The Ladykillers

[bix171]

Tom Hanks is technically proficient, I suppose, in this update of the 1955 British comedy, but it’s perhaps his most indulgent role to date; whatever humor he attempts is lost in stylized tics and windy verbiage that never seem to expire. His role as the Southern-gentleman mastermind of a riverboat casino heist should flow effortlessly but isn’t particularly engaging—there’s no sense of amusing malice in his Professor G.H. Dorr, though he’s portrayed, unconvincingly, as some sort of absolute evil—and he doesn’t seem to want to connect with much of the cast (though there is some decent interplay with his nemesis, Marva Munson, the landlady whose home he uses as his base of operation, played in oversized fashion by Irma P. Hall, bucking for an Oscar). The upshot is that Hanks’ obstinacy actually slows the rhythms of the film to a crawl and you find yourself increasingly impatient. As for the film itself, it’s another empty academic exercise from the Coen Brothers, with elegant art direction by Richard Johnson and clever cinematography from Roger Deakins (the camera angles get skewed as the situation gets darkly violent) but also a misanthropic theological overview: though characters fall from grace (into a garbage barge), the heaven they’re cast from is an empty, ghettoized deep-South parish that appears unclean and undesirable. They also possess a cluelessness as to what’s funny, smarmily assuming jokes about irritable bowel syndrome are audience-pleasers; and their attempts at surrealist humor (most notably the varying expressions of a portrait meant to comment on the proceedings) falls dismally flat. With a sour Marlon Wayans, Tzi Ma (whose tricks with cigarettes contain the film’s most entertaining moments), J.K. Simmons (from “Spider-Man”) and Ryan Hurst as Hanks’ partners in crime; they’re severely let down by the Coens’ indifferent treatment.

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by bix171
it’s another empty academic exercise from the Coen Brothers. Hanks’ partners in crime; they’re severely let down by the Coens’ indifferent treatment.

I agree with everything you wrote. The Coens are obviously skilled filmmakers but, is there anything they actually care about? Their attitude towards most of their characters is derisive. I picture Ethan and Joel with a permanent smirk on their faces. They are hipper-than-thou. Most of their films do include enjoyable sequences, but there's only two features I enjoyed the second time. I'm entertaining the theory that the main reason Fargo and The Big Lebowski are my favorites is that the Coens seem to genuinely like Jeff Bridges's Lebowski and Frances McDormand's pregnant police chief.

[JustaFied]

Just curious, did either of you find the performance of Alec Guiness in the original version to be more convincing? I'm not exactly sure what the point of the first movie was, much less the Coen's remake of it.

Many of the characters in the Coen Brothers films are flawed human beings, but I'm not sure that makes the filmmakers' treatment of them "derisive". The Ladykillers is my least favorite film of theirs, but overall I find their films to be funny and interesting. The Coens, who grew up in academia and were Ivy League educated, can write some pretty clever dialogue, but perhaps it comes off as a bit cold.

[oscar jubis]

Funny and interesting? Hell yeah! But did you notice where the brothers placed in the ranking of current directors according to The Guardian (thread started by pmw)? Some people really love Coens' movies. I'm with the group of buffs and crits who admire their technical skill and inspired appropriation of old genre conventions, but realizes they have obvious limitations. Those limitations can be grossly summarized in the following sentence from Emmanuel Levy's "Cinema of Outsiders":

The Coens are clever directors who know too much about movies and too little about life

The Coens create highly artificial worlds, even when they set their films in specific locales. They fare better when the films are set in places they know like L.A. (Lebowski) and their native Minnesota. But even Fargo, arguably their best film, was criticized in Minnesota for the laughs being overly dependent on its characters being idiots. A problem with most of their movies. There's an emptiness at the core of their films, a lack of anything for the viewer to reflect on the way home, and a repetitive tone of detached ridicule. I'd rather watch Rushmore.

[JustaFied]

Originally posted by oscar jubis
There's an emptiness at the core of their films, a lack of anything for the viewer to reflect on the way home, and a repetitive tone of detached ridicule.

The Coens are highly intelligent guys. Perhaps their films are overly cerebral, so the "emptiness" you're referring to is more of an emotional emptiness. I can see how their films can come across as rather awkward emotionally.

As far as "a lack of anything for the view to reflect on the way home", that's a description I feel is more appropriate of someone like Tarrantino. The Kill Bill series is a better example to me of being "no more than inspired appropriation of old genre conventions".

I really enjoy the Coen Brothers, and I've found most of their films, in particular O' Brother Where Art Thou and The Man Who Wasn't There, to be intellectually stimulating. Other films of theirs, such as Lebowski and Intolerable Cruelty are just simply hilarious.

Which is why I was so surprised to find Ladykillers to be as dull and uninspired as it was.

