Lecter at the Lectern: BPFTOI #17

Don't call it a comeback, we've been here for years... or what seems like years between episodes. But, gentle readers (and not-so-gentle ones), we're back after less than a month with the next episode of Best Pictures from the Outside In (previous episodes). This time around, we have Going My Way and The Silence of the Lambs, two films that... well, that have pretty much defeated my attempts to come up with parallels between them, as we so enjoy doing here at BPFTOI. Aside from the fact that both films won lots of Oscars, and several of the same ones, they don't have much in common.

Back in 1944, in the waning days of World War II, Oscar voters rejected adulterous murder, unsolved murder, the homefront, and a US president in favor of a simple story of how being good and charming and having a great singing voice can get you out of whatever problems you might have. It won seven Oscars, including Bing Crosby for Best Actor. And in 1991, in the waning days of the Reagan era, Oscar voters rejected Bugsy, Beauty, Babs, and JFK in favor of the most violent film to win Best Picture, a film about a plucky, strong female character and a couple of savage killers. It won five Oscars, including Anthony Hopkins for Best Actor.

And there's my admittedly weak starting point: both films feature leading male characters with whom I have some serious problems. Leaving aside the fact that Hopkins is onscreen less than a quarter of the film's running time (it's silly to get your stopwatch out—he's clearly a leading role whatever his screen time), I was surprised at how many problems I had with Hannibal Lecter, and with how the film chose to portray him as some kind of charming, evil, superpowered demigod. I greatly prefer Brian Cox's portrayal in Manhunter, and that film's treatment of Lecter as an evil, dangerous guy—and that's it. No stone-walled dungeon, no dramatically swelling music as he analyzes his opponent, no obsessive closeups, no overly stylized delivery. Hopkins's Lecter is like a serial killer as imagined by Shakespeare with dialog by David Mamet. I fully realize that Demme and co. were going for a sort of Grand Guignol, operatic tone, and I think my objections to Hopkins aren't as strong as they might sound, but the part bothered me quite a bit.

And over in Going My Way, Bing Crosby is pretty much asleep. Sure, he was up against a weak field (with Charles Boyer leading the pack in Gaslight), but this has to be one of the laziest Best Actor wins in the history of the category. I like the film, but do not love it (although my mild like probably looks like love from where you guys are standing), and its conception of Faddah O'Malley is so limited as to make it possible to sum him up in a word: saint. Or yawn.

Nick: I thought of two more parallels! If it weren't for the Barry Fitzgerald problem, after which AMPAS made it impossible to be nominated for two acting awards in the same year, Hopkins surely would have been for Lambs. And while Lambs is about a cannibal, Going My Way is about fellas who take communion, i.e., eat the body and blood of Christ. Honk if you think that's in terrible taste. So to speak! I just can't get over it.

I know what you mean about Lecter, Mike, and the movie has dropped just a bit over time in my estimation, partly for that reason. The performance is so technically exquisite and controlled, but its leering panache would be harder to stomach (stomach!) if the movie didn't so badly need some levity and if Hopkins didn't make Lecter so genuinely frightening and vicious in the moments he needs to be. It's clear that the conception of the character is entirely axiomatic: he just IS this pure embodiment of evil genius, of unfettered powers of knowing, of psychopathic charisma, of chillingly effete aplomb. It's impossible to imagine him having any of the prior life experience which is attributed to him, or even having any prior life at all. Again, it's amazing that it works, and even beyond Hopkins's devilish facility, I have to cede a lot of credit to Foster, who plays their interactions in such a completely earnest key of discomfort, strained formality, reluctant fascination, and intellectual fortitude that Hannibal doesn't just become The Show in and of himself, but actually gets pulled deeply into a pretty transfixing relationship. The lensing and staging of their exchanges also strikes me as pretty brilliant. Cinematographer Tak Fujimoto was one of the great unsung heroes of this film at Oscar time. The glass wall of the cell really redeems the Grimm stoniness of the rest of the jail set.

I have more to say about Lambs, and about Going My Way, which I might like a smidge more than you're expecting, but Nathaniel, whaddya think about Lecter?

