“A Slipping-Down Life”

 
Evie (Lili Taylor) drives home after another tedious day of work at a rundown amusement park in North Carolina, where she endures the humiliation of selling hot dogs to kids while wearing a rabbit costume. As she makes a turn from one street onto another, she is utterly unaware — one might say comatose to the fact — that she is pulling out in front of a big truck that almost runs her down. Later at home, she tries to sneak past her father’s (Tom Bower) bedroom without having to interact with him. The next morning, she avoids interaction again by staring at a cereal box. Lost in his own world of short wave radio and puzzles, he seems as unaware of her as she is wary of him.
 
We might think that Evie is a painfully shy, almost backward young woman, long since slipped into the monotony and meaninglessness of small town existence. We think she may even have just lain where she fell. But there’s something going on inside Evie’s mind. Evie is waiting. She is biding her time until something worth paying attention to happens, until someone worth hearing speaks. Whatever has kept Evie in her little world has not defeated her. She’s just been laying low.
 
Then she hears Drumstrings Casey (Guy Pearce) on the radio from Atlanta. In response to basic questions, he speaks in non sequiturs such as, “You think you’re invisible. But I see you.” To Evie, however, such poetic musings seem to be directed at her, and she is determined to meet him. She gets her girlfriend, Violet (Sara Rue) to go to a local show with her, and they become regulars whenever Drum plays. Evie is utterly mesmerized by Drum, believing he is speaking directly to her during his many unpopular spoken word solos. Everyone else just wants him to rock out.
 
So transfixed by Drum, Evie does the unthinkable: she carves his name into her forehead with a piece of cut glass. Everyone thinks she’s gone off the deep end, but Evie is steadfast in her belief that she has finally done something important, that she’s finally in control of her life. The dichotomy between the earthy clarity of Evie’s declaration and the fact of what she did is the crux of the meaning found in “A Slipping Down Life”, based on the Anne Tyler novel of the same name.
 
Evie starts off as a novelty after she makes the local papers with her “stunt,” but soon enough she and Drum find themselves falling for each other in a deeper way than anything carved into her skin. The remainder of the film is the unfolding of their relationship and stumbling toward an understanding of who they are as individuals.
 
Taylor is, as usual, mesmerizing. Each frame captures a subtle shift in her expression, something happening behind the eyes. Watching her, it’s easy not to notice what else is happening. It’s also easy for a filmmaker to rely so much on Taylor’s depth that other characters are left underdeveloped, and it seems to me that this is precisely what happens. How else can the lackluster and flat “Drum” be explained, especially when played by another wonderfully charismatic actor, Guy Pearce? Though the film is more about Evie than it is about Drum, in order for us to believe in Evie, we have to believe in Drum. Maybe others will, but I did not. Drum’s character has too many abrupt shifts that, as a result of a lack of foundation, feel forced. Consequently, it becomes difficult to see what Evie finds quite so important about him. Then again, that might be the point. Is the life Evie has with Drum the revelation for which she’s waited a lifetime? Is she really waiting for someone to save her? She seems a smarter girl than that.
 
It’s easy to forgive certain transgressions in an Indie film, such as the fact that the story is set in North Carolina, but the fact is it’s filmed in Texas, where the dirt simply can’t pass for Carolina clay. One could even forgive the simplistic characterizations of Drum’s mother and stepfather, Evie’s dad, and the stereotypical use of the wonderful Irma P. Hall as the Decker’s longtime housekeeper. But to do so you the story and the characters have to earn it. Unfortunately, despite a genuine effort on the part of everyone involved, this one does not. It’s stuck in the magic of Evie, but fails to share that magic with the rest of the story — and with us.

***

“Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason”

 
 
John Stuart Mill, that venerable 19th century British philosopher, wrote in his classic essay, “Utilitarianism”, “It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question.” J.S., my dear, I am glad you are not around today. Really glad, ‘cause this film is an enormous, wallowing pig.
 
“Bridget Jones: The Plane of Predictability” — I mean, “The Edge of Reason” — is the sequel to the 2001 hit “Bridget Jones’s Diary”. There’s no edge here, not even a slight slope. This second Jones is something of a disjointed series of predictable pratfalls that have Bridget in some (surprise!) compromising situation from which hilarity is meant to ensue, but that we saw coming down Main Street about twelve streetlights up.
 
The intentions of the first thirty seconds are good. Picking up the story two glorious months since she bagged the seemingly-out-of-her-league Mr. Darcy, Bridget asks, “what happens after the ‘happily ever after?’” Non-fictional characters such as you and me live in the un-film netherworld of “after,” where relationships are hard and things don’t always go the way we’d like them to, so it’s a good idea for a movie to ask that question. But in the end, Bridget and Darcy still end up in that ‘happily ever after’ fiction sort of way anyway, so forgive me if I feel a touch betrayed. It’s like being told you’re about to get this amazing meal, and then you wind up at the McDonald’s drive-thru. The film itself must be evidence of the ‘things-don’t-always-go-the-way-you-planned’ truism. After all, could the filmmakers really claim that “The Edge of Reason” turned out exactly as it was envisioned? Crikey, I sure hope not.
 
So here’s the “plot”: Bridget (Zellweger), head over heels for her human rights attorney, the stiff Darcy (Firth), finds her life is pretty darn good. Our heroine gushes over the great shagging she and beau of two months, Darcy, have been doing lately. Good for her. It’s nice she has her priorities straight. It’s all about the shag. Of course, pile is good, too, but I digress. The point is, Bridget thinks she’s made it — almost. She’s this close from marriage, she believes, which would be the culmination of her life’s worth. I mean, come on, she’s right. What else could there be?
 
She’s also a reporter (supposedly) whose butt seems to be the source of jokes in her stories, and we don’t really see her doing anything particularly journalistic. When Daniel Cleaver, the cad who used her in the last film, shows up as host of a travel show on her station, she’s livid. Livid! But strangely intrigued. She also finds herself worried that Darcy is getting cozy with a skinny colleague from his office who has “legs up to here.” Worse yet, Bridget feels the class division between herself and Darcy: he’s upper crust and she is just crust. He wants his kids to go to Eaton, as it’s a family tradition, but she thinks such schools only shove sticks up people’s arses for life — Darcy’s is still there, isn’t it?
 
That stick must have made its way past his intestines, up into his stomach, bypassed his heart (thank goodness?), and then lodged in his brain. How else can you explain his devotion to Bridget? She is, after all, utterly devoid of intellect. While she worries about him seeing her “wobbly bits,” she has no compunction about opening her mouth to display the cellulite that is her mind.
 
She attends some big gala event for lawyers and looks and acts like a complete fool (though my suspicion is that we were supposed to root for Bridget in the midst of those stuffy, upper crust have-it-alls). Feeling utterly mismatched, and worried he doesn’t really want her (read: she thinks he won’t marry her), she breaks things off. …Blah, blah blah… She (surprise!) gets paired up with Cleaver to co-host the travel show, and off they go to Thailand. …Blah, blah… She finds herself succumbing to Cleaver’s smarmy charms. …Blah, blah, blah… She almost has sex with him. …Blah … She gets arrested at the airport for drug smuggling ...Blah… Darcy gets her out. …Blah… She thinks he doesn’t love her. …Blah… (surprise!) He does love her! Go get ‘em, Bridge! And say, what a perfect opportunity for some more high jinks! …Blah… The skinny “legs up to here” chick is actually in love with Bridget! …Blah… Bridget and Darcy live happily ever after.
 