[oscar jubis]

In two years of reading your posts I've seldom disagreed with you. This one is a true anomaly, I mean, calling O' Brother "intellectually stimulating". No point trying to convince you otherwise. The divide is simply too wide. Only way I could hate the flick more is if I had any connection to the Deep South, Mississippi in particular. The Coens' contempt is blatant.

[JustaFied]

OK, I admit I'm one of those people that really love Coens' movies. And I did find "O' Brother" to me an interesting (and intellectually stimulating, if you will) movie. I thought it was one of the best films that came out that year. If the Coens are being contempous of their characters in some way, there is still some sympathy or empathy with those characters' plights (unlike, say, the films of Kubrick). Instead of a base contempt for society, perhaps the Coens simply exhibit a certain disconnect with "the common man" resulting from their above-average intelligence. So, the contempt you're speaking of may also have some element of detached bewilderment and intellectual curiousity? You're the board psychologist, what do you think?

[bix171]

I think the Coen Brothers are too insular for "the common man". I doubt they even know they have an audience (however small, judging by their lack of success outside of "Fargo" and perhaps "O Brother, Where Art Thou?") other than film students and the art cinema crowd. But they don't seem to care. They've been smart enough to have presented their formidable technical skills to Hollywood while achieving a modicum of success, which causes a whole lot of superstars in their fields (cinematograher Roger Deakins, for example, as well as actors such as Tim Robbins, John Turturro, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Nicolas Cage, William H. Macy, even Paul Newman) to line up to work with them.

This privilage, while earned by proficiency and imagination, has allowed them to do what they want. It's resulted in a wide-ranging criss-crossing of genres, some of which are reasonably successful ("Miller's Crossing" and "O Brother") or interesting, ambitious failures ("Barton Fink") or out-and-out disasters ("The Hudsucker Proxy", "The Big Lebowski"). But they've been fortunate to able to turn out the films they've wanted to make because of the studios' prestige in being able to release a Coen Brothers picture. (I didn't see the studios back off after "The Hudsucker Proxy".)

Thus, I contend that the Coens don't feel the need to be concerned with either the needs of an audience or the necessity of exploring emotional conflicts; they've always showed more of an interest in the act of filmmaking than the content of the film. That, I suppose, is their right. But it's become obvious with each passing picture that it's harder to call their snide misanthropy content; it's window-dressing for the stylization and affect of their movies. They're not fooling anybody but themselves into thinking they're profound.

[oscar jubis]

"snide misanthropy" sounds about right. Here's an interesting essay on O' Brother from a self-described fan of these hipsters.

www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/00/11/obrother.html

[JustaFied]

So the Coens' "contempt" is considered to be "snide misanthropy", whereas someone like von Trier, who in film after film presents through his characters an even darker and more pessimistic view of mankind, is a brilliant and brave filmmaker? Perhaps the main difference is that the Coens' tongue-in-cheek approach doesn't sit well with the viewer expecting "big ideas" in film to be glossed in serious, self-important tones, ala von Trier.

[oscar jubis]

The comparison is neither apt nor helpful, unless meant as a contrast. One may describe von Trier as having a dark and pessimistic view of mankind whereas the Coens simply don't have one. A comedy need not be bereft of ideas, a comedy need not contain stupid, cardboard characters to ellicit laughs. Why don't you expound on how O' Brother stimulated your intellect? I am curious.

[JustaFied]

Well, the comparison to von Trier was apt in the context of the initial argument that the Coens are contemptous of their characters. I think you agree that a film doesn't need to have a sympathetic view toward human nature to be successful. My concern was that the Coens were unfairly labeled as contemptous when someone like von Trier, who in "Dogville" presents almost every character as exploitive of others and who have little or no compassion for anyone besides themselves, escapes criticism.

Probably, the progression of character is not the Coens' strong suit. What I liked about "O Brother" was its meld of Greek mythology, traditional Christianity, superstition, music, and love in taking on the age-old questions of the meaning of life and the search for happiness.

So, back to the subject of this thread, I thought "The Ladykillers" was their most heavy-handed and obtuse film to date. I was particularly disturbed with their apparent view of African-Americans in the South today. It seemed like there were two categories that everyone fit into: the first, like the elderly woman who took in the boarders, were stuck in the South of the '40 or '50's, apparently oblivious to the events of the last 50 years (including the civil rights movement). The second category was the gang-banging youth, incapable of speaking proper English or pulling up their pants, and prone to outbursts of gun-waving violence at the slightest whim. If this is the view the Coens have of the South today, I think they need to turn off their televisions and take an extended road trip through the South.

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by JustaFied
My concern was that the Coens were unfairly labeled as contemptous when someone like von Trier, who in "Dogville" presents almost every character as exploitive of others and who have little or no compassion for anyone besides themselves, escapes criticism.

