Stayin' Alive in the 70's

It’s a movie about an assortment of struggling New Yorkers practicing their moves and doing what is necessary to survive in the city in the tough times of the mid-1970s.

It’s a movie about a group of small time con artists who get drawn into “the big con,” playing against the Mob and the Feds with some unexpected twists.

It’s a movie about the ordinary lives of the New York underworld where wives and kids and girlfriends all must be balanced with the job of being a criminal.

American Hustle is part Saturday Night Fever, part The Sting, and part Goodfellas - and perhaps an homage to all three.  A fictional story very loosely based on the Abscam stings of the late 1970s, the film follows a pair of small time grifters Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale) and Sydney Prosser (Amy Adams) who are roped into working for the FBI to perform stings on politicians to satisfy the ambitions of junior G-man Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper). 

Jennifer Lawrence and Jeremy Renner have important supporting roles as Rosenfeld’s jealous wife and a good-hearted but crooked New Jersey mayor, rounding out a dream cast of acting talent.  All four main performers received Golden Globe nominations, and look for Oscar nods for Bale, Adams, and Lawrence.  One scene, a catfight between Adams and Lawrence in a hotel restroom, is an instant classic between the Streep and Close of their generation.

The art of the con is built “from the feet up” according to Rosenfeld, meaning it requires a complete commitment to the details of selling the lie as truth.  By that token, the last detail is the hair – and fittingly, the film opens with a potbellied Rosenfeld failing miserably to create a believable combover.  Director and co-writer David O. Russell (The Fighter, Silver Linings Playbook) may be taking a swipe also at both the era of the 1970s and Hollywood itself.  What is a movie like American Hustle anyway, except a “big con” on the audience, making what is fiction and artifice believable?  (Indeed, the phrase "from the feet up" is taken from acting advice given Bale by Bob Hoskins.)

If there is a bone to pick about American Hustle, it may be that Russell hasn’t built his con “from the feet up.”  While he studiously avoids some of the most egregious clichés of the 1970s (it is reported he banned shag carpets, velvet paintings and lava lamps), he can’t resist the occasional laugh at the expense of the era (e.g., the “science oven” [microwave] and men in curlers).  He should have taken cues from Argo, which is set in the same era with a much stronger sense of authenticity. 

But that is a minor quibble with a film that is a tour de force of acting and writing.  American Hustle is a cinematic romp that is as outlandish as the decade it depicts.  This is a film you will pull out of the DVD case (or streaming library) in years to come just to enjoy the performances, even if the direction leaves it just short of a masterpiece.  Round it up to 4.0 stars out of 4.0.

P.S. Special kudos for the soundtrack, which ranges from Duke Ellington to Steely Dan to Donna Summer and sounds fresh, rather than reheated.

A Journey through the Heart of a Dying Land

There is a scene in Alexander Payne’s Nebraska in which about a dozen aging men are arrayed before a television set, slouched in their chairs and sofas, beers in hand, staring blankly at a football game while the women prepare the Sunday dinner in the kitchen.  The drone of the play by play is punctuated with a low-key conversation between two old brothers about a 70’s-vintage Buick one of them used to own.

Ray: “They don’t make ‘em like that anymore. Those cars’ll run forever. Whatever happened to it?”

Verne: “Stopped runnin’.”

The scene encapsulate’s Payne’s comment on the dying culture of the Great Plains and, perhaps, the nation of which the title state is the Heartland.  The main character, with the All-American name of Woodrow Grant (Bruce Dern), is an aging alcoholic former Nebraskan who must journey back through his old hometown (with another All-American name, Hawthorne) on his way to claim what he mistakenly believes is a million dollar prize in a publisher’s clearinghouse sweepstakes. 

He is accompanied on this fantasy quest by his son David (Will Forte) playing Sancho Panza to Woody’s Don Quixote, a reluctant travel companion who knows full well that Woody’s stubborn quest will end in disappointment. 

This is familiar territory for Payne, as Nebraska is his fourth film set in his native state.  Payne has an affection for the taciturn culture of the Great Plains that is tempered by a sad realism.  Those unfamiliar with the ways of the Heartland may mistake Payne’s affection as mockery, but he loves the state and its people much as Woody’s harping wife (June Squibb) loves Woody – deeply, warts and all.  The characters in Nebraska, like the real-life towns they inhabit, are run-down, weather-beaten, and falling apart, but are living memories of a way of life that has endured more than its share of noble suffering, rather than side-show relics to be mocked by modern sophisticates. Nebraska is a place where every person, every place has a past that is cumulatively present, so that 70-somethings can still speak of their teenage yearnings and traumas as if they happened yesterday.

Payne is a master at capturing the subtleties of character and emotion, and Bruce Dern gives a career performance with a submerged humanness that is encrusted by many layers of repression and guilt.  What distinguishes Nebraska among an impressive Payne portfolio that includes Election, About Schmidt, Sideways, and The Descendants is the visual style of the film.  Cinematographer Phedon Papamichael has captured the stark beauty of the Great Plains in a rich toned black-and-white that conveys both the nostalgia and the emotional character of its subject.

In its depiction of the great American middle, Nebraska is less mocking than Fargo, less bleak than The Last Picture Show.  Its closest cinematic relative is David Lynch’s The Straight Story, with a touch of Melvin and Howard.  Like Richard Farnsworth’s Alvin Straight, Dern’s Woody Grant has a determination born of desperation to bring closure to a life – and a way of life – that is slipping away.  Like Paul LeMat’s Melvin Dummar, he is a lost soul in search of redemption chasing the American dream of instant wealth.  

Nebraska is a classic that will merit Oscar consideration for best picture, director, screenplay, cinematography, and acting (for Dern and Squibb in particular).  4.0 stars out of 4.0.