Book Review: "Napoleon: A Life" by Andrew Roberts

 

Napoleon: A Life (2015)

3.5 Stars out of 5

Andrew Roberts

926 pages

Andrew Roberts describes himself as “extremely rightwing” in his politics. He is an Englishman with a degree in modern history. He has written 17 publications on historical events since 1991 and is best known for his 2009 “Storm of War”; a book-long analysis of where Hitler went wrong in WWII. Had I known this prior to reading his 2014 exhaustive biography on Napoleon Bonaparte, I would have thought to find a work that slanted Napoleon’s life towards a conservative Englishman’s point of view. And while it is certain Roberts admires Napoleon, he has managed to avoid creating an overly reactionary summary of his chosen topic. What the book does suffer from is a paucity of analysis and an overabundance of Napoleonic lists: his will bequeaths, his art decorations, the books in his library, and so forth. There is far too little critical examination of Napoleonic influence on France’s social institutions, on European law, on art and education, or even on modern military theory. Napoleon was an enormous influence on France and the Western World. An egotist to be certain; he wanted throughout his life to join in history his two most admired heroes, Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar. After reading this extensive summary of his achievements, should you choose to do so, you will unquestionably agree that he has indeed joined them. You will unfortunately also have to come to that conclusion (as I am sure you will) based on your own analysis of Roberts’ summary of Napoleon’s achievements, as he will provide close to no interpretation or summary of his own opinions on Napoleon’s position in history.

When modern Americans think of Napoleon, what do think of him, let alone know of him? Most likely they will have some comic image of a very short man, his right hand stuffed into his jacket, and some indication in his caricature of a fool or even a deranged man. Napoleon’s own contemporaries may have thought him unbalanced in the sense that they saw in him a man subsumed by his own notoriety and drive for glory. Perhaps they saw him as a dictator driven by his ego to sacrifice untold thousands of French soldiers as he sought to dominate Europe. It is certain the English saw him as a distinct threat to their growing hegemony. They knew he was not much of a threat on the sea, they knew they controlled it via the repeated victories by Admiral Lord Nelson. Their concerns lay rather with control of the continent. Indeed, the English saw so much risk inherent in an unbound Napoleon that they spent millions of English Pounds buying off Russia, Prussia, Austria (a country already consumed with hatred for Napoleon), Sweden and a host of smaller countries – all in an effort to isolate on land what they had already done at sea. But how did Napoléon Bonaparte, the son of a minor Corsican noble, a child that never learned to speak anything but heavily accented French, rise to be emperor of post-revolutionary France, the primary threat to England and the terror of virtually all Europe. The answer lies in Robertson’s book, but you will have to look for it.

Napoleon was born in 1769 to a father lately arrived to Corsica from Tuscany and a mother that was devoted to him and learning. He was part of a large collection of brothers and sisters, all of whom would join him in his later imperial administration and royal machinations. His siblings though would prove at best, neutral allies, or at worst as in the case of his elder brother Joseph, a complete disaster. I would go so far as to say Joseph’s mishandling of Spain was one of the critical elements in Napoleon’s ultimate down fall. Young Napoleon showed considerable talent in math and this would lead him to the study of artillery once he reached the mainland and its military schools. He also displayed great interest in a personal study of classical history, focusing of course on the various military geniuses that had distinguished themselves. Alexander and Caesar would become life-long icons for him to emulate. Following his graduation from school, he did not look to have much promise as a military leader, or even as a reliable member of the Army. From the beginning he established a habit of year-long leaves from the French Army. One example (and not the only one) was when he chose to involve himself in a conflict on Corsica, a conflict that was with France herself. Eventually, he did return and was instrumental in brutally suppressing via cannon fire, mob action in Paris. This got him the attention of the government and command of the French Army of Italy, all by the age of 26. Needless to say, due to his youth and inexperience he was initially poorly regarded by those in his new command. However, he very quickly was able to demonstrate his military genius as he out-thought the Austrians (the military rulers of a fractured Italy) and proved to be an extremely able commander of men, as well as a great military tactician. His defeat of the Austrians would form in them and their Emperor, Francis I a life-long enmity, and would be the beginning of 60 major military battles with him winning all but a very few. Though of course, two of those losses, Leipzig and Waterloo would prove disastrous to him and France.

He returned to Paris a darling of the populace; of the populace, but not of the revolutionary government that had shortly followed the over-throw of Louis XIV, the Directorate. They decided it would better if he were somewhere far from Paris. As such, and to ostensibly frustrate English ambitions in India, they sent him to Egypt. On this trip in 1789 he would take 167 scholars, hundreds of books and thousands of soldiers. He would there continue his string of military victories as he defeated the Mameluks, the mercenary force ruling Egypt. He would also oversee the gathering of great amounts of scholarly work by his cadre of scientists (the Rosetta Stone was discovered on this expedition). And he would start to display his ruthless behavior when he felt the military situation warranted it. In this case, he would kill to the last man the defenders of Jaffa, and even his own men dying from the plague on the trip back to Egypt after the battles in Palestine were concluded. When he decided to make a precipitous return to Paris, a new controversy arose, as in leaving the field as he did, he left the majority of his men in Egypt in order to race back to France. His men would soon be defeated by the English as Admiral Nelson destroyed the Nile-based French fleet and over-ran French land forces. Napoleon though, managed a watery escape – this too would be a pattern: previously from the Corsican conflict, now from Egypt and later from Elba. Once in Paris, he decided to waste little time in orchestrating a coup d’état, thus ending the Directorate’s rule and beginning his rule as 1^st Consul. The consulship was ostensibly a republic ruled by Napoleon and two others. In fact, this became his start as a dictator as he quickly eliminated the authority of the two other consuls, leaving Napoleon in sole charge. Each Consul was allegedly elected by popular vote. However, here was an early example of Napoleon’s self-serving math. His facility with numbers which had served him so honorably in artillery school would now be employed less precisely in a career long pattern of lying about how many votes he received, in this case, >99%. He would continue this action in 1804 when he was “elected” to emperor, again with >98% of the votes. He had already given much evidence of his flexibility with numbers when he reported back to Paris on how many cannon he had taken from the Austrians, how many enemy killed or imprisoned, or how many French soldiers had been lost. The enemy’s losses were always grossly inflated, while his own losses severely minimized. He considered such Franco-centric numbers to be part of his military strategy to deceive and demoralize the enemy; that they helped foster his reputation was a convenient plus.

