Above and behind. That is the dominant position for watching, for following, for shooting, for f***ing, in Anton Corbijn's "The American." Corbijn, the Dutch photographer and director best known for his music videos (U2, Nirvana, Depeche Mode) and his Joy Division biopic "Control," places his camera high in the sky, looking straight down at the landscape that resembles an intricate maze or a mosaic; or behind the central character Jack (George Clooney) as he walks through the crooked cobblestone streets of the medieval mountain village of Castel del Monte in the Abruzzo region of Italy; or in front of him, positioned so that we can glimpse behind him what he senses but can't see: that he's being observed...
"The American" (with a few last-act lapses) locks us into the justifiably paranoid state of mind of Jack (who's also known as Edward, Signore Farfalle and plain old Mr. Butterfly), a man on a mysterious and deadly mission. We don't know what the mission is, we just watch him wait, and watch him watch, and watch him go through the process of whatever it is he's doing. The obvious comparison is to Jean-Pierre Melville's "Le Samourai," in which Alain Delon plays an ascetic hit man. But I would consider "The American" a virtual remake of Jim Jarmusch's "The Limits of Control," starring a major international movie star instead of Isaach De Bankolé. Both mine the aesthetics of 1960s and 1970s European art films (notably Melville, Antonioni, Bertolucci) -- and it's no wonder that the mainstream American audiences who made it the top-grossing picture of the weekend (I saw it at a jam-packed Labor Day matinee) hated it.
A brief digression:
I thought it was just my audience, but I happened upon a news release saying that CinemaScore, the market research firm, reported the average grade "The American" received from ticket buyers was a D-, which turns out to be some kind of record. This made me laugh, because I had made a point of listening to what people were saying as they left the theater, and jotted down a few of the things I overheard -- most of which were fairly predictable:
"Well, that wasn't very good. Why is it getting such good reviews?"
"It doesn't answer your questions, does it?"
"Nah, too slow."
"I know! I'll never trust him again!" (I don't know who that remark was referring to -- a critic or a personal acquaintance of the patrons?)
There's a little explosion of action near the beginning which utterly bewildered the three obnoxious early-teens who had snuck into the R-rated picture (for sex and nudity) to text and chatter with one another. They quieted down after being warned by those sitting nearby, and at some point they bolted, probably out of boredom. They were sitting right in front of me and I didn't even see them leave. I guess I was engrossed in the movie by that point...
Like the Spain of "The Limits of Control" -- or the Paris of "Le Samourai" or the Bruges of "In Bruges" -- the Italy of "The American" is an Old World of breathtaking beauty. It's a place out of time, where assassins and gangsters and sleeper agents go to get away -- and to meet their destinies. "Limits of Control" involves more characters and more locales, but the narrative tension is quite similar: What is this man doing, why, and for whom? Instead of a series of encounters with colorful, enigmatic, eccentric contacts, "The American" (which is much more somber in tone than Jarmusch's comedic film) features rendezvous with a mysterious femme fatale whose hair color changes each time Jack meets up with her.
But back to the movie itself. For composition freaks like me, "The American" is a joy to watch. Corbijn and cinematographer Martin Ruhe like to put just a fraction of something in a corner -- a road, a person with his head out of frame -- to suggest how much we're not seeing. Almost every shot plays up a tension between foreground and background, right and left.
Above: This is a composition, repeated in several shots, that mesmerized me. There's a little spurt of water burbling in the middle distance, between the back tire of the car and the window behind Clooney, and, between the black bar on the left and whatever that is to the right. It's just on the right edge, almost invisible, but the movement keeps teasing at your eye, calling your attention to what's happening out the window...
(Possible spoilers ahead.) In one scene a bar owner admires a memorable slaughter scene featuring Henry Fonda in Sergio Leone's "One Upon a Time in the West." Much later, in a Leone-like arena-space, Jack appears ready to face-off with his (possible) nemesis, only to be disrupted by the arrival of a busload of kids. The shoot-out that doesn't happen thickens the sense of tension and frustration -- like the moment at the picnic spot by the river in which none of the expected scenarios (neither picnic, skinny-dipping, love-making, nor assassination) comes to fruition. Jack is being blocked and aggravaged at every turn...
"The American" bristles with visual excitement in every frame. Slow? How can it be, when every frame is so full?
P.S. Thanks to Dennis Cozzalio for this. Another very good reason parts of the movie reminded me of the Sicilian section of "The Godfather"!
47 Comments
I too was surprised to read about the Cinemascore rating. The first time I saw it was a matinee on opening day and it was mostly filled with elderly people. None of whom talked or squirmed during this supposedly slow film, and I heard none of them complain on the way out. However the second time I saw it, later in the week at a later time, the age was a bit more diverse and the overheard chatter was almost entirely negative. Which makes me wonder what the hell people are looking for in a movie if THAT didn't please you.
Seeing it a second time was as thrilling as the first because, as you say, the frames are so filled with detail and this is often a movie about watching, that I found myself noticing even more than the first time. The cinematography is beautiful, and the frames are rather arty, but the shots where Clooney is pushed off to one side are the perfect extension of his character. He's always looking at his surroundings, without wanting to appear to be looking, straining out of the corner of his eye, slightly tilting his head, and Corbijn and his cinematographer replicate that feeling beautifully in their frames. Perhaps the movie is too subtle for audiences who are fed CSI and Law and Order where the sole interest in the show is finding out who did what and why. This movie offers no such explinations and as is so much more interesting for it. Even the climactic scene is so subtly handled that I wasn't entirely sure what had happened until the second time I saw it. That's not for a lack of clear direction, it's just that the action in the film doesn't make ovetures to the audience to explain it, it just exists.
