Summer movies and a great TV show
Movies seen summer 2007-2008.
Originally written: February 2008
2008 Oscar nominations
Atonement
American Gangster
Juno
Enchanted
The Golden Compass
Charlie Wilson's War
Blood Diamond
L.A. Confidential
The West Wing Seasons 1-7
In the US, January is generally seen as take-out-the-trash month, when studios release a whole lot of garbage that would not be sustainable in higher peak viewing periods. Certainly some of the main award contenders are starting to widen their release schedules, having opened in December, at least on the coasts, in time to qualify for the awards. It's winter over there, and the football season is reaching its peak, so there's less incentive to fight through the weather to go out to the cinema. In Australia, on the other hand, it's peak season: the only competing sports with any impact are cricket and the A-League football and the schools are on vacation. So January tends to be one of the better months for new releases here. In addition to the award contenders, who are pitching their tents in the cineplexes, there are kids' movies to keep the holiday crowd entertained, and some counter-programming so that adults have something to see as well. We haven't quite got to the stage where we follow blindly the lead of the US, and the threat of pirated movies and on-line downloads means that studios are more reluctant to hold back major releases for months before dumping them on the Australian market. That means we get to see things much sooner than we used to - most often now movies likely to compete at the Oscars are available before nominations, not just during the voting period. While December was quieter, and we relied on the DVD player, and there has been no Lord of the Rings quality release, we have been well served this summer, in entertainment and in quality.
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Oscar nominations
Surprisingly, the two favorites are very violent confrontational movies, There Will Be Blood and No Country for Old Men. I will eventually drag myself to them but I don't go to the movies to see buckets of blood. Atonement wins the spot reserved for the worthy and serious middle-brow movie, Juno is the sleeper hit and Michael Clayton the early release that is there on the strength of its great acting. Given my reviews below, you'll not be surprised that I favor the brilliant and innovate Juno (with reservations on the fact that I haven't seen two of the nominees yet) but the Academy rarely rewards comedy, no matter how original. I'd be shocked if Atonement wins, so it's 6 to 5 and pick 'em among the other three. Based on the awards so far given out by critcs and by other groups, you can bet that Daniel Day-Lewis (There Will Be Blood), Julie Christie (Away from Her) and Javier Bardem (No Country for Old Men) will win their respective categories. The supporting female and directors' races are wide open (probably "our Cate" Blanchett (as Bob Dylan) and the Coen Brothers (No Country for Old Men) on the grounds of their previous records, but who knows). It's not a vintage year for films - at least for the depth of the nominations - although it's good to see a number of good performers in independent and smaller movies, including Ellen Page, Viggo Mortensen, Laura Linney, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Saoirse Ronan and Tilda Swinton, worthily named. I wonder why The Simpsons Movie is missing from the animation category and the Foreign Language movie selection process needs change because good movies, which get general nominations, fail to be put forward by national bodies. There is still a chance that the awards night won't be telecast (and what a blow to bad fashion that would be), because of the writers' strike, but it doesn't really look like it will be a night to anticipate. This year the election Primaries are more interesting than the Oscars, and generally harder to pick.
