JOSEPH LHOTA IS GIULIANI SMALL, NOT LITE.

          The word, “henchman” isn’t used much now, but it will get popular again soon. Joseph Lhota is running for mayor. According to the article by Michael Barbaro on the front page of today’s (3/28) New York Times, Mr. Lhota was deputy mayor under Rudolph Giuliani and his most notable task was strong-arming the Brooklyn Museum. It was also his biggest failure. 

When, in the fall of 1999, Mayor Giuliani objected to a painting in The Brooklyn Museum, one that he considered religiously offensive, it was deputy mayor Lhota’s job to make sure the work of art was removed. The painting in question, “Holy Virgin Mary” by the artist Chris Ofili, contained clumps of elephant dung and photos of female genitalia. It was part of, as Mr. Barbaro writes, “Sensation, a deliberately provocative collection of about 90 paintings, photographs and sculptures that had arrived in Brooklyn after making it’s debut, to huge crowds as well as controversy, in London.” The deputy mayor “concedes that he did not see the artwork – or the rest of the “Sensation” exhibition – in person, despite living in Brooklyn Heights,  about ten minutes from the museum. He looked at pictures instead.” That was enough to convince Mr. Lhota, a Roman Catholic who once considered joining the priesthood, that this painting was, indeed, offensive. 

     First, he warned the Brooklyn Museum that if they didn’t remove the painting, the city will cut off their funding, a vitally needed $7 million a year. When they refused, he threatened to close the entire museum, citing a technicality in their lease. The museum’s board of directors voted to proceed with the show, so he told them that he was withholding their first payment, a check for $500,000. “Schuyler Chapin, the city’s commissioner of cultural affairs, demanded an explanation from Mr. Lhota, in person, at City Hall.” The deputy mayor replied that “He was looking for ‘leverage points’ to force the museum’s hand. ‘It was,’ he said, ‘as legitimate as any negotiation is.” But not as legal. 

           The Brooklyn Museum filed a lawsuit against New York City and won. “When a federal judge, Nina Gershon, ruled in November 1999 that the city had violated the First Amendment, she cited Mr. Lhota’s testimony. It ‘reinforces the conclusion,’ Judge Gershon wrote, ‘that it was never contemplated that the city or the mayor would have veto power over the museum’s decisions as to what to display.’ After its court defeat, the Giuliani administration reached a settlement that required it to restore financing to the museum and barred City Hall from any acts of revenge.”

None of which would matter in the least except Joseph Lhota is seeking to follow Michael Bloomberg as Mayor of New York City. As Defender of the Faith, Mr. Lhota is as silly and useless as the Swiss Guard. As an art critic, he makes Sister Wendy look like Peggy Guggenheim. As a mayoral candidate, however, his behavior is disturbing. He defends both his conduct regarding the Brooklyn Museum and the motivation behind it. “I don’t regret the tactics – at all.”

If he was just another thug running for office, he wouldn’t merit our attention, either. Yet, as Michael Barbaro notes, “Mr. Lhota promotes himself as a moderate Republican candidate with urban sensibilities that the national party lacks.” If that were true, he’d be John Lindsay and people who remember Mayor Lindsay might be deceived. Joseph Lhota also claims cultural credentials: having “once audited an art history class at Georgetown.” Auditing means you aren’t graded, so the only cost to your stupidity is tuition. On the other hand, because the class didn’t effect his grade point average, it could be a sign of the demi-cunning that would mark his later career in public service. Either way, people who couldn’t get into Georgetown might think he’s smart and do something dumb like vote for him. 

     So, what makes one of Giuliani’s henchmen, an unsuccessful one at that, think he can be mayor? Simple.  Joseph Lhota is the kind of guy who would lie to the press and then believe his own publicity. Ask him. He’ll tell you to read the article in The New York Times.

DR. BENJAMIN CARSON: THE NOVO-CAIN.

What this country needs is a wealthy, privileged, power-hungry leader with a huge ego. I don’t think that, but it sure seems like Dr. Benjamin Carson does. What’s more, he means himself.

