Who is the Genius?

Genius is the rather ambiguous title of a film about Maxwell Perkins, who was the editor to the works of  several American literary geniuses of the first half of the 20^th century.  It’s based on the ambiguously titled biography of Perkins written by A. Scott Berg, “Maxwell Perkins:  Editor of Genius.”  Who is the genius Berg is talking about — this particular editor, or the authors whose work he nurtured to publication, novels by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and Thomas Wolfe, to name the three authors that appear in the film.  Who is the genius of the film’s title?  The writer Thomas Wolfe, or, as F. Scott Fitzgerald calls Max Perkins, the genius at friendship. 

Genius is a sweet little character study of a movie, visually convincing, gentle, welcoming the audience into its beautifully produced world (with the barest acknowledgment of the Depression).  Michael Grandage directed the script by John Logan based on Berg’s biography of the editor to Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Wolfe, and Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, to name a few. 

While Genius purports to be based on the biography, it’s only a taste, a dram, an excerpt covering the years between when young Thomas Wolfe walked into Maxwell Perkins’ office at Charles Scribner’s Sons Publishers and Booksellers on Fifth Avenue with an overlong manuscript that would eventually be whittled down to become the very long novel, “Look Homeward, Angel.”  The younger man’s death in 1938, just over a decade after he walked into Perkins’ office, ends the story of the film.  Not even a third, in fact, of Perkins’ 37-year career as an editor of some of the most remarkable American authors of the first half of the 20^th century.  But the period it covers provides a beautiful stage for Colin Firth as Perkins and Jude Law as Wolfe to play together and become men of another time. 

Colin Firth is astute, smart, and heartfelt casting for Maxwell Perkins.  Repressed yet passionate, loving and compassionate but oh so quiet that his gentle smile is always a delightful surprise.  Maxwell Perkins was a nurturer, and Firth embraces us all.

Jude Law did deep and detailed character work in bringing the volatile Thomas Wolfe to life, apparently barely recognizable to some members of the audience when I saw the film, with his dark curly hair and southern accent contributing to his bold portrayal of the volatile young writer from Asheville.

 

Colin Firth as Maxwell Perkins and Jude Law as Thomas Wolfe.
Photo Credit: Marc Brenner/Roadside Attractions

How much like Thomas Wolfe was fellow southerner F. Scott Fitzgerald in his youth and health.  Here we see Fitzgerald as a middle-aged man weighed down by responsibility and reality.  Ernest Hemingway seems a mature sportsman, subdued yet warm and friendly, and prescient of young Wolfe’s eventual betrayal of his father figure Perkins.

Each famous writer is nicely played as a human being, not a famous author whose books we all read in high school.  Dominic West excels in his brief appearance as Ernest Hemingway.  Guy Pearce is a heartbreaking F. Scott Fitzgerald whose glory days are past, and whose wild and vivacious wife Zelda has sunken into mental illness.  In his exquisite sadness, it occurred to me Fitzgerald might have been glad the television series Endeavour did an adaptation of “The Great Gatsby” in a recent episode.

This shot appears several times in the film with the more modern buildings edited out!

Nicole Kidman did fine work as Wolfe’s paramour and sponsor, Mrs. Bernstein. She looked the part of the “older woman,” without vanity, which contributed to her believability. Some of the audience didn’t recognize her, either, until they saw her name in the credits, always a compliment to an actor.

Laura Linney was superb as Perkins’ wife Louise, aghast and downtrodden when Wolfe denigrated playwriting, her passion.  She was not merely someone’s wife or mother, she is a fully developed character, loving to her husband and children, angry when he chooses his work over a family vacation, rather judgmental of the married Mrs. Bernstein while still sympathetic.  Ms. Linney has grown into a remarkably sensitive actor whose every feeling is subtly offered to us. 

