Wednesday, December 07, 2011
Boardwalk Empire No. 23: Under God's Will She Flourishes
By Edward Copeland
I understand the reason for wanting to keep this episode under wraps (and if there remains one more episode in the season, I can't imagine what else can be coming home to roost). The delay in my ability to recap "Under God's Will She Flourishes" sucks, not just because of petty annoyances to my schedule but because it puts off my ability to write about what could be one of the best episodes in the history of Boardwalk Empire and what certainly is one of its most pivotal. What wasn't anticipated was the evil egotism of technology companies that our so obsessed with having control of customers' machines and lives that they insert poison pills that periodically make things unusable and which Monday night made all my wireless connections on my laptop vanish, severing my connection to the Internet and forcing me to try to do this recap on my old, decrepit laptop. Then Harry Morgan goes and dies on me and I felt compelled to write something on him, delaying the recap further. I apologize that it isn't up to my usual recap standard. Hopefully, the other laptop will be alive again for the finale recap, though even if it is I may have to reconsider how the last one is done. Without an advance screener, these recaps really can't be done the way I do them after the fact.
Written by Howard Korder and directed by Allen Coulter, the bulk of this episode takes us back to Princeton in 1916, giving us insight into the beginning of Jimmy and Angela's romance as well as the twisted relationship between Gillian and her son. On top of that, in the 1921 scenes, those who thought it was unrealistic that Van Alden could drown Agent Sebso in front of that many witnesses and get away with it will be pleased to see that story returns at the same time a cornered Mickey reaches out to his favorite federal agent to seek help because he fears that his days are numbered. We also learn a bit about Van Alden's upbringing that explains the way he is to some extent. Meanwhile, Margaret goes farther off the deep end and for the second week in a row, someone from the main credits gets a toe tag. Still, as great as this episode is, the walls seem to be closing in on so many characters simultaneously, I wonder what they plan to do for a third season. Vince Gilligan, the mastermind behind Breaking Bad, is fond of saying that he and his writers enjoy painting themselves into corners, just to see how they'll get out of it. Boardwalk Empire has painted so many members of its ensemble into so many corners, I have to wonder if they can reasonably find ways out for most of its characters. Maybe there's a reason they added so many characters this season.
When we saw Jimmy driving toward Princeton at the end of last week's episode, it was easy to see that it wasn't just any town in New Jersey that he'd picked to unload his booze but also the site of the pivotal event in Darmody's young life — when he opted not to continue
his pursuit of higher education at the prestigious university and chose to join the fight in The Great War against the Kaiser. In this episode, consisting largely of the flashbacks to 1916, we learn what events drove Jimmy to decide that risking death overseas appeared preferable to a double-barrel shock to his system from the women in his life and the possibility that his hot-headed nature placed his academic future at risk anyway. Howard Korder wrote this excellent episode, already having penned one of this season's other best installments, "Gimcrack & Bunkum." Finally, the talented director Allen Coulter, who only has helmed one solid Boardwalk Empire episode, the first season's "Paris Green," gets to show what he can do with a great Boardwalk Empire script after being burdened with this season's low point, "Peg of Old," and last season's mostly weak "Home." Quite a change from Coulter's work on The Sopranos where he helmed many of the show's classic and most revered episodes such as "College," "The Knight in White Satin Armor" and "Irregular Around the Margins," just to name three. The second season's penultimate episode takes its title, "Under God's Will She Flourishes," from the English translation of Dei Sub Numine Viget, the Latin motto of Princeton University, though Princeton's website actually translates the saying to "Under the Protection of God She Flourishes." We open on Jimmy asleep in bed as he hears Angela's voice calling, "Jimmy. Jimmy." She then appears on top of him. Viewers who saw young Mrs. Darmody executed last week by Manny Horvitz might be momentarily confused or assume that Jimmy is dreaming of his late wife. "I'm sorry," she says. "Was I dreaming?" Jimmy asks her. "We're in Princeton," Angela tells him. "Don't go," Jimmy pleads, wrapping his arms around her. "I'm supposed to work breakfast," she explains. "Let 'em starve," an unsympathetic Darmody suggests. Angela turns on the bedside lamp and Jimmy cringes at the illumination, She hands him a piece of paper. "I drew you," she tells him, showing him the pencil sketch. "Is that really what my ear looks like?" Jimmy wants to know. Some noises can be heard in the hall and Jimmy expresses concern that it could be someone named Mrs. Krakauer, so we finally realize that this isn't a dream — we have traveled back to 1916, when Jimmy attended
Princeton as a freshman, thanks to Nucky's help, and he and Angela have spent the night in his dormitory bed. As Jimmy and Angela start to arrange themselves to avoid being caught should Mrs. Krakauer happen to make her way to Jimmy's room, Jimmy remembers to tell Angela that his mother is coming to visit that afternoon. "She 'needs' to see me," Jimmy says, making quote marks in the air with his fingers when he says needs. Angela offers to "keep out of (Jimmy's) hair," but he insists that she should meet Gillian. "You think that's a good idea?" Angela asks but his reply gets interrupted by a knock on the door that sends the young lovers scurrying out of bed for clothing. "You owe me your life," the out-of-breath young man at the door, Cal Widdecomb (William Pierce Cravens) announces. "Krakauer was up her snooping. She heard something. I said it was just me reciting Robert Service." Jimmy, pulling his pants on in a rush, tells Cal, "You make me sick 'cause you actually do." Cal scouts the hallway to make sure the coast is clear for Angela and she then makes her way out of Jimmy's room. "Next time we go back to using your car. Please?" she begs. "Well the thing is that wasn't my car," Jimmy admits. "I hate you," she smiles. "One more thing," Jimmy adds, pulling Angela back for a goodbye kiss and telling her he'll see her that night. "Maybe," she replies. "Maybe?" he responds quizzically. At the end of the hall, Cal whisper-calls to Darmody, "How come you and not me?" Jimmy just shrugs, sticks out his lip and closes his door behind him. After the horrific ending to last week, this flashback certainly offers a pleasing way to begin, even if we know that any sweetness will end bitterly. Despite that, it's nice that we get another image of Aleksa Palladino so that the slaying of Angela isn't the character's last image. To see how playful she and Jimmy once were, is quite moving since we never really glimpsed that. Michael Pitt's college look is interesting as well, very reminiscent of his work in Michael Haneke's U.S. remake of Funny Games. 
