Category Archives: Movies

Murder on the Orient Express: Why do we love Detective Stories?

Movies

I have always loved detective stories. I have liked every detective. So I am incapable of being critical about them. Though I hate it when they are not honest. By that I mean I hate if the author does not provide all the facts that allow us to figure it out. The facts have to be there so if we were as smart as the detective—which we never are—we could have figured it out to. Anything less than this is cheating. It is as bad as cheating at cards or exams or life. Sadly, this movie cheats. The detective Hercule Poirot is given facts that are withheld from us. How can we possibly compete? We can’t of course, the playing field, like the railway track on which the train is stuck, is not level.

This movie is based on a 1934 Agatha Christie novel in which her legendary detective Hercule Poirot is trapped  on a famous train stranded in the mountains by an avalanche with 13 other people. One of them gets murdered and all of the other 12, are suspects. The stage is set for a mystery to be solved. Just like Jesus at the Last Supper wanted to figure out who betrayed him.

Why then do we love detective novels so much? Not everyone does, but enough do. Apparently Christie sold 2 billion copies of her books putting her nearly on par with God. That is pretty good company. The detective encounters a scene of devastating chaos with a blizzard of clues. There is mayhem, murder, and inexplicable violence. It is chaos in other words. The murderer could be any one of the 12 disciples.

It is the detective’s job to make sense out of the chaos. He must bring order out of the disorder. He must make the world right again. The detective has to be the one to do it because he is the only one capable of doing it. As the detective says, when asked who he is, “My name is Hercule Poirot and I am probably the greatest detective in the world.” The detective is clever, diligent and implacable. He can never be turned from his purpose. The detective must do it “because God is always busy.” The detective finds the chaos that we all encounter. He is not afraid to enter into it even though it is dangerous.

Poirot is the central character in the movie. It all revolves around him. He is not afraid. He demands order. He sets out in search of the truth because we must be ‘better than murderers’. Poirot  sets out impeccably attired and adorned with the most improbable and flamboyant of moustaches, and demi-goatee beneath his lower lip, both waxed to perfection of course. When he is served 2 eggs they must be equal. Exactly equal. There can be no imbalance. When Poirot steps into shit on the street of Jerusalem he abhors the imbalance of having it on one shoe  only. So he steps into it again this time with the other foot, to balance the shit. He will not tolerate the imbalance. If he sees someone with a tie askew he is upset, so he points it out. Poirot demands the world be set to right.

In the film the body is seen from the classic God’s eye view—above on high. That technique, I think was invented by that master of cinema Alfred Hitchcock and Kenneth Branagh who directs the film and plays  the leading role  pays homage to the master.

Into the darkness the detective brings only one tool—his powerful mind. He brings the power of reason and in that way shows that the world is still subject to reason. He brings order out of disorder. The detective shows that no matter how chaotic the world appears, ultimately in the end it all makes sense. The detective brings reason and observation and skill to the task at hand and in that way draws out justice from the injustice and chaos.

Hercules sets out to find the “fracture in the soul” where evil lurks. Like Leonard Cohen who says there is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in. In the end the detective discovers the meaning in the world. Until then we are like dogs in a library. The detective brings meaning back to the world and for that we are eternally grateful. I think that is why we love detective stories—whether in films or novels. We are very uncomfortable with the absence of meaning and we love to see it restored to the world.

The final revealing of the truth by God’s immortal agent is staged in a setting in the train tunnel with the 12 suspects all arrayed on a long table exactly like the 12 disciples in Leonardo da Vinci’s immortal painting of the Last Supper. The resemblance is no coincidence. Poirot is Jesus and like Jesus he wants to find the one who betrayed him. Despite the strange staging, Poirot says as if he means it, “You will have to answer to two people: Your god, and Hercule Poirot.”

In the end when the holy truth is revealed and justice should be restored at last, in this case, Poirot finds he cannot accept that truth. Instead he says, for reasons I cannot reveal as it would spoil the movie, he “will accept the imbalance.” Even though that goes against every grain in his body. Sometimes murderers go free and there is no apparent justice. But perhaps that lack of perfection is in some cases, like this one, good. Perfection, as we know, can be the enemy of the good.

Hidden Figures

Movies,

Early in 2017, Chris and I went to see the movie Hidden Figures as part of our project to see all the movies nominated for best picture. It is unlikely that we will succeed at this project, but the fun is in the chase.

