Category: 2012

Lincoln (2012)

Steven Spielberg | 2hr 29min

Steven Spielberg’s take on Abraham Lincoln may spend most of his days in and around the White House, tactically orchestrating the passage of the slavery-ending 13th Amendment, though the terror of the Civil War is never far away. Muddy battlefields of fighting and fallen soldiers are washed out in muted, blue tones, thick with a smoke that can’t entirely conceal the blazing red and white stripes of waving Union flags. Within Lincoln’s house too, his own son Robert is incited by the brutal sight of mass graves to join the Union’s stand against the Confederacy, particularly concerning his parents who have only recently lost another child.

Most of all though, hanging in the balance is the recognised personhood of every Black man and woman who passes through this narrative – Mary Lincoln’s confidante Elizabeth Keckley, Abraham Lincoln’s valet William Slade, as well as those African American soldiers we meet risking their lives on the frontlines. The stakes are monumental, yet the legislative processes needed to pass the amendment are also painstakingly dense, and Lincoln does not spare us from the granular detail. This is not a film that merely glides across the surface of history, but studiously examines each political manoeuvre made by the 16th President of the United States during the last few months of his life, and the weighty consequences they bore.

The red and white stripes of Union flags stand out among the murky blues of battlefields, waving high as an icon of strength.

Tony Kushner’s screenplay is patient in its approach to this course of events, laying out Lincoln’s objective of winning over enough congressmen to pass the 13th Amendment, and then breaking it down into a series of smaller political battles. The opposing Democrats are his prime targets here, though difficulties also arise within Lincoln’s own party, including Thaddeus Stevens’ contentious backtracking on what the amendment represents – merely equality before the law, he proclaims, not equality in all things. With dialogue that is Shakespearean in its wit and grandiosity, Kushner turns what could have potentially been dry subject matter into a dramatic, occasionally even humorous treatise on the messy game of American politics.

An impressive turn from Tommy Lee Jones in support as Thaddeus Stevens, straddling the line between full-fledged support and dubious withdrawal from the spirit of the 13th Amendment.
Kurosawa-like blocking along this hillside, spacing out silhouettes behind the foregrounded soldier in a display of militaristic strength.

Of course, much of this is also thanks to the casting of Daniel Day-Lewis – an incredible stroke of luck given that it arrived in an era where he worked relatively infrequently, yet made each performance count. His dedication to method acting delivers astounding results, lifting one of history’s most distinguishable figures out of books and photographs with moments of mirth, anger, and desperation. The visual accuracy in his transformative prosthetic make-up is remarkable, but he also matches that wrinkled, bearded face with a thoughtful demeanour and reedy voice that uses lengthy soliloquies to enrapture entire rooms.

A intensely studied performance from Daniel Day-Lewis, bringing the full spectrum of human emotion to this historic figure.
Lovely deep focus across three layers – Lincoln in the foreground, his wife Mary further back, and then a mirror catching his reflection again behind her.
Spielberg learned from the masters of Old Hollywood how to block a shot, using the full horizontal scope of his frame to arrange his actors, and the depth as well to draw our eye to the central subject.

Even beyond Day-Lewis, this is an ensemble that is loaded with fresh-faced and veteran actors alike, many of whom had or would soon have bright careers in Hollywood. Spielberg is a natural when it comes to capitalising on that extraordinary talent too, navigating their meetings in low-lit interiors through a dynamic camera that shifts, circles, and dollies with the natural flow of their discussions. The mise-en-scène maintains a painterly quality here, often using the natural light of lamps, fireplaces, and windows to shed a soft glow across the period décor and crowds. The total cinematographic effect is subtle but efficient, unifying the camerawork and impeccable staging of actors to guide our eye through each scene with organised purpose, and at times even urgency.

Beams of light guiding our eye through marvellous sets recreating 18th century America.
Practical light sources in these lamps, shedding a dim, soft glow across the telegraph office.
Immaculate chiaroscuro lighting and framing through the windows of Lincoln’s home.

Spielberg’s formal command of these cinematic elements proves to be especially crucial when the time comes in Lincoln for each congressman to pick a side of the fence and cast their votes on the nationwide abolition of slavery. The tension and release of each undecided voter lands with momentous gravity, while outside these walls envoys from the South are reportedly approaching Washington DC, seeking to postpone the vote by offering to end the war. When the news reaches Lincoln’s office, his written response possesses the guile of a crafty lawyer, while using his presidential powers to keep the Confederate delegation outside the capital’s borders.

