The Bikeriders

The "Wisdom" of the Tribe ("Whatta Ya Got?")

or

"It'd Be Funny If It Weren't So Tragic..."
 

Look. I get it.

 

I blog about movies because I love it. So, of course, I joined a movie-loving-cluster of bloggers—The Large Association of Movie Blogs (I've participated in a podcast for them about this very movie) and there is comfort there. It's a joy to commiserate with other people—of other ages, of other backgrounds, from other countries—who share a love of movies. We all have opinions. Sometimes we don't agree, and you can ignore that or you can learn from the different perspective. It's all about the process of understanding this thing you love. There's safety there, too. Sometimes you can share something in those discussions that it would be a fool's errand to try to communicate with your family and friends. For most of them, "movies" is something to do on a date-night, or when you want to just 'veg'. The last thing they want to do is to study the film and try to find out why (or why not) it communicates its message. For others, that's like assigning yourself homework. For me, it's something I "gotta" do.

 

So, here's The Bikeriders, written and directed by Jeff Nichols. It's a movie about a motorcycle club—the Vandals MC —that operated (in its hey-day) between 1965 and 1973, and was immortalized by the picture book of the same name by Danny Lyons.

It's a movie about a motorcycle gang. Haven't we seen enough movies (and bad ones) about those?

Sure. But, this is Jeff Nichols, one my favorites of the "younger" crop of directors, and his subjects are interesting, and if they're not box-office sure-things, they're at least interesting in the way he presents them. He made Mud, Take Shelter, Midnight Special, and Loving, all movies I'd recommend seeing (especially Loving) because of the way he tells stories so well. All his movies are about ostracized outsiders, and The Bikeriders is no exception.

We first meet Benny (Austin Butler) quite a ways into the story, but this is like a thesis statement for the movie. He's sitting in a bar, smoking, drinking, minding his own business. Then two beefy "townies" walk into the bar and object to the fact that Benny is wearing "colors"—his motorcycle jacket—and suggest that he take it off. Benny—as in the way of movie bikers—looks from one of the guys to the others—clenches his jaw and says "You'd have to kill me to get this fuckin' jacket off." 

So, there's a fight, seeing as there's no negotiation between the parties. It starts in the bar, then goes outside. It's starts as a fistfight, then Benny pulls out a knife and slashes one of the guys' face, then the other grabs a shovel and swings it at his head.

Just before it connects—and it IS going to connect—Nichols freeze-frames and we begin the movie proper with an interview (we're still not at the beginning of the story) and Danny (Mike Faist) is talking to Kathy (Jodie Comer) about the incident and about her relationship to Benny and of how the Vandals came to be—Johnny (Tom Hardy), a blue collar worker with a wife and two kids, saw The Wild One on TV and, like so many others, liked the freedom of the lifestyle depicted (ignoring the underlying message) and formed the club. It was about how a bunch of outsiders formed a community of like-interests, ignoring the typical organizations like churches, PTAs, and Elks. The reason? They're all outsiders who wouldn't fit in those clans, so why not form their own? "What's not to like?" (which is as much of a nothing sandwich as "Whatta ya got?").

The through-line of the movie is the passage of time and how the group changes, following Johnny's lead, which has some basic things like wearing the distressed leather jacket that serves as a uniform, and some arbitrary rules about being loyal to each other, and if there are any issues that are disagreed upon, they'll have a fight—"fists or knives" is the only specifics that need to be addressed—and whoever wins, gets their way, much in the way it worked in Black Panther (which sounded like a good system in that movie, but here smacks of "rule by minority").

While these things are going on, Johnny weighs the responsibility that being leader of such a group imposes on him, and Kathy realizes that Benny will always be conflicted whether to choose her or the club, even as that club faces challengers from a couple of fronts—the incoming Vietnam vets with chips on their shoulder and a disdain for authority and the young kids who see the power in numbers and want in on it. The "outlaw" mythology starts to get the better of the Vandals and it starts changing as time gets longer and meaner. It leaves Johnny with one of the few articulate insights in the movie: "You can give all you got to a thing" he tells Kathy at one point. "And it's always gonna do what it's gonna do" and it applies for Kathy to Benny and it applies for him to the club.

But, that's about it for depth. Things happen. Things get worse. And the vague rules of the club seem to go by the way-side as its reputation swells and new members begin to dilute its purpose and turn it into a gang. The rules don't apply to anybody anymore. And any good intentions are drowned out by bad behavior.