Let’s see, what else happens along the way? Bridget gets absurdly bad advice from three cookie-cutter friends, one of whom even gets Bridget in that Thai jam — albeit inadvertently. Darcy and Cleaver fight in that unmanly sort of way, kicking and flailing without connecting — didn’t they do that in the first “Bridget Jones” to much greater comic effect? But, it’s just so grand that Darcy is doing what Bridget wanted: he’s fighting for her! Sigh. I’m all choked up.
 
There is one sequence that, to my mind at least, felt fairly genuine. When Bridget finds herself imprisoned in Thailand for drug smuggling, she finds herself in the lockup with a bunch of Thai women to whom she teaches the correct pronunciation and phrasing for Madonna’s “Like a Virgin”. By the way, there is nothing, I repeat nothing in this particular sequence that furthers the story or deepens our understanding of our girl, Bridget. She “realizes” how great Darcy is, but this realization only serves to prove just what a bubblehead she is. It’s not her body that’s fat, it’s her head, however often we are told the opposite. With legs like Zellweger’s are we honestly supposed to believe she’s fat? That’s like believing Michael Jackson when he claims to suffer from Vitiligo.
 
It’s not just the plot that’s predictable, nor the gags that you see coming from five miles away, it’s also the characters. They are inert. Nothing’s changed since we saw them last, and nothing changes through the two-hour slog that is Bridget’s love life. Stories are supposed to show us something about the human condition. Somehow, I don’t see “Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason” as a meditation on the fundamental changelessness of human personality — it’s not a treatise on the adage, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” If anything, it simply recycles alleged truisms about romance, proper communication in a relationship, deportment in public, personal appearance, and the goal of any modern-day woman. As a result, it says nothing new, and says it in hackneyed style.
 
That’s the thing that makes me most angry: the film has a point. It is telling us, by preying upon accepted notions of who we are expected to be, how we should live our lives. It reinforces the very stereotypes by which many of us already live. That, in my view, is despicable, and undermines the power of film. Every filmgoer should demand excellence from our so-called “entertainment” industry. (hint: there is no such thing as entertainment. More on that another time.) Filmmakers ought to work harder for the precious little time, and even less money, the audience has to spare for the pleasure and edification of a layered story and fully realized characters. I say bollocks to the rest! So, shame on you, executives at Universal, director Beeban Kidron, and writers Andrew Davies, Helen Fielding, Richard Curtis, and Adam Brooks. My God, does it really take four writers plus a director to cock things up so badly? Don’t lay the blame at the actors’ feet. They did their level best. Then again, they agreed to do a sequel. On what grounds is a sequel justified?
 
Nasty, you say? Yes, I am nasty, but justifiably so. I spent one hour and forty-eight minutes of my life with these people. That’s almost TWO FREAKING HOURS! Almost two hours that I will never get back. Ever. I will die having lost it. In that time, I could have worked my way through some of “Causation and Counterfactuals” or any number of other books on my list. Maybe I could even have done some shagging of my own. Really, I gave up more than two hours, given the commute to and from the screening. And the worst part of it is, I CHOSE to go see this film. ‘Maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised,’ I deluded myself before heading out into rush-hour traffic in Los Angeles on a rainy night — and we all know Los Angeles drivers panic at the first sprinkle, so my commute was that much more inglorious. A word to the wise: use your two hours to do something other than pay your hard-earned money to see “Bridget Jones”.

***

"Cinderella Man: The Last of the Americans?"

 
The day I went to see Ron Howard’s Cinderella Man, I had an all too common roadway experience: stopped at an intersection, I noticed the car in the left hand turn lane opposite me holding up traffic. The driver was trying to (illegally) move into the lane next to hers so that she could go straight rather than turn left. As cars in the crossing lane drove on across the street, the drivers behind the rude woman waited patiently until someone finally let her into the lane she wanted.
 
If Jim Braddock was driving that car and found himself in a lane he didn’t want to be in, he would have turned according to the lane he was in, and then figured out how to get where he wanted to go. I don’t know how often the rude driving behavior I experienced actually happens today, but my increasing compilation of anecdotal evidence suggests that people have no qualms about selfish (or illegal, or arguably immoral) behavior.
 
That’s why Howard’s new film is a nice, understated, beautifully made morality play. It could have gone the way of the sanctimonious, superficial, ‘triumph over adversity’ piffle that bludgeons you over the head repeatedly until you’re as stupid as the film assumes you to be. Instead, Cinderella Man is a simple story about an American ideal, but it’s not simple-minded.
 
In the late 1920s, James Braddock (Russell Crowe) was a successful boxer with Mae, his pretty wife (Renee Zellweger), three cute kids, and a charming home in New Jersey. He loses his financial security when the Depression hit; with most of his money invested, he is wiped out. Then, after a dismal performance in a bout he should have won, his license is suspended. Worse yet, he breaks his hand, which makes working at the docks in between fights a dicey proposition. With a busted hand, no money or prospect for work, a sick child, and the electricity about to be turned off, Braddock and Mae find themselves in dire straights.
 
In such circumstances, you do what you have to do to survive. The question, however, is what are the necessary conditions for survival? One could emotionally (and perhaps, morally) forgive people for stealing to feed one’s family, or breaking a wooden sign apart for kindling, asking for handouts, and the like. One could be angry that, through no fault of one’s own, society’s economy collapses, and one lost everything one had. Indeed, these issues arise in the film (and there is, to my mind, quite lovely dialogue spoken with equal grace by Crowe in response to a friend’s suggestion that workers “organize” against the situation). But with steady and persistent actions, Braddock reveals himself to be someone who does not change the way he lives his life when life changes — especially when there is no direct object that has caused those changes.
 
As a pre-Depression era fighter, Braddock had his opponent and goal clearly before him, along with a designated time in which to accomplish that goal. Without such specifics, any fight he has is swinging into the air, and he knows it.
 
Speaking of fighting, the boxing scenes — all of them — are beautifully shot, acted, and choreographed for the fighting style of the period (and the individual fighters’ styles, specifically). Not being much of a boxing fan myself, I typically see such scenes looking fairly homogenous (and sounding like bags of rocks hitting steel). But Howard, his cinematographer, actors, and sound designer have created a heft and intensity that made me believe what I was seeing was actually taking place. All this further grounds a story whose ending we already know, but want to see play out because of the quality and care with which the entire production is executed.
 
To my mind, too, the viewer is not distracted by the fight scenes — no eyeballs popping out or guts splashed all over the floor. Howard doesn’t use these scenes as stand-ins for story and character, but rather as extensions of, and set-pieces for those things. When Crowe’s Braddock tells a reporter he’s fighting for milk, we know what he means because of what the rest of the story shows us, not simply because of what happens in the ring.
 
Outside the ring is the real turmoil, and Braddock is a man who is just trying to lay low until the Depression wears itself out. In some sense, the combination of the Depression and his opportunity to fight again clarifies for Braddock who he is and what he values: a man trying to take care of his family according to an ethic of honesty and hard work. This is a guy who knows that most other guys like him don’t get the chance to pull themselves out of poverty, and he plans to make the most of it — but he’s not giving up the docks because he understands just how rare an opportunity can be. The American dream is not just about pulling yourself up by your bootstraps; you’ve got to have a little leverage. The scenes that show where that leverage comes from reveal Braddock’s awareness of just how tenuous the pull can be.
 
