| In the months leading to Oscar season, so
goes the onslaught of bio-pics and historical epics. These
types of films make good Awards bait because a filmmaker can
take what is essentially the same story and make it look glitzy
or unique with the assist from a strong technical team. Normally,
the story goes something like the mocking structure of Charles
Dicken's David Copperfield: "I was born, grew
up, lived a life, and died." There is nothing extraordinary
about such a story: You and me and everyone else will go through
the same narrative arc. That is, unless one dies as a child.
But never mind. Actors may love the genre even more than a
filmmaker. Not only does an actor get a living model for their
work, but they also get to do things like sing famous songs,
wear fancy outfits, and invade countries. It's a great form
of realistic play-time. And the Oscar voter starts really
paying attention if the actor can ham it up with a nice drug
addiction or a handicap or some form of disease. All of this
is predictable but mostly effective. The best, most recent
example of a wasted opportunity is Ray. Ray turned
Ray Charles' life into the same wishy-washy musician analysis
we've all witnessed since The Jazz Singer. If the
film had not contained the once-in-a-lifetime performance
by Jamie Foxx, Ray would have gone unnoticed. But
since Foxx was able to take a character and invest more energy
and complexity than the script even considered, the film is
now being touted on Top Ten lists everywhere and being seriously
considered as a major awards contender. And for what? For
Taylor Hackford's use of Aranofsky-cam during the heroin withdrawal
scenes? But Ray goes to show that his genre is a
great way to pushover the critical mass. But, in the past
week, two largely different films from two largely different
directors have found common ground and common grace with two
enormously polarizing figures in history. Alexander has
taken some heat from Oliver Stone-haters put off by the director's
modernistic, sexually-infused approach to the great Macedonian
leader. And Bill Condon's Kinsey examines a man both
sainted and demonized by political forces and found a man
tragically human. I wanted to review both of these films at
once (even though my Alexander analysis may be a
bit belated) because they both offer a unique and sophisticated
approach to their subjects that is rare and refreshing in
a season that will subject the audience to Beyond the
Sea and Vera Drake.
Alexander
Oliver Stone - to use polite words - is a polarizing figure.
While certainly not the only filmmaker to tackle controversial
social and historical issues, Stone is more notorious for
focusing on the "why" of a subject matter rather
than the "what" or the "how". Many of
his better works examine an issue or an event through a prism
of pop psychology and emotion. His interest in a subject -
whether it be Vietnam or serial killers or a President - is
a more visceral reaction. Stone has been accused of intentionally
creating slight characters in order for his vision to take
the front stage . But these critics seem to miss the point.
Both Born on the 4th of July (Vietnam) and Natural
Born Killers (serial killers) meant for the central character(s)
to be a springing board for how they were handled and how
other people looked at them. From a cinematic view point,
this is more honest than any filmmaker injecting certainty
and homegrown subjectivity into the character. Some of the
most compelling imagery from Stone's cannon may be found with
Ron Kovic's appearance at the Democratic National Convention
or Mickey Knox's post-Super Bowl interview from the bowels
of Joliet. While those films capture social moments, his more
memorable films capture the chaotic nature of history and
it in a tangible format. One of his better films was 1991's
paranoid epic JFK, a film that never attempted to
accurately portray the assassination of Kennedy but captured
an America population rattled and confused by such a violent
event befalling such a revered figure. The theoretical rambling
of the script was more about the feelings shared collectively
than about narrative. Even better is Nixon, Stone's
near-flawless mix of irreverently unconventional and historical
analysis with a compelling macro-character development. Stone,
along with ample help from one of the best casts in film history
(Tony Hopkins, Joan Allen, et al), turned one of the most
divisive and controversial figures in the 20th century and
made his Presidency into a Shakespearian tragedy. Stone mixed
the failure of his father, the stern Quaker attitude embellished
by his mother, and the early deaths of his brothers to make
Nixon a man so terrified and guilty of his own shadow that
destruction was merely inevitable. In addition, Stone refuses
to demonize Nixon but instead make him a helpless mortal at
the whim of such powerful forces ranging from Vietnam tot
Communism to domestic turmoil to governmental inequities.
Nixonwas a landmark film biography and Stone's last
great film. Unfortunately, that was nine years ago and Stone
has subjected us to U-Turn and Any Given Sunday
since. The films took small-town corruption and professional
football, respectively, and made them into apocalyptic affairs.
There was a fear by Stone apologists that the man had bought
his own hype and focused his talents on schmoozing with Fidel
Castro and Yasser Arafat.