In his article on the front page of today’s (3/21) New York Times, Trip Gabriel calls Dr. Carson, the newest star of conservative politics because he’s “A renowned neurosurgeon who is black and has the credibility to attack the president on health care.” He’s definitely a renowned neurosurgeon because the man who hired him says so. If you don’t believe Dr. Donlin Long, a retired chairman of neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins, listen to Dr. Carson himself. His 1996 autobiography, “Gifted Hands,” became a movie starring Cuba Gooding, Jr. If neither is sufficient (or, shall we say, disinterested) look at his achievements. “He gained fame for a series of operations separating conjoined twins, long and risky procedures that do not always succeed.” It’s not every doctor who gets Gabriel to blow his horn. Nor is it every risky operation that makes you famous even if it doesn’t succeed. (Although, with respect to his career, you could say that all his operations succeeded.)

         

      More amazing to me than separating conjoined twins is how little being a doctor qualifies you for besides practicing medicine. Certainly not for discussing health care policy. Consider Dr. Carson’s comments to Mr. Gabriel. “Most people could pay most of their bills through health savings account, he said in his office. He would eliminate Medicaid and Medicare, and for the poor, government would make the contributions  to their health accounts.” What if, say, you’re conjoined twins and need the most complicated and expensive procedure known to man? “The difference could be made up by catastrophic care insurance.” In all fairness, this may not be as simple-minded and out-of-touch as it appears. A similar plan was proposed, years ago, by The Tooth Fairy and is very popular among children.

         

  Okay, health care policy may not be his strength. How about taxes? “You make $10 billion, you put in a billion; you make $10, you put in 1, Dr. Carson explained at the prayer breakfast. Now, some people say that’s not fair because it doesn’t hurt the guy who made $10 billion as much as it hurts the guy who makes 10. Where does it say you’ve got to hurt the guy?” First, Mitt Romney wouldn’t say that to a group of campaign donors in his living room and second, prayer breakfast? I’ll assume that isn’t a cereal called Wafers (“Now, with more Communion!”)

         

         If you’re thinking, “That’s the kind of man we need to run the country” then you’re not only agreeing with Dr. Carson, but with an editorial in the Wall Street Journal that declared, “Ben Carson for President.” I’ll confess I haven’t read the editorial, but I have a good reason. I’m too busy imagining Dr. Carson getting his “gifted hands” on foreign policy or placing one “gifted” finger on “The Button.” It isn’t pretty.

         

       What could possibly explain this man’s appeal- his dramatic hold - on  political conservatives? Alex Castellanos, a Republican consultant, thinks he knows. “Anybody who is serious and thoughtful and an antipolitician is the opposite of the mess we’ve got now. If you can separate two Siamese twins, maybe you can separate Democrats and Republicans in Washington.” Separate . . . huh? I challenge Dr. Carson himself to find a brain in this man’s head.

         

          Too many experts, that’s the problem. What does the common man think of Dr. Benjamin Carson? Quite a lot according to, well, Dr. Carson. “He told the Conservative Political Action Conference that some of his most poignant feedback came ‘From older Americans who said they had given up  and they were waiting to die and now they felt a sense of revival once again.’” Even by the standards of political and surgical egos, which sets the bar somewhere above Mars, that’s a whopper. This doctor thinks he can bring people back from the dead. The last doctor who thought that had his attitude adjusted by Boris Karloff.

         

     So, if political conservatives are infatuated with Dr. Carson and it’s not because he’s a “renowned neurosurgeon” or “has the credibility(!) to attack President Obama on health care,” then, going back to Trip Gabriel’s original description, it must be because he’s “black.” If so, that would make him the new Herman Cain, the novo-cain. A millionaire executive at the top of his field, who believes in a flat tax and is threatened by the Affordable Health Care Act. The only difference is that Dr. Benjamin Carson may know where “Uzbecky-becky-stan-stan” is. He’s probably had patients from there. I wish him the same success.

        

LESS IS MORON.

There’s no lack of frauds in The New York Times, but the articles are usually about them. Rarely, in my experience, do you read something     in the Times that was written by a fraud. That joy came on the morning of March 9^th, when, in the Sunday Review, Graham Hill built an intellectual slum on some of the most expensive real estate in journalism.

