44 Days Of Paranoia #20: Seven Days In May (dir by John Frankenheimer)

Posted on December 7, 2013 by Lisa Marie Bowman

For today’s entry in the 44 Days of Paranoia, let’s take a look at the 1964 political thriller, Seven Days In May.

Directed by John Frankenheimer (who also directed the conspiracy classic, The Manchurian Candidate), Seven Days In May opens with unpopular President Jordan Lyman (Fredric March) on the verge of signing a treaty with the Russians. The chairman of the joint chiefs-of-staff, Gen. James Scott (Burt Lancaster), is opposed to the treaty and feels that Lyman’s actions will lead to the collapse of the U.S. When Scott’s aide, Jiggs Casey (Kirk Douglas), thinks that he’s come across evidence that Scott is planning a military coup, he takes his suspicions to the White House. Working with an alcoholic Senator (Edmond O’Brien) and a cynical political aide (Martin Balsam), the President launches his own investigation into Scott’s activities.

When it was first released, Seven Days In May was very successful with both critics and audiences. Edmond O’Brien even received an Oscar nomination for best supporting actor. When viewed today, however, Seven Days In May feels rather quaint. A good deal of the film’s suspense was meant to be generated by the question of whether or not Gen. Scott is actually planning a coup. However, for the modern viewer, it’s really not a question worth asking. For us, it’s easy to watch this film and shout, “Of course he’s planning on overthrowing the government! He’s the most obviously villainous character in the entire film!” The idea of a military conspiracy to overthrow the U.S. government was perhaps shocking back in 1964 but today, we take the existence of such conspiracies for granted.

Seven Days In May is definitely a product of its time. Unlike John Frankenheimer’s other well-known conspiracy film, The Manchurian Candidate, there’s no sly undercurrent of satire or subversion running through Seven Days In May. Instead, Seven Days In May epitomizes everything that we think of when we think about the early 60s. The film’s politics are liberal but not radically so. The President is such an honorable leader that he won’t resort to the politics of personal destruction and reveal that Scott has a mistress. Casey explains that he disagrees with the President’s politics but that he is bound by duty to reveal Gen. Scott’s subversion. Indeed, by the end of the film, it’s obvious that we’re meant to condemn Scott not because he might overthrow the President but because he would subvert the democratic process to do so. Seven Days In May is a film that tells viewers to support and respect their elected leaders, whether they be good or evil and whether they’re played by Fredric March or Burt Lancaster.

When I listened to Casey explain why he was informing on a man who he claimed to admire and agree with, I was reminded of some of the recent political debates that we’ve had deal with her in America. All of those debates can pretty much be summed up by whether we, as citizens, are obligated to support a law even if we personally don’t agree with it or to respect a leader even if we do not agree with him. The answer, according to Seven Days In May, would appear to be yes.

While Seven Days In May is often a bit too ponderous for its own good, it’s still a well-made and watchable film. If you’re a history nerd like me, you’ll enjoy the film as a portrait of its time. John Frankenheimer directs as if the movie is a film noir and the film’s shadowy black-and-white cinematography looks great. Finally, if you’re a fan of the old school movie stars, how can you not enjoy a film that features Kirk Douglas, Fredric March, and Burt Lancaster?

Other Entries In The 44 Days of Paranoia

Two Post Presidents Day Reviews: Frost/Nixon (dir. by Ron Howard) and All The President’s Men (dir. by Alan J. Pakula)

Posted on February 21, 2012 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“Now Watergate doesn’t bother me/does your conscience bother you?” — Lynard Skynard, Sweet Home Alabama

As part of my continuing quest to see and review every film ever nominated for best picture, I want to devote my first post Presidents Day post to two films: 2008’s Frost/Nixon and 1976’s All The President’s Men.

During my sophomore year of college, I had a political science professor who, every day of class, would sit on his desk and ramble on and on and on about his past as a political activist. He protested Viet Nam, he hung out with revolutionaries, he loved Hugo Chavez, and I assume he probably had a Che Guevara poster hanging in his office. Whenever he wanted to criticize George W. Bush, he would compare him to Richard Nixon and then pause as if he was waiting for the class to all start hissing in unison. He always seemed to be so bitterly disappointed that we didn’t. What he, and a whole lot of other people his age, didn’t seem to understand was that Richard Nixon was his boogeyman. The rest of us could hardly care less.

That was the same problem that faced the 2008 best picture nominee Frost/Nixon.

Directed rather flatly by Ron Howard, Frost/Nixon tells the true story about how a light-weight English journalist named David Frost (played by Michael Sheen) managed to score the first televised interview with former President Richard Nixon (Frank Langella). Both Frost and Nixon see the interviews as a chance to score their own individual redemptions while Frost’s assistants (played by Oliver Platt and Sam Rockwell) see the interview as a chance to put Richard Nixon on trial for Watergate, the Viet Nam War, and every thing else under the sun. That may not sound like a very exciting movie but it does sound like a sure Oscar contender, doesn’t it?