The Limits of Control came to mind when I saw the film too, and this struck me as a more successful film than that, one that lived in the moods and the stylings of Boorman and Melville but also carried with it the focus of those films. Less philosophical, sure, but entirely more interesting.
Nice post, Jim. I just did a favorable review of the film for our university paper. I saw it over the weekend and found it meticulously crafted and absorbing. I also work part time at the very theater where I saw it, and all of the negative audience responses you mentioned in your post were essentially the same ones I've been hearing. I fear that audiences have been spoon-fed the assembly line junk for far too long.
Here is a movie, imperfect though it may be, that at least strives to be intelligent and engaging, employing elegant visuals and convincingly evoking the austere existence of its protagonist. I wrote in my review of the film that had "The American" been made forty or so years ago, it's a safe bet that an Antonioni or Melville would have been found behind the camera. Unfortunately, none of this means much to general audiences. For them it was just too "slow."
Maybe if it had gone the route of so many recent genre potboilers, and been fitted with a hyper-kinetic queasy-cam, totally implausible car chases, and mind-numbing amounts of gunplay audiences would have walked out smiling with satisfaction. At the showing I attended, a few audience members got up and left!
Is the film "too European" for our crudely American sensibilities? Have our collective attention spans been so monumentally diluted? I don't know the answers, but it saddens me to see such a well-made film be the subject of so much audience scorn. Then again, this kind of audience response tends to happen with many of the films I end up enjoying. I guess it's best to just throw my hands up in the air and forget about it. Anyway, thanks for hearin' me out, Jim. Keep up all the wonderful criticism and comment on the movies!
-Oliver
If you watched any of the trailers you wouldn't be surprised at a mainstream audience's disappointment. Every trailer I saw made this film look exactly like a Jason Bourne flick. After reading a bit about it, I started to feel sorry for any poor schmoe that went in expecting a high-octane action movie. Anything for that opening weekend gross, I guess? I'll at least get to see it in an empty theater next weekend, after word of mouth has murdered attendance.
It's a miracle Jim. I agree with you 100%!
The American is not a slow film. In fact, most of the scenes in the film are quite short. It moves in time and place much faster than most films. It never stays in one place or time too long.
Now, the film has its flaws. The overall plot and story is very predictable and the priest character I felt didn't really add anything to the film. In fact, I think the conversations between him and Clooney were weak and the film would have been better without it.
The film works because we know so little, and in fact when we learn more about our character, it's less exciting. Corbijn takes a minimalist approach to a cliche plot. When the film stays at this minimalist state, it is fantastic. But when it strays away from this (such as the priest), it becomes just standard fluff. I would have enjoyed it more had Corbijn actually given us less.
Most Americans haven't seen a film like this, only ones who are old enough to remember films from the '70s, or a few young movie buffs who seek out such things. It tests modern viewers' patience -- modern viewers want every plot point repeated two or three times to make sure they don't miss anything. They want quick cutting -- they don't want time to study a frame because they've never had occasion to study what's in a frame -- in other words, they don't know how to read a film. (Also, they don't want a protagonist who kills his lover in the first scene--without making clear immediately whether she betrayed him--and they don't want a film with a protagonist who meets the end he met.
Other than that, it's a crowd pleaser. (I liked it a lot.)
...and waiting and waiting....
I take it you have not seen the trailers for this film, which use every frame of action in the feature. Those kind of falsely encouraged expectations have something to do with that D-minus word-of-mouth gap.
I agree with most of what you have to say about how the film looks, how it works on the level of images.
Corbijn is a talented and interesting director. His debut CONTROL is an excellent film.
THE AMERICAN, not so much. But not because it's slow or visually beautiful or defies expectations. More because that's all it has going for it.
A director like Jean-Pierre Melville used slowness to get inside his characters, his stories, his genre.
THE AMERICAN is ultimately more thin that minimal. And, unlike, say LE DOULOS or LE SAMOURAI or DAY OF THE JACKAL or even Antonioni's THE PASSENGER--kindred films where everybody has their reasons--the characters in THE AMERICAN don't do what they must. They do what the writer and director found most convenient.
We're meant to place Clooney's character in some kind of twilight between Melville's ice cold professionals and Hemingway's fatalistic Swede. Yet the things he does--mainly to make sure he stays in the picture postcard town where most of the film takes place--defy motivation from either direction.
[SPOILERS below if you care]
From the first moments of THE AMERICAN, we're shown a character for whom professional paranoia and ruthlessness is a way of life. His attitude of suspicious self preservation even carries over to his exile for a few scenes. Throwing the cell phone away, for instance.
But when it becomes obvious that his location is blown to killers who will stop at nothing (and the local police) and that his own boss probably has something to do with it ("How the f--k did they find me!"), then what does Clooney do? Nothing. He has every reason to be paranoid and to run. But he stays put so the movie can continue.
