SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed!
The Kid has a girlfriend, Christian (Tuesday Weld). She is not living a chaste life with the Kid, but her name is significant since she represents the possibility of the Kid leading an ethical life with her. She tells a salacious tale in which men “cared more about their lives than they did about their honor. Does that seem right to you?” His response is a selfish one as he says, “what good is honor if you’re dead.”
The next film is Stand by Me.
SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed!
They share a pint of whiskey (we find that Troy drinks
too much, since Bono teases him about hogging the bottle). They engage is some crude
sexual humor about a large woman from Florida. Troy says the woman’s girth
“cushions the ride” like “Goodyear” tires. Even if that type of joke might be
offensive to some, it fits the characters Wilson portrays. They are at Troy’s
house and Rose comes out of the house and appropriately asks what they are
“getting into.” She seems to have radar when it comes to her husband’s state of
mind. She offers her own sense of humor. Troy says that when they first met, he
told her he wanted to be her man, but didn’t want to get married. She said if
he wasn’t the “marrying kind” then he should “move out of the way, so the
marrying kind could find” her. Bono
shows the deprived plight of African American families when he talks about how
difficult it used to be to get a home without an outhouse, and he thought
indoor plumbing was reserved for white folks.
Rose tells her husband that his excessive drinking will
kill him. Troy says that Death visited him once when he had pneumonia, but he
beat Death in a wrestling match. He personifies the loss of life so he can feel
like he is in a contest between two men in which he can compete. He also talks
about confronting the Devil, and Rose comments that anything that Troy doesn’t understand,
he calls it the Devil. It’s as if Troy paints himself as a bigger-than-life
Sisyphus-like character, constantly battling overpowering forces.
It's the weekend and Rose sings a hymn as she hangs laundry
to dry. The words of the song ask Jesus to be a “fence” around her. Here is
where the title of the story involves the wish for protection. Rose talks about
playing the “numbers,” an illegal form of gambling before state-run lotteries
came into being. Troy calls the betting foolish. He again expresses his
contempt for seeking a dream-like impractical way to escape the plight of the
deprived.
Troy continues this rant by saying Cory wanted to
escape working on a fence on his property by going to football practice. Here,
the fence could be a metaphor for Troy trying to keep his son from escaping
Troy’s control over him, and thus, depriving Cory the luxury of holding onto
his aspirations. Rose tells her husband that he’s “off,” complaining about
everything. She takes the saying about getting up on the wrong side of bed and wittily
refreshes it by telling Troy to go back to bed and get up on the other side.
Troy says he is going to work on the fence, but he goes
to the local tavern and comes back drunk. He says he is going to fix things around
the house but escapes into his drinking instead. At the same time that he rants
about Cory not doing his chores, the boy is actually home ready to take care of
his responsibilities. Troy is always on the offensive about the way he sees the
world vexing him. What follows is a universal exchange between the self-indulgent
but life-enjoying child and the practical adult. Cory says his father should buy
a TV. Troy points out that the money that would buy a TV must go to fixing the
roof. Troy humorously says what good is the TV if the roof leaks water onto
Cory’s brand-new television.
As the two work on the wood for the fence, Cory talks about the Pittsburgh Pirates. Troy, always wearing that chip on his shoulder, says that Roberto Clemente isn’t allowed to play all the time because he is a man of color. Cory corrects his father’s limited perspective by telling him Clemente plays a great deal. Troy adds that the baseball leagues play mediocre white men while Black players must be great to get a chance. Cory, trying to add fairness to the argument, mentions exceptional white and Black ballplayers, including Hank Aaron. Troy dismisses the great Aaron by saying any player can do well once he gets his timing, and says that Troy had hits off the great Negro League pitcher Satchel Paige. Troy appears to need to compensate for a lack of success by knocking down the accomplishments of others.
From baseball the two move on to Cory’s football
aspirations, of which Troy again says his son has unachievable dreams. Cory
quit his weekday job at the grocery store, but will continue to work weekends.
The owner will hold his job until after the football season. Cory can go to
college because of his football abilities and good grades. That’s not enough
for Troy, who still views his boy’s hopes as a longshot because Troy interprets
his failure at sports as being due to a continuing systemic racist system that
will also affect Cory. He demands that Cory try to get his job back, or find a
new one, and give up his dream of playing college sports. Troy tells his son to
learn a trade so he will not have to haul trash like his dad. He wants his son
to succeed, but in a pragmatic sense.
