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| Steve Carell (Sony Pictures Classics) |
Bennett
Miller’s masterfully-directed Foxcatcher
morphs a story too strange for the human imagination into a calculated and unnerving
study of masculinity. To some degree, Miller is dissecting “patriotism” – what
its precise definition is, who falls prey to its enticements, how it manifests and
expands, seeping into culture and family and tentative bonds – but fundamentally
(and at its best), this is a story about American men: about how they use their
bodies, strain to connect to those around them, and repress their true,
inner-most selves.
Mark
Schultz (Channing Tatum, very impressive and physically-committed) is a brute,
a model of physicality and athleticism that, even after winning an Olympic Gold
Medal in wrestling, lives in the shadow of his legendary brother, Dave (Mark
Ruffalo). Relative to Mark, Dave is matured and seasoned, raising three
children, working through a marriage, transitioning in focus from work to
family. Mark is a strange specimen, really – he’s surprisingly antisocial, not
especially intelligent or articulate, and yet, he carries around an
entitlement, a belief that he is a champion disregarded and pushed to the side
by his fellow countrymen and women.
Miller
completes his triangular study of American men with outcast millionaire John du
Pont (Steve Carell), the nebbishy heir to enormous fortune and power (with
merely a book on ornithology to his name). John, with distressingly ambiguous intentions,
calls Mark to his Foxcatcher Farms: “I want to talk about your future,” John
explains. He dubs Mark a hero, whose treatment is representative of the sad
downfall his country has taken. America has lost pride in itself, according to
John, and together, with John’s wealth and Mark’s physical talent, they will
reignite the patriotic fervor so sorely lacking in American culture. Mark
agrees, and accepts John’s offer to train under him.
Foxcatcher
is meticulous in its narrative unconventionality. The film builds and builds in
atmosphere and in dread; there’s a sense of the inevitable, of the tragic, that
not even momentarily fades away. John, as Mark’s coach, is hilariously
unqualified; and yet through his obsession, he’s able to take this “project” so
far that Foxcatcher Farms becomes the official training grounds of the American
Olympic Wrestling Team. He buys Mark’s loyalty, buys out the Olympic Team, and
eventually buys out a reluctant Dave, who moves his family to reunite with Mark
and return to the Olympics in Seoul.
It
is to Miller’s credit that such an idiosyncratic moment in history – that does,
in fact, end in tragedy – works as such a striking piece of drama. This is the
kind of story that could be taken in any number of directions – with the
casting of Carell, mining this material as black comedy certainly came to mind –
but Miller bears down, extracting crises of masculinity and profound
insecurities that lurk beneath the oddity. We learn John is attracted to Mark. We
learn that Mark grew up with Dave, his spotlight-stealer, as his lone father
figure. We learn that Dave values his wife and children over his brother. From these
points, Miller can really dig in – and he does, fabulously.
There’s
a lot under the surface in Foxcatcher;
Miller is interested in ideas that appropriately provoke thought and complicate
the narrative. The film, critically, is set beginning in 1987 – the tail-end of
the Reagan era, the year in which the AIDS crisis was finally acknowledged by
the President after years of repressing the epidemic. Miller has explored the
relationship between homosexuality and the American narrative before, in Capote, but here he’s more aggressive. The
male bodies in Foxcatcher are toned,
muscular, exposed and manipulated. The way John touches Mark initially doesn’t
faze him – John, as “coach,” is touching Mark as Mark as been touched by
teammates, rivals and his brother alike. But Miller clearly demonstrates its
sexual nature; only when Mark realizes the many external factors of his
relationship to John does he deduce that this contact does not reflect a
coach-to-player relationship, nor a father-to-son one.
That
it isn’t odd to him – and that Miller plays it surprisingly obviously – has ramifications.