There is no doubt of Napoleon’s military genius. He formulated over twenty maxims of military strategy and tactics that are studied to this day in Western military schools. His actual battles are modeled and studied as well; even his losses such as Waterloo are studied carefully to see whether or not he erred in not following his own maxims. His normal performance was so far above the performance of his foes (Wellington was a distinct exception), that when he did fail as at Waterloo or Leipzig, military scholars first assume he did not follow his own dictums and then try to find out why. They simply do not assume his tactics were at fault. With respect to tactics, if this is an area of interest, you will find them reasonably summarized in Roberts’ book. A gross simplification of them could be summed as the following: never split your forces, keep them concentrated and focus them on the your enemy’s center; once you have your enemy in trouble, finish him off before you turn to another enemy force. He also introduced several techniques to enhance his army’s mobility and flexibility in turning to new threats. Lastly, as previously noted, Napoleon was a great believer in false information. In one of his greatest victories, Austerlitz, he did everything he could to convince the Austrians that his forces were in trouble. The Austrians took the bait and paid the ultimate price for it.

As one reads of Napoleon’s victories, it is hard not to conclude that a disproportionate amount of them were over the Austrians. Francis I would join his country to seven coalitions made up at one time or the other of Austrians, Prussians, Russians, and the English – but always the Austrians, and always the Austrians would pay the price. It is true, they were part of the forces that defeated Napoleon in France the first time in 1814 following Napoleon’s defeat in Leipzig at the hands of the Prussians and Russians in 1813 and then again for the last time in 1815 at Waterloo, this time at the hands of the English and the Prussians. The Austrians really never did learn their lesson from Napoleon. One might as well wonder what lessons Napoleon learned with respect to his two major defeats. It would have been nice if Roberts had devoted a chapter to summing up the forces and events that culminated in Napoleon’s downfall, but he does not. It is easy to see how under Napoleon’s brother Joseph’s incompetent rule of Spain, French land forces were pinned down and weakened by long term guerilla warfare by the Spanish and Portuguese (with considerable help from Wellington, again). These forces were not available to Napoleon when he marched to or from Moscow. He also dallied for far too long in his approach to and in his stay in Moscow, and thus got caught in a Polish winter during his retreat out of Russia that decimated his forces. Napoleon unquestionably created an enemy in Czar Alexander with Napoleon’s Continental System. This system was an attempt to thwart the English control of the seas but all it really did was ruin the Russian economy and impoverish a significant part of the French populace. Napoleon’s intent was to embargo all sea traffic involved with Great Britain, but in doing so he ruined everyone’s business interests: allies and enemies alike. Since Britain had near absolute control of the seas by 1814, Napoleon was forced to such extremes. In this case he chose very unwisely as he hurt his true allies and erstwhile allies like Czar Alexander as much as he hurt Britain. Another significant mistake Napoleon made was in his relations to the hitherto almost uninvolved Prussia; he created the Confederation of the Rhine by taking land from Prussia in the Treaty of Tilsit which humiliated them and created an enemy force on Prussia’s border. The treaty of Tilsit had been by Napoleon designed to make an ally of Russia at Prussia’s cost. What it did instead was create a furious enemy in Prussia, and an unreliable ally in Russia. It is truly ironic that so many of these themes would re-occur in post-WWI Europe.

The bottom-line then is Napoleon created the conditions and the enemies that would create the coalitions that formed to defeat him. Indeed, by the time of the 6^th and 7^th coalitions, the Allies regarded a complete removal of Napoleon as being almost the only goal that mattered. They weren’t defeating and subjugating France as much as defeating and subjugating Napoleon. Needless to say they did more to France than imprison Napoleon on Elba in 1814 and St Helena in 1815, they also slaughtered hundreds of thousands of French soldiers and in 1814 returned the French borders to those of 1791, borders that existed before Napoleon ever came to power.

France and Napoleon paid a dear price for his military exploits, but France was also the beneficiary of considerable social progress under Napoleon. The "Code of Napoleon" legal system was instituted and became a model for several European countries besides France and still exists in some countries up to the present. The structure of the French “states” into districts with a governance system based on meritocracy was instituted under Napoleon. A modern sewer system for Paris was created under Napoleon. A long list of such social accomplishments could be studied to clearly understand just what a force for good as well as bad Napoleon was. He was in many ways far more than his two heroes, Alexander and Caesar. He stands alone in history for a rich variety of reasons. He is a man well worth study. But I am sad to say, that unless lifeless language and long lists are your primary choices for studying history, or if you are looking for a professorial-level analysis of the geo-political, or even the military forces involved in the Napoleonic era, Roberts’ book is not the best choice to use in such a study.

Documentary Review: "Jim: The James Foley Story"

Jim: The James Foley Story (2016)

4.5 Stars out of 5

Director                               Brian Oakes
Writer                                  Heather McDonald, Brian Oakes
Screenplay                          Chris Chuang
Cinematographer              Clair Popkin

Music (The Empty Chair)  Sting, J. Ralph

James Foley                        Murdered, 8/19/14
John Foley, Sr.                    Father
Diane Foley                        Mother
John Foley, Jr.                    Older brother
Michael Foley                    Younger Brother
Mark Foley                         Younger Brother
Katie Foley                         Younger Sister
Philip Balboni                    Global Post Editor, employer
Fellow Prisoners               John Cantlie (English, still being held), Daniel Rye Ottosen (Danish,    
                                             ransomed), Didier Francoise and Nicholas Henin (French, ransomed),
                                             Steven Sotloff (American, murdered 9/2/14)

 