Not everyone then or now seems to understand that relationship. We’re a society of “rights” without understanding what that means, and so also without understanding that rights involve duties, specific responsibilities toward oneself and others. It seems to me that the narcissism displayed by people like the driver I mentioned at the outset is a reflection of this confusion (or, more likely, indolence). At the same time, the heart of the American ideal is not altruism, either. Each has the legal freedom (and arguably also the responsibility) to pursue one’s happiness (broadly defined). At the heart of Cinderella Man is a meditation on how to balance rights with responsibilities.
 
Were it not for the performances of Russell Crowe, Renee Zellweger, and Paul Giamatti (as Braddock’s manager with the most moxie), and the aforementioned quality filmmaking, the film would have been little more than a pedantic pat on the collective American ideal back. But I found it subtly instructive and emotionally genuine. Crowe has to be just about the best movie actor working today. Paired with Giamatti, who gives to his colleague as much as he gets from him, and Zellweger, who does not let her character get lost in society’s jaundiced view of 20th century wifedom, Crowe is James J. Braddock — and James J. Braddock, according to the film’s portrayal of him, was one of the last Americans.

***

“City of God”: For Every Effect there is a Cause
God, if there is such a being, is said to be the First Cause of all things. The logician asks, “Yes, but what about before God?” The metaphysician responds, “There was no ‘before.’ That is a concept of time.” Objects come together and move apart, bouncing off one another like ping-pong balls. The City of God is a series of causes and effects, set in motion by the First Cause of all things. Things are. Asking why makes little sense.
 
The opening shot of Fernando Meirelles’ compelling “Cidade de Deus” (“City of God”) reveals a knife moving back and forth on a whetstone. We think, something’s going to get cut. Indeed, things are cut: the necks of chickens, materials for cooking. All this is shown in quick cut editing, in rhythm with the chef wielding the knife.
 
Meirelles’ camera then moves to a live chicken. It’s tied to a crate, and we think, it’s doomed. It’s next for the knife. As the action shifts back and forth between chopping and chicken, we grow uneasy, and begin to wonder if the chicken senses what’s going on. The shot is set up so that it looks like the chicken knows what’s about to happen, and it flutters about nervously. But chickens can’t anticipate their own deaths. They have no intentionality. Just then, the chicken frees itself (or is freed), steps out of the string noose around its leg, and takes off, culminating in the inexorable convergence of the film’s build-up of causes and effects.
 
This ambivalent scene sets the tone for the remainder of the film. Human beings want to think of themselves as free agents, as causes of their own actions. But “City of God” continually reminds us that, more than any delusion we have about our own agency, there is the force of cause and effect all around us, bringing us into and out of situations that we deem fortuitous or disastrous. How else can we explain the fact that Knockout Ned becomes a living exception to his own rule? How else can we explain the native sweetness and inquisitive sensibility of Rocket, one of the film’s two central characters, and the inborn violent and essential criminality of Li’l Dice (later L’il Zé)? Everyone is swept up in the causal chain. No explanation is given why these two boys, both of whom were born and raised in the 1960s Rio de Janeiro housing project known as City of God, have their particular natures. They simply are.
 
Furthering this morally neutral account of Zé and Rocket (a big thank you to the director for avoiding the typical Hollywood bludgeoning of the audience with the ideas it wants us to think) is the narration by Rocket, the distance provided by his camera’s lens, and the matter-of-fact widening of the causal circle with each character’s introduction. The audience is also brought deep into the world of poverty and violence, (the cinematography is almost claustrophobic, we’re in so tight) but the way the characters bounce off one another as they fulfill their natures in reaction to various causes continually pushes the audience out of facile socio-economic-political answers.
 
The characters, and the actors who play them, go a long way to support the idea that underlies “City of God”. Li’l Dice is very smart, but he also has blood lust instead of conscience. At a very young age he commits mass murder, laughing all the while. There is no indication that he feels wronged by society, or hates the life he has. Instead, he relishes the power and status his role as ruling drug dealer bestows. He even, along with other dealers, wears a prominently displayed crucifix around his neck, indicating, perhaps, the blind acceptance of the way things are as God’s will. Rocket is also smart, but does not have the temperament for criminal activity. His most egregious offense is procuring pot to impress the girl he likes. Without resources, he does not see a way out of the ghetto, but happens upon a window through his love of photography. Connecting the two is Benny, the “cool hood” who enjoys the money that dealing drugs brings, but also sees dealing as a way out of the City of God.
 
Narration, typically a crutch used by filmmakers to avoid allowing the story to tell itself, the characters to develop, or dialogue to reveal important truths, is used here to complement beautifully the film’s essential theme. It is journalistic, (not in the current standard of today’s editorial journalism, but in the now-archaic standard of reportage) and as such defies our seeing inherent meaning in the circumstances of the characters’ lives.
 
The method of story-telling also reinforces the causal interconnectedness of the characters’ lives. When a character is introduced, for example, his or her relation to the events is laid out so that we can see how that relation came about.
 
The film’s camera work is challenging — shaky, with shots framed in unusual ways — but Rocket’s photography freezes cause-and-effect relationships in a way that life’s continual motion does not allow us to see. In so doing, he further distances himself from the causal orbit into which he was thrown.
 
Leibniz held, as did the Stoics before him, that the universe is providential. Voltaire satirized Leibniz in Candide as the character Dr. Pangloss, who claims this is the best of all possible worlds. We may wonder, after watching “City of God” how it’s possible to doubt that the world is a series of causes of effects over which we humans have little or no control. And yet, there is a peculiar sense of triumph at the end of the film, even as we see the series of causes and effects beginning anew.

***

“City of God”: For Every Effect there is a Cause

God, if there is such a being, is said to be the First Cause of all things. The logician asks, “Yes, but what about before God?” The metaphysician responds, “There was no ‘before.’ That is a concept of time.” Objects come together and move apart, bouncing off one another like ping-pong balls. The City of God is a series of causes and effects, set in motion by the First Cause of all things. Things are. Asking why makes little sense.
 
The opening shot of Fernando Meirelles’ compelling “Cidade de Deus” (“City of God”) reveals a knife moving back and forth on a whetstone. We think, something’s going to get cut. Indeed, things are cut: the necks of chickens, materials for cooking. All this is shown in quick cut editing, in rhythm with the chef wielding the knife.
 
Meirelles’ camera then moves to a live chicken. It’s tied to a crate, and we think, it’s doomed. It’s next for the knife. As the action shifts back and forth between chopping and chicken, we grow uneasy, and begin to wonder if the chicken senses what’s going on. The shot is set up so that it looks like the chicken knows what’s about to happen, and it flutters about nervously. But chickens can’t anticipate their own deaths. They have no intentionality. Just then, the chicken frees itself (or is freed), steps out of the string noose around its leg, and takes off, culminating in the inexorable convergence of the film’s build-up of causes and effects.
 
This ambivalent scene sets the tone for the remainder of the film. Human beings want to think of themselves as free agents, as causes of their own actions. But “City of God” continually reminds us that, more than any delusion we have about our own agency, there is the force of cause and effect all around us, bringing us into and out of situations that we deem fortuitous or disastrous. How else can we explain the fact that Knockout Ned becomes a living exception to his own rule? How else can we explain the native sweetness and inquisitive sensibility of Rocket, one of the film’s two central characters, and the inborn violent and essential criminality of Li’l Dice (later L’il Zé)? Everyone is swept up in the causal chain. No explanation is given why these two boys, both of whom were born and raised in the 1960s Rio de Janeiro housing project known as City of God, have their particular natures. They simply are.
 
