25th Hour (Spike Lee, 2002)

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hearthesilence · #1 Post by **hearthesilence** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 5:50 am

Just got back from a free screening they had at Lincoln Center, with Spike Lee, Edward Norton, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Jon Kilik attending. Last time I saw it was 2004, but since then I've moved to NYC (never really knowing the city before) and the film does seem to carry more weight for me now then it did then. May write more about it later, but it was great

Spoiler

FWIW, Spike mentioned that he's surprised when people ask him "Did Monty go to jail or not?" To him it should've been clear - if they got on the George Washington Bridge, then Monty didn't, but in the last shot, you can tell that they passed it. Norton then interjected that Spike assumes everyone outside of NYC knows that exit, and of course Spike says "I even showed you the sign!"

matrixschmatrix · #2 Post by **matrixschmatrix** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 6:07 am

To be fair, I know almost nothing about New York, and the ending seemed perfectly clear to me.

I wish this movie got talked about more, it's one of Lee's best, one of the best movies of the 2000s, and still one of the best works to discuss 9/11. The into-the-camera montage felt slightly desperate- recycling something that had worked well in Do the Right Thing, in a context where it seemed less appropriate (though it did earn the Last Temptation of Christ sequence)- but everything else was tonally excellent, and incredibly subdued for a Spike Lee joint.

It's a movie that feels like it addresses the terrorist attacks both textually and subtextually- there's an apocalyptic feel to the whole thing, a sense that the good times are over and the past is coming back to haunt you, that seems like one of the emotions that was pervasive at the time (and now, for that matter.) Norton, in particular, is excellent in it, moving through it like a ghost, and coming to terms with the end of his world. I need to watch it again, because all I really remember right now is the overall feeling of it, but it's an amazing and sadly unrecognized film.

knives · #3 Post by **knives** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 6:16 am

Actually that last temptation sequence is the only misstep of the film for me as that is so tonally different from the rest that the already exaggerated maudlin nature of the sequence becomes worse.

matrixschmatrix · #4 Post by **matrixschmatrix** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 6:22 am

Well it's deliberately tonally different, it's a fantasy- the movie slowly unravels Monty's life, and at the point at which he's taken everything apart and is prepared to lose it, he's offered an out. It has to stick out to seem really tempting, if it felt as crushed as the rest of the movie it wouldn't make any damn sense. It's counterpoint.

knives · #5 Post by **knives** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 6:31 am

Well if it's sole point is to seem tempting than it's failed on that point too since it just becomes a distraction. I don't think Lee knows how to properly present that and his attempt to ape The Beard for the sequence seems like a total disconnect to what the character and by extension audience would find appealing.

matrixschmatrix · #6 Post by **matrixschmatrix** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 6:39 am

I don't think it's the sole point there, but I don't really see how it can fail to seem tempting- I mean, it's the same offer as Last Temptation, the offer of a normal life where you get to do normal human things instead of paying for whatever sins need expiating. Monty is trapped, he's matured over the course tribulation we've seen- I think he is at the end of the movie a man who would love nothing better than normal, difficult, human pleasures, like the ones we see in the fantasy- and I think almost any kind of a life would seem tempting to him, given that he's fully aware he's going to lose more or less everything he cares about during his prison sentence. I really have no idea of how that sequence could seem unnecessary, it's a key part of the movie and pretty much the whole point of Monty's character arc.

knives · #7 Post by **knives** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 6:43 am

I'm not saying the temptation itself is a bad idea and it certainly makes sense in the context of the film, but the execution of it rings false to what was shown before and after. That's not the reality Norton has been striving for in terms of presentation (the actual events fit though).

matrixschmatrix · #8 Post by **matrixschmatrix** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 7:08 am

If the execution didn't work for you, I can't really argue with that- it worked well for me, but to each their own. The movie as a whole is one of the key exhibits in my argument that Lee is one of the great American filmmakers, though.

knives · #9 Post by **knives** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 7:11 am

I'll agree with that. Lee's tremendously under appreciated because he seemingly can only do unbelievably great or abortively bad.

matrixschmatrix · #10 Post by **matrixschmatrix** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 7:23 am

Haha, yeah, what other filmmaker would follow up 25th Hour with She Hate Me? There's a bunch of profoundly mixed bags, too- Bamboozled doesn't entirely work, but some of the parts that do get across things that are absolutely key to watching American movies and which I've never seen anywhere else. Frankly, I'm willing to put up with the former for the latter.

knives · #11 Post by **knives** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 7:30 am

Howard Hawks maybe? Yeah though, I'm not sure if I could ever call Bamboozled a good film, but that's still the sort of failures I love to see. I think the closer a title is related to sports the worse the movie seems to be for him (his most recent being an exception as that didn't have any pluses despite the straight forward title).

