J. Edgar

Final Review
J. Edgar (2011)

John Edgar Hoover served as the director of the FBI (its first) and its previous incarnations for nearly 50 years.  Clyde Tolson served as deputy director during 40 years of Hoover’s tenure.  Clint Eastwood’s new film, J. Edgar, discusses the professional and personal relationship of these two men. 

J. Edgar Hoover is a name everyone in America knows (hopefully) before high school.  He is the figure most associated with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which existed as we know it today since 1935.  The average American may not know the details of his reign, but his name still resonates dubiously in the ear.  And, of course, he is also known for being a cross-dresser.

J. Edgar depicts Hoover (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) as a homosexual, which he was.  He and long-time FBI deputy director Clyde Tolson (played by Armie Hammer) had a romantic relationship until Hoover’s death in 1975, at which time Tolson inherited Hoover’s estate.  The film also highlights the close relationship J. Edgar (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) had with his controlling mother, Anna Marie (played by Dame Judi Dench).  Screenwriter and LGBT rights activist Dustin Lance Black (Milk) portrays Hoover as a high-ranking Norman Bates, the creepy cross-dresser from Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho.  (The actor who played Bates to great acclaim, Anthony Perkins, shared J. Edgar’s shyness around women and closeted homosexuality.) 

During this time he strengthened the Bureau, and his reign of it, through corrupt efforts.  Hoover maintained his position through blackmail.  He kept secret files with valuable information about countless government officials and public entities.  We will never know the contents of these files, as they were destroyed by his loyal, long-serving secretary, Helen Gandy (played by Naomi Watts), when he died.  All we know is this: what he had in those files was strong enough to make him untouchable by six presidents (eight if you count the eleven years he spent as director of “The Bureau’s” previous incarnations) and for nearly 50 years. 

And now for the worst of it.  Although Hoover was a homosexual, he would threaten to divulge the homosexuality of others, thereby ending their careers.  He assisted Senator Joseph McCarthy and attorney Roy Cohn (another closeted homosexual) with their persecution of suspected homosexuals and Communists during the 1950s.  All under the guise of protecting America. 

But the movie does not simply lambaste, nor does it lampoon.  Much like Tony Kushner did with Roy Cohn in Angels in America, and John Logan did with Howard Hughes in The Aviator, Black attempts to pull a man so beyond our grasp down into the palm of our hands.  J. Edgar tells the story of a complete human being – a product of nature, nurture, the times in which he lived, and the self he endeavored to create.          

“I would rather have a dead son then a daffodil for a son.”

Black blames Hoover’s un-accepting mother for his choice to remain in the closet, and for his treatment of homosexuals in America.  A key moment in the film describes this with piercing clarity.  “Daffodil,” explains his mother when she senses Hoover is about to come out to her, was a feminine neighbor boy who killed himself over being gay.  This experience helped to further cement J. Edgar’s unhappiness, and keep him steadfast in the closet until his death. 

DiCaprio plays the role stunningly well.  At times, we forget he is the actor many of us have known since we were old enough to know film.  We see a man struggling with stature and expectations.  We see a man torn between two worlds.  Armie Hammer is captivating both as a love interest, and as a balancing force in Hoover’s life and career.  Judi Dench gives an understated, underplayed performance that boils.

This movie is not only of a time, but, also, for our time.  The term “terrorists” is used in the film to more superficially relate the terrorist attacks of the early 20^th century to the terrorist attacks of the early 21^st.  Hoover’s justification for evasive methods to stop terrorism (also Communism) in his time is the same rhetoric we hear from conservative republicans today.  The right will agree with that perspective.  But then there is the homosexuality issue.  We see a mother’s refusal to accept her gay son, and the chilling way in which she does it, and (hopefully) we are sickened by this.  This is for the left.  The brilliance of this movie is one side can examine the other without feeling that uncontrollable urge to walk out of the theatre.

The screenplay is another grand achievement for Black, who can write a character in the closet as well as out.  He can also write on both sides of the aisle, which is an asset in a time when one side flatly refuses to listen to the other.   

Dookie by Green Day

Skateboarding was born of surfboarding.  In 1962, Val Surf opened its first location at 4810 Whitsett Avenue in “The Valley” and, with skate wheels from Chicago Roller Skate Company, began making and selling skateboards.  Intended for surfing practice during unfavorable wave conditions, those who rode them were said to be “sidewalk surfing.” 

