Perhaps it all comes down to Walton Goggins

Boyd Crowder changes hiI'

I'm not the first person to notice that Walton Goggins is the most palpable link between the most fêted films of the current Oscar season, Lincoln (2012) and Django Unchained.  But maybe Mr. Goggins's progress from unrepentant scoundrel Billy Crash, through the ambiguously wicked Boyd Crowder in Justified through the conflicted Clay Hutchins is itself a microcosm of good and evil in the morally compromised landscape of American history.  (And, incidentally, am I unjustified in suspecting that an actor named Walton Goggins who has a certain unpredictable quality will never play a character named Bob Johnson or Tom Smith?)

As portrayed in Tony Kushner's screenplay, Hutchins is swayed to vote in favor of the 13th Amendment by a promise of employment as a postmaster, given that his re-election prospects were virtually nil.  (A Democrat in post-Civil War Ohio was virtually a non-person.)  There has been a lot of harrumphing written about the horse-trading involved in getting slavery outlawed, as if Doris Goodwin or Tony Kushner had invented corruption in the 19th century, when everyone was obviously more pure and good than they are now.  (Which is why they had slavery and child labor and oppression of women and minorities and no labor or product safety regulation.  'Cause folks used to be good and we didn't need all them pesky laws.)  Much of the pleasure of the film is observing the amount and manner of deals that must be made in order to get mediocre people to do great things, a fact confined neither to history nor to the present moment. It is all very well for great people to lead us, but they are going to have to appeal to the desires of the mediocre.

And Clay Hutchins, at least as portrayed here, is no better than mediocre.  So Mr. Goggins, over the past year of his work, moved from the straightforward sadism (probably rooted in self-hatred) of slavemaster Billy Crash, through the amoral Boyd Crowder, who cares nothing for others, but is uninterested in cruelty for its own sake, to the wavering Clay Hutchins, who is willing to do the right thing if there's something in it for himself as well.  Perhaps this is the most accurate representation of the ways in which a democracy moves toward the moral light, through the historical odyssey of Walton Goggins.

Before I go, a couple of random observations about both theatrical features. 

One of the most admirable aspects of Spielberg's Lincoln is how little it looks like a Spielberg film.  I see him as the master of camera movement and manipulation, and it is amazing how quiet and calm the camera is in Lincoln -- even more than it was in Schindler's List.   Evidently, Spielberg discerned that a text this dense was going to require some stillness so that the audience would absorb the words and not be distracted by shifting images.  It's not static by any means, and the shenanigans of Mr. Bilbo are especially entertaining.  (Despite the uniqueness of that patronimic, I can find no connection between William Bilbo and Theodore Bilbo, the odious white supremacist Senator of the 20th century.)

Does anybody else think this is the darkest Spielberg movie yet?  Not in mood or philosophical outlook, but literally low in footcandles?  Good thing we don't have drive-ins any more.  The film does make it clear what a shabby and ramshackle place the Executive Mansion was and how dark most places were after sunset.  Spielberg has called on cinematographer Janusz Kaminski to be quite a chameleon over the course of their work together, and in this film he impersonates Gordon Willis, the Prince of Darkness.

And one bit of trivia about Django.  This is a measure of exactly how big a movie geek Quentin Tarantino is.  The lettering of the opening titles, is not just old-timey-Western sort of lettering.  It references a specific period of late 50s-early 60s B Westerns released by Columbia.  The specific shade of red, the splintered-log style letters, all shout "late Randolph Scott (mostly, but not always directed by Budd Boetticher)!"  This is the definition of Too Hip (or Too Lame, depending on how you want to see it) For The Room.  It's mostly of interest because the critics have only referenced spaghetti Westerns, but of course Django is no dish of spaghetti.  For one thing, it's way, way too talky for a non-English-language Western (not to mention that the lips are synchronized with the sound, which is not true in Italian and German Westerns).  And the talk is interesting and tasty and probably dominates the visuals, which is odd for a Western.  Which takes us right back to Randolph Scott and Budd Boetticher and The Tall T, a Western which, for about two-thirds of its running time takes place in a small circle around a campfire.

So what will it take to get Mr. Tarantino to write for the stage?

The negative argument for irony

If it does nothing else, I hope Hobo With A Shotgun (2011) puts to rest any critical reservations with regard to the self-conscious reworking of genre engaged in by Quentin Tarantino and his comperes. That layer of meta-comment and irony is exactly what makes QT's films worth re-watching, thinking about and discussing, whereas his templates are cinematic potato chips, to be quickly consumed without expectation of nourishment or indeed any lasting effect other than faint nausea.

The proof is that when a purer, more authentic hommage to 80s trash comes along, like HWAS it is quickly evident that it is utterly lacking the kind of vision of resonance that keeps it continually engaging. Yes, the premise is unbelievable, and in a sloppy way that no self-respecting would tolerate. A guy who dispenses justice with a gun has to be good at it and smart or someone will shoot him. That is the whole point of a great film like The Gunfighter. The use of a gun is not a resolution, but the beginning of a string of questions, both narratively and morally. I mean, come on, anybody could shoot this hobo in the back. Yes, the villains are idiots and buffoons (which also weakens the film, because although they are cruel and ruthless, they could be defeated by a reasonably crafty group of 7th graders).

So the makers of Hobo had the good sense to hire Rutger Hauer, an actor of presence and resonance, but not enough sense to engage that resonance in any meaningful way. He just stomps and snorts his way through some poorly staged violence, with the cheapest, most unconvincing blood gags this side of your neighbor kid's backyard videos just because. And to top it off, the film pretends to move toward a grand apocalyptic confrontation just peters out with a few more feeble gun blasts. No gigantic blood orgy, no jeopardy for the protagonist, no reversals or surprises, and no scaling-up of the conflict.

Frankly, if a film revisiting a genre of an earlier generation is not going to be mega- (like Spielberg) it has to be meta- (like Tarantino). Otherwise, why not just turn to the originals, which are readily available, and have the advantage of being pure, authentic and unself-conscious. What I'm trying to say kids, is if you really think you want to see HWAS, just skip it, and rent a Billy Jack movie.

And by the way, how come the rising generation still resists Westerns? They are obviously still looking for a way to tell stories about communities that have no super-structure of law and civil order, a community in the process of forming its ideas of good, evil and justice without too much history to encumber it. So they have to invent post-apocalyptic scenarios, whereas as the Western template is ready-made and would permit a filmmaker to have a dialogue with his predecessors (and not reinvent the wheel). It is the perfect stage on which to explore mythos. Perhaps they are afraid that the Western has a lot of rules they don't know or want to know or want to bother to master. That should be no limitation. After all, the Italians came along in the 1960's and threw all the rules out the window, keeping only the landscape, and even altering that landscape to a Spanish desert instead of the Southwestern mesas.

Seriously, I can't wait for the Quentin Tarantino Western.