Filmbound - Episode 12: Minority Report

In the later years of NOW PLAYING Paul Markoff and I adapted the show so that the fifth film reviewed on an episode might be non-current.  We would use that portion of the show to evaluate something one or both of us had never seen but were interested in catching up with, such as Barry Jenkins' debut MEDICINE FOR MELANCHOLY or THE MYTH OF THE AMERICAN SLEEPOVER.  We would also revisit films, like PULP FICTION, which I hadn't watched in years and my co-host was not won over by when he initially saw it.

With FILMBOUND we want the freedom to take the occasional break from contemporary films, so episode 12 brings us back to MINORITY REPORT.  I realize that a film that came out just sixteen years ago may not seem "old" to many of you reading this, but working with college students, like I do, can disabuse one of the notion that something released a couple years after the turn of the century is relatively recent.  I also thought that it could be fun to compare and contrast daily life today and MINORITY REPORT's speculations of 2054 technology.  Good news for the print industry, home newspaper delivery is still going strong thirty-six years from now!



In the recommendations segment, I go long on extolling the virtues of the True/False Film Festival.  I've attended True/False since 2015 and consider it one of the highlights of my moviegoing year.  I posted grades in my March 2018 Film Log, but for those who want a definitive ranking, here is how I'd group and order every film I saw at the festival:

Best of True/False 2018
1. BISBEE '17
2. AMÉRICA
3. WON'T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR?
4. SHIRKERS
5. THE RIDER
6. HALE COUNTY THIS MORNING, THIS EVENING

Very Good to Good
7. Secret Screening Gale
8. Secret Screening Mistral
9. GRAVEN IMAGE (short)
10. OF FATHERS AND SONS
11. THREE IDENTICAL STRANGERS
12. AMERICAN ANIMALS
13. CRIME + PUNISHMENT
14. LOVERS OF THE NIGHT
15. BABY BROTHER (short)
16. Secret Screening Zephyr

Mixed
17. OUR NEW PRESIDENT
18. ADRIANA'S PACT (EL PACTO DE ADRIANA)
19. TAMING THE HORSE

Difficult to Evaluate - No Grade
-FLIGHT OF A BULLET (POLET PULI)
-HANDSWORTH SONGS

In last month's film log post I explained why I didn't grade these last two films, and on this podcast I say a little more about wrestling with FLIGHT OF A BULLET.

Upcoming episodes:

-April 18: UNSANE and our recommendations segment
-April 25: READY PLAYER ONE and a discussion about Rotten Tomatoes
-May 2: A QUIET PLACE and our recommendations segment
-May 9: ISLE OF DOGS and the creation of the FILMBOUND canon

The Post

THE POST (Steven Spielberg, 2017)

When the New York Times starts to publish reports from the Pentagon Papers in 1971, Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks) bristles at the competition’s ability to break such big stories. In THE POST his newspaper is viewed as a local publication scratching for access to the President’s daughter’s wedding rather than a national outlet revealing how multiple administrations got the country involved with the Vietnam War. Even when the paper gets its hands on some pages from the classified Department of Defense studies, the Times is already ahead of them.

Opportunity arises when the Nixon administration pressures the Justice Department to impose an injunction blocking the Times from printing stories based on the Pentagon Papers. Post reporter Ben Bagdikian (Bob Odenkirk) tracks down the leaker, Daniel Ellsberg (Matthew Rhys), but as he and other writers and editorial staffers work furiously against the deadline, legal concerns may kill their pieces. It’s ultimately up to Post publisher Kay Graham (Meryl Streep), the first woman in the country to hold such a high role, to decide whether or not to risk going to press. Not only does she and others risk being charged with a felony and a prison sentence, but such an action could also drive investors to pull their funding of the Post’s initial public offering.

Collected with LINCOLN and BRIDGE OF SPIES, THE POST completes an unofficial American civics trilogy from director Steven Spielberg. All three films depict the struggle to live up to the country’s foundational ideals and the openness needed for a healthy democracy to function. The camera glides around the official and unofficial newsrooms, and telephones are like physical extensions emphasizing the connections to spread the information to the masses. Still, many of the most consequential conversations occur in confined spaces, marked by characters closing doors and showing how the biggest decisions are made by a select few out of view.

