Budd Schulberg

I once talked to Budd Schulberg, who died yesterday, on the phone; a mutual friend put us in touch in the Fall of 2003 - I was eager to put on an event to mark the 50th anniversary of 'On the Waterfront', and, innocent/enthusiastic/grasping and annoying film fan that I was, figured I should just call up the screenwriter and see if he wanted to come to a poetry club on Bleecker Street to talk about it while we showed clips.  He was 90 years old by the time I called - and if he had felt significantly older by the time the call was over, I couldn't blame him.  Grace and conciseness don't always come easy to me.  It's even harder than usual when I'm talking to someone whose identity - although he was just an ordinary guy (and Schulberg would have been at pains to remind people of that fact) - had become mutated and mingled with my memories and experience by virtue of having written a myth that had gotten under my skin.  'I coulda been a contender' is, of course, now a cliche - but that's not Schulberg's fault: someone had to write it down first, someone had to create it.

Now, who knows what kind of man was Budd Schulberg?

We know that he wrote 'On the Waterfront'.  We know that his life span was such that he was able to collaborate with both F Scott Fitzgerald (on a film called 'Winter Carnival') and Ben Stiller (who may turn 'What Makes Sammy Run' into a movie).  We know that he established the Watts Writers Workshop in the aftermath of the civil unrest.  We know he named names after he himself had been named as a Party member.  We know that he made documentaries for the army.  We know that he's in the Boxing Hall of Fame.  And I know that, a few years ago, even though my plans for the poetry club event didn't get beyond the idea stage, on the phone, at the age of 90, he was gracious, sweet-natured, generous and patient with a northern Irish film critic who thought - presumably like many others - that he had some special magic, just because he carved a cinematic myth into stone.  Rest in Peace.

I'm going to watch 'On the Waterfront' today.  Five of its principals have died in the past few years - a fact which only makes it seem more important: Rod Steiger, Marlon Brando, Elia Kazan, Karl Malden, Budd Schulberg.  It may not be a subtle film; it may have come from all kinds of ambivalent or complicated motivation (a film that justifies ratting on your colleagues); its dialogue may sound more theatrical than realistic...It may be all these things: but, and I don't know how much this should count for anything, other than the fact that it's true: every time I see it, it moves the hell out of me.

'On the Waterfront' is a simple story in which Brando stands up for what he believes in by refusing to give in to the corrupt oppression of gangsters who control the New York docks.  He is caught between a rock and a hard place, because his brother is a mob flunkey.  Brando’s character Terry is broken on the wheels of circumstance, his dignity stripped by not being able to follow through on the only natural talent he believed he had – boxing – because his brother’s job depended on Terry throwing a fight.  He’s a man who wanted ‘class’, who ‘coulda been a contender’, has been let down by his own choices, by the one guy he should have been able to trust, ultimately, he feels, by the whole world.  He feels that he embodies failure, although his priest, played by Karl Malden, understands the difference between ‘success’ and ‘honour’, says that ‘Every time the mob puts the squeeze on someone that’s a crucifixion; and those who keep silent about it are as guilty as the centurion.’

When Terry agrees to testify against the people who might kill him, ‘On the Waterfront’ is dealing with the sacrifice that is often required to be of any use in this world.  When he takes the risk of honesty, to do the right thing, his peers initially only stand by and watch; at which point,  ‘On the Waterfront’ is about how easy it is to get into bed with evil.   It is a well-worn cliché, but like many clichés, it’s true: all it takes for evil to prosper is that good people do nothing; or, as one character puts it: ‘I don’t know nothing I’ve not seen nothing and I ain’t saying nothing.’

That kind of silence, of course, kills.  It makes me think about what it would mean if we really were to speak out for those who have no voices.  Human beings everywhere are capable of terrorising others.  But human beings are also capable of crossing boundaries, loving people who are different, forgiving those who have hurt them.  It takes a huge psychological leap to be able to kill another human being – or even just to deliberately hurt them.  You have to pretend that the other person is less a ‘self’ than you are.

You have to wipe the slate clean before you can break it.