Furthering this morally neutral account of Zé and Rocket (a big thank you to the director for avoiding the typical Hollywood bludgeoning of the audience with the ideas it wants us to think) is the narration by Rocket, the distance provided by his camera’s lens, and the matter-of-fact widening of the causal circle with each character’s introduction. The audience is also brought deep into the world of poverty and violence, (the cinematography is almost claustrophobic, we’re in so tight) but the way the characters bounce off one another as they fulfill their natures in reaction to various causes continually pushes the audience out of facile socio-economic-political answers.
 
The characters, and the actors who play them, go a long way to support the idea that underlies “City of God”. Li’l Dice is very smart, but he also has blood lust instead of conscience. At a very young age he commits mass murder, laughing all the while. There is no indication that he feels wronged by society, or hates the life he has. Instead, he relishes the power and status his role as ruling drug dealer bestows. He even, along with other dealers, wears a prominently displayed crucifix around his neck, indicating, perhaps, the blind acceptance of the way things are as God’s will. Rocket is also smart, but does not have the temperament for criminal activity. His most egregious offense is procuring pot to impress the girl he likes. Without resources, he does not see a way out of the ghetto, but happens upon a window through his love of photography. Connecting the two is Benny, the “cool hood” who enjoys the money that dealing drugs brings, but also sees dealing as a way out of the City of God.
 
Narration, typically a crutch used by filmmakers to avoid allowing the story to tell itself, the characters to develop, or dialogue to reveal important truths, is used here to complement beautifully the film’s essential theme. It is journalistic, (not in the current standard of today’s editorial journalism, but in the now-archaic standard of reportage) and as such defies our seeing inherent meaning in the circumstances of the characters’ lives.
 
The method of story-telling also reinforces the causal interconnectedness of the characters’ lives. When a character is introduced, for example, his or her relation to the events is laid out so that we can see how that relation came about.
 
The film’s camera work is challenging — shaky, with shots framed in unusual ways — but Rocket’s photography freezes cause-and-effect relationships in a way that life’s continual motion does not allow us to see. In so doing, he further distances himself from the causal orbit into which he was thrown.
 
Leibniz held, as did the Stoics before him, that the universe is providential. Voltaire satirized Leibniz in Candide as the character Dr. Pangloss, who claims this is the best of all possible worlds. We may wonder, after watching “City of God” how it’s possible to doubt that the world is a series of causes of effects over which we humans have little or no control. And yet, there is a peculiar sense of triumph at the end of the film, even as we see the series of causes and effects beginning anew.

***

“Coach Carter”

 
“Coach Carter” is the sort of movie that parents like. And, with popular young performers such as Ashanti acting in the film, MTV Productions has achieved a level of cool that should bring kids into the theaters, too. It’s also the sort of movie that makes everyone feel good. Though it leaves us comforted in our unchallenged and only superficially-examined sense of right and wrong, in the case of this film, that’s not a bad thing. It is, in short, a win-win film, one whose pedagogical effects are salubrious to malleable young minds, and reassuring to the rest of America.
 
The bio-pic is about Ken Carter and the basketball team of Richmond (California) High School. Carter undertakes the daunting job of coaching the unruly (and dismal failure) of a team — at a stipend of $1,500 for the season. From the beginning, we know that Carter is coaching for a reason other than money (let that be a lesson to all the multi-million dollar coaches and athletes out there). In fact, though his tenure at Richmond far pre-dated the recent incident in which basketball player Ron Artest and others brawled with fans during a game, that fracas speaks volumes about the lack of people like Carter in the academic lives of kids today. There is a strongly stated thesis in the film that personal discipline and respect for others and self is key to living a successful life — both on and off the court.
 
The Richmond players are foul-mouthed, disrespectful to each other and themselves, and have no athletic or academic discipline. Indeed, they are coasting on two things: their status as high school basketball team members, and the fact that sports is often seen as the only way “out” of poverty — or at least the illusion of a way out — for poor young males. At one point, Richmond’s principal tells Carter that the high school years of basketball are the only good memories these kids will ever have. The implication is that the kids should have some fun now, because the rest of their lives will amount to nothing.
 
But Carter believes otherwise. From the moment that Carter steps onto the court in his suit and tie, he knows exactly what he is doing. The athletes are stunned to learn that they are required to sign a contract with Carter to keep up a 2.3 GPA (the excellent reason for this is just one of many details that reveal the theory of life Carter is trying to teach to kids, parents, and school officials alike). Moreover, they have to sit in the front row of class, wear a suit and tie to games, and endure physically rigorous practice workouts.
 
As you can imagine, the team pulls together, with some hiccups here and there. The team wins and wins — until Carter learns the kids have not kept up their academic end of the contract. What happens next is, really, the heart of the film’s message to every American who sees it.
 
Typically, I see films like this and think, Why, oh why are you beating me over the head with this? Why are you oversimplifying the problem? Why are you not digging deeper? Why do you give us characters who never really challenge “what is right”? But then I realized what this film is: it is a civic lesson, and when all is said and done, it’s quite good at achieving its goal. Not only that, but the brilliant actor who defines gravity, Samuel L. Jackson, gives the sort of steady, subtle performance that makes us forgive the film its easy assumptions.
 
Carter is after bigger things than basketball wins. He is trying to help young people realize their crucial role in society’s — and so also their own — future. Socrates, on trial for, among other things, corrupting the youth, asked how that could be so. After all, if he was a corrupter of youth, when they grew up, would he not be the victim of the monster he helped create? Why would he not want everyone to be as good as possible, when that goodness will affect him later on?
 
This is part of the message of the film. Like Rousseau, the film believes that kids are good. They only become bad by society — in this case, by schools that do not demand kids achieve their intellectual best, but instead throw them the bone of basketball and let that be all that is expected. It is one of the film’s assumptions, to be sure. Not one kid — not even Cruz, who is in the most danger of succumbing to a drug dealing life — is beyond hope of success. It would be interesting to give Coach Carter a kid who is really “bad” to see what he can do (Socrates met such a figure in Callicles, a man who ultimately refused to follow reason. People such as these are the real challenge to society).
 
Nevertheless, given what I perceive to be the goal of the film, this assumption is okay. Kids need to see films that lay out ideas clearly and succinctly. In this way, the depth of questioning becomes up to the viewer, as his or her analytical skills allow. By presenting moral dilemmas in a fairly superficial way, kids can see both sides of the particular issue — in this case, whether or not Coach Carter was correct to lock out players until they met their side of the contract they signed with him. Little by little, Carter reveals his underlying purpose of every action he takes, and in the process, leads everyone along his path of reason.
 
And though the film is a bit melodramatic at times (I, for one, can always do without a score that systematically bludgeons you with wailing strings to feel this now! Feel this more!), I concede that’s probably part of the attraction, perhaps, for a film that is trying to teach us something.
 
There are some terrific performances. Actors Rick Gonzales (Timo Cruz), Rob Brown (Kenyon Stone), Antwoin Tanner (Worm), Robert Ri’chard (Damien Carter), and Ashanti (Kyra) all work well together, offering solid performances. Their work is, to my mind at least, genuine, and well balanced by the consummate Jackson, who gives them plenty of room to shine — what a hat trick that is! Here Jackson is playing a larger than life character, but manages to give the floor to compelling young actors without ever letting his character lose heft. Wow.

