FILM FEBRUARY 24, 2011
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For a while in this awards season, The Social Network seemed to be the favorite for the Best Picture Oscar. But the later opening of The King’s Speech has served it well. In the crucial nomination and voting period, The Social Network’s domestic box office slowed down, and it has earned less than $100 million. The picture has been hard to find in theaters, in part because it appeared on DVD in January. But, in the Christmas and New Year period, The King’s Speech picked up surprising momentum—because of the royal family angle; because stuttering has led to several background stories; but chiefly because Colin Firth has been such a charm in publicity events. So The King’s Speech has now gone over $100 million, and its presence in theatres (and press advertising from the Weinstein Company) has probably impressed voters. It has also picked up crucial awards along the way: the Directors’ Guild award; the Screen Actors’ award; and a Golden Globe for Colin Firth.
The Academy Awards have never been a science. They are a matter of feeling, and, in and around the film business (admittedly a harder entity to find than ever before), there’s no question that people like Firth, director Tom Hooper, and the portrait of hard-luck royals doing their best with one of life’s silly problems.
I should admit my prejudice. I stammered badly in childhood and youth. I only attained anything like fluency in my forties—and I know I should be stopped now. It’s not that I have a soft spot for the royals, or even the Queen Mother. I much prefer Helena Bonham Carter. Like Colin Firth himself, I prefer voting, democracy, and the thought of a republic. That matters less than the way audiences care about Bertie, King George VI, or HRH (whatever you feel about him), and they are responding to a film that sees every artistic reason for making a movie with a lot of the style and attitude of 1937 (when the action takes place). As a matter of fact, 1937 was a better year for the movies than it was for Bertie—The Awful Truth, Stage Door, A Star is Born, Camille, Stella Dallas, not to mention Shall We Dance?, Jean Renoir’s La Grande Illusion, Pepe le Moko, and Carnet de Bal.
Who cares about 1937, you ask. It’s a long time ago when people were still pretty scared of the telephone as well as looming political figures in the world. But entertain this thought: The large audience knows very little about stammering or stuttering (the Atlantic changes the word itself), and modern Americans are happy to be tourists when it comes to royalty—they’ll give an amused glance, and they may raise their hats, but they don’t take the thing seriously. Yet they do still enjoy movies in which they are able to like some of the characters and say, “Well, sure, I can understand that.”
David Fincher’s The Social Network deserves to be called brilliant, smart, tricky entertainment, and it’s as instructive as it is alarming about the personality of some of our brightest young people. If you know less about Facebook than your children know, it is a very educational picture, and it may even lead to a useful conversation with the kids if you see the movie in a family situation. But try finding someone to like in the picture, or trust. Try finding a female character who isn’t trashed. Try caring.
Your kids may tell you, “Well, come on, dude, we don’t do caring any more,” but I don’t know if I believe them. I think most of them in 2011 are scared shitless about what they’re going to do, and what will become of them. That’s one of the reasons why they cluster around Facebook—but don’t ask too closely whether membership brings them comfort or ease. I daresay Jesse Eisenberg gives a remarkable performance as Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook founder. It may be a lot closer to the reality than Firth’s Bertie is to the king—indeed, as I recall, Firth is more robust and vigorous than the real George VI, who looked like a nervous wreck.
It doesn’t matter. The Social Network doesn’t like Zuckerberg. Indeed, a striking characteristic of David Fincher’s films is his predilection for characters he doesn’t like. This may amount to artistic identity (a pinch of salt is provided at the bottom of the page) or it may just be that Fincher is a contented misanthrope. He has that right, just as audiences have the right and the habit and let us call it the need to look for people they like.
No matter that a lot has changed since 1937, and much of it for the good (though there is still no cure for stammering, feeling insecure and lonely, or even for unemployment), the public—ourselves—have not lost the pleasure in following stories and identifying with characters we like. They don’t have to be Shirley Temple or Lassie. But they have to nurse enough hope or energy or good will to bring us out at night. The King’s Speech takes due advantage of punctured pomp, period clothes, and British supporting actors (shameless attributes of cultural tourism), but it is written, directed, and played as if personal unhappiness matters and stimulates the attempt to get better. That is actually as much an American tradition as it ever was alive and well in Britain.
You probably won’t get better. You will fail. No one survives. We know these truths. But movies live and die on the hope. Mark Zuckerberg is a crushing, ruinous success—that’s why we don’t like him and why The Social Network can find not a glimmer of comfort. Little distresses the rest of the world more about Americans than their hysterical triumph and self-congratulation in success. It’s a dismay creeping into more and more smart Americans, too. That is why The King’s Speech will win Best Picture. Is it a good film? It doesn’t matter.
