Burn After Reading: Wise Men say,”Fools Rush In”
I hate every ape I see,
From chimpan-A to chimpanzee,
No, you’ll never make a monkey out of me!
- Planet of the Apes: The Musical, A Fish Called Selma, Simpsons Season 7
The Art of Foolishness. Sure it took integrity, painstaking, back breaking, gravity defying work to paint the Glory of God and his creation up on the sprawling roof of the Sistine Chapel but it would take sheer balls and vision to fling a freshly baked apple pie straight at the pope’s whatsyourface the first time he bends his knees and cranes his neck to stare at it. That would be art. That would be the Glory of the Good Lord’s arguably one-of-the-finest creation. Joy to the world the pie has come!
“Iconoclasts! Idiots! You, interplanetary goat, you”
- Captain Haddock, Explorers of the Moon, Tintin Comics
When did the fools lose their edge? When exactly did these brave buffoon lords of pratfalls and spectacular foot-in-mouths and arch subversion become ever so mainstream? Well, the powers that be have infiltrated the systems of geek-culture. Sure the Apatow bandwagon started admirably, picking up from where Ivan Rietman and Bill Murray left us, with a madcap offensive that was Anchorman but later whittled it down to relatively safe and annoyingly conformist and cloying Knocked Up. Sure Seth Rogen & Co are ace fools all but unless they stop playing straight to their audiences I can definitely see their Hollywood stint going straight down Eddie Murphy lane. However, don’t abandon all hope. Rest them squarely in the armpits of Will Ferrell & John C. Reilly. Loathsome, disgusting, perverse, slimy, ferociously farcical, never afraid to jam their heels down society’s and their own throats- they have between them reinvented idiocy for our times. Each time society gets stuck-up with its issues, for every time society decides to get all self-righteous, trust the fools to fling a pie straight into its face.
Let’s all accept that ‘The Dark Knight’ was one helluva blockbuster. ‘Adrenalin flowing through my ears’ as Woody Allen would put it. But at the same time let us all accept that it was crude film that relied directly on our paranoia of terrorists and ticking time bombs at every street corner to get its emotions and points across. I’m prepared to accept it as a terrific addition to the Batman mythos but anything beyond that is absolute baloney. Same applies to the Bourne trilogy. Same applies to all those thrillers that Hollywood is waiting to unleash upon us in the light of this new formula for a blockbuster that preys on our fears and makes us feel ever so defeated and yet at the end of it all, self-righteous. There had to be a pie-chucker. There had to be subversion. Step in and take a bow, Coen Brothers. There was no better time for ‘Burn After Reading’.
It has been declared as the Coen Brothers’ final installment for their informal ‘Idiot Trilogy’ that includes ‘O Brother, Where Art Thou?’ and ‘Intolerable Cruelty’ but it is the only movie in the trilogy that grasps in full measure the meanings and implications of the word ‘idiot’. As a satire, the scope of what the film seeks to ridicule is audacious. With delicately layered irony, ‘Burn After Reading’ gives it viciously both over and above the belt to certain overzealous departments that deserve it and definitely had it coming- politics, law enforcement, society, the corporate and media/Hollywood.
“Intelligence is Relative”
- Tag-line for ‘Burn After Reading’
The film opens on a Google Earth map of the planet and against electronically blinking-beeping credits, zooms in straight into the corridors of the Pentagon. The first pie has already been flung. Unlike similar sequences in the Ridley Scott- Tony Scott films which are as slick as expensive cutlery the Coens put it together in a sloppy fashion which allows us to see through the manipulations rather than fall headlong. They keep the audience at a distance, grant them space and intelligence with which we can easily deduce it is an almost everyday desktop appliance rather than the vortex it pretends to be. We swoop into the Pentagon corridors and follows the rapid footsteps of a certain Mr. Osborne (Os-Bourne! Haha, Coens) Cox (John Malkovich, who interestingly also took over Matt Damon’s Ripley in Ripley’s Game. Haha, again) into a typical office where he is at once informed that he is being relieved of his duty.
