Amsterdam (2022)

"What Fresh Hell Is This?"

or

The Endurability of Good Intentions. ("He Followed the Right God Home...")

 

Who knows when it really, really started in the scheme of things, but it really started to get intense with the dead Senator in the box with no lid.

 

Just back from Europe by ship, he turns up dead and his daughter (Taylor Swift) wants an autopsy. So, she calls two guys from the former General's old integrated unit in WWI, Burt Berendsen (Christian Bale), a doctor of "experimental medicine," and Harold Woodman (John David Washington), Columbia University-trained lawyer, to oversee the procedure. To ensure that the procedure is done without prejudice, Dr. Irma St. Clair (Zoe Saldana) does the autopsy.

 

What the autopsy reveals is suspicious, but when Harold and Burt attend a pre-arranged meeting with the general's daughter to report their findings, they see her running away for their rendezvous, stricken. "He knew something. He saw something terrible," she says while she can.

 

Join the crowd.

Before the night is over, Burt and Harold are on the run from the police, accused of a murder they didn't commit, but sure of who committed it, not that it matters in the short run. They have to hide...and they have to find out who killed the General and who's behind all this...because...they're veterans. Their commander has died. And they owe him.

But, that's history. In that history, Burt found himself the medic for the 369th Infantry, an integrated unit in WWI France. Its commander was such a racist that he required the black infantry to wear French uniforms, rather than American ones due to white soldier complaints, but he was replaced by his commander General Bill Meekins (Ed Begley Jr.), and to further cement fences, Berendsen made a pact with the most vocal soldier, Woodman, that they would always have each other's backs. Even during "The Argonne."

Berendsen and Woodman are severely wounded, requiring many operations to remove shrapnel by a diligent French nurse named Valerie (Margot Robbie), who repairs their wounds and forms a bond with the two men, eventually taking them to Amsterdam, ostensibly to take Burt to a company called Cambridge Glass (run by characters played by Michael Shannon and Mike Myers), manufacturers of the best quality glass eyes, but more to live together in peace and fellowship and recover from "the war to end all wars." They become "lost."

It is an idyll that can't last. "Choice matters over needs." Burt, finally becoming comfortable in his scarred skin, decides to return to America out of his devotion to his wife. Harold stays with Valerie, but sees no future in it ("We only exist in Amsterdam") and returns to America to pursue a law degree. Then, their General comes home in a box.

David O. Russell's Amsterdam is being marketed as a star-filled cream-puff of a movie, but it isn't that. Instead, it's a good-natured political screed on the dangers of fascism roosting in America, basing it on the "Business Plot", a little remembered attempt by conservative business interests, unhappy with liberal Franklin Roosevelt's election, to use veteran protests over delayed bonuses by the Hoover administration, to install an un-elected military official to essentially oust FDR as President. As a modern context, let's suppose that the MyPillow guy and the CEO of Overstock didn't like the results of the 2020 election and were taking aggressive actions to have it over-turned. Couldn't happen, right?

 

Oh. Oh, right. 

It's a curious little gremlin of a movie. There are going to be a certain number of people—on the far right, maybe fascist, certainly white supremacist side—that would never see this movie. And then there are others—people who are stuck in the post Nixon era cynical groove (which has only atrophied during the Trump years to the point where late-night comedians can barely keep up) who will look at it and pooh-pooh it as satire-lite, which is easy to do if you're viewing it with the same attitude as one would have now.

But, the folks depicted in this movie didn't live through Nixon. They lived through World War I and came home to depressions, both Great and small. They still believed in government and they still believed in the United States, no matter what tough times they'd been through. The same starry-eyed patriots who volunteered in droves during World War II. Because they believed in something bigger than themselves. That's not a popular sentiment these days.

And Russell's movie may be off-putting for those who want their messages obvious and with the tone of righteous indignation (that is also popular these days) instead of the quick-paced Wes Anderson whimsy that it evokes. Still, it doesn't shirk from portraying grievous war-wounds—praise must be heaped on the make-up department for their relentless consistency—on people who refuse to see themselves as victims.

These are people who, despite their quirks, walk the talk and aspire to good intentions despite the consequences. Burt, being Half-Jewish, Half-Catholic goes to war at the behest of his Park Avenue in-laws only to find that the means are more important than the ends, especially considering that their respect for the military doesn't extend to veterans. He is kicked out of his lofty office address and starts work in the streets and then in Harlem, to the point of moving out of the apartment he shares with his wife...he's so straight an arrow that he doesn't even think that's perverse. Woodburn is black in an early 20th century—he already knows the heartbreak of good intentions when your skin isn't the predominant color. Yet, he has found validity and valediction in another country fighting for a country that wouldn't consider giving it. And Verna is a rich girl considered a kook, but whose dedication in the operating room goes above and beyond the requirements and limitations of triage. Their actions all make sense in a society that ignores their sacrifices while reaping the rewards of the very things they fought to protect.