Finding a second chance
With some nods to Rashomon and to Remains of the Day, Atonement presents an interesting take on questions of misunderstanding, of personal responsibility and of, as the title suggests, atonement. While it is a good film, the deliberate pace of some parts and the mannered acting in others mean that it falls short of what it might be. The story starts in 1930s England, in the Tallis country house, where thirteen year-old Briony Tallis sees interactions between her older sister, Cecelia, and Robbie, the housekeeper's son, that she misinterprets. Both Cecelia and Robbie have just returned to the estate, having completed university courses, and are making their own discoveries about each other. When, later in the night, she interrupts a crime, Briony jumps to a wrong conclusion, ruining any hope that the lovers might have for happiness. The second section of the film is set in 1940, with Briony in London, training to be a nurse, a profession that Cecilia has also adopted. Robbie has enlisted and is with the BEF in France, isolated from his unit until he and his companions unite with the remnants of the British army on the beach at Dunkerque. This section is completed by a confrontation between the three in Cecelia's flat. The final section of the film is set in the present, with an aged Briony, now a novelist, discussing her latest work - a novel exploring the events of 1935 and 1940. In the first two sections, script-writer Christopher Hampton and director Joe Wright take some liberties with time and narrative, sometimes telling the same events from different viewpoints, sometimes showing the events out of chronological order. The first section basically takes place on one afternoon and evening: setting up the three central characters. While there are undertones of eroticism, the look and feel are lyrical. This is counter-pointed with the wartime scenes, with their elegiac tone, where the battlefields and the hospitals provide neither joy nor peace. The centrepiece is Dunkerque, which is shown not as an heroic rescue by the small boats of the British people, but as a scene from an Hieronymus Bosch view of Hell, through which Robbie lurches as he seeks a way home. Similarly Briony's hospital experiences with a dying French soldier reflect a search - for forgiveness. The third section causes the viewer to rethink the two earlier sections in the light of revelations made by the older Briony - who has taken a lifetime fully to understand the consequences of her youthful actions and the steps required to achieve some atonement for them. The film then provides food for thought but the question is whether it is entertaining enough to keep the viewer engaged while doing so. It works as well as it does because the lead actors work well. In Cecilia, Keira Knightley has found a character that she can fully inhabit, whether in the early joyful scenes or in wartime. It is undoubtedly her best performance - which is not saying all that much. James McAvoy's Robbie is less defined especially as he is the central concern during the wartime moments. He manages to capture some of the desperation of the wartime experience in these scenes. Briony is portrayed by three separate actors at the various stages of her life: Saoirse Ronan is the young girl who betrays her sister; Romola Garai is the WWII nurse; and Vanessa Redgrave is the older woman. Garai is the weakest link here, while the child actor, Ronan, is particularly good. This is a very good film if not a great one. It says something about life, while telling an interesting story, about people we come to care about. And it does so by breaking some of the rules about the use of repetition and chronology in narrative structure. It's just a pity that it doesn't quite rise to the occasion.
Just doing his bidness
Ridley Scott's American Gangster is a movie that does rise to the occasion. Like Michael Mann's Heat, the film is essentially a two-hander, contrasting the crooks and the cops pursuing them, until the main antagonists confront each other in a climactic scene. In Mann's movie it was Pacino and De Niro, the two best film actors of the 1970s and 1980s. In Scott's, the antagonists are Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe, the two great film actors of the current decade. Washington plays the Harlem drug lord, Frank Lucas, who established a heroin hegemony in New York in the early 1970s by importing the product direct from south-east Asia and providing a better product at a cheaper price than his competitors. He was soon the primary source for the drug, supplying the Mafia, rather than being supplied by it. The film establishes his method of business, a ruthless determination, coupled with the use of family at all major levels of his organisation, to ensure the loyalty of his people. On the other side, the former detective turned prosecutor, Richie Roberts (Crowe), leads a federal taskforce aimed at the drug kingpins, rather than the street sellers. Scott establishes the contrary characters of Lucas and Roberts. Lucas is neither showy, not overtly violent. He does what is necessary for his business and if that involves killing so be it. He also recognises that the showier he is, the more likely he is to stand out and he modifies his behavior to blend in. It is one of the weakest elements of the generally very strong screenplay by Steve Zaillian (Searching for Bobby Fisher and Schindler's List, among others) that Lucas comes to Roberts' attention by wearing a showy fur at a prize fight. Washington gives yet another of his controlled performances in the key role. Roberts is very much an outsider in law enforcement. He is overtly honest: as a detective he returned a million dollars in drug money, rather than divvy it up among the troops. He has studied for his law degree at night and qualified for the bar. He appreciates his new role because it does not involve visiting police stations. Like Washington, Crowe gives a controlled perfromance, underplaying it in away that is becoming a hallmark of the Crowe acting style. He is prepared to let Washington have the more showy scenes, but their complementary understatement helps when they come together. The two leads are supplemented by a very good ensemble that includes Chiwetel Ejiofor (as