Beast of Burden.


Unfortunately, the reviews of Stephen Zaillan’s All the King’s Men, the second half of my Friday morning double-feature, are basically correct. The film just doesn’t work…Indeed, it’s even a bit of a stinker. I’ve never seen the 1949 John Ireland/Broderick Crawford version, so I can’t tell you how it compares to that particular Oscar-winner. But, a few ghostly wisps of Penn Warren’s prose notwithstanding, this 2006 take on the novel is, as I feared in a post one year ago today, both hopelessly miscast and remarkably pedestrian. Straining mightily for solemnity throughout its run, this Men feels leaden from the start and fails to capture the sprawling grandeur of the novel (which, I guess, some literary critics hate. I for one love the book — it’s one of my all-time favorites, and not just for the failed historian digression.) If you’ve never read All the King’s Men, trust me — you’ll want to stay away from this flick. (If you have, well, you probably want to stay away too.)

Loosely based on the life of Louisiana’s Huey Long, All the King’s Men follows the trajectory of one Willie Stark (Sean Penn, way off), an earthy and ambitious backcountry politician with big city hungers and national dreams. (Consider him the Tommy Carcetti of his day.) In the midst of running a doomed gubernatorial campaign — designed by political insiders Tiny Duffy (James Gandolfini) and Sadie Burke (Patricia Clarkson) to split the hick vote and thus elect the favored candidate of the powers-that-be — Starr finds his populist voice and manages to capture the State House on a platform of less corporate graft and more roads, schools, and libraries for the people. But, once in office, the lure of power aggravates Stark’s more misanthropic tendencies, and (though this film barely explains how) the new governor begins to enact his redistributive policies with increasingly little regard for democratic niceties.

Along for the ride is our embittered narrator, Jack Burden (Jude Law, also way off but, surprisingly, closer to the mark than Penn). A slumming scion of Louisiana’s elite turned disaffected journalist (and functioning alcoholic), Burden, who relishes playing the world-weary observer, becomes Stark’s right-hand man despite himself. But, involvement, like, power, carries its own price. Soon, to accommodate Stark’s growing political appetites, Burden finds he must not only reenter but betray the past he thought he’d earlier burned away, whether it be by digging up dirt on his magisterial godfather, Judge Irwin (Anthony Hopkins, on autopilot), convincing his best friend (Mark Ruffalo, zombielike) to sign up under Stark’s employ, or allowing his youthful sweetheart (Kate Winslet, strangely bad) to herself come under Stark’s thrall.

To the film’s credit, the movie attempts to spend as much time on Burden’s arc as it does on Stark’s, as it should. But the two halves of the tale seem almost wholly separate here — Stark disappears for the middle third, when Burden’s backstory takes center stage. And that’s just the start of what’s wrong here — Simply put, everything just seems off. Penn is wholly unbelievable (and virtually inscrutable) as Stark, Law doesn’t serve much better as Burden. Other actors (Hopkins, Ruffalo) seem bored, others still (Gandolfini, Clarkson) are given too little to do. Accents are consistently mangled throughout. James Horner’s score is intrusive to say the least. Plot details are consistently elided over to the point of the story barely making sense (Why, for example, is Stark being impeached? One gets no clue in this version.) And Zaillan’s hamhanded directing stops the movie dead all too many times (the most egregious case being in the final moments, with the Louisiana seal — you’ll see what I mean.) Even the period is off: The novel takes place during the Depression, but for reasons that never become apparent we begin our tale here in 1954. If it ain’t broke, people…

The sole redeeming grace of this version of All the King’s Men are the occasional literary flourishes from the book, which are usually given by Jude Law in voiceover. Only in these brief moments, and only imperfectly, can we sense the endless jiggers of whiskey, the cedary scent of spanish moss, the lingering sweat and grinding despair that characterize Penn Warren’s novel. Whether it be Willie’s path to power or Jack’s remembrances, All the King’s Men is about more than just a political rise and fall. As befitting its author’s role in the southern agrarian literary movement, curdling at the novel’s heart is a lament for the days of yore and a futile raging against the inexorable indignities of time. The past passes: It marks us forever and can neither be escaped nor reclaimed as it was — it can only be confronted and accepted. “Man is conceived in sin and born in corruption and he passeth from the stink of the didie to the stench of the shroud.” Zaillan’s film version does make a meaningful attempt to capture these crucial elements of the book, but, alas, like Willie himself, its reach far exceeds its grasp.

Stark Future.

