Paul Scofield

Paul Scofield passed away at the age of 86. By all regards a theatre titan and rightful heir to the throne gelded by Olivier and Gielgud in their day. Yet, a crown passed over not thrice but any time it was offered to him.

What’s so remarkable about Paul Scofield is how little he is known. Instead of an actor who couldn’t get “arrested” or the break he might seek, this was a point of willful intention for Scofield. While the emergent cinema era birthed such vast talents and egos of the likes of Olivier and Richard Burton, Scofield quietly trecked himself back home to his family with little regard for the spotlight.

His passing seems to be another pointed blot on a week that sees my favorite director, and by all counts, beloved soul, Anthony Minghella pass at an all too young an age at 54. The timing of these losses is only too poignant in an emergent era where strikes are fought over the landscape of hand-held streaming video, diluted content and accusations that the Best Actor for the Academy Awards was, perhaps, “overacting.”

Rather than republish an account of Scofield’s life (there are plenty of resources) I would simply like to revere here the three roles that resonated with myself and those around so profoundly, and dare I say it, perfectly.

My first encounter with Scofield and most profound was as Thomas More in ‘A Man For All Seasons’. A favorite of my brothers on VHS, he could recount line for line the very speech where Scofield, as More, listens to a young man explain how he would be all too willing to break every law of man in order to reach the Devil himself. Scofield’s patient and weary stare digests every word til he then rises up, with his great voice and conviction, and repudiates the reasoning that a man that would side-step the law at every step to achieve good has nothing left which to do battle. Robert Bolt’s screenplay is no less relevant today than it was then and Scofield grounds it with seeming ease.

The movie ‘Quiz Show’ was one that was acknowledged by industry peers as worthy of Oscar consideration but one the public never really seized onto regardless of remarkable talents as Robert Redford, Ralph Fiennes and John Turturro attached to it. In the years since its release it has become not only a forgotten treasure, but has emerged to me on the very short list of movies that I can consider perfect.

The movie, centered around the dawn of the now-saturated market of game shows, focuses particularly on ‘21’. What plays out is the moral quandary of Charlie Van Doren, the son of the intellectual elite family, as he is oddly enticed to participate in something of a popularity contest of pop intellect. When the prospect that Charlie cheat to keep a lock on his now ratings-high stretch on the show is presented, Charlie quietly acquiesces to the point the scandal comes crashing down. Underneath the surface, Redford and writer Paul Attansio, again prophetically here, illustrate the culture dynamic of having fame for fame’s sake over the authentic, but less dynamic, of authenticity and integrity.

The scene where Fiennes, as Charlie, drops his shoulders and confesses to his father (Scofield) is one we still quote today. The shock and utter disbelief conveyed by Scofield is tragedy encapsulated. “Your name is my name!” he bellows when Charlie wriggles about for moral justification. The heavy lidded and grey features of Scofield with that twinkle in his eye seems to fall piece by piece with the unimaginable realization of what’s taken place. Again, I believe it is a perfect performance and seems so fitting for Scofield to come out of his theatrical hiding to perform.

While Denise Richard’s convinces a judge her 4 year old “really wants to be on a reality show”, the latest celebrity DUI photo pops up and the awards shows all start looking the same, Paul Scofield will pass quietly, gently and with great majesty. Because, for him, the only title he wanted was, “Mister.”

Good night, sweet prince.

Anthony Minghella, "An iron hand in a velvet glove."

Anthony Minghella, the writer/ director of such films as ‘The English Patient’, ‘The Talented Mr. Ripley’ and ‘Truly, madly, Deeply’ passed away of complications from a surgery he had on his neck the previous week.

How is it, in just writing those words that I am still in disbelief? It’s probably because Minghella was such a vital creative force and a lover of life, people, books, music and such an endearing soul to listen to, that such a feeble word as “complications” doesn’t seem appropriate for such abrupt news and finality. Yet, ‘complications’ seemed to be Minghella’s forte in every aspect of his work. He would let nothing be easy on screen. No love was without cost, no action without reaction. In fact, the complications of life weren’t an obstacle for Minghella but rather the very nutrition of storytelling he so excelled at.

