On Boxing Day, my girlfriend and I went to see True Grit at a big multiplex here in Toronto. We got there early, figuring it might sell out and fill up ahead of schedule. Sitting in our seats, we had the privilege of overhearing a group of teenage boys talk in the row behind us. When we first tuned into their conversation, they were debating the merits of using the Zerg species, and the necessary military strategy, when playing Starcraft. Thankfully, they transitioned into talking about movies and my ears perked up a little – I’m endlessly fascinated by how people think about and discuss film. “I hope this movie’s good” one of them says. Another, “Yeah, I’m going to be mad if this sucks as bad as The American. Did you see that? I mean, it’s George Clooney and guns. You’d think that would be awesome, right? It was sooooo boring. My whole family fell asleep in the theatre before it was even half over.”  If you had seen me at this point, you would see that wicked smile I have dash across my face when I feel someone’s missing the point. Anton Corbijn’s The American was one of my favourite films of 2010. I saw it at a fantastic second-run theatre here in Etobicoke that I try to support as often as possible. Back to the Zerg boys – their distaste for Clooney’s latest project had me revisit a train of thought I had when I first saw the film.

In a sense, the young gentleman was right, the film is George Clooney plus guns. You might even say the trailer makes the film appear to be your average action movie. Judge for yourself and click the movie poster below to open the trailer in a new window. If you were expecting a turn-on, tune-out action film, you very well could be disappointed by this film. Corbijn’s work is so much more than an “just an action film”, but we’ll get to that later. My argument is that the business side of film is just as absolutely, undeniably critical as the content itself that I hope you can learn to appreciate it for an art in and of itself. Advertising can and will make or break a film. The Blair Witch Project was screened as Sundance in 1999 as a documentary. Can you imagine walking into a theatre, expecting to watch something that purports to be the truth and getting the Blair Witch experience? Whether you like that film or not, I think the fact remains that an astute businessman can do a lot of good for his (or her) film by setting the right kind of expectations. Sometimes, as with Blair Witch, being toyed with is a wise move. I think the advertising for The American has the opposite effect; it misrepresents the film for the worse. Financially, the film did fine. It made $64m on a $20m budget. But, my own research from talking with people about it leads me to believe the crowds were expecting George’s iconic smile, bang-bang, shoot-em-up, then more of George’s smile. Instead, they got a film with *under* 10 kills that progressed at an equivalent speed to wine aging.

Two days after the True Grit screening, The American, which is an adaptation of Martin Booth’s novel, A Very Private Gentleman, came out on blu-ray and DVD. I bought it immediately, and I knew from the moment those boys got all up in arms about Corbijn’s film that I had to write Debrief VIII on it.

George Clooney plays Jack, the professional assassin. The film opens with he and a woman in a cabin in Sweden. They are stalked by unidentified killers and Jack’s lover is killed in the exchange. Knowing he is being hunted, Jack contacts his handler and is told to flee to a mountain town in central Italy. He is instructed not to befriend anyone and is given another low-key job while he stays in hiding. Against the advice from his handler, Jack ends up developing relationships with the priest of the town and a prostitute. The film is a brooding one. It’s easy to see what the Zerg kid was getting at – the pacing is unhurried since the action takes a back seat to Jack’s contemplation. The cinematography and editing co-exist to perfectly craft a story of meditation and self-examination. When Jack decides he wants the new job to be his last in the assassin line of work, the story tells of his deeply personal reflection on a life of murder.

I believe the deliberately icy-cool pacing to the film shows Corbijn and his editors to be craftsmen, mirroring Jack’s craftsmanship in the film. The new job Jack takes while in Castel del Monte is simply to tailor a custom rifle for a fellow assassin. A good chunk of camera-time is given to Jack preparing the materials and constructing the gun. Clooney is focused and machine like in his preparation of the deadly weapon. I need to watch the film for a second time, because I think upon further review there is some underlying dialogue about the machine like calculations that Jack makes while preparing the weapon, and in his life as an assassin. But, my reading into the film is not that Jack is a machine. But, rather, that Jack is perfectly human, despite his career. There is a duality to him, and to us; we are equally emotional chaos and rational, calculating instruments. Does an assassin have a soul? Can a gun?

When the Dapper gentlemen approached me about writing this segment, my understanding was that I would be writing about films that would be under the radar for readers who were not devoted film buffs. Yes, I like The Matrix. I’d wager you do too. And it’s worth discussion, perhaps on a broader, cultural scale more than anything nowadays, but you won’t ever find me writing a Debrief on The Matrix. I would like to think this segment is about recommending films that challenge what you know about yourself, the world and film, specifically. The films I write about might not end up being your favourite films of all time. But I do have a careful purpose to my recommendation. Perhaps some of the screenings won’t be easy for you – be it the story content, the editing, the pacing or the morals behind the film, but I promise that if you put the gears in your head to work that the films will leave a lasting impression for the better. One of the things I hope to achieve is eliminating a certain way people think about films.

In particular, I work with two women who entirely disregard any movie they watch if something happens in the film that they don’t like. I had an extended debate with one of the girls because she hated The Road, because of the cannibals. I said, “yes, those characters probably were morally reprehensible, but what did you think about the story? about the film?!” She couldn’t see beyond those cannibals. The other woman passionately hates any film that she doesn’t “get.” Sometimes, there is nothing to get, folks. Sometimes it is just an experiment by combining sight and sound. And sometimes, the film plants an idea that takes root in your mind and suffocates your mental resources until, years later, you finally understand what there was to be “got” and even then, you’re not done learning. Your preconceptions about plot development, your understanding of your own morals and how you perceive others’, and the way in which you fill in ambiguous situations with your own beautiful and toxic biases are just a few of the ways film will challenge you. Watch The American; it is a phenomenal film and it is beautifully shot. If you find it too slow, that simply means you need to watch it again. Or try this; watch a film a dozen times and focus on something new everytime; editing, dialogue, sound editing, art design and photography. I have two rules. Number one is you deserve pain if you pull out your cell phone in the theatre. Number two is do not close your mind to a film without putting in some work first; there are often many succulent layers to feast upon that are rewarding in their own right but together create a magnificent way of perceiving our world.

Prior to getting into film, Anton Corbijn was an exquisite photographer. I’m sure if you google his work, you will recognize a few. At the very least, he did the cover photography for U2′s The Joshua Tree. The photography in this film is inspiring. Corbijn deftly contrasts tight shots of Clooney with wide shots of the Italian landscape and the result is an impressively tense atmosphere for such a “boring” film. I have much work to do before I can consider my own photography on the level of Corbijn, but I’m becoming increasingly aware of how strong composition tells its own story and that my background in photography is critical in the development of my future film projects.