Human beings become broken slates because we have made it too easy to erase any sense of unique dignity from others.  The stories we tell teach us to devalue, and dehumanise others because of who they are, or who we think they are.  It is a tragedy that religious, political, and cultural mavens (like, I suppose, churches, governments or movie studios) reinforce this myth by implying that people need to become more like us before they can be part of us.   I imagine that Budd Schulberg knew this; and that it isn't stretching a point to also guess that he knew that it was not the path he imagined for a person who really wants to be a person - to contend as a human being – someone able to welcome and accept everyone, to relate to them with confidence, and not to put people into ideological boxes.  Schulberg knew that if we devalue the humanity of others, we cannot be fully human ourselves.

Shatner Hugs the Mountain

Sorry didn't have much time to post today.  But my genial co-host on The Film Talk has delivered unto me perhaps the most inspirational music video ever produced.  And before the night is out, I want you to see it too*: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HU2ftCitvyQ]

*I think the way that Shatner has reinvented himself as a self-reflective wit is a stroke of genius; more than that, his ability to laugh at himself might be the most important contribution he has made to our popular culture.  I mean that as a compliment.  I once heard Eugene Peterson say something like 'One key to being human is to take life seriously without taking yourself too seriously'.  Given that the self-aggrandisement and pomposity that colonised the 25 minutes of cable news I forced myself to channel surf through at the gym tonight seems to be considered something to be prized, William Shatner may deserve our thanks.

Healthcare and Me Part 2

Following from Part 1. Regular readers will know that in the past year, I embarked on a genuinely life-altering journey.  I emigrated to the United States, got married, and now make my home in North Carolina.  I love this country – its culture, its people, its landscape (you need examples?  Let's start with big city music performances and small town farmers' markets, Martin Scorsese and Stephen Colbert, the Ojai Valley and the Eno River State Park.  Just as American as industrial wastelands, George Bush and Grand Theft Auto )  It is a privilege to have been accepted here; I want to honor my adopted home by giving something back.  Part of that includes the desire to do whatever I can contribute to the discussion about a universal healthcare provision, free at the point of the use, to anyone in the United States.

The first time I had to pay for healthcare at the point of use, ironically enough, was when I was applying for permission to emigrate here.  The US immigration authorities in London apparently don’t trust the UK National Health Service.  The medical exam I was required to take for immigration purposes could only be done by a private doctor, who charged almost $300 for a 20 minute consultation.  (It’s important to note that this included an HIV test; because at the time, the United States would not admit as an immigrant anyone who is HIV positive.  I presume this means that the ranks of ‘huddled masses, tired and poor’ still stands as the Statue of Liberty’s invitation, but just didn't include people with AIDs.)  Thankfully, the vaccinations the immigration authorities insisted I receive (the incidence of tuberculosis among white middle class professionals being particularly fast-rising, I suppose) could be given by my own doctor at home.  For free.

The fact that the US doesn’t provide a similar system of free healthcare to its own citizens is not just a tragedy for those who fall through the cracks.  It is not just a harbinger of inefficiency – given the vast costs in terms of labor and other expenses that accrue when a population is disincentivised to invest in preventive healthcare.  It is not just the biggest reason I feel a chill factor in my adopted home.

It is an issue that goes to the heart of the question of what kind of society we want to be, how we want to treat other people, and what kind of ethics we want to guide our lives.

And people who insist on calling such a free system ‘communism’, ‘socialism’, or ‘oppressive’ may either know nothing of communism, socialism and oppression, or might just be distorting the truth to satisfy a vision of individualism.  A harsh way to put this would be to ask if the current debates about healthcare are really just skirmishes about human greed and selfishness, rather than serious discussions about how to ensure that no one goes without.

The good news is that the free UK healthcare system even has room for greed and selfishness!  Or, at the very least, enlightened self interest.  I'll post why later this week.