I only bring this up to explain why Stone's Alexander
is an effective analysis of the man and not necessarily
of the man's time or place. The latter two failures would
surely doom the film but here, they are not necessarily the
point. Stone views Alexander of Macedon not as the larger-than-life
myth that claimed lineage with Zeus. He does view him as the
first great military strategist, who was able to swoop through
Egypt, Persia and the majority of Asia Minor. No, Stone views
Alexander the Great as a guy who couldn't control his own
dick. Alexander is a study in how leadership is largely
influenced by sexual dysfunction and psychological grandeur.
This may not be the most concise and thorough way to look
at this subject, but the argument remains compelling and entertaining
in the tradition of old Hollywood epics like Cleopatra.
Alexander's tale is told in storytelling flashback by
Ptolemy (Hopkins), as a way of debunking the myth about his
old general. Ptolemy begins in childhood where Alexander shares
a bed with his mother Olympias (Angelina Jolie). Her nature
is nurturing if not suffocating and incestuous but the preciously
weird mother-son moment is interrupted by King Philip (Val
Kilmer), Alexander's father. He attempts to rape his own wife
in front of their son. Even at an early age, Alexander has
been taught that his father is a mad genius of a general who
possesses the power that Alexander will one day surely inherit.This
image is fried into his brain as Alexander grows up (played
by Colin Farrell) who acquiesces in his mother's plot to kill
his father and assume the thrown. As Alexander mobilizes his
troops to invade Persia, he reminds them that they are killing
the Arab despot who deprived them of a king and, more importantly,
him of a father. There would be little obstacle in drawing
distinctions between this motivation and George W.'s need
to attack Saddam, Stone makes it clear that Oedipal rage is
the one thing that should be drawn out. After Alexander and
his men conquer each country, an inventory is made of the
women there to pillage. In perhaps the funniest moment in
a Stone film, Alexander wanders into Babylon to see a bunch
of Babylonian whores sitting around...petting their
lap cats!!! Much has been made by some historians
that Alexander particularized brand of fascism: Conquer a
territory and then embracing the culture of the survivors.
His slogan was modified centuries later to read: "Let
them eat cake!" While some would see this as cruel and
forced diversity, Stone no doubt sees this as Farrell taking
the women of these cultures and creating a genetic version
of the great Alexandria franchise he so neatly crafted. This
is ethnic cleansing in its most sexually depraved form. This
is Alexander's plan with Roxane (Rosario Dawson), the dancer
that tempts him in the bowels of Asia. He takes his "beastly
beauty" (the script's words, not mine) and plunges further
and further until is self-annoited down-fall in India. The
narrative ends in the fashion of The Man Who Shot Liberty
Valance with Ptolemy determining that the myth is far
more interesting than the actual history.
Such a pity since Stone's depiction of the "actual history"
in Alexander is a bit of a blast. The historical
films of late have been enormously popular among critics and
audiences alike, but they have come across to this viewer
and disingenuous and shallow. William Wallace in Braveheart
led his troops into battle against the British in the
name of...FREEDOOOOOOMMM! But wasn't Wallace just
mad because his wife had been killed? In that case, the rage
and violence was personal but the film felt that wasn't something
a multiplex could not rally behind so they added some fake
MO. Even Troy where Achilles' homosexuality was hidden
and replaced with some unexplained (and clearly bogus) and
blind loyalty to Greece. Stone takes a cue from all of those
films and decides to puts the sexuality up front. Yes, Jolie
is only one year older than Farrell but the decision to keep
her at the age she appeared when Alexander was a child suggests
a psychological portrait rather than something realistic.
And Alexander's only comfort out there conquering is Hephaistion
(Jared Leto), a relationship that is overtly homosexual. I
mean, that relationship is so gay that one wonders if it's
not Alexander...The Faabulous! But this view
of Alexander in purely sexual terms is a very interesting
approach and brought alive by Stone's inability to shy away
from even the most absurd and ludicrous historical perspectives.
One can't imagine Olympias as such a vixen drama queen, but
Jolie's portrayal makes rational sense in the soap opera drama
Stone creates. I mean, if Jolie and Kilmer were your parents,
wouldn't you be so messed up that you wanted to invade the
world as well? Plus, Farell is able to convey some of the
raw and vulgar sexuality from his own personality to create
a character that civilizations are all but willing to surrender.
Alexander is by far brisker and more entertaining
than its modern predecessors even if it must be forgiven for
a convoluted time line and some battle sequences that are
unintentionally murky. But the film's sense of drama and tension
makes the experience alive and palpable.
