Downbeat Mamet

A few days ago I wrote about the possibility of listing the movies I watch. I'm not sure that my enthusiasm at that point has continued. I may just carry on writing up movies in my journal and on here, in the blog. At least then those that hit the spot in either a negative or positive fashion will get remembered a bit better.

I watched House of Games last night. It turned up on Maori TV, which was a bit odd, although they do have a reputation for showing offbeat movies - more often foreign than English. My feeling about House of Games, which dates back to 1987 and was written and directed by David Mamet, is that this is a movie best-forgotten. Roger Ebert, who can be relied upon in general to come up with good commonsense and taste in regard to movies praises it highly. In fact there are two reviews of it by him online. He revisited it in 1999, and saw it as one of the great movies.

Um. I have to say, Mr Ebert, that in this case I'm puzzled. It's a typical Mamet movie; amoral characters, lots of nifty dialogue and a storyline that has potential. However, Mamet's direction is very stagey, the actors are often placed is quite unrealistic poses, and the star of the piece, Lindsay Crouse, exhibits almost no expression from beginning to end. Well, not quite. She smiles once, in one of the last scenes, because she's got away with murder, literally, and now also has the idea that stealing from other people is some kind of triumph. She's supposed to be a psychiatrist, but doesn't appear to have much idea what that job is actually about. And apart from the last-minute smile, Crouse goes through the role as though she's dead behind the eyes. Perhaps this was intentional. Maybe Mamet asked her to be like that.

The men in the cast are all good, particularly Joe Mantegna, and play their confidence trickster roles with ease and subtlety. Which makes it all the more odd that Crouse is so deadpan. If the story is meant to be about a woman who's really venal underneath but has been hiding it, then it makes little sense in terms of the role she plays early in the piece. If she thinks that being a confidence trickster is an acceptable job, even though she's reminded on a number of occasions that it's a criminal's job, she pays not attention. In the end you don't have much idea what goes on in her head. With the result that the scene where she murders the main male character makes little sense. Yes, she's been conned by him, but she knew who these guys were, and allowed herself to be taken in. She's no dupe, after all, and stands up to people without difficulty, most of the time, including a young patient threatening to kill himself with a gun, in her office.

Mamet seems to delight in unpleasant characters, ones we find it hard to sympathise with. (I had to switch off Glengarry Glen Ross because the Alec Baldwin character was so foul-mouthed and bullying, and because the world the salesmen inhabited was so utterly bleak.) It's as if his view of the world is focused so much on the dark side of things that he can't see the light. Incidentally, in spite of the black and white, film noir look of the poster, the film is in colour, though many scenes take place at night, with gloomy interiors. Crouse wears some of the most awful 80s costumes I've seen in a while, and her hairstyle is more masculine, somehow, than feminine. Maybe this also was intentional.

Heart and Heaven

Caught up on a couple of old movies recently: Places in the Heart (1984) and Heaven Knows, Mr Allison from 1957.  The first stars Sally Field in one of her best roles, and the second has a relatively gentle Robert Mitchum co-starred with Deborah Kerr.  Kerr plays a nun, so for most of the film only her face is visible.  Other body language is almost minimal, but this doesn't stop her giving a wonderful performance.  

Yes, both the movies are old-style, tear-jerkers, the former focusing on forgiveness and the latter on an impossible relationship that nevertheless transcends its boundaries.  Places in the Heart is a story about forgiveness (there's an echo of the beginning of Les Miserables early in the piece) and how people who ought not to get along can manage to do so if they're willing.  It also has a curious subplot that never quite connects with the main story.  In this Lindsay Crouse plays Field's sister whose husband, played by Ed Harris, is having an affair with a mutual friend.  Obviously Crouse connects with Field because they're sisters - they have a few short scenes together - but for the most part this story plays out by itself almost in parallel with the main one.  At the very end all the characters are gathered together in church for a service.  A wonderful travelling shot begins with Harris being forgiven by Crouse - the touch of her hand on his is enough to tell us.  The camera moves from row to row as each person receives the communion wine, and finally we see Field's deceased husband sitting beside her.  He was accidentally shot early in the film by a young and very drunk negro, who was subsequently lynched. The camera moves a foot or two more and there is the negro boy.  He whispers to the husband, Sorry, and there's a look that might mean all sorts of things on the husband's face, but none of them are antagonistic.  It's a strange ending that comes out of nowhere - there hasn't been a hint of the surreal prior to this.  For all that, it's in keeping with the tone of the movie and its theme.

John Malkovitch plays a blind boarder who's foisted upon Field as a way to forestall her having to sell the house.  Of course they eventually learn to get along, but the performance by Malkovitch is somewhat over-the-top (Malkovitch is always over-the-top, you might think) and for me it jarred. 

Heaven Knows etc is a story about a marine who lands on a deserted island in the Pacific during the Second World War.  It's not quite deserted: a nun has been left behind on the island through some odd circumstances and the two begin a rather edgy relationship.  The Japanese arrive, take over the island, but fail to realise it's not quite as empty as they think.  They also fail to notice that their supplies are getting lower than they should be as Mitchum does a daring night raid on the stores. Eventually the US arrives on the island and conquer the Japanese.  That's pretty much the story, but Mitchum and Kerr invest the script with a great deal of warmth and humour, and humanity.  Kerr's character might seem a bit too much a member of the weaker sex at times, though Kerr brings some feistiness to the part, and Mitchum is given the chance not only to be a gentleman but also to be very protective gentleman.  The actors manage to make both the people credible, and John Huston films the whole thing with minimal fuss, knowing that he can rely on his two main cast members to do all the work.