Now these suited august gentlemen that we see in the office represent what is collectively known as the nation’s ‘Intelligence’. So when a routine pink slip comes down as a ‘fuck-you-and-fuck-you-and-fuck-you-too’ crass juvenile affair between the seemingly dignified, educated gentlemen the Coens hit the veritable bulls-eye with uproarious satire and farce. Dr. Strangelove can be remembered with love and affection. And who better to play a drunken, washed-out, angry, pompous, intelligence sonovabitch like Cox than that ol’ reptile John Malkovich.
Cox stomps home in a fit only to find that his wife, pediatrician-socialite-ice-maiden Katie Cox (Tilda Swinton) is too worried about finding the right cheese to serve at a party than to listen to his woes. When he does finally break the news to her, she marches straight to her divorce lawyer who in turn asks her to spy on her husband’s finances before they broker the deal. Surveillance and spying are running themes through the film as in any espionage thriller. In most films, the state/corporate surveillance, the Big Brother is taken for granted and is a mere tool to amp up the paranoia- YOU ARE BEING WATCHED! and of course, by extension that sets up suitable situations when the poor helpless protagonist is on the run and we get contrived moments of companionship with some innocent yet distraught soul he meets on the way whose biggest vice is an opium addiction but still underneath his altogether creepy exotic hustler demeanor he is a kind soul, sweet as sugar.
Splat! goes the pie.
In ‘Burn After Reading’ the Coens probe deeper into this culture of surveillance in which we exist. Surely it’s not just the state and your boss who wants to spy on you. It can very well be your parents, your friends, your spouses or ex-spouses, lovers or ex-lovers. Sure it is because we lack faith in each other but Coens’ trace this crisis to a general breakdown of communication among people. Everyone in the film’s sprawling ensemble seem to be unable to convey even the simplest of human gestures and feelings to each other. ‘Burn After Reading’ is a loquacious film, every character a typical Coen motormouth, but each is ensconced in their worlds with their own private vanities and neurosis. One of the ironies of the film is that there is a lot of talking but very little communication. As the Brothers put it across and truly, it is in this fundamental rift that we have lost the will to believe and trust in each other and has lead to the culture of constant surveillance.
Other characters are gradually introduced. We see Linda Litzke (an absolutely brilliant Frances McDormand), employee at Hardbodies Fitness center at her appointment with a plastic surgeon. The plastic surgeon recommending procedures to Linda is a similar weasel to the lawyer who recommends Katie to spy on her husband, dignified plush sofa modern versions of ambulance chasers thriving and minting on misery when people are their weakest and most distraught. This critique of the corporate is carried forward in the character of Ted Treffon (hangdog Richard Jenkins doing what he does best), an innocent simple loser who looks visibly shaken and jittery every time he is forced to operate outside the Hardbodies policy. Ted is hopelessly in love with Linda but Linda’s idea of her man comes straight out of the movies. Possibly someone like ‘Dermont Mulroney’ (Haha, Coen Brothers). She’s done with dating ‘losers’ she hooks up with on Internet dating sites and her new makeover is supposed to restore her a new glory, once again as informed by television and the movies, that will help her meet her perfect man. Complimenting and constantly supporting Linda is her co-worker Chad Feldheimer (I still can’t believed Brad Pitt pulled it off) a vain bleached airhead of a man with an obviously abysmal I.Q who comes across a copy of Cox’s memoirs (Only the Coens would realize what fun it is just to get Malkovich say that word) lying in the gym and together they attempt to blackmail Cox to pay for Linda’s procedures. Using Chad and Linda’s bumbling attempts the Coens’ brilliantly deconstruct thriller elements which Hollywood pressurizes you with and also bogus the paranoia that is enforced upon us.
