I'm Still Here

It is a blessing that director Casey Affleck cleared one or two things up about his debut feature I'm Still Here upon its release. The most important of these revelations is the fact that, no, star Joaquin Phoenix was not acting in earnest when he announced his retirement from acting and planned foray into hip-hop. That admission by Affleck precludes me from having to write another review of the polarizing mockumentary that tip-toes between believing its excess and criticizing its self-involvement. No, instead the headline is this; Joaquin Phoenix is not crazy, a drug addict, or going to be rapping anytime soon. His newest career is still acting, although now it may be teetering on performance art, as a great deal of his latest character was developed merely in view of the public, if not the camera itself.

Phoenix plays an actor overwhelmed by his fame who retreats inwards to finally discover his true self. That this actor's name is also Joaquin Phoenix and that this retreat happened in front of the media and on one oft-viewed David Letterman interview makes matters all the more confusing. Again, the filmmakers have been abundantly clear; the overweight, bearded, drug-abusing man making Ben Stiller and others extremely uncomfortable is a character, not the real Joaquin Phoenix. One way to tell the I'm Still Here Phoenix from the real one is that the on-screen Zach Galifinakis look-alike is going by JP, which we assume would be his stage name if he ever got the rap career going.

Who can forget Russell Crowe shoving the paparazzi, or Christian Bale's infamous rant against a director of photography who got in his line of sight? The deeper we go with JP, seeing his tantrums over not having marijuana, or his drunken solicitation of women, the more we believe. That was the genius part of the hoax (although don't you dare call it that), that no matter how strange Phoenix's actions became, we at least partially believed them. The public (not the audience) is not surprised when an actor does something outrageous and debauched; it comes with the territory of being young, rich and famous.

Phoenix is young, rich and famous, so what part of JP is method acting and what is simply the realization of a fantasy? Even if we take it "all" as "fake", Phoenix did grow that beard, gain that weight and act flighty at best in public for the better part of a year. He did get on stage in Las Vegas and free-style, until a heckler drew him into a fistfight. I'm Still Here may not have been a true documentary, but it's not a scripted film either. Some of the action is improvised, and therefore some of the behaviors it exposes real. The best of these come from Sean Combs, the hip-hop mogul subjected to JP's beats, who assures him the two are not ready to work together.

Whether it endures or not as a film, I'm Still Here will always be remembered for its unique conception and promotion, which consisted almost entirely of deceiving the media. I cannot help but think that Affleck had an axe to grind in this matter, given the way his brother has been splattered across the tabloids for the last decade plus. While anyone else may go insane in private, when a celebrity does it, both the private and public person must be committed. Though Entertainment Tonight may have had their doubts, their coverage of Phoenix's outlandish behavior did eventually fuel the flames of curiosity, allowing for the wide release of the film. And through them, we believed it as well. Phoenix, or someone like him, could go down a similarly self-destructive path - that verisimilitude makes the film compelling, visceral and, ultimately, praise-worthy.

However, JP must be put to rest - Phoenix is not going out like Kafka's hunger artist, this act defining the rest of his days. I'm Still Here closes with a long tracking shot that follows JP down a river in the middle of the jungle. He sinks lower and lower, his lumbering body growing more tired with each step. Eventually, his tangled locks drop beneath the water, a symbolic death for a symbolic avatar. The screen goes black, marking the end of the mercurial JP and the credits display the name "Joaquin Phoenix", indicating him as the lead actor in this farce. He is, after all, a star.

The Vault #61: David Mamet's Homicide

Most screenplays by David Mamet are written too sharp and fast to leave the actors room for emotion or subtlety. The plot moves like a bobsled across a thin, polished sheet of ice; never getting too deep, always maintaining impeccable balance. The Woody Allen of con-men, the on-screen Mamet seems more interested in the words than the meaning behind the words. Touching moments happen by accident - the show must go on, and must do so at the greatest possible efficiency. There are, of course, a few exceptions; that one of them is a hard-boiled police procedural is something of a surprise. For once the trickster, the guy working an angle, is not one of the characters in the story - it's the writer-director himself.

In the opening scene of Homicide, a SWAT team bursts into an apartment in an inner city tenement, shooting an innocent man as a wanted one escapes. What these shock troops clad in black evoke will depend upon the viewer. Cut to Robert Gold (Joe Mantegna) smooth-talking hostage negotiator extraordinaire, who is assigned to find the fugitive despite being pushed off the case by the FBI. Now that the case is splashed across the front page, the mayor needs the murder police back on it. However, the put-upon Gold, mocked for his religion, soon finds himself in the midst of a second case; the murder of a grandmother in a convenience store. Oh, she's also Jewish, and her family suspects there's more to the case than meets the eye. 

