Billy Lynn's Long Half time Walk (15.)
Directed by Ang Lee.
Starring Joe Alwyn, Garrett Hedlund, Kristen Stewart, Chris Tucker, Vin Diesel and Steve Martin. 113 mins
In the Iraq War homecoming drama, Ang Lee's Short Lived Awards Contender, a squad of hero soldiers are on the final day of a two week promotional tour, preparing to appear with Destiny's Child in the half time show at the Dallas Cowboy's Thanksgiving Day game. They are on a propaganda mission to make America feel good about itself; the film's mission is the exact opposite.
Ang Lee's film isn't really a protest about the war – everybody gets that it was a bad idea now – but an attack on the idea that the American way of life has any claim to moral superiority over the nations it attacks. As is the norm in these films, the returning soldiers find it hard to connect with the folks back home who are falling over themselves to express their gratitude and admiration for what they are doing “over there.” Now, the values and rituals of American life – the T&A evangelicalism of the cheerleaders; the patriotic gluttony of the football crowd; the fervoured, almost fetishistic devotion to the flag; the fluctuating market value of their heroism – are just as alien to them, and as twisted, as those of the enemy they are fighting oversees.
Billy Lynn is based on a novel, obviously, and adapting it presented a number of practical problems. Most of the film takes places against the backdrop of a major sporting event, which would be a major headache even if the sporting institution involved was prepared to co-operate. The Dallas Cowboys, “America's Team,” wanted nothing to do with the film and aren't named – understandably as it is critical of them, Texas, and even has the effrontery to suggest that the American brand of Football is a bit boring. Co-operation is thin on the ground all round – Beyonce doesn't show up either. The piece is so talky it might as well been adapted from a play. To generate a bit of motion the script contrives some punch ups between the squad and the stadium stage crew.
Lee has then made things that bit more difficult for himself by shooting it in a high frame rate, the system Peter Jackson experimented with on The Hobbit. Nobody liked The Hobbit when it was presented in 48 frames per second, twice the usual 24 fps; so Ang Lee has called sissy on that and shot in 120 fps, and 3D. Distinguished cinematographer John Toll (Thin Red Line, Iron Man 3) was brought into shoot it and the cutting edge technology created considerable practical restriction on how they could work, but the results is an incredibly crisp image that looks ultra realistic, but lifelike in a less-than-life way. As a poster on the film's IMDB forum put it – was it shot with an Iphone?
(I've since found out that we won't be getting any of that on this side of the Atlantic – just 24 fps in good old 2d – so you can disregard that whole paragraph. Except that the procedure proved so cumbersome and expensive it limited the number of takes that could be done, which is relevant to the following paragraph.)
The young stars perform well (you'd never believe Alwyn is a Londoner.) Lee uses lots of close up and occasionally he has performers talk directly into the camera, which is always tough to do and emphasizes the feeling that some of the bigger name performers often look like they might have needed another take or two to really do justice to their lines.
I saw this film a few days after Meryl Streep's big anti-Trump speech at the Golden Globes in which she bravely stood up and stated the bleeding obvious, while re-affirming all the prejudices of his voters that Hollywood is a smug, liberal, out of touch, anti-American elite. This is another pointless, and probably counterproductive, exercise in telling people what they want to hear, and dragging its feet while doing it. If I were an American I think some knee jerk defensive patriotism might kick in faced with a Hollywood films which opens with a production company logo entirely in Chinese characters telling me my way of life was barbaric and contemptible; and would do so even if I half agreed with it. Just to make sure Middle America's blood boils the film's voice of wisdom is a soldier (Vin Diesel) whose Hindu philosophy the squad take on board and probably inspires the act of heroism they are all celebrating.
One day they might make a film about how the Iraq War, carelessly and exponentially increasingly the power of radical Islam, mirrored the attempts by the American media to stop Trump, thoughtlessly breathing fire on his every taunt and effectively running the campaign for him. Until then we will have films like this that believe themselves to be in the frontline of the resistance but are actually waving the white flag.