I’ve always secretly been a big history nerd so I was really looking forward to seeing Frost/Nixon when it was first released in 2008. When I first saw it, I was vaguely disappointed but I told myself that maybe I just didn’t know enough about Richard Nixon or Watergate to really “get” the film. So, when the film later showed up on cable, I gave it another chance. And then I gave it a chance after that because I really wanted to like this film. Afterall, it was a best picture nominee. It was critically acclaimed. The word appeared to be insisting that this was a great film. And the more I watched it, the more I realized that the world was wrong. (If nothing else, my reaction to Frost/Nixon made it easier for me to reject the similarly acclaimed Avatar a year later.) Frost/Nixon is well-acted and slickly produced but it’s not a great film. In fact, Frost/Nixon is epitome of the type of best picture nominee that inspires people to be cynical about the Academy Awards.

Before I get into why Frost/Nixon didn’t work for me, I want to acknowledge that this was a very well-acted film. By that, I mean that the cast (Frank Langella, Michael Sheen, Kevin Bacon, Sam Rockwell, and Oliver Platt) all gave very watchable and entertaining performances. At the same time, none of them brought much depth to their characters. Much like the film itself, nobody seems to have much going on underneath the surface. Frank Langella may be playing a historic figure but, ultimately, his Oscar-nominated performance feels like just a typically grouchy Frank Langella performance. Michael Sheen actually gives a far more interesting performance as David Frost but, at the same time, the character might as well have just been identified as “the English guy.” In fact, a better title for this film would have been The Grouchy, the English, and the Superfluous.

For all the time that the film devotes to Rockwell and Platt blathering on about how they’re going to be giving Richard Nixon “the trial he never had,” this film is ultimately less about politics and more about show business. Ron Howard devotes almost as much time to the rather boring details of how the interviews were set up and sold into syndication as he does to the issues that the interview brings up. Unfortunately, for a movie about show business to succeed, the audience has to believe that the show is one that they would actually enjoy watching, This, ultimately, is why Frost/Nixon fails. While the filmmakers continually tell us that the Frost/Nixon interviews were an important moment in American history, they never show us. Yes, everyone has hideous hair and wide lapels but, otherwise, the film never recreates the period or the atmosphere of the film’s setting and, as a result, its hard not to feel detached from the action happening on-screen. For all the self-congratulatory claims made at the end of the film, it never convinces us that the Frost/Nixon interviews were really worth all the trouble. Much like my old poli sci professor, Frost/Nixon never gives us a reason to care.

For a far more interesting and entertaining look at the Watergate scandal, I would recommend the 1976 best picture nominee All The President’s Men. Recreating the story of how two Washington Post reporters (played by Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman) exposed the Watergate scandal that eventually led to Nixon’s resignation, All The President’s Men is the movie that Frost/Nixon wishes it could be. Despite being made only two years after Watergate, All The President’s Men doesn’t take the audience’s interest for granted. Instead, director Pakula earns our interest by crafting his story as an exciting thriller. Pakula directs the film like an old school film noir, filling the screen with menacing shadows and always keeping the camera slightly off-center. Like Frost/Nixon, All The President’s Men is a well-acted film with a bunch of wonderful 70s character actors — performers like Ned Beatty, Jason Robards, Jack Warden, Martin Balsam, and Robert Walden, and Jane Alexander — all giving effectively low-key and realistic performances. The end result is a film that manages to be exciting and fascinating to those of us who really don’t have any reason to care about Richard Nixon or Watergate.

Both of these two films were nominated for best picture. Frost/Nixon quite rightly lost to Slumdog Millionaire. All The President’s Men, on the other hand, lost to Rocky.

Scenes I Love: 12 Angry Men

Posted on April 11, 2011 by Arleigh

With the recent passing of filmmaker Sidney Lumet I’ve gone through some of the films of his I’ve come to see as favorites of mine. One film which always came to the forefront whenever I spoke about Lumet as a filmmaker is his directorial film debut in 1957 with his adaptation of 12 Angry Men. Of all his films this is the one which I always go back to time and time again. Part of me is somewhat biased in regards to this film since I was part of a class reading of the original teleplay and played the role of Juror #3.

The scene in the film which I love the most has to be when Juror #8 (played with calm assurance by Henry Fonda) and Juror #3 (played with seething rage by Lee J. Cobb) finally get into it after a very long deliberation in trying to find a consensus on the guilt or innocence of the defendant in their case. I love how in this scene everything that’s right about the American jury system was being upheld by Juror #8. How the guilt or innocence of the defendant should come down to just the facts of the case and combing through all the testimony. How emotions and personal feelings and bias should never enter the equation. It is a person’s life in their hands and it is a responsibility too great to leave it to emotions to find the verdict.

This scene also shows the darker side of the American jury system in that there will be, at times, people chosen to preside as a juror in a case will come in with emotional baggage and a hidden agenda which clouds their decision making. They don’t look at the facts and testimony at hand but at what they believe to be true no matter what the facts may say otherwise. this is how the jury system becomes twisted and becomes part and parcel to the notion that justice is never truly blind but always colored by human frailties and prejudices.

Even 54 years since the films first premiered it still holds a powerful effect on me and those who sees it for the first time. It helps that you have a master filmmaker in Sidney Lumet guiding an exceptional cast of actors. One could come to the conclusion that the audience has the angel on one shoulder with Juror #8 and the devil on the other with Juror #3. All in all, a great scene that always stays with me long after the film has ended.