This is a cop movie that marches to the beat of its own drum in an unnamed city (take points away from Se7en), creating two mysteries and paying attention to neither. Unlike other Mamet potboilers like House of Games (where a more collected Mantegna was in absolute control) and The Spanish Prisoner, the objective is not to solve the case but rather observe the effects the case has on the protagonist. Gold become completely engrossed in the possible hate-crime; the black-vs.-jewish political subtext seems to have been a red herring. 

Out of a hammy setup with detectives complaining about their hours and pay, Mamet spins a tale with themes straight out of Joseph Conrad; ethnic identity vs. modern cultural role. What's most arresting, and most un-Mamet, is how the two cases, and the two strings pulling on Gold's conscience, never intertwine. This is a triumph against formula, where the same character has to psychologically reconcile two disparate events without the help of coincidence. Doing this, depth and feeling come out of the most cliched and overdone gumshoe scenes:

Here is William H. Macy, representing the traditional, professional, hard-drinking cop, and he cannot possibly understand what Gold has fallen into. We become befuddled ourselves, and what he is investigating becomes more and more interesting, even if the actual link to the case is becoming more tenuous. Without pointing any real fingers or constructing anything concrete, Homicide presents a rather compelling theory about an ongoing war between Zionists and neo-nazis on the streets of America. Now does the opening scene make sense?

The fun isn't over yet; just as soon as he conjures up the rooms filled with propaganda and secret meetings of paramilitary organizations, Mamets whisks it all away with a deus-ex-machina confession. Some of the best movies leave us with the same emotion as the characters on screen - think of our betrayal mimicking Kay Corleone's at the end of The Godfather (we love Michael - why would he lie to us?). The same is true of Homicide - dumbfounded, Mantegna stands in the hallway scratching his head, wondering if his introspection and self-realization was for nothing. Whether is was or not, it's best forgotten. It's only a movie.

Animal Kingdom

Earlier this summer, we were treated to a very different kind of organized crime drama in Debra Granik's Winter's Bone. Not only was the Ozark meth scene a fresh subject for the silver screen, but the film chose a unique protagonist, a teenage girl. Terence Malick and Road to Perdition aside, we don't usually see the crime/noir genre from the perspective of children, and Winter's Bone took on characteristics of gothic horror in this light. David Michod uses the same avenues of ignorance and innocence in his his gritty crime drama Animal Kingdom, about a family of bank-robbers meeting their bloody end.

James Frecheville plays Joshua "J" Cody, the youngest member of the nefarious Cody clan. We first see J watching TV next to the corpse of his mother, victim of a heroin overdose. J is disconnected and awkward, just another high school kid trying to balance school work, a girlfriend and a dysfunctional family. Animal Kingdom opens with these well-worn cliches, complete with indie-drone soundtrack and sensitive voiceover. However, as his uncles Craig, Darrin and Pope come into the picture, these elements drop out entirely - J no longer needs to speak for himself, as the calculating though loving voice of matriarch Janine drowns out any previous conscience. It's not a long journey from the couch to the mean streets of Sydney, where things are falling apart; when a Cody family associate is murdered by corrupt police, J soon finds himself accomplice to Pope's revenge plot.

Michod's tightly knit screenplay does not keep us confined to J's perspective - we branch out to other members of the ensemble. As Darrin, Luke Ford delivers a virtuoso performance as a younger sibling reluctantly drawn into murder by his mother and brother. We see the straight life through J's girlfriend Nicky and her family - her overweight father works from home and is more than happy to help J, even when he is on the run. Guy Pearce plays a compassionate detective, constantly working at J, and his relative innocence, to inform on his family. Presiding over all is Janine (Jacki Weaver) a more proactive Livia Soprano, who has no qualms with drug use or murdering witnesses, as long it keeps some semblance of her family out of prison.

All these elements combine for a film that feels not quite complete. It is certainly odd that in a movie about bank robbers (the opening credits feature still photos clipped from security camera footage), we never see a single heist conceived or executed. Like Winter's Bone, J is not at the age where he can plan or comprehend - he simply reacts. His voiceover ends, "I'm here now, doing what I'm doing" - this is not a grand meditation on crime and money and corruption, just a kid in a bad situation.