James Foley, an American photo-journalist was beheaded by ISIS on August 19, 2014. “Jim: The James Foley Story” written (along with Heather McDonald and Chris Chuang) and directed by childhood friend Brian Oakes was a Sun Dance Festival “Audience Award” winner at this year’s Sun Dance Festival. HBO premiered it on television on February 6, 2016. Foley had been kidnapped in Idlib, Syria on Thanksgiving Day, nearly two years before his death at the hands of ISIS. One of the more unusual aspects of his tragic story is that he had already endured a previous imprisonment in Libya in 2011 by a different group of Islamic terrorists where he had been covering the rebellion against Muammar Gaddafi. He was freed in the Libyan case but the various attempts (including an armed rescue mission, not discussed in the movie) by the US government failed to free him in Syria. That Oaks deeply admires, perhaps even loves Foley and his family seems abundantly clear in his movie. An unanswered or even asked question is what Oakes and the Foley family thinks of the efforts to free Foley by the US government. There is some discussion by Foley’s colleagues on the issue of journalists in war zones. However, this movie is really more a memorial to the driven and beloved Foley than a documentary-styled examination of the issues surrounding his imprisonment, his death, or the role of the US government in overseas kidnapping cases such as his.

The movie follows a time worn process often followed in older documentaries of interviewing a series of talking heads; though to Oakes’ credit he overlays their comments with images from the two war zones in question as well as family home videos of James and his siblings when all were small children. Oakes is able to bring three different layers of conversations into the film that help explain Foley’s personality from his family’s point of view; his dedication to the people and events along the front lines as seen by his fellow journalists; and finally his life in ISIS’s hands from three of his fellow prisoners’ experiences – most notably, Danish photographer Daniel Rye Ottosen. At one point, there were eighteen to nineteen men placed in a single ISIS cell in Raqaa, Syria. These other prisoners were all foreign journalists from England, Denmark, France, Russia, and Spain; and at least two from America.  The three that spend a good time of the film’s length describing life in prison were Ottosen and two Frenchmen, Didier Francoise and Nicholas Henin. Ottosen, Foley’s father John Sr. and two of Foley’s brothers, John Jr. and Michael provide emotionally compelling family testimony.

During several discussions, John Jr. finds it hard to maintain his composure as he discusses James’ decision to initially and even more unbelievingly to return to the war zones of Libya and Syria. John’s perspective is largely oriented towards James’ happiness, indeed his survival. This stands in stark contrast to comments by John and others that indicate so clearly James’ irresistible desire to help the people caught up in the brutality of war. Michael is better able to remain composed but is just as uncomprehending over James’ decisions to repeatedly expose himself to life threatening situations. However, I found the Dane Ottosen’s comments the most instructive of the film. To be sure, the Foley’s family’s remembrances and emotional state were largely the most affecting, but it was Ottosen that gave insight into life as a prisoner of ISIS and of Foley’s near saint-like behavior towards his fellow prisoners. Foley was a man that had already been imprisoned for a year by someone (it still is not clear who) prior to his transfer to ISIS control in Raqaa, and upon being introduced to his new cell mates almost immediately offers some of his clothing to another prisoner, one evidently in desperate need of warmth. His compassion for his those in his cell certainly did not end there. Multiple examples are given in the film of Foley never losing his composure despite being singled out by ISIS for being an American and for having a brother (John Jr.) having been in the American military; or other examples such as one of him comforting a prisoner (Ottosen again) experiencing depression as he awaits his release and this at time when it appears Foley knows with certainty that he himself will never be released.

The movie does a great job of establishing Foley as a modern saint, and while this may sound like hyperbole, it is not. What the movie does not examine very well at all is the questionable wisdom of having unarmed civilians (i.e. the journalists in question) in a war zone. When Foley was captured in Libya he had been embedded with local Libyan rebel forces and was somewhat protected, but when he was in Syria, he operated with only a driver and translator. What kind of rationale drives such people as Foley to enter the world’s most dangerous locations with little more than a bullet-proof vest, a helmet and a camera? That it seems self-evidently illogical is inescapable to me. I am strongly tempted to place such decisions to enter the war zone, no matter the intentions, in a category hardly different from BASE jumpers, winter hikers of Mt. Hood, or Niagara Falls tight rope walkers. Yes, these people (like the journalists) have the right to risk their own lives. And yes, the journalists are not simply adrenaline junkies (though this does appear to be part of their decision process – as commented on by at least one of the film’s surviving journalists), the journalists do serve a great public good. It is just that I find my compassion for these imprisoned journalists tempered somewhat by the fact that they have taken inordinate risks with their lives. Their videos of the oppressed and murdered victims of ISIS are important to the world. however, the lives of the journalists are just as important. I cannot equate the risks the journalists take with the value of their videos.

The film is an outstanding tribute to James Foley. It is constructed beautifully and when taken solely as a tribute and not as a wide ranging documentary (on imprisoned journalists, on America’s fractured policy of retrieving our captured journalists, on the people of the war zones, or even of other captured journalists), then this is a beautiful commentary on a man; a man that could be confused with a saint. As long as the movie is regarded as a tribute, there are few issues with the film that I could find. I did finish the movie wondering what was the youngest Foley (Mark) brother’s  views on James, and even more to the point, what became of the Englishman captured with James Foley, John Cantlie. As I searched for Cantlie’s status, I learned to my surprise and dismay that he remains to this day a prisoner of ISIS. I also learned of a second American held and murdered shortly after Foley by ISIS, Steven Sotloff. Indeed, it was Sotloff’s beheading that finally proved too much for President Barak Obama. Following the Sotloff atrocity, America began bombing in earnest those parts of Syria and Iraq under ISIS control.

This is an excellent movie, one well worth watching. I cannot blame the film’s makers for focusing exclusively on James Foley; the title certainly gave fair warning. It is a good film and I do recommend it. I also recommend you bring some tissues; you’ll need them as the moving is powerfully wrenching as you experience some of the Foley family pain.