“So far as I know, there are no peace commissioners in the city, nor are there likely to be.”

Honourable in his intentions he may be, though he is not above playing his allies and opponents for the greater good. For better or worse, this is what it takes to affect change in the United States, and Spielberg’s characterisation of Lincoln frames him as one of the few to smoothly navigate its political battlefield while holding firm to his moral principles.

The pivotal vote is a masterwork of tension and release, punctuated by a deft manipulation from Lincoln who smoothly navigates the political battlefield while holding firm to his moral principles.

The epilogue which follows the President’s resounding success drags on for a little too long, but by eventually concluding with his premature death a short few months later, Spielberg effectively immortalises him onscreen as a martyr of American democracy. An exceptional composition is formed around his pale, lifeless body lying beneath a bright light, surrounded by mourners whose black outfits are almost indistinguishable from the darkness which envelops them. By his bedside, a flame burns in an oil lamp, which Spielberg binds to the image of Lincoln himself through a long dissolve that slowly fades into his second inaugural address.

“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

For a nation ravaged by war, these words are a promise to serve those who bear the scars of its trauma, as well as a moving summation of Spielberg’s character study. In the wake of the President’s historic triumph, a dedication to continue honouring the spirit of the 13 Amendment is upheld, even once it has been put into practice. If liberty and justice for all is the bedrock of the American republic, then these final minutes of Lincoln give reason to hope that they did not die with one man, but continue to be felt in his enduring legacy.

Death takes hold in this melancholy composition, laying Lincoln’s lifeless body beneath a bright light, and surrounding him with mourners who are almost indistinguishable from the darkness which envelops them.
Spielberg dissolves from the oil lamp by Lincoln’s deathbed to his Second Inaugural Address – a flame of hope kept alive in his legacy.

Lincoln is available to buy on Apple TV, YouTube, and Amazon Video, and the DVD or Blu-ray can be purchased from Amazon.

The Master (2012)

Paul Thomas Anderson | 2hr 24min

“The Cause” is an apt name for Lancaster Dodd’s vaguely spiritual movement. His musings are rarely specific enough for us to believe in it on any level beyond its hazy, inconsistent teachings, though in a post-war American society of people looking to the stability of self-assured leaders for any sort of guidance, details are not essential. That is at least the case for Freddie Quell, whose attempts to re-join society after serving in World War II see him aimlessly wander between jobs, women, and communities, drifting on an unsettled ocean. His journey through The Master is bookmarked by overhead shots of the wake trailing behind the ships he travels on, focusing not on what lies ahead, but on the lingering remnants of the past, haunting him with memories of war, abuse, and failure. What exactly The Cause grants him and so many others is right there in its title, offering structure and purpose to the lives of those who abide by its doctrine in much the same way a human might domesticate a pet.

This visual motif repeated three times through The Master at key points, loaded with symbolism – these characters living in the wake of their trauma, drifting on a restless ocean.

This might be the simplest way to break down the unlikely relationship that thrives between Freddie and Dodd. Joaquin Phoenix plays the former as a creature of wild impulse, acting on whatever violent or sexual desires pass through his mind at any point, though this is not to say he is a shallow character. A concoction of trauma, self-loathing, and nostalgia spill out in erratic mannerisms, revealing a disconnect between the way he processes those emotions and his relation to the wider world. It isn’t just Philip Seymour Hoffman’s cool, confident aura which draws a wandering Freddie into Dodd’s orbit either. The master’s interest in the spiritual realm equally confounds and fascinates his new protégé, who can barely conceive of anything immaterial, and while he preaches against submitting to one’s bestial urges, he can’t help but cherish Freddie’s naïve devotion. Like a dog looking to be cared for and an owner searching for undying loyalty, the two nurture a companionship that arrives at exactly the right moment for them both, offering a cause to which they both dedicate their lives, and which is even more fruitful than the actual “Cause” movement they lead and serve.

It is in this complex bond that Paul Thomas Anderson draws a rich dichotomy through The Master, constantly offering formal counterpoints that are as robust as they are opaque. For every one of Freddie’s fart jokes or outbursts, Dodd reprimands him as a “silly animal.” When Dodd speaks of humanity’s supremacy over the animal kingdom, Freddie amusingly asks a total stranger if she wants to fuck. When Dodd is arrested for practicing medicine without a licence, he maintains an air of civil decorum, and of course Freddie is right there by his side, refusing to let his friend go down without a fight. In the local prison, Anderson splits the frame right down the middle of the two neighbouring cells, as if painting out the dual sides of the human brain – on one side, brutish anger, aggressively smashing a toilet, and on the other, calm, composed civility, poignantly mulling over the unfortunate situation. It is here that they have their first fight, with Dodd mercilessly taunting “Who likes you except for me?”. Really though, the question cuts both ways. While his family and followers are sceptical of his act, the current state of affairs point to the fact that Freddie is the only one willing to stick by him to the end.

