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Feb. 3rd, 2014 01:31 pmThere are actors whom one loves for just one role, or their general persona, and others whom one loves for their versatility, their ability to really create a different character each time. Philipp Seymour Hoffmann was one of the later. I remember being absolutely repelled by his character in The Talented Mr. Ripley - but in a way that made me sit up and notice, go "who is this actor?'" and pay attention to other films listing him in the credits. He never disappointed. And he was so amazing as Truman Capote, truly a triumph of acting over the reality of the flesh - PSH, tall and fleshy, could make you believe he was the tiny Capote, so much that when half through the film you see a photograph (and a pretty famous one at that) of the real Capote on the back of one of his books, this doesn't break the illusion, you really believe this is the same person. I hadn't known he was only a year older than I am; he always seemed to be older, whomever he played. And now he's gone, and I'm still struggling with the reality of that despite knowing nothing about the person behind all those roles at all. The emotional claim people who affected us with their craft, be it acting, writing, singing or composing, have on us is a powerful thing.
***
I saw Mandela: The Long Walk To Freedom during the weekend and sadly it can't escape the inherent problem of any biopic that takes it upon itself to cover the entire life of a person, instead of focusing on a part of said life - it rushes its story too much to really explore it. It's 1942, and now it's 1960, now it's 1963, now it's 1970, now it's 1980, et cetera. Idris Elba is great in the role, and so is Naomie Harris playing the only other character the film takes the time to draw beyond a few lines, Winnie. (To give credit where due: Winnie's development is probably the most ambiguous and challenging task the film sets itself, showing both her own imprisonment and constant harrassments by the police and later her inciting the crowd to burning "traitors" alive.) But the fact that these are really the only two characters with depth in a three hours movie is one of my problems. To take a recent point of comparison, 12 Years A Slave in addition to Solomon gives us Patsey, Eliza, the two plantation owners and their wives, plus Mistress Shaw and the ex-overseer played by Garret Dillahunt who may not get much more than one scene (as opposed to the characters named earlier) but still are individuals you can tell a lot about from their scenes, just based on the film. I have in fact read Mandela's memoirs that Mandela the movie is based upon and I had still trouble making out who was supposed to be who among his ANC comrades, or remember their names just based on the film, because the movie doesn't bother to give them personalities. Mandela's oldest son Tembi shows up so we know he existed when Mandela later gets the crushing news of his death, but again, there is no sense of what the boy was like. And for a biopic dealing with a man whose politics were so central to his life, it was amazingly apolitical, beyond the quintessential "apartheid evil, freedom struggle necessary". But given that one of the constant accusations thrown at the ANC in general and Mandela in particular before he completed his transformation into world wide admired statesman was "communists!" and that Mandela in his memoirs in fact goes on in great detail about what he shared and what he didn't share with the communist party, and the importance of reading Marx, you'd think the script would have at least bothered a little bit. Or with the rivalry between the ANC and the PAC (= Pan African Congress) - in the film, you'd think there was only one party for the non-white population of South Africa), again, an important and detailed development in Mandela's memoirs. But no. Nor is there any sense of the world outside of South Africa beyond some newsclips of the growing support for Mandela in the 80s, when the support of the apartheid regime by, say, Thatcher and Reagan on the one hand and Mandela during his time on the run visiting other African countries like Tanzania to make contact with the heads of states like Julius Nyegere there were all important factors. I can't help but suspect both the avoidance of any mention of communism and the world outside South Africa when it wasn't organizing rock concerts in support of Mandela was for the same reason - in order not alienate any potential global audience.
In all fairness, as far as Mandela's general development is concerned, the trajectory from the believe that hard work and brains will get you somewhere as an individual even in South Africa as a black man to the realisation that the system itself needs to change and will only via organized opposition to fiery activist to prisoner to that strange mixture of pragmatist and moralist who wins the day comes across well, and as I mentioned, Idris Elba is really good; outstanding scenes for me were the ones after the trial, one of the few times when the film takes a breath and takes the time to let it sink in for the character and the audience that contrary to his expectations (which were for the death penalty), he's been condemmed to a life in prison, and all the confinment, humiliation and utter helplessness to do anything at all about one's family that entails. What Elba does with his facial expressions and body language then is amazing.