I would be remiss if I didn’t confess early on here my absolute slavish devotion to everything Minghella since the day I sat in a theatre watching ‘The English Patient’ with a friend and mid-screening turned to him and said, “I think this is one the best movies I have ever seen in my life.” I don’t think the movie was even a quarter of the way through. Like any love affair, it only takes a few minutes and something unconscious and beautiful and slightly frightening comes over you and your mind will have to wait to figure out why later.

In an era where every director seems to be fighting with an inch of their life for auteur status, bloated budgets and desperately trying to helm a “franchise”, Minghella came across as an anamoly. He stated that he never felt comfortable being known as a director but rather a writer who directs. Indeed, listening to any discussion with Minghella he spends more time honoring all the great craftsmen who surround him than taking any credit for himself. He knew when collaborating with such great talents as the editor Walter Murch (in which they based the book’ The Conversations’), cinematographer John Seale and others that he would be diservicing them and his film to try and do their jobs better than them. Minghella’s core principle was to the spirit of the work and the ability to protect his actors and crew in order to do their best work was one of his greatest gifts.

It may seem in writing that that I am implying a softness on Minghella’s part. Quite the opposite. It takes a great confidence to not be threatened by the immense talents surrounding you and trusting your own intellect and ability that you don’t have to diminish theirs in order for you to shine brightest. The director’s constitution, endurance and rigor for the film’s vision were not to be under-rated, as documented by actor Ralph Fiennes who observed that he had, “an iron hand in a velvet glove.” A constant champion for debate, Anthony believed, along with Murch, that the further opposite two opinions were the stronger the reconciliation of them would be in the end. This was evidenced on ‘Patient’ when Murch cut a scene from the movie which was the primary reason Minghella wanted to make the movie in the first place. Minghella screamed and railed and stormed out of the room only to return the next day in appreciation of Murch’s merciless lack of sentimentalism for any moment that might be lost in order to strengthen the picture.

The scene stayed.

Yet, in watching the transcendently beautiful scenes that ended up on the cutting room floor, these two collaborators were willing to throw more beauty away than most movies achieve on an entire shoot. Or, Saul Zaentz said, “You can’t have MORE than poetry.”

The loss here isn’t simply of another great filmmaker, though Minghella was certainly that. It is the loss of a great artistic soul and compassionate human being in an industry that doesn’t seem to reward or nourish those qualities. It is quite telling that the testimonials coming forth speak to the tenderness, wit, love (of all kinds)and intelligence of Minghella before they speak to the cinematic. That is because those sentiments are so often attributed to so many, but so rarely found in such volume and authenticity from one in that position.

Anthony Minghella will be missed. But, like his films, the loss will be more felt than seen.

BOFFO Tinseltown’s Bombs and Blockbusters
HBO’s version of “Clips; The Movie”

In case you missed it, HBO and Variety chummed together to give us a bombastic, explosive celebration of filmaking in the form of ‘BOFFO Tinseltown’s Bombs and Blockbusters’ The cinematic equivalent of a 75 minute commercial for the sentiment, “Aren’t movies cool?”. Yeah, sure, perhaps I should have been a tad, say, forewarned when the title of anything is, well, BOFFO But the commercials were like walking down an aisle of a 7-11 when you’re really hungry. Suddenly, licorice looks like a viable meal substitute. Yet, unlike that time honored haven of midnight binging, ‘BOFFO ’ neither offers even the low-grade nutrition of either a shriveled hot dog or even a tube of Pringles.
Opening up with grandiose music, they pull no punches. Fast flying clips of Lawrence of Arabia, The Godfather and various other classics that “they don’t make anymore” are spliced together to create awe and grandeur. HBO does this better than anyone else. I can’t count the times that I am surfing between their eleven channels for a hook. (You know, the opening scene of ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid’ so that two hours later I have a reasonable excuse for “what I did last night”) During which I see one of their montages for all their envelope pushing series with, say, Coldplay in the background and start re-assessing whether I actually do hate ‘Entourage’ or not. In the end you wonder how ‘ Beethoven’ can be playing on so many different channels and ‘One Fine Day’ starts to look better and better.
In the end, if you DID miss ‘BOFFO ’ have no fear. If you have HBO it’ll be staggered on and off so many times in the coming month you’ll probably see it in it’s entirety by complete accident. (Right after trying to second guess your all-too-quick assesment of ‘Weekend at Bernie’s 2'...the animated opening credits is a dead giveaway...pardon the pun.)
Then, suddenly, miraculously, we have George Clooney. “George ” George of ‘Syriana’...George of ‘Good Night and Good Luck’. George who aced the Oscars with a sardonic and endearing speech that ‘saved’ the Oscars that night from mediocrity Certainly, George will have something of wit or interest to say about the nature of that elusive craft of filmaking.
Uh-oh.
Why does George look slightly annoyed.
Oh no.
Why is George regurgitating EVERYTHING he has EVER said in every interview. AND, why does it look like it?
Forgive me here, I am unsure who said this (I may be making this up, even...), but it seems once an actor gets famous the most difficult role they will ever play after that is themselves and pretending to get excited about it. Unfortunately for ‘BOFFO ’ the filmakers (documentarians...uh, advertisers?), either didn’t ask the right questions or just chose to ignore any answers that went beyond cliche’.
A round-up of “some of your favorite people” talking in snippets about the nature of risk in making movies includes Charlize Theron Morgan Freeman Stephen Spielberg Jody Foster Danny DeVito (Pardon the last exclamation point...)
Included here (spoiler alert ) Are some of the nuggets of wisdom ‘BOFFO ’ has to offer after years of industry insider hits, misses and personal losses.
1) Making a good movie is hard.
2) There are no rules.
3) You have to take risks.
4) The line between success and failure is razor thin.
5) The studio spends a lot of money on movies. They want to make that money back AND...(wait for it)...even MORE