Book Review: "Age of Iron" by J.M. Coetzee

Age of Iron (1990)

5 Stars out of 5

J.M. Coetzee

198 pages

J.M. Coetzee had prior to the publication of “Age of Iron” (1990) written five novels. This South African academic had already won his first Booker Prize in 1983 for “The Life and Times of Michael K”. Coetzee would go on to win another Booker Prize for “Disgrace” in 1999 (the first ever to receive two Booker prizes) and a Nobel Prize for Literature in 2003. The Nobel committee commented at the time on Coetzee’s use of the “involvement of the outsider” along with his “well-crafted composition, pregnant dialog and analytical brilliance” in his work. All of these elements are to be found in “Age of Iron” along with Coetzee’s life-long focus on violence as it is manifested in the imperialistic and colonialist mentality of the Western World.

Coetzee explores his concerns about the plight of those that cannot defend themselves via the use of allegorical techniques in many of his novels; “Age of Iron” continues this pattern. The novel is superficially a long letter from a dying South African white woman, Mrs. Curren to her long-departed daughter in America. She has just learned from her doctors that her losing battle with cancer is nearing its end. After she returns home from the doctor's office, she spots a homeless man lying in the alley behind her house. She invites the dirty and drunken Mr. Vercueil into her home and into her life. Initially distant in mind and position, Mrs. Curren slowly proceeds to open herself emotionally and philosophically to Vercueil. She is a former Classics teacher, he a former seaman. She talks incessantly (but not unwisely), he hardly at all. From a symbolic sense, she may represent the silent, liberal wings of apartheid South Africa (the years of this story are 1986 to 1989 – five years before the end of Apartheid), while Vercueil may be the equally silent, but indifferent wing of that same society. These are the guilty people of South Africa; not guilty of actively suppressing the majority black people. No, not guilty of active suppression; they are the ones guilty of tolerating and turning their silent gazes away and thus allowing the system to flourish far longer than it ever should have.

Mrs. Curren employs within her household a housekeeper, Florence, Florence is a black South African and the mother of two little girls and an adolescent boy, Bheki. Bheki is away to school as the “Age of Iron” opens. He soon comes home with a boy we later learn is named John. Bheki and John represent the black youth of course, but also as the reader progresses are shown to be the “Iron” of the book’s title. The boys are caught up in the growing violence of the times, and will act in several ways to propel Mrs. Curren’s personal evolution. As the boys situation becomes more dire with respect to the police, Mrs. Curren’s eyes begin to open to the situation of the blacks with whom she “shares” her country. That she and her white compatriots don’t really share the country has long been known to her, but just what the whites do share with blacks is only now becoming all too dreadfully clear to her. Yet as she still fails to fully understand the narrowness of black South Africans' choices or the world they inhabit, she continues to argue against the movement towards violence these two young men appear to be making. Early in her dawning awareness of the black world her housekeeper lives in, she asks Florence, how can she ignore the danger Bheki is in? Florence responds “that the children are like iron, we are proud of them.” Her answer seems to be for a different question and is completely incomprehensible to Mrs. Curren.

As the violence ramps up and Mrs. Curren continues her various arguments with the black people she meets, she slowly begins to realize another fact: her opinions don’t matter because she is a woman; worse, an old woman; and most worst of all, an old white woman. The use by Coetzee of this image is one he has commented on outside his books: the sense that the black people in South Africa live in a land invisible to him. It is equally interesting to me that Coetzee as a man has chosen to inhabit the mind of a woman in “Age of Iron”. It seems another attempt by him as he tries to imagine the inner life of a woman, another attempt to understand yet another group of the historically disenfranchised segments of society.

Coetzee is also well known for occasionally incorporating his own life into his allegories. His mother, a woman of German ancestry and a school teacher might be a model for Mrs. Curren. Vercueil’s model then would presumably be Coetzee’s Afrikaner father. Whether his father was as silent as the fictional Vercueil is not known to me, though others have commented that Coetzee himself is notorious for his taciturnity. Coetzee is also known to be a teetotaler and a vegan; not good models for the alcoholic Vercueil. Whether Coetzee has brought his family’s superficialities into this story or not is really not the main thrust of the book Rather it is whether or not he has brought in the attitudes and value systems of the Afrikaners he grew up with is the real point of the book. To judge by comments made by Coetzee following the publication of some of this other novels, it is clear he feels passionate about the plight of those that cannot defend themselves.

Coetzee has also publically stated that "there is only one true myth, the myth of the survivor on a desert island”. Coetzee went so far as to have one of his characters state his desire for solitude and to stand outside history by declaring “I don’t like accomplices. God let me be alone.” Wondering about these hermitic thoughts of Coetzee makes me really wonder at the origins for the fervor Coetzee clearly feels for the powerless. The theme in “Age of Iron” of a bridgeless chasm between white and black, of the world the blacks live in that is so foreign to the whites that it seems incomprehensively alien suggests compassion and empathy that are terribly foreign to that desert island-loving author. Yet, go into this theme he does with “Age of Iron”, and while it seems like a choice that is an obvious one for a South African (or American) to dig into, there are but only a very few cases in literature that anyone has delved into it as elegantly as Coetzee does.

J.M. Coetzee has written as of 2016 twelve novels and four fictionalized memoirs, most including the theme of the indifferent or clueless powerful in contrast to the powerless. He first tried his deft hand on these topics in 1974 with “Dusklands” where he draws implied parallels between America’s war in Viet Nam and South Africa’s actions in 18^th Century Africa. He displayed his growing artistic genius with the tale of the deformed Michael K in 1983’s “The Life and Times of Michael K”. In each of these novels as with “Age of Iron”, Coetzee has found a way to explore his chosen theme with new, insightful literary techniques. While the heart of Coetzee’s work may well lie in a concern over the helpless, the art of Coetzee’s work lies in the clever construction and elegant language used in his writing. “Age of Iron” is an excellent introduction to him, his themes and subject choices. I strongly recommend it to anyone interested in the oppressed, how oppression can be active or passive, and in stories told at a very rarefied level of subtlety in style and language.

