Harrison Ford showed his versatility in this marvelous 80’s film that is deep and rich in thematic elements. Whether you look at this as a fish-out-of-water story, or as a story about the clashing of cultures, or as a story about one honest cop in a world of corruption, or even as a story about alien worlds coming together for a common good, Witness is a compelling story with terrific acting that is also thoughtful and engaging. Witness introduces us to two very different and very extreme worlds. The first world that we’re introduced to is the quaint and plain world of the Pennsylvania Amish, with their horse drawn carriages and their lack of electric technology. The second world we’re introduced to is the gritty underworld of Philadelphia’s crime scene and its police department. These two worlds could not be more opposite of each other, and they are thrust together in a wonderful film that drips with drama and conflict.

Why it’s essential

Taking into account that Witness was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, as well as Best Actor (Harrison Ford), Best Director (Peter Weir), Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, and Best Music, while taking home the Oscars for Best Original Screenplay and Best Editing, this is a film fan’s film. Witness is one of those films that was crafted. You can tell by the sparseness of the dialogue, and by the subtext in what dialogue there is. No one says anything in this film unless it is absolutely necessary, and where possible we are almost always shown rather than told. The screenplay, penned by Earl W. Wallace and William Kelley does a lot to carry the story without the audience really noticing that it’s happening. There are several long stretches in this film where no one says anything at all, and yet the narrative continues to move forward because Wallace and Kelley and Director Peter Weir trusted the audience to be able to follow a visual story.

Continuing with the quality of the screenplay, it has a very strong Hero’s Journey, but it has an interesting twist where the different stages of the journey don’t always happen in their traditional order. The hero that we’re following in this story is Detective John Book (Ford), but we don’t meet him until we’re 15 minutes into the story. By then we’ve met the Amish mother Rachel (Kelly McGillis) and her young son, Samuel (Lucas Haas). We’ve been introduced to Rachel’s Ordinary World in the land of the Amish and we’ve learned that her husband recently passed away. She and Lucas are leaving by train to travel to Baltimore in order to see her sister, and Rachel’s father Eli says to her as she boards the train, “You be careful out among them English.” Rachel and Samuel Cross the First Threshold into the Special World of Philadelphia when they have to change trains, but their train is delayed, so they have to sit in the station.

It’s here where we have our inciting incident. We’re in Samuel’s second act, and we haven’t even met the Hero of the story yet. But it is here where Samuel witnesses the murder of a police officer at the hands of another corrupt cop, McFee (Danny Glover). Just as an aside, I wonder how it’s possible to have a more dramatic scenario than the one that unfolds in that men’s room. Having a boy that young witness a murder would be traumatic enough, but add to it that the boy is Amish with absolutely no concept or context with which to deal with this type of experience. Again, the film makers subtly created an extreme scenario. They took something that by itself (a boy witnessing a murder) should have sufficient trauma attached to it, and they took it to another level (they made him Amish). This type of a scenario should serve as a perfect example to any aspiring screenwriter or filmmaker who is trying to conjure up dramatic and/or suspenseful scenarios. Try to come up with the most dramatic scenario you can think of, and then add something to it to make it even more so. The filmmakers of Witness already had 10 out of 10 for this scenario on the drama scale, and then they turned it up to 11. It should serve as an example to any aspiring filmmaker to do the same.

This is where John Book enters the film. The gritty underworld of Philadelphia is Book’s Ordinary World. We see that he’s comfortable in this world and that he’s good at his job, and that he not only like it, but is passionate about it. As a quick aside, we actually get a lot of that information in a very funny and clever way through dialogue with Rachel telling Book all of his traits as related to her by Book’s sister. It was a clever way to get out some exposition that needed to get said, and made it happen in an entertaining way. Book lives a violent life and quite often has to come up with violent solutions to violent problems. When Samuel sees a picture of McFee at the police station and identifies him as the murderer, Book puts the pieces together and takes the evidence to his superior, Lt. Schaeffer (Josef Sommer), who Book believes he can trust. That trust is betrayed, however, when McFee shows up at Book’s apartment and a shootout occurs, resulting in Book getting shot in the side.