         
In a piece entitled, “Living With Less. A Lot Less,” Mr. Hill claims that we can have “bigger, better, richer” lives by reducing the size and number of our possessions. That we, like him, can live happily in 420-square feet. He falls 420 feet short. The only thing he delivers in abundance is bragging. He boasts about where he lived before, “A 1900-square-foot loft in Soho that befit my status as a tech entrepeneur” and where he lives now, “My space is well-built, affordable and as functional as living spaces twice the size.” Traveling before, “Bangkok, Buenos Aires and Toronto with many stops in between” and now, “My travel habit – which I try to keep in check.” 

Most of all, Graham Hill brags about the money he had before, “Flush with cash from an Internet start-up sale” ”Not everyone gets an Internet windfall before turning 30” “My partner and I sold our Internet consultancy company, Sitewerks, for more money than I thought I’d earn in a lifetime” and . . . well, he never actually says that gave away any of his money. That's significant for two reasons: it means he still has wherewithal, it just isn't where you can see it and that all personal details - anything that would keep the piece from being a giant resume cum ad for himself - is missing.

Mr. Hill never talks, for instance,about his life or work before becoming financially rich. He gives no details about his "great love" for "Olga, an Andorran beauty" and doesn't provide a single insight or dramatic incident

illustrating the cost of materialism. Instead,  he relies on vague assertions, "My relationship with stuff quickly came apart" and slow-moving clots of academic research, "Irrespective of personality, in situations that activate a consumer mindset, people show the same problematic patterns of well-being, including negative affect and social disengagement." 

The closest Graham Hill comes to being revealing or insightful is when he writes, "Often material objects take up mental as well as physical space." I'm sure that's true and, in his case, space that he can ill afford. The closest that he comes to a summary (by close I mean five paragraphs from the end) is when he writes, "Intuitively, we know that the best stuff in life isn't stuff at all, and that relationships, experiences and meaningful work are the staples of a happy life." Compressing into one sentence as boring a rehash 0f conventional wisdom as we're likely to see this side of daytime television.

"Living With Less. A Lot less." isn't a complete waste, however, because it makes three things clear. One is that, like Barbara Jordan's faith in the Constitution, Mr. Hill's self-absorption is whole. It is complete. It is total. Down to the photograph accomp- anying the article. It shows him squatting in a corner like he was worthy of a portrait by Irving Penn. (Speaking of pretensions, how about the name of his company, Sitewerks? You'd think John Von Neumann was going to de-bug your computer.) Two, why his relationship with "Olga, an Andorran beauty" ended. (If you doubt - for a second - that she left him, see above.) The third is that if he wants to make a lot of money - and we know that he does - he should sue the people who educated him. Apparently, they overlooked Henry David Thoreau and his statement that, "Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify."

FRANCIS, WE HARDLY KNEW YA!

Now, that the Papacy has become a job that you can retire from, the new Pope, Francis I, can quit, too. Who would blame him? Experts everywhere have said that the new Pope will face many challenges – like that’s a good thing. He automatically becomes responsible for every scandal plaguing the church and he can’t be fast enough and effective enough in addressing every one. (Don’t even think about the Vatican Bank.) Really, he can get his own red shoes. So, when the true nature of the job that Jorge Cardinal Bergoglio has signed onto becomes clear to him, no one should be surprised when he hangs up his zuchetto and goes, “Ciao, bello.”

         

      The first thing he’ll want to do,      of course, is go back to Argentina, where the people love him. Where they used to love him. Then he was elected Pope and they adored him. He was a national hero. Argentina has produced a Pope. Now, however, they'll think he’s a quitter. The Pope who couldn’t cut it. A weakling, a coward. What’s the Spanish word for macho? Oh, yes. Macho. Francisco no es macho. He’ll be lucky if they don’t stop him at the border. Okay, no Argentina.

