First, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy as directed by the director of the original Swedish vampire film that made me think vampires could be interesting again, Let the Right One In. A truly inspired bit of daring movie-making, that one. With TTSS, he brought along his truly wonderful talent at evoking atmosphere and style, but I was rather underwhelmed by the film as a whole. There’s really nothing I can pinpoint as any one particularly weak point (except maybe the somewhat impenetrable script — but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. If everything else is good, and I get a sense that the plot is making sense, I can let a dense script I’m not immediately grokking wash over me knowing I can watch it again some other time for the details). But even the script isn’t a failure by any means; the dialog was well-written with the tension-filled spareness of a Pinter play.

The acting was also quite good all-round — but I wasn’t blown away. Which is my failing. For months, I’d been so worked up about this film, about Gary Oldman, that I expected a tour de force performance. What I got was skillful subtlety, and natural and believable underplayed drama. Well, except for John Hurt, but then, his angry forcefulness was exactly what was needed and entirely appropriate for character and tone.

This asplosion not in any film reviewed here. Or, anywhere.

Did I not like it as much as I was hoping because, what, I was expecting a Bourne movie? Bond? Mission Impossible? No. I’m familiar with the book (though I haven’t read it) and the original production, so I knew it was going to be a realistic, non-explody, spy film. I loved The American, for example, even though — no, because – it was stark and understated and atmospheric and tension-building and virtually no actiony-action. (I’m actually the only person I know who liked The American.) But then, I really didn’t know what to expect with The American except that it’d been described as a European-like film — which is a plus in my book! I simply, for some unknown reason, went into TTSS with high expectations — and they were ironically fulfilled in that it’s an excellent film, but not what I expected.

Then there’s J. Edgar. I pretty much got exactly what I expected with that film, and that may be one of the reasons for its surprisingly low RottenTomatoes score (although Ebert, who I almost always agree with, gave it a high 3.5 arbitrary stars). It was a rough, uneven, hit-and-miss film with much unfulfilled potential. Part of the problem is Leonardo DiCaprio. I can’t buy him. I recognize he’s a good actor who takes on challenging roles, but he’s . . . so . . . it’s the very weird dissonance he creates in my mind where I can’t decide if he did well or not, like one of those “magic eye” pictures where if you work at it, the 3D image will pop out at you — but usually, it’s just lingering on the edge of being and you know you can bring it into focus if you try. . . . Anyway, that’s DiCaprio for me in any adult role he’s in. He was great in Gilbert Grape, perfect in Titanic, quite wonderful in Gangs of New York. But I could just barely accept him in Shutter Island (good film!), though, I’ll admit, I accepted him in Inception. But as J. Edgar Hoover, I just can’t quite bring my opinion of his performance in focus, but I’m pretty sure I see the outline of an opinion that he was out of his depth and gave a pretty 1.75-note performance. His squint gave the other .25.

Oh, and don’t get me started on the makeup! OK, DiCaprio’s was passable, but what the heck was the Play-Dough and stipple monstrosity that was “Clyde Tolson”? It looked like Odo came back from Deep Space 9 with chicken pox and a bee sting allergy. Also, the film skipped around in time indiscernibly. It wouldn’t have been a problem if it had been two or three very different time-lines that went along at their own, but chronically forward, line — but there were points in which it skipped around in time just enough where you couldn’t quite tell by any visual cue if it went forward 1 year or 15 before skipping back 30.

Those flaws aside, the story surrounding Hoover and his longtime companion and possible lover, Clyde Tolson, was nearly perfect in its level of intimacy, its tone, and its anxiety. They played it quite well. Although, unfortunately, there’s one scene in which they have a fight resulting from Hoover’s repressed fear and Tolson’s sense of betrayal, in which they’re rolling around on each other and despite the sincere drama of the moment, I couldn’t help but hear Mark Russell in my head singing, “Sexual, subli-MA-tionnn . . . sexual SUB-li-ma-tion. . . .” It was just too contrived and blatant. But, as a whole, as I said, it was well-done and dramatic as I couldn’t help but cry a little at the end in Hoover’s bedroom.