"As cookies go, this Esther Randolph's strictly vinegar," Bill Fallon tells his new client, Nucky, as they meet at Nucky's home office. There hasn't been enough of that kind of writing, even in the good episodes of Boardwalk Empire, lately. I love when they give us pearls of dialogue such as that. That love of language remains one of my favorite aspects of the series. "And the judge?" Nucky asks. "I was giving the signals — he wasn't responding," Fallon replies. "Signal harder!" Nucky suggests emphatically. "Any harder and he'll nail me for bribery. Then we'll both need new lawyers," Fallon says to Thompson. Nucky looks frustrated. Fallon isn't proving to be any more of a magic elixir than Ginsburg's "brilliant plan" turned out to be. Sometimes, a guilty man just can't catch a break. "Randolph's betting big on the capital case. She wants you in the noose for Hans Schroeder. And the deputy — Halloran. He'll say you gave the order and they let him walk," Fallon informs Nucky. "What about Eli?" Nucky asks. "Not talking," Fallon replies. "To the Feds?" Thompson assumes. "To us," Fallon corrects him. Nucky makes a point of telling his high-priced attorney that he's innocent. Fallon assures Thompson that he wouldn't have taken the case if he were guilty. Nucky probes as to what else Randolph has in store for him and Fallon lets him know that one of the prosecution witnesses will be Agent Nelson Van Alden. "The man's a bigamist," Nucky exclaims. "No, he's an adulterer with a child by your former mistress. Let's not even have the jury start
wondering whose ox is being gored there. But he is a Treasury agent and depending on your leanings — " Nucky interrupts Fallon's report because he's been distracted by Harlan, who has continued dusting the office throughout his meeting with Fallon. "You need to dust under my eyelids, Harlan?" Nucky asks the man who worked for him at the Ritz and has been acting as a butler since he relocated his office to his Margate estate. "No sir, Mr. Thompson," Harlan replies. "Then that's all for now," Nucky tells Harlan before return his attention to Fallon and asking, "How bad is this?" Fallon assures Nucky that he isn't a naysayer but, "a prudent man might want to get his finances in order." Nucky voices a need for a scotch and as Fallon rises to pour two, Nucky sees that Harlan has yet to leave. "Was I not clear?" he says to the butler. "Yes sir," Harlan replies. "Then what?" an aggravated Nucky responds. "You kept me workin' these past weeks with the strike and all — " Nucky stops Harlan, insisting that no thanks are necessary. "I belong to the Shiloh Baptist Church," Harlan begins to say but Nucky interrupts again, trying to get him out of the room. "I appreciate your prayers, now if you don't mind," Nucky says in hopes of moving Harlan along. However, Fallon recognizes that Harlan has something else on his mind and inquires what he wants to say. "About a year ago, the deacon held our annual Week of Miracles — prayers, baptisms and such — for anyone inclined to accept the Savior. Your Agent Van Alden show up one afternoon with the other lawman," Harlan shares with the men. "And?" Fallon asks. "He drowned that fella in front of us all," Harlan tells them. "Harlan, is it?" Fallon smiles. I love that this show never forgets. I always thought they really wrote Van Alden into a corner when he killed Sebso and as separate as his character has been from the main action this season, I can't help but think that next week will mark his swan song. Michael Shannon has been great, but he is such a talented actor who probably is missing a lot of opportunities by being on the show, I can imagine him leaving. With the characters who are being killed off or who might be written off, the third season could end up having more cast turnover than the entire run of Law & Order.Unaware of what has finally surfaced about him and Agent Sebso, Nelson bids good morning to Sigrid, who is preparing breakfast. The agent asks about his daughter and Sigrid tells him baby Abigail is sleeping. Sigrid tries out some Dutch on Van Alden, but he says he doesn't understand. "'How are you?' You are Dutch, no?" Sigrid assumes, based on his surname. "No, I'm from upstate New York," Van Alden answers. "Your mama and papa — do you go to them to visit?" the nanny inquires. Nelson opens up to Sigrid more than we've ever heard him open up about his childhood except for the time he told Lucy about his aunt and the Christmas pageant. "They don't enjoy my company," he admits. "How can this be?" Sigrid asks. "My parents were followers of Reverend Edgartin Sterry I searched but if Sterry were real, I find no trace of him. who prophesied the Second Coming in 1892," Van Alden tells Sigrid who comments that she wasn't born yet. "In anticipation of Judgment Day, my father gave away our farm. We lived in a tent — penniless — for an entire year waiting for the Lord to return cloaked in fire and glory," Nelson shares. "This did not happen," Sigrid says, stating the obvious. "My father never got over it and somehow the mere fact of my ongoing existence is more than he can bear," Nelson concludes. "He will still come — Jesus," Sigrid declares. "Doesn't that worry you?" Van Alden asks. Sigrid turns from the stove to face her employer. "You are a good man, Mr. Van Alden. There is nothing to be frightened of." Nelson smiles serenely at her.
With the leg brace fastened into place, Dr. Holt asks young Emily if she's ready to try them out. Margaret stands on her daughter's other side ready to help as well while Father Brennan watches. "How does it feel?" her mother asks. "Rubbery," the child replies. "We're going to let go of you," Holt tells the little girl. "But we're right here," Margaret assures her. The adults remove their hands from Emily and almost immediately she starts to buckle. Holt catches her. "That's a good start," Holt says. "You were standin' straight up. Wasn't she father?" Margaret adds. "Right there with the best of them," Brennan concurs. Holt brings out a lollipop for Emily and lets the girl know he's going to speak with her mother for a few minutes. "She needs to develop strength in her arms and torso to find her balance. Might be a little rough at first. She'll be strongly tempted
to go back to crawling," Holt explains, before taking a slightly stern tone. "But we're not gonna let her do that, are we?" "We are not," Margaret promises. Holt heads back to Emily to get her release papers signed as Father Brennan approaches Margaret. "You held up Emily. The Lord will hold up you," Brennan tells her. "She needs to learn to support herself," Margaret echoes Holt's words to the priest. "A man once was invited to visit both Heaven and Hell, First he went to Hell where all the tormented souls were sitting at tables laden with food, yet they were starving and howling with hunger. Each had a spoon but the spoons were so long they couldn't get them into their mouths. Their frustration was their torment," Brennan begins his parable. "And in Heaven?" Margaret asks. "In Heaven, to his amazement, the man found the souls of the blessed sitting at similar tables laden with food but they were all fed and contented. Each had a spoon and the spoons were just as long as the spoons in Hell but they were able to eat all they needed because they were feeding each other," Brennan concludes. Margaret looks puzzled by the story the priest just told, but she didn't get to ask anything before Brennan informed her that her donation enabled the church to begin construction of a new parish hall — the walls and floors at least, he says they still lack funds for a roof. The guilt-stricken and possibly mentally ill Margaret offers to get Brennan more. "That's not what I was asking for," he tells her, giving her a reassuring pat on the shoulder and leaving. We're several scenes into the episode by now and probably wondering if anyone has even discovered Angela, Louise and the bloody scene at the Darmody beachhouse. It appears that someone has as an Atlantic County ambulance pulls away after loading a covered body into the back. When the ambulance ceases to obstruct our view, we see Gillian in the window, smoking a cigarette. When the scene moves inside the beachhouse, Deputy Benedek (Dustin Olson) of the Sheriff's Department asks Gillian if she knows where her son was last night. "He was attending to his business," she answers with her back to the lawman as she continues to look out at the beach and the water. "Which is?" the deputy inquires. "Why are you here?" Gillian asks the deputy spitefully. "It's a double homicide, ma'am," he replies. "Why are you here? I specifically asked for Sheriff Thompson," Gillian informs him. "The sheriff's unavailable," Benedek says. "Well, you'll need to talk to him instead of hitting at accusations," Gillian tells him. OK. While I still think this is one of the series' best
episodes, are you trying to convince me that Esther Randolph had the sheriff arrested on a murder charge and that it didn't make the newspaper and even if somehow it didn't make the press, Gillian hadn't heard about it? The deputy insists that he's just trying to get the facts straight. He's been so quiet and dressed in clothes that almost blend into the background, you might not have noticed Richard sitting in a chair in the adjacent living room behind the deputy. "The facts are these: My son's wife was being intimate with another woman. I highly doubt it was the first time. An intruder broke in and killed them both," Gillian declares with a tongue full of acid as she crosses to the living room and stood by Richard. Benedek turns around and notices Harrow sitting there. "You're an associate of Mr. Darmody's?" the deputy asks. "Yes," Richard says. "Do you know his whereabouts?" Benedek inquires. Richard tries to speak, but he's clearly torn up over the events, so Gillian steps in. "Can't you see this man is a simpleton? He's just someone that my son is charitable to. He doesn't know anything," she whispers. Richard plays along. Deputy Benedek tells them that they will let them know when they can claim the body and departs. "Thank you for your sympathy," Gillian says with all the fake sincerity she can muster. She asks Richard if he's been able to get a hold of Jimmy. "He wouldn't answer the phone," Richard replies. "He needs to come home. People will get the wrong idea," Gillian tells him. Richard has stood up from the chair and looks about the room in kind of a fog. "Excuse me please," he says. Harrow slowly walks down the hall to the bedroom and looks at the coagulated blood scarring the floor. He dips his finger in the mess — his last connection to Angela, though it could just as easily be Louise's blood — and stares at it mournfully. As Richard gazes at the blood, Jimmy's voice intrudes from the next scene, taking us back to Princeton in 1916. "My father prov'd himself a gentleman, Sold all 's land, and, like a fortunate fellow…"
