Films for the Trump Years: Get Out

            I had originally planned something much different for this month.  With the continued threats to Obamacare, I thought of looking at some movies about the rise of AIDS in the 80’s and the atrocious apathy the Reagan administration showed towards the crisis, something along the lines of Angels in America.  There are also a couple of really excellent recent documentaries out about climate change (no, not the one you’re thinking of), which will not cease to be a critical issue anytime soon.  And after doing Selma and 13^th so close to another, I wanted to briefly move away from racial issues for at least a little while. 

            However, while the other movies I considered will all eventually have their time of day in this column, sometimes events overtake the best-laid plans, and must be faced accordingly.  After the terrible events of Charlottesville, including the murder of Heather Heyer and the absolutely revolting spectacle of a sitting US President playing the “many sides” game, this is one such time.  As such, in this month’s installment of Films for the Trump Years, I am featuring Get Out, Jordan Peele’s 2017 directorial debut and (so far) one of the year’s best films. 

            There’s a particular reason I chose to go with Get Out over other, seemingly more obvious choices when selecting a movie that tackles race; watching it is actually a hard, challenging experience for modern, white audiences.  Historical dramas like 12 Years A Slave or Hidden Figures, while culturally essential, are easy picks because they depict specific and particularly grievous examples of racism in the past.  The resulting space of time enables the modern viewer to form a sense of distance between oneself and what they are witnessing; “Yeah, that’s so awful, but thankfully it’s in the past, so I have nothing to do with it.” 

            The exact same problem of easy separation applies to non-historical movies dealing with white nationalism/supremacism in its most direct and explicit forms, ala American History X or Green Room.  Here again, it’s easy for 99% of white people to put such overt ignorance and violent hatred at arm’s length, scoring (in their own minds, at least) easy brownie points for saying that what the characters spew is clearly all wrong, and they certainly aren’t like that; they know what’s in their hearts. 

            Get Out is different.  Get Out doesn’t allow its white viewers to form such a distance, which makes it all the harder- and thus, more necessary- to experience.  

            In case you haven’t yet heard of it, Get Out is a horror movie about a black man about to meet his white girlfriend’s parents and their neighbors for the very first time, and feeling nervous about how things will go down.  While his more normal worries prove entirely correct over the course of the super-awkward garden party the parents throw the day after they arrive, it soon becomes clear something far more sinister is going on.  He can’t tell what it is at first, but once he finally does start to put the pieces together, he realizes he may already be too late. 

            Its qualities as a horror film aside, what makes Get Out so different (and important) in how it tackles race is where Peele chose to set the story; right smack-dab in the middle of upper-class, secular, “progressive” white suburbia.  No Deliverance-esque country backwater.  No super-conservative Christian community.  The white folks aren’t the Ed Norton gang from American History X.  No swastikas or Confederate symbols are to be seen.  They’re well-educated, well-to-do people proud to declare their love of Obama, Jesse Owens, and Louis Armstrong, and readily assure the main character how much they respect “his” people and culture.  And yet they, too, objectify the black body according to their own prejudices and biases, in ways ranging from the benignly silly to the actively destructive (how, exactly, I wouldn’t spoil for the life of me). 

            This simple fact is the key to the brilliance of Get Out as a piece of racial commentary, making it especially poignant and powerful in the wake of tragic events like Charlottesville.  The hatefulness and ugliness of white supremacist ideologies, and the forms of terrorism they encourage, must be called out, refuted, and denied the space to harm others as much as possible.  This is not to be debated, discussed, or watered down with morally bankrupt phrases like “both sides.” 

            But that alone is not enough, because in the end, the perpetuation of racial inequality in all its forms does not happen because “all” or “most” white people explicitly buy into such ideas.  It happens through the inability of self-professed “good,” or “woke,” or “enlightened,” or “progressive” whites to do the hard work of grappling with the huge racial legacy their very lives and cultural identities are built upon, of looking at themselves in the mirror and coming to terms with the ways in which they are every bit as complicit as the KKK in allowing and enabling the continuance of America’s political, economic, social, and cultural divides between whites and everyone else. 

