Invictus

Invictus is the story of Nelson Mandela's post-Apartheid South Africa, and his attempt to unify the country using rugby as his tool of choice. Mandela (perfectly realized by Morgan Freeman), ascends to power in South Africa's first-ever democratic election, prompting the country's white Afrikaaner population to fear their fates. Mandela astonishes his people by announcing that he wants blacks and whites to work together for the good of the nation. His first move is to override a vote to do away with South Africa's rugby team, the Springboks. Mandela thinks the team can galvanize the relationship between black and white South Africans, allowing them to come together and root for a common goal. Matt Damon plays the Springboks captain, Francois Pienaar. Sporting a prosthetic nose and physique that has deftly shed its Informant! lbs., Damon's Pienaar is spot-on. Good Christ, he is talented. Damon's Afrikaaner accent is excellent, as is the physicality he employs to become a larger-than-life sports icon.
Sadly, Freeman and Damon are the only bright lights in this cloying bit of treacle. The film was directed by Clint Eastwood, a skilled monolith at times (Million Dollar Baby), and a laboriously heavy-handed helmer at others (Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil). The pacing is choppy and off-putting, which makes for a very disappointing muddle of a movie. At one point, the music oozes more cheese than an Ed Hardy t-shirt on an overweight reality dad. However, though some have denounced the story of Invictus as a mere historical footnote, I feel that attention must be paid to it. Clint Eastwood doubtless saw the parallels between Mandela, a highly educated African leader and our own highly educated African-American one. If only Barack Obama could use, say, the Chicago Cubs to solve our country's mounting shit storm of problems. But I digress. My Comment this week focuses on the very magnanimous posture that Mandela took as he lead South Africa into the future. When apartheid ceased to be, many of the country's black population wanted the Afrikaaners to pay dearly for their years of oppression. There was a palpable anger and universal feeling that Lex Talionis, or the Law of Retribution, should be visited upon the Afrikaaners. Nelson Mandela knew that this would only perpetuate the violence and segregation that had been the legacy of this most beautiful country. Mandela asked the black South Africans to rise above their anger and work with the Afrikaaners. He knew that the country could not succeed without the white infrastructure that had been in place for over a century. Mandela's pragmatism came wrapped in one of the more zen packages ever delivered by a modern leader.
By asking his people to forgo their thirst for revenge, Mandela elevated the psyche of his people. Why does it feel like Americans are miles to go before they sleep from that possibility? We want to hit Al Qaeda with the force of a thousand Oppenheimer specials, but then what? How can one punish an enemy if the ultimate punishment (death) doesn't frighten said enemy? Our hands are tied, and Americans do not like their hands tied. How Mandela got to a place of forgiveness after decades in prison, I'll never know. Moreover, how he had the brass ones to ask his countrymen to forgive their oppressors for the good of the country completely astounds me. Can you fathom our president asking us to do the same? I must stress that Mandela was not a perfect leader, particularly concerning his very black and white (forgive the pun) stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Maybe Mandela's brilliance lays in the decision to imbue such a seemingly innocuous pastime such as rugby with so vital a meaning. Although I doubt that in a country as large as ours you'd ever even get us to agree on one sport, let alone one political philosophy. It is a shame that Eastwood didn't give us a better lens with which to view this fascinating orchestration of leadership.

