Thor (2011): A Review

THOR

There Are Better Ways To Get Hammered...

Let me start by saying that in Thor, like all other films based on Marvel Comics characters (the fact that I don't know the difference between Marvel and DC is a Point of Honor for me), there is a Stan Lee cameo and a short film sequence after the closing credits.  Unlike other Marvel Comic film adaptations, it actually appears to be related to the movie itself rather than be an attachment to another film altogether (although we do have a notice that we haven't seen the last of our Norse hero, but more on that later).

It's also a safe bet that this is the first Marvel Comic film that stars two Oscar-winners and is directed by a Shakespearean acting legend.  With all this pedigree you could have one of two things: a disaster or a grand epic.  Thor, the final product itself, falls somewhere in the middle. 

We plunge into the story, where Jane Foster (Natalie Portman, Oscar winner Num. 1) is out in the New Mexico desert, studying the stars.  She and her partners Eric and Darcy (Stellan Skarsgard and Kat Dennings) encounter a massive storm, and as they try to capture it on film and then flee to safety they literally run into a big blond man. 

We then jump back into the backstory: Odin (Sir Anthony Hopkins, Oscar winner Num. 2) narrates about how he has vanquished the Frost Giants, and now he and his family live in the world of Asgard.  In this world are his two sons, who grow to be Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and Loki (Tom Hiddleston).  Thor, God of Thunder, is a thoroughly brash, arrogant man, quick to fight and slow to think.  On the day Thor is to be announced as Heir Apparent, a group of Frost Giants (I think they have another name but like many in Thor too difficult for me to try and spell) attack, attempting to steal an artifact that will help them regain power.  Thor, along with his friends/siblings/fellow deities (the script never specifies what they are) raid their world, and it's only through Odin's intervention at the last minute that they make it out.  Odin, furious with his impetuous son, takes his hammer away (Thor's source of power) and banishes him, and we end up right where we started.

Once on Earth, Thor is having a hard time understand that he is not the all-powerful being he was, barking out grand pronouncements and generally making a mess due to his cluelessness as to what realm he is in.  Jane is both disturbed and intrigued by this stranger (and the obligatory shirtless scene Hemsworth gives us explains the latter), but Thor now bounces between two worlds (Thor's attempt to get his big hammer Mjolnir back after Odin flung it to Earth shortly after flinging Thor himself out, and Loki's conflicted machinations to take over Asgard) and I think three stories: the first two and the involvement of the super-secret government agency S.H.I.E.L.D. and its head, Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg).  Thor eventually sees the error of his ways (how thought is just as importance as belligerence) and finds love, we discover a shocking twist involving Loki (which makes all his dealings less the work of a trickster god and more a confused being), and set up a confrontation between Thor/Loki, Thor/Frost Giants, plus a set-up for another film altogether.

Thor, as scripted by Ashley Edward Miller, Zack Stenz, and Don Payne (from a story by J. Michael Straczynski and Marc Protosevich) is extremely busy and worse, extremely unfocused and chaotic.  For its running length of nearly two hours including the obligatory closing credit scene, it never focuses on one story.  We're bouncing between Asgard and Earth, which might work except that we have to deal with both Thor attempting to be more, daresay human, as well as all the dealings with S.H.I.E.L.D.

Even then, things would work if there were interesting things going on in all three worlds, but sometimes there really isn't much to keep an interest.  This is especially true whenever the script attempts a bit of humor.  It works the first time when bombastic Thor attempts to declare his might against Darcy's "puny weapon" until he's brought down by her Taser.  This bit suffers diminishing returns when he again attempts to declare himself the 'mighty Thor' before a tranquilizer is shot into his arm.  When Jane runs him down for the second time, you kind of wonder why people are still finding this sort of bit funny.  

Worse, Thor presupposes a great deal from the audience in terms of plot.  It presupposes that we already have a vast background on the Marvel universe by putting in details that for those of us who never read a comic book or saw any of the related films we simply wouldn't get.  Take when Thor is about to try to take his hammer out from where it has lodged itself (The Hammer In the Stone, perhaps?).  In this massive raid by our Thunder God Agent Coulson has a special hit man waiting to unleash his arrows.

As I watched this scene (complimented with cinematically appropriate rain), all I kept wondering was, 'Is that two-time Oscar nominee Jeremy Renner in a cameo?  What's this guy, playing some character named Burton, doing here except having fun being part of a comic book movie?'  How was I to know A.) he was playing a character from another Marvel Comics series/movie, and B.) that his cameo was important because Renner was going to be in that other movie?  In short, how was I to know he was playing the future Hawkeye?  (Oops.  If that was a spoiler for you, then I hand over my crown as the MegaNerd to you.  The MegaNerd is Dead, Long Live the MegaNerd).   I have no idea who Burton is, so having him pop up only once adds nothing to either my understanding of this epic mythology or Thor itself. 

Same goes for S.H.I.E.L.D. and Agent Coulson; if I hadn't seen the Iron-Man films I wouldn't know where this person came from.  The fact that once we see the warrior Loki sent down to destroy Thor, a giant robotic-type creature, an agent asks Coulson, "That one of Stark's?" doesn't clear matters.  For those coming into Thor without any background into the Marvel universe, certain characters and plot points will get lost. 

If you didn't get lost in the myriad of stories, you might get lost in all the visuals.  Kenneth Branagh (the Shakespearean legend) drowns the visuals in vast excess.  Asgard doesn't look real but totally CGI, as does the world of the Frost Giants whom I liken to an Army of Mr. Freezes from Batman (is that DC or Marvel?).  I am aware that those worlds are fantasy, but when they look overtly fake it only takes you out of the film by its sheer falsity.  The whole first act of Thor drowns in its visual grandness which really ends up looking empty.

As a corollary to the script problems, we never get a sense of who the secondary characters are.  I don't think I learned the names of Thor's warrior sidekicks.  I don't even I learned their relationship to him or to each other.  Were they family?  Were they merely friends?  Who were they?  I guess those behind Thor expect me to know all that information, and the fact that I don't hampers my ability to care about any of them.   If all that isn't enough, the fact that a movie could make no use for Rene Russo as Asgard Queen Frigga is unintelligible.  She was on screen for probably less than five minutes, definitely less than ten, and so unimportant to the story she could have easily been written out without affecting whatever flow Thor had. 

Despite the overwhelming sets (particularly Asgard but the S.H.I.E.L.D. camp as well) and Patrick Doyle's sometimes overwhelming score (again, I don't trust a movie where the music is almost constant), Thor has to its plus column some exceedingly good acting.  Branagh I think is a far better director of people than he is of visual epics in Thor.

I did worry when I first heard Hopkins narrating the film: it brought back memories of the abysmal Alexander.  I figure Hopkins is the type of actor who can either be brilliant or camp: it depends entirely on the director.  When he has a good director, he is brilliant (case in point: Silence of the Lambs).  When he has a bad one, he can devour the scenery like an orphan at a candy shop (case in point: Alexander or The Wolfman: although in the interest of full disclosure, I did enjoy the latter).  In Thor, he veers close to camp but Branagh manages to keep Hopkins just short of it.  I didn't like his 'dying' scene, but barring that, his performance as the wise king but troubled father worked well.