There are many pieces creating the whole of a film, and each element of Genius was of its time, the late 1920s through 1930s in New York City.  Music by Adam Cork was emotive without intruding, at one with fine cinematography by Ben Davis of a timely production design by Mark Digby.  In my mind’s eye the film is almost in black and white, although I know that it wasn’t.  Art direction by Alex Baily, Gareth Cousins, and Patrick Rolfe was complemented by costume design by Jane Petrie.

 

Firth as Perkins and Law as Wolfe commuting to Connecticut
Photo Credit: Marc Brenner/Roadside Attractions

John Logan, on the advice of biographer Berg, sensibly put the oft-read book aside to write the movie.  I read an article by a fellow who had read the excellent book and was very upset with all that was left out.  The biography of Max Perkins was about his life and his 37-year career.  Such things are difficult to cover in their entirety in a theatrical film.  Logan chose an dramatic segment with a volatile writer, and did a good job of it.

Much as I was captivated by the film, when I walked away from the theatre I felt something missing, only realizing what I missed as I wrote this.  I missed that whole story, which can only be apprehended by reading A. Scott Berg’s biography of Perkins and the works of Perkins’ authors.  If you want more, read the books.  If you want to stop in for a visit to 1930’s New York City and the fascinating people who lived and worked there, see the film, Genius.

~ Molly Matera, signing off to read….so many choices….

Tinkering With Cold War Espionage

In 1979, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy was produced as a seven-part miniseries based on the novel by John LeCarré.  The story is a tangled web, an intricate tale of spies living compartmentalized lives with interwoven personal histories during the Cold War.  A story of this complexity needs that miniseries format.  So this year’s two-hour film version, despite its extraordinary cast and style, falls a bit short in this condensed view. 

The Poster.  (c) 2011 StudioCanal

Absurd as this may be, I find myself describing this feeling the way I would describe whole wheat pasta.  Apparently whole wheat and multi-grain pastas taste like pasta to those who have never tasted semolina.  If you have tasted semolina, you know the taste and texture of whole wheat and multi-grain pasta is just – not wrong, exactly, but not right.  It’s not pasta, that noun must be preceded by an adjective that shows it’s not the real thing.  That’s how I felt about 2011’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.  It has strength, suspense, it is skillfully directed and acted and shot.  But something’s not quite there there.

Accepting the fact that two hours is too short a period in which to tell this labyrinthine tale, I like this film.  It starts slowly — it must be twenty minutes before Smiley even speaks — and shows us 1973 London as a dark and dreary place.  This is the Cold War, something that merely influenced life in the far-off U.S., but pervaded every layer of it in Europe. 

Dreary London, dreary Smiley (C)2011 StudioCanal

 What I remember of Alec Guinness’ George Smiley was a reptilian quality.  I haven’t read a Smiley book in a long time, so I cannot recall if the slightly more human Smiley that Gary Oldman gives us is closer to what LeCarré wrote, or not.  Oldman’s Smiley has a great deal going on behind his eyes, already hidden by large eyeglasses.  He sees all but doesn’t let anyone see that he sees. 

The place and the people of this story are the highest echelons of British intelligence in 1973.  These men of MI6 are the spies who survived World War II and decades of the Cold War.  They are tired, they are bitter, they are cynical, and they don’t trust one another any farther than they could throw a circus elephant; but they are bound together as inexorably as soldiers who fight a horrendous battle together and survive – at least part of them survives.

The tension in this boys’ club builds slowly, with each main character in some way introduced.  To tell a tale of spies betraying one another, let alone their country, one most know who these people are.  One of the weaknesses of this short form is that not all the characters of the Circus are clearly drawn.  The Circus, by the way, is a term LeCarré made up for the headquarters and personnel of the spy world.  There are no acrobats there, no trapeze, and no safety nets.  Just secretive, disguised men sporting the costumes of their class and time.

John Hurt losing "Control."

