new to DVD: Bone Tomahawk

Bone Tomahawk has been described as a "horror Western" -- a description which I find to be, not inaccurate, but perhaps both misleading and unfortunate. Misleading because, though some scenes are definitely scary enough to earn the "horror" descriptor, those scenes are relatively few and far between, and certainly don't form the bulk of either the content or the tone of the movie itself. Unfortunate because the very use of the word "horror" will scare away many potential viewers -- and this is a movie well worth watching.

The story is set in motion by two bandit drifters played by the oddball duo of David Arquette and Sid Haig. The two share only one scene, which is a shame, as there's something vaguely comical, almost Laurel-and-Hardyesque about their interaction. The bandits disturb an area held to be sacred by a particularly brutal Native American tribe. The Indians kill Haig, but Arquette escapes and flees to  the small town of Bright Horizon. The Indians track him there and, in the morning, the citizens wake up to find that Arquette and a couple of locals have all been very quietly abducted in the ngiht.

The local Indian expert -- himself an Indian -- tells the sheriff that all other tribes fear this tribe, which has no name because they are so brutal and primitive that they have not yet formed a language of their own. Probably because they can't spend the whole movie clumsily referring to "the tribe that has no name," the characters name the tribe "Troglodytes" and set up a search-and-rescue party.

And here's where we get to the meat of both the movie and its story. The search party consists of four characters: There's Arthur O'Dwyer (Patrick Wilson), whose broken leg should disqualify him, but he's the most determined searcher of all, seeing as his wife is one of the abductees. There's Chicory (Richard Jenkins), an absent-minded and elderly deputy who turns out to be smarter and more resourceful than you might expect. There's John Brooder (Matthew Fox), whose genteel manner disguises the fact that he's the most skilled survivalist and fighter of the bunch. And they're all under the leadership of the grizzled but virtuous sheriff, Franklin Hunt (Kurt Russell).

If the first act introduces the characters and sets the story in motion, and the final act deals with the inevitable showdown between the heroes and the Troglodytes, the vast majority of the film has two focuses: the general dangers of trekking through the wilderness in the unsettled west (wild Indians, it turns out, are just one of many different threats), and the character interactions between the four heroes. Director/ screenwriter S. Craig Zahler does a great job of fleshing each of the four main characters into very three-dimensional personalities. These scenes, which make up the bulk of the film, are by far the best. All four actors are excellent in their roles, although Jenkins is a particular stand-out as the often comical Chicory. He's funny one moment, deadly serious the next, seemingly a moron one moment, seemingly brilliant the next, and kudos go to both Jenkins and Zahler for juggling these moments in a manner that never once makes Chicory seem like an inconsistent character. Indeed, when you think about it, doesn't the above description apply to us all from time to time?

Unfortunately, once the heroes do catch up with the Trogs, things do get gory and violent. To some viewers, it no doubt will seem excessive, and, I'll admit, this segment might not be so fun for those viewers. Yet I understand the artistic necessity for this choice. Up to this point, the movie has not shied away from the realities of frontier dangers; it would, perhaps, be a betrayal of the film's tenor to suddenly grow coy once all-out war (even if it is on a very small scale) has broken out. So I have mixed feelings about the ending. As an artist, I stand by Zahler's decision. As a viewer who wishes he could recommend this movie to family and friends, I have to weigh the truly great character work in the film's mid-section against the truly horrifying final act. It's almost like two different movies. For me and many others, it works. For many more, it certainly will not.

Life of Bennett

Charles Bennett may have been a good screenwriter. A look at some of the real classics he's written -- such as The Man who Knew Too Much and The 39 Steps -- hints that he may have even been a great screenwriter. But to hear him tell the story, Charles Bennett was perhaps the greatest screenwriter who ever lived.

Hitchcock's Partner in Suspense tells Bennett's life story, at first through the eyes of his son, but mostly through Bennett's own eyes, eyes that are constantly brimming over with tears of self-pity and vanity. This guy is a piece of work. He repeatedly refers to his own writing as "brilliant" and "genius" without a hint of irony.

