Beyond the Frame: Standard Operating Procedure

Janis Karpinski looks into the camera and speaks quickly yet not hurriedly, forcefully yet not belligerently. Her voice is filled with passion. Her stare suggests conviction. Her testimony is dotted with dates, names and ranks. Laying out a case of government duplicity in Standard Operating Procedure, Karpinski sounds a lot like Kevin Costner’s Jim Garrison making his breathless closing arguments in JFK. How fitting. Because while the subject under the microscope is different in Errol Morris’ documentary about the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal, the underlying discussion is the same. Like JFK (unintentionally), Morris’ film (intentionally) demonstrates how our emotions, biases and prejudices influence the meaning of unemotional, unbiased, unprejudiced historical documentation. Simply put: Standard Operating Procedure is about how our perceptions distort reality.

It all starts with the images. Just like John F Kennedy’s assassination is remembered through a famous amateur film (shot by Abraham Zapruder), the Abu Ghraib scandal is imprinted on our common historical record through notorious snapshots (taken by members of the U.S. military). In actual reality, these images are just what they are: pictorial representations of a specific place in time, as captured from a specific point of observation. But in practical reality, the images are what we perceive them to be. The first reality never changes. The latter reality never goes away. Our perceptions give the images context, filling in the picture outside the frame, thus giving the images the only meaning that counts, flawed though it sometimes may be.

If a picture speaks 1,000 words, some of those words lie. In JFK, Garrison argues that the back-and-to-the-left motion of the president’s head, in reaction to the shot that killed Kennedy, eliminates from consideration the possibility that the shot was fired from Lee Harvey Oswald’s supposed perch in the Texas School Book Depository. Recent computer simulations, however, indicate that the kill shot came from precisely that location. Thus, we have two mutually exclusive interpretations of the same event, based on the same unchanged visual evidence: One film. Two theories. One truth. And that brings us to Abu Ghraib.

If you haven’t yet seen Standard Operating Procedure, I suggest that before you do you take another look at those unpleasant photos from 2003. Snapshot: There’s a hooded man standing on a box with his arms outstretched and wires wrapped around his fingers. Snapshot: There’s a woman and man in military garb smiling and flashing thumbs-up poses from behind a heap of naked men. Snapshot: There’s that woman from before, a cigarette in her mouth, flashing that same right thumb while pointing with her left hand at the exposed genitals of a hooded man. Snapshot: There’s that man from before, his right arm cocked as if poised to strike the hooded head of the figure cradled in his left arm. These are just some of the pictures from Abu Ghraib, and this is what they show. But look at them. What do you see?

Perhaps you see torture. Perhaps you see abuse. Perhaps you see appropriate prisoner treatment. Perhaps you see sadists. Perhaps you see victims. Perhaps you see people getting what was coming to them. Perhaps you see “emotional release,” as Rush Limbaugh put it. Perhaps you see, as Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld put it, a few “rogue” soldiers. Perhaps you see the representative tip of a despicable iceberg. Perhaps you don’t know what you see. In any case, you only really see what the photos show. Exactly that. Nothing more. Yet it’s essentially impossible to keep our brains from classifying those photos by one of those above definitions, or others.

So no matter what you see in those photos now, your interpretation is sure to change after watching Standard Operating Procedure. Morris’ film expands the margins of the photos via talking-head interviews with the people who were there (and in some cases in the photos), providing factual context to better inform our emotional responses to the images. Yet even then we don’t have the whole story, and the photos may continue to mislead. If you’re looking for illumination, you won’t find it. This documentary is sharply focused, but it is understandably incomplete: There are witnesses Morris would have liked to talk to but couldn’t. There are key players Morris might have talked to but didn’t. Like the Abu Ghraib photos themselves, Standard Operating Procedure is nothing more than a snapshot. It just happens to be 2 hours long.

Thus there’s a degree of irony to Morris’ film. Megan Ambuhl, one of the soldiers from the photos, might as well have been outlining the director’s thesis when she says of the famous images: “You don’t see forward. You don’t see backward. You don’t see outside the frame.” This is equally true of Morris’ film. Using the same interviewing technique as recently seen in The Fog Of War, Morris leaves his subjects alone to look straight into the camera, where Morris’ face looks back at them, posing questions. His voice-of-God presence is limited in the finished film, and that’s the problem, because as refreshing as it is that Morris doesn’t mug for the spotlight like Michael Moore or Morgan Spurlock, cutting his questions from the film leaves his subjects’ answers as vulnerable to misinterpretation as the photos they are discussing.

As anyone who has ever interviewed someone knows, an interviewer’s questions – in their phrasing, delivery, sequence, etc. – influence the subject’s answers. Without knowing the questions, it’s difficult to put the answers in proper context. We don’t know which statements were made voluntarily or which came after considerable badgering from Morris. For example: When Lynndie England speaks with anger and bitterness, is her anger directed at the events at Abu Ghraib or at Morris for making her discuss them? When Javal Davis speaks with levity about “conditioning” prisoners with loud music, is that a result of a friendly rapport with Morris or is it indicative of a lack of remorse over what happened in 2003? When Sabrina Harman pauses at the end of an answer, is she contemplating the actions she just described or is she simply waiting for the next question? How you read such moments will determine how you read these people, which will determine how you read those photos. It’s possible that you’ll come out of Standard Operating Procedure further from the truth than you were going in.

In my mind, that’s what makes the film so fascinating. As much as Standard Operating Procedure tries to resolve some misinterpretations, it also invites us to play armchair psychologist. Take, for example, England and Harman, who in one way or another suggest that they wouldn’t or couldn’t change the events that have marred their service careers and their reputations. Do such statements reflect the heartlessness of evil people, or do they reflect the helplessness of low-ranking soldiers who got caught up in a situation they lacked the power to resolve? Are we hearing what England and Harman actually believe, or are we hearing what they try to convince themselves they believe, as a matter of moving on with their lives? As we try to understand how England and Harman could do some of the things they are caught on camera doing, it’s only natural that we try and understand them.