I do believe the Coens treat the bulk of their characters as one-dimensional objects of ridicule. The most common criticism of Trier's films relates to his parade of suffering damsels he builds his films around, and to what my fave critic calls "cheap cynicism that infuriates"(Rosenbaum). I beg to differ. I value Dogville for laying bare the myriad razonalizations used by people to abuse the power they have over others. And I love the way the coda amplifies the scope of the message.

Probably, the progression of character is not the Coens' strong suit.

Exploring real environments is also not their strong suit. I do get a kick out of the artificial worlds they fabricate, but they don't resonate outside the theatre.

What I liked about "O Brother" was its meld of Greek mythology, traditional Christianity, superstition, music, and love in taking on the age-old questions of the meaning of life and the search for happiness.

Thanks.

I thought "The Ladykillers" was their most heavy-handed and obtuse film to date. If this is the view the Coens have of the South today, I think they need to turn off their televisions and take an extended road trip through the South.

They fare better when they set the flics in places they know like L.A. or their native Minessota, but Minessotans(?) were ticked off at how they were portrayed in Fargo. I think the Coens have treated other groups similar to how they depict African-americans in Ladykillers. Leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

[Chris Knipp]

I posted a review of The Ladykillers on my website and it appeared on the site CineScene. Here it is below.

http://www.cinescene.com/reviews/ladykillers.htm

The
Ladykillers
by Chris Knipp


The Ladykillers is a rehash of the 1955 Ealing comedy of the same name that was directed by Alexander Mackendrick and starred Alec Guinness. The Coen brothers, who’ve always been postmodern and tongue-in-cheek, seem to work increasingly in pastiches. Their genre-surfing has always been technically adept, but has also shown a tendency to shift rather randomly from one thing to another, without seeming to care, so long as the next thing is different from the last. Recently we’ve had a chilly and uninvolving period noir (The Man Who Wasn’t There) and a spiritedly vicious romantic comedy which loses its rhythm half way through (Intolerable Cruelty). The Ladykillers is an even less appealing and less enjoyable effort along this derivative line.

The Ealing comedies aren’t really what you’d call a “genre.” They were more a droll outgrowth of 1950s English cinema production methods, and a record of the brilliance and versatility of Alec Guinness. One can only rejoice that the Coens didn’t choose one of the real triumphs of the Ealing studios to spoil, something sublime and unforgettable like Kind Hearts and Coronets (the jewel in the crown); that backhanded indictment of capitalism, The Man in the White Suit; or the haunting bigamist’s tale, The Captain’s Paradise. The Ladykillers wasn’t the greatest. But still it had Guinness. And it had the wholeness of something produced by a studio that was like a well-oiled machine.

The plot in outline remains the same in this new version. A fake professor takes lodgings from an old lady, his pals pretend to be musicians, but what they’re really getting together to do is to plot a robbery. The Coens switch the action to somewhere in the American South, both time and place fatally vague. Indeed Tom Hanks, as Professor Goldthwait Higginson Dorr, is from one milieu and era, and each of his cohorts is from various incompatible others. They seem to be standing up to recite their parts solo, loudly, like those ugly Americans who shout at Europeans in the belief that it will make their English more comprehensible. This begins with Irma P. Hall as Marva Munson, the landlady, a large, rickety black woman of antique vintage who recites an emphatic but unconvincing tirade against rap in the little town police station. Each of the robbers has a schtick. Gawain MacSam (Marlan Wayans) is a foulmouthed and uncooperative young black man. Garth Pancake (J.K.Simmons) is a sterling white fellow with an implausible Freedom Rider background and a large moustache. Lump (Ryan Hurst) is a dumb jock gorilla who looks wide-eyed and grunts. The General (Tsi Ma) is a slimy southeast Asian with a background, like Pancake’s, in government sponsored pyromania, and his trick is to swallow lighted cigarettes. The job of Pancake and the General is to blast their way through the ground, with Lump’s digging help, to a gambling casino’s safe. MacSam is the “inside man,” a janitor employed on the riverboat where the safe is stored. Plenty of lively hostility develops within this crew of would be robbers, but there’s never enough teamwork or chemistry among them to make their buffoonery run smoothly.

Some may think Tom Hanks gives a remarkable performance as the ersatz professor. His mannered laugh and elaborate delivery are certainly a departure from his usual folksy authenticity; but it’s a performance that is dead in the water, partly because the rest of the movie doesn’t give him any support. His fake southern speech is so mannered it’s hard to follow. Its rhythms are all wrong. It’s as if the lines are memorized and reeled off without any sense of context or motivation. Hanks manages to be both remote and creepy. Guinness was ingratiating and scary, a combination that works much differently. This version has no edge, not even a genteel one. Oddly, the old lady doesn’t really turn out to be dangerous, a development that was the linchpin of the original plot.

