Live from Baghdad

For many Generation Xers, one of the most enduring images from the early 1990s are ones of bombs falling on Baghdad captured via eerie night vision that rendered the experience through an unsettling monochromatic filter. This footage not only signaled the United States’ invasion of Iraq but it also put CNN on the map. Prior to 1990, they were a struggling 24-hour news network looking for a big story. They didn’t have the resources of the big three networks – ABC, CBS and NBC – but what they did have was plenty of ambition to burn. The HBO film Live from Baghdad (2002) chronicles the small but dedicated team of journalists that risked life and limb to get an exclusive scoop on one of the biggest news stories of the decade.

On August 2, 1990, Iraqi tanks rolled into Kuwait City and it seemed like the U.S. would retaliate immediately with Baghdad the likely target. Veteran CNN producer Robert Wiener (Michael Keaton) is hungry and looking for a story that will give the network a much-needed boost. He’s a bit of a maverick that had his car stoned on a previous assignment in Jerusalem. He meets with new network president Tom Johnson (Michael Murphy) and lays it all out: “People aren’t going to wait ‘til seven o’clock at night to find out whether we’re at war or not. They’re going to tune into CNN.” Another executive (Clark Gregg) argues that Wiener lacks the finesse for such a volatile situation.

Wiener’s got his work cut out for him – ABC and CBS are already in Baghdad and CNN has to own the story. Soon, he and his team are flying into Iraq: fellow producer Ingrid Formanek (Helena Bonham Carter), correspondent Tom Murphy (Michael Cudlitz), cameraman Mark Biello (Joshua Leonard) and sound technician Judy Parker (Lili Taylor). Director Mick Jackson drops us right into the city for a full-on assault on the senses as we are bombarded with the noises and chaos of the place. The CNN team barely gets their bearings when they arrive at their hotel and see ABC and CBS leaving.

I like how Michael Keaton shows the savvy way Wiener knows how to grease the wheels when he bullshits and bribes his way into five rooms at a swanky hotel where he had no reservations and then has the balls to hire a young woman as their translator right on the spot all thanks to a nice fat bankroll of cash. Keaton handles the scene with the nonchalant, no-nonsense ease of someone who’s done this many times. The actor has held a long-time fascination with journalism, briefly flirting with the notion of pursuing it in college and being avid daily newspaper reader. This is also reflected in some of the acting choices he’s made over the years, playing a newspaper editor in Ron Howard’s The Paper (1994) and a speechwriter who mixes it up with journalists in Speechless (1994), and so it comes no surprise he would be drawn to a role like Wiener in Live from Baghdad.

Jackson does a nice job in these early scenes showing the dynamic of the CNN team while gradually ratcheting up the tension as he drops constant reminders that they are in a hostile environment. They work under trying conditions, soon discovering that they are under constant surveillance and have to work with primitive technological equipment as demonstrated rather amusingly in a scene where Wiener runs frantically from his technicians to CNN HQ on the phone in order to get their news story beamed on the air. Afterwards, the emotionally and physically exhausted Wiener and Formanek share a quiet drink at the hotel bar only to realize that they have to do it all over again the next day. Helena Bonham Carter portrays Formanek as a tough producer who can hold her own with the likes of Wiener but is also supportive, being there for him when an American oil worker they interviewed is reported missing, kidnapped soon after it airs on CNN. She keeps Wiener grounded and reminds him of why they are there.

One of Wiener’s early goals is to get a much-coveted interview with President Saddam Hussein and he uses every ounce of perseverance and tenacity at his disposal to see Naji Al-Hadithi (David Suchet), the Minister of Information. He’s a very intelligent man who sees through Wiener’s charms as they engage in a battle of wills that Keaton and David Suchet expertly pull off. These intellectual sparring sessions crackle with an intensity that sees Keaton externalize Wiener’s emotions while Suchet internalizes and underplays. These two men clearly respect each other with a friendship developing between them, but they are also at odds with one another.

Once Jackson takes us out of Baghdad to show Wiener and his crew covering a story in Kuwait, we get a better idea of the scope and scale of what’s happening. They touch down and see soldiers hauling away ill-gotten luxury items. They travel along a desolate stretch of road and pass burnt out car wrecks and jeeps still smoking with dead bodies littering the landscape. They soon become part of the story instead of reporting it and are even scooped by the BBC, which makes them look foolish.

Live from Baghdad shows clips of some of the most memorable moments leading up to the Persian Gulf War, like Hussein patting the head of a clearly scared little boy, a woman crying and claiming that Iraqi soldiers took babies out of incubators to die, and, of course, CNN’s interview with Hussein. Jackson wisely alleviates the often-unrelenting tension of these people in a country on the verge of war by showing them in brief moments of downtime, which allows them to be reflective and blow off steam. These scenes humanize Wiener and his crew so that we care about what happens to them when things really get hairy.