            Martin Luther King, Jr. once wrote that “shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.”  Get Out deliberately sharpens its blades to a razor edge before aiming them right at the hearts of those of good will still suffering under the delusions of their shallow understanding, and then proceeding to drive them home without letup. 

            There are, of course, far more reasons to see Get Out movie that just for the social commentary.  It is a masterfully crafted film, one of 2017’s best, filled out by a top-notch cast, impeccably shot, and is likely to become a huge game-changer within the horror genre.  I especially recommend checking out these lists detailing the astoundingly careful thought that went into every detail of the film.  It deserves to be seen and appreciated by all on its merits as a great film alone, and if we were living in better times, Get Out would be just that; a superb movie and nothing more. 

            Sadly, we aren’t living in better times, and as such Get Out is not just a great film; it also provides an essential service to our continuing collective efforts to reckon with the racial sins of our past, and how our refusal to do so continues to actively shape our present, whether or not we choose to acknowledge that fact. 

-Noah Franc

Previously on Films for the Trump Years:  

Part One- Selma

Part Two- Good Night and Good Luck

Part Three- 13th 

Review: Dunkirk

Dunkirk (2017): Written and directed by Christopher Nolan.  Starring: Fionn Whitehead, Tom Glynn-Carney, Jack Lowden, Harry Styles, Aneurin Barnard, James D’Arcy, Barry Keoghan, Kenneth Branagh, Cilian Murphy, Mark Rylance, and Tom Hardy.  Running Time: 106 minutes. 

Rating: 3.5/4

**minor spoilers for Dunkirk follow**

            After his dalliance in the realm of sci-fi with his last film, the much-maligned Interstellar, Christopher Nolan has returned to far more grounded fare (both literally and figuratively) with Dunkirk.  The title refers to the successful evacuation of most of the British army after it was pinned down on Dunkirk beach in early 1940, at a time in World War II when Hitler’s armies were enjoying near-perfect success running across most of Western Europe.  It was immediately lionized by the British propaganda machine as a shining example of British virtue, and Churchill’s address to the British Parliament in the wake of the evacuation remains one of the most well-known and inspired bits of speechmaking in human history. 

            Christopher Nolan has been criticized for a lot of things in the past, including being too white-and-male heavy in his movies, dragging out scenes that make his films feel longer than they are, and relying on heady, pseudo-philosophical monologues by lead characters to convey the ideas or messages in his films.  But while the white-maleness is still here in abundance (and is a knock against the film), he works at a far more concise and economical clip than he usually does; Dunkirk comes in just under two hours, but it’s all so packed that every part hits just the right notes before moving on.  It’s also largely void of dialogue, especially in key action scenes, focusing on the sights and sounds of war and how masses of people instinctively react when their lives are all on the line.  The end result is one of the most technically impressive cinematic experiences of the year, and easily ranks alongside Inception and The Dark Knight as one of the finest works of Nolan’s career. 

            It should be said upfront that this is not a historical procedural meant to provide an accurate understanding of how the actual events at Dunkirk played out.  The familiar historical event ends up being nothing more than backdrop for Nolan to dig into the visceral, minute-to-minute experiences of trying to survive in war zone, and given what we know about PTSD and trauma and how it distorts one’s perception of time, taking this approach makes this the perfect fertile ground for Nolan’s twin obsessions with time and memory, and how the two can be changed or manipulated in our minds. 

            Loosely split into three parts, we simultaneously follow a handful of privates on the beach itself over the course of a week, a day-long trip to and from the beach by a private citizen and his sons to help in the rescue effort, and an hour-long flight to the fighting zone by RAF pilots assigned to fight off Luftwaffe bombers.  Though each segment of the movie occupies a wholly different space of time, the film constantly cuts from one timeline to the next, jumping from day in the cockpit to night on the beach after a sub attack, and then back again.  It’s probably best to arm yourself with this knowledge beforehand, not because the film does a poor job of piecing together the disparate parts (the three timelines eventually do converge in the final rescue sequence), but simply because, that way, you can get more out of the experience and better appreciate the artistry from the very beginning. 

