Higher Ground

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

"Blessed Assurance"

or

"Jesus Is __________"

The first thing I ever saw Vera Farmiga in was The Departed in "the girlfriend" role, and I was none too impressed. Then, came Up in the Air and her wistful performance as a "fellow traveler" who hooks up with George Clooney—two "stop-overs" that pass in the night—and it was an amazing performance.

Now, with her first film as director, Higher Ground, she stakes out indie territory as something of a maverick. It's a film about religion without hysterics, without condescension, without judgement, without prejudice...which is a far cry from the scripture Hollywood habitually reads from.

Higher Ground tells the story of Corinne (Farmiga, and played at younger ages by her sister Taissa and McKenzie Turner), daughter of divorced parents (Donna Murphy and John Hawkes), who answers the call of her minister (Bill Irwin) to accept Jesus into her life ("He's knocking at your door...") but finds herself standing at the threshold, believing but not wholly accepting, finding herself, as a woman, relegated to a role "submitting" to her husband and the male hierarchy of her church, seeing her best friend, the earthy Annika (Dagmara Dominczyk) finding her own personal way in Life and Faith and coveting it (When Annika effortlessly speaks in tongues—an act frowned upon by her church—Corinne blurts out "I want that!" but never manages it-in fact, one of the best scenes is Corinne, alone in the bathroom, exorting Jesus to speak through her, and finally schlumping out in frustration).

What makes her study of a woman struggling with Faith (with a capital "F") within a strict Christian community (albeit of somewhat counter-cultural "flower"-children) different is that it never wavers from the precept that religion is good.  People are flawed, yes, as her believers are, but faith is a nurturing, fulfilling way of Life that sustains and helps throughout our trials. This is a far cry from the way faith is usually portrayed these days, where the Believer is at least a hypocrite and at worst, some kind of predator. One could argue the point, but Higher Ground revealed to me some of the conditioning such repetition has achieved over the years in me, an agnostic. Here, one expectantly waits for any hint of a gouge in the old wooden cross, where any of the characters is guilty of anything, but sanctimony—the most intense that fear occurs is at a talk with an in-faith marriage counselor who insists on seeing Corrine alone without her husband (Joshua Leonard), which makes one wonder if he's going to fulfill the role of "the creepy one," but, no, all he wants to do is good, offering sage advice more for her faith than for her marriage.

Not that there aren't others who fulfill those roles, and, Lord have mercy, if it isn't the non-believers who turn out to be the hypocrites and suspicious ones (exemplified by a welcoming neighbor who stops by to warn Corinne and her visiting Mother of "religious nuts" who might live nearby, while the woman of faith keeps her counsel, instead stuffing her face on a gift of offered doughnuts that might have a bit of a bitter quality to them), and the Irish mailman on her block who takes such an interest doesn't turn out to be all that's delivered. The points are not written with judgmental heaviness or pulpit-pounding, but are merely observations of a perpetual outsider looking in.

As someone who has struggled with religion all his adult life, I found refreshing the simple expression that faith can lend grace to one's life, without hammering the point home as many of the "message" movies have a tendency to do. And that the film chooses to portray Corinne's struggle as difficult, even heart-rending, and faith being anything but easy, only makes the faith of those not embroiled in such a battle seem stronger by comparison. I admire that so much. If there are any complaints to be made, it is that sometimes the film veers into Corinne-fantasy mode for easy laughs, or too-easy satire. The film doesn't require or it or need it, and director Farmiga should have had more faith in the simple power of her film to stay clear of it.

Can't wait to see what she does next.

2022 Update: Still waiting....

Red State

Oh, look, it's October. "Guess I should be paying attention to horror films."

Written at the time of the film's release. Saturday is "Take Out the Trash" Day.

Red State (Kevin Smith, 2011) You could actually call this an indie cult film, independently financed with an auction to distribute at Sundance (which Smith harpooned to distribute himself), only running in major markets to qualify for unlikely Oscar nominations (Michael Parks, maybe; John Goodman, possibly but not likely), then quietly announced "special showings" throughout the country, presumably because the subject matter—about a homicidal religious cult, making the "cult film" literal—is so "hot" that moving, circus-like, from town to town for a limited time will discourage the "crazies" (of whatever stripe) from making the scene, making A Scene and picketing theaters.*

Needn't have bothered, really. Any media coverage would have actually helped this film, even if it doesn't really deserve it. It's Smith stepping out of his comfort zone (and just about everybody's) making a horror film about a religious cult that attracts lustful men on a web-site, doping them, and killing them for their homosexual tendencies that are targeting America (and the world—cited examples being African AIDS, Thailand tsunamis, and Sin City hurricanes) for rapturous Armageddon.

