One Flew over the Cuckoo's nest- Review

One flew over the Cuckoo’s nest (1975)

Cast: Jack Nicholson, Louise Flecher, Brad Dourif, Danny DeVito, Will Sampson, William Harding, Christopher Lloyd

Director: Milos Foreman

Set in an unnamed Oregon town in 1963, the setting of the film is the town’s mental institution. The opening scene shows the admitting of  38 year old Randle Mc Murphy (Jack Nicholson), a criminal serving a sentence for statutory rape of a minor, due to insanity, which the viewer quickly realizes, is faked by him in order to avoid a longer jail sentence. The doctor incharge is not convinced and he commits him to one of the wards for observation till the insanity is proved or disproved. His fellow patients in the ward include Billy Bibbit (Brad Dourif), a 30 year old stammering  suicidal nervous wreck who has a deathly fear of his mother, Charlie Cheswick (Sydney Lassik), a timid man prone to childish temper fits,the delusional Martini (Danny DeVito) ,Dale Harding (William Redfield) a well educated paranoid,  the morbid and profane Max Taber (Christopher Lloyd), Jim Sefelt (William Duell) and finally, “Chief “ Bromden (Will Sampson), a gigantic native American who is presumed deaf & mute, whose been there for almost two decades.

The institution is run by the domineering Nurse Mildred Ratched (Louise Fletcher),who keeps the patients severely under control by the means of mind numbing routine and therapy sessions, that McMurphy soon discovers, are actually humiliation sessions, where the patients are made to tell their personal problems presumably in order for resolving them through consensus, but instead it only causes them to break down and fight rabidly with each other. McMurphy at first enjoys thoroughly but his smile fades as he sees Nurse Ratched smiling triumphantly, looking at the squabbling patients.

McMurphy also discovers that the patients fear Ratched and cannot do anything which is disagreeable for her (the exception is Chief, who being deaf & mute is excused from these sessions). Their fear of her is stronger than their desire to get cured in order to return to the outside world. He realizes that Nurse Ratched’s therapy sessions and the institution’s schedule are designed more to keep the patients docile and under control than curing them. Her complete control only means that her superiors approve of her methods.

McMurphy quickly becomes the dominant and most troublesome patient in the ward by his complete disregard for authority and rules, like gambling in the ante room and smoking and swearing loudly, refusing to take medication. He begins challenging Ratched whenever possible.He once tries convincing her for allowing the patients  to watch a baseball game on TV instead of  listening to the routine monotonous music. She refuses. McMurphy in defiance, stands in front of the switched off television screen and starts shouting an imaginary commentary of a baseball game which causes the other patients to disrupt the entire ward.

He also bonds with the patients by the means of basketball game, this causes the otherwise withdrawn Chief to silently admire him. In his most daring move, he wrests control of the bus meant to take the patients on a tour, herds his fellow patients aboard, picks up his prostitute girlfriend Candy (Marya Small) on the way and on reaching the shore, takes them all fishing in a boat after  tricking its captain. The patients have a time of their lives till the authorities finally arrive.This is one of the only two outdoors scene in the entire film, and it makes the viewer feel the brief freedom that the patients enjoy in the open sea, away from the claustrophobic environment.

This causes the hospital to tighten its restrictions on McMurphy and it even considers sending him back to jail.  McMurphy learns a startling fact: The hospital holds the power to detain him, Billy and Chief indefinitely. All the other patients in the ward, except the very hard cases, are voluntarily committed and can leave anytime, but they don’t. During one of the discussion session, Cheswick gets out of control and McMurphy and Chief get into a fist fight with the guards. All are sent for electrotherapy. While waiting for his turn, McMurphy learns to his delight, that Chief has only been pretending to be deaf & mute all this time to avoid attention. Upon his therapy, he returns with a stone face and jerky movements much to the shock of his ward, but then suddenly reanimates to everyone’s joy that this was just one of his pranks.

That same night, he decides that he has had enough and decides to escape, as he  cannot risk being sent back to prison. He asks Chief to come with him, but he declines, stating his fear of the world. He calls Candy and another girl, asking them to smuggle liquor with them. They sneak in, and McMurphy even ropes in the warden in the liquor party involving the patients, which quickly leads to the dismantling of the entire ward.

McMurphy then starts bidding all the patients farewell and sees that Billy is the most emotional to see him go. He decides, in his last act of infamy, to have Candy spend a night with Billy, and the two retire into an adjoining room. McMurphy and the other patients then, unluckily for them, fall asleep owing to the combined effects of alcohol and the daily medication.

Nurse Ratched and the orderlies arrive in the morning to find the ward wrecked completely. All the patients are summoned. McMurphy and Chief are held back as they try to make a quick getaway. She is enraged to find a half dressed Billy with Candy, who for the first time faces her confidently without stammering. Ratched ,using her usual weapon against him, threatens that she will tell his mother about it. Billy reverts to his old stammering and nervous self, begging the nurse not to do something like that. She calmly  has the orderlies lock him up in a room. Billy, unable to control his nervous breakdown, kills himself with a pair of scissors. McMurphy is devastated and viciously attacks Nurse Ratched when she tells the patients that “they should get on with their routine”. He nearly strangles her to death before being knocked down by the orderlies and taken away.

The film then moves many days ahead. The ante room is shown with the patients playing their usual card games, with all kinds of rumours flying around about McMurphy, ranging from he has been subdued like a lamb to he has escaped. The Chief listens curiously. Nurse Ratched is shown smiling weakly, just a shadow of her former self.

Late that night, as others sleep, McMurphy is brought in by a couple of orderlies and laid on his bed. Chief rushes over to him and whispers that they escape right away. Getting no response, the Chief tries lifting him up and is horrified to find out that he has been lobotomized (Lobotomy: Severing the nerves that connect the right hemisphere of the brain with the left. It was a cruel way used in the earlier times to subdue difficult mental cases). Chief decides that he cannot leave his friend in such a pitiful existence to be seen by the other patients as a symbol of Nurse Ratched’s victory. He suffocates McMurphy to death before the others wake up. He then smashes the window of the ward by a heavy slab and escapes, just as dawn breaks.