I suppose is what I wish is that instead of a cinema epic, the producers had decided to do a tv miniseries about Mandela, with character development for more than two characters and some sense of the politics of it all beyond "apartheid evil" and "prison had different results in Winnie and Nelson".
***
I saw Mandela: The Long Walk To Freedom during the weekend and sadly it can't escape the inherent problem of any biopic that takes it upon itself to cover the entire life of a person, instead of focusing on a part of said life - it rushes its story too much to really explore it. It's 1942, and now it's 1960, now it's 1963, now it's 1970, now it's 1980, et cetera. Idris Elba is great in the role, and so is Naomie Harris playing the only other character the film takes the time to draw beyond a few lines, Winnie. (To give credit where due: Winnie's development is probably the most ambiguous and challenging task the film sets itself, showing both her own imprisonment and constant harrassments by the police and later her inciting the crowd to burning "traitors" alive.) But the fact that these are really the only two characters with depth in a three hours movie is one of my problems. To take a recent point of comparison, 12 Years A Slave in addition to Solomon gives us Patsey, Eliza, the two plantation owners and their wives, plus Mistress Shaw and the ex-overseer played by Garret Dillahunt who may not get much more than one scene (as opposed to the characters named earlier) but still are individuals you can tell a lot about from their scenes, just based on the film. I have in fact read Mandela's memoirs that Mandela the movie is based upon and I had still trouble making out who was supposed to be who among his ANC comrades, or remember their names just based on the film, because the movie doesn't bother to give them personalities. Mandela's oldest son Tembi shows up so we know he existed when Mandela later gets the crushing news of his death, but again, there is no sense of what the boy was like. And for a biopic dealing with a man whose politics were so central to his life, it was amazingly apolitical, beyond the quintessential "apartheid evil, freedom struggle necessary". But given that one of the constant accusations thrown at the ANC in general and Mandela in particular before he completed his transformation into world wide admired statesman was "communists!" and that Mandela in his memoirs in fact goes on in great detail about what he shared and what he didn't share with the communist party, and the importance of reading Marx, you'd think the script would have at least bothered a little bit. Or with the rivalry between the ANC and the PAC (= Pan African Congress) - in the film, you'd think there was only one party for the non-white population of South Africa), again, an important and detailed development in Mandela's memoirs. But no. Nor is there any sense of the world outside of South Africa beyond some newsclips of the growing support for Mandela in the 80s, when the support of the apartheid regime by, say, Thatcher and Reagan on the one hand and Mandela during his time on the run visiting other African countries like Tanzania to make contact with the heads of states like Julius Nyegere there were all important factors. I can't help but suspect both the avoidance of any mention of communism and the world outside South Africa when it wasn't organizing rock concerts in support of Mandela was for the same reason - in order not alienate any potential global audience.
In all fairness, as far as Mandela's general development is concerned, the trajectory from the believe that hard work and brains will get you somewhere as an individual even in South Africa as a black man to the realisation that the system itself needs to change and will only via organized opposition to fiery activist to prisoner to that strange mixture of pragmatist and moralist who wins the day comes across well, and as I mentioned, Idris Elba is really good; outstanding scenes for me were the ones after the trial, one of the few times when the film takes a breath and takes the time to let it sink in for the character and the audience that contrary to his expectations (which were for the death penalty), he's been condemmed to a life in prison, and all the confinment, humiliation and utter helplessness to do anything at all about one's family that entails. What Elba does with his facial expressions and body language then is amazing.
I suppose is what I wish is that instead of a cinema epic, the producers had decided to do a tv miniseries about Mandela, with character development for more than two characters and some sense of the politics of it all beyond "apartheid evil" and "prison had different results in Winnie and Nelson".