         

       How about Monte Carlo, he'll think. It’s time he lived like a person. No vows of poverty, obedience and – what’s the other one? Some time on the beach would be nice and maybe a game of chance in the casino. So, Jorge Bergoglio moves to Monte Carlo, where he quickly discovers that Popes are infallible everywhere, but at the craps table. (“Baby needs a new pair of red shoes!”) He runs through his money vite and can’t get more because, once he quit, they took away his holy credit card. His Eminence moves down the coast to a less expensive neighborhood and takes a job at the Home Depot in Marseille. (“Does this apron come in white?”) He’s doing pretty well and the irony of still serving carpenters is not lost on him, but the job poses its own unique challenges (“Hammers are over there.” “How about silver hammers?” “Funny. That’s the first time I heard that – today!”) 

          So, the former Pope Francis I will return to Rome and ask for his old job back. (“I’m humble, I’m humble. Look at me, I’m turning the other cheek.”) By now, however, Angelo Cardinal Scola of Milan is Pope. (“What’s wrong with Pope Angelo? It means angel!”) What’s more, he wants to keep the job. So, he introduces Jorge to the new Captain of The Swiss Guard, Carmine "Big Fondue" Mazzola, who introduces Jorge to the bed of the Tiber. Sic Transit Francisco mundi.

"PARADE'S END" AND NOT A MOMENT TOO SOON.

A gullible English aristocrat falls into the clutches of a man-hungry hussy named Sylvia. Wait, don’t tell me! He has a butler named Jeeves and belongs to the Drones Club. No, that would be funny – and written by P.G. Wodehouse. Instead, these characters – and their resulting marriage – belong to Parade’s End, a recent minseries on HBO. A transparent attempt to cash in on the popularity of Downton Abbey, it’s based on a series of five (!) novels, also called Parade’s End, by the writer so nice, they named him twice: Ford Maddox Ford.

           I’ll admit that I’ve only seen the first episode of five and that it may turn into a comedy by the end, but I doubt it. My experience with stories that begin in humiliation, like Parade’s End, is that they usually end in despair. There’s plenty of humiliation to go around, too. Christopher Tietjens, heir to a stately home so large that it looks like a Georgian airport, meets and abruptly marries Sylvia Satterthwaite, a pool of salacious quicksand that swallows men up to their necks. A solid chap, highly principled and what the British call, “very clever,” Tietjens is, in matters of the heart, anti-matter. Still, he’s aware enough to know that his wife will never be faithful. Propriety seems to goad her, immorality acts as a kind of sauce. 

          Why would a ranking member of society and influential member of the House of Lords, someone with everything to lose, marry – against all advice – someone with everything to gain? Sylvia is knocked up and Mr. Nice Guy wants to do the right thing by her, regardless of whom the father may be. Like I said, very solid. Also the sex, don’t you know. Quite thrilling, but exclusivity is not one of its charms.

          The only thing that saves Christopher Tietjens from complete saphood is his attraction to a winsome, young suffragette named Valentine Wannop. (Get it? Valentine/heart) He’s not discreet about it, either. His interest in her – and likewise – is as obvious as lighting on a golf course. Guess where they meet? A golf course! And he acts as if struck by what? Lightning! (Subtle – like two Fords coming together at an intersection.) At this point, I should mention that the adaption of Parade’s End for television was done by the eminent playwright and screenwriter, Tom Stoppard. Having already foisted upon us the current film version of Anna Karenina (TFT 1/15/13) Mr. Stoppard seems intent on 1) undoing his reputation 2) financing his retirement 3) both.

  What lies ahead for Christopher, Sylvia and Valentine? Who cares? We have the makings of a triangle, but not an interesting one. It’s as if – in Gone With the Wind - Ashley married Scarlett and then met Melanie. Can you see getting another fours hours out of it? I can’t – and won’t.

POPE-NEY SWOPE.

           I’ll be surprised if the next Pope isn’t Italian and shocked if he isn’t European. So, things look pretty buono for the Archbishop of Milan, Angelo Scola. Don’t count out Peter Cardinal Turkson, though. The Ghanian prelate could be the first black pope. (Not counting the leader of the Jesuits, called by some, “The Black Pope,” after his priest-like vestments.) The odds against His Eminence are, I’ll admit, pretty high, but you have to consider the Putney Swope factor.                                    

Putney Swope is a 1969 comedy, written and directed by Robert Downey Sr., in which the executive board of an ad agency must elect a successor to their recently deceased chairman. Since the rules forbid voting for yourself, they each vote – by secret ballot – for the one person they’re sure will never be elected: the only black man on the board, Putney Swope.

