Richard Jewell (Clint Eastwood, 2019)

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therewillbeblus
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Re: Richard Jewell (Clint Eastwood, 2019)

#76 Post by therewillbeblus » Mon Jan 20, 2020 3:06 pm

I don’t think that it’s really tied to attacks on Trump per se or that because he’s been wrestling with the government branches that this influenced the writer’s politics for this film, but just a general skeptical eye toward the media and govt and a passionate anger against a wrongfully accused man makes for blame to be spread with sharpness. I hate differentiating conservative vs liberal agendas regarding civil liberties because I think when it comes down to it there is a love and respect for fellow man even if specifics are not agreed upon, so I appreciated the way Jewell is treated here regardless of politics, and I can understand that the story begs for both of these branches to be treated with skepticism and resentment. My only qualms are the way the other side is given airtime away from Jewell’s narrative which signifies a more objective account (where obviously creative liberties are taken, and always will in these films) but without affording that media/govt any rope whatsoever to have a complicated motive or perspective on events beyond the worst character defects. They may have ruined a man’s life but they came off as subhuman to me, which also doesn’t address the issues at hand with care and carries a superiority which subscribed to hivemindedness rather than a wish for resolve.

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Mr Sausage
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Re: Richard Jewell (Clint Eastwood, 2019)

#77 Post by Mr Sausage » Mon Jan 20, 2020 4:43 pm

Its suspicion of law enforcement seems more libertarian than anything.

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Toland's Mitchell
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Re: Richard Jewell (Clint Eastwood, 2019)

#78 Post by Toland's Mitchell » Wed Jan 22, 2020 2:52 pm

I saw this last night. Richard Jewell felt similar to Sully - a man performed a heroic act, then came under scrutiny from bureaucrats. However, Richard Jewell had a lot more melodrama and a less likable main character for my taste. Still, we wanted his name cleared because his opposition were the evil FBI and media, who felt clownish instead of authentic human beings. Although the reporter showed signs of regret by the end.

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mfunk9786
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Re: Richard Jewell (Clint Eastwood, 2019)

#79 Post by mfunk9786 » Wed Jan 22, 2020 3:16 pm

Not sure the aim was to make Jewell likable, just decent

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therewillbeblus
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Re: Richard Jewell (Clint Eastwood, 2019)

#80 Post by therewillbeblus » Wed Jan 22, 2020 4:07 pm

mfunk9786 wrote:
Wed Jan 22, 2020 3:16 pm
Not sure the aim was to make Jewell likable, just decent
Exactly, the story succeeds because Jewell's case calls for justice, point blank, but the film succeeds because Jewell is innocent of not only the crimes but has genuine intentions. He has his characteristics that can easily be perceived as flaws (i.e. inserting authority by pulling people over without jurisdiction) but his heart is always in the right place and he wants to cooperate, wants to believe in justice and the support of systems, even when those systems have less innocent intentions. Just because one's heart is in the right place or that they are a 'decent' human being doesn't mean you need to like them or support all of their actions nor does it condone those ones that are eyebrow-raising, but it does call for a level of respect in his humanity that Eastwood and Hauser give to him and ask us to give too - and most importantly remind us that this ask is not such a tall order.

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Toland's Mitchell
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Re: Richard Jewell (Clint Eastwood, 2019)

#81 Post by Toland's Mitchell » Wed Jan 22, 2020 9:04 pm

mfunk9786 wrote:
Wed Jan 22, 2020 3:16 pm
Not sure the aim was to make Jewell likable, just decent
For sure, and the film portrayed Jewell as a decent guy through his heroic act 30 minutes into film, and throughout the 2nd and 3rd acts. Prior to that, he was an asshole. Nevertheless, he earned respect and sympathy. But I wonder if this was partly aided by Jewell's opposition, the irredeemable FBI and the media characters who seemed bent to destroy him because they're selfish and Jewell was an easy target. I'm not saying this wasn't partially accurate, but those portrayals in the film seemed stripped-down and exaggerated to the point where it didn't feel very authentic to me.

On the other hand, and perhaps my memory is fuzzy, but I didn't get that vibe when watching Sully years ago. Additionally, Sully was more interesting to watch because it presented a shred of doubt about our hero's actions. I remember thinking 'maybe Sully could have landed safely on a runway instead of crashing into a river. Will this film dispel that argument? If so, how?' But in Richard Jewell's case, we knew he was 100% innocent the entire time, meaning the only payoffs at the end were knowing he was gonna be cleared, and the real criminal would be caught, which were executed just fine.

