The Ides of March

Written at the time of the film's release.

"'The Situation' in The Situation Room"
or
"A Little Problem with the DnC"

The bobble-head version of George Clooney is back in The Ides of March, the new film directed by...George Clooney. You remember the bobble-head Clooney, don't you? It was the loosey-goosey version of the actor that was popular during his "ER" days, a combination of casualness and arrogance, and it made up his persona in his early film career, before the time he decided that he'd get serious about things after the debacle that was Batman & Robin.

Well, that wobble of the head returns in Ides, adapted from the play by Beau Willimon (by Willimon, Clooney and Grant Heslov) called "Farragut North." I've always seen that wobble as an indication that whichever character he played with it had a lack of moral rectitude, an imperfection of the spine or sensibility that disconnected the head from the rest of the persona—a flaw that lent unpredictability to what actions they'd take, a toss of the head like a toss of the coin. And it is one of the ways that Clooney telegraphs what his Governor Mike Morris, candidate for President on the democratic ticket, might be capable of. It keeps you guessing, whatever the words from his mouth might indicate, about the actions this man might take in his run for power.

It is tough to express surprise at the roads political films—or films about politics—might take these days. They're all about disenchantment with the process and how power—or even the quest for it—corrupts. It's an old saw that goes back long before Shakespeare and back to The Greeks. And very few films—or plays—about the Court of Kings, fact or fictional,  can look clear-eyed at the process, thinking that ideals might remain intact. Even Mr. Smith Goes to Washington deals with the innate corruption of government and pleads for a clinging to of ideals from our public servants...or even an acknowledgment that they are servants, rather than our Masters. What was nice about things like the television series "The West Wing" was that, despite the maneuverings, manipulations and moral morasses that went with the job, public service was declared an altruistic aspiration, a noble thing, however down and dirty things got to accomplish anything. Most, though, like The Candidate or All the Kings Men (any version) have it as a "given" that compromise of purpose, process and principles are par for the course, that it is next to impossible to determine the true measure of a political man. The only variable is how corrupt that man (it's usually a man, and white) can be. Post-Watergate and The Lewinsky Affair, even a film like Absolute Power assumes, without doubt, that The President of the United States is capable of the most craven of murders. The Ides of March doesn't swerve from that cynicism.

The film begins with Morris' Head of Communications, Stephen Myers (the ubiquitous Ryan Gosling—if his Drive performance is a "1" and Crazy, Stupid Love is a "10," in dramatics, this is is an average "5") approaching a microphone, coming slowly into focus, a process that is completed when he is at the podium—the shot will be mirrored later in the show. He begins to slap-dashedly spew homilies about his religion, and then the speech deteriorates into babble. Not that it is important, he is merely a stand-in, checking a microphone for his candidate at ;a technical rehearsal for a televised debate. It would pass without much notice, except at the real debate, Morris uses the same lines words for words defending his lack of religion when challenged on the point. It is clear, at that point, that Myers is Morris' surrogate, putting words in his mouth, articulating the governor's message, packaging the man to appeal to the lowest common denominator and the highest number of registered voters.

The campaign manager is Paul Zara (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a jaded veteran of the political trenches, spinning, manipulating and point-man for acquiring the parties' nomination a few months down the road. Zara is the Big Picture Packager, Myers is Dr. Details. On the other side is campaign manager Tom Duffy, who is played by Paul Giamatti—and let me just say what a pleasure it is to see Hoffman and Giamatti, two of the best character-spinners in movies today going up against each other. It is a match made in Political Purgatory.

Before too much gets underway, Clooney introduces another character in a shot that tracks her movements, flouncing, buffed, polished and toned, towards campaign HQ: this is Molly Stearns, intern (Evan Rachel Wood) and just the way Clooney introduces her puts you on alert that she is important to the drama, far more than her job of bringing coffee would indicate. Wood is a fine actress, and as with Down in the Valley, she's able to convey twin faces of innocence and corruption, the theme of the film at which she is the fulcrum. Already one sees where things are going, but one wonders if Clooney has the directing chops to make it fresh.

He does...kinda. There are nice little touches of how the film seems to bifurcate into twin halves reflecting each other,* the actors make the dialog snap and there's just enough "play" in the film to keep you guessing about what is "real" or political theater. And there's one scene that's shot very simply—a tension-inducing pull-in to a black van that makes you suspect the worse (which, for some it might be) that is rather nifty.

Ultimately, though, as well as the film is presented and played, it is not telling us anything we don't already know...or fear...that hasn't been said for the last 60 years, when, post-Eisenhower and the star-struck Kennedy years, we ditched the notion that politicians are concerned with the People, rather than their prestige and the perks. The Ides of March has no spine of its own to speak of and brings us nothing new, offering no solution (not even providing dramatic satisfaction)...but merely more of the same, just like every election season

* Clooney did a good interview with Charlie Rose about the film—Rose has a cameo for verisimilitude, as do a few other familiar talking heads—in which he said "The first half of the film is for democrats and the second half is for republicans." Exactly right.

The Craig's: Quantum of Solace

Cutting to the Chase
or
"Once More into the Cuisinart, Dear Friends"

When last we left James Bond, newly double-0'd agent On Her Majesty's Secret Service, he was nursing a broken heart and the betrayal by his lover, by the one way that he knew to ease the pain—shooting someone in the leg with an assault rifle.

After the success of Casino Royale, the last complete James Bond novel not to be given an "official" film version, and the revival of the franchise with the casting of Daniel Craig, one had to wonder what the producers would do for an encore.