A dejected Cory, trying to comprehend why his father is denying him a chance at happiness, asks if Troy likes him. Troy reduces even family relationships to practical transactions. He says there is no “law” that says he must like Cory. He has a duty to take care of him because he is his son. He said having him did not include in the bargain liking him. He tells a now seething Cory that his son should stop worrying about being liked and focus on who “is doin’ right by you.” Troy’s reducing family relationships to a pragmatic contract involving duties not only leaves no room for liking someone but also excludes love, the real glue that binds a family together.
Rose again tries to break through the “fence” of
Troy’s self-delusion that the only reason that he didn’t succeed in sports was
because of racism, and not his age. She tries to tell him that he is enclosed
himself in the bitterness of the past and doesn’t want to see that things have
changed, implying that there are more opportunities in sports for African
Americans at the time the story takes place.
Bono takes Troy aside and tells him he has learned a
great deal from Troy and he knows whether or not someone’s telling the truth. He
says that he doesn’t want to see Rose hurt. Troy here admits to his
extramarital affair and says that he can’t shake this other woman loose. Troy
is breaking his marital vows, and Bono reminds his friend that he should
practice what he preaches about accepting responsibility.
Rose answers the phone in the middle of the night. She
reports to Troy that Alberta gave birth to a girl, but she died during
childbirth. When Rose asks about what’s to be done next, Troy reverts to his
usual complaint about being burdened by life. After Rose leaves him alone, Troy
rants at Death, saying he’s going to finish the fence, to keep Death at a safe
distance until it’s his time, and then they will battle. He tells Death not to
come at him through others, like Alberta. We again have a mythological level to
the tale, as Troy addresses primal forces. It is as if he is delivering a
dramatic soliloquy, like Shakespeare’s King Lear. However, Troy’s speech shows
how he is an egotist, as if everything revolves around him.
A short time has passed as Troy comes home to find Cory
leave the yard as soon as he sees his father. Rose leaves to bring a cake to
the church and left Troy some dinner. He goes to the local bar and talks to
Bono who he hasn’t seen for a while because Troy is now driving in a white
neighborhood. Troy is losing his family and his friend due to his actions. He
sings about his dead dog, again seeking solace in the past. Cory stops at a
Marine recruiting office, so we know Troy has lost his son even though he tried
to keep him inside his fence.
The next scene takes place several years later, and
Troy’s daughter, Raynell (Saniyya Sidney - Could her name suggest a “ray” of sunshine and the hope for a better
future?), is a youngster taking care of a garden outside. The greenery may
represent the influence of Rose, the person with the regenerative name. Bono is
there with Lyons. They are dressed up in black, as is Rose. We know they are
going to Troy’s funeral. Cory shows up looking impressive in his Marine
uniform, wearing a corporal’s stripes, and has been in the service for six
years. He has been away since his father kicked him out, since Raynell doesn’t
know that he is her half-brother. Lyons tells Cory that he is finishing up a
three-year prison sentence for cashing other people’s checks (his father was a thief
when he was young), and the penitentiary let him out for his dad’s funeral. He
reminds the bitter Cory that Troy used to say, “you got to take the crookeds
with the straights.” He recounts how his father would strike out and then hit
the ball out of the stadium, and after the game two hundred people wanted to
shake his hand. Despite his shortcomings, Lyons is saying that Troy was a force
of nature. Lyons still plays music, keeping what feeds him emotionally in his
life. Troy’s sons may not have played baseball, but they played music and
football, and refuse to give into defeat.
In the kitchen are pictures of John F. Kennedy, Martin
Luther King, Jr., and Jesus, individuals that inspire and keep Rose going. She
tells Cory outside that Troy was swinging his bat at the ball tied to the tree
when he fell over and died. He went down swinging, as he said he would when
Death came for him. Cory tells Rose that he has to say “no” to his father just once
and will not go to the funeral. Rose is outraged and says that is not how she
brought him up, and he must put his animosity aside. She says her words with
the baseball hanging between them and the fence Troy built in the background.
These images show how Troy’s legacy of placing boundaries between people continues
to divide lives despite Rose’s wish to bring the family together.
