Hankering for the Old Hanks
As I'm sure someone has reminded you, Sarah, Samantha Morton in Sweet and
Lowdown isn't a "deaf-mute" but a mere mute: How else could she worship the
protagonist's artistry? Better than a mute, I might add: She is a mute who does
laundry. It's the talent for laundry that puts her closest to Woody Allen's
heart, I bet.
Yes, we can all agree, Roger demonstrates unparalleled "consideration for
readers" and "habitual fairness." Roger, you have evolved into the conscience
of the American cinema. But I ask you: Isn't that role sometimes paralyzing?
You treat The Green Mile as if it's a humanist milestone on the order of
To Kill a Mockingbird . But it has been more than a third of a century
since Mockingbird 's Great White Father and that shambling, saintly black
martyr who pays for the sex crimes of white men--and in-between came the
civil-rights movement. Isn't it time to retire this archetype? Isn't it so
violently at odds with reality that it threatens to do more harm than good?
(How disillusioning that some African-Americans have rough edges.) And while
I'm at it: Why'd you like that damn Jar Jar picture???
I'm sympathetic to your complaints about critics who loudly swap opinions at
screenings, but I think it's more an issue for you (and Elvis, now) than for
me. I could broadcast my views over the PA system and no one would much care,
whereas word of your likes or dislikes would promptly make its way through the
ranks to studio presidents, CEOs, and world leaders. (I refrain from saying
what I think after most movies not because I want to tantalize people but
because I reserve the right to change my mind in the course of writing a
review.) Anyway, I'm always happy to eavesdrop on what people are saying in
screening rooms or theaters--I often use that stuff in my columns, the tackier
the better.
Sarah: I hate to say it, but the "guyness" in this year's movies might be
the corollary to all those young, hot-dogging male directors whom we've been
celebrating. But there have still been a ton of great female
performances. John Sayles, the last proud liberal-feminist, wrote a beautiful
part for Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio in Limbo that she turned into one
of the comebacks of the decade. Like Janet McTeer in Tumbleweeds , she
plays a woman who's a, well, tumbleweed who gravitates to men she shouldn't
gravitate to and takes her long-suffering daughter along for the fall. I
suppose you'd say these are soft roles, victims' roles, but both actresses give
these women complex consciousnesses--they fall and watch themselves falling,
and they subtly comment on their trajectories.
A very, very strange performance is Sigourney Weaver's in A Map of the
World . As in The Good Mother , the issue is a woman's
self-destructive impulses in a society that has fixed expectations of how
mothers and caregivers should behave. She can't forgive herself for a tragic
accident on her property, and in ways that I'm still trying to sort out, she
helps to bring about her own--and her family's--near ruin. Weaver plays this
woman from the outset as unhinged, and the first-time director, Scott Elliot,
doesn't modulate her craziness enough. But by the end, the performance makes
sense: It's as if she's scything her way home through a thicket of her own
unmanageable emotions--and she gets there.
As for Hanks, let me say that I think he's still a wonderful actor but am
sorry that such a heavy spirit has descended upon him. He was once the
breeziest of goofballs--but with a greater emotional range than almost any
other goofball. A few weeks back I was reminiscing about the old Hanks with
Pauline Kael. (Yes, I admit it--I've talked to her. I'm a fellow traveler.) We
both confessed a fondness for Turner and Hooch . Then I said, "It's too
bad they had to kill Hooch, though. I mean, what big-funny-dog movie ends with
the dog getting blown away?"
"Be thankful," said Pauline. "If Hanks made it today there would be a
memorial service."
See you tomorrow.
