Bridge of Spies (4/5 Stars)

Steven Spielberg has been around so long now that it is fair to say that his style isn’t like old school filmmaking as much as it is old school filmmaking. His fluid framing, the polish of the dialogue, and the frequency of virtuous themes represent the Platonic ideal all other filmmaking either imitate, elaborate upon, or reject. “Bridge of Spies,” has all the hallmarks of a very by the book movie. There are no missteps mainly because the movie takes very few chances. If you are acquainted with Spielberg, you will recognize a lot of his signature moves that he has already proven are effective in many other movies. “Bridge of Spies” is the safest movie in theaters right now. I doubt there will be many people who won’t like it. But isn't like this is Spielberg's best movie as much as it feels like a breather between great movies.

“Bridge of Spies,” is a historical period piece set in the Cold War late 1950s about an admirable man named James Donovan. He was an insurance lawyer who was summoned to represent in court a captured soviet spy named Rudolph Abel (played by Mark Rylance). Nobody really wants Abel to not be anything other than guilty but at the same time there is this whole American Constitution thing and everybody deserves a capable defense. Donovan proves capable enough to save his client from execution.

Then things take an interesting turn when an American spy named Francis Gary Powers is shot down over Russia. Donovan is called upon to negotiate an exchange of spies. This will all know from our history books, he succeeds at doing. What makes this story new (and probably why Spielberg chose to make a movie about it) is the revelation that Donovan went out of his way to also exchange a release of an American student named Prior from East Germany at the same time. The U.S. government really doesn’t care whether the student gets released as long as Powers comes back so Donovan’s mission is entirely altruistic and self-imposed. He is in fact negotiating not only with the Soviets, the East Germans, but also the C.I.A. And he deserves every bit the title of master negotiator. Donovan is played by Tom Hanks perfectly cast as a smart idealistic American everyman.

The movie is but a series of conversations and it is to the credit of Spielberg and the writers (which happen to include Joel and Ethan Coen) that there is an intriguing amount of trick storytelling that interrupt the what could have been easily stale scenes. Actually we can look a little further into some specific scenes because it is a really good example of superior filmmaking. Take for instance the scene where James Donovan brings up the idea of representing the spy to his wife and children around the dinner table. What needs to happen in this scene is he has to tell his wife about the case and she has to voice the reasons not to do it: social shame, helping the soviets, somebody else’s problem, etc. The scene has a subplot to it. In the previous scene Donovan has his assistant cancel a dinner date to work late on the new case (it is after all just a Tuesday.) At the family dinner Donovan’s daughter reveals that she was just stood up by her boyfriend. It becomes clear that the daughter and the assistant are dating but Donovan doesn’t know it. This is pretty funny and is good for a couple of laughs. Now the interesting part: the scene ends and the daughter and the assistant are never heard from again in the entire movie. That is to say the subplot is a red herring whose sole function is to provide some laughs during the dinner table scene not because these are important characters. Or take the scene where Donovan meets the East German ambassador for the first time. The ambassador pours two drinks while his back is to Donovan. He turns around with the two glasses. The camera tilts down to look at the glasses and then tilts back up to see Hanks’ quizzical expression. This camera move and the expressions stereotypically imply that the drink might be poisoned. The drink isn’t poisoned and there will never be a poisoning in the movie but Speilberg inserted those moves in for purposes of suspense for the sake of suspense. After all the audience does not know whether the drink is poisoned (or whether the previously mentioned romantic subplot goes anywhere) so it does not really matter whether it is or not as long as the audience feels that it might be for a moment and becomes more involved in the scene. This sort of thing shows off Spielberg’s knowledge of a movie audience's general attention span. Right when a talking scene might start to get boring he will figure out a way to instill some suspense or some joke whether it has anything to do with the storyline or not and it always works. 

 

One more thing should get some notice and that is the performance of Mark Rylance as the Soviet spy Rudolph Abel. He underplays the role in such a sublime way that it becomes almost comedic. He is not afraid of the U.S. government as much as he is just resigned to everything. He does not particularly care whether he gets a defense or not. At one point he comments, “The boss is not always right, but he is always the boss.” What an incredibly Soviet thing to say. Whereas when an injustice happens to an American he may actually get mad about it or worry about the outcome. The difference I suppose is that in America our ideals and rights give us hope that justice may prevail and so a fight for justice is worth it. 

Why do I feel like somebody is trying to teach me something. Anyway good movie, Dad.