Based on Ken Kesey’s novel of the same name, the film swept all the major Academy awards, including best actor (Nicholson), actress(Fletcher), director (Foreman) and film. The only one to lose out was Brad Dourif.

Jack Nicholson makes Randle McMurphy an unforgettable character. He is the soul of this film, and he plays the anti authoritarian, rebellious, crazy and unpredictable character to perfection. His transformation from a selfish repeated offender looking for an easy way out to a person who eventually pays the ultimate price for his caring for his fellow inmates (he gets quite a few chances to escape, and he chooses not to everytime, in order to help his newfound friends, thereby sealing his own fate)  is marvelous.His performance is a lesson for any aspiring actor and a treat for any admirer of cinema.

Louise Fletcher brilliantly plays one of most coldest villains in film history. As Nurse Ratched, she personifies the system, which drives everyone crazy in the guise of benifitting them. Of the supporting cast, Brad Dourif as Billy Babbit, is the best as the tragically fragile young man whose life is cruelly snuffed out of him. Small but significant performances are given by Christopher Lloyd , William Redding . Will Samspson as Chief Bromden is impressive.

The word milestone is not used very often in cinema, and rarer is still a film that lives upto the tag, like this one. Czech director Milos Foreman adapts the novel with a few minor changes for the screen (in the novel, Chief Bromden is the narrator and all the other inmates escape in the end).The story uses the context of a mental institution to portray the never ending and largely hopeless struggle of the individual against the establishment. It shows , without any flowery promises that this results in the certain destruction of the individual or the section fighting it, but it has to be  carried on for the hope of change. The film ends in McMurphy’s defeat and destruction, but he also ends up shrinking Ratched into a mere mortal from someone who looks invincible. Out of the two people whose life he changes, Billy meets a sad end, but Chief Bromden lives upto the hope sowed in him by the doomed McMurphy, thereby signifying a little change that has been acheived. Though some criticisms might be made for portraying the inmates as someone McMurphy can use to carry out his adventures, it is by a far excusable in this otherwise flawless film.As someone who escaped from erstwhile Czechoslovakia during the Prague Spring in 1968 (Soviet Union’s crackdown of anti communist forces in that country), Foreman surely pours his understanding of fighting a totalitarian establishment into the film beautifully. The largely interior settings depicting the mental ward and the robotic movements and compliance of the patients to the numbing schedule depicts the establishment’s total domination of the individual is a contrast to the final scene of the film which shows the dawn breaking through the smashed window from which Chief Bromden escapes to an uncertain but welcome future.

What would you choose?

 http://theviewspaper.net/one-flew-over-the-cuckoos-nest-1975/

Tiger

An era ends today, by the demise of Balasaheb Thackeray, undoubtedly the most influential, popular and controversial figure in anyone’s recent memory in India .

Political acumen came both by inheritance and by profession to him, the former as the son of Keshav “Prabodhankar” Thackeray and the latter as cartoonist which he always has been at heart from the age of twenty. His father famously declared when Shiv Sena was formed in 1966, that he now dedicates  his son to Maharashtra. Balasaheb  did more than just live upto the words of his father, who was instrumental in the  Samyukta Maharashtra movement, (which called for a united Maharashtra inclusive of Mumbai, Konkan, Western Maharashtra, Vidarbha and Marathwada regions but exclusive of Gujarat), a dream which finally was realized in 1960. Starting out initially as a leader who was dedicated to the cause of the Marathi Manoos, he quickly took the Hindu cause to his heart, sadly being the only leader in the political scenario to fearlessly address Hindu causes when India’s politics has made appeasement its raison d’etre (You might be proud of being Marathi, Punjabi, Bengali or Gujarati, but remember, until you don’t establish your identity as a Hindu, you will nevr be able to live a life of  self respect). Another quality of his which made him rarest of the rare in Indian politics plagued with hypocrisy and double standards , was his complete lack of political correctness and double speak and his fearless views which made him both a hero and a villain, depending on whose perspective he was viewed from (What is in my heart is in my mouth . My words are shot like a bullet and I do not care if truth hurts anyone).

The popular media and the popular culture and public opinion that spawns from it has painted him in the most satanic colours possible, as some sort of a bloodthirsty psychopath like figure who could speak nothing but hate speeches (The Washington Post had once described him as “the man who rules Bombay the way Al Capone ruled Chicago — through fear and intimidation”) .In a world blighted by political correctness and self denial, truth automatically becomes the biggest hate speech.

The so called civilized viewers and adherents of popular media who never lose an opportunity to malign him and swear by the spirit of Mumbai and the freedom it gives to them forget conveniently that without Balasaheb, Mumbai would neither have spirit nor it would be free. They perhaps do not know that Balasaheb started his journey towards prominence by destroying the power of the Communist trade unions that dominated the mills which were the backbone of the city in the 1960s and 70s, thereby having Mumbai continue as the financial capital of the country instead of becoming another Kolkata. In the post Babri demolition riots, when the city was at the mercy of jehadi mobs, it was the Shiv Sena and not the police which saved the city from certain massacre by taking the attack ruthlessly to the attackers themselves. But for him, Dawood & Co would still have been here dictating terms instead of having to flee to Dubai and Karachi. 

It was him who brought India to the world entertainment map when he encouraged Michael Jackson to have a concert in Mumbai in 1996, when some international artist coming to India was unthinkable. During its four-and-a-half-year stint(1995-99), the Shiv Sena government renamed Bombay to Mumbai and started various infrastructure projects like the Krishna Valley Irrigatiion Project and the Mumbai-Pune Expressway. It also built 56 flyovers in Mumbai and started the slum redevelopment scheme. 

Where else would you find a public figure in India who had all the opportunities to come to power and retain it forever, yet preferred to remain out of power because he did not compromise with his ideals and form third rate alliances with third rate people for coming to power and neither did took part in vote bank politics and casteism, both of which he hated. He never resorted to minority appeasement, even at the cost of not winning election when his party lost his power in 1999.The EC banned him for five years for his speeches and editorials in Jan 1993 in Saamna where he urged Hindus to pick up arms to defend themselves (the same commission ignores anti hindu speeches made by the likes of MIM and many SP leaders).Some examples:-

A Saamna editorial ahead of the demolition of the Babri Masjid said “How does your Shiv Sainik appear as he is marching towards Ayodhya? Like the roaring lion spreading terror, with the gait of an intoxicated elephant, like the assault of a rhino which reduces to powder a rocky mountain, like the manoeuvres of a leopard: our infinite blessings to these Hindu warriors who are marching towards Ayodhya”.