"…Died ere the money was spent. You brought me up At," Jimmy pauses on the next word, uncertain of the pronunciation, and we see he is reading from a book in a small lit class. The professor, Noel Pearson (Gabriel Olds), helps him out. "Padua," Pearson says. "Padua, where I protest, For want of means — I have been fain to heel my tutor's stockings, At least seven years; conspiring with a beard, Made me a graduate; And shall I, Having a path so open, and so free To my preferment, still retain your milk In my pale forehead?" Jimmy reads. "To which his mother replies, 'O That I had never born thee.' So — nasty little scene. What's Webster on about here?" Pearson asks the students before specifically selecting, "Mr. Carruthers." The John Webster play the students are discussing is The White Devil. The passage from Act I, Scene II which Jimmy reads has been trimmed a few lines as you can read here. "The way to graduate from college is to bribe someone, sir," Carruthers (Ben Forster) says. "That may be so in your case," Pearson responds, eliciting laughs from the group. "But think more broadly. Mr. LeBarron," the teacher chooses the student to his left as his next victim. "It's a corrupt society, so you can't help but be corrupt in it," LeBarron (Lucas Wells) answers. "The Jacobeans loved to depict Italy like this. Women are bald-faced whores and men are lustful panderers. All very entertaining but what's the scene about?" Pearson poses the question. "His mother taught him things that aren't of any use. Everybody around him is getting rich and he can feel it. Like he's hungry. Like he can taste it," Jimmy speaks up. "Sounds persuasive to me. Good. Next week The Revenger's Tragedy," Pearson tells them. "I can't make class next week, Mr. Pearson. S.A.T.C. This stood for Student Army Training Corps, which briefly replaced the ROTC, but wasn't instituted nationally until The Selective Service Act of 1918. The various schools across the country all had groups for military training, but not under the SATC name. On the other hand, indexes of Princeton collections do refer to S.A.T.C. 1916, but finding links for any of this is difficult. is on maneuvers," Marten Sharpe (Will Cart) informs his professor. "Taking your soldiering
seriously," Pearson comments. "We're headed to war, aren't we?" Sharpe responds. "He just likes the uniform," Jimmy wises off. "It's called patriotism. I guess you don't know anything about that," Sharpe fires back at Jimmy. This scene plays as a perfect microcosm of Jimmy's life to come and the series in general. What a wonderful choice of literary material they chose. The White Devil by John Webster isn't a well-known work, but its view of Padua and corruption sounds like its portrait of Atlantic City. The line Sharpe uses on Jimmy about patriotism is the same reason he gives to Nucky as to why he went to war when he returns. He also could be discussing Gillian when he interprets the scene. "The Kaiser never hurt me," Jimmy declares. "My brother died on the Lusitania," Tom (Patrick O'Neill) informs him. "I didn't know that, Tom," Jimmy says sheepishly. "Then you might apologize," Sharpe suggests. "Sure I do. I'm sorry," Jimmy apologizes. "Alright gentlemen, we've averted a duel. Next week, The Revenger's Tragedy. Read Tourneur," Pearson says. As the students exit, Pearson asks Jimmy to stay a moment. "You won't win that way with fellas like that," Pearson advises. "I know — that was stupid of me," Jimmy admits. "Then why did you say it?" Pearson inquires. "Where I come from people sort of come out swinging," Jimmy replies. "Where is that?" the teacher asks. "Atlantic City," he answers. Pearson probes to see if Jimmy's post-graduation plans include going back. Jimmy explains that it is what's expected of him by his guardian, Mr. Thompson, and his mother. Pearson asks if Thompson is a Princeton man. "No, but he knows people," Jimmy replies. Pearson inquires if Thompson's paying for Princeton. "If I don't screw up," Jimmy says. Pearson explains that people such as Sharpe and LeBarron had everything set up for them from birth so the needn't worry, but people like Jimmy and him "need to be clever," explaining that his father punched tickets on the Northern Pacific for 30 years and he's proud of Pearson even though he has no idea what he does for a living. Pearson tells Jimmy he can go and as Darmody is leaving, the teacher stops. "What! Because we are poor, shall we be vicious?" Pearson emotes with flair. "Pray! What means have you to keep me from the galley or the gallows?" Jimmy repeats back. "Webster — terrific stuff, isn't it?" Pearson says, adding that he'll see Jimmy at that night's mixer.Lansky, Luciano and Capone return to the warehouse with Mickey to assess the progress of their booze clearance sale. "I got rid of my whole share in Philly," Mickey announces. Being strangled by Manny must work wonders for an injured neck. The last time we saw Mickey was when Horvitz was squeezing his neck brace and shoving his head against the window to get Jimmy's address. Now, Doyle isn't even wearing the neck brace. "We didn't even have to go back to New York. Sold the whole lot in Hoboken," Lucky says. Mickey asks what they should do with Jimmy's piece. "Fuck Jimmy. It's ours now. He ain't gonna be showin' his mug around
here again," Luciano declares. "The quiff was my wife, I woulda done it same way," Capone proclaim. "If she was your wife, I wouldn't blame here," Lucky teases. "He's comin' back," Mickey insists. "Seems unlikely," Lansky comments as he keeps jotting figures in a tiny notebook. "He didn't ice her," Doyle tells them. "Then who did?" Capone turns and asks. "Manny Horvitz," Mickey answers authoritatively. The three gangsters not native to Atlantic City all stop and look at Mickey. "A little agitation between him and Jimmy," Mickey elaborates. "Then it's Jimmy's problem," Luciano says. "Sell this shit and be done with it," Al says. "And when he turns up lookin' for his dough?" Doyle asks. "Pay him out of your share," Meyer suggests. "My share? How do you figure that?" Doyle says, puzzled. "'Cause you're a mope, that's how," Capone laughs. "What's left over for me?" Mickey wants to know. "What's left over for me? Run these numbers — A.R. holds a half-million dollar policy against your life," Lucky reminds Doyle. "I don't know nothin' about that," Mickey claims. "I watched you sign it, you fuckin' snitch. So how about I put a slug in your head and we split the policy with him?" Luciano threatens. "My share'll be fine," Mickey decides. "I thought so," Lucky says. Al gives Mickey two little slaps on the cheek and walks out laughing with Lucky and Meyer. I've said it before, but honestly, how has Mickey survived this long since he works for and against practically everyone. Again, another example of the show's great long memory. I'd forgotten about those life insurance policies Rothstein made Mickey and the D'Alessio brothers sign. I wonder if he got to collect on all those dead D'Alessios. I've written before as to how it was going to be a reach to keep the out-of-town gangsters involved in the show and that scene to me sure played as if they'd had enough fooling around in Atlantic City and wanted to just get their money and get back to their normal stomping grounds. I wonder if they are about to be phased out of the show as well (since they can't kill off real historical figures before their time).There's a funny bit where Nucky and Margaret argue about parables. She tries to explain what Brennan told her about dinner in Heaven and Hell and he keeps asking logical questions such as "Why couldn't they bend their arms?" or "Why didn't they just put their hands higher up on the spoons?" A frustrated Margaret pooh-poohs his tale from a few episodes back about the drowning man refusing the sailboats and the lifeguard. "That was about helping yourself," he tells her. They argue a bit over higher powers and whether it's divine retribution or coincidence, but the discussion gets short-circuited by Emily's cry from the other room that she "needs to go potty."
Eli meets with his lawyer Douglas Wallbridge (Randall Newsome) in his jail cell where he learns that Halloran's deposition fingers him for killing Hans Schroeder and ordering the attack on him during the riot at the strike. Eli denies it all and just wants bail, but Wallbridge says they won't give him any because he's considered a flight risk. He also says that Randolph is willing to spare his life if Eli testifies that he killed Hans under Nucky's orders. At first, Eli doesn't grasp what the lawyer means until he spells out that Eli could be facing the electric chair if he alone is tried for the murder.
We return to 1916 where Jimmy puts Gillian's things away in the room she'll be staying in. He asks why she's come and his mother says just to see how much he's changed, adding that she talked to Miss Krakauer and she told her "shocking" things such as she's seen Jimmy kissing "some underfed waitress." "Her name is Angela and she draws," Jimmy tells her. "So does a chimney," Gillian replies. He quizzes her about a man she's been dating named Arthur Henderson and she informs her son that he's married. "Married and mortgaged in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. 'Sorry, little squirrel. I thought girls like you could tell,'" she shares the story. "He didn't deserve you, ma," Jimmy says. Gillian admits she had her "little pleasures" from the affair. She brought Jimmy some booze and encourages Jimmy to have some, though he insists he has to write an essay. Gillian tells him that when she was on the train she thought that she could never get too sad because she'd always have him. Jimmy gives her a kiss on the forehead and tells her he loves her.
