The Human Stain
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Movie Reviews of The Human Stain
Movie Review: Peak performances
Summary: 5 Stars
This film grabs the viewer from the opening scene. Through a winter's bleak landscape, a car's easy progress along the dark road is enhanced by the sedate pace of the background music. Before the credits have stopped running, the car is rolling into the roadside stream, the occupants clearly lost. An oncoming vehicle has driven them off the road deliberately, then continues on. Why has such a murder occurred?
Coleman Sylk [Hopkins] a classics scholar, denies a student's charge of racism as "spectacularly false", yet resigns his college post in protest. He contacts Nathan Zuckerman [Sinise] to commission him to write the story of his life - the son of "the only Jewish saloon keeper in East Orange". Zuckerman, a writer suffering "block" is reluctant to undertake the task, but as he learns more about Sylk, he becomes fascinated by the man. The unfolding story is far more of "An American Tragedy" than Theodore Dreiser could have ever envisioned.
Sylk, whose real story is far more convoluted than that of the "son of a Jewish saloon keeper", is an angry man. His outbursts aren't violent - that aspect of his life is clearly under tight control. But the events of his youth are reflected in his dealings with others in his later life. To explain this, Sylk's early life [Wentworth Miller] is portrayed as a succession of deceptions, from his struggle to follow his own desires against his father's wishes, to that father's own role in life. Coleman wanted to be boxer - he was good in the ring. But he follows a different path to become a classical scholar. The "first Jew to teach classical literature in America" - according to narrator Zuckerman.
The source of Coleman's ire becomes clear when he tells Zuckerman about his first love. While in university, he meets a young woman and invites her home to dinner. The result is an act in a long-term tragedy. A tragedy that has yet to be played out both in the film and in real life. Convoluting Coleman's already bizarre existence is his unexpected encounter with Faunia Farley [Nicole Kidman]. In what is demonstrably her best role, Kidman is a woman beset by tragic circumstances. Their liaison, which should be completely out of character for both, proves stable and enduring. A cynical farm woman struggling for survival, she should have little to offer the classics scholar. But Coleman's own struggles provide a hidden bond. The two become lovers, mutually reinforcing and restoring a positive approach to their lives.
It's easy for Hopkins to impart tension in a film role - he's done it often enough. But here, he displays a new version of that emotion. There is the visible manifestation of self-control. While he can release his rage when he's relating his story to Zuckerman, a whole new aspect appears when he's with Kidman. In turn, while she might simply be grateful for his attention, Kidman becomes enamoured of his qualities. She discovers his strengths and capacities, leading her to develop a sincere affection for this stranger. Together, the endure challenges and overcome them. All but the last one.
There are many roles in this film deserving applause. Anna Deveare Smith's depiction of Coleman's mother, Ed Harris as Faunia's ex-husband and, of course, Jacinda Barrett as Coleman's university-days lover stand out well under Benton's direction. Hopkins and Kidman, however, rightly dominate this production. Kidman, in particular, exhibits a capacity hardly promised in her other roles. This film is reminiscent of two of Sean Connery's in which two co-stars, Lorraine Bracco and Catherine Zeta-Jones seem to suddenly blossom out of previous mediocrity. Was there an unforeseen magic between Hopkins and Kidman, or did Benton provide a catalyst needed to bring out the best these two could provide? However the formula worked, the product is something outstanding. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
Movie Review: Self-racism leads to suicide
Summary: 5 Stars
This film is more than disquieting; It is disturbing. An older senior professor is fired (he resigns but that is the same) when confronted to some accusation of misconduct because he asked one day if two students he was trying to question and who had never come to his class were spooks. The two students were black, which he could not know. At the beginning we see a car accident and we will see the same scene at the end and we will know who were in the car and we will have to guess what happened. In the meantime we find out that this older man falls in love with a younger woman, twice younger than he is, in her early thirties. That love affair does not work properly and yet it is an unbreakable love affair. But the woman is divorced, slightly unstable and her ex-husband is completely berserk and he is suffering of the trauma of Vietnam veterans who cannot get over the obsessive compulsive disorder of theirs that make them do strange things without any reason or conscience. Those are for sure spooks and they may spook the hell out of you. Since he was present on the final death scene, we can imagine the reaction of the ex-professor when he saw the red truck on the deep snow on the road in the mountains. But that's the easy way. Shortly after his being fired and his wife dying of a heart attack in his arms because of it he goes and meets an author who has completely retired in the mountain and they both fall not in love but in complete friendship. We have then two cases of an old man in love with a younger woman and in friendship with a younger man. I think the second case is dealt with more realism. Such a friendship is direct, often brutal in tone and content but absolute in trust and unbreakable. Such a friendship is like a buoy for a drowning old man and a tremendous discovery for the younger man if he is curious and accepts the bond, because it is a bond. Of course there is no erotic dimension to that. The two become soul brothers and enjoy every moment and every hard word of this experience because it is their deepest soul and mind that are in love and this love or friendship becomes