good quotes from reviews of "The Iron Claw"

I never did see "The Iron Claw," the 2023 biographical sports drama about the Von Erich professional wrestling family out of Dallas, but I had read these contemporary reviews in The New Yorker.

In short, Fritz creates a spotlight too big for his sons to escape and too bright for them to endure, and tragedy ensues—and ensues and ensues—and Kevin, as the oldest living son and a paragon of responsibility, takes it very hard when he can't prevent it.

And,

The work of a sports drama is, in some sense, to transcend the easy marvel of athletes' physiques in favor of other, deeper stuff, like inner strife and sentiment. But in "Iron Claw" the body is relevant for how it testifies to the hard life of the family's chosen sport. The three oldest Von Erich sons gain renown wrestling as a team, and for a time they triumph. Traveling across the country to compete, they are Texas fabulous: beef-fed boys in velour and lamé, carousing in tight tanks and tighter denim. Durkin, working with the cinematographer Mátyás Erdély and the costume designer Jennifer Starzyk, wants us to see the body as a hewn product: a vascular, clenching, clothes-busting display. Erdély's handheld camera chases Kevin's nimble, ultra-tan form around the ring, catching flashes of heaving muscle and theatrical grimaces framed by He-Man hair.

 

Notes: (1) The spotlight quote is from "'The Iron Claw' Is a Combustible Family Drama of Love, Loss, and Pro Wrestling," Richard Brody, December 20, 2023. The second quote is from "The Poignant Physicality of Zac Efron," Lauren Michele Jackson, December 22, 2023. (2) I still hope to see the movie. (3) I recently cancelled my subscription.

 

something else about the movie “The Master”

In the last scene with both Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix), Dodd tells Freddie to leave him forever, saying, "Go to that landless latitude, and good luck—for if you figure a way to live without serving a master, any master, then let the rest of us know, will you? For you'd be the first person in the history of the world."

Lancaster and Freddie are drawn to each other. Lancaster suggests a few times that he and Freddie are cosmically connected, that they knew each other in a previous life. Both Freddie Quell and Lancaster Dodd improvise in life.

But Lancaster feels the pressure of his followers' expectations, their fragile devotion, and his determined spouse, Peggy (Amy Adams).

Freddie represents something like freedom. He is wild. He gets out of control and does not try to control others. He seems to have no views. And he claims to do what he wants.

His relationship with Dodd is Freddie's only meaningful one since before the war when he courted a young girl. The relationship with Dodd gave Freddie a taste of intimacy.

But Dodd cannot pursue life with Freddie. Freddie is too damaged, too unstable, too uncontrollable, and Lancaster has too many commitments. Moreover, Peggy will not allow it. So Lancaster will carry on without him, and Freddie will drift away alone.

Notes:

• Peggy is an ominous, constant source of pressure. She immediately puts a stop to nudity at meetings of The Cause, and she pushes him away from Freddie.
• Freddie experiences intimacy when Doris (Madisen Beaty) sings to him. And he experiences intimacy again during the Lancaster-Freddie processing scene, among others. And early in the movie, we see Freddie pretending to have sex on the beach with a woman shaped from sand; the movie ends with a shot of Freddie lying still, almost sweetly, next to the sand woman on the beach.
• Now I am patting myself on the back for my 2013 post, "about the film "The Master," noting something that is beautifully expanded on in this piece in The New Yorker: “The Astonishing Power of ‘The Master’” by Richard Brody, September10, 2012.
  

 

something about the film, “Joker”

In the movie "Joker," Arthur Fleck ekes out a miserable living as a party clown in Gotham City, 1981. Crime is up, unemployment is up, and poverty is up. Violent events lead Arthur to become a folk hero in a rapidly intensifying class struggle. The movie is an unofficial imagining of the origin story for the Batman villain, the Joker.

The New Yorker published a piece titled “'Joker' Is a Viewing Experience of Rare, Numbing Emptiness,” which says the following:

“Joker” is an intensely racialized movie, a drama awash in racial iconography that is so prevalent in the film, so provocative, and so unexamined as to be bewildering. What it seems to be saying is utterly incoherent, beyond the suggestion that Arthur, who is mentally ill, becomes violent after being assaulted by a group of people of color—and he suffers callous behavior from one black woman, and believes that he’s being ignored by another, and reacts with jubilation at the idea of being a glamorous white star amid a supporting cast of cheerful black laborers. But, unlike the public discourse around the Central Park Five, and unlike the case of Bernhard Goetz, and unlike the world, the discourse in “Joker” and the thought processes of Arthur Fleck are utterly devoid of any racial or social specificity.

I do not know what this means or how the film would be different if the racial iconography were more examined or if the movie had more racial or social specificity. I agree that “Joker” does not reinforce a politically left-leaning perspective on race, but I do not see how that makes the movie bad. I think the movie is good.

“Joker” is a sick person’s fantasy about meeting real-world conditions that allow the fantasy to become reality. Arthur thought he was a victim.

I used to think that my life was a tragedy, but now I realize, it's a fucking comedy.

He was nice to people, but they responded with indifference or cruelty. He discovered the power of revenge and began leading a class war.

What do you get when you cross a mentally ill loner with a society that abandons him and treats him like trash? You get what you fuckin' deserve!

Arthur's story and dialog gradually allude to a populist and class-oriented politics, which can be manipulated by demagogues and made dangerous. But this movie dwells in the origins of the discontent that allows a populace to accept demagoguery and then turn dangerous and to fascism. Arthur, during a serendipitous turn as a guest on a late-night talk show, asks his celebrity host, Murray:

Have you seen what it's like out there, Murray? Do you ever actually leave the studio? Everybody just yells and screams at each other. Nobody's civil anymore. Nobody thinks what it's like to be the other guy. You think men like Thomas Wayne ever think what it's like to be someone like me? To be somebody but themselves? They don't. They think that we'll just sit there and take it, like good little boys! That we won't werewolf and go wild!

Notes:

• "Joker" was released in 2019, was directed and produced by Todd Phillips, who co-wrote the screenplay with Scott Silver. The film stars Joaquin Phoenix as the Joker.
• I do not know if the concept started out as such, but I drew lines to Trump’s political rise leading into the 2016 election.
• The New Yorker also published a formal review of “Joker,” which was also critical. That review is fine.
• "All I Have Are Negative Thoughts."