For a great analysis of the controversy surrounding this
film and the history of its subject, check out Filmsnob fan
Christopher Hitchen's article in this week's Slate
HERE.
Kinsey
While Alexander makes history kind of sexy, Kinsey
makes sex so academic it's damn near historical. But
that, in a sense, is what makes the film such a fascinating
and thought-provoking watch. Unlike any of the provocative
films of the year (The Passion, Fahrenheit 9-11, A Dirty
Shame), Kinsey truly digs to the historical
roots of the social and political decisiveness. Back in the
30's and 40's, Dr. Albert Kinsey (Liam Neeson) taught and
researched zoology at the University of Indiana in Bloomington.
If one can say anything about the University of Indiana, it's
very nice environment with a great basketball program. Not
necessarily the place where Kinsey's groundbreaking study
on male and female sexuality would arise. But, in addition
to Human Sexuality in the Male and Female's honest
and graphic presentation of sex, the Red State origin of Kinsey's
work makes it all the more shocking to conservative religious
zealots and leftist feminist groups. If this were the work
of a professor in Boston, then that would be expected. That
would be, the quote Jon Stewart, like monkey's jerking off.
That's just what East Coast academics do. Here, Kinsey arises
from a strict Methodist background in a blandly normal part
of the country who introduces issues like masturbation and
orgasms into the public conscience. The incredible strength
of Bill Condon's film is not simply documenting the impact
of this research, but showing Kinsey as a sexually inverse
Forrest Gump. Here's a man who is so smart that he has no
idea that he's affecting the landscape of American culture.
While Condon and Neeson certainly waste no opportunities to
highlight the positive social and academic accomplishments
of Kinsey, they certainly do not shy away from material that
slightly demonizes him. In the end, Kinsey makes
this somewhat underground myth into something human. This
may be the type of humanity some people do not want to confront.
But it is the type of that is completely necessary.
Kinsey uses all of the traditional staples of a
bio-pic but use them in such a functional way that one hardly
notices. The story is structured with Kinsey being interviewed
for one of his sexual surveys, administered by members of
his research staff. (Peter Sarsgaard, Timothy Hutton, and
Chris O'Donnell) Kinsey takes them through his childhood with
his father Alfred (John Lithgow), a Methodist minister with
a real nasty take on yanking the jimmy stick. To say the least,
the very curious and self-polluting Albert skips out of town
and ends up teaching the intricacies of gall wasps at the
University of Indiana. There he meets a student named Clara
McMillen (Laura Linney) and they engage in a rather awkward
courtship. After they get married and Kinsey loses his virginity,
he becomes bored with the gall wasp scene. He begins to see
parallels with human behavior in his studies and starts to
inquire students about their sexual habits. What he discovers
are people who possess no basic curiosity or awareness of
their own sexuality. All of the research previously published
on the subject suffers from what Kinsey calls a "confusion
of science with morality." Despite the protests from
IU administration and faculty (portrayed with intentional
ineptitude by Oliver Platt and Tim Curry respectively), Kinsey
begins to interview thousands of people from around the country
in order to categorize sexual behavior. As Kinsey becomes
immersed with the study of sexuality, he personally becomes
detached from a general understanding and appreciation of
sex. He tries to start a casual conversation about the hymen
and the vulva around the family dinner table. "No wonder
my friends won't come around", his daughter proclaims
after her dad's notoriety spreads through the area. Once Kinsey
begins filming subjects having sex and pleasuring themselves,
he can't figure out why he is not given proper respect for
his work. "You told people that their grandmothers masturbate.
What did you expect?" Through his work, Kinsey unearths
the best and the worst of human nature. Ultimately, the legacy
remains in history to be trumped or vilified depending on
one's perspective.