Perkins Cobb · #12 Post by **Perkins Cobb** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 8:42 am

The "last temptation" sequence you're referring to at the end is the elaborate montage at the end, where we see Norton et. al. aging under Brian Cox's amazing narration? I think that's the best piece of film Lee has ever directed. As to it being the "whole point," I assume it's this sequence to which the title refers -- the 25th hour in a 24-hour day.

My only complaint with 25h Hour is the sort of free-floating gay panic that runs through it -- prison comes to be associated almost entirely with male rape, all the way up to that ridiculous scene where Norton begs the other guys to beat him up, and they do. That's the one moment in the film that I find tonally inconsistent.

DDillaman · #13 Post by **DDillaman** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 2:17 pm

Man, I love 25TH HOUR, and that last scene breaks me every time I see it.

Spoiler

I never saw it as a true "last temptation", but the horrible tension between a father's dream for his son and the reality of the situation - as the scenario gradually become more and more absurdly optimistic and implausible, it hurts more and more.

flyonthewall2983 · Mon Sep 12, 2011 2:32 pm

Spoiler

Pretty sure this was the last time I wept at the end of a movie. Not for Norton's character so much, but for the father. I had some question as to whether or not it was all his dream, but I accept it more is that.

Alan Smithee · #15 Post by **Alan Smithee** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 3:14 pm

matrixschmatrix wrote:Haha, yeah, what other filmmaker would follow up 25th Hour with She Hate Me? There's a bunch of profoundly mixed bags, too- Bamboozled doesn't entirely work, but some of the parts that do get across things that are absolutely key to watching American movies and which I've never seen anywhere else. Frankly, I'm willing to put up with the former for the latter.

I'll actually go further and say I think Bamboozled is one of his greatest films. The score is the best he's ever had and it achieves a pathos against initially very absurd material starring Damon Wayans, no small feat. I love the grubby DV photography as well.

knives wrote:Howard Hawks maybe? Yeah though, I'm not sure if I could ever call Bamboozled a good film, but that's still the sort of failures I love to see. I think the closer a title is related to sports the worse the movie seems to be for him (his most recent being an exception as that didn't have any pluses despite the straight forward title).

No love for He Got Game?

Perkins Cobb wrote:My only complaint with 25h Hour is the sort of free-floating gay panic that runs through it -- prison comes to be associated almost entirely with male rape, all the way up to that ridiculous scene where Norton begs the other guys to beat him up, and they do. That's the one moment in the film that I find tonally inconsistent.

This is absolutely consistent with the types of characters they are and honestly pretty realistic. I don't think it qualifies as gay panic to be afraid of being raped in prison. Prison rape is very much something that happens.

Zumpano · #16 Post by **Zumpano** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 4:11 pm

knives wrote:I think the closer a title is related to sports the worse the movie seems to be for him

Could not disagree more. 'He Got Game' is one of his best (if not totally unappreciated) films IMO.

knives · #17 Post by **knives** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 5:44 pm

Hate that film to death. It almost comes across like a parody of a Spike Lee film with the retarded white people and all of that. It just seems silly to me. The one thing that could work, the father son relationship, seems forced at times and needlessly complicated. There was a distinct disconnect between myself and the film which didn't seem to be Lee's goal.

Murdoch · #18 Post by **Murdoch** » Fri Sep 16, 2011 1:49 am

Just to turn this into more of a general thread for Lee, I find Clockers unjustifiably ignored by most. It has some rough edges, but the interrogation scene where Keitel addresses the camera is one of the best scenes Lee's done thus far.

tarpilot · #19 Post by **tarpilot** » Fri Sep 16, 2011 6:16 am

I've been wanting to revisit both Crooklyn and Clockers since seeing Delroy Lindo in an SVU episode a while back and being reminded of how awesome he is. So, so awesome.

