Redford tries dialogue hoping for reflection
By
Saul Landau Read Spanish Version
Some
of Hollywood’s best and brightest have begun to communicate their
social concern on the screen — the best media they possess. Like the
bulk of the anti-war public, Robert Redford feels discouraged, if not
downright disillusioned with the political processes. Massive
demonstrations, along with other traditional protest forms, did not
prevent Bush from invading Iraq; nor has massive opposition as
reflected in public opinion polls and the 2006 elections moved him to
pull back. Indeed, in last November’s races, Democrats promised to
withdraw troops from Iraq; yet, they fail to garner necessary votes
to comply with their promise.
On
the anti-war left, some head shakers alternately direct righteous
wrath against Bush and Cheney and at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. She
cannot forge a winning consensus in the House, and refuses to allow
the impeachment of Bush and Cheney to intrude on her agenda — “the
votes aren’t there” — the center piece of which is the
unresolved Iraq War. Democrats attach withdrawal timetables on
appropriations for the Iraq War; Bush vetoes the constraints.
Republicans
and a few Blue Dog Democrats block a veto override despite the
pollsters’ figures: more than 70% of the public want the war to
end.
In
this climate, Hollywood steps in alongside a score of anti-war
documentaries (“Gunner’s Palace, “No End in Sight” and
“Baghdad ER”) and feature films like “Syriana,” “In the
Valley of Elah,” “Rendition” and “Lions for Lambs.”
In
“Lambs”, Robert Redford, a principled professor attempts a more
reflective form of cinema. Unlike “Elah” and “Rendition, which
used plot and story lines to bring home their messages, Redford
allows for minimal appeal to Hollywood grammar, which is designed to
hit audiences in their emotional stomachs. So, Redford (Professor
Stephen Malley) asks his ace student, and implicitly everyone in the
audience: when will you act like a citizen instead of a consumer and
help extract the country from the Bush terror mess?
Director
Redford tries to provoke the viewing public to think, so they will
become actors in the intense drama of their lives. To make this
point, he uses stage play dialogue and scenes which, when they enter
the language of movies emerge as didactics, as if Redford applied the
brakes unnecessarily to slow down the pace of the cinematic form;
thus, despite the action scenes that inter-cut with the talky parts,
the film becomes sermonesque.
Good
intentions spew from the script, but even the witty George Bernard
Shaw would have had problems maintaining his audience’s attention
without changing his dialogue patterns. In 2007, in the movies,
characters must crackle with wit and tension to sustain the energy of
an “idea film.”
Indeed,
had Shaw penned the lines, Meryl Streep’s journalist (Janine Roth)
and Tom Cruise’s Senator (Jasper Irving) might have enjoyed a more
pointed duel of ideas. She knows the Senator has convinced the
President to employ dangerous military games with other people’s
lives. Unfortunately Redford uses Streep’s hot flashes to diminish
her passion as she verbally jousts with the Senator and her own boss
at the TV station.
“Lambs”
consists of 2 dialogues: one between the Senator and the Journalist
(Cruise and Streep), the other between the Professor and his student
(Redford and Andrew Garfield). Redford intersperses these
conversations with action: the scene shifts to U.S. Special Forces
members Ernest Rodriguez (Michael Pena) and Arian Finch (Derek Luke)
on a chopper in Afghanistan. They, former students of Malley’s, and
their unit have begun to carry out Sen. Irving’s “new strategy.”
(Another reviewer said “Lambs” was “Ibsen with helicopters.”
New Yorker Nov. 12, 2007, p.99)
The
combat scenes awaken the audience. Ernest gets hit by Taliban ground
fire and falls from the helicopter. His buddy jumps after him into a
snowy terrain as the bad guys close in. These two once studied with
Professor Malley and, as he tells it, they joined the military —
against his advice — to give something back to their country after
9/11.
Malley
tries to convince the brilliant Todd Hayes (Andrew Garfield) that he
should realize his talents and contribute to the world, not concede
his intelligence to the trivia of pleasure-drenched commercial
America. Commit to something, he beseeches the cynical student. But
the scenes of his two former — and very committed — students
wounded and in danger of dying so a Senator can climb the
presidential ladder, makes one wonders if the Professor explained
commitment a bit too loosely.