The Hurt Locker

Let's get one thing straight: I have no idea what war is really like.  I've seen 'Saving Private Ryan' and 'The Thin Red Line', and I grew up in a place colonised by a long-running civil conflict, and I've been to Jerusalem and Bethlehem and all kinds of other places where people inhabit the false consciousness described by de Niro's Al Capone in 'The Untouchables' as 'you can get further with a kind word and a gun than just a kind word'.  But I have no idea what war is really like.  And I don't think it's too dogmatic to say that unless you've actually been in a war, that you are in the same position as I am.

That doesn't mean you can't form a substantial and meaningful opinion about war; just that the opinion needs to be tempered by humility.

With that in mind, some thoughts about 'The Hurt Locker', Kathryn Bigelow's deep focus minimalist action film, in which Jeremy Renner's bomb disposal technician wears a suit that makes him look like an alien, strides up to mortar shells, and hopes he's cutting the right wire, in Baghdad, in 2004.

It's easy to respond to the tension created by such scenes by saying that this is one of the most exciting films (in the sense of forcing you into your seat, afraid for what is going to happen to the characters), or one of the most expertly edited and shot (no matter what is happening, you know precisely where you are).  It's true that 'The Hurt Locker' sets the bar for thoughtful action cinema very high.

What's more valuable, however, is that it does three things that such movies rarely achieve.

It's not an anti-war movie; nor is it jingoistic or flag-waving.  It might be true to say that 'The Hurt Locker' has no politics.  It just attempts to portray what young US American men have been doing, and how Iraqi people have been responding, for the past six years.  It doesn't have to tell us that the decision to go to war was utterly wrong: glimpsing what truth is told about the men in this film makes it obvious.

It manages to almost completely avoid cliche - the young buck doesn't have a moment of breakdown or redemption; the race-against-time to save someone ends as it probably often does in real life; the characters talk to each other the way real people talk.

And in its attempt at saying something about the war in Iraq (which it does better than any of the previously released similarly-themed movies), it also illuminates questions of masculinity, the responsibilities of adulthood, relationships between men, and the yearning that each of us has to lead a meaningful life.  It takes the audience seriously enough not to invite us to a show of cathartic violence; but a relentless portrayal of hell on earth where there is no release until somebody decides to STOP.  A hell of our own making; and I think many of us who opposed the war could benefit from seeing a film that aims to take the experience of being a soldier more seriously than some of our rhetoric has done.

The final image of the film, which implies that there are some people for whom combat is an addiction (let's assume that includes the whole human race) evokes with the sharpest clarity two more challenges: to replace the myth that chaos can be turned into order through violence, someone needs to tell different stories about how change occurs; to offer a choice between brutality and cowardice, someone needs to offer a different vision of masculinity than the false choice between warrior or wimp.  Finally, 'The Hurt Locker' is an accusation: If all that 'peaceful' society offers is a vast choice of breakfast cereal, then it's no wonder so many of us still want to fight each other just to feel alive.

Interviewing Coppola

Over at The Film Talk, my genial co-host and I have posted a fascinating conversation with Francis Ford Coppola - who, at the age of 70, with 'Tetro' considers himself to have entered what he calls the 'second phase' of his career.  To have a first phase; or a second phase, or indeed any phase to a career might be enough for me - but talking to Coppola this morning ended up being more than a conversation about publicising his new film (although you really should do yourself a favour and go see it: it's gorgeous, moving and thoughtful), turning into a dialogue about the film-making process itself, Coppola's vision for what cinema can be, and what you or I should do if we want to make movies.

The real pleasure of the interview was rooted in a sense that Coppola is humble enough to see himself still as being a student of the art he's working in.  This guy may have made 'The Conversation' and 'The Godfather' and 'Apocalypse Now' and 'One from the Heart', but he knows he's still got a lot to learn; and is learning it while seeking to live a full life, at a time when many of us might be wanting to take it easy.  He wants to tell stories that have some depth - 'Tetro' is about family secrets and the process of growing up (like all of his films - in which men usually give something up for the sake of what they assume to be their family's best interests - think of Michael Corleone's integrity in 'The Godfather', Martin Sheen's morality in 'Apocalypse Now', Dracula's centuries-old self-protection, Gene Hackman's sanity in 'The Conversation').   I'm grateful he took the time to talk to us; and you can listen to the show here.