At the opening of the film, the leader of the group is “Control,” played with surly exhaustion by John Hurt.  He sends Jim Prideaux (Mark Strong) on a secret trip to Eastern Europe to bring back a defector.  Secret even from their colleagues at the Circus because Control is sure there’s a mole in their midst selling them out to the Soviet Union.  Already Prideaux’s uncomfortable, and then things go very wrong.  We see Prideaux shot, and soon Control is driven out of the Circus, taking George Smiley into retirement with him.  The remaining members of the Circus are smug, and all of them are hiding something from their closest colleagues. 

Toby Jones plays Percy Alleline, the new leader. He snarls, he’s a ferret of a man, he lashes out fiercely, claws his way to the top of the pile of his erstwhile friends and colleagues.  Jones is great at this, portraying the man with supercilious certainty of his superiority.  Without knowing why, we know better.

Ciarán Hinds plays Roy Bland, the least talkative and least known of the group.  Visually he’s terrific, cold, a British good old boy, and I assume there’s more of him on the cutting room floor.  As it is, Bland is an unsatisfying because undefined character.

Firth as Haydon.  (c)2011 StudioCanal

Colin Firth plays Bill Haydon, cocky, confident, a cuckholding bastard everybody seems to love.  I forecast a Best Supporting Actor Oscar or at least nomination for this portrayal.  He’s so very affable, so very relaxed, so very cunning.

David Dencik plays the odd man out, Toby Esterhase — a man who presumably changed sides whenever necessary to his survival in the turmoil of European politics of the mid-twentieth century.  He is loftily terse with everyone outside the inner circle, yet appears rattled when Control barks at him.

The younger members – not of the inner circle, just the Circus – are Benedict Cumberbatch as Peter Giullam in a solid, sweet, and, in one scene, heartbreaking performance.  Tom Hardy is marvelous as Ricki Tarr.  Tarr is a sleazy guy, with perhaps more heart and honor than anyone gives him credit for, and Hardy is really fabulous in this role, fooling me at every turn.

We see Mark Strong’s Jim Prideaux several times in a charming snapshot of him with Bill Haydon (Firth), a snapshot that seems to give Haydon pain and Smiley ideas.

Cumberbatch and Oldman (c)2011 StudioCanal

Into this boys’ club Kathy Burke intruded back in the day, forcefully and cheerfully, as Connie Sachs.  She’s been with the boys since the war, and she misses those old days, when, as she saw it, the English had a great deal to be proud of.  Clearly she does not think that of England in 1973, and she is “retired” as unceremoniously as Control and Smiley.

Svetlana Khodchenkova is part of Ricki Tarr’s mission, the abused wife, therefore a potential tool for a spy.  Ms. Khodchenkova is strong and vulnerable, giving a memorable performance.

The smallest roles are well executed, and the cast was what drew me to this film in the first place.  These actors and beautifully framed shots are directed by Tomas Alfredson (who directed Let the Right One In, the original version).  Here he directs the screenplay written by the late Bridget O’Connor and Peter Straughan.  I think all three did good work translating this layered story into a form too short to do it justice. 

Cinematography by Hoyte Van Hoytema is dank, dark, and dismal, but gorgeous, and Dino Jonsäter’s film editing builds tension tersely.

What struck me is that spies live lives of lies, and that therefore the spouses of serial killers can hardly be blamed for not knowing they were living with murderers – surely there are more spies than serial killers in the world, and it’s doubtful their spouses know what those people do, either.

Why did this occur to me?  I think you’ll know if you see the film, which, despite some flaws, I recommend.

~ Molly Matera, signing off, and putting the 1979 Alec Guinness miniseries into my Netflix queue and LeCarre’s novel onto my library list.