Lucas' most capable brother), Cuba Gooding Jr, Ruby Dee (who is the one who has received award nominations), Armand Assante, Ted Levine and John Hawkes (Sol Star in Deadwood). Especially good is Josh Brolin who portrays Trupo, the head of the largely corrupt NY Police drugs group. To an extent the corruption is over-played but acts as a good counter-point to Roberts' honesty and Lucas' "ethical" gangster. A strong thematic point made in the movie is about the rise of the black entrepreneur and the disbelief in the white community about the possibility of such success within the African-American community. First there is Lucas' success vis-a-vis the Italian Mafia, which had run things in the drug trade prior to his rise. The Italians find it easier to buy from him than compete with him. Later there is incredulity among the police that a black gangster could be in control of the rackets. The automatic assumption was that he must be subservient to the established criminal elements. Roberts' conceptual breakthrough was to see the possibility of a black Don. Perhaps, the film implies, but never firmly states, that's because of his own background as a Jew, another minority whose success was not acknowledged. While the scenes showing Lucas' establishment of his empire and of Roberts' efforts to find out who are the bosses are themselves well put together (with some reservations about the necessity of the explorations of the antagonists' home live - with Lucas' dealings with his mother and beauty contest wife being contrasted with Roberts' divorce proceedings from his wife upset that he is married to the job), it is in the climactic scenes, as Roberts interrogates Lucas that the two stars collide and the movie really takes off. While there is some violence, there is nothing to match the bloodiness of Heat in American Gangster. It might just as handily have been called American Businessman, because Lucas runs his operation along good management lines. That he sells drugs rather than widgets is of great interest largely because he attracts the interest of the authorities far more quickly than a crooked widget-maker would. Ridley Scott has kept tight control over the actors and has recreated the seventies with a brilliant eye - like Gladiators and BladeRunner, among so many others, there is a mixture of style and substance. This is a great movie, with two great performances and a strong ensemble and thoroughly worth seeing.
Juno is busting out
And Juno is even better; undoubtedly the best of 2007 so far. While similar in some obvious ways to Knocked Up, Waitress and other current movies about unexpected pregnancies, Juno is truly sui generis. In part this can be attributed to director Jason Reitman, whose love of reasonably subtle, mordant humor was amply demonstrated in Thank You for Smoking. Even more it can be attributed to debuntante screenwriter Diablo Cody, who also has a script about her time as a stripper. Cody has written a story that resonates, with dialog that sparkles. I'm a lover of both traditional words and contemporary argot. Juno is replete with both, and with dialog that helps establish character, and causes our view of the characters to change through the film. The cast is another reason for its success. While the film belongs largely to Ellen Page, who plays the eponymous role, she is complemented by three generations of cast: JK Simmons and Alison Janney as her father and step-mother; Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman as Vanessa and Mark, the putative adoptive parents of her child; and Michael Cena and Olivia Thirby as her best boy and girl friends. Finally, in terms of contributions to the success of the movie, mention must be made of the film's music, a mix of some established tunes referenced by the characters, but even more the songs of Kimya Dawson, part of the anti-folk movement with her bands The Moldy Peaches and Antsy Pants. The film opens and closes with her song "Anyone Else but You", the quirky lyrics of which reflect and supplement the original dialog of the script. Similarly, her other lyric-oriented songs establish and maintain the film's tone. Briefly, the film starts with Juno's discovery of her pregnancy and follows her through the ensuing months. There is her decision not to abort and then to find a couple to adopt the baby, followed by the necessity of telling her folks. This scene makes clear how different this film is. Instead of reacting like movie parents, Mac and Bren come across as real parents: concerned, but with a layer of humor attached. "I didn't think he had it in him," says Dad of the baby's father. "You know, of course, it wasn't his idea," comments stepmom. The couple selected as the adopters are successful upper middle class: he seems warm and she is very wound up. It is one of the true joys of the film to see our expectations reversed as we learn that he's just another infantalised male and she is more than what she seems. The script dangles the possibility of Juno hooking up with Mark but, like other elements of the plot, this is sensibly handled. As much as I admire Alison Janney's professionalism and JK Simmons' gruff humor, or can marvel at Olivia Thirby's personification of a younger, hipper Eve Arden, this is Ellen Page's movie. Her previous form, as the lead in the confrontational Hard Candy, moreso than in her role as Kitty Pryde in the third X-Men movie, doesn't quite prepare you for how good she is. The part is well-written, certainly, and she has some delicious dialog to deliver (Yeah, I'm a legend. You know, they call me the cautionary whale and I mean, I'm already pregnant, so what other kind of shenanigans could I get into? and Oh, and she inexplicably mails me a cactus every Valentine's Day. And I'm like, "Thanks a heap, coyote ugly. This cactus-gram stings even worse than your abandonment.") but her characterisation is so spot-on that you'd think she'd been at it for a life time. Made for next to nothing, Juno has already reaped a motza and is the unanticipated hit of the year. And there's good reason for that. The audience appreciates being treated as intelligent, being presented with a film based on a literate and thoughtful script and which is a film that is entertaining as well. Full marks to all concerned for this one.
