Profies of Three Movies

Finally saw “The Wrestler.” Pretty damn good. The film deserved the praise it has received. The match between the story and the actor was, so to speak, made in heaven. A has-been actor, Mickey Rourke, plays a has-been wrestler, Randy “The Ram” Robinson, with long blond tresses, a scarred body, and a heart problem, in every sense of the term.
It’s a downbeat story about the tail end of a pathetic career in the ring, a tale not meant for a large audience because it is too peculiar, set as it is in a small obscure world of no charm or sweep, with subject matter that smells of sweat and blood, and with self-annihilation for a conclusion—not the kind of thing that would appeal to the vast majority of today’s moviegoers. The film balances the dehumanization of the profession and the character’s emotional sensitivity. Once he blew it with his young daughter and the stripper he had taken a fancy to rejects him, and knowing he was lost without his performance in the ring, despite its pathos and ridiculousness, and that there were no other doors open to him to start another life for someone like himself and despite a doctor’s warning about his heart, he went back to a trade that will kill him. But since the wrestling ring was the be-all and end-all of his meager emotional existence, so it might as well be the vehicle and area of his death.
The other surprise about the movie was the director, Darren Aronofsky, whose previous movies, “Pi,” “Requiem for a Dream,” and “The Fountain,” were all in a different genre, to say the least, much more like arty films that depended on great camera work and rich images. Not so in “The Wrestler.” He obviously wanted to show Hollywood he could make a more ordinary looking movie. And the film will certainly revive Mickey Rourke’s career.
Like “The Wrestler” “Frost/Nixon” was worth the price of admission because of the acting. I remember Frank Langella way back when as Dracula. He’s come a long way, baby! The movie deals exclusively with the 4-part interview that David Frost, a talk show host, had with ex-President Richard Nixon in 1977, with the final interview being the memorable one because it dealt with Watergate. It was revealing to see the real interviews in Special Features because you could see the difference of tone and emotion in the two takes on Nixon. The spoken lines were the same but they were as different as night and day when it came to the expression of personality. The real Nixon remained a cool customer no matter what he was saying; his facial expression never really changed, remaining a bland mask, like it was frozen in place, not really reeling under his devastating admissions—for example, when he said, “When the President does it, it is not a crime.” The whole weight of the movie rests on that line, and Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld banked on Nixon’s lead, and that attitude worked for them until recently, when the whole superstructure of their lies, secrecy, and policy of torture has came crashing down, like the flimsy House of Cards it always was. In contrast to the real Nixon, Langella’s face literally rippled with emotion and the weight of what he was saying--how he had screwed up royally and disappointed the American people. His face expressed the regret, sadness, and guilt, and his eyes were like pools of discovery, showing how he felt below the surface. Therefore I’d have to say Langella’s Nixon is an interpretation, an attempt to portray the ex-President as if he was capable of feeling deeper emotions through the of claiming of the lawlessness of his actions during Watergate.
There was another telling scene that I assume was speculation, a phone encounter between Nixon and Frost the night before the final interview. In that conversation, which is largely one-sided, Nixon carries on with considerable resentment about the rich snobs from Wall Street, the “well born” and the Country Club set who never accepted his humble origins and banal education. I suspect Ron Howard threw that in to spice up the next day’s confrontation.
The secondary characters around the two principles played well too, keeping Frost aggressive, telling him he could not let Nixon off the hook, but he had to nail him, which he finally did. In a sense, they ganged up on Nixon. It was a game of pin the tail on the donkey.
The Screenwriter/Director of “Nothing but the Truth,” Rod Lurie, used the subtext of the Valerie Plame revelations and her husband Joe Wilson’s articles that were critical of the Bush Administration in shaping his story which diverged widely from the case, being in the end more fiction than fact. But it certainly was the inspiration for the movie and the case certainly haunts the movie as a very pregnant undercurrent.
All things considered, “Nothing but the Truth” was gripping drama and a compelling story of the price that sometimes has to be paid for integrity and a journalist protection of sources; and there is considerable irony when we finally find out who the source was. The reporter in real life was Judith Miller of New York Times and she did serve time for not revealing her source, because it was a National Security issue, but it was much shorter than the woman in the film who ends up a year in jail and two in prison. More than that, she lost her job with the Times. But she was fired less for the Plame story, which was actually broke by Bob Novak, another Beltway journalist, but for her defending of the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld policy in Iraq, which she continually supported uncritically. The movie makes it clear it is a tricky proposition to play the spy game; one can easily end up dead. Once you are outed you become suspect to your own colleagues at CIA, and your life can be in danger. Kate Beckinsale plays the reporter in the movie and she goes through hell, not only incarceration for three years, but her marriage dissolved under pressure, she was alienated from her son, and was severely beaten by another inmate. Hard times came as a result of taking a principled stand. It took a resolute soul to do what she did.
Incidentally, in case anyone is curious, Judith Miller now works for the FOX NEWS Network.