For Morris, that human element is the primary focus. Still, his documentary isn’t without sobering analysis of the prisoner mistreatment itself, with Brent Pack, the man who first investigated the photos, pointing out the very fine line between criminal behavior and “standard operating procedure,” which might look criminal but isn’t (at least as far as our government is concerned). Then again, if you want to watch a documentary that explores torture in depth, rent Oscar-winner Taxi To The Dark Side, which makes for a natural companion piece. Standard Operating Procedure isn’t quite as ambitious as Taxi, but that doesn’t prevent Morris from his typical overproduction, as evidenced by his unnecessary B-roll reenactments (in slow motion, of course). Like too many documentary filmmakers these days, sometimes Morris can’t get out of the way of his story.

Yet in the end, Standard Operating Procedure makes its point, because when I look at the photos from Abu Ghraib I see them differently now than before. Where I once saw arrogance I now see insecurity. Where I once saw callousness I now see naiveté. Other things remain the same. I still see a horrific disregard for mankind. I see abuse. I see what I consider torture. I see racism. I see the seeds of retaliatory terrorism. But that’s me and that’s now. My perception might change again over time and repeated viewings of this documentary. But forever the photos will remain, unchanged and undeniable.

Messaging Through the Medium: The Royal Tenenbaums

Wes Anderson’s films have the visual air of a Scooby Doo episode and a children’s activity book rolled into one, and yet to dismiss the films for their stylistic cuteness is to miss the point. At the center of that cartoonish ball, Anderson always provides some very dark, very adult themes to explore. You just have to take the time to find them. Then again, it’s either underlining Anderson’s unique genius or exposing the shallowness of his storytelling to note that his films’ sets and costumes often do more to reveal his characters than those staples we know and love called dialogue and acting. In none of Anderson’s films is that dynamic in better display than in The Royal Tenenbaums, and thus this narrow analysis of that movie makes for my submission to the Production Design Blog-a-thon wrapping up over at Too Many Projects Film Club.

What is the value of a production designer (responsible for a film’s visual aesthetic, from sets to props and sometimes costumes, too)? It depends on the film. But on an Anderson set, the production designer is arguably of greater significance than the actors, because for better or worse the director’s visual compositions are often more indelible than the stories underneath. To think of The Darjeeling Limited is to recall the titular blue train and Owen Wilson’s bandaged face. The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou brings to mind Bill Murray in the Jacques Cousteau-esque orange knit cap and the bright blue wetsuit. And just before that in the Anderson collection is The Royal Tenenbaums, a film literally separated into chapters that fulfills its children’s book motif with costumes fit for paper dolls and sets that seem inspired by pop-up books.

The production designer for The Royal Tenenbaums was David Wasco – who also worked with Anderson on Bottle Rocket and who paired with Quentin Tarantino on Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and the Kill Bill flicks – but the source of inspiration was clearly Anderson. Clearly, because Anderson’s films have some consistent visual themes despite working with multiple production designers. Clearly, because the Criterion DVD release includes a fantastic color foldout of detailed diagrams that outlines how the Tenenbaums tableau came together.

The drawings (samples below) are by Anderson’s brother, Eric, and the filmmaker explains their genesis in the pamphlet: “When I’m writing, I keep notebooks of ideas for sets, props, and clothes. I incorporate some of these ideas into the script, but I set the majority of them aside to give privately to the different department heads during preproduction. In the past, I have occasionally forgotten some of my favorite ideas until it was too late … To prevent this from happening on The Royal Tenenbaums (which contains more perhaps unnecessary visual detail than both of my previous films combined), about three months before we started shooting, I asked my brother, Eric, a skilled illustrator, to help me create a set of drawings that would include much of the information I wanted to communicate to the crew – and that would also suggest the overall look and feeling of the movie.”

The experiment was a tremendous success. To view the color sketches – many of which Anderson says weren’t entirely finished until after the sets were built and furnished – is to appreciate the director’s imagination and auteur influence as well as Wasco’s ability to turn dream into reality – an accomplishment that shouldn’t be diminished by Anderson’s detailed demands. With the exception of the exterior of the brick building at Archer Avenue, the Tenenbaum house is pure fantasy, the temporary stuff of movie magic, and yet for all its intentional quirkiness it feels lived-in to a degree that many sets don’t.

Anderson is derided by his detractors for being a gimmicky filmmaker who is more style than substance, but those detractors often overlook the significance of style as a storytelling device. Tenenbaums places so much emphasis on the physical spaces inhabited by the characters that the film begins with a labeled tour of the Tenenbaum house in order that we might understand its occupants. Does this cheapen the narrative or expose a weakness in Anderson’s ability to write old-fashioned character exposition? Only if you think that the medium is never the message.

For me, Anderson’s bric-a-brac obsession in Tenenbaums brings to mind a moment in High Fidelity when John Cusack’s Rob opines, “Books, records, music – these things matter. Call me shallow, but it’s the damn truth.” That couldn’t be more correct. Sure, we tell one another that it’s what’s inside that counts, yet at the same time almost all of us go around using our exteriors as billboards to advertise our desired (not always genuine or accurate) inner selves. Sometimes our attire or home furnishings aren’t evidence of who we are so much as they are symbols of who we want to be, which is equally significant, because one folds into the other.

In the passage quoted above, Anderson freely admits that some of this is “unnecessary visual detail,” and that’s true, too. In that respect, Anderson is just having fun. But the attention to life’s accouterments in Tenenbaums (and other Anderson films) is far from a frivolous pursuit. Often these visual cues are the first steps to knowing someone – sometimes better than they know themselves.

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The Diagrams
Click any of the following to enlarge:

Chas' Room


Margot's Room


Gallery, Etheline's Study, Misc.


Dreams Made Into Reality
Click any of the following to enlarge:




















(My favorite "set" in the film: the game closet!)