Conversely, when Clooney's hooker girlfriend packs a tiny girl gun to defend against local stalkers--unsubtle close-up of newspaper headline--he becomes unrealistically paranoid that she's out for him. Which is probably more ridiculous, as she could have killed him any number of times before and, if she were just watching him would never have brought her gun along. Yet he's so paranoid in these scenes we're supposed to believe he almost shoots her? Why? Because the movie required a little tension between them at this point.
And what's up with the non-display of his supposed gun-smithing skills? From what my friends and I saw, he got most of the weapon mail-order. Then he made a silencer (okay, skills!) and cut the heads off a couple of bullets. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out why Clooney was necessary for this task or why the highly knowledgeable operative he was making it for couldn't do most of that herself. Things get even sillier in the end when Clooney seems the last to guess (after even the dullest one in the audience) that everyone's after him. And a flurry of final twists almost hysterically wishes to apologize for the lack of previous action with a couple of actions--especially the fate (and retroactive function) of the female op--that make no sense.
Assuming that all the baddies wanted what they wanted, they could have acted half a dozen times before, thereby obviating the entire film.
A meditative mood is no excuse for half-baked narrative.
P.S. You mean THE LIMITS OF CONTROL, not THE LOSS OF CONTROL, right?
I mostly agree with you, but I believe that you have misinterpreted a key point...
[Spoilers follow.]
The assassin's job wasn't specifically to kill Mr. Butterfly. Her job was already known to him, and she was asked to kill him after he completed the drop. She only tried to kill him later in order to kill two birds with one stone, since she missed her first opportunity. My interpretation is that she was only asked to kill him because he decided that he was going to retire, hence why we see their boss make an additional phone call after Mr. Butterfly tells him that he was intending to quit the profession. The boss then saw him as a serious liability because of what he knew. In other words, not everybody was after him at first, only the Swedes.
Thanks, I lost control toward the end there. It was getting late.
It's funny -- this was a movie in which I barely thought about the plot beyond what was happening on screen at the moment. The story seems to exist only as a deliberately abstract concept that has little to do with what's going on other than setting up the situation and the atmosphere. One of the things I liked was that there was almost no exposition. And I don't disagree with your characterization of the making of the gun -- but, again, the absurdity (and pointlessness) of the exercise seemed to be part of the point. After what he does in Sweden, he's in a kind of existential purgatory (like "In Bruges"). His dazed, disconnected state permeates every frame of the movie (which reminded me of "The Headless Woman"). He does feel some guilt, apparently -- and the reason he gets angry with Carla is that he's starting to relive his past mistakes/sins by having feelings for her. (That's the kind of thing that happens in purgatory -- you have to keep repeating your old sins and failures over and over...) So, has he fallen for a woman who's going to betray him? Will he have to kill her, too? As for the Swedes, he's ordered to stay put, finish the job and get out -- and he thinks he's already taken care of the Swede who was following him. None of that bothered me in the slightest. But there's an indication that his chamelon-haired client knows more than she should (Doesn't she slip and call him "Mr. Butterfly"? How would she know?), and that he senses she may turn on him. (I think the film stumbles when it shows Pavel calling her, and when it shows her in the bathroom with the gun -- things he may imagine, but that the film shouldn't have shown us, because we've been locked into his consciousness until then.) So, when the gun blows up in her face... what conclusions do you draw?
I hadn't seen the trailers (until I took some frame grabs for this post), so I didn't know how it had been sold. After having seen the movie, it didn't seem like a misrepresentation to me, but I may well have felt differently if I'd seen the trailers first. Then again, I didn't think the movie was "slow."
Jim,
It is really a slip that she calls him Mr. Butterfly? Roger Ebert hinted at this as well. Remember the butterfly that landed on her at the river? Jack had an obvious knowledge and affection for it. It was "endangered" which made the nickname even more appropriate for Jack, given the circumstances. I guess it's ambiguous enough to leave it open for speculation.
As for the film, I thoroughly enjoyed it as well. Yet, based on my audience's reaction, I've been having trouble recommending it.
I just saw this film today and I agree. When Mathilde calls Jack/Edward "Mister Butterfly" it didn't seem like a plot point. To me it was more of an echo to his relationship with Clara.
Now that I think back on it, I think you're right. I remember having a moment of confusion during the movie -- then remembering that both women have their reasons to call him that: Clara has seen the tattoo on his upper back, and Mathilde has had the experience at the picnic spot where the butterfly landed on her and he told her it was a rare one.
To me, the key difference between this film and "The Limits of Control" is that "The American" teases its audience that it could at some point turn into a conventional thriller (which it does, kind of, with it's half-hearted showdown and pseudo-poetic final shots), whereas "Limits" doesn't even try to hide what it is: an exercise in pure form and beauty (although both films seem to have a rather rigid and pristine conception of the latter). The skeletal plot of "The American" felt like an excuse for striking compositions that didn't know their purpose, while Jarmusch's film had no need for excuses, being its own justification.
Had to note one thing you said about the settings of the films you say The American resembles, eg In Bruges. The Paris of Le Samourai is actually a bit of seedy dump - no picture postcard views. The beauty comes from the cinematography and from Delon himself.
Yes! It's all in the way it's photographed.