The sport’s homoeroticism is of great importance to Foxcatcher. It is cheered on by the sport’s attendees with
enthusiastic “USA!” chants; it is the activity, the sport, that Mark and John
have rallied around to spark American patriotism and exceptionalism; and it
provides a venue for John to act on his impulses without consequence. John is a
creep, no doubt about it – Miller and Carell sell this excessively-well with an
enormous prosthetic nose – but he’s a tragic American figure, bullied into hiding
by the country’s homophobic, repressive climate. He’s so deeply damaged, in
fact, that he surrounds himself with American flags, with an unhealthy
affection for his country.
Miller
pits a homicidal gay man against patriotic fervor; he also explores the
dichotomous relationship between a man with the power to mold (John), and a man
with the ability to be molded (Mark). Mark, hulking, angry and broken, is paid
off and exploited every which way – to the point where by the film’s end, he is
rendered a mere pawn. He can be promised heroism, fame and glory – and he can
also be promised family and trust – but he is failed by both his mentor/coach/father
and his brother. Here is another tragic American figure, this time drawn to patriotism
because of its falsely-paternalistic nature. For a film about athletics, Foxcatcher is unusually homoerotic – in
Miller’s mind, the way Mark wrestles is both a demonstration of wrestling with
oneself, but it’s also connective and intimate. Mark is not gay, but there’s
clear evidence that both he and John use the sport’s contact-heavy nature to try
to piece together their fractured selves.
Miller’s
work is not quite so emotive, however: Foxcatcher,
as already mentioned, is coldly tragic and consistently unnerving. But his work
never feels distant or deliberate. Until its explosive closing act, the film is
extremely-talk heavy; conversations are often two-handers, without interruption
and totally isolated. Mark and John, or Mark and Dave, or Dave and John,
speaking for elongated amounts of time – and Miller never underscores it with
even a light composition. It’s extremely rare in cinema to keep characters
conversing in utter silence, without a single noise or piece of music to
distract. Miller forces close listening and comprehension, and conveys
impenetrable unease. Every so often, Carell – in a transformative, altogether
fantastic performance – will trail off, his inflections abruptly fluctuating and
his eyes drifting aimlessly, to indicate that there is something not quite
right with this man, that he’s not “all there.” Similarly, Ruffalo’s conveying
of decency and family values richly shades Dave’s moral complexity. Without
distraction, Miller piercingly digs into these characters and gives his
audience no reprieve – and all three actors rise to the challenge.
There’s
a mastery and level of control at work here that’s comparable, among
contemporary filmmakers, to Paul Thomas Anderson. Foxcatcher is not quite at the level of There Will Be Blood or The
Master – the story is too small, and occasionally, there’s a lapse in focus
– but it’s commendable simply for earning a mention in that company. The immediacy
and intimacy of style – and the bleak, unwavering focus on character and
relationships – in particular greatly echoes the three-pronged study in Master. In many ways, Foxcatcher is an easier if
less-rewarding watch. Anderson careens through characters and POVs so
breathlessly, so effortlessly and so effectively that to mar Miller for imperfectly
attempting such a balance is quite unfair. But when the focus in Foxcatcher shifts to John, there’s a
sharp turn in narrative and character that is too-blatantly explained by his torturous
relationship to his mother (Vanessa Redgrave). And where The Master was imposingly confrontational about some very grand
nationalistic themes, Foxcatcher is paramount
when it goes smaller. Its big American statements are especially ambiguous
given the story’s constraints; while this is not really a criticism, it can’t
quite make that “transcendent” leap like a Master
can. Its perceptiveness and brilliance is rendered in simple conversations,
in its textured portraits of American men and institutions so repressive and
yet so entitled.
Foxcatcher
draws many connective lines – in its muddled web are homosexuality, fandom,
elitism, power, patriarchy and, atop the pyramid, patriotism – and if Miller’s
work is more descriptive than revelatory, his descriptions remain
finely-detailed, illuminative and provocatively tragic.
Check out Andrew's post-mortem here.