I don’t know for a fact that Cardinals can’t vote for themselves, but it seems to me that some Vatican official back in, say, the third century may have seen the risk and proposed a rule against it. Nor is it a guarantee that, once elevated to Pope, the former Cardinal of Ghana would commence a series of sweeping changes as Putney Swope did in the movie. Changing, for instance, the name of the ad agency to “Truth And Soul, Inc.” The chances of something like that happening are very, very small. Yet, as Lord Acton said to George Gershwin, “Power corrupts and absolute power is nice work if you can get it.”

HOLD YOUR HEAD HIGH, TOM DOOLEY.

How long are the Fifties going to last? I like skinny ties and full skirts, dry martinis – the whole Mad Men shtick. (Except smoking – I’m glad that’s gone.) It’s the conservative politics that bore me, the whole conservative moment that we’ve been living through. It’s been way more than a moment and has overstayed its welcome.

I realize that we never, truly repeat anything. That we only copy styles and - even then – interpret them. That watching Mad Men on a twelve-inch B&W Philco wouldn’t be nearly as much fun as watching it on a sixty-inch color flat screen TV. Yet, some styles are more consequential than others and changing them makes some kind of progress a bit more likely. Styles in politics, for instance. It’s time for outspoken liberals to be outspoken again. For political extremists to return to the margins (from memory in the case of the Left) and to admit that replacing William F. Buckley jr. with morons was never a good idea. It may not produce anything of real political consequence (what does?) but it will introduce the last several generations to the idea that politics is more than a lame enterprise devoted to fear and greed. That Republicans are about more than mugging the middle class (if that’s true) and that Democrats are motivated by something a touch more elevated than appeasement (if that’s possible.) 

I don’t propose a return to the political styles of the late Sixties and early Seventies. That would be nice, but “Occupy” has bungled that so completely, discredited the idea so thoroughly that no one can touch it for a while. Nor do I advocate a return to the cultural styles of that period. Not, at least, without irony. I suggest that we nudge the cultural calendar forward. Not a great lurching movement, but a small, logical step from the grey flannel Fifties to the madras plaid of the early Sixties. It’s time for a folk song revival.

The Weavers are too early and Bob Dylan is too late. The Kingston Trio is just right. Three wholesome young men giving earnest renditions of wonderful songs. Don’t worry, we’ll get to Bob Dylan and Joan Baez and Judy Collins. (They may well get there before us.) Admit it, we’re heading there anyway. Think of all the mandolins, banjos and ukuleles you’ve heard lately. Mumford and Sons are just one “Wimoweh” away from folk music.  

I humbly submit my own attempt at folk music below. Like all good folk songs, it concerns death and disaster. In this case, the crippled cruise ship that drifted for days in the Gulf of Mexico recently. I based it on a traditional tune called either “Titanic” or “It Was Sad When The Great Ship Went Down.” Let’s get this hootenanny started!

                                   

                       CAPTAIN’S LOG.

Three thousand boarded Triumph

To sail the Gulf of Mex.

When the ship ground to a halt

The passengers were vexed.

The toilets didn’t flush,

Food in freezers turned to mush.

It smelled bad when the cruise ship slowed down.

It smelled bad, it smelled bad, 

It smelled bad when the cruise ship slowed down 

To a dead stop.

Good wives and nags,

Little children shit in bags.

It smelled bad when the cruise ship slowed down.

Three days out of Galveston

And not that far from shore,

The rich refused to let the poor up

Where the air was pure.

So they kept them below deck

Where they almost drowned in dreck.

It smelled bad when the cruise ship slowed down.

It smelled bad, it smelled bad, 

It smelled bad when the cruise ship slowed down 

To a dead stop.

Good wives and nags,

Little children shit in bags.

It smelled bad when the cruise ship slowed down.

A Very Hot August For Father Lawrence C. Murphy.

