Movie: Lions for Lambs
sweetpotato
Posts: 1,278
I'm posting this here (as well as AET) since it's essentially a political film. It's also being widely ignored, but I think it should be getting more attention. Here's a synopsis (taken from an article on AlterNet):
Lions for Lambs contains three interwoven narratives all taking place roughly within an hour or so. The first features a very strong Meryl Streep as a once principled progressive journalist who's now morphed into a somewhat less principled, but skeptical shill for a network modeled after CNN being given an exclusive interview by a neocon Republican senator, Jasper Irving, played by Tom Cruise with his usual mixture of smarm and charm. The story he's feeding her is about a small combat operation he's spearheaded in Afghanistan, which leads us to story No. 2, which provides the only real action in the traditional sense of the word and features two young soldiers played by Derek Luke (of Antowne Fisher) and Michael Peña (who you may recognize from Crash) involved in Sen. Irving's mission. The last story thread of Lions for Lambs features the film's director, Robert Redford, as the two soldiers' former college professor at an unnamed California university, who uses their decision to enlist in the Marines to set an example for one of his stereotypically apathetic male students.
The soldiers' efforts to pull off Sen. Irving's mission periodically interrupts what are essentially scenes of two people talking in a room. Cruise and Streep in his office. Redford and student (played by Andrew Garfield) in his. This is the film's most obvious problem. It's not cinematic enough. The film would make a dynamite play because the performances are fantastic and the dialogue first-rate if somewhat theatrical. But it's hard to justify shelling out $10 for what amounts to political debate. Then again, the debates are terrific.
Take Cruise and Streep's scenes together. Cruise's senator is earnest and smooth, and he makes the neoconservative ideology seem almost sensible. He acknowledges mistakes but also perfectly captures the right-wing propensity to want to ignore the past and whitewash the future. Meanwhile Streep's character is full of contradictions as well. Highly suspicious of Cruise's motives and objectives, she is dealing with the guilt of having helped sell these wars at the outset, and so by the end of their confrontation, we come to feel that she is just as dirty as Cruise's senator.
Redford has long established his progressive reputation, particularly with his environmental activism, and he brings his iconic stature to a role that could easily become fairly cliched, that of the idealistic, liberal professor. His dialogue is not remotely subtle and rarely deep but it also happens to be very right and delivered with such honesty and conviction that you'll likely be muttering in agreement with him as he does. "They bank on your apathy, they bank on your willful ignorance," Redford tells his student, "... How can you enjoy the good life when Rome is burning?"
Therein lies the film's recurring theme, which is that those of us on the sidelines, whatever our political persuasion or professional position, need to get involved and to care about what's happening to our country. Redford's character is seen pleading in a flashback with Luke and Peña's characters, trying to talk them out of enlisting, but he later applauds them for what they did, even though he disagrees with the war's rationale.
What angers Redford's character, and I presume Redford the actor-director as well, is how young men like these two, often minorities, are sent off to war by unapologetic, insincere politicians like the character Cruise plays. Redford gets his movie title from a quote by a World War I German general who would say of his opposition, "Never have I seen such lions led by such lambs." It is a bitter irony that the two most noble characters in the film, the students played by Luke and Peña, opt to get involved but make a poor choice when they do.
The film's message is one we've heard before and one many people in the audience won't need convincing to agree with, but that doesn't make it any less important, compelling or moving -- which this film ultimately is. No, it doesn't have a nude, computer-animated Angelina Jolie like Beowulf. But it what it does possess is a heartfelt attempt to awake Americans from their slumber and to shake things up.
