Ghost Writer: (2010. dir: Roman Polanski) Another sly masterwork from that genius of claustrophobic paranoia, a man who can say more convincingly than most that just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not after you. Ghost Writer fits right into the natural curve of his oeuvre alongside Repulsion, Rosemary's Baby, Macbeth, Chinatown, the Tenant, Bitter Moon and the Ninth Gate. Ewan MacGregor plays an unnamed hack hired to ghost the memoirs of a disgraced ex-Prime Minister (Pierce Brosnan) after the original ghostwriter dies under mysterious circumstances. As in most Polanski, the world into which the slightly naive protagonist steps is both unfathomably dark and deceptively attractive, with hidden depths just beyond his ability to plumb; and as in most Polanski, it feels from the first like a slow noose tightening around his doomed neck. Although the earlier films were more brilliant, Polanski has developed over the years a light, whimsical touch which makes the newer ones easier to enjoy, less entirely devastating. His storytelling is satiny smooth, without a wrinkle or blemish, without any flirting with the hackneyed or banal. Even when a plot-point seems obvious, he tells it from an unexpected angle or in an image that feels new.
Winter's Bone: (2010. dir: Debra Granik) It's based on a book by Daniel Woodrell, and it plays like a cross between a Kem Nunn story sans the surfing and Donna Tartt's the Little Friend. It's a small world in the wooded mountains of the modern-day Ozarks, a world bounded by poverty and drug-fueled paranoia, and Ree (Jennifer Lawrence) has to track her father down or lose the house he's signed over for his bond. Although everyone in the area seems to be vaguely related to everyone else, the code of silence among them takes precedence over blood-ties and she's in danger just by walking into a yard and asking a question. These actors, with a few cannily-chosen exceptions (Garret Dillahunt will forever be heartily welcome in my DVD player), have the leathery faces and worn-out voices of real people with hard lives, and there's no Hollywood lighting or makeup to interfere between the camera and the sense of realism.
And then there's John Hawkes, who is my hero now, after this. Like many, I noticed him first as Sol Starr in Deadwood although he'd been working for twenty years already by then. (I extolled his virtues to my mother, who's a big LOST-head, and she looked at me like I was a little tetched; so either Lost is so filled with brilliant performances that a genius like Hawkes' is just another pebble in the cinder-pit, or maybe he was uninspired by it. Despite the zealous testimony from the converted, I haven't got the faith and mustardseed to trudge through all the various seasons just to find the scattered gems from loved ones like Hawkes and Kiele Sanchez, Jeremy Davies and Terry O'Quinn. Maybe someday.) In any case, the naturalism of the world created in Winter's Bone is so entirely unimpeded that when Hawkes' character (a near-tragic bad-ass called Teardrop) walks to the back of his truck and takes out an axe in the middle of a parking lot where it can only be used for ill, the shock is far more frightening than had it been accompanied by suspenseful music and fancy camera-work. The ending, and Teardrop's last exit, is one of the great underplayed scenes of the decade.
The Last Days of Pompeii: (1935. dir: Ernest B. Schoedsack) Did you know that Vesuvius erupted to devastate Pompeii specifically because a fellow had a chance to to try and save Jesus' life and didn't? Yup, a direct result. Fellow called Marcus, used to be a gladiator until he lost a fight to Ward Bond and went into slave- and horse-trading instead. This feels like a silent DeMille epic that maybe got its budget slashed and sound accidentally added. Basil Rathbone shows us his Ponderous Thespian side as Pontius Pilate.
The Falcon Takes Over: (1942. dir: Irving Reis) One of my favorite moments in the history of literature is in Farewell, My Lovely when Moose Malloy steps out of the shadows and says to the girl he's been obsessively and ruthlessly tracking, "Hiya, baby. Long time no see." Moose is one of the great enigmatic characters of all time: big as a truck, just broken out of jail after having taken a fall for his boss, completely amoral in his relentless search for the beautiful showgirl who promised to wait for him, he leaves a trail of bodies behind him but never sways from true love for his elusive Velma.
For your wartime enjoyment, the studio has bowdlerized the great novel to make a comic vehicle for George Sanders, and almost all of the beauty and punch of it are gone. The one great thing that remains from the grand opus is that haunted, Ahab-esque quality that Ward Bond brings to his Moose Malloy. It's perfect casting, and George Sanders isn't actually bad as a sort of leering, playboy version of Philip Marlowe, but he's fighting a middlin' script and a good deal of cornpone. For my money, the 1975 Robert Mitchum/Charlotte Rampling remake, flawed as it is, remains the go-to version, with Mitchum's deadpan voiceovers and world-weary visage providing just the right stuff. The original (Murder, My Sweet) capsizes beneath the insurmountable weight of an uncharismatic Marlowe (Dick Powell?! Was he somebody's son-in-law or something?) and I'm flummoxed as to why this perfect story hasn't been remade for every generation, like Pride and Prejudice and Hamlet and Robin Hood.