The best performance came from Hiddleston.  His Loki isn't a clear-cut villain but a far more complex character than most comic book antagonists (although there are exceptions, such as Ian McKellen's Magneto from the first two X-Men films).  One of the factors I use to judge whether a performance is successful or not is whether I care and believe the character in spite of rather silly costumes.  Here, Hiddleston passes both tests with flying colors.  Loki is not entirely malevolent but more of a jealous and wounded younger brother, who loves his family but also harbors resentment against them. 

Another great performance is that of Hemsworth.  Thor starts out as brash and foolish, arrogant to the point of endangering all the worlds in order to vindicate his sense of right through might.  While the character might have in some other hands come off as thoroughly unlikeable, Hemsworth creates a being who has learned humility, who has evolved.  If the script had kept a stronger focus on his interaction with humans (and not have them all be comedic) Thor would have been a far better film.  Hemsworth's Thunder God manages to make the evolution of the character believable and more importantly, one that we care about.  I'm not sure he is an actual actor, but at least he is as good a Thor as we're going to get.

In short, Thor has better performances than this film deserves.  This isn't a universal virtue though: Portman isn't good in the film, but I would put that on the fact that she isn't given much to do in Thor rather than on being a bad actress (which she isn't). 

Thor isn't a bad comic book film like X-Men: The Last Stand or Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, but it is not in the same league as some truly brilliant classics like Superman: The Movie or Batman Begins.  The story is too unfocused (we never get a clear idea as to who many characters are and the fact that Thor has to be force to fit its characters into another film makes it look like nothing more than a trailer for The Avengers, right down to ending the film with the title caption "Thor will return in The Avengers" a la James Bond) and the visual vastness overwhelms the characters.  However, the performances by Hemsworth and especially Hiddleston brings it up a bit. 

Ultimately, whatever human story there could have been in Thor is short-changed, making this film less than the sum of its parts.  You really have to be Loki to love it.

Next Marvel Cinematic Universe Film: Captain America: The First Avenger

DECISION: C+

Under the Same Moon Review (Review #213)

UNDER THE SAME MOON (LA MISMA LUNA)

I think of all critics, I am best qualified to judge Under the Same Moon (in Spanish, La Misma Luna, although I would argue that it should be translated as The Same Moon, because the Spanish word for 'under'--bajo or abajo--is not in the title, but I digress).  Why am I more qualified?  It is because I am of Mexican descent, which to the filmmakers means I'll give it an automatic pass (no pun intended) because all people of Mexican descent will automatically want their fellow Mexicans to come over.  Well, not so fast...

Carlitos (Adrian Alonso) is the most adorable child in the history of Mexican cinema: smart, plucky, working as a gopher for human smuggler Doña Carmen (Carmen Salinas).  Ain't that cute?  He lives with Grandmama (Angelina Peláez) while his mother Rosario (Kate Del Castillo) is working two jobs cleaning houses in Los Angeles without papers.  She sends money every month so that Carlitos (the most adorable child in the history of Mexican cinema) will have a good life.  Rosario dutifully calls from a pay phone every Sunday, with Carlitos (the most adorable child in the history of Mexican cinema) living for that call.  Mom sent him a new pair of shoes for his ninth birthday, and at his request describes the area where she calls him from. 

Unfortunately, Grandmama dies the following Tuesday.  Now, basically alone, Carlitos (the most adorable child in the history of Mexican cinema) has no choice but to go from Mexico to Los Angeles so as to avoid a villainous uncle.  Since Doña Carmen has promised Rosario never to take him across, Carlitos (the most adorable child in the history of Mexican cinema: get used to it I will repeat it constantly) gets help from inept Hispanic-American students Martha & David (America Ferrera and Jesse Garcia).  Technically, they do get him across, but their van is impounded, leaving Carlitos (the most adorable...OK, OK, I'll stop, but you get the idea) stranded in El Paso.  He barely avoids being sold into white slavery thanks to a passerby who happens to lead a Mexican Underground Railroad.  Now, it's off to Los Angeles.

Rosario, completely unaware that her mother is dead and her son is wandering the U.S. alone, keeps working, all while avoiding the charms of Paco (Gabriel Porras), who A.) is obviously smitten with  her, B.) has a job as a security guard, C.) treats her and her friend with respect, D.) is generally quiet, kind, considerate, and gentle, and  D.) is a naturalized citizen, in other words, so unlike every image of Mexicans/Mexican-Americans in film.  For reasons we never learn, Rosario doesn't want to even date the gentle citizen Paco, instead devoting all her energies to gaining enough money to get a lawyer to help her become a citizen. 

Now, Carlitos (you know who) goes on several adventures: he becomes a migrant worker for a while, but in an evil I.N.S. raid is left behind, with only grumpy misanthropic Enrique (Eugenio Derbez) by his side.  Enrique is the only person in human history not to fall for the charms of Carlitos and does everything possible to get rid of him, but either in desperation or because Carlitos is the most adorable child in the history of Mexican cinema, he sticks with Enrique.  In Tucson, Carlitos  has a chance to meet his father for the first time, and father Oscar (Ernesto D'Alessio) tries to care, but being a more typical Mexican male (at least when it comes to cinema) he abandons his boy once again.  Angry Carlitos wants to go back, but Enrique, now softening his heart, helps him get to Los Angeles.  Now, with only the vaguest of directions, they search for this mysterious corner pay phone. 

By this time Doña Carmen has finally gotten in touch with Rosario by the greatest of chances.  Rosario, having already called off her marriage to Paco, is devastated by the double news of her mother's death and her son's American adventures.  She decides the best thing to do is go back to Mexico.  At the bus station, she sees a child using the pay phone, which makes her wonder; needless to say, Enrique now has learned to love Carlitos (who wouldn't) and sacrifices himself in a way so as to allow that Mother and Child Reunion.

Under The Same Moon is shamelessly manipulative, tugging at our heartstrings with the adorable Carlitos and the determined Rosario.  Who can possibly object to a mother's love and that adorable face?  You want them to be together; you'd have to be totally uncaring not to want a mother to be reunited with her child.  I have no objection to that.  I do object to how the story actually reunites them.  You know early on when Rosario is describing the area that this will be extremely important information.  

Ligiah Villalobos' script leaves many plot holes as well as being almost sadistically manipulative.  Rosario apparently never bothered to ask Carlitos how Grandmama was (has she been coughing like she has tuberculosis recently).  By introducing the menacing uncle, we almost demand that he leave Mexico, but I only wondered why Rosario never made any contingency plans for something like her mother's death.  I never understood why she didn't leave a phone number for emergencies, or why Carlitos couldn't stay with his godfather (Mexican acting legend Mario Almada) or Doña Carmen.  Why think of such things?