A brutish loss of control compared to a calm, composed demeanour. This relationship of point and counterpoint is a huge formal strength of the film.

The obscure, almost lyrical progression of this eccentric relationship is one that Anderson builds in abstract rhythms all through The Master, eroding boundaries between scenes with dreamy long dissolves and non-linear montages that at times last upwards of ten minutes. It all begins though with the pure character work of the first twenty minutes, which sees Freddie finish up his Navy service and pass the time on a remote island. The editing here is as jagged as the primal, syncopated beat of Jonny Greenwood’s percussion and strings, accompanying Freddie humping a lady carved into the sand, masturbating into the ocean, and wrestling with his fellow soldiers. Upon arriving back in America, his psychological examination through a Rorschach test goes on to reveal more of that sexual perversion which is ingrained in his most base instincts. There always seems to be some crooked angle in Phoenix’s posture too, whether hunched over or bent to the side, and Anderson particularly emphasises it on the ship transporting him home, splaying him out on the upper deck of the navy ship in the foreground, while the crew below lounge around in more conventional positions. Besides the presence of those eccentric habits and messy vices which make him unpredictably human, Freddie is not a man who can be pinned down easily.

An overhead shot of great detail and beauty in its staging, splaying Freddie out in the foreground atop a Navy ship while others lounge around below.
Long dissolves float this narrative along, creating these hazy compositions.
Fish-eye lenses and jagged montage editing introducing us to this strange, lonely human in the opening minutes as he finishes up his Navy service.

It is on the yacht where Dodd is celebrating his daughter’s wedding and on which Freddie stows away that the two men first meet. “You seem so familiar to me,” Dodd wistfully ponders as if recalling a past life, and the chemistry between both actors is immediately palpable. How fitting it is that the initial stage of this relationship unfolds on the ocean. Just as Freddie comfortably floats through life without direction, so too is this the place where Dodd feels most focused and inspired to write. When they eventually arrive back on land, Anderson will often draw on the tight frames of doorways and windows to close in around them, binding them by the conventions of society, but for now the two simply relish the freedom that comes with the rolling waves, rendered musically in the rise and fall of Greenwood’s discordant, otherworldly scales.

Closed frames back on land, isolating both Freddie and Dodd in its confines where neither are completely comfortable.

When it comes to the “informal processing” that Dodd conducts on Freddie, there are some clear parallels being drawn to real-world Scientology beliefs, though Anderson does not brush off the pseudo-psychological practices so quickly. It is a showcase of raw talent from both Hoffman and Phoenix here, one unloading a barrage of personal questions with assertive confidence, the other breaking down beneath intense examination, confronting a sensitive pain rooted in his childhood that was only intensified by the traumas of war. While some prompts are repeated multiple times, they are not always intending to draw out different answers, but rather encourage a more profound reflection from Freddie whose responses subtly shift in tone each time. There is an entire journey mapped out on Phoenix’s face here, and which Anderson holds on in a close-up, watching the glee, anger, sorrow, shame, and desperation cut deeper into his mind than he had ever dared probe before. Compared to the earlier psychological examination conducted by doctors that merely passed over his bizarre idiosyncrasies, Dodd’s processing is a great success, as for the first time Freddie discovers an imposed structure that inspires self-reflection rather than soul-sucking conformity.

Two of the greatest performances of the decade, and the processing scene is especially a tremendous acting achievement for Phoenix. So much loaded into his facial expressions and ticks.

Though these methods belong to The Cause, it is ultimately not so much the movement that helps him than it is Dodd’s own loving friendship. Quite poetically, it is also this in turn which brings the master down to a level of casual intimacy disparaged by his uptight family. While longing to be a strong leader others can look to, his wife exerts a sterile control over him, managing his sexual gratification with cold practicality and dictating significant decisions. Like Freddie, he is still a man prone to whims of anger, and The Cause’s rigorous systems are little more than facades of perfection keeping them in check. When confronted by a stranger in public over the organisation’s logical fallacies, Dodd is forced into a tight corner of weak arguments, until a rare slip sees him lose total control. As his most blinded, loyal disciple, Freddie follows his lead, throwing a tomato at the man and later attacking him violently, like a dog protecting its owner. Later after a period of separation between the two, their reunion goes beyond friendly. While they intimately hug each other and roll around on the grass like children, it is evident that Dodd has not so much cultivated Freddie’s courtesy as he has submitted to his animalism.