Or after the March 1993 Mumbai bombings which killed 250 people, he openly called for all anti national elements among the Muslims to be thrown out ofthe country, since the bombings were funded by Muslim expats and carried out by in the muslims in India. His definition of anti-national Muslims included “those who fired crackers of victory whenever Pakistan defeated India in cricket ”. 

Or hen Kashmiri separatists declared that there would be no more Amarnath yatras, Thackeray shut them up with one sentence “Then there would be no Hajj through Maharashtra.”

The seculars surely cried for his head when they read this but they had remained silent when lakhs of Kashmiri pundits were forced out of their homeland by Pakistan backed militiants. While the rest of the political parties looked away because KPs did not form a vote bank and the seculars remained silent as Hindu lives have no value, it was this extremist Balasaheb who opened the doors for them by making the govt of Maharashtra create quotas for them in all the educational institutes across the state when the J&K govt itself was treating them like a pariah. 700000 KPs benefitted from this, something which the bleeding heart media will never highlight in its quest to glorify the Kashmiri separatists. A few years earlier during the 1984 anti Sikh riots , he had declared and ensured that no Congress goon would be able raise a hand on a Sikh in Maharashtra. Today, when he is no more, gurudwaras across Mumbai are open for lodging of people travelling from length and breadth of the state and country to attend his funeral.

He never budged from his ideals even at the cost of losing votes. In 1991 Chhagan Bhujbal defected to the join the Congress as he did not agree with Thackeray’s opposition to the Mandal commission and the provision of reservations for the OBCs.With his exit, the Sena lost a chunk of its OBC votes. Any other leader in any other party would have lost no time in backing a populist move like this. But not him.

His vehement opposition to any kind of ties with Pakistan unless it ends cross border terrorism has been legendary, which made him an infamous figure in Pakistan as well. 

He was easily the best orator in the last fifty years, and there was no one like him who could raise the populace to action without being an elected representative.

To those who say that he did not do anything for the people outside Maharashtra, I wish to ask what have the likes of  Gandhi family done for the constituencies of Phulpur, Rae Bareilly and Amethi? 

How can a person like him who has fought the caste menace all his life be a bigot but the numerous politicians who have built their careers on caste identities and caste vote banks be secular?

 How can a Shivsena that smashes the jehadi underworld be a threat to India but secular parties that give citizenship to Bangladeshi illegals, a glory? 

The writer did not agree with a lot of his view points but in his opinion, one Balasaheb Thackeray who calls for the destruction Pakistan during Kargil war is better  than one hundred Nitish Kumars who go across to Pakistan and praise it to gain some brownie points of secularism. An extremist Shiv Sena that always runs to the rescue and volunteer work in case of a terrorist attack and natural disaster is anyday prerferable to a secular Congress that fattens up terrorists and criminals in five star jails and sucks the blood of the common man.

The roar will never be heard again in Shivaji park. Mumbai will take time to come to the terms that the towering personality which was a part of its life for fifty years is no more.You were certainly a giant among the khadi clad pygmies, Sir, a welcome change from the pathetic Gandhian buffoonery that we have become used to. May your legacy live and inspire..

Jai Hind Jai Maharashtra.

http://theviewspaper.net/the-tiger-bids-farewell/

Pro Life?

“This is a catholic country”.

With these five words from the doctors, Savita Halanappavar’s fate was sealed in the Dublin hospital where she was admitted in the last week of Oct 2012.  Suffering from severe back pain, she was discovered to suffer a miscarriage of her 17 week pregnancy. Yet , every doctor who came to check her told her that as long as the foetal heart beat was present, the abortion could not be carried out because of the country’s catholic beleifs . It did not matter to the doctors that Savita was neither Irish by birth or citizenship nor Catholic ,nor the foetus couldn’t have been revived by any means.The supreme court of Ireland had already ruled in the favour of terminating the pregnancy in case of any danger to the mother’s life in 1992 (a ruling which had not been implemented by the subsequent Irish governments).The 31 year old Indian dentist withered in agony for four days and by the time the remains of the foetus were removed, it was too late. Septicemia had set in and the blood poisoning rendered various internal organs useless. She breathed her last on Oct 2012. At the time of writing, the Irish embassy in India has assured of an impartial probe to be carried out.

Before blaming the Republic of Ireland, one has to take into account that if there were a few medics of mayhem, there were also hundreds and thousands of Irish citizens who protested strongly for this unpardonable death of a foreigner in their country. It was therefore, poor taste on the part of a few imminent panelists on an Indian news channel to give the colour of racism to it. Nothing can be farther from the truth. This is not about being Hindu or a Christian or a European or an Asian.

This is about the damage caused by organized religious code which in a few countries, vehemently refuses to adapt itself to the modern world. The unfortunate Savita happened to be in one of them. And if the  Irish doctors applied these parameters to a Hindu woman who was not a citizen that led to her death, what must have happened to countless Catholic Irishwomen in the name of upholding the “word of god”? And how many more women are in danger if these archaic laws are not relaxed?

The Vatican has always reiterated its opposition to abortion and even contraception because it interferes with “God’s will”. Missionaries too toe their parent organization’s line, the most famous of them, the Albanian nun popularly known as Mother Teresa talked about outrightly banning both abortion and contraception (The likes of her saw poverty and suffering as god’s will too instead of scourges which must be eradicated. A senior Republican politician had said that even pregnancy caused by rape is god’s will, a comment which was rightly condemned wholeheartedly in his own country. In all of the largely Christian western world the debate between pro choice and pro life continues unabated.

Since the last two centuries, the hold of every church has diminished over its adherents. Young people across western world are by and large living their lives as contrary as possible to what the church has been preaching for nearly two millennia. The church’s views on putting an end to contraception, abortion, women working, divorce and even homosexuality find hardly any takers among the young today. Add to that the various child abuse cases around the world involving priests happening every now and then, and the picture becomes even murkier.