Live from Baghdad was mostly well-received by critics at the time. In his review for The New York Times, Ron Wertheimer wrote, “the interesting relationship here is between Wiener and Hadithi. Mr. Suchet offers a performance of steely restraint, managing to convey the humanity in a man who must be one tough customer to have reached this vital position.” The Los Angeles Times’ Howard Rosenberg wrote, “Although it tells its narrow story well, in a sense Live from Baghdad buries the lead. HBO’s movie about the heady 1991 success of its AOL Time Warner sister company ends at a point – just after the initial bombing – when the war’s bigger media story was just beginning.” In his review for Entertainment Weekly, Marc Bernardin wrote, “Not only does Live from Baghdad offer a masterful look at professionals trying to keep it together in a nation that’s falling apart, but it also manages a rare feat indeed: conveying the energizing fear that the correspondents, doing what they were born to do, must have felt as Iraq began to explode outside their hotel window.”

As Iraq heads towards the January 15, 1991 deadline that the United Nations gave for them to withdraw from Kuwait or face military action, the CNN brings in veteran reporters Peter Arnett (Bruce McGill), John Holliman (John Carroll Lynch) and Bernard Shaw (Robert Wisdom) to interview Hussein and get word out that the U.S. are going to commence bombing imminently. While the other major networks, and most sane people, prepare to leave, Wiener decides to stay as does much of his crew. It’s not a decision that any of them take lightly and Jackson makes a point of showing them really considering their options.

However, the U.S. has other ideas and before anyone can leave, the bombardment of Baghdad begins and the sky is lit up as those iconic images people of my generation remember so well are recreated. CNN’s coverage during the Persian Gulf War was a game changer and showed that they could compete with the big boys and beat them at their own game. Wiener and his team put their lives on the line to record an important moment in history as it happened.

SOURCES

Tapley, Kristopher. “Michael Keaton’s Love of Journalism: The Paper, Live from Baghdad, Spotlight.” HitFix. January 27, 2015.

L.A. Story

Whenever I imagine what Los Angeles might be like I picture Steve Martin’s version of it in L.A. Story (1991), much like how I used to imagine New York City being like Woody Allen’s Manhattan (1979) before I actually went there. Obviously, the version of L.A. presented in Martin’s film is a romanticized and stylized take but he certainly seemed to capture the spirit of a certain social strata (white, upper-middle class) that was also touched upon in Robert Altman’s The Player (1992). Like with that film, Martin celebrates and satirizes the city’s culture in a way that only someone who has experienced it first hand can. The result is the West Coast answer to Manhattan and a film that would make a good double bill with Altman’s aforementioned film.

The opening credits play over a montage of L.A. culture albeit with a satirical spin, like four cars that all arrive at a four-way stop and proceed to politely wave each other on only to all go at once and crash into each other; there’s the pedestrian wearing a gas mask (on account of the city’s notorious smog); how everyone seems to be watering their lawn; and the traffic light that reads, “Uh Like Walk” and “Uh Like Don’t Walk.” It sets just the right humorous tone as we get a feel for the kind of laughs the film is going for.

We meet Harris K. Telemacher (Steve Martin), a deeply unhappy man who doesn’t realize it because he is so happy all the time as we are told by his voiceover narration. He’s one of those wacky weathermen you see on local television stations cracking lame jokes and wearing funny outfits despite having a Ph.D. in Arts and Humanities. Regardless, a young executive (Woody Harrelson) tells him, “more wacky less egghead.” Harris has lunch with a circle of superficial friends and meets Sara McDowel (Victoria Tennant), fresh off the plane from England and in town to write an article on the city for the London Times. He’s immediately smitten with her, so much so that he almost forgets about his girlfriend Trudi (Marilu Henner) when leaving the restaurant.

One night, while driving on the freeway, Harris’ car breaks down and an electronic traffic signs begins communicating with him. It offers guidance in the form of a riddle that he must figure out over the course of the film. Sara ends up interviewing him for her article which only intensifies his attraction towards her despite his brief fling with SanDeE (Sarah Jessica Parker), a sexy young woman from the Valley who sold him a pair of pants. Harris finds himself physically attracted to her but intellectually she’s a wasteland. Over the course of the film, Harris must decide whether he should stay involved with the vivacious SanDeE or get involved with the beautiful and brainy Sara.