Me and Orson Welles

I have to declare that while I loves me some period films, what really sparked my interest in seeing Me and Orson Welles was a David Letterman interview with it's main box-office draw, Zac Efron. I know, I know, Efron does not at all jibe with my pretentious proclivities. But there was something about him. Behind the cerulean stare and all the pretty hair, was a shockingly well-spoken and curious soul. Efron was intelligent, self-deprecating and did not once let Dave get the better of him. Admittedly, I love nothing more than when Letterman turns a guest like Richard Simmons into a simmering gay soup. But it's all the more titillating when a seeming flash in the pan displays some real gravitas.
So, off to the movies I go with Marc- my only real and true fellow critic. Other than Pauline Kael of course, but she can't hit the theaters without some serious voodoo magic. Me and Orson Welles was directed by Richard Linklater- he of Dazed and Confused indie fame. The story takes place in New York in 1937, when Orson Welles was directing Julius Caesar at the storied Mercury Theater. Efron plays the fictional Richard, a young wannabe actor who finagles his way into the stage production. Richard meets Sonja, a slightly jaded theater company manager who is played by the always real Claire Danes. Within the span of a week, Richard becomes enamored of both Sonja and the bohemian theater lifestyle. The tingly Christian McKay as Welles is exactly the bellowing blowhard we've come to expect in a portrayal of the rotund hyphenate. McKay gives more of an impression of Welles, rather than a fully realized character. That can actually be found in Liev Schreiber's Welles in the HBO film, RKO 281. But what of young Efron, you ask? I'm sorry to report that Zac Efron is not yet ready to carry a film. Clearly, casting felt the same way and chose to surround him with more experienced players like Danes and James Tupper. Efron conveys a sweetness and naivete that while perfect for this part, are traits he must work to shed if he really wants to have staying power in this business.
Welles, in my opinion, is a prickly thorn to pluck. Erudite and talented within an inch of his life, Welles was declared a prodigy at the age of twenty. His brilliant and creatively different stagings of Shakespeare rocked Broadway and eventually radio. When Welles and Herman Mankiewicz wrote Citizen Kane, it was nearly crushed by the monolith that was William Randolph Hearst. But the film was soon recognized for it's thematic intelligence and is still hailed as one of the best movies ever made. That it was made by a twenty-six-year-old first-time filmmaker is goddamned awe-inspiring to me. My Cultural Comment is about the way in which we label "genius" on the kinder, and what that does to them. The Gotham theater world and soon Hollywood fell under the spell of the raw, unspoiled talent displayed by Orson Welles. He drank it in, found it profoundly intoxicating, then became addicted to it. When it waned, Welles became the petulant enfant terrible and threatened to leave the business. Then he returned. Many times. Soon, hearing nothing but a collective yawn from the powers that be, Welles gathered up the last of his dignity and expatriated to Europe. This would be poetic and even a bit Hemingway-esque if he had stayed in the Old World. But, (cringe) Welles came home, having ballooned to nearly four hundred pounds. He also had an attitude. A European one. Unable to believe that the film world no longer would tolerate his need for complete control, Welles became a director for hire. He would continue to work until his death until 1985, but he never achieved the sheen of his early success.
Peter Bogdanovich made The Last Picture Show and cast a young Cybill Shepherd. He finished the film with Shepherd as his new lover and the critics proclaiming that his directorial debut was "the best first film since Citizen Kane". Bogdanovich waltzed around Hollywood with Shepherd on his arm and the biggest-shit eating grin anyone had ever seen. Finally, a merciful Cary Grant took Bogdanovich aside and said "Peter, no one wants to hear how fucking happy and successful you are. It only serves to remind them how unhappy and unsuccessful they are" (Please imagine Grant saying it- it probably had a less bloggy ring to it). Bogdanovich made more films, and acted quite a bit, but he never married Shepherd and he never got back the same glowing reviews as he had for Picture Show.
I felt the theme of genius running through Me and Orson Welles. Claire Danes recently said that turning thirty has dimmed some of the prodigious praise she had gotten used to as a tween starting out. Whereas then she was referred to as "precocious", she is now simply thought to be "appropriate for her age". Danes displayed a startling sureness of character while playing the angsty Angela in MTV's My So-Called Life. But with each passing year, her abilities have not been squandered. She continues to deliver textural, true portrayals in each film. It it said that Meryl Streep thinks Danes is the best young actress working today. I don't need to tell you of Streep's staying power either. Maybe it's luck. But I can't think of Brando without wanting to shed a tear. For some, it's too much- that damning label of genius at such a tender age. I wonder if Richard Linklater thought of this as he directed this movie. Unfortunately, Linklater feels like just another prodigy-turned-director-for-hire.