NYFF COVERAGE – Lodge Kerrigan’s seasick and hysterical Keane follows the circuitous path of a man tortured by the abduction of his seven-year old daughter. William Keane walks the streets night and day, from Port Authority to Newark and back, talking to himself, drinking a lot, and yelling at strangers. And this persists for roughly ninety minutes.
Fortunately for the audience, though Keane is a drunk, drug addict, and delusional paranoiac, he’s an attractive and WASPy one. And as luck (or the script) would have it, he meets another lost soul who also happens to be attractive and WASPy. Lynn is a lonely waitress who lives in the same hotel near the New Jersey Turnpike that William lives in. Also fortuitously, Lynn has a seven-year old daughter. Cue William’s redemption.
Damian Lewis, who plays the title role, is no doubt an able actor, slipping only occasionally into his native Irish brogue. But the camera spends far too much time in his face, and so the effectiveness of the film rests entirely on the viewer’s patience for method acting and scenery-chewing. Lewis is in every shot of the film, and so his flailing performance submerges the film with wide-eyed anxiety and constant mumbling (“I’ve got to get some sleep. Get some rest. Lie down. Lie down,” etc.).
The film’s one truly fascinating element is its setting. There are many interesting films that could be made about the industrial wasteland that surrounds the Lincoln Tunnel, and while Keane is not one of them, it does convey some of the grayness and isolation of this peripheral, transitory space. Sadly, this world is portrayed only on the margins of the frame, filtered through Keane’s drunk and emotionally disturbed mindset. And in John Foster, the film has a cinematographer who seems also to be drunk and emotionally deranged, or at least incapable of holding a camera steady. This horribly overused device of the handheld camera makes Keane not simply grating and heavy-handed, but also nauseating.
by Leo Goldsmith | Source: Populist Pictures 35mm print
11 Oct 2004 8:44 PM | Comments (7)
HelloI was sitting forward in my office chair reading the latest reports from the NYFF, enjoying the descriptive analyses of Mr. Goldsmith. When I began the review of “Keane” I was slightly bothered by Mr. Goldsmith’s description of the main character. I understood he was rude and belligerent. But I did not understand what could be fortunate because he is a WASP. Is there something attractive about WASPs especially for the common viewer? I gather Mr. Goldsmith thinks that there is but unfortunately for this reader, the attraction is never made clear. I don’t think Mr. Goldsmith is biased. He obviously enjoys a rich panoply of cinematic expression. And I shall continue to visit this enjoyable site from my otherwise static office. Happy Columbus Day.
Hi Andre:
Thanks for the kind words.
To clarify: I like WASPs. Many of my best friends are WASPs. I am one myself.
What I object to in this particular film is the somewhat facile casting of someone attractive and WASPy as a mentally disturbed person. It seems to me that the filmmakers were looking for someone “normal” (i.e. “unmarked” by complications of race, gender, or, um, ugliness) with whom the spectator can (supposedly) identify.
Damian Lewis looks enough like a movie star that we don’t have to trouble ourselves with questions about the many different types of people in this world who are mentally ill — attractive, WASPy or otherwise. The fact that his character meets another attractive WASP whom he befriends further reveals the rather limited scope of the filmmakers’ imagination.
Thanks for your comments, Andre.
leo
I write this response with the fear that too many reactions to the tripe posted here might somehow validate it as a whole. Who are you to say what a schizophrenic looks like – or should look like for that matter. What does the typical schizophrenic look like, Mr. Goldsmith? It so happens that maybe the casting was done based on abillity rather than looks. I have a few recommendations for you: Cellular, Sky Captain and Shark Tale. Maybe these selections will be more acceptable for your highly discernable taste in “looks” as opposed to “substance”, something I’m not finding much of here….Where can I see your latest film?
That wasn’t really helpful! BB, it’s not always easy to clarify the difference between substance and appearance (or vice versa) is it? Aren’t they two sides of the same coin?
Mr. Goldsmith, I don’t find your comments very helpful either. Your characterization of the character seems finally to be somehat overdetermined. I don’t see the logic of attributing WASPiness (whatever that may be!) to an Irish actor. Of course the distinction might have been made somehow in the film. Perhaps he talked about his fat bank account, his threatened existence, and/or his manliness?
Your objection rests on ugliness as a characteristic. That is very interesting. How is Keane ugly? Or if not, how is he superior? I don’t know. Now I’m back where I started. Maybe BB has some ideas.
I’m sorry if my comments have been somewhat unclear, but I fail to see how one can infer from them that I think white people cannot or should not be portrayed as mentally ill. That is clearly an absurd viewpoint.
But let me clarify. The character of Keane is not explicitly portrayed as being schizophrenic. Perhaps Mr. (?) BB knows something about the film that I do not, but as far as I can tell, Keane seems to be suffering from particularly acute post-traumatic stress disorder from the loss of his child. And so, the film sets him up as a “normal guy” in a difficult situation. Furthermore, his normalcy is coded (as it so often is in Hollywood films) by his being a clean-cut, good-looking white male. While this in itself is not improbable, Damian Lewis’s movie-star qualities and his rather strained method acting make for a very cinematic portrayal of mental illness that I find pretty hard to swallow (let alone sit through). So, my comments about Lewis’s race are intended to call attention to how Hollywood films typically elicit sympathy for mentally ill characters through the use of white male movie-stars (Dustin Hoffman, Robert Deniro, Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt come to mind). I simply cannot imagine the producers of this film casting (for example) a woman or Latino in the lead role.
Finally, however, this is a very minor point in my review and simply one of many problems that I had with the film.
Your assertion that Dustin Hoffman, Robert Deniro, Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt are often used to “soften” the image of an otherwise unsavory or unsympathetic character is accurate. That’s Hollywood for you. Keane, however, is not a Hollywood film, nor is it’s director tethered to any notion of pandering to it’s (Hollywood’s) audience. In the film, the character of Keane does have schizophrenia, if you recall he’s on disability (the gov’t doesn’t hand out disability checks for victims of PTSD). Have you ever known, or witnessed a person who suffers from schizophrenia? The portrayal made (i.e. mumbling, yelling, wandering, self-medication…) are all fairly typical of those who suffer the disease. The fact that we’re “in his face” the whole time as he wanders around in a frenzy is a tool not too commonly used by directors to crack the skull of their subjects and allow us to feel, on a primal level, what the character goes through on a daily basis. This in turn helps set up the relentless sense of doom during the second half of the film. In other words, he’s capable of almost anything, but never actually acts on what the audiences expectations are. Most directors probably would have pushed the second half of the film to the point of playing out some of these deep-seeded fears in the minds of the audience (I’d cite the shower scene), but Lodge understands both the character and the disease and was able to dispell any preconceived notions that the audience had about schizophrenics before they saw the film. For those of us who believe that people who live on the margins of society are to feared, misunderstood and ignored this film helps bridge that gap. You’re, of course, entitled to your opinion about the film, I just thought that boiling it down to ethnic stereotypes turned me off to everything written in your piece.
It’s “Mr.” BB
Well, I hate to tell you, but Damian Lewis is English, not Irish so I don’t know how a brogue can slip out. Funny though, 95% of the reviews I’ve read have said he was brilliant in it. You’d think good acting would be good acting. Go figure.
Andre Ginn
11 October 2004
2:32 PM