The movie was very enjoyable. The movie tells the story of 3 black women none of us have ever heard of. Its story suggests that without the mathematical and related genius of these 3 women the United States Space program would not have put John Glenn in space to “sort of” catch up with the Russians who had recently put an man in space. It was unacceptable to the Americans that the despised Russians had done it first. President Kennedy wanted to catch up. The glory of America and capitalism demanded that the upstart Commies be put in their proper place–well behind the Americans. There was tremendous pressure on the entire space program led by NASA to catch up and show the world that America and capitalism were superior to Russia and communism.

Part of the American problem was that it was hobbled by prejudice that led to it not using properly women and blacks. It did have a group of white women “computers” and another group of “negro computers” who of course could not work together. They had to be “separate but equal” as the courts had demanded. Of course this meant that a woman mathematical genius that the space program desperately needed had to run more than ½ mile to the “colored washroom.” It just would not do for her to use the white washroom. Of course the white washroom was well-appointed, while the colored washroom was lacking basic supplies. Hardly equal but certainly separate.

The male engineers and mathematical geniuses were loath to accept the contribution of a black woman. It just could not be possible, could it, that she was better at math than the entire room of white men? Well it was clear that she was better and it was clear that she was needed to help the men. This was done by Katherine Goble the central character.

The space program also needed Mary Jackson who had to go to college to be accepted but could not go to classes in the local school which was segregated. The law in Virginia at the time was clear, schools could be segregated. Again the arcane prejudicial rules that made no sense were holding back women who could help the American team. To get to go to school she had to petition the local court and she did so on her own without hiring a lawyer. She made an interesting argument to the white judge. She did not appeal to his sense of fairness, she did not make some innovative legal argument, she appealed to the judge’s vanity and she did in quietly by approaching the bench. She persuaded the judge he could be the first to grant a black woman the right to go to a segregated school in Virginia. He bought that approach and granted her the right to go to the all-white school, but only at night.

Finally Dorothy Vaughan the defacto leader of the black female “computers and a mechanical genius was needed to get the IBM computers working and again she had to struggle against prejudice against blacks, particularly black women, to be freed to help the team. The IBM computer team could not solve the computer problems. Dorothy could because she had learned Fortran computer language by stealing a book from the white side of the local library that barred coloreds from using white books.

Richard Brody, writing in the New Yorker, aptly characterized the travesty of racism in America as demonstrated by the film.

The insults and indignities that black residents of Virginia, and black employees of NASA, unremittingly endured are integral to the drama. Those segregationist rules and norms—and the personal attitudes and actions that sustained them—are unfolded with a clear, forceful, analytical, and unstinting specificity. The efforts of black Virginians to cope with relentless ambient racism and, where possible, to point it out, resist it, overcome it, and even defeat it are the focus of the drama. “Hidden Figures” is a film of calm and bright rage at the way things were—an exemplary reproach to the very notion of political nostalgia. It depicts repugnant attitudes and practices of white supremacy that poisoned earlier generations’ achievements and that are inseparable from those achievements. [1]

The movie showed how a country could be severely disadvantaged by failing to take advantage of all of its citizens. Each of the 3 cases represented by the 3 women demonstrated the foolishness of racial laws of segregation and how they could hold back the space program. Racism levies a heavy cost not just on the citizen disadvantaged, but also the country in which they live and in which racism thrives. When a country cannot benefit from all of its citizens no one suffers more than that country. Forget about arguments of fairness or natural justice. Racism is bad for business! That is a profound lesson, which America has still not really learned. It has made progress but it is far from free of racism. Racism has just gone deeply underground where its ill effects are harder to detect but no less damaging. Those ill effects are however just as wrong and just as detrimental to the country.

[1] Richard Brody, Hidden figures is a Subtle and Powerful Work of Counter-history,” The New Yorker, (December 23, 2016)

The Lorax

Bio-Diversity, Decline of the west, Movies,

 

My granddaughters, Emma and Nasya came over for the night. It was a sleepover. They wanted to play in the hot tub, play pool, and watch a movie. We did all of that. I offered to watch a movie with them, intending to read as they watched, but they tricked me. Nasya insisted that we keep the lights out so she could watch it better. But I tricked her; I watched the movie they had chosen and loved it. That was much to my surprise.

The movie we watched is called The Lorax. It is an animated film based on a story by Dr. Seuss. The forest dwelling Lorax wants to save the shortsighted Once-ler who is trying to get rich by cutting down every tree in the forest. He replaces the trees with fake trees that he thinks are better and that help him make a profit.

