MY MOVIE SHELF: Pleasantville

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 170  Days to go: 166

Movie #213:  Pleasantville

Disguised behind a terribly goofy fantasy premise — twins David (Tobey Maguire) and Jennifer (Reese Witherspoon) are fighting over the television remote when it flies into a wall and busts, at which point a magical TV repairman (Don Knotts) shows up at their door, discovers David’s deep abiding love and knowledge of a stock ’50s TV show called Pleasantville, and gives them a magical remote that transports the two into the lives of the main family’s brother and sister duo, Bud and Mary Sue Parker, where they must try to fit into this plain and literal black and white world — Pleasantville is a subversively brilliant study on the nature of progress, changes and growth in society.

David is unhappy with his life in the modern world. His parents are divorced, he’s not close with either of them, and he has very few friends or prospects at high school. Even his twin sister disdains his massive dorkiness. That bone-deep unhappiness is why he gravitates to the Pleasantville show, where everything is, naturally, pleasant. There are only happy families, happy kids, and happy neighbors. Mom Betty (Joan Allen) is home all day cooking and smiling beatifically at her adoring children, while dad George (William H. Macy) comes home every day at six with a hearty “Honey, I’m home!” Bud has a job at Bill Johnson’s (Jeff Daniels) soda shop, and Mary Sue is a star student who goes steady with Skip (The Fast and the Furious’s Paul Walker). It’s an idealized life in an idealized world, and David wishes it was his.

It’s like a miracle, then, when he finds Jennifer and himself transported into the television show. He’s in awe of how great it is, and he wants to savor it. Jennifer is unimpressed, however, and David must try to preserve it in spite of her flippant attitude. What he learns, however, is that Jennifer is right to educate the townspeople. She’s right to expand their horizons. And he learns that he can’t stop her because it comes from who she is — just as it comes from who he is. They can’t help broadening the world of Pleasantville, because they already know a world beyond it.

The winds of time and change are always blowing, always moving. Just as in real life, change starts with kids curious about the world — what’s out there for them, what all can they experience — and manifests in experiments with sex and clothes and music and even reading (the books start out blank, but fill themselves in when David and Jennifer talk about what they remember of the plots). Discussion and conversation about other lives, other worlds, other possibilities becomes their drug, and it fuels them. They do what kids have always done, but because it’s in this comically limited world of a 1950s TV series the changes are more stark, more dramatic, and more noticeable. Women, often marginalized in such a world where they have no creative or personal outlet of their own, are the next to seek greater understanding, and this is manifested in the world of Betty herself. Artistic types like Bill, who looks forward all year to the one time he gets to paint his shop windows at Christmas, also reach out for more. And as the changes continue, resistance builds.

Unsurprisingly, the members of the establishment are the ones most threatened by these changes. The mayor, Big Bob (J.T. Walsh), pontificates about how things used to be pleasant and now they aren’t, when what he really means is that things are no longer pleasant and easy for him. In a particular stroke of brilliance, people who have “changed” from the traditional black and white palette into full technicolor are referred to as “colored people,” with some stores posting signs saying “No Coloreds,” and suddenly the film takes on the very real tinge of the Civil Rights movements of the actual time period this fictional world was masquerading as. And this is when David-Bud realizes how crucial it is to encourage these changes, to seek them out and to embrace them.

Margaret (Marley Shelton) is a girl from school who, in the original series, is “supposed” to go out with another boy, but once David and Jennifer show up, she finds herself drawn to Bud and his knowledge of the greater world. She’s fascinated by what it’s like and it’s her influence (along with Betty’s) that helps David-Bud see that while his world might be “louder and messier and more dangerous,” it’s also infinitely better and richer and more alive. And despite the denials of those railing against the colorization of Pleasantville (which is seriously some of the most beautiful special effects shots ever such a large part of a film), David-Bud knows it’s in all of them, and it’s inevitable that it will emerge. Whether it’s longing or rage or passion or curiosity or lust or self-reliance, “you can’t stop what’s inside you.”

Even the ending, in which Betty is seen with both George and then Bill, is left intentionally uncertain and questioning because life is uncertain, and life is full of questions. It’s a brilliant and impassioned defense of accepting and embracing change and growth. It’s a resounding declaration that nostalgia about “the good old days” are memories of a life that never existed, of a fantasy built in the minds of those afraid of anything new or different. It’s a celebration of our world and our life, because for all its faults and messiness is the true beauty and purpose of life itself. It’s what’s inside us, and what drives us, and what makes us great.

Beyond that, life, Pleasantville tells us, is “not supposed to be anything.” It just is.