Jim, I definitely dig what you're saying about purgatorial states and all that this entails. I suppose I just want the film to work on the level of character, story and genre before it reaches for mythic resonance and poetic minimalism. Is that too much to ask? I may be too hard on this film because what it's attempting to do is exactly what I'm into, that odd intersection of the artiest art films and the genre-est genre flicks. Sure THE AMERICAN is better than most films released this year. But is it as good as it could be? My standards are, of course, ridiculously high. But each time I see a serious work like this, I want it to blow me away like the best of Peckinpah and Melville. Which, in a way, is my problem with THE HEADLESS WOMAN. It's an interesting film, but no Antonioni. It only goes so far. There's not enough ambition. Not enough self-criticism or swinging for the fences. I'd rather see a spectacular failure aiming for something rare or totally new then a safe--if expert--repurposing of art film and genre tropes we've seen before, only now in a slightly different context.
Did this film go into production before or after "The Limits of Control" was released? I ask because this one is basically that one but with gun battles and an easier conflict/ending. Also very similar to Jarmusch's "Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai," which also had a hit man foolishly loyal to his master as well as an extended scene of the protagonist building a silencer (but that one had ODB rapping on the soundtrack - better for me). Also, and I'm not throwing accusations around here, just noting curiosities, but Paolo Bonacelli, the priest in this film, also played an Italian priest in Jarmusch's "Night on Earth."
Some things that kept me from liking the movie:
-George Clooney's acting. He does everything silently but it's still not subtle. Whenever he wants to suggest interior conflict he focuses his eyes really hard ("Sad!" "Paranoid!" "Lonely!") and moves his jaw up and down (I first noticed his Jaw Move in "Michael Clayton"). And he's too concerned with his audience: after he shoots his girlfriend in the beginning his face fills with so much Restrained Pain it becomes pathos, and I think I should be feeling more sorry for the murdered woman at this point.
-Once Upon a Time in the West. Are they comparing Henry Fonda's playing against type in that movie with Clooney's supposedly dark turn in this one?
-I like compositions too, but I like them when they're connected to or express feelings relating to the story, and not just there for effect. Clooney is supposed to be paranoid at every step, but he spends so much of this movie wandering around in public, having conversations in English with every Italian he meets, that I didn't really get the feeling he was constantly scared for his life. I think a lot of the shots in this movie are just "pretty," whereas the cinematography in "Limits" followed a very specific (if obscure) path.
-Conversations with the priest. "I don't think God's worried about me" or whatever, how many variations of that line have we heard before?
So what we have is some pretty cinematography, a star who's not a mystery because we know what he's thinking at every moment, pointless dialogue and obvious metaphors, and some violence or nudity peppered in every twenty minutes or so. It's "emo," it's a formula.
Indeed, Jim. (And thanks for the great post: I'm now curious to see The American and The Limits of Control.) I also just wanted to note that what makes Le Samourai a great film for me is that it deals with types and archetypes, both narrative and cinematic, to the extent of deconstructing them, for instance, in the identity parade line-up, or presenting them as pantomime, eg and planting of the bug. Much imitated, but frankly, how can you improve on perfection?
I was totally shocked at the quality of this film. It was bizarre, because usually films like this do not get marketed this way; this is an art house film not a mass market film, but the trailers made it seem like it was some sort of action suspense movie.
I think filmmakers really underestimate the importance of the trailer; Scott Pilgrim did terribly because the trailer made it look nothing like the actual film --- they could have gotten much bigger audiences by emphasizing the crazy band battles and surreal fight scenes, but instead they focused on the basic plot, which isn't really the point of the film at all. As a result, many people who might otherwise have loved this film missed out on it.
In reverse, this film got marketed really well, but it was just not the right film for the marketing. I knew most people would end up walking out and hating it --- though I hope at least a few had their minds opened to a different sort of movie.
The whole time I was watching this film, there was one thought that kept coming back to me over and over. "The American" seemed in some nebulous way to be a very smart, very grown up, very dark Bond film, minus the mega-stunts, one-liners, and supervillains. Not unlike what the Daniel Craig version of a James Bond movie is, but more real, more interesting, more believable, shot with more artistry, and with a more adult sensibility. Maybe it's just Clooney? I dunno, but I find it hard to believe the people rating this gem so low saw the same film I did. We could use quite a few more real films like "The American" coming out of Hollywood than the typical lowbrow fare we usually have to endure at the cineplex.
(Spoiler ALERT)
Loved it...the butterfly ascending to the heavens at the very last moment was the payoff.
You didn't think it was a little...insultingly obvious?
No, I don't think it was insultingly obvious. It was easy to miss if you weren't paying attention.
As others have stated, I think the disappointment in the film has less to do with the film itself than the discrepancy between expectation and reality (which might be an interesting point to examine on this blog...though I guess the Funny Games thread dealt with that).
Based on the ads I saw for it, I expected it to be more in line with the Bourne films; however, I found myself absorbed in the film and got caught up in the building tension -- I thought Clooney's performance was one of his best.
After the film was over, I heard quite a few "that was terrible's" around me, and it was a mostly retirement-age crowd. There was also one older gentleman who actually answered his phone and started having a conversation about midway through the film until the people around him shushed him up. At least most teens only text! :)
That's a good point about expectations. I was fortunate to know only that Clooney and Corbijn were involved -- and I'd seen the poster. That was it. The movie does a good job of telling you how to watch it (as all good movies do), but resistance is understandable if you're expecting (based on the advertising that brought you to the theater in the first place) that it should deliver something it has no intention of delivering. We kind of got into this with "Inception," too. When the trailer gives you the most spectacular, action-packed visuals (and I did see the trailer for "Inception" before seeing the movie), it's only natural to expect the movie to develop those images. But, as it turns out, "Inception" wasn't really about "dreams" (even though they were called that) but about the science-fiction concept of creating and entering subconscious architectural spaces. Apparently most of the opening weekend audience for "The American" was older. Box Office Mojo said: "As quiet as The American may seem, it had the fourth-highest grossing Labor Day launch ever. Distributor Focus Features reported that The American's audience was 66 percent aged 35 years and older (88 percent was 25 years and older) and 55 percent male."
