2012 Oscars: Performances

Okay. All the acting categories. Let's go.

Supporting Actress

Amy Adams, The Master

Sally Field, Lincoln

Anne Hathaway, Les Miserables

Helen Hunt, The Sessions

Jacki Weaver, Silver Linings Playbook

5. Jacki Weaver - Okay, I'll concede that it's a very good performance, despite the fact that you hardly notice it. She's the worried mom always in the background trying to keep everyone calm and happy and protect her children from sad things in life. In other words, she's a mom. But with such little dialogue and being constantly upstaged by her castmates... yeah, she didn't deserve this nomination and everyone knows it.

4. Anne Hathaway - I know she's going to win. That's fine, whatever. She absolutely nailed "I Dreamed a Dream," you'll get no argument from me there, and if that was her only scene in the whole movie, maybe she'd get my vote. But it wasn't, and she was really bad in all her other scenes. She was an over the top, scenery chewing, begging for awards, crying, coughing, dying mess. It was pouty, it was silly, and worst of all it was false.

3. Amy Adams - This was kind of a thankless, subtle role overshadowed by two powerhouse male ego-driven performances from Hoffman and Phoenix, but Adams had an intensity that was simultaneously comforting and terrifying. I haven't seen the film a 2nd time, but I suspect that her performance will resonate more and more with repeat viewings.

2. Helen Hunt - She broke my heart. Simple as that, I felt her sadness so deeply, but I understood her code so completely, and the tension between them was devastating. This was a remarkable piece of acting. Hunt is probably really a tie for my pick with...

1. Sally Field - I know some people found her annoying or unnecessary, but I think she walked a tightrope between grief, insanity, and saavy First Lady that would have thrown almost any other actress off balance. She was funny and crazy and smart and sad and noble, and she did it all in just about 15 minutes. People don't realize that Field had less screen time than anyone, not Weaver or Hathaway. But people only remember Hathaway's 3 minute song, and Field she gave a meatier performance so I think people just assume she was there more. 

Will win: Anne Hathaway

Should win: Field or Hunt

Should have been nominated: Kerry Washington, Django Unchained

Supporting Actor

Alan Arkin, Argo

Robert De Niro, Silver Linings Playbook

Philip Seymour Hoffman, The Master

Tommy Lee Jones, Lincoln

Christoph Waltz, Django Unchained

This is one of the most unpredictable races this year. They're all good performances, they're all previous Oscar winners, 3 of them have the Harvey Weinstein "I don't care if it's really the best as long as it wins" campaign powerhouse behind of them. I'll make a list based solely on the quality of the performance, but personally I would ignore Hoffman and Waltz when voting because they're really lead performances and don't belong in this category over other deserving supporting performances.

5. Alan Arkin - He just had a bunch of good one-liners and brought some personality to the role, but he wasn't more deserving of a nomination than his castmates John Goodman or Bryan Cranston. This is a dull filler nomination that got swept in on the movie's coattails. 

4. Robert De Niro - This is actually a very good performance. There's a lot of restraint, and it's actually very funny (which people often forget De Niro is... he's very funny.) But there's an intense anger below the surface as well, a quirky physicality to the character, and the range of emotion on display is impressive. My gut is getting this weird feeling that De Niro will pull an upset here, and I wouldn't totally mind that.

3. Christoph Waltz - This performance definitely feels a bit familiar given Waltz's last win for Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, but while we've heart that bouncy, articulate cadence with Tarantino's dialogue from Hans Landa, we haven't seen this character. Where Landa had an ice-cold heart devoted only to his own sense of control over his surroundings, Dr. Schultz is indifferent towards criminals' - he's out for his bounty, after all - but has a softness deep down, a gentle confusion over slavery and brutality over innocents for brutality's sake. Landa would have never flinched so uncomfortably at the sight of dogs ripping apart a Jew - this is definitely a different performance, and very nearly as good.

2. Tommy Lee Jones - Brilliant delivery of Kushner's words, and a strong sense of who his character is, what kind of power and influence he has, and deep down in his eyes you can see that he always knows his motivation as well - it's more clear during a 2nd viewing. It's a wonderful performance and I hope Jones wins.

1. Philip Seymour Hoffman - Based solely performance quality, Hoffman is best here. He is a perfect foil for Phoenix, who I believe was forced to up his game due to the heavyweight class of his contender.  While he has less screen time than Phoenix, his presence is just as felt, just as memorable, and in many ways I believe his character is more complex. That said, I think this is a co-lead performance, so while I think it's the best acting in this category, I'm not sure I can get behind it for a win.

Will win: My brain says Waltz, but my gut says De Niro. In this category, I'm going with my head and predicting Waltz.

