vice

I had written this poem, "Dick," ten years ago in the early in the months of Obama's first term. I was flooded for the first time in my life with optimism about America. That, of course, would be fleeting. And now "Dick" seems like a relic.

Dick

Angler, Darth Vader, Evil Dick,
Tricky Dick, Jr., Puppetmaster,
Fuckoff Lad, Torture King, Dick,
I'm not sorry that I laughed
at the Mr. Potter crack
when you were rolled out
in a wheelchair on Inauguration Day
the day you finally became
a relic.  Many stack you up
to villains, forceful and dark
and yet you are nothing
but a trick, a curt, expressionless
slab of white flab with a sickly heart
determined somehow
to stay within us
forever. In all your stillness,
you have no sense of peace.
You with Bush
on Ulrickson's New Yorker cover
in mimic of Brokeback
the year you shot Whittington,
the year after Katrina.  To think
Michelle Williams was in Dick
the forgotten 1998 comedy
about Watergate, and years later,
the year we'd begin to put you to rest,
she'd be caught
by paparazzi on Smith Street
looking frail, griefstricken
shortly after the death of Heath
her Brokeback co-star,
her ex. How tragic,
in the dearth of ick
surrounding you
and the years of your reign.
In 2000, on the snowy TV,
I watched you debate
with criss-crossed legs
and remembered nothing.
In 2001, I watched Survivor
and contestant Michael Skupkin
breathed smoke, fainted into fire,
burned his hands, and ran
into the ocean, wailing.
The skin peeled-back
off his knuckles. All week,
CBS played commercials:
the most shocking "Survivor" ever.
And I watched Skupkin
evacuated by helicopter,
fifth place contestant Elisabeth Filarski
on the shore, longingly looking up,
bandana round her crown.
Soon she would have a voice
on The View, pointing her finger out
to the side, and defending your war,
your party. In 2006,
the poet polled the class,
Who wants to write political poetry?
No one. In the declaration year 2003,
some poets constructed
an anti-war chapbook
but were soon worn out
by their limitations,
by the years of destruction
and nothing. I watch you now,
in the nine years that have passed
since 2000, the TV
louder, larger,
the graphics bright
and blaring, ticker tape,
and I wish you would just give it up,
fly-fish yourself off in Wyoming.
You look worn,
guilty
as if sanded down
by all of us
and what ran through our wires:
the mundane chitchat
of all our hours. 

I find my writing often builds on association and wallows in American glut. Maybe that's why I was engaged with Adam McKay's Vice much more than I thought I would be. Press reviews had been held back by the studio for weeks, and once opened-up, it received some vicious buzz. Prosthetic biopics, swathed in on-the-nose, cheeky comedy, usually isn't for me, but I ended up responding to the messiness, fullness, and ultimate emotional void of McKay's stirring pastiche of Dick Cheney.

The movie hammers hard that Cheney was able to establish power through behind-the-scenes building--his deft, focus group-polled changes of phrase could soften the blows of the most insidious actions. Christian Bale, who can sometimes seem so blindingly actorly--grunting and sweating through transformational machismo--never betrays Cheney's famous mellow-toned reservedness. Bale sells different stages of Cheney's life--from Levis' clad drunken Wyoming lineman lug to green Nixon-era White House startup to Chief of Staff to CEO creep to conniving veep. He is matched well by Amy Adams as Lynne Cheney (though her big opening scene seems strangely off--like a marathon warm-up). She ends up nailing the icy Republican shelled-hair shtick and makes even a badly corny line sing ("We don't burn our bras / we wear them"). Like the worst cinematic villains, these two are callow. hardened, and insular--the lighting in the film seems to get darker and darker, and in its wake, we don't see them lovingly opening themselves to the world, but whispering to one another at a Washington party or trading faux-Shakespearean barbs under a giant paisley comforter. Another wheel is Donald Rumsfeld, whose steely press conference grins while detailing war, are deep in my memory. He's played by Steve Carrell. Having recently seen Beautiful Boy, it's kind of startling how he can blend within a picture in two very different registers. 

Power is the main hook of the picture, of course. And it keeps building and cascading for everyone. Even the identity and fate of our affable narrator (Jesse Plemons), the shaper of our cinematic viewing, is uncertain for most of the film. With someone as soulless as Cheney--under all of the fire and detritus and money--he is just a mortal body. During a time where America has flat-lined once again (I exited this movie to the news of the network-televised border wall push, strands of Bernstein in my head), Vice forcefully reminds us of Bush / Cheney's devastating actions and how everything is still swirling in it. Stupidly, the movie filled me with much more dread and sadness than I predicted--even its silly comedic detours (like mid-way credits) are tinged with despair. Greig Fraser's lensing impressively tightropes around all-sorts of varying mediums--from television footage recreations of Colin Powell's (Tyler Perry) fateful UN speech to Cheney bathed in darkness in the open door of the Oval Office (one of my favorite shots). Hank Corwin's editing is slice-n-dice, which worked OK for me, considering the movie's expressionistic tendencies. I was rooting for McKay's ambition but the movie does however get a bit unwieldy as we clang along towards the end. We are left however with an appropriate wrap-up of sobering statistics and a freezing antithesis of Charlie Chaplin's rousing speech in the denouement of The Great Dictator. ***

