BRINK JOB
by Chris Dashiell

The Cuban Missile Crisis - perhaps the closest the world came to nuclear war - has taken on some of the qualities of a legend. It's no wonder. Political drama doesn't get much higher, or more tense, than in a face-off with the fate of the world at stake. Kennedy partisans have used it as the ultimate proof of their man's greatness. The debunkers have been equally vociferous.

Roger Donaldson's THIRTEEN DAYS comes out firmly on the side of the JFK mystique. I'm sure many would find this a reason to dismiss the film out of hand. But the script by David Self, based on transcripts of the actual White House tapes, has enough respect for the facts, and political savvy, to make the picture both suspenseful and absorbing.

I'll have to admit up front that I'm fascinated by glimpses into the corridors of power. The better a film is at portraying the way people really act behind the scenes, the more leeway I tend to give it. Those parts of Thirteen Days which are most dramatic take place in meeting and conference rooms at the White House, with bigshots like Robert McNamara, McGeorge Bundy, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff arguing to sway the President one way or the other. With the stakes so high, it is instructive to see how trigger-happy most of them were. Generals Taylor and LeMay were itching for a first strike, with apparently little care for the consequences. Jack Kennedy and his brother were hawks as well, but they were new kids on the block, considered green and untrustworthy by the military, and one of the main points of the film is that they had to learn to stand up against the brass if they wanted to solve the crisis without going to war.

Some careful omissions on the part of the screenplay smooth out a few ambiguities. The film takes at face value the idea that the missiles in Cuba were a greater threat to the country because they were so close. In fact, there was only a difference of a few minutes between a missile launched from Moscow and one from Havana - McNamara pointed this out, but not in the movie. The threat was political. To allow missiles in Cuba would be a symbolic surrender that would discredit the U.S. and make it appear weak, not to mention destroy JFK's electoral future. This is just one example. The film omits several facts which would throw the Kennedys into a less than flattering light, including minimizing their shabby treatment of the UN Ambasador, Adlai Stevenson. On the other hand, if you think that the words attributed to LeMay and the rest of the hawks are distorted or exaggerated, I invite you to read the book of the White House tapes yourself. Kennedy had to walk a fine line between a strong contingent of Cold War veterans who were bent on an attack, and his own desire to solve the problem without blowing everything up. It couldn't have been easy.

Donaldson directs in a slam-bam thriller style which works best when he's concentrating on the deliberations of men in power, less so on outside events or personal interactions. In a few brief scenes he uses black-and-white photography, an experiment which has no purpose and only succeeds in confusing the viewer. A bigger problem is the choice of a point of view character. Kevin Costner, one of the producers, plays Kenneth O'Donnell, the President's Chief of Staff. Just about everything is seen through his eyes. Consequently, his role in the crisis is exaggerated. We see him bolstering JFK's confidence, coming up with key ideas and decisions, and generally being an important man behind the scenes. The trouble is, neither O'Donnell the character, nor Costner the actor, is interesting enough to warrant this central position. We see Kenny O'Donnell furrowing his brow, looking at his family and worrying, standing in his driveway and worrying, generally being pensive and - worrying. The movie slows down whenever Costner takes center stage. Furthermore, his character throws JFK into a shadow. Bruce Greenwood is impressive as the President, but his role has a tentative, unassertive quality - frustrated and angry much of the time, yet lacking confidence - and Costner's strong man-behind-the-scenes character exacerbates that problem. As conventional as it may seem, the correct decision would have been to focus on the Kennedys and not make O'Donnell the protagonist. But then - maybe the film wouldn't have been produced without a plum part for Costner?

Greenwood is good within the constraints of the role. Even better is Steven Culp's RFK - he seems so much like Bobby that it's almost scary. The body language between the brothers is one of the best things about the movie. It really was these two Boston brats against the old guard. The cast is generally very capable, with Dylan Baker's McNamara and Len Cariou's cameo as Dean Acheson the standouts.

More subtlety, more willingness to explore some of the darker political realities, would have made a better movie, although not as commercial. Kennedy's feet of clay have been so exhaustively exposed in the years since his death, that it's a bit anachronistic for Thirteen Days to try to preserve the illusion of Camelot. But compared to most portraits of power we have seen recently (The Contender, anyone?) - this film seems like a dose of reality.

The nonfiction film has so little commercial potential that it probably wouldn't exist without public television. It is fortunate that this support is available, but the TV format has imposed some drawbacks - film clips interspersed with glib talking heads and authorial voice-over - a form obscuring whatever interest the content may have in a soporofic haze. Josh Aronson's SOUND AND FURY has the good fortune of breaking that mold, at least to some degree, because he found a single family in Long Island that embodies and debates the film's issues in an involving and personal way.

Peter and Nita Artinian are deaf, and so are their three children. When Heather, their 6-year-old, expresses an interest in cocheal implants, a new technology that can provide hearing to deaf children, the parents are troubled. They are happy being deaf, and they enjoy being a part of what they call "deaf culture." They say they want the best for their daughter, but they don't want her to be deprived of her identity as a deaf person, or her ability to communicate with sign in the deaf community. These reactions may come as a great surprise to hearing members of the audience. We might assume that any parents would naturally desire that their child be able to hear, but Peter and Nita struggle aganst this idea, and are very defensive when Peter's parents, who can hear, support it.

