Image by Thanks for your Like • donations welcome from Pixabay I have already shared my unexpected admiration for one of P.T. Anderson’s films listed in the book “1,001 Movies You Must See Before You Die” by Steven Jay Schneider: There Will Be Blood. And with the release of Anderson’s newest film, Licorice Pizza, this weekend, I thought I’d do the same with another one of his movies: Boogie Nights, the 1997 period dramedy starring Mark Wahlberg.
[NOTE: This blog will contain spoilers for “Boogie Nights.” You have been warned.] The History P.T. Anderson’s inspiration for Boogie Nights came largely from a 1981 documentary about adult film star John Holmes. As a senior in high school, Anderson gathered members of his extended friend circle such as Michael Stein and Eddie Dalcour to star in a mockumentary based on the Holmes documentary. Narrated by Anderson’s father Ernie, this 1988 short film was titled The Dirk Diggler Story. According to Anderson, the short film was positively received by an audience at the University of Southern California. During production troubles on his feature directorial debut, Hard Eight, Anderson completed a screenplay that expanded on the story of his short film. He originally envisioned Leonardo DiCaprio (Catch Me If You Can, The Aviator, The Wolf of Wall Street) in the lead role, but he was forced to turn it down due to his commitment to starring in James Cameron’s romantic historical epic Titanic. However, DiCaprio liked Anderson’s screenplay and recommended Mark Wahlberg (The Departed, The Other Guys) for the role despite Wahlberg’s relative lack of acting experience. Several actors were considered for the supporting role of Jack Horner, from Bill Murray (Ghostbusters, Groundhog Day, Lost in Translation) to Harvey Keitel (Taxi Driver, Bugsy, The Irishman), before the role went to the late Burt Reynolds (The Longest Yard, Smokey and the Bandit) which ended up reviving his career. However, there has been some confusion regarding Reynolds’s views on the film and his participation in it. Contemporary reports claimed that Reynolds and Anderson had a strenuous partnership during filming, and that after seeing a rough cut of the film Reynolds supposedly fired his agent. He declined to be in Anderson’s next film, Magnolia, but in later years has referred to the film as “extraordinary” and said that his opinion of Anderson does not color his view of the film. Filmed on a budget of 15 million dollars, Boogie Nights premiered in October of 1997 and went on to gross nearly triple its budget. Critics praising the film at the time singled out the performances of Wahlberg as Dirk Diggler, Reynolds as Jack Horner, and Julianne Moore as Amber Waves. They also singled out the skilled production design managing to capture the 1970s so accurately, and many applauded the film’s themes and character work. At the Academy Awards that year, both Reynolds and Moore were nominated for their performances (but did not win) and Anderson was nominated for Best Original Screenplay (but did not win). The Pros In my blog about my second-favorite P.T. Anderson film, There Will Be Blood, I praised the director’s deliberate pacing that kept me engaged without ever feeling withdrawn or disinterested. Not many films can succeed like this, but Daniel Day-Lewis and the supporting cast around him (notably Paul Dano) pull off this feat seemingly effortlessly. But Anderson approached Boogie Nights differently, and that is one of the film’s biggest strengths. In telling the story of up-and-coming porn star Dirk Diggler (Mark Wahlberg), Anderson captures the “rise-and-fall” ambience that has become synonymous with many of the best films of Martin Scorsese such as Goodfellas, Casino, and The Wolf of Wall Street. It is his direction, in tandem with Wahlberg’s charisma and the rest of the cast’s commitment to their particular parts of Diggler’s ascension to stardom, that excels in putting the audience in that character’s shoes so intimately. And within a world so unfamiliar to most, at that. Beyond the pacing, Boogie Nights transports the viewer to southern California in the 1970s to great effect. Not once watching the film was I taken out of the moment in terms of the historical and social setting. In fact, I found myself fascinated by the world of the “Golden Age of Porn” and its wacky character archetypes in a way that few films like it can do. I particularly appreciated how the supporting performances from John C. Reilly, William H. Macy, Heather Graham, and Philip Seymour Hoffman offer alternative (albeit minimal) perspectives on that world to keep the narrative refreshing and diverse. While I really liked Wahlberg’s character and performance, I am glad that his lens was not the only one the audience had to look at this world through. But, when