Forget the fact that these guys are hetero's looking to score, but, now you're getting all logical on us.

The Five Points Trinity Church, led by Abin Cooper (Michael Parks, doing the Smith-riffing like it was exploding out of his head and having fine, venal fun with it) is so bent on destruction and self-destruction there's no reasoning with them or the cache of automatic weapons kept in a vast catacomb-like basement, required for your "gotta-have-'em" horror film chases. They're all wild-eyed zealots, none more creepy than daughter Sarah (last year's Oscar winner Melissa Leo, going a bit over-the-top), who's the boy-bait for the serial-sacrifices.

An evening's services (with communal execution) goes a bit south, and when a deputy is killed (oops), the ATF is called out in the reduced form of Joe Keenan (Goodman, who's lost a lot of weight) and ASAC Brooks (Kevin Pollak, a natural to be in a Smith movie, I think), who roll their eyes with memories of Waco backlash in mind. They don't want to be there. They know there will be no negotiation, the best they can do is keep the carnage down, which is not what the Church is interested in (nor, frankly, is the audience). And as interesting as a dialogue-crazy Smith directed hostage-negotiation might be, this is designed for horror audiences, so things go to hell quickly.

So, there's enough real-world identification with David Koresh and Fred Phelps** for Smith to get on his soap-box (and he does with a particularly annoying teacher character at the beginning of the film, who would no doubt lose her job for saying what she does in the film), but he's a little restrained in the wise-ass department here (other than coming up with the idea in the first place and he doesn't mention Star Wars once). He takes his template from Night of the Living Dead with the church members as both zombies AND barricaded potential victims, with a cascading story-line that starts with predators turning into victims, and their persecutors in turn turning into victims.***

Shooting on the pure-video Red camera system (maybe that's where title comes from?), the film can go just about anywhere and attach itself to anything on the run, which Smith, who also edited, hacks and slashes to cut out the transitional fat and keep the film moving unpretentiously fast. Should have cut a little faster and a bit more, as Smith uses the low-dig' horror format to make up for his short-comings as a shot-planner, but still keeps "the precious words" of his script intact. Too bad. There's a few things that could have easily gone in the out-takes bin that were redundant or not helpful. And then, just when things start turning really interesting, Smith pulls the rug out on the film, never venturing past its "potential." But it seems to me if you're going to be a barn-burner, you might as well burn it to the ground, rather than having the bucket-brigade near by to douse it half-way through.

Which is sad to me. Smith's career as the slacker's "geek-fantasy-movie-maker" still suffers from the poor execution of good ideas. A not terribly good film-maker, he still has potential as a superb script-writer. Problem is, he fancies himself a troubadour, a singer-songwriter, even though he can't carry a tune. Another director might be able to take a Smith script and hone it, polish it, and adjust it, so there are no slow spots, has a good sense of pace, and some actual composition to the frame, all things that Smith seems incapable of doing. He has a filmmaker's brio, but no taste and no judgement (especially where his own work is concerned).

His best film is the early-in-the-going Chasing Amy, but sadly, like Silent Bob and the protagonist in that film he's been incapable of doing anything better, in effect, ever since he's been chasing Chasing Amy. Still, if Billy Wilder's counter-maxim of "You're only as good as your BEST film, not your last" is to be embraced, so, too, is the career of Kevin Smith, just so we can have that one film added to the library of great films.

* Actually, Smith, whose humor has never kept him out of a fight (he joined a Catholic protest picket of his own film, Dogma) showed it to the daughter of Fred Phelps' daughter when he took it to Kansas City. Phelps brought her under-age kids, and Smith warned her that the film was "R"-rated and pretty raw. Didn't matter. But, predictably, she walked out 20 minutes in, saying the film was "filth." Um, yeah, wasn't that what Smith was saying?