Drawn to a conclusion
When you went to a Disney movie, you used to know what you were getting. Things are not that predictable any more. You used to have to rely on rival studios to provide send-ups of Disney movies. Now the Mouse Factory is doing its own work. Enchanted is a case in point. It starts out looking like a Snow White/Sleeping Beauty clone: an animated kingdom in which Giselle shares a sylvan paradise with various creatures while awaiting her prince, who arrives early in the piece, fresh from an ogre hunt, and it's love at first sight. If it weren't for the somewhat edgy nature of the love song's lyrics, you'd be back in a 1940s' Disney cartoon. But the lyrics are satirical and they prefigure the appearance of Prince Edward's wicked stepmother, the Queen, who isn't going to be dethroned by some animal-loving simp, and who sends Giselle far, far away: to modern day New York. There she appears from a sewer manhole in live-action, in full wedding rig, at peak hour. Soon her Prince and his disloyal servant, and her talking chipmunk, have all followed her down the well and up the manhole. Giselle (Amy Adams) doesn't find New York very sympathetic to her charms until she runs into single dad Robert (Patrick Dempsey) and his fantasy-obsessed daughter. They offer her shelter. Edward (James Marsden) and Nathaniel (Timothy Spall) have their own encounters with the real world as they search for her. There are other complications, including an appearance by the queen (Susan Sarandon), as the fantasy characters interact with the real world. I particularly enjoyed the way that a television set is converted by Prince Edward to a fantasy prop and loved the visit by Giselle and Robert to Central Park, which develops into one of those great production numbers, "That's How You Know", with various musicians and dancers appearing from amongst the passers-by as required by the strictures of the song. Like the earlier songs, Stephen Schwartz' lyrics are satirical, rather than straight. In fact, the song-score, with Alan Mencken's music and Schwartz' lyrics, is one of the great joys of this delightful parody. Narrated by Julie Andrews, it has frequent and knowing references to earlier films. The interaction of the fantasy and real worlds is magical and, even if the story is reasonably predictable, it's an enjoyable journey. Amy Adams is particularly impressive as the naive Giselle, convinced that she's found her prince and that he will rescue her. She is the true discovery of this movie: a former supporting actress (Junebug demonstrated her credentials in that regard), given a chance to shine in the lead and showing that she is more than capable of carrying the picture. James Marsden, who has had a number of good roles in musicals of late, is a charming prince and Timothy Spall provides his usual strong support. Patrick Dempsey is more constrained by the straightness of his part, but does what is required, often with a bemused look on his face, as Giselle threatens to break into another song or use more of his curtains for dress-making material. The topper is Susan Sarandon, who has the opportunity to do some villainy, in the most over-the-top way, and relishes the part. It's taken Disney many decades to discover that it can make fun of itself and its own pretensions. Enchanted shows that it can do it well.