Should win: Jones

Should have been nominated: Samuel L. Jackson, Django Unchained; Tom Holland, The Impossible; Dwight Henry, Beasts of the Southern Wild - instead of Arkin, Waltz, and Hoffman. And I'm torn on whether or not DiCaprio in Django should replace De Niro. Maybe. Time will tell which performance is best remembered... I suspect DiCaprio and Django will be remembered and studied and viewed for much longer than Silver Linings Playbook.

Actress

Jessica Chastain, Zero Dark Thirty

Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook

Emmanuelle Riva, Amour

Quvenzhane Wallis, Beasts of the Southern Wild

Naomi Watts, The Impossible

5. Naomi Watts - This is a great performance. The only problem is that about halfway through the movie her character gets on a hospital bed and pretty much lies around and groans the rest of the movie - in many ways this is practically a supporting role. So it's hard for me to pick it over more "lead" performances. That said, it's a great movie and amazing acting, so find it and watch it.

4. Jessica Chastain - Again, this is great acting. I'm not crazy in love with the movie, but I get that Chastain did something special in bringing Maya to life... most of the time. Other times I felt she had no personality, no history, really no character. Maybe that's intentional, and she's supposed to be a kind of a 2-dimensional figure who's main trait is her drive and her obsession. In that case, the performance works. Unfortunately in that case, it's also a boring performance. Did Chastain really do anything that a dozen or so other actress couldn't do just as well? I'm not convinced. 

3. Jennifer Lawrence - I love her so much, I want to be best friends, I think she's going to keep on doing amazing things and making amazing movies. But as great as she was most of the time in Silver Linings Playbook, there were just a handful of moments when I thought she lost the character. In interviews she's admitted that when she first started with the role she couldn't figure who Tiffany really was, and I think that shows every now and then. She won't be an undeserving winner, but she won't be remembered as the most deserving either.

2. Emmanuelle Riva - She shows a lot of control and subtlety in her aging/sickness/dying. (Hathaway could have learned a thing or two.) I think the movie is alright and all, but she really makes it work. The early scene with her first stroke, there really is just nothing going on in her head, you can't see a single sign of life or mind in her eyes, they're just completely blank. It's remarkable actually, the more I think back on it.

1. Quvenzhane Wallis - I know she's young, and maybe she wasn't "acting" so much as just reading lines in a fierce kind of way, but you know what? Haters gonna hate. I completely bought her as Hushpuppy, she had a childish attitude but behind it was a very adult understanding of life and loss. She just made me feel for her - I never thought about what I was watching, like I did with Chastain, Lawrence and even Riva to a lesser extent. I just felt. 

Will win: Lawrence. Some are predicting a Riva upset, which would be cool, but I think Weinstein and the massive campaign for SLP doesn't let it slip away from Lawrence.

Should win: Wallis

Should have been nominated: I haven't seen the films yet, but I'm sure Marion Cotillard in Rust and Bone and Rachel Weisz in Deep Blue Sea were remarkable per usual.

Actor

Bradley Cooper, Silver Linings Playbook

Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln

Hugh Jackman, Les Miserables

Joaquin Phoenix, The Master

Denzel Washington, Flight

5. Jackman - Honestly, no business being here. He was incredibly uneven and he never seemed very sure of his character. His eyes were constantly searching around like he was thinking, "Hmm, how should I sing this line here?" And actually, oddly, I felt that a lot of his care for Cosette was out of obligation more than actual love. He just went through the motions. 

4. Cooper - Cooper's a really good actor, and I'm glad people are noticing it. But this isn't an award for "Best performance proving to us that you're actually worth something," it's for Best Actor in a Leading Role. Cooper doesn't belong here.

3. Washington - One of Denzel's best in years. A extremely careful character exploration, he's weak-willed and strong-willed at the same time, he's dependent and independent in the same moment. Really great acting that probably could win in almost any other year.

2. Phoenix - He built a character from the ground up, and actually fooled me into thinking that Freddie Quell was a complex character. But when I realized that he really isn't a complicated human being after all, I couldn't really say he deserves to win here. Freddie is obsessed with sex. And that's really about it. It's not more complicated than that, he just wants to get drunk and stick his dick in things. And props to Phoenix (and Anderson) for making that into a fascinating character, but I'm convinced there's not a whole lot more than that going on here. That doesn't mean it's some of the most brilliant acting we're likely to ever see, though.

1. Day-Lewis - Because really, he's the best this year. He navigates through Lincoln's personal grief, his moral obligations, and his professional duties with strong emotion, logic, and control. But he also gives us just the slightest hint that at any moment he might lose his grip on any of those. He's just amazing, and although many will argue for Phoenix deserving the upset, I don't think there was a finer performance this year than this one.

Will win: Day-Lewis

Should win: Day-Lewis

Should have been nominated: John Hawkes, The Sessions, and Denis Lavant for Holy Motors. Seriously. Denis Lavant. Check that movie out, it's astounding. And you know what? I'd even nominated Tom Hanks for Cloud Atlas. Deal with it.