This film has received the blessed protest of the Conservative
Right who - without even seeing the film in many cases - claim
the film champions Kinsey who, in turn, championed child molestation
and rapists who helped to reform federal and state criminal
codes for the worst. What's funny is that most mainstream
filmgoers wouldn't have seen Kinsey to begin with,
but might now just to see what all the fuss is about. (Indeed,
the funniest side note of this whole affair was a conservative
attempt to boycott News Corporation Company who runs Fox Searchlight
and released this film. This cooled down when conservatives
realized this meant they would have to boycott Fox News and
their corral of Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity. Once again,
another example of Rupert Murdoch playing both sides of an
issue for fun and profit. See my X-Men
2 review for a larger analysis.) And many left-leaning
groups scream at the top of their lungs that Kinsey's work
STILL derogates women and that his work has helped keep them
down for decades. But after watching Kinsey, one
can't imagine how this mild-mannered, intelligent weirdo could
have the destructive impact his critics claim. But that's
why this bio-pic is so significant and important in a year
when the culture war has taken a front-row seat at the local
multiplex. Commentators ask the questions: Where did this
rift in the nation occur? When did it happen? What are the
focal points for the battle? Certainly, Kinsey's spot in the
Midwest and his insistence on taking such an anti-septic view
of such taboo issues is a good answer to the "Where"
question. The fact that Human Sexuality in the Male became
a best-seller that flowed from blossoming suburb to blossoming
suburb in the 1950's is a good answer to the "When"
question. And the mere subject of sex is the focal point for
most of the controversial issues in our time. Remember, the
Supreme Court created a Constitutional right to privacy cobbled
from the 1st, 3rd, and 4th Amendments in Griswold
v. Connecticut, a case about the government
blocking a married couple's right to obtain BIRTH CONTROL!
The right to privacy was the gateway issue to so many legal
disputes in the past forty years. The abortion issue really
comes down to liberals and conservatives arguing over a person's
ability to control their sexual urges. Gay marriage? Kinsey
said that a near majority of people have had some sort of
homosexual encounter. But when it gets to the voting booth,
nobody is willing to vote for state-sanctioned butt sex. And
have you heard about these dumb-ass covenant marriages? Legislators
all over the country are dead set on making this the gay marriage
of 2005. Essentially establishing fault and adding more legal
bureaucracy, this is another imposition by the government
on a religious and private institution that does more harm
than good. Even the Catholic Church has denouced these things.
But, before I get into a snip, let me go to the subject at
hand. All of these hot and divisive issues came from Kinsey
and his honest and frank approach to sex. This very fact was
enough to set society on fire. This is kind of incredible
since Neeson's portrayal of Kinsey is so low-key and academic
that the internal mechanics of the character is harmless.
Surely to the surprise of Kinsey critics, Kinsey makes
its subject out to be an unwitting monster. Kinsey is so immersed
in the science and the procedure of sex that he sometimes
forgets that sex has unforeseen and sometimes foreseen emotional
consequences. In perhaps the most powerful scene in film all
year, Kinsey visits an unnamed businessman (William Sadler)
who brags about his ability to cause orgasm with infant children.
Here, Kinsey keeps looking dead-forward as though he's merely
inspecting a gall wasp. There are points when morality should
replace science and Kinsey's academic work is shown as being
an extreme and unacceptable form of tolerance. Kinsey
points out in this scene that Kinsey's critics might
have a valid argument .Kinsey's science is like Frankenstein's
monster: it can turn from gentle to deadly in a matter of
seconds. But Condon is smart enough to contrast this scene
with another interview subject: a woman (Lynn Redgrave) who
ended an unhappy marriage when she realized that being a lesbian
wasn't "abnormal." Somehow, these one-minute performances
embody the complexities of not only the film's subject but
the societal divide that has opened in the years since. Truly
incredible.
What's more fascinating and relevant is Condon's presentation
of Kinsey's time and place isn't treated with some period
piece distance. Kinsey's subjects are somewhat humorous, but
not unfamiliar. One must only look at the national storm that
was created by Professor Dennis Dailey's Human Sexuality class
at the University of Kansas and legislative attempts to block
University funding to see how little society has evolved since
Kinsey. Which is to say not much when one witnessed how Bill
O'Reilly burned this mild-mannered professor on his stake
for a few weeks during the spring of 2003. The film uses the
typical bio-pic device of glowingly filming the historical
landscape: Lots of sunlight parses through the Indiana trees
to soak the lecture halls and picket fences. But the ideas
and the themes feels contemporaneous. The subject is brought
to life by Condon's work behind the camera and the great skill
put into the performances by Neeson, Linney, Saarsgard, Lithgow,
O'Donnell, Hutton, Redgrave, Sadler, et al. Each performance
is award-worthy in the opposite way most actors display in
these types of films. Actors in Kinsey don't act
like every breathe and step is IMPORTANT to SIGNIFICANT EVENTS.
They are human; tragically and flawed in human composition.
The film is the best in bio-pics of the year: This movie is
about why Kinsey and his work is important. And why this work
is important. In a year where our societal differences were
splashed all over the screen, this is the only film to show
the origins. Make no mistake, Kinsey is the most
important film of 2004. Period.
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