it comes to what I like most about Boogie Nights, it is unquestionably the story of Dirk Diggler. Not only does Wahlberg give what is arguably his best performance of his acting career, but Anderson’s screenplay never relents or loses steam from start to finish. We are forcefully propelled into Diggler’s insanely chaotic world and, from one scene to another, are consistently stunned and surprised by the incredible ups and downs of his journey. Eventually, we are numbed to the chaos but not to the point that the film loses its effect. Quite the opposite, in fact; we begin asking ourselves how this story and this world could ever feel “normal” to those who do not know it in real life? And that, in my humble opinion, is the greatest compliment that I can pay to the story that Anderson set out to tell in Boogie Nights. Rather than keeping the audience at arms-length throughout the runtime, we are made a part of the chaos so as to fully understand (at least to the best that vicarious experiences such as movies can do) what it’s like to be a rising porn star. How could a movie get more entertaining than that? The Cons Admittedly, I have little critiques of Boogie Nights so these might sound a bit nitpicky. What primarily comes to mind is the one scene of the movie where I felt the pace slowed down to a rather frustrating halt, and it just so happens to be one of its more notorious scenes. What is arguably the climax of the film, the scene in question is when Diggler, Reed Rothchild (Reilly), and Todd Parker (Thomas Jane) attempt to scam low-level drug dealer Rahad Jackson (Alfred Molina) by selling him a half-kilo of baking soda disguised as cocaine. While I appreciate what Anderson was going for with the scene in terms of ratcheting up the tension with the constant throwing of firecrackers by Rahad’s skinny friend Cosmo (Joe G.M. Chan) and the “no-shit-we’re-guilty” faces on Diggler and his crew, it just felt over the top for this film (and that’s saying something!). I don’t hate it, but it’s a scene that’s bothered me since I first watched it as it comes off as a noticeable weak spot in what is otherwise a well-paced and well-structured narrative. At the movie’s end, I was also longing for something like a believable redemption for Diggler (particularly regarding his relationship with Burt Reynolds’ character Jack Horner) which Anderson showed me but never fully convinced me that their restored respect for each other was genuine. Again, something of a nitpick but worth mentioning if you’re worried about the film ending in a fully satisfying way. So, what are my final impressions of Boogie Nights? Despite some of its minor flaws, it is not only my favorite P.T. Anderson film but also one of my favorite films of the 1990s. Its story, acting, and world building rarely (if ever) disappoints in showing off many of Anderson’s best directorial qualities. But it’s also a surprisingly accessible film despite its subject matter and the fact that it’s one of Anderson’s earlier films (in other words, don’t watch Boogie Nights and then expect the same kind of movie from Magnolia 😊). What are your thoughts on P.T. Anderson’s Boogie Nights? What other movies of his do you recommend? What opinions of mine do you find absolutely ridiculous? Let me know in the comments below. Until next time, this has been… Yours Truly, Amateur Analyst
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There are many 80s classics in the book “1,001 Movies You Must See Before You Die” by Steven Jay Schneider. While I like or love so many of them, there is one in particular that I still do not understand why people love it so much. In light of the release of its second sequel this weekend, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, what better time than now to reflect on my lackluster response to Ivan Reitman’s 1984 sci-fi classic Ghostbusters?
[NOTE: This blog will contain spoilers for “Ghostbusters.” You have been warned.] The History Canadian native, SNL alum, and comedic actor Dan Aykroyd (The Blues Brothers, Trading Places, Driving Miss Daisy) has been fascinated with the paranormal his whole life. His father wrote about ghosts, his mother claimed to have seen ghosts, and his grandfather experimented with radios to contact spirits. After reading a 1981 article about quantum physics in The Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, he was inspired to modernize the comedic ghost movies of the mid-1900s (i.e. Abbott and Costello’s Hold That Ghost, Bob Hope’s The Ghost Breakers). Aykroyd wrote a screenplay with the assumption that he would star alongside fellow SNL alumni Eddie Murphy (Beverly Hills Cop, Coming to America, Dolemite Is My Name) and John Belushi (Animal House, The Blues Brothers). Unfortunately, Belushi’s untimely death in March of 1982 