***

"The Challenge of Becoming Authentic, or Examples of Bad Reasoning:
An Analysis of Crash"

 
In Candide, Volatire’s 18th century satire, Dr. Pangloss’s mantra throughout increasingly horrific events is that ‘everything is for the best in this best of all possible worlds.’ A dig at the optimism of Enlightenment thinking, particularly that of philosopher G. W. Leibniz, who held that, since an all-powerful God created the universe, it must therefore be perfect. Our inability to see this perfection is the result of our limited perspective. If it is true that the universe is providentially ordered, then whatever circumstances obtain today are, indeed, when all is said and done, for the best. Voltaire mercilessly mocks this theory, and it’s not hard to see why.
 
To say that everything, even the most horrid, is really for the best reflects thinking that is hard for many to bear. Humans are, after all, living in a violent world (hello, tsunami) and behaving violently (hello, recorded history of human atrocities). However limited our perspective, individual events of mind-boggling cruelty seem to be so absolutely, and not resolvable into some greater goodness. Most of us are wary of resolving such events into a tidy conceptual package. To do so seems to trivialize any particular wrong — or right, for that matter.
 
It’s doubtful that Paul Haggis’ cosmology is Leibnizian, but in his new film, Crash, he establishes early on a specific social cosmos whose organizing principle is racism. Racial prejudice is the lens through which virtually all of Haggis’ characters view each other — things are indeed connected in this way, and so the events that seem coincidental actually play out against a pre-set fabric of intentions, beliefs, and attitudes. In other words, it seems to me that the circumstances and events that are deemed coincidental are actually effects of the social structure the characters enact and support everyday through their individual worldviews that are, in this film, informed by various racial and ethnic prejudices. Consequently, there are no coincidences.
 
For example, a dutiful daughter’s foresight (or mistake?) transforms an otherwise devastating incident. A petty, tightly-wound, wealthy housewife experiences a terrifying event, through which she begins to realize the truth about herself. A smarmy, racist cop, turns out to have a reason for his (misplaced) anger. Though we feel morally smug in our assessment of the low moral character exhibited by almost every character in the intersecting stories, we soon learn that our pretension is precisely the error at issue — virtually no one is unambiguously good or bad, however bad individual acts may be. To say otherwise is to lapse into intellectual torpidity, and I don’t see Haggis heading in that direction.
 
The overlapping stories, and specifically the points of connection, are fueled by this moral ambiguity, and it leads to what I understand the point of the film to be: our various assumptions about each other obfuscate moral responsibility, and these assumptions are themselves the product of poor reasoning. We’ve mistaken categories that organize our experience for objective value. What I mean is this: we get through our daily lives by relying on categorization — we distinguish one person from another in this way, much as we distinguish tables from chairs. Experience would be utterly chaotic otherwise. The difficulty comes when we go further, and begin to value individuals by categories. In other words, the moral problem is in rooting an individual’s worth not in his or her (arguably inherent) dignity as a human being, but in their cultural, religious, ethnic, racial, or gender classifications.
 
You might say, ‘Well, duh, the whole point of the film is to show us that it’s wrong to judge people based on race.’ But I don’t think that’s quite what Haggis is after. I could be wrong, but I think he’s concerned with how we reason about things, and race is just one way of reasoning about other people. Moreover, when we reason by limiting concepts such as race, we fail, in a fundamental way, to be rational. And if you think morality is a product of reason, as does one very influential Enlightenment thinker of whom I am very fond, then you would conclude that the failure to be rational is a failure to be moral. So, it seems to me that the film seeks to do more than critique our prejudices and encourage us to ‘just get along.’ The film is asking us what the conditions of getting along are, which is a far deeper question, and exceedingly more difficult to resolve.
 
I could have hated Crash. I could have found it trite, strenuously manipulative, obvious, and superficial. But I didn’t, because the film struck me as intellectually honest. The dialogue is direct and incisive, the direction is taught, the acting is meaty, the individual scenes are strong, and the storylines work to reveal genuine reversals — akin to what I understand Aristotle to mean when he talks about the cathartic moment in tragedy.
 
As I asked myself whether or not this film was, conceptually too easy, I began to think about the Museum of Tolerance here in Los Angeles. At the entrance to the museum proper, you are offered a “choice” of two doors: PREJUDICED and UNPREJUDICED. Not surprisingly, the latter door is locked. There is no subtlety: everyone is prejudiced. I have to say that I found this approach offensive. Firstly, I don’t like being lied to; it’s an offense to my rationality. Secondly, it strikes me as pedagogically unsound; being told what to think is not nearly as effective as a teacher setting the condition for a student to realize for herself the truth about something. And anyway, I uniformly loathe everybody — I’m a misanthrope. It’s the individual I like. Of course, I’m not agoraphobic.
 
In terms of moral pedagogy, I don’t equate Haggis’ film with the Museum of Tolerance. No doubt, in less skilled hands, this film would have become mired in cliché and coincidences that become copouts, pat resolutions, rather than instigations for further reflection. Haggis is economical, yet lingers on moments in which wonderful actors can imbue emotional depth into their characters with sharp dialogue or a single look.
 
In the final scene, things come full circle: a fender bender results in the same tired stream of ad hominem attacks from a woman who had herself been the victim of such vitriol. This scene suggests to me that Haggis does not think he has the answer, but is comfortable with posing this question: what are the fundamental rules of discourse, and what do we need to know to become productive participants?
 
The scene brings us full circle not just in terms of a car crash, but in terms of the ideas expressed in the opening dialogue. Police detective Graham (Don Cheadle) says at the start of the opening scene, “It’s the sense of touch. I think we miss that touch so much that we crash into each other just so we can feel something.” It seems to me that this dialogue functions like a premise in an argument, from which other premises are derived, until a conclusion is reached — or at least, until a question is posed. Without interaction, communication is not possible. But once interaction occurs, just what sort of communication is expected? What are the rules of discourse to which we all agree, so that we can not only understand each other, we can resolve disputes, amend our ideas, prove to others what we say is true, and so forth? This, it seems to me, is the conclusion of the film, and it’s posed in the form of a question — essentially the same question the initial crash poses at the beginning.
 
Enough about the larger context of the film. The individual scenes could stand alone as introductory meditations on moral questions, and even if you don’t care for the way the whole hangs together, to my mind, these scenes are worth the price of admission. The performances are excellent throughout. For some years, I’ve been partial to both Don Cheadle and Terence Howard, both hard-working actors who haven’t received the sort of box office attention I think they deserve. Indeed, it is only recently that Mr. Cheadle has broken into the so-called A-list category (I confess I haven’t a clue just what that means, except to say I think it means the popular club, and I think Cheadle and Howard should be lifetime members). Matt Dillon also gives a steely performance in a role that is arguably the most complex in the film. Though there’s not enough Sandra Bullock (the trailers make it seem as if she’s in virtually every scene), I’m actually glad, since she does what she needs to do with her character in very few scenes. Both Larenz Tate and Chris ‘Ludacris’ Bridges, are terrific as a pair and individually. They create young men who are intelligent, engaging, charming, bumbling, confused, and ultimately just like anyone else their age trying to figure out who they are (or supposed to be). There are other solid performances in this fine ensemble cast, but I was partial to those aforementioned.
 
In sum, this is a conceptually solid film, respectful of the audience’s intellectual ability to go beyond what is presented. It is well acted and directed, and worth the time spent to see it — not something one can recommend of most films released each year.

***

“Kinsey”

 
The porn actress, Jenna Jameson, has published a book, “How to Make Love Like a Porn Star”. Tellingly, it’s subtitled, “A Cautionary Tale”. Somehow, she loves sex and being the object of sexual desire, but still feels conflicted about it given a history of sexual abuse and objectification.
 