But, being the Marxist that I am, I couldn’t help but see the movie from another perspective. Most of Hoover’s career was, as was depicted in the film, an obsession with a war against terror, I mean, against the Commie Menace. Now, I know Clint Eastwood, socially and politically, is a complex guy who has a foot in both the liberal progressive and the conservative camps, so I’m not terribly certain whether he wants us to cheer for Hoover and his elimination of communism in America (after all, the only depiction we get of the people Hoover fought were legitimately dangerous and violent anarchists — which, by the way, is a different ideology from communism), and no glimpse of American socialism of the 1910s through 30s that wasn’t through Hoover’s eyes, or whether he wants us to realize Hoover’s view is a skewed and ideological one. Is Eastwood taking it for granted that the audience knows who Emma Goldman was and what the Chicago union strikes were all about? Or does he side with Hoover’s ideals, but just not as neurotic about it as Hoover was?

In any case, I booed (mentally) with the 1919 anarchist bombings, sure; but, when Emma Goldman, the mother of American anarcho-socialism, appeared (and with such an eerie likeness that I questioned the accuracy of Maureen Stapleton’s portrayal of her in Warren Beatty’s epic film, Reds), I cheered! She’s a hero in my book, and a movie very desperately needs to be made about her. (Probable sociopath Ayn Rand got a sympatheric TV movie made about her, but Emma just gets cameos.) But as I was saying, in this time of the 2nd great-ish depression, thinking about the fascist iron fist that was brought to bear down on the nascent socialist movement in America during the 1st Great Depression, makes me frustrated and angry. People today have no clue that, especially before WWI but continuing into the Depression, the socialist party was a viable and legitimate party in America with supporters from all walks of life (except the wealthy capitalists, the politicians they bought, and the police they used to protect them), from Woody Guthrie to John Steinbeck to Albert Einstein.

If the development of modern capitalism had been mitigated and wasn’t allowed to take complete dominance in America in the early 20th century, I’m just guessing here of course, but I seriously doubt we’d have the boom-bust collapse of the economy across the predominately postmodern capitalist world we have now. (But then, to be fair, capitalism was needed then in order to get us to a state where it can destroy itself by making capital wealth ownership by the few, unnecessary. Which is the state we’re now in, with capitalism self-destructing.) But, if socialism had been allowed to remain side-by-side with capitalism — even if in a lesser role — and share the “base,” then when capitalism collapsed as a viable socio-economic model, viable and evolved socialist models for the 21st century could’ve been ready to take over. Yet, thanks to the war-on-pinkos waged by the likes of Hoover (and McCarthy, whom, according to this film, Hoover disliked greatly), all reasonable ideas of socialism were lumped in with the violent anarchists and eradicated as one boogey-scapegoat. And, while Hoover’s pet project and legacy, the FBI, became enviable in the realm of criminal investigation, I’m less than pleased about how corrupt, like most of government, it has become. (Although, really, with all the bugging and wiretapping the FBI was doing in the film, often for Hoover’s own secret personal files, I guess they really haven’t changed all that much!)

So, what was Eastwood’s point? Does he share his contemporary, Beatty’s, leftist sensibilities and made Hoover into a murkily depicted ideologue who changed history on his own terms? Or as a flawed hero who but for being sadly repressed (I know, fortunately, Eastwood’s liberal progressive opinions on homosexuality) and conflicted, did the right thing, badly? I can’t tell. And I don’t think that ambiguity, useful in arthouse films, is a good thing in this very Hollywood biopic.

Until the Scottish rebellion marked the beginning of a zeitgeist that would not really be sensed until the French Revolution. Once that happened, the Western world realized the world can be changed. The Way Things Have Always Been need not be! People have an ability to literally change ideology, alter classes, abolish rulership within a generation, that would have been considered literally impossible only decades earlier.