A Shadow of Adventure: Indiana Jones & The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull

Congratulations, Temple Of Doom! You’re no longer the black sheep of the Indiana Jones saga. Now that dishonor belongs to Indiana Jones & The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull, which is the cinematic equivalent of a deadbeat illegitimate child – resting on the laurels of its parentage while only barely resembling its ancestors. The key players from Indiana Jones’ glory years are all here – Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Harrison Ford and John Williams – but the spirit is all gone. Not quite 30 years since Raiders Of The Lost Ark swung in on a whip and helped create the boilerplate for the modern action movie, while paying homage to adventure serials of the 1930s and 40s, this final (please, lord) Indiana Jones movie finds the frenzy that has defined the series but not the thrills. Its sins are many, but the biggest one is this: it’s a drag.

I saw Crystal Skull on its opening day at Washington, D.C.’s beloved Uptown Theater, an AMC-managed monoplex that’s been around since 1936. My afternoon showing wasn’t sold out, but its sizeable crowd was made up of film fans so eager to see Indy on the Uptown’s curved 70-foot screen that they knocked off work early, many of us arriving an hour beforehand so that we could land our favorite seats on the ground or balcony levels. It was a spirited crowd, to be sure. But that was before the movie started. After that, if not for a few chuckles here and there, you might have thought we were watching The Terminal. We were lifeless. Instead of taking our breath away, Crystal Skull left us without a pulse.

This from a film that tries so hard to be a rollercoaster that it comes across less like a sequel to the original Indiana Jones trilogy than a follow-up to the Disneyland ride that the trilogy inspired. And even then it disappoints. Whereas Raiders combines the motif of The Jungle Cruise with the freefalling speed of The Matterhorn, Crystal Skull rumbles and roars but never moves fast enough to let the wind blow through our hair. It simulates adventure without actually achieving it. Making his first Indy picture of the CGI era, Spielberg gets pulled all the wrong directions by a greedy desire to reap the benefits of the available technology. The result is a collection of extravagant impossible-in-the-80s action sequences that frequently come off as exactly what they are: studio-bred.

For example, Crystal Skull’s most elaborate action sequence features a vehicular chase that would have seemed right out of Raiders had its wheels ever touched the ground. Instead, Western-style stunt work is traded for greenscreen choreography. Ford’s Indy and his cast of fellow do-gooders, including Shia LaBeouf’s Mutt Williams, shake and rattle in trucks going nowhere as the camera darts about trying to bring motion to the motionless. At one point LaBeouf’s Mutt straddles a pair of moving vehicles for a preposterous bit of inconsequential swordplay with Cate Blanchett’s villainous Irina Spalko that looks all too realistic, which is to say that it looks staged. As if acknowledging that there’s no real danger there, Mutt’s exhibition of derring-do morphs into a comedic gag, with digital shrubbery repeatedly punishing his exposed groin.

Over-the-top action and tongue-in-cheek playfulness are hallmarks of the Indiana Jones brand, but the antics of Crystal Skull seem largely insincere. Much of the blame must be placed on an awkward screenplay by David Koepp from a story by Lucas and Jeff Nathanson that fails to pinpoint the passion and recklessness of our hero. An argument could be made, of course, that the character has softened with age, and understandably so: the last time we left Indy he’d rekindled a relationship with his father after a life spent trying to win dad’s approval. Fair enough. But, dare I say it, Crystal Skull could have actually benefited from a scene similar to the “You know what you are” bit in this spring’s Rambo, wherein the professor would look at himself in the mirror and acknowledge the adrenaline junkie raging inside. This Indy doesn’t get too worked up over anything, as evidenced by his come-and-go collaboration with Irina and his repeated forgiveness of turncoat buddy Mac (Ray Winston). If this Indy isn’t the Indy we fell in love with, what’s the point?

On that note, Ford’s portrayal is adequate given what little he has to work with, though it is a genuine shock to see a much older man in Indy’s trademark duds. My first impression was that Ford looked more like a contestant on The Amazing Race than the guy who slid under a moving truck, but it’s amazing what a crack of the whip will do to awaken nostalgia. After a nicely imagined opening bit that places us back at Raiders’ warehouse of crated government secrets, my fear wasn’t that Ford wouldn’t be able to keep up with the adventure but that the adventure might never get moving. Koepp’s screenplay makes for an especially talky Indy flick, even with the familiar falling-dominoes approach to action set-piece implementation. The downfall is that the characters are constantly telling us their emotions instead of just showing us. No one, including an in-her-prime Blanchett, is ever really asked to act, unless you count the crazed mutterings of John Hurt as the possessed Professor Oxley, and I don’t.

That saddest part of all, though, is that this movie is entirely without romance. Oh, sure, Karen Allen is back as Marion Ravenwood, so there’s a love story of sorts. But the original trilogy’s yearning to turn over rocks and explore the hidden worlds underneath has been replaced by a retrospective fondness for the time when it was fun to turn over rocks, and that’s not the same thing. If The Last Crusade is evidence of just how much Spielberg cared about the legend of Indiana Jones, Crystal Skull is a love letter that he and Lucas wrote to themselves. It’s a celebration of adventures past (not all of them from the Indiana Jones series, by the way) rather than an advancement of the saga. Thus, it fittingly plays like a high school reunion, with folks sucking in their guts and mistakenly providing evidence of their rapidly eroding vision by telling themselves that they’re just as vital as they used to be.

How bad is Crystal Skull? Well, the aforementioned Rambo filled me with more reverence. And had Star Wars prequel-killer Jar Jar Binks wandered into the film (not as unlikely as you might think), it would have done nothing to detract. In the interest of full disclosure I must note that a smattering of applause broke out at the Uptown when my showing ended, but that could have been because we didn’t have to sit through it anymore. Especially compared to its predecessors, there is little here worth celebrating. If Raiders was a B-adventure brought to life with A-level effort by filmmakers eager to prove themselves, Crystal Skull is what happens when storytellers who once explored the known world and outer space with zeal decide to settle for their faded memories of it.