The King Speaks the Speech

My knowledge of British history between the wars has become, I discovered Friday, rather hazy. In school, I excelled in history classes pertaining to the first half of the 20th century – back in the second half of the 20th century. I still know well the British and American mystery writers of that period, but I had forgotten the names of the real people and the parties and the politics until I saw “The King’s Speech.” My fuzzy memory was not an impediment to involvement in the film’s story, so I can safely encourage others who would not get an “A” in a history class on the period to go see the film. “The King’s Speech” has very little in the way of razzle dazzle (though it has some pomp and circumstance), and no car chases, but it is worth your time. The story is clearly told, its point of view unwavering, and its cast altogether splendid as led by Colin Firth (as the second in line Prince of York, later King George VI) and Geoffrey Rush as the commoner Lionel Logue. The film zeroes in on these two men in a time that would change the tide of western history. And they sure are fun to watch.

“The King’s Speech” can refer to two things: first, the speech impediment of King George VI, who, in another time, might have been referred to as Bertie the Stammerer; and second, the final speech of the film, the speech made by a wartime king to his people. The speech impediment would not have been an issue prior to the 20th century and the advent of mass communications via wireless – no, not cellphones or the internet via wifi. The “wireless” was the radio. Although the radio was connected to the wall by an electrical cord and therefore not “wireless” as we use the term today, all the radios in the world were not connected by wires to the place from whence the broadcast emanated. Hence, “wireless.”

[Nor were the Beatles tiny little guys inside my radio, or regular size guys running from a radio station on 34th Street to another in Rockefeller Center playing “I Want To Hold Your Hand” live when I was hearing it, but that’s an altogether different set of childhood beliefs.]

The “wireless” radio was a modern marvel, an equalizer, as well as a destroyer of private space, just as television came to be after it.

King George V (played to perfection by Michael Gambon) seems to be a distant father, to his second son, Albert (Firth), and a disappointed one in his eldest son and heir, Edward, Prince of Wales, later King Edward VIII (Guy Pearce). The Queen is played by a coldly regal Claire Bloom. Ms. Bloom’s brief appearances in the film seems to reflect the queen’s brief appearances in her children’s lives, and tend to make us forgive any failures and foibles of her sons. As I said, the point of view of the filmmakers is clear. Not all historians would agree, but they didn’t write this movie.

King George V learned to use the new instruments, the microphone and the radio, to address his people, and expected his sons to do the same. None of this is extemporaneous, all the language is “approved,” and the speeches rehearsed. Edward takes to it readily. Albert, however, while clearly intelligent and well versed in the domestic and foreign affairs of the British Empire, cannot get out three words without stammering and leaving huge pauses – and silence on the airwaves is deadly. Although second in line to the throne, still Albert has duties to perform and he has tried every medical treatment available to cure his stammering to no avail.

Colin Firth was born to play Bertie, later George VI. He is quintessentially British, reserved, with a stick where you’d expect it to be, yet terribly vulnerable in his stance, his eyes, his mouth. The first time he sits down in Logue’s parlor, he crosses his legs and pulls his arms tight to his trunk, as if physically compressing any needs or weaknesses that may emanate in this unfamiliar territory. He is in someone else’s playground, and he doesn’t like it. His stammer is painful to hear, his eyes seeing the words he cannot speak painful to watch. His wife, the future Queen Mum, is played here by Helena Bonham-Carter, more recently seen as madwomen, at which she excels. Her Elizabeth (mother of the future Queen Elizabeth II) is a strong, resolute woman who adores her husband, and works before and behind the scenes to give him the strength and confidence he’ll need in the days to come. The contrast between her and her husband’s mother is very clearly defined in family scenes in which she and Bertie spend time with their two daughters.

It is Elizabeth who pseudonymously seeks out the unconventional Lionel Logue (the wonderfully unconventional Geoffrey Rush), she who maintains the formality of her royal status while inviting the commoner to provide his services in his own way, not the royal way. I quite like Ms. Bonham-Carter in this role – apparently as she ages she can play sane as well as mad.