Once-ler, being a good capitalist, tried to make as much profit as he can so he tried to sell Theneeds. I think the reference is to needs. He manufactures needs. He induces people to want what he can sell. Is that not capitalism at its finest?

Of course, that leads to environmental degradation as air quality deteriorates and there is nothing left to create more air. Yet the people can’t stop until they have cut down the last real tree.

The Once-ler also considers putting air in a plastic container to sell to the people who no longer have clean air to breathe. A critic asks, “Do you think people will be stupid enough to pay for air in a plastic bottle when they can get it for free?” The answer, of course, is obvious, that is exactly what people do with water isn’t it? They certainly are stupid enough.

I was surprised to see how seriously Emma took to the film. She had a very hard time when the trees were cut down. I tried to reassure that things would get better. And they did. As in most kids’ movies, good triumphed in the end. “Thank goodness for good.” That was another line from the movie. Perhaps it was the theme.

Throughout the film, outside the home of the Lorax, is a rock labelled “Unless.” At the end we learn this is from a quotation by Dr. Seuss. “Unless someone like you cares an awful lot, nothing is going to get better.” That should be the motto for the environmental movement.

I hope my grand daughters learned something today. I think they did. I know I did.

Going in Style

Movies

 

I watched a comedy movie recently in an aircraft on a trans-Atlantic flight when the lights went out and I could not continue reading my book. The movie was called Going in Style.The movie establishes 3 old codgers (can codgers ever be young?) Joe (Michael Caine), Willie (Morgan Freeman), and Albert (Alan Arkin) who retired after working for a company for 40 years only to find that the company has outsourced its work out of the country, merged with another company, and dissolved their pension. Instead of paying their loyal employees they are using the pension money to pay utility bills. All of this financial chicanery was financed by their very own bank. Sounds pretty dastardly and I wonder if that can be done so effortlessly in the US. I sure hope not.

The 3 codgers are naturally upset at how they have been robbed by corporate America. That sounds reasonable enough. But their solution is radical, if not revolutionary. They decide to the rob the bank to get their money back, vowing not to steal any more than needed and if they accidentally take too much will give the excess to charity.

Joe, the leader of this geriatric rat pack, has in fact suffered a double whammy of corporate shenanigans. As if losing his pension was not bad enough a smarmy banker persuaded him to take out an adjustable mortgage that had a very large uptake of interest that he had been assured was extremely unlikely. Now he was unable to pay and the bank was taking legal action to evict him out of his home. All of this rings fairly true and clearly ought not to countenanced by any political system in which electors were not scandalously tied to corporate fraudsters, but this movie does not go too deeply into the revolutionary possibility of working class reactions. After all the movie is a comedy not a left wing tract.

Much of this sounds a bit like Woody Guthrie’s classic Pretty Boy Floyd. Here are some of the lyrics about that bank robber who was a bit like Robin Hood:

 

But a many a starving farmer

The same old story told

How the outlaw paid their mortgage

And saved their little homes.

 

Others tell you ’bout a stranger

That come to beg a meal,

Underneath his napkin

Left a thousand dollar bill.

 

It was in Oklahoma City,

It was on a Christmas Day,

There was a whole car load of groceries

Come with a note to say:

 

Well, you say that I’m an outlaw,

You say that I’m a thief.

Here’s a Christmas dinner

For the families on relief.

 

Yes, as through this world I’ve wandered

I’ve seen lots of funny men;

Some will rob you with a six-gun,

And some with a fountain pen.

 

And as through your life you travel,

Yes, as through your life you roam,

You won’t never see an outlaw

Drive a family from their home.

 

There is another political element to the film. Joe got his inspiration for the bank robbery from an actual robbery of his bank where he was an innocent spectator. One of the robbers refuses to steal from Joe. Instead, he says, “It is the duty of every culture to help its elders.” That too rings true, but is, as we all know, radically ignored in modern capitalistic society. We do a very poor job of fulfilling our “duty.”

Of course most countries do a much better job of taking care of seniors than the United States. The current Republican Senate and House of Representatives is much more keen on giving tax breaks to the rich than helping poor seniors or any other people for that matter.

I won’t say Going in Style is the best movie. It is not even a great movie. It is however mildly entertaining and the 3 leading men and Anne Margaret as the spicy love interest for one of the codgers all bring years of experience and professional skills to their task. If, like me, you find yourself in a dark aircraft, unable to read a book, it is worth the view.