Random Cracks of the Whip

In a matter of hours, I’ll be watching Indiana Jones & The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull. As the minutes tick away until the big event, some random thoughts ...

What’s in a name?
As I said in my previous Indiana Jones post, I haven’t seen the trailer for the new movie (never mind the movie itself). So, who knows, as far as titles go maybe Indiana Jones & The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull will turn out to be a worthy mouthful. For the moment, though, it seems pretty lame. I know, I know: You’ve heard this before and thought it yourself. But what you might not know is that one the film’s working titles, according to IMDb, was Indiana Jones & The City Of The Gods. Maybe it’s just me, but that seems infinitely better. Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull is one of those titles that you can’t say without feeling like you’re leaving out a word or adding one that doesn’t belong. And even when said correctly, somehow it doesn’t quite ring true. Kind of like The Phantom Menace. Let’s hope it’s not an omen.

What’s in a face?
Watching Raiders Of The Lost Ark this week, I found myself fascinated by one of Arnold Toht’s henchmen, pictured below. Just look at that guy. What’s his deal? Was he unlucky in the gene lottery or is that a bad makeup job? And if it’s a bad makeup job, what’s the ethnicity of the actor, and, more importantly, what’s the ethnicity of the character? I’m sure someone should feel offended by this portrayal, I’m just not sure who or why.


Toht you so!
As far as I’m concerned, movie villains are best played by actors we’ve never seen before and will never see again. It makes their villainy all the more authentic, as if they couldn’t be any other way. That’s why Darth Vader is the greatest movie villain ever, because, sure, you can put James Earl Jones’ voice in The Lion King, but that black-masked figure that is the ultimate symbol of evil will never terrorize another story.

Also from that family of here-and-gone bad-guy creations is Raiders’ black-clad Toht, played by Ronald Lacey. Who? Exactly! Lacey died in 1991, and a quick scroll through his filmography at IMDb suggests that if I’ve seen him in any other speaking part it was probably within a 1984 episode of Magnum P.I. (not that I remember it). That said, Lacey did make a dialogue-free appearance in The Last Crusade, sitting in as an uncredited Heinrich Himmler in that Nazi book-burning sequence where Indy bumps into Hitler. As far as unrecognizable cameo casting goes, that’s absolutely brilliant! And what’s equally fun is to note that the previous year Lacey played Winston Churchill in a TV movie called The Great Escape II: The Untold Story. Digest that for a second: Churchill and then Himmler. That’s delicious juxtaposition! Yet it might not as good as this: In 1983, just after his frightful turn in Raiders, Lacey appeared in a Margot Kidder flick I’ve never heard of called Trenchcoat playing, no joke, “Princess Aida.” Huh? That might merit further investigation.


In the meantime, let’s pause long enough to pay tribute to Lacey’s portrayal of Toht – the character I think of every time I touch something that’s too hot to handle. Toht’s most memorable moments would have to include the chilling revelation of his scarred hand, the comedic bit with the collapsible coat hanger and the climactic face-melting. Yet Lacey’s best moment as an actor might be one where Toht in the background.

The scene in question comes late in Raiders when Indiana appears on a bluff with a rocket launcher. When Indy yells down at a phalanx of Nazis, all the bad guys turn at once to gaze up at him as he issues his threat to blow up the Ark. All, that is, except for Toht, who takes a seat against a rocky outcropping like a guy waiting to hit his tee shot on a busy and backed-up Saturday at the local golf course. He’s totally unfazed. And though I’m sure Spielberg had a lot to do with Toht’s actions (or, rather, lack of them), Lacey is brilliantly disinterested. As a child, wrapped up in the action, I was blind to such subtle genius. Now I see it for what it is. Tremendous!


Not so special
Considering that The Abyss and its groundbreaking digital water tentacle hit theaters the same year, it’s somewhat shocking to go back and observe the rudimentary special effects of 1989’s The Last Crusade. The implementation of matte drawings is frequently obvious. The rapid decomposition of Walter Donovan is no more impressive than the face-melting in Raiders from the beginning of the decade. And then there’s the scene where the Nazi goes over a cliff in a tank and manages to hold on to the gun turret even as it rolls over and breaks free from the rest of the metallic beast (gotta love models!). Then again, given the spirit of the series (a tribute to the B-adventure serial), it works.



On that note, in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Spielberg said that he considered using the same old-school technology for Crystal Skull. Instead, he’s gone CGI. “We have just as many matte-painting shots in this movie as we had in the other movies,” Spielberg says in the interview. “The difference is, you won't even be able to tell that there's a brushstroke.” Hmm. I’m doubtful that the CGI will be so seamless that we’ll confuse actual on-location shooting with stuff fudged via greenscreen, but it’ll be an upgrade, no question. That said, there would have been no shame in settling for the old-school approach to remain consistent with its predecessors. And even though Spielberg has opted to go digital, that he even considered otherwise underlines the major difference between him and co-producer George Lucas.

In a different excerpt of the same interview, Lucas admits that he pestered Spielberg to shoot the entire film digitally on a soundstage, ala the Star Wars prequels. Why? Because while Spielberg is still in love with making movies, Lucas is in love with movie technology. The typical tableau of the Star Wars prequels features bland, lifeless sets in the foreground (made all the worse by bland, lifeless acting) as accessories to overly-active CGI backgrounds. As a result, whether by accident or by design, the backdrop becomes the focal point. Which is another way of saying that Lucas is more concerned with how a story is told than how a story is experienced. His Star Wars prequels – as well as his selfish, foolish “enhancements” to the original trilogy – were meant to thrill an audience of one: himself. Spielberg, on the other hand, wants to thrill the masses. For him, the experience rules. The methods are superfluous. Too bad more filmmakers don’t think that way.