The whole idea of the grumpy middle-aged man who ends up caring for the child he's been unwillingly left to care for?  That got old with Shirley Temple films, and done much better by the way.  The clumsy Mexican-Americans smuggling for the first time?  That I wouldn't say is original (most first-timers tend to botch whatever they are trying their hands at) but there is one line that galls me more than any other.  Doña Carmen is dismissive of Martha and David, saying in Spanish, "Damn Chicanos, can't even speak their own language".

THE FOLLOWING IS AN EDITORIAL WHICH HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE REVIEW.

Who is this stupid woman to tell me I have to speak Spanish?  I am an American, my dear, and my first language is English.  That kind of thinking, that I and my children and their children and their children's children, have to speak Spanish as their first language is what will hold the Hispanic community back in perpetuity.  We'll never advance as a community with that kind of mindset.  I hope my children will speak Spanish; I am a firm believer in taking pride in your ancestry.  However, I don't think Spanish is my language and resent any person telling me I must speak it because of my background. 

And for the record, I don't call myself 'Chicano' and bristle when addressed as such. Thank you.

THE FOLLOWING WAS AN EDITORIAL WHICH HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THE REVIEW.  WE NOW RETURN TO THE MOVIE REVIEW.

I'll leave out the part where Carlitos and Enrique manage to find a job quickly in what is suppose to be Tucson (and thus having the cafe have child labor) or in how, despite all the terrible things Carlitos sees in the U.S. (like almost being sold as a child sex slave) he still has a heart in his song.  In a sense, it makes sense: all through Under the Same Moon I kept thinking of the song Somewhere Out There from An American Tale.  It could have been the film's theme song.

They might have even gotten inspiration from this classic song.

Finally, we get plot contrivance after plot contrivance.  What are the odds that Carlitos would lose all his money without noticing, or that the Harriet Tubman of illegal immigration would happen upon the selling of Carlitos, or Doña Carmen would come across a list of phone numbers that Carlitos never thought to take with him, or use, at the most opportune moment.  Side note: if she hadn't come across it, Carlitos would have still come to the exact spot he was looking for at the right time; curious, that.

Derbez does a rare dramatic turn (known primarily in Mexico as a comic and in my view, not a particularly funny one having seen his shows), and he's actually good as the grumpy man, and we can forgive the fact that we all know that by his last scene he'll grow to love the most adorable child in the history of Mexican cinema. 

The best performances are from both Alonso and Del Castillo.  Alonso has a simply adorable face that makes his yearning for his mother more deep and tender.  Del Castillo communicates her love for her child, with the only flaw being as to why Rosario would not want to be with Paco, who obviously is in love with her (as opposed to being in lust), but despite that she as a character isn't allowed to have many if any moments of levity Del Castillo creates a wonderful performance.

All in all, Under The Same Moon isn't as propaganistic as I thought it would be.  It is about that love between a mother and child, but it doesn't take away from the manipulative nature of the story.  I can roll with it if I go into it knowing that the film is advocating a different immigration policy (and a demand that I speak Spanish all the time to where I, native-born, will have to speak with an accent myself).  For this, I take Under The Same Moon to task, and give it a mild reprimand. 

I have to judge a film not be whether I agree with it or not, but how it worked.  Under The Same Moon worked well, but I don't like being manipulated the way I was with the film.  Just because my ancestors are from Mexico doesn't mean I have to support or like Under the Same Moon.  If we had more immigrants like Carlitos and Rosario, America might be better off; unfortunately, not everyone that crosses is as precious as the most adorable child in the history of Mexican cinema.

DECISION: C+

Ready For His Close-Up. Cecil B. DeMille: The Great Directors Retrospective

1881-1959

 CECIL B. DeMILLE

If any director followed the maxim, 'the bigger the better', it was Cecil B. DeMille. I will be frank: I enjoy his films, from the silent epic The King of Kings down to the splashy circus epic The Greatest Show on Earth to the opulent epic The Ten Commandments.  DeMille, if nothing else, was consistent in his film-making.

I figure that my enjoyment of DeMille is not on course with many of my more intellectual counterparts, who are quick to dismiss him and his films as bombastic, overblown, hammy, grandiose, and even bigoted. To my mind, this is a case of throwing out the baby with the bathwater: mixing whatever hatred they have towards his politics into a hatred for his films.

I think DeMille is a wildly underrated director, both in terms of style and impact.  Given that his primary interest was in entertaining audiences and giving the public what it wanted, he is trashed by the intelligentsia for not making films for them, exploring the deep and dark recesses of the human heart.  I think DeMille could have done so if he was interested in doing so.  However, I think DeMille had the goal of making films that would last, that would be watched again and again, and he has succeeded. 

Think on this: few directors serve as verbs.  There's Capraesque, Felliniesque, Spielbergian and Hitchcockian.  Add to that one more: a DeMille picture is quickly understood as being above all, a BIG picture, an event.  Now, while that epic quality of his pictures, especially in the latter period, has damaged his reputation among elites, the public at large, both during his lifetime and after, still love his movies because they are entertaining.

One thing people forget about Cecil B. DeMille is that he was one of the few directors to have a long career after the transition from silent to sound pictures.  Sunset Boulevard had it absolute right: there were three great directors working in silent pictures: D.W. Griffith, Cecil B. DeMille, and 'Erich Von Stroheim' (he could say Max Mayerling, but we all know whom he was actually referring to).  Which one of them was the only one still standing? 

It wasn't that DeMille was better than Griffith or Von Stroheim or more talented than them. I'd argue each was a genius in his own way, but it was because DeMille adapted the best of all three of them in two ways.  The first was to work with the studio bosses to retain as much artistic control as possible while still understanding that, for all his trappings of director-as-tyrant, he was still an employee.

This point is what killed Von Stroheim.  The second was to adapt to the advancing technology and make films the public would want to see.  This is what killed Griffith, who was too attached to making old-fashioned films and was never quite able to move on to sound.

DeMille may be unpopular because again and again, he kept going back to the past and especially The Bible for inspiration.  His big hit, The King of Kings, took direct quotations from the Gospels to make his biopic of Christ complete with color sequences, which show DeMille had some idea of where the future was heading.  He had a great hit not just because the life of Jesus is known by the majority of Americans, but because he took Preston Sturges' advice before Sullivan's Travels: DeMille made a religious film "with a little sex in it". 

I doubt Mary Magdalene was Judas Iscariot's lover, but by adding just a hint of decadence, DeMille manipulated audiences by introducing a sense of sin which Christ, in this case cinematically, could absolve.  He did it again with the original The Ten Commandments and its remake when the Children of Israel give themselves to wild abandon at the foot of Mount Sinai.  He did it once again with Samson and Delilah: that tale of the wanton woman seducing one of the judges of Israel.  As any good director knows, DeMille knew how to grab the audience's attention. 

Going back to The King of Kings, for all the trashing DeMille gets about not being able to direct actors, I would hold the scene where Christ (H.B. Werner) has a group of children before him.  A little girl asks him if he can heal, and He says yes.  The little girl promptly holds up her doll and asks Christ to heal her broken arm.  Jesus looks a bit embarrassed by this request, but cleverly grants her request in what I think is an especially tender and touching moment. 