Nathaniel: I take Jack Crawford's (Scott Glenn) advice very seriously: "Believe me, you don't want Hannibal Lecter inside your head." The truth is, the thing I love most about The Silence of the Lambs is what Mike takes issue with: how Super!Evil!Gothic! it is. I'm not sure I could take it if didn't have the barrier, if you will, of stylization. To me that's the glass wall with airholes in it. And I like it that way just fine. Because even with the distancing (albeit hugely enjoyable) theatricality, it's a damn freaky movie. Eighteen years later I'm still surprised it won the Oscar ...though I'd disagree that it's the most violent one. That'd be Braveheart.

I agree that Lecter is less a character than an abstraction. But it humors me, when I'm in the right cynical mood, that he's so widely regarded as the Best Evil Character Ever when he's such a successful personification of Hollywood's dependably committed Anti-Intellectualism. People who are smart, educated and artistically inclined (and British!) are scaaaarrrrrrry. Boo!

Nick: Ha! True. Although a great obverse of that is the much less typical implication, via this movie, that people with noteworthy accents from small towns in Appalachia are, or can be, resourceful, gutsy, and perspicacious, as opposed to the frequent Hollywood arrogance of treating entire swaths of the country as backward and entrapping and/or as completely sentimentalized and/or pitiable.

Mike: One thing that jumped out at me was when Lecter tries to get a rise out of Starling by making fun of her accent, which he accuses her of unsuccessfully trying to hide. It's the only place, I think, where he was 100% wrong about her—her accent was obvious and unhidden, and she barely flinched when he brought it up. More power to the film for having its main character refuse to take that particular bait. Anyway, you were saying?

Nick: People still talk and write a lot about what a breakthrough Clarice Starling was (and remains) as a new kind of female archetype for this kind of story, and I agree. But I think she's just as much of a trailblazer—without the movie getting too plumped-up about it—in terms of a heroic, smart, risk-taking, and exciting audience surrogate with her strongly marked class and regional background. Even the scenes in Ohio and West Virginia when Starling and the other agents are investigating the wave of killings avoid most of the usual forms of condescension, and I love the ways they're lit and directed. The film seems to spend barely any time on Bill's victims or their families and survivors, and yet the empathy it conjures for all of them feels very real and earned.

While we're on this point of archetypal representation, the elephant in the room might be the Crazy! Killer! (Not Quite) Tranny!. But I have to admit I've never felt too affronted by this extremely specific characterization, and I think Ted Levine's acting as Buffalo Bill is really clever and daring. I loved when Demme singled him out in his Oscar speech, even if it was a defensive move. The stark downgrade from Lambs to Philadelphia exemplifies to me what can happen when artists get scared out of bold, go-for-broke depictions of surprising, highly individual characters and cast their lot defensively with bland, depersonalized paragons.

Nathaniel: Bland depersonalized paragons?!? You're segueing to Going My Way already?

Nick: Rest easy, girl, I wasn't even going there. Though I can see how you would make that mistake. I was just thinking how much more pissed off I get by Tom not kissing and barely touching Antonio Banderas (Antonio Banderas!) than I do by Buffalo Bill trying to work out his psychosexual traumas through his abject melange of flaying, dancing, primping, candy-tucking, and innovative seamstressing.

Mike: That highlights what an odd Best Picture winner Silence is, in that it was so obviously not conceived as such—I can't imagine they ever thought they were making anything other than a really good, groundbreaking thriller, so they didn't pull any punches. There's so many places they could have played it safe—and Buffalo Bill is the prime example, but the general level of bloodcurdling yuckiness is another—but they didn't. And it was so freeing. Philadelphia was an Oscar Contender™ from the get-go, so I can just imagine the studio meetings where they discussed how much gay was too much—at least they got to slow-dance.

Nathaniel: I'm so glad that Demme got his groove back with Rachel Getting Married. So so glad. But back to Buffalo Bill and his basket. I've never been that angry about his deviant sexuality either since the film points out that he's not a true transsexual. Plus, the movie's sexuality is ambiguous enough and frankly so all over the place as to give anyone of any persuasion something to chew on: It's easy to read Clarice as a lesbian (and not just because Jodie is playing her) and there's plenty of sexual politicking of the heternormative variety as well. And that great moment when Hannibal snarks "People will say we're in love" after Clarice, having betrayed him, comes back with her tail between her legs has always struck me as less lecherous-old-man flirtation and more frenemy bitchy. I'd say the movie's sexual slipperiness is a strength rather than an indefensible weakness. At the very least it sets the movie apart.

