Newspaper men venture into far out places with a pair of top directors as their guides
The Archivist — Welcome to the Archive. As home video formats have evolved over the years, a multitude of films have found themselves in danger of being forgotten forever due to their niche appeal. Thankfully, Warner Bros. established the Archive Collection, a Manufacture-On-Demand DVD operation devoted to thousands of idiosyncratic and ephemeral works of cinema. The Archive has expanded to include a streaming service, revivals of out-of-print DVDs, and Blu-ray discs (which, unlike the DVDs, are factory pressed rather than burned). Join us as we explore this treasure trove of cinematic discovery!
The practice of Journalism has been illustrated time and time again in the movies. Although the subject of a newspaper reporter has been one of the more glamorized images that Hollywood has ever produced, when the world of film decides to pay genuine homage to those dedicated to the practice of continuously unveiling the truth, the results are always striking. Titles such as All the President’s Men and Absence of Malice, and the recent Spotlight, have done such incredibly flawless jobs at illustrating what now, more than ever, continues to be one of the important professions in the world, proving both cinematically involving and authentic.
As expected, most films of the journalism genre focus on the aspects of the story being reported as well as anything and everything the journalists at the center will do to bring them to the attention of the public. However, only a handful of films depict the various kinds of unorthodox and somewhat otherworldly places journalists must venture into in order to get their scoop. From lands both foreign and unpredictable, the places most individuals travel to in an effort to uncover the truth can be anywhere from dangerous to surreal. In this Archivist, we look at two films, The Year of Living Dangerously and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, which took two self-assured writers and placed them in worlds completely alien to them, transforming their views on the subjects they were reporting on, and greatly altering their take on life in general.
The Year of Living Dangerously
In Peter Weir’s The Year of Living Dangerously, journalist Guy Hamilton (Mel Gibson) is sent to Indonesia as a foreign correspondent for an Australian newspaper to cover the country-wide uprising following the last election. Shortly after arriving, Guy strikes up a deal with photographer Billy Kwan (Linda Hunt) who will get him access to top officials and officers in exchange for photo opportunities. As his partnership with succeeds, Guy’s attraction to a British diplomat named Jill Bryant (Sigourney Weaver) looks to thwart his efforts as does the intense political turmoil taking place in the country which may cost Guy his life.
Shot on the heels of Gibson’s success with the already-popular Mad Max series, The Year of Living Dangerously was an early attempt to show the actor’s versatility as a Hollywood leading man, while also capitalizing on cinema’s love of telling stories dealing with the strife of foreign countries. Happily, The Year of Living Dangerously is an instance where it all worked. The script and direction are solid enough to where the film feels like the kind of epic full of stirring commentary and gripping action. Featured in virtually every scene, Gibson capably carries the film as a confident, if somewhat green, writer continuously realizing how out of his element he really is. Weaver’s heroine may not be all that interesting a figure, but the actress makes her one, adding fire to the film’s romance angle which make sit come off as more than just a standard device. Yet the main takeaway from The Year of Living Dangerously remains Hunt’s performance. The pint-sized actress took home an Oscar as a driven and conflicted photojournalist (the first instance in which an actress won for portraying a member of the opposite sex) whose mental and spiritual breakdown is stunning as it is painful. Hunt’s physical transformation may remain the most stand-out factor of The Year of Living Dangerously according to many, but it’s her performance, with moments such as Billy proclaiming to Guy: “I made you see things; I made you feel something about what you write…I created you,” which are the film’s driving force.
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
The most un-Clint Eastwood film Eastwood ever directed can be found in this 1997 Savannah-set mystery based on actual events. Travel writer John Kelso (John Cusack) is sent to Savannah to write a piece on the legendary Christmas party hosted every year by prominent citizen Jim Williams (Kevin Spacey). When a scuffle between Jim and local hustler Billy Hanson (Jude Law) ends with the latter dead from a gunshot wound and the former suddenly on trial for murder, John’s assignment quickly changes. As he tries to piece together what really happened, the amateur crime reporter finds himself in a land full of secrets and myths which prove far stranger than anything he’s ever encountered before.
There’s no question that Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is the legendary Eastwood’s most unclassifiable film. On the one hand, there’s a mysterious story of a death and the question of whether it was murder or self-defense. Yet in watching the film, the body and trial become less important than the land in which it took place in. Eastwood wasted no opportunity to showcase the many curious wonders of Savannah including citizens who walk imaginary dogs, or threaten to poison the local water supply if their food isn’t up to par. Scenes such as a widow (Dorothy Loudin) carrying a mini revolver in her brassiere to parties which inspires her to playfully suggest she might just shoot someone lead John to rightfully describe Savannah to his editor as: “Gone with the Wind…but on mescaline.” As John delves deeper into the land, he discovers a town seeped in both tradition and magical realism where the logic of the outside world applies only to a certain extent. There’s humor in much of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, particularly in the surprisingly strong performance given by real-life transgender entertainer The Lady Chablis, who steals every scene she’s in as someone with a key to Billy’s motives. Cusack nails it as a writer faced with both a huge story and a world he knows nothing about and Spacey (robbed of an Oscar nomination) gives another shining example of his morphing abilities as an actor as Midnight in the Garden of Evil remains one of Eastwood’s most unforgettable times behind the camera.