Movie Review: "Sicario"

Sicario (2015)

R

5 Stars out of 5

Director                                Denis Villeneuve
Writer                                   Taylor Sheridan
Cinematography                 Roger Deakins
Music                                    Jóhan Jóhannsson
Editor                                    Joe Walker

Emily Blunt                          Kate Macer
Benicio del Toro                 Alejandro Gillick
Josh Brolin                           Matt Graver

 

The German language is a kind of Lego language. One can take any two (or more) words and build a new word. One of my favorites is weltanschauung, it’s a mouthful for an English speaker to be sure. In English it means world view. In the original German philosophy sense, it refers to a person’s or a culture’s method of viewing, interpreting and interacting with the world they live in. One of the best movies of 2015, “Sicario” has at its foundation a clash of world views. While the story is superficially about the futility of the decades long drug war fought by the US government, this movie’s core theme is how Americans view not just that war, but how they wage it. Like Francis Ford Coppolola’s 1979 movie “Apocalypse Now”, “Sicario” has two factions waging a battle that is far deeper than simply killing one’s enemies. Both of these movies portray a battle of world views: one side that stubbornly clings (ah…, but maybe not that stubbornly by each movie’s ending) to an old world view that uses morality and the law to guide their way versus the other newer and also far more ancient view that says that the ends justify the means. “Apocalypse Now” had its Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando) dueling with Captain Willard (Martin Sheen); and “Sicario” has former Mexican Prosecutor Alejandro Gillick (Benicio del Toro) testing the limits of FBI agent Kate Macer’s (Emily Blunt) sense of right and wrong.

This movie will certainly be on just about every professional critic’s Top Ten list for 2015. It should also, however, only be seen by an audience willing to see a movie with a horrifically high level of violence; a movie where such violence is an absolute necessity to the telling of this story. “Sicario” begins in a suburb of Phoenix Arizona. Kate Macer leads an FBI and local PD team into a house as they search for a group of kidnap victims. They don’t find their sought-after victims, but they do find a house filled with corpses. This opening scene sets the tone for the movie and like several others in the film borrow again from “Apocalypse Now” with its views of helicopters sweeping in for the “kill”. An additional purpose for this opening scene though is to show Kate’s capabilities in a war zone (one placed in an American suburb) and to provide her with the motivation she will need in the subsequent parts of this movie. She wants to find and stop the man responsible for the murdered victims in the house, a drug cartel hit-man (e.g. sicario in Spanish) by the name of Manuel Diaz. To do so, she will have to remember her motivation from that death house as she struggles with her goal and the means she will use to achieve it.

Because of Kate’s abilities as a leader and her experience in the field as an FBI agent, she is asked to join a CIA-led team to track down Diaz. Her partner, Reggie (Daniel Kaluuya) is also considered for the team but rejected because has been trained in the law. While Kate and Reggie do not hear the conversation where each is considered for the team, the audience does, and in so doing is given ample foreshadowing via the comment on Reggie, that the pending operation against Diaz will not be one “done by the book”. As a member of the team, Kate soon learns the truth of this last point: the CIA operation plays very fast and loose with American and Mexican law. Even more to the point though, is that once Kate starts to question the operation’s team leader, Matt Graver (Josh Brolin), Kate begins to learn that she is to be kept largely in the dark about all aspects of the operation including not only the methods, but also the goal and location of the operation. A perfect example of how little she is informed is demonstrated on a plane transporting her, Matt, and team member Alejandro Gillick (Benicio del Toro) from Phoenix to El Paso Texas. Matt goes to sleep immediately and is clearly not going to answer her questions, but even more telling is her “conversation” with Alejandro. Kate attempts to ask Alejandro for information regarding the operation and her role in it. Alejandro says basically nothing concrete in a stunning performance by del Toro. Instead, the coiled tension within the Alejandro character speaks volumes. The demons carried within by Alejandro and clearly seen by Kate portend ominously about the pending battles they will have with each other.

Kate has her own demons within, of course, but unlike Alejandro’s; they are not in charge of her. Matt almost surely had or has demons, too, but the character of Matt as played by Brolin is more of a cipher (in keeping with his job as a CIA agent) than a wound up spring like Alejandro. Each of these three characters are uniquely drawn by writer Taylor Sheridan, and under director Denis Villenueve, each actor achieves performances that should surely merit attention at Oscar time; del Toro, most notably. Villenueve’s direction and the editing by Joe Walker have created a movie filled with expert acting, cinematography, and music that is paced perfectly to create an alternate world of pending violence and unknown morality. Consider the scenes that come after the flight to El Paso. After a pulse pounding drive into Juarez from Texas to retrieve Diaz’ brother Guillermo, the operation team members return to the border crossing. They become bogged down in traffic. Each team member stares anxiously into the windows of the adjacent cars, wondering which car might contain a cartel member. The camera work, music and acting all combine to create a mood of impending doom.

Impending doom or its threat is constant throughout “Sicario”, and fully act as the motivators for the clash of worldviews: Alejandro and  Matt use it as justification to break the rules, and while Kate feels it too, she worries much more about its corrosive effect on her own seemingly anachronistic world view; a world view based on the rule of law. In a world threatened by terrorists and the erratic leaders of the Russian Republic or North Korea, this same sense of impending doom, of potential apocalypse is a feeling known all too well to modern America. What is the likelihood that any particular society will give into its fears and choose leaders that like Colonel Kurtz or Matt Graver throw out the values that once guided it? It’s a question worth considering in 2016 and it seems clear that Villeneuve worries about the choice and which world view will prevail.

The only criticism I have of the movie is a brief series of scenes near the end of the film that move the focus away from Kate as a foil and solely onto Alejandro. The big questions raised by this movie are dropped briefly in favor of a violent spate of revenge; having said that though, Villeneuve then moves quickly into several of the most thought-proving scenes in the entire movie. The closing scenes of “Sicario” have Alejandro forcing Kate to state in writing that all of their operations have actually “been by the book”. At first she refuses to cooperate, but as with her actions in the Juarez operation, she acquiesces over time. Her worldview may not have been permanently changed yet, but it is fair to say that it is “evolving”. And just like Kate, the final scenes of “Sicario” show how Juarez’ worldview has also moved on: a sound of gunfire is heard in the distance during a soccer game; the game pauses, and then goes forward; the crowd’s attention only momentarily distracted. The numbness they felt, and the acceptance of the new reality for the citizens of Juarez is shocking; no less so than Kate’s acceptance of her new reality. As violent as “Sicario” is, it raises questions that must be asked and it effectively uses violence to ask those questions.