Spielberg ensures that this isn’t stodgy history about the importance of a free press. THE POST is paced, shot, and lit like a thriller. The delivery of a shoebox is fraught with the uncertainty of the explosiveness of its contents. Although a cardboard container wrapped in twine is less ornate than the Ark of the Covenant, the low angle opening of it is treated as though it too holds unimaginable power. When the printing press rumbles to life to produce the Post’s first Pentagon Papers story, Spielberg makes its strength known by showing items bouncing around on a desk like the ripples in a cup signalling a Tyrannosaurus rex’s arrival in JURASSIC PARK.

THE POST recognizes that rights are meaningful as long as they are exercised. In that way the film honors the people who jeopardized their well-being for the greater good. Hanks has grown to stand for Hollywood’s conception of American decency, a modern Jimmy Stewart, and although his newspaper editor acts with self-interest, his position is built upon principles he believes are essential to free society. His performance crackles with humor and righteousness, in part because Bradlee is privileged to be able to express himself unquestioningly. Streep is more reserved but no less determined. THE POST often shows how Graham is overwhelmed in rooms by men and how women are often split off from where power resides. Streep is so good at showing how her character thinks through the situation and stands up for her choices even as her board and advisers challenge her decisions. THE POST understands that bravery can take many forms, even if it’s merely ink on a page.

Grade: A

War Horse

WAR HORSE (Steven Spielberg, 2011)

The four-legged protagonist in WAR HORSE is born as a wild thoroughbred, sold at auction to a buyer who must use him to plow fields, resold to the British army, and ultimately serves on both sides in World War I.  The horse named Joey is not intended for working the fields, but that’s what he is needed for when drunken farmer Ted Narracott (Peter Mullan), in a fit of pique, bids up the cost unreasonably high so his landlord Lyons (David Thewlis) will not win the beast.

Ted’s wife Rose (Emily Watson) immediately recognizes the foolishness of such a purchase and insists that he take the horse back.  Their teenage son Albert (Jeremy Irvine) loves the horse and pledges to train Joey to do whatever he must to help the family farm.  Since Ted refuses to back down from his reckless decision, it’s up to Albert and Joey to ready a rocky Devon field for turnips.

Boy and horse succeed when no on expects them to, but their happy time together comes to an end when Ted sells Joey to the British army at the onset of World War I. The officer promises to take good care of the horse, and a tearful Joey vows to see him again.  For Joey, this is merely the beginning of an adventure that will have him charging into battle for the British and pulling artillery for the Germans.

WAR HORSE director Steven Spielberg turns to the films of John Ford for inspiration in looking at war’s devastating and dehumanizing effects.  He adopts the swooningly earnest style in all of its broad emotional sweep, camera placement, and widescreen Technicolor cinematography.  While made with great technical proficiency, WAR HORSE is determinedly old-fashioned in how Spielberg tells the story, which is a fitting creative strategy considering that the film studies the convergence of the old and the modern.

The battle sequences are as thrillingly directed as the World War II fighting Spielberg thrust viewers into during SAVING PRIVATE RYAN and just as tragic in depicting the great loss of life.  A British charge on horseback into a German camp becomes a slaughter at the edge of the woods, where man and animal are no match for machines.  Spilling out of the trenches for combat in no man’s land is a near certain death sentence no matter which side one enters from.  The men’s lives may be more valued, but they’re protected with little more care than the horses that are literally worked to death.  None of this is as a graphic as in SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. Rather, it’s more in line with the standards in the 1940s and ‘50s, yet the impact in observing this wasteful sacrifice is no less powerful.

Charges of sentimentalism are lobbed freely at Spielberg.  There’s no question that the director works to yield big emotional payoffs, especially in this traditional melodramatic form.  Still, WAR HORSE’s ostensibly happy ending comes with the knowledge that the boy and the horse have witnessed many atrocities that may haunt them in the years to come just as Ted is stalked by his memories from military service.  The deep red sky hanging over the Narracott homestead and drenching everything under it in its color is a stark contrast to the blue heaven and green landscape they once knew.  Man and horse have been forced to act contrary to their nature.  Like the donkey in Robert Bresson’s AU HASARD BALTHAZAR, the beast suffers for humanity’s failings.  While Albert and Joey have survived, some stains, like the looming color above and around them, cannot be escaped.

Grade: B+