That's the gist of it. And as good as the performances are—although the actors' recreations of their characters' voices may produce giggles, they're based on Lyons' tapes of interviews with them—and as okay as the visuals are and as strenuously Nichols tries to recreate the books' look, it doesn't amount to much. One gets left with the impression that The Bikeriders is less about the gang than it is about Kathy's observations of them, and that's an outsiders' perspective (like, frankly, the guy who made the book). We see her struggle for the soul of Benny, but we really don't get to know him—he's a James Dean wanna-be—and the audience doesn't really get to know the Vandals—do they have jobs? how do they get the money for all that beer? They own a bar, sure, but there never seems to be anybody in it—because they're a bit of a mystery—and an antagonist—to Kathy. Like Brando's challenging non-answer of "Whaddaya got?" there's no "there" there. And the story of the Vandals is just another cautionary tale of what happens when you don't apply the brakes every once in awhile. Or check the gas-tank.

If Nichols wanted to make a film of a picture book, he accomplished it. But, it's all captions with nothing between the lines and nothing between the pictures. The Bikeriders is more of a scrapbook than a fully fleshed-out movie, with a veneer of remove as he's trying to recreate what somebody already documented—"The Golden Age of motorcycle clubs"...but that age is long gone. Thomas Wolfe said you can never go home again. Apparently you can't make a movie of it, either.

 

But, Nichols is a fine director. This time he merely took a spill. And I look forward to his next one

 

West Side Story (2021)

Para Siempre

or

"Keep Looking for Better"

 

Why re-make it you ask? The original's a classic.

 

Yes, a flawed classic that we've become blind to. Robert Wise's 1961 version is beautiful to look at, technically stunning, the dancing is amazing, the music is always good, and Natalie Wood's gorgeous. And Rita Moreno. And Rita Moreno.

 

But, everybody's too old. Too clean. It feels like play-acting (certainly play-fighting). The Sharks are, for the most part, white guys in tan make-up, as is Russian Natalie Wood's Maria. And no one believes Richard Beymer for a second. Handsome guy, sure. But not for a second. Then, the story-line has always had issues, particularly in its hysterical third act. It did on stage, and even trying to correct it in the movie didn't work.

 

So, yeah, it needed to be done. And Steven Spielberg (who loved the original) has been wanting to re-make West Side Story since he was sixteen. Sometimes, when you hear a factoid like that, it's a case of being careful what you wish for. A Spielberg version of it would (one would think) at least be an interesting amalgamation of his youthful ideals with his more mature film-making stance of late, the "Gee-Whiz" Kid meets the Craftsman.*

So, how is it? Glorious. And calculated. If you're worried about the emotional "chill factor," the story and the music and the songs still punch you in the heart in the same way when you were an impressionable teenager and would cry over the punctuation of a love note (not enough "!!"'s) or the tragedy of "Romeo and Juliet" (do we really have to explain the piece's origins?). But, it's a different, less vacant world than the one of the '61 version. People look out the window and look at you crazy if you're singing by yourself in the middle of an alley-way. It's a cluttered, messier world and people talk over each other and speak Spanish in emotional dudgeon before being scolded to "speak English!"

It's messier and transitioning. New York's inner city looks like a war zone (It is). Gentrification is going on with blocks being demolished for an in-coming "Lincoln Center." The film starts with an overhead shot of rubble—including (grim foreshadowing smile here) fallen fire-escapes. Then, a Jet pops through a roof-door and the gang starts skipping down the street (not in Jerome Robbins-tight choreography) carrying paint cans. Kicking over a "Man Working" sign, it's apparent they're on a mission, but first they have to leave a slum area in decay to a busy slum area where the people haven't given up yet.

It's smart, less random, and in its own way, sets the precedent for the whole strutting-dancing-fighting correlation that needs to be crossed for "West Side Story" to work. It ends up in a brawl, but no one is high-kicking each other, the punches crunch, one kid gets a nail through an ear-lobe, and there is blood.**
The point is made. This is going to be a tougher "West Side Story" with resentments about things other than turf. At one point, Jets leader Riff (a very good, very weasly Mike Faist) says "Ya know, I wake up to everything I know being sold or wrecked or being taken over by people I don't like" (just in case anybody accuses the movie of not being "relevant") and they're pegged by a New York city cop (Corey Stoll) as being just "slum clearance."