Not so last
For the record: I’m not overly concerned with the fact that the actor playing Indiana Jones is almost two decades older than the last time we all went on archeological adventure together. Harrison Ford knows the spirit of Indiana Jones inside and out, so the success of the Crystal Skull will likely come down to whether the script understands the character just as well. It’s a gamble (see: Temple Of Doom), but success is attainable (see: The Last Crusade). With that established, the real reason Spielberg is stupid to make this movie is that he can’t possibly retire the Indiana Jones series as poignantly as he already did in The Last Crusade. I’m not talking about the film as a whole (though between the early creation legend with River Phoenix and the late father-and-son squabbling with Sean Connery, The Last Crusade is wonderful). I’m talking about how that third movie actually ends: with the gallop through the canyon and the ride into the sunset. It’s perfect. Crystal Skull won’t match it. Can’t match it. And that’s a shame.






This is it!
Well, off to the theater. I’m positively pumped. Sure, it could be a flop. Sure, I’m nervous about Shia LaBeouf as Mini-Indy. But Crystal Skull can’t be worse than some of the dreck I’ve sat through so far this year. We really need Indy to swing in on his whip and save 2008! In the least, I’ll have John Williams’ music.

Indiana Jones & The Last Great Heroic Anthem

Standing on the deck of a wave-washed ship, Indiana Jones looks at the coveted Cross of Coronado and screams at the thief in the hat: “This belongs in a museum!” “So do you,” the thief replies. Had Steven Spielberg known in 1989 that a fourth Indiana Jones installment would eventually be made, he would have saved that exchange for Indiana Jones & The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull. Instead it can be found in The Last Crusade. And though the exchange seems somewhat wasted there now, for nearly two decades that age-related dig was right where it belonged. Which means it’s only fair to ask: Is Harrison Ford too old for this stuff? Will Indy’s quest for a crystal skull leave him in need of a titanium hip? Is this fourth movie a disaster waiting to happen?

Thursday we’ll find out. Until then, despite all the reasons to be skeptical, I can’t help but have hope. Each time the trailer plays I get a little more excited. How can I not? In front of me I see Indy’s trademark fedora and whip. I see that determined glint in his eyes. I see Nazis on the run. I see gleaming idols. I see fistfights and escapades. In short, I see a hit! Though I should probably mention that I see this, all of this, with my eyes closed.

Confused? Let me explain: I’ve sat through the trailer of The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull at least a half-dozen times now, but I’ve yet to actually watch it. Any of it. The moment the Lucasfilm logo hits the screen, my eyes close and my fingers go in my ears. Like a curled armadillo, this is my position of defense, and I use it to guard against overly revelatory previews of movies I already have every intention of seeing. It’s a bit ridiculous, to be sure, but it’s effective. It’s the best way I know to preserve the juicy discovery of a film for its feature presentation. Trouble is, short of hooding and ear-muffing myself like a Guantanamo Bay detainee, there’s only so much I can block out. And so while I’ve tried my very best to avoid any and all exposure to the latest Indy adventure, in one specific area I have most definitely inhaled: the music.

It’s impossible to keep from actively listening to the Indiana Jones theme because I know it by heart. You do too. And that brings us to the purpose of this post, which is my contribution to the Indiana Jones Blog-a-thon going on over at Cerebral Mastication. It occurred to me one day, while my fingers were in my ears, that they don’t make heroic movie anthems like they used to. And, in fact, the Indiana Jones theme – as recognizable as that of James Bond or Superman – isn’t just one of the greatest heroic anthems of all time, it’s the last great one to date. Legendary composer John Williams wrote the now classic piece, “The Raiders March,” for 1981’s Raiders Of The Lost Ark, and there’s been no better original heroic anthem in the movies since.

Let’s be clear here. The Raiders Of The Lost Ark score is not the greatest movie score since 1981. Nor is it necessarily the greatest adventure film score since then. But a heroic anthem, by my definition, is something that’s rousing, evocative and easily identifiable, and “The Raiders March” is all three. Other classic heroic anthems, beyond the aforementioned James Bond and Superman themes, would include music from The Magnificent Seven, Star Wars and Mission: Impossible. But all of those – since the Mission: Impossible theme was created for TV some three decades before it was a Tom Cruise-starring movie – predate “The Raiders March.”

To the best of my memory (and I encourage readers to let me know if I’ve overlooked something obvious), nothing in the past 27 years comes close to rivaling “The Raiders March.” Hans Zimmer’s Gladiator score, to pick one, has a few segments that the average movie fan would be able to correctly identify and maybe even recite, but there’s no fully defined theme. Ditto the music from The Pirates Of The Caribbean films, which might seem more robust in memory than it is in actuality thanks to a trilogy’s worth of mega-marketing delivered in 30-second intervals. Meanwhile, to think of Batman is to recall of the music from the 1960s TV show, even though there have been five Batman movies since the summer of The Last Crusade. Same, too, for Spider-Man and his three movies. Jason Bourne? He’s a hero, but does his trilogy have an anthem? If it does I can’t think of it.

And that’s perhaps the most important component of the test. A true movie anthem isn’t just recognizable to movie buffs, and it’s not enough that the average moviegoer could put movie title to movie score in the fashion of Name That Tune. An indisputable movie anthem can be conjured out of thin air. And as a result it often is. For example: If you’re playing around with kids in a swimming pool, what movie score might you hum? Jaws theme, right? If you’re prowling cloak-and-dagger style? Probably James Bond or Mission: Impossible. If you have cause to swing on a rope? Well, unless you scream like Tarzan (perfectly acceptable), you’re breaking out “The Raiders March.” There are no other options.

Humability, that’s the key – and it’s a product not simply of a fine composer but of the marriage of music and image. Spielberg and George Lucas created Raiders in homage to the B-adventure serial, and Williams’ score reflects that intent. So if an almost 66-year-old Ford seems as heroic as ever in The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull, the refrain of “The Raiders March” will have a lot to do with it. In his youth, Ford’s athletic portrayal of Indiana Jones helped define Williams’ music. Now, all these years later, the anthem might carry him. In the least, it will lift us up. Guaranteed.