prevented this from happening. Instead, Aykroyd convinced another SNL cast member, Bill Murray (Groundhog Day, Rushmore, Lost in Translation), to fill in. In his original pitch of the film to producer Bernie Brillstein (The Blues Brothers, Happy Gilmore), Aykroyd emphasized his intention to normalize the act of catching ghosts in the story by likening them to pest control personnel. However, his original script had a more serious tone and horror vibe than the final product. Aykroyd’s first choice for director was Ivan Reitman (Stripes, Kindergarten Cop), who he first met with in Los Angeles to discuss the film. Reitman, who first heard of the pitch when Belushi was still attached to the project, was under the impression that Aykroyd’s script took place in the future and involved people catching ghosts in space and across galaxies. Thus, he was convinced that the film would be impossible to make and told Aykroyd to set the film entirely on Earth. Furthermore, he injected the “upstart business” angle for the three main characters. As Reitman put it, “everyone was going into business” at the start of the 1980s. Out of fear that Aykroyd was in over his head in terms of executing the tone that he wanted for the film, Reitman met with Chicago native Harold Ramis (Caddyshack, National Lampoon’s Vacation, Groundhog Day). Per Reitman’s wishes, Ramis agreed to both write and star in the film after reading Aykroyd’s screenplay. About one year after Belushi’s death, Reitman pitched the film to Columbia Pictures who felt that comedies like this lacked the needed potential for profit. To put the studio at ease, Reitman offered to make the film on a maximum budget of $30 million (a made-up estimate from Reitman who simply tripled the number for the budget of his previous film Stripes). After agreeing to finish in time for a June 1984 release date, the studio greenlit the project. Frank Price, the Columbia executive who agreed to Reitman’s pitch despite having no finished script or filming start date, ended up moving to Universal Pictures early in the film’s production. This ended up working out in the project’s favor as Price, while the head at Universal, was able to sell the rights to the phrase “Ghostbusters” to Columbia Pictures without Universal ever technically getting paid for the name being used as the film’s title. While on vacation in Martha’s Vineyard, Reitman, Aykroyd, and Ramis spent hours every day over the course of two weeks reworking the script in the basement of Aykroyd’s home there. Rather than being possessive about his original draft, Aykroyd understood the importance of Ramis’s role reworking the jokes and refining the dialogue. By August, they had completed a final draft that ended up having virtually no input from Murray about his character (having written for Murray in the past, Ramis was confident in his ability to capture Murray’s talent in his character’s voice). Furthermore, this drafting process solidified the trio of Ghostbusters in terms of their distinctive personalities: Aykroyd’s heart as the enthusiastic technician, Ramis’s brains as the stoic intellectual, and Murray’s sarcasm as the slick salesman-type. Several notable actors were considered for the parts of Peter Venkman and Egon Spengler: Michael Keaton, Tom Hanks, Robin Williams, and Richard Pryor for the former, and Christopher Walken, John Lithgow, and Jeff Goldblum for the latter. The partial uncertainty surrounding Murray’s casting as Peter Venkman was due to Murray’s notorious habit of not committing to a role until very late in the pre-production process. Furthermore, Ernie Hudson (The Crow, Miss Congeniality) went through five auditions for the part of Winston Zeddemore under the impression that he would have a large role. However, the final script he was given before principal photography began had scaled back his role because, according to Reitman, the studio wanted to bolster Murray’s presence in the film. Regarding the supporting roles, the studio resisted casting Sigourney Weaver (Aliens, Gorillas in the Mist, Avatar) due to her association with more serious and dramatic roles. However, she revealed her comedic background from her time at the Yale School of Drama by walking on all fours and howling like a dog in her audition. Weaver played an active role in developing the character of Dana Barrett, such as suggesting that she become possessed by Zuul and changing her career from a model to a musician to give her more of a soul deep down. Initially offered to John Candy, the role of Dana’s nosy neighbor Louis Tully went to Rick Moranis who agreed to take it one hour after receiving the screenplay from Reitman. Principal photography took place from October of 1983 to January of 1984. Reitman’s primary concern regarding using New York City as a