I agree that the film offers up plenty of humanity in unexpected places, given the genre it's housed in and the overall gothic flamboyance. I adore the casting of Brooke Smith as 'the Girl in the Pit' (née Catherine Martin) who strikes me as almost shockingly recognizably human whenever she's in a movie. She works wonders here as something like a less sparkly version of Jodie Foster/Clarice Starling herself, resourceful and goodhearted if not infallible and scared shitless in very specific ways rather than as a generic victim. I absolutely love that moment when she turns on her rescuer ("DON'T LEAVE ME HERE YOU FUCKING BITCH!!!") and I love that her voice operates on an even lower register than Jodie's. They aren't girlie girls... even if the men around them want to reduce them to sexual objects and body parts.

In ways both recognizably human and others.

Mike: Speaking of recognizably human, my favorite thing about Going My Way was how three-dimensional and human everyone was. Especially the revelation that in Father Bing's fun-loving past he and the opera singer were in a cross-dressing revue together. A night of passion, a savage murder, and Bing ran, Quasimodo-style in a feather boa and purple lipstick, into the seminary. [muted conversation] Sorry, different movie.

I'm trying to find a way to explain why, exactly, I feel so fond of Going My Way, which lacks drama or comedy, or even much of a plot. It's smug and self-satisfied a lot of the time, and Bing's Oscar-winning performance consists of some active eyebrows and little else. But I give it points for being sort of daring, at least for the movie it is. It admits that things like prostitution exist—there's a pretty amazing raised Bing-brow at the piano with Jean Heather that speaks volumes. It gives Father Bing a somewhat sordid past (an entertainer!), and I love the opera singer Genevieve's face when she sees Bing's collar: there's a whole story there that doesn't need to be put into words, and there's something like regret in Bing's face when he's watching her sing Carmen (which it spends an inordinate amount of time on). What might have been, I suppose, although whether it's his feelings for her or for the music, I can't say. It has an Asian kid and a black kid who aren't caricatures. It has two genuine, truly moving moments: when we see Ted Junior in his uniform for the first time, and when Father Fitzgibbon and his mom embrace.

But I admit that I'm scrambling to find specifics, and for the most part its best quality is an innocuous goodwill that doesn't come close to making it Best Picture-worthy.

Nathaniel: I had a big ol' lump in my throat at the big mama reunion, too. I could see it coming an hour away but I'm not made of stone!

I never give movies much credit for tearjerking, though, because that's just a natural byproduct of plot elements. Heartstrings can be plucked in even the most inept of movies: sick pets, lost loves reunited, death, deathbed farewells, miracle cures and family reunions (what we have here) will do the trick every time. But frankly, even if we're just sticking to mechanics of plot, which the film encourages by being so damn mechanical, it's kind of a mess. By the time the act of God arrived I was shaking my fist at the heavens: "Why must you make me watch a whole new ACT of this movie? It should be ending now!" And can we talk about the weird pacing? Didn't it feel like it was a one-take movie given the dead space bookending each scene, like they just filmed a stage show with botched entrances and forgotten cues?

There was so much dead space that I was mostly content to dream about other movies while watching it. Speaking of... the unspoken backstory between Father Chuck O'Malley and Genevieve clearly involves a bastard lovechild named Mary Poppins. She's just like her father, gliding right into malfunctioning households, singing her way into everyone's hearts, whipping children into shape and loosening up the stick in the mud Father before her own hasty departure with a beeline to an improbable lead acting Oscar win.

Nick: I was feeling so ready to be neutral and comparatively unchurlish about Going My Way, and then you had to mention Mary Poppins. Cuz that's a movie, dog nabbit.

