Sam Mendes' Masterpiece Road

It’s revolutionary. I haven’t seen the movie yet. Sam Mendes’ “Revolutionary Road,” that is. Nope. I haven’t seen it, but I’m sure it can and will be called ‘revolutionary’ by somebody important who has. Nowadays, with teasers, trailers and shotgun blasts of interviews on every show that talks and the nature of marketing campaigns, one not necessarily have to sit down and watch a movie to get a pretty darn good idea of what it’s all about. Sure, you’ll miss the beauty, the brilliance, all the elements of the masterpiece, but you’ll get enough to decide if it’s worthy of your time and money. Both very important considerations, these days.

I’m a huge fan of British cinema. From early Hitchcock to David Lean to Michael Powell. One of my favorite films is Hugh Hudson’s “Chariots of Fire.” I’ve loved practically everything I’ve ever seen imported from the UK and shown on American Public Television, usually with a grant from Mobile or some other large corporation. Mystery, Masterpiece Theater, the Quatermasses, the Doctor Whos, I’ve loved them all. But recently a new wave of British directors has been very successful in distancing themselves from anything British, instead finding wealth and material in America.

One such director is Sam Mendes. You know him. He’s the husband of actress Kate Winslet who seems determined not to be a Rose by any other name.

But, I wonder, is Sam obsessed? Is he obsessed with the theme of dysfunctional American culture and of bringing his discoveries to perhaps, what he perceives as the naive and ignorant eyes of American audiences?

Question: Can British film director Mendes make a movie about dysfunctional British culture? Will anyone want to see it? Judging by his filmography, the answer would seem to be a resounding ‘who knows?’.

What inspires Sam Mendes is not hope. What he seems to hope for is not inspiration, but desperation. To Sam’s credit, it must be a lonely road he’s on, to walk up and receive award after award, attend gala event after gala event, for his hard work in exposing and educating Americans on what he sees are the hypocritical stereotypes of the average American family. It’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to win an award for it.

We were inundated with peer praise concerning his American debut film, “American Beauty.” ‘A masterpiece,’ was shouted from all quarters. In fact, I hadn’t heard the word masterpiece used to describe a film, since, well, the previous year, and the year before that. Yes, it’s true, every year there are films which Hollywood humbly describes are its own masterpieces, and then there are the Hollywood geniuses who made them. One can’t have a masterpiece without a genius. This year will be no different, we’ll have masterpieces and geniuses and you can take that to the bank, whichever one looks like it will stay in business long enough for you to complete the transaction.

To those lucky few who were abducted or were otherwise occupied and missed the beastly amount of adulation that the film received, “American Beauty” is about a married man who is dead, who recounts to us how his midlife crisis got him killed for, among other things, lusting after his daughter’s friend, buying a Trans Am – much to the chagrin of his cheating wife whose only interest is in real estate – and being misunderstood by the Vietnam vet neighbor who is a violent, cruel and brutal man hiding his homosexuality.

“American Beauty” won Best Masterpiece Picture for 1999. Sam received an Oscar for Best Genius Director, as well. Not bad. Not bad at all. But was it really that good of a film? Of course we heard all over the place how brilliant it was, and I must admit, there were some interesting plot twists, or reversals and complications as screenwriters like to call them. But nothing that could not have been garnered from any screenwriting course by Syd Field or anyone else who has taught screen writing. In fact, even actor Brian Cox , who merely played an existing screenwriting teacher in the film ‘Adaptation’ would have no trouble in charting and navigating his way through all of the movie’s shock moments with nothing more than a good map and stop watch.

Joe Bob Briggs, in his old movie host show “Monster Vision” used to display, at the beginning of each film he screened, a tally of items viewers were about to be subjected to. The lists usually included severed heads, bloodsucking monsters, flying brains, that sort of thing. Well, maybe we need a Sam Mendes list. We can call it Uncle Sam’s Tally.

It might go something like this…

“American Beauty”:

1 jack-off scene by anti-hero (this opens the movie – remember, this won Best Picture),

1 failed marriage,

1 divorced neighbor,

1 drug dealer (hero figure),

1 hot teen lusted after by anti-hero,

1 precocious teen daughter who runs away with drug dealer,

1 cheating wife/entrepreneur,

1 Trans Am,

1 child beating and murderous homosexual Vietnam vet,

1 plastic bag flying.

Add-ons:

1 Best Picture Oscar.

1 Best Director Oscar.

Now, with that kind of stuff, Sam received so many other awards, so many accolades, so much praise that it was a cinch he’d raise money for his next major release, “The Road to Perdition,” the only film that had reviewers reaching for dictionaries that year. For this one, Sam went back into American history and uncovered an underworld of Chicago when Irish eyes weren’t smiling so much. Perhaps, with this lush mob story, he had dreams of becoming the next Francis Ford Coppola. Who knows? Nice try, good cast, but essentially a failure. Even Luca Brasi couldn’t persuade me to accept an offer to see that downer again.

Needless to say the words ‘masterpiece’, ‘genius’ and now ‘brilliant’ were written and uttered in front of all the right people. Regardless of the box office disappointment, Sam was doing fine. It would take a lot more than that to keep a down man good. Let’s face it, his heart was in the right place, as far as liberal Hollywood was concerned. He was determined to expose more negative undercurrents of American culture if it killed us. And who could blame him? We deserved it, didn’t we? Besides, in English culture, there was nothing to expose. Nothing in the long history of Great Britain that could be anything but great. No, America is where his dreams lay. Which also happens to be the focus or target of his latest picture: the American Dream.

“Revolutionary Road” is Sam’s answer to the positive feelings Americans have about the American Dream. But was it the American Dream? What do most Americans think of as the American Dream, or our Golden Age, our Golden Era? Why, the 50s, of course! Ike, fridges, TVs, dishwashers, peace and comfort, a nice home with a picket fence and a car in the garage. A pretty picture, indeed.

Well, not on Sam’s watch anyway.

No, I haven’t seen “Revolutionary Road.” But I can guess what road it’s taking. I think I’ll be revolutionary and take the other one.