location was to finish filming those scenes before they would face the Christmastime weather of the area. Some of the NYC locations used in the film are the Rockefeller Center, Central Park, the New York Public Library, and the Irving Trust Bank on Fifth Avenue. After wrapping up the NYC scenes just before Christmas, filming resumed in Los Angeles for another month which involved finding buildings that could fill in for the interiors of the various New York locations. Based on accounts from the post-production crew, Reitman was very frustrated by the editing process. Due to the film’s heavy reliance on special effects-laden scenes, filming itself involved limiting the crew and cast to only a few takes for each scene. Furthermore, he was perturbed by the need to storyboard these scenes which effectively made it very easy to cut footage but virtually impossible to add any new footage. However, much of his stress was relieved after showing a rough cut of the film to a test audience who connected with its sense of humor and ghostly scares. Released in June of 1984, Ghostbusters earned over 280 million dollars during its initial theatrical run. Not only did it become the second-highest-grossing domestic film that year (behind Beverly Hills Cop), but it was also the highest-grossing comedy film ever made (until Beverly Hills Cop). Despite grossing what amounts these days to small change for a sci-fi film, Ghostbusters competed alongside the likes of other iconic films of the decade (from The Terminator and A Nightmare on Elm Street to The Karate Kid and Temple of Doom). Critics at the time were generally pleased with the film, many of whom cited Bill Murray’s performance as one of its best attributes. It was nominated for two Oscars (including Best Original Song for Ray Parker, Jr.’s iconic theme song), but won neither. However, it established a distinct cultural legacy that has retained a rabidly loyal fanbase as well as cemented itself in film history by being selected for preservation in the National Film Registry in 2015. The Cons I distinctly remember the first time I saw Ghostbusters. I was in high school, and my father brought home a copy of the film on DVD that he borrowed from his co-worker for us to watch. I was under the impression that it’d be a fun―albeit cheesy―80s comedy. Instead, what I watched was a tonally disjointed ensemble movie with outdated special effects with virtually nothing that made me laugh. Now I have watched Ghostbusters since then, and there were some things I appreciated about it. But I’ll talk about that stuff later. That being said, much of what I disliked about the film during my initial viewing held true. While the special effects (primarily the ghosts themselves) look cheap through a modern lens, they aren’t as distracting as I thought they would be. In fact, my major complaints with the movie have to do with the storytelling and tone. Regarding the former, I was quite frustrated by the lack of forward momentum in the story that had me longing for the filmmaker to give some sort of reason for me to care about the lives of the ghostbusters themselves. While there is a build-up and climax in each act (from the team catching their first ghost to them defeating the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man), none of it feels emotionally connected in a way that is satisfying to watch. Regarding the latter, Ghostbusters does not have enough effective scares to be a great horror movie nor enough consistent laughs to be a great comedy. I understand that this is a controversial statement, but I just think there are plenty of other films that blend comedy and horror together more effectively than this one. The Pros Fortunately, this movie is not fully irredeemable for me. There are two performances that, in my humble opinion, save Ghostbusters from being utterly boring or unworthy of my time: Bill Murray and Rick Moranis. For one, both actors have offered up a plethora of exceptionally comedic performances over the course of their careers (Groundhog Day and Rushmore for Murray and Spaceballs and Parenthood for Moranis, just to name a few). But I firmly side with those fans of this movie that put their respective performances here higher up in the echelon of their comedic turns in cinema from the last several decades. While Murray offers up some great one-liners and deadpan delivery throughout the runtime as Peter Venkman, Moranis steals every scene he is in as Louis Tully. If anything, other actors in the film (like Sigourney Weaver) may have stood out more if not for Murray and Moranis practically making this movie worth the watch despite its significant drawbacks. So, what are my final impressions of Ghostbusters? At the end of the day, I by no means think that this is a bad movie. In fact, it has such a potential to be great but it just doesn’t come together for me. Its confused tonal shifts and “frozen-in-time” production values diminish that potential significantly. However, I can appreciate peoples’ love and admiration for Ghostbusters as one of the iconic films of the 1980s. I guess I had to be there at the time to truly understand its greatness. 