Carol

Posted on November 24, 2015 at 5:54 pm

The most romantic movie of the year is “Carol,” based on a novel by Patricia Highsmith, the author of Strangers on a Train and The Talented Mr. Ripley. But Carol, her second novel, was originally published under another title and under another name. It was semi-autobiographical, it was the story of a lesbian relationship, and, unlike the rest of the very limited literature about lesbians at the time, it was not a tragic story. It was almost four decades before Highsmith acknowledged that she was the author.

There is some irony, then, in the idea that this film, depicting a story that was so controversial in the repressed “love that dare not speak its name” mid-century time when it was written is for that very reason ideally suited to depict a romance that is so rich and resonant. Now, when writers complain about how difficult it is to come up with believable ways to keep their characters from having sex in the first act (Stephenie Meyer had to make her male character a vampire for that reason in the Twilight series), making this love affair doubly forbidden by making the couple both women in the conformist 1950’s is the ultimate depiction of the anxious giddiness of being on the brink of falling in love.

The longing. The hesitation. The ecstasy of feeling seen. The harrowing insecurity of feeling seen. The exquisite torture of it all.

This is all gorgeously portrayed in every detail on the screen. Director Todd Haynes, working with an outstanding team of designers and director of photography Edward Lachman tells the story with each setting and camera angle and the flawless performances of the two lead actors, Cate Blanchett in the title role as a wealthy woman in the midst of a divorce and Rooney Mara as Therese, a young shopgirl and would-be photographer.

The intricacy, the precision, and the delicacy of the storytelling allows us to experience the relationship along with the two women. It wisely avoids the usual lazy shortcuts to indicate attraction: the “You love this obscure thing? I love the same obscure thing!” conversation or the montage over a pop song. Instead, the conversational topics are mundane and the responses are not especially witty or incisive. But what we see is that they are good enough for Therese and Carol, and that pulls us in.

Haynes skillfully makes sure that the relationship never seems predatory, even though Carol is older, sophisticated, and wealthy and Therese is young, inexperienced, and vulnerable. Therese herself admits she is so unsure of herself she can hardly figure out what to order for lunch. Haynes and his stars never allow the relationship to seem anything but equally chosen. Even a scene where Carol tries out some make-up on Therese avoids the usual “makeover” trope. When she tells Therese to touch the perfume to her pulse points, we can feel both sets of pulses flutter. The dialogue is often oblique, but its meaning is always true-hearted.

Parents should know that this film includes sexual references and an explicit situation, nudity, some strong language, drinking, smoking, and discussions of divorce, adultery, and custody.

Family discussion: What do we learn from the questions Therese asked Richard? How does this movie illustrate what one character calls the difference between what people say and what they really feel?

If you like this, try: “Far from Heaven” and “Strangers on a Train”

Truth

Posted on October 22, 2015 at 5:03 pm

Often a movie “based on a true story” confirms and extends our understanding of what happened. This film, based on the “true story” that led to the departure of one of the most respected newsmen of all time, Dan Rather, from CBS, asserts its ambitions with its title and goes on to explore the very nature of truth and our willingness or ability to uncover and recognize it. I did not have strong views about what happened in 2004, just a recollection of the incident as a turning point, with the most respected broadcast journalist in the country being brought down by bloggers, who were able to determine that documents relied on in a story about President George W. Bush were forgeries. In my mind, the story was about the shift from old to new media, where the Davids of the blogosphere could challenge the powerful Goliaths of CBS News.

But in this movie, based on the book by Rather’s producer, Mary Mapes (Cate Blanchett, blazingly intelligent and forceful), we see another side of the story, written by James Vanderbilt. This is her version (if there is such a thing as versions) of the truth.

No matter which version of the story you believe, lesson number one of this movie is that you are at your most vulnerable when you feel most powerful. Mapes has just come off the greatest triumph of her career, the Peabody award-winning story about the horrific abuse of prisoners by the US military at Abu Ghraib. She is looking for another great scoop, and as the Presidential election approaches, it looks like she has one. Rumors about special treatment for George W. Bush, both in being allowed to serve in the National Guard and during his time there, have circulated for years, and now there seems to be substantiation, including on-the-record statements by the former Lieutenant Governor and some memos from the younger Bush’s commanding officer. Four document experts were called in by Mapes to authenticate the documents and, with the proviso that as photocopies there was no way to test the ink or paper of the originals to verify them completely, the experts signed off. The other steps taken by Mapes and the staff of reporters, including research expert Mike Smith (Topher Grace, who should be in more movies) and former military officer Dennis Quaid (ditto), are impressive. But it is possible that their supervisors did not ask enough questions and it is certain that moving up the broadcast date at the last minute cut off their ability to lock down all of the story.