2012 Oscars: Visual Effects

Over the next several weeks, I'll be going through each Academy Award category giving my personal rankings of the nominees. I'll give my thoughts on which films/performances didn't deserve to be nominated, and which should have been in their place. I'll start with the techs, move to artistics, then the major categories. I'm holding off on shorts, foreign, and docs since they're harder for me to get a hold of, and as often as possible I only want to address categories when I've seen all the nominees.

(Heads up, the most vs. best comparison comes up frequently in end-of-year awards discussions. Most cuts doesn't mean best editing, fanciest shots doesn't mean best cinematography, most beads and boldest colors doesn't mean best costumes, etc., etc.)

Nominees
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Life of Pi
Marvel's The Avengers
Prometheus
Snow White and the Hunstman

5. Snow White and the Hunstman

This movie really did look pretty great and the effects were effective enough, but something about shards of black glass and ravens flying around just seems kind of "been there, done that." Not to mention the celebrity actor faces on dwarf bodies was a bit peculiar-looking.

4. Marvel's The Avengers

I warned you: most effects doesn't mean best effects. There are great effects in all the Marvel films, but by the end of The Avengers I just lost any sense of reality when the flying slug things were floating up and down the streets. It was CGI overload. I know these films aren't trying to bring a gritty true life feel to comics the way Nolan tried with Batman, but there was something unintentionally cartoonish about The Avengers and I don't think it was intended the way I took it.

See what I mean?

3. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Again, most doesn't equal best, but The Hobbit felt real the entire time. I believed I was looking at Middle Earth the whole time - even in 48 fps - and with the excellent 3D cinematography, at times I believed I was in Middle Earth. The fighting rock formations in the rainstorm was one of the most simultaneously terrifying and majestic scenes of the year. That alone deserves recognition, but the whole film was visually stunning. The main missteps would be the CGI goblins in the Misty Mountains. I thought the taller, more humanoid orcs of Moria had a stronger, realer presence. Peter Jackson wanted a lighter feel for these films, and that works, but for me the Misty Mountain goblins stepped a toe over the line from light to silly.

2. Prometheus

Lots of people hated this movie, and plenty of people loved it. It basically depends on how much you choose to focus on the plot holes. I would also argue that since it's a film about human origins and cosmogony and religion, how much one likes the film is dependent on one's interests in that subject matter. But no one complained about the way the movie looked. The production design and especially the realization of that design by the FX team is near flawless.  Again, at times I felt like I was looking at real, tangible sets and creatures and sand storms, etc.

1. Life of Pi

Life of Pi, though, managed to find a brilliant balance between that real, tangible sort of effect (those flying fish look like they're hitting you in the face) and the fun, more colorful sort of effects like in Avengers (the gorgeous "Tiger Vision" scene).  Then consider the backgrounds and seascapes, the shipwreck, the "God Storm," and it becomes clear this movie had the best visual effects of the year. And all of that goes without mentioning Richard Parker, who this year trumps even Gollum as the best animated creature on the screen. That tiger was a thing of terrifying beauty and subtle character which all by itself earns this award. Just watch the trailer below for proof. The most visually stunning film of the year.

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
Will win: Life of Pi
Should win: Life of Pi
Should have been nominated: Cloud Atlas, instead of Snow White and the Huntsman

Process Stories

It's Oscar season again, which is about the only thing that can usually pull me out of the woodwork to start blogging regularly again, for at least a month or so.  I'll get into what I think about specific categories as the next several weeks go by, but today is something different.

Looking up and down the list of major awards contenders, I began to notice a trend this year in the types of stories that were being told.  With many of the acclaimed or otherwise successful films this year, we usually know the ending before we get into the theater, or at least by a few minutes into the movie.  

Does Lincoln get the 13th Amendment passed?  

Do the hostages get out of Iran?

Do we find Bin Laden?

Does Hitchcock manage to make and release Psycho?

Does the family in The Impossible manage to survive the tsunami aftermath, reunite, and sell the movie rights to their story?

These are, of course, matters of history or common knowledge.  But then consider the fictional films.

Does Django get his revenge on the oppressive/racist White Man? It's hard to imagine a bleaker story than one in which the slaveowner wins the day.

Does Pi survive his adventure at sea? Considering the adult Pi is narrating the tale from the start, the question of life or death seems moot.

Does Snow White defeat the Evil Queen? Always and forever.

Does Denzel get away with the tragic consequences of his alcoholism, or does he ultimately face his demons? 

You get my point.

There really weren't many surprises this year.  Yet I'd argue 2012 gave us one of the best crops of films we've had in quite a while.  How is it that so many movies with predictable endings could be so fascinating and satisfying?  Because ultimately we don't go to the movies to see what happens - we go to see how they happen.  The big twist ending or the big reveal or whatever is maybe five minutes of what following two hours of how.  You can have a crappy ending and still have enjoyed the ride and be grateful for the experience.  Or you can have a crappy ride, but get blown away by the finale, and subsequently confuse that with high quality.  But the best cinematic experiences are the ones that strike a balance.  When you suspect the ending will be satisfying regardless, and the trip the filmmakers take you on to get there is the truly enthralling part.  

