Movie Review: Bridge of Spies

Bridge of Spies (2015)

PG-13

4.5 Stars out of 5

Director                               Steven Spielberg
Writer                                  Matt Charman, Ethan and Joel Coen
Cinematography                Janusz Kaminski
Editing                                 Michael Kahn

Mark Rylance                     Rudolf Abel
Tom Hanks                         James Donovan
Amy Ryan                           Mary Donovan
Gary Francis Powers         Austin Stowell
Will Rogers                         Frederick Pryor

 

“Bridge of Spies” tells a tale from the Cold War, a time when children were taught to “duck and cover” to avoid the effects of a nuclear detonation, a time when both the American and Soviet governments planted spies in the other country's territories even as they searched for foreign spies within their own. Director Steven Spielberg has created a thoughtful and seemingly balanced film that describes this tense time. Courtesy of his expert direction and the film editing of Michael Kahn, Spielberg tells the story in a fashion that displays the parallel ways in which the two cold war adversaries viewed one another from the perspective of their own national defense. In many ways, each country's behavior is understandable, it is in the details (as is so often so) that the differences between the two societies becomes clear – what do they stand for, if they stand for anything at all.

The movie begins with a clever over the shoulder view of a painter executing a self-portrait. While it is clear who is the painter, and who the reflection, this opening scene does a good job of creating a metaphor for the coming test of wills over national intentions and identities. The painter is actually a Soviet spy, Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance). He speaks with a faint Scottish accent that apparently derives from his early years, but his adult years have been spent in the USSR. He now plies his trade as a spy for the Soviet Union in Brooklyn NY. He is caught by the FBI but that has been done so with only scant attention paid by the FBI to the normal criminal proceedings with respect to search warrants. He is to be tried in a local criminal proceeding, and the US government wants him to have a proper legal defense. To that end, insurance attorney James Donovan (Tom Hanks), someone with a criminal defense background is brought in to represent Abel.

Rylance and Hanks put on a set of the most subtle and nuanced performances that I have seen in the past several years. This movie is easily worth watching just to watch the two of these seasoned actors portray their roles. Abel is a decent man; true he works for the enemy and to the destruction of our way of life. But in the end he is a soldier for his country. He acts constantly throughout this film as a man of principle. Hanks too can only be seen in these very same lights. Despite the overt opposition from the judge (who has convicted Abel in his own mind even before the start of the legal proceedings), the covert intrusion from the CIA and the various threats against Donovan and his family for defending Abel, James Donovan does not ever veer from his own set of values – values that he clearly defines as American. Take for example his discussion with a CIA agent; the agent states there is no rule book for the situation that Donovan has found himself in – the agent like most everyone in the film, believes their only goal is to convict Abel. Donovan corrects him by stating there is a rule book and it is the US constitution. He goes on to state that despite his own Gaelic heritage and the agent’s German, what unites them is their allegiance to American ideals and laws. This is not a subtle point in the movie, but it is a highlight.

Donovan is unable to save Abel from the judge, but he is able to convince the judge to “save” Abel by not executing him; the reason being, the US may need Abel for some future prisoner exchange. And once Francis Gary Powers is shot down over the USSR, just such an exchange is needed. Due to some convoluted reasoning, Donovan is brought back into this sordid play between nations to act as a mediator. The problem becomes even more complicated when the location for the exchange is the Glienicke Bridge in East Berlin. Since it is in East Berlin, the East Germans are now part of this complicated pas de deux, which has now become a ménage a trois. And the Germans have their own American prisoner, an American graduate student, Frederick Pryor (Will Rogers). The CIA wants Donovan to forsake Pryor, the Germans want to be included and thus recognized by the American government, and the Soviets just want their spy back before he spills any state secrets. Of the participants, only Donovan wants what seems to be the moral thing: an exchange of prisoners. He does not have any hidden or nationalistic agenda items.

Spielberg and writers Ethan and Joel Coen, and Matt Charman have created in this film an excellent comparison of nationalistic views. Americans see Abel as a traitor (even though he is not American), as an enemy to be caught, tried, convicted and executed. The Soviets see Powers in quiet the same lights, as an enemy agent flying illegally over their sovereign lands; essentially he has invaded them. The East Germans may well have the least to complain about; their prisoner is little more than an unfortunate American pawn caught up in their game. There is little right or wrong to distinguish either the Americans or the Soviets. Both feel they are acting in the best interests of their homelands. But there are differences, and Spielberg with his writers makes sure we see them: Abel is given a real lawyer and a decent cell, while Powers is instead treated to sleep deprivation and a miserable cell filled with ice cold water. Is it only in the details that the Americans and the Soviets differ? It is unlikely that Spielberg intends this, else he would have given far less time and attention to Donovan’s several small speeches on how Americans are defined by their ideals, not in effect by their jail cells per se. But if one thinks about even the jail cells some more, maybe even there in such small places and details as a jail cell, where even a prisoner is accorded or not accorded the basic necessities that any human, even a spy is entitled to.