😊 What do you think about Ghostbusters? Do you think I am being too harsh on it? What opinions of mine do you find absolutely ridiculous? Let me know in the comments below. Until next time, this has been… Yours Truly, Amateur Analyst Nearly one year ago today, I wrote my first two-part blog on the topic of the “anti-war” film. I discussed several notable war movies from the “Golden Age” classic All Quiet on the Western Front to Spielberg’s modern masterpiece Saving Private Ryan. And in my conclusion, I offered up names of some other great war films worth checking out like Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket and Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk. Well, now is the time to revisit this prolific genre of cinema that has produced so many great pieces of film. In other words, I am not here today to dissect the political complexities and moral ambiguities inherent to making this kind of movie as I did in my “anti-war” blog. Instead, I want to celebrate some of the best flicks of the genre due to their diversity of settings, characters, and stories being told out of admiration for the creative teams behind them. Simply put, war movies are some of my personal favorites that cinema has to offer. Why? I guess you’ll have to keep reading to find out… 😉 Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay Full Metal Jacket (1987) I remember first watching Stanley Kubrick’s late-in-the-game classic Full Metal Jacket and coming away feeling conflicted about what I thought about it. On the one hand, I was completely blown away by the first act focused on the emotional and psychological ramifications of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman’s (R. Lee Ermey) abusive training of Privates J.T. “Joker” Davis (Matthew Modine) and Leonard “Gomer Pyle” Lawrence (Vincent D’Onofrio). It stuck with me, and I wished that the rest of the film had kept that momentum going. But, after my first viewing, I ultimately came away thinking: “What a weird movie, but a solid opening fifty minutes.” When I decided to rewatch Full Metal Jacket a little over a year ago, I was hoping that I would appreciate the latter half a little more than before. Furthermore, in light of some of the other disappointing Kubrick films I had seen by that point, I wanted to come away from this second viewing holding it up as one of the “good” Kubrick movies. I am happy to say that both of these hopes were achieved upon a rewatch of Full Metal Jacket. If I ever write about the importance of the three-act structure, I will probably revisit this movie to dissect its first act as one of the best of all time. Full stop. While I don’t think that the promise of the movie’s first 45-50 minutes is fully exceeded by the end of its runtime, Kubrick achieves damn-near perfection with the boot camp scenes. As I’ll dive into in more detail later on, Full Metal Jacket is a unique war film in the context of Kubrick’s other notably war movies such as Paths of Glory or Dr. Strangelove. And this first act is one of the main reasons why. Sure, other films such as Heartbreak Ridge and Glory examine the psychological ins and outs of military boot camp. But arguably none do it better justice than Full Metal Jacket. Nothing in the film’s first act is romanticized or sanitized. Rather, Kubrick offers up a gritty, grueling, and torturous examination of the tactics employed by Gunnery Sergeants, such as Ermey’s character, to mentally prepare green recruits for battle. The tension created between Gunny Hartman and “Pyle” (i.e. the Twinkie scene) and the consequences of it (i.e. Pyle being beaten against his will in bed by the other soldiers) toy with the audience and keep us intensely engaged in how all of this hazing will crescendo. And boy, is the crescendo intense as hell! Seeing through the eyes of Pvt. “Joker,” we see “Pyle” mentally break in the bathroom the night after graduation cradling his rifle in between his legs while loading it. As “Pyle” starts reciting the Rifleman’s Creed in an unsettling tone, awakening the other men (including Gunny Hartman). Was this his plan all along, and was “Joker” ever his secondary target behind Gunny? This is left up to your interpretation, but his fatal shooting of Gunny before turning the rifle on himself remains one of the most emotionally satisfying (albeit disturbing) first-act climaxes I’ve ever seen in a movie. I cannot say this enough: watch Full Metal Jacket