While it is true that feminism has brought forth untold horrors in the name of free thought and progressivism like promiscuity and misoandry , the biggest damage done by it has been the break up of the family system and the blatant misuse of the pro choice argument . It is not at all rare to find the so called progressive woman in western societies who kills her unborn child due to her desire of a free life without family obligations, her career or simply because the pregnancy is a result of one of her numerous adventures. These are the very women who are the most cacophonic and vocal about “a woman has a right over her body and she can do whatever she pleases with it”. A woman does have a right over her body, but to use this as an excuse for a promiscuous lifestyle is disgusting beyond comparison. Aborting an unborn child just in order to have a “free” life or just because it is a result of a fling is nothing less than slaughter.

On the other hand, the talk of pro life has no meaning if it endangers the life of the to be mother due to birth complications or condemns a victim of rape to go ahead and have the child which would remind her of the trauma every moment from thereon. It also has no  meaning when it discourages the use of contraceptives as it is seen in the poverty stuck abnormally large families across many conservative societies around the world. It is often sad to see  incurable patients living a life worse than death because pro life does not allow the termination of life in these cases.

It is upto the society to decide whether religious views and laws are more important than their safety or their very lives. When someone’s well being or safety is made subservient to some code of conduct, then the time has come for self introspection by every individual in that community as it is an indication that something is seriously wrong with it.

Pro life argument is meaningless if it endangers or denigrates one life in the favour of a dim possibility that the other life might sustain.  That would just be a pro existence argument. Pro life just doesn’t mean in favour of not letting something  perish. A real pro life philosophy will mean that everyone has a right to a free, healthy and dignified life, where no one would be subservient to any self appointed representatives of morality and ethics. Freedom that costs life is not freedom at all, but a life which costs freedom isn’t a life at all either.

 http://theviewspaper.net/pro-life/

Devo bhava?

Our culture's unique outlook allows a person to discover and depict the divine in his/her own way as it holds that god is but the reality that surrounds us all and one can have n number of manifestations of it. One has to discover one’s  god within oneself instead of imagining it as a super cosmic, scary entity and separating it from its creation altogether which leads to a very material and utilitarian view of life. So it also encourages to see god in every person or living thing around oneself, in one’s elders like teachers and also one’s parents.

Our culture has always placed parents on a high pedestal (maatr devo bhava, pitr devo bhava – mother is god, father is god), primarily because they are the ones who are the reason for everything  to do with us, right from being the reason of us coming into the world to the person we will be eventually. Being compared to the divine is our culture’s way of showing gratitude to the wonderful being that is the parent, but many a times, this can be hard on both the offspring and the parent.

Children believe that their parents are perfect, flawless beings who can do no wrong. Boys want a girl just like their mother, girls want a man who is like their father. It is ingrained into them that come what may, their parents can never be wrong or do wrong. To contradict them or to even think that they can be wrong is a sin because afterall, they are “gods”, and the children have to be forever indebted to them for the very reason that the mother has bore them in her womb and the father has put his very existence in supporting them. They have to obey every command of their parents and follow them unquestioningly. The children on their part are shattered when they discover that  their idols are the very same lowly common folk which they see and loathe all the time. In case the parent in question does something which is unacceptable in a civilized society or which is a criminal act, it can make them lose faith in themselves and even the humanity.

In all this crowd of pious platitudes and moral self righteousness, what really needs to be explained to the children is that parents too, like everyone else are human beings and they are not immune to the temptations and weaknesses, just like other people. What needs to be underlined to them here is that nothing in the world is perfect, least of all human beings, and mostly it is the imperfection which makes us unique and beautiful in a way. Just like the parents have accepted them the way they are, the children too need to realize that they must accept the parents with all their faults. After all, may it be any parent, he or she has the same limitations which any other human has. Deification of a parent has the unhealthy effect of the child having unrealistic expectations from them which leads to a grudge when most of them are not met, may it be not being able to afford something for them which the parents of their peers are able to easily (XYZ’s dad has brought him a bike, why can’t you?)  or not being able to bring them up in a way which they think is right when they reach adulthood (Why did you make me opt for this stream? Why couldn’t you afford to put me in so or so college/institution?) . Children have to understand that parents don’t owe them luxuries nor are they there to cater to their whims or fancies, and they certainly don’t owe them a living as a lot of them are delusional enough to believe (My didn’t help me set up, he didn’t put a word to his contacts to help me get started).

Parents on their part, need to realize that children are not their second chance in life and that one can’t have a “made to order” or a “custom made” offspring (Maybe sometime in our already scary looking future, but not today). They are not display articles, which have to be shown around in social events (You know, he scored 90% in so and so exam, he’s got an admission in xxx or he’s a xxx in xxx company). They aren’t some factory made material that have to be standardized and compared to others (XYZ has scored so many marks in his exams. He also is in his school’s debating team. Why can’t you do the same?). They aren’t hired workers who have to be chided for underperformance for what has been spent on them (we have got you everything you need and what you want. Why can’t you score more marks than XYZ or have dreams of becoming an engineer like WXY? How can you think of becoming a musician when it is our dream that you become a doctor?). Parents must understand that their children did not ask them to help them come into this world. It is them, who have for their own will and liking brought them into this world and from the moment that the children open their eyes, it is their duty to put their whole and soul in nurturing them and making a worthwhile person out of them,(just like it is the children’s duty to be grateful and being good to their parents). It is a thankless and the most pious work in the world, and no one forced them to do it but they themselves have set forth to do it, and must face the consequences, good or bad, with a humble heart.

The concept of maatr devo bhava, pitr devo bhava seems like an outdated bookish adage in an increasingly materialistic society where parents treat their children as their meal ticket/second  chance in life/ controlled machine cum display piece which can be bragged about and children treat their parents as nothing more than an ATM machine. People who blame the young generation for being useless and depraved forget that who raised them in the first place. When the adults have made the world full of greed, lust and perversion, it is nothing but hypocrisy and delusion to expect goodness from the children who, from the moment of stepping out of the house are embraced by the decadence which their parents’ generation has helped create and thrived in.