Ultimately, Animal Kingdom is about making it in the wild (as one painfully unsubtle Pearce monologue informs us, setting up the film's title), and what being an orphan means to moral education. J does eventually teach himself a version of right and wrong, although many people are hurt along the way in his ignorance. After a plodding and sometimes too familiar 90 minutes, Michod closes with a shocking and satisfying act of retribution. While J does not make everything right or gain any control over his life, he does get a release. When you're 18, that's all you can ask for.

The American

George Clooney is lost in thought. He drives down a darkened, out-of-focus tunnel, only appearing in silhouette as sonorous music bounces off the audience. Having killed two people (why we're never told), he has been sent by his boss (whose identity and affiliation is never revealed) to the Abruzzo, a painfully beautiful region of Italy, to await further instruction. What has the rough, wizened Clooney so befuddled, so speechless? Whether the silver fox's furrowed brow does in fact conceal anything meaningful, or more importantly, whether we care, is the litmus test of Anton Corbijn's The American. Part existential thriller, part Super-Bowl-budgeted cologne commercial, the film lives and dies much more on the audience's investment than on the rather paltry details presented.

Sometimes Jack, sometimes Edward, Clooney is a veteran assassin/munitions expert who may be "losing his touch." We know this not only because his boss says so, but because he is hunted down by some mysterious Swedes in the opening scene. After killing them, and realizing his cover is blown, Jack/Edward kills his girlfriend, who may be a witness, or a double agent, or both. The point is clear - Corbijn has our attention because a beautiful woman has just been killed. Whether this puts the American in the territory of cold-blooded workman films like Le Samourai or The Day of the Jackal is, again, up to you. The sun-scorched setting and mediterranean beauty might recall Antonioni's The Passenger. Later, as Clooney shows off his physique doing chin-ups in a medieval inn, you may be reminded of the monastic life of Travis Bickle. You also may not. 

This is all to say that The American tries very, very hard to seem like a serious film. There are three scenes of action, and little amounts to more than a couple of rounds being fired. Clooney is there to ruminate, not kill. His job consists of constructing a weapon; there are many scenes of him working with his hands and improvised tools. The monochromatic poster and nebulous title should have informed you - this is not the fun-loving George Clooney of Ocean's 11 and Out of Sight. Nor is it the man of action Clooney fighting for right in Syriana and Michael Clayton. The American is George Clooney, Man with a capital M, trying to discover his identity and the meaning of life. Did I mention the only two people he opens up to are an old priest and a hooker? 

Manny Farber decried the close-up as a shortcut to profundity, a way of making the audience fill-in the blank and feel something when the filmmaker was too lazy to do it themselves. Given 5-10 seconds of silence and a vast expanse of human expression, we will jump to conclusions. This seems to be the game plan of The American from start to finish. We file into the theater, relishing the thought of Clooney roaming Europe in a five thousand dollar suit toting an automatic weapon, and are then confronted with a painstaking zoom into a rural cabin. The deafening silence, the antithetical peace of the scene, immediately shocks us into reassessing our expectations. Cut to Clooney mournfully regarding a glass of scotch, and we've seemingly entered the world of "Art". Has Corbijn done anything mind-blowing? Or have we simply ordered one thing and been served another? 

This might be all well and good - Michael Mann has made a career of somewhat aesthetically overblown films about emotionally unavailable men staring plangently into the distance. However, the best of Mann's films eschew plot for noise, substance for style. In this case, screenwriter Rowan Joffe seems to want to have his cake and eat it too. The climax and denouement of The American wastes a great deal of the credit Clooney's dog eyes and Corbijn's sunset landscapes had built up. Like the tongue-in-cheek third act of Charlie Kaufman's Adaptation, we find ourselves ripped from something ostensibly smart and thrown into the most mainstream, Jason Bourne territory possible.  

The American is seductive, especially when we allow it to remind us of the better movies to which it owes its existence; one particularly pregnant scene features Clooney enjoying a night cap in a florescent truck stop straight out of Edward Hopper, while Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West plays on a well-placed television. A famous movie star stuck in the backwaters of a foreign country might seem like a recipe for Oscars and acclaim, but one cannot ignore this film's September 1st release date. Hollywood wanted to make an art film, something for Clooney to put on his "serious" reel. What comes out is pretty, superficially thoughtful, and nowhere near interesting enough for a second viewing.