just for the first act alone. Trust me, it’s worth it. As this blog is about my love of movies, I don’t want to spend too much time criticizing the second act. While it’s my least favorite part of the movie, I came to (maybe) understand why Kubrick did what he did with it. Not only does he emphasize the lack of battlefield experience for “Joker” (who’s now our protagonist, kind of) through his interactions with other soldiers in the platoon, but the seemingly disjointed interviews of soldiers talking about their experiences was perhaps Kubrick’s attempt to shine a light on the inherent meaninglessness of war (honestly, I wouldn’t put it past him). That being said, I don’t think it does a very good job of connecting the first and third acts of the film together. But, I can ignore it in light of the movie’s amazing start and (mostly) satisfying end. After thirty minutes or so of an uncompelling second act, Full Metal Jacket brings its themes of psychological trauma and overwhelming chaos associated with being in war to a close when the platoon expels much time and effort to flank and kill a Vietnamese sniper (who just happens to be a teenage girl). After one of the other soldiers mortally wounding her, the platoon’s de facto leader “Animal Mother” (Adam Baldwin) agrees to the sniper’s request of a mercy kill on the condition that “Joker” does it. Reluctantly, “Joker” does it. As a result, he gains the “thousand-yard stare” and, in the film’s final moments, narrates to the audience that he is no longer afraid despite being “in a world of shit.” While not as engrossing as its first act, Full Metal Jacket concludes in a way that provokes critical thought about what Kubrick is doing in this movie to differentiate from his other war movies. Whereas Paths of Glory bluntly critiques military bureaucracy and blind loyalty to hierarchical power structures, Spartacus embraces the style of the classic Hollywood war epic, and Dr. Strangelove satirizes the paranoia and arrogance of the Cold War, Full Metal Jacket does something else entirely. In short, it forces the audience to confront the mindset of soldiers in war to offers an (arguably) less-than-satisfactory explanation for why they do what they do. This may just be a more complicated task than what Kubrick set out to achieve in his other war movies, but he manages to produce an overall great result that is worth your time despite some of its structural and tonal drawbacks. Image by Alexander Lesnitsky from Pixabay Good Morning, Vietnam (1987) I knew virtually nothing about Good Morning, Vietnam before watching it, but was hopeful based on the knowledge that Robin Williams (Dead Poets Society, Mrs. Doubtfire, Good Will Hunting) was the lead. And by the time his character, Adrian Cronauer, begins his first stint as a disc jockey in Saigon at the height of the Vietnam War, I was hooked. By this point, I’ve seen a number of Robin Williams’s best performances. Not only some of his more well-known ones that I’ve already listed, but his more underrated ones in films like One Hour Photo, Death to Smoochy, and Insomnia. And while I loved him in Gus Van Sant’s Good Will Hunting, Williams’s turn as Cronauer in this movie might just be his best performance on the big screen. Admittedly, they are very different performances. Whereas there is virtually nothing of Williams’s iconic improvisational comedic timing in Good Will Hunting, that talent defines his turn in Good Morning, Vietnam. And since I agree with most other cinephiles and fans of Williams that his comedic style was his signature strength, I think it’s safe to say that his role as an eccentric, anti-authority DJ during the Vietnam War allows him to exercise all of his funny muscles and shine in a way that he could never fully match later in his career (although he got damn close a number of times). As a character, Cronauer is so likeable without relying on sentimentality or hyper-virtuosity in his personality. Quite the opposite, in fact; Williams plays this wartime DJ as a cynical, impolite and unabashed rebel who wants nothing more than to take all that his commanding officers hold dear about the decorum of the military and throw it back in their faces by telling the soldiers jokes that are actually funny. In that respect, director Barry Levinson (Rain Man, Avalon, Bugsy) deftly balances consistently witty humor with regular reminders of the hostile environment in which Cronauer and the characters in Saigon are in. To that extent, Good Morning, Vietnam is both a great comedy and a solid war film in equal respects. While Williams is undeniably the standout here, he has a great supporting cast around him to lift him up and have some moments of their own. Notably, I appreciated Forest Whitaker as the happy-go-lucky and loyal Private Edward