The Reader

At the very least, The Reader is a love story. It begins when Michael Burk (David Kross) is 15 and Hanna Schmitz (Kate Winslet) is in her mid-thirties. Set in Germany about ten years after the end of World War II, the story progresses in time, but flashes back to earlier scenes throughout the story.

The Reader addresses themes of love, justice, duty, and morality--all intermeshed. There is no clear path, no obvious resolution of how the characters, or we as the audience, should feel. We are introduced to these themes with the affair between Michael and Hanna. "Kid," she calls him.

Although many of us would likely question the morality of such a relationship between a boy and mature woman, it's nearly impossible not to see the strangely innocent beauty of their liaison. Hanna introduces Michael to his own sexuality, but it is also through her that he begins to experience and understand romantic love. Her love and attention spark a newfound confidence in him. He blossoms through his affair with her. So it is not simply the sexual hunger of a boy discovering his manhood under the steady guidance of a beautiful woman; but rather a boy becoming a man through the emotions he feels for her.

Transcending the limitations of his youth, Michael is able to give Hanna something more important than his body. He reads to her, imparting worlds that go far beyond the limitations of her abilities, her knowledge, and her experiences. He reaches emotions that are buried deep in her. He sees all this, quietly, and like so many things about her, he accepts it. But there is so much unsaid between them, so much about her he doesn't understand.

The story unfolds as a series of profound and provoking dilemmas. We are given the fascinating opportunity to consider what judgments we would make of situations that have no clear-cut answers. Interestingly enough, Michael's (Ralph Fiennes) profession as an adult is that of judge. So his dilemma in making judgment is compounded by the possible conflict between what constitutes the judicial (and even moral) "right" and what his own emotions will or will not allow him to feel.

Even love can be a moral dilemma, as we see in the relationship between Hanna and Michael. When someone you love acts in a way that is contrary to the very essence of what you believe to be true and just, can you continue to love that person. And if you do, can you forgive yourself for it?

Germany faces continuing haunts and collective guilt from the war--the horrors of the death camps, the lasting imprint of a time when even the most unspeakable crimes were attributed to the credos of duty and following orders. Blind obedience in the face of moral dilemma. When Hanna is being tried in a courtroom, she asks her judge, "What would you have done?" And we find ourselves, almost embarrassedly, trying to answer that question for ourselves. And we acknowledge that perhaps we may not have acted any differently than the accused.

Directed magnificently by Stephen Daldry, The Reader is the kind of film that stays with you and grows more beautiful with time--its loveliness and sad poignancy unfolding like the infinite petals of a rose. And such was Ms. Winslet's performance. The depth and raw truth she brought to this performance are surely worthy of an Oscar. Both Grouse and Fiennes turn in stellar performances as Michael. But Grouse's sensitive and persuasive performance as the young Michael deserve special praise. He develops quite convincingly from age 15 to early 20s. And his ability to convey such subtle differences in demeanor and facial expression as he grows older and more knowledgeable are a testament to his craft.

Revolutionary Road

While watching Revolutionary Road, based on the novel by Richard Yates, I found myself somewhat annoyed by the staginess of it. It was almost as if I were watching a play, not a film. The performances were pushed somewhat out of proportion—larger than life in a way that is seen in theater, not the more intimate, seemingly voyeuristic experience we are used to in the cinema. But almost like a wine that is at its best after it has had a chance to breathe, this film keeps growing on me as the scenes replay in my mind.

I’m beginning to see that the theatrical elemnt is really an extension of what made the characters tick. So to have the actors ‘act’ in this way is really an extension of who they are, each playing out what is expected of them in their lives. Although April Wheeler (Kate Winslet), breaks out of this mold. She is the rebel, the revolutionary on Revolutionary Road.

April's husband, Frank Wheeler (Leonardo diCaprio) must prove his manhood, his success in business, his dominance over his wife, simply because that’s what a male is supposed to do in America in the mid-1950s. April, a would-be actress, sees the suburban life as a death and something she desperately wants Frank and herself to break free from. But eventually she comes to understand that it isn't something Frank can so easily do.

The myth of suburbia—with its manicured lawns and shuttered houses, its concerned and helpful neighbors present all too alluring a picture to Frank. And although April takes him back to when they met and when Frank was a budding man of the world with dreams that could take the two of them anywhere, “life happened.” The two are victims of circumstance, the power of the majority, the comfort of what is already known.