Yes, there was a religious aspect to DeMille's pictures, and he may have been a devout Christian, rumors of mistresses notwithstanding.  I stand by my view that DeMille understood that for a predominantly Christian nation or at least one that is Christian by default, these subjects would get them into theaters.  I can't say one way or another, but I think DeMille had very few financial failures, so that's something to be said for his ability to understand an audience.

It wasn't all togas and crosses for DeMille.  He could make contemporary films (although one of them, The Godless Girl, seems to mix the sign of the cross with the sign of the times, and the original The Ten Commandments has a 1920's setting mixed with the Exodus story).   The one that has been vilified more than any is The Greatest Show on Earth.  Few films are hated for winning Best Picture, but almost all of them have at least one defender. 

When it comes to The Greatest Show on Earth, I ain't one.  I don't think it was the Best Picture nominated in 1952: I think it was The Quiet Man, followed by High Noon, followed by Moulin Rouge, THEN The Greatest Show on Earth, with Ivanhoe bringing up the rear. 

I will, however, stand up for The Greatest Show on Earth being great entertainment.  Having seen it twice, I think it captures the best of DeMille: telling a small story (the love triangle between the circus manager, the trapeze artist, and her male rival) in a large canvas with both secondary stories (Buttons the clown who never takes his make-up off and the tortured romance between the elephant trainer and his Muse) with lavish production numbers, culminating in an incredible train crash which in 1952 would have been spectacular and even now is still pretty good.  In a more formal review for The Greatest Show on Earth, I will speculate as to the myriad of reasons it won Best Picture, but I can't call it a lousy film because I was entertained by it. 

Here, and in his final film as a director, the remake of The Ten Commandments, we can see what made Cecil B. DeMille one of the greats in cinema.  He knew how to command and control audience emotion: how to excite them, how to entertain them, and how to hold their attention in spite of a very long picture.  He understood how to keep a moving picture moving: going from one scene to another by always having something going on. 

There is not much stillness in a DeMille film, and in a curious sort of way, modern directors could learn from him.  I am aware that most critics masturbate to No Country For Old Men, but without going into too much detail I felt many scenes were endless and dragged on.  It might do the Coen Brothers well to watch a DeMille picture to learn how to keep things moving.

As a side note, it's not my fault that The Greatest Show on Earth won.  It's not even Cecil B. DeMille's fault that it won.  Therefore both the film and its director should not be condemned for winning.

Now, I'd like to address this issue of DeMille being a bigot in his films.  This may be a case of people attaching his political conservatism to his films.  Yes, DeMille wanted members of the Directors Guild to take loyalty oaths during the McCarthy era, something I think was a terrible mistake.  However, in his films there isn't much if any evidence for the charges of bigotry.  The Crusades is not a diatribe against Islam but from what I understand remarkably respectful of it, especially for its time.  In the remake of The Ten Commandments, he hints that the Princess of Ethiopia and Moses may have romantic interests in each other: pretty daring stuff for 1956.  We also should remember that, despite DeMille's support for loyalty oaths, it was DeMille that broke the graylist against Edward G. Robinson and composer Leonard Bernstein by hiring them when no one else would. 

In short, Cecil B. DeMille was a far more complex person than his persona hints at, and that applies to his films.  I've always felt that the 1923 The Ten Commandments spoke to an era where people were becoming highly aware that their values in the Ten Commandments were slowly becoming subverted by the Jazz Age of speakeasies, gangsters, fast cars and faster women, and the need for speed & greed.  The idea of a 'godless tyranny' oppressing the Chosen People and having to fight for their freedom with God on their side might be the story on the screen, but in 1952 with the Cold War in full strength, could it be DeMille was making an allegory of current-day politics wrapped within a Biblical epic?  Perhaps DeMille was smarter than the elitist critics give him credit for... 

Cecil B. DeMille's influence is still being felt.  Steven Spielberg is probably the most DeMille-like director today.  He, like DeMille, has a dynamic and almost flawless ability to give people films that above all entertain.  Both are craftsmen in film-making, and it's no surprise.  Spielberg has been open how The Greatest Show on Earth was a primary influence in his decision to go into directing: a case of one genius influencing another. 

Both, curiously, have been criticized for being too popular, for making films that aren't considered deep.  I would argue those criticisms of DeMille and Spielberg are wildly off the mark.  Each, in their way, is a deeper and stronger director than they've been given credit for.

I find myself in an odd position.  I'm one of the few people who is an open Champion of Cecil B. DeMille as a director and filmmaker.  I think by and large he made great films, and that a lot of the bashing against him isn't based on the films themselves but on what people think of him personally.  I don't care about a performer's politics, though I am always concerned that his/her politics will overshadow their work and advise to keep their political activities to a minimum.  I judge the film itself, and when it comes to Cecil B. DeMille, I have yet to be bored by any of them.

I end with this: Cecil B. DeMille is a genius, a titan of film-making, and I hope that in time, he will be spoken of in the same way people speak of Herzog or Bergman or Lynch or the Coens.

Please visit more of my growing retrospective on The Great Directors.   

Doctor Who Story 017: The Time Meddler

STORY 017: THE TIME MEDDLER

A Little Monky Business...

One can wonder whether the four-part story The Time Meddler (individual episodes The Watcher, The Meddling Monk, A Battle of Wits, and Checkmate) counts as a historic story or a science-fiction story. Certainly, the setting is from Earth's past (Britain just before the arrival of William the Conqueror) but in this case, The Doctor (William Hartnell) and his Companions Vicki (Maureen O'Sullivan) and stowaway Steven Taylor (Peter Purves) aren't trying to influence history: they are trying to keep it as is.

I think it should be the first ahistoric story: one where history is merely the background to a more science-fiction driven story.  It is also unique in that The Time Meddler is the first Doctor Who story where we encounter a villain in the form of a fellow time traveler like The Doctor.

The Doctor and Vicki are mourning the loss of Ian and Barbara, when Steven appears (along with Hi-Fi, his faithful teddy bear).  The Doctor takes him on and they land in 1066 England, Northumbria to be exact.  Steven doesn't believe they are in the past despite lots of evidence to the contrary.  They soon split up, with the Doctor going inland while Vicki and Steven climb up the hill.  Unknown to them, a Monk (Peter Butterworth) has been watching, and he isn't puzzled by their appearance at all.

The Doctor meets Edith (Alethea Charlton) who tells him where and when he is, but the Doctor is intrigued by the chanting coming from the nearby monastery, especially when the chanting carries a curious distortion, like a needle on a record going slightly off.  He goes there, and the Monk traps him.

Vicki and Steven, however, are trying to avoid capture by both the Saxons and a Viking scouting party.  They also suspect the Monk knows where the Doctor is, and they sneak into the monastery to investigate.  Both of them make the startling discovery that the Monk has a record player, but the Doctor is still missing.  To make things curiouser and curiouser, the Monk has a Progress Chart detailing his activities, culminating with the Battle of Hastings, which has yet to occur.  While searching for the Doctor, Vicki and Steven make one of the most truly shocking twists in Doctor Who: the Monk has a TARDIS of his own.  The Doctor, independent of his Companions, realizes who the Monk is: a member of his own race who he calls a Time Meddler. 