David Thomson is the author of The New Biographical Dictionary of Film and The Moment of Psycho: How Alfred Hitchcock Taught America to Love Murder.
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9 comments
This is really brilliant. I'm not sure if I'm a rube or what, but I would probably vote for The King's Speech too, even though it's not the greatest movie, because "sure, I can understand that," and I like the characters, and movies are a romance. The best scene in The Social Network was the first one, in which it was revealed that Zuckerberg made a lousy date, which is forgivable, and spoke like he was in an Aaron Sorkin movie, which is also forgivable and sometimes even desirable. After that scene, though, Zuckerberg harnessed the powers of his world-changing, gazillions-earning, Time cover-worthy brain to act out some over-broad, unpleasant retaliation against the female sex for having dissed him in the person of a pretty B.U. student who concluded, correctly, that while Zuckerberg was no doubt a formidable "computer person," he was nonetheless an "asshole." She walks out on him, and soon you want to too. The movie, it turns out, also makes a lousy date. Zuckerberg's petty online revenge against women is not something to which I readily say, "Well, sure, I understand that." And it went downhill from there. Not sure I understood his screwing his best friend out of a big piece of the company either. Well, one *understands* in the sense that one understands that assholes are assholes, but one doesn't warm to the subject. It spells trouble when you have the greatest sympathy for and interest in the character who's saying that the main subject of the movie is not worth the bother. I had the same thought when I saw the Queen, in which the spouses keep making the convincing argument that the main conflict of the film is stupid. Cherie Blair says, "Who gives a shit about the monarchy?" Elizabeth's husband says, "Who gives a shit about Diana?" We're not supposed to agree with either of them in our heart of hearts, but I kind of agreed with both. So, when I totally share the disdain and indifference of B.U. girl toward the whole business, that means that it doesn't matter how good the movie is on this or that level, because I don't give a shit.
- JakeH
February 24, 2011 at 3:24am
The Eduardo character is likable enough.
- mregan9
February 24, 2011 at 12:54pm
I guess I am contrarian but I actually liked Zuckerberg more after the movie than before. I can understand how a socially awkward misfit might end up becoming a dick when put in a position where he can be. As to Eduardo, likable though he was, was not really up for being in his position. I agree that Zuckerberg shouldn't have screwed him out of the money, but outside of that I had no other problems with him. I liked both movies a lot, and True Grit being the other. I still have not seen Black Swan so I can't make that determination.
- blackton
February 24, 2011 at 1:38pm
Good article but stuttering is NOT one of life's silly problems! It is a serious problem for people who stutter.
- platingman
February 24, 2011 at 2:56pm
I can suggest an alternative theory for why The King's Speech will win on Sunday, as I, too, believe that it will. Near the end of a recent review of a new translation of Homer's Iliad, David Kubiak says this: "The Iliad is uncompromisingly a man's poem, while entertainment today becomes steadily more gynocentric. Young people have no patterns surrounding them that take seriously the way men think and act, their sense of duty, loyalty, and friendship, and how these things are nobly cultivated . . . " It is VERY difficult to think of a recent popular entertainment that does what Kubiak laments as missing, other than HBO's Band of Brothers, which has a huge and devoted following a decade on among men in many nations. But the central and redemptive relationship in The King's Speech is between two men: Bertie and the "amateur" speech therapist Lionel Logue. To a highly anachronistic degree, both men are motivated by a sense of . . . hold on to your hats . . . duty, a notion very strange to us now. The objective is to make it possible for the Prince of Wales and then King George VI to discharge his functions as a royal. We can roll our eyes today at the silly Windsors, but Bertie and his wife actually played vital parts in the war against Hitler, by being seen and, crucially, by being heard. It was she, after all, who said a thing that rivaled any wartime utterance by Churchill. There was great popular sentiment for sending the two young princesses to the safety of Canada during the Blitz. It was their mother who said on the radio: "The princesses will not go without me, and I will not go without the King, and the King will never go." Search in vain for any people or ideals remotely like these in The Social Network. We not only LIKE the characters in The King's Speech. We miss them, too.