Directed by Sam Mendes, both diCaprio and Winslet perform their roles with provoking and often painstaking intensity. Michael Shannon as the mentality ill son of the Wheeler’s over-zealous real estate agent provides a gloomy affirmation of April’s vision of the suburbs as a place where dreams are scorned and vanquished. And David Harbour as Shep Campbell, the neighbor who lusts after April and who provides a momentary release and distraction for her, seems to have emigrated straight from the 50s. He’s got the swagger of the American male of that time, the obvious buy-in to the American dream, and the demeanor of a family guy who is only too willing to stay at the party a little too long while his wife goes home to the kids.

Revolutionary Road, the novel, is considered by James Wood of the New Yorker, and apparantly by many others, as Yates’ best. The story is a statement of the American post-war era of the mid-fifties and delves deeply into the collective and individual treatment of gender, of conformity, and of the bittersweet comfort of letting go to conformity versus the excitement and loneliness of breaking free.

The Passion of Joan of Arc

Renee Maria Falconetti plays Joan of Arc with such stark realism that it's as if she were born to play the Maid of Orleans. The remarkably intense interplay between her face and the camera is incomparable to any other I've seen on film. Not even Ingmar Bergman's consistently brilliant direction nor the immense talent of his pool of actors have been able to achieve what Ms. Falconetti manages to do in this role. Her performance ceases to be good acting and crosses into the realm of simply being. And keep in mind that her role, like the entire film, is silent.

Shot in 1928, The Passion of Joan of Arc can easily be considered the best silent film ever made. Not just for Ms. Falconetti's striking performance, which is perhaps the most amazing rendition of what the face can express ever caught on film; but also for the tableau lighting, the exquisite understanding of shadows, lights and darks, the Expressionistic set, and for the depiction of a time in history--captured in dress, mood, activity, and attitude. The French director Jean Cocteau said it played like ``an historical document from an era in which the cinema didn't exist.''


It's been said by many that the eyes are the mirror of the soul. But in this film, Ms. Falconetti's eyes are a totally transparent window. Every nuance of Joan's feelings are as clear and pure as the soft petal-like tears that fall from her eyes without even so much as a hint of 'acting.' Her unabashed display of emotion is like that of an innocent child blamed harshly for something she did not do. Watching this woman, with her face in such closeup, is an intimate, hynoptic, and unsettling experience. And this complete openness of character and steadfast courage is visibly unsettling to her inquisitors, determined to condemn her for heresy or to receive from her a confession of guilt.

As she burns at the stake--amidst the cruel ravages of smoke and flames, she speaks to God, telling Him softly that she hopes she will be with Him that night. The camera stays focused on her face, cutting away now and then to show the piles of burning sticks encircling the stake where she is tied. Her eyes are transfixed on the cross that Massieu holds high for her to see. And finally, before the flames and smoke engulf her, we see her passion. A gentle release, her head falls forward; and the thickening smoke rises above her head and screens her entirely from the townspeople and our view.

The townspeople are agitated, angered at the outrageous act that has taken place before them. Women clutch their children to their breasts, people huddle together in inconsolable horror. Weapons are lowered from the tops of the crenalated walls of a fortress. The soldiers grab these heavy spiked iron balls on chains and begin swinging them around, beating the angered and impassioned townspeople indiscriminately. "You have murdered a saint," cries one of the onlookers, an elderly man who is subsequently beaten to the ground by an angry soldier. The camera pulls away to reveal a town in smoke and flames and chaos. A lasting vision of destruction.

Carl Theodore Dreyer, famed Danish director of silent films cast Ms. Falconetti in the role of Joan of Arc after seeing her in a play in Paris. It was to be the only film she ever made. Antonin Artaud, French poet, essayist, playwright, actor, and director has a role in this film as well. He plays the role of Massieu.

No Country for Old Men

Javier Bardem is the focus of this film, the focus of the story, and the focus period. His performance leaps out at you, like a panther in the jungle who stealthily watches you from afar until the moment he leaps at your throat, twisting and turning you. Your heart racing, your belief suspended, you struggle to survive. Within the first five minutes Ifelt like this--trapped, captured, wondering if i could/should continue watching the film. Because what i saw before me on the movie screen transcended make-believe.

