Contour At The Movies

Overall Impression – Despite the evidence, Eastwood never gets old.

THE FOUR QUESTIONS

Who’s your main character? – Walt Kowalski.

What’s he trying to accomplish? – Professional: save his Hmong neighbors from the local gang.  Personal: teach Thao to be a man.  Private: find a reason to keep living after his wife’s death.

Who’s trying to stop him? – The gang and, to a lesser extent, himself.

What happens if he fails? – The gang will tear the Hmong family apart, if they don’t kill them first.

THE FOUR ARCHETYPES

Orphan – Walt is a widower who wants nothing to do with his two disrespectful sons, whom he doesn’t consider good men.  He’s also a racist living in an increasingly Hmong dominated community.

Wanderer – Walt catches Thao (the teenage Hmong boy next door) stealing his Gran Torino as part of his forced initiation into a gang.  When the gang later tries to take Thao, their fight spills onto Walt’s property and he warns the gang to get off his lawn.  Not only does Walt put himself in the gang’s sights, he’s now the reluctant hero of the local Hmong.  They adorn him with gifts, even though Walt just wants to be left alone.  In town, Walt involves himself further when he saves Thao’s sister from thugs.  They become friends, Walt learns about the Hmong family, their culture and the problems they face with the gang.

Warrior – Walt opens up and agrees to take Thao under his wing to let him atone for attempting to steal the Gran Torino.  The punishment turns into a friendship, and Walt takes an interest in teaching Thao to be the kind of man his sons should have been.  However, the gang continues the trouble Thao, and when Walt learns that he’s dying, he seeks to protect Thao by taking the fight into his own hands.  Unfortunately, the confrontations escalate until Thao’s sister is raped and the gang does a drive-by on the Hmong neighbors’ house.  Walt realizes that Thao’s family will never have a life unless he stops the gang for good.

Martyr – Walt literally sacrifices himself by tricking the gang into killing him in front of witnesses, ensuring that they go to jail for good.

AND, IN THE END…

I enjoyed Gran Torino on a number of levels, but the movie’s tone had me on edge.

I was particularly uncomfortable when it came to Walt’s racist remarks, and not merely because they were racist remarks.  It’s because I found them funny.  I even laughed out loud sometimes – and I certainly wasn’t the only audience member.  Walt’s racism is comically delivered, which leads me to think that the makers wanted the audience to laugh, or at least feel awkward about wanting to.

If I was forced to experience discomfort by laughing at racism, then I felt discomfort because of racism – which feels like it should be right.  But is it?  Was the filmmakers’ tactic fair?  I’d never laugh at that in the real world.  Maybe that’s part of the ‘movie experience’.

– Dan Pilditch

Overall Impression – An impressive film, can’t get enough of it. One of the best movies of the famous composer, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, ever made… in my opinion.

THE FOUR QUESTIONS

Who’s your main character? — Salieri

What’s he trying to accomplish? – Professional: Prove that he’s a superior musician to Mozart.  Personal: Destroy Mozart’s and prevent him from getting a job at the court. Private: Punish God by destroying His creation, Mozart.

Who’s trying to stop him? – God (according to Salieri)

What happens if he fails? — Salieri will be a frustrated composer who will always feel that he’s a mediocre failure.

THE FOUR ARCHETYPES

Orphan — Salieri is an unhappy child. He wants to be a great composer. His father, however, doesn’t allow him to study music and so, Salieri prays to God to make him a great composer.

Wanderer — Salieri’s wish is granted, according to himself. His father dies and Salieri travels to Vienna to study music. Some years later, he becomes the court composer of Emperor Joseph of Austria. Salieri is happy being a famous composer, until he meets Mozart.  He recognizes in Mozart real genius, and tries to figure out how channel and control Mozart without letting on to the rest of the court that Mozart’s music is superior to his own. 

 Warrior – Salieri is angry at God because He gave not him, but “a monkey”, the bigger musical gift.  It is as if God is laughing at him!  From now on, he and God are enemies. He decides to destroy God’s creation by first ordering a beautiful requiem from Mozart and then kill him. During Mozart’s funeral he then will perform this requiem under his own name so the whole world will know that he, Salieri, is the greatest composer that ever lived!

Martyr — As Mozart lies dying, Salieri helps him work on his Requiem, seemingly softening on and almost willing to give up his vengeance (the martyr moment), showing a real tenderness and appreciation to the man and his talent that he’s destroying.  Still, it’s not enough and Mozart dies.  Many years later, now an old man, Salieri tries to kill himself, asking Mozart for forgiveness. He adored Mozart, it was God he hated!