How can one relate the parents to the divine who ingrain their own pettiness in their children, bring them up with a display mindset and materialistic attitude, don’t buy them any book but fill the house with tabloids, who themselves see nothing other than cheap television shows and third rate films, who squabble all day in front of their children on the flimsiest of issues, who have but empty and inflated words to say in case of moral education but no action to follow it and most important who bring up children to become adults who feel at comfort in continuing the same ways that are the bane of the society today?

One does not need to deify their parents in order to love or respect them. All is needed is to accept that parents and children are god’s gift to each other, the former who are great inspite of their blemishes and imperfections and being grateful for the efforts that they put to the best of their limited abilities in raising their children and the latter because of the unique beauty in each one of them. If there is any complaint that the children have towards the parents from it should be rectified not by lamentations but trying to do a better job when they assume the role of parents when their time comes.

  http://theviewspaper.net/devo-bhava/

American Beauty review

American Beauty (1999)

Cast: Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening, Chris Cooper, Thora Birch, Mena Suvari, Wes Bentley

Director: Sam Mendes

How about a film, whose leading protagonist is neither a good looking kick ass hero nor a genius whom the world admires? Leave that, the protagonist here is not even a role model for his own family, but is abhorred by him and is a somewhat defeated person, with no spark left in him and in severe midlife crisis? Can such a film be both a classic and a box office sensation?

Is it a comedy, drama, satire , thriller, skin flick , fantasy or a moral tale?

Maybe all of the above.

The events are narrated by the deceased Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey), who tells the story of the last year of his life. “In less than a year, I’ll be dead. And in a way, I’m dead already”, he begins. Whacking off in the shower is his “highlight of the day”. Outwardly appearing as living an ideal suburban life, 42 year old Lester’s life is anything but ideal. Stuck in a dead end advertising job for the last 15 years, he is a literal punching bag for  his materialistic and pretentious wife Carolyn (Annette Bening), who has shunned him both emotionally and physically,  and finds no place in his introvert daughter Jane’s (Thora Birch) life, who hates both her parents. Carolyn abhors him for his lowly prospects and Jane thinks that he is just disgusting.

Lester is one day asked to write a self appraisal to show his utility for the company. This makes Carolyn’s behaviour even more insulting towards him. Suddenly, Lester’s world is turned upside down when he sees Jane’s extrovert and flashy friend Angela (Mena Suvari) during Jane’s cheerleading performance and instantly begins lusting after her. Angela soon becomes aware of this and cruelly encourages him.

A new family has moves next door, that of the retired Colonel Frank Fitts (Chris Cooper), a homophobic  disciplinarian with a traumatized wife and a psychologically disturbed son Vicky (Wes Bentley), whose weird hobby includes filming everything. Unknown to his family, Ricky makes a living as  a marijuana seller . He becomes infatuated with Jane and begins stalking her  and filming her without her knowledge, and she is secretly pleased that someone is attracted to her. He soon becomes friends with Lester, who becomes his regular client.  Lester’s attraction of Angela has somehow made him a confident and outspoken person who doesn’t care about Carolyn’s opinions anymore. He beings smoking pot and works out regularly. He even trades his Toyota Camry for a 1970 Pontiac Firebird.

 On one particular day, three big events happen which determine the fate of the film’s characters. Lester, fuelled by his newly acquired confident personality, quits his job after blackmailing his company for a year’s salary with benefits (he knows about a director availing escort service with company’s funds), and joins as an attendant at a drive in restaurant to have a job with the least possible responsibilities. Carolyn starts an affair with her professional rival Buddy Kane (Peter Gallagher)  . Ricky and Jane begin a relationship.

 Lester finally stands upto  Carolyn for the first time in his life, when she berates him for losing his job. He knows that all his attempts to find any place in the lives of either his wife or daughter are useless and the least he can do is have a happy life for himself.

Spoiler

The second half of the film covers the last day of Lester’s life.

He and Angela flirt with each other much to Jane’s disgust. He signals to Ricky to call him  (for marijuana delivery) as he leaves for his job which catches Frank’s eye. He decides to investigate by searching Ricky’s room, and finds the video of a nude Lester working out in Ricky’s camcorder (which Ricky had accidentally filmed days earlier due to his obsession of filming Jane) and deduces that his son is a  homosexual (he mistakenly has been suspecting Lester being a homosexual as well because he has seen him jogging with a neighbourhood gay couple).  Carolyn and Buddy  drive into the same drive in restaurant where Lester works, and he coolly serves them even after catching the two red handed. Carolyn is  severely hurt by Lester’s indifference than the fact that she has been caught in the act. Buddy promptly breaks off the relationship, leaving Carolyn distraught. She is shown to load her gun while driving back home.

Back home, Lester calls Ricky as his marijuana has run out. Frank  spies on them through the window and mistakes their meeting for a sexual encounter. When Ricky returns, he beats him up severely and demands an explanation. Ricky, already sick of his overbearing father, lies to him that he works as a prostitute which causes Frank to throw him out of the house. Ricky goes to Lester’s house and asks Jane to leave with him and she readily agrees. Angela who is present there tries to discourage her and both Ricky and Jane shout her down.  

Frank visits Lester and asks him about his wife’s whereabouts. He replies that she’s probably with her boyfriend and he doesn’t care  as his marriage is just a sham. This reply turns Frank’s doubts into certainty. Suddenly, he kisses Lester, thereby revealing that his homophobic personality is a mere cover for his true self. Lester pulls him off and Frank leaves without another word.

Lester finds an upset Angela crying on the stairs. She asks him to tell her she is beautiful. He does, and they kiss. His dream of having the object of his desire is almost complete when Angela reveals that she is nothing like her projected slutty image and is actually a virgin. Lester suddenly sees her as a daughter and realizes that he has been wrong in lusting after her. He embraces her like a child, comforts her and the pair bond over their shared frustrations. He is pleased to know from her that Jane is in love. Angela then excuses herself to the restroom leaving a content Lester, whose life has now come to a full circle. He feels no remorse but only gladness at spurning the object of his desire. He picks up a family photograph of everyone together and gazes contently into it. A barrel of a gun appears behind his head as the camera moves away. A shot is heard and his blood is splattered on the wall. Ricky and Jane come down from their room and find Lester’s body in a pool of blood.

