The Devilish Fun of a Party Power Struggle
Veteran British actor Ian Richardson passed away recently. I took the opportunity afforded by my monthly mail order video subscription (no brand names, comrades) to stage a private film festival of Richardson’s best-known work, the BBC series, “House of Cards.”
The 1991 miniseries focuses on a fictional Tory power struggle following Thatcher’s ouster, as Francis Urquhart, the diabolically unassuming Chief Whip, plots to destabilize the government and sabotage his competitors. The filmmakers give more than a nod and a wink to Shakespeare. Urquhart’s Lady MacBeth-like wife is played by Lady MacBeth, Diane Fletcher (from the Polanski version), and F.U. frequently addresses the audience directly, to share his plotting or just to raise an eyebrow. It’s Richardson’s performance that turns what could have been a cheap gag into a darkly comic and chilling tale. The entire enterprise is devilish fun, right up to the shock ending.
The filmmakers revived the series for two sequels which compare less favorably to the original, if only because grabbing power is more fun than merely preserving it. “To Play the King” is more inherently British than the other series. Not because it focuses on a battle between an idealistic king and a cynical Prime Minister, but because, unlike entertainment fare tailored for American audiences, the filmmakers feel no need to make any of their main characters particularly likable. After all, the idealistic king’s politicking in favor of social welfare spending is no less an abuse of power as the Prime Minister’s Machiavellian dirty tricks, and is more hypocritical. Unfortunately, the filmmakers rely too heavily on F.U.’s ability to order “black-ops” mischief as a lazy deus ex machina to tie up the loose strands of an unwieldy plot.
“The Final Cut” is a slight return to form, finding F.U. struggling vainly to remain in office longer than Thatcher. The toll of time is conveyed interestingly, as ten years in office and gallons of blood on his hands, F.U. is surrounded by a cabinet and advisors than contain no familiar faces from the previous series. As the sins of his past inexorably catch up to him, his wife cold-bloodedly calculates how to preserve his legacy and their retirement finances.
As our own American political system gears up for a succession battle, it strikes me that few of the candidates are incapable of the cartoonish evil of Ian Richardson’s portrayal, but that none of them are capable of the wit and charm that makes the make believe politics of the “House of Cards” series so watch-able.
Cinema Fascists and Other Ghouls
“Pan’s Labyrinth” is a sort of gothic fairy-tale for adults and weird little kids. Like Jim Henson’s “Labyrinth” and “Dark Crystal,” this beautifully shot Spanish language film from Guillermo del Toro guides a ten year old girl through a dark fantasy world full of monsters and ghouls with questionable motivations. The world of the labyrinth exists largely in the imagination of the girl, Ofelia (Ivama Baquero), who is interpreting the far more horrific real world she inhabits, in which Franco’s Fascists are exterminating the remaining rebels in the dreary spring of ’44. In a bit of a cop-out, the filmmakers allow the audience to imagine that Ofelia’s fantasy world might be real, thus dulling the impact of a surprisingly sad ending. Sergi Lopez is almost cartoonish in his villainy as the Captain, which is fine by me. Call me old-fashioned, but I like my Fascists all snarling and evil. His brutality, as well as the brutality of his well-deserved comeuppance, had me wincing in my seat, a rare and oddly enjoyable experience.
Cultural Learnings of America
Your honor, it was the beer talking. Not me. It’s a lame excuse coming from Mel Gibson when he’s caught being himself (a sexist, anti-Semite yob), but even lamer when coming from drunken frat boys being drunken frat boys, on camera no less! The unnamed frat boys in question were the ignominious stars of “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.”
I don’t need to tell you that Borat is the brainchild of comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, a fake TV journalist from a former Soviet republic who baits Americans to say outrageous things (that they likely believe) with his seeming innocence. On his TV show, he famously got a bar room full of country-western fans to sing along with a song called “Throw the Jew Down the Well.”
The movie is savagely funny. It has a fair amount of poop jokes and Jackass-style gross-out humor, but it also has a keen eye for mocking the elite and the powerful, and the racism and sexism of ordinary Americans. While everyone is baited, some of our fellow citizens pass their tests with flying colors, such as the driving instructor who responds to Borat’s “traditional” two kisses on the cheek with a grumbly, “Well, I’m not used to that, but that’s fine.” But most take Borat’s bait and reveal the ugliest tendencies of Americans. A crowd of rodeo fans applaud Borat’s speech, in which he wishes that Bush drink the blood of every Iraqi man, woman and child; a gun store clerk responds to Borart’s query of the best way to protect against Jews with the instant recommendation of a very large handgun.
Unlike these other victims of the fake foreign journalist, the frat boys in question – who are so embarrassed by the spectacle they made that they are suing the filmmakers to have their appearance removed from the film – needed no prodding at all. As soon as Borat hitchhiked his way onto their RV, they were extolling the virtues of slavery, the innate inferiority of women and how tough it is to be a white man these days where no one gives you any breaks.
I saw the new Borat movie on opening night with a raucous Times Square crowd, and the scene with the frat boys was the only part of the movie that hushed the crowd. It wasn’t funny. It was scary and depressing. These morons are the future of America. They’re probably future Congressmen.
Writing in the Nation, Richard Goldstein accuses Borat of double standards, of couching bigotry in humor in order to get away with the bigotry that Borat himself employs. Goldstein either did not see the movie, or did not get it. It is significant that the only black people (other than Alan Keyes, who deserves mockery) who appear in the movie are in on the joke, and help satirize genteel white racism. Everyone is not fair game, just the rich, the powerful and the intolerant.
Scoop
Like all of Woody Allen’s movies since his “early, funny ones,””Scoop” has received pretty uneven reviews. One camp considers it a loose, freewheeling trifle. The other, a plodding, boring mess. Count me in the former camp.
“Scoop” is silly fun. It’s got Woody being Woody – stammering, neuroses, card tricks and Vaudeville humor – minus the distasteful groping of young ladies (a Herculean feat for any man when you are the Director and the delectable Scarlett Johansen is your star). Ms. Johansen, herself, works better here than in “Match Point.” While she’s got the figure and sultry good looks to be a femme fatale, she may take a couple of decades to grow into that role. In the meantime, she is better suited to play awkward, unsure girls who happen – purely by accident – to be sexy.
Building on a few borrowed plot points from “Match Point,” that movie and this one can be seen as a pair as a major improvement of the central gimmick of “Melinda & Melinda,” that is, that comedy and tragedy can be mined from similar material.
The biggest crowd pleaser that’s something other than one of Woody’s one-liners was the response to the site gag of Woody driving around in one of them lil Smart Car “Two-fers.” This, I don’t understand. Seeing our diminutive hero tool around the English countryside in one of those glorified go-karts makes me pine for the day when we will finally see the little buggers zipping around our New York City streets. Perhaps in the next Woody Allen movie.