In Truth

“A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.” It is perhaps fitting that this quote, attributed to both Mark Twain and Winston Churchill, actually comes from the preacher C.H. Spurgeon in the 1850s, while a different version was written by Jonathan Swift in 1710. If anything, the Internet has supercharged this statement. These days whole sites are dedicated to trumpeting conspiracy theories.  The truth requires thought and effort, while falsehoods only need a loud voice and no shame. And perhaps one more thing is needed – an audience who finds the falsehoods easier to live with than the truth. Denial is a powerful temptation: no, 20 kids and their teachers didn’t die at Sandy Hook, it was actors creating and excuse to wipe out the 2^nd Amendment. We didn’t go to the moon, it was just special effects. And on, and on, and on.

The apex event for deniers is the Holocaust. There are multiple books, articles, websites, etc., that push the position that it didn’t happen. Instead, it was a conspiracy by the Jews to get their own homeland in Palestine, or a few people died in the camps but there was no systematic extermination, or Hitler knew nothing of what was happening and has been completely misunderstood. Many rationals, but one outcome. In the 1990s, a major voice of the deniers, British historian David Irving, filed suit against an American history professor, Deborah Lipstadt, for defamation of character in her book about Holocaust deniers. Rather than bring the suit in US where he’d have to prove libel, Irving sued in England, where the burden of proof is on the defendant. Lipstadt was put into the position of proving the Holocaust actually happened.

Now that event has come to theaters. Denial tells the story of the trial, beginning with how Irving (Timothy Spall) targets Lipstadt (Rachel Weisz) for his suit. Lipstadt then must navigate the arcane terrain of British jurisprudence, including dealing with both a solicitor, Anthony Julius (Andrew Scott), and a barrister, Richard Rampton (Tom Wilkinson).

The story was adapted by David Hare (Damages, The Hours, The Reader) and directed by Mick Jackson. Jackson has worked mostly in television, where he won an Emmy for his direction of “Temple Grandin.” It’s been a decade and a half since he directed a feature, though in the 1990s he did L.A. Story, The Bodyguard with Whitney Houston, and a personal cheesetastic favorite of mine, 1997’s Volcano (with one of the best tag lines ever: “The Coast is Toast.”) Jackson and Hare illuminate the legal case beautifully – in the trial scenes, only the transcript of the actual testimony is used for dialogue – and they also delineate the denier mindset to make it understandable for the audience.

Weisz is excellent as Lipstadt, nailing the professor’s Queens accent along with the emotional truth of the situation. Wilkinson makes a brilliant legal mind accessible while Spall manages to humanize Irving even as he also shows his deplorable and pathetic nature. Scott is known to most these days for his portrayal of Moriarty on “Sherlock,” though as Julius he imbues the role with a steely intellectual control. There is another connection to “Sherlock” as the series co-creator and writer, Mark Gatiss, who also plays Mycroft Holmes, appears here as a historical expert on Auschwitz.

The emotional heart of the movie comes when Lipstadt and Rampton travel to Auschwitz in preparation for the trial. Seeing the scope of the camp, with a perimeter that ran for miles, along with what’s left of the gas chambers – they were dynamited by the Nazis before the camp fell to the Russians to hide the genocide – is powerful.

If anything, the problem of denial has grown greater in the years since the trial. Religion has always had trouble with Gnosticism – those who feel they have “special knowledge” to which regular people have no access. These days there’s a secular Gnosticism that shares the claim of special knowledge, even though it indulges in circular logic, and in many cases flights of intellectual fancy. I’ll end with another quote, this time from Daniel Patrick Moynihan: “You are entitled to your own opinion, but not to your own facts.” As Denial makes clear, it’s imperative that people such as Irving are denied any validity, for their intellectual hubris removes honor from those who have suffered and died, in truth.

Belle of the Ball

With all the movies released each year, it’s impossible to see them all. Even established critics for media sources will miss some. And much of what slips by under the radar are the dregs that deserve to be missed. However, sometimes a gem gets flushed away with the silt that’s surrounding it. The premium channels and streaming services give us a second chance to uncover the missed diamonds. Currently HBO is featuring a British beauty that was only in limited release in the US last year: Belle.

