The Handsome Camel

No one who has seen the trailers for Gabriele Muccino's The Pursuit of Happyness will be in the least surprised by the ending of the film -- it would be commercial suicide for a studio film to cast doubt on the ultimate outcome of those who strive for material success, since the church of material success is pretty much the one religion all Americans belong to. (Arthur Miller writes amusingly in "Are You Now Or Were You Ever?" that Columbia Pictures, afraid that Death of a Salesman might come across as too trenchant an attack on American ideals, showed a short film along with it praising sales as a terrific career path and castigating Willy Loman as "a nut.") Besides, the film is "inspired by true events," and it was released two weeks before Christmas -- not hallmarks of a searching interrogation of capitalist values. But there's a long way to go before we get to the uplifting denouement, and this story of a down-at-the-heels medical equipment salesman who applies for an unpaid stockbroker internship at Dean Witter has surprising bite along the way.

The script for the film is, by and large, as subtle as a sledgehammer, but the power to swing that hammer still has to come from somewhere; in this case it comes from the extraordinary details of Chris Gardner's story and from Will Smith's tight, desperate characterization. The film gets a lot of little things right -- when Chris comes to his first interview spattered with paint and having spent the night in jail, for example, the receptionist who leads him inside doesn't turn a hair when confronted with his strange appearance. A shocked reaction is for the bosses in suits; her job is to deal neutrally and professionally with everyone who comes her way. That kind of smart observation about how the business world works raises this film far above where it might have settled. Happyness is also full of insight about the "high cost of being poor" -- the little ways in which not having money causes you to spend money, as when Chris cashes his irregular paychecks at the liquor store in order to get immediate cash. It also notes the usually invisible ways in which an unpaid internship can actually cost an intern money -- not only in transportation and maintenance, but in the small expectations of pocket cash which one's superiors don't give a second thought. Chris gets stiffed out of an $18 cab fare by one wealthy stockbroker when they share a cab, forcing him to run away from the cabbie without paying.

This is a deep humiliation, and also the first time in the film that I was particularly conscious of Will Smith's blackness. Race doesn't play much of a role here -- this is one of those grand statements on the American Dream in which distinctions of race are secondary to the distinction between those who know how to hustle and work and those who don't. Nonetheless, the film is set in 1981, when black men were just beginning to break into the ranks of the wealthy elite in this country (black women, of course, far less so), and all of Chris's superiors and most of his colleagues in the internship are white men. The film gives these white men a certain perverse credit -- they don't care much about Chris's race so much as his ability to make them money -- which underlines the fundamental philosophical basis of the film, namely, that one's happiness and one's worth are both based on one's ability to succeed in business.

This plays out in the mostly unacknowledged realm of race relations -- there's a fascinating incident in the film's last shot where Chris and another black man in a suit and tie have a moment of mutual recognition passing each other on the street -- but it also forms the core of the film's dramatic tension. The steady, unmanning flow of degradations that Chris suffers as he and his son slowly run out of money and are forced to live first in a motel, then a subway station, and then a men's shelter are the stuff of American nightmares, and Smith absolutely sells (ha-ha) Chris's struggle to maintain dignity and hope in the face of constant failure and disappointment. When, at long last, he achieves his goals (and, again, I don't think I'm giving anything away by mentioning the film's eventual uplift), and his eyes slowly redden and fill with tears, this may be a cheap actor's trick (perhaps he has an onion nearby), but I, for one, couldn't help but go along with him.

I find myself of mixed feelings about this blatant appeal to old-fashioned capitalist striving as the key to happiness. The nearly-rags-to-rags-to-riches inverted arc is a potent myth, and there is, no doubt, something archetypal in it that goes beyond the purely material. One can recognize in Chris Gardner a deep passion to do something worthwhile, to reach for something seemingly beyond him, and if that passion happens to attach itself to something seemingly vulgar and materialistic, still, one can hardly blame a man for wanting to work hard and be rewarded for it, nor for wanting to provide for his family. (And after his suffering, one can hardly imagine he will need reminding of the plight of the poor.)

Moreover, there's something larger in Chris's story than the mere competitive struggle for financial success. I went to see this film with my own spiritual shortcomings very much on my mind -- highly cognizant of the way the world can relentlessly grind away at one's dreams, be they of material success or of spiritual improvement. Practical necessity wears at us, makes us weary, makes us willing to accept something less than what we wanted, as long as it seems within reach. Something in Chris's tenacity in the face of this relentless erosive force reflected to me, not my search for wealth, but my attempt to live a certain kind of moral life, which is another kind of ideal which must be striven after, and in which we often fail. In this larger sense, stories of determination and faith ultimately outlasting and even vindicating our failures are spiritual stories.

