Television Review: True Detective - Season One

True Detective

Season One

2014

Drama/Crime

3.5 stars out of 5

In 1899, Joseph Conrad published “Heart of Darkness”. This seminal book excels in language (all the more amazing when you explore Conrad’s personal history), but it exceeds almost all other books in describing a literary motif and metaphor that has become a near standard for serious writing in English language fiction: the physical and spiritual core of evil. Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 “Apocalypse Now” may be the best use of Conrad’s metaphor, but True Detective, Season One makes good use of it, too.

In the full season 1 story arc of True Detective, we are exposed to a crime, criminals and a crime scene that seem designed by program creator/writer Nic Pizzolato to evoke the basest actions humans are capable of, and to do it in the midst of the swamp-like interior of various Louisiana bayeux. The season-long arc makes typical use of the Three Act Play: boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back. Although in True Detective, we watch Detective gets partner, Detective loses partner, Detective gets partner back (and solves crime) – not exactly original, but entertaining.

As noted in my review below for episode one, our Detectives are superbly played by Matthew McConaughey as Rust Cohle, and in a very mediocre fashion by Woody Harrelson as Marty Hart. A woman has been killed, others are missing (and in many cases, not even reported as being missing), and our two heroes are on a quest to find the murderer or murderers. As they dig into the crime, they find evidence that the crime is only part of a series of crimes, and that there is some evidence of a cover-up and of links to people in power. When the apparent leader is finally found, he is living in conditions that are so disgusting, so revolting, it makes one question whether he is even human; he clearly thinks he has evolved upward from such a state.

To Pizzolato’s credit, he has introduced (or re-introduced, if you want to consider the Marquis de Sade amongst others) the idea that there is a kind of ethno-centricity to pain and murder. That is to say, murder with a purpose is crime to some, but an act of art/religion/what-exactly to others? The person central to the crimes in this story is living in what to outsiders seems a nightmare, but to him, is the last stair-step to his vision of Heaven. Pizzolato adds further to the complexity and the horror of the crime by suggesting as some Eastern religions also assert that time is circular. We’ve all been here before, we’ll be here again; and worse, the crimes and sufferings of the past will come to haunt us once again. These are complex thoughts for a crime drama.

The program can be watched and enjoyed by adults for the depiction and resolution of the basic crimes, or by anyone interested in the cinematic splendors of the Louisiana backwoods. But, I think this is a rare television story line with deeper undercurrents. They can be read, and perhaps over-interpreted, but it is still fun to look for deeper meaning in a story that is seemingly so prosaic.

True Detective

Season One, Episode One

2014

Drama/Crime

3.0 stars out of 5

When I first learned a Woody Harrelson/Mathew McConaughey crime drama with gothic and perhaps metaphysical elements would be coming out on HBO, I was quite enthusiastic. Working forward in time from Carnivale and Deadwood to the best written program in television history, “The Wire”, HBO has shown they can produce and air drama that is not excelled anywhere, including the silver screen. In this case though, I was disappointed. There is some good acting by McConaughey but there are problems with writing, directing and editing.

Mathew McConaughey as Detective Rust Cohle is very effective playing a severely disconnected but brilliant detective. He is initially taciturn as befits his character’s stereotype, but then starts philosophizing in so thoroughly a misanthropic manner that his partner, Martin Hart must tell him repeatedly to return to his reticence. Hart is played by Woody Harrelson. Harrelson plays Hart in a very inconsistent manner: at first he is morosely mirroring the Cohle character, then he goes upbeat and tries to be Cohle’s friend, later back down again as he tells Cohle to “stop sayin’ odd sh*t”, then up again as a family man that’s worried about Cohle.  At times you can hardly tell the two characters apart, but then depending on script requirements, the Hart character veers off in some new direction. Is this bad acting, bad directing, bad writing or all three – I’m inclined to believe all three. Just consider the simplistic way both characters are named: “Cohle” is the sad, dark character, while the family man who thinks he isn’t also another misanthrope is named “Hart”.

There are multiple technical problems with this first episode. The pacing is the most problematic issue. The pacing drags all too frequently. Camera framing was also a problem, with various angles ranging from good to incomprehensible. Initially, the editing is confusing, but as the rhythm slowly develops, it does become better. The story is told with flashbacks and to some degree this works reasonably well – in fact, it is the best part of the writing.

The basis of this first episode is that Cohle and Hart in flashback mode investigate a gruesome murder of a part-time prostitute (a pross according to True Detective). The clever part is that a similar crime occurs 17 years later, and our two former detectives (now in a completely new incarnation in the case of Cohle) are asked by contemporary detectives to not only help them understand the new crime but help them explain it in the context of the older crime – committed by someone evidently no longer free to re-commit it. Well, that is an interesting premise. And on that note, I will bide my time with respect to this series, and hope that episode 2 and later episodes will improve in quality with respect to the writing and directing.

 

Movie Review: Dallas Buyers Club

Dallas Buyers Club

2013

Drama

4.0 stars out of 5

Science and reason live in an uncomfortable balance with mainstream American thought. Americans from the Left and the Right both profess to believe in the scientific method, but in truth only do so as long as it does not disturb some cherished belief or Party line. The Right refuse the overwhelming voice from the environmental and climate scientists as regards climate change;meanwhile the Left do the same as regards GMO and drug regulation. There have been various polemics out of Hollywood before on any number of topics, some of have been excellent movies no matter how tendentious their story line (e.g. Star Wars IV-VI as examples of an anti-science POV, or Platoon as an example of anti-war POV). While with many such movies I may enjoy the acting or directing, I will often cringe as I watch the completely predictable play out before my eyes.