The titular character is Dido Elizabeth Belle, the daughter of Capt. (later Admiral) Sir John Lindsay (Matthew Goode) who saved her mother from a slave ship. After her mother’s death, Lindsay arranges the child’s passage to England where he places her in the home of his granduncle, William Murray (Tom Wilkinson), the 1^st Earl of Mansfield and the Lord High Magistrate of England. Lord Mansfield and Lady Mansfield (Emily Watson) had no children of their own, but along with Dido they raised their niece Elizabeth Murray following her mother’s death and her father disowning her in favor of his new wife and family. Dido (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) and Elizabeth (Sarah Gadon) grow into beautiful women, but both are constrained by 18^th Century society.

Elizabeth has no inheritance or land, which handicaps her when seeking a suitor. One who is interested is James Ashford (Tom Fenton), though he is offended by Dido’s existence, even though his brother Oliver (James Norton) finds her attractive. Dido’s not allowed to join the family for dinner when they have guests. Even though Sir John acknowledged her as his daughter and made her his heir, he wasn’t married to Dido’s mother. After dinner she’s allowed to join in by the rules of society, since it is a more casual time.

While she’s mostly been protected on Mansfield’s estate, the world starts to impose on her. Part of her awakening comes from John Davinier (Sam Reid), a vicar’s son who’s studying the law under Mansfield’s tutelage. He tells her of a case Mansfield is considering between the owners of the slave ship Zong and their insurers. The owners claim that the ship ran low on water so they had to throw their cargo – slaves – overboard so the crew could survive, but the insurers have refused to reimburse them for their loss. Davinier, an ardent abolitionist, believes there is more to the case, but his passion gets him dismissed by Mansfield. Still, it has begun an awakening in Dido.

The movie begins with the “based on a true story” notation, which for Hollywood is code for “most of this is made up.” However, English films usually stay very close to the actual events, and that is the case with Belle. Zong was a landmark case – it was also known as the Zong Massacre – and Mansfield was a major force in English government and jurisprudence. One of his friends and clients was Sarah Churchill, the wife of the first Duke of Marlborough. His decision in the Zong case and others had a profound effect on England. Some of the details of Dido and Davinier are more fanciful, but it does make for a wonderful love story.

I’d first noticed Gugu Mbatha-Raw when she played Martha Jones’ sister Tish during the third season of the new “Doctor Who.” She was the best part of the Tom Hanks movie Larry Crowne, and she has three upcoming features in postproduction or filming where she stars with Matthew McConaughey, Will Smith, and Keanu Reeves, so her profile should definitely rise. The camera loves her and it reads every nuance on her face and in her body language. Her performance as Dido is seamless and beautiful to behold.

The rest of the cast is sterling, especially Wilkinson and Watson as Lord and Lady Mansfield. While showing characteristic English restraint, you also see the depth of their love for Dido. Rounding out the cast is Miranda Richardson as Lady Ashford and Penelope Wilton as Mansfield’s spinster sister.

The movie was directed by Amma Asante, who began as a child actress but moved up to the hyphenate writer-director-producer. The Writer’s Guild of America gave credit for the screenplay solely to Misan Sagay, who also wrote Their Eyes Were Watching God. There was a question, however, about multiple of rewrites that Asante did. Regardless, it is an effective screenplay that both presents the story and captures the era.

Look for this movie, and if you get the chance, watch it.

Detail from a painting of the actual Dido Belle and Elisabeth Murray

Grandly Idiosyncratic

It’s unusual for a movie released in the summer to have the legs necessary to pick up Oscar nominations in January. The last film to win Best Picture after being release before September was Gladiator. That’s one reason why it was unusual that The Grand Budapest Hotel tied with Birdman for the most Oscar nominations with nine. Another reason is it’s a comedy, and a true comedy hasn’t won Best Picture since Tom Jones back in the 1960s. It’s unlikely Grand Budapest will pull off a win for the top prize on Oscar night, but as Han Solo said, “Never tell me the odds.”

Director and screenwriter Wes Anderson has made a career out of telling stories that are both unusual and decidedly off-kilter. As attested to by Rushmore, The Royal Tenebaums, The Fantastic Mr. Fox and Moonrise Kingdom, his view of life skews toward an absurd realism. He’s one of the more idiosyncratic visual stylists working in films these days. While filmmakers often focus on camera angles for shots, Anderson’s angle is usually 90 degrees – taking the scene straight on – and in contrast to directors who’ll do gorgeous slow pans through scenes, Anderson will do whip pans up, down, or sideways to capture another view of the scene again straight on.