(HBO) MEA MAXIMA CULPA: SILENCE IN THE HOUSE OF GOD (2012) Alex Gibney documents the case of the Rev. Lawrence C. Murphy, a Catholic priest in Wisconsin who died in 1998 after molesting dozens if not hundreds of children in his care at a boarding school for the deaf, resulting in a trail of denial and cover-up from rural America to the Vatican.


 August 21, 1998. Rev. Lawrence C. Murphy pauses before entering the Gates of Hell. He talks with the guard, an average-looking man with a flaming clipboard.

MURPHY: Excuse me, there’s been a mistake.

GUARD: Rev. Lawrence C. Murphy? From St. John’s School For The Deaf in St. Francis, Wisconsin?

MURPHY: Yes.

GUARD: No mistake. This way to eternal damnation.

MURPHY: You don’t understand. I’ve been forgiven.

GUARD: There’s no record of that.

MURPHY: I was there, I should know. I got Last Rites.

GUARD: Were you conscious?

MURPHY: No.

GUARD: That way to the lake of fire.

MURPHY: You mean I died unshriven?

GUARD: Don’t ask me, I just work here.

MURPHY: Okay, I was really forgiven before that. A long time before that. GUARD: By whom?

MURPHY: The Archbishop.

GUARD: Forgiven?

MURPHY: Not exactly, but I wasn’t punished.

GUARD: Lack of punishment is not forgiveness. It’s more like a vacation.

MURPHY: Okay, I did something that some people might think was wrong, but I wasn’t punished.

GUARD: Hmm. Was there any official recognition of wrongdoing?

MURPHY: No, not even by the Pope. Although, he wasn’t Pope at the time. He was a Cardinal.

GUARD: Congratulations!

MURPHY: I go to Heaven?

GUARD: No, you got away with something. The wailing and the gnashing of teeth begin at seven. Don’t be late.

MURPHY: Who’s in charge here?

GUARD: See that line over there? That’s the line to see the Devil.

MURPHY: That’ll take forever.

GUARD: You’re catching on.

MURPHY: I want to speak to him now.

GUARD: Get in line – if you know what’s bad for you.

Father Murphy gets in line and – after what seems like an eternity – gets to speak with the Devil himself, another average-looking man except he’s bright red and wears a pink suit.

DEVIL: Drives the art directors crazy. (He takes a long sip from a tall, cold glass of lemonade.) Want some?

MURPHY: Sure!

DEVIL: Can’t have it. Ha! I love myself.

MURPHY: There’s been a mistake. I should be in Heaven.

DEVIL: By all means, let’s get down to business. You’re Father Murphy, right?

MURPHY: Yes.

DEVIL: Do you know why you’re here?

MURPHY: No.

DEVIL: To make my life miserable, that’s why! This was a good job until the priests starting coming. Sure, it’s Hell, but I got to rule and that was enough for me. Then it started filling up with Catholic priests – and they all think they’re special. “I repented. I was forgiven.” 
God doesn’t care! God sent you here for treating his church like a toilet! You, Father Murphy, took hundreds of innocent, little boys - deaf boys, that’s the brilliant part, even I couldn’t have imagined that – and raped them over a period of twenty years. They were already disabled and you ruined them for life! Is there any doubt that you belong in Hell?

MURPHY: But the Pope –

DEVIL: He’s coming. Don’t worry about him. I opened a new German wing after World War Two and there’s plenty of room for the Pope.

MURPHY: But I spent my entire life serving God. I can’t believe he would do this to me.

DEVIL: If it’s any consolation, that’s the worst part of his job.

MURPHY: It’s no consolation at all.

DEVIL: Good! I thought I was losing my touch. Now, beat it before I get angry. You don’t want to see me angry.

LINCOLN RE-SHOT.

The movie opens with a Union soldier strangling a Confederate soldier who is bayoneting a Union soldier who is gouging the eyes out of a Confederate soldier. They get off the subway and start fighting the Civil War.      

THE CAPITOL BUILDING. Congress is in session. A bullfrog in a frock coat (Tommy Lee Jones) takes the floor and commences a stirring peroration against the evils of slavery. Every time he uses the word, “enfranchisement,” the Southern senators leap to their feet, scream and shake their fists. Secretary of State Charles Seward (David Strathairn) leans over to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton (Bruce McGill) and asks, 

  “Why do they hate the word, ‘enfranchisement?’” 