Dallas Buyers Club is one such movie. It has a dialog than snaps and slashes at homophobia, and acting by Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto that very justly won them Oscars. And yet the very same writers for whom I have great respect for what they did with the dialog have written a story arc and directed a broadside at the FDA and the pharmaceutical industry that cannot be justified, and from an artistic point of view is quite cliché-ridden.

The movie concerns a Good ‘Ole Boy, Ron Woodruf (McConaughey): a bull-riding, oil field womanizer homophobe living in the deepest (metaphorically) part of Texas. He learns early on in the movie that he has HIV, which later develops into AIDs. He then watches his Cracker friends abandon him and throw him to the curb. Ron initially meets an establishment doctor in Dallas who tells him he has thirty days to live. Eventually he ends up in Mexico where he finds an iconoclastic American ex-pat doctor that gets him on a path to better nutrition and as the movie protrays it, a much longer and happier life. His path to a longer life leads him into establishing a vitamin and medicine system alternative to the FDA’s approach with AZT. In order to sell his alternatives he sets up the Dallas Buyers Club with new friend Rayon (Leto).

The major story arc of his fight with the FDA is comletely predictable: they’re bad, Woodruf is good; double blind tests are bad, anectotal stories of success are good; multi-year tests are bad, one month in Mexico is good. Really? To go back to my opening thoughts, does anyone understand in Hollywood what it takes to develop and test a drug? Do they know or care about the value of double-blind tests? Does anyone in Hollywood remember Thalidomide? Who would scream the loudest if Woodruf’s Protein T had such a problem?

The acting is absolutely first rate, and in my opinion the only reason to see this movie. It is unfortuntely just one more example of the dumbing down of America. It is so much easier to believe in Miracles than the hard work that Science and Engineering require to produce a new drug that works and oh-by-the-way, does no harm. Dialog is also first rate: there are many memorable lines in the movie that I truly enjoyed (Jennifer Garner as Dr. Eve responding to Woodruf’s question to her when he thought she was a nurse: “Are you f’ing deaf?”; her reply, “I’m a f’ing doctor”.) But my favorite (and I am being cynical) is the small footnote at the end of two  hours of hearing that AZT is poison that describes AZT being part of the sucessful “cocktail” of drugs currently in use to dramatically extend the lives of those with AIDs.

The movie is worth seeing for adults, and I do recommend it; but I do so wish a belief in rationality was ascendent in America, rather than the philosophy summarized on all too many bumpers: “I believe it, that settles it”.

Book Review: Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe

 

Book Review: Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe

1987

Drama

4.0 stars out of 5

Tom Wolfe’s book from the late eighties about life in New York City in the late eighties is a very hard book to read. Not because it is poorly written – it is superbly written; but rather because it is about a time in American history and about a group of people that are painful to read about.

The book explores many themes besides the tenor, the zeitgeist of the times. To be sure, the violence and racism of the late eighties in America are a compelling topic. But Wolfe uses this theme as a framework to explore human nature across many of societies strata; an exploration with a very jaundiced point of view.

We meet Sherman McCoy as a seemingly very succesful  Wall Street bond salesman;  in his own self description, a Master of the Universe. Sherman’s vanities do not stop with his success at work, he is equally or even more vain of his Knickerbocker family history, and even of the size and nature of his chin. Sherman being a Master of the Universe needs of course the perfect mate, and since his wife Judy has started to age, Sherman takes a mistress, Maria Ruskin. Maria is of course vain about her beauty and ability to control men to get what she wants.

The story arc of the book follows Sherman and Maria on an ill-fated trip into the Bronx where they accidently run down a young African-American youth, who later dies from his injuries. A consequence of this accident, permits Wolf to introduce an English ex-patriot/alcoholic newspaperman (Peter Fallow)  to start the drum beat of public opinion to find the “hit and run” Sherman and Maria. Exhorting the local populace is the “Reverend” Bacon, while the assistant DA assigned to the case (Larry Kramer) flexes his neck muscles. Kramer simultaneously tries to convict Sherman once he’s been found and to seduce each attractive young woman he meets on the jury.

Part of the humor of the book is to view the various vanities of each character through the eyes of the other characters: Larry continously flexes his muscles and Sherman frequently juts his jaws to the bemusement of various on-lookers – meanwhile, both Larry and Sherman believe most intently that they are impressing rather entertaining their audience.

The reader could read the book with a view to the big story arc of Sherman’s fall in order to see how the climax and its resolution are treated. But I think a far better view to this book is to carefully explore with Wolfe the various characters and their vanities, and then watch how Wolfe destroys each one. To his credit, by the book’s end, I think Sherman is the only one who ever puzzles this out. And for me, this is what made reading the book worth the effort. Truly, this is a book of characters that I found myself endlessly hating, and hating for their vanties. By the book’s end though, I was forced to face my own vanities (they are multiform) and wonder how I would have functioned had I been one of the characters in the book. In fact, this book like many great books is a useful tool for self-exploration.

Note to the Reader: I had read this book in an effort to start a pet project that compares good books to the bad movies made from them. The DePalma movie Bonfire of the Vanities incomprehensively starring Tom Hanks as Sherman and Bruce Willis as Peter Fallow (not to mention several other very odd casting choices)has been widely panned. I thought then to compare the two in a later review. But having read this book, I may re-aim myself to compare bad books made into good movies. Two of my favorites being “Bridges Of Madison County” and “A River Runs Through It”: two pretty mediocre books made by Eastwood and Redford into profoundly good movies.