MY MOVIE SHELF: A Few Good Men

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 268  Days to go: 262

Movie #109: A Few Good Men

Nobody remembers the beginnings of movies, do they? I mean, you remember the big moments, the climaxes, the great lines. And if you catch it on TV, you almost always miss the very beginning. At least I do. So I put on A Few Good Men excited to see the gorgeous opening of naval officers doing their patterned, ritual marching and gun exercises on the lawn. Only that’s not how the movie starts. It starts with the night-time attack on William Santiago (Michael DeLorenzo) at the Guantanamo Bay marine base. Director Rob Reiner did that on purpose. He’s letting the audience know that with all the pageantry and code of the military to come, this movie is about the death of a young man. Writer Aaron Sorkin knows the importance of that as well, which is why he gives us the character of Sam Weinberg (Kevin Pollak). He may joke that he has “no responsibilities here whatsoever,” but it’s not true. As he says, “I believe every word of their story, and I think they ought to go to jail for the rest of their lives.” His responsibility is to be the conscience, to say that even if Dawson (Wolfgang Bodison) and Downey (James Marshall) were ordered to attack Santiago, they should’ve known it was wrong. They should’ve protected him instead, whatever the cost.

Let me back up.

A Few Good Men is about the trial of Marines Harold Dawson and Louden Downey for the murder of their fellow soldier William Santiago. It’s about a gifted yet lackadaisical Naval attorney named Daniel Kaffee (Tom Cruise) with a history of fast-talking insouciance and plea bargaining, sent to cover a murder case the military would most definitely like to go away. It’s about a passionate and intelligent attorney from the JAG Corps named JoAnne Galloway (Demi Moore) who is the backbone of the defense’s case and their most vocal supporter, despite being inexperienced as a litigator. It’s about the culture of a Marine base that encourages the discipline of soldiers by other enlisted men, of hazing and torture as means of “training” their troops. It’s about the blurred lines between truth and the law and the gray area that exists between right and wrong.

Aaron Sorkin definitely has a reputation for letting his biases take over his storytelling, but I think A Few Good Men succeeds as his most measured and even-handed piece. Yes, Colonel Jessup (Jack Nicholson) and Lt. Kendrick (Kiefer Sutherland) are portrayed as fanatical and arrogant and wrongheaded, but most of the military members are not — not even most of the Marines. It’s the (admittedly) rare moment when Sorkin has something thoughtful to say about an institution that is absolutely honorable and should absolutely be respected, but which at times conducts itself in ways that aren’t honorable at all and should not be tolerated or respected at all (not just hazing either — he also manages to slip in the lazy, categorically ignored instances of sexual harassment toward JoAnne, though the movie doesn’t deal with that issue). And, beautifully, the court members — the jury, in this case — are able to parse the difference. Just like Sam Weinberg, they know Dawson and Downey are not guilty of murder or conspiracy to commit murder. But they are guilty of conduct unbecoming a United States Marine and that they should be punished accordingly. (Not with prison for the rest of their lives, but accordingly.)

My husband and his brother were having a conversation recently about the numerous claims of late all over the news of police overstepping their bounds with regard to force and detaining citizens and whatnot. While I think my brother-in-law had a point about not courting trouble and the law enforcement professionals being due a lot of respect for their sacrifices, the idea that someone can be handcuffed and detained simply for not “respecting” the police to an adequate degree doesn’t sit well with me. Yes, police officers — and members of the military, for that matter — put their lives on the line every single day for the good of the country and its people. But that’s just it: They’re there for the good of the people. Their mission is to protect and to serve. A police officer is literally a public servant (as is any government official), so while I feel they deserve respect, I also believe they need to earn it by respecting the people in their towns and communities — by being patient with and understanding of those in their jurisdictions, those they’re meant to protect. Not to bully them or boss them around or otherwise abuse their power in any way. A Few Good Men understands that. In fact, it’s its primary lesson. In the words of Dawson (the true heart of the film), “We were supposed to fight for people who couldn’t fight for themselves. We were supposed to fight for Willy.”

In the middle of everything else: Kaffee thinking better with his bat, Markinson (J.T. Walsh) killing himself in full dress uniform, Jessup wanting to be asked nicely, Sam telling Danny to wear his (“effety” — Trademark, Veronica Mars) white uniform, Jo getting authorization from Aunt Jenny, Jack Ross (Kevin Bacon) being “a lousy fucking softball player,” all the gorgeous marching drills, Sorkin favorite Josh Malina doing stellar work as the guy who’s going to call the President for Jessup so he can surrender their position in Cuba, and reciting every single one of a billion great lines, the thing to remember is that soldiers are there to fight for the powerless. Above all else, that’s what matters. Anything less is conduct unbecoming.