** The Waco references are for the Koresh family, which was merely Messiah-based and collected weapons like lost souls with triggers, but Phelps (which is composed—if one can use that term—largely by members of his family, and is mentioned in the film, so no one can say that they're being directly targeted), the guy who protests at funerals for slain American soldiers, is so extreme—and media-whorish—that Jerry Falwell called him outright "a first class nut," and the Ku Klux Klan has participated in counter-pickets, declaring Phelps' church "hatemongers." And you know how much the KKK hates that!

*** Smith's original idea would have taken the idea even further to a Higher Plain, that actually would have been pretty neat to see.  But, it would have required expensive special effects for a film done on a shoe-string (the entire effects budget was $5k). And it gives Smith a chance to have that all important tag that wraps up his film in one good line: "People just do the strangest things when they believe they're entitled. But they do even stranger things when they just plain believe."

The Silver Chalice

The Silver Chalice (Victor Saville, 1954) Legend has it that when The Silver Chalice was first scheduled to appear on television, Paul Newman—who made his debut in the film—purchased an ad in Variety emploring people not to watch it. The movie was horrible and he was terrible in it, being the reasons.

Paul Newman was rarely wrong. And I can only hoist a glass of Newman's Own Virgin Lemonade to him that he was right on the money about this one.

No doubt designed to repeat the success of 20th Century Fox's 1953 adaptation of The Robe, The Silver Chalice is quite another kettle of loaves and fishes. Sure, they're both religious epics based on historical novels surrounding Christian relics and filmed in Cinemascope (to lure the crowd from their little television boxes). Sure, they have charismatic young stars making names for themselves (Richard Burton, Paul Newman). Sure, they're both movies.

Newman, trying to look casual in a toga.

But, The Robe is big in scope and epic in scale. A "cast of thousands" kind of thing. The Silver Chalice looks like it was shot in the studio with available crew as extras. It starts out with crowded street scenes, but eventually everybody goes home and the streets are deserted and bare, often resembling a bare stage with some odd architecture that might fit well in a movie designed by William Cameron Menzies. The interiors are "Star Trek" (the series) simple, done with an emphasis on stretched space for Cinemascope and design. The exteriors are achieved by model overlays obscuring the stages and lights.

The sets are "Star Trek" simple. 3rd SEASON "Star Trek" simple.

The plot is rather simple, too: Basil (Newman as an adult), a talented sculptor in Greece, is sold to a rich childless nobleman (E.G. Marshall) to be his son and heir, much to the consternation of Mr. Noble's brother. When the patriarch dies, Basil is sold into slavery, due to the corrupt machinations of the brother, the magistrate, and the craven testimony of one of the witnesses. Basil becomes a sculptor for a local artisan wanting to increase his trade. Upon adulthood, he is sold to Joseph of Arimathea, one of Christ's apostles, who tasks Basil with creating a silver chalice for the cup Jesus used at the Last Supper, to be designed with the faces of the Apostles and Christ.

Things are tough in Lego-Jerusalem

There is a side-story of the slave girl Helena (Natalie Wood as a child, Virginia Mayo as an adult—which defies belief) who becomes the courtesan and assistant of Simon the Mage (Jack Palance), a magician of simple illusions. Simon is approached by a sect leader (Joseph Wiseman) in Jerusalem, who sees the rise of Christianity as a "sapping of manhood" of the populace rising against Rome by following the ways of love and peace. In Simon, he sees an impressive, less passive alternative to Jesus and his miracles ("A true miracle is nothing but a good trick," says Wiseman's rabble-rouser, "They were VERY good," says Simon admiringly).

Helena and Basil have a "thing," but he is attracted to Deborah (Pier Angeli), a devout Christian. Although Basil does wonders with the faces of the Apostles, he has a block when it comes to Jesus, unable to capture his face to anyone's satisfaction. It is only when he travels to Rome, and with the love of Deborah, that the true face of Jesus is revealed to him.

Let's just call this bust of Jesus a work in progress.

