News of the World was brought to us by writer/director Paul Greengrass. Greengrass is one of our better directors. He has made some excellent dramas like Bloody Sunday and Captain Phillips as well as the best installments of the Jason Bourne franchise. He has a knack for stripped down realism. Bloody Sunday is the story of a protest gone wrong in Northern Ireland. Captain Phillips, his first collaboration with Tom Hanks, recreated the hijacking of a container ship by Somali pirates off the horn of Africa. Dialogue in a Greengrass movie is utilitarian and his hand-held shooting style gives that documentary feeling of being there. More than anything, a Greengrass movie usually benefits the from the creator’s clear and distinct matter of the subject matter. News of the World would seem to be an exception to the above. This movie feels like an anachronistic jumble of modern sensibilities shoe-horned into the guise of a Western. The most obvious example is the casting of Tom Hanks who has never acted in a Western before and for what seems to be good reason. He looks and feels out of place and time. He doesn’t even try for an accent even though his character has lived all his life in Texas.
Tom Hanks plays “Captain Kidd”, a man who spends his time travelling from place to place in Texas reading big city newspapers. He is a travelling show, but with a bit more scholarly class. The movie takes place during Reconstruction after the Civil War. For some reason, there are federal union troops standing in the back fully armed. The people in the audience do not like the occupying troops or hearing any news about the federal government, which is weird because its not like the show is mandatory curriculum. They could just leave or not show up at all. And it is not like Captain Kidd must read that news. He is like a mother serving vegetables at dinner, but he’s not a mother and these people are not his kids, so…
Between one town and the next he comes across a hijacked wagon. The driver of the wagon, a black man, is hanging from a rope nearby. There is a paper on him that reads something like, “Not in Texas”. Captain Kidd finds nearby a traumatized white girl who speaks only Kiowa. For that reason, she can’t explain what happened to Captain Kidd. How convenient. I would give a shiny nickel to anyone who could explain to me what happened. Clearly some unknown white people lynched the unknown black guy, that much we know. But why did they do it? Did they dislike the fact that he was transporting a white girl? If so, why did they leave the white girl there? Did they perform the lynching just because he was black and on the road? Is the message supposed to be for other black people? But there are no other black people in this movie. And this is the middle of Texas in the 1870s. Why would he be here, and if he was here, why would he be by himself? Here’s the real stumper: What in the world is this black man doing with this particular white girl? We learn later in the film that she is a daughter of German settlers who had been massacred by the Kiowa Tribe. The tribe kidnapped her, adopted her, and taught her the language. She was with the tribe for years we learn. Okay, so what is with the black man? Did he rescue her a la John Wayne in The Searchers? That seems unlikely. Where was he taking her and for what purpose? Did Greengrass just want to show us a lynching regardless of whether it made any sense in the story? Questions, questions.
There are several scenes of unreality happening here and there. Not a single character is religious even though almost every character should be. There is the usual dearth of children even though back then they would have outnumbered adults (This is an anachronism found in almost all historical movies). Captain Kidd spares the rod to an absurd degree for a man in the 1870s. Then there is this one ridiculous scene. Captain Kidd and Joanna (the girl) are caught in a serious dust storm with no help of shelter, not even a tent. It is a situation that ought to be fatal given their circumstances. Instead, Joanna uses her magical Kiowa training and finds some magical Kiowa tribesman. They are just hanging out there in that dust storm. They give Joanna a horse, like one of their good ones, for free. Captain Kidd and Joanna ride that magic horse into town and survive. This isn’t supposed to be real, right? I mean this must be some kind of metaphor, right? Right?
The lack of judgment, nay the outright reverence, this movie has for this tribe is kind of crazy. I mean, they murdered the entire family of this girl. And Tom Hanks just stands there repeating in an impotent manner, “I know people are hurting.” I suppose it is hard being judgmental when the movie seems to take the modern view that the settling of the American West was a bad thing overall. This kind of viewpoint makes for a strange Western, made more so since there are no major Native American characters, and the supporting ones are magical creatures of the plains.