And so for the last couple hundred years we have seen scores of socio-political changes that were “impossible” and non-existent for centuries before. Governments have risen and fallen, coups, revolutions, revolts. Last night I saw a (bad) documentary on the “fall” of socialism (which they conflated with Soviet communism), and they featured the Russian coup of 1991 which was overwhelmed by the people taking power back from the statist Communists, solidifying the end of the Soviet Union. And the earlier Polish worker’s “Solidarity” strikes. A couple of weeks ago I watched the Bertolucci film The Dreamers which took place during the Paris “Student Protests” and general strike in 1968 and came within an inch of replacing the French government and introducing a Marxist socialist government. The Chinese Tiananmen Square protest. Within my own lifetime we have seen social strife and rebellion and massive political change isn’t relegated to banana republics and 3rd world countries.

Sinclair Lewis wrote in 1935, It Can’t Happen Here, about how America can become a fascist state. It CAN Happen Here, written a couple of years ago, details how we’re as close to it as ever–if not already in the early stages. We’ve had it pretty good some time. Since the Civil War. But then there was the Great Depression. We think of it as a natural disaster that happens almost never, but we forget that it was caused by grossly unbalanced market forces precipitated by unregulated corporate greed and exacerbated by conservative laizzes-fair political leadership. Some of the very same conditions which exist today. Only fifty years ago we had the largest protest and civil upheaval the country has experienced since the Depression, in the Civil Rights Movement.

Crisis, change, social upheaval have been rare and generally mild and not affecting all or most Americans (directly) because we’ve been fortunate enough to be isolated from the rest of the world for most of our history. Our citizens have grown rich (compared to the rest of the world) and comfortable and complacent. We’re the frog in the pot of water that’s had the heat turned up ever-so-slowly, falling asleep before we boil. We’ve allowed neo-con fascism to being to take hold, and that’s not going to fundamentally change with a Democratic President.

What’s prompted me to write this reminder that Big Things happen in the modern world and can happen to us, again, is this report on food costs and shortages which have affected “developing” nations all along, but have started to seriously affect “2nd world” nations, and we as the last Super Power can also feel the growing instability, uncertainty, and possible crisis:

♦ Riots, instability spread as food prices skyrocket

We’re in a new Gilded Age like the one which preceded the Great Depression, in which the gulf between the rich and poor in America is obscene. The middle class is coming closer and closer to the poverty line. Worse, they’re having less and less political power. The wealth and the political power belong to the ruling class and the corporations who assure us “we feel the pinch right along with you” even as they secure their wealth in Dubai and the Camen Islands.
The U.S. dollar becomes more devalued every day, and is starting to become refused in places around the world. Our national debt is so huge, our entire economy could collapse in a single day should certain countries sell their portion of our debt on the market. Unemployment is climbing, homelessness is climbing. Our infrastructure (roads, bridges, air travel system,) which support our economy, are literally falling apart. Enrollment in higher education is as low as it’s been since WWII.

Not to be an alarmist, but things aren’t looking so good.

It’s entirely possible nothing Too Bad will happen, things will right themselves, we’ll get back on track, and we’ll go for another hundred years of television watching. But if the situations in this article are accurate, can we really expect things to not get seriously worse? Many estimate we’ve reached peak oil, and demand for oil will only accelerate beyond supply. Prices will rise, around the world food cost will rise and availability decrease. Our warrior culture and empire spreading will only weaken our ability to deal with social issues as our economy weakens and collapses.

I have no solutions to offer. Presidents Harding and Hoover made the Depression happen the way it did because they pandered to the robber barons and the monopolies. They themselves were rich oligarchs who cared nothing for the people, but only power and wealth their position could grant them. We need to remove from government the corporate owned rich elites. We need to pull back our military empire and stop spending billions of dollars a day–that we don’t even have in the first place!–on foreign wars that only weaken our diplomatic and financial status in the world. We need to put focus back on rebuilding domestic infrastructure while we can, and return manufacturing jobs back here instead of shipping them to countries of cheap labor. We need to regulate corporate political influence, international trade policies, off-shore financing and banking, and CEO/board responsibility for corporate actions and behavior. And make it a major, highest priority, to get off oil addiction before we get to a point in which we aren’t even able to research and build non-oil-based power plants and transportation options because our nation can’t afford the fuel and resources to do so.

Question is: Will Americans know when it’s time for revolution before it gets too bad for it to make any difference?!