Which brings me to Argo. I saw it in theaters and I was underwhelmed. I thought it was a well-made film, and Ben Affleck's direction held everything together. But Best Picture? Meh. 

You see, the whole time I was stuck in my head. I kept thinking, "This thriller isn't very thrilling. We know they're going to get out of Iran, we know the plan worked, so why am I here?" So I enjoyed the film but I questioned its necessity. 

But I watched it a second time recently and it was a different experience.  Having gotten the negativity out of my system, I realized that even though we know the hostages escape, they don't. And suddenly a tautness entered the movie that wasn't there before. I was also able to step back and look at some of the production elements more objectively - the costumes and production design were superb.  Giving the "Film Director" character curly hair and an ascot was brilliant.  The story juggled two or three locations/subplots at a time, but the editor never loses track of them so neither do we.  There's really not a bad performance in the entire ensemble.  The screenplay shows a fascinating look at the Hollywood system and the US intelligence system but includes just enough family tension to give Affleck's character an emotional core.  

All that said, it's not a perfect film. Because there are so many characters, only a few of them are developed beyond their function or the lines they are obligated to say to move the story forward.  And I think Affleck made a mistake in casting himself in the lead role - it might have been the writing, but it simply wasn't a charismatic enough performance from the guy who's supposed to be leading us through the adventure.  Not a bad performance by any means, but not exactly a memorable one. 

I looked up the historical accuracy and noticed that the screenplay takes liberties to create a more heightened sense danger than may have actually existed, but that doesn't really undermine the preposterous nature of the extraction plan or the fact that they actually pulled it off.  The story of the process trumps the announcement of the outcome. 

Life of Pi is essentially a story making that very point. Pi narrates the tale of his sea voyage with a tiger named Richard Parker, and when its integrity is questioned he responds simply, "Which story do you prefer?" 

Filmmaking is storytelling, and stories are how you get there, not where you get.  

The Robe

The Robe (1953), like the last film Ben-Hur, is the story of a man who lived in the time of Jesus and was radically changed by his experience with Jesus.  But where Judah Ben-Hur witnessed both Jesus’ life and death, the Roman soldier Marcellus (Richard Burton) in The Robe begins his story with the death of Jesus, which he is assigned to oversee.  He is the soldier who won Jesus’ robe in a dice game after the crucifixion.  Afterwards, the robe appears to have some sort of spiritual power to cause Marcellus great pain or guilt, so he gets rid of it.  When, a year or so later, he sees the loving behavior of those who follower Jesus’ teachings, he is convinced he was wrong to allow the crucifixion and converts to Christianity.  The emperor Caligula fears this Christian sect, and is angered by their refusal to acknowledge the him (and Rome) as the highest authority - Caligula views Christians as traitors.  When Marcellus refuses to abandon Christianity, claiming that he can be loyal to both Rome and Jesus, Caligula apparently sentences Marcellus and his girlfriend Diana to death, which is portrayed as Marcellus and Diana walking out a door into a sea of white fluffy clouds.

There are so many problems with this movie.  Really, like, a lot.  

I’ll begin with the representation of Jesus, which is the purpose of this series.  Jesus is on screen for very little time - we basically only see him entering Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, then a scene later he is walking to his death and put up on the cross.  The crucifixion here is an important plot point on which Marcellus’ story hinges, but is not the focus of the movie.  As such, Jesus is shown dutifully, but not substantially.  The image of Jesus that is more important is image of him we see in his followers - a loving, peaceful people who are persecuted for apparently no reason.  

It is what this movie does in its portrayal of those influenced by Jesus that I do not like, and the historical details in particular are fairly horrendous.  One man is converted on the spot when looking at Jesus enter Jerusalem, claiming things like, “Only his eyes spoke...”  Something about these moments make me feel like Jesus is more like a magician than the Son of God.  

There was one almost laughable scene after Jesus’ death when Marcellus encounters a man on the street, obviously emotionally distressed, who says he should tell people to believe, before running off.  He says before he goes that his name is Judas (accompanied by loud music and thunderclaps), and exits up stairs leading to a gnarled dead tree.  While I did like the visual cue of the tree implying Judas’ imminent suicide, as soon as I realized that this was Judas, wracked with guilt and claiming people should believe in Jesus, I just thought, “You can’t do that.  You can’t just take a vital character to the Jesus narrative and invent feelings and words that you don’t know he had.”  This was slightly different in Ben-Hur when we see Pontius Pilate a few times because those encounters were not offering much insight into his character - they were more anecdotal coincidences.  This struck me more as a serious mistreatment of history and as just one of many attempts to manipulate the audiences emotions.