Again, I'm not saying Richard Jewell wasn't a success. But I felt Sully was stronger and more interesting to watch (but this is not to say Sully was a masterpiece)

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therewillbeblus
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Re: Richard Jewell (Clint Eastwood, 2019)

#82 Post by therewillbeblus » Wed Jan 22, 2020 9:26 pm

Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t the real Sully come out and say he was the one who doubted himself and that the board that comes off as villainous in the film actually validated his decision-making skills and was helpful, even though they had to go through the ropes of due process? So maybe Sully was a more “interesting” film but I believe all real life parties called bologna on the portrayal as dramatic larceny and raised quite a stink. At least the portrayal of Richard Jewell’s experience being wrongfully accused mimics what seems like authentic, which is what it’s really about: not prioritizing our suspense as viewer doubting and figuring out a puzzle of mystery, but simply empathizing with a decent man going through hell.

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Toland's Mitchell
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Re: Richard Jewell (Clint Eastwood, 2019)

#83 Post by Toland's Mitchell » Thu Jan 23, 2020 2:35 pm

therewillbeblus wrote:
Wed Jan 22, 2020 9:26 pm
Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t the real Sully come out and say he was the one who doubted himself and that the board that comes off as villainous in the film actually validated his decision-making skills and was helpful, even though they had to go through the ropes of due process? So maybe Sully was a more “interesting” film but I believe all real life parties called bologna on the portrayal as dramatic larceny and raised quite a stink.
According to these sources, that's half true. Apparently the real life Sully expressed little to no doubt about his actions, and praised the film. However, Sully's character in the film expressed some doubt. On the other hand, the NTSB was not happy with its portrayal in the film, as the board members came off as villainous. But you know, a movie generally has protagonists and antagonists. But from what I recall, the NTSB characters didn't come off as cartoonish in the way the FBI and reporter characters did in Richard Jewell.

https://qz.com/778011/sully-ntsb-invest ... lenberger/
http://www.historyvshollywood.com/reelfaces/sully/
Last edited by Toland's Mitchell on Thu Jan 23, 2020 2:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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swo17
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Re: Richard Jewell (Clint Eastwood, 2019)

#84 Post by swo17 » Thu Jan 23, 2020 2:38 pm

Toland's Mitchell wrote:
Thu Jan 23, 2020 2:35 pm
But you know, a movie generally needs protagonists and antagonists.
False

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Toland's Mitchell
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Re: Richard Jewell (Clint Eastwood, 2019)

#85 Post by Toland's Mitchell » Thu Jan 23, 2020 2:53 pm

swo17 wrote:
Thu Jan 23, 2020 2:38 pm
Toland's Mitchell wrote:
Thu Jan 23, 2020 2:35 pm
But you know, a movie generally needs protagonists and antagonists.
False
Fixed

Nasir007
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Re: Richard Jewell (Clint Eastwood, 2019)

#86 Post by Nasir007 » Thu Jan 23, 2020 3:10 pm

Toland's Mitchell wrote:
Wed Jan 22, 2020 9:04 pm
For sure, and the film portrayed Jewell as a decent guy through his heroic act 30 minutes into film, and throughout the 2nd and 3rd acts. Prior to that, he was an asshole. Nevertheless, he earned respect and sympathy. But I wonder if this was partly aided by Jewell's opposition, the irredeemable FBI and the media characters who seemed bent to destroy him because they're selfish and Jewell was an easy target. I'm not saying this wasn't partially accurate, but those portrayals in the film seemed stripped-down and exaggerated to the point where it didn't feel very authentic to me.

On the other hand, and perhaps my memory is fuzzy, but I didn't get that vibe when watching Sully years ago. Additionally, Sully was more interesting to watch because it presented a shred of doubt about our hero's actions. I remember thinking 'maybe Sully could have landed safely on a runway instead of crashing into a river. Will this film dispel that argument? If so, how?' But in Richard Jewell's case, we knew he was 100% innocent the entire time, meaning the only payoffs at the end were knowing he was gonna be cleared, and the real criminal would be caught, which were executed just fine.

Again, I'm not saying Richard Jewell wasn't a success. But I felt Sully was stronger and more interesting to watch (but this is not to say Sully was a masterpiece)
The stakes are monumentally different, right? In Sully, it was a board investigation - with little to no jurisdiction on Sully's fate. At best they would have issued a report and a rebuke.

