Please be quiet on the set, please. I’m watching “The American” here.
Some friends took me to see “The American” for my birthday. We thought we were going to a fast paced star-laced shoot’em up featuring George Clooney.
I’m a big fan of action/adventure; love the fast chase, gun play, hand to hand, martial arts, parkour – all of it. I also love dialogue; banter, snappy repartee, long mysterious monologues, and lots of talk. “The American” as it turns out is a very, very slow moving story with very, very little dialogue.
We weren’t far into it when I thought “Well, I don’t’ know if I’m going to like this.” Then I thought “What’s this movie about anyway?” Then “Hmm, I wonder if this movie is about anything.” Finally I reminded myself that twelve hours earlier, at the start of my birthday day I’d made a decision to go with the “Life is good, I have all the time in the world.” motto as opposed to the “Oh my god, time’s fast running out, and what the hell am I doing with my life?” motto, and decided to quiet down and just watch and see.
The filmmaker, Anton Corbjin is better known for his still photography work so with that in mind I decided to watch the movie though eyes I normally reserve for looking at pictures on gallery walls. Once I quieted down with my still image eyes at the helm I was happy to sit in the back row of the multiplex enjoying my birthday popcorn watching the film go by. The landscape of “The American” is as much made of the internal life of Jack, Clooney’s character, as the external world of Abruzzo, where Jack is hiding out. Both are quietly and even magically compelling in their own special way.
There’s not much dialogue, hardly any in fact, though in this case hardly any might actually be too much. Words and dialogue fast become superfluous with Corbjin and his composer Herbert Grönemeyer, shepherding us through the story like angels shepherding souls off to a some new mysterious dimension. I found myself wishing he’d cut every bit of the dialogue.
I’ve never gotten the whole silent film thing, but watching “The American” I was starting to. It’s not clear that George Clooney has the chops for silent film, but Corbjin and Herbert Grönemeyer definitely do. Grönemeyer’s soundtrack is sublime – the perfect companion to Corbjin’s vision and perfectly framed imagery.
The thriller storyline is a little thin, though just about near enough to carry it. And there are some problems with the characters – the kind that stop an already slow story dead in its tracks, particularly with the female characters.
The film asks us to believe that Jack is such a skilled lover that after a couple sessions with him, Clara, the lovely local prostitute, quits the biz. The sex scenes are sexy it’s true, and despite the character’s denial he is obviously good with his hands, but without casting any shadows on George Clooney’s manly ways it’s time to let that one go.
“The American” is flawed. But isn’t that the point? Isn’t it the flaw, the chink in the armor, that’s lets us in? Isn’t Jack, a tired saddened solitary hit-man, in a far away land, lost and looking for the way out, looking for the way out precisely because out is the only way in to the place where meaning lives?
So accept the flaws, float along with the story, and Watching “The American” becomes a near transcendent place to be.
Tags: Anton Corbjin, fim review, Herbert Gronemeyer, The American
Chanted loudly, chanted lowly on art and other stuff 
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