Meanwhile, even though the “Christians” in the movie are loving and understanding of the importance of their messiah’s sacrifice, Marcellus is driven for a bit almost entirely by guilt.  When he put on Christ’s robe for the first time, he convulsed in pain, and I could imagine the robe was essentially whispering in his’ ear, “Look what you did to me!  I’m Jesus!  And you killed me!  Don’t you just feel so terrible about yourself now?!”  Richard Burton’s over-the-top, exaggerated pain gestures do not help the case much.  I was able to excuse the style of acting of older films in Ben-Hur, but it is more difficult to hear.  People do not cry, they sob and heave and grit their teeth.  People do not get injured, they writhe in excruciating agony.  Even the more positive emotions struck me as a bit too much - the Christians were not just kind and generous, but grateful to be crippled, and almost simple-minded when trying to understand their persecution and low place in Roman society.  (Perhaps this is what Christians are supposed to act like, but it did not seem like a very organic result of their faith in Jesus, more like a wistful dreamy show of faith.)  

But let’s talk about that persecution of Christians for a minute.  Marcellus encountered these people just a year or so after the crucifixion.  At this time, there were no Christians.  It was not a thing that people could be.  There were some Jews and some Gentiles who knew who Jesus was, and followed his teachings.  But the Gospels had not been written yet.  Paul had not yet begun his ministry.  There was no such thing as a clearly identifiable religion called “Christianity.”  And what’s more, if there was a defined group of these Jesus-followers, Caligula was not the emperor who ordered their deaths.  One scene showed Roman soldiers shooting arrows without cause into a crowd.  This was not the work of Caligula.  That’s more like the behavior of Nero, and even then, the persecution and martyrdom of Christians was the exception, not the rule.  

But these details do not matter so much because in this movie the point is that Rome is bad.  Rome does not want you to be a Christian.  Even the opening shots of the film, showing the slave trade in the middle of Rome itself seem designed to make us think, “This is a bad place because they sell and own people, which we now know is morally wrong.  This is not the side I should be rooting for.”  

There are some nice moments, as when Marcellus gives a young boy a donkey as a gift, and discovers that boy had re-gifted it to his crippled friend for transportation.  But these moments are not plentiful enough to rise above some of the oddities - there is a sword-fight for two that seem too, I think the correct word would be swashbuckling to feel natural in Rome or Nazareth.  Maybe it’s right for Robin Hood or a pirate ship, but not here.  

But ultimately I simply could not get over the fact that this whole story seems to depend on a really severe guilt trip.  The author of the novel says he wrote it to ask what happened to the soldier who won Christ’s robe.  Apparently the answer this film has is that he was wracked with guilt and converted to kindness to assuage that guilt.  I just don’t believe that is how Christianity works.  I don’t think that system of guilt-repentance-guilt-repentance on a seeming loop is the way a relationship with Christ should operate.  Sure we sin, we confess, we repent, we try not to do it again.  But there’s more too it than that, and while Marcellus does seem to reach a point of total change, the way he gets there seemed strange to me - and considering this is a movie to be watched by an audience, that guilt trip extends to them as well.  I don’t think a movie about the role that Jesus plays in our lives should serve to make an audience feel worse about themselves, but better.  And the assurance at the end that if we stick to our guns, we’ll be rewarded in heaven with awesome cloud shoes is ultimately unsatisfying, since we’ve still got to live our lives on earth for a while.  Unless we choose martyrdom like Marcellus and Diana did...but I suppose being executed isn’t all that bad since they skipped that part in the movie and went straight to the part about walking on clouds.

The Robe has flawed theology, seriously inaccurate history, and a disrespect for the secular cultures in which we live.  But hey, look on the bright side, at least we get to feel bad about ourselves for killing Jesus, right?  

"Ben-Hur" - A Tale of the Christ?

When Ben-Hur was released in 1959, it was receieved with almost universal critical acclaim, won a record-setting 11 Academy Awards, and was a box-office smash, grossing more than any other film that year.  Film historians and critics frequently regard Steven Spielberg's Jaws (1975) as the original "blockbuster," so imagine my surprise to read New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther refer to this film as a "blockbuster spectacle" sixteen years earlier, and on top of that, a "remarkably intelligent and engrossing human drama."


(NOTE: I have more thoughts and insights that I've written here, but in an effort to give these things some structure, I have limited the content.  If I could write a full essay or research paper on each film I see, I would, but it would be exhausting, and these are meant to be recreational.  Perhaps I'll get better as we go along, but for now if you'd like to hear more about the movie, quotes I thought were interesting, more ideas about the representations of Jesus or other characters, or anything else I do not elaborate on enough for you, let me know and I'll try to accomodate.)


Background


Today it seems there are two schools of thought on this Ben-Hur: those who feel it is a stirring epic that puts strong human emotion on display, and those who feel it is bloated, poorly written, overlong, and terribly acted.  It is almost universally recognized, though, that the chariot race near the end of the film is one of the most exciting and technically impressive action sequences ever filmed.  