Jewell was in terrifying jeopardy of life and liberty. He had to have enormous lawyer fees, reputational damage, the prospect of the loss of any future employment, infamy, and of course being incarcerated for life on terrorism charges. Jewell was in a whole different category of trouble. No wonder the people after him seemed more villainous.

And I maintain, besides the initial publication of the entirely true report by the newspaper - that Jewell was under investigation - the media's portrayal did not seem negative to me in any way. It was matter of fact. Now unless you think journalists should be portrayed with a halo around their head and angel wings, I did not find the media portrayal the least bit underhand.

The FBI's portrayal was underhand and deservedly so. We know for a fact that they trample civil liberties day in and day out.

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therewillbeblus
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Re: Richard Jewell (Clint Eastwood, 2019)

#87 Post by therewillbeblus » Thu Jan 23, 2020 3:22 pm

Toland's Mitchell wrote:
Thu Jan 23, 2020 2:35 pm
therewillbeblus wrote:
Wed Jan 22, 2020 9:26 pm
Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t the real Sully come out and say he was the one who doubted himself and that the board that comes off as villainous in the film actually validated his decision-making skills and was helpful, even though they had to go through the ropes of due process? So maybe Sully was a more “interesting” film but I believe all real life parties called bologna on the portrayal as dramatic larceny and raised quite a stink.
According to these sources, that's half true. Apparently the real life Sully expressed little to no doubt about his actions, and praised the film. However, Sully's character in the film expressed some doubt. On the other hand, the NTSB was not happy with its portrayal in the film, as the board members came off as villainous. But you know, a movie generally needs protagonists and antagonists. But from what I recall, the NTSB characters didn't come off as cartoonish in the way the FBI and reporter characters did in Richard Jewell.

https://qz.com/778011/sully-ntsb-invest ... lenberger/
http://www.historyvshollywood.com/reelfaces/sully/
I don't want to go back and forth on sources but:
Sully admitted he questioned himself many times, whether he'd done the right thing. "The constant second-guessing, what if-ing, especially in the dark of the night."
As for what Sully thinks of the board, I keep reading conflicting testimonies, but where most come down is that it became a standard form of due process which he understood and even had to think about "who is the antagonist?" until Eastwood told him how to spin the story. Even though he agreed, it seemed to be because this is naturally an "adversarial process." I haven't read the book but I don't really see how it was super accurate if after deciding to make a movie the guy who lived it and wrote it was questioning, "who is the antagonist?" along with the director of said project.

I agree that there are more "cartoonish" characters in Richard Jewell's opposition, but I don't see how that services your earlier point about why one is more successful than the other? The films are about different things. Sully is about a man who undoubtedly committed actions, which are being analyzed across ethical/practical lines amidst/adding to his trauma, while Richard Jewell is about a man who did not commit actions, and yet those actions are being pressed upon him causing trauma. So in order to make the first film effective, the antagonists can be methodical cold procedural folk, while in this film where Jewell was incorrectly plastered by the media in real life, one must somehow show the people behind the scenes behaving in a way that would lead to false allegations. Now, could a better script have fleshed out some more dimensional motives? Maybe, but this is the kind of story that is more open to drawing characters that would have one-note motives because it's less clear than a board of people whose job it is to assess risk management in a calculative manner based on actions that undoubtedly occurred. One story happened publicly the other had motives unknown behind the scenes, so whatever is concocted is going to likely come off as less 'real' than the antagonists of Sully. Also, while both men are decent people, the "shred of doubt" about Sully's actions is coming from a place of objective assessment while Jewell is innocent so we must come from a place of unconditional empathy. It may be less exciting for some viewers, but the "payoff" you're looking for is in identifying with a character who is a decent man, enduring a roller coaster ride of empathy rather than an empirical fact-finding courtroom thriller, and seeing him be justifiably exonerated. I had a problem with those characters too, don't get me wrong, but I can see why they took the route they did considering they are literally making up a story about why a decent man could have been wrongfully accused.

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mfunk9786
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Re: Richard Jewell (Clint Eastwood, 2019)

#88 Post by mfunk9786 » Wed Jan 29, 2020 6:30 pm

Nick Pinkerton with the best piece of writing on this film I've read so far, for Sight & Sound.
This desire to be useful has a particular poignancy, for Jewell is a man who has at every turn been given reason to feel useless, a rubicund dork without much to recommend him on the sexual marketplace – and so unflappably amiable is Hauser’s characterisation that the moment when he lets slip his awareness of the contempt in which he’s held is enormously affecting.