Bardem has always been extraordinary--in diverse roles that range from a Cuban poet dying of AIDS to a police detective shot down during a confrontation and paralyzed from the waist down. He's starred in A Sea Inside, Before Night Falls, Jamon, Jamon, and Live Flesh--to name just of few of his phenomenal performances. In No Country for Old Men, Bardem plays Anton Chigurh, an emotionless killer who within the first few minutes of the film kills his arresting officer by strangling him with his handcuffs, and soon after uses a cattle stun gun (that he carries around as nonchalantly as most of us carry our wallets) to kill the driver of a car he suddenly decides he wants.

The story centers around a drug deal gone bad. Multiple murders. A guy who chances on the money from the deal--Llewellan Moss (Josh Brolin), takes it and then has the Bardem character hot on his heals with all the stuff that goes with a guy who is essentially proof that the devil exists . . .

Shot in Texas and New Mexico, the desolation of the area speaks of lawlessness that has somehow survived from the days of the Old West. And yet there is an order and simplicity to those who abide the law, as if they can't see or acknowledge the presence of the likes of Chigurh. When asked to throw a coin, a shopkeeper moves along with the game, somehow not giving in to what he must know is clear: if he doesn't call it right, he's about to lose his life.

Some of the character actors are so good you swear they were spotted in some soda shop or gas station in West Texas and are just playing themselves. But Bardem is on a level all his own. He portrays the kind of frightening that makes you queasy. I don't mean in terms of blood and gore, but in the sense of the numbing, gut-wrenching feeling you get from staring at pure evil. Lke looking into the eyes of Charlie Manson. That's why it was often difficult to watch the film. I didn't want affirmation that the devil exists. And yet I was drawn to the utter dakness and sociopathic perfection of Bardem's character.

Written and directed by the Coen brothers, also starring Tommy Lee Jones as the local county sheriff, Ed Tom Bell, this movie does justice to the dark visions of Cormac McCarthy's novel, upon which the movie is based. Jone's character is an old man who doesn't understand the evil that walks the land, even though he's been dealing with it all his adult life. And we're left to wonder, like him, what kind of country this is that allows the likes of Bardem's character to survive.

Man In the Chair

Christopher Plummer transcends the dimensions of the silver screen in his role as Flash Madden, the cantankerous, aged gaffer who lives in a Hollywood home for the aged, but spends most of his time shuffling around town resenting the world. Plummer's acting is nothing short of astonishing, because it seems he's not acting at all. You feel that unbekownst to anyone, as you sit in the dark and watch the story unfold, you're watching a man live his life and express his thoughts--not as an actor in a film, but as a man caught on film, unaware.

He spews and spits. He takes a slug of the hard liquor he's always got in his pocket, he flips through pages of a tattered paperback, and shuffles through his days--full of memories, aggravations, resentments, and profound realism about the world around him. We can almost smell him--reeking of alcohol, of cigar smoke, of clothes that are in dire need of cleaning. and we know Flash likes it this way. It's his signature statement, his last hurrah as he lives inside his foggy stupor, seeing the world all too clearly.

In a small movie theatre showing A Touch of Evil, Fash rises from his seat and spews epithets at Charlton Heston on the screen--lambasting his limp performance as a Mexican police officer, and then mumbling that the best thing he ever did was Ben Hur. An irate member of the sparse audience yells at him to sit down and be quiet. Flash retorts that he's "made more movies than you've ever seen" and continues his rant. A flashback shows us a much younger Flash working as a gaffer on a set for a domineering orson wells. The director comes within an inch of ordering Flash off the set, but instead bestows on him the name "Flash" with the decree that he will find more success with this new name.

Another member of the audience watching Citizen Kane is a high school student, Cameron Kincaid (played beautifully by Michael Angarano) who oberves Dlash and his rants with obvious amusement. You know right away the boy likes the man. And you also know that the two are linked somehow, in spite of Fash's initial annoyance and outright rudeness in reaction to Cameron's subsequent numerous attempts to connect. Cameron wants to make a movie for a student project, and he just knows Flash is the guy he needs to make it happen.

Man in the Chair is not just a story about a kid who meets his mentor, or the making of the film the two embark on. It's a stark commentary on how the aged are treated in this country, how the "unwanted" --be they people or hapless dogs, are handled. Not a pretty sight.

Directed and written by Michael Schroeder (who was the first assistant director on The Big Easy), the film is undoubtedly headed for multiple oscar nominations. Plummer could very well take an oscar for his performance, which surpasses any in his career so far, and is a testament to what good acting is all about. Where the acting ceases to be recognized, and the character emerges--whole, strong, and real.