for both a kind of life line with the infinite. It is different with the woman because it is sexual and you do not need to be a great lawyer to fear some pregnancy problem or some fatherhood questioning eventually. The love between the two is not depicted with any tenderness. It is rather violent and rather uniquely centered on love thanks to Viagra. All that is the surface of the problem depicted on, the film. Some flashbacks reveal little by little that this professor who is known as white and Jewish is of a quite different origin and that is the very and deepest meaning of the "spook" remark. It is deeply racist but racist against himself and his choice to become a Jew is another sign of his racism by affiliating himself to a minority group that is hated by so many people in the world so that he will be hated by many. And then we can see the final death scene again and we can wonder if it is not a suicide. We can wonder or be sure, depending on the level of consciousness we have that racism is a stain deep in the mind, the soul and the spirit of a man, a stain he can only get rid of by killing himself, and in that case along with the younger woman he is supposed to love and is asleep next to him, as if he were afraid to go away alone. It is true when you lose the first girl you love because you take her to your family and she discovers they are not as white as she is and as her boyfriend, their son, is, there is like a long simmering desire to kill, at least to kill oneself because of this injustice, unfairness.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University Paris 8 Saint Denis, University Paris 12 Créteil, CEGID
Movie Review: A Brilliant Film That Stands On Its Own Merits
Summary: 5 Stars
Yes, Phillip Roth's gaudily angry masterwork of a novel has its own particular power, but despite the naysayers, the film adaptation of THE HUMAN STAIN is successful on every level. It retains all of the harsh social commentary so biting in Roth's written words and yet fleshes out the characters in a way that makes the story of an aging small college Dean/teacher's fall from his pedestal of a life all the more credible. Some of the minor characters from the book are gone, true, and the faculty of his college doesn't feel as visually present, but the story's strange impact is very much intact.Coleman Silk (in a stunningly multi-layered performance by Anthony Hopkins) was born a mulatto African American and decided in highschool (his younger self portrayed with sensitivity by Wentworth Miller), while being a champion boxer in order to gain college scholarships, that passing as Caucasian would provide entry into a better life, one not stained by the color of his skin and not confined to subservient roles like those forced on his educated father. He succeeds in passing as white with a few exceptions: he brings his blonde college girlfriend home to meet his mother (a sensitive role for Anna Devere Smith) and finds that his girlfriend cannot accept his roots. He then extracts himself from his family completely, lives as a Jew, and joins the faculty of Athena College - a small, proper school which he forcefully overhauls until he becomes the formidable Dean. A simple statement in a classroom - referring to two unseen students who have never shown for his class as "spooks" (ghosts), not knowing that the missing students were African American - results in his being fired for racism for his epithet.
Angry and lost, Silk encounters a woman (Fawnia) who cleans toilets, milks cows, and appears to be nothing more than white trailer park trash, has a physical encounter with her, then finds himself becoming emotionally captive to the creature. Fawnia (one of Nicole Kidman's finest roles to date) keeps to herself, providing only lusty outlets for Silk, but gradually reveals that she is married to a stalking Vietnam Vet gone insane (Ed Harris in another quality cameo role), has two dead children lost in a fire, and indeed came from a wealthy family she elected to leave because of her parent's shallow obsession with possessions. Fawnia lives only for the moment.
Silk meets Zuckerman (Gary Sinese), a novelist suffering from writer's block who lives in hiding in a secluded cabin and who intones the thoughts of novelist Roth. He encourages Zuckerman to cure his block by writing a novel about his (Silk's) bizarre life's turn of events. Silk finally tells Fawnia his real secret of passing as white, finds his last love, encourages Fawnia to also shed her life of lies, and the story ends where it begins - with a fatal car crash.
The story is set in 1998 and frequently refers to the Clinton/Lewinsky affair and the general stagnation of public morals and bigotry, unveiling all the hypocrisy that stews through every level of our society. The use of this battle of private versus public life is extended in many aspects of this story and always leaves questions as unanswered as they truly remain today. Director Robert Benton has done a masterful job pacing this pungent piece. The acting is extraordinary, especially from Kidman and Hopkins who manage to electrify the screen in animal sexuality, despite all the odds against such an attraction being credible. Watch this film, AND read Roth's book, and your view of our society will be altered inextricably.
Movie Review: Love in winter
Summary: 5 Stars
Ooooo! THE HUMAN STAIN offers the potential for so many Oscar nominations: Best Picture, Best Actor (Hopkins & Kidman), Best Supporting Actor (Miller, Harris, & Smith).Hopkins is Coleman Silk, an aging and respected professor of literature at an idyllic New England liberal arts college, who, in the "now" of 1998, runs afoul of extremist political correctness. He's accused of racism after referring to two students, who've been absent from his class for the first 5 weeks of the term, as "spooks", i.e. ghosts. Silk has never met them under any circumstances, but, as bad luck would have it, they're both Black. Called onto the carpet by the Board, and receiving no support from those who should know better, Coleman angrily resigns. When Silk breaks the news to his wife, she suffers a fatal heart attack. As Coleman puts it, his persecutors killed the wrong person.