The new trailer for Stephen Zaillan’s star-studded take on All the King’s Men premieres online. I remain conflicted — James Gandolfini looks just about dead-on as Tiny Duffy (and should be fun to watch as the anti-Tony Soprano), and, tho’s she not really in this clip, I love Patricia Clarkson as Sadie. But Jude Law and Sean Penn still feel wrong, wrong, wrong to me (particularly when Penn/Stark’s on the stump.) And I still kinda hate the blatantly Oscar-bait-ish ad campaign on display here, what with the distracting orchestral sweep and all the actorly kudos. But, we’ll see…I’ll definitely be in the theater day one.

Burden of the Bayou

Hidden over at the official FX Nip/Tuck site (click on the Sony lounge button at the bottom of the screen) are a number of new trailers for upcoming big-ticket films, including Freedomland (with Samuel Jackson, Julianne Moore, Edie Falco, and The Wire‘s Clarke Peters) and Memoirs of a Geisha (with Zhang Ziyi, Michelle Yeoh, Gong Li and Ken Watanabe.) Both, particularly the latter, look impressive.

Less impressive, unfortunately, is the trailer for one of my most eagerly awaited films of the year, All the King’s Men. To be fair, I have very high hopes for this flick. All the King’s Men is far and away my favorite “Great American Novel” for many reasons. (To name just one, anyone thinking of going anywhere near a history graduate degree should peruse Jack Burden’s trying experience at State University first.) Whatsmore, it’s being brought to the screen (again) through the efforts of my old boss, who’s got, you might say, a good handle on the source material.

But this trailer misses the punch of the book and, frankly, plays like not much more than warmed-over Oscar bait. Ok, no biggie, it’s just a trailer. But more worrying, Jude Law and Sean Penn, both excellent actors, seem miscast. As the passage cited above attests, Burden is by no means a fresh-faced kid when he enters Willie’s circle — he’s been around the block a few times, fallen in and out of love and lust, gotten kicked around when he’s down, and taken refuge more than once in the smothering arms of the Great Sleep. There’s a sadness and a resignation about him that’s just not gonna shake…Think Gabriel Byrne in Miller’s Crossing. But, here, Jude Law looks entirely too wide-eyed, beaming, and innocent — in a word, too pretty — to do justice to the part. As for Penn…well, he just seems off to me, particularly considering how perfect Sadie (Patricia Clarkson) and Tiny Duffy (James Gandolfini) look. But, well, perhaps I’ll get used to him. (The Stantons — Kate Winslet and Mark Ruffalo — are neither here nor there, but I’m getting a bad feeling about Anthony Hopkins, who’s been known to phone it in, as Judge Irwin.)

Tony (to) Stark.

The cast for All the King’s Men fills out, with Patricia Clarkson replacing Meryl Streep as Sadie, Anthony Hopkins taking on Judge Irwin, and James Gandolfini portraying Tiny Duffy, Willie’s most grotesque sycophant. Hmmm…I like Clarkson as Sadie, but Hopkins screams stunt casting, and (as with Streep earlier) I’m not sure Gandolfini makes sense given that Sean Penn’s playing Willie. I’d love to see a well-done remake of All the King’s Men, one of my favorite novels, but I fear this project may fast be veering into Cold Mountain “Miramax All-Stars” territory.

Courtiers to the King.

It seems Meryl Streep, Kate Winslet, and Mark Ruffalo may be joining Sean Penn (Willie Stark) and Jude Law (Jack Burden) in the forthcoming remake of All the King’s Men. Streep is apparently set to play Sadie, Willie’s long-suffering right-hand woman, which must make Winslet and Ruffalo Anne and Adam Stanton respectively.

Jude’s Burden.

Hey Jude, don’t make it bad…Apparently Jude Law’s been cast in All the King’s Men as Jack Burden (the narrator), with Sean Penn in line for Willie Stark (the Huey Long character.) I generally like Law ok, but to be honest, he ain’t at all what I pictured for Burden, who’s been pretty well broken by life by the time the story starts. Well, we’ll see…hopefully this won’t turn out to be Cold Mountain II.

Carville on Stark.

Here’s something else I meant to blog last week and forgot – my old boss is looking to produce a remake of All the King’s Men (It’s below the Hitchens stuff.) I know Carville has some connections with Milos Forman due to his cameoing in The People vs. Larry Flynt…I wonder if he could entice him to direct. At any rate, if this goes down, I may just have to finagle a way to get involved in some capacity, or at least visit the set.