Initially Bertie, much as he may wish to overcome his stammer, will not play Logue’s game his way, but both Elizabeth and Bertie recognize thresholds passed under Logue’s ministrations that no Harley Street doctors achieved. A decidedly odd and far from comfortable friendship develops between these two disparate men – so uncomfortable that Logue doesn’t tell his own wife that he’s treating the Prince of York until Mrs. Logue comes home to find the royal couple in her parlor. Rush’s Logue is confident, frightened, cocky, subservient, hopeful -- much of this story shows us quotidian moments in this man’s life so he becomes ours, he becomes us. We watch him audition for an amateur theatrical company and fail, then boldly challenge the King of England to overcome his impediment. Rush is a hoot.

It amused me to see Derek Jacobi, clearly an expert stammerer in the “I, Claudius” miniseries, playing the Archbishop of Canterbury.

[Note: If you’re unfamiliar with “I, Claudius,” read the book by Robert Graves and rent the miniseries. It’s fabulous, with appearances by British actors when they were much younger -- some even with hair.]

Wonderful actors pop up throughout the film, including Timothy Spall as a pre-war Winston Churchill (not the usual drawl, but he wasn’t the powerhouse yet, and Spall plays him as a quietly encouraging behind-the-scenes man), Anthony Andrews as Prime Minister Baldwin (Andrews was the pretty young Sebastian in the original “Brideshead Revisited,” and he’s grown gaunt and serious as a prime minister in a tempest-tossed Europe would be), Jennifer Ehle as Logue’s wife Myrtle (smart, to-the-point, and quietly warm), and Eve Best barely recognizable as Wallis Simpson (Mrs. Simpson is not shown favorably here, but Eve Best doesn’t play her as a gold-digger; just as a superficial woman accustomed to getting what she wants, and not considering the consequences to anyone else for so much as a moment.).

The film’s structure and build is chronological, each year bringing the two princes, Edward and Bertie, inevitably to their fates, and each year bringing Bertie and Logue closer to the full disclosure needed to push the accidental king beyond his obstacle. The wireless came closer than the tabloids and long before the internet in exposing the private lives of the powerful. Edward’s insistence on abdicating in 1936 because he could not function “without the help and support of the woman I love” made a private matter public -- his speech over the wireless went out to the entire Empire, on which the sun never set. Once Edward made his irrevocable decision, Bertie had to overcome his own obstacles to take on the mantle of apparent power – that is, he became King, and subject to his people’s needs. He had to be able to speak to them over the wireless, and inspire them. With Lionel Logue’s help, he did.

What Lionel Logue did was more speech therapy than speech pathology. He treated people with emotional and/or physical trauma who’d lost the ability to speak clearly or, in some instances, at all. These could be young men returning shell shocked from World War I, whom no one in the medical professions knew how to help. Or they could be children who, as Logue says in the film, “were not born” stammering, but who came to stammer as they grew up. Simply and clearly, Bertie finally makes bald statements about events of his childhood that preceded the advent of his stammer. No magical cure, this, Logue and Bertie must continue to work and sweat and rehearse so that the King addressing his people could sound as he really was – intelligent, informed, and passionate.

“The King’s Speech” is beautifully filmed, the camera lavishing care on the vast interiors of royalty and the halls of power, the tattered wallpapers of the Logues, the rich velvets and stiff collars, the expanses of people gathering to hear their royals speak. From fogbound London to Canterbury Cathedral to Balmoral, the film is photographed splendidly by Danny Cohen and well directed by Tom Hooper. Ms. Bonham Carter’s hats are, of course, marvelous.

This film is entirely sympathetic to Logue and Bertie/Albert (George is the fifth of his Christian names – Albert was deemed too Germanic for an English king coming to the throne as Nazi Germany was rising to the east). The script by David Seidler is succinct and passionate, the acting superb in every scene.

The film is scheduled for a wider release come Christmas. Give yourself the gift of Firth and Rush.

~ Molly Matera, turning off the computer but not the light. Must re-read my history texts.