The new Coen Brothers movie “Hail, Caesar!” is not so much a satire of the big studio soulless entertainment of film’s first
half-century as much as it is a celebration of it. After all, the big all encompassing studio has long since been a ripe satirical target. However the type of entertainment it would produce, as if art were something that could be manufactured en
masse in a factory, did have its admirable attributes, lots of which are on
display in this movie. Here we have five “types” of movies that the producers
churned out: a western with trick horse play, a Busby Berkeley dance
number, a high society melodrama, sailors tap-dancing a la “On the Town” and
finally a biblical epic starring the biggest movie star of them all, Baird
Whitlock (played by George Clooney). The Coen Brothers put on fine displays of them all.
It is entertaining though it hardly means anything. But if that is all you want
in a movie, than this is a very good one. It delivers just that.
Ostensibly the movie is about Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin), a producer. He
is not the boss of the movie studio (that guy is in New York) but he is the
highest-ranking person on the lot. His job is all sorts of things and takes day and night to do it. To over simplify things, he keeps the productions running and the stars (who are
full-time employees of the studio) out of trouble. He solves problems. Take for instance the case of DeeAnna Morgan (Scarlett Johannsson) the mermaid in the
synchronized swimming number. She is pregnant and unwed. Eddie, conscious of what it looks like to the moral movie-going public
of family friendly pictures, helps her as only
the representative of a huge corporation could. He plans to keep the pregnancy a
secret, hire a professional person (Jonah Hill as Joseph Silverman) to adopt
the newborn, and have this person give the child up for adoption back to DeeAnna a few days later. The
professional person is just that. Whenever a star does something stupid, he is
keen to be framed for the crime. It is let on that he spent six months in jail
for a drunk driving incident.
On one of the last days of shooting the big biblical epic "Hail, Caesar" Baird Whitlock is kidnapped from the set. The kidnappers ask for
$100,000. Eddie does some math and is content to pay it after
realizing it will cost more to delay shooting a week (not to mention the bad press). The kidnappers happen to be a
study group of communist screenwriters. They are not so rough on Baird. After slipping
him a mickey and spiriting him to an isolated beach house, he is let in on the
study group. They calmly and professorially explain Communism to him. He is receptive although that may be only his dim nature.
Mirroring this is the studios treatment of Jesus in “Hail, Caesar” which
seems to look a lot like Ben Hur. The studio wants to give the people what they
want (Jesus!) but do not want to offend anyone (an opinion on Jesus!). To
that end, Eddie invites three priests from three Christian denominations and
one rabbi to his office. He shows them the script and asks their opinion. There is nothing to object to as Jesus is seen only once in one scene
with his back towards the camera (like “Ben Hur”). Nobody agrees on Jesus but
nobody objects to the script because nothing is actually said about Jesus. Hollywood has pulled this fast one from time immemorial and for good reason too. Whenever an artist has something to say (take
for instance Scorsese’s “Last Temptation of Christ,”) they are met with protests. Jesus remains
hidden from big studio mass-market films to this day.
Not that the Coens do the communists any favors. It turns out, through a
lot of intellectual rigamarole and bandying about, the Communists want the
ransom money because they are greedy. That claim it as payback for their services because they have been blackballed but are still working. The
fact that they care about money does not bother them. An old venerable man
explains that history is a science and that the Communist Revolution will come
so it does not matter whether the study group acts selfishly. In fact to act
selfishly will hasten the revolution so acting in their self-interest is in
furtherance of their cause anyway. I dislike communists and though I have sympathy for
anyone who is unfairly kept unemployed (what kind of good capitalist would I be
if I were not) I love the fact that Hollywood Communists are being made fun in
this movie for their stupid political beliefs. I have seen nothing but
tragedies about them so far (thanks a lot McCarthy for turning them into noble
sufferrors) so I consider this as a relief on the subject. The only thing worse
than letting the Communists write screenplays was not letting them write
screenplays. At least that way people could have a demonstration of how dumb is
the philosophy.
But I get carried away. The point of the movie is the studio fun. On
great display is Alden Enrenreich (as Hobie Doyle) who is the cowboy of the
film. He actually can do all sorts of tricks with a lasso. In fact, on a dinner date he takes a noodle of
spaghetti, makes a lasso out of it, and hooks his dates thumb from across the
table. Amazing! Now that’s entertainment. Also Channing Tatum does a great tap
dancing number as a sailor who is not gay among a bunch of other sailors who
are also not gay. The song is called “No Dames” and is about how when they are
all at sea together there will be no dames. It is not gay. It is sad. Do not be
tricked by the smiles and tap dancing.