“It means giving Negroes the right to vote.”

“I thought it meant owning a MacDonald’s.”                                                        

THE WHITE HOUSE. In the Lincoln Bedroom (which was, then, just the bedroom) Abraham Lincoln is talking to a golf umbrella, which, upon closer inspection, turns out to be his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln (Sally Field) in a crinoline wider than she is tall.

“You know those splitting headaches I always get,” she says, “I find that they begin when you arrive and stop when you leave.” 

“What a coincidence,” he replies, “the same is true for the pain in my ass!”

          THE WHITE HOUSE. In the Oval Office, a man who could be Mark Twain’s grandfather (Hal Holbrook) tells President Lincoln, in the greatest confidence, that the Confederacy is willing to begin peace talks. 

“They want to surrender?” Lincoln says, brightening.

“No, negotiate.”

“Like one country to another? That’s crazy.”

“Do you want this war to end?”

“Yeah, when all the Confederates die or they surrender. Whichever comes first.” 

“You take a hard line.”

“There’s a reason I give my best speeches in cemeteries.”                                        

WHITE HOUSE. Later that night, Abraham Lincoln talks with his 

oldest son, Robert (Joseph Gordon-Levitt)

“Pa, I want to enlist.”

“Do you want to die?”

“I want to serve my country.”

“You can’t serve it with a Confederate bayonet up your hoo-ha.”

“Everyone I know is in uniform.”

“They’re either soldiers or slaves. Neither of whom has a choice. You’re one of the rare – and lucky – people who do.”

“Then I’m making my choice. I choose to enlist.”

“Just kill me, instead. Take this gun and shoot me in the back of my head. Put me out of my misery.”  

“Ma said I could do it.”

“Really? Your mother said you could join the army? Why do I doubt that?”                           

THE WHITE HOUSE. The President and Secretary of State confer in the Oval Office.

“Tell me, Charles, how close are we to passing an amendment abolishing slavery?”

“We need ten more votes, Mr. President.”

“How do we get them? I assume you’ve already asked nicely.”

“Voting in favor of the amendment could cost these men the next election. They’ll need a lot of persuading.”

“Hmmm. If we can’t get ten more votes, what if we had ten less opposing votes.”

“How do we do that?”

“We kill - ”

  “It will look bad.”

“No one has to know.”

“Ten empty seats will be obvious.”

“In that case, I know some men who are very good at persuading.”

“Short of killing.”

“If necessary.”

“I’m afraid I must insist, Mr. President.”                                                                            

THE CAPITOL BUILDING. Office of Representative Robert Latham. (R-West Va.) Young and impressionable, Mr. Latham (John Hawkes) doesn’t need much persuading. All it takes is the political operative, W.N. Bilbo, 

twisting his arm until Latham’s face is pinned against the desk.

“You don’t need this arm to vote. All you need is to say, yea.”

“I’ll do it. I’ll do it.”

“Do what?”

“Vote for the amendment.”

  Mr. Bilbo, by the way, looks like James Spader, only blown up with a pump and tied closed with a mustache.                                        

THE WHITE HOUSE. To provide plausible deniability,President Lincoln invites a variety of congressmen and cabinet members to the White House for brandy and cigars. While there, he regales them with the sort of homespun, corn-fed stories that prove what a regular guy he is.

“There was young man from Nantucket - ”                                                              

THE CAPITOL BUILDING. Congress votes and the amendment passes. The abolition of slavery is celebrated by Republicans (that’s how long ago it was) and bemoaned by Democrats. The former sing, “Battle Cry of Freedom,” the latter pack their carpetbags and begin planning Reconstruction.                                                      

THE WHITE HOUSE. Waiting alone for the results, Abraham Lincoln is a solitary sihouette, slumped in thought. Or worry. Or regret. Possibly all three. Finally, he hears church bells. First one, then more. They are tolling a new birth a freedom. Announcing his success. Crowning his work. He moves to the window and parts the drapes. The light is so strong, it threatens to consume him, but doesn’t. It humbles and exalts him at the same time. THE MOVIE ENDS. THIS IS WHERE IT SHOULD END – AND NOT A SECOND LATER.                                                                    

If you don’t know what happens next, look it up.