At the Post Office in 1921, Nelson stares at Rose's divorce petition while Randolph talks with Lathrop and Halsey about how a widow like Margaret ended up in a three-room bungalow. Lathrop suggests she pursued Nucky. Randolph asks Van Alden for his opinion of Margaret he had since he interviewed her. "She left no impression on me one way or another," Van Alden lies. Randolph decides to bring Margaret in for questioning. Van Alden signs the divorce petition.
At the 1916 Princeton mixer, Jimmy is delighted to see that Angela did show. In the background, you can hear voices singing "Old Nassau," the Princeton alma mater written in 1859. She meets Gillian, who insists on a kiss. Jimmy looks annoyed to see his mother flirting with Pearson. Angela makes the revelation that she's pregnant and Jimmy makes plans for them to get a place together. Angela says he hardly knows her but Jimmy says he knows she's a "good person." The most touching portions of this part of the flashback belong to Jimmy's friend Cal, who already is quite inebriated. When he finds Jimmy and Angela, Cal tells them, "I'm attaching myself to both of you. Do you know why? Because I'm socially inept and full of anxiety." Later, and he's probably being truthful, he pours his drunken heart out to Angela, trying to pass off his father's tire plant in Ohio as making him wealthier than he is. It is highly doubtful that we'll ever see the Cal Widdecomb character again, but he is such a sharp contrast to any other character we've seen on the show that he really stands out. The actor William Pierce Cravens creates such a full-bodied presence in just two scenes that it's a shame that he doesn't fit into the show's structure all the time.
Nucky breaks the news to Margaret that he's just been informed by Fallon that Eli will testify against him and that he faces the possibility of the electric chair. He tries to talk to her reasonably about how he can hide his assets so she can be taken care of and have access to them, but she is too far gone to discuss matters like that. Margaret accuses Nucky of thinking that he can make some good come out of this. He blames Father Brennan for putting ideas in her heads. As he starts to explain how the land he owns will be transferred to her, Margaret leans back in her chair and drifts away, Chopin's "Nocturne No. 15 in F Minor" starts playing, bleeding us back to 1916 again where Jimmy leans against the building where the mixer is taking place, drinking from a flask. Angela walks up and asks if he's going back in when Gillian comes out an exit breathing heavy and adjusting her dress, which looks ripped. "I thought we were just flirting," Gillian says. He sees that Pearson was the culprit. "What did you do to my mother?" Jimmy demands to know. As people still do in 1921, Pearson expresses surprise that Gillian is his mom. "Let's just say your life is pretty Jacobean all by itself," the professor declares. Jimmy orders him up on his feet. Pearson advises him not to get wound up and promises to apologize in "a convincingly chivalrous manner." Jimmy punches him hard in the face anyway. Pearson warns him to walk away and he'll forget it happened. "It is happening," Jimmy says before proceeding to beat on the teacher some more.
Mickey contacts Van Alden for a meeting. (Fun moment: Mickey asks Nelson to sit but he says he'd prefer to stand and Mickey replies, "Please. I don't like the way you loom.") Mickey, none too happy with getting screwed out of money by Capone, Luciano and Lansky and tossed over a balcony by the absent Jimmy tells Van Alden about the big score about to be divvied up, suggesting that the Feds intervene. Mickey just wants half back which he guesses is $300,000. "150 in your pocket. A lot better than the envelope you been gettin', huh," Mickey says. So we do know for sure now that the cash that Nelson hid both before and after Lucy stayed with him came from Mickey. Unfortunately for Doyle, Van Alden rejects his deal this time. Mickey isn't happy to hear that. Van Alden tells him never to contact him again. “You’re gonna fuck me over? ‘Cause that’s not how I think,” Mickey shouts as Nelson leaves.
Jimmy, not that sober himself, takes an even drunker Gillian back to her room. She notes blood on his shirt and starts to take it off but he does it himself. She asks him how badly he hurt Pearson. "Enough to get me expelled," Jimmy tells her. "No. Nucky'll fix it. He can fix it," Gillian assures him. Here comes the scene, the one that puts all our speculation about Gillian's tendency to be overfamiliar with her son to rest. The flashback even tossed out the idea of Jimmy's jealousy since before he "defended her honor" he looked unhappy at her flirting with Pearson. "I'm just the loneliest person on earth," Gillian sighs. She then asks Jimmy, referring to Angela, if he loves that "skinny girl." "I don't know. No. I don't know," Jimmy replies. She warns him not to do anything stupid and he helps her get undressed for bed. She tells him she hates for him to see her like this. "Tomorrow, you won't remember any of this," Jimmy says. "I always remember everything. No matter what," Gillian responds as he gets her into the bed and she pulls him down with her. She reminisces about curling up next to him when he was little. Jimmy says, "Good night, ma. I love you." He leans down to kiss her, but Gillian pulls him into a full-on liplock as a train goes by telling him, "There's nothing wrong, baby. There's nothing wrong with any of it," she tells him and the incest we wondered about actually occurs. The next morning, Jimmy wakes up alone, looking horrified, like a ghost. He looks out the window and sees students running through military drills.
An Army recruiting officer (Jeb Kreager) asks Jimmy for his next of kin, but he says both of his parents are dead and leaves his fiancee, Angela Ianotti, as a contact. The recruiter inquires his reason for wanting to fight. "Frankly sir, because I'd like to stick a bayonet straight through the Kaiser's guts," Jimmy replies. "What for?" the recruiter asks. "I lost a brother on the Lusitania," Jimmy says, stealing Tom's story.
Margaret works on Emily's braces, which are chafing the girl though she can't feel it, when Owen comes downstairs and offers to smooth it out for her. "Do you think about me? 'Cause I think about you," Owen tells her. Margaret says she'll pray he gains the strength to stop. He replies that will mean she's thinking about him. Katy sees them together and runs out of the room.
The 1921 Jimmy wakes up wherever he is and grabs a bottle of booze, drinks and blacks out. Later, we hear Gillian's voice coming through the phone receiver that's off the hook on his chest telling him that he needs to come home. "You have a son and business waiting for you. Do you understand?" his mother asks. He manages to answer into the phone that he does. She says he must show the world he has nothing to hide. He lets the phone go and snorts one of those heroin samples that Luciano gave him to hand out to potential customers.
Van Alden rounds the corner (literally, not figuratively, because with what goes down here combined with the previous scenes of this episode, I'd bet that next week will be Michael Shannon's last appearance as Agent Nelson Van Alden on Boardwalk Empire.) and enter his office at the Post Office. "Agent Van Alden, this is Mr. Fallon — Mr. Thompson's new attorney," Randolph says to him. "How are you this fine day, sir?" Fallon asks. The camera switches to Van Alden's stricken point-of-view — stricken because behind Fallon and Randolph stands Deacon Cuffy of the Shiloh Baptist Church, who saw Nelson drown Agent Sebso that day. It's unclear if Van Alden notices that Lathrop has staked out a place behind him to stop his exit. "And I believe you may have already met Deacon Lemuel Cuffy," Randolph adds. Fallon tells Van Alden he has some things to show him. "These were your former partner's I believe — Agent Sebso's," Fallon says, removing a gun and a pair of shoes from a box. Randolph asks if Nelson recognizes them, but he hasn't said a word. "It is joy for the just to do judgment," Cuffy declares. Lathrop tells Nelson to put his arms in front of him and reaches inside Van Alden's coat pocket. Nelson gets a shot off, hitting Lathrop in the leg, and runs, shoving Agent Sawicki into a pile of mailbags as he flees outside through double doors.
As if Margaret weren't already near the precipice, receiving a subpoena has pushed right over. Nucky tries to speak rationally. "We began in sin, we'll end in it unless we change," Margaret insists. Nucky tells her that she's talking rubbish. Margaret continues to blame herself for the misfortune that has fallen on her and everyone she love. She tells Nucky that she's stolen, deceived and cheated and he grills her for examples but when he asks who she has cheated on, she can't bring herself to say him and name Owen. After a long pause she says, "I live with the man who had the father of my children murdered." Nucky denies he ordered Hans' death, only admitting that he said he deserved it. When he realizes that her guilt complex has her contemplating testifying, he warns her that she can do what she likes to ease her conscience but he won't permit her to take him down with her. "And if you don't think I'm good as my word, you don't know me at all," Nucky warns her.