The Monk has now decided to interfere with the course of history with an audacious plan: he will defeat the Viking invasion of Britain for King Harold so as to allow the Saxon king to defeat the other invasion force led by William the Conqueror, altering the entire course of British and more than likely, world history.  Now it's up to The Doctor to stop The Monk from playing fast and loose with history as it will be.

He is unwittingly aided by the Saxon villagers, who become suspicious of the Monk when he asks for beacon lights to be put just when they have confirmation of the Viking scouting party.  The Saxons believe the Monk is a Viking spy and raid the monastery.  The Monk manages to escape during the chaos of the raid while the Saxons go after the two Viking scouting party survivors, but when he returns to his TARDIS, he discovers that the Doctor has altered it in such a way that makes escape virtually impossible.

The Time Meddler, especially Episode One, is far lighter than previous stories.  Not since The Romans have we had a story that borders on comedy.  This is evident when Steven is presented with a Viking helmet as proof that he is indeed in Earth's past.

When Steven insists that it isn't authentic, the Doctor snaps back, "What do you think it is? A space helmet for a cow?"  We also see the humor just from the villain.

As performed by Butterworth, the Monk isn't evil.  He doesn't want to change history for his own benefit or to cause harm.  Rather, he involves himself in attempting to change the future because he thinks he is helping.  The Monk doesn't wish to bring chaos.  Rather, he believes that King Harold will be a good king, and thus he should be given a chance to reign.  The Monk figures that without having to fight the Viking invasion, Harold can defeat the Normans and thus prevent a lot of further involvement in future European wars.

In a sense, The Monk is almost innocent, oblivious to how changing the future may lead to worse results rather than better ones.  His villainy if it can be called that, is for the most part a childish one.  That makes the Monk an odd, almost endearing villain, but still a dangerous one nonetheless.  It's Butterworth's performance that keeps a healthy balance between the child-like enthusiasm of his chicanery and the dangers he presents in holding The Doctor hostage.  This Monk will not shrink from using force if need be to get at his aims (the Monk's laughter when he captures the Doctor is quite chilling), but by and large The Monk is a lighter, more humorous nemesis.

As a side note: while he's earned the name The Meddling Monk (more than likely due to that being the title of Episode Two), he should be referred to as The Monk.  This is how he is billed in all four parts, and while I've heard him called the Meddling Monk, he really is just The Monk, if one wants to be technical. 

Dennis Spooner's script should be given great credit because of its cleverness in both the overall plot and in creating an antagonist who is in a sense the Doctor's equal.  It also gave us in Episode Three one of the most genuinely shocking moments in the First Doctor's tenure.  In all previous stories, we really don't know exactly who the Doctor is (no pun intended).  With The Time Meddler, the mythos of Doctor Who has opened up: we now see that The Doctor has a group/species apart from Earthlings.  In short, there are more like him.  From this one point, the world of Gallifrey and of the Time Lords will emerge.

It also created long before the genre of alternative history really took off.  Nowadays, novels about what would have happened if the Nazis had conquered Britain or the Confederacy had won the Civil War are a dime a dozen, but in 1965 television such inventiveness wasn't easily found.  It is a remarkably tight story, with an interesting premise and characters.  In The Time Meddler, the Doctor now serves less as activator of events than as preserver of them. 

The one point in Spooner's script which I though was a touch weak was in how the Doctor (and later on, Vicki and Steven) managed to enter and exit the monastery at will: the whole "secret passage" deal isn't very clever or original.  On the whole, however, this is a minor glitch in an overall clever and inventive story. 

Hartnell is at the top of his game in The Time Meddler.  His best moments are in Episode One, where he delivers comedic lines in a style both humorous and almost harsh.  This same episode also has one of the unintended humorous moments when Hartnell suffers one of his infamous "Billy Flubs".  The Doctor is not interested in climbing a steep mountain.  "...but I'm not a mountain goat and I prefer walking to any day..." an irritated Doctor tells Steven.  The fact that O'Sullivan and Purves could continue without looking at least puzzled by this rather odd statement is a credit to their abilities as performers.  This for Hartnell in The Time Meddler is a rather small matter: throughout the story he is determined to stop the Monk from his plans.  As cranky as he may be (not as much as reputation dictates) Hartnell shows a softer side with both Vicki and Edith, being kind and considerate to both of them.

The curious thing about The Time Meddler in terms of acting is that Purves suffers the most.  His Steven appears incredibly thick-headed, almost stupid in his refusal to admit that he is in the past.  In fact, Steven in his debut story is a remarkably dumb and weak character: Vicki shows greater strength and courage when dealing with the Saxons and the Monk than Steven does.  From his first appearance, stumbling out into the control room with his panda bear, to when they all leave for points unknown Steven as a character isn't standing out as heroic or clever.  O'Sullivan is better as Vicki, tapering down her youthful exuberance from some of her previous stories and become a stronger person in her own right.

A lot of credit should go to director Douglas Camfield, who kept the pace steady and did not build up the twist in Episode Three but let it build naturally.  Aside from a battle between the Saxons and the Viking party in Episode Three that looked a bit comical (as if they really didn't want to fight but had to), Camfield created wonderful moments in The Time Meddler, drawing strong performances from Hartnell and Butterworth.  The closing moments in The Time Meddler, where Vicki, Steven, and The Doctor are almost literally part of the galaxy as they each stare out into the vastness of space, going into the stars to new adventures, is an especially beautiful moment in both The Time Meddler and in Doctor Who the series.

 
Here's where things get a little tricky.  The next three succeeding stories: the four-part Galaxy Four, the one-off Mission to the Unknown (both the shortest Doctor Who story and the only story not to feature the cast), and the four-part The Myth Makers are incomplete to say the least.  There is a six minute clip of Episode One of Galaxy Four (A Thousand Suns) and that's the longest known surviving footage of all three.*  What few clips of The Myth Makers that exist at all are due to off-air recordings made by fans, and Mission to the Unknown is one of three stories to have no surviving footage whatsoever.

Story 021, the epic twelve-part The Daleks' Master Plan, has three complete surviving episodes.  The optimist therefore says that a quarter of the story survives.   However, the episodes (Episode Two: Day of Armageddon, Episode Five: Counter Plot, and Episode Ten: Escape Switch) are so separated that one would have to fill in many of the plot points to try to make an honest evaluation of the story as a whole.  Story 022, The Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve or just The Massacre,  is unfortunately the third and mercifully last Doctor Who story of which no surviving footage whatsoever is known to exist.  Therefore, the next complete story is Story 023, The Ark.

As a side note, it is a terrible shame for television history that so many Doctor Who stories no longer exist.  Some of them might have been quite good, and yes, some might have been awful, but we may never have the chance to see them.  A lot people worked hard to create these stories, and their work is literally lost in time. 

Of course, this isn't to say there may not be a restoration in the future: Mission to the Unknown, being the shortest, seems the most likely candidate for an animated reconstruction. 