Whoa. Slow down there, Egghead. Sure, I may be a Hollywood Insider (tm) but are these concepts so easily traversed over without some time to digest them? “You have to take risks” Crazy. I bet those people on Wallstreet enjoy that cushy safety of certainty of their day-to-day lives.
Along the way of this cliche-fest I couldn’t help but start thinking of alternate titles. Like, “How I Learned To Stop Fearing A Bomb” or “Decade Uninfluential” (I had to do SOMETHING to keep myself entertained).
The latter reference is to the documentary, “A Decade Under the Influence’ started by the late Ted Demme and brought to fruition by a gang of like-minded peers and friends (including writer Richard LaGravenese and Dennis Leary) about what many consider the true ‘Golden Age’ of movie making. The 70's. Here Paul Schrader, Coppolla, Julie Christie, Peter Bogdonovich (also on ‘BOFFO ’) etc. go on at length about the true nature of defying odds, conventions and current standards to break through to something true, ambiguous and daring. It’s long, complex and thorough...everything ‘BOFFO ’ seems to be afraid of.
Surviving the ‘Spectacle of the Soundbite’ (yes, another title option...) , to no surprise, are Morgan Freeman and Richard Dreyfus. Their answers to flash-n-cut, self-awe are completely different. Freeman is simply silent and of few words. He almost defies you to cut away. When asked about ‘Bonfire of the Vanities’ and whether he was surprised it failed he simply shakes his head slowly. Asked if he knew while shooting if there were problems, he slowly nods. Why did it happen? After a moment of contemplation he says dryly, “You know...they say, when a plane crashes...it’s generally not one thing...but a series of events.” Nuff said.
Dreyfus, in contradiction, is very animated in his enacting of his tried-n-true ‘Jaws’ routines. Yet, when that runs thru he begins a more profound point about the nature of storytelling. Something he feels is lacking in the current studio mindset as a priority. Then, he let’s slip the one thing that made me realize how this bonanza of self-evidence came into being. He says, “ ...and THAT’S why people aren’t going to movies.”
Ahh, there it is
The movie industry is in a shake-up period. Home Theatres, DVDs, Video on Demand, Netflix, video games and i-pods have sent a shock wave through Hollywood. People aren’t going to movies in the theatres as much anymore. The Oscars was practically a sermon to it’s viewers chastising them almost with montage after montage of “The importance of watching movies.” Hey, there’s Brando in ‘On the Waterfront’...hey, Brando again in ‘The Godfather” (sorry, axe to grind about their indifference to his passing the previous year at the ceremony) Even DeVito in ‘BOFFO ’ references the movies as a “temple”. A place of worship. I don’t know about you, but if ‘Death To Smoochy’ is the sermon, I’m an atheist.
The irony of all this self-important talk of “you need us” and “the story is the thing” is that ‘BOFFO ’ lacks exactly that. As I kept waking up and rewinding the DVR to the last cliche, in the end, I was left with the feeling of “Look at me Look at me Look at me ”
These were the last sentiments Lawrence Olivier passed on to Dustin Hoffman during a night out while shooting the film, ‘Marathon Man’ (a moment of silence, please) when queried on why he ‘does it’ on a recent episode of “Inside the Actor’s Studio” Honest. Ironic. A two-hour segment that summed up with passion, humor and clarity all the insanity, accidents and inspiration the medium can offer.
That’s what the industry needs more than anything. Not a commercial on HBO where the stars are allowed to swear.
(Just be careful...the episode after Hoffmans is apparently the ouvre of Rosie O’Donnell.)
Man are we in bad shape.