In many ways, the mainstream popularity of Ms. Jameson reflects a conflict similar to the one she seems to feel about her life story. It might be cool in American culture to be a “porn star,” but we still have attitudes about sex that tend to both celebrate and demean people who engage in it. I’m reminded of a comment made by Howard Stern on his radio show about how he was walking his dog early one morning and saw a woman taking “the walk of shame.” Why is it called that? Stern’s anecdote represents an attitude that sex is to be had and then the one who provides it is to be tossed aside like garbage. In other words, we’re more open about sex now — heck, everyone wants to be a porn star! It’s a standard for sexual attractiveness. Hey, have you taken that hot new pole dancing aerobics class? — but we’re no more enlightened about its significance than we were in the early part of the last century.
 
Bill Condon’s fine new film, “Kinsey”, acted with exquisite subtlety and substance by Liam Neeson, Laura Linney, and Peter Sarsgaard (the rest of the cast is quite good, too), is an interesting artifact of history, but covers a subject that is clearly relevant today. We may think we’ve come a long way, baby, but we’re still just playing dress-up with mommy’s clothing. All the porn stars in the world will not free us from our self-incurred immaturity — perhaps because in the end, they are no freer than the rest of us.
 
Frustrated with criticism over his research, Alfred C. Kinsey (Neeson) declares mid-way though the film that officious attitudes about sexual habits are nothing more than “morality disguised as fact.” This is an interesting assertion on its own, but taken in the context of Condon’s new film, a bio-pic about pioneering sex researcher, Alfred Kinsey, it reveals something fundamental about who Dr. Kinsey was, both personally and professionally.
 
We meet Kinsey as he trains graduate students, through direct but neutral corrections, how to interview people about their sexual histories. Previously, Kinsey was a zoologist who gained a fair reputation for his study and taxonomy of gall wasps. We learn through flashbacks, however, that he grew up in a repressively patriarchal household headed by Alfred Sequine Kinsey (John Lithgow), an academic and lay Methodist minister. We are given no choice but to recoil in knowing horror just how backward, narrow-minded, provincial, and oh-so-typical of his day the elder Dr. Kinsey was. That Alfred grew up to have any sort of independent and creative impulses is extraordinary. But both characteristics are prominently displayed by the time Kinsey, affectionately known as “Prok” at Indiana University, became a successful zoology professor.
 
The zeal with which the early Kinsey describes his beloved gall wasps to a somewhat apathetic class, and the devout admiration he has for that species’ great diversity, reveals to us Prok’s intellectual openness. It also reveals the foundation of his eventual thinking about human sexuality. He is a scientist in the best sense of the word, led by the facts, not by what he thinks the facts should be. This is a curiously interesting contrast to his father who, in his lay sermons during Kinsey’s youth, rails against modernity — including zippers, which greatly improves upon, uh, a certain body part’s ingress and egress through pants. Whereas the elder Kinsey views scientific and technological progress as developments to be feared, as developments that threaten to eviscerate religious morality, Prok has grown up to view scientific “fact” as morality neutral — things just are, rather than being good or bad.
 
Kinsey is not without morality, however. Indeed, for all his love of scientific inquiry, he accepts various religious and social mores, such as remaining a virgin until marriage, and later, when interviewing a sexual predator, stating that he does not approve of coercing anyone into doing something they do not want to do.
 
It is his unabashed (and endearing) enthusiasm for knowledge that attracts one of his students, Clara McMillen (Linney). “Mac” is a woman in the tradition of those 19th century “Bloomers” who rode bicycles in defiance of all that was pure and good about womanhood. To his happiness, she is every bit Prok’s equal, and though she eventually relinquishes her own academic aspirations in favor of hearth and home, she is his partner.
 
Kinsey’s area of study takes a radical turn when, after he and Mac experience wedding night sexual difficulties, they seek a medical explanation and remedy from their doctor. The touching and funny scene (of which there are quite a few early on in the film) is telling on two counts: first, that questions have answers, problems have solutions, and second, neither Mac nor Kinsey express any guilt shame or other weirdness in addressing the problem before them (her hymen, it turns out, is unusually dense, and his penis is, well, unusually large. Hence, sexual intercourse is not at all pleasant for her.) After the doctor’s visit, they have great sex ever after. (Speaking of their early confusion, it seems to me that the deft use of humor throughout much of the first half of “Kinsey” reveals the levels of social discomfort and downright ignorance about what we’re supposed to think of sex.)
 
Kinsey realizes that others likely have similar questions and confusions about sex, and he not only begins advising students (mainly by dispelling myths such as the belief that masturbation makes you sterile), but fights to take over sex education on campus by offering a marriage course. Supported by the university president (Oliver Platt) against the professor (Tim Curry) who teaches a euphemistically entitled sex education segment in his hygiene course, Kinsey’s class soon takes off. Big time.
 
After gathering both the funding and the staffing to research sex, Kinsey undertakes a monumental project, both in its scope and originality. He designs a study on human male sexuality by taking oral histories of thousands of people across the country (the reasons for personal interviews rather than questionnaires is also telling about our embarrassments over discussing sex in a straightforward manner). The results are not only shocking to the American public, they are also empowering. One strong theme of the film is that knowing you’re not alone in your sexual habits (we’re as diverse as the gall wasp) is a confidence-builder. The conclusion is that we’re hung up about a lot of things not really worth worrying about. This point is brought into stark relief when Kinsey, on a research trip to interview homosexual men, has his own homosexual encounter with one of his researchers, Clyde Martin (Sarsgaard).
 
Along the way, Kinsey amasses a collection of pornographic materials, from photographs to statuettes. The collection is remarkably impressive not just in its worldwide and historic scope, but also in its variety (and sameness. Apparently everybody’s got to have their something). Where once he collected gall wasps, he now collects sex artifacts and sex histories.
 
But soon enough, Kinsey begins losing support among his financial backers (the Rockefeller Foundation) and academic supporters (the university board), and several scenes suggest that he and his colleagues are no longer simply gathering facts for science, but see those facts as liberating them from societal constraints they view as puritanical rather than natural. This is another central theme of the movie.
 
With his health failing, Kinsey pursues private backing to pursue his next project on the sexual habits of the human female, but no one is willing to support him. Broken, but not defeated, Kinsey marches on.
 
He begins to wonder if anyone appreciates the work he has done. Vilified as a sexual pervert and drummed out of the scientific limelight, seems utterly oblivious to the consequences of his groundbreaking study. In one scene, comments he makes about sexual perversion winds up on the front page of the paper as a justification for rape. Then, as he interviews one woman the day after being rejected for funding, she gets up to thank him for saving her life. A closet lesbian shunned by her husband and children, she wanted to die. But Kinsey’s work helped her summon the courage to live, and to pursue a relationship with a woman. Kinsey is redeemed (although, to my mind, it’s a little too pat).
 
Controversial in the late 1940s, Kinsey is sure to be controversial again. Many will find offense in the film, not only its sexual content, but also in the way the man is portrayed. There are those who claim Kinsey was a pedophile, and a homosexual, and an overall miscreant. Whether or not these claims are true does not necessarily affect the quality of the film, particularly as some of the more interesting questions (at least to me) it asks do not require Kinsey himself to be any particular sort of man.
 