Cory says that his father was like a “shadow,” suggesting
it was like a black plague that infested his life. Rose says that Cory can’t
escape his father’s influence, but he must deal with it. Troy was a man of
contradictions, but she believes he wanted to do more good than harm. Her words
show that conflict between wanting to help but not knowing how to deliver it. She
says that sometimes when he touched someone, he “bruised” them, and when he
held her, she might feel him “cut” her, both in an emotional sense. He most
likely wanted Cory to be far from what Troy was in his failures, but also to be
like him in his strength.
She says that Troy was a bigger than life character
who filled up the house and all the “empty” spaces in her. But, she admits that
didn’t leave much room for her own individuality to thrive. She does take
responsibility for choosing Troy, and she has turned the negative events that
brought Raynell into the world into a positive. The girl is a symbol of
rebirth, giving Rose a new energy, which refueled Rose, who is a life force
herself.
The next film is Stand by Me.
SPOILER ALERT! The plots will be discussed!
I thought I would provide some brief comments on shows that have turned up recently on streaming service.
The
Good Nurse (Netflix)
This movie tells the story of Charles Edmund Cullen, a
nurse who moved from hospital to hospital, murdering as many as four hundred
patients, according to Eddie Redmayne, who plays Cullen, in an interview with
Stephen Colbert. As is the case of many serial killers, he is a white male who
seems harmless on the surface. He gets a job at the hospital where Amy Loughren
(Jessica Chastain) works, who is the actual good nurse of the title, as opposed
to the phony admirable nurse, Cullen. Even Amy, who is a single parent with a
heart condition that requires a transplant, lets her guard down when Cullen is
supportive of her. He keeps secret her condition so she can work long enough to
get health insurance coverage for the transplant. He even helps her with taking
care of her daughter, Maya (Devyn McDowell).
Redmayne is effective in presenting this complex
character who genuinely seems to care about Loughren and Maya. He only reveals
his anger once, in a confrontation with Loughren in a diner, which hints at the
monster below the seemingly pleasant surface. Chastain is very good at showing the
ailing nurse who can be vulnerable emotionally but also morally upstanding when
she needs to be.
The film reveals the astonishing way that the medical
system enabled Cullen to commit his crimes. Once personnel at his prior
workplaces suspected he was doing away with patients, they didn’t want to be
exposed as liable for hiring him and not discovering his homicidal tendencies
sooner. They, like the Catholic Church concerning pedophiles, simply allowed
him to transfer to other sites where he could continue his horrific acts. The
medical institutions, too, presented a phony façade and the movie implies they
were guilty as accessories, which, however, would be difficult to prove in a
court of law without definitive evidence of the knowledge of his crimes.
It is Loughren who is the honest one, who, when she
suspects, after talking with other people, that her new friend, Cullen, is
culpable, helps the police eventually apprehend him. During her collaboration
with the police officers, she puts herself and her child in possible danger if
Cullen found out about her aiding the authorities. There is a brief exchange
between Loughren and Cullen which illustrates how he was able to get away with
the killings. She asks him, “Why?” he did what he did, and he says, “They
didn’t stop me.”
The
Watcher (Netflix)
Ryan Murphy, the creator of this limited series, is
not known for his subtlety. Anyone who has endured his shows, such as American
Horror Story or Ratched, knows he loves to shock, albeit with some
style and dark humor. However, The Watcher may be one of his most
restrained projects. The series is loosely based on a true story about a couple
who bought a stately home in the suburbs and then started receiving threatening
letters from someone who spied upon them.
In the show, the relocating couple are Dean and Nora Brannock
(played by Bobby Cannavale and Naomi Watts, respectively). They have moved
to the supposedly safe suburbs to escape the dangers of New York City. The
irony is that the pastoral metropolitan outskirts turn out to be pretty scary. The
performances of Mia Farrow, Terry Kinney (whose Jasper likes to get inside the
Brannock house to ride their dumbwaiter), Margo Martindale, and Richard Kind as
the weird neighbors who do not like the invading Brannocks, are weirdly funny. Dean
is not a likable character since he is a deceptive person who hides his actions
from Nora. The hostile and overbearing way he deals with others is disturbing. Watts
does what she can with a character that is not well developed.