After watching Ben-Hur for the second time (about six years since the first viewing), I put myself squarely in the first camp.  The subgenre of filmmaking generally known as "biblical epics" flourished in the 1950s and 60s, and they can be campy, sometimes hitting or sometimes missing the mark, but I truly believe this is a great movie, and you should go and watch it soon if you haven't already.  It is long, yes, but it works hard for that length, it earns it.  The film as a whole is a technical masterpiece, and director William Wyler works wonders in keeping the whole thing from falling apart.  It was interesting to think of just how many movies owe a debt to this one - Gladiator, certainly, but also Star Wars, Episode I: The Phantom Menace (the pod-racing scene), and I noticed one shot in particular of hands reaching out of a grate on a sinking boat that I am sure is the reference point for a few images in Pearl Harbor.  


There are, of course, some problems with the film now which were not problems at the time of its production.  For instance, a horse-loving Arab sheik is played by Hugh Griffith (white and British), in what might as well have been blackface makeup.  His performance was widely praised and he won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.  This obviously would have not been the case today.  And yet in the world of this film it is acceptable and we must manage to see past it.  There is also the question of a gay subtext in the relationship of Ben-Hur and Messala, which I will generally ignore, as I find it distracting and unsubstantial in the larger themes of the story.  


Furthermore, I'd like to address the criticism of the performances, particularly those that might claim that Charlton Heston's acting is weak, while Stephen Boyd's is over the top.  Firstly, this time period and genre demanded a certain style of acting which is seldom utilized today.  Heston is a limited actor (just as Clint Eastwood, Ben Affleck, or Nicholas Cage are limited actors who turn out remarkable work with the right role), but this role suits him very well.  Ben-Hur is a strong man with strong emotions, and Heston feels them exactly as much as he should.  Russell Crowe won an Academy Award for his work in Gladiator for what is a similarly stylized performance.  Crowe has shown greater depth and nuance elsewhere (particularly in The Insider) and yet the broader strokes of emotion suit the swords-and-sandals genre of Gladiator, just as a simpler, more intense performance from Heston suits the grandiose style of Ben-Hur.  Boyd as Messala, on the other hand, brings a mild obsession with Rome, and a peculiar mischievousness that makes me seriously wonder about his motivations in his friendship with Ben-Hur - he also performs strong, bold emotions, but makes one wonder if Messala himself is the one performing, while Boyd maintains some ulterior motives beneath the surface of the character.


Plot


Based on the novel by Civil War General Lew Wallace, the movie centers on Judah Ben-Hur (Charlton Heston) a Jewish prince who is falsely imprisoned along with his mother and sister by his best friend, the Roman Messala (Stephen Boyd).  After serving three years rowing in the galleys, he gains the attention of a Roman consul who adopts him and makes him a Roman citizen.  With this new wealth and respect, Judah returns to Jerusalem to find his family, and seek vengeance on Messala. (Cue: chariot race.) He defeats Messala, finds his mother and sister and discovers they contracted leprosy while in prison, and is at a loss for what to do.  


But I'm leaving something out.  The film is subtitled "A Tale of the Christ."  Indeed, the opening sequence is the Nativity story.  The second scene features Joseph explaining that his adoptive son is doing "his Father's work."  When Judah Ben-Hur is enslaved, in chains on the way to the galleys, he falls down thirsty.  Although the guard demands that no one give him water, a man (who we in the audience understand to be Jesus) gives him water regardless, and when the guard challenges him, the guard is silenced simply by looking into Jesus' face.  When Judah returns to his home he finds his former slave Esther (with whom he has always been in love), and discovers she is enamored by the words of a new teacher - she quotes the beatitudes to him.  And at the end of the story, when Judah does not know what to do about his leprous family, he learns there is a trial taking place in the center of Jerusalem, and discovers an innocent man being punished, much like he once was.  He recognizes the man as the same one who gave him water, and he kneels to return the favor.  And yet Judah remains a skeptic.  He does not understand this persecuted man or the power he possesses. Upon Jesus' crucifixion, though, Judah's mother and sister are miraculously healed and Judah has learned to get past his contempt and bitterness for his old enemy Messala.


Depiction of Jesus


So what, then, is Jesus' role in this movie?  He's hardly even a supporting character, yet all of Judah Ben-Hur's story hinges on the story of Jesus.  By opening the film with the Nativity, the stage is set for a narrative that depends on the story of Christ - they are linked, paralleled, dependent.  Wyler uses great tact in never actually showing us Jesus' face - perhaps an attempt to avoid iconography, or maybe to remind us that this is not Jesus' story, I'm not sure.  But as one reviewer put it, "The Ascent of Calvary and The Crucifixion are pictured, without breathless reverence, in a matter-of-fact manner, as contemporary political events." What this accomplishes, then, is a focus on the other characters, the normal everyday Romans or Hebrews who encounter Jesus.  Instead of seeing Jesus' face, we see other peoples' faces, their reactions to him.  


