TWO OSCAR NOMINEES MAKE FLAWED PEOPLE LOOK SURPRISINGLY GOOD
THE READER ***
DIRECTED BY Stephen Daldry
STARRING Kate Winslet, David Kross, Ralph Fiennes
US 2008 124 mins.
FROST / NIXON ***
DIRECTED BY Ron Howard
STARRING Michael Sheen, Frank Langella, Kevin Bacon
US 2008 122 mins.
Strange how these things run in twos. Last week I noted how two of this year’s Best Picture Oscar nominees – Slumdog Millionaire and Benjamin Button – shared a strangely fatalistic worldview, predicated on the notions (respectively) that “It is written” and “Everything is predetermined”. Now here are two more nominees – both having opened on the same weekend in Cyprus cinemas – which share an even more uncommon trait (especially uncommon in Oscar nominees, which tend to be uncontroversial): both depend to a large extent on soliciting sympathy for people who might seem at best flawed, at worst actively monstrous.
The Reader has the more daunting task, insofar as its would-be sympathetic heroine is a cradle-snatching ex-Nazi who seduces a 15-year-old boy (then breaks his heart), used to be a concentration-camp guard and once locked 300 Jews in a burning church and watched them die. Wait, hear me out … I admit it sounds bad – but the film tries hard to see her side, and besides she is played by Kate Winslet. Take the underage sex, for instance. It’s not that she sets out to seduce the boy; she just helps him when he’s taken sick in the street (it turns out he has scarlet fever) – then, when he comes by to thank her later, it so happens that she asks him to bring some coal up from the basement. And of course he gets all dirty from carrying the coal (you know how boys are). So of course she has to run him a bath. And of course he has to take off all his clothes…
Simple, yes? Nothing reminiscent of a bad porn movie in that scenario. The Nazi thing is a bit more complicated, and indeed it has our hero (David Kross as a mixed-up boy; Ralph Fiennes as a mixed-up man) mooning around as if poleaxed for most of the second half, trying to make sense of it all. Still, there are extenuating circumstances. For one thing, as David’s friend complains at Kate’s trial, she’s being made a scapegoat. “Everybody knew” about the camps; it was never a case of a few bad apples – the whole nation is collectively guilty (just to press the point, David is taking a course called “The Question of German Guilt”). “What would you have done?” Kate asks the judge point-blank when survivors recall how Kate and the others used to choose prisoners at random, to be sent to the gas chambers. Yes, says Kate, we did it. New prisoners were coming in all the time. There was simply no room for everyone; some had to go. “What would you have done?” – and the judge is silent, because what can he say? Even those 300 Jews in the burning church weren’t all Kate’s fault; the film shows her fellow guards, standing in the dock beside her – middle-aged hags, one and all – laying the blame on her to save their own skins. Oh, those sneaky Nazis.
Maybe I sound flippant, especially considering that I’d recommend the film (albeit not to everyone; sensitive women on the cusp of middle-age are its best audience) – but the truth is I admire it partly as a con-trick, notably the way it disguises controversial material by smothering it in tastefulness. Everything is careful, prettified, tasteful. A suicide is tastefully-done. Even a vomiting scene is tastefully-done. Yet there’s so much pathology on view here – above all in the late-breaking twist that explains the significance of the title, revealing our heroine as a twisted woman who craves, then destroys her ‘betters’ (there’s a reason, it turns out, why she always got prisoners to read to her before sending them to their deaths – just as she always gets the kid to read to her). The presence of Susanne Lothar as the boy’s mum brings to mind Michael Haneke, the Austrian director behind The Piano Teacher (Lothar often acts in his films) – and makes you wish someone like Haneke had been in charge, to mine that pathology and bring out its weird ambiguities. Still, The Reader is already pretty weird as it is.
Frost/Nixon isn’t weird, exactly, but it’s also a bit of a con-trick – ostensibly a tale of how talk-show host David Frost (Michael Sheen) got Richard Nixon (Frank Langella) to admit responsibility for Watergate in a series of TV interviews, except its sympathies somehow end up in the wrong place. The film is entertaining, but what begins as political drama develops into sports movie: director Ron Howard once made Cinderella Man (2005) and seems to have structured Frost in similar fashion. The champ (Nixon) is invincible; things look hopeless for the challenger, he’s staring defeat in the face – but then, in the very last round, he somehow musters enough strength for a knockout blow. He even gets a training montage, albeit disguised as a last-minute cramming session.
So far, so familiar – but Nixon somehow wriggles out of the story’s death-grip, ending the film a more substantial character than his antagonist. Partly, it’s a question of performances: Langella is a marvel – droll, masterful, radiating growly authority – while Sheen just mugs and grins (he looks a bit like Eric Idle of Monty Python in those sketches where he played an oily salesman). Partly, however, it’s the script by Peter Morgan, who not only gives Nixon all the best lines but arranges it so he’s always in control: Nixon directly engineers the climactic confession, not just spurring Frost into action with his late-night phone call but choosing to confess of his own volition, taking the air out of the interviewer’s triumph. He’s the one “controlling the space”.