-Jeffery Berg

"Dick" originally appeared in Issue 9 of Inertia Magazine.

battle of the sexes

We have seen the use of the logo in unison with a film's period many times recently (including other 70s-set pictures American Hustle and Argo). Yet there's something apposite in Alfred Newman's "20th Century Fox Fanfare" as an opening to Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris's (Little Miss Sunshine, Ruby Sparks) Battle of the Sexes; a once bombastic ditty introducing a product of entertainment that now sounds vintage and tinny. The same could be said of the primary subject of the movie: September's tennis match between Billie Jean King (Emma Stone) and Bobby Riggs (Steve Carell) in 1973 at the Houston Astrodome. This is Americana at its most stirring-- a competition emblazoned with advertising (Sugar Daddy among them) with headstrong, consciously aware players at its core (Riggs trying to make a buck and garnering some attention; King trying to make a buck as well, but more importantly, also pushing social change), watched by a frenzied audience with clear loyalties through a major media outlet (ABC).

In homage to the formula embraced by the 1970s disaster picture of its time and the typical sports movie, the film criss-crosses an array of characters, with our heroine at the helm, up to the main spectacle. King and her all-women's tennis co-horts ditch the United States Tennis Association in protest of unequal pay and end up touring, under the feisty, chain-smoking guidance of Gladys Heldman (Sarah Silverman) with sponsorship from Virginia Slims. King, married to husband Larry (Austin Stowell), is wrestling with her sexuality and striking up a romance with her tour's adpoted hairstylist Marilyn (Andrea Riseborough). Meanwhile, pro-player Riggs is a boisterous gambling addict with a wealthy spouse (Elizabeth Shue) whose grown tired of his antics. Even though the audience and the film has warmer feelings for King and her fight for equality, the parallel stories are both compelling, sympathetic, and well-played by the seasoned cast. Once the two agree to the match, Riggs' clownish behavior increases alongside rising media attention, while King makes her own shrewd decisions (such as nixing an outwardly sexist sports announcer) and trains her heart out, refusing to back down.

There is an inherent risk in an actor's portrayal of playing a real person, especially a particularly determined, noble person, of being too "actorly"--and yet Emma Stone, with her grounded naturalism, delivers an exceptionally fine performance of warmth and spirit. Carell, a love-him or hate-him actor perfect for this part, infuses the story with humor and with a knowing wink to the audience at the eye-rolling lines of his character. The film around him respects King too much to make Riggs her one-note adversary: when we see the blight of panic on his face during the match, there's a glimmer of pathos for the showboating chauvinist. The bigger villain is probably Bill Pullman's Jack Kramer; like Riggs, he is entrenched in the ways of old-guard white male tennis elite; but unlike Riggs, he doesn't make any motions to stir things up. One doesn't bring Pullman into a picture for subtlety. He's great at hamming it up just slightly enough to make his Hollywood stick figure effective. Overall, the ensemble is aces. Known primarily as a stand-up comic, but underrated as a character actress, Silverman nails her role with great wit. It was also a joy to see Shue back; despite her small role, she imbues it with humanity and dry humor. 

Dayton and Faris are excellent at bringing a talented, misfit cast together and also a top-notch crew. Nicholas Britell (Moonlight) drums up Rocky-like excitement with an exhilarating score that mixes early 70s-Baroque moog-melody kitsch with charging sports motifts and a bittersweet bend that emphasizes the historical importance of the event. The cinematography by Linus Sandgren (one of La La Land's great assets) stage people within and against geometric designs (similar to the boxed-in feel of the court) of hotel balconies and spaces that are distinctly Californian; in a nod to the time period, that isn't too on-the-nose, the film is dipped in a richly fuzzed, navy hue. The costume design (Mary Zophres) is particularly tremendous--with a keen eye for the everyday, the suits, the glam (Shue's get-ups) and Alan Cummings' character's brilliantly-captured tennis skirt creations. It seems that 70s cinematic costuming has become more sophisticated over the years--accuracy with vivid visual appeal and without blatant condescension--and the work in this film is particularly strong. 

Overall, unlike King herself, the movie doesn't necessarily break much ground: Simon Beaufoy's script (Slumdog Millionaire) is peppered with cliches and easy set-ups. I can see how many could find the lesbian romance, as well-played and gently nuanced as it is, not particularly fresh (didn't we also hear "Crimson and Clover" in the love scene in Monster?). There's also Cummings' character (real life Ted Tinling, who probably deserves his own film) which may seem somewhat stereotypically peacocky by today's standards but to me, also feels like a reverent figure lost in time. Despite all this, the cinematic depiction of this story and the ensuing match as traditionally crowdpleasery feels just right: hopeful, acutely refreshing and rousing in these times. More than once my audience clapped and oohed-and-awed through the electric climax. Like the film's recycled 20th Century Fox logo, since the year of the match, much has changed in society, been steamrolled over; yet much still hasn't or has just morphed into new forms. ***1/2

-Jeffery Berg