SUPERMAN RETURNS...um, okay.

The reviews are in.(“Amazing ”) The box office is off-the-charts good.(108 million ) The trailers are stunning.(Even his eye reflects bullets )
Brian Singer has done it again
SUPERMAN RETURNS carries the industry on it’s back through the 4th of July weekend
You’ve GOT to see it

So, here you are, on the delicate “second weekend”. Sure, sure, blockbusters are made or broken on the opening weekend. You don’t have to be a movie analyst or a filmwhore to know that these days. So, SUPERMAN is an unqualified success in industry terms...but now we have to see if it has legs. This baby cost over two-hundred million (and that’s just what they’re reporting) and if it doesn’t carry it’s weight into the next couple of weeks your gonna see a lot of money men paging through Variety for the International section.
“We just made $20,000 in Manilla ”

So, before you haul ass to the cineplex, the question is...is it THAT good?
Let me preface this by saying I love Bryan Singer.(You can see where this is going...) Not just cause I think he handled both lofty expectation-filled X-MAN movies with grace but with flair. They weren’t just “give me my bang for my buck ” spectacles but thoughtful with enough dimension that you felt you could justify eating your frosted flakes because basically they were sugar-coated Wheaties.
It’s also because Bryan fought for his films and that quality. Rumor has it that Mr. Singer was fired numerous times on BOTH X-Men features because his refusal to back down from what he thought they needed. No one surrounding or working on those films will tell a simple tale of grace and ease on the set (unless they are on Access Hollywood or they are Hugh Jackman who is unfazed by ANYTHING ). It was work and it was tense. Plain and simple .
He’s also remarkable because in person his demeanor is understated, unassuming and present. Not the brazen ring-leader so many young directors feel they need to be to remind you of their “star quality.”(see Bret Ratner references below) Bryan knows what people like to see cause he has a fans eye. He obviously loves movies. ‘The Usual Suspects’ and it’s cinematic referencial style should confirm that.

SO...that being said...the answer is, unfortunately, no.

I’m not here to bring down SUPERMAN. Not the Lex Luthor of Kryptonian critics there to gouge the fatted hog of Hollywood. I think it’s great the box-office is still muscling forth behemoths...it gives me hope. But it feels discernably like a step back for Mr. Singer and his grace with mega-expectation. (Even with going over-budget again here...keep it up, Bry ) The movie feels oddly un-inspired all the while it’s fantastic images and score pound and shake the theatre.
The most striking moment in the film, for me, happened in it’s first few minutes and it rarely if never captured it again.
The slightly mumbly, lispy and iconic voice of Marlon Brando as Superman’s father permeates the darkness. Brando...from beyond the grave, from childhood, from the original...here agin, to herald in a new version. My goodness, I was stunned and I even knew it was coming. He had me. Bryan is no fool, he needed that gravitas to get us on board for what is to follow. Yet, the very brilliance in using this gift is at the very core of what’s wrong with the film.
SUPERMAN RETURNS is neither a re-invention of the franchise nor a continuation. It is an homage whether intended or not. It’s cinematic predecessor resembles more of Gus Van Sant’s re-enacting of ‘Psycho’ than it does last years inspired, ‘Batman Begins’. One has the feeling that Mr. Singer “really liked” the Superman movies growing up and didn’t want to change them but ‘sure did want to make one.’ Which, at it’s very essence, is what cuts this film down from it’s great heights of possibility and makes it more a cinematic wax-museum of good intentions.
It is the laborous honoring of it’s predecessors that mires the heart of the film in a languid pictoral detachment.