The speech by the elderly black actress, Ms. Hall, which opens the jailhouse scene, has the same sort of effect as all the other tirades. It’s a tour de force that seems curiously detached from both the actress and her role. Nobody in this movie finds a rhythm that creates rapport with other characters. Each stereotype -- fake genteel professor, liberal white guy, trash-talking black man, dumb jock, sinister Asian – is autonomous. As often happens when a Coen screenplay isn’t working, the lines are clever but artificial, and the scenes are disjointed.

O Brother Where Art Thou? despite its charming soundtrack and good actors, who were fun to watch because they obviously were enjoying themselves, also seemed terribly condescending in its broad parody of hillbillies and rednecks. The Coens lose all tact when outside an urban sphere. But O Brother was brilliant and rich compared to this drab, mean-spirited effort. We really can’t wait for the robbers to bump each other off, but there’s nothing neat about the way it happens. Rent the original film instead.




©2004 Chris Knipp
CineScene

[Chris Knipp]

I'd like to add that the Coen brothers are originals we should be glad to have, even if lately they have disappointed us. The Big Lebowski has many who love it. I personally am very fond of the aptly named Blood Simple. There's an element of raw edge and excruciating suspense in Blood Simple that disappears as the Coens grow more and more adept. There's no doubt that the pair have felt from the first they could take any theme or genre and run with it. This has been their undoing. Nonetheless their early movies have much to recommend them. I was never a fan of Raising Arizona, nor did I take much to Miller's Crossing, but I love Barton Fink and consider it brilliant. I also think Fargo is a fine piece of work, whether it's fully approved by the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce or not. Let's ask Garrison Keiler what he thinks.

It's not to my mind correct to imply that the Coens were somehow doomed from the start. On the contrary they showed and fulfilled enormous promise. It's just that they've spun a thinner and thinner web in recent years. Their well seems to be running dry. The same thing happened with Woody Allen. The production goes on apace but the brilliance and freshness vanish.

"The progression of character" in Kafka's Metamorphosis rather than Henry James's Portrait of a Lady is the kind the Coens deliver brilliantly in Barton Fink, and in The Big Lebowski they deliver a very large couple of characters.

I can go along with JustaFied's remark that The Ladykillers "was their most heavy handed and obtuse film to date." To compare the Coens to von Trier is really apples and oranges. As I remarked in my review, the difference between O Brother and The Ladykillers is that however condescending the former is, it's fun. The Ladykillers is dreary, unfun, and grinds to a halt.

But though I see a bad direction in the Coens' last three or four movies, I'd be reluctant to generalize about their oeuvre, which is so varied and is still evolving, or perhaps devolving. If you say "the Coens are contemptuous of their characters" that means as much as to say "Kafka is contemptuous of his characters." They simply have a style that is detached, cool, and modern. I think they've been a bit too experimental in their riffling through genres instead of developing any consistent point of view. You can't say what their point of view is, so you can't condemn it either. Much of the time they are exploring genre and cracking jokes. Some times their jokes don't come off. Ultimately if there is no point of view emerging, they begin increasingly to disappoint. But it is also a question of being too random in their choice of material and thereby half the time missing out on subjects that best show off their talents. Lately it has been more than half the time. But they have done some good and original work, however it grows out of pop and pulp. And so has Quentin Tarantino. But Tarantino is more of a filmmaker than they are. Technically their work can't compare with his.

[JustaFied]

Originally posted by oscar jubis
I value Dogville for laying bare the myriad razonalizations used by people to abuse the power they have over others. And I love the way the coda amplifies the scope of the message.


Quick comment here on "Dogville", don't want to get too much off topic, will post more Coens comments later with more time.

My observation was that the only real rationalization shown for the people's abuses of power was that they could get away with it. Grace was, in effect, a slave, as she had no recourse for her plight. If she didn't do what they told her to do, they would tell the authorities of her presence in the town.

One of the qualms I had with this film was the lack of the element of religion in the people's lives. Other than their meetings in the church, there are no scenes of their religious activities. The power of the church, and its hypocrisies, has been a strong presence in puritanical America throughout its history. I think some degree of religiousity would be involved in the decisions of the townfolk in their treatment of Grace, and von Trier doesn't really have a grasp of this effect.

I did like elements of the Bettany character. He clearly represented ineffectual liberalism and humanism in a capitalist, democratic society still in its infancy. He wanted to act, but he was restrained by self doubt and by the inability to make strong decisions counter to those of his fellow townsfolks. However, I also think this was perhaps a characterization more relevant to the U.S. at that period almost 100 years ago and not as much today.