This is not an easy movie to watch, but it is most definitely in my Top Ten for 2015.

Movie Review: "Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation"

Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015)

PG-13

4.5 Stars out of 5

Director/Writer                 Christopher McQuarrie
Cinematography               Robert Elswit
Music                                  Joe Kraemer

Tom Cruise                         Ethan Hunt
Jeremy Renner                  William Brandt
Simon Pegg                        Benji Dunn
Rebecca Ferguson             Ilsa Faust
Ving Rhames                      Luther Stickell
Alec Baldwin                      Alan Hunley
Sean Harris                         Lane

 

“Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation” is the fifth in the Mission: Impossible series using the movie format, all starring Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt. It is possible that this entry is the best to date. But how does one separate out one movie in such a series; a series that features missions labeled as impossible and has a hero/superman that specializes in just such missions? One cannot look to great acting (unless one considers stunts as a sub-category of acting) or thoughtful writing featuring deep underlying themes that illustrate human needs. Moral quandaries that drive the human condition are not going to be part of the discussion. And yet Christopher McQuarrie as both writer and director has created a film that manages the pace of the thrills and intervening set up scenes in such a manner that the excitement and tone are so superior to its contemporaries, that Rogue Nation definitely stands above most movies in the action/spy genre.

Like the preceding entries in the Mission Impossible series, Cruise as Ethan Hunt leads a team that consists of two colleagues, Benji (Simon Pegg) and Luther (Ving Rhames); both seem to be hackers or electronics experts of some sort; the nerds that support their heroic and athletic leader, Hunt. In each entry, Hunt and pals must confront some arch-villain intent on destroying the existing world order. They must penetrate some impenetrable fortress employing a rich variety of awe-inspiring stunts (often done by Cruise himself), use all sorts of advanced electronic gear and at some point, they must wear masks that allow someone to impersonate someone else (ala Scoobie Doo). All of these elements will be used in Rogue Nation; so why does it stand out? For movies of this sort in general and in the case of Rogue Nation in particular, the movies that stand out will also introduce some amazing stunts/chase scenes that appear almost as a highly choreographed dance that maintain the tone and intensity of the movie, they will have unusual co-heroes (extra points for female heroes), and most particularly for Rogue Nation, such movies will introduce some embedded tropes that help illustrate some aspect of the story. Rogue Nation nicely does this latter point by using Puccini’s 1924 opera, Turandot; an opera describing a princess and a suitor that must past three riddles in order to marry her or face death if he fails.

Obviously, to over-interpret the use of Turandot in a spy movie is a move that should be avoided by the amateur critic, and yet, I still think it is a nice touch. In this theme, Rogue Nation brings in a female character/spy/superhuman in the form of the amusingly named Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson). It goes without saying she is very attractive, showing off her leggy beauty at almost every turn. One clever aspect of her character is to whom does she owe her true loyalty: Hunt’s IMF team, the British spy agency MI6, or to this movie’s arch villain, Lane (Sean Harris)? What Lane wants as the villain is of no note in this movie, though quite frankly I did puzzle over it as the movie progressed, and I never came to a conclusion. He’s just a bad guy, and Ilsa either works for him or pretends to – it really doesn’t matter very much. Adding to the pseudo-complexity of the movie is the sub-plot that CIA Chief Alan Hunley (Alec Baldwin) has convinced the US government to shut down the IMF group, their leader William Brandt (Jeremy Renner) and Hunt/Cruise.

As the movie rolls through the Hunt stunts and the complicated machinations of Lane and Hunt as they oppose one another, the female Ethan Hunt character, Ilsa Faust proves to be in every way Hunt’s equal in skill and intelligence. She saves him, compromises him, helps him, and proves to be at least superficially of unknown loyalty; but we know, don’t we? And of course Ethan Hunt knows her true self, no matter that she periodically appears to be at cross purposes with him. I do like the apposition of Faust to Hunt. It’s not mind bending in a particular way, but it helps set Hunt and Faust up as the supermen they are and to hint at some impossible love in the making. Being godlike in their abilities, there relationship must remain pure, platonic and unrequited, or so I imagine.

In any event, “Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation” is a very entertaining movie for a movie in this genre. From the amazing opening stunt on the side of an airplane to the one in the depths of some kind of memory storage unit underwater (requiring Hunt to hold his breath for three minutes – surely no one but Hunt, Faust and other supermen could do that?), to the best chase scene (this one on motorcycles) I have seen in years, this movie delivers its quotient of amazing stunts. There is cleverness in the presentation of the gun fight within the Vienna opera house and in the allusion of Turandot’s story to the competing spy-craft of Hunt and Faust. But best of all, is the way the excitement introduced by the stunts, chase scene and fights are presented to the audience in such a way that the tension brought about by these elements are paced so skillfully throughout the movie. For aficionados of this genre, “Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation” is a great example of the action movie.

Movie Review: "Tomorrowland"

Tomorrowland (2015)

PG

3 Stars out of 5

Director                                Brad Bird
Writer                                   Damon Lindelhof, Brad Bird
Cinematography                 Claudio Miranda
Music                                    Michael Giacchino

George Clooney                   Frank Walker
Hugh Laurie                          Governor Nix
Britt Robertson                    Casey Newton
Raffey Cassidy                      Athena

 

Brad Bird began his career at Disney as an animator studying under one of the original “nine old men”, Milt Kahl. His film career as a director (and writer) began with the remarkable “The Iron Giant” (1999). This film began a short string of critically noteworthy animated films: “The Incredibles” in 2004 and “Ratatouille” in 2007. In 2011, he turned his attention to live action films with “Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol”. Each of these four films has earned marks of 90% or higher on Rotten Tomatoes’ website. Besides the critical acclaim though, it is worth noting that there are themes throughout these four movies that come together with somewhat less success in his latest live action movie, “Tomorrowland”: who is best qualified to lead a society, great artwork, strange mixtures of peoples and/or archetypes, and the value of optimism over despair. Some of these are lofty ideas to be sure, but are poorly mixed in “Tomorrowland”, and ultimately introduced into a movie that could not quite deliver on its core philosophical message despite its good intentions.

