Armageddon Time

 

Director James Gray

Gray with cinematographer Darius Khondji

ARMAGEDDON TIME        B                                                                                                     USA  Brazil  (114 mi)  2022  ‘Scope  d: James Gray

The thing that most white people imagine that they can salvage from the storm of life is really, in sum, their innocence.  It was this commodity precisely which I had to get rid of at once, literally, on pain of death.  I am afraid that most of the white people I have ever known impressed me as being in the grip of a weird nostalgia, dreaming of a vanished state of security and order.      —James Baldwin, The Black Boy Looks at the White Boy, from Esquire magazine, May 1, 1961, The Black Boy Looks at the White Boy - ALLISON BOLAH

James Gray is one of those filmmakers who is better received in Europe than he is in America, as his early films like LITTLE ODESSA (1994), The Yards (1999), and WE OWN THE NIGHT (2007) express a shocking violence where death is a prominent theme, known for also creating memorable nightclub sequences, yet despite rave reviews at Cannes, these deeply personal films were often overlooked and received sharply divided reviews.  But for all their dramatic expansiveness, these early crime pictures were of a kind not seen since the New Hollywood classics of the 1970’s, where Gray is a cinephile clearly impacted by the films of that era, citing Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Conformist (Il Conformista) (1970), William Friedkin’s THE FRENCH CONNECTION (1973), Francis Ford Coppola’s THE GODFATHER (1972), and THE GODFATHER Part II (1974), and the films of Martin Scorsese, Robert Altman, and Stanley Kubrick, yet claims the film that has had the most enduring influence on him was Coppola’s APOCALYPSE NOW (1979), noting that the “swell of the architecture of a movie is part of what makes it the most beautiful visual art form.”  While he has passionate supporters, he has just as many detractors, where he’s never been able to find a mass audience, yet French critics love him, which is why he’s become a Cannes regular for over twenty years, with this film receiving a 7-minute standing ovation.  A native of Flushing, Queens, Gray’s first films tell personal, if loosely autobiographical, stories set in Brooklyn, venturing to Ellis Island for his historical drama The Immigrant (2013), making his way to the Amazon jungle and even outer space for his next projects, before finding his way back home to Queens, making his most autobiographical film, a portrait of his upbringing in the 1980’s, with the Gray family name shortened from Greyzerstein at Ellis Island, a time when a post-Vietnam, post-Watergate America returned to conservatism, placing a halt on any socially progressive agenda.  The youngest son in an upwardly mobile Jewish-American family, 11-year old Paul Graff (Banks Repeta) is an alter-ego of the director, with an antagonizing older brother Ted (Ryan Sell), and second-generation parents Esther (Anne Hathaway) and Irving (Jeremy Strong), while Anthony Hopkins plays the kindly grandfather Aaron Rabinowitz, whose family fled first from the murderous acts of the Cossacks, and then the Nazi’s.  While Jewish history is a predominate theme, this film slyly overlays a similar theme taking place in America with the routine persecution of blacks, who are subject to a heavy-handed authoritative approach from government, schools, and police, quickly labeled troublemakers or criminals, never receiving the breaks or second chances that whites often receive.  A family drama that reflects on a small scale where the whole country is headed, the film is a sober reflection, a coming to terms with one’s own past, which clearly haunts the filmmaker to this day, exploring a generational failure, characterized by the 1980 Presidential election of Ronald Reagan, who was swept into office on a tide of racism and a legacy of dog-whistle bigotry, featuring his slogan, “Let’s make America great again (sound familiar?),”  Pandering to racists through Nixon’s Southern Strategy, which continues to harm communities even today, Reagan released southern states from school desegregation and voting rights mandates while demonizing black women as welfare queens who want free hand-outs and are unwilling to work for a living, making the rest of the country despise who they are and everything they stand for, planting the seeds for the white supremacy of Trump, whose family makes its eerie presence, almost like a horror film.  By the time Donald Trump becomes President in 2016, Republicans hold almost every governor’s office and control most legislatures across the South.