Morgan worked similar voodoo in The Queen (2006), another film that burnished Establishment authority in the guise of picking it apart; Nixon is a much nastier figure than Elizabeth II – he’s a racist, a snob, obsessed with money – yet in the end it’s Frost who has to win the disgraced ex-President’s respect, not vice versa. Frost/Nixon gets by on seriousness and topicality – there are clear parallels between Nixon/Bush and Vietnam/Iraq – yet it’s dumbed-down and even a bit pernicious. How do you even approach a ‘political’ film with “Nixon” in the title that thinks so little of its audience it feels the need to explain Nixon’s fear of perspiring on live TV, stemming from his infamous debate with JFK in 1960? I mean, it’s only the most famous TV-related political anecdote of the past 50 years.
Still, Frost/Nixon is enjoyable. It’s brisk and very watchable, and touches on more intriguing issues than the average genre flick. As with The Reader, there’s something very satisfying about these lavish, tasteful, Oscar-friendly dramas. They’re out to edify as well as entertain, making it all the more fascinating when they stray into perverse or unsettling territory. I’m sure many Oscar voters would be shocked to learn that the films tipped for Best Picture ask them to side – or at least sympathise – with a cold-blooded killer and a cold-hearted, deeply corrupt politician. But they do.
NEW DVD RELEASES
Here’s our regular look at the more interesting titles released on DVD in the US and UK over the past few months. Some may be available to rent from local video clubs, or you can always order over the Internet: dozens of suppliers, but http://www.amazon.com (for US) and http://www.play.com (for UK) are among the most reliable, if not necessarily the cheapest. Prices quoted don’t include shipping. Note that US discs are ‘Region 1’, and require a multi-region player.
NEW FILMS
COUSCOUS: Also known as ‘The Secret of the Grain’ (a much better title), award-winning French drama – following a Fr
ench-Arab family trying to open a restaurant – comes to DVD a few months after being shown at the Open-Air Festival in Nicosia. Only real extra is a 23-minute interview with director Abdel Kechiche. [UK]
THE STRANGERS: Effective, stripped-down horror movie comes in two versions, Theatrical Cut (86 mins.) and Unrated Cut (88 mins.). Are you hard enough? [US]
ZOMBIE STRIPPERS: Not as much fun as it sounds (then again, how could it be?), horror comedy comes with deleted scenes, a featurette on “zombie makeup” and more. [UK]
THAT MITCHELL AND WEBB LOOK, SERIES 2: Special mention for zany British sketch-show, one of the zillions of TV series on DVD. [UK]
OLD FILMS
VERTIGO (1958), REAR WINDOW (1954) and PSYCHO (1960): Special Editions: Hitchcock super-classics in 2-disc packages with loads of extras – mostly featurettes, documentaries and old interviews, plus an episode from the ‘Alfred Hitchcock Presents’ TV show (a precursor to ‘Tales of the Unexpected’). [US]
ALFRED HITCHCOCK PREMIERE COLLECTION: More Hitchcock, but one of the DVD scandals of 2008: a great collection, with eight films including ‘Rebecca’ (1940), ‘Notorious’ (1946), ‘Young and Innocent’ (1937), ‘Lifeboat’ (1944) and ‘The Lodger’ (1926) – but poor packaging means that many of the sets (especially those ordered online and shipped across the globe) are damaged and unplayable. Caveat emptor – though a must-have package with loads of extras, if you don’t fall prey to technical problems. [US]
A TASTE OF HONEY (1961), A KIND OF LOVING (1962) and POOR COW (1967): Classics of British ‘kitchen-sink realism’, newly released in skimpy (but cheap) editions. [UK]
TOUCH OF EVIL (1958): 50th Anniversary Edition: Deluxe 2-disc package with three (slightly) different versions of Orson Welles masterpiece plus lavish extras, including commentary with (now deceased) star Charlton Heston. [US]
THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT (1972): Nasty horror movie, banned in Britain for many years, now gets a 3-disc package with lots of special features including never-before-seen footage and a full-length documentary, “Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film”. Worth the fuss? You be the judge. [UK]
WHAT? (1973): More 70s sleaze, an Italian sex comedy by Roman Polanski (of all people), starring Marcello Mastroianni. Smarter than it looks, DVD extras including three interviews with cast and crew. [UK]
THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY (1945): Best-ever version of the Oscar Wilde classic about ageless man who keeps a portrait in the attic (the film is in black-and-white; the portrait is in colour). Extras include commentary with Angela Lansbury – who co-starred in the film and won an Oscar nomination, aged 19 – and a Tom & Jerry cartoon, ‘Quiet Please!’. [US]
CHARLEY VARRICK (1973): Not just a great 70s crime movie (starring Walter Matthau), but part of the ‘Budget Releases’ put out by a company called Fremantle: others include ‘They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?’ (1969) and ‘Junior Bonner’ (1972), all at £5.99 each. Bargain! [UK]