In 1964, the musical duo Jan and Dean performed their song “Sidewalk Surfing” on American Bandstand.  During their spot, Dean even did a little sidewalk surfing for the audience.  (The year before, the band recorded the popular “Surf City,” written by then-“Beach Boy” Brian Wilson.)  Demand for skateboards soared, and, the following year, Surfer Publications published the first national skateboarding magazine, Skateboarder.

Skateboarding experienced a significant decline in popularity by 1980, and persevering sidewalk surfers morphed into deviant bad asses.  Basically.  They embraced hardcore punk music and built their own ramps.  

Around this time, pop punk (“skate punk”) music – a fusion of hardcore and pop – was developing.  The bad ass do-it-yourself skate culture connected with the high-energy do-it-yourself pop punk scene by the early 1990s.      

And then Green Day signed up with a major label (for which they were labeled “sellouts” by the boys of 924 Gilman Street), and released Dookie in 1994.  The success of the album (heightened by the band’s Woodstock ’94 and Lollapalooza performances) pushed Green Day, pop punk and skateboarding into the mainstream.  “Longview,” the album’s first single, incorporated old-school surf rock and new-school skate rock guitar riffs (written by bassist Mike Dirnt while “frying on acid so hard”) and chant-like drum cadences (executed by Tré Cool), resulting in a pop punk anthem about channel-surfing, being bored, unmotivated and frequently high.  (And masturbation.  That was the kicker.)

After separating musically for decades, surfboarding and skateboarding had come together to redefine popular music.  (And, of course, made Billie Joe Armstrong a name to know.)  “Welcome to Paradise” (originally released on Kerplunk; re-recorded for Dookie), “Basket Case,” “When I Come Around” and “She” were also released as singles.  Armstrong boldly addressed his bisexuality in “Coming Clean,” and “Burnout” (much like “Longview”) “articulated the popular rage” of Generation X.  

In 1995, the New York Times described the album’s tone as passionately apathetic.  I can do no better than that. 

Amadeus

Since Mozart’s death in 1791 (at age 35), people have argued over the cause of his demise.  Was Mozart murdered, or did he simply succumb to illness?  200 years of speculation, emerging evidence and advances in forensic science have not put the matter to rest.  

The most theatrical (but unlikely) explanation accuses Mozart’s colleague Antonio Salieri – a man whose jealously equaled his admiration - as the murderer.  In 1830, Alexander Pushkin wrote a short dramatic poem based on this rumor titled Mozart and Salieri.  (Chicago Dramatists Theatre mounted Vladimir Nabokov’s translation of the poem in 2004 under the direction of Zeljko Djukic.)  Pushkin’s work inspired the 1897 Rimsky-Korsakov opera by that name and Peter Shaffer’s 1979 play Amadeus, which Shaffer adapted for film in 1984.

Under the direction of Miloš Forman (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest), the production team of Amadeus created a timeless film to exhibit the timeless music of W. A. Mozart.  With choreography and opera staging by Twyla Tharp, costume design by Theodor Pistek, and production design by Patrizia Von Brandstein, the film achieves an undeniable visual excellence.

     

Casting directors Mary Goldberg and Maggie Cartier cleverly chose Tom Hulce, who had recently appeared in the frat house farce National Lampoon’s Animal House, as the young, vulgar Mozart.  F. Murray Abraham (All the President’s Men, Scarface) played the serious, vengeful Salieri.  Both actors created their roles to great acclaim.  Other better-known-now cast members include Jeffrey Jones as Emperor Joseph II (Ferris Bueller's Day Off), Christine Ebersole as Katerina Cavalieri (Grey Gardens) and Cynthia Nixon as Lorl (Sex and the City).

The music of Amadeus was supervised by illustrious conductor Sir Neville Marriner, and performed by the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields.  The film features a mess of Mozart’s symphonies, concertos and operas, including The Abduction from the Seraglio, The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, The Magic Flute (with the “Queen of the Night aria” sung by June Anderson) and his unfinished Requiem.

Amadeus is not only a triumph of the 1980s (as evidenced by its eight Oscar wins), but of all 20^th century film (as evidenced by its AFI ranking).  Salieri has survived two centuries aside the legendary life and music of Mozart.  Perhaps this biopic, nearing its 30^th anniversary, will do the same.