Meanwhile, Peter's brother Chris, who can hear, and his hearing wife Mari, whose parents are deaf, discover that their infant son has been born deaf. They decide that they want to go ahead with the cocheal implant. Mari's parents react with anger and feelings of rejection, accusing Chris and Mari of believing that deaf people are inferior, and of denying their child the rewards of "deaf culture."

The impassioned debate which occurs in this family is fascinating. It is evident that Peter and Nita have endured years of being treated with condescension and disrespect by hearing people, and that they have therefore reacted against the "hearing world" as a realm which is inherently prejudicial to them. Although their arguments provide new insight into a way of thinking and living that is foreign to hearing people, the arguments of Chris and Mari, and of Peter and Chris's parents, carried more weight with me, and I think with the director Aronson as well. Peter and Nita have expended so much effort to attain happiness and self-esteem as deaf people, and have become so tired of the "hearing world's" misconceptions and indifference, that they don't even see deafness as a disability, only a difference. Their daughter Heather is an incredibly bright and vivacious girl, so it is very sad to realize that her parents, without intending to hurt her, are depriving her of the opportunity to hear. Although it is never explicitly stated, it seems that underneath they are afraid that being able to hear will irrevocably separate their daughter from them.

Chris and Mari go ahead with the operation, and Aronson shows us the session where their little boy turns his head when he hears his first sound. This technology is a wonderful thing. That it might seem threatening and invasive is made understandable by this film - Mari's mother asks, "Does this mean there will be no more deaf people?" In other words, their entire way of life and language is thrown into question.

Aronson seems to have gained the complete trust of the entire family. They argue, celebrate, fight with and console each other as if the camera isn't there. It's really a remarkable achievement, and the focus on conflicts around issues of deafness is a welcome relief from the usual inspirational approach in films about disabilities. Aronson made just one misstep, in my view. He has actors translating the deaf persons' sign language into speech in voice-overs that have their own dramatic emotional qualities. The film is already completely subtitled. The voice-overs have the effect of putting us at a remove from the experience of being with Peter and Nita and the other deaf people in the film. It would have been better to just let their sign language be translated by the subtitles. Nevertheless, this is a very engrossing documentary that will provoke some spirited discussion among those who see it.

The ad for TRAFFIC in the paper sports a quote from Stephen Holden of the New York Times: "Not since 'The Godfather' has Hollywood turned out an epic as powerful as 'Traffic.'"

No, sir, you go too far.

I can only draw three conclusions from this. One is that Mr. Holden has no sense of proportion, no memory, taste, or knowledge of film. A second one is that he has some arcane definition of the word "epic" that excludes all the Hollywood films made since 1972 that are better than Traffic. The third, and least likely, is that he is making a very bitter observation about Hollywood, implying that nothing made there since 1972 has risen above the level of mediocrity. Of course I know there must be other possible conclusions, but these are the ones I can draw.

The evaluation of my colleague Ed Owens is dead on. Smoke and mirrors - Steven Soderbergh's style almost succeeding in masking the weakness of the material. The film does take a critical view of the drug war, but it's mild enough in its portrayals to not particularly offend those who still believe in it. It could, for instance, have gone into the government's own complicity, self- interest, and corruption regarding drugs, but instead pretty much paints the DEA as hardworking heroes. For the most part, evil is projected onto the Other - namely, Mexico. (The guy playing the general does everything except twirl a handlebar moustache and say "Yeh-ha-ha.")

The device of using different colors and film stocks for the different stories has been praised as if it was something very daring - I suppose it is if you haven't watched anything made outside of California in the last twenty years. Personally I found it mechanical - and the use of a glaring, sepia-toned texture for the Mexican scenes compounds the stereotyping of that country as alien and other, distancing the viewer comfortably from it.

I also found the whole Catherine Zeta-Jones / Dennis Quaid / Don Cheadle thread melodramtic and unconvincing, like a very special episode of Kojak. (The Godfather indeed!) And then of course Michael Douglas plays the drug czar with a crackhead daughter and it's so obvious and schematic, although the scenes with the daughter and her friends are well done. (Side note: from this movie and Requiem for a Dream, are we to conclude that a pretty girl has hit bottom when she has sex with a black man for drugs?) Oh, and one more note to Hollywood in general - for once could you please try to get a 12-step meeting right? Jeez. Enough people go to them, you'd think someone would portray them on screen accurately.

Anyway, what Soderbergh has going for him is understatement. Where your typical studio hack would overemphasize everything, he has enough sense to allow the scenes their own rhythm and dramatic pace. That, his deft use of the handheld camera, and his skill with actors, serve him well. The picture is never terrible or boring. It's just sort of, well, middling OK. (Soderbergh's last two films are really his weakest, so of course he's getting a lot of praise now.)

Another big boost for Traffic is Benicio Del Toro. He gives his scenes a quiet, brooding power that raises the movie up a notch. I'm glad he's getting some recognition from this, because he's really a good actor, versatile and honest.

But no, Mr. Holden. Please try to refrain from exaggerating so much.

 

CineScene, 2001