Plot dumps mar action
New Line is desperate for another The Lord of the Rings trilogy. The first film of the planned His Dark Materials trilogy, based on Philip Pullman's literary YA novels, shows the desperation. Based largely on Northern Lights, the first of the trilogy, The Golden Compass (which was the book's US title), does not translate as well to the screen as Tolkien. In part that is because the film-makers have fiddled with the book to remove its anti-religious overtones for the American market. (This didn't work: the Christian fundamentalists still advocated a {reasonably successful} boycott and many of the trilogy's fans stayed away because the main thrust of the books had been blunted. Still the movie has been far more successful in markets other than the US and should recover its costs.) The complexities of the secondary world imagined by Pullman have added to the difficulties of writer-director Chris Weitz. Not the least of these is the presence of the companion daemons, which are the manifestation in animal form of a person's soul. The kids' daemons change shape and become fixed at maturity. As a result of these complexities, the film doesn't move smoothly, with any sort of narrative flow, but jumps from set piece to set piece, with characters asked to utter, either as speech or voice-over, loads of plot dump to keep the audience informed of what is going on, and why we've moved from the college to London; from London to a boat; and thence to northern Scandanavia. There are particular difficulties in explaining how the alethiometer (the eponymous golden compass) given to the protagonist, Lyra, works and in explicating the effect that "the Dust" has on people and why the ruling Magesterium (here portrayed as a sort of secular dictatorship) wants to keep the populace in relative ignorance. The way in which the film is structured means that some of the more interesting characters, particularly Asriel, Serafina Pekkala and Farder Coram, are reduced to very small parts. The best thing about the film, apart from its inventive look, which is magical in itself, is the job done by newcomer Dakota Blue Richards as Lyra. She manages to capture both the rebellious spirit and the intelligence of the character. Her strength is what saves the film from being a mess. In this she is aided by a number of other good performances, including Nicole Kidman's cold and aloof Mrs Coulter (talk about type-casting) and Sam Elliott's Lee Scoresby (augmented by his Kathy Bates-voiced rabbit-shaped daemon Hester). You can see on the screen where the hundreds of millions have been spent in production. Leaving aside the CGI effects, including the animation of the armored bears and the scads of flying witches, there is the realisation of the secondary world, a sort of modern Victorian-era setting. The prime method of motivation for machines appears to be gyroscopes and they are stunningly realised in airships, carriages, paddle-wheels and other vehicles. Someone has thought quite a bit about the look of the clothing as well. As I have said about other effect-oriented movies, it's a shame that so much creativity went into the look of the movie, and too little was spent on getting a script that worked half as well. There is the nucleus of a very good movie here, one that stays unrealised because they try to squeeze too much into too little space and lose the sense of what the material is really all about.
Not just any charlie
If I had to summarise the philosophy that underlies my critical appreciation of movies, I would start with Herman's Three Laws of good film-making: first, be entertaining (any message will be lost if you forget to bring the entertainment); secondly, be internally consistent (no matter how outre your thesis or tone, you can't be untrue to it); and thirdly, a great movie always starts with a good script. Charlie Wilson's War gets a tick on all counts. The script is written by Aaron Sorkin, the creator of The West Wing, based on the career of Charles Wilson, representative of the Texan second Congressional District from 1973 until 1997. Sorkin is immersed in the minutiae of Washington politics and has experience in distilling them for popular consumption, as he did in The American President and in first four seasons of his television series. The script benefits from his decision to treat the matter with humor, despite the subject. Essentially, Wilson used his position on an appropriations committee to divert funds to the purchase of materiel for the Afghans who were fighting the Soviet invasion in the 1980s. Inspired an evangelical Texan socialite, who had strong links to Mohammed Zia, the dictator in Pakistan, Wilson called in favors from fellow Congressmen, liaised with the intelligence community and co-opted his committee chairman, to ensure the Afghan mujahideen were adequately armed and trained with weapons to oppose Soviet helicopters and tanks. And that the arms could not be traced to the US. His first appropriation was $5 million; before the Soviets withdrew it was over $1 billion. As the script makes clear, very subtly and without drawing any adverse conclusions about Wilson, this was the first arming and training of the people who were to morph into the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. This overview confirms that we're not dealing with Duck Soup, but with a very serious political matter - not that the movie treats it too seriously. Wilson had a deserved reputation as a good-time Charlie when he started the diversion of funds. Divorced, with a weakness for young women and good booze, he is first shown in a jacuzzi with models and some even less likely types. His office is staffed by young and attractive women - the film suggests they were not without talent, just not the usual 1980s staff. And Charlie's reputation is a good cover for his activities, including flights to Afghanistan and several west Asian countries. Particularly used for his entertainment value is Philip Seymour Hoffman who plays the less-than-regular CIA agent Gust Avrakatos. It's a great performance that combines outrageous behavior with competence, as he puts together the intelligence arm of Wilson's activities. Tom Hanks returns to some of his early, light-hearted, roles as the congressman and Julia Roberts plays Julia Roberts' version of the model, turned religious activitist, Joanne Herring. The main cast is completed by Amy Adams as Charlie's chief of staff, Om Puri as Zia and Ned Beatty as the Chairman. The performances are universally good, even Roberts, because they keep the tone consistent and the story unfolds logically, within the confines of the plot. Sorkin has provided his players with some delicious dialog that they deliver with some gusto and director Mike Nichols, no stranger to very good productions in film (from Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and The Graduate onwards) or television (Wit and Angels in America are amongst his recent offerings). He stages some staggering set pieces, including two major scenes in Pakistani refugee camps, and more than a few great character scenes, including the French farce of Avrakatos' first meeting with Wilson, involving a breaking scandal, characters entering and exiting through various doors, exquisite timing and a good punchline. Charlie Wilson's War is one of the better political movies of the last few years, because it has such a good script to begin with. It entertains through the end - as it should. And that it says something about how the world reached where it has, without rubbing it in, or overstating it, is an added bonus.
