Director: Steven Spielberg
Writers: Matt Charman, Joel & Ethan Coen
Cast: Tom Hanks, Mark Rylance, Alan Alda, Amy Ryan, Austin Stowell, Sebastian Koch
Runtime: 141 mins.
2015
Bridge of Spies reaffirms my suspicion that Spielberg is the most sneakily subversive mainstream filmmaker in the business. The story, as penned by Matt Charman and the Coen brothers, follows insurance lawyer James P. Donovan (Tom Hanks) as he is tasked with defending the most reviled man in the country--a suspected Russian spy--during the height of the Cold War. Nobody ever has any doubt about the truth of this accusation. We see him doing spy stuff in the furtively filmed opening sequence. But that isn't the issue at hand. Donovan believes that as an attorney it is his job to give the defendant Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance) the most capable representation possible, and for this the entire country begins to resent him, too.
I won't reveal how, but around the halfway point the movie takes an abrupt turn into more intrigue and Cold War spy business. It's a great twist, and Spielberg's grip remains tight on the narrative, though I personally preferred the front half. Sure, it was the dull courtroom drama part, but as I hinted above there is some brilliant subversive commentary about fear, media, and American culture.
I've noticed that in Spielberg's "serious work," he roots us in the perspective of the dominant power. The British, the Americans--the white man. However, he puts his audience in this familiar position in order to more subtly subvert our expectations and stereotypes. I talk about this technique explicitly in my Amistad and Empire of the Sun reviews, and it very much applies to Bridge of Spies. This may be the only Cold War thriller I've ever seen in which the Russians aren't the clear-cut bad guys. They are the antagonists, sure, but they are never portrayed as doing anything more or less than playing the same game as the Americans.
This subversion is rooted in Rudolf Abel's character. Spielberg cast an actor in Mark Rylance who could deliver a performance simultaneously stone cold stoic and painfully sympathetic. His work is mesmerizing and well worthy of a best supporting actor nomination, now that we're nearing the time when we're nearing the time to be nearing awards season. Abel is not sinister, he is not devious. He's just incredibly competent at his job and unshakably loyal to his nation. Rather than revile those qualities like the American public, Donovan comes to respect them, as do we. It helps that Abel is the closest thing Donovan has to a supportive companion in the entire country.
Spielberg wallops hypocrisy in our legal system, media sensationalism, and the sacrifice of civil rights for the sake of security. These critiques all feel painfully relevant in today's American cultural landscape. Bridge of Spies tells us that the foreign boogeyman is not the bad guy: we are our own worst enemies, and sometimes it takes one bullheaded idealist to stand up and show us that. As I said in my Lincoln review, idealism is not a naive fantasy; it is a painstaking tool that we must use to chisel away at injustice until our hands are raw.
Spielberg pounds these points home with intentional camerawork and impeccable staging. My favorite sequence in the movie is a matching cut from the "all rise" in a courtroom to a classroom of children rising to deliver the pledge of allegiance, followed by a cut to footage of nuclear blasts decimating buildings. This inspired fifteen seconds says more about culture and inculcation than many filmmakers could hope to achieve in an entire movie.
There's another sequence that I will vaguely mention because it was so startling to me. About halfway through the film there is a hair-raising action setpiece that sticks out of this slow-paced movie like a dagger through an arm. I won't describe it, but the filming of it is exhilarating, and it reminded me that despite his recent propensity for ponderous dramas, Spielberg is still one of the more revolutionary action directors of all time.
In Devin's review over at Birth.Movies.Death, he eloquently states that nobody but Tom Hanks could have played Donovan's role with such efficacy. No other modern day actor can portray that brand of American idealism without it seeming either cynical or cheesy. Tom Hanks is the modern day Jimmy Stewart. We need people to speak up on behalf of the simple truth: every person matters. Few can say that phrase without making it sound condescending or problematic, but Hanks delivers the message in the purest way possible. He is not advocating egalitarianism or whitewashing or anything like that--he is advocating empathy, the only way to successfully navigate a bureaucratic system.
Bridge of Spies is yet another entry in Spielberg's long quest to use his tremendous filmmaking skill to try to make the human race better. It's not perfect; there are a few arcs and a whole character set up to be important that disappear entirely from the movie (Donovan's lawyer teammate). I found the movie legitimately inspiring, which is becoming more and more difficult in an age of cynicism and postmodernism. Every new Spielberg we get is a treasure, and Bridge of Spies is well worth valuing.
4 / 5 BLOBS
Hi Ryan, I enjoyed your observations about Spielberg's direction in this film and how no one but Hanks could have pulled off Donovan's role with such sincerity and earnestness. I had a question about the end, though.
ReplyDelete*** SPOILER ALERT ***
On the bridge, Donovan asks Abel what to look for from the Russians that would indicate the latter's fate (i.e., being returned to his family or facing a firing squad). Abel tells him (IIRC) that if he gets hugged or a handshake, he's fine; otherwise, if the Russians just put him in the back of the car, he's probably facing execution. And, of course, after Abel goes over to the Russians, they rush him into the car, leaving a horrified Donovan to stare across the bridge, alone with thoughts of his successful negotiation resulting in a man being condemned to death.
Then we get the coda where on-screen text tells us Abel is returned to his family to live out the rest of his days, undercutting the power of the aforementioned scene.
My question is do you think that coda was a studio add-on? Given the impact of the conclusion of the prisoner exchange, I have to believe that some studio head had problems with Abel's fate and asked that the coda be put in without any input from Spielberg or the Coens. And just thinking about it, that bizarrely upbeat note about Abel at the end seems very unCoen-esque.
What are your thoughts?
That's an acute observation. Studio interference is a possibility, but it seems to me unlikely when it comes to a project like this--a non-blockbuster written and directed by some of the biggest titans in the industry. Two alternate possibilities come to mind.
DeleteThe first is that it could be a tension between the Coens' and Spielberg's worldviews. Spielberg has always been optimistic, occasionally to a fault, whereas the Coens balance optimism and cynicism far more aggressively depending on what each film needs. The jet black ending may belong to the Coens, and the tack-on at the end (including the brief shot of the child jumping the fence, which some felt to be too on the nose, though I didn't mind) may have more of Spielberg's marks on it. I'm hesitant to endorse this reading because it requires us to dig into projected authorial intent. Not to mention that the other Spielberg movie that people dissect this way, A.I., tends to be misunderstood because of this approach. Folks assume the cynical bits are Kubrick's and the more humanistic stuff is Spielberg's, but in actuality the opposite was true.
The other reading, which seems more likely to me, is that it shook out the way you describe because it's a biopic. The best biopics bend biographical facts in order to craft a more compelling and sensible narrative, and the Coens and Spielberg are well aware of this. They sensed that Abel being ushered into the car was exactly the right ending for this story of unflappable but painful idealism. So that's the ending they chose. But there's also a certain, often ambiguous, amount of journalistic integrity that goes along with telling the story of real people, so the title card is there to let us know what actually happened. In a sense it would have been dishonest to let that final scene stand alone, because it would have led us to believe something major happened that simply didn't happen at all. So it's the best of both worlds--the impactful button to the narrative, as well as an aboveboard refashioning of true events. Spielberg can do wonders with nonfiction, but there are moments when we can sense the restrictions imposed by real events.
Thanks for the question!