The other character is this increasingly insane scheme of things is Harry Pfarer played with manic neurosis and pure old-school Hollywood rascal charm by George Clooney. A perverted promiscuous Federal Marshall long past his heydays and proud genius designer of one of the most ingenious sex toys ever seen on screen, Harry is married yet having an ongoing affair with Katie and yet he scouts the internet in his insatiable search for yet another liaison. He is also a paranoid hypochondriac. Atleast he will make it a point to mention it even though most of it is as they say, in his head. The critique of the media/Hollywood’s new found stock-in-trade weapon/ploy of paranoia, fear and pushing buttons which so happens to be a favorite of your governments not to mention your boss, parents, lovers, teachers, doctors, lawyers is employed best in the scenes with Harry. Shadowy cars and mysterious people and the camera zooming in and then out and cut to…
The Intelligence. (Haha) All suited-booted in the finest, yet decadent, drunk, lost, mumbling and incomprehensible.
“For just one night, let’s not be co-workers, let’s be co-people
- Ron Burgundy, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
In grand tradition, the Russians enter the picture. Why the Russians? Exactly. The plot moves ahead in increasingly incomprehensible and ridiculous ways. Well, how lucid are any of the ‘espionage thrillers’ anyway. There is even a moment of pure shock and you can tell how you never saw it coming but at all times look beyond and you can see the mysterious Coen Brothers smirking away to glory as you fall right into their terrific ploy.
These are strange times. The world is coming closer- connected, wired, flat, globalized. Yet dare to look above your daily grind and personal vanities and a larger picture is hardly in focus. Even TV and the movies and the internet, the media that are supposed to empower us and help us make sense are interested only in blurring our visions even further making us withdraw even deeper into our own shells out of sheer fear and loathing(Long Live Gonzo). Even our last stand- that of humanity, that of relating to the person next to you as a fellow human being seems to be dwindling. What does it all come down to?
The senior CIA officer in ‘Burn After Reading’ has no answers but one damn fine word that frames it impeccably.
“Clusterfuck”
Take it from there.
The film ends as it started. We zoom back from the Pentagon back upto Planet Earth and the camera gently sweeps away from the globe. Well, I guess, whoever was looking upon us sure as hell didn’t find any intelligent life.
“Duh!”
- Big Moose, Archie Comics
‘Burn After Reading’ offers no answers. Nor does it leave you with any questions. As a spy thriller, ‘Burn After Reading’ is aces. Within it’s superficial facade it carries an almost subliminal subversion. It’s secret code attacks the very system that supports it. Hark back to what the Coens mentioned at the Oscar ceremony,”Thank you Hollywood for giving us our own corner of the sand-box to play in”. Yeah right, you bastards!
‘Burn After Reading’ plays fool in the ancient tradition in the art of fools, it makes you laugh knowingly or unknowingly over our own pretensions and foibles and if you were to listen closely you can hear the distinct ring of the ‘Truth’.
The Film of The Year. Stop Looking.
(pics courtesy:- wikipedia, clown ministry)
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Merry Xmas. Now that is what I call a glorious and favorite mistake, if you call it a mistake that is. A by-product of sorts, if you consider the timeline connection with scripting No country, a Coens outlet can only be safely termed a Coens outlet. A monstrous gigantuan fuck, a dramatic opulence, a dream cast, love that beard and love those sneakers, and most of all, beyond all that went between the titles, it was the titles itself that got me running from reviews to script. Which self-convinced Coens madman would not give his eyes and ears for that digital zoom out and that wicked ‘CIA’ track at the titles?
Well, I am still looking…
Watched this last night. Albeit, it’s not as funny as Raising Arizona, or even O Brother (maybe it wasn’t meant to be), I still found it quite ok. In the other two films I mentioned, comedy stared at you in face for most of the movie, which was very subtle in BAR. However, a lot of scenes stood out for their outright satire, and that was more than paisa-vasool.
@tushar
the wicked track is the band ‘the fugs’ playing ‘CIA Man’
come home tomo..you can familiarize with their complete works
@Tejas, bang on.
@dasan, thanks dude.
Absolutely hilarious fuckall movie. I loved it. Its the kind of cheap comedy’s that are missing.