The sexual marketplace, pointedly, is where the unscrupulous exchange that puts the Jewell investigation in the headlines is negotiated, between Hamm and local newswoman Kathy Scruggs, played with all-in gusto by Olivia Wilde. In a blunt equation, government and the media literally hop into bed together, while lumpen-proletariat Jewell just gets screwed.

Ever the unflinching and somewhat dour realist, Eastwood presents us with an American landscape that has largely been denuded of the picturesque, dotted with Jamba Juices, chain hotels and suburban apartment complexes. The film has a feel for life on the lowest rung of the middle class, conveyed simply in Bates’s helpless protest of “I babysit with those” as the FBI confiscates her Disney VHS tapes. Such precarity breeds excessive caution in the face of authority, and Richard Jewell is the story of a man learning how to overcome that caution, in no small part through being prodded along by the prickly Bryant.

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mfunk9786
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Re: Richard Jewell (Clint Eastwood, 2019)

#89 Post by mfunk9786 » Thu Feb 06, 2020 4:23 pm

This will be available in 4K digital, but there won't be a UHD Blu-ray release. Regular Blu-ray combo pack comes March 17th, digital release is two weeks earlier on the 3rd.

I have become more convinced of this film's excellence over time and I hope other users on this forum will give it a look.

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aox
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Re: Richard Jewell (Clint Eastwood, 2019)

#90 Post by aox » Thu Mar 19, 2020 3:24 pm

Mr Sausage wrote:
Mon Jan 20, 2020 4:43 pm
Its suspicion of law enforcement seems more libertarian than anything.
This.

I caught this last night and liked it much more than I thought I would (I'm not the biggest Eastwood fan). This is a very right wing film and it doesn't even try to hide that fact. On top of the media and national law enforcement being the villains here, local cops are portrayed as benign authority figures (state's rights), and Jewell's only aspiration is to be a cop on the state level which he accomplishes. The now obsolete GA state flag containing the Confederate battle flag is shown many times prominently in the mise-en-scene. In fact, the actual Confederate battle flag (not the defunct GA state flag) is the front license plate on Jewell's 1980s Nissan pick-up truck in a brief shot of him leaving to film a training video for the FBI (in reality, his forced confession). In addition to this, there is a bumper sticker on the framed inspiration picture (ugh...remember those?) hanging behind Sam Rockwell in his office that reads, "I'm more afraid of the government than terrorism". Southern right wing libertarianism, indeed.

One thing that I don't think has been mentioned in this thread is that in addition to the Federal government and media being the bad guys, so is (perceived) "liberal" academia. The students we see here are white entitled rich brats in their dorm rooms with no respect for any kind of authority. And, the man who kicks off our narrative is the headmaster/President of a university making wild accusations against our protagonist to the FBI. In conclusion, Eastwood manages to deride all three of the prominent boogie men within this political narrative. Even throwing in a disdainful tone towards yankee book publishers from New York. Yeah, that New York.

As stated, Hauser and Bates knock it out of the park, and I thought Hamm was quite good even with his cartoon villainy. I hate that the Quid Pro Quo sex exchange was included here, but it is clear that is what is being expressed on the screen either from the script or from Eastwood. The opening scenes discuss and demonstrate the entire concept of a QpQ to make sure our audience is up-to-speed when Rockwell hands Jewell a $100 and tells him not to become an "asshole". Eastwood has never been shy of being on-the-nose in his films (at least in the late-period).

Personally, the strength of this film for me was that I didn't particularly like Richard Jewell (the character being portrayed), but the film elicited such pathos for him as this whole ordeal unfolded over two hours. Of course, a lot of that is due solely to Hauser's performance.

The only omission in the film (maybe I missed it) is how Rockwell went from being a high-powered attorney in 1986 yelling at Senators to an almost broke attorney barely getting by. Eastwood makes this dichotomy quite clear, but never explores it. The best we get is Rockwell just stating that he started his own firm, but no further explanation.

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Re: Richard Jewell (Clint Eastwood, 2019)

#91 Post by knives » Sun May 09, 2021 4:00 pm

I’ll join the chorus who see this as a success. Contrary to directly above I don’t think the film is necessarily about Jewel’s decency. The film spends a lot of time emphasizing his flaws and how unlikeable he is with the moral sort of being that hero worship is a sickness and that freedom can’t be achieved without recognizing others as human. That sort of frustrated and disillusioned libertarianism definitely makes this Eastwood’s most emotionally wrought in a long while.

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