The Sunset Limited

Some spoilers in the post. 

Two men in a room. A long conversation between the two, lasting nearly 90 minutes of screen time. One is a black man (Samuel L Jackson), a poor railway worker, with a major criminal conviction behind him. The other is a white man, a Professor, (Tommy Lee Jones) worn out and world-weary, who's just attempted to commit suicide on the tracks in front of the Sunset Limited train. Somehow, and most unexpectedly, the black man has saved him and brought him back to his two-room apartment.  The door is locked with four or five different locks; outside the sounds of a major railway station go on intermittently: someone playing a trumpet badly, a sudden fight, shouting, trains stopping and starting. Our focus, however, is on the discussion these two men are having: life and death, belief and unbelief, God or not God.

This movie is based solidly on Cormac McCarthy's play - which isn't officially a play, but a 'novel in dramatic form (the playscript has minimal stage directions - the focus is on the dialogue). However, it's been presented frequently on stage, and works very well there, in spite of almost no 'action' (a coffee is made, some soup is cooked). The version I've just seen is the HBO version, directed by Tommy Lee Jones.

Both the stars revel in their parts, though Jackson's is much more the flamboyant one. Jones plays his very close to the bone: already looking like death warmed up in most of his movies, here he virtually has a mask of a face, with two dreadfully tired eyes peering out. I sometimes felt you could have done with more passion from Jones, but he saves it till the end, when he produces a tirade that shows he isn't going to change his position, no matter what. If anything he's more entrenched than ever. The much more 'fussy' Austin Pendleton played the same part on the stage - he may have been better cast, in fact, than Jones, since the latter doesn't come across as an academic in most of his films, but rather a man educated on the streets. I didn't quite feel that Jones had that self-preening that the part requires to be there in some measure. Nevertheless, he plays it in his own way, reinterpreting it so that what he does with it is effective. 

Jackson has never looked more at home on the screen. He's played some very oddball roles over the years (one of the Jedi in the second Star Wars trilogy, and that strange breakable character in Unbreakable) but here he's suited to the part completely. For much of the film his character seems to have the upper hand - the Christian apologist-cum-evangelist he might be seen as - but towards the end he realises that nothing he says will stop the other man attempting suicide again. He's knocked down, but not knocked out; he's done his level best, and that's all he could have done. God doesn't force his way into a person's life; if that person (White) doesn't want him, he'll let him be. And White doesn't want God
, come what may. Much of White's problem is a self-loathing, but he also gradually reveals that he loathes everyone else too (though he manages to tolerate Black long enough to stay and have a meal with him), and this hatred of his 'brother' (as Black calls other people) is perhaps his downfall.

But the film can be read in more than one way. As a Christian I can hear the old apologetic arguments skilfully framed by White. For some of the movie, Black's counter-arguments seem weak, and lacking in conviction. It's only at the end that he shows passion for his own belief. But an agnostic or atheist coming to the movie may well see it from the other side, and find White's Christian arguments the weaker ones. McCarthy leaves it open for both to chew over their viewpoints. McCarthy is quoted as not being a fan of writers who do not 'deal with issues of life and death,' and there's no doubt what this film is about.

The Help

I began to read The Help in a bookshop the other day and put it on my list of books to catch up on at some point.  In the meantime my wife and I went to the film version last night; that's probably spoilt some of the surprises of the book, but no doubt still leaves the pleasures of the writing for the future.

The movie deals with the bunch of incidents and stories effectively, as well as with the wide range of characters.  There are strong performances from the black members of the cast, and some slightly over-the-top ones from the white actresses (actresses being the operative word: men hardly make any impact in this movie).  This is, I suspect, intentional: one of the many contrasts in the movie.