Garlick who remains at Cronauer’s side in spite of obstacles from both the prim-and-proper U.S. Army superiors and the North Vietnamese. Furthermore, Bruno Kirby does a great job playing Lieutenant Steven Hauk, the uptight straight-man opposite Williams’s off-the-walls performance. Perhaps the most underrated actor in this movie, however, is Chintara Sukapatana as Cronauer’s disinterested love interest Trinh. Despite her and Williams having chemistry, I appreciate that Levinson and screenwriter Mitch Markowitz did not feel compelled to force a cheesy, old-school Hollywood romance between their characters which would’ve come off undeserved given Cronauer lacking any essence of a romantic leading man. All in all, Good Morning, Vietnam does not get enough credit from film fans today for how well it pulls off its vision as both a standout 80s comedy and war movie. If anything, this movie deserves more attention and praise for Williams’s central performance which holds up (in my humble opinion) as one of his best. Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay Jacob’s Ladder (1990) One of the lesser-known war films in today’s blog is the psychological horror flick Jacob’s Ladder from director Adrian Lyne (Flashdance, Fatal Attraction). From the screenplay of writer Bruce Joel Rubin (Ghost, Deep Impact), Jacob’s Ladder stars Tim Robbins as Vietnam War veteran Jacob Singer who begins seeing disturbing visions and hallucinations filtered by his experiences in the war and he is persuaded to figure out what exactly is going on. Of all the films I’m discussing today, this one might be the best to fit the definition of a “hidden gem.” I particularly appreciated Robbins’s lead performance. Whereas the role that made him famous―Andy Dufresne in Frank Darabont’s The Shawshank Redemption―is more subdued and likeable, his portrayal of Jacob Singer is twisted yet sympathetic in a way that foreshadowed the fact that he is a multidimensional actor (perhaps most on display in his Oscar-winning role in Clint Eastwood’s drama Mystic River). Having only seen Robbins in Shawshank, I very much liked watching him portraying a psychologically disturbed veteran by playing into the tropes of this subgenre of horror films while simultaneously avoiding cliché or oversimplification of the real impact of post-traumatic stress. Which points to what I like most about Jacob’s Ladder. The director and writer’s vision, along with the actors’ commitment, work together to offer up an effective genre-blending take on the war movie by injecting a horror-inspired atmosphere to metaphorically explore the psychological effects of PTSD and mental trauma in general. Without giving too many plot specifics away, Jacob’s journey in the film is less about ascending to sanity than it is about developing a clarity of the hellish reality that he experienced in the war. In that respect, the film offers a genuinely affecting examination of peoples’ spiritual relationship with its own mortality without ever feeling cheap or exploitative. To be clear, Jacob’s Ladder is not a war film for everyone. I’m sure even some fans of more traditional war movies may be unable to give themselves over to the material being explored here (let alone the manner by which it is explored). But I found this movie to stick with me long after I watched in a way that many war movies (or horror movies, for that matter) didn’t. Image by mstewart_12 from Pixabay The Pianist (2002) Roman Polanski’s Oscar-winning biopic The Pianist made a pretty big impact on me when I first saw it in high school as part of an elective class I took about the Holocaust. Similar to my initial viewings of other war movies like Glory and Saving Private Ryan, I never forgot this movie and knew I’d revisit it every now and again to remind myself just how good it is. And I was not-at-all surprised about a year ago when I watched The Pianist again by how amazing it is and how, to this day, it remains undoubtedly one of my favorite war films of all time. For the unfamiliar, Polanski’s film tells the real-life story of professional Polish musician Wladyslaw Szpilman (Adrien Brody) whose life and family in Warsaw are uprooted and changed forever by Nazi Germany’s invasion of their country. Now subjected to Hitler’s anti-Semitic policies, ghettoization, and the looming terror of being sent to concentration camps, Szpilman does everything in his power to survive the horrors inflicted upon him and his loved ones during what is arguably the most infamous example of human rights violations in modern history. Whereas Good Morning, Vietnam excels as both a great comedy and war movie, The Pianist differentiates itself from the rest of its genre by de-emphasizing the experiences of soldiers as the most important lens through which war can be