I was struck by the similarities between "The American" and a light-hearted Canadian comedy called "Gunless". In both, an American killer (played by Paul Gross in "Gunless") arrives in a sleepy little town unaccustomed to folks like him. He becomes a bit of a local celebrity because he's an American. He's stuck there while he assembles a gun. While he's there he gets to know some of the townsfolk and gets himself a girlfriend. Along the way he starts to think maybe he needs to change his life and leave killing behind. But somebody is after him and there needs to be a final showdown...I'm only half kidding. The movies couldn't be more different. "Gunless" doesn't have the arty, moody composition of "The American" nor does it try. But I cared about the killer in "Gunless" because I got to know him and like him. And I cared about the girlfriend because she was an actual character and not just a naked sex object. I'm not an idiot - I get that I wasn't supposed to know anything about Clooney. But that remoteness ultimately made me disengage from the story - I really didn't care what happened to Mr. Butterfly. I enjoyed both movies, for obviously different reasons, and I'm glad both were made. But the one I recommend to my coworkers who are looking for a good movie is "Gunless".
And isn't it interesting what vastly different movies can be made out of the same story?
An exceptional film and, much like mr. Emerson & some other reviewers, I was immediately enthralled by the quiet tone of the movie and the exceptional cinematography. I too encountered a very tepid audience reaction. I have seen this elsewhere in recent years - I am thinking of Michael Mann's arthouse styling of both Miami Vice movie & Public Enemies. I think the Transformers crowd and the 3 step standard action movie crowd cannot appreciate the subtleties of these types of movies and the imagination required by the movieviewer. I would include Terence Malick's work in same Intellectual movie genre. The American will certainly rank as one of my favourite movies of the year. Clooney's range continues to impress. I will be watching this movie again - many times.
The American was not meant for crude or ugly Americans. If you like a dumbed-down goodguy badguy action-packed film with not much thought and a predictable ending, the American won't be your cup of gelato.
The American is a purposeful, intelligent, existential, progressive film, while being lush with artfull imagry, culture, symbolism,and film history.
The noire captured in color was nothing short
of sublime. The nuances of film noire, the sparse dialogue, shades of dark and light, with color feeling like black and white, the bleak subject matter of espionage and betrayal,
the puzzling characters beyond redeption, their
peices missing or painfully hidden without happy ending...
The subtle symbolism, Clooney representing the ugly or crude (as in Exxon American) founded on the only job he can do well, the machine. The director and script writer do a great job of extending this metaphor. Clooney is every American who has put a gun in his hand, and who chose violence over love.
America is good at wrapping war in heroism, while wearing rose-colored shrapnel. My favorite
scene is where Clooney brings a picnic basket of
weaponry to a romantic-like rendezvous that involves the testing of mercenary equipment. A man and a woman on a blanket, making war, not love!
Yet how fulfilling a scenario. Clooney and company make war and violence romantic. The symbolism works because war, in America's history, has been made righteous and romantic,
luring most everyone to its darkest door. Apple pie patriotism, for "good cause," is how wars
begin, and how militarism, aggression, torture,
and holocausts thrive. Its romantic portrayal is experinced from books to CNN to war memorials to our schools. Clooney, Jack, like many of us,
have been caught up in the act, and have ventured away from our true selves.
The picnic basket, the attractive people, making beautiful and harmless what is really banal and deadly--it's how America manufactures war, and our beliefs in war. Clooney is the collective American, working for the invincible, collective America. Clooney, and his client are neat, clean, efficient, and wholesome packages
that could just as easily be seen on any number of recruiter ads posited between prime time programming.
Using "jack" as a name, symbolizing a man who is and has been jacked, his life hi-jacked, works for the film's essence. (Not to mention that other movie with clients for guns, "The day of the Jackal.")
And like Kafka's CASTLE, we are thrown in the middle of Jack's life, which is on the run. He hides among the prison-like labyrinthine, strange for a man too, who hungers for love and longs for freedom. Women are drawn to his paradoxical freedom, calling him Mr. Butterfly, for the tattoo he wears alongside a military engraving.
This juxtaposition shows how Jack is in a clash with himself and his own values.
"Clara" symbolizes the choice Jack could have made, that of love and peace. Yet this is surface symbolism for like "Seven Beauties," where there is war and violence, it makes hypocritical bedpartners of all of us. Clara too is a failed human being. As Jack prostitutes his values of freedom for prisoner's life on the lamb, Clara sacrifices her values of love for prostitution. In a world full of Jack's, few get a way out of this labyrinth of human frailty--if anyone does at all.
Jack is steadily manipulated by the man who runs the machine, the nameless man, as in nameless corporate power that determines who lives and who dies. jack wants out, but does he have any voice or choice over this ruthless invicibility?