This leads Book to have to Cross the First Threshold by entering the world of the Amish when he takes Rachel and Samuel home in order to keep them hidden. He then tries to leave, but is overcome by his wounds, and nearly dies from his blood loss, but is nursed back to health by Rachel and Eli. Eli actually provides the archetypal Refusal of the Call by trying to convince Rachel not to take care of this outsider, but she tells him that if they turn Book away and the men who shot him find him, then they’re sure to find Samuel. So that’s a great example of providing the audience with stakes that couldn’t be higher. They have to take care of this man, because if they don’t not only will the man die, but the boy that they love will quite possibly be killed as well. When Book recovers, he is clearly out of his element in this world, but we watch as his character arc takes him to a place where peace can exist in his heart in a way that it never could have before.

On top of all of this, the writers added in a burgeoning love story between Book and Rachel. This is a forbidden love and we’re given high stakes again, especially when an Amish man in the community named Daniel Hochleitner (Alexander Godunov) has expressed interest in courting her. As rumors make their way around the community about what could be going on between Rachel and Book, Eli tells Rachel that she could be shunned if she gets too involved with Book. He then goes down the laundry list of the consequences of that happening, and so we know how bad it could be for Rachel if she chooses Book, and yet we still hold out some hope for them to get together.

I mentioned before how great a lot of the storytelling is in this story, and how well much of it is told without the help (or crutch?) of too much dialogue. Perhaps the most famous of these scenes is the raising of the barn sequence in which Book has to leave behind his lone wolf mentality that we’ve come to know has dominated his personality. He now must work as a part of a team in order to accomplish this goal of getting the barn raised. He has to work with his rival, Daniel, who earlier encouraged him to go home since he’s feeling better, and he has to work with the rest of the men in the community in order to help with the greater good. The sequence does a great job of showing that Book is no longer this fish out of water, but has assimilated to  this way of life. Unfortunately, the outside world will catch up with him, and the climax of the film ultimately shows that, even though there is now mutual understanding, these two worlds cannot coexist. As Book gets into his car to leave, Eli repeats his earlier line to Rachel when he says to Book, “You be careful out among them English.”

While Witness may come across as dated to contemporary audiences (like many 80’s films, the soundtrack makes it easy to know when the film came out), it is still a textbook example on how to develop a story, how to build relationships between the characters, and how to juggle the various plots and subplots of the screenplay in order to craft a comprehensive and coherent story. This is a dramatic film that is filled with tension and conflict. It is also a wonderful film that should be essential viewing for any fan of film making.

In what might be the most self-aware film that I’ve ever seen, Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World provides enough visual and audio stimulation to push people close to sensory overload. However, it walks the line in a very fine manner and provides high entertainment value through its rapier wit and its eloquent charm. This is a smart film that knows how smart it is, but it’s also a cool film because it doesn’t allow itself to take itself too seriously. Director Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) showed everyone why he’s ahead of the curve when it comes to cinematic humor by giving that humor an American edge with his British sensibilities, even though the film takes place in Canada. This is a film that is trying to make you laugh, knows it’s trying to make you laugh, and knows it’s succeeding in trying to make you laugh. If a film could be your best friend, you’d want it to be this film.

Why it’s essential.

Is Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World one of the best films ever? Of course it isn’t. Is it even a great film? I would not even go so far as to say that. What this film is, and all it’s trying to be, is super-entertaining. This is a comedy with likable characters who are engaging and living through a story that, while thin, is still compelling enough to make you care about what happens. What Wright did as director and co-screenwriter is he gave us a group of young characters who were cocky, sarcastic, snarky, vulnerable, envious, empathetic, and in love all at the same time. He had every opportunity to turn the the title character into a whiny little brat, but instead gave us someone who had all of the above qualities which in turn made him someone that the audience would genuinely care about. In fact, all of the characters display at least a couple of the above qualities, even the characters who are primarily sarcastic and/or snarky, so that their individual likability comes through in their critical moments.

The comedy in this film hearkens back to the days of films like Airplane! and The Naked Gun or the old Monty Python films. While Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World is nothing like any of those films from a stylistic standpoint, it is none-the-less a movie with just as ridiculous a premise and an even more ludicrous plot line. And you know what? It doesn’t matter at all. In fact, when you’re watching a film like any of the films I mentioned, or like Scott Pilgrim Vs.the World, you have to be in the proper frame of mind in order to truly enjoy it. I think that might be the reason it has a relatively low score of 81% on Rotten Tomatoes. This is a stylized film. It has a very definite and particular point of view and it has a very definite and particular voice. If that voice and that point of view don’t jibe with your own sensibilities, then the humor in this film will be lost on you.

