Video review: "Bridge of Spies"

In such an outstanding year for movies, "Bridge of Spies" is the sort of film that tends to get overlooked. It doesn't have a flashy subject, or the hot new thing as a star or director, and it's a historical piece about an embarrassing Cold War event that many people would just as soon forget.

It got an Oscar nomination for Best Picture, but I don't think anyone considers it a serious contender. Nor should it be, but it's a very good picture that deserves some attention on video.

Tom Hanks plays James B. Donovan, an insurance lawyer from Brooklyn who finds himself thrown into the kettle of geopolitical politics. First it's being selected to represent Russian spy Rudolf Abel (Mark Ryland, in a wry performance that got its own Oscar nod), basically because nobody else wants the job. He tries his hardest -- which annoys some of his colleagues -- and convinces the government not to execute Abel since they might need him someday.

Someday arrives a few years later when American pilot Gary Powers is shot down over the Soviet Union in the infamous U-2 incident and held prisoner. Donovan is sent to Berlin to negotiate an exchange, Abel for Powers, but in the overheated era of nuclear standoff, the government can't officially acknowledge his role as their representative.

He's essentially freelancing it with his rear end exposed, making daily trips across the Berlin Wall with briefcase in hand to haggle with a bizarre array of Russians and Germans. Complicating things, the East Germans have captured an American student on trumped-up spying changes. Donovan takes it upon himself to free him too: "Two for one" is his mantra.

It's a potboiler political thriller, more about the threat of violence and dire consequences than the actual depiction of them. Director Steven Spielberg and screenwriters Matt Charman, Joel Coen and Ethan Coen turn the screws at just the right pressure, with Hanks spectacular as always as the well-meaning everyman thrust into extraordinary circumstances.

Bonus features are OK, though Spielberg shows his typical disregard for filmmaker commentary tracks. There are four making-of mini-documentaries: "Berlin 1961: Re-creating The Divide," "U-2 Spy Plane," "Spy Swap: Looking Back On The Final Act" and "A Case Of The Cold War: Bridge of Spies."

Movie:

Extras: 

Review: "The Danish Girl"

“The Danish Girl” is the true-ish story of Einar Wegener, a well-known Danish painter who became a woman in the early 20th century. Today we would refer to this as a transwoman “transitioning” to her true gender, and use her adopted name, Lili Elbe, and the appropriate pronouns.

But the film is less about conforming to modern-day sensibilities than presenting Lili/Einar as she/he was -- a gentle soul confused about the journey being undertaken, but who steadily gains strength and resolve as the challenges grow.

Directed by Tom Hooper (“The King’s Speech”) from a screenplay by Lucinda Coxon, based on the historical novel by David Ebershoff, “The Danish Girl” powerfully shows what it was like to question one’s gender at a time and place when such roles were rigidly defined and enforced. Eddie Redmayne, last year’s Oscar winner for Best Actor, is sure to pick up another nomination for his nuanced turn.

The story opens with Einar married to Gerda Wegener. Both young painters with a carefree lifestyle and a strong desire for children, they live rather unequal lives. Einar is feted at gallery shows, celebrated by powerful patrons, while she toils in his shadow. It’s puzzling, since he -- by his own admission -- essentially paints the same thing over and over: pastoral scenes from his drab, lonely childhood.

Gerda (Alicia Vikander, vibrant and emotive) plays Einar’s wife, who actually kick-starts his journey by asking him to don some hose and shoes so she can finish her painting after her (female) model takes ill. Einar finds himself ensorcelled by the look and feel of women’s clothing. The couple playfully continues the game, going to a party with Einar dressed as his cousin, “Lili.” She even attracts the attention of a discerning young man (Ben Whishaw), who pitches woo.

Soon, though, Einar is spending more and more time as Lili, studying the mannerisms of the fair gender and copying them – even to the point of exaggeration. Lili is easily the most girlish woman in any room she occuppies. Redmayne is convincingly coquettish and shy, showing how just because a person’s outward identity changes, the inner soul doesn’t. Since Einar was something of a blushing wallflower, Lili is, too.

Things go on from there. There are marriage troubles as Gerda grows distraught about “losing” her husband. She enlists Einar’s old childhood friend, Hans (Matthias Schoenaerts), on whom he had a boyhood crush, to act as a touchstone. But Gerda ends up developing feelings for him herself.