The show is suspenseful, and it introduces several
characters who could be the watcher. It is another story where what appears on
the surface is misleading. If you like a tidy ending that wraps everything up with
a conclusive bow, this show is not for you.
Bad
Sisters (Apple+)
Sharon Horgan (Catastrophe) developed this
limited series, and stars as one of those bad sisters, Eva Garvey. This dark
comedy/drama begins with the death of the husband of one of the sisters. The
husband is John Paul (Claes Bang who brilliantly creates the character), who
the sisters, except for his wife, call “The Prick.” That is an understatement.
He is a vile person, who manipulates everyone and thrives on humiliating all
the sisters and in the case of one sister causes her to lose an eye in a car
accident. Other atrocities become apparent along the way until the end of the
series. Like some politicians, he is always the victim and never accepts any
responsibility for his harmful actions.
We know from the outset that the sisters are worried
that they may be exposed as being responsible for John Paul’s death (his name
seems to suggest the demonic version of a pope). All the sisters have reason to
want the man dead. The brothers who run the secretly bankrupt life insurance
company that covered John Paul investigate to show that foul play was involved.
The story holds our interest, as in The Watcher, since it keeps shifting
as to whom is responsible for the murder. The writing is witty, and the acting
is superb in carving out the personalities of the various characters. The show implicates
the audience, the way Alfred Hitchcock does in his movies, as we identify with
the sisters, and become passive co-conspirators, wanting their plans for murder
to be successful. As in the very serious film, Gone Baby Gone, the
question here arises as to whether doing a criminal act supersedes what the law
dictates when the legal system is powerless to deliver justice. The show raises
the question as to whether these sisters are really “bad?”
The
Patient (Hulu)
If there was any doubt that Steve Carell can perform
in a dramatic role, this limited series makes that doubt rest in peace. Carell
is excellent as psychiatrist Alan Strauss whose patient, Sam Fortner (Domhnall
Gleeson in another terrific performance), turns out to be a reluctant serial
killer. Fortner’s daddy issues (his father beat him repeatedly as a child) created
lethal anger in Fortner toward anyone who appeared to be dismissive of him. His
method of death is strangulation, which is appropriate since Fortner is
stopping his condescending victim from spouting out any negativity toward him.
Strauss learns that his patient is dangerous when he awakes
and realizes that Fortner kidnapped him. His patient has chained one of Strauss’s
legs to a bed in the lower level of Fortner’s remote house. Fortner’s mother,
Candace (Linda Edmond), lives there and she is guilty of having allowed her
husband to abuse her son, and she has compounded that culpability by enabling
her boy to inflict his deadly anger on others. Fortner wants to be Strauss’s
only patient so the psychiatrist can cure him of his compulsion to kill. Unlike
most serial killers who feel no guilt about their actions, Fortner wants to
stop his deluded anger from driving him to more murders. But, he sets up a
situation that shows no feeling for the threatening position in which he has
placed his therapist.
Strauss appears calm and professional in Fortner’s
presence, but secretly suffers in fear. He undergoes self-therapy as he has
imaginary conversations with his psychiatric mentor. He experiences nightmares
that emotionally connect his imprisonment to his Jewish heritage as he
envisions inmates in the Nazi concentration camps. The show depicts his regret
over his contentious relationship with his Jewish Orthodox son.
Fortner continues to kill until he has a breakthrough
when confronting his father. But Strauss, who is at his wits end, concludes he
can’t endure the situation any longer. The ending is interesting, but I believe
it could have gone in several directions. If you have watched, or will watch
this series, maybe ask yourself how you would have concluded this tale.
The next film is Fences.
SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed!
FBI agents burst into the apartment while Abel is in
his underwear in the bathroom. Despite the fact that authorities caught him in
a vulnerable situation, he is incredibly calm as he says, “Visitors.” He
professes not knowing why they call him “Colonel,” and he asks simply for his
false teeth (“false” being the operative word here for Abel’s fake
presentation). He asks meekly to be allowed to clean his painter’s palette. He
deceptively grasps the message from the coin as he wipes the paint and while
the agents search his place.