The cast is uniformly excellent with Bale coming up with a fully realized character taking advantage of the limitations of a back-brace and glass eye and turning it into a performance reminiscent of Peter Falk—and in moments of agitation, Martin Scorsese, while Washington is his most relaxed since BlacKKKlansman. Robbie has a little trouble with accents, but manages to make a performance that is both alluring and comedic, and it's all photographed with a slight sepia tone by Emmanuel Lubezki, who manages to turn out top-tier work under technically challenging conditions.  

One has to admit, though, that Amsterdam is better in the after-glow than in the light of projection. Free from its manic energy in that post-viewing meditation, two aphorisms come to mind—for a movie that is full of them. One (that I've heard quoted so many times it defies origination) is "If you have a message, call Western Union", something that Amsterdam does with tenacity in its reckless abandon to obfuscate with comedy. The other I heard from legendary baseball announcer "Red" Barber on one of his weekly talks with Bob Edwards on the NPR Morning Edition. He said "It's not the one with the most toys, wins. God doesn't count the toys. He counts the scars."

 

There are a lot of scars in Amsterdam. I like that.

The Sparks Brothers

Ahead of the Curve

or

"I've Never Understood Why Music Has To Be So Stinkin' SERIOUS"

Edgar Wright has been re-writing rules for film-making for a while now, combining fantasy with reality, comedy with action, gangster pics with musical-dance, turning genre on its cliche, combining, mingling, crunching, like splicing the DNA of film to create new life in the medium.

But, what would an Edgar Wright documentary look like?

 

The answer comes with his new film, The Sparks Brothers, which details the career of Ronald and Russell Mael, two brothers who have been blazing a trail in music (while never catching popular fire) for over 50 years as the band Sparks. Starting under the name Halfnelson (and changing the name after an A & R suggestion with the first album), the two have put out 25 albums since 1967, changing their band through various adjustments in style and technique that always seemed to be slightly ahead of trends from glam rock to disco to techno to art pop to house to orchestral to stripped down rock, on through the ages of videos—they were doing them before MTV was established—thanks to their early interest in film, only to see other bands emulate their sound and style and hit the pop charts.*

But, they never had that "break-through" hit. The Mael's were born in San Francisco and started their career in the U.S., but traveled to England in 1973, where they charted with the song "This Town Ain't Big Enough for Both of Us," and achieved notoriety for their TV appearances—Russell was the "cute one" while Ronald dressed like a 50 year old, sported a Hitler/Chaplin mustache, and gave off the vibe of a 30's creep/gigolo. The contrast has a bizarre ying-yang effect, not unlike Cheap Trick. As the poster for the doc says it's the story of "Your Favorite Band's Favorite Band."

Part of their "never-quite-achieved-the-success-their-reputation-inspired" result may be that Sparks never took themselves too seriously, abandoning the narcissistic singer/songwriter mode of "This is my story/It's sad but true" strategy for third person narratives with a sardonic, satirical—and funny/ironic—sensibility. That trick never works—as the career of Randy Newman attests. When an A & R rep whined "Why don't you write music you can dance to?" they titled their next project "Music You Can Dance To." And when a chance-meeting led to a joint project with the Scottish group Franz Ferdinand, Ron Mael's first song submission to them was titled "Collaborations Never Work."

Music listeners/fans prefer the illusion that songs are "The Truth," and that they relate to them, as they relate to the performer. Sparks was rarely about that. They were more about experimentation and putting on a show. They attracted attention in Europe and England, not so much in America, despite appearing on Dick Clark's "American Bandstand" a few times—probably because they were articulate...and funny! They appeared as the band in the 1977 disaster film Rollercoaster, which played in theaters in "Sensurround". I wonder if the Sparks segment used it?

Wright's film has 50 years of clips to use for the film and uses them liberally, as well as a lot of talking head segments with the Brothers and fans/producers/rockers/collaborators and they're all filmed in black and white. There's abundant use of animation in various guises and Wright book-ends the film with "YouTube"-friendly segments "Frequently Asked Questions about Sparks" and—during the credits—a whimsical "Don't Trust This" "Ten Things You Don't Know About Sparks."

I loved it. I remember seeing Sparks albums coming through the radio stations I worked at and the cover art was always weird and gave you no sense of what the album was like inside. I never played them, never listened to them, and I find myself wishing I had. I was missing something and it would have thrown a different light on the music that was to become omnipresent in the years to come. The film evokes an odd sense of nostalgia for something you never experienced—although the trends in music all spring to mind when the next Sparks song is brought up with the resulting thought of "Oooh, THAT's where THAT came from...."