Lester in a final voiceover says that all his life has flashed before him at the moment of his death. (The reaction of the each of the rest of the characters is shown, when the shot rings out. Angela startled on hearing the gunshot, Carolyn devastated, and Frank changing his blood splattered  shirt, revealed to be the killer). His dying thoughts revolve around his childhood memories, Carolyn and Jane. He feels no regrets and finds it hard to be angry with what happened with him when there is so much beauty in the world. He is grateful for every moment of his short and stupid life. He concludes by saying that the viewers may not understand a word that he’s saying, but someday they will.

 Spoiler end

Look closer , the film’s caption says. Everything is not what it appears to be. The Burnham’s house is full of smiling and happy family photographs but the atmosphere in the house is anything but that. The prosperous looking neighbourhood is eerily silent, whether it be the sorrowful atmosphere in the Burnham household or  macabre in the Fritts one. Beneath the smiling faces, there is just pretentiousness or insecurity. Everyone practically lives life as a lie. Spoiler Carolyn’s fake self esteem is just a cover to hide her dissatisfaction and hate for her job. Frank’s homophobia is a cover to hide his own homosexual tendencies. Angela’s dirty talk and loose image is just a pathetic attempt by her to be seen as a glam doll. Jane while projecting herself to be aloof suffers from low self esteem and feels jealous of the extrovert Angela. The only person content and happy in the end is Lester, inspite of his life’s journey coming to a cruel and abrupt end. Spoiler end

The false image of  of happy suburbian middle class life in America (or anywhere else) lies shattered, and the film serves as an attempt to state life’s meaning, as a person’s wish to break free out of a mundane, materialistic existence , or simply that there is more to life than material stuff  or status symbols  like a particular job or social standing.

The film was the biggest hit of the year, raking in almost 2400% ROI. Sam Mendes couldn’t have asked for a better debut in Hollywood, with his film sweeping all the major awards, including five Oscars, best director for him, Best Actor for Kevin Spacey and best film. His direction is flawless, as he peels away the pompous layers of each character to reveal their vulnerable selves. He uses symbols like rose petals to depict Lester’s sexual fantasies of Angela or rain to show impending death. It simply isn’t meant for family viewing, like most great films ,and also stands out for the fact that it doesn’t patronize any character in it , trying to manipulate the viewer into backing him or her. Everyone is right from his/her point of view, and everyone faces the consequences of their actions. The script is great for not giving the film a forced happy ending, in order to give the real message of the film- Ultimate freedom comes at an ultimate price.

Among the cast,the film belongs to Kevin Spacey. As Lester Burnham, he has portrayed beautifully the very vulnerable and a very ordinary person prone to weakness and temptation, but yet remains a good human being who only wants  a more dignified and fulfilling life. Whats remarkable is that the role of Lester Burnham came to him after it was turned down by various bigger actors of 1990s, John Travolta and Bruce Willis being among the names.  Today with his Hollywood career shattered due to sexual harassment allegation claims, but that will never take away what he did in this role.

 Annette Bening is excellent as the materialistic and superfluous Carolyn who’s become a bot focussed on motivational tapes, expensive sofas and sales targets, and who in fact is a much sorrier figure than Lester. Chris Cooper is brilliant as the pathetically rigid and hypocrite Frank Fritts. Mena Suvari, Thora Birch and Wes Bentley are good in their roles and sadly couldn’t build on their success from this film.

There is beauty all over this film. Watch. And look closer.

 http://theviewspaper.net/american-beauty-a-review/

Goodfellas review

Goodfellas (1990)

Cast:  Robert DeNiro, Joe Pesci, Ray Liotta,Lorraine Braco, Paul Sorvino

Director: Martin Scorsese

"As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster."

With this background narration from Henry Hill (while he is closing the trunk lid to conceal a bloodied dying Billy Batts ) opens Martin Scorsese's gangster classic Goodfellas, which is based on the true story of Henry Hill's and his associates's  rise and fall in the Luchesse crime family in the period 1955-80.

Growing up in a Bronx neighbourhood in 1950s the young Henry Hill always admired gangsters (for me, being a gangster was bigger than being the president of USA), who according to him lived the ideal life as it can be. He soon quits school and joins the Luchesse crime family under the guardianship of Paul Cicero aka Paulie (Paul Sorvino) , where he rises quickly doing things like distributing the "cuts" to the people that matter from policemen to union leaders and collecting protection money. He meets a very influntial part of the gang Jimmy Conway (Robert DeNiro) whose main work is hijacking cargo trucks and both quickly take liking to each other. Henry learns the biggest rule of a crime life from Jimmy when he is paroled after being arrested - "Never rat on your friends and always keep your mouth shut". Henry earns the respect of all the gang members as he didnt give them away and his road to big riches is opened.

In the 60s, a now adult Henry(Ray Liotta) alongwith Tommy Vito (Joe Pesci),an increasingly psychopathic gangster and Jimmy, make a formidable trio to spread the gang's influence.But both Jimmy and Henry know that they dont have any chance of rising up the ranks of the crime family as they arent Italians.Henry,Tommy and others hang around with numerous women in nightclubs in an intimidating manner (If we wanted something, we just took it. If anyone complained twice they got hit so bad, believe me, they never complained again.) In a tragicomic twist, the owner of a nightclub who is sick of Tommy's armtwisting ranging from non payments of dues to physical assault, begs Paulie to become a partner, hoping that this would save him. Paulie instead takes an unreasonable share in everything and bleeds the place dry leaving the owner with no other option but to burn the whole place down (ironically with Henry and Tommy doing the honours) in order to collect the insurance money.

In 1967, Henry successfully carries out the Air France Robbery with Tommy , thereby making his entry into bigtime crime. Henry attracts the attention of  and later marries a neighbourhood Jewish girl Karen (Lorraine Bracco) who is bowled over by his glamourous lifestyle. She accepts her husband's crime filled life, which includes socializing solely with his gangster collegues  to his long abscences and occasional  police searches at their residence, mostly because it is giving her an opulent living.  