"WTF?!" - The Big Lebowski

It’s about an hour into The Big Lebowski, and The Dude is exasperated. He’s had his head dunked in a toilet, he’s seen his living room rug pissed on and he’s been punched in the face. Now he’s standing in the loft of the genitalia-obsessed Maude Lebowski, trying to have a conversation about the maybe kidnapped Bunny Lebowski, only the discussion keeps being interrupted by the bald guy with the pencil-thin mustache who sits in a nearby chair flipping through a magazine and giggling hysterically. “What the fuck is with this guy?” asks The Dude, finally. “Who is he?”

Of course any fan of The Big Lebowski, and there are legions of them, will tell you that he is Knox Harrington. But for me, Knox Harrington might as well be any fan of The Big Lebowski. I’ve seen the 1998 Coen Brothers movie at least three times now, and I just don’t get it. That’s why the aforementioned scene speaks to me, because it marks the time in the film that I feel closest to The Dude. When it comes to The Big Lebowski, I feel as if the whole world is laughing like Knox Harrington at a joke I can’t even detect. What the fuck, indeed!

Thus, The Big Lebowski is a natural jumping off point for what will be a series of sporadic meditations on films whose charm or acclaim eludes me. These “WTF?!” entries won’t necessarily be argumentatively contrarian (though certainly some of them will be), nor will they attempt to denigrate those in the (perceived) majority view. Heck, these pieces might not even be all that passionate, because at least as far as The Big Lebowski is concerned I feel about the movie like I do techno music, sushi or nipple rings. I’m not offended by your enjoyment of such things; I’m just befuddled by it. So when I tell you that The Big Lebowski once made me fall asleep and has always been cause to glance at my watch, take it neither as mud in your eye nor as a plea for intervention. Readers are encouraged to detail the film’s genius in the comments section, to shine a light on all the greatness that I’ve missed, to tell me I have it all wrong. That’s the whole point. But don’t be surprised if this blind man never learns to see.

Now, before one of you goes off and slams a bowling ball up against your head in reaction to the concept of The Big Lebowski ennui, let me make something clear: I don’t think the movie is all bad. I detect some of its allure. Watching the film again recently, I was amused by Steve Buscemi’s Donny, always a step behind, by Julianne Moore’s Maude, talking straight in a style all her own, by John Turturro’s Jesus, flamboyance personified, by Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s Brant, doofusly obsequious, and of course by Jeff Bridges' The Dude, who we’ll get to later. But that’s as far as I got: amused. There was a laugh here or there, chuckles really. Mostly though, the best I could do was to smile…on the inside.

Watching Lebowski with the knowledge that it’s a cult sensation – and “cult” might be too limiting a word when it comes to capturing the size of the film’s adoring audience – is like walking through the National Air and Space Museum here in Washington, D.C.: Just because I’m in close proximity to tools of flight doesn’t mean I feel like I’m flying. Time and again, Lebowski leaves me grounded. I keep waiting for that magic carpet to come and whisk me away, but it never happens. As quickly as I think the siren’s song might finally lure me in, something happens to break the spell.

Frequently that something is John Goodman’s Walter Sobchak, the Vietnam vet who watched his friends die in the muck and won’t roll on Saturday, Shomer fucking Shabbos. The Dude’s annoyed dismissals of Walter’s blowhard bloviating are cute but never rewarding. Getting to the punchline with Walter requires me to sit through his incessant, obnoxious delivery, and it’s just not worth it (I feel the same about almost every scene involving David Huddleston’s equally unrestrained Big Lebowski). So, sure, I think the debate about the toe is clever. I enjoy it when Walter transitions from his rant about The Dude’s rug to note that “Chinaman is not the preferred nomenclature.” But the dirty fucking undies? The argument over Smokey’s scratch? All that Shabbos shit? Well, as Walter might say, those scenes make me feel like I’m being fucked in the ass by a stranger.

Sorry for the language, but that happens to be the way that The Dude & Co. talk. The rampant use of “fuck” is Scorsese-esque. I’m not sure how many times it’s said in the film overall, but what I can tell you is that of the almost 6,000 words in the massive collection of “memorable quotes” over at IMDb, there are 151 entries from the “fuck” family. I’m not the least bit offended by this, understand. I love a good fucking expletive. Use ‘em all the fucking time. But not so often, I hope, that my vocabulary dissolves into tedium. Sure, there are guys in the real world who drop f-bombs as often as The Dude and Walter. I’m just not sure I want to spend 2 hours with them.

And that’s the irony here, because so far as I can tell, what people love about the film, what keeps them coming back, is The Dude, and hanging in his presence. The jellies-wearing, pot-smoking, bowling, slacking anti-hero is a pop culture icon. People are drawn to him either out of envy for his never-break-a-sweat lifestyle or out of respect for the comfort he has in his own unwashed skin. “Cool” is a hard quality to define, but confidence – even misguided confidence (Napoleon Dynamite, anyone?) – seems to be the most essential ingredient, and The Dude oozes it. He’s also cleverly sarcastic and he has some wickedly vivid fantasies. But spending time with The Dude means spending time with Walter – unless, of course, you celebrate the character culturally rather than cinematically.

So far as I can tell, that’s what Lebowski Fest attempts to do. Ostensibly, it’s an annual convention for Lebowski lovers. More accurately, it appears to be an orgy of Dudeness. This July, the carnival will celebrate its seventh installment, offering unlimited bowling, White Russians and special appearances (Bridges has stopped by in past years). Yet the adoration of Lebowski culture is clearly a year-round pursuit. The Lebowski Fest website includes a page showcasing snapshots of fans wearing “Achiever” shirts at world landmarks (or just around). There are posters and bumper stickers, too. These people really love their Dude. But the part that really mystifies me is where this love affair started.