As it stands, we'll have to jump from Story 017 to Story 023, in which time we will lose one companion (Vicki, at the end of The Myth Makers) and gain another (Dodo Chapet, at the end of The Massacre). 

I have opted to take a side trip to the surviving episodes of The Daleks' Master Plan and give a review of those, but the next formal review will be for The Ark. 

The Time Meddler is a clever, witty story, not as out-and-out comical as The Romans but certainly less serious than The Chase or The Dalek Invasion of Earth.   It's not often one can say that the villain was delightful, but the Monk (or the Meddling Monk if you prefer) is both dangerous and endearing at once. There was strong directing both in terms of acting and visuals.  In short, The Time Meddler is an answer to our prayers. 

*Since originally written Episode Three of Galaxy 4 (Airlock) has been rediscovered.  Thus we now have a reconstructed version of this story and with that, a review of it. 

Meddling Monks Be Praised...

Next Story: Galaxy 4

10/10

Alice in Wonderland (2010): A Review (Review #212)

ALICE IN WONDERLAND (2010)

A Carroll Out Of Tune...

You can't really call Tim Burton's film Alice in Wonderland for many reasons.  One: it's not strictly speaking an adaptation of the Lewis Carroll books Alice's Adventures in Wonderland or Through The Looking Glass.  Two: as many of the characters tell Alice, she really isn't in a place called Wonderland but actually called Underland.  

The film is therefore erroneously named.  It also is more a facsimile of the books, a remarkably joyless affair that has only name recognition going for it. 

Alice (my not-so-secret love Mia Wasikowska) is now 19, and facing a most unhappy prospect of a proposal by the tweedy Lord Hamish Ascot (Tim Piggot-Smith).  She does not want to marry him, but alas, this may be the only way to restore her family's fortunes.  Instead, she leaves Hamish and everyone else watching them at her surprise engagement party to go chasing rabbits.  Once again, she tumbles down a hole and finds herself in a world vaguely familiar but she stubbornly insists is all a dream.  Here, Alice eventually finds the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp) still in the middle of his tea party, but the world Alice enters is not a happy world.  

The Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter) has usurped the throne thanks to the help of the Jabberwocky and pushed out her sister the White Queen (Anne Hathaway).  The White Queen is looking for a champion to fight the Jabberwocky, and Alice, according to the scroll called the Oraculum (I figure because it's an oracle of things past, present, and future) states Alice and only Alice can kill this beast. 

Alice, of course, doesn't want to kill the Jabberwocky or anything really.  She does feel an obligation to rescue the Mad Hatter, trapped in the Red Queen's castle.  She does so, aided by the hunt dog Bayard (voice of Timothy Spall), the Dormouse (v.o. Barbara Windsor), and even the mischievous Cheshire Cat (v.o. Stephen Fry).  Once rescued (being sure to take the Vorpal Sword with her), they are ready to take on the reign of terror of the Red Queen and her champion.  Finally, she emerges back to her world and decides to do the most anti-Victorian thing and go into business, sailing to the East to swindle the Chinese, I mean, bring business to the Orient.

Amazingly, in spite of its one hour and forty-eight minute running time, Alice In Wonderland feels far longer and both rushed and boring all at once.  I put it to the fact that while screenwriter Linda Woolverton had a great source of material to work with, she and I figure Burton decided that the best thing to do was to take out all the wit, the joy, and the fun out of it and turn it into a cross between Return to Oz and The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc.  

The film is dark and dreary, and more blasphemous, there really is no story here.  Other than the fact that she yells a lot and has a big head, we don't see the Red Queen as a new Gaddaffi.  Other than her fluttering about we never see why the White Queen wishes to return to power.  Even more peculiar, the Mad Hatter is actually rather sane, his hair notwithstanding.  It takes a great deal of courage to take one of the Great Books of Literature (my English teacher always said the majority of quotations emerged from three sources: the Bible, Shakespeare, and Alice In Wonderland) and reduce it to a story of a somewhat stupid girl who has to lead some sort of revolution. 

I never trust a film that has a continous score, and longtime Burton collaborator Danny Elfman never lets up on his music.  There might have been a minute or perhaps two where there was actual silence, but to my mind I believe having perpetual music in a movie is a sign that the film needs something to keep people interested or at least not drifting off to sleep.  Granted, the sets and costumes are excellent in bringing us into this unreal (and allegedly named Underworld--side note: why change the name of the place, or better yet, why not call it Alice in Underworld) world, but besides that, what interest do we have in seeing Alice and her side defeat the Red Queen and her Knave (Cripin Glover) since we don't care about any of them.

As much as Wasikowska enchants me in her films (The Kids Are All Right, Jane Eyre), she has also not (Defiance) and here, she is in the latter.  Alice is so flat, having a blank expression through almost the whole film.  I put it on the fact that there is no story to hold our interest.

  

As stated earlier, Bonham Carter consists of yelling and Hathaway (who sadly given her makeup job looked 300 years old) was all fluttery.  Now, I'll say that they played their parts correctly, but they never had any actual character traits that made us either fear/hate one or rally/care about the other. 

Depp doesn't go wrong playing oddballs but I'll say it again: the Mad Hatter isn't mad as in crazy; maybe mad as in angry.  When he finally performs his Futterwacken (a dance of joy), it doesn't look funny or fun, just so at odds with the somber tone of Alice In Wonderland.

The voice work is on the whole good.  Alan Rickman was perfectly cast as the Caterpillar, and his grand tones, while easily recognizable, lent that air of haughtiness to the role.  Windor's Dormouse is odd only in that it brought back memories of Reepicheep from the Chronicles of Narnia films.  Whether it was a conscious decision to do so I don't know (I doubt it) but you can't have a mouse flinging a sword without us thinking about how similar they are.  To his credit, I did not recognize Michael Sheen as the White Rabbit, though Stephen Fry was more recognizable as the Cheshire Cat (side note: given Sheen's best-known performance is as Tony Blair, wouldn't it have been more accurate to have had him play the Cheshire Cat).

I will say that I did laugh when I heard the Cheshire Cat tell Alice that he never gets involved in politics.  If only that were true.  I bet a lot of the British-viewing public must have been rolling in the aisles or rolling their eyes.  Yet I digress.  

The story itself doesn't make much sense: if all know Alice will fulfill 'the prophesy', why is everyone so clueless about what she is doing there?  How is it that the Red Queen doesn't recognize Alice if she has seen her before in the past when she was there as a child, or even stop to think that this large creature who appears in her garden might be the mysterious Alice?

I cannot get over the fact that all that is good about the two books the film is based on was sucked dry to create something that did not have any energy, any joy, or any originality.  Alice In Wonderland is very busy but very empty, remarkably bland.  Even Johnny Depp suffers: his makeup makes him look like Elijah Wood of all people.  As long-time readers know how I feel about 3-D, I need not waste your time going over that once more. 