The question I have to ask is: How many Jacks are there, trapped into service and killing who cannot get out, who have no say over those who have control of their lives? For Jack, it started out with "good cause." But that cause was ages ago, and now, as he looks back on his
life, he can say, in all honesty, "God wouldn't
be interested in me, father." He knows he is a
murderer. Clara is one person in his life who gives him a glimpse of the other side, while pointing out his horendous mistake. Jack must climb a maze out of hell to envision her paradise, almost like a tease, any of us can relate to.
Of course, Father "Bene-detto" is another artfully symbolic gesture of the film. And, "Mr. Butterfly," others call Jack, yet
the very opposite of the life he now lives. Of course there is the illusive butterfly of love,
and Jack's illusive butterfly of love and freedom is his illusive butterfly of redemption as well.
For Jack, redemption is obviously too little too late. As he has prostituted his true desires in life, he is fatefully drawn to Clara, who has prostituted her desire for love. She is a grifted character as well, and we begin to see why they have been drawn to each other. They are two peas in a pod of self-failures.
Truth is Beauty and beauty truth, but Jack's truth is ugly, the ugly American's truth that is beyond redemption. To get out, to escape this
corporate melee and invincible power, one can only die. This is the existential nature of the film that successfully drives its message home,
bleak as it is. Bleak is not for the Pepsi generation.
If there is any redeption at all, it is Jack's effort for redemption, though his failure
is foreshadowed through the cacoon (that never becomes butterfly until the end-scene cleverly visualized on screen. At least, and unlike some, Jack WANTS to redeem himself. At least Jack has a bit of a conscience. Through all those battle scars, there is the sparse light he attempts to cleave to. At least there is the illusion of redemption, or redemption from the grave.
The American is aristotilian drama, both purposeful and progressive, that reads like a play or book. The trouble is, Americans
don't read anymore. Dumbed-down
America doesn't like a movie that
leaves them that sense they are being taken to school-- where some things must be deciphered through critical thought in order to be learned.
America likes pat answers, not uncertainties or abstractions that are excluded from the concrete.
The last thing America wants is a
movie that feels like a book. Perhaps this is what I found so enjoyable about The American. I could go on. I'll stop here...don't want to read too much into the film, nor keep others from enjoying it.
The American was not meant for crude or ugly Americans. If you like a dumbed-down goodguy badguy action-packed film with not much thought and a predictable ending, the American won't be your cup of gelato.
I'd call it dumbed-up.
I thought The American was more good than bad, but just because it's silently seductive in a summer of explosive boredom doesn't excuse some of the obviousness. I'm talking chiefly about the priest and his dialogue (and the lambs!), not to mention the way-too-recurring butterfly symbol (of what? gentle transformation?) and the frankly heart-on-its-sleeve score, which nearly always ruined the spell of the silence.
More importantly, The American and The Limits of Control operate on completely different levels, so it's hard to see how they're more than superficially similar. Limits is a postmodern deconstruction, which is to say it's not a hit man story so much as a parody/meta exploration of hit man stories. The plot is the barebones plot of a hit man movie: Guy receives assignment, goes to A and gets his next clue, follows that to his next clue, and so on until he reaches his target. The American doesn't live in that meta state. It's a surface-level hit man (er, weapons expert) narrative that plays out as these kinds of tales tend to. It's not about hit man narratives though; it's about, I believe, an aging superpower finding out just too late that rugged individualism won't ultimately save him, that he is responsible for his arms peddling, and that his cold efficiency has consigned him to a lonely, unfulfilling life.
The Limits of Control is practically a satire of The American. But they're far from "the same movie."
No, they're not exactly the same, but I also see "Limits of Control" as a meta-commentary (maybe "parody") on a particular kind of thriller narrative. And I think "The American" is very close to that. I'm curious about the novel on which it was based. Because "The American" is all about compositions (not plot, not character) and I wonder if/how that was expressed in the book.
I had no idea it was based on a novel! For me the experience was genuinely cinematic--so dependent on its audio and visuals and less, like you said, on character and narrative.
It makes me wonder if the film references were in the novel, particularly that orange phone booth at Munich Hauptbahnhof, which, if memory serves, is where much of The Passenger gets going. Not to mention, obviously, all the Melville.
And of course "Leone... Italiano."
So how am I supposed to feel about the human beings that occupy most of the space in many of the compositions?
Well, I know how I'm supposed to feel (especially about Clooney) because unlike "Limits" - a movie it'd be much easier to argue is about composition rather than character or plot - the human story in "The American" is put front and center, and if Clooney or Corbjin had their way, I'd be fighting tears by the end. I won't deny there are good compositions in this movie, but saying it's "about" compositions seems to me like willfully ignoring any failings as a thriller, romance or character study.
When Clooney and his girlfriend walk across an entire empty, snowy field, and the sniper waits until they reach the only visible cover in the area before he starts shooting, and it turns out the sniper's only some yards away from that spot, close enough for Clooney to shoot him, does that not seem a little lazy? It's certainly not thrilling to watch.
This comments thread proves to me that the movie is special. I love that a film this quiet, slow and minimalist can inspire heated debate about what constitutes a good movie, and the definition of a good composition, and whether or not one can legitimately call a film good if its distinctiveness is almost entirely visual & atmospheric. Some commenters think this movie is the Emperor's New Clothes, others adore it.