Much was made of the casting of the young lead, Brandon Routh, as the Man of Steel. Simply because he had few credits that would merit such stunt casting. Apparently, Bryan hand-picked the kid for greatness. So much so, he reportedly had to buy him clothes so that he would be suitably dressed for interviews. Having seen the film, there can be no question on how/ why Mr. Routh booked this role. There are many uncanny moments when you can eerily feel Christopher Reeve just seeping through his delivery. I would not hesitate to doubt that Bryan had Routh glued to his dvd player watching Reeves moments and absorbing the very lilt of his voice. None more evident then in his guise of Clark Kent. Even the goofball grin and adjustment of his glasses is to the point precision of Reeves. So much so, one has to admire Routh for such a thorough study. Yet, again, where the homage falls short is locating the actors or directors own voice in all this artifice of nostalgia.

The reference to last years parallel comic-book re-invention is unavoidable again. ‘Batman Begins’ with all it’s Joseph Campbell and dark, Nietschean heart thrives because it dares to have it’s own voice. Damn the consequences. Yet, even it hobbled at times when it came to the protagonists counterpart. For some reason comic-book adaptations struggle to find a woman equal to the task of her own ferocity of conviction, yet tender hearted enough to need saving.(Regardless of the amount of qualified actresses out there) Katie Holmes struggled against baby-faced precociousness to be taken seriously as a determined, philanthropic lawyer. (Hey, if Elizabeth Shue can invent cold fusion in ‘The Saint’ I guess we can wash this down with the same stupid juice). Not to be outdone by Kate Bosworth as Lois Lane, all pouty and stammering that she won the Pulitzer (yes, the Pulitzer) on an article she now regrets titled, “Why The World Doesn’t Need Superman” (also a surname for this article, apparently). Again, I like Kate Bosworth, but I won’t be confused with thinking she’s Cate Blanchett, either.

The movie is not without it’s considerable merits. The action sequences are seemless in their execution. Gone from the original is any feeling of blue screen or the sense that this guy is being elevated by wires into the air. They are fast and abrasive and as honest as you could hope for in a movie about a guy in tights. But, more importantly, it is here that Singer tries to infect the film with some vision and depth. One can see the visual sculpting and care the director has put into telling the story and why Singer isn’t just gifted with characters but with storytelling finesse. The references to greek mythology are numerous in these sequences. Superman falling from the sky like Icarus. Superman, like Atlas, carrying the world on his back. Or, when Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor, starts his pursuit of power by comparing himself to Prometheus and his desire to steal the fire form the Gods. Points for style, again, but without the heart pumping beneath them they are simply ideas.

One wonders how much of the decision to shoot this film came from Mr. Singers constant fights with the studio over the X-Men franchise. Apparently, with more success comes more friction rather than the opposite (go figure). I have not yet forced myself to see the third installment of the mutant franchise since it changed hands with Bret Ratner at the helm.(emphasis on the second syllable) Something seemed rotten from the get-go when Singer signed off on a successful run and then, in similar fashion, Matthew Vaughn mysteriously removed himself after being hired from the job. Matthew Vaughn was the first-time helmer of the Brit-indie ‘Layer Cake’ and X3 would have been a huge step for the film-maker who had “undisclosed reasons” for leaving the job vacant. Enter the director of ‘Money Talks’,‘Rush Hour’ and ‘After the Sunset’. Okay. He, too, didn’t want to disrupt the already successful franchise and the great work Singer had already done. Fantastic. One wonders the motivations, besides youthful endearment, Singer had for taking on this pre-conceived franchise. It is well known that the project had been lamenting in desperate development for years with rumored connections to Nicholas Cage starring to Kevin Smith writing and directing. One wonders if it was a convenient place to hide.