Tushy, the title, aaah well, I ran on day 1 here and walked out convinced, you just gotta write crap sometimes inbetween making No Countries…
@ravptor, was expecting you would drop by. :-)
Reading the script now. Very fast read.
haha… great minds think alike bro!
Some thoughts on the script.
It is a talkie, low-content, dry, depressing, cut to cut script. No deviations, no VO’s, no flower-power, no scope for poetry. I guess that’s what screwball means. I don’t know exactly but I guess it is tough to resist oneself while writing such a ‘dry’ and ‘exhausting’ script. You have to keep the characters consistent and the characters only can decay, they cannot be ‘redeemed’ by any twist of nature or divine intervention. Their moral decay is the only redemption. You don’t have an option to take sides, whose side will you take? Laugh at all of them if you will, pity them. That’s what I did I guess, I was looking at little hints of escape in the whole depressing game of oneupmanship and dumbfoolery. The escape was ofcourse Coens, their film making technique and once you see the film, you realize why it was written the way it was. I wonder how would someone else treat this, or even this script would be written in the first place. I can totally envision any other director resorting to the temptations, even if you look at the own Coens lot, there was a ‘The man who wasn’t there’. You got the escape in the dialogs(textured a la Miller’s Crossing), or the greyscales, or Scarlett Johanssen. What will you do here? Look at a cocky Clooney? Feel bad for a loser-head McDormand? Ogle at Pitt?
Here are what I think some of the cool Coens junctures were:
I should try to get a run in.”
She is a cold stuck-up bitch.”
The name of the Claire Dains film is ‘Tell me that again’ instead of the ‘Daisy’ something.
It was just li-eeen there.”
Put a note up? Highly classified shit found.
I found it on the floor there. Right there on the floor there. Lie-eeen there.
Good Samaritan tax. Which is not even a tax, since it’s voluntary.
Appearances can be – deceiving. I am a mere good samarita-.
They all seem to be sleeping with each other.
All right. Spare me.
Who do you work for?
Tuchman Marsh.
Your name is Tuchman Marsh?
Tuchman Marsh Hauptman Rodino.
I work for them.
I’m not here representing Hardbodies.
I know what you represent. You represent the Idiocy of Today.
You’re in league with that moronic woman. You’re a part of a league of morons.
For fuck’s sake, put him on the next flight to Venezuela.
What did we learn, Palmer?
I don’t know, sir.
I don’t know either. I guess we learned not to do it again.
Yes Sir.
Although I’m fucked if I know what I did.
Yes sir. Hard to say.
Jesus fucking Christ.
———-
Wow. Talk about not getting a film. No country took me 5 months, and Burn After Reading took me a day.
‘Salutes’
finally a post by siddharth that my brains cud decipher….hahahah…inteligence is relative! loved d film!
What is ‘getting’ and ‘not getting’ a film? Am I in grave loss if I have never cared about these terms before!? :P (For instance, I don’t ever ‘get’ why 2001 Sp. Od. is considered great. Is this ‘getting’ same as your ‘getting’? :D )
Tejas, nope ur not. Tushy just did not read the book before he read the script so he did not “”get” it ;-)
Ur in no grave loss my friend. After watching a movie, u either like it or say nah!
Hmm..feeling better now.
By way…Tushy? :P Nice ‘name’!!! :D
Congs Sid!
@Tejas, ‘getting’ ka bole to a film by any of the favorite directors needs to simply rule my head. In this exercise, however, some films take a longer time. Bas wahi man. Nothing serious. Waise what ravptor said is also correct.
Tejas, 2001 – U don’t get it cos u think linearly… its not ur fault, its just the way the mind works. watch a clockwork orange and 2001 back to back… then u will get what I mean ;-)
or simply get high.
Amen! Agree with Somen on Sid’s posts… Either written or to be read on banned substances!
Ohhkk….Back here after quite some time. Thanks for writing this as one that I could read and understand it at one go. Not so usually with your write-ups.
Will watch this some time soon hopefully..