            Given that another longstanding criticism of Nolan has been his inability to really grasp human emotions in his characters and dialogue, the lack of talking for much of the running time ends up being a major strength as well.  Nolan has a masterful list of actors he draws on for each of his films, and his regulars Tom Hardy and Cilian Murphy (plus newcomers like Mark Rylance, Kenneth Branagh, and Fionn Whitehead) are exactly the sort of performers who know how to deliver character and presence in a scene whether or not you give them anything to say. 

            This film has already been considerably lauded for its technical prowess as a big-budget, procedural war drama, and in this realm alone the film’s credentials are damn near impeachable.  I expect this movie to rake in technical accolades come awards season, and the fact that this is a World War II movie also has me betting that Nolan just might finally get his long-awaited Best Director nomination. 

            Not that the film is above some common Nolan criticisms; while the all-maleness of the film’s cast is not so out of place given the historical setting, there has been blowback about its whiteness.  Not only are all the speaking roles given over to white men, the only non-white actors even glimpsed are a handful of French African soldiers in an early scene.  In particular, a number of people have called out the absence of regiments of Indian soldiers who were, in fact, present on the beaches and took part in the evacuation.  There is also a particular part of Churchill’s famous speech (included in the movie) that is often glossed over in internet memes, a part where he insists that if the British Isles were to fall to Germany, Britain’s Imperial colonies around the world would “carry on the struggle” to liberate them.  It sounds wonderful within the context of the speech (like I said, it IS inspired speechwriting), but whether or not the many populations and peoples forcefully subjugated by the British crown would in reality have so willingly laid down their lives under such circumstances is something very much up to debate, especially if they can’t be graced with a presence said Imperial power’s war movies. 

            Dunkirk certainly does give the impression at times of being a lionizing portrait of British courage and of the nobleness of its Empire, notwithstanding Nolan’s protestations that the film is apolitical.  The music, swelling as the boats of patriotic private citizens appear on the horizon.  A lone soldier, lying on his back and defiantly firing his rifle in the air at an incoming German plane before being blown to bits.  A burning Spitfire framed by a setting sun.  Tom Hardy.  Just Tom Hardy. 

            All of this is there, but as I watched this film a second time, I couldn’t help but feel that it was undercutting the supposed glorification of these moments in interesting ways.  This is most noticeable amongst the privates trapped on the beach.  Although they are celebrated and lauded when they return home, we know exactly how desperate petty, selfish, and even downright savage they were when caught up in the machines of death.  Throughout the film, selfishness, fear, and anger amongst the British are often shown to be just as deadly or dangerous as German bombs.  A while after we see that one soldier firing his rifle at the planes, another soldier insists that the civilians coming in with their boats have no business being there because “they don’t even have any guns.”  To which Mark Rylance rather pointedly asks the soldier if his rifle did him any good against the U-boat that sank his ship. 

            Even the direct quotation of Churchill’s speech at the end, with all its soaring rhetoric, is read, not with joy or bombast, but in the exhausted monotone of a shell-shocked soldier.  He is interrupted by a fellow soldier whose not even paying attention, and when he’s done, after the camera has cut to black after the swelling-music-shot that would usually end this sort of film, we suddenly return to that soldier sitting in the train.  He’s finished Churchill’s speech, glances up with a blank look in his eyes, then drops his head once more and turns the page. 

            That particular ending, more than anything else, has stuck with me, the same way that the final shot of Inception stuck with me.  This is an excellent movie, one of the best of 2017 to date, but I can’t shake the feeling that many people both lauding and criticizing the film are missing some of its larger reflections on just how brutally unnecessary all this violence is, love of country or no.  Regardless of where you fall on this spectrum, Nolan has once again delivered a remarkable and memorable experience that absolutely deserves to be seen on the biggest screen possible, and then dissected to death afterwards. 

-Noah Franc 

Review: Baby Driver

Baby Driver (2017): Written and directed by Edgar Wright.  Starring: Ansel Elgort, Kevin Spacey, Lily James, Eiza Gonzalez, Jon Hamm, Jamie Foxx, Jon Bernthal.  Running Time: 113 minutes.