I don't think it's a great film, but it's a terrific example of how visual intelligence and a little bit of patience can make hackneyed material seem distinctive. And I found Clooney's performance quite moving, and the ending unexpectedly powerful. This is a man who is only now realizing the emotional and spiritual consequences of the choices he's made. That's why he's reaching out to Clara so desperately, like a man in an open grave clawing toward the light while gravediggers pour dirt on him.
I watched Limits of Control recently and I was initially intrigued by the film and then, as it progressed, got more and more bored with its conventions. I did, however, leave the film with vivid impressions of its underlying plot and idiosyncracies (i.e., suits, cameos, nude girl, cool lead, very specific coffee requirements).
I'm curious to see if The American plays as a companion piece. Based on the description and (spoiler-free) discussions I've read, the similarity seems too close to be a coincidence. Perhaps its a remake of an idea for a film rather than a remake of a film? Then again, Limits wasn't really much more than an idea for a film.
I guess I wasn't the only one who saw the parallel between the two films.
I saw it and quite liked it, though didn't love it. There was something a little unpleasant about it that prevented me from really enjoying it, though I was certainly engrossed throughout.
As soon as the screen went black, a woman a couple rows behind me said rather loudly, "That was AWFUL!" and a man next to her muttered, "That was the worst George Clooney movie I've ever seen." I believe they were rather elderly, but I'm not sure. I saw it on Wednesday, so there weren't a ton of other people in the the theater but no one else seemed very pleased either.
With The Expendables attracting fans of the Golan-Globus Cannon "renaissance" from the 1980's so goes The American with its 1970's retro, European thriller chic. Consequently, whereas The Expendables was a triumph in marketing a better film than delivered, The American marketed a more conventional spy-game and unsheathed a taut, minimalist exercise.
I like the Melville comparisons here, which are more apt than the Antonioni ones falsely invoked in many critics circles. The plotting here is noticably more conventional than Antonioni's, more static than poetic. But silence is a welcome reprieve from bombast and, like one reader suggested, the film is more winning in contrast with its cinematic peers. Also, it's just plain good.
I agree with several of the criticisms here concerning the stilted scenes with the priest, the overstated symbolism of the butterfly and emphasis on composition over content. And yet, these weaknesses are minimized, to an extent, because deliberate choices were made to de-emphasize them. Watching this film, I felt I was in the hands of a creative team with a singular vision, free of compromise and meddling. I like the hangdog nature of Clooney's performance, the long walks through Abruzzo, the plagued silences. Self-conscious, perhaps, but it worked. At least, for me.
i, too, thought of The Limits of Control as this movie unfolded. However, that film, one of the very worst of my filmgoing decade, was marred by its cloying, untamed cameos that allowed actors free reign to subvert each scene with outlandish costumes and improvisation. The sheer arrogance of that production recalled incoherent indulgences such as Hopper's The Last Movie and Cox's Straight to Hell. The American deserves much better company.
And still, I am disappointed by Roger Ebert's four star review of this film. Certainly, the rating system is relative, but how does one justify rating an imitator higher than several of the films it appropriates? I suppose one has to look no further than Mr. Ebert's uniform praise of Tarantino films to find that very answer. On this, we strongly disagree.
I part ways with you on one significant thing: there is no difference between composition and content. The former defines the latter. As Scorsese says: "Cinema is a matter of what's in the frame and what's out." That is the rock-bottom truth. Everything else is embellishment.
How is sound encompassed by this definition?
Soundtracks are composed with just as much -- or more -- care as shots. Very little of what you hear in most movies is actually recorded on site. Most is built up, sound by sound, layer by later, in post-production. So, it's the same as Scorsese says: Cinema is the art of what's in [the sound mix] and what's out.
Jim -
I do like the quote, but I have trouble in applying it as a rule. I've seen many films where composition is undermined by content and vice versa.
Take Wim Wenders' Buena Vista Social Club as an example. Rich, informed content rendered unwatchable by Wenders oppressive camerawork.
Conversely, Francis Coppola's One from the Heart is a technological dream with its content all but buried underneath.
I realize this amounts to opinion, but there is some empirical analysis in support of those two examples.
Perhaps, I am taking your read on this quote, or its intent, to suggest that the content of the image, renders the characterization, narrative and three act structure impotent. Even then, I would disagree if applied on the whole.
Please elaborate if you would. And how would you apply it to those two films specifically so as I might better understand your point of view (assuming you've seen them).
In the opening of the film Farfalla kills a woman who was close to him and then one is supposed to feel something for his loneliness; as if he had no choice in his line of work, or lodging a bullet in her head. The film crumbles if you do not impart sympathy, as I found it impossible to; why is his life more important than the swedes, the woman he killed, the man accidentally shot on his vespa?
The prostitute scenes used the tired 'hooker with a heart of gold' idea, and we are given a perplexing amount of shots of her naked, Clooney naked. Like your run of the mill hollywood film the reliance on violence and sex becomes dull and depressing. She falls in love with him because he gives her an orgasm - I mean... really? that's all the sense of character the writer had? Well, maybe she's a double agent, therefor requiring no development whatsoever.
Meanwhile we have a beautiful views of an Italian city which are largely irrelevant to the story of this marksman. In comparison it makes Eat Prey Love seem profound, as at least the characters in that light memoir tried to consider the meaning of the landscape in their lives, regardless of the narcissistic results. All were given is this absurd Priest who rattles of the 'wisdom' our one dimensional protagonist requires; well, actually, both movies share that - but the healer in Bali had more charm.