There's an odd moment when Chris's fortunes are at a low ebb -- he attends church in the mission, listens to a sermon, sings with the choir. This is not presented as a transformative moment -- it is not in any way instrumental in helping him turn his fortunes around, nor does he experience a foxhole conversion. Rather, singing the songs of faith and hope are presented as a natural part of Chris's character. We never see him going church before or after that moment (his son looks somewhat bored and confused by the proceedings), but the scene reminds us that every story of material struggle and success is only a mirror to our ultimate inner struggle.

The inner struggle, and the way it is often corrupted by the pursuit of material gain, is the explicit subject of Ed Zwick's Blood Diamond, whose unsubtle title and central metaphors belie the sophistication of Zwick's actiony study of the ruthless exploitation, both colonial and native, of Sierra Leone's people and resources during the civil war in the '90s. If, like me, you don't remember the 30-second CNN newsblip on this war between the Clinton impeachment coverageand the nightly Y2K updates, don't worry, because Zwick and screenwriter Charles Leavitt do a remarkably good job of keeping the numerous players (the corrupt "legitimate government," the Revolutionary United Front, the Dutch diamond consortium) distinct for us. The film's plot is complex and multi-partite, but unlike the wildly overreaching constructions of, say, Syriana and Traffic, it remains tightly circumscribed in a particular time and place and hitched to the fates of a small group of characters. In fact, this film is very much what Syriana might have been, had writer/director Stephen Gaghan been willing to stop flying around the world and actually observe conditions in one of the many countries he uses as authentic-seeming backdrops for fashionable political cynicism.

The trailer sells this movie as having three main characters -- Leonardo DiCaprio as a spiritually ravaged arms trader and soldier of fortune, Djimon Honsou as a fisherman whose son is kidnapped and brainwashed by the RUF, and Jennifer Connelly as (of course) a fiery, idealistic journalist who becomes DiCaprio's conscience. But in fact, Connelly's character is mostly a static catalyst, and she has relatively little screentime; this film rests on the contrast and the tension between Honsou as the desperate father and husband willing to do anything to rescue his family and DiCaprio as the man riding his desperation to the promise of unbelieveable wealth. Since this is as much an action picture as a political drama, some of their conjoined character arc is obvious -- the gentle fisherman learns that sometimes you have to beat a man to death with a shovel, while the ruthless ex-soldier learns that sometimes you have to turn your murderous talents to the defense of the weak. But there's a great deal of tension in the subtler turns of character: does Archer (DiCaprio) have any affection at all for Solomon (Honsou) or is he simply using him to find the diamond? and when Solomon finally finds his son, will he be able to reclaim him from the culture of death inculcated into him by the RUF?

The latter question is eventually answered; the former never quite is, and while I admired and enjoyed Honsou's straightforward, moving portrayal of a good man caught in bad times, DiCaprio, Connelly, Leavitt and Zwick all work together to make Archer a satisfying enigma, a man who always seems slightly surprised by his own motives. Consequently, of course, so are we, and the ending of this film may leave you with questions unanswered. When Archer ultimately seems to sacrifice himself, has he really crossed the bridge to moral conscience, or is he simply putting the best face on an inevitable death? If it is a put-on, who is he trying to fool? Solomon? For what purpose? It seems he may be trying to ennoble his own death in order to make his final conversation with Maddy (Connelly) more poignant and more meaningful. But then, perhaps he really has finally changed his heart. That we don't know for sure (because we doubt even he knows for sure) is interesting and sad, and bears witness to the film's careful undermining of his rogue-with-a-heart-of-gold persona throughout. He's a rogue for sure (like Jason Bourne, he frequently seems to kick ass on auto-pilot), and without doubt sentimental (if we find the foreshadowing image of the red African soil cheesy, he clearly finds it moving), but does his sentiment ever really change his character, or if, by some chance, he were to survive the film's final moments, would he quickly revert to his selfish ways?

The other thing that makes Blood Diamond better than Syriana is Zwick and Leavitt's keen respect for and interest in the African people's ability and desire to help themselves. In a plot detour somewhat resembling the French plantation sequences of Apocalypse Now: Redux, the trio of adventurers stumble onto a sort of protected zone in the jungle, protected by a local militia and headed by a charismatic schoolteacher who offers young boys an alternative to the revolutionary death squads. And at the end of the film, Solomon is called to bear witness to the war's atrocities before the international community, suggesting that there was eventually a sort of justice available, however long-delayed. While Gaghan seemed more interested in apocalypse and the cheap spine-shudders induced by tales of violence and unreason triumphant, Zwick and Leavitt seem to recognize that something can, potentially, come after the horror.