The
war sequences offer a few vicariously exciting moments in Lions for
Lambs. Ernest and Arian seem like nice guys, though naïve.
Hayes, on the other hand, comes off as too flip and wise-guy-ish to
worry about. He doesn’t care. So why should we care about him? He
represents the apparent disdain most Americans seem to feel about
Bush’s War on Terror or anything else related to the world of
politics. Malley tries to break through to him, but one wonders
whether his well-meaning social studies arguments — wooden on screen
or classroom — will sink in.
Sen.
Irving, on the other hand, knows how to “win.” Aggression pours
from him as he explains to Janine his new “plan.” The shrewd
veteran journalist sees through it as a repetition of the non-think
that propelled the country into Iraq. Radical military action based
on false intelligence. The Senator, high on his own ambition, parries
her questions with smug self assurance when he must answer her
question about his certainty that “you’re going to get it right
this time.” Like the real Senators and the President — if ”real”
is not too strong a word for Bush — the Tom Cruise character has no
thoughts of consequences if something goes wrong.
He
reminds one of a younger John McCain with the ferocity of a Rudy
Giuliani and men with even lesser intellects in the Ridiculous Party.
This clean-cut poseur patriot shows through body posture, facial
expressions, and nuances of movement that he worships only the gods
of power and ambition. I could picture the Senator in a whore house
— male or female — after he finishes spouting optimistic
platitudes. Does he believe them? Could anyone who thought about
“winning” a war of occupation in the 21st
Century believe in such blather? Would one use “belief” or
“think” with Bush? Janine knows the Senator’s daring
guns-blazing tactic means a step toward gaining NRA and other
kill-happy Americans’ support for a presidential run.
As
she wonders whether to report his perilous chicanery, military action
proceeds and, in war, if anything can go wrong it does.
I
thought of how Bertoldt Brecht might have approached the subject. The
German Marxist didn’t want to play to the emotions, in which the
audience identifies with the hero or heroine. Rather, he thought good
theater and by extension cinema should push the buttons of reason and
reflection, help the viewer and listener convert passivity into an
actively critical point of view. The actor would break from the role
and remind the public they were in a theater, not in a real setting,
he would have bizarre lighting and sound effects, use music to break
the trance of the drama and have a chorus explain important points or
present riddles.
Brecht
used the epic form to teach through theater. Jean Luc Godard tried
some of this in his 1960s films, which flopped badly at the box
office and did not noticeably stir audiences.
Hollywood’s
grammarians have successfully conditioned U.S. audiences to expect
certain levels of satisfaction at the movies and when the politically
concerned, like Redford, try to transcend this grammar by injecting
serious plots and ideas, it becomes a creative challenge that few can
meet.
How
would Brecht have written the dialogue between professor and student,
journalist and Senator?
Prof.
Malley:
I am Socrates, a man with questions but no answers. Who are you?
Student:
I don’t know. I think I seek pleasure because what I have seen of
politics appears impenetrable. Perhaps, the pursuit of young women
and companionship with fellow shoppers suits my inclination.
Prof.:
Do you have no desire to act in the drama of your time?
Student:
I see no role for myself.
Prof.:
Do you lack imagination, except for the things you desire to buy?
Student:
I see fools governing my country, fools running the world, fools
using words like globalization to mean universal shopping. How can I
carve a meaningful role in a scenario designed by those who think
only of increasing their fortunes?
Prof.:
Are you saying you possess neither the heart nor mind to confront
difficult situations? Is that what you and your fellow students use
as an excuse from participating?
Such
dialogue could even be sung.
The
traditional Hollywood formula, employed by “In The Valley of Elah”
shaped its anti-war message through a traditional plot and story —
missing son, worried father, murder investigation. It made its points
by allowing the horrors of the Iraq War to unfold within the confines
of the protagonist’s investigation of his son’s murder. Redford
tried to use dialogue to challenge the cinematic conditioning the
public has received since infancy, with a little action to
illustrate. Such a formula stands little chance of provoking serious
reflection — at least in someone like me. Nice try from a great guy!
Saul
Landau is an Institute for Policy Studies Fellow and author of A
BUSH AND BOTOX WORLD,
His new award-winning film, WE
DON’T PLAY GOLF HERE,
is available through roundworldproductions@gmail.com.