I think it would be interesting if some of us went to see this and then came back to discuss it. I'm hoping it will have a wide enough release to allow us to do that. But we may need to wait for the video release... And that says it all, doesn't it? :(
The article in its entirety can be seen at: http://www.alternet.org/movies/68385/
Lions for Lambs contains three interwoven narratives all taking place roughly within an hour or so. The first features a very strong Meryl Streep as a once principled progressive journalist who's now morphed into a somewhat less principled, but skeptical shill for a network modeled after CNN being given an exclusive interview by a neocon Republican senator, Jasper Irving, played by Tom Cruise with his usual mixture of smarm and charm. The story he's feeding her is about a small combat operation he's spearheaded in Afghanistan, which leads us to story No. 2, which provides the only real action in the traditional sense of the word and features two young soldiers played by Derek Luke (of Antowne Fisher) and Michael Peña (who you may recognize from Crash) involved in Sen. Irving's mission. The last story thread of Lions for Lambs features the film's director, Robert Redford, as the two soldiers' former college professor at an unnamed California university, who uses their decision to enlist in the Marines to set an example for one of his stereotypically apathetic male students.
The soldiers' efforts to pull off Sen. Irving's mission periodically interrupts what are essentially scenes of two people talking in a room. Cruise and Streep in his office. Redford and student (played by Andrew Garfield) in his. This is the film's most obvious problem. It's not cinematic enough. The film would make a dynamite play because the performances are fantastic and the dialogue first-rate if somewhat theatrical. But it's hard to justify shelling out $10 for what amounts to political debate. Then again, the debates are terrific.
Take Cruise and Streep's scenes together. Cruise's senator is earnest and smooth, and he makes the neoconservative ideology seem almost sensible. He acknowledges mistakes but also perfectly captures the right-wing propensity to want to ignore the past and whitewash the future. Meanwhile Streep's character is full of contradictions as well. Highly suspicious of Cruise's motives and objectives, she is dealing with the guilt of having helped sell these wars at the outset, and so by the end of their confrontation, we come to feel that she is just as dirty as Cruise's senator.
Redford has long established his progressive reputation, particularly with his environmental activism, and he brings his iconic stature to a role that could easily become fairly cliched, that of the idealistic, liberal professor. His dialogue is not remotely subtle and rarely deep but it also happens to be very right and delivered with such honesty and conviction that you'll likely be muttering in agreement with him as he does. "They bank on your apathy, they bank on your willful ignorance," Redford tells his student, "... How can you enjoy the good life when Rome is burning?"
Therein lies the film's recurring theme, which is that those of us on the sidelines, whatever our political persuasion or professional position, need to get involved and to care about what's happening to our country. Redford's character is seen pleading in a flashback with Luke and Peña's characters, trying to talk them out of enlisting, but he later applauds them for what they did, even though he disagrees with the war's rationale.
What angers Redford's character, and I presume Redford the actor-director as well, is how young men like these two, often minorities, are sent off to war by unapologetic, insincere politicians like the character Cruise plays. Redford gets his movie title from a quote by a World War I German general who would say of his opposition, "Never have I seen such lions led by such lambs." It is a bitter irony that the two most noble characters in the film, the students played by Luke and Peña, opt to get involved but make a poor choice when they do.
The film's message is one we've heard before and one many people in the audience won't need convincing to agree with, but that doesn't make it any less important, compelling or moving -- which this film ultimately is. No, it doesn't have a nude, computer-animated Angelina Jolie like Beowulf. But it what it does possess is a heartfelt attempt to awake Americans from their slumber and to shake things up.
I think it would be interesting if some of us went to see this and then came back to discuss it. I'm hoping it will have a wide enough release to allow us to do that. But we may need to wait for the video release... And that says it all, doesn't it? :(
The article in its entirety can be seen at: http://www.alternet.org/movies/68385/
"Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States, Barack Obama."
"Obama's main opponent in this election on November 4th (was) not John McCain, it (was) ignorance."~Michael Moore
"i'm feeling kinda righteous right now. with my badass motherfuckin' ukulele!"
~ed, 8/7
"Obama's main opponent in this election on November 4th (was) not John McCain, it (was) ignorance."~Michael Moore
"i'm feeling kinda righteous right now. with my badass motherfuckin' ukulele!"
~ed, 8/7
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Michael Clayton was good....