To be sure, a movie rooted in a section of a famous theme park has a big challenge in front of the writer: how does one write a compelling story that utilizes the theme park and its inherently rosy view of the future without descending into drivel. This is clearly not an easy task, and I give full credit to Bird and Damon Lindelhof as the writers in crafting a story around that sense of wonder and optimism to found at Disneyland’s Tomorrowland, and in placing it in counterpoint to the growing sense of distress felt by so many Americans as they watch the daily news on TV. Bird and Lindelhof have written a story that describes a parallel world built by scientists and artists sometime around the end of the 19^th century. This alternate world has advanced technologically far more quickly than the grey, humdrum world we all live in. They have flying trains, gravity defying swimming pools, and rocket ships that look remarkably like Disney’s old “Voyage to the Moon” ride. That is all well and good; we are talking about a movie inspired by a theme park after all. But what is a little unnerving about the underpinnings of this alternate world is the sense of elitism that underlies this alternate world’s creation and governance. Those poor scientists (Edison, Tesla, et. al.) had to leave our world where they and their science were underappreciated.

We first meet that alternate world’s Governor Nix (Hugh Lurie) at the 1964 World’s Fair in New York. A young inventor, Frank Walker (Thomas Robinson) tries to interest the Governor in his flying machine – a backpack rocket device made from two Elextrolux vacuum cleaner canisters. The governor’s not interested, but his young assistant, Athena is. She manages to get Frank to Tomorrowland, the alternate universe world where she and the Governor come from. The story then jumps forward 50 years or so to the present where we meet the twenty-something, Casey. She is a young dreamer intent on going to space. Like Frank she is “recruited” by Athena, who is still a young girl. Thus begins an oddly violent and philosophically disconnected series of battles fought by the grown up Frank (George Clooney), Athena, and Casey against Nix and his minions. How did a story that preaches optimism in the face of despair turn into a series of scenes where homicidal robots (“audio-animatronic” robots in keeping with the Disney nomenclature) blast into non-existence first responders and anyone else that might seem to oppose the now murderous Governor Nix?

There is sci-fi artwork inspired by the Art Deco movement in some scenes, while others rely heavily on a Disney version of sleeping beauty’s castle brought into the future. This movie can be artistically clever, and while it is pointless to criticize the science, it is not pointless to decry the uneven philosophy/morality propounded overtly and covertly throughout this movie. I fully embrace any vision that argues for optimism with regards the future. Yes, let’s not give up in the face of global climate change, but fight to the end the right of those living on this planet to preserve it. To make such an argument is almost the only reason I don’t give this movie a lower score than the one I have given it. But when you have a group that seem to also have the upper moral plane in your movie such as those that live in Tomorrowland, and then have their leader to both extol the value of science in finding a way to a happier life and then to condemn those left on Earth to their fate since they are “savages” and thus deserve no less; especially when that same leader is the one manipulating events to bring about their demise. What a strange messenger for both hope in the future and disregard for others Bird and Lindelhof have created in Nix. It seems almost like an argument for not just the disregarded elites to survive but to also be the sole survivors.

The counter-argument could be made that Nix is merely the “bad guy” and Frank the “good guy”. It should surprise no reader who will win in the end. Maybe it is that simple: Frank’s vision is the one that prevails and Nix with his negative connoting name and vision get squished. Perhaps, but the sense of elite entitlement/victimhood is a theme that passes through this movie extensively and I end up with the nagging feeling that Nix was onto something in Bird’s mind but that he just needed to tweak it up a bit. The other aspect that is seriously disturbing is the relationship between Frank and Athena. Young Frank not realizing that Athena was a robot fell in love with her in a touching young love kind of way. By the time the 60 year old and now aware Frank re-meets the still nine year old appearing Athena, his love for her is hardly less dissipated. Okay, science fiction, so what are you going to do? I don’t know, but the scene where the elder Frank cradles the dying Athena is a good definition of creepy- not unrequited-love. When (spoiler alert),  he drops her into an infernal machine in order to blow herself up and the machine with it, I am left speechless at the weirdness of this whole scene. Clearly intended to be sentimental, the scene ends up being simply uniquely strange.

Whether to watch “Tomorrowland” or not, will depend on one’s interest in FX vs. story. The special effects are impressive and fun to watch. The scenes where Athena’s magical World’s Fair pin allows Casey to jump from our world to Tomorrowland in a visual sense but not in a physical sense is the FX center-point of the movie and partly what attracted me to movie in the first place. The other aspect that attracted me is George Clooney’s acting, and in this movie he is first rate. The scenes Clooney are in are believable despite the writing. However, his acting and the FX do not for me out-weigh the negative effects of a movie that so loosely grips its moral and philosophical foundations. “Tomorrowland” is a visually interesting but cinematically troubling movie that I cannot really recommend.

TV Series Review: "Making a Murderer"

Making a Murderer (2015)

Netflix

TV-14

4 Stars out of 5

Documentary

Writer/Director                 Moira Demos, Laura Ricciardi

Steven Avery                     The Accused
Allan Avery                         Father to Steven
Dolores Avery                    Mother to Steven
Brendan Dassey                Nephew to Steven and accused co-perpetrator
Barb Tadych                       Mother to Brendan
Teresa Halbach                  Murder Victim
Dean Strang                       Attorney to Steven for Murder Trial
Jerry Buting                        Attorney to Steven for Murder Trial
Ken Kratz                            Prosecuting Attorney

 

Let me say right up front: I don’t like the True Crime documentary genre. The examples I can think of that have driven me away from this genre can be found on almost any episode of NBC’s “Dateline”. Each segment of the hour-long episode is written in cliff-hanger mode; but that is not the essential problem for me. Rather, it is the alternating and seemingly selective choice of material in each segment that tries to convict and then find innocent the accused. The viewer feels like they are being whip-sawed along a path; a path designed to manipulate and confuse the viewer’s emotions and sense of whether they are being shown all the evidence, let alone whether or not the accused is guilty or innocent. However, in 2014 when the public acclaim for the NPR broadcast of Sarah Koenig’s “Serial” podcast came out on the conviction of Adnan Sayed, I decided to make an exception. I was glad that I did. Koenig’s recitation of the events surrounding Sayed’s case was compelling without feeling manipulative. The listener had an opportunity to hear the evidence and the participants in the case to speak their minds, and since the program was twelve episodes, each roughly one hour in length, the listener likely came away from the “Serial” season one podcast with a sense that they have heard all the evidence. The listener can in that case draw a reasonably informed opinion on Sayed’s guilt or innocence. To comment further would ruin part of the enjoyment of Koenig’s well-crafted podcast.

