frankboccia

I must confess that the only reason I watched this movie was sheer boredom: I was on a flight from Los Angeles to Taipei, which takes a full fifteen hours, and I can't sleep on airplanes, so when the flight attendant handed out those little players with the twenty DVDs, I practically tore it from her hand. Anything to pass the time. Unfortunately, the only two decent movies in the bunch I'd already seen, and the rest were recognizable duds. Except for one called Shattered Glass, which I knew absolutely nothing about; out of desperation, I started watching it.

After a minute, I was ready to turn it off. After two minutes, I was hooked, and after half an hour I couldn't believe how involved I was by the story.

Briefly, it describes the rise and fall of Stephen Glass, a talented and desperately driven young writer for the New Republic magazine. Glass is convincingly portrayed by Hayden Christensen as a winsome, popular youngster who ingratiates himself with the rest of the staff with his good humor and a certain flattering attentiveness. He also has the respect of his boss, mainly because of the numerous hard-hitting, important stories he's cranked out over the past couple of years.

But his boss leaves --actually, is fired-- and is replaced by Chuck Lane, a move that is not particularly welcomed by the staff. Glass has written a story about a young hacker who is offered a lucrative employment contract by the very firm whose system he hacked into. The story is compelling, full of detail, and earns Glass much praise.

The editor of a new on-line magazine which specializes in cybernet news reads the story and is outraged --at his staff, for missing it. As he heatedly points out to Adam Penenberg, his reporter, the New Republic scooped them on their own turf. Stung, Penenberg begins to look into the story, and slowly the whole structure of Glass's life begins to crumble as, bit by bit, the story is revealed to be fraudulent.

It is this quiet, involved cat-and-mouse struggle between Glass and, first Penenberg and, later, Chuck Lane that fascinates. We see Glass resort to every manipulative trick in the book, lying, stonewalling, diverting attention --he convinces the New Republic staff that Lane is hounding him for his support of Mike Kelly, the previous editor-- and all along clinging desperately to the lie that he can no longer let go of.

One of the tricks of the film --and I use that word in admiration-- is a parallel story that I will not reveal here because it will spoil the astonishing ending. Part of the tension in the movie comes from the viewer trying to reconcile the seemingly contradictory story lines: They seem to be going in opposite directions. At the end, I believe you will be as satisfied and enthralled as I was as to how skillfully Billy Ray, the writer and director, reconciles them.

I was left deeply impressed, both by the writing --it's not easy to make this subject interesting-- and the quietly effective performances of just about all the actors. Christensen is wonderful; he alone is worth watching, but so are all the others.

I recommend this movie highly: It is one of the few intelligent, involving dramas I've seen recently. Emjoy it.

The years 1945 through roughly the early Sixties had arguably the greatest output of American films ever. Strike that. All films, American and European. I don't need to list them all --any film-literate person knows what they are. High up on th list has to be High Noon. The action in the movie is fast-paced abd direct, but it is only a vehicle for the exploration of the moral and psychological dilemmas faced by almost all the characters --Will Kane, of course, and Amy Fowler, his bride, but also Harvey Pell, the deputy; Helen Ramirez; Martin Howe (the old sheriff), and all the townspeople. Everyone has choices to make, and the real power of the film lies in the relentless pressure that crushes all of them --Kane included-- and forces them all to face their own failings. There is very little that is admirable in these people, but there is much that is real.

This is one of the first westerns to look at morality in shades of grey; perhaps not by coincidence, the black-and-white cinematography reinforces that judgment by muting the screen into murky greys, only occasionally split by shafts of light or dark.

The storyline is familiar and even, by now, trite: A man faces evil or danger, tries to rally others to his cause, fails, and then faces the evil alone. I can't count how many movies or TV programs in the last fifty years have used that same general theme. But in High Noon, the audience is allowed to see the real danger, the real evil: Not the bad guys coming in on the noon train, but the weakness and fear and selfishness that lives in all our hearts.

If you've seen the movie, you'll understand. If you haven't --well, you should.