Doctors of the time are no help, subjecting Einar to radiation treatments that leave him bedridden, then reporting him to the authorities as a deviant when their barbaric procedures bring no result.

There are, of course, many liberties taken with Lili’s story, which flow from Ebershoff’s fictionalized portrait of her. The main one is showing her struggling with her surgical transformation more or less in private, when in fact it was quite a renowned feat at the time. Her autobiography, published two years after her death, was a watershed moment in the transgender movement.

It also depicts Gerda as staying by her side throughout this process and her demise, when in fact their marriage was legally dissolved as a result of Lili’s gender change, and Gerda had moved on to other romantic partners. (She was not even present at the death, hearing about it through the news.)

Still, this falls under the filmmaking rubric of ‘lying in order to tell a greater truth,’ as we saw in the excellent “Steve Jobs” earlier this year. “The Danish Girl” may skirt the historical facts, but it still has the compelling illumination of trueness.

Review: "Bridge of Spies"

I've always enjoyed history, and am particularly tickled by the incongruous little stuff that doesn't break into the public consciousness. Like the Fourth Crusade, which set out to retake Jerusalem from the Saracen horde, but instead sacked the allied city of Constantinople to plunder its great wealth. Or the slaves who rose up against their masters aboard the ship "Amistad" and won their freedom before the Supreme Court, some of whom went on to become slave traders themselves.

History buffs, or those who just like a good geopolitical yarn, will probably enjoy "Bridge of Spies" as much as I did. The latest collaboration between director Steven Spielberg and actor Tom Hanks, it’s the curious story-behind-the-story of the U-2 incident of 1960, in which the Russians shot down a U.S. spy plane, heating up the Cold War to the point nuclear war seemed possible.

Hanks plays James B. Donovan, a respected but unheralded insurance attorney from Brooklyn who found himself in the unlikely role of negotiating for the return of the American pilot.

He had previously represented a Soviet spy caught by the CIA, Rudolf Abel, and convinced the authorities not to execute him since they might need to use him one day for leverage. Donovan’s prescience was rewarded by being tossed into the cauldron of geopolitical intrigue, making cloak-and-dagger forays across the Berlin Wall as an unofficial negotiator for his country.

The screenplay by young Matt Charman was punched up by Oscar-winning veterans Joel and Ethan Coen, and is essentially divided into two parts. Roughly the first half is about Donovan’s representation of Abel, which causes strain in both his professional and personal lives. He becomes a public pariah for doing more than offering a token defense, even taking the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. The second half is the negotiations in Berlin.

He comes to find a grudging respect for Abel, who is portrayed by Mark Rylance in a strong, restrained performance. Abel is completely guilty, an incongruous figure born in England who speaks with a strong British lilt, raised in Russia and a devoted patriot. Posing as a painter, he refuses to share information or acknowledge he’s a spy, though he does not take great pains to conceal it.

Donovan seems bewildered by the man’s preternatural calm, repeatedly asking him if he’s worried or scared about being put to death for espionage. “Would it help?” is Abel’s stoic reply.

In turn, Donovan’s wife (Amy Ryan), law partner (Alan Alda) and even the judge (Dakin Matthews) are perplexed and bothered by his diligence in defending a traitor who divulged secrets to America’s greatest adversary. He resolutely points out that since Abel is not American he cannot be a traitor, but is an honorable enemy who deserves to be treated as such.

Flash forward a few years. American pilot Francis Gary Powers (Austin Stowell) is shot down and captured while flying an ultra-secret U-2 plane. It causes great embarrassment to the U.S., as Powers failed to self-destruct his craft or kill himself with poison per orders. The CIA taps Donovan to set up an exchange: Abel for Powers.

The wrinkle is that the East Germans have also captured a young American student, Frederic Pryor (Will Rogers), and are holding him on trumped-up charges. Instructed by his CIA handler (Scott Shepherd) to concentrate on the pilot and forget the student, Donovan takes it upon himself to enter tense three-way negotiations between America, the USSR and its young German satellite country. His goal: two for one.

It’s a typically skillful performance by Hanks, playing a man out of his depth who compensates by rigging the game according to rules he understands.

The film doesn’t really get deep inside Donovan’s head, but “Bridge of Spies” is less character study than political thriller. It’s about spotlighting a key piece of little-known history, and somehow even makes lawyerly negotiations enlivening. That’s a masterful bit of cinematic subterfuge.