Le Feu Follet · #20 Post by **Le Feu Follet** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 8:53 pm

The 25th Hour is a film I love, and I've watched it many times. The cast are great and I've always been a bit of a follower of Edward Norton, but this is the film that made me appreciate Barry Pepper, who I enjoyed more recently in The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. It seems to me that Spike Lee has inherited from Sidney Lumet the role of New York film-maker

jbeall · #21 Post by **jbeall** » Sun Sep 25, 2011 2:18 am

Perkins Cobb wrote:My only complaint with 25h Hour is the sort of free-floating gay panic that runs through it -- prison comes to be associated almost entirely with male rape, all the way up to that ridiculous scene where Norton begs the other guys to beat him up, and they do. That's the one moment in the film that I find tonally inconsistent.

But is that a flaw of the film, or of the characters? (And of course, is it justified? I've never done time, and I don't know any former inmates, so I can't say.) In the latter case, it's hardly an artistic fault of Lee's to present a character who, because he's from/wrapped up in a very macho world, has that fear.

Polybius · #22 Post by **Polybius** » Sun Sep 25, 2011 3:50 am

tarpilot wrote:I've been wanting to revisit both Crooklyn and Clockers since seeing Delroy Lindo in an SVU episode a while back and being reminded of how awesome he is. So, so awesome.

Did you happen to catch any of his work earlier this year in Fox's now (unfortunately) canceled The Chicago Code? He took a character who was not only corrupt but actually deeply involved in serious criminal activity, up to and including murder, and made him not only charming and believable (which Delroy can do with ease) but actually sympatheic and even, for brief moments, convincing.

He had several scenes with the undercover cop who was assigned to get close to him on a deep cover basis in which he came close to turning the guy or at least planting some ambivalence about his role in his mind, an ambivalence that I think a lot of viewers were sharing, myself included.

knives · #23 Post by **knives** » Sun Sep 25, 2011 5:10 am

God, Lindo is just one of those guys you can never remember the names for, but find to be a far greater service to the roles he's in than the people whose names come off easy. Like you said even in something as typical as a lot of his television stuff (haven't seen Code) he can create really strong and complex personalities.

tarpilot · #24 Post by **tarpilot** » Sun Sep 25, 2011 5:16 am

Polybius wrote:
tarpilot wrote:I've been wanting to revisit both Crooklyn and Clockers since seeing Delroy Lindo in an SVU episode a while back and being reminded of how awesome he is. So, so awesome.
Did you happen to catch any of his work earlier this year in Fox's now (unfortunately) canceled The Chicago Code?

I've been meaning to. I can only handle about two or three TV dramas at a time, and since the shitty season 4 finale of Damages fucked me over so badly I need a rebound show I can marathon to cleanse my palate.

ando · #25 Post by **ando** » Mon Sep 26, 2011 12:10 am

Soul of The Game, a film about the old Negro Leagues features Lindo (as Satchel Paige, I believe). Someone uploaded it on YouTube and I've been meaning to catch it.

I caught Crooklyn (Is there a dedicated thread somewhere on this film?) several weeks ago on Netflix and was impresed. Lee hadn't developed his trademark visual schtick (the dolly tracking was noticably absent) and I found the story simple (almost homespun) and refreshing. I especially enjoyed the visual constrast of NYC and the rural south - the art crew did an especially fine job there.

But since this thread keeps surfacing each time I visit I thought I'd revisit 25th Hour tonight (in a few minutes). I remember NOT liking it for several reasons, chief of which is its capture of the contempt I see everyday in the average New Yorker for other New Yorkers outside of their own socio-ethnic-sexual-economic group. The film isn't to be faulted for it but I didn't feel at the time I viewed it that anything was discovered or revealed about what is actually Norton's character's self-contempt, which is really at the heart of his neurosis. I guess I kept waiting for a break-out. But all I seem to remember is an acting-out of his self-contempt. Hopefully there's more there than I was willing to see...

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