But I shall soldier on and admit that I think what finally pulls Going My Way juuust barely across the line for me is actually all that dead space. I get tired of all those Doubt-type movies that try to evoke the atmosphere of the local church with cold wind blowing across the steeples, and freezing pavements, and crows perching on the pointy gates. I like that Going My Way's church is quiet but not solemn. I completely agree that this is sometimes dramatically enervating, and the VISUAL dead space kills me at many, many moments. There just isn't anything going on in these shots, and all the slow shuffling around and the ambulatory excuse for a sorta-kinda-scenario, much less a plot, can get to be too, too much. But there's a kind of doggedness to the film's determination to be easy and casual that I wind up sort of admiring. And I do like the saucy way Jean Heather reports on Bing's second visit that she's been filling her hours while living on Ted's dime by learning to put some emotion into her songs. I'll say!

So, this is how Going My Way tricks me into finding it sort of pleasant, at least to think back on if not to re-experience. But if ever there were a movie that's just CRUSHED by the weight of having been a Best Picture winner, it's gotta be this one. It's just the wrong kind of prize for such a forthrightly pedestrian, featherweight, and undistinguished piece of work, which for better or worse isn't even straining for the seriousness or the cachet of an Emile Zola.

Nathaniel: No, but Emile Zola didn't have pipes like Bing Crosby. Play to your strengths!

Nick: But surely Emile had a mama. Why couldn't he have hugged her at the end? Surely all those honies with the sea-cucumber headdresses in Great Ziegfeld had mamas, and some of them were probably long-lost, too. SO much potential hugging. Will Munny could have shot his mama, point-blank. Forrest Gump... oh, wait. Never mind. If all Best Pictures ended this way, then Going My Way winning Best Picture would make the teensiest bit of sense.

Nathaniel: In lieu of an actual embrace, Hannibal Lecter will just call to say he loves you. He'll just call to say how much he cares. "Dr. Lecter. Dr. Lecter. Dr. Lecter. Dr. Lecter."

Oops, I just dropped Going My Way "like a hot potato."

But one more note: I really love Bing Crosby's voice. I find it so smooth and deep and comforting and I suspect that's a large part of My Way's appeal. Well, the comforting part. It's definitely not smooth or deep. The whole thing is like a big warm quilt of goodheartedness and God and traditional values that you're supposed to wrap around yourself to shield you from the changing times (things we're getting cah-razy in the mid 40s) and the unruly younger generation! "Kids these days" You can even see this clearly in the way Father O'Malley openly mocks the loosey-goosey performance style of whore-in-training Carol. And he's usually such a nice guy.

Mike: Not to mention the "barfola" music (OK, it's "boffola," but it sure did sound like he was saying "barfola.") the two young, hip priests were making fun of—although it sounded a heck of a lot more fun than the mawkish theme song! Meanwhile, over at Buffalo Bill's house, "Hip Priest" by The Fall is blaring on the soundtrack while Bill stalks Starling through his chamber of horrors.

Nick: Somehow, Bill manages to star in a Jonathan Demme movie and not listen to a damn thing that sounds like samba, Latin jazz, or world music. Nor does Lecter. I guess that's what being a psychopath gets you. At least on the musical-score front, I do think Howard Shore was as much of an unsung hero of Lambs as Fujimoto was. Such fabulous brooding in those dark, simple melodies, which punch up lots of scenes without dominating the whole movie.

We've obviously made a lot of hay out of the stark dissimilarity of these movies, but in a way, that's interesting: we're catching Oscar at his most airily escapist and at his most uncharacteristically morbid. I agree with Nathaniel about some of the bases for the McCarey movie's appeal in 1944, but then again, nothing ever changes. The same voters who nominated Going My Way nominated Double Indemnity, and the same sickos who threw all of Oscar's most prestigious trophies at Silence of the Lambs also got it together to finally nominate a Disney feature. And 1991-92 wasn't the most happy-go-lucky hour in American life, either. If Beauty and the Beast had won, we might think all the AMPAS voters wanted to escape from the war in the Middle East and the sharp economic downturn. (Speaking of how nothing ever changes...) Sometimes the truth about Oscar really is that there's no truth at all: voters like what they like, when they like it. Whatever sense we try to make of it later, they go their own way.

What about you, dear readers? Can you stomach Anthony Hopkins's performance? Does Bing sing for you? Are you buffaloed by all the Oscars these films won? Let us know in the comments section! (Perhaps even in this comments section, so we can keep the conversation in one place!)