Rented on DVD
One of the surprises at last year's Oscars was the multiple award nominations for Edward Zwick's Blood Diamond, an action/adventure with an agenda: exposing the trade in 'conflict diamonds' that funds violence and exploitation, and leads particularly to the plight of the child soldiers. On the surface, the film tells the story of a mercenary smuggler who sees a main chance in the discovery of a large pink diamond by a forced laborer within the workforce of Sierra Leone rebels. The incredibly majestic Djimon Hounsou is Solomon, the fisherman dragooned into mine work, and he plays him with a quiet dignity. Opposite him is Leonardo DiCaprio as Danny, the South Africa mercenary turned smuggler. Solomon manages to hide the stone during a raid on the rebel camp and, after sharing a cell, Danny learns of its existence. The main action involves his efforts to get Solomon to lead him to the prize, using as bait the promise to help re-unite Solomon's family, including his young son, who has been forced to become a child soldier. Jennifer Connolly is there as well, an American journalist who wants to expose the western companies who legitimise the stones, thereby perpetuating the plight of the Africans. Their journey makes interesting, if not arresting, viewing. Both DiCaprio and Hounsou are very good in their roles, although not perhaps quite to the level of the acting nominations they received. The film itself is occasionally very violent, and obviously well-intentioned; but it remains something less than it might have been. And the problems concerning conflict diamonds - and the companies responsible for their sale in the West - needs something more than the confected ending in London presented in the film. It is a subject more fitting for a documentary that exposes those responsible.
From our DVD collection - reviews of good and great movies not previously reviewed
L.A. Confidential is an egregiously American story of big city immorality, crime and corruption, told from the jaundiced viewpoint of a self-confessed victim of violent crime, James Ellroy. It is ironic then that this essentially American story was a successful film largely because of the contribution of two antipodean actors, Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce. They, along with Kevin Spacey, are a trio of LA detectives who seek to untie the gordean knot that is the plot. Like earlier LA-based film noir, such as The Big Sleep, the plot doesn't try to make much sense; it just is. In this case, there are a couple of strands: crooks belonging to the jailed Mickey Cohen are being knocked off; there's some missing heroin; there's a massacre at an all-night coffee joint (the dead including an ex-cop); a pornography and prostitution racket; and three negro youths fitted up for the coffee house job who are themselves soon dead. And with all that, the film's screenplay, adapted from Ellroy's novel by Brian Helgeland, is somewhat simpler than the book's, omitting another couple of sub-plots from 1950s LA folklore. Director Curtis Hanson decided to use largely unknown actors in the leads, thus Crowe and Pearce, as well as James Cromwell as the boss detective and David Straithairn as the lead pornographer. He complemented them with some interesting choices, including Spacey, graduating to a lead role, Danny de Vito and Kim Basinger, in a part for which she, deservedly, won an Oscar. Despite the complexity of the plot, the movie zips along. The three lead cops are drawn into an alliance to try and solve the web of crimes they confront, and their discovery of the power behind the crimes should not surprise anyone with knowledge of the world of police and criminals in films. It remains also a very beautiful movie, with a haunting evocation of its time and place. Admittedly there is a high level of violence and the ending is not quite what Ellroy imagined, but it provides a satisfying climax for the film.