Okay, so we only have white people talking here. What are they saying? Captain Kidd says “I know people are hurting.” Okay, that’s unhelpful. The main bad guy is Mr. Farley. He is a western entrepreneur. His employees shoot buffalos and only take the hide. There are heaps of shorn carcasses laying around. A terrible environmentalist. He is also very ugly, which in a Hollywood movie is a dead giveaway to someone’s underlying decrepit moral character. Mr. Farley says the main problem is Indians, Mexicans, and Blacks. Really? He is out here in the Wild West (i.e. the middle of nowhere) and that is his problem?
The Western is a longstanding genre in American movies. It has produced many great movies and a vast trove of mediocre ones. The main problem in a Western is not racism, its lawlessness. When you think of racism in America, you think of slavery and segregation (or zoning?), both of which were enforced through a legal code. In the Wild West, there is no legal code. Whatever justice or injustice exists is meted out by individuals. (This by the way is the great storytelling strength of the Western. Because there is no society, the characters’ individual choices matter more than usual, which raises the dramatic stakes, makes good men better and bad men worse). Some of the best Westerns are those movies that are about the slow and painful transformation from the state of nature to civilized society, for example The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and the HBO series Deadwood.
Ever since the 1970s though, this theme has fallen into disfavor with a vast segment of the population. After all, to tell a story from the American West with the theme of a transition from a state of nature to a civilized society carries with it the implicit argument that civilized society did not exist in the American West before the Europeans showed up and imposed it. In response to this dig at Native Americans, there are many movies that portray Native Americans as some magical people imbued with all colors of the wind. To hear them say it, the Native Americans would have forever lived in peace and harmony had the white people not shown up. In Dances with Wolves, a disaffected veteran of the American Civil War seeks to live with the Indians to get away from the corruption and strife within American society. Actually, the Native Americans have wars too, but this white man does not see the shared humanity between races behind such negative outcomes. He witnesses a battle between Native American tribes and reflects that white people fight and kill over stupid things like religion and ideology while the Native Americans fight and kill over things that make sense like food and territory. Yeah, I don’t think a distinction between reasons for killing is persuasive. We are not so different. If Native Americans wore cowboy hats, some would be white and some would be black.
I say since the 1970s, but this kind of viewpoint of tribal peoples is much older. In fact, its French. It is the sort of thing that contrarian French aristocrats like Voltaire and Rousseau would throw around while lounging in salons. (The British were busy taking over the world). In Voltaire’s Candide, the main character travels to America and discovers a secret city named El Dorado, that lacks crime, is full of happy people, etc. Its superiority derives from the lack of modern influences. For example, diamonds line the streets because the inhabitants are uncorrupted by the modern economic forces that would make them valuable. (Wakanda from Black Panther is basically the same idea. It is ironic that the message of Black Panther is openness, given everything about Wakanda argues for the opposite. After all, if Wakanda, a morally superior and technologically advanced civilization, has a racial makeup that is 100% homogenous, wouldn’t that argue in favor of a closed society and a pure race. How exactly has the immigration policy of Wakanda changed since its king publicly lectured the world on the benefits of openness? I would love to see that debate on Wakanda CSPAN.) Rousseau was basically of the belief that men hit their peak of morality a thousand years before cities when everyone was a Noble Ape, a child of the forest. This point of view is not too different from Dances with Wolves.
The grass is always greener on the
other side. It is hard to explain what ought to be obvious. That life is better for everybody now than it ever was for any single Native American back then. People live longer,
they don’t starve to death, their children don’t die in droves in childbirth
and disease, women aren't treated like chattel, there is far less violence in the world, we’re all much more
educated and have much more free time. I could go on, how much time do you
have? A good Western understands this. It does not ignore the trials and
injustices of the past, but it understands that the story is one that starts at
chaos and heads toward order, not the other way around. If it does not have
this, and it isn’t explicitly in the French line of thinking, it is a search in
the wilderness for meaning and purpose. It is Tom Hanks playing an
ex-Confederate soldier without the characteristics of one, feeling vaguely
guilty, but not being able to articulate why.
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