From the outset, the film sets up a dichotomy between science (fact, truth) and morality (myth, oppressive). It may very well be the case that many of our moral ideas are nothing more than etiquette prettied up to the point of ghastliness — like the attractive woman who wears so much make-up she winds up looking freakish. Some of the myths that grew up around the sex act, sexual behavior, and our sexual plumbing had some basis in fact — or at least what was known about sex at the time. Abstinence, for example, became a matter of moral conduct even though there are perfectly legitimate reasons to practice it.
 
What would have been interesting is if the film pushed further questions about the intersection of fact and morality. There are allusions to it, as for example, when we reduce sex to biology. Kinsey and Mac argue over his homosexual infidelity with Clyde. Kinsey says, “sex is nothing compared to that” (i.e., their marriage), but Mac protests that sex is an integral part of their marriage. It is part of what the marriage means. In a very real sense, the taxonomist has no place trying to quantify sex. On the one hand, it’s great to be liberated from myth (which we, the audience, smugly think we are. There was a knowingness to some of the laughter I heard in the theater. This even as we continue today to participate in oppressive ideas about sex that masquerade as liberatory and empowering). The problem with being liberated from myth by the facts is that the facts don’t tell us what to do. The facts “be”, they don’t be in a particular way. Yet being in a particular way is precisely what it is we humans do — especially with each other.
 
Moreover, the social extensions of sexual relationships, such as the questionable morality of student-professor affairs, whether straight or homosexual, are never questioned in the film. Mr. Condon is well within his rights not to do so, particularly if these relations were never questioned by Kinsey himself, but it seems worth the discussion, especially given the confrontation between Mac and Kinsey described above.
 
What the film does press, and what will make many people very uncomfortable, is the distinction between value and fact, morality and knowledge, religion and science. Though these are not necessarily mutually exclusive concepts, they have come to be thought as much. Indeed, much of the history of church vs. science seems to be a tussle over nature. In other words, what constitutes nature, and what inferences can we draw from it? It is natural to have sex, to be sure, and one inference drawn by religious morality is that sex is to be had exclusively by monogamous, heterosexual couples for the purpose of procreation. Science, looking also to nature, draws different conclusions — at least the conclusions drawn by the film seem to be derived as follows: If human animals are like other animals, and other animals’ sex lives appear diverse and free of morality, why do we have so many of those very associations with sex? The film ends with a montage of non-human animal mating clips. If you’ve ever seen non-human animals having sex, it looks to be at times violent, indiscriminate, quick, anonymous, incestuous, and, in the end, a brute fact of existence and survival of the species. Is sex really like that for us too, but we delude ourselves with religious ideas that keep us from the truth? Which brutishness seems worse?
 
 
“Kinsey”
Written and Directed by: Bill Condon
Starring: Liam Neeson, Laura Linney, Chris O'Donnell, Peter Sarsgaard, Timothy Hutton, John Lithgow, Tim Curry, and Oliver Platt
Produced by: Gail Mutrux
Director of Photography: Fredrick Elmes, A.S.C.
Production Design by: Richard Sherman
Edited by: Virginia Katz
 
Fox Searchlight Pictures
Rated "R"
Running Time: 118 minutes

***

"Evidence, but not proof"

 
The language of mathematics is the sort of elegant system that reveals to us a harmonious and immutable universe. Mathematics, if you're a Platonist, reaches out and touches Reality. One fortunate enough to have the sort of "machine" to process such grandeur, let alone contribute an original Idea to the field, may however, become afflicted with the sort of mental illness that might accompany acquaintance with Reality. Such is often the case with genius — at least the genius of fiction.
 
We need our geniuses to be touched. If they weren't, we'd hate them. (Then again, the fictional version of Salieri in Amadeus hates the genius of his competitor because Mozart is all too human. But that's the exception.) After all, superior creatures should not breeze through life while the rest of us slog our way toward mediocrity, thrilled to achieve any level of competence only after the most difficult toils — and maybe not even then. Besides, most of us cannot fathom what it would be like to have the sort of intellect that yields revolutionary theories as if divinely inspired. We have to account for it, then, by way of madness.
 
Such would seem to be the case with Catherine (Gwyneth Paltrow) and her genius mathematician gone insane father, Robert (Anthony Hopkins). Robert's best work was completed before he was twenty-five, and sometime later he succumbed to mental illness, which robbed him of what once made him great. It is through the prism of his genius — and illness — that his daughter views her entire existence.
 
When we meet Catherine, she is deep in the throes of grief and the agony of self-doubt. She may be, like her father, on her way toward irretrievable mental illness, ultimately bereft of the one talent that makes her think her life worthwhile, and that binds her to her brilliant progenitor.
 
But really, mathematics, academia, and genius are really just the collective backdrop — albeit rather interesting ones — for a meditation on identity and love. Hence the supporting characters, Claire (Hope Davis) and Hal (Jake Gyllenhaal), don't necessarily do much to amplify the central questions of the film. Instead, they provide the catalyst to push those questions forward.
 
These questions revolve around the mystery of who wrote an original proof of the Germain theory found in a notebook locked away in Robert's desk: Catherine or Robert. With Robert unable to verify that he authored the work (and would he, even if he could?), there is only Catherine's word that in fact she is the true author. But as her own mental stability is in doubt, and since she never completed the training commonly considered requisite to contemplate such a proof, there is good reason to be skeptical of her claim. Perhaps Catherine is simply trying to assert her own value and identity after having abandoned her own career in mathematics to care for her father during his illness. And anyway, the writing looks identical to his. Besides, although Robert had not produced any quality work in decades, and with his mental health threadbare it seems unlikely that he could have produced the work, it's not impossible. There were nine months several years previously when he was well enough to function on his own.
 
As the film flashes back to reveal that period in which the proof was constructed, we see that Catherine's notions of her own identity do not easily square with her taking credit for her father's work, and they do suggest she possesses an original mind (then again, the flashbacks are construed from Catherine's point of view, so they could be colored with her memory's desire). In any case, what we do see is a complex and deeply felt relationship between a father and daughter. Robert admonishes Catherine to pursue her considerable mathematical skills before she is too old, yet his illness prevents her from any such pursuit. She loves and reveres him too much to consign him to an institution, but instead devotes herself to his care — and perhaps to his last burst of mathematical genius. All the while, however, she struggles to continue developing and formulating her own ideas outside the legitimating authority of the academy.
 
Catherine's devotion to her father says as much about her moral worldview as it does about her personal identity — and why, if the proof is hers, she might want to let the world believe that the groundbreaking work is her father's. After all, we are led to believe that Catherine wants to preserve her father's human value just as much as his intellectual value (and maybe, in doing so, ensure her own). It is not easy to make people believe that icons are human. We tend to think of someone's worth in terms of what they have produced. What, then, do we say about those who can do so no longer? Catherine's professor says her father "was a great man." "He is a great man," she corrects him. And she is his daughter.
 
That Catherine initially discloses the work to Hal, and then claims it as her own, reveals the urge each of us has to become an individual, to strike out on one's own. One imagines this claim is at once both the expression of that urge, but also homage to her beloved father. Then again, had she left the proof under her father's name, she would have accomplished at least the latter end.
 
Proof is a good film based upon the stage play of the same name. Such films should be made, whenever translation is possible, since most Americans can't get to the New York or London stages, but they can get to their local cinema. After all, a film that asks us to consider the nature of personal identity, love, madness, genius, and reality is worth seeing.