In its original theatrical release, Lebowski was hardly a success, neither at the box office nor among critics. You could argue that the movie wasn’t marketed well, and that critics were expecting too much of the Coens’ first film since Fargo. Then again, that initial response reflects my own reaction: the movie that today makes everyone say “Dude!” was to me nothing but a dud. And since Lebowski’s excessive obscenities don’t lend well to the TNT or TBS circuits, I’m wondering how people were drawn to the film, how they came to adore The Dude, how they overlooked the film’s meandering pace and moments of pure absurdity enough to sit through the movie not once but multiple times. I’ll give this to you: I find The Dude more likeable every time I see him. But here’s the thing: there was nothing about my first viewing that suggested there should ever be a second.

So I wonder, does anyone really like The Big Lebowski? Or are they just in love with The Dude? Is the film perhaps more quoteable than it is watchable, and, if so, how many other films belong to that club? I’m reluctant to accuse all Lebowski fans of insincerity, but I have my suspicions. When it comes to coolness and comedy, there’s a natural desire to want to be in on the movement or the joke. It brings to mind the opening monologue in Field Of Dreams, when Kevin Costner’s Ray Kinsella talks about growing up in the 1960s. He smoked some grass, he says, and “tried to like sitar music,” the implication being that he really had no desire to listen to sitar music but that, well, that’s what everyone was doing back then. It was a way of being. If sitar music didn’t speak to you, you weren’t meditative enough. If you weren’t meditative enough, you weren’t high enough. If you weren’t high enough, you weren’t smoking enough grass. And if you weren’t smoking enough grass, well, you might as well be The Man. Couldn’t it be the same with The Dude?

If there are reviews touting the film as a magnificent achievement of cinematic artistry, I haven’t read them. Truth be told, I’d be more comfortable if the movie was lauded for some technical mastery that I’d overlooked or fail to respect. Instead, the adulation over Lebowski seems to come down to taste. As David Bordwell noted in a recent post on film criticism, “a person’s tastes can be wholly unsystematic and logically inconsistent,” which I guess means I just don’t have the right palate for this picture. Or, in the parlance of the film: When you watch The Big Lebowski, you hear Creedence. I hear a sitar. I just don’t get it. I’m not sure I want to.

Familiar Fantasy: Son Of Rambow

If you grew up loving movies, you’ll have a soft spot for Son Of Rambow, which is about growing up and loving movies and the place those things overlap. It’s set in 1982, in a small English town where two boys of around 11 form an unlikely friendship via a mostly accidental pursuit: the creation of a home-video sequel to the Sylvester Stallone cult hit and blockbuster zygote First Blood. One of the boys is Lee Carter (Will Poulter), a shoplifting, suspension-getting bully with a camcorder. The other is Will Proudfoot (Bill Milner), a scrawny, well-meaning kid from a strict religious sect who doesn’t know how to say no. Together they are dreamers, adventurers and artists who set out to make a movie and along the way learn about friendship – sometimes through laughs and just as often through blood and tears.

Son Of Rambow is a movie about children but not for them. Its “violence and reckless behavior” is relatively mild as far as PG-13 flicks go, yet the film’s nostalgia-inducing motif is best enjoyed by those old enough to experience nostalgia, or to at least be able to spell it. If you don’t know, for example, that Will is mistaken in adding a ‘w’ to the name of Stallone’s vigilante Vietnam vet, you aren’t in this movie’s target audience. Son Of Rambow, at its best, poignantly captures that period of childhood that we adults both long to recapture and remain thankful that we never have to revisit. A time so sweetly innocent that we could set an alarm to announce the end of play time and then forget about the real world until the clock bells rang. A time so intimidating that we’d literally run from the things that scared us, and there were many.

Written and directed by Garth Jennings, the film is adept at exploring these deep childhood truths with simple gestures. Will’s loneliness and heartbreak over his bygone father is evoked by the sight of him drawing at his father’s workbench. The way Will nestles himself into the coat hanging on the back of the shop door informs us that his father is dead before we have time to detect an absence. Then there’s Will’s tactile exploration of his surroundings: the pinecone he runs over the radiator to revel in its washboard percussion, the trip to the drinking fountain driven not by thirst but by an urge to feel the cold water running over his lips. And, of course, there is Will’s reaction to First Blood.

Since Will’s religion forbids electronic entertainment – Will is banished to the hallway when his class watches educational videos, which is how he comes to meet Lee – his surreptitious glimpse of First Blood marks a moment of genuine discovery, and its awe-inspiring effect on Will is enough to make any film fan wistful. As adults, only well-crafted films truly engulf us in their imaginary worlds, but for kids the movies that fail to transport are the exception to the rule. Sure, I enjoy my honed cinematic tastes as much as the freedom to decide my bedtime, but that doesn’t preclude me from having a fondness for the period of life when every adventure movie was my X-Wing into 360-degree fantasy. When Richard Crenna’s Trautman tells Brian Dennehy’s Sherrif Teasle that sending 200 men against Rambo will only increase the number of necessary body bags, Will’s earnest acceptance of the snicker-worthy line brought back memories of summers when 69-cent Tuesdays at the local video store were cause for wholly satisfying Schwarzenegger binges. Watching Will run through a jungle of his imagination, gunning down his enemies, made me recall afternoons doing the same, or the night I saw The Karate Kid and spent 10 minutes working on my crane kick in the bathroom when I was supposed to be brushing my teeth.

Every movie fan has such stories, or should, making Son Of Rambow a film we not only identify with but yearn to connect with as means of childhood reunion. Growing up, my parents didn’t have a camcorder, so I never made any home-movies, but I remember a week one summer spent in a vacant lot building a foxhole large enough to fit me and a half-dozen friends – a mission inspired by a film about which we, like Will with First Blood, had only a passing understanding: Red Dawn. The fortress was so well camouflaged that two parents unknowingly stood right on top of it when they arrived to issue the order to dismantle the bunker before someone fell in. My dad was one of those parents, and he delivered the news with safety-first sternness. Only he couldn’t be too upset, because when he was a kid his brothers, inspired by The Great Escape, tunneled through and under the cracked concrete foundation of a backyard tool shed. The desire to bring movie adventures off the screen was in my DNA.