The focus shifts to James Donovan (Tom Hanks) who is an insurance lawyer. He argues with the attorney of five individuals who were hit by a car covered by the insurance company. The suing lawyer, Bates (Joshua Harto), argues that since there were five injuries there are five claims because five events occurred. Donovan says it’s only one accident and the liability is limited to “one” event. He says that if a tornado rips apart a house it is the whole house that the insurance company covers, not each separate piece of wood. Otherwise, there is “never any limit to … liability.” That would put an end to the insurance business and then “nobody is safe.” The scene shows Donovan’s insistence on precise language and definitions. The stress on “one” transaction here ties in with later events.
At home, Donovan’s wife, Mary (Amy Ryan), is against
her husband representing Abel because she sees him as a threat to the country
which is on high alert at the height of the Cold War. She calls Abel a
“traitor.” Again, words are important to Donovan. He points out that the
Rosenbergs were traitors because they were Americans and gave secrets to the
enemy. Abel is not an American so the classification wouldn’t fit as he was
working loyally for his own country, even though Russia was the enemy of the
United States.
The bias that Judge Byers (Dakin Matthews) has against
Abel is evident in the first pre-trial meeting Donovan attends. Byers basically
says there will be a pretense to due process under the law, but that Abel should
be convicted. Byers considers Donovan’s plea for a continuance that would
delay the inevitable guilty verdict a ridiculous request.
The movie does not depict the trial since that is not
the focus of the story. The jury finds Abel guilty, despite the illegally
acquired evidence. He is, in fact, guilty of espionage. Donovan tells Abel that
the death sentence isn’t a lock. Donovan goes to the judge’s house who is
preparing for a March of Dimes event to combat polio. The judge is not without
his humanitarian interests. Donovan makes a practical argument by stressing his
insurance background and says that Abel should be kept alive in case an
American is captured doing the same act, spying for his country. Then a trade
could be made, which is what the rest of the film depicts.
Abel and the warnings of his wife and partner come to
fruition as shots are fired into the Donovan house. The neighbors shout intimidating
remarks and even a police officer is confrontational telling Donovan that he
shouldn’t be defending Abel. Donovan, the “standing man,” is not one to back
down, and stands his ground (Tom Petty reference intentional) as he says that
he did his patriotic duty by serving in the military and the policeman should now
do his job (which is what Donovan has been stating he is doing).
There is a switch to instructions that the U2 pilots
receive. They are told that their mission is secret, and they must not let the
plane fall into enemy hands. There is a self-destruct mechanism on the aircraft,
and they must go down with the plane. If they think they will be captured, they
will have a dollar coin with a lethal poison on a pin inserted in the currency which
they are to use. Agent Williams (Michael Gaston) says, “spend the dollar.” It
is interesting that we have a second reference to American money, and by
extension its capitalist system, that has hidden action attached to it: with
Abel, it is to discover the military secrets of the United States; with the U2
pilots, it is to protect those secrets.
Donovan receives a back-channel letter from East
Germany that purports to come from Abel’s wife. Abel says the writing style
shows it to be a fake but says that Donovan may as well answer it since it’s
difficult to know what “move” to make when one doesn’t know “the game.” There
is the implication that the letter may be an attempt to get Abel back to Soviet
territory. Donovan meets with Allen Dulles (Peter McRobbie), Director of the
CIA. He acknowledges that Donovan was right about the possibility of a prisoner
swap and believes that the Soviet Union is using East Germany so it will not have
to acknowledge Abel as a Russian spy. The CIA wants Powers back before he
cracks and gives up secrets, and Russia wants Abel returned for the same
reason, although Donovan knows Abel would never cooperate. Dulles wants Donovan
to appear to act (more deceiving appearances) as an independent citizen so that
the U. S. Government does not appear to be involved. He will receive no help if
“things go south.” As Dulles and Donovan state, there is a fiction being
presented on both sides of the Cold War. So, Donovan must pretend that he is corresponding
with Abel’s “wife,” and must be a spy himself now as he must go undercover,
keeping his mission secret from everybody, including his wife. To complicate
matters Russia wants to stop the negative appearance of refugees escaping from
East Berlin to West Berlin and is ready to construct what becomes the infamous
Berlin Wall. Dulles is funny when asked by Donovan what he should tell Abel.
Dulles says, “tell him to stay alive.” It is ironic that the country that
wanted Anel dead now needs him to be that “standing man.”