Jimmy has made it back to Atlantic City and listens to his mother make plans at the Commodore's, discussing funeral arrangements and what to tell Tommy. "I think — tell me I'm wrong — we'll tell him she went to live with her friends in Paris and she wants her little boy to stay here where she knows he'll be safe with his daddy who works so hard and his mima who loves him so very much. You know what, a month from now — and I don't mean to sound cold — he won't even remember who she —" Gillian doesn't finish that sentence because Jimmy, who looked to be in a stupor, leaps from his chair and starts choking the life out of her. "I'll remember. I'll remember," Jimmy shouts repeatedly at her while he throttles her. Unfortunately, before he can finish her off, the Commodore appears from behind with his spear and sticks it in Jimmy's side. Father and son struggle over the spear. Helluva recovery since the Commodore just showed he could stand last week and now he's rushing to defend someone with a spear. Somehow Jimmy gets to his handy knife and plunges it into the Commodore's gut. He stumbles backward. Jimmy removes the knife, "Then finish it. Goddamn you!" Gillian yells and Jimmy gives his father the fatal wound. Then Jimmy goes upstairs and blinds himself. Sorry. Wrong story. Besides, he has to marry Jocasta — I mean Gillian — first. The Commodore collapses to the floor. Jimmy limps to the other room and does the same.
Jimmy wakes up in a chair with his shoulder bandaged. He sees Richard cleaning up the scene from the Commodore's killing. Richard closes the curtain and Jimmy goes back to sleep. Later, he hears Angela's voice telling him she has to leave. He gets up and sees little Tommy, who woke up from a bad dream. Tommy asks where his mommy is and Gillian answers, "I'm here." She tells Jimmy not to worry about what happened. She knows he didn't mean it. Everything will be better now. As Gillian carries Tommy upstairs, she says, "One day he won't be little anymore. It happens." Is she counting the decades until Tommy gets the Princeton treatment? The song "Make Believe" begins playing as Jimmy watches her carry Tommy upstairs and continues through the closing credits.
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Labels: Boardwalk Empire, Haneke, HBO, Law and Order, Michael Shannon, The Sopranos, TV Recap
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Tuesday, January 18, 2011
What's lost in translation and what remains
By Edward Copeland
While I generally frown on remakes of good movies, I give adaptations of films made in another country more slack. Often, the results still don't turn out well, but Let Me In does a fairly good job at Americanizing the great Swedish vampire film Let the Right One In.
The foreign-to-American translation can have decidedly mixed results, even in cases where the same filmmaker does both versions and it seems especially true for thrillers or films with suspense elements. George Sluizer directed the truly haunting film The Vanishing in The Netherlands with one of the all-time great endings, but then had his own remake ruined by Hollywood meddling that wouldn't allow for that bleak finish and made an American version whose only positive element was a wonderfully eccentric performance by Jeff Bridges.
The case proved stranger with Michael Haneke's Funny Games, which I liked in its original German version. When Haneke basically did almost a shot-for-shot, line-for-line remake of Funny Games in English, suddenly everything seemed forced and absurd and it even caused me to reassess my views of the original.
Then other times both turn out nearly equal in quality (and I know I'll get grief for this) as in the case of Andrew Lau and Alan Mak's Infernal Affairs which was remade by Martin Scorsese as The Departed. Even though I'd seen Infernal Affairs not long before The Departed, when Scorsese's film used the same twists I was surprised despite the fact they weren't new to me.
Matt Reeves' Let Me In sticks very closely to Tomas Alfredson's 2008 film. I still prefer the original for its higher level of creepiness and more success at building the odd friendship between the bullied boy and the vampire girl who lives next door. However, Reeves' version does have a lot going for it.
In particular, I thought Let Me In displays a marvelous look courtesy of cinematographer Greig Fraser, who keeps much of the film bathed in a cool bluish hue. Reeves also creates some nice sequences, particularly when the man (the always good Richard Jenkins) who finds victims for Abby (Chloe Grace Moretz) to feed on has a particular sloppy kill.
I thought the choice to set Let Me In in the 1980s for no apparent reason was odd, but I liked that they were subtle how they introduce that by merely having a small TV showing Ronald Reagan giving a speech. I suspect they picked that period mainly for the use of many of its pop hits, especially Blue Oyster Cult's "Burnin' for You" in the scene I referred to above.
While the use of the songs add to the film the same cannot be said for Michael Giacchino's score, which at times seems to be trying to overpower the movie in much the same way Abby tries to overtake victims when forced to do it herself.
One small performance worth noting is Dylan Minnette as the main bully terrorizing Owen (Kodi Smit-McPhee) at school. He's so different from his part as Holly Hunter's nephew on TV's Saving Grace, I'll be curious to see where his career goes next, though he and Owen's other classmates look a lot older than Smit-McPhee to be in his grade.
Moretz, who was so great as Joseph Gordon-Levitt's wise-for-her-years sister in (500) Days of Summer, does a fine job as the vampire torn between her feelings of friendship toward the boy next door and her needs as a creature of the night.
Smit-McPhee, who was the best part of The Road, has some nice moments as the victimized boy ignored by his mom, but he and Moretz lack the chemistry of the young actors in Let the Right One In that made that film so compelling and touching as well as scary.
Overall, Let Me In works, especially I imagine for those unfamiliar with the original.
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Labels: 10s, Gordon-Levitt, Haneke, Holly Hunter, Jeff Bridges, Remakes, Scorsese, Television
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Tuesday, December 07, 2010
Boardwalk Empire: Season 1 in Review
By Edward Copeland
We know one thing for certain about what will come next in Boardwalk Empire: another season of Boardwalk Empire. The ratings of the premiere impressed HBO enough to approve a second season for the impressive new series after a single episode. As for the content, who's to say? Creator Terence Winter picked an especially fruitful year to begin his story in 1920 and before the show even began airing he expressed hopes that 1921 would provide as much juicy material, indicating a plan to have each season take place a year after the previous one, the same plan David Simon says he's going to follow for his great new HBO series Treme. For me, I think I've come to the same verdict on Winter's show that I did on Simon's new one: they've started very good series that could grow to be great ones but that both fall slightly short of the best of recent TV dramas, on HBO and off.
Viewers most critical of Boardwalk Empire felt it suffered in comparison to The Sopranos, probably taking too literally the promotions emphasizing Winter's ties to that landmark series, the presence of gangsters in its storylines and the name of movie directing legend Martin Scorsese as a producer and director of the premiere episode. While Boardwalk Empire has not reached the glorious heights of The Sopranos, it's unfair to penalize it for not being that series because it has a much wider tale to tell than just simply a gangster story. Boardwalk Empire may not be as great as The Sopranos (yet), but its ambitions are far greater.
While it's been written many places, you can almost view Boardwalk Empire and The Sopranos as bookends. In the very first episode of The Sopranos, Tony complains that he feels as if he's come in at the end of something. Boardwalk Empire marks the beginnings, with a similar crucial moment in the first episode when Jimmy (Michael Pitt) tells Nucky (Steve Buscemi) after Jimmy's truck hijacking turned into a massacre that Nucky can't afford to be half a gangster anymore and much of the season details as Nucky, more comfortable as a corrupt politico, being dragged more into that criminal world. You also see that with the real-life gangsters' presence early in their careers such as Lucky Luciano (Anthony Piazza), Al Capone (Stephen Graham) and Meyer Lansky (Anatol Yusef).
This interaction of fictional, fictionalized and real people is another aspect of Boardwalk Empire that sets it apart and makes it more like another great HBO drama, Deadwood, and the novels of E.L. Doctorow. In a way, it lessens some suspense because you know that certain things can't happen to the real-life figures, though that actually penalizes viewers who know more than others. I've spoken with some who had no idea that Arnold Rothstein (Michael Stuhlbarg), Luciano and the others were real people, so they watch expecting a violent end for them as a storyline possibility when even a search of the questionable facts found on Wikipedia could set them straight on that, if anyone informed them that Lucky Luciano actually existed in the first place and that Terence Winter didn't invent him. For the most part though, everyone I've talked to had heard of Al Capone, so they knew he was real, but I wonder if we have Robert De Niro and Brian De Palma's The Untouchables to thank for that.