Alice In Wonderland the 2010 film bears little resemblance to Alice In Wonderland the book.  It was an interesting idea: to take a director known for his interest in the dark and quirky nature of life and adapt a work of joyful nonsense.  Somehow, they didn't mesh.  It's in the end odd that in Alice In Wonderland, there is no real sense of wonder, only boredom.

How Can You Tell The Difference?

DECISION: D-

This Is What America Is To Me. Frank Capra: The Great Directors Retrospective

1897-1991

FRANK CAPRA

America is a nation of immigrants; we all take pride in our ancestral heritage but also have a great love for the land of our birth or naturalization. Americans simply love America: not just the physical territory but the idea of America, the land of opportunity where one can come from nothing, flee repression and find a land that guarantees you nothing except the chance to have life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It would take an immigrant to capture on celluloid what we Americans can't quite verbalize, a Son of Italy to shape what we think of as authentically American. Few directors have such an abounding and unapologetic love for America as Frank Capra, and few have captured the joys and contradictions of the nation as Capra has.  In short, what we think of as 'American': the small-town boy makes good, the goodness of our neighbors, the hope to move up, was from the work of an immigrant.

One simply cannot ignore Capra's immigrant background when it comes to his film-making.  Capra came to the United States from Sicily at age six, so his childhood was shaped by his memories of both his native land and those of an American upbringing.  Unlike other foreign-born directors who came to America as adults (say Hitchcock), Capra was of an age where the hopes that every immigrant come to America with were solidly grafted onto his soul.  He took it for granted that anyone can come and make of him/herself a success, namely because he did so.  This lent his films a spirit of optimism, of what good ol' American know-how can do to make the country and the world a better place.

Take his first Best Picture winner (It Happened One Night).  Capra had established the ground rules for screwball comedy: fast-paced witty conversation and two people from different worlds that end up falling in love.  Here, the average man (the Clark Gable character) is the hero, and this was tonic in the times of the Depression. 

It's Capra's celebration of the man and woman in the street (from Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and Meet John Doe to It's A Wonderful Life) that makes him more than beloved: it makes his films ones that stand the test of time.  Capra is the first major talent to tackle the ordinary lives of ordinary Americans and find the nobility within them.  Capra heroes from Longfellow Deeds and "John Doe" to Jefferson Smith and George Bailey are ordinary men who struggle against such things as deception and fraud, not armed with guns but with something more dangerous to the power elite: the truth and individual courage. 

Take Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.  Here, our young Senator isn't calling for armed insurrection against the corruption he comes across.  Instead, he uses the weapons within his power, namely the filibuster, to stop the rot he sees taking place in the hallways of power.  Jefferson Smith is not stupid or even naive, but instead someone who has not been corrupted by cynicism.  We the audience identify with him and his struggle because like Capra, we believe in the goodness of our country and its institutions.  This is why we identify so powerfully to Jefferson Smith's plight that when it looks like he is 'licked', we are agonized ourselves. 

I think this is part of Capra's genius: the ability to have us identify with the characters.  Like George Bailey, who among us hasn't had secret or in his case, not-so secret, dreams that remain unfulfilled but who realize that our lives in the end have been pretty good?  Those things like honesty, personal courage, family: the things that we value are the things Capra holds up to us in his films and holds up as models for us. 

This ability to identify with the average man (you and me) is best captured in the documentary series Why We Fight.  There were many men drafted in World War II who didn't have a great understanding of how the world grew into conflict; until the bombing at Pearl Harbor, there were many Americans who considered the wars on both their shores to be 'over there' and thus, unimportant to their lives.  The seven parts that comprise Why We Fight put the struggle against Fascism/Nazism/Japanese aggression in a context that could be understood. 

For example, in Prelude to War, the comparison is made between Nazi Germany and the United States.  In a famous scene, we see how 'the church' or religion if you prefer was the last obstacle to total Nazi domination of Germany.  "The Word of God and the Word of Fuhrers cannot be reconciled.  Then God MUST GO", thunders narrator Walter Huston, and in a brilliant sequence we see a stained-glass window smashed with rocks, to reveal an image of Adolph Hitler behind it.  In a time where religion was more dominant and respected, and with the shorthand of the stained-glass window serving as the symbol of faith, the idea of 'our' faith (whatever it was) at risk by barbarians was a call to arms.

Again, it is Capra's brilliant ability to make his movies projects to where we identify with those on the screen that makes us care about what we see on the screen.  At the heart of Capra films is a sense that good will triumph, that the 'common' man was truly extraordinary, and that you and I have worth outside whatever wealth we have outside our bank accounts. 

Those themes: the importance of family, faith (religious and personal) and the decency of the 'common' man and how he (I can't think of a Capra film where women were the protagonists) will triumph come again and again in his films.  Again and again, the celebration of what it is to be American is at the core of Capra's genius, as well as to why his films are still seen by the public at large.

This isn't to say Frank Capra wasn't a craftsman when it came to his films.  He could, like Hitchcock, manipulate audiences with his imagery: the conclusion of It's A Wonderful Life as George runs through the streets of Bedford Falls is not just iconic, but a confirmation of that character's epiphany and transformation from a bitter man driven to despair to one who has reaffirmed his desire to live. 

As a side note, I don't understand why the phrase "Capra-esque", which I take to denote an optimistic view of American life, is so dismissed.  Capra at heart was telling us that things will get better if we work at them, and rally around the truly important things: family, honesty, personal courage despite great pressure to conform.  These are positive qualities, and I agree up to a point with director William Friedkin, who stated that he prefers Capra's America, even though it's gone. 

I don't know if it is completely gone: certainly the sense of community has lessened, and people today are more cynical.  However, we time and again gravitate to Capra's world, because in his films the genuine love he had for country comes through.

Sadly, he made no films after 1961's Pocketful of Miracles.  He lived another thirty years, and yet his career ended, I think because the way he looked at the world and the world he celebrated was disappearing.  Capra would not fit in to the world of hippies, free love and rampant drug use.  One senses that Capra understood that his worldview would no longer play in Peoria.  He could have made more films: at 64 he could have gone on to a few more, but Capra's America was slowly fading from existence.  Maybe Friedkin was right. 

We still have the films, glorious paens to America and as how we see it.  In his films, America and Americans are celebrated: their honesty, their ingenuity, their pride in the working-class.  We see that in perhaps Capra's best-known and loved film: It's A Wonderful Life; we have an Italian-American family moving from Potter's Field to their new home courtesy of the Bailey Brothers Building & Loan.   That must have been an extremely personal moment for Capra, and belies the idea that he was not an auteur. 

In short, Capra-esque or its more dismissive cousin, Capra-Corn, is a positive thing.

Please visit The Great Directors for other Icons of Cinema. 

Defiance (2008): A Review

DEFIANCE

The documentary Imaginary Witness really influenced my thinking on Holocaust-themed films.  For most of the films, the central point was to convey the horrors of the Shoah and its effects on those killed, those who survived, and those who stood on the sides.  Recently though, with television miniseries like Uprising and films like Defiance, the story is about not being passive, but being aggressive, about fighting the Nazis, not being their victims. 