The film’s title comes from a 1979 reggae song by The Clash, The Clash - Armagideon Time [Single] - YouTube (3:51), the B-side of London Calling, while also referencing Ronald Reagan’s 1979 quote on Jim Bakker’s evangelical PTL television network, openly campaigning as an evangelical Christian, expressing his growing interest in the anti-gay theology of Armageddon, “Do you ever get the feeling sometimes that if we don’t do it now, if we let this be another Sodom and Gomorrah, that maybe we might be the generation that sees Armageddon?”  This coming-of-age story reveals the different trajectory of the lives of two young boys, one white and one black, Paul and Johnny Davis (Jaylin Webb), quickly becoming best friends in a 6th grade class at P.S. 173, as both are singled out for being disruptive in class by the overzealous teacher Mr. Turkeltaub (Andrew Polk), who bears a resemblance to Ben Stein, the cartoonish teacher in FERRIS BUEHLER’S DAY OFF (1986).  While the point of view follows Paul and his family, we learn that Johnny has none, living with a grandmother suffering from dementia, basically leaving him homeless where he’s fending for himself, held back the previous year, the only black kid in class, with the teacher reminding him of his failures at every turn.  There are subtle differences in the punishment of each student, as Johnny is the one automatically blamed, even when Paul is the instigator, where he’s able to hide behind his race, learning very early about how racial dynamics play out in the real world, which only grew more exacerbated with the election of Reagan.  Despite such different backgrounds, they take solace in being outsiders, with Paul having little interest in school, spending his time drawing instead, with a talent for illustrations, creating a science-fiction superhero character named Captain United, dreaming of one day becoming an important artist.  Both share a passion for outer space, with Johnny dreaming of being an astronaut with NASA, while Paul wants to illustrate comic books about space travel, but their friendship is defined by the rebellious things they do together, like skip out on school, smoke weed in the bathroom, and hang out in the clubhouse built in Paul’s backyard, which Johnny secretly uses as his makeshift home.  While his mother Esther is the head of the PTA, Paul thinks she runs the school, protecting him from any adverse punitive acts, viewing himself as near invincible.  Overall, however, despite telling a personal story, the film feels distantly impersonal and heavy-handed, never becoming dramatically engaging, as outside of Johnny, there are really no likable characters in the film, with Paul in nearly every frame, and he’s kind of a bratty kid, misbehaving at home and at school, where he gives his parents plenty of grief, acting up in inappropriate situations.  When they try to express the gravity of their family history, Jewish-Ukrainian immigrants who escaped anti-Semitism in Europe, it’s beyond his comprehension, showing little interest as he routinely backtalks while tuning them out.  It’s rare to see a coming-of-age film with such a snotnose kid as the lead protagonist, yet he has a special relationship with his grandfather, who looks after him like a guardian angel, buying him gifts, showering him with affection, never letting him forget his past, as they may otherwise end up haunting you, which is exactly what happened in America, where embracing the sins of Ronald Reagan was a breeding ground leading us into the disaster of the Trump era.  Following in the footsteps of demagogue radio priest Father Coughlin, who commanded a massive audience in the 1930’s, viewed as the father of hate speech, spouting anti-Semitic and pro-Nazi tirades on the airwaves during the lead-up to World War II, (The Deplatforming of Father Coughlin - Slate Magazine), these are quasi-celebrities who blend populist appeal and right-wing politics, where today a narcissistic self-interest is the new moral dilemma plaguing the nation, as politicians openly seek face time on the networks, hoping to bathe in the social media spotlight of “Me-ism,” while everything else is purely secondary, like running the government or serving the interests of the nation.   