There's been nothing good on television or What I did on my summer vacation
Rather than watch the first two India-Australia cricket tests or some uninteresting tennis - or any of the crap that passes for summer television these days - I have re-watched all 155 episodes of The West Wing, in order from Josh's dissing of the religious right ("Your god has just been indicted for tax fraud") to Matthew V Santos' inauguration and Josiah E Bartlet's return to New Hampshire ("What's next?" was the former's last line; "Tomorrow" was the latter's). I remain convinced that it is the best television series ever. For those who have not come on board, The West Wing, created by writer-producer Aaron Sorkin, is set in a fictional liberal democrat White House, starting towards the end of the first year of the new administration, headed by President "Jeb" Bartlet (Martin Sheen), an intellectual former New England governor. His chief of staff is his oldest friend, Leo McGarry (John Spencer, who died during the making of the final season), a recovering alcoholic and life-long political operative. They have a staff of young assistants, Josh Lyman (Bradley Whitford) is the liaison with the legislature, Toby Ziegler (Richard Schiff) the dour and irascible chief speech writer, Sam Seaborn (Rob Lowe), his idealistic deputy, and CJ Cregg (Alison Janney) is the press secretary. Completing the main cast was Charlie Young (Dule Hill), an orphaned African-American who serves as the President's 'body man', a kind of executive assistant. In a somewhat daring move (in the US at that time, when such a move could cost sponsorship dollars in several regions of the country, even at the end of the twentieth century), the show introduced a relationship between Charlie and the President's youngest daughter. In the original series there was also a political consultant, Mandy Hampton (Moira Kelly), intended as Josh's love interest, but the chemistry between Whitford and Janel Moloney (playing Donna Moss, Josh's assistant) was more palpable and Mandy left after the First Season. Thence the one major concession to traditional series writing was the Josh-Donna relationship. Like Maddie and David in Moonlighting, and countless other proto-relationships, there was a would-they-wouldn't-they tension that was maintained through the show, with a few possible significant others introduced: Amy Gardner (Mary Lousie Parker) and Joey Lucas (Marlee Matlin) for him; Cliff Calley (Mark Feuerstein), Jack Reese (Christian Slater) and Colin Ayres (Jason Isaacs) for her. It was resolved only in the last half-dozen episodes, with no Moonlighting-like shark-jumping implications.
The early seasons centred around the day-to-day workings of the West Wing - the legislative, administrative and national security crises that needed dealing with, with an an overall story arc dealing with revelations about the President's health (he has multiple sclerosis) and its cover-up in the first campaign (which we visited through various flashbacks throughout the series). The first lady, Abby Bartlet (Stockard Channing), played a greater role in second and third series and her interaction with the President was one of the on-going highlights. There was a re-election campaign that was more complicated than might otherwise have been because of the illness and cover-up, with an opponent (a southern Governor who spoke in platitudes) obviously based on the then-real President. That election victory led into a series of episodes around an intervention in an African genocide clearly based on both Rwanda and Darfur. The first four years were dominated by Sorkin's wit and wisdom. The show highlighted the joys of the written word, the machine-fire dialog, with political, social and cultural references galore. Humor was always an essential ingredient of the show's success, but its intelligence was even more of a feature. Unlike most series television, it didn't pander to the lowest common denominator or pull its punches. Repeated viewing enable you to pick up things that you might have missed on a first pass, adding some nuance to the appreciation of the stories and the people. The producers were not afraid to send characters that didn't work to Mandyville and, when the supposed "star" of the show, Lowe, was not happy with developments, even disposed of his character.
The loss of Aaron Sorkin after Season Four led to a semi-shark jump in Season Five. The main reason for this was that, after the re-election, the solving of the African crisis and the dealing with questions arising from the administration's activities in west Asia, there was a lack of a central focus or featured story arc. By shifting the balance of power towards the legislature, the writers undercut the political dominance of the Bartlet White House and left the cast with less to do. The loss of Sorkin led to a decline, certainly, but even so the Fifth Season featured some of the better episodes, including The Benign Prerogative, one of the best Donna episodes, and The Supremes, written by Debora Cahn, the best of the post-Sorkin scripters.
The show returned to its glory days in the last two seasons, when its focus switched from a sole concentration on the White House to a series of storylines alternating between the executive branch and the campaign trail, as both parties sought to select their candidates for the 2006 election, and then as the Presidential election unfolded. In these series, the original cast was complemented by Jimmy Smits (Santos) and Alan Alda as Arnold Vinick, the Republican candidate. They were not the only additions. After Mandy was disappeared, the cast stayed fairly constant for several seasons. In the later series, there was renewal through new regular characters: Will Bailey (Sorkin regular Joshua Malina) replaced Sam Seaborn in the year four; and assistant Press Sec Annabeth Schott (Kristen Chenoweth) and NSA deputy Kate Harper (Mary McCormack) arrived in Season Six. The election story arc allowed for a wider range of plots to be developed and for the action to be taken outside the confines of the White House. Clever writing meant that themes were often reinforced through both the Bartlet administration and the campaigns. Certainly it was an idealised world (Santos and Vinick refused to go negative in their primary campaigns and in the general election) but, like the Bartlet White House, it was a vision of how America might be rather than how it is. I would note one more element of unreality: the election of Matt Santos. Only once in 220 years has a member of the House of Representatives been elected President, James Garfield in 1880. The idea that a two-term congressman could leverage first the Democratic Party nomination and then the general election from a position of virtual anonymity beggars belief. But then The West Wing was, and was meant to be, fiction.