Now in late 2015, there is again substantial public acclaim over another True Crime documentary. This time it is for Netflix’s broadcast of “Making a Murderer” by Moira Demos and Laura Ricciardi. While still film school students at Columbia in 2005, they had learned of an Innocence Project in Wisconsin. This project had via DNA analysis cleared the conviction of one Steven Avery of a brutal rape in 1985 near his home in Manitowoc County, WI; a rape and conviction that had wrongly sent him to prison for 18 years. Demos and Ricciardi went to Manitowoc County to begin a 10 year project on Steven Avery that led them and Avery towards a future that it is almost certain none of them could have foreseen. They have recorded their 10 year journey in an excellent 10 part documentary that was released by Netlfix on 18Dec15. Like “Serial”, “Making a Murderer” is a program that has much to say and does a great job saying it.

As with the NPR podcast to reveal too much in this review would again ruin too much of the experience inherent in viewing “Making a Murderer”, but a brief sketch of the events is as follows. Following Avery’s release from prison for the rape charge, he began proceedings to file a civil case against the Manitowoc County Sheriff’s department and Justice System for wrongfully convicting him. Had Avery won his case, Avery could well have ruined the county financially and certainly would have ruined a number of officials professionally. As the depositions for the civil case are being taken, a young woman, Susan Halbach goes missing. The last person she is “known” to have seen is Steven Avery. As before, the eyes of the Sheriff’s department immediately focus on Avery. Search teams begin looking for Ms. Halbach, one of them finds her missing car on Avery’s property. The Sherriff’s department then begins an 8 day search of the Avery property. During the 8 day search, the Avery family is restricted from their property. The police eventually do find evidence: Ms. Halbach’s car key with Avery’s DNA, blood smears with Avery’s DNA in the Halbach car, Ms. Halbach’s bones in a burn pit, a bullet with Ms. Halbach’s DNA in the Avery garage. The evidence all appear to lead to Steven Avery. However, as damning as this evidence appears to be, it is but circumstantial and it is evidence that might have been planted. The authorities had only this circumstantial evidence until Avery’s young and clearly mentally-limited nephew confesses his own involvement and that of Avery in the death of Ms. Halbach.

Demos and Ricciardi pace the exposure in the documentary of each piece of evidence in a manner that seems consistent with their actual exposure to the police on-site in Manitowoc County. As a counter-point to the litany of evidence piling up against Avery, they also include multiple interviews with the various members of the Avery family and legal defense team. They do so in a manner that helps the viewer to see that for every piece of evidence against the accused, there is the potential for compelling counter arguments in defense of the accused. For example, the police had access to Avery’s blood from the rape case; was it used to plant evidence in the Halbach car. And why was the Halbach car key not seen in previous searches of Avery’s residence, and then when it was found, it was found by one of the police being sued in the civil case? There was also evidence that remains disturbingly un-discussed by the prosecution: why was the victim’s blood found in the back of her car, as if she had been transported in the car following an assault; why is there no blood from the victim found at the alleged sites of the victim’s rape and murder? These last two points conflict severely with the time line and crime scenario constructed by the prosecution. The most damning scenes in the entire 10 hour program though are those of the interview and “confession” by the sixteen year old Brendan; a young man with a 70 IQ. That he was led and fed a series of ideas that corresponded to what his interviewers wanted to hear seems incontrovertible to me, though apparently not to the prosecution, the judge, or eventually to certain members of the jury.

The value of “Making a Murderer” is not that the police might have framed Avery, or that the Prosecution and initial defense of young Brendan appear to be good examples of legal malpractice, or possibly even violations of the law. Rather it is contained in a comment by one of Avery’s defense team: “I am certain I will never commit a felony. But I am far less certain, I will never be accused of one”. It is the implications of this statement and the protections for the accused built into the US constitution that are the real issues at stake in this documentary. It is possible Steven Avery committed the murder of Susan Halbach (though from the evidence shown in this documentary, I do not think that it has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt), and if he is the murderer, he should be punished to the full extent of the law. What seems extremely clear in this program is that Steven Avery was because of his past relations with the police, presumed guilty from the beginning. Did the police pad their case against Steven and with the full complicity of the local justice system try an innocent man for murder; or did they do so against a guilty man? Our constitution says it makes no difference during the trial phase. Whether guilty in fact or not, he is presumed innocent. The evidence against this man is gathered with this presumption, other potential perpetrators are sought and evidence against them is gathered, and this man and all others like him should not be tried by the authorities in the court of public opinion prior to his actual trial. None of these things were done in the Avery murder trial case. Guilty or not, Steven Avery was railroaded into his trial. Again regardless of his innocence or guilt, this is not the American way.

Under most circumstances, I will continue to maintain my personal aversion to True Crime documentaries. However, in the case of “Making a Murderer”, Demos and Ricciardi have done the American public a service in documenting this case. Yes, there are issues I had with them showing far too many scenes of snow-covered cars on the Avery property in order to set an emotional tone, of leaving out Avery’s apparent interest in Ms. Halbach prior to her death, and possibly the series could have been trimmed down in length. It is also possible, their critics may find their presentation too tendentious – their point of view is pretty clear, and the program reveals it. That being said, I watch every documentary with the idea that some things are left out of the film, and some things over-emphasized. It is surely true in “Making a Murderer”, but the discussion of how justice can be, not necessarily always is, meted out in the United States, is a discussion really worth having. Watching “Making a Murderer”, offensive superficial topic and title notwithstanding is an exercise also really worth performing.