The story, as probably everyone knows by now, is about the black women who act as maids, housekeepers, grocery shoppers, cooks, cleaners and general dogsbodies to the white community in Jackson, Mississippi, in the 60s - at a time just on the cusp of the huge changes that would come between blacks and whites in the US.  Emma Stone plays a white woman who's been brought up by the family's black maid - a very common approach to child-rearing, apparently: one of the other major characters, Aibileen (the narrator in the book and played here by Viola Davis) is in the process of doing the same thing for her white family during most of the movie.   This curious bit of interracial leniency in these families is in stark contrast to the insistence by most of them that the black maids don't use the same toilets, or plates, or sit at the same tables - nor do a host of other things while working in the house.  (Toilets play quite a big part in this movie, incidentally.)

Stone's character Skeeter is an aspiring and compassionate would-be journalist, and latches onto the real stories of the black maids, and how they feel about the whole process of being degraded by the whites.   The revelations are both grim and hilarious, and Stone  publishes a book on the topic - it's also called The Help.   (The real author of The Help, Kathryn Stockett, struggled to get her book published: she received some sixty rejections in all before it took off.)

As a movie, The Help is consistently entertaining, sometimes troubling (we know that many of these issues have been overcome, but no doubt there are also many lingering ones), beautifully filmed, with a cast of excellent actresses.  (As I said, the men barely get a look in - only Skeeter's boyfriend has much screentime, and even he proves to be much less than she demands of him).  That wonderful actress Alison Janney makes frequent appearances as Skeeter's mother - wearing an appalling set of wigs.  I don't know whether this has something to do with the fact that she is supposed to have some form of cancer, but only once does Janney look anything like her gorgeous self: mostly she has dreadful black things stuck on her head.   Viola Davis also appears to be wearing a wig, and it seems a little less than suitable as well.   Both actresses overcome this minor issue with aplomb.   Bryce Dallas Howard plays the nastier of the white women with extreme venom, and may or may not be redeemed in the end.   Sissy Spacek appears as her alcoholic mother, but doesn't have quite enough of a role to really get to grips with. Cicely Tyson plays the old maid who brought up Skeeter; she isn't in the movie much, but brings great depth of emotion to her two big scenes.  However, like most of the black actresses she is difficult to hear at times.  I don't know whether it was the particular screening we saw of this movie, but the black women seemed to be mumbling their lines in some scenes in such a way that it was hard to understand them; as well, there was a lack of sharpness to the focus of many scenes.  Perhaps both of these were faults of the cinema rather than the moviemaking.   And it wasn't just my ears: my wife had the same trouble understanding some of the lines as well.

This is an excellent ensemble piece, and well worth viewing.   I'll still read the book, I think!

PS I should have mentioned Octavia Spencer, who as Minny, has the other major black role, and steals several scenes.   She is superb.   And also that the movie has a satisfactory ending which suddenly unwinds in the last scene.  Which is probably appropriate. 

More on Virtual Community

Back on the 15th Feb this year, in a post on this site, we presented a short video clip in which Shane Hipps was interviewed on 'virtual community'. His view of it was fairly negative, and has caused quite a lot of common on the Out of Ur site.

He now responds:

First, my language in the video was less nuanced than it might have been in written form. That is my tendency in a spontaneous oral interview. I will try to be more precise here.

When I say that “virtual community” is not “community,” that does not mean it has no value. As I indicated in the interview, I know that all kinds of deeply meaningful connections and interactions happen online all the time. I have experienced them myself. Some may want to call this “community.” Fair enough. I just don’t call it “community.” That is not intended to dismiss or demean any one’s experience online.

The rest of the post is here.

And for more on the subject, including Twitter, Facebook et al, we have Anne Jackson's take on the subject.

Ian McKellan

There was Ian McKellen's playful quip during Christopher Lee's first day of filming in the Isengard gardens. In a scene later dropped from the film, Gandalf spots a couple of orcs scuttling amongst the trees. 'Orcs?' Gandalf was to have asked in astonishment. 'Servants of the Enemy in Isengard?' To which Saruman replied, 'Not his servants - mine,' a first indication that Saruman the White was not all that he seemed.

On one take, Ian revised the line to, 'Orcs? - And so far from Auckland!'

From chapter nine of Peter Jackson: A Film-Maker's Journey, by Brian Sibley.