Donovan travels to Berlin and he hears about the
arrest of Pryor who the East Germans are saying is also a spy. Donovan, again
trying to do whatever he can to make things right, wants to try and get Pryor
out, but the U. S. stance is to worry about the student later. The lawyer,
Wolfgang Vogel (Sebastian Koch), representing the fake Mrs. Abel is also
Pryor’s attorney. It appears that the East German and Soviet interests may not
align, since the East Germans don’t want the Russians to treat them as pawns.
The Soviets apply tactics seen in The Ipcress File
on Powers. They keep waking him up to wear him down, hoping to squeeze
information about the spy flights out of him before the trade. There is a
fitting symmetrical cut to the Feds arousing Abel in his cell to go to East
Berlin. Schischkin says Russia has consented to exchanging Powers for Abel.
Donovan thinks he also has a deal to get back Pryor, who everyone knows is not
a spy, from the East Germans. But when he meets Vogel again the lawyer is angry
that Donovan has made a deal for getting two-for-one. East Germany wants all
the credit for getting Abel. Donovan again uses his insurance argument that this
transaction is all part of one deal. Donovan rides in Vogel’s car because he is
going to West Berlin. Vogel points out the devastation in East Berlin and
reflects his country’s anger at Russia for deciding not to rebuild the city. He
deliberately speeds the car and the police stop them. Vogel knows that without
the proper credentials the authorities will detain Donovan.
The film then provides shots of what is now four
incarcerated individuals in this story: Powers, Abel, Pryor and now Donovan.
The police release Donovan and, as he rides the train to West Berlin, he
witnesses the shooting of people trying to scale the Berlin Wall. That scene adds
visceral shock to the horrors taking place in the world.
The U. S. Government has been keeping Donovan under
wraps and placed him in an obscure, dingy, cold dwelling. He decides to be
defiant considering what he has endured and shows up at the Hilton and orders a
proper breakfast at the place where CIA agent Hoffman is staying. He points out
to Hoffman that his night in jail wasn’t much worse than where the CIA set him
up to stay. Donovan learns that the East German Attorney General, Herald Ott (Burghart
Klaubner), called to meet Donovan, but Hoffman sees that as nothing important
since they will be getting Powers.
Donovan never wavers from his moral imperative of
trying to get Pryor returned. Donovan takes the meeting with Ott who is congenial
about exchanging Pryor for Abel but is outraged when Donovan mentions Powers.
Ott says the release of an innocent man is understandable, but why care about what
in essence he sees as spilled milk when it comes to Powers. Ott gets a call and
Donovan waits outside Ott’s office and a worker there tells Donovan the Attorney
General had to leave. Here is where Donovan takes advantage of his unofficial
negotiating status by making the demands he sees as morally fit, unencumbered
by the political posturings of the countries involved. He gives the employee a
message stating that there will be no exchange for either the Soviets or East
Germany if the deal isn’t for both Pryor and Powers. He adds weight to his
demand with the scenario that if Abel realizes he will not return to Russia he
may change his mind about cooperating with U. S. intelligence. Ott must call by
the end of the day since there will be no point in going to the Glienickie
Bridge in the morning if the deal is off.
Donovan receives a call saying the exchange is on, but
Pryor will be released at Checkpoint Charlie only after Abel and Powers are
traded. The tenseness of the scene at the Glienickie Bridge is heightened since
there are snipers from both sides in position to open fire if needed. Abel is happy
to see Donovan there, knowing that this person who works for his enemy is an
honorable man. Donovan’s actions show what he said earlier that demonstrating
the best of American ideals is the strongest weapon against the enemies of the
United States.
However, when Donovan arrives home he receives
acknowledgement of his efforts on TV to his family’s astonishment. A passenger
on the train to work now sees the bigger picture that Donovan was a part of and
smiles at him. Donovan may have come home, but when he sees boys jumping over a
backyard fence, his face looks troubled as we know he is thinking of those shot
at the Berlin Wall. The horror of the time has come home with him.
A title card at the end of the film says that
President John F. Kennedy recruited Donovan to negotiate the release of 1,113
prisoners from the Bay of Pigs invasion. He arranged for 9,703 to be let go. He
was an extraordinary man.
The next post will offer comments on recent streaming
shows: The Good Nurse; The Watcher; Bad Sisters: The
Patient.