Rating: 4/4

            Edgar Wright has proven himself time and time again to be a master of taking even the most mundane things- winding a camera, pouring a beer, walking through the rain, stacking dollars bills- and turning them into audiovisual punchlines.  His attention to minute detail, particularly his nigh-inhuman instinct for using sound effects, marks each of the films he’s made so far, making all of them unique cinematic treats in their own right.  Baby Driver, his first feature-length film since he concluded the Cornetto Trilogy with The World’s End, is no exception, reveling in all the wizardry we’ve come to expect from the man.  It is a masterpiece of technical filmmaking elevated by a pitch-perfect cast, a spot-on grasp of the genres it draws from, and a mixed soundtrack that outstrips those of both Guardians of the Galaxy films combined. 

            Baby (yes, that is his name, or at least so he claims) is a master of all things driving; think Ryan Gosling in Drive, but several orders of magnitude better.  He’s also an obsessive music lover, which is useful for him, because he’s suffered from tinnitus since his childhood, and the unending tunes in his ears helps him drown out the ringing.  As a child, he made the mistake of stealing the car of Doc, a legendary planner of bank heists, and as a young adult is still working off his resulting debt by being Doc’s go-to driver for each of his increasingly elaborate plans.  Now, though, he has just a few more jobs to suffer through for the crooks he spends way too much time with before he can make off with his last share and finally start a clean life. 

            As with all movies of this sort, of course, Baby has drastically underestimated how hard it is to shake off years of crime.  No matter how hard he tries, Doc just keeps pulling him back in.  At the same time, his budding romance with a waitress at his favorite diner (herself a massive music buff) makes the stakes even higher for him by giving him, for the first time, something he actually fears losing.  Not that there’s anything complicated to expect plot-wise.  The story is fairly barebones, so some of the twists might prove easy to call, but that’s hardly the point.  These are the sorts of movies where the journey is the only destination that matters, where simply experiencing the uniqueness of the film’s aesthetic and feel is all you need to leave the theater feeling happy and satisfied. 

            While the car chases and firefights are gripping and expertly shot, and manage to hold their own in a year brimming with amazing action movies (no easy feat), it’s clear the bulk of the creative efforts of Wright’s team went towards cultivating the soundtrack and shaping much of the filming and editing around it.  Either Baby knows his routines so well he’s sorted out the perfect tracks for every part of his day, or maybe this is simply one of those worlds where car sounds, city noise, and even gunfire all synch up of their own accord with the base line of whatever is playing on the closest radio.  Even the ringing in Baby’s ears plays a role of its own in moments where the music cuts out (or its source is destroyed by an antagonist). 

            The casting is top-notch as well- Ansel Elgort does an amazing balancing act as Baby, carrying the sort of quiet, reserved role that could either be too boring and fade into the tapestry, or one too oddball to be taken seriously (I do not lightly compare his character to the lead of Drive).  Kevin Spacey as Doc is in perfect House of Cards mode as the villain mastermind with more to him you might expect, and out of the assorted societal castoffs dregged up for each heist, Jamie Foxx and Jon Hamm are particularly good at stealing the limelight whenever they are in a scene. 

            Put simply, this film is a joy to experience from start to finish.  A caution for Edgar Wright fanboys though- it’s not an out-and-out comedy, which might throw off those expecting the launch of a genre-bending new Trilogy.  There are funny moments aplenty, but this is a movie more focused on making you say “Wow, COOOOL!” than making you roll on the floor.  In a strange way, though, that makes it easier to note and appreciate the artistic skill at work in using every frame and splash of sound to fill out and complete a whole world and gang of characters in less than two hours.  This is the sort of film that most filmmakers are only capable of piecing together once in their lifetimes, if at all, and Edgar Wright has now made five of them.  He’s one of the best filmmakers in the game right now, and it might be a bit until we are treated to his next work, so see this one as soon as you can, and experience the glory that is Baby Driver. 

-Noah Franc