AND, IN THE END…

I have seen this movie so many times since it came out many years ago and never realized that it is in fact about Salieri and his struggle with God. It’s however great to see how Mozart does his tricks, like hearing a musical piece only once and then performing it even better than Salieri wrote it in the first place! And what about the scene in which he improvises on a given melody in the style of other composers; beautiful!

– André van Haren

Overall Impression — Words fail me.  This is one of the most relentlessly brilliant explorations of the soul of a hero I’ve ever seen.

THE FOUR QUESTIONS

Who’s your main character? — Bruce Wayne as the Batman.

What’s he trying to accomplish? — Professional: Stop the Joker. Personal: Get Rachel to love him. Private: Discover if he has what it takes to be a real hero.

Who’s trying to stop him? — The Joker.

What happens if he fails? — People die and Gotham is torn apart.

THE FOUR ARCHETYPES

Orphan — Wayne Manor is already destroyed and Rachel is now seeing Harvey Dent.  The Joker begins his crime spree and says that he’ll stop if the Batman will reveal himself.

Wanderer — Batman tries to stop the Joker every way he knows how, however he’s ultimately unable to do what’s necessary and just kill the Joker, which is what the Joker would do if the situation were reversed and called for it.  Batman decides he’ll .

Warrior — The Joker reveals that he’s got Rachel and Harvey hostage.  Batman tries to beat the information out of the Joker, who eventually gives two addresses.  Batman races off to an address to save Rachel, but it’s the wrong address and Rachel dies while Harvey is disfigured.

Martyr — Proving their humanity, the passengers on the ferry ships being held hostage by the Joker give up saving themselves and do not destroy each other.  Batman gives up doing what’s right for what’s necessary, defeating the Joker and becoming the hero that Gotham needs, the Dark Knight.

AND, IN THE END…

There’s a reason why this movie has done a billion dollars worth of box office (and that’s not even counting DVD sales!)  Granted, Heath Ledger is brilliant and will win the Oscar (did I say that out loud?) but this movie belongs to the characters.  

Heroes and villains are dark mirrors of each other, but instead of going to the surface understanding of this as in the 1989 Tim Burton BATMAN, THE DARK KNIGHT plunges deep under the skin to look at the nature of villainy and heroism.

This movie should be added to every must-see list for any serious student of character development.

Overall Impression — A well-crafted movie that tries to do everything right and succeeds from a structural viewpoint, but is ultimately undone by some unclear character motivations.

THE FOUR QUESTIONS

Who’s the main character? – Christian Bale’s Dan Evans.

What’s he trying to accomplish? – Save the family ranch by getting the outlaw Ben Wade (Russell Crowe) onto a prison train.

Who’s trying to stop him? – The evil land owner, Ben Wade, and the outlaw’s bandits.

What happens if he fails? —  He loses everything he has; his ranch, his money, and the little respect his wife and sons have for him.

THE FOUR ARCHETYPES

Orphan –  Not only is Dan is completely helpless in his drive to save the ranch from the land owner  who has cut off his water rights, even his wife doesn’t believe in him any more.  He’s orphaned not only from his community but from his family.

Wanderer –  He takes the job to help bring Ben Wade to the prison train, and has to negotiate through dangerous territory to get there.  At first, he is more reactive on the trip, allowing others to dictate the terms of how to bring Ben in.  He also begins to learn more about Ben and his code of ethics.   Similarly, Ben learns about Dan as well.

Warrior —  As the pressure mounts and more and more members of the escort party get killed, Dan steps up and takes a more active role in bringing Ben in, refusing all opportunities to give up.  It becomes not about the money, but about respect.

Martyr –  It comes down to just Dan, who in order to secure the respect of his eldest son, risks everything to get Ben to the train on time. 

AND, IN THE END… 

Another really admirable movie that falls apart at the end, though not because of lack of “TotallyWrite-ness.”  Basically, everything is in the right place, but the film runs into a huge character motivation problem with Ben at the end.   Ben’s willingness NOT to be too much of a hinderance to Dan becomes so problematic as to ultimately undo the thin logic that was holding it all together.

An interesting observation: the very smart Gilbert Maclean Evans once pointed out to me that all movies (and by all we mean “most”) are about the main character’s drive to get respect.  3:10 TO YUMA wears that drive on its’ sleeve.