- westendorf
February 24, 2011 at 3:36pm
blackton, I don't think "Black Swan" is anywhere near Oscar-worthy, and this is coming from a tremendous Aronofsky fan. I couldn't agree more about True Grit. Those Coen guys are friggin' Midi. But I didn't like the Social Network because of the reason you did. I, too, can understand how a social outcast can become a dick when put in a position to be able to do so. But I think back to my favorite line in Schindler's List: "Power is when we have every justification to kill, and we don't." Now I'm not equating killing with being a dick, but I much prefer the person that is oppressed becoming much more benevolent for (or despite) it. And while that wasn't exactly Bertie, I agree with the author: There was much more joy in that performance and movie in general. So needless to say, I don't think "The Social Network" will, or should, win. But then again, I don't think "The King's Speech" should win. If I had my way: Toy Story 3!!! [coming from a guy that hates Apple, Disney, and was annoyed by what I once perceived as Pixar's smarmy success... until I just could resist anymore]...
- RJSampson1
February 24, 2011 at 9:16pm
Westendorf, careful, your misogyny is showing. Duty, loyalty, and friendship are not plausibly masculine characteristics or values. To the extent that these values are downplayed in our modern culture, it's not because the culture increasingly doesn't "take seriously the way men think and act," but rather because the culture increasingly doesn't take seriously much of anything. To ascribe this phenomenon to women's influence in the market for entertainment is to say that women are uniqeuly vacuous, which is a stupid and hateful notion, and fails to "take seriously the way [women] think and act," which continues to be the bigger problem, a problem evident in the history of literature and philosophy from the Iliad onward. As for our current troubles, I would place more emphasis on the increasing influence of the young and very young, both boys and girls, and the tendency for the lowest but large common denominator of children and adult children of both sexes to dominate the entertainment consumer base. What's more, my sense is that appeals to childish men are more common in our culture than appeals to childish women. You say that "[i]t is VERY difficult to think of a recent popular entertainment that does what Kubiak laments as missing," and yet the list of this year's best picture nominees contains not one but four movies that are explicitly about duty and loyalty. The King's Speech isn't even the best example. True Grit involves a young girl's determination to avenge her father's death, out of an uncompromising sense of justice. Jeff Bridges is moved, by an increasingly invigorated sense of duty and loyalty, to help her and, in the end, save her life. The Fighter is a movie that's all about duty and loyalty, and the conflicts that arise when one takes them seriously. Wahlberg is torn between loyalty to his family and old friends -- his heroin-addicted brother in particular -- and his duty to himself, which is encouraged by Amy Adams, who, in turn, is unwaveringly loyal to him. Winter's Bone involves an adolescent girl raising her siblings and caring for her mother alone in the meth-soaked squalor of Appalachia, because her father has walked out on his duties to his family. She's determined to find her father, because the family will lose their house if he jumps bail. Perhaps these movies don't best represent what Kubiak has in mind, because they involve to some large extent *women or girls* on missions, demonstrating the supposedly masculine virtues of duty, loyalty, honor, and courage. I guess they don't count, because everyone knows that women are silly things. Coincidentally, I recently saw a stage version of the Iliad performed in Chicago -- A Red Orchid Theatre -- where all of the (male) characters were played by young girls (ranging in age from about ten to 14), and the female characters were played by Barbie dolls. This might sound like high-concept trash, but it was actually pretty brilliant, and I would defy anyone to see that production and walk away with the conclusion that girls don't know from the "masculine" virtues and vices on such rich display in that work.
- JakeH
February 25, 2011 at 2:03pm
I think this response is on the shallow side. "The King's Speech" is great because it deals with a profound human issue - the issue of dealing with a debilitating disability. Stuttering is not "one of life's silly problems." For anyone who stutters or lives with those who do, it is a serious problem having profound effects on the life of the stutterer and those around him or her. As for "hard-luck royals," what I've read about these Windsors is that they didn't exactly see themselves as "hard-luck," but they did land in a spot they never expected to land in. Bertie was not his father's favorite. He didn't particularly want to be king. But there he was. And, from what I've read, he more than rose to the occasion during the Second World War. This is a story of a person who has to face, first, personal disability and then a task that he does not feel adequate to do. This is a profoundly human story. THAT is why "The King's Speech" has staying power, why it wins at least some of the awards, and why it will be remembered as "Chariots of Fire" has been remembered. The Brits do it better. And, then, of course, there IS the acting and directing. All terribly fine.
- rahmanson
February 27, 2011 at 2:18pm
plantingman and rahmanson, you guys seemed to have stopped reading at "silly problems." The very next paragraph explains that the author stammered badly in his youth and achieved fluency only in his forties. Given that, he's obviously not diminishing stuttering.
- JakeH
February 27, 2011 at 5:21pm