In 1970, Tommy's overtly violent behaviour causes mayhem when he brutally beats Billy Batts (Frank Vincent) for insulting his poor origins, Jimmy too taking part in the assault. They are clearly in trouble as Batts is a "made man" in the Gambino crime family and the three could be killed for laying their hands on him. They decide to get rid of him, stopping midway to finish off the half alive Batts (the first scene of the film) and then burying the corpse in the outskirts of the city, even stopping to have a meal in Tommy's house en route . A few months later, they are forced to exhume and rebury the decomposed corpse elsewhere as they come to know that excavation will be carried out in the land due to a new construction project.

Like others in the gang, Henry too is two timing his wife (Friday was for the girlfriends, Saturday for the wives) and soon takes a mistress. In a memorable scene when Karen pulls a gun on him, he overpowers her and tells her that he has bigger worries than her, like getting killed on the street. Paulie meets him and orders him to go back to Karen, and sends him with Jimmy to recover money from a defaulting borrower, who they beat up pretty badly. Unfortunately, the defaulter's sister happens to be a typist in the FBI, and she turns over the entire gang (her brother included) to the police. In prison, the gangsters have a luxurious life, thanks to their police connections, but still it is Henry, who gets the longest sentence. In order to make his and his family's ends meet, he resorts to  drug running from jail.

Upon release from prison in 1978,he continues his cocaine trading which he had started in jail, much to the disapproval of Paulie who sternly warns him to stop it immediately. He not only ignores this warning, but ropes in Jimmy and Tommy and various other people, including Karen, his daughters babysitter and a new drug addict girlfriend.

The same year, Henry along with Tommy, Jimmy and several crew, carries out the Lufthansa heist in JFK airport , which is the biggest hijacking of goods in US history.However, some gang members start spending the proceeds from the heist immediately, buying expensive things that put them in the spotlight . Jimmy, in  chilling cold bloodedness has them murdered along with their family and later on,also has one by one all the other participants of the heist murdered, their corpses turning up in different parts of the city for months.He also has the businessman who had given them the inside info to set up the heist, killed in order to avoid paying what he owes him. Henry understands that its Jimmy who has all the cash from the heist, and he is merely eliminating the partners to have it all to himself. But he cannot do anything.

Then one day, Tommy is lured by  promises to make him a "made man" and killed, by his own gang members as a revenge for the murder of Billy Batts eight years ago, in order to make peace with the Gambinos.

By 1980, Henry is a cocaine addicted wreck, sustaining himself solely by drug running, due to which he has alienated Paulie and the others. He is on the constant surveillance of the FBI , who finally tail him an entire and arrest him. During his absence, his house is also raided, and Karen in order to evade arrest and conviction flushes down the entire cocaine stash, thereby rendering themselves virtually penniless.

Jimmy goes to Paulie for help, who being angry with him due to his drug operations, pays him $3200 and ends all association with him (3200 bucks. Thats all I got, for a lifetime. Not enough even to buy myself a coffin). He gets a final shock when he realizes that Jimmy intends to have him killed, by setting him up in a hit, in order to erase the last link between him and the Lufthansa heist.

  

With no other way to save himself and his family, Henry agrees to become an FBI informant under the witness protection plan. As a result of his collaboration and his testimony, Paulie, Jimmy and all the major members of the gang are arrested and sentenced to long terms in prison without parole. Henry himself gets a sentence which is further reduced due to his collaboration.

The last shot of the film shows a very vulnerable looking Henry Hill ,now divorced, who in a final voice over says that the good times are over and that he is penniless just like the average working people that he used to ridicule (I'm an average nobody. I get to live the rest of my life like a schmuck). The closing credits show his fate and that of all the others in the gang , being put away for life.

The film is based on the novel Wiseguys, based on Henry Hill's account and Scorsese maintains the film as close to reality, keeping a good pace, with a background narration done by Henry and in some places, Karen. The surnames of the major characters except Hill were changed and artistic liberty was taken for a few events. In no scene does it glorify the organized crime that is being portrayed onscreen and it shows gangsters as what they really are, vermin beneath the shining suits and opulent lifestyle. It perfectly shows, with the example of Henry, that crime never pays and nothing lasts which is earned from it. It gives this message very subtlely, without any preaching or moral dialogues, instead leaving the viewer to figure this out himself as the film goes along.

Ray Liotta portrays Henry efficiently, right from the background narration to his transition from a brash gangster to a sorry shadow of his former self. He gets the maximum screen time and justifies it fully. This sadly remained his best performance which he could not better in his subsequent films. Ditto for Lorraine Bracco. The real Henry Hill met Liotta and told him that he loved the film. Robert DeNiro very beautifully portrays the cunning and vicious Jimmy Conway who is a friend one instant and a killer the next, his screen time is shorter than usual but just as effective. But the performance that stands out is Joe Pesci as the psychopathic Tommy Vito who is crazy and vicious at the same time. He's played Tommy to perfection (for which he won the best supporting actor oscar) as the one who jokingly intimidates Henry or the one who calmly shoots a waiter just because he is late in bringing him his drink.

Oscars again snubbed this great work and Martin Scorsese and its only Joe Pesci who got his due here. However, it rightly was a big commercial and critical success and will always remain a favourite for any avid film viewer. A must watch, for great story, acting and filmmaking.

 http://theviewspaper.net/goodfellas-a-review/

Raging Bull review

Raging Bull (1980)

Starring: Robert DeNiro, Joe Pesci, Cathy Moriarty

Directed by: Martin Scorsese

Raging Bull is not just about boxing. It is more about a boxer's life out of the ring. Shot entirely in black and white, the biopic is based on the turbulent career and more turbulent life of the two time middleweight champion Jake La Motta, who was known popularly as Raging Bull. It covers the period 1941-1964, the first half showing his boxing days and the second half his very less glamorous post retirement years.

