William Friedkin's THE CAINE MUTINY COURT-MARTIAL (2023)

 

RIP William Friedkin and...

"I don't recall any cheese business!" And RIP Lance Reddick, who could deliver that line as convincingly as anything on the Wire. And what goes great with 🧀? 🍓 of course.

Keifer Sutherland's finest twenty some odd minutes. What an overwhelming performance of a man who talks himself into being who he really is in front of a court martial. And keeping in mind Friedkin's no less than masterful command of performances (no less an accomplishment because he shot this in *14 days* and often in one or two takes, as was his method) and the grace in his and his collaborators simplicity in moving the camera with an assurance that comes from 60 years of doing it and a preternatural sense of framing for Power and Isolation ideas...

(EDIT NEXT DAY - I can't believe I didn't think about the more personal connection that this filmmaker may have had with this story and the character of Queeg, given that it's about power and temper, and seeing Sorcerer again, luckily in a theater no less, I suddenly was reminded of this trivia on the making of that film: "Because of William Friedkin's explosive temper and the scene where he used helicopters to create the storm during the rope bridge sequence, this was the film that earned him the nickname 'Hurricane Billy."  And... yeah, this plays as a complex film because, frankly, Friedkin probably dealt with a lot of shit himself!)

My initial impression/assumption (and you know what they say about people who make those) going into this was that if a storytellwr is going to make a new Caine Mutiny Court-Martial adaptation in 2023, then it is nigh impossible for it to not be about the last President - specifically the idea of the "Stable Genius" who is completely in control and yet has no control and makes life all about walking on eggshells for those under him (and in this case the eggshells have to contend with cheese and strawberries too! OK, too corny, let's move on). And another part of this was that this was made after Trump left office and post January 6th, a day where a particular kind of "order" came and caused chaos and panic. And watching big chunks of this film, it's easy to make a connection, especially once it gets to *that* speech but even before as others on the stand comment about perceptions and personality disorders.

... And then that last scene comes, one that I *thought* at first came from Friedkin and not Herman Woulk though according to a review from Bilge Ebiri it turns out it was the epilogue from the original book, and for Greenwald the conflicted or nay regretful thoughts come tumbling out as a defense attorney (quite drunk but clear of mind) and says that what happened in court was a shame and "Queeg deserved better," drink in the face and cut to black, and it is really not quite what I thought it was about at all... and like any compelling art, I had to sit with it a few extra minutes go sort out my reaction.

The movie ends on the subject (one I maybe thought in my basic-B liberal or just common sense mind was about the figure currently who makes everything about himself) that becomes more complicated and thorny: the secretly shaky but on the surface Proud and Firm ideals of Men in Power, the precarity of chain of command, and how it can be so easy to take someone down many pegs if you try. It leaves me with this uncertainty that is unsettling and it makes me admire the film on some bone deep level. It's not what you expect, how it takes this turn into recontextualizing what we have seen (one of those scenes like one has at the end of a Law and Order episode, only full of regret and reproach), because one might think Friedkin means for this to be him talking through the Clarke character.  

Maybe that would be a lesser filmmaker's tact.  It could be that he means to put a turn on what we expect, that we need to make up our minds for ourselves about what seems to be "crazy" in the world. Or is it, despite what we just saw in the courtroom minutes ago, a man coming unglued and hoisted on his petard, there was (proverbially in the Luke to Vader sense) a decency at one time, that just because a Captain like Queeg did do something abominable it doesn't mean he wasn't a sturdy Captain for years (though in a time post 9/11 when the Military went bananas themselves into overdrive against enemies that didn't always, say, deserve it).

And the irony is Greenwald, the Clarke character, didnt *have* to take this case (he mentions he is only here due to medical leave with little prep time), and yet not only does he take it on, he tells his client he wants to "win it." Has he damned himself by doing so, or was there some kind of pride of his own to do this that is part of that drunken tirade at the end? There's also the element of all the other officers of the Caine, except for the man on trial (an ill educated man he even admits when under cross examination), who are privileged and haven't spent the decades in warfare.

Maybe serving for so long on *any* ship will drive a man completely crazy, or all that time brings out the worst in a person. The point is, this ending is quite different if you've only seen the 1954 film, and if it doesn't ask the audience to have some empathy for Queeg, which is a very difficult think to ask, then it does ask for us to understand him *despite everything completely unhinged we have seen.* Ballsy.

Does it recontextualize everything that came before? It does, but not at the same time - it rather deepens the moral and ethical implications, especially in the framework here of a trial that appears to be so Stern and about the System and wherr, like in the military but in any system of power, people actually don't come forward about this or that when they should until it explodes (on further thought with trump, come to think of it, so much is about his many many crimes that we tend to forget or overlook those under him who don't say shit until it's time for a sweet book deal). Would Queeg have gone for as long as he did if no one just, I dunno, said something earlier? Does it matter?

This is a remarkable piece of work at the end of the day, and it knocks you for a philosophical loop even after you think things have been tied up. I don't mind that. William Friedkin's Caine Mutiny Court-Martial is one last breath of dramatic fire from the man who forever implanted the sight of Fellatio on a chicken leg in my brain (re Killer Joe).

Oh, and Jason Clarke is having a spectacular year between this and Oppenheimer for pointing a finger, eyes Blazing, and getting full of indignation at a subject in questioning, only this time he's on the side of the defense. It speaks to his superior skills as an actor under equally confident directors that I can't tell which performance is the one to enshrine.