Anna Karenina (2012): Muddled Russia.

Leo Tolstoy’s novel, Anna Karenina, is a simple story: a love triangle that ends badly. How he got nine hundred pages out of it, I don’t know. I’ve never read the book. I’ve tried, but it is my Everest. (I’d say it’s my Moby Dick, but Moby Dick is my Moby Dick.) I’ve seen two movie versions of it, however, and, as far as I can tell, they’re no substitute. You would think one of the world’s great love stories would make a hell of a movie, yet the current one, directed by Joe Wright, is only hell. Why?                                                                                             

          First, casting: Anna has to be beautiful. Here’s where Wright gets it completely right. Keira Knightley is so beautiful that she even looks good through a veil. But he blows Vronsky (so to speak.) Count Vronsky must be 

so dashing and physically attractive that Anna, a respectable wife and mother, is overwhelmed with passion at the very sight of him. Yet, the actor he chose, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, looks like Gene Wilder in Young Frankenstein. Karenin, Anna’s husband, must be formidable and Jude Law does his best, but he’s made up to look like an accountant for Rasputin & Co.                                                         

Then, the conflict. Every drama must have it and Anna Karenina, both the character and the story, is rippling with it. Conflict between Anna and her husband, her society and within herself. All of which is intensified by being a woman in nineteenth century Russian society. Upper class, no less. In this version, it’s all underplayed. Karenin frowns and threatens, opera-goers sneer and the only indication of inner conflict is Anna’s early shunning of Vronsky and later embrace of morphine (in a bottle, by the way, big enough to stun the entire Russian army.) Nothing about her gender. Don’t think we’re supposed to assume that, either. (It’s very difficult to claim that without looking like you’re making excuses.) Mr. Wright, though, isn’t done with the Russian upper class. Not yet. That brings us to the theater.                        

The movie begins in a theater as if all the action will take place on stage. It doesn’t – and that’s a problem. The director has claimed that “theater” is a symbol for the artificial, restrictive and over-determined nature of high society in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Not a bad idea, but let’s give it a haircut. Suppose, instead of a theater, we compare society to a doll’s house. Hey, didn’t Henrik Ibsen write a play about that? Yeah. And he didn’t show a doll’s house! Going back to the theater, however, it doesn’t function as a frame for this story or the background or even a theme. In Wright’s Anna Karenina, it’s merely an interruption. Doubly a shame because he already has a powerful symbol that can serve all those functions, but neglects it:
dancing.                         
           Nineteenth Century beau monde, like dancing, depends on shared knowledge for smooth functioning. Everyone must know all the steps and do them exactly in time to the music. If as little as one person is out of step, ugliness and conflict results. Yet what does Joe Wright do with the fancy dress balls in his film? He catches their spectacle, but not their meaning.What about the scene where Anna Karenina dances in a black dress while everyone else is wearing white? Subtle. Makes you wonder what he’d do with Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter. Not that you can’t shoot the same scene effectively. I’m thinking of another film based on an epic novel of love and death in the eighteen sixties. A beautiful and decidedly independent heroine shocks the local nabobs by the dancing in a black dress. In the case of Scarlet O’Hara, her widow’s weeds.                                                                      

You don’t have to go as far afield as Atlanta, Georgia or back to 1939 to see how well similar material can be handled. Elvira Madigan (1967) tells the story of a beautiful, Danish circus performer and her tragic love affair with a handsome cavalry officer. True, it’s no Gone With The Wind, but a lot of people can’t hear Mozart’s 21st Piano Concerto without thinking of that movie.          

The 1935 film of Anna Karenina is no masterpiece, either, but it looks like one in comparison. It reduces Tolstoy’s nine hundred pages to a brisk ninety minutes, but not a single one is wasted. It moves like a train (so to speak) from beginning to end.  Greta Garbo burns white-hot without losing any of her iciness and Frederick March is va-va voomsky. An even bigger irony, however, is that the screenwriter of the current Anna Karenina, Tom Stoppard, shares a name with . . . he is? Never mind.