Clint and the Critics

Million Dollar Baby . . . is not Rocky, but it is an archetypal boxing movie. Can I string any words together on its behalf without thinking (a la Coen Brothers masterpiece, Barton Fink), "Wally Beery, B-Movie, Wrestling Picture, Big Men in Tights!!!"? No. But this is a personal weakness of mine, and I realize that.

Now, I have no problem with "archetypal" movies . . . and MDB is archetypal. But, although not a true B-movie, it's archetypicality is (at least in some ways) a weakness of the film. So, what we get is the full gamut of "Boxing Movie emotions" . . . which, again, because I am demented, reminds me of Barton Fink. What we also get is a glimpse of Eastwood's character, Frankie, that "transcends" or at least sidesteps the genre. Think of it as Clint working the Rope-a-Dope on the B-movie premise.

I love complex and conflicted religiosity in a character (I tip my hat to dearly departed Firefly's Mal Reynolds and godsend, Joss Whedon, who bravely eked out his TV space western steeped in Existentialist philosophy for nearly a season). We have a very simplistic conventional view of religion in America, which has it that religious feeling is either a matter of blind, compliant faith (God conquers us) or bitter dismissal (we conquer God). Most movies follow one of these paths, and the dichotomy serves to define American religiosity, at least as far as it's reflected back to us in the media. But in this climate, Eastwood's film making has always been defiantly about irreconcilable divides in morality and indefinable moral positions. I definitely applaud him for that.

Frankie brings some of that irreconcilable conflict inside a more or less conventional Catholic scenario. My favorite parts of the film were the ones in which Frankie displays his compulsive priest-stalking (and baiting) during daily attendance of the local Catholic church. I could choose to see this more simplistically (i.e., the proverbial "need for atonement"), but instead I like to see his attempt at "getting religion" as more genuine. He doesn't want to be shepherded. He wants to play the role of the black sheep, the devil's advocate. But the characterization in MDB states that this is indeed a spiritual role. Frankie is an integral part of the church and of the Christian philosophy. The development of his character throughout the movie is the evolving self-definition of the Luciferian, black sheep role. That is, he is growing, becoming more conscious . . . but in a manner contrary to the teachings of the Catholic church. In fact, when he is forced into the climactic dilemma, the "path of light" that the Church offers is insufficiently complex to suit the infinitely more complex moral ambiguity inherent in the situation (apologies for the abstract language . . . which I apply out of respect for the "no spoilers" policy).

This on-going (and somewhat marginalized) story was, in my mind, part of a "great movie", a movie with edge and depth and guts that refused to acquiesce to the simplifying, archetypal, genre-collared rigidity of the "B-movie, Boxing Picture" format. Part of that format is the duality of victory and defeat. It's like Comedy vs. Tragedy in Shakespeare. If the fighter loses the big one, it's a "tragedy"; if the fighter wins, it's a "comedy". In MDB, regrettably, the complex, ballsy sub-plot line (the challenger) gets knocked out by the Boxing Movie Genre (the undisputed, heavy weight champ). The movie about moral and religious complexity amounts to little more than a short tacked on to the genre flick.

I'm not saying this is a bad movie. It's a pretty decent movie, and well worth seeing. But it disappointed me by letting a young, inexperienced "fighter with heart" go into the ring too early with the soulless juggernaut of the Hollywood Boxing Movie. I'm not sure if this is Eastwood's "best since Unforgiven", but I do know that it is not nearly on par with Unforgiven. That classic was a film which did indeed transcend the genre it was embedded in, illuminating and crystallizing its vague uglinesses and beauties with the wonderful character of William Munny. Munny was a kind of byproduct of the Western genre, its degenerate grandchild, a hero and villain fused together. He "was sent" to divest the Hollywood machine of its power to impose its popular morality onto the Western genre. Instead, we, the viewers, are left to make the moral judgment of Munny at the end of the film . . . and we find ourselves utterly unprepared to accept this responsibility. The conclusion of MDB is a slight shadow of this by comparison. But it is, nonetheless, a solid 3-star movie.

I wonder if the critics have been especially generous to Clint in recent years, because they weren't ready for his earlier films back when they were released. Pale Rider, The Outlaw Josey Wales, and High Plains Drifter specifically come to mind. These are all great films in my opinion, but they each suffered from the same coincidental problems: they were a bit "outside the (Western Genre) box", and they were made in the vast shadow of the Man With No Name Trilogy. For the latter reason, I suspect they might have been treated by some critics as derivative. But those films are better now then they were then (since the baggage is less heavy). The critics are starting to catch up with Clint . . . and they are atoning for old sins.

Eastwood is a much more polished filmmaker now. Everything he's done lately has been solid. But, to my taste, his recent work lacks the transcendent weirdness of some of his older films. That missing quality is impossible to define or quantify, it's true. But it is the searing brand of artistic inspiration . . . that inspiration which is the product of an artist trying to come to terms with an art that is larger than him . . . and more mysterious. The control that comes with mastery is both rewarding and seductive, but it means the artist ends up clearly on one side or the other of a well-defined boundary line. Thus, a sense of safety and predictability can creep in. The old master of moral ambiguity may need to relearn this lesson.