It is smart, ironic, and celebratory. So much so that one is disappointed to see it end. One hopes that, like the group it lionizes, it can go on forever, running just ahead of fame and idolatry, but never losing the energy (in whatever forms it takes) that keeps it running through the decades, as per the Mael Brothers, now in their 70's.

They've just collaborated with Leo Carax (which is perfect) on his first feature film (starring Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard) since Holy Motors that's coming out this Summer.** What will THAT look/sound like? Can't wait to find out.

* Oh gosh, there are so many comparisons—Queen (they opened for Sparks in one marquee photo), Human League, Pet Shop Boys, Devo, B-52's, Depeche Mode and on and on. Paul McCartney dressed up as Ronald in his "Paul portrays everybody" video of "Coming Up" in 1980.

**  Their interest in film-making and their bizarre outlook led to almost collaborations with Jacques Tati and Tim Burton (on a musical version of "Mai, the Psychic Girl") but neither one came to fruition.

 

Inglourious Basterds

Written at the time of the film's release...

"Yaknow sumpin,' Utivich? Thyis Maht Be Mah Masterpyiece"

I run hot and cold on Quentin Tarantino. What most people consider his classics—Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, and Kill Bill, I find one-off regurgitations of other people's films with gear-grating pop-culture references to con the kids. But I did like the Bruce Willis half of Pulp Fiction (written with Roger Avary) and think the world of his jazzing-up of Jackie Brown. I was even surprised at how much I enjoyed Tarantino's half of Grindhouse, Death Proof. Tarantino's slavish devotion to matching other directors' techniques, combined with his lack of focus as a screen-writer (we went through four interminable hours of Kill Bill to get a lecture on comic-books?) have made his regard as a cinemaster seem like "The Emperor's New Clothes" to me.* Combine that with his reputation as a media-whore, who rarely says anything of much value,** explains why I'm always on the fence on QT. One film at a time, Sweet Jesus.

But I know a great movie when I see one, and Inglourious Basterds*** is a great war film, adventure story, spy story and movie-movie. Tarantino's influences are just as obvious, but more than ever, he puts his own sensibility to it, showing a superb command of the camera, composition, and direction in service to an interesting wish-fulfillment of a World War II story, and a paean to the unholy grip of cinema and its power to blow you away.

It's "Once Upon a Time in Nazi-Occupied France" (your first clue that you're not going to see a by-the-book WWII movie), and Tarantino begins a long prologue-like scene between a dairy farmer and the chief reason for seeing the movie, Christoph Waltz as SS Col. Hans Landa. Waltz's Landa is solicitous, polite, self-satisfied and more than a bit theatrical. That he is well-versed in languages and their subtleties is beyond question. He has a nickname (a lot of characters have nick-names and noms de guerre, few of which they like)—"The Jew Hunter"—and he has come to this farm-house to ask the farmer if he knows what became of a Jewish family who was known to be living in the sector (their current whereabouts unknown). It is a long, excruciatingly tense scene of false cordiality, heavily dependent on dialogue and subtleties of expression on which Tarantino, unable to fall back on street-language and bursts of giddy technique, maintains an iron grip.**** It's extraordinarily well-done and follows the negative contrast of Tarantino-movie-rhythms that dominates the film: a whole lot of talkin' punctuated by a brief manic explosion of violence, like a rubber band being constantly tightened until it snaps.

This episode sets up the Big Duel in the film—between Landa and Jewish refugee Shoshanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent, very good in a multi-faceted role), who escapes to occupied Paris and is now running a movie theater, inherited from her aunt. Between the "chapter" showing us this and the opening, there is an introductory chapter to "The Basterds," a group of Jewish mercenaries dropped into France before D-Day as a "wet-ops" team. Their modus operandi is to scare the Nazis by destroying platoons through any means necessary (including clubbing them to death), then sweating information from the last one standing (and quaking). Led by Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt, doing a subtle turn as an unsub-tle comic-relief movie-star hero: "We're not in the prisoner-takin' business," he says at one point, "We're in the Nazi-killin' business. And, cousin', business is a'boomin'"), nicknamed "The Apache" for the way his troop mutilates the Nazi corpses to send a message, scalping the dead ones, and carving a large swastika into the fore-heads of the live ones, branding them for life.

