The Human Stain (2003) from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski) and Tuna

Scoop's comments in white (spoilers):

I want to begin with a simple statement: Human Stain is a good movie. I want to establish that before I get off on a rant about how nobody will ever want to see it, because if you are that one person in a hundred who appreciates Ibsenesque insight, it may be your kind of film. The other 99% of you will find it duller than an evening with Andy Rooney, and more painfully serious and obviously wounded than John Hurt discussing world hunger.

It features a cast of four excellent actors who play their parts perfectly (Nicole Kidman, Gary Sinese, Sir Tony Hopkins, Ed Harris). It is a serious, faithful adaptation of a significant novel. It contains human truth and some vivid analysis of society. I admire what it accomplishes.

But I'll be damned if I can figure out why the investors thought they'd get their substantial investment back. It is a thirty million dollar film packed with stars, but it has the soul of an arthouse indy. It is an oh-so-serious-and-literary treatment of a man who is fired for making a "racist remark", although he did not. He is a college lecturer and two of his students have never shown up for class. He asks, "do these people really exist, or are they spooks?". I guess he should have said "phantoms" instead of "spooks", because it just so happens that the two missing students are of African descent, and one of them turns the remark into a racial incident.

Why is this enough material for a film? Because the offending professor is, himself, a light-skinned African American man who has been passing for white since he graduated from high school and joined the navy. Within a few years after that time, he was in a different city, he and his family had turned their backs on one another, and there was nobody to dispute his whiteness. His white wife lived with him for forty years and never suspected.

The film chronicles his life after the incident which provoked his resignation, and flashes back to the path that led him to that point in the first place. Ultimately, the film suggests obliquely that perhaps all of our assumptions are incorrect, and that he really might harbor a form of racist feelings against black people, even though he is black himself.

Yeah, you read that right. It's Nicole Kidman and Hannibal Lecter in the sack.

Ed Harris is tremendous in this movie. Not only does he depart from his usual refined self, but you'll barely recognize him, and he'll just frighten the hell out of you. It is amazing to me how he can take his haunted intensity and apply it in so many different ways. After I saw this film, I realized that Harris has just the right qualities to make an excellent villain in a horror movie.

The film was directed by Robert Benton who is most famous for having written Bonnie and Clyde and having directed Kramer vs Kramer. He's not exactly what one might call prolific. In 31 years as a director, he's made only ten films:

1. (7.39) - Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)
2. (7.36) - Places in the Heart (1984)
3. (7.19) - Nobody's Fool (1994)
4. (7.07) - Bad Company (1972)
5. (6.78) - Human Stain, The (2003)
6. (6.51) - Late Show, The (1977)
7. (6.11) - Twilight (1998)
8. (6.07) - Still of the Night (1982)
9. (5.72) - Billy Bathgate (1991)
10. (5.22) - Nadine (1987)

That's not a bad list at all. Benton has seven Oscar nominations and three wins (one as a director, two as a writer). He has been nominated for his work on five different films. The Human Stain has been ranked in the middle of his career output by IMDb voters, beating out one of his Oscar nominees. That's fair enough. As I said in the first sentence, it is a good movie, but I don't know how the investors thought this kind of literary introspection would pay off, because it is not only a serious film, but a seriously depressing one as well. Winston Churchill described the Soviet Union as "a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma". If he saw this movie, he might have called it "calamity wrapped in pathos inside of tragedy". From the board's callous firing of the professor, to the professor's callous rejection of his family, to the tragedies of Kidman's past, to Harris's insanity, to the ultimate tragic conclusion of the bizarre love triangle, this may be the single most depressing film you'll ever see.

It just had "feel-good summer blockbuster" stamped all over it!

I reckon Miramax knew it would lose money, but considered this a "prestige" picture and hoped it might warrant some Oscar consideration, at least for the actors if no other categories. Had that been the case, the additional publicity might have pushed the receipts up as well, but that never happened, despite the undisputed ability of Miramax to lobby successfully for awards consideration.

The Human Stain (2003) is impossible to discuss much without spoiling a secret central to the main character, Coleman Silk, who was played masterfully by Anthony Hopkins. Roger Ebert loved the film and awarded 3 1/2 stars, but went ahead and wrote a spoiler. His reasoning was that the secret was already out because of the book the film was based on. I had not heard of the book, and am sure a large part of the reason I enjoyed this film was not knowing the secret in advance.

As the film opened, the sound track reminded me of dozens of slow paced character-driven dramas that have put me to sleep in the past, so I settled in for a long afternoon. Boy, was I wrong. Yes, the film was well acted by virtually every cast member, and yes, it has some beautiful nudity, but the factor that most endeared the film to me was that it never once moved in the direction I expected. After all of the films I have seen, most plots are now completely predictable, but this drama kept me guessing from start to finish.

Some critics have complained that it was overly literary, but it ought to be, given that the lead character was a professor of literature. There was only one "literary" misstep in the film for me. They had a rather nifty piece of symbolism, but didn't establish the plot element before they slapped us in the face with it. A little subtlety here would have made the idea brilliant.

The film portrays racism from several angles, as well as the transition from privileged society to lower class, and vice-versa. Along the way, some of the writing was absolutely inspired.