“Bridge of Spies” may have a title dreamed up in Hollywood, but it has some of the best acting, directing and writing to come out of Hollywood in years. The pace of this movie may annoy some viewers, but in a time when Americans too often define themselves by their political party with their narrow interests and not by  the broader ideals that define the American way, this movie is a good primer on some of things that do justify a sense of American exceptionalism. This is easily one of the best movies for 2015.

 

Cloud Atlas

Cloud Atlas

2012

Drama/Science Fiction

5 Stars out of 5

I watched this movie, read the book, viewed the movie a second time (with close captioning this time) and still have several points that remain unclear to me. To say that either the book or the movie is complicated is quite an understatement. Yet, I find both to be as compelling and artistic an endeavor as I have experienced in the past decade.

The book (2004, David Mitchell) and movie are both structured in six parts just like the symphony that plays a central role in the second part of the six part story. However, the book tells the first half of each of the six parts moving forward in time from the Chatham Islands in the mid-19^th century to the early part of the 20^th century in England and Belgium for part two, to the Bay Area during the 1970’s, on to the early 21^st century England for part four, to mid-22nd century neo-Seoul, and finally to the mid-23rd century Hawaiian Islands. The book then turns around and finishes the second half of each story working back in time to mid-19^th century San Francisco.

The movie in stark contrast takes each of the six parts and very cleverly uses editing to correlate the various key points in each story arc with the other six arcs. This is a brilliant editing decision by writer/directors Tom Tykwer, Andy Wachowski and Lana Wachowski, but it certainly requires the viewer to pay close attention to each story. The Wachowskis and Tykwer have two central themes to their version of the Mitchell story: the oppression by the strong of the weak, and the multi-century, enduring linkage of love between two souls. The writer/directors amplify this last point by using a comet-like (i.e. a shooting star) tattoo on the lovers even as they change race, sexual orientation and gender over the centuries in their various incarnations. In short, the movie really boils down to a love story between two star-crossed souls. It is beautifully told and acted.

The manner in which it is acted is another tool the writers/directors use to reinforce the multi-generational link between the two principle characters: Tom Hanks sometimes as the villain, but by the 70’s only as one of the two lovers; Halle Berry in minor roles in the first two stories, but again by the 70’s, only in the role of hero; Hugo Weaving is always a villain, but most effectively as Ole Georgie on the Big Island. There are very notable appearances by Doona Bae as Sonmi-451 in neo-Seoul, as well as Jim Sturgess as her lover Hae-Joo Chang. Several other actors play various forms of good, bad (Hugh Grant is notable), or minor. In general, you witness Hanks, Berry, Sturgess and Bae as one of the two lovers, and in these roles, always fighting the good fight for the weak and oppressed. Conversely, you see Weaving and Grant only in the role of the oppressor.

Thus, the editing, the use of the comet and star metaphors (consider also a Cloud Atlas is a map of the stars - once thought to be unchanging), and the casting meld brilliantly to evoke the image of constants through human history: the good and often weak vs. the always strong, bullying type of bad character. Others have tried to find some character growth across the story lines (e.g. Hanks’ evil Dr. Henry Goose next appearing as the noble Isaac Sachs), but I think this an artificial outcome of the casting decision, and not only not the point, actually contrary to the point. I think rather, the authors believe good is good, and most definitely, bad is bad.

A final note with respect to the book vs. movie: not only are the two structured differently, but also their main themes are quite different. The movie goes for the everlasting love theme coupled with the bully problem, but the book delves far more deeply and with a much more pessimistic view into the destruction of the Earth by Man. The movie has Meronym (Berry) refer to the fact that her group of people known as the Prescients are doomed if they do not receive rescue from the Stars (that is to say off-world colonies), but it is hardly more than a plot point in the movie. In the book, there are no off-world colonies, no rescue for Meronym, no salvation for Man or the Earth. It is a far more dark view of the consequences of climate change and “bully”- originated war and corporate rapacity.

This movie stands with very few others for me as 5 Star movie. It is indeed complicated and requires very careful attention (and cc), but it is one of very few worth the effort.