I realized that the power of Jesus' presence in this film is shown in the transformations of those who encounter him.  More impressive is that this is accomplished without Jesus ever having to perform a miracle or a healing (until the final minutes, that is).  When Ben-Hur is given water by a stranger, I suspect he is changed slightly - after having his family falsely accused by his best friend of murdering a Roman official, this encounter reminds him that people can be good instead of selfish.  (I wonder if he would have saved the Roman consul from the sinking slave ship three years later if not for this inciting act of kindness.)  And when the guard tries to tell Jesus to stop giving Ben-Hur water, the look on his face also tells us that there is power in this stranger, and that what is right will be accomplished in spite of the supposed power of the Roman authority.  (Do not forget that in this culture, Emperor Augustus Caesar is the only acknowledged god.)  


What Ben-Hur might tell us modern day viewers about Jesus is this: that his story is deeply intertwined with our own, that he has a power greater than those with earthly command, and that even the simplest meeting with him can transform people into something better than they had imagined they would ever be.  I suspect a possible consequence of not knowing Jesus is shown on Messala's deathbed.  (He was critically injured after being trampled by horses during the chariot race.)  I can't recall seeing a character die with more contempt and malice still in him than I saw in Messala - he tells Ben-Hur that his family are not dead as he though, but that they have leprosy and are now exiled to a leper colony.  Messala concludes with the challenge, "The race is not over," essentially revealing that he will die with a heart filled with hate for Ben-Hur.  It seems to me that the movie wants us to know this is the consequence of injustice, hate, and vengeance.  I felt sad for Messala during that moment; villainous though he is, I pitied him.


What is particularly impressive to me is that Wyler manages to get this message across without ever preaching at us.  Wyler was Jewish, but I am unaware if he was a practicing Jew and I'm not under the impression that he ever converted to Christianity, so I feel fairly sure that he would not have been intentionally proselytizing here, though the original story by Gen. Wallace is almost certainly meant as a positive portrayal of the necessity of Christ.    Regardless of intent, the representation of Jesus in Ben-Hur is a reflection not on Jesus' life, but on what our lives might be when Jesus' is a part of them - not necessarily front and center 100% of the time, but always, undeniably, there.     

Jesus Always Wins the Oscar Pool

I've still not quite gotten the hang of this blogging thing back yet.  I'm not quite consistent in my theme or subjects, not yet regular in my posting schedule.  So I decided to try and give myself some direction, some constant to keep me posting on related topics.  I know I love writing and talking about movies, and I love writing and talking about religion (esp. Christianity).  And I seldom find organic ways to blend the two topics.  Until I realized there's a perfect way to blend them.

I'm going to do a series on representations of Jesus in movies.  I've selected about 16 movies on or related to the narrative of Jesus' life, in several different genres and styles, from classic biblical epics to musicals, from respectful Christian approaches to more artistic portraits from secular filmmakers, plus maybe something irreverent, a few foreign interpretations (including an Iranian film featuring a Muslim perspective on Christ's life - that is, if I can get a hold of a copy).  If anyone has additional suggestions or ideas, let me know.

I'll start writing on the first movie (Ben-Hur) very soon, and hopefully another (The Robe) by the end of the week.  Neither are typical Jesus narratives - rather, Jesus is a supporting or even tangential role.  I hope that by looking at films with main characters who are ordinary people who interact with Christ, these will allow for a good rubric to consider the effect of Jesus' presence on the other characters and viewers.

So, this is gonna be an adventure - I hope a bunch of you stick around and maybe get to expand your ideas about what it looks like and means to represent Jesus in film, fact, and fiction.  There might be The Greatest Story Ever Told, but that does not mean it is The Greatest Movie Ever Made.  And there might be The Passion of the Christ, but what happens when people get too passionate about the Passion?  These are important questions for us as Christians, as non-Christians, as agents in modern culture and subjects of an enormous media industry, and I'm excited about what possible answers there might be.

(I will, of course, try to keep up some regular posts on current events and whatever is bugging me on a given day.)

Hogwarts Forever

It has recently come to my attention that there are some party-poopers and spoil-sports who would have us all feel ashamed or even idiotic for our fervor concerning the release of the final Harry Potter movie. They say how sad it is that we consider Harry Potter to be such an enormous part of our whole childhood, or that the movies aren’t all that great anyway, so we should not get so excited. Not only are these types of dismissive comments incredibly inconsiderate to the very real feelings of excitement and sadness shared by a great many people, but they are also rather foolish.