While America is supposedly a land of equal opportunities, one thing this film makes perfectly clear is how opportunities don’t happen equally, as the privileged take advantage by overlooking the many doors that were opened for them, typically at the cost of excluding the more disadvantaged.  Jews escaped persecution in Europe, as Aaron’s family discovered freedom in the welcoming doors of America, yet blacks have never experienced that same welcoming experience, as the doors have continually been closed for them throughout hundreds of years of history, which is astonishing when you think about it, as it goes back to the era of Columbus.  Even though this autobiographical film is not openly political, the experience of “white privilege” resonates strongly, as the education system fails students from marginalized groups in a disproportional way, while the paths of justice operate only for one of these kids, while the other feels the wrath of racial hatred.  Paul’s parents react with horror when they discover his partner in crime is a black kid, transferring all the blame to that kid, suggesting he’s a “bad influence,” overlooking their own child’s explicit responsibilities, while pulling him from the school and transferring him to Forest Manor, in real-life The Kew-Forest School, an all-white private school located in the affluent neighborhood of Forest Hills, Queens, the same school attended by his brother, along with Donald Trump and his family, where Donald’s father Fred is on the board of trustees.  Paul is extremely unhappy, as this means he will no longer see Johnny, but he quickly experiences a culture shock at the new school, where he’s required to wear a uniform, catering to upper middle class and wealthy families, with readily available computers in the classrooms.  When Johnny visits on the school playground, Paul pretends to barely know him, painfully aware of how his presence is perceived by the other students, who use the n-word to describe him, mocking his lowly status, while making him the butt of racial jokes.  When Paul attempts to talk about this with his grandfather, a bit ashamed that he didn’t stand up for his friend, his grandfather reveals how “the game is rigged” against marginalized groups in America, who experience a collapse of faith when the nation’s promise of freedom and equality doesn’t apply to them, which may explain his own family’s eager assimilation in pursuit of the American Dream.  While Paul and his family also face discrimination, he has the ability to escape much of it, as they have the resources to help him be successful.  Johnny is not so fortunate, with no support whatsoever in helping him achieve his dreams.  A powerful exposé of privilege and inequality, and how it is systematically perpetuated over time, the film is conscientious but difficult, as it’s a rather blunt depiction, providing little insight or background into Johnny’s character, who comes across as a token black figure, and doesn’t compare well to Barry Levinson’s Proustian sagas of Jewish life in post-war Baltimore in films like AVALON (1990) or LIBERTY HEIGHTS (1999).  In addition, the film has a very muted color palette, making it feel colder as it articulates heavier themes, with Gray using digital for the first time, shot by Darius Khondji, where the camerawork is dark and oppressive.  The Trump family are major donors to this new school, with Paul encountering Fred Trump (John Diehl), a powerful real estate magnate in Queens, in the hallway on his first day.  This period in his life is when Paul begins to understand how race, religion, and social class are used as reasons for bigots to inflict their damaging prejudice on others, often veiled and disguised in patriotic and life-affirming rhetoric which is meant only for a privileged few, perfectly encapsulated in a cameo appearance by Jessica Chastain as Maryanne Trump (Donald’s older sister, a federal appellate judge appointed by Ronald Reagan), who gives a rousing speech to the students about the importance of hard work to achieve success, declaring “you are the elite,” conveniently leaving out the part about inheriting a fortune from her father.  While many may not want to hear this message, just as they tuned out on Jimmy Carter’s prescient “crisis of confidence” message in favor of Reagan’s sunny optimism, but it is crucial nonetheless.  

Hitchcock

HITCHCOCK             B                     

USA  (98 mi)  2012  ‘Scope  d:  Sacha Gervasi            Official site

Interesting that a film about Alfred Hitchcock, cinema’s most legendary director, would be made by a director nobody’s ever heard of—not exactly the kind of ringing endorsement that would raise the dead from their slumbers.  Known for making a heavy metal rock ‘n’ roll documentary entitled ANVIL:  THE STORY OF ANVIL (2008), something of an offshoot of THIS IS SPINAL TAP (1984), this is quite a jump to a portrait of the Master of Suspense.  Adapted by John J. McLaughlin from Stephen Rebello’s 1990 book Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho, where he interviews virtually all surviving cast and crew members, the film is a behind-the-scenes look at Hitchcock’s personal life with his wife Alma on the making of PSYCHO (1960), a radical departure from his typical selection of sophisticated espionage or suspense stories, choosing instead to make a black and white, B-movie horror film based upon such crude and offensive material that all the other film studios had already rejected the story.  Working for Paramount Studios, his last film working with them was VERTIGO (1958), a box office flop, considered too downbeat and difficult for the viewing public, though ironically now a half a century later, the film has overtaken CITIZEN KANE (1941) as the greatest film of all time, a position KANE held for 60 years, according to a British film magazine poll of over 800 film critics polled once a decade, Sight & Sound 2012 Polls | BFI | British Film Institute, while NORTH BY NORTHWEST (1959) was a smash hit while Hitchcock was on loan to MGM Studios.  Paramount was looking to recoup their losses from Hitchcock, and when they discovered the crude source material for the film he wanted to make, they balked, refusing to finance his film.  Hitchcock was forced to borrow against his own home and finance the film himself (for about $850,000), putting his career and marriage at great risk, leaving him emotionally and financially spent, considering the continual pressure he was under to deliver a hit.