On a much smaller scale, I saw similarities to the way the series approached its method of storytelling to HBO's greatest drama, The Wire, with a vast cast and a more novelistic approach. It also doesn't bother to stop to spell out who all the characters are, it just lets you figure it out as the series unfolds. It also does what The Wire did so well: drop a seemingly insignificant bit of information or something that leaves a viewer with a question in one episode that you think has been long forgotten only to bring it back several episodes down the road before addressing its role or answering the query, requiring the viewer to pay close attention to really get the full effect. Boardwalk Empire also has a bit of Mad Men in it with real-world events that the characters comment on. Granted, most are issues in which the characters are involved such as Prohibition, women's suffrage and the presidential election but they also throw in other news of the day such as the women claiming to be the thought-dead Russian czar's daughter Anastasia or well-known books, movies and entertainers of the time.
One thing that separates Boardwalk Empire from The Sopranos is its timing. When The Sopranos entered the television landscape, it was a breath of fresh air that made all other dramas on the air at the same time look weaker by comparison. As I theorized in my post a while back asking if we were in the Golden Age of Television Drama, Boardwalk Empire enters a crowded field of quality, not only of shows no longer with us, but with ones still with us such as Treme, Mad Men, Dexter and shows I've heard great things about but have never sampled such as Sons of Anarchy and The Walking Dead. Still, as much as Boardwalk Empire has impressed me in its premiere season, I still have to say that the best current TV drama is Breaking Bad. This isn't a negative for Boardwalk Empire, just that right now we are in a period of an embarrassment of riches as far as television dramas go, so the bar for excellence has risen even higher.
The series got off to a great start, helped in no small part by having executive producer Martin Scorsese direct the premiere, giving it both a cinematic quality and setting a great template for the series that was to follow.
As I mentioned above, one thing I admired greatly here, and in creative works in general, is a respect for the audience that requires viewers to pay close attention to ascertain who the players are and what their importance is to the plot at hand. Too often pilot episodes waste far too much energy on exposition, spelling out in broad strokes who the important characters are and what the audience needs to be paying the closest attention to as it watches. When a work of entertainment eschews that dumbing down in favor of just leaping in to the story and setting and letting the viewer catch up, I find in infinitely more rewarding.Much of the media campaign concentrates on the gangster aspect of the series because that's what will lure the viewers, especially those missing The Sopranos, but I find the political machinations just as interesting. In interviews, Terence Winter said at one point they considered beginning the series in the 1950s, but they really struck gold by picking 1920. Look at everything that was happening: Prohibition, women getting the right to
vote, the presidential election, the fallout of the Black Sox scandal from the 1919 World Series. As a political junkie, I find it fascinating to watch as the parties were in the process of their great personality switch. Nucky runs the Republican machine, still proud of the fact that they were the party of emancipation and they still had a hold on the African-American vote because of it. However, the corrupt moneyed interests, which would really take charge in the Harding administration as the Democrats became the party of reform would lead to the switch we have today. It's still puzzling to think that the GOP in the 1860s freed the slaves and then 100 years later opposed civil rights and the Democrats, once the party that had a stranglehold on the South, lost that to the Republicans while taking northern areas that used to be GOP territory. This part of Boardwalk Empire intrigues me as much as the gangsterism.
You also have a look at the different levels of immigrants in the established Irish such as the Thompsons versus the relatively new arrivals such as Margaret. You even have people wanting to belong to the right ethnic group such as the Polish Mickey Cusick (Paul Sparks) changing his last name to Doyle to try to pass as Irish. Jimmy's decision to leave his rising rank in the Chicago mob comes about when he buys Nucky's argument that an Irishman won't go far in an organization run by Italians. Then there is the anti-Semitism practiced by the obsessively pious Van Alden, not just against Agent Sebso but the dying massacre witness as well. You also not only have fresh memories of the Great War but people still alive who are old enough to remember the Civil War, such as the Commodore who lost his brother in the Battle of Vicksburg.
If any of the storylines didn't really work for me, it was the affair between Jimmy's common-law wife Angela (Aleksa Palladino) and the photographer's wife Mary Dittrich (Lisa Joyce). The twist that it wasn't her husband Robert (Josiah Early) that Angela was cheating on Jimmy with was a good one, but after that the storyline turned into a bore with a very predictable ending. That's one thing I have to wonder going forward with some characters. For example, Paz de la Huerta's Lucy Danzinger. Once Nucky cut her off for Margaret, it seemed as if she'd been written into a corner and there wasn't anywhere else for her to go except for her surprise romp with Van Alden. Though after the finale's revelation, when it appeared as if they were paving the way for a Van Alden exit, it appears that they have a twist to keep both Lucy and Van Alden occupied.
Speaking of the feds, I do worry that they are going to follow the route of The Sopranos and continue to make the feds completely incompetent or, as in the case of Van Alden, bonkers to avoid them ever making a case. Though they did answer my question about how Nucky learned so quickly that the dying survivor of the massacre named Jimmy because Sebso was on the take, they never did resolve how Rothstein learned the information just as quickly. It's not just how they bungle the people they pursue: They let Sebso get away with murdering a witness and Van Alden with drowning Sebso.
Perhaps the most impressive aspect about Boardwalk Empire is the stellar cast it assembled from the very beginning, both well-known performers and lesser-known ones. Casting Steve Buscemi in the lead and as an authority figure was a stroke of genius and has given the great character actor the best role of his career as Nucky Thompson. With the exception of his single season on The Sopranos, Buscemi's work has been almost exclusively in movies and big movies as well, but seldom as lead, but he's proved he can carry an enterprise with his work as Nucky, though he is aided by an astounding ensemble of supporting actors. They even saved his most impressive scene for the finale as he tells Margaret the truth about his late wife and son.
In fact, several of the regulars were performers usually found on the big screen. Michael Shannon's brilliant work as Agent Nelson Van Alden comes just as his film visibility was becoming more recognizable and he'd
earned an Oscar nomination for supporting actor for Revolutionary Road. It would be very easy for Shannon to go over the top with Van Alden, an excessively religious Prohibition agent obsessed not only with his target, Nucky Thompson, but with Nucky's kept woman Margaret Schroeder. I mean, Van Alden ritually whips himself to injury when his temptations start to get the better of him and drowns a Jewish partner in the name of Christianity, not necessarily because he suspects (correctly) that he's on the take, but somehow Shannon keeps it as bottled in as Van Alden does. However, when Van Alden does explode, Shannon's a wonder to behold. Michael Stuhlbarg had been a respected theater actor not much known outside New York who drew the spotlight last year for his winning work in the Coen brothers' A Serious Man, playing a role that couldn't be more different than Arnold Rothstein. As meek and flustered as Lawrence Gopnik was in the movie, Rothstein is smooth and assured. When Rothstein raises his voice in a scene late in the season, it's a shock because he's perpetrated his terror without yelling until that moment. His comic timing also can be exquisite when he's revealing information, even when it's not for humorous effect. Michael Pitt has been making the rounds on both TV and film for quite some time including Bernardo Bertolucci's The Dreamers, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Dawson's Creek, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Michael Haneke's ill-advised U.S. remake of his own Funny
Games. Pitt's work always was competent or quite good, but none of it prepared for the depth he displayed as Jimmy Darmody, which only grew as the season went along. Then, for fans of The Wire, we get to see Michael Kenneth Williams in a new guise as Chalky White, a powerful African-American leader in 1920 and a far cry from his legendary Omar Little but he's just as good. Finally, it's great to see the wonderful Dabney Coleman in a series again, even if he was unrecognizable at first, as the Commodore. Though it took until nearly the end of the season to figure out his character's point with the revelation that he's Jimmy's father, I would still like some clarification from the implication in the first episode that he might be Nucky's father in-law and the father of his late wife Mabel, though I think I must have surmised that incorrectly. Also, though she's always listed as a guest star, Gretchen Mol gets one of her best parts as Jimmy's still young mom Gillian, still dancing, not afraid to sleep with Lucky Luciano if it will help her son set him up and still up to poisoning the man (I'm still not convinced Louanne was behind it) who knocked her up at 13 under the guise of a renewed friendship.
