The Untouchables - Page 2

Watching it again I was struck by a few things.

Chiefly, it kind of amazes how well shot the thing is. DePalma is a director where I think he genuinely elevates bad material, his style and technical ability doing a lot to really bring projects to life. But it also means that he often comes across as being kind of showy, like there’s a massive disconnect between the quality of the material and the quality of DePalma’s directorial style. I think there are maybe three of four movies in his filmography which actually match up to his style and I think this is one of them. The script and the story are so great, the score so fantastically constructed, that you kind of don’t even notice how many flourishes DePalma is adding. There are still certain moments which almost create that disconnect, The Odessa Steps and Malone’s death in particular, but generally speaking the film just feels solid. There are also a few patented DePalma split focus shots which feel far more showy than the movie itself, but the tone of the movie is so heightened that most of his camera work feels quite natural.

I was also surprised at how I reacted to the characters this time around. This is one of my favourite films, but this time on watching the movie I found myself kind of growing a little wary of Elliot Ness. It’s an interesting character arch because essentially he starts as the one decent man in Chicago and essentially finds himself having to become more and more ruthless as the film goes on. This is portrayed in the film as a positive thing and it climaxes with Ness’s big heroic moment being the murder of an unarmed man in his custody. It’s a very odd moment, the one liner call back to it later making it even odder, and it sort of feels like the movie is all about Sean Connery teaching Elliot Ness how to sink to the level of the people they’re fighting. It’s also got a few issues with tone, where the Untouchables have no compulsion with murdering bootleggers in the name of the law but also show themselves to enjoy the products the bootleggers are bootlegging. I think in a film like this you’ve either got to deal in absolutes or not at all, having both Ness and Oscar Wallace subvert the Prohibition laws feels tonally jarring amongst the black and white morality of the rest of the film.

I think the issues you point out in your second paragraph are all addressed by Ness' final line.

"I think I'll have a drink."

Really!?  After all that!?  Heheheh.  That seems to be the big joke that DePalma and Mamet are laughing about.  Ness is a boy scout who derives purpose from following arbitrary rules.  The government could put a ban on Patricia Clarkson and Ness would follow it to the letter. 

I have the DVD somewhere.  I should watch it again.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mcnooj82 

I think the issues you point out in your second paragraph are all addressed by Ness' final line.

 

"I think I'll have a drink."

 

Really!?  After all that!?  Heheheh.  That seems to be the big joke that DePalma and Mamet are laughing about.  Ness is a boy scout who derives purpose from following arbitrary rules.  The government could put a ban on Patricia Clarkson and Ness would follow it to the letter. 

 

I have the DVD somewhere.  I should watch it again.

Yeah I get that it’s a weird sort of narrative on the nature of prohibition, love them celebrating breaking up a bunch of bootleggers by lighting up some Cuban Cigars, but it kind of casts Ness as something of a sociopath.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spike Marshall 

but it kind of casts Ness as something of a sociopath.

 

I knew there was something creepy about his goody-goodiness!  Offering his fellow officer a sandwich and asking about his wife... no sarcasm... there was always something about that scene that felt weird to me.

My favourite moment of Ness sociopathy is when his inherent decency forces him to help the lady with the pram, but his sociopathic need to destroy Capone causes him to not only creepily hold onto it but also to 'accidently' send it careering to certain doom. Good thing Andy Garcia was there.

Also love the moment where everyone's like 'Hey, where's Nitti' and Ness dryly says 'He's in his car'. It's played like an action movie one-liner but then the scene cuts to a shot of Nitti smashed through the roof of the Model-T bits of his brains literally everywhere.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spike Marshall 

 but his sociopathic need to destroy Capone causes him to not only creepily hold onto it but also to 'accidently' send it careering to certain doom. Good thing Andy Garcia was there.

 

This made me laugh.  

Love the moment here when Ness must be thinking, "Oh yeah..."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTtj-VXxgbc#t=6m30s

I think rather than commenting on any kind of sociopathy, stuff like "I'll have a drink" were DePalma hedging his bets. Playing the "He's only doing his job, he doesn't believe in something as ridiculous as the prohibition" card, so the character doesn't risk losing the audience's sympathy. There is, I believe without any evidence, a version of the script where Ness is more like Michael Shannon's character in Boardwalk Empire.