I have noted the strong writing that was a characteristic of the show. Sorkin, in particular, brought his style to bear. He was advised by a number of political professions like Dee Dee Myers, Patrick Caddell, Peggy Noonan and Marlin Fitzwater. They gave a veneer of credibility to the Bartlet White House. The other element that needs to be added to the strength of the scripts is the consistency of the acting. This was perhaps the finest ensemble ever assembled and it's hard to fault any of the regulars or the regular guests (John Amos as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Anna Deavere Smith as the National Security Adviser, Timothy Busfield, Lily Tomlin, Emily Procter, Tim Matheson, Kathleen York and, especially, the coterie of character actors who featured as the assistants {including NiCole Robinson, Kim Webster and Melissa Fitzgerald} and reporters {like Kris Murphy, Charles Noland and Mindy Seeger}) but I have always regarded John Spencer as centre around which the others revolved and continue to do so. This is not to denigrate Alison Janney, Brad Whitford and Richard Schiff, especially Janney, who was incredible. Her Claudia Jean Cregg was a multi-faceted, fragile, yet assured, creation. As Press Secretary she provided much of the show's humor. When she stepped up into the role of chief of staff, in the last two years, Janney brought out very different facets of her character. Several episodes explored her romantic side but she became a symbol for the strong female administrator, able to bring something slightly different to the table than her male analogs. It added much to a system seemingly dominated by old white men. In that light, the presence of a female campaign director in the Vinick camp and several senior female campaign staff with Santos brought a very different vibe to the male-dominated Bartlet campaigns, and provided further food for thought.
In its time, The West Wing explored most of the major issues of contemporary American politics. Whether it is the question of budget deficits, the imminent collapse of social security, questions about public education, energy policy or the fraught relations between Congress and the executive, the show dealt with it. It was seemingly dominated by questions of security, whether from Islamic terrorism, the out-of-control gun laws or militias and white supremacists. Given the events of September 2001, which occurred just before the third season, this is unsurprising. The political issues were generally dealt with in a sophisticated way. Often the liberal bias of the writers and producers were present but not always. Many characters were given a chance to argue the conservative viewpoint, especially Ainsley Hayes (Emily Procter) and Arnie Vinick. Despite a few moments when they got the facts wrong (for example, snooty, know-it-all President Bartlet suggesting to high school teacher Molly Morello that Beowulf was written in Middle English, rather than Anglo-Saxon, or saying that the founding fathers ordained a 20 January inauguration), the show was generally accurate in its portrayal of contemporary political reality.
One last element of The West Wing that's worth noting: its use of music. The original music by W.G. Snuffy Walden was great and complemented the drama. In addition the producers used both contemporary popular music and classical music to illustrate their themes. Outstanding in this regard was the use of Jeff Buckley's version of "Hallelujah" in the Season Three finale and of "Brothers in Arms" at the end of Season Two. But they were not the only pop songs so used. "I Don't Like Mondays", "New York Minute", "Desire", "Take Five" and "Sanvean" were all used tellingly, as were appearances by, among others, Barenaked Ladies, Aimee Mann, James Taylor, Foo Fighters and Yo-Yo Ma, Any show that can incorporate Bach's "Cello Suite No 1 in G Major", "He is an Englishman", "Ave Maria", "Gloria in Excelsis Deo", "The Jackal" and "Hooray for Captain Spaulding" is doing something right. For all that I am prepared to forgive their getting the tune for "Gaudeamus Igitur", and its provenance, wrong.
It's not often that television gets it right. Many good series jump the shark well before the end. The West Wing is one of the few that survived its few down moments to provide a satisfying conclusion.
[Note: Information about the movies mentioned, including cast and crew lists and all sorts of trivia, is available at the Internet Movie Database (IMDb).]