Anderson and story collaborator Hugo Guinness credit the works of Austrian novelist Stefan Zweig as the inspiration for the film. Zweig was one of the most popular authors in the 1920s and 1930s, and his writings have been the source for almost 70 films according to the Internet Movie Database (IMDb.com). Zweig’s books were old-fashioned in style and centered on the plot, but he’d also blend in revelations about the characters that were deep and transcended the style. Not surprisingly, Zweig was a good friend of another Austrian, Sigmund Freud. Along with novels, Zweig wrote biographies and memoirs, and his work was translated throughout the world. The rise of the Nazis forced Zweig, who was Jewish, into exile in England, then America, and finally Brazil. It was there that he and his wife committed suicide in 1942.

Author Stefan Zwieg

Anderson pays anonymous tribute to Zweig with the film’s prefaces, of which there are three. It begins with a girl in a European town walking up to a bust in a park that is simply labeled “Writer” and then opens up the book titled “The Grand Budapest Hotel.” The movie flashes back to the 1980s when the writer (played by Tom Wilkinson) is giving a talk about writing the book, leading to another flashback to the 1960s when the writer (now played by Jude Law) was staying at the Grand Budapest. He’s approached by the hotel owner, M. Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham), who admires the writer’s work and wants to tell him the story of a most amazing man, the former concierge of the hotel, M. Gustave (Ralph Fiennes). Anderson plays with the look of the film to match the flashbacks. For the present day and the 1980s, he uses the common film ratio today, 1.85:1, but when he goes to the 1960s, it changes to the wide-screen that was used for almost every movie at that time, with a ratio of 2.35:1. For the story of M. Gustave, Anderson uses the ratio of 1.37:1, which was the standard for movies in the 1930s.

What follows is a remarkable confection with thriller elements mixed in with a comedy of manners. Imagine a crime caper movie written by Oscar Wilde. In that day M. Mustafa was a refugee known as Zero (Tony Revolan) who takes a job as a lobby boy at the Grand Budapest and comes under the influence of M. Gustave. Gustave is vain, shallow, avaricious, and entirely charming. Fiennes is wonderful in the role, carrying off some of the most outrageous lines with panache. When Madame D. (Tilda Swinton), an elderly client of the hotel, passes away unexpectedly, M. Gustave goes to her at once, with Zero in tow. The Madame has bequeathed a priceless painting to Gustave, but he realizes her son Dimitri (Adrien Brody) will try to cheat him out of it. Instead, Gustave takes the painting, with the help of Serge X. (Mathieu Amalric), Madame D.’s butler.

Soon afterward the police, commanded by Henckels (Edward Norton), arrive at the Grand Budapest with news that Serge has denounced Gustave as a murderer and then fled. With that the movie becomes a wild ride of prison escape, murderous frames, and chases as Gustave tries to clear his name. Along for the ride is Willem Dafoe as a deadpan killer, Jeff Goldblum as a lawyer and Saoirse Ronan (Atonement, Hannah) as Zero’s love interest who helps save the day. Quite a few well-known actors make cameo appearances, among them Bill Murray, Bob Balaban, Owen Wilson, Harvey Keitel and Jason Schwartzman.

Anderson’s styling also carries over to the special effects, where he uses miniatures in the style of the 1930s rather than modern CGI. To give the feeling of the time and location, composer Alexandre Desplait’s score relies on balalaikas and other folk instruments. The score has been nominated for an Oscar, which means Desplait is competing against himself as well as others – he was also nominated for his score for The Imitation Game.

The movie is currently playing on HBO as well as streaming services, and will be out on video next week. It’s well worth a viewing.

An Escape from Escapist Fare

Summer movies usually have a few things in common – explosions, vehicle chases (be they cars, airplanes, or space ships), and enough special effects technicians to fill the phone book of a small city.  When it’s done well, such as with The Avengers or Christopher Nolan’s oeuvre, it can be interesting, surprising, and even have tender moments.  But too often the explosions, chases, and SF/X are about all the movie has going for it.