But the problem is that we’re, as an audience, conditioned to understand that our hero believes in their cause. Generally speaking characters who follow the letters of the law because they’re the law are played by William Atherton and are assholes who need to be defeated.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spike Marshall 

Generally speaking characters who follow the letters of the law because they’re the law are played by William Atherton and are assholes who need to be defeated.

"Your MOTHER!!!"

This thread suddenly has me wondering how you guys pronounce 'sociopathy.'

SOH-SHEE-AW-PATHY

or

SO-SEE-OH-POTHY?

...

SAW-REE...

Quote:

Originally Posted by mcnooj82 

 

"Your MOTHER!!!"

 

 

 

This thread suddenly has me wondering how you guys pronounce 'sociopathy.'

 

SOH-SHEE-AW-PATHY

 

or

 

SO-SEE-OH-POTHY?

 

...

 

SAW-REE...

 

 

SOH-SHEE-AW-PATHY

Don't think I've ever heard the other pronounciation.

Back to stelios' comment about DePalma hedging his bets... 

I dunno.  Has DePalma been one to hedge his bets like that?  He seems like a director who would enjoy playing with the conventions of a movie hero the way we've been discussing.  As someone said in the previous page of the thread, "It's the Chicago way."

And as to Spike's comment about audiences being conditioned to heroes that believe in their cause as opposed to following the cold logic of the law arbitrarily... I'm trying to think of a movie where the hero adheres to the latter approach.  As you said, Spike, we've been conditioned to accept the former.  The closest thing I can think of right now is The Lincoln Lawyer, where Matthew McConaughey fights for what he believes in by following the intricacies of the law to the letter (and subverting its intended purpose) instead of defying it.  Would such characters have to be a scoundrel-type anti-hero for an audience to connect with them? 

Perhaps someone can think of a better example.  My mind is tired.  I've been working on essays all night.  I'm just procrastinating now.

I'm not saying exactly that. Modern audiences are well aware what a disastrous joke prohibition turned out to be. Having the hero actually believe that it will work will not make them appreciate him. It will make them think he's an idiot. Better for him to be a bit hypocritical than be an idiot.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mcnooj82 

And as to Spike's comment about audiences being conditioned to heroes that believe in their cause as opposed to following the cold logic of the law arbitrarily... I'm trying to think of a movie where the hero adheres to the latter approach.  

Can't think of many movies, but it's very common of the Law & Order shows. The prosecutors are always going "I don't care how you feel about it. It's the law!!!" ... Not many movies take that route, mostly because they're afraid of alienating the audience.

DePalma at his best....

Carrie

Phantom of the Paradise

Scarface

Mission : Impossible

The Untouchables

Everything else I'm lukewarm about although there is always great things in his lesser works. I'm not fond of the last line in The Untouchables because its played as cutesy irony while totally ignoring all of the death and destruction Prohibition caused while Ness blindly followed orders like a tool. He's a bureaucratic moron.

No Blow Out? 

I think Mission: Impossible is a great example of the script being able to match DePalma's directorial style. That script is so heightened and weird that it makes DePalma's direction seem perfectly rational.

My favorite bit of DePalma's style in Mission Impossible is the gradual change in his framing of shots that leads to, "Kittridge... you've never seen me upset."

The camera angles get lower and lower and more askew until we're looking straight up Cruise and Czerny's nostrils!

I also kind of love the dutch angles he starts to using during that sequence, the shot is practically diamond shaped by the end. He does a few things like that in The Untouchables, when Ness and Malone are in Church the angle is insanely low. Ness' hands are huge throughout that sequence, there's also a bunch of really unflattering full on face shots throughout the movie. I know Ness and his wife have shots where their faces just fill the screen. 

"Now the ambulance can take you to the hospital or the morgue!"

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mac 

This joins the number of films that are only enjoyable due to their scores.

Can't see the praise myself. Kevin Costner is just unlikable as usual, and the stairway shootout is laughably cliche. Then again, De Palma's films have never done it for me.

I've completely turned around on De Palma, and as of recently, he's become one of my favorite directors. Because of this, I decided to re-watch the Untouchables and found myself really enjoying it. I don't know why I didn't enjoy the train station sequence, maybe because of the slow-motion, I guess. The only thing that really put me off was the ending chase scene. The stoic, imposing enforcer of Capone's mob devloves into just another two-bit crook as Elliot Ness murders him in a Dirty Harry-esque move. It ruins the golden-boy image of Ness which the film, up until that point, had been presenting.

Only took 3 years to come around. Welcome to the club.