Before the movie opened I was on an island (not figuratively...) shooting my own epic dissappointment. The director, who knew my fascination with Mr. Brando,.rushed over to me
upon arriving to set with this “great Brando story” (I sort of collect them) Apparently his friend is a visual effects animator and was working on SUPERMAN RETURNS for some time. His job? To recreate Marlon Brando as accurately as possible so that he seemlessly fits into the film as another actor. This man studied and recreated Brando’s performance from original using un-used outakes and footage never seen. The result is supposedly startling and, according to him, disturbing.
“Doesn’t that scare you? As an actor that they can do that?”
No.
Why? Because somewhere a group of people probably spent millions of dollars and hundreds of hours recreating the performance of man who was working at best a fifth of his talent. Yet, the indelibility of his presence is profound. Which is at the source of where SUPERMAN RETURNS stumbles over it’s own weight of potential. A lot of talented people honoring something that is gone while leaving their own legacy behind.

Modern murk and the clarity of 'The Fog of War'

Invariably, during the holiday, when all my fellow ‘escapees’ return from their various check points across the map to converge on my little hometown of Jackson, Michigan (the self-reported ‘Birthplace of the Republican Party’) there is one night where we all gather to report in on our various accomplishments and lack there-of. This usually takes the form of a lot of cheese, martinis and spattering the air with verbal jockeying for attention. It’s a lively bunch so you’d better have your rap down.

Once the various islands of catch-up have run their course of war stories on relationships, work struggles and artistic achievements the conversations generally find their way to a common circle that has erupted about politics. Here the Leftists passionately plead to be understood, the Right insists they are misunderstood and the Centrists mumble occasionally that he/she ‘has a good point’. In the end we all go away thinking the other is crazy and gushing over and over “I can’t believe he said that!”

In a year in which we saw another war in the Middle East, Saddam’s capture, Howard Dean’s anger, Arnold Schwartzenegger made governor and Rush Limbaugh accused of having an addiction to illegal painkillers, one would think the time was ripe for this year end discussion. Yet I found myself oddly checked out of these discussions. Perhaps it was overload from a year of political rhetoric that has permeated every nook and cranny of the media. With a seemingly 50 news programs, event graphics, internet polling, orange alerts and a airport voice-over reminding you of terrorists threats there was no place to hide. Even the comedians have turned their eyes on matters of the state as HBO’s biggest comedy shows seem to be talking heads spouting left and right in the forms of Bill Maher and Dennis Miller (in an epic struggle, to be sure) and the Clooney/ Soderberg produced ‘K Street’. Best sellers from the likes of Hillary Clinton, Al Franken, Ann Coulter, Ariana Huffington and politicians vying for time slots on Leno, Letterman and O’Brien (in-between bouts of an insult comedy dog and stupid pet tricks) have left no stone unturned.

In the end, I fear, my burnout had less to do with the proliferation of political agendas in the airwaves and more to do with my lack of faith in anyone being open to another’s idea. The word agenda seems extremely apt when one gets the feeling that every discussion is coming from a ‘party line’ and any straying from it is a form of losing ground. This polarized defensism is nothing new to politics but has certainly mutated to a new form in entertainment. One feels while watching Ann Coulter spar with Eric Dyson on Bill Maher that if either gives an inch they are going to lose a sizeable margin of book sales that year. When FOX News and CNN and such have a following based on the perception they lean one way or another how can one feel they will risk losing their hard earned demographic in order to embrace the ‘truth’?

Yes, indeed, it has been reported that viewers were beginning to tune into Jon Stewart’s ‘The Daily Show’ on Comedy central in order to get their news. Apparently, Mr. Stewart has found a fine balance of egalitarian satirism by skewering the media itself and thusly blanketing the entire dialogue in a cloak of ridiculousness. The point being that the only ‘line’ that Jon is towing is the one with ‘punch’ as its prefix. Indeed, Jon is a whore to the bottom line joke, and who can’t have a little faith in that? The real joke being that, of course, folks are tuning into a mock news program on a network titled ‘Comedy Central’ for their updates on world events. A point that seemed to disturb Mr. Stewart though I’m sure he was oddly pleased. He won’t miss a beat.

In the end, our own three ‘party’ system took the form of the Leftist New York designer condemning the Rightist importer from Chicago while the defeated LA actor tried to find a way to make it funny. (Which is why we have to stop electing actors into office but that’s another posting.)

Feeling reasonably guilty for my lack of input in our annual dissection, I decided I needed some intellectual nutrition to atone for my sins. So I went to the movies. Not any movie, mind you, but a documentary. Not any documentary either but one about an eighty-six year old retired Secretary of Defense talking for 100 minutes on his years during the Kennedy administration. If going to the cinema took the form of penance this surely had to be it.