Or a sequel. Quantum of Solace* takes place 30 minutes after the ending of Casino Royale, (in mid-car-chase) with Bond going "rogue" and seeking revenge.** It's the first "true" sequel in the Bond series--all of them previously being stand-alone stories, where for budgetary or scheduling reasons, the secondary characters (like CIA agent Felix Leiter) would be played by different people from movie to movie.

Here, things are consistent: Jeffrey Wright again plays Leiter, Giancarlo Giannini returns as Rene Mathis as does Judi Dench as "M." And the mysterious Mr. White (Jesper Christensen), behind so much of Bond's troubles last film is in the rather bumpy custody of MI6, where he drops the news that there's a world-wide criminal organization that the Brits aren't even aware of, presumably the one financing the bombing of the Skyway jet, the funding of "freedom fighters," and high stakes poker games from the last film. Apparently these activities are so "under the radar" that the world's network of spies—and in this film even Bolivia has a Secret Service—hasn't noticed. But that is just a wild goose chase to Bond achieving that quantum of solace about the events of Casino Royale.

One could go on and on with the trivial aspects of QOS, but in broad strokes, one can answer the entreaties of those who couldn't wait for the next installment last time. No, it isn't as good as the last one; Casino Royale was one of the best film in the series (this is No. 22 of the "official" Bond films), even after the perspective of a couple years.

Does Bond find out the answers to the questions he's seeking? Yeah, for all the good it does us. We spend 95% going down a blind alley--at 90 miles an hour, with a shaking camera pointed aimlessly and an average edit length of half a second. More on that in a moment.

Does Daniel Craig take off his shirt? Yes, all too briefly for some, I'm sure.

The dialog is crisp and also very, very brief. The acting is uniformly good, with particular mention of Craig, Dench, and Giannini. Even the "Bond girls," traditionally where the Bond films fall down in the presentation category, can act: former model Olga Kurylenko is quite good, using a cat-walk scowl as the basis of her performance; and Gemma Arterton is pert, spunky...and sadly disposable. Mathieu Amalric--so good in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly--makes the most of his reptilian looks, as a sort of bug-eyed Roman Polanski.***

All well and good. The film feels like a less goofy version of the Roger Moore Bonds where outlandishness is the order of the day, but without the obvious winking. There are some lighter moments (and Craig makes the most of them) but most of it is played with deadly earnest. One expects to get lost in some details along the way by the orange light of the explosions. Indeed, two of the major players in this film are brought up and never mentioned again.****

But there is a major problem with Quantum... which dims the viewing experience, that being the slap-dash way that director Marc Forster and his second unit director Dan Bradley (who stunt coordinated the "Bourne" and last couple "Spiderman" movies) have staged and assembled the action sequences--and there are a lot of them--on land, sea, air, and fire, by foot and all manner of motorized vehicles. These sequences are nearly incomprehensible, with a rapid pace that does not allow the distinguishing of any participant or the context in which they're being done. A good action director allows the time to register surroundings and environment, and provides the context of relationship--who's doing what to whom and where. It's that information that provides suspense. Without that information, it's just fleeting images that don't add up—in other words, a trailer. 

What Forster and Bradley may be trying to do is put the audience in the same dizzying, disoriented position as Bond, but even then, there are times when there isn't enough context to inspire alarm. At one point, in one of the hand to hand fights it becomes apparent that, suddenly, one of the combatants has acquired an axe. There was just enough time for me to register that perhaps the film would be better if it were edited with that. The shame is that a lot of work went into these sequences--QOS is the most expensive Bond film while simultaneously being the shortest--and a couple of marvelous shots that literally tumble along with Bond merely disorient, rather than thrill, as you're not allowed to see the original position from where these shots start. At the end of it all, you're left with a battered Bond but absolutely no idea how he got that way.

This is a major mis-step. These are suspense films, after all. But in pushing the envelope of how fast to take these action sequences, post-Bourne, the film-makers have reached the point where they are no longer telling a story, no longer communicating with the audience, at which point they've failed in their own mission.

I'm not even sure what is to be gained by seeing Quantum of Solace in a theater, even in the back row. The best way to get anything out of the action is to watch it at a slower speed on DVD.

Two of examples of the subliminal editing style of Quantum of Solace.

* The name is taken from a Fleming Bond short story in which Bond merely sits and listens to a tale of a marriage turned ruinous, and a "quantum of solace" is the smallest particle of comfort one can derive to keep it going. The only Bond titles left to be used are "Risico," "The Property of a Lady," "The Hildebrand Rarity," and "James Bond in New York," none of which is a "grabber" of a title, or would make a good song-title. But then, who thought you could do anything with Thunderball? Passing a reader-board for another theater en route to the Cinerama, it read simply "007."

** "What, he's gone 'rogue' again?" is what a friend said after seeing the trailer. Bond had already done something similar in the Timothy Dalton-starring Licence To Kill, which combined equal parts "Miami Vice," Yojimbo, and elements of the Fleming novel, "Live and Let Die."'

*** Director Marc Forster used directors Guillermo del Toro and Robert Rodriguez as voice-actors on this film, and the "director" connection applies to a henchman called "Elvis" who reminds one a bit of Quentin Tarantino. What with the "colorful" names of the villains, ala Reservoir Dogs and the producers' history with Tarantino—he famously announced to whatever ubiquitous press agency he uses that he wanted to make "Casino Royale" with Pierce Brosnan and griped about not getting the chance—it wouldn't be too far afield to think the Broccoli kids were getting annoyed with his whining enough to tweak him a bit.


**** I've since been told by one of the "Opening Night Regulars" I see the Bond's with, that a sequence resolving their stories (all one minute of it) was left on the cutting room floor, giving the producers a chance to start afresh next film, rather than continue with yet another sequel.

A still from the "lost" Quantum of Solace sequence.