On the rebound, Silk meets Faunia Farely (Kidman), who holds down three blue collar jobs, is separated from her abusive husband, a psychotic Vietnam vet named Lester (Ed Harris), and who keeps the ashes of her two dead kids under the bed. Faunia describes her troubled situation as befitting "trailer trash", and carries more baggage than a loaded 747. But Silk is besotted, and embarks on a torrid love affair with the 30-year younger woman. As Silk declares to his writer friend Nathan (Gary Sinise):
"This is not my first love, it's not my great love, but it's my last love". It's love - and great sex - in the winter of Coleman's life. Even Viagra gets a verbal plug.
THE HUMAN STAIN is also a tale of "racial passing", i.e. the process of shifting one's racial identity. You see, Coleman has a secret that he's kept buried for decades. (No, it's not that he's Welsh like Hopkins, but something else.) The film jumps back and forth between 1998 and the late 1940s, when a young Silk (Wentworth Miller) chooses to make the transition and abandon his natural family forever. It's only now, in a last orgasm of sharing with Faunia, that Coleman can unburden himself.
The plot sounds like grist for a maudlin TV soap, but is raised to heights of excellence by extraordinary performances, especially Hopkins and Kidman. Hopkins wore green contact lenses to match Miller's eye color, and the two men synchronized speech and body movement characteristics to make the age transition as seamless as possible. Nicole spent time in shelters for abused women to acclimatize herself to aspects of the role. And a scene where she longs to touch the back of Coleman's neck is Oscar material by itself.
Perhaps the most poignant sequence involves the young Coleman and his mother (Anna Deavere Smith), when the latter suggests what her birthday present might be five years hence. It brings tears to her son's eyes, and perhaps some of those in the audience. Smith's role is not extensive, but certainly memorable.
"Human stain" refers to the indelible mark, however miniscule in the universal scheme of things, that each of us makes on the world and which can't be undone. This film is about Coleman's stain and his coming to terms with it.
At one point, Coleman asks Faunia, battered by life and circumstances, what she wants from their relationship. She responds: "kindness". This is, for each of us perhaps, the greatest truth of all.
Movie Review: A special though tragic film
Summary: 5 Stars
Based on the novel by Phillip Roth, this is a special film, exploring issues of race, hypocrisy, relationships and the tragedy of the human condition.
Coleman Silk (Anthony Hopkins) is a classics professor at an eastern Ivy League college. During his tenure as Dean of the school, he brought the college from a mediocre one to one of excellence. In the politics of academia, where bureaucracy can be so entrenched, change is the enemy, thus Coleman Silk's efforts towards excellence, inevitably makes a few enemies.
In the late nineties, during the Clinton administration, the atmosphere of so-called political correctness hovered like a spectre, censorship reigned supreme, and as one of the characters at the end of the film states, "People have become so dumb, but they all have an opinion." Professor Silk makes the mistake of calling two conspicuously absent students "spooks", in the definitive context of absence or invisibility, not in the 50's slang for black American. In fact, he never met these students, but his words are taken as racial slurs because the students are black Americans. (This proves to be a great irony as the film progresses) This is an interesting example of censorship at the time, as in so many cases, the person or people crying racism or explicit sex or whatever the issue, more often than not, is taken out of context, turning it into something other than what it actually means. Out of principle, and because, out of fear, no one supports him, he is forced to resign just before his retirement. To add insult to injury, Silk's wife dies in his arms from a heart attack on that very day.
Enter Nathan Zuckerman (Gary Siniese) the "writer in hiding" and narrator of the tale. The two men forge a bond that is both interesting and touching. The scene where they dance `cheek to cheek' on the porch over a sentimental song was a work of pure theatrical genius. There is no question that both these fine actors are at the top of their art form. It is here that Silk confesses that he is involved with a thirty-four year old woman. Enter Faunia Farley (Nicole Kidman) a beautiful working class girl with a legion of personal issues: sexually abused as a child; a battered wife from a psychotic husband, (Ed Harris) and two dead children due to an accident that is explained in the film but remains vague. The relationship between Silk and Farley is an unusual one as there is a vast age difference and both are so different socially and otherwise. But they connect and have an obvious need for one another, which causes the people around them to gossip, threat and make efforts to destroy them. Coleman Silk has one of the better lines in the film, in order to justify this relationship:
"She's not my first love, nor my greatest love, but she's my last love."
This film is about many things: the evil of prejudice and racism; the ignorance, hypocrisy and oppression of censorship; the mysteries of attraction and love between people; it is about fear and our need for revenge; it is about making choices and having to live with those choices.
This is a special film and a wonderful story, intriguing and confronting but ultimately a tragedy in every sense.