And then it all fell apart. Bloggers identified problems with the memos’ fonts that indicated they were created on a computer, not a typewriter, and thus could not have been written in the 1970’s. CBS convened a commission led by a former (Republican) Attorney General to review the story. Their focus was not as much on whether the story was true or not (the memos were just one small part of the story) but whether the reporters had a political agenda.

A lot of people got fired. Smith makes a speech on the way out the door that identifies a culprit more insidious than partisan politics — corporate conflicts of interest. There are times when protection of shareholder value is not consistent with getting the story. The most important question this movie asks is what that means for democracy and for, well, truth.

Parents should know that this movie has very strong language and brief nudity in a photograph. Characters drink and take medicine to deal with stress. There are references to torture and child abuse and there are tense confrontations.

Family discussion: What should Mary have done differently? How did her childhood experiences affect her relationship with Rather and her response to her father? Should she have followed her lawyer’s advice?

If you like this, try two other fact-based films about journalists fighting to expose the truth about powerful people: “All the President’s Men” and “Spotlight“

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Based on a true story Drama Journalism

Trailer: “Truth” with Robert Redford and Cate Blanchett

Posted on September 29, 2015 at 9:00 am

Robert Redford plays Dan Rather, one of the most respected journalists in television, whose career collapsed after he reported a story about George W. Bush’s military service that turned out to be based on forged documents. Cate Blanchett and Topher Grace co-star in “Truth,” which tells that story.

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In Production: Rumors of Cate Blanchett as Lucille Ball and a “Galaxy Quest” TV Series

Posted on September 9, 2015 at 3:13 pm

Exciting news! There are rumors that Cate Blanchett will be playing red-headed comedy icon Lucille Ball in a new film produced by Ball’s children, Lucie Arnaz and Desi Arnaz, Jr. The screenplay will be by “West Wing’s” Aaron Sorkin, and the focus will be on the relationship between Ball and her co-star and husband, Desi Arnaz.

And one of my favorite movie comedies is set to become a television series for Amazon Prime. “Galaxy Quest” is a movie about the actors from a “Star Trek”-style television series who discover that aliens, thinking the series was real life, have replicated their spaceship. So there is a special fitness to having the fictional television series become a reality.

By Grabthar’s hammer, here’s hoping both projects become a reality and that they are everything we hope, so no one has any ‘splainin’ to do.

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In Production

The New Yorker’s Actress Profiles: Tilda Swinton, Angela Bassett, Katharine Hepburn, and More

Posted on May 29, 2015 at 8:00 am

The New Yorker has created a section with some of its best profiles of actresses, including Angela Bassett, Julia Roberts, Diane Keaton, Tilda Swinton, and Katharine Hepburn. They are a treat to read and will inspire you to check out or revisit some of their classic performances.

Anthony Lane on Julia Roberts in 2001: “The essence of Julia Roberts’s appeal is that she is more lovable than desirable, and that, even when love is off the menu, she cannot not be liked. There is no more flattering illusion in movies: here is a goddess, and she wants to be your friend.”

Claudia Roth Pierpont on Katharine Hepburn in 2003: “With her starved, whippetlike grace and overbearing intensity, Katharine Hepburn appeared slightly mad. But the same characteristics also made her seem a distinctly new type of woman, poised between the nervy and the nervously overwrought.”

Hilton Als on Angela Bassett in 1996: “While she has yet to account for a film’s financial success, her dignified, alert, and earnestly emotive screen presence does generate audience sympathy. And she appeals especially to that segment of the moviegoing public (black women, white housewives, lesbians, and married men) who are not just fetishizing her striking upper-body musculature but are responding to the subtext of her performances—a subtext that includes her struggle to reinvent Hollywood’s view of black women as something other than wisecracking or doleful martyrs, their hair stiff with brilliantine and the funk of subjugation.”

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Actors