In my opinion, the performance that stood out the most was Kelly Macdonald as Margaret Schroeder and while she might not be as familiar to all viewers as she should be, she's been giving solid work in films such as No Country for Old Men, Gosford Park, Two Family House and Trainspotting. Macdonald's Margaret proved to be a wonder. No character transformed in the season's 12 episodes more than she did and Macdonald's acting made every change seem real and never hit a false note. One interesting thing I notice about the series in general, but about Margaret in particular, is the frequency of shots they liked to use of her looking at herself in a mirror. She always was reflecting on herself because of her duality, though she really was much more complicated than just two-sided. To start as the poor pregnant Irish immigrant wife of an abusive husband involved in the temperance movement to become the assistant at a high-end dress shop and then the concubine of the powerful county treasurer who realizes her own powers for getting what she wants and pushed into involvement in Republican politics as women get the vote, Margaret had a helluva few months. That's not even counting the unseemly obsession a Prohibition agent has for her or her growing unease with her lover whom she suspects made her a widow. Macdonald made every step of Margaret's journey riveting and more than any other character, I'm eager to see where she goes.
Then there are the actors I wasn't familiar with prior to Boardwalk Empire but who turned out to be invaluable to the ensemble. First among them was a latecomer: Jack Huston, grandson of legendary director John Huston as Richard Harrow, a severely disfigured WWI veteran who is befriended by Jimmy. His face alone, half covered by a painted tin mask to complete his wrecked visage, makes him interesting enough, but his odd gait and way of speech, combined with the fact that though he's friendly enough to those on his side, he's also an emotionless killing machine because he's lost all connection to the world. Al Capone has been portrayed many times by many actors, but Stephen Graham puts an exciting, fresh spin on the legendary mobster in his formative years when
he was just a driver and still acted like an immature kid. Graham's performance was all the more impressive once I learned the actor was British. Anthony Lacuira has proved to be a delight as Nucky's all-purpose manservant Eddie Kessler and I was surprised to learn, by an accident of researching the actress who guest-starred as Sophie Tucker, that he is a well-regarded opera tenor. I'm curious if we'll ever hear Eddie sing. Last, but certainly not least, attention must be paid to Shea Whigham's work as Nucky's younger brother Eli, the county sheriff and Nucky's chief enforcer. Whigham's performance usually relies on subtlety to convey his jealousy of his brother's position and his own lack of self-esteem, but he pulls it off well. This doesn't even mention all of the guest stars who pop up for just an episode or two. Boardwalk Empire may well be the best cast series on television.The finale has definitely set up the next season as the plotting of the Commodore and Eli to take down Nucky with Jimmy caught in the middle. With the resolution of the conflict between Nucky and Rothstein, I wonder how much of a role the gangster side still will play. In fact, how can they justify the continued presence of Rothstein, Luciano and Capone as characters in the Atlantic City story? The Sopranos often had main credit characters who only appeared for a single season (though their exit was usually do to their character's demise).
We won't be facing an election year, so that will change the game a bit as will considering what kind of warped child would be formed when Van Alden's sperm fertilizes Lucy's egg. I certainly hope we get to see more Chalky than we got to see this year. The same goes for Richard Harrow. Jack Huston is so great that it's a shame that so many of his appearances ended up being silent ones. As I mentioned in yesterday's recap, there should have been some sort of resolution to Mickey Doyle's character. Whatever happened to the charges that he (and Ward Boss Neary for that matter) faced from the feds? Nucky presumably wouldn't be eager to add him back to the payroll and since the D'Alessios already would have known he turned on them, if they'd killed him, I'm sure we would have heard about it. Does his character have anywhere to go?
Of course, what really bears watching will be the continued evolution of the relationship between Nucky and Margaret. She's obviously made the decision that staying with him is enough sin that she can live with, but will he stay on the straight and narrow? Make an honest woman of her? I do know that based on its first season, Boardwalk Empire will definitely be worth watching to see how it (and its depiction of Atlantic City) develops. I hope Scorsese lives up to his word and directs some more episodes. Most of all, I hope that this very expensive series, which replaces Mad Men as the best-looking show on television, doesn't meet the same fate as costly series such as Rome and Deadwood: a premature end.
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Labels: Boardwalk Empire, Breaking Bad, Buscemi, Coens, Dabney Coleman, David Simon, De Niro, De Palma, Deadwood, Fiction, Haneke, HBO, Huston, Law and Order, Mad Men, Michael Shannon, Scorsese, The Sopranos, The Wire, Treme
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Friday, October 01, 2010
Some things you just can't let go
By Edward Copeland
With The Secret in Their Eyes, I have now seen four of last year's five Oscar nominees for foreign language films and, in this case, also the film that won. While Juan Jose Campanella's film turns out to be OK, I'd rank it fourth of the four I've seen. The Academy picked wrong again. What a surprise. Thankfully, it's not an embarrassing pick like past winners such as Mediterraneo or Burnt By the Sun.
I knew when I heard and saw Campanella's name in connection with this film, that it seemed awfully familiar, but I couldn't recall any other films of his that I might have seen so, as any desperate film researcher does in the Internet age, I turned to the Internet Movie Database where I was surprised to learn why the director's name rang a bell.
True, he did direct a good film from several years ago I had seen called Son of the Bride featuring a spectacular performance by Norma Aleandro as a woman suffering from Alzheimer's whose devoted husband (Hector Alterio, Aleandro's co-star from the great 1985 film The Official Story) decides to give her the elaborate wedding she never received.
However, Campanella's feature film credits are relatively sparse and the reason his name sounds so familiar is he is a prolific director of American episodic television, working on series such as House (five episodes), Law & Order: SVU (17 episodes), Law & Order: Criminal Intent (two episodes), 30 Rock, Ed and even Comedy Central's Strangers With Candy (eight episodes).
Enough with his credits. Back to the film at hand, the Oscar-winning The Secret in Their Eyes stars Ricardo Darin, who played the title character in the vastly superior Son of the Bride. Darin plays retired Argentinean legal oounselor Benjamin Esposito who is contemplating a book about an old case he's never been able to shake: the brutal rape and murder of a woman whose killer confessed but was let go because the system was able to use him as a tool to gather information against other bad guys. The brutality of the man's crime and the man's additional murder of another investigator and threats against others including Esposito don't seem to bother Esposito's superiors, who write the killer's actions off as "his private life."
Complicating matters further for Esposito, who has dwelled on the case for a quarter-century, is his unresolved feelings about his thwarted romance with his immediate supervisor Irene Menéndez Hastings (Soledad Villamil), who returns his feeling but held them at bay because of office protocol, her engagement to another and Esposito's own exile for his own safety.
As I said, The Secret in Their Eyes is by no means a bad film, but it takes a terribly long time to get its engine running, seeming to idle for far too long. Though it won the 2009 Oscar, it didn't get U.S. release until this year. By the time it gets to its most powerful moments, only about 25 minutes remain in the film. The acting, especially by Darin and Villamil, holds the film together until that point, but barely. Even they can't save it from teetering dangerously close to being just plain dull.
The only Oscar nominee for foreign language film of 2009 I haven't seen is Peru's The Milk of Sorrow, but The Secret in Their Eyes definitely pales in comparison to Ajami and most especially Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon and Jacques Audiard's A Prophet.
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Labels: 10s, Foreign, Haneke, House, Law and Order, Oscars, Television
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Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Arthur Penn (1922-2010)
Arthur Penn, like many of our greatest directors, accomplished many fine works, in his case on stage, screen and television, but one landmark film proved so extraordinary it will inevitably tower among the rest as those of us who write about film try to pay tribute to the man who died Tuesday night, one day after turning 88. In case any of you might be uncertain what that film might be, it came out in 1967, polarized critics and has sparked countless imitators and influenced many more ever since. Its title was Bonnie and Clyde.