dissected. Instead, through the eyes of Szpilman, the audience sees just how much war permanently alters the lives of civilians who (more often than not) had little to no say in what happened around them. In this respect, Brody excellently humanizes Szpilman as someone who became largely driven by his will to survive despite the horrors and atrocities going on around him (understandably, he won an Academy Award for his performance). Furthermore, The Pianist being centered on the story of Jews in World War II may turn off some viewers who feel that Holocaust victims are often depicted in media as lacking the drive to resist their Nazi oppressors. However, Polanski avoids making Szpilman or many of the other Jewish characters in the film pure victims of circumstance who avoid violence at all costs. Quite the opposite, as one portion of the film’s third act involves Szpilman witnessing members of the Warsaw Ghetto organize and fight back. Thus, the film joins the ranks of a select few other movies putting Jewish resistance groups front-and-center (lookin’ at you, Defiance!). Aside from outright militarized resistance, however, Szpilman’s efforts to survive in The Pianist offer up a prime example of what hundreds of thousands of European Jews did to get by and help their loved ones do the same. From smuggling weapons for the Jewish resistance to endearing himself to a Wehrmacht officer in exchange for food, Polanski highlights the sheer audacity of the human spirit to fight back despite people not always using guns and bullets to do so. Not only is The Pianist my favorite film of Roman Polanski, but it remains one of my favorite examples of what the war genre can be. For those less interested in seeing tons of blood and guts on a battlefield but who are looking for a grounded and inspiring story of surviving war and genocide, I cannot recommend The Pianist enough. Thank You for Your Service (2017)
In my humble opinion, Thank You for Your Service is the least known film of today’s blog which is sad because it is worth checking out. It is also a pretty solid examination of the effects of 21st-century warfare on those who experience it. In his directorial debut, Oscar-nominated screenwriter Jason Hall (American Sniper) adapts the book of the same name by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Finkel about the struggles of soldiers returning home after tours in Iraq and their efforts adapting to civilian life. The lead here is Miles Teller (Whiplash, Only the Brave) playing Staff Sgt. Adam Schumann who, despite dealing with nightmares and traumatic flashbacks, deals somewhat better with PTSD. This is, in large part, due to his wife Saskia (Haley Bennett) and two children giving him something to focus on. Meanwhile, his comrades Tausolo Aieti (Beulah Koale) and Billy Waller (Joe Cole) who face their own trials and tribulations but lack the same grasp of reality that Adam barely clings to which put them on somewhat different paths after Iraq. Unlike the other war movies I’ve written about, Thank You for Your Service doesn’t necessarily have the same powerful hook in terms of the plot. Furthermore, the film lacks the kind of star power that movies like Good Morning, Vietnam or Born on the Fourth of July have (no disrespect to Miles Teller or Haley Bennett). And yet this film does an exceptional job of shining a light on the unique dimensions of PTSD-related trauma that veterans of the War on Terror face. Not only do Adam’s, Tausolo’s and Billy’s stories offer divergent takes on how soldiers cope with civilian life, but when put together they offer a compellingly bittersweet picture of the potential and limitations of brotherhood. Simply put, Thank You for Your Service is by no means a masterpiece but it deserves being seen by more people than who original saw it in theaters. Not only does it have some solid acting and storytelling, but its ability to highlight the difficulties of coming home from war without coming off as cheap or exploitative makes it a great addition to the modern war genre. These, of course, are only some of my favorite war movies. And even when you include the ones I wrote about last November, there are still plenty that I think are worth checking out. But, I want to leave some on the table for a possible future blog. It’s a good thing so many war films have been made. 😊 What do you think of war movies? What are some of your favorite (or least favorite) war movies? What opinions of mine do you find absolutely ridiculous? Let me know in the comments below. Until next time, this has been… Yours Truly, Amateur Analyst |
Austin McManusI have no academic or professional background in film production or criticism; I simply love watching and talking about movies. Archives
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