While Dodd tries to cultivate Freddie, Freddie often pulls him down with his chaotic, loving intimacy.

The game of “Pick a Point” that Dodd invites Freddie to play out on a barren expanse of salt plains affectingly paints out the juncture at which the two friends ultimately diverge, chasing down an irreconcilable pair of goals. The activity itself has no stakes or competition involved, but by Dodd’s own rules, this brief adrenaline rush of driving to a point on the horizon should take one back to where they started. When it is Freddie’s turn, it is apparent that Dodd’s brainwashing has done little to suppress his impulsivity, as in this short moment that he is let off his leash, he chooses not to return. There is a difference in his movement now though – no longer is he languidly drifting between cities, but he now proceeds with velocity and direction towards a singular point in the distance, with no intention of returning. His unfinished business from life before the war beckons, and with a new understanding of human relationships instilled in him, he is ready to face it.

The salt plains make for a beautiful, barren set piece, leading to Freddie’s impulsive but decisive escape.

Despite this advancement in character development, Anderson keeps evading any conventional narrative catharsis, seemingly reverting both Freddie and Dodd back to their lives before they met. We might hope that some firm resolution will be attained at their final meeting many years later, but this new Freddie is no longer seeking the same guidance that he was before. Between the two men, Anderson illustrates the human impulse to follow and the desire to lead, both being essential parts of our psychology, but he also portrays them as fully developed characters on inverse journeys of self-control and surrender. In a future life they may even be sworn enemies, Dodd ponders, but in the meantime, he simply holds the utmost admiration for his friend’s new perspective.

“For if you figure a way to live without serving a master, any master, then let the rest of us know, will you? For you’d be the first person in the history of the world.”

Even in that statement, there is still a recognition that while Freddie goes where he pleases, he has not entirely escaped the influence of society’s values, boundaries, or structures. Anyone who has may no longer even be human. But between the two men it is ironically the follower, not the leader, who has come closer to understanding life without a master. Or rather, Freddie is his own master, finally in tune with his instincts and letting them point the way. Anderson’s layering of every single interaction in The Master with character counterpoints and patterns goes beyond great screenwriting, but also affirms it as a formal masterwork, elusively drifting these soulmates through a post-war America lost in its identity and direction.

A strong sense of setting in Anderson’s modernist production design, rooting this unique relationship in a post-war Western world.

The Master is currently streaming on Stan, and is available to rent or buy on iTunes, YouTube, and Amazon Video.

Zero Dark Thirty (2012)

Kathryn Bigelow | 2hr 37min

It was a full 10 years between the September 11 attacks and the killing of Osama Bin Laden in 2011, but given the anonymity of the CIA operatives involved, the details of the people involved largely remain hazy. It is clear that Kathryn Bigelow is not purporting to deliver a fully accurate account of these events in Zero Dark Thirty, though this is no obstacle to her exacting study of every detail pointing to his location. Time stamps, locations, and chapter titles sort through the historical facts, setting up a slow burn of an investigation akin to All the President’s Men that similarly circles an infamous man hiding within walls of secrets. And much like the exposé that took down President Richard Nixon, all it takes is one opening in Bin Laden’s defences to unravel a trail of clues leading to his door.

It is in the CIA officers and analysts of Zero Dark Thirty where Bigelow indulges a little creative licence, setting up the character of Maya Harris as the unrelenting force behind the hunt for Bin Laden, while her colleagues waver in their focus. Integrity is not highly valued among these intelligence agents, and Bigelow does not hold back in depicting the physical and psychological torture to which they subject detainees. Though Maya expresses a little more disgust and hesitancy in these unethical methods, she is not entirely inculpable either. Rather than trying to justify her protagonist on some personal level, Bigelow resists probing into her mind, keeping us at a disquieting distance.

As we eventually learn though, Maya has no friends, and with this piece of information it isn’t hard to surmise that all of her energy instead goes into her gruelling, tiresome work. Any empathy we might feel towards her comes not from the screenplay, but rather from Jessica Chastain’s steady, reserved performance, bearing the emotional toll of a thankless job that sees her lose several of her colleagues in terrorist attacks, while becoming a target herself. Most importantly though, it is the intuition and confidence she instils in Maya that makes her such a magnetic figure, willing to place 100% of her certainty in hunches where others are only ready to give soft 60s.