To that point, Edgar Wright definitely has his own style, as demonstrated in all of his films. He has a visual style that is unique to him, and that visual style accentuates the humor in his films. He doesn’t rely on witty one-liners, although he does use them, and he doesn’t rely on the same tired comedic motifs of many other comedic film makers. He uses timing and visual cues expertly to elicit laughs. Many of these cues are subtle, so it’s important to pay attention while you’re watching his films. The Youtube channel Every Frame a Painting has an excellent video on Edgar Wright’s films that explains it with much more detail and eloquence than I can provide here. Click the link below, and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

One thing they do leave out in this video in its relation to Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World is all of the graphic nuance that they use. The constant graphic D’s glowing out of a bass riff. The graphic “Ring, Ring” when a phone rings. The “click, click, click” graphic when Kim hits her drum sticks together, or the comedic use of title cards to let us know who is who and what their respective deals are in the story. This film also uses graphic novels and video games as motifs, so many of the added graphics make us feel like we’re watching a comic book mashed up with a video game. These types of graphics and imagery make Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World one of the most visually interesting films I’ve personally ever seen.

    

The other great thing about the characters in this film, especially many of the supporting characters is that they were played by actors who would soon be launched into super-stardom. Scott Pilgrim was played by Michael Cera (Juno, Superbad, Arrested Development); the love interest, Ramona Flowers was played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead (10 Cloverfield Lane); his ex-girlfriend Envy Adams was played by Brie Larson (Room, 21 Jump Street); his sister was played by Anna Kendrick (Pitch Perfect, Up in the Air, 50/50), and there were several other notable actors throughout the film like Chris Evans (Captain America & The Avengers series); Aubry Plaza (Parks and Recreation); Mae Whitman (The Perks of Being a Wall Flower, Parenthood); Kieran Culkin (Macauley’s brother); and Allison Pill (Milk, Midnight in Paris), and of course I would be remiss if I left out Jason Schwartzman as the leader of the League of Evil Ex’s. All of these young actors brought an energy to Scott Pilgrim that added to the entertainment value of the film. I think there’s something to be said for bringing together a bunch of hungry actors and putting them in positions to succeed, and Edgar Wright certainly did that with Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World.

What all of these great characters do is make us care about what happens to all of them in general, but specifically to Scott, and to a lesser degree Ramona. At its core, this movie is about finding the one you love and accepting any imperfections that they may have had in their pasts. Scott Pilgrim makes the point that coming to grips with the fact that we all have skeletons in our respective closets is important because those skeletons define who we are now. Our pasts make us the people that we are today, and the only way that you can love who a person is now is to accept who they were in the past. What’s more, Scott Pilgrim is also telling us that not only do you have to accept the skeletons in your partner’s closet, but in order to ever be fully able to move on with your life, you have to be able to accept and let go of the skeletons in your own closet. As long as you’re afraid that your past may some day catch up with you, or that you’re always going to be fighting with your past, you’ll never be able to appreciate what you have right in front of you, and you’ll never fully gain the self respect that you need to get respect from others.

So as you can see, there are actually pretty deep and compelling thematic elements in this film and in its story. Yes, there is a ton of eye candy, and a lot of hipster-inspired, angst driven music, and the movie is totally self-aware, all of which usually adds up to a pretty pretentious cocktail. But because we care about the characters and because we’re given these strong thematic components, along with the great personalities and idiosyncrasies that make us care about the characters, we have a film in Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World that is truly a feel-good film. It’s a film that is so cool that you don’t even realize that you’re learning something.

I’ve been thinking about this movie for the past couple of days for obvious reasons, and I actually sat down and re-watched it today. This movie is 40 years old. It was nominated for Best Picture in a year when Rocky won and two of the other nominees were AFI top 100 films in Network and Taxi Driver. All the President’s Men is a fine film in its own right, based on the book by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward about their reporting on the Watergate scandal for the Washington Post. Coming out only a couple of years after the scandal that rocked our nation to its core and brought down a president must have been very jarring to be sure. This is a dramatic film that plays out like a detective story as Woodward (Robert Redford) and Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) piece together the clues of the original break in that slowly and steadily morphs into the biggest scandal of the 20th Century. Along with a cast that includes Jason Robards, Jack Warden, Hal Holbrook, Jane Alexander, Meredith Baxter, Stephen Collins, and many, many more, this film has top-notch acting, exceptional direction by Alan Pakula, and a marvelous screenplay by William Goldman.

