to hate Milk. Was Harvey an exit to Dan? A path out of his lie of a life into being able to live in happiness? I do not know, but at any rate it sends an already unbalanced man over the edge.

While “Milk” must inevitably follow the well-tread, clichéd road of biopics, Gus Van Sant manages to buoy the film above most. Dustin Lance Black’s script is full of tender moments, and the anecdotal research he put into the project gives the film a more personal feeling; I did not feel like I was watching an historic figure, but a man, and that makes me identify with it more than the usual slice of hero worship that defines such films. Van Sant mixes documentary footage with the film, making the voices of those who condemn homosexuals all the more affecting. Anita Bryant, a pop singer who famously championed the removal of gay rights, is wisely never portrayed by an actress; we see her as she actually decries gays as child molesters (despite the evidence even then that most molesters are heterosexual) and we feel the rage that many must have felt watching her at the time.

But the film rests squarely on Sean Penn’s shoulders, and he delivers magnificently. Penn is an actor of little, if any subtlety; he throws himself into a role and infuses it with such melodrama that he either triumphs (“Mystic River,” “21 Grams”) or fails spectacularly (“I am Sam”). Here, he is energetic and warm; you can’t help but love Harvey.

There is a tendency for these kinds of films to praise the messenger for the message and not its merits. For example, while I thoroughly enjoyed the romance of “Brokeback Mountain,” I found the film itself to be a meandering, poorly paced jumble that placed more focus on Ang Lee’s visual prowess than the actual emotions. But “Milk” gets it right, and it becomes perhaps the first great mainstream film to deal with gay rights. I don’t think it will convert any homophobes, but it just might galvanize the gay and gay-friendly crowds, who need something to unite them in the wake of Proposition 8.