The Problem of Character in Film: Identity and Master And Commander

Note bene

As with all of my reviews, there are certain "spoilers" that I address. I'm aware that a lot of people find that frustrating. I ask this: how can one discuss film seriously unless one considers major plot elements, including those "twists" that keep people up at night? Most of the films I talk about, fortunately, have been out for a while, so odds are good that most people have had the opportunity to see what I discuss, so I shouldn't be "ruining" it for anyone.

I watched Identity on Friday night, during the peak hours of the snowstorm that blasted the tri-state region. It seemed like a good movie for the ominous mood that snowstorms seem to create at night. When the wind whips and assaults the walls and windows of the house, and I can hear the structure creak and ache as it resists the onslaught, I like to think of moral terror.

Identity, at its heart, was intended to deal with moral terror. It addresses a secret element of guilt and, to some extent, the notion of archetypal personalities (the protective yet "damaged" cop, the whore seeking redemption, the bitchy actress {Rebecca DeMornay, doing her best impression of Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard}, the hysterical young bride, the brutal, maniacal escaped criminal, and so forth), and also pays homage to a number of classic suspense films: a long shot of a car driving toward a desert motel evokes Touch of Evil; the motel itself evokes Psycho; one child actor is quite reminiscent of the antagonist/protagonist (depending on your p.o.v.) of The Omen; and, of course, the overall theme of the film borrows from Ten Little Indians.

There's a key secondary story that goes on in Identity, basically addressing the fact that the archetypal characters are actually representations of personalities within a crazed murderer's mind. This revelation changes the film from one that deals with chance or contingency, supernatural retribution, terror, and the various character studies mentioned above to a strange, symbolic psychological drama. This was a mistake on the part of the director, James Mangold (director of one of my favorite films, Copland, a character study about corruption, redemption, and a Willy Loman-esque sheriff, surprisingly well-played by Sylvester Stallone, finally standing up to what is wrong). In making this transition, the film takes away the watcher's ability to care for the characters. How can a viewer care whether a character succeeds/fails, lives/dies, etc., if the character is nothing more than a symbol within another character's mind. For the same reason, I was greatly displeased with David Lynch's Mulholland Drive and Lost Highway. Playing with the narrative structure can be useful and entertaining (as in Pulp Fiction and Snatch). Characters can veer far from expectations (see Camus' The Fall). However, once the characters and the dramatic movement are openly made "false" or symbolic, they lose all power. Such esotericism weakens the story.

Identity lost whatever power it had as a story once its characters were revealed to be constructs. I enjoyed the vivid stage settings and the over-acting of Alfred Molina and John Cusack, but only in a sort of amused, unengaged fashion. I was no longer captured by the film. That's a huge problem. I am, at heart, a film lover. I want to be owned by the film for two hours. A good example of a film doing this would be the recent release (I'll give it a full review when I buy the DVD, and I will buy this film on DVD) of Master and Commander.

I had been a fan of the novel, Master and Commander, by Patrick O'Brian, since senior year of high school, and had been hoping for years that they would make a film adaptation of the novel, just so I could see tall ships fighting on the big screen. The novel is actually part of a rather lengthy series of books, one that also includes The Far Side of the World, which was also used as the basis for the film's plot (to what extent each novel was used, I'm not sure; it's been nine years since I've read either of them). Here, the director, Peter Weir, uses an unyielding, humanist love for his characters that makes the film compelling even when it is blatantly engaging in the sort of lengthy divertissement that normally only works well in novels (i.e., Dr. Maturin's investigation of wildlife on Galapagos {incidentally, fans of O'Brian's series of novels often consider Maturin, the ship's doctor, and officer Jack Aubrey to be sorts of archetypal characters: the surly, intellectual scientist whose doubts were greater than his faith, and the romantic, appetite-driven adventure}; the attempts by Aubrey and Maturin to play Boccherini; the suicide of one of the officers).

My friend Wormold is a professional photographer. Oftentimes, when it's a quiet night in the Dublin House, he and I will sit together and discuss the various arts. Frequently, I bring up the topic of film. It's one of my three favorite arts (fiction and classical music being the other two), and yet it's Wormold's least favorite art. Frequently, he complains that he - "just once, I wish, just one freaking time" - would like to see a film that understands the power of the visual medium, that could tell a story that needed little or no words to give its message to the audience. For me the great wish is that more films understood the power of the character. That they understood just how important the personal side of a story was, that it could never be replaced with explosions, titillation, or even, in the case of Identity, fear.

Comments

[sugarmama]

I was incredibly disappoinsted when I found out that the characters in Identity were merely figments of a crazy man's imagination. After that, I was bored.