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OT: "Richard Jewell -- Eastwood, The Wrong Man and Hitchcock's Bomb Under the Table(MINOR SPOILERS)

posted 5 years ago by ecarle (14979)
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Clint Eastwood told a story once about taking an appointment to meet with Alfred Hitchcock at the latter's office on the Universal lot, circa 1978.

Hitch was trying to interest Eastwood in the hero's role in "The Short Night," a planned Hitchcock spy film that was never made, due to Hitch's failing health and death. I've read A script for The Short Night(if not THE script) and the lead isn't an Eastwood part. Eastwood himself read A script for The Short Night and said "I wasn't crazy about it."

But Eastwood took the meeting with Hitch anyway -- just to meet the icon. Eastwood said: "He sat immobile in his chair, only his eyes moved." Hitch was two years from death, but it was a good meeting. And Eastwood tried to break the ice by noting that he had directed "Play Misty for Me" in the Hitchcock tradition.

Well, 41 years later, Eastwood has directed another film "in the Hitchcock tradition," though with more realism and less flourish than Hitch.

Famously, Eastwood has directed "Richard Jewell" at the age of 89. Eastwood turns 90 in May; and I'm hoping that not only will he direct more films in his 90's but that he will take one more on-screen lead over the title as an actor. That would make history. We will see. And Clint makes me feel good about MY age. "There's plenty of time left." (Uh, if you are superhealthy and superrich like Clint Eastwood.)

There are two main echoes of Hitchcock in "Richard Jewell." The first is a very suspenseful real-life illustration of Hitchcock's old "suspense versus surprise" definition: two men sit at a table, a bomb goes off -- big SURPRISE. two men sit at a table and we are SHOWN a bomb under the table. SUSPENSE. Stop talking! Get up! There's a bomb under the table!

In "Richard Jewell," there's a bomb under a bench. At an entertainment venue(with singers) at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. Eastwood establishes that the bomb is real and that the bomber is NOT Richard Jewell(we see lips call in the bomb while Jewell is still patrolling the venue as security.)

For 89 years old, Eastwood sure can get the suspense going about that bomb. Jewell finds the backpack with it, and demands that protocol be followed and the backpack be called in. Other security men at the scene think that Jewell is being over-dramatic, they don't believe him(more Hitchcockian suspense) --- he's a very overweight and child-like man with a propensity for over-selling his law enforcement powers.

But that bomb IS there, and every moment that people stand near it, the danger increases. Eastwood pulls off a pretty good "Hitchcock sequence" here.

Famously(from the true story) , the bomb did go off(we see nails flying through the air and are reminded that bombs don't just "poof" you into thin air.) Famously, two people died. Famously, Richard Jewell the overweight security guard was hailed as a hero for finding the bomb and helping move people away from it, saving lives .

And famously...soon the FBI with the support of an Atlanta newspaper ..was fingering Richard Jewell as the bomber. He "fit the profile": loner, overweight, white, lives with his mother(hello, Norman), too gung-ho about being a law enforcement wannabee, etc. And proximity to the bomb itself.

Since Eastwood makes sure we see the lips of the real bomber speaking into a phone early on, the Hitchcockian suspense kicks right in: Richard Jewell IS the wrong man. And in Hitchocck terms , he's "The Wrong Man."

For "Richard Jewell" captures some of the depressing terror of Hitchcock's masterpiece, "The Wrong Man" -- in that in many ways, the system is just doing its job, he IS a suspect, there ARE clues that point to him(profile-wise, but no real evidence.) And rather like Richard Blaney in Frenzy -- Jewell is the fall guy to take the blame for a very evil crime -- the hate transfers to him.

The cast is exemplary. With semi-unknown Paul Walter Hauser cast as Jewell, Eastwood surrounds him with two Oscar winners and two more noteable actors:

ONE: Sam Rockwell(Oscar winner) as the lawyer who takes Jewell's case(they go back ten years as long-ago co-workers) and bravely takes on the FBI and the press, with the righteousness and rage of a crusader(Fonda had the more realistic and diffident attorney Anthony Quayle in The Wrong Man.)

TWO: Kathy Bates(Oscar winner) as Richard's loving mother, with whom he lives in a small apartment and who is perhaps his only real loved (though he has one loyal male friend.) Bates goes from astonished pride at "her son the hero" and anguished agony when he becomes "her son, the mad bomber." With a pack of press laying siege to her small apartment and the FBI toting away her underwear, Bates gives us a great performance of pain and pride. (Roughly, she's got the Vera Miles role from The Wrong Man: collateral human damage of an unfair prosecution.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

THREE: Jon Hamm as the overzealous FBI man -- unlike Hitchocck's warm-voiced, cold-hearted cops in The Wrong Man, Hamm's guy is overtly interested in bending the rules and the law to "get" Richard Jewell, and ultimately mocks Richard's attempts to assert that they are "fellow law enforcement officers." Hamm sneers " C'mon, Richard, let's talk...cop to cop..." and clearly mocks the equivalency. He's quite hissable,and we are reminded that on "Mad Man," Hamm was as much a villain(cheating on his wives, fighting corporate battles) as a hero(loving father, caring friend -- sometimes.) Hamm goes for villainy here, and this FBI role is a bit close to his OTHER mean(but not corrupt) FBI man in The Town some years ago. Oh well, its a living.