That's the milieu; how are the leads? Reviews I've scanned have problems with both of them, but I think that's wrong. For me, the biggest problem of "West Side Story" was always Tony. You're not sure what his motivation is, other than not to be part of the gang—while being part of the gang. Spielberg and screenwriter Tony Kushner have beefed up the character by giving him additional back-story. Here, Tony is just trying to stay straight: he's been in prison for a year for nearly killing a kid in a past rumble, sort of like John Wayne's Sean Thornton in The Quiet Man—he's haunted by his past actions—and now, he's out on probation, keeping his nose-clean, and working for Valentina (Rita Morena) running Doc's drug store in the old neighborhood. Tony is played here by Ansel Elgort, who's done great work in The Fault in Our Stars and Baby Driver. Elgort can dance, although he doesn't do much of it here, and he has a fine singing voice and isn't shy about hitting the high notes—if I have a complaint about him it's that he seems to be concentrating on the technical side of the singing rather than the acting. But, his Tony is interesting, the guy everybody looks up to (because he's a head taller than everybody) and he only gets MORE interesting once he meets Maria at the dance.

At first—the way Spielberg stages it—she's just someone he sees out of the corner of his eye dancing with another guy, enjoying herself (it's her first dance of the night). Then, he walks the outside of the dance floor, stalking, riveted, and it's almost like that attention is what makes Maria notice him. And from that moment on, he's like Brando's Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront—completely gob-smacked, struck stupid by "the thunderbolt" to the point where he'll do anything—anything—for her. And that previous internal conflict just goes away. "All my life, it's like I'm always just about to fall off the edge of the world's tallest building. I stopped falling the second I saw you." So, she's gotta be something special.

And Rachel Zegler is. There's something preternaturally attractive about her and not in any traditional way. Her eyes are Disney Princess-huge—of COURSE, they've cast her in the live-action Snow White—sunk deep in her skull and they cut across her entire face. She's doll-like, unnatural, but in the way that sinks into the alligator cortex, turns into goo, and makes you want to buy a puppy. And Maria, the character, is a tough sell, with fast emotional transitions and, if done wrong, can seem like the architect of such chaos that one has no sympathy for her, not even at the end. Some wickedly tough songs, too. Fortunately, Zegler is up to the task, and Kushner has given her far more spine than previous versions. You want these kids to work it out and get out of this dump.

Spielberg takes advantage of every moment—and sometimes just beats of music—to tell his story. There is sure to be some grousing about musical choices and positionings, particularly how the song "Cool" is used—it's moved in transitions from stage to screen to screen, and here it's Tony's number (which, given his role as thwarted peacemaker, works)—and there is one song that I was horrified when it started to come up in the position that it did, but it gives a needed distraction after the big rumble, and raises emotional goal-posts setting up a particularly savage transition for Maria's character to make. 

And some may disagree how the work's most famous piece, "Somewhere," is used—and who it's given to—but the choice is an apt one, making its meaning more ethereal and more universal. Emotionally it feels right.

And the big show-pieces are wonders. The show-stopper is always "America" ("I like the island Manhattan/Smoke on your pipe/and put THAT in") and Spielberg opens it up in keeping with maintaining as much location work as possible. I've made no mention of David Alvarez as Bernardo, the boxing leader of The Sharks or his girl Anita, who is played by Ariana DeBose, and that oversight may be criminal. The two are meant to be more flashy than Maria and Tony and they are the life of the party, all flash and dash, smirk and flirt. Their spontaneity can't be contained, so instead of staging the number on a limited rooftop, it moves from back-alleys to city-streets, whirling and sashaying and running at full gallop until not only the show stops but New York traffic as well. The exuberance is contagious, but freer and feels more risky, more dangerous, more alive.

Why re-make it, you ask? (I dunno. Why remake "Romeo and Juliet?") Because with new interpretations come improvements—or not. It's the chance one takes with producing art. They're not going to stop re-staging it in theaters, nor should they. But, if one must cling to the original, there's always what author James M. Cain said when an associate (John Leonard) criticized a film-version of a novel of his: "They haven't done anything to my books" (pointing to his study) "They're still there on the shelf. They paid me and that's the end of it. They're fine." The original is still there—I have it on DVD—and naysayers can watch it anytime they want. I prefer this version, and I'll prefer it...until a better version comes along.

* Robert Wise, when he made West Side Story, had been making films for 17 years. Spielberg has been making them for 47 years. Hmm.

** Later, Spielberg will have a fight where he borrows a few set-ups from a brawl in A Clockwork Orange. He's not kidding around.