***

“Twighlight Samurai”

 
Simply put, “The Twilight Samurai” (“Tasogare Seibei”) is a lovely film. Whether you’re a fan of foreign films or not, this Japanese period piece (in Japanese with English subtitles) operates on a variety of thematic levels, each of which unfolds and interweaves with the others seamlessly. This is a film that is not in a hurry, and drawn into its world, neither are we.
            It is 19th century Japan, during the Mejii Restoration and the so-called twilight of the samurai. Change is everywhere. After his wife dies from consumption, Seibei Iguchi (the beautiful and dignified Hiroyuki Sanada) is left with two young daughters and an aged, senile mother. A lowly samurai, Seibei secretly sells his sword, the heart of his identity in his clan, to pay for his wife’s funeral. Now not only impoverished, but also alone, he finds a wealth of love in his devotion to his daughters (the precocious and delicious Erina Hashiguchi, and the pensive and lovely Miki Itô.)
            Instead of carousing with colleagues after work, Seibei prefers returning home to his lively and intimate home to be with his daughters and mother.  For this he is mocked behind his back by his colleages with the moniker, ‘Mr. Twilight.’  At home, he works through the night making insect cages from bamboo in order to earn extra money, but life is hard, and he has no help to speak of.  In a lovely and foreshadowing exchange between older daughter Kayana (Itô) and Sebei, we see the complexity of his moral character.  Kayana suggests that studying Confucious might not help her earn money or become a good wife.  Instead of supporting the then-contemporary notions of woman as an inferior creature, Seibei tells his daughter that “book learning” instills in one “the power to think through change.”
            Indeed, change is at hand.  The day of the samurai is fading into dusk, as we see when Sebei runs into his friend, Iinuma (Mitsuru Fukikoshi).  Men are being trained with new technology — rifles — as Iinuma tells Sebei that his sister Tomoe  (who was also Sebei’s childhood sweetheart) has escaped an abusive husband.  Later, Tomoe (the radiant Rie Miyazawa) visits Sebei, and a comfortable friendship is rekindled.
            The reunion is darkened, however, by the reappearance of Tomoe’s ex-husband, and through her exchange with him, as well as her interactions with Sebei and his family, and her brother’s wife, reveal Tomoe to be no ordinary Japanese woman.  She is in every respect Sebei’s equal, and it is clear he loves and respects her deeply.

            Yet, when Tomoe’s brother suggests to Sebei that Tomoe and Sebei marry, Sebei declines, feeling his status unworthy of Tomoe’s family’s higher rank.  They stop seeing each other, and it is not until Sebei is called to kill a samurai who refuses to commit suicide after a clan power struggle that Sebei reveals to Tomoe his true feelings.  He goes off to battle believing he will never again see his true love or daughters again.
            The reunion is darkened by the reappearance of Tomoe’s ex-husband, and through her exchange with him, as well as her interactions with Sebei and his family, and her brother’s wife, reveal Tomoe to be no ordinary Japanese woman. She is in every respect Sebei’s equal, and it is clear he loves and respects her deeply.
            Yet, when Tomoe’s brother suggests to Sebei that Tomoe and Sebei marry, Sebei declines, feeling his status unworthy of Tomoe’s family’s higher rank. They stop seeing each other, and it is not until Sebei is called to kill a samurai who refuses to commit suicide after a clan power struggle that Sebei reveals to Tomoe his true feelings. He goes off to battle believing he will never again see his true love or daughters again.
            This is a samurai film of a different order than those digitally enhanced or swordfight drenched films of the genre. Here, when a swordfight is inevitable, each movement feels authentic, and every heaving breath of exhaustion truly earned. Moreover, the fighting is entailed by the moral character of Sebei, instead of as an excuse to effect fancy moves.
At the same time, however, the movie allows the audience to find the various levels at which the film operates. Instead of bludgeoning the audience with “Big, Important Moral Ideas,” the filmmaker, veteran director Yoji Yamada, allows sparse dialogue (at least in its English translation) and attention to detail draw us into the film’s many layers. It is as if Hemingway-esque prose is adorned by a luxurious yet practical Japanese robe. When Sebei’s brusque, domineering uncle suggests he marry again, Sebei tries to explain that he likes his life as it is, watching his daughters grow like flowers in a field. His uncle spits back, “What has marriage to do with crops in a field?” If you see this film, you will know.

***

"The Panic of Not Knowing Why"

 
 
Knowing the difference that something is the case (like that the wind is blowing toward a storm cloud rather than away from it) and knowing why it is the case (aliens bent on annihilation of Earth and all its human inhabitants) is pretty significant. It's the difference between someone who knows causes and someone who does not.
 
Most often, we humans are lazy; we like to leave the hard work of learning about and explaining causes to the "experts," like scientists or religious leaders. Unfortunately for Ray Ferrier (Tom Cruise) and the rest of humanity, when alien Tripods emerge from deep within the earth and start incinerating people and buildings, there's no time to wonder about causes. There's barely time to run for your life.
 
Ray is a dockworker, divorced from Mary Ann (Miranda Otto), and so disconnected from son Robbie (Justin Chatwin), and daughter Rachel (Dakota Fanning) he might as well not be a father at all. The day the aliens arrive, however, is the day Ray is scheduled to take over parenting duties while his ex and her husband head off to Boston.
 
A series of increasingly bizarre "natural" events build up to the first appearance of the Tripod – one of many that will come up through the ground and start wreaking havoc on the world. Once Ray realizes that it's not safe to stay where they are, he commandeers the only working vehicle and, with kids in tow, sets out for Boston. Why Boston? Well, Ray has no idea what the heck's going on, but if he can get his children safely back in the hands of their mother, at least he won't have to be responsible for them.
 
It's a curious problem, not knowing why we're being attacked, and not knowing how to make it stop. It is in this vacuum of ignorance that Spielberg weaves the fabric of panic and confusion that permeate the film. It also forces Ray to make choices he never expected to make, choices that, at the time, he is not really sure are correct because he's never been in this particular situation before. If that's not panic inducing all by itself, surely it becomes so in the context of behemoth machines destroying everything without apparent rhyme or reason.
 
When everything else, such as social structure, is almost entirely eradicated (at least the American military doesn't give up), what's left – in Ray's case, at least – is family. In whatever form it takes, individual bonds are the foundation of civilization. This is abundantly clear in the character of Ray, who has isolated himself from his former family so thoroughly that he has no real idea of how to connect with them. Of course, it is compounded when the aliens arrive – would a "real" dad know what to do to save his kids?
 
This point is further illustrated by the technological breakdown that severs communication beyond first-person interaction. Rumors abound ('I heard that Paris is untouched…'), but no one really knows anything.
 
The prism of contemporary terrorism looms large in the film, too. Whether or not Spielberg intends us to view the film through the lens of a post-9/11 world, one in which our war in Iraq is viewed either as an attempt at liberation or blatant occupation, is arguably irrelevant. We just do see the connections, and this is a testament to the serviceability of the original story by H. G. Wells, just as much as it is a testament to the human urge to "make sense of things," to look for causes... Surely Spielberg illustrates this propensity by having young Rachel ask at the outset of the attack, "Is it the terrorists?" What else could a little girl, who was likely too young to have anything but blurry recollections of 2001, think about what is happening?
 
Overall, the film is worth seeing (though that should be no substitute for the original story, Orson Wells' radio play, or the 1953 version of the film). There are a number of lapses for which I could not find explanations, but to my mind they do not overshadow the value of the whole. For, once all the panic is over, we reflect on why we felt the way we did, or why Ray makes the choices he does. It seems to me that's as good a reason as any for watching a film that also has to its credit excellent sound design and score, fantastic special effects, expert directing and editing, and a look that makes you feel something like a mouse alone in a sealed room with a cat.

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