Hollywood loves these kinds of spoofs on real life, using actors that bear surprising physical resemblances to the real thing, where all one has to do is look at the Best Actor Awards of the last decade, Sean Penn as Harvey Milk in MILK (2008), Forest Whitaker as Idi Amin in THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND (2006), Philip Seymour Hoffman as Truman Capote in CAPOTE (2005), Jamie Foxx as Ray Charles in RAY (2004), or the more recent attempt by Michelle Williams to play Marilyn Monroe in My Week with Marilyn (2011).  Unlike all of those movies, what makes this one different is the tongue-in-cheek humor expressed throughout, so it’s not so devastatingly serious all the time.  Since Hitchcock himself was possessed with such a delicious wit, this character trait seems to override all his other flaws, which are certainly on display, from the maniacal director who controls every aspect of each shot, to the over-controlling husband who suspects his wife is having an affair, to elements of psychological obsession and absurdity, as Hitchcock is a born sucker for that icy blond that continually eludes him, yet when he’s attempting to grasp how best to shoot his movie, the film literally inhabits him, like ghosts visiting Scrooge, where he often succumbs to an unhealthy dialogue with phantom spirits from his movies.  One might think Hitchcock was in touch with his subconscious, as that’s often such a prominent theme of his films, but with PSYCHO, he was playing with fire, where the devil often got the best of him.  Anthony Hopkins has no problem whatsoever making the transition from Hannibal Lecter to Hitchcock (“Just Hitch, hold the cock”), apparently relishing the perfect enunciation of every syllable, while the blunt outspokenness of Helen Mirren (never shy) is likely nothing at all like the real Alma Reville, Hitchcock’s more reclusive wife who almost always remained publicly behind the scenes, but her ability to match wits and hold the floor with her husband is a nice twist, especially the way she continually tried keeping him on a vegetable diet.  She was, apparently, Hitchcock’s boss when they first met in the London film studios of the 1920’s, with a sharp eye for finding mistakes and inconsistencies in the frame, an expert in both editing and writing, collaborating throughout her lifetime with her husband, though rarely receiving any credit.  

Hitchcock believes the mainstream popularity of his TV show Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955 – 62) has straightjacketed him into making films that the public expects instead of the kinds of films he wants to make.  One of the more questionable, but amusing aspects of the film is Hitchcock’s interaction with Ed Gein, the notoriously grisly killer upon which PSYCHO, as well as SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (1991), is based, whose continual reappearance suggests Hitchcock’s volatile interior psyche is spilling out onto the surface, where his own insecurities often get the best of him.  Nonetheless, it’s interesting to see how Gein’s mama’s boy personality manifests itself in the squirrelly nature of Anthony Perkins (James D’Arcy).  Scarlett Johansson plays Janet Leigh, apparently grateful to be working with someone other than the equally tyrannical Orson Welles in TOUCH OF EVIL (1958), where Welles put her through Hell, actually breaking her arm during the rehearsals but going ahead with the entire shoot anyway, only to discover she’s getting killed off at about the 45 minute mark in PSYCHO, something unheard of at the time for a lead character.  Johansson is a gamer and maintains her wits about her as another notorious Hitchcock blond, the object of his subconscious desires, where it’s suggested that Jimmy Stewart’s dark psychological disturbance in VERTIGO is the closest one comes to the real life Hitchcock persona.  He was adamantly unforgiving of Vera Miles (Jessica Biel), targeting her as his next star in the lead role in VERTIGO until her pregnancy put an end to that idea, still fuming over the subsequent delays in production costs, treating her coolly on the set, giving her “a thankless role for an utterly thankless girl.”  Toni Collette is almost unrecognizable as Hitchcock’s loyal secretary, and of course the overbearing Paramount producers are seen as the moral hypocrites and cowardly backstabbers that they are.  While the underlying humor is easily the best part, which is something this young director apparently brought to the film, but like most of these biographical portraits, there are flaws galore, like a needless side story with Mirren and Danny Huston that goes nowhere, and a wrongheaded suggestion that the shower scene was somehow saved in the editing room (it wasn’t—give Hitchcock credit for knowing how to shoot a scene), but while somewhat light on substance, it’s entertaining throughout and casts a glow on Hitchcock’s illustrious career, as the picture was enormously successful and instantly changed the face of horror films forever.