Chastain makes for an especially good match for Zero Dark Thirty’s realistic style, playing the material about as natural as Bigelow’s handheld camera and location shooting. The seamless inclusion of archival footage only grounds us deeper in the war on terror, supplemented by helicopter shots of cities, camps, and compounds that expand it out into something monumental. Though the final, giant set piece depicting the stealthy raid on Bin Laden’s compound is suspenseful in its uneasy quietude, it is just as much the time we have spent working through every tiny detail to get there that makes the result feel so rewarding. Such is Bigelow’s fine control over action-driven sequences that even as Zero Dark Thirty delivers on its raw thrills, she also manages to coordinate them remarkably tightly in her narrative’s ambitious, driving pursuit of justice.

Zero Dark Thirty is currently streaming on SBS On Demand, Binge, and Foxtel Now, and is available to rent or buy on iTunes, YouTube, Google Play, and Amazon Prime Video.

Skyfall (2012)

Sam Mendes | 2hr 23min

In an early neon-tinted action scene of Skyfall set inside a Shanghai city skyscraper, James Bond fights a henchman in hand-to-hand combat, as bright images of a giant jellyfish and coloured lights shine from screens and bounce off windows. Later, the dim, yellow illumination of lamps hanging in low-slung rows across a casino displays mise-en-scène brilliance, balancing out the structured nature of the organisation with suggestions of shady, covert dealings. Visually, Skyfall is on a whole other level to every James Bond film that came before, and though Roger Deakins must certainly get credit for the impeccable cinematography on show, there is no denying that Sam Mendes is an accomplished stylist detail-oriented craftsman in his own right. Together, both are bringing everything they’ve got this action franchise, crafting atmospheric locations within which 007 is simply a passer-by, ready to take on whatever environmental challenges each new set piece throws at him.

No Bond movie has ever looked like this before – neon-lit skyscrapers provide the atmospheric setting for this remarkable fight scene.
Even more perfect lighting set ups as we arrive at the casino in Macau.

But although he traverses a number of foreign settings, Skyfall also contains the most personal narrative we have seen for Daniel Craig’s version of Bond yet, forcing him down a painful path to his childhood home. As he drives through the grey, foggy Scottish highlands, Skyfall Lodge rises up from the barren landscape like a monstrous castle. It makes total sense that this is where Bond grew up as an orphan boy. It is depressingly lonely and cold, and even with as wealthy a background as him, this place would be enough to turn any impressionable young mind into a reserved, withholding adult. As it burns down, Bond isn’t sad to see it go. It fills the night sky with a warm, fiery glow, silhouetting 007 as he leaves it behind. Even in its destruction, it is still far more inviting than it ever was while it was standing.

A piece of gothic architecture that holds as much personal significance for Bond as one might expect from a structure this daunting.

Paired with this intimate narrative is an equally personal antagonist, reflecting all of Bond’s own doubts and insecurities right back at him. Javier Bardem plays Raoul Silva as an older, more cynical version of Bond, his narcissism and vanity established early so the reveal of the utter ruin that lies inside him is later delivered with even greater weight. As an ex-MI6 agent he once made a decision to sacrifice his life to protect M, and in the botched attempt accidentally burned his insides and horrifically scarred his face, paralleling Bond’s own near-death at the hands of M in the opening scene. She is just one careless decision away from turning Bond against her completely, like she did to Silva.
 
Though his arc isn’t directly tied to Bond’s, Silva acts very much like a Moriarty figure in mirroring his resourcefulness and talent, always remaining ten steps ahead while committing crimes in the broad light of day. He is a far more broken man than Bond though, putting aside the dreams of wealth that so many other villains possess so that he can exact personal vengeance. “Free both of us. Free both of us with the same bullet,” he pleads to M, begging for a murder-suicide that would erase them both from the world at once. This isn’t a villain searching for power – this is a trauma victim looking to end his suffering. In other movies of this franchise, there are times where it seems like the well of complex characterisation for Bond has run dry, and that he is nothing more than a vehicle for thrilling set pieces. But in the creation of one his greatest foes in Silva and gorgeous displays of atmosphere, Skyfall proves to be a thoughtful, emotionally compelling exploration of Bond’s deeply-entrenched self-doubt.

Cinematographer Roger Deakins leaves his mark on Skyfall in almost every scene, but most of all in this superb climactic set piece lit by the burning Skyfall manor.

Skyfall is currently available to rent or buy on iTunes, YouTube, and Google Play.