The Revolution Will Most Certainly Be Televised: The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1

Continuing my yearly duty of screening the latest installment of the Hunger Games franchise, I have for you my take on part one of the adaptation of the third book in the series (are you following me, or am I going too fast for you?): The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1. And this really does feel like a chore right now, to the point I regret seeing the first movie two years ago, thus locking my self into seeing the series through.

And while I had reservations about the violence and general theme of that film, considering its target audience is made up of teenagers and middle schoolers, I couldn't deny that it was gripping entertainment that actually had some ideas behind it. I remember next to nothing about the second movie, but going back and re-reading my review I see that I liked it. I'm guessing that my lack of memory has less to do with the ravages of old age as it does with the fact that the themes established in the first movie weren't really expanded on, and the story itself not moved ahead as far as the movie makers would want you to think. This third film does add some new thematic wrinkles, but in the attempt to make an extra billion or two, the splitting of the last story into two parts made the action drag a bit, and in the end it seemed like a series of events strung together as opposed to a real driving narrative. In other words, we are again faced with moving only a short distance after a time consuming journey.

Mockingjay, Part 1 picks up shortly after Katniss Everdeen (again played by Jennifer Lawrence) was plucked out of the Games by the rebel forces. She's been brought to District 13, once thought destroyed, but living on in a huge underground bunker complex. Not only does District 13 exist, but it is the hub of the resistance, complete with a rather sophisticated military, considering the situation, and a functioning government complete with a president (Julianne Moore). The late Philip Seymour Hoffman returns as Plutarch Heavensbee, a sort of media consultant / propaganda minister who sets Katniss up to be the face of the rebellion. (the two parts of the film were shot together, so Hoffman appears in both movies, even though he died before principle photography was wrapped up. Some key scenes he was supposed to be in were rewritten putting other characters in his place). Katniss is  resistant to taking on this role at first, but does so after the rebel president agrees to rescue the other surviving tributes from the Capitol, including her partner Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson), and grants him, in particular, a pardon for his role in Panem's own propaganda campaign. (Liam Hemsworth also returns as the third corner of the seemingly obligatory YA fiction love triangle)

I started out "with" the movie, but my commitment to it slowly waned as the film dragged on, and I began to question the validity of the message. In Mockingjay we are finally out of the game, and the revolution is on, and it is televised. We are in District 13 and it stands in stark contrast with the opulent Capitol. The conditions are harsh: there are heavy restrictions on what people can possess, there is a strict prohibition on alcohol, everyone wears the same bland dark grey clothing that wouldn't be out of place in Mao's China. And I guess that's what struck me. Both the Capitol and District 13 are heavily regulated, controlled societies. The Capitol keeps the districts of Panem in check by a combination of bread and circuses and using the Hunger Games to ferment animosity between the districts and loyalty to the central government. District 13 maintains a dedicated, spartan populace with promises of a better, democratic future, free of the present tyranny.

But both sides use propaganda and manipulation to promote their cause. Of course District 13's is based on the effective packaging of the truth, while Panem's is pure lies. I still had a nagging feeling throughout the film, though, that neither side was terribly admirable, or at least deserved to be portrayed as such. I understand that we are dealing with a post apocalyptic fantasy, and one geared at younger end teenagers, but the actors are of a caliber (series regulars including Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks and Donald Sutherland are joined by newcomer Jeffery Wright), the presentation so plain, that I couldn't help but think that they're glossing over a basic truth: for District 13 to maintain this high level of disciplined austerity and unity of purpose among its populace it would have to be just as oppressive as Panem.

There is a lot of suspension of disbelief I had to engage in, and I did it happily. I'm mainly thinking of my wonderment at how these rag tag rebels living in a subterranean concrete shaft feed their people, maintain an impressive military industrial complex and manage a rather sophisticated telecommunications system. The electrical power alone would seem impossible to supply. But it is this point that I find hard to get around - that one side appears to my eyes to be the photographic negative of the other; District 13 may be devoid of color and shade, but it is just as manipulative and controlling as their adversary, and portraying it as a benign dictatorship ready to give up that control once the revolution is over is a little more than I can buy.

As for the movie itself, it runs a little over two hours, and begins to feel it about half way through. I thought the first part moved fairly well, but then I realized that the story wasn't going anywhere. They found a way to fill the time, but most of it doesn't seem to matter. A rescue mission, that seems tacked on, becomes the climactic episode, pulling a very faint thread of plot from earlier in the movie. The result of the mission gives the movie a convenient place to finish up and still keep us wondering about what will come next, but after all that time I felt no farther ahead in the story than I was at the end of the second movie (or even the first, for that matter).

There has been a lot of criticism that stretching this series into four movies renders this one a bit moot. I got the feeling that both middle movies are a tad superfluous, supplying a lot of sound a fury while moving the plot along just a smidgen. We could have gotten to where we are much more efficiently if they had edited together half of number 2 with half of this third installment. Or, just do the logical thing and make three movies from the three books. But then that would mean passing on an extra billion in worldwide receipts, and who wants to do that?