The Trip

THE TRIP – made for TV                   A-                   

Great Britain  (107 mi)  2010  d:  Michael Winterbottom

Quite simply the funniest film seen all year, a masterwork of spontaneous impressions, all of which call into question the legitimacy of one’s identity, beautifully unraveling in a free form exhibition of improvised conversations that seamlessly moves from one fictitious movie character to another, from Michael Caine to Al Pacino, Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Anthony Hopkins, Ian McKellen, Alec Guinness, Woody Allen and more, supplanting the real lives of two friends, Steve Coogan (as himself) and Rob Bryden, who is his fifth or sixth, but most likely his last desperate choice as a traveling companion, as they go on a weeklong road trip together across Northern England, all expenses paid by a British newspaper The Observer, to review some of the nation’s most prestigious, upscale restaurants in gorgeously posh historic accommodations set throughout the painterly English landscapes.  Can anyone think SIDEWAYS (2004)?  Coogan initially wanted to go with his girl friend (Margo Stilley) as an attempt to rekindle their lost romance, but she’s too busy trying to establish her own career, so he’s left frantically searching at the last moment for an acceptable fill-in.  Bryden, like Thomas Hayden Church, is utterly brilliant as the mad side kick, giving an incomparable performance that is among the best of the year, where every improvised utterance is a masterwork of comic art that seemingly rolls off his tongue with the ease of talking.  But it’s not just comic timing and flair, as he also reads poems or breaks into song at a moment’s notice, even memorizing bits of literary phrase that are appropriate for the historic realm they are exploring.  Coogan, ever the miserablist, tries not to laugh or show appreciation, as if he’s paid to keep a straight face, refusing to allow anyone to upstage him, but instead heaps as much scorn and abuse his friend’s way as he can, acting as though he is terrible company, but at times they each try to outdo the other’s impressions in a comic laugh off, where the audience is simply delighted at how good these guys really are.  Some of the best moments are when the guys do laugh, where they can’t help themselves, but this doesn’t happen very often, where Coogan is bound and determined to see his friend as a source of endless aggravation and misery.    

Initially shot as a 3-hour British TV series, where each of six visits is a half-hour episode, this is a streamlined version which undoubtedly leaves out choice material, and without it, one can only wonder what’s missing?  So one would guess the original source material would be the way to go, but that’s not how it’s being released in America where only the truncated version is offered.  Even as is, this is unforgettable stuff, endlessly hilarious and filled with intelligent wisecracking wit.  This is also the most gorgeously filmed Winterbottom film since his first real movie success, JUDE (1996), which accentuated with dizzying camera movement the sweeping enormity of the land, and these remain, while at opposite ends of the spectrum, one a wrenching uncompromising tragedy and the other funny as hell, displaying an underlying dry wit, his two best films, largely due to the intensely personal nature of the material.  Here as well, shot by Ben Smithard, the unending beauty of the landscape is a remarkable attraction, seen as their Range Rover SUV whizzes through the curvature of the narrow roadways, often with stone walls on each side of the road, with rolling hills heading off into the horizon, occasionally seen through the mist of an everpresent fog.  Part of the story is watching these guys try to connect back home after dinner each night through the use of a phone, where Bryden induces various sex fantasies with his wife while lying in bed, not at all bashful about embellishing the voices of various celebrity characters, while Coogan is continually seen wandering aimlessly out in the high grass somewhere trying to obtain phone reception, where his conversations are wrought with great difficulty, usually ending badly, where he appears to be the most friendless guy in the universe.  The irony, of course, is that right in front of where he’s standing are some of the most unbelievably gorgeous landscape images, usually in front of a placid lake with the mist rolling by that continually changes the face of the horizon, with amazingly perfect painterly compositions that reflect the still life quality of the moment.    

Some of the food offerings are an amazingly pretentious display of overkill, where it appears grass is included with every serving of a 10-course meal, always accompanied by bottles of wine, where in every instance they are given the best window seat.  Not once do we ever see Coogan do any writing on this assignment, where he instead continually moans and bitches about the apparently stalled state of his career or how his girl friend is not there, while the ever upbeat Bryden appears to be having the time of his life.  Both these guys are evenly matched, intelligent, witty, spontaneous, imperfect, openly flawed, yet they seem to use humor to rise above the moment, finding their humanity in their various impressions.  Rarely does Coogan ever have dinner with Rob Bryden, as instead he’s met with a host of interchangeable characters that eventually drive him batty.  Initially he tries to keep up, matching impression for impression, insisting his are superior, but when we see him alone in his room at night attempting to master various Bryden voice inflections, the audience knows he’s been outdone.  Coogan can be vicious when given the chance, never having a kind word to say about anyone else, while continually seeing himself with delusions of grandeur, actually seeing himself as the Don Quixote of Britain.  Not a chance, as that role would have to go to Terry Gilliam whose lifetime projects have continually been sabotaged and destroyed, seemingly by acts of God.  Coogan shows a great deal of disenchantment with himself when he’s alone, where these solitary moments reflect an off camera persona that is quite revealing, the picture of middle aged frustration, quite a contrast to having to live up to his wish fulfillment dream sequence with Ben Stiller telling him all the American directors are lined up and can’t wait to work with him, which sadly, he has to wake up to feeling more isolated and never more alone.  Once back home in the empty, stainless steel surroundings of his overpriced luxury apartment with sliding glass doors and a balcony overlooking the highway construction project, it appears his life will have to remain a similar project in the making.