| Author |
 Topic  |
|
|
BaftaBaby 
"Always entranced by cinema."
|
 Posted - 11/18/2013 : 11:40:06
|
Well, ok, no, it's not what's called a great film. But it's a damn fine one, and more of that in a moment.
What's more important, for me anyway, is its emotional truth. I can't care that the "real" butler did or didn't do or say this or that. In Lee Daniels' very moving movie, he represents a presence in an important chapter of American history. He's not exactly Zelig, but he's a witness.
In historical terms, a few hundred years is but a moment. But for those living through a lifetime of often brutal and bloody social and cultural change, moments become momentous.
Daniels focuses our vision through a telescope looking back, but always with an awareness of the present. But the film is no series of historical highlights, for that would indeed trivialize the inching toward civil rights - which we all should know still have a long way to go.
What's important about the film is its metaphorical value even beyond civil rights to human rights and human wrongs. Any country's exploitation of subjugated people is reflected in this very specific story. So, it's not a bio-pic, but a means of helping us understand why we're so afraid of and threatened by any change which the future will inevitably bring.
Stasis is comfortable. Familiarity breeds content. Until it breeds contempt.
But Daniels [though not perfect by any means] is a fine enough director to avoid a propaganda pseudo-documentary. He's assembled as fine an ensemble cast as I've ever seen. Watching such wonderful performances made me angrier and angrier at how neglected the non-white representation has been come awards season for so many, many years.
Inevitably the film's center depends on Forest Whittaker to keep its integrity, in every sense of the word. And, in every sense, he delivers.
Both he and the film made me cry. It triggered memories of my life during much of the timespan, and, as always happens with those memories, a deep sense of shame that any country and any people could so deeply malign their fellow humans and arrogantly justify their behavior. In the name of what?
I heard Daniels admit to his feelings of joy and hope at Obama's election, and then during the editing of the film, learn of the senseless murder of Trayvon Martin. It's still going on. It's still going on. We can look away and look away, but it's still going on. This film may help us see a ourselves.
|
Edited by - BaftaBaby on 11/18/2013 13:00:18 |
|
|
Sludge 
"Charlie Don't Serf!"
|
Posted - 01/26/2014 : 07:29:52
|
What follows might be a preamble to "Well, ok, no, it's not what's called a great film," because I liked what Bafta had to say here despite my pending tirade.
It always bothers me when an historical piece cannot live up to its fanfare.
This film might have been titled "fishing for Oscar" had it been put together a little better. But everything is too much, beginning from the moment the boyhood Cecil sees his father shot point blank. While the body still lays warm, the old only-slightly-guilt-ridden white lady lets Cecil know she'll make up for it by bringing him indoors to be a house servant, lucky kid.
We can skip the training - this is no Rocky, nor even a Karate Kid - and go straight to the White House, where most of the story unfolds, unless you think 1973-1980 should count for something.
The other butlers are too mouthy, when alone, from the get go. I don't mean "mouthy" as in assertive and individualistic. I mean they are supposedly the finest butlers in the land, but throughout the film they all - except our hero - talk like sailors Nixon and Johnson.
Despite the prosthetics, each President is too much actor, too little character - and it's no wonder with the little screen time for each. It's more TV Movie than Movie. We don't have time to forget that Ike is Mork or that Reagan is Rickman. We can cut some slack for the others, but unforgivable is the casting of Jane Fonda as Nancy Reagan. As a lefty, I'm with the sentiment, but a decision meant to generate free publiversy (contricity?) has an effect, on screen, that is simply jarring for any viewer who knows a bit about Jane or Ronny.
When Ronald Reagan was elected, Jane said "he was a lousy actor and he'll be a lousy president." Reagan considered Hanoi Jane to be a "traitor". So what Daniels has done is totally contrary to the spirit of the world he attempts to portray - throwing a polarizing political casting statement into the apolitical world of the white house service staff.
Yes, I know, sooner or later politics will be needed; the butler needs to express his opinion and assert his rights (you'll see, but you won't jump out of your seat). It would have been more powerful if Daniels had let him do so without throwing Jane in there like a molotov cocktail. Also, casting Jane "against type" has already been done, so -yawn-.
Finally (speaking of molotov cocktails), we have Cecil's son Louis. A stand up performance by David Oyelowo, but the character is always in the wrong place at the right time. I'm just going to call him "Amalgam X" and leave it at that. |
Edited by - Sludge on 01/26/2014 07:32:15 |
 |
|
|
randall
"I like to watch."
|
Posted - 02/09/2014 : 22:55:48
|
I just saw it and have to hand it to Baffy, as I also cried at the end, but I'm mostly with Sludge here, b/c the king-sized dice are so loaded that even Nixon is made to be sympathetic.
All the Presidents were interesting, and all hail the makeup department for making them so. But except for a flash-shot of Emmett Till's non-face [the real-life catalyst for an actual reaction among folks who'd finally stomached too much, such as Rosa Parks], this picture kept us at a remove. Forest Whitaker's eyebrows tell the story: they're fine until events affect his own family, then they arch and never return. He never disavows that droopy-face, either at the White House or at home, not even when he's ushered in to meet an African-American president.
Great, entertaining story of American history in the last fifty years. So was FORREST GUMP. |
|
|
| |
Topic |
|
|
|
The Butler