If you want to escape to a movie where the only vehicle excitement comes from trying to survive the roads in a foreign country and the acting is the special effects, then check out The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.

To a disparate group of elderly Brits, the hotel’s ad on the internet sounds like an answer to their troubles.  Evelyn Greenslade (Judi Dench) has just lost her husband of 40 years and must sell her house to pay off debts.  Doug Ainslie (Bill Nighy), a recently retired civil servant, and his wife Jean (Penelope Wilton) had sunk their retirement savings into their daughter’s Internet business only to have the money sink out of sight.  High Court Justice Graham Dashwood (Tom Wilkinson) has abruptly retired and decided to return to India where he lived as a boy.  It was there he’d known and lost the great love of his life.  Norman Cousins (Ronald Pickup) is an aging Lothario, seeking to stay active, while Marge Hardcastle (Celia Imrie) is tired of being Grandma and wants to find romance – preferably with an exceedingly well-off gentleman.  Muriel Donnelly (Maggie Smith) is in need of a hip replacement and can get the operation in India without any delay.  The only problem for her is that there are too many Indians in India.

They all end up on the same flight out from Heathrow to Mumbai, but their connection to Jaipur is cancelled.  Dashwood slips back into the culture and makes arrangements for bus transport to the center of Jaipur and then tuk-tuks (3-wheel motorcycle taxis) to the hotel.  When they arrive they are greeted effusively by Sonny Kapoor (Dev Patel), the hotel’s manager.  Sonny has great dreams for the hotel, seeing a market for people who want to outsource their retirement.  Unfortunately, the publicity he created is based on those dreams rather than reality.

Evelyn creates a blog on which she records her impressions and experiences (and through it becomes the movie’s narrator).  She also finds a job, teaching call center personnel how to talk to actual people.  Doug, who’s been emasculated by his job and his wife for years, thrives in the new culture and actively explores the city, while Jean refuses to leave the hotel.  Marge and Norman join a club to meet Mr. and Ms. Right, respectively.  Muriel has her operation but faces a long rehabilitation.  And Graham goes in search of the India he once knew, and the love he lost.  Sonny is determined to make the hotel a success so he can marry the girl he loves, Sunaina (Tena Desae), who works in the same call center where Evelyn found her job.

The movie is directed by John Madden, who also did Her Majesty Mrs. Brown and Shakespeare in Love (both with Judi Dench) as well as last year’s excellent thriller, The Debt.  Madden is wonderful at observing a scene such as Graham getting lost in his memories while coaching some street children at cricket.  Assisted by his actors, he creates gem-like moments that sparkle without flourishes or bravado.  On the Goodreads website, the source material (Those Foolish Things by Deborah Moggach) has received strong responses in both the negative and positive from readers.  However, the screenplay by Ol Parker (Imagine Me and You) has distilled all the good out of the book and put it on the screen.

Judi Dench, Maggie Smith and Tom Wilkinson are incredible as always.  They can give a page-worth of exposition with a single look.  The rest of the cast is just as sterling.  Bill Nighy is poignant as his character rediscovers what it is to live.  Penelope Wilton has appeared in Shawn of the Dead and Matchpoint, though she’s probably best known for her turn as MP (later Prime Minister) Harriet Jones on Doctor Who.  Her Jean comes close to being the heavy of the piece, though she retains sympathy in the end.  Ronald Pickup has appreared in around a hundred British TV series and movies in the last 45 years, along with roles in movies such as The Mission and Never Say Never Again.  His Norman Cousins is both self-confident as well as sadly self-aware.  Celia Imrie (Bridget Jones’ Diary, Calendar Girls) is delightfully decadent in a restrained British way, while also aware that time is passing.   Dev Patel (Slumdog Millionaire) dances on the edge of caricature yet his honesty and energy keeps Sonny from slipping over that edge.

The movie has laugh-out-loud funny times playing on the “English culture clash,” which is close to its own genre in the movies.  The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel makes it fresh with real characters that you feel for and a light touch in both the directing and writing.  This is the kind of movie that builds its audience by word of mouth.  After you see it, you’ll find yourself wanting to sing its praises.  So if you’ve heard one too many movie explosions this summer, go see this movie that tickles your funny bone while touching your heart.