Syriana
Written byPosted on December 20, 2005
Filed Under Film
Syriana’s thematic content has been broken down well by Bud Parr. I have nothing further to add to his hosannas, except to note that I greatly enjoyed Syriana, ranking the film higher than Traffic. Where the visceral impact of Stephen Gaghan’s Traffic script was bogged down by Soderbergh’s trashy stylistics (at the expense of, oh say, offering us a visceral on-ramp so that we could actually give a damn about all of the characters), Gaghan as writer-director (working with Paul Thomas Anderson’s cinematographer, Robert Elswitt) allows the camera to accentuate a world where the connections are there but just outside our grasp of understanding.
Consider the moment in which George Clooney is talking with his son in a restaurant and the camera lingers for about a minute on the workers who are preparing their food as the dialogue continues over the visual. Or the moment in which Clooney and William Hurt are talking about spheres of influence and the camera, in a wide shot, allows a blue boxy IKEA to fill the entirety of the frame.
What makes Syriana a fantastic film, one I definitely plan to see again, is that, without really beating us over the head with didacticism too much (save, now that Bud has mentioned it, the Gecko-descended speech from Tim Blake Nelson), the film demands that we shift out of our traditional perspective and begin considering some of the global and economic connections that are kept under the radar. It does so in a way that strikes me not so much as political, but one which is more observational, concerned primarily with avarice run amuck. The film is not afraid to have its characters offer their perspectives (such as a moment late in the film when Alexander Siddig explains to Matt Damon precisely why he cannot reform his oil operation), but because I was so immersed in the story, trying to keep track of the five subplots, this dialogue didn’t really come across as partisan. Perhaps what Gaghan has accomplished here is a film that offers an uber-plot on steroids, proving in the process that the preachiness we might disapprove of in a less complex film isn’t really so unbelievable when it’s placed within a mammoth framework.
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Books To Jump Up and Down Over
Beyond Heaving Bosoms by Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan. The famed writers behind Smart Bitches, Trashy Books have written a very funny and thoughtful volume about romances, both Old Skool and New Skool. Here is a book that any smug and humorless literary manboy beating his flabby passive chest over Banville or Bolano should probably read pronto, if only for the distant possibility that he might get over himself. While the Choose Your Own Adventure segment at the end caused me to have a very disturbing dream involving Shelley Long (don't ask), Sarah and Candy did have me rethinking many of my own misperceptions when I wasn't busy laughing. They're not afraid to take on the New York Times Bok Review or even the groupthink within certain sectors of the romance community.
Alice Fantastic by Maggie Estep. This wild and highly enjoyable narrative involves two sisters (presumably, the third one was still being rented out by Chekhov), a hippie ex-junkie mother who lives with seventeen dogs, a murder, gambling, and libidinous Hollywood actresses who live in Woodstock. But this is the wonderful Maggie Estep we're talking here. And what seems at first like a quirky yarn becomes something unexpectedly moving about connectivity. What I love about Estep's work is the way that she'll juxtapose an extremely astute observation (now that you mention it, why do cab drivers always have somebody to talk with on the phone past midnight?) with an often outrageous story development.
Generosity by Richard Powers. It doesn't come out until September 29th, but Richard Powers's latest will have anyone committed to books reconsidering their literary fervor. I foresee some animosity from the vanilla critics hostile to idea-driven novels, but book bloggers, YouTube chroniclers, and MFAs would do well to plunge into this chance-taking narrative, which introduces vital questions about what the reader's relationship is with media, scientific dissection, and "creative nonfiction." Are we rats fleeing to happy cities? Or can we find the humanism within the purported plague?
Pieces for the Left Hand by J. Robert Lennon. Lennon is one of the most underrated fiction writers working today. Much as On the Night Plain proved that Lennon had a lot more in the toolbox than heartfelt (and often very funny) suburban satire, this slim but fascinating volume juxtaposes 100 small-town anecdotes -- arranged by category -- in a manner that reads, at times, like Nicholson Baker's passions for minutiae and, at other times, Stewart O'Nan's concern for psychological detail. The result is fiction that makes us wonder about whether one person's subjective view of particulars can entirely be trusted. This book never found a publisher in 2005. But thankfully, Graywolf has released it in the United States, along with Lennon's latest novel, The Castle.
Wonderful World by Javier Calvo. This wonderfully raucous volume has been completely ignored by the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times. But it's probably one of the most delightful reading experiences I've had this year. Calvo cavalierly mashes up multiple genres and manages to mix up familial subtext with larger-than-life, almost cartoonish characters. (Indeed, one might argue that one mobster's penis is a character of its own in this sprawling novel.). This is not an easy thing to pull off, but Calvo makes it work. And it's helped immeasurably by Mara Faye Lethem's idiom-specific translation. (See longer post.)
The Means of Reproduction, Michelle Goldberg This thoughtful book tackles the complicated (and little discussed) subject of reproductive rights from numerous angles, which includes a number of unpleasant but necessary ones. The upshot is that there isn't a quick fix solution for declining birth rates and fundamentalist abuses. Just about every political faction has contributed to the friction. But you'll want to read this book anyway to refamiliarize yourself with the topic, but also to understand just what's occurred during the past several decades to get us where we are today. (See also podcast interview with Goldberg.)
Or send materials to:
315 Flatbush Avenue, #231
Brooklyn, NY 11217
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Damn, I had free tickets to this movie and I gave them away. Y’all make it sound great.
Thanks Ed – wondering if you found Damon’s grand sweeping statements a bit contrived? The first one in the desert I could see, maybe and some of the other Americanish (“you backed the right pony”) okay, but he sometimes seemed way overboard, harping on the Arab situation. dunno
Bud: Well it was clear to me that the Matt Damon character was caught up in the sweep of blind idealism, and I found the effect this had on his marriage to be very interesting. It seemed to me that Gaghan was making the point that the potential for reform shared a lot in common with the avaricious impulses of the other characters. A greed of an altogether different sort.
So his speeches were called for. And I thought the initial desert scene (“How much do you want for my other kid?”) had some teeth to it.
Oh my God. There are people taking this movie seriously? Morons.
Brett: Yeah, apparently quite a few. Explain why we’re all morons for enjoying this film.
I saw this movie a couple of days ago and have had such a hard time figuring out what I think about it. But you’ve summarized it nicely. As to the Damon character, I think his situation is not so suprising. All American boy goes to mid-East for business. Son dies while doing business. He looks for – and finds – reason/justification . . . a bigger purpose. His ideals get the better of him. There is no “reason.” He returns to US where things are easier . . . thanks in part of course, to the whole thing he just left and doesn’t want to know any more. In other words, all of the puppet-masters behind the curtain, pulling the strings making a comfortable American life possible.
In Brett’s absence, I would like to point out that he apparently finds moronic the stance of taking the movie seriously as opposed to enjoying it. Perhaps Dr. Mabuse does not understand the difference.
While I do not enjoy, say, chlamydia I do take it seriously.
Having that said (written), I don’t understand how taking something serioulsy could cast somebody as a moron. Without some a priori knowledge that something is undeserving of any consideration (I submit that any consideration is by definition “serious”) how else are we to know whether something is moronic, etc… A recursive Pantera’s Box, to be sure. Something I assume that Dr. Mabuse understands innately, thus the conflation of serious consideration with enjoyment. As to whether or not one enjoys something (puttting aside for now the dubious idea that something can only be enjoyed once viewede through the lens of considered recollections) and whether or not that causes somebody to be a moron (“very stupid person”) I disagree.