The design of the The Silver Chalice (credited to Rolfe Gerard) is cheesy, a low-budget compromise to the vistas and exotica of DeMille and The Robe and the religious mainstays of the 1950's. But, the dialogue is the issue, a too-formal-by-half torturing of "marmish" speaking that turns lines of dialogue into paragraphs.* Nobody does well with this falderal, but Newman can't seem to find a grasp of it or any sense of human feeling to it. He sounds like he's reciting. The ones that fare best are the stentorians—like Alexander Scoursby and Lorne Greene—who deal with the purple dialogue by playing it without any sense of humor or irony, reading it like it was the Gettysberg Address, not unlike the way DeMille's actors intoned their way through his films. A lot of the acting is egregious with Wiseman coming off the best—he plays everything like he's grousing about a bad meal—Newman the worst, and Palance...Palance is off doing his own thing, but then, he's playing something of a demented charlatan, which is sometimes amusing, sometimes very puzzling.

Palance: what the hell is he doing...what the hell is he WEARING?

It's a mess, not unlike watching an Ed Wood movie, but with the disappointing sense that there is taste and intelligence not working somewhere. It just goes to show that if you're making a religious movie, you need a miracle or two to pull it off.

* Shakespeare is easier than this drivel. Harrison Ford threw a great line at George Lucas during the filming of Star Wars: "You can't speak this shit. It can only be typed." But that stilted B-dialogue of the old serials is brilliant next to this narration posing as dialogue. Newman must have had a hell of a time trying to dig out "the truth" of this doggerel with $5 words. There is no "method" here, only madness.

The Next Voice Your Hear...

The Next Voice You Hear... (William A. Wellman, 1950) Leo, the M-G-M lion doesn't roar in The Next Voice You Hear... probably so as not to offend any Christians with Roman Coliseum associations that might produce a "thumbs down." But, that's not the oddest thing in a picture steeple full with them. The wildest thing is to see William "Wild Bill" Wellman's name as director—maybe he's atoning for all those gangster pictures he did in the '30's—associated with its theme. On a Tuesday, at 8:30 in the evening when Mary Smith ("American," as she's identified in the credits, and as well she should be as she's played by Nancy Davis, soon to be Nancy Reagan) is helping son Johnny (Gary Gray) with his long division, and Dad Joe ("American," played by James Whitmore) having finished doing the dishes for his pregnant wife after a typical pot-roast dinner, and settled down with a beer and his paper, that something peculiar happens on the radio.

Not that we get to hear it. God speaks on the radio. "This is the voice of God. I'll be with you for the next five days." Joe, a bit stumped, walks in to tell his family, and the first thing out of mother Mary's mouth is "Was it one of those Orson Welles things?"

Funny. Joe thinks a local kid is pulling a stunt with a ham-radio kit, but a phone call reveals that another neighbor heard the same voice interrupting another program on another station. "Did it sound like Lionel Barrymore?" asks Mary, out of the blue. After the first night, Joe's pals at the Ajax Aeronautics factory have their own speculations "It's mass-psycho-orology. Only fat-heads are gonna fall for a gag like that!"

But, the next night, God shows up again. The stations try to record it, but nothing shows up on the electrical transcriptions. More people are hearing it, and it's determined that it's a global phenomenon. And people are starting to seriously freak out. Before the week is over, Joe "American" is going to go on a major bender, when all he wanted to do is buy a pack of smokes, and the resulting loss of stability splinters his family.

Not that he was any too stable to begin with.  What keeps The Next Voice You Hear from sinking into a sermon swamp is the casting of Whitmore and, yes, even Davis as the American couple. Whitmore is no leading man material, but is a facile actor who pulls off charming even when he's a bit of a louse. Here, he's impatient to a fault, perpetually late for work, flinty with co-workers, disparaging of supervisors, and even he and the wife do a little sniping back and forth at each other. There's one sequence where son Johnny, so used to Dad's frustrating ritual of resuscitating a faltering car engine, mimes it for Mom split-seconds before the sound effects of the effort come clanking through the door. It's not dysfunctional to any degree, but it is refreshingly a couple notches below "Father Knows Best."

Credit screenwriter Charles Schnee and Wellman for daring to throw a little real conflict (and a healthy dose of irony) into the thing to keep audiences out of a diabetic coma, and to make it as palatably earnest as one of Norman Corwin's inspirational radio-plays.  

And should one get all-blustery and righteous and harumph about the overt religious message, one should bear in mind that the next year The Day the Earth Stood Still would cloak the homilies in the shiny jump-suits of science-fiction.