I'd argue its a grievous artistic mistake to try carry a film on visual artistry in the stead of genuinely good writing - and good writing almost always centers around character; for they are the windows to their world. It's why films like The Fall and The Fountain are so bad despite how much imagery was worked into them. Mary Antoinette might rest along with those. And then Avatar, which, with all its cut scene 3d efforts, had some of the stupidest writing imaginable.
A much simpler movie, Wendy and Lucy, combines moments of visual story telling with brilliant and efficient writing. Another example is, of course, the Seven Samurai, which combines incredible visual detail with a remarkable script.
Perhaps the discrepancy in viewpoints has to do with how each of us 'reads' a film; but I can assure you that many who dislike the film are not upset because they weren't given a standard thriller or action film; it is because the interaction and situations of and between the characters were not near the standards expected from people who've encountered stories throughout their life. I went with literary minded folk and the mutual sense was not just that the movie was dull, but that it was painfully bad.
It seems though that viewers with a strong visual understanding of film are experiencing the movie in its dialog with other films - seeing all visual messages, such as the shifting appearance of the agent sent to kill Clooney and all that; so maybe it is a great movie if it is understood from this lens, rather than the me and my fellows entered with.
(Spoilers.) It hadn't occurred to me that we were meant to feel anything but shock and horror -- and certainly not sympathy -- when he turns and shoots the woman with whom we've just seen him in bed. And that's all we've seen at this point in the movie -- the two of them in bed, then they go out into the snow, get shot at, he shoots a gunman, and then -- suddenly, brutally -- shoots her. I mean, this isn't "In Bruges," where the killing that sends the guys to purgatory was an accident (at least the one that tortures Colin Farrell's character was). As I suggested before, you could probably make the argument that the whole movie is filtered through his damaged, deadened consciousness -- as he's doomed to re-enact this scenario over and over and over again. (We keep hearing that he's losing his edge, getting soft, always getting "involved" with these women...) Maybe the whole thing takes place in his head from the moment he realizes he's been shot on his way to the picnic spot by the river. I didn't think there was anything realistic or naturalistic about it. From the very first shot it felt quite dreamlike to me, so these plot absurdities didn't trouble me at all. I think we're seeing his vision of himself, not an "objective" one...
I hated the way that scene was played.
He shoots the woman in the back of the head, her head snaps back a little but the bullet doesn't go through her face, she falls out of frame, and all we're left with in the shot is Clooney's face, filling with so much remorse that it's obvious, from this moment, where the character is going, and any mystery is destroyed. "He did kill a woman - but look how bad he felt about it! Aw!" I think anyone who would react that quickly (and brutally) to the situation would already know his emotional response and would've dealt with it preemptively.
It is all we've seen up to this point, but since Clooney's character isn't, well, characterized, really, it just looks like George Clooney pointing a gun at a woman and firing it, and when he lets us know how bad he's feeling about it, he leaves out any ambiguity. He's the star, and we must be on his side the whole time.
I have read reviews lavish and terse, paeans and dirges, lauding and lambasting; different impressions of the same 105 minutes of film. Anton Chekhov wrote to Aleksey Suvorin that the artist is obligated to state the problem correctly, not to solve it.
Whether "The American" states the problem correctly is apparently arguable, based on the widely disparate interpretations. This a "slice of life" story. We begin observing at some point and all we will know is either observed or inferred.
I have learned there is quite a bit I failed to observe. One thing I have not read in any review or post regards the complete absence of law enforcement in this story.
Although somewhat contrived, I find nothing odd about the village priest checking out a stranger who move in. Some one would. This is nothing like an American subdivision.
What I saw was an ongoing contrast between the beautiful and the ugly. Beautiful scenery, beautiful people; ugly lives, barren souls.
I noted that Jack feels neither love nor hate; but rather his primary feeling is indifference except with respect to surviving. This indifference is breached only by his apparent affection for the butterfly and then by his desire for a companion..."come away with me".
Most of his actions are perfunctory, performed almost by rote. The initial discussion of obtaining a weapon and the assembly of the M-14 follow this pattern. There was nothing new in it and there was no sense of creating something; it was following an old recipe and it was good enough. He followed the recipe with care but without any sense of accomplishment.
When we see him sitting, almost motionless, I infer that he has spent years developing his ability to be aware of his inner and outer environment. He deals in death and death may come at any moment.
This has become Jack's life. It had been different once, we can infer, but there is no going back. In the end Jack carries too much baggage. He has come too far and lost too much, even of himself.
This movie had it flaws, but it was nearer reality than many. The last 10 or 15 minutes left me confused, but even that is not so odd in life.
Cinema might be a matter of what's in the frame and what's not or what's on the soundtrack and what's left unheard. But narrative cinema is also always a matter of what's in the story and what's not. I sometimes feel like that's a major blind spot of the formalist approach that occasionally takes hold of this blog. We're usually not talking about Brakhage and his descendants. So the story matters fundamentally. And the story is the reason we're all showing up--creatives, cast, crew and audience--in the first place.
Mathilde calls him Mr. Butterfly twice. Once, after their meeting at the river discussed here. The second time is after she picks up the gun. I didn't see either as Mathilde slipping up.
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