The guy's got a chip on his shoulder, to be sure. And to be honest, his biggest gripe is a legitimate one. His scripts helped Alfred Hitchcock become the most famous movie director who ever lived -- but he was then forced to live in obscurity even as Hitchcock became the poster-boy for the French Auteur Theory that states that the director is the primary author of a film. These days, despite its ludicrousness, the Auteur Theory dominates both academic and mainstream film criticism. The very fact that you've heard of Hitchcock and not Bennett, Spielberg but not Zaillian, Scorsese but not Schrader, proves how very dominant the Auteur Theory is. Any screenwriter has a right to gripe about this, none more so than Hitchcock's writers.

But Bennett takes it to the extreme. According to the life of Bennett according to Bennett, almost every director he's ever worked with is an incompetent fool. Every producer and studio executive is a money-hungry dilettante who knows nothing about the art of cinema. And every screenwriter -- other than Bennett himself, of course -- is a hack. Because of the nature of Hollywood, writers are often paired against their better judgment, or even partially or entirely re-written by other writers. Note how Bennett paints himself into this picture: Every time Bennett is blamed for a bad movie, it's because other writers (or incompetent directors, or interfering producers and studio execs) ruined a script that Bennett had slaved over, a work of perfection. Every time Bennett is credited for a good movie, it's only because of his own brilliance and mastery of plot and story, and if any other writer is credited on working on his good movies as well, Bennett repeatedly and unambiguously assures his readers that the shared credit is undeserved -- that the other writers on the project, at best, did nothing at all and somehow got their names slapped onto the credits, or worse, they turned in a piece of drivel that Bennett himself turned into the masterwork you see on the silver screen.

How great and towering a figure is Charles Bennett? The only figure in history Bennett can think to compare himself to is Julius Caesar. Again without irony, or the slightest indication that he realizes just how skewed his perspective is, Bennett repeatedly quotes Shakespeare's play as a metaphor for his own life. And what of the assassins who brutally murder great Caesar, who is their equivalent, in Bennett's view? Must you ask at this point? They are the incompetent co-writers, directors, producers, and studio execs whose changes ruin his damn screenplays!!! When producer Hal Chester changes the title of one of Bennett's scripts, well, "that is the unkindest cut of all." I'm not making fun, that's the actual quote Bennett uses to describe Chester's apparent betrayal.

But Bennett is not content with regaling us of how he's the greatest writer in Hollywood, and in fact perhaps the only competent man in the entire business, oh no! Bennett, according to Bennett, is also a master playwright. And a master director. And a master writer of wartime propaganda. And a master spy. I'm not making any of this up, nor am I describing a tongue-in-cheek tale of irony and witticisms. Oh, no. Charles Bennett is deadly serious when he tells of how Margaret Thatcher and Sir John Gielgud and war heroes seek out his companionship and humor. Of how directors like Alfred Hitchcock, Cecil DeMille, and Irwin Allen seek out his genius, repeatedly and literally -- literally! -- begging him to help save their latest projects. Of how Bennett is such a fun and jolly chap that his ex-wife and her new husband invited Bennett along on their honeymoon. Of how he's such a delightful dinner guest that restaurant maitre d's who haven't seen him in decades light up with joy when he returns to their venues. Of how Bennett is such an adventurer that he risked life and limb to obtain his trusty typewriter while working on top-secret assignments for His Majesty's government. Of course, these top-secret assignments, the more Bennett describes them, sound less and less like the vital propaganda he insists they are, and more and more like unproduced screenplays. But they were unproduced because the government declared them top secret, see? He's a masterful pilot, the life of any party, and a brave adventurer. Men want to be his friend. Women just want him.

Also, let's not forget, Bennett is the greatest screenwriter in the entire industry. Oh, well, yes, he does admit that, as an Englishman, he doesn't write American dialogue very well, and prefers to leave that to his cowriters. You'd think being able to write dialogue would be absolutely essential for a Hollywood scriptwriter, but Bennett explains that his mastery of story is so superb that the dialogue isn't all that important. He's still the greatest screenwriter of all time. And at this point, I feel I must assure you one more time that I am not making this up. All of this is in the book.