Directed by Ang Lee.
Starring Joe Alwyn, Garrett Hedlund, Kristen Stewart, Chris Tucker, Vin Diesel and Steve Martin. 113 mins
In the Iraq War homecoming drama, Ang Lee's Short Lived Awards Contender, a squad of hero soldiers are on the final day of a two week promotional tour, preparing to appear with Destiny's Child in the half time show at the Dallas Cowboy's Thanksgiving Day game. They are on a propaganda mission to make America feel good about itself; the film's mission is the exact opposite.
Ang Lee's film isn't really a protest about the war – everybody gets that it was a bad idea now – but an attack on the idea that the American way of life has any claim to moral superiority over the nations it attacks. As is the norm in these films, the returning soldiers find it hard to connect with the folks back home who are falling over themselves to express their gratitude and admiration for what they are doing “over there.” Now, the values and rituals of American life – the T&A evangelicalism of the cheerleaders; the patriotic gluttony of the football crowd; the fervoured, almost fetishistic devotion to the flag; the fluctuating market value of their heroism – are just as alien to them, and as twisted, as those of the enemy they are fighting oversees.
Billy Lynn is based on a novel, obviously, and adapting it presented a number of practical problems. Most of the film takes places against the backdrop of a major sporting event, which would be a major headache even if the sporting institution involved was prepared to co-operate. The Dallas Cowboys, “America's Team,” wanted nothing to do with the film and aren't named – understandably as it is critical of them, Texas, and even has the effrontery to suggest that the American brand of Football is a bit boring. Co-operation is thin on the ground all round – Beyonce doesn't show up either. The piece is so talky it might as well been adapted from a play. To generate a bit of motion the script contrives some punch ups between the squad and the stadium stage crew.
Lee has then made things that bit more difficult for himself by shooting it in a high frame rate, the system Peter Jackson experimented with on The Hobbit. Nobody liked The Hobbit when it was presented in 48 frames per second, twice the usual 24 fps; so Ang Lee has called sissy on that and shot in 120 fps, and 3D. Distinguished cinematographer John Toll (Thin Red Line, Iron Man 3) was brought into shoot it and the cutting edge technology created considerable practical restriction on how they could work, but the results is an incredibly crisp image that looks ultra realistic, but lifelike in a less-than-life way. As a poster on the film's IMDB forum put it – was it shot with an Iphone?
(I've since found out that we won't be getting any of that on this side of the Atlantic – just 24 fps in good old 2d – so you can disregard that whole paragraph. Except that the procedure proved so cumbersome and expensive it limited the number of takes that could be done, which is relevant to the following paragraph.)
The young stars perform well (you'd never believe Alwyn is a Londoner.) Lee uses lots of close up and occasionally he has performers talk directly into the camera, which is always tough to do and emphasizes the feeling that some of the bigger name performers often look like they might have needed another take or two to really do justice to their lines.
I saw this film a few days after Meryl Streep's big anti-Trump speech at the Golden Globes in which she bravely stood up and stated the bleeding obvious, while re-affirming all the prejudices of his voters that Hollywood is a smug, liberal, out of touch, anti-American elite. This is another pointless, and probably counterproductive, exercise in telling people what they want to hear, and dragging its feet while doing it. If I were an American I think some knee jerk defensive patriotism might kick in faced with a Hollywood films which opens with a production company logo entirely in Chinese characters telling me my way of life was barbaric and contemptible; and would do so even if I half agreed with it. Just to make sure Middle America's blood boils the film's voice of wisdom is a soldier (Vin Diesel) whose Hindu philosophy the squad take on board and probably inspires the act of heroism they are all celebrating.
One day they might make a film about how the Iraq War, carelessly and exponentially increasingly the power of radical Islam, mirrored the attempts by the American media to stop Trump, thoughtlessly breathing fire on his every taunt and effectively running the campaign for him. Until then we will have films like this that believe themselves to be in the frontline of the resistance but are actually waving the white flag.
