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DemetriosConstantinides
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Richard Jewell (2019)
Another archetypal from Clint
Clint with "Richard Jewell" delivers one of his best films in the decade (2010-2019 along with the earlies "J. Edgar" and "Hereafter") and certainly one of the best films of the year!
Unfortunately the film seems to be unfairly "quite" ignored by the Oscars and a flaw in the US box office. I am a Greek and here the film is steadily on the top 5 for the last 4-5 weeks, i hope that the film's international career will be more rewarding.
Clint is an "auteur", the same deep structure underlies the surface of most of his films. This deep structure renders them archetypal, universal statements of the human lot.
In the same vein as Greek tragedies also archetypal and of lasting significance by portraying disfunctional heroes at odds with society's values or institutions. Greek heroes are all doomed by defying those in power, such as gods, kings, society's established values etc...
Clint's heroes are of the same stuff as tragic heroes and Richard Jewell is one of them.
I consider the film as a tale of initiation into adulthood, maturity is a long laborious process during which a person brings in doubt and scrutiny all received values.
Richard Jewell is portrayed with flaws as a character, I think though immaturity as the principal one: it is not only the kind of relation he shares with his mother, it is foremost the absence of sex in his life.
Freud said that sex is the engine, sex is power and Richard Jewell has none of it! What an excellent piece of dramaturgy the sexual exchange between the journalist and the FBA agent, Olivia Wilde's sensual explosiveness and Jon Hamms phalic stiffness against the gasping movements of Jewell's body.
Richard Jewell does not belong in the world of adults, he has not the luxury of a sexual exchange, the ony exchange he is capable of is the one with the snickers: a snicker for a friend!!!
Bobi Jewell is a problematic character as well. She equally leads an a-sexual life without a companion, she only expresses her youthfull-like admiration for a TV anchorman. This lack of male figure at home is enough to explain Richard Jewell's overwhelming respect for authority figures and uniforms, the paraphernalia substitutes of a missing father.
Sam Rockwell's character unlike the Jewells is sexually active, but alike them is immature if we judge by the bitter statements of his east-european companion.
This is then a "loosy" trinity - the virgin mother, the virgin son and the holy spirit (in the from of a lawer) - that united chooses to enter in a fight against a mighty power reprensented by the Institutions of FBI and Press, the 2 insitutions that as we have seen the Jewells duly respect!
You cannot earn adulthood without bringing down bitterly your own "idols".
"Richard Jewell" the movie is the long gasping movement of a character (or 3 characters) into self esteem and knowledge!
One of Clint's best, tremendous performances by Paul Walter Hauser and Sam Rockwell expressing the corporeal and spiritual dimensions of the film, for sure within the 5 best films of the year 2019! Wake up Academy!