Catching the Cold Waror
"That's Not How the Game is Played"
There's a great scene in Bridge of Spies where James B. Donovan (Tom Hanks) is having a drink in a dark bar with the CIA operative (Scott Shephard) who had been following him on a dark rainy street. The agent, Hoffman, is cocky. He's been following Donovan for the CIA because the insurance lawyer has been tapped (for his work on the Nuremberg trials) to defend one Colonel Rudolf Abel (Marc Rylance), a gray little man, a painter, who just happens to be "red" all over—a Soviet spy operating in New York. The Rosenberg's are dead for selling atomic secrets to the Russians and with Nikita Krushchev in power, tensions between the two atomic powers are getting critical. The CIA in general, and Hoffman in particular, are keeping tabs on Donovan, and in their drizzly cat-and-mouse game Hoffman has come out the better.
But, that's on the street. In bars and and offices and meeting places and board rooms, Donovan holds the floor when he wants to. And he's had enough of Hoffman's needling little irritations and superior attitude and condescending appeals to his patriotism. He "bottom-lines it" for the agent. "What makes us Americans? The rule book. The constitution. And that's what makes us Americans. So don't nod at me, you son of a bitch!"
"Do we have to worry about you, Donovan?" the agent talks to his back.
"Not if you leave me alone to do my job," he says exiting, not looking back.
It's a simple little scene, filled with tension and the implied threat of power. It's a negotiation—one of many in the film—where two sides stand with a certain knowledge of the other's potential for doing good or doing harm and standing firm. The directness of the scene struck me. It felt like the 50's, where men like my father spoke their mind, but held their aces and weren't fancy or poetic about what they said, but spoke economically with no room for misunderstanding. No irony. No code-words. No sports metaphors. No corporate-speak. Zig Zigler had not published yet. No bullshit. I suppose that's what it comes down to in simple terms.
"Great," he jokes. "Everybody will hate me, but at least I'll lose."
The man he meets as his defendant is curt, straight-forward and without pity—for himself or anyone else—he is extraordinarily practical and unpretentious (Mark Rylance gives an understated performance that still manages to steal every scene he's in and makes the most of his dialog written by original scripter Matt Charman, with a polish by Joel and Ethan Coen). He knows how the scenario will fall and, like a good comrade, he will march to the tune that is played.
*Sigh* The Audience. There's been a lot of flack for Bridge of Spies not being a good Spielberg film. I'm not even sure what that means. It's not Jaws? Close Encounters? Jurassic Park? E.T.? Of course not. Those were from the "gee-whiz" Spielberg who was making popcorn spectacle of the type he liked as a kid—and he made Jurassic Park so Universal would fund Schindler's List. No, this is the Spielberg who made Schindler, and Empire of the Sun (but still with the "look at this" camera showmanship), Munich and Lincoln, and down-played his role as director to work more subtly to make them better, more mature films and less of the "Spielberg film" variety. Fact is, in his role as producer and head of Dreamworks, he can assign those "gee-whiz" films to other directors and concentrate on making the ones important to him, more than to the studios' bottom lines. And, with his pick of any subject and working with some of the best writers available, his work is in marked contrast to "this week's superhero movie," (which Spielberg dismisses as a phase "which will go the way of the western") rather than "tent-poles" that will shore up the ledgers of movie studios. He could have mentioned the "disaster" movie. Or the "paranoid thriller." No, in his Senior years, Spielberg will be making movies for the ages, not highest weekend gross. And that's a good thing.
Francis Gary Powers got the cover of Time, Robert Abel a Soviet stamp, but James Donovan, who freed them both, got nothing.
* Although the opening "catching up" titles are hilarious: "1957. The height of the Cold War. The United States and Russia fear each other." No kidding? Now, I understand that some in the audience might not know the context, and that younger members of the audience did not live through it, or that some audience members might have not one iota of historical knowledge. But, really?