Trying to list all the films — good, bad and mediocre — that came in the wake of Bonnie and Clyde and owe a debt to Penn would take up more space than a large metropolitan city's white pages, so I'll spare you the list. Still, it took a director with Penn's talent to turn Robert Benton and David Newman's screenplay about two famous Depression-era outlaws and transform into a work of art that seemed to play as something new each time you watched it. It was a chase film, a romance, a dark comedy, a slapstick comedy all while offering new statements on movie violence and asking questions we still wrestle with today such as who are bigger thieves: bank robbers or the corporations that own the banks? He gave us what arguably is Warren Beatty's best acting work, ably supported by superb turns by Faye Dunaway, Gene Hackman, Estelle Parsons and Michael J. Pollard. He managed to make a movie set in the Depression that plays as fresh today as it would have in 1967 while films made much more recently already seem dated.
Though, as I said in the beginning, one film alone does not tell the Arthur Penn story. He directed frequently on Broadway, most recently a revival of Larry Gelbart's play Sly Fox in 2004 starring Richard Dreyfuss, Eric Stoltz and even Professor Irwin Corey. He first directed on Broadway in 1956. He received three Tony nomination as director of a play for Two for the Seesaw (1958), The Miracle Worker (1960) and All the Way Home (1961), winning for The Miracle Worker. He also directed the original production of Wait Until Dark in 1966. He also directed the Broadway show that really gave life to the comic teaming of Mike Nichols and Elaine May. In connection with his theater roots, he served as president of The Actors Studio from 1995 to 1998.
Even before he began working on Broadway, he got his directing start on television on the many showcases for plays that flourished in the 1950s. He made his feature debut in 1958 with the story of another famous outlaw when Paul Newman portrayed Billy the Kid in The Left Handed Gun.
Four years later, he adapted his Broadway success The Miracle Worker for movies with original cast members Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke. Bancroft, who won the Tony as Annie Sullivan, repeated the win at the Oscars. Duke also won an Oscar and Penn received his first Oscar nomination as director.
Two years later, he was fired from the movie The Train and replaced with John Frankenheimer. The next year, he teamed with Warren Beatty for the first time in Mickey One. The year after that, Lillian Hellman wrote the adaptation of the Horton Foote novel and play The Chase which Penn directed Marlon Brando, Jane Fonda and Robert Redford in, but again had disatisfying results with studio meddling.
He received his second Oscar nomination for directing for Bonnie and Clyde and rounded out the 1960s with a third one for the joyous Alice's Restaurant, a loose and entertaining film based on Arlo Guthrie's epic folk hit that starred Guthrie himself.
The 1970s began with what I think is his second-best film, the great satirical Western Little Big Man starring Dustin Hoffman as a man torn between his lives as a white man and an unofficial Native American. It also reunited him with Faye Dunaway in a hysterical supporting role and featured Richard Mulligan, best known as Burt on Soap, in an awesome turn as Custer. He also directed one of the segments of the legendary documentary about the 1972 Olympics in Munich, Visions of Eight.
He re-teamed with Hackman for the 1975 detective film Night Moves and put Brando and Jack Nicholson together for 1976's The Missouri Breaks. In 1981, he made a favorite of mine, a real sleeper called Four Friends written by Steve Tesich. Hackman joined him again along with Matt Dillon for 1985's Target. He followed that with the 1987 thriller Dead of Winter and 1989's one-of-a-kind Penn and Teller Get Killed.
His final film projects were TV movies, an episode of a short-lived TV series and he was one of a huge list of directors such as Spike Lee, Liv Ullmann, Wim Wenders, Zhang Yimou, Michael Haneke, James Ivory, Ismail Merchant, David Lynch and many more, who contributed segments for a film called Lumiere and Company .
RIP Mr. Penn.
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Labels: Bancroft, Brando, Dunaway, Dustin Hoffman, Gelbart, Hackman, Haneke, J. Fonda, Liv Ullmann, Lynch, Merchant Ivory, Newman, Nichols, Nicholson, Obituary, Redford, Richard Mulligan, Spike Lee, W. Beatty, Zhang Yimou
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Monday, July 05, 2010
Suffer the children (and just about everyone else)
By Edward Copeland
When placed in the hands of a talented director of photography (in this case Christian Berger) and crew, few images fill me with as much wonder as vividly rendered black and white film. When done especially well, the cinematography itself can almost mesmerize me past any weaknesses that the movie contained within may hold, as is the case with Michael Haneke's most recent work, The White Ribbon.
Haneke as a filmmaker certainly is an acquired taste, with most of his films producing a love it-or-hate it reaction from the viewer. From what I've seen of his work so far, I've fallen in the pro-Haneke camp, which probably surprises most readers since I tend to shy away from filmmakers who reek of pretension. Still, I loved The Piano Teacher with its go-for-broke performance by Isabelle Huppert and greatly admired Code Unknown and Cache: Hidden. I even liked his original Funny Games a great deal, until he lessened my taste for it with his lackluster and unneeded scene-for-scene American remake that fell completely flat and somehow retroactively lessened the first film's impact.
The White Ribbon earned the Golden Palm at last year's Cannes Film Festival, best foreign language film at the 2009 Golden Globes and a nomination in the same category at the 2009 Oscars and I think Haneke finally earned so much acclaim last year, in many ways, because The White Ribbon proves to be his most conventional movie.
The simplest label to place upon The White Ribbon is mystery. Set in a German village on the eve of the first world war, Haneke's moody movie details strange events in that village. They seem to start with an apparent trap set for the town's doctor (Rainer Bock) that trips his horse and severely injures the doctor for months. This is followed by an accident that kills a farmer's wife when she tumbles through some rotting floorboards.
Still, these occurrences just serve as appetizers for the film's main, eerie enigma involving the town's children. Is there systematic abuse going on, perhaps at the strict hands of the rich land-owning baron (Ulrich Tukur) or the pastor (Burghart Klaussner), either of whom could be abusing their status as moral authorities?
Then again, perhaps it's the children themselves that may somehow be involved in the evil. The way Haneke films them, with the great aid of Oscar nominee and ASC award winner Berger, you're never certain whether to view the kids with sympathy or to look at them warily as they remind you of Village of the Damned.
Since this is a Michael Haneke film, you shouldn't expect a standard mystery format. Though the main character is a 31-year-old school teacher (Christian Friedel) who narrates the film in voiceover as an old man, at the time he was more concerned with making a young woman his bride. Eventually though, he can't stay out of the peculiar goings-on.
As is usually the case, Haneke loves to play in the fields of ambiguity and that is again what happens here until late in the film news arrives of the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo, lighting the fire for World War I. The odd goings-on and atrocities slip the villagers' minds and as the collective amnesia washes over the characters, it denies the moviegoer of any concrete resolutions.
If Haneke is attempting to make a case that the events in the village portend the war, he doesn't quite make the sale, especially since it's mentioned so blatantly. Compare that to Jean Renoir's The Rules of the Game in 1939. Granted, Renoir's film belongs to a completely different genre than Haneke's, but he also foretold of gathering war clouds in Europe, only for World War II, but he did it without specific mentions and using filmmaking skills, writing and technique alone. It was up to the cognizant viewer to fill in the blanks in Renoir's film and it seems odd given Haneke's previous works that he'd feel the need to hold their hand and lead them here.
Still, The White Ribbon makes for a fascinating film to watch, if only for those beautiful black-and-white images. In addition to the hauntingly lovely visuals and some particularly well-done setpieces, Haneke produces many memorable scenes such as when a child walks in on his father and older sister in what appears to be an incestuous situation, but it's hard to tell since the sister's attitude is so joyous she reflects neither fear nor shame and could be giving the impression of a consensual relationship. Then again, perhaps the girl tells the truth when she says the father was simply re-piercing her ear.
When it comes to making a final ruling on The White Ribbon, I keep coming back to Christian Berger's cinematography. I'm not one who is easily bowled over by style over substance, but I can't remember the last time a film was such a pleasure to watch for its visuals alone — and this was at home on DVD. I can only imagine how remarkable it looked projected on a big screen. In a strange way, it reminded me of the classic Last Year at Marienbad, another hypnotic film that I couldn't remotely try to explain to a layperson on a plot level. The White Ribbon tells a more conventionally coherent story than Alain Resnais' landmark, but it's its imagery that holds it together in much the same way.
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Labels: 00s, Awards, Foreign, Haneke, Renoir, Resnais
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