Better to Fade Away: A Requiem for Two Stars

  

In 1997 the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences held a reunion of past Oscar winners at their 70th annual awards presentation.  There were many big stars there, from distinguished veterans like Sydney Poitier and Gregory Peck to the latest names on the scene like Mira Sorvino and a still teenaged Anna Paquin.  By far the loudest and most sustained applause went to someone who hadn't made a movie in 48 years, and quit the business at the ripe age 22: Shirley Temple Black.

Shirley Temple is considered the first true child star, reining as the top box-office draw four years running in the mid-1930's when she was hardly out of diapers. Like many child stars that followed, she didn't make a successful transition to being an adult actor. By the time she quit Hollywood in 1950 she had a failed marriage to go along with her dead film career.  Add to this that the vast majority of the 3.2 million dollars (in the 1950 money) that she had earned was lost due to her father's mismanagement. But in the bigger picture she made the transition to being an adult better than most actors who succeed in the business, let alone wash out young. She did some television work later on, but felt the calling to politics. After a failed congressional run in the late '60s she became a delegate to the UN, and later an ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia. The career diplomats scoffed at first, but she soon won their respect with her discipline and intelligence. She even headed up the training program for new diplomats, quipping, “We teach them how to get used to being called Ambassador and having Marines saluting. Then, on Day 3, we tell them what to do if they’re taken hostage.” She is also credited as being one of the first celebrities to raise awareness about the need for cancer screenings when she went public with her own battle with breast cancer in the early '70s, something almost unheard of at the time.  Through these ups and downs she always maintained her equilibrium. According to her second husband of 55 years, Charles Alden Black who died in 2005, what you saw with Shirley was what you got. He stated that her down to earth nature, free of the psychological demons that haunt so many actors, "would be catastrophic for the psychiatric profession."


I was a little disappointed that the response to her death on Monday night was so muted. Or at least it seemed so to me. The more we know about her the more there is to admire. She didn't let stardom define her, living a full life beyond the silver screen. In some ways it's understandable that the public reaction would be less intense than for other stars. Her's was an unusual career, peaking before she was 10 years old almost eighty years ago, thus she out lived most of her original fans.

Still, I can't help contrast the coverage of Temple Black's death to that of Philip Seymour Hoffman, who died ten days ago. I understand that on many levels we are dealing with apples and oranges. Hoffman was one of the top five or six actors working right now, in terms of talent and ability. He won an actual Oscar for acting, not an honorary statuette for "selling the most tickets," as her mother Gertrude quipped when Shirley asked if the honor meant that she was the best actor in the world (she often credited her mother for not letting the adulation go to her head). In our present pop culture Church of What's Happening Now Temple Black was an artifact from an ancient time; yesterday's goddess. Though undeniably talented, she wasn't a "serious" actress; just a bit of innocent eye candy that got people's minds off of the Great Depression. Hoffman was the artist, developing characters in ways that even the script writers didn't think of. And oh yes, the "demons" that drove him on, or so the myth goes. But the greatest contrast is that one showed us how to live fully, the other how to squander a great gift.

Lest you get the wrong idea, I come not to bury Philip Seymour Hoffman. I agree; he was probably the best pure actor America had to offer right now (Daniel Day Lewis was and still is the best in the English language overall). He should be mourned, and his acting achievements remembered. Before being an actor he was a human being. He had family, children and friends who loved him, and who are devastated by his death. He certainly deserves to be remembered for the good, and this is not the time savage him for his faults. I'm just not sure that he should be celebrated, or his death made out to be some noble act like Aaron Sorkin tries to in his Time Magazine obituary.  Sorkin claims that his death saved ten lives; people who will think twice about shooting a possibly lethal dose after hearing about a famous person's death from same.  I think that such a claim is wishful thinking, as well as a tad narcissistic. I don't know what was hounding Philip Seymour Hoffman, or what it's like to struggle with his addiction. All I know is that famous public figures from Jimi Hendrix to members of the Kennedy family have been dying from heroin related deaths for decades, and by some accounts the heroin problem is worse now than ever. In light of this the only thing we should be doing now is mourning the loss, remembering the positives and hold back on rationalizing the irrational.

I do hope that Philip Hoffman's death helps raise awareness of the dangers of heroin, and that addicts will use it as an impetus to seek help. But if so many high profile deaths before his haven't done anything to stem the overall tide of this drug's use, I don't have a lot of hope that his will either.


Yes, it's too bad that more will not be made of Shirley Temple Black's death from natural causes. Somehow, considering how gracefully she handled both fame and the lack of it, I'm not sure she'll mind. She seemed content to fade from the public scene, only emerging periodically for one salute or another. Her quiet passing, by show business standards, is our loss more than her's because her life had so much to teach us.

Every life is sacred, each one has infinite value. We should pray for the repose of the souls of both the Honorable Shirley Temple Black and Mr. Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Eternal Rest Grant Unto Them, Oh Lord, and Let Perpetual Light Shine Upon Them. May Their Souls, And All the Souls of the Faithful Departed, Through the Mercy of God, Rest in Peace. AMEN