By now, it's apparent that the level of violence in Inglourious Basterds is pretty high—brief, but high. The most violent of the Basterds is Sgt. Donny Donowitz—"The Bear Jew"—the one with the baseball bat, and he's appropriately played by Eli Roth, director of the "Hostel" movies, one of the new sub-genre of horror films known as "torture porn." "Watchin' Donny beat Nazis is as close as we get to goin' to the movies," says Raines to Donowitz's next victim, setting up the major theme of the film. The violence is sometimes excruciating, but the major set-pieces are filmed with quick, intricate cuts and with an overall unsentimental sensibility. Tarantino spares no feelings and good guys get killed with the bad guys early and often and surprisingly.

"The Basterds," being in their unique position behind enemy lines, are recruited to help the British with "Operation: Kino," as explained by General Ed Fenech (Mike Myers, doing his own version of "Basil Exposition"*****) to Lt. Archie Hickox (Michael Fassbender, the epitome of fussy), a former film-critic and intelligence officer in charge of the operation (Winston Churchill, supervises the briefing, as portrayed by Rod Taylor (!!)). But as with most espionage stories, the best laid plans...sometimes require a last-minute re-write.

Ultimately, all the parties converge onto one spot—that cinema in Paris that becomes the center-piece of "Operation: Kino" (or what's left of it), and in a confluence of hidden allies and enemies and dramatic cross-purposes the film reaches a stunning crescendo, a "Götterdämmerung" that would have made Fritz Lang proud. This is all done with a careful precision, a precise plotting, and some superb directions and mis-directions on the part of the director, with the photographic wizardry of Robert Richardson and a soundtrack laden with bravado 60's film-music from the likes of Charles and Elmer Bernstein, Ennio Morricone, and pointed contributions from Billy Preston and David Bowie.

But...but...what the movie comes down to is a movie about movies, which seems a bit puerile, and a bit soon in Tarantino's career to have the medium eating its own tail for subject matter. Sure, he loves the movies. That's always been clear. But the movies he loves are about something...not just that they're great movies. Howard Hawks took his arctic explorers, and air-mail pilots, and posse's and rhino-hunters, and they became metaphors for movie-making and of how disparate groups of talented people unite in a cause, but I can't remember a film he made about movie-makers that wasn't about something else. Here, Tarantino's rough-hewn coalitions band together, and it's about...what a great thing movies are. As a celebration of the cine-mah, it's an orgiastically great success, and I think its his best film.

but...but...

Can we say something more next time? Can we light up the screen to say something more than movies light up the screen? Can we have less fireworks, and more of a reason to have them?

And so I remain on the fence, hoping for the future.

One film at a time, Sweet Jesus.

* Miramax put out a DVD of ChunKing Express as part of its "Quentin Tarantino Presents" series. Frankly, Kar Wai Wong should be presenting HIM.

** I had to turn off an interview with Charlie Rose, as Tarantino spouted out writerly cliches on his prowess as a writer ("First I come up with the characters and they write themselves!") I see, that's why, with a war going on—that we don't see—everybody's as movie-obsessed as QT in Inglourious Basterds. I'd better stop or I'll talk myself out of loving this film, because in the final analysis, it's the movie that matters, not the slob who made it.

*** I'll bet you any money the title is mis-spelled like that to differentiate it from the original The Inglorious Bastards (or Quel maledetto treno blindato, roughly a 1978 "Spaghetti-War" film by Enzo G. Castellari starring Bo Svenson, who cameo's in Eli Roth's Nazi film-within-a-film in Tarantino's movie), Fred Williamson, and Ian Bannen, but on a metaphorical level, it shows a total disregard for the rules, which sets up it's "How I'd Win the War" scenario, belying History. Isn't that what most movies "based on a true story" do? Isn't that the job of the fiction writer?

**** There's a nod to one of my favorite shots in Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West where Charles Bronson takes 30 seconds or so to relax a smile from his face in tight close-up. Tarantino doesn't copy it exactly, but there's a nod to it.

***** A late-night thought (one which might piss off folks who take Tarantino SOO seriously, but it feels like a "natural"): Myers and Tarantino both suffer from "lazy-eye writing" where it's thought that if you just recall something from a past movie and reference it that that is all that's sufficient for it to "play"—which is why the Myers' "Austin Powers" series is so weak. Tarantino has had a running feud with EON Productions in "the Press" over whose idea it was to make a film of "Casino Royale" (Answer: original author Ian Fleming)—and a balding Tarantino-like henchman named "Elvis" appeared in the Bond movie, Quantum of Solace—why not put Tarantino at the helm of the next Powers-fest (which has been talked about since...well, since the last one). Tarantino would have a giddy field-day with it, the genre, and the chance to gnaw on the red meat that is the Bond movies. It would easily be the best entry of the series. Only problem: during filming, the set would be like walking into a daily cage-match, where two prima donnas walk in and only one can emerge.