Alas, Son Of Rambow isn’t entrenched solely in the world of pure imagination. At some point real-life checks in, and not as effectively. The subplot showcasing the ramifications of Will’s shenanigans on his family’s relationship with The Brethren is well done, thanks in large part to the performance of Jessica Stevenson, as Will’s mother, who provides impressive subtext to a character stuck in the periphery. But eccentric French exchange student Didier (Jules Sitruk) doesn’t earn his considerable screen time, and the effort to shine a light on Lee’s troubled upbringing is so inelegant that it would have been better left a mystery. Milner and Poulter are outstanding throughout – heartfelt and naked and natural in a way that many American child actors are not. But Jennings undermines those performances and their characters by resorting to a Rambo-like excessiveness of sentimentality (rather than violence) and life-and-death consequence that this story doesn’t need. This isn’t to say that Lee’s tears in the movie’s final scene – captured in a touching profile shot by cinematographer Jess Hall that reveals Lee’s vulnerability – won’t lead to tears of your own, because when children are involved we do our best to shed our cynicism. But Son Of Rambow would have been better off not trying so hard.

As it is, Son Of Rambow is a welcome daydream, though it doesn’t come close to rivaling the child fantasy escapism of Millions or Finding Neverland. What makes this picture special is its specific movie theme, which plays to its base as well as a presidential candidate sucking down a cheesesteak in Philadelphia. Its warm palette is a reminder of summers when a swing at the park made for my F-14 ala Top Gun, when my bike was my DeLorean, when a rope-swing made me Indiana Jones. “Make Believe, Not War,” declares the marketing tagline proudly displayed on the Son Of Rambow posters. Amen to that.

Remembering (What’s Worth Remembering of) Heaven’s Gate

The catastrophe of unfulfilling excessiveness that is Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate can be felt just by skimming the scene selections on the DVD. “Cock Fight,” “Breaking Up A Fight” and “A Thoughtful Talk” are just three of the chapter titles that inflict pain by so completely encapsulating the sprawling yet inconsequential scenes they represent. Like Waterworld after it, Cimino’s film was sunk before it even reached theaters, but it deserves almost all of its reputation as perhaps the biggest bomb in cinema history, especially when one considers its aftershocks (it ruined both United Artists and Cimino). At 219 minutes – and that’s edited down from Cimino’s initial cut, remember – Heaven’s Gate frequently feels like an attempt to spend as much time as possible doing as little as possible. Watching it is an excruciating test of survival.

But there’s one sequence in Heaven’s Gate when time stops instead of drags – a sequence that when I first saw it made me wish the film would go on forever rather than fearing that it might never end. It’s a sequence of three parts, any one of which I’m sure has been criticized for being too long or too superfluous, for in essence being too much like the rest of the agonizingly bloated film. It’s a sequence that some might think typifies just how out of touch Cimino was with his follow-up to The Deer Hunter, and yet for me it’s the only sequence that hits home. It is the sequence of movement and dance at the town hall of Heaven’s Gate, which acts as the too-small heart for this artery-clogged picture. And my appreciation of the sequence is my submission to the “Invitation to the Dance Movie Blogathon” going on this week at Ferdy on Films, etc.

To truly appreciate the sequence’s splendor you must consider its context. Preceding it are more than 80 minutes of almost universally lifeless storytelling: The graduation ceremonies of the Harvard class of 1870 are so prolonged that by comparison the wedding sequence at the beginning of The Deer Hunter feels like a Las Vegas quickie. The crux of the plot’s conflict – the immigrants of Jackson County, Wyoming are going to be hunted down on the order of the wealthy Stock Growers’ Association – is needlessly repeated to about everyone except those who need to hear it (the immigrants don’t get find out there’s a bounty on their heads until after the intermission). And immediately preceding our entrance into Heaven’s Gate we suffer through the aforementioned cock fight, the spit-filled quarrel among immigrants and the not-as-urgent-as-it-aims-to-be conversation between Kris Kristofferson’s James Averill and Isabella Huppert’s Ella Watson.

And then it happens.

We cut, without any explanation whatsoever, to the interior of the town hall, warm with a sepia-toned radiance. All those immigrants, those poor peasants from the fields who have no clue they’re about to be hunted, line the walls. They are clapping and cheering. A bushy-browed fiddler we recognize from the brothel tunes his instrument on a small stage. The clapping and cheering continue. The fiddler nods to his bandmates and then steps off the stage, toward the empty floor of the hall. Only he’s not walking. He’s gliding. He’s…wait a minute, he’s on roller skates! And only then do we notice: Holy fuck, they’re all on roller skates!

But the floor belongs to the fiddler. He plays and skates, making loops around the floor, delighting the mob, the room throbbing with exuberance. Then they join in, the band kicks into gear and it’s nothing if not dancing. Remarkably organized at first, this second act morphs into a freestyle session of controlled chaos that’s graceful even when it isn’t. When the tune ends, the crowd cheers, and Averill wrestles a drunk bartender (Jeff Bridges) into a wagon just outside the door. Ella surveys the vast room, already emptying, and when Averill returns the floor has cleared and Ella has gathered their coats to leave. But the fiddler plays again. Averill takes Ella into his arms and a playful swing becomes a third-act waltz.

Save some unintelligible mumbling from Bridges’ drunkard, this eight-minute sequence is entirely without dialogue, yet Heaven’s Gate is never more plainspoken. In this three-act dance we glimpse the community at their most vibrant and see the love between Averill and Ella at its most affectionate. Cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond’s camera moves as elegantly as his dancers, capturing the rustic lavishness of the town hall (the nomination for Best Art Direction-Set Direction must have come with this sequence in mind). Inside a film that would be better off forgotten, this is a dance that must be remembered. I cherish it, and all its odd dignity.