The film opens in 1964 where an aging and overweight Jake LaMotta (Robert DeNiro) is rehearsing his lines for a standup comedy act. The scene then moves to two decades earlier with JakeLaMotta losing his first major match. Jake’s brother and agent Joey (Joe Pesci) discusses Jake’s chances for a potential shot at the title with one of his mafia connections, Salvy Batts (Frank Vincent). Jake’s family life is in tatters and he constantly has ugly fights with his wife in his Bronx home. Soon, Jake gets acquainted with a 15 year old Vickie (Cathy Moriarty) and gets into a relationship with her, inspite of him being married. Jake defeats Sugar Ray Robinson twice but is denied victory in the second bout due to the judges in a biased decision. He finally gets married to Vickie. Slowly, his love for Vickie becomes an obsession. He is jealously possessive of her and looks suspiciously at every meeting of her with common acquaintances and friends, every contact of hers with a male acquaintance, even as minor as a pat on the back makes him burn within. Even his brother Joey cant escape his jealousy fuelled suspicion. Frequent fights erupt, most of which end in Vickie being abused physically. In one of his fights, which he wins against Tony Janiro ,in front of the local Mob boss, Tommy Como (Nicholas Colsantro) , he brutally smashes Janiro’s face just because he knows that Vickie finds him attractive. Later when discussing Jake’s victory with journalists in Copacabana night club, Joey spots Vickie in the company of Salvy and his friends. He blames and attacks Salvy and injures him badly in a fight which spills out to the street. This puts him in grave danger as he has laid hands on the mafia men. Tommy Como calls both the parties for a truce and tells Joey that Jake will have to throw his next match if he wants to have a shot at the title. Jake does not even put up a fight in the said match, thereby earning him a disqualification. He cries bitterly in the dressing room. Inspite of the disqualification, he goes on to win the middleweight title in his next bout against Marcel Cerdan in 1949.

 

The title win and subsequent success the following year do nothing to quell the jealousy within him about Vickie, his insecurities only become worse. Things come to the worst one day when he blatantly asks Joey whether he and Vickie have something going in between them. Joey leaves disgusted , after telling him that he must concentrate on retaining his title instead of indulging in such repulsive behaviour. Unintimidated, he confronts Vickie asking her the same, to which she replies, being fed up of the nonstop torture that she has relations with Joey and every man in the neighbourhood. Enraged, Jake goes over to Joey's house and beats him up brutally in front of his family. That spells the end of relations between the two brothers. 

 

Jake successfully defends his title against Laurent Dauthille in 1950, a match even his estranged brother Joey watches on TV. After the victory, Jake calls Joey in an attempt to reconcile but is unable to speak anything when Joey answers the phone. Joey shouts a barrage of abuse when he hears nothing at the other end, thinking that it is Salvy who has called. Jake simply puts down the reciever and never makes another attempt to call his brother again. Jake's career slowly starts to go downhill and he loses his title to Sugar Ray Robinson in 1951 in a bloody encounter. In one of the most poignant scenes, a defeated, bloody faced and swollen eyed La Motta smiles at Robinson saying "You were never able to knock me out, Ray".

The scene then cuts to 1956 with a now obese Jake LaMotta, having moved to Miami and now running a nightclub there, posing with Vickie and his three children for a newspaper interview, showcasing a former sportsperson’s happy post retirement life. The reality though is much different. Vickie soon asks for a divorce, telling him that she had been planning it since his retirement. She gets the custody of the children and moves away. Jake then suddenly gets arrested one morning on the charge of introducing underage girls (who had posed as 21 year olds) to other patrons of his nightclub. He is unable to raise enough money for parole, eventually resorting to break his title belt to sell the encrusted gems, only to be told by the pawn shop owner that they would have been more valuable had he left them in the belt. In the most memorable scene from the film ,he bangs his head and pounds the walls of his prison cell, crying and repenting his actions and questioning his misfortune.

The scene then moves to two years later, in 1958.On being freed, he moves back to New York and continues his gigs at various night clubs in addition to being a manager in them. One night, after one of his stand up comedy acts, he sees Joey on the street. He calls out to him and asks him to forgive him, but Joey keeps walking. Finally he catches up with him near his car and hugs him and asks for forgiveness. Joey tells him that he has forgiven him and then drives away without another word.

The viewer then comes back to the first scene in 1964 where La Motta is practicing his lines and in between pondering what might have been had things been a little different and had Joey looked out for him (It is implied that Joey never contacted him again). A stagehand informs that his act is ready and the last shot of the film shows Jake exiting the dressing room, shadowboxing , like the older days.

This isnt a biopic about a sportsman hero because this is anything but a hero. This is a story of a man who inspite of reaching great heights in the ring is pulled down to the abyss because of his abhorrent behaviour outside the ring.

The film was a critical success and emerged as the years best. Martin Scorsese made it to redeem himself after nearly dying of a fatal drug overdose a year earlier. The film is based on La Motta's autobiography Raging Bull:My Story, and a lot of changes were made for the script (The character of Joey is an amalgamation). A few moments into the film and the viewer thinks that he is watching behind the scenes footage of a celebrity. Like his other works, Scorsese does not add a bit of pleasantry but shows realism, with human nature at its ugliest, the usual expletive laced dialogues and grimness  which can be appreciated only by a true cinema fan.

This is arguably Robert DeNiro's best performance and the most physically demanding role any actor can have and he leaves no stone unturned in becoming Jake LaMotta. His stellar performance is made better by the fact that not for a moment does he even try to make the viewer feel any sympathy for or  like the hatred and envy filled character he is playing. Jake LaMotta on screen is the exact opposite to Rocky Balboa . Rocky is a a hero in everyman who we root for in his quest to reach for the sky. For Jake, who already has reached the top, the viewer feels only revulsion and later on pity, when he begins his downward slide. To prepare for the role, DeNiro trained vigourously for weeks under the real Jake LaMotta,even fighting and winning some amateur matches. Production was halted for four months and DeNiro went on a binge eating spree on gourmet food across Europe in order to add nearly 30 kilos to portray the older La Motta. On seeing his performance, the real LaMotta quipped "I never knew that I was that bad". Robert DeNiro deservedly won the  Academy award for the Best Actor for this role where he had, in his usual style erased the difference between reality and celluloid.

Joe Pesci who was an unknown actor at this time, is great as Joey. He very aptly portrays the brother who tries his best to stick with his sibling but puts and end to the whole thing when it gets beyond redemption. It was the begining of his pairing with Rober DeNiro and Martin Scorsese for a decade and a half in films like Goodfellas and Casino. Cathy Moriarty is impressive as Vicky in her debut film. Unfortunately she couldnt live upto the promise she showed in this film.

Watch this great work folks. And remember to cherish your loved ones.


http://theviewspaper.net/raging-bull-1980/