To begin with, brushing aside an eight-film franchise that has garnered consistent critical praise by calling them average is a display of ignorance. One comment I read claimed that the last 2 films have been the only above-average entries in the series. But surely when we consider the first two films, featuring the misadventures of 11 and 12 year-olds, along the parameters of the family-friendly ventures they were intended to be, we can see that they are enormously successful.  You wouldn't criticize other family films for not behaving like The Godfather, would you?


The 3rd movie, Prisoner of Azkaban remains the most intellectually stimulating entry given they way if deftly maneuvers through a time-traveling plot. Add to the complicated narrative the way the director chose to insert images and symbols related to time passing throughout the film (e.g. the many shots of clocks, a ticking sound used as part of the music score, the camera actually passing through a clock’s cogs when Harry and Hermione travel back in time, and the use of the Whomping Willow to move through the seasons), and we see a grand collage of transformation, featuring a werewolf and pubescent lead characters (take another look at the opening scene, featuring a 13-year-old boy shaking his magic wand under the bedsheets and tell me the director isn’t trying to subliminally show us the changes in question). The entire film, every element of it, is grounded in the themes of time and change and the necessity of forward motion, visually and artistically representing the themes of the book’s narrative. 


The 4th was primarily a transference from page to screen, but a visually stunning one, one must admit, despite the apparently drunk Dumbledore stumbling and slurring through the whole movie. And while I do not care for the 5th as a film, it did have the difficult job of adapting the book with the most material, and the director, fresh from TV, was still trying to figure out what he wanted from the films. He has since figured it out, and the series as a whole has remained since the start technically and artistically impeccable, visually and emotionally satisfying in nearly every way.


So are the books better? Well yes, in many ways, just as nearly every book that is ever adapted into a movie will be better in many ways.  But please, do not dismiss so many films in one fail swoop by calling them all average or “mediocre at best.”  Tread lightly if you’re prepared to call the most economically successful franchise in movie history, a series that has the respect and love of audiences and critics alike (unlike, say, Twilight and Transformers, both generally considered to be just plain terrible), just not all that special. Because that’s a fight you’ll have a hell of time trying to win.


As to the many comments about our “childhoods ending” with this last film: of course, you’re right, many of us are in fact of legal age to perform magic outside of school, and therefore are adults already. Our childhoods are behind us in many ways. Very few of us believe that our lives are actually ending with the release of this final movie. It’s an exaggeration to say so and we know that.  And yet...


Some people feel that their lives are suddenly empty when they’ve been performing in a play, the play closes, and there are suddenly no more rehearsals to go to.


Some people feel that their lives are suddenly empty when they’ve spent all summer watching World Cup games or Tour de France races, when before they know it, there’s a winner, and there are no more games and races to keep them occupied during their otherwise dull afternoons.


Some people tune in to that extra special episode when Jim and Pam get married, or when the cast is going to try to sing their way through a musical episode, or when it's the series finale and we simply must know if Tony is going to get whacked, or just what the hell that island was... and then that episode passes, and while some are elated and others disappointed, everyone who tuned in suddenly feels a little more empty knowing that they’ll never get to have that feeling of anticipation, the result of a many years long commitment, again.


Was Harry Potter the only part of my childhood? Absolutely not. I also had the piano and the saxophone, and plenty of other books and friends, and I lived in Germany for a few years so Europe became a big part of my childhood. But as an Army brat I moved around a lot, and starting in 5th grade when I read Sorcerer's Stone Harry became one friend who I knew I wouldn’t have to leave behind when I moved and one person I wouldn’t have to make friends with when I arrived somewhere new. I was 10 when I first read the first book, the same age as Harry when he started out. And I was 17 when the final book came out, also Harry's age. So was Harry Potter my whole childhood? Of course not, but he was one of the most consistent, trustworthy parts of it.


And then there are the movies. My dad took me to see the first movie during Christmas break of 7th grade, and we’ve gone to see each one together since. He started reading the books, but never did finish them. (I think he stopped reading when he started getting strange looks in the office from the soldiers he commanded...) So the tradition now is every year or so, a new movie comes out and I get to fill him in on the stuff he missed by not reading the book, and it’s great and it’s fun. So when my dad and I go to the theater tonight and I say goodbye to Harry, I’m also saying goodbye to that tradition and that specific part of my relationship with my father.


Was it the only part of my childhood? No. But it was right there along with everything else, so don’t you dare tell me it’s sad that I’m sad. It’s insulting, and it’s ignorant. You have things that you wish you could do or see again for the first time, and all this legion of fans is trying to do is make sure that when we get to experience Harry Potter in a new way for the last first time, that it’s memorable, that we savor it.


So much of the series focuses on loss and how to deal with it. Tonight (or last night, as the case might have been), Harry Potter fans are just trying to deal with this particular loss by acknowledging it, feeling it, and celebrating what it has all meant to us. We’re not crazy, we’re not pathetic, we’re just fans. And we don’t need you to feel the same way we do, we just want you to not be mean about it. Didn’t Harry teach you anything?