How wrong I was.

Erroll Morris (‘The Thin Blue Line’, ‘Mr. Death’), the documentarian, has a history of taking unconventional subjects and making them seem effortlessly captivating. This is the man who took a topiary gardener, lion tamer and man preoccupied by mole rats and wove them together in ‘Fast, Cheap and Out of Control’ and made the link seem like common sense. In ‘ The Fog of War’ Morris is in top form with this spoken word documentary that seems to blend biography with history to achieve a certain type of political allegory.

The subject here is William McNamara, the aforementioned Secretary of Defense during the Kennedy administration and later under Lyndon B. Johnson. McNamara is eighty-six looking every bit the man twenty years his junior. The man is so lucid and energetically poignant I found myself doing math equations in my head trying to figure out how a man so young could have served under Kennedy. Born in 1918, the telling of this man’s life in politics can’t help but take the form of a recounting of the twentieth century. Yet, this is no dry history lesson. McNamara speaks with a conviction that drives the film forward as Morris’ close-up camera lens practically absorbs his energy and seeps it into the theatre.

The material is rich here. Even if you are a political junkie or a curious on-looker seeking Spalding Grey type enthusiasm you won’t be disappointed. McNamara lends himself to intriguing structure as he moves forward with forceful sentences and hand gestures while occasionally cutting back in time twenty years in a shot without ever losing the focus. (Morris intercuts vintage footage of McNamara in press reports, news footage along with actual audio-taped conversations between he and the two presidents.) While Morris’ hand is certainly not invisible here with shots of dominoes falling over a world map and his occasional shouted questions coming from what seems like a room a hundred yards away, the effect is fluid and continuous edification.

Though many are aware of McNamara and his time with the Oval Office they may not be aware of the richness of his life outside of politics. Simply hearing a man recount his memory at the age of two (yes, two) of the ending of the WWI gives you a certain faith in wealth of information he can extol. Hearing him recount Kennedy’s attempt to lure him from Presidency of Ford Motor Company to be Secretary of Defense is at once endearing and chilling. (“You know, William”, Kennedy allegedly said after McNamara refused both Defense and Treasury positions due to lack of confidence, “There’s no school for being President, either.”)

Throughout the film I found myself trying to find some form of refuge from many of horror stories from behind the scenes politics our narrator continually spouted. When you hear the nuclear close calls and disheartening conversations with Johnson and Castro you keep waiting for some sense of reassurance. There is none. In a culture so cinematically and politically reared to be assuaged with safety and the assumptions of “I hope they know what they are doing” this film reminds you that even those with their fingers on the button are just men. Men who make mistakes, make them again, and probably again. McNamara’s point he makes repeatedly is that any person in authority in war, no matter what you’re told, have made a mistake that has cost human lives in his case, tens of thousands, but the hope is that you minimize and learn from them.

In the midst of a political mire of information from all sides, this film seems to peel away agenda and simply humanize that which seems so dehumanized by our media. While it’s chilling to hear in Johnson’s own voice “I want you to kill some people” there’s also a comfort in someone letting you know these men are still simply trying to solve problems. McNamara is a numbers man and made his decisions based purely on what was statistically sound (indeed, he was first recruited by the air force as a statistician out of Berkeley). It may seem cold yet, oddly, often the statistics had a form of morality of their own.

While my true desire in seeing ‘Fog of War’ was in the hope that an eighty-six year old politician might actually throw caution to the wind and tell the truth. In this case, it plays out like a ‘be careful what you wish for’. McNamara has no interest in shaming the people he worked with or himself. In fact, his honesty, even when harshly revealing, has the effect of humanizing its subjects. He never condemns one side or the other for their methods but simply points out their various’ effectiveness. When asked about Vietnam and whether theirs guilt or regret he implies a response will serve no one. “I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t. I’d prefer to be damned if I don’t.”

In a time where you feel you can’t trust a single source for its authenticity in reporting, ‘Fog of War’ feels like a revolutionary act. Yet, one is reminded in this film of a quote from another bastion of political insight and reportage. The movies.

“I want the truth.”

“You can’t handle the truth!” I hope most people can. See this film.