Why it’s essential.

It is that screenplay that I’d like to start out discussing. This is one of those movies that you really have to pay attention to. There are a lot of details in this story that you have to be able to keep up with in order to be able to follow the plot. Goldman also used some great plot techniques to up the tension. For instance, there’s a point where they’re working on an aspect of the story and they find out that the New York Times is working on the same thing and has much of the same information. So now it’s not just about getting to the bottom of the conspiracy, but they also raise the stakes by putting them in a race to the finish against a rival organization. Goldman also did a great job of putting obstacles in Woodward and Bernstein’s way. Whether it’s would-be witnesses and sources continuously slamming doors in their faces or witnesses denying their Grand Jury testimony after an article is written, these two protagonists constantly have rugs pulled out from underneath them, and they’re constantly having to overcome these obstacles in creative and clever ways.

This is also a very dialogue-heavy film. That’s usually a problem for me except for when the dialogue is this exceptionally written by the screenwriter and delivered by the actors. Goldman expertly gave each character an individual voice, and the performances of the actors are terrific without exception. If you’re going to have a lot of dialogue in the film, then you’d better also have a lot of good actors to deliver it, and All the President’s Men delivers on both fronts.

Speaking of the acting, I think most people would agree that both Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman are among the finest actors of the twentieth century, and both of them have multiple iconic performances that have transcended cinema and become well known as parts of our popular culture. In All the President’s Men they share the screen very effectively. They work off of each other with their characters somewhat adversarial at first, and then their relationship and partnership drive the story with each character bringing separate strengths and weaknesses to the story. Perhaps these aren’t the most memorable or iconic roles for either actor, but they each gave very strong and believable performances with subtleties and nuances that made me feel like I was watching real life unfold and while at the same time understanding that I was watching top notch performances.

But not only do Redford and Hoffman give stellar performances, but so too do many of the supporting cast. Jason Robards as the paper’s editor Ben Bradlee serves as the protagonists’ archetypal mentor, as well as sometimes shapeshifting into an enemy. The inimitable Jack Warden plays Metro Editor Harry Rosenfeld, who fought to keep the young and inexperienced reporters on the story. Hal Holbrook was only in a couple of scenes as Deep Throat, but his performance was as riveting as it was haunting. There were many other recognizable character actors like Ned Beatty and the previously mentioned Jane Alexander, Meredith Baxter and Stephen Collins round out a cast that was solid and as strong as any supporting cast that you’ll ever see.

Another aspect about this film that I love is the way that it’s shot, as well as the way that it’s edited. There is a very sparse score, which is reminiscent of Network, which came out the same year, and didn’t have any score at all. In many ways this film is almost shot like a documentary, especially the scenes in the news room and the scenes where they’re interviewing people. However, during the scenes where Woodward is talking to Deep Throat in the parking garage, the style of shooting becomes very cinematic. The lighting is very dramatic, and we’re never able to see Deep Throat entirely, as much of his face and body are hidden in shadow as a way of telling us that this man is mysterious and perhaps not entirely trustworthy. It’s also worth noting that he never gives Woodward complete information, so the fact that we never completely see him adds to the mystery of who he is and the information that he’s giving.

Finally there is one more component that makes this film essential and that is its theme about the importance of freedom of the press, as well as the importance of an unbiased press that serves as a true watchdog to potential governmental malfeasance and tyranny. Not only were Woodward and Bernstein watchdogs, they were also bulldogs going after the truth with tenacity and an insatiable desire to find the truth. the more they dug, the more dirt they found, and without that tenacity the true scope of the Watergate scandal may never have been uncovered. The fact that they were free as journalists to uncover this kind of corruption is one of the thin threads that keeps our democracy viable, and All the President’s Men shows reminds us that we should never lose sight of the importance of a free press.

Overall this is a terrific movie. It is dramatic and tense and thoughtful. It’s also pretty relevant to the times we’re living in at the moment, and if you’ve never seen it or haven’t seen it for a long time, I highly recommend checking it out.