It's a cultural shift in a barbarism less than seventy-five years old: instead of going gentle into that good night, we now learn stories of taking arms against a sea of troubles.  While these stories of Jewish resistance are ones that should be told, there is a danger that in telling them, we forget to include actual people in them.

Defiance (director/co-writer Edward Zwick and Clayton Frohman adapting Nechama Tec's non-fiction book Defiance: The Bielski Partisans) tells the story of the Bielski brothers.  There's Zus (Liev Schriver), the hothead who wants to fight, fight, fight.  There's Tuvia (Daniel Craig), more rational and perhaps compassionate, who will fight when the need arises but only then.  There's Asael (Jamie Bell), a bit of a naive youngster.  Technically, there's also Aron (George McKay) who is a minor and thus really is relegated to the background. 

It's 1941 and the Germans have overrun Belarussia, killing or capturing however many Jews they can find.  The Bielskis, who have been in the forests for reasons not entirely clear (I was never sure if they were hiding or doing some sort of illegal activities) come to find their parents dead and Aron deeply traumatized.  They go back to the forest, and soon they are joined by other fleeing Jews such as Tuvia's old teacher Shimon Haretz (Alan Corduer) and the intellectual Isaac Malvin (Mark Feurstein), as well as a host of others.

From their hidden forest camp, the Bielskis begin a campaign of resistance against the Nazi occupation.  Zus wants to fight, but Tuvia wants to survive, not go on attacks for vengeance.  Zus, unhappy with this and Tuvia's leadership, joins the Russian partisans (despite the strain of antisemitism within the Red Army), while Tuvia does what he can to get as many Jews out of the Nazi's reach.  Asael, having escaped a group of Nazis, brings with him Chaya (Mia Wasikowska), the girl with whom he will fall in love.  Tuvia, a bit of a loner after being widowed, finds love again, with Lilka (Alexa Davalos), and there's even a bit of romance between Zus and an equally strong woman, Tamara (Jodhi May).  Eventually, Zus and Tuvia reunite and join forces against the invading Nazis.

Defiance, for all its good intentions, suffers precisely because of said good intentions.  The main flaw in the film is that it's too reverential to the story.  The Bielski Brothers are reduced to nothing more than living stone figures: Zus the Wild One, Tuvia the Morose/Contemplative One, Asael the Emotional One.  We never get to know them as individuals; on the contrary, the brothers spend so much time being "noble" and "heroic" that they never become human. 

The flaw of making the Bielskis into heroes rather than people essentially forced into heroism starts right at the beginning of Defiance.  For all the talk the brothers made about the killing of their parents Zwick lost an opportunity to establish the family dynamic by having us see any of the Bielski family as individuals, as people.  Since we never got to know their parents, we never got to fully appreciate the impact and horror of their murder.  Instead, we jump right into them being orphans and having their world broken apart.

The family relationship between the two oldest brothers is never fully established.  In Defiance, I could only guess that Tuvia is the oldest but there was always the chance that Zus is the elder Bielski brother (the fact that Schriever is only five months older than Craig does not help sort out matters).  My guess for Tuvia being the oldest is because he was the one in charge, but for those with siblings, who is to say the oldest has to be the automatic leader of the family?  Why did Zus not want to take on more refugees?  He never got to fully present his case, nor did see what motivated Tuvia to have a relatively compassionate heart, unless you disobeyed his orders. 

In fact, we never got to know anyone in Defiance.  Whatever wisdom that could be drawn from Shimon or any intellectual conversations between him and Isaac the Socialist was left out.  One can wonder as to who these refugees are, but in spite of its two-hour and seventeen minutes we never get any idea who any of the people are: not the Bielskis, not the refugees, not the Russian/Soviet partisans.  They are anonymous refugees, and perhaps in the world of Defiance, we didn't need to know them because they weren't all that important to the goal of the film: which was canonization of the Bielskis.  It is hard to believe that Zus or Tuvia could fall in love with anyone because both of them are so stiff from being noble that they don't appear to harbor any emotions common to us mere mortals.

It's an unfortunate fact of the direction, in every sense of the word, Defiance took that the actors within it suffered.  You have a good cast of women (in particular my not-so-secret love Wasikowska) but the woman are not strong or independent or anything really.  Their job is to merely look with awe at the heroic brothers and not be their own people.  You have Craig, looking all sullen and morose; in short, no different than in any of his films: has he ever smiled on camera, you have Schriever, matching him in his stiffness, you have Billy Elliot looking all lost as the Youth. 

We are suppose to believe there is a romance between Asael and Chaya, but since we never see them in anything close to a romantic situation, or even a passionate embrace, we can't ever accept that they are even interested in each other, let alone deeply in love.  His marriage proposal falls flat because like all of Defiance, it is so reverential to the leads that it doesn't have the patience or interest in making them like you and me: fully rounded people with moments of joy and pain.   

The best example I can find in Defiance about how all of the people (I am loath to call them 'characters') are cardboard comes when the camp is coming close to starvation.  Tuvia pets his horse (where he got on or stabled it or how he loved it if he loved it at all, we know not), and then the camp has meat.  We don't know how Tuvia felt about his horse or if he has any kind of bond with him/her because we never see a moment of caring or interest in the animal.  How then can we believe Tuvia made a great personal sacrifice when we never saw him bond with a person, let alone an animal?

One thing that deeply troubled me about the film is The Accent Question: to use or not to use.  I'm not a big fan of adopting accents when an English-speaking character is playing a non-English speaking part (which is why I didn't beat Tom Cruise up for Valkyrie).  My belief is that we accept that Actor/Actress X is whatever nationality they are playing so accents are not needed. 

There is some leeway: you can't have someone like Matthew McConaughey speak with his Texan drawl in a film like Defiance because it would sound so laughable to hear a Belarussian Jew speak like he's from Austin.

Side note: when it comes to English, the accent should match the nationality: if an Australian is playing a South African or a Welshman is playing an American or a Californian is playing a Scotsman, he/she should adopt the accent of the country his/her character's from, otherwise that too would sound laughable. 

In Defiance, they went one over.  Rather than be satisfied with having the characters speak with Russian/Belarussian accents, they decided to have whole scenes where they spoke in Russian or Belarussian.  I found this endlessly frustrating: either commit to an accent or make the film completely in that language.  I figure Zwick thought it would add a greater air of authenticity to Defiance; what it added was more confusion.  I kept wondering why, oh why they switch from the mother tongue to accented English.  Why, Why, Why?

Defiance doesn't seem to care about the Bielskis or the refugees as people because it was more interested in making them heroic versus human, down to heroic speeches.  They were, and their story is one that should be told, but Defiance does all the survivors of the Bielski camp a disservice by dismissing their stories to mere footnotes in history and mummifying the Bielski Brothers into icons for veneration, not men who did incredible things at great personal risk.  How people can take a fascinating story and make it rather lifeless defies explanation.

There's a great quote in Defiance.  "Our revenge is to live," Tuvia tells those at camp.  I think that would have made a great title: Revenge Is To Live.  At the very least, it would have signaled to the viewers that everyone in Defiance was an actual human being. 

DECISION: D+