FOUR: Olivia Wilde as "the evil scheming newspaper reporter" who uses sex to get her tips(from Hamm) and never takes no for an answer. One critic wrote that Wilde plays the reporter (a real one, Kathy Scruggs) "like a Velociraptor in a short skirt" and that's about right. Her home paper has protested that it was never proved that the real reporter traded sex for tips(she died of a drug overdose at age 42) but well -- newspapers always complain about newspaper movies(remember Absence of Malice?) For what its worth, there were reports in recent years of female reporters getting tips from their DC bureaucrat "boyfriends" so...it happens. (Warner Brothers is hitting back hard, saying that the Atlanta paper DID botch the case and is trying to cover that up with the reporter controversy. BTW, Leo DiCaprio and Jonah Hill are co-producers of Richard Jewell, so its hardly a right wing production.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

I've personally chided Eastwood(without him caring one bit) for the perfunctory and tight little movies he's made in recent years, but it does seem that when he gets the right subject, he can still make a GOOD movie. Richard Jewell is filled with movement and frenzy; it doesn't seem like an "old man's film" the way The Irishman did. Indeed, Richard Jewell DOES beg the question: just how hard can movie directing really be, if an 89-year old man can turn in something as fast-paced and professional as this movie?

I suppose it boils down to: get good material, you get a good movie. For the Hitchcock buff, the resonance of the bomb scene, the "Fonda Wrong Man" plot and emotion, a little of the "Frenzy Wrong Man" emotion(unlike Fonda, Jon Finch is blamed for a horrendous murder crime, as is Richard Jewell)...I particularly liked Richard Jewell.

[–] swanstep (2715) 5 years ago

Thanks for these interesting comments on 'Richard Jewell' ecarle. The film has had such bad buzz about its politics that I'd kind of decided to set it aside for the foreseeable future. Your remarks mean instead that I'll give it a try some time this awards season.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

Thanks for these interesting comments on 'Richard Jewell' ecarle.

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Thanks for reading. But its funny...I wanted to see the film and saw the film, first weekend -- and it totally tanked. Here and gone and forgotten, with some "piling on" regarding being Clint's worst opening ever. (Being 89 years old gets you no residual kindness from critics and the industry, I guess.)

Of course, "The Wrong Man" tanked quickly too -- and Hitchcock knew it would(he took no pay for the "labor of love.") Both The Wrong Man and Richard Jewell have "happy endings," but both films are too depressing and nightmarish getting there.

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The film has had such bad buzz about its politics

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Yeah. And its weird. Did the movie tank BECAUSE of its politics? I'd say more likely no, people just didn't want to see it. But because it tanked...the politics are offered as the reason. This happened with "The Hateful Eight"(one of QT's lowest grossers.) Police unions said it tanked because of QT's "Black Lives Matter" stance; but maybe it tanked because it was an ultra-violent Western without superstars.

Doubly odd: Richard Jewell posits the dangers of a rights-trampling FBI and an abuse of press freedoms. So we should be happy that message tanked? Sometimes I think Totalitarianism is becoming a thing a lot of people SUPPORT.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

Though just as oddly, "Richard Jewell" makes the same case "The Wrong Man" did: the cops and the press are "just doing their job," Richard Jewell DID look like a good suspect(his power-mad rent-a-cop behavior, his past firings) just like Manny Ballestrero DID look like a good suspect. The message of both movies (and I'd extend this to Richard Blaney in Frenzy, too) is: sometimes a person just looks too much like "the right man" to escape wrongful justice.

Its funny about Clint Eastwood. I personally haven't gone to many of his recent films. Like Woody Allen, he now seems to make lots and lots of movies with no real "resonance" or "gotta see" aspects (compared to Scorsese, QT, and somewhat, Spielberg.) And yet Eastwood has gotten big stars like Leo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, and Angelina Jolie to star in these "movies nobody sees." Tom Hanks WAS seen in "Sully," but that's because the real-life story was so great. And "Richard Jewell" is ANOTHER great story...just way more downbeat.

The big surprise of Clint's past decade was American Sniper, which I believe became the biggest domestic hit of its year. The movie was compentantly made but the subject seemed to connect with America -- part of the reason for its big gross its that it brought people to the movies who don't GO to the movies much("conservatives") but told a story that many others wanted to see, too.

Anyway, I personally liked Richard Jewell for the gripping story, the good actors, and Eastwood showing some pizazz at 89.

I still hope that Clint STARS , over the title, in a movie after he turns 90. Last year he starred in "The Mule"(an OK true story with American Sniper star Bradley Cooper, too) and made big bucks. He can do it again. Make movie history, Clint!

And I guess Clint will keep directing until he makes one from his deathbed...

[–] swanstep (2715) 5 years ago

Yeah. And its weird. Did the movie tank BECAUSE of its politics? I'd say more likely no, people just didn't want to see it.

It's funny, nobody *outside* the film biz. talks much about 'what people want to see', but *inside* the biz. it's a main topic of conversation, and it colors almost every deal that's made. There's a production history show on Netflix called 'Movies that Made Us'. It's so far only had 4 eps & has focussed exclusively on middle-brow smashes of various sorts from what we might call 'the VHS era' (the show uses a videotape cartridge as its credits icon) : Die Hard, Dirty Dancing, Ghostbusters, Home Alone. The basic Die Hard story: the novel had been around since the '60s...and scripts were developed for decades. A big obstacle was its terrorism focus because 'terrorists aren't fun, & most people will not pay to see a terrorist-movie'. Die Hard never gets out of development hell, McTiernan never agrees to direct *until* the writers break through to the idea that the villains are thieves *pretending* to be terrorists. McTiernan says on camera something like, 'OK, genius, thieves are fun; I can have fun with that. I'm in.'