There has always been a fascinating push/pull in Steve Martin’s career – a desire to be regarded as a serious artist (The Spanish Prisoner) and yet he does wacky comedies (The Jerk) to pay the bills. With L.A. Story, he gets to do both and in many respects it is his magnum opus as the screenplay (which he wrote) ambitiously blends broad humor sight gags with witty dialogue that sometimes references Shakespeare. In the scenes between him and Victoria Tennant (his wife at the time), one gets the feeling that Martin is wearing his heart on his sleeve and that he shares Harris’ hopelessly romantic aspirations. Harris is just trying to find love. When we meet him he’s in a passionless relationship with Trudi that almost seems like a business partnership more than anything else. Then, when Harris meets SanDeE (her name itself is a pretty funny gag) he thinks that maybe he’s found love but soon realizes that they have nothing in common even though the sex is great. However, when Harris meets Sara he knows she’s the real deal as they make an instant connection. Martin does a nice job of playing a guy of substance living in social strata that is devoid of it. With Sara, Harris finally meets someone that he can be himself with and doesn’t have to explain many of the intellectual references he makes. Martin wisely doesn’t try to imitate Woody Allen’s neurotic, nebbish characters and instead he tempers his wacky persona with a more wistful, romantic side, like his scenes with the intelligent freeway sign.

With her cute, little ‘20s flapper-esque hat and quirky personality, Victoria Tennant’s Sara is the Diane Keaton to Martin’s Woody Allen. Like Keaton’s character in Manhattan, Sara speaks her mind and doesn’t act like the people in Harris’ circle of friends, which is one of the things that he finds attractive about her. L.A. Story is also a sober reminder of just how gifted a comedienne Sarah Jessica Parker was before she hit it big with Sex and the City. She brings an endearing goofy charm to her carefree spirit of a character. SanDeE lacks a self-awareness that Harris finds refreshing.

The film sends up several clichés of L.A. culture, like how everyone carries a gun while driving on the freeway; or how everyone is so blasé about a strong earthquake; or the exotic variations of coffee everyone orders – with a lemon twist, of course; or how everyone drives everywhere, even a few feet to a neighbor’s house. None of these gags are very mean but rather good-natured pokes at the silliness of a lot of the city’s cultural practices and the stereotypes that everyone has of the place. Martin isn’t out to critique L.A. with biting satire but rather with affectionate parody.

L.A. Story is beautifully shot by British cinematographer Andrew Dunn (Gosford Park) who captures gorgeous sunrises and sunsets. The night scenes absolutely shimmer while the day scenes have a romantic, soft focus look to them. This all ties into the magic realism vibe that Martin is going for as he presents an idealized vision of L.A., which includes talking electronic freeway signs or how he avoids a traffic jam by riding on the sidewalk and through people’s backyards. Martin does lay it on a bit thick with the Shakespeare references, especially the obvious Hamlet quote complete with Rick Moranis as a British gravedigger but they never take you completely out of the romantic spell that he is trying to cast over the film.

Steve Martin first thought about the project that would become L.A. Story in 1984 when he and Victoria Tennant first became involved romantically, seeing it as love letter to their relationship. One day, he was driving down the freeway and thought about using one of its electronic signs in a film and began writing the screenplay. Martin had felt that the “ugly image” of L.A. had “been done so much, there’s nothing new about it. I wanted it to be L.A. through lovers’ eyes.” A native of the city, he had lived there for 25 years before making the film and was well-versed in its culture and distinctive idiosyncrasies. He wanted to capture the “calm desperation of rushing on and never pausing to ask, ‘What did I do for the last 10 years except figure out how to make a left turn on Santa Monica Boulevard?’”

However, he kept putting it aside because he found the task of writing his first original script on his own rather daunting: “I kept feeling it was too weird, so I’d put it away for a while, and then I would get it out again and work on it again.” After making Roxanne (1987), its success emboldened him to finish his script for L.A. Story. As he worked on the script, Martin decided to reference Shakespeare several times, quoting lines from Richard II, Hamlet, Love’s Labor’s Lost, and King Lear. He started off with only a couple of references and the rest were added later.

L.A. Story marked the second film Martin had made with producer Daniel Melnick (the first being Roxanne), veteran of such cinematic classics as Straw Dogs (1971) and Network (1976), who suggested hiring British director Mick Jackson. Melnick showed Martin a tape of the British television miniseries A Very British Coup to demonstrate the stylish look Jackson could bring to their film. The director was initially hesitant to accept the offer because he wondered what he could contribute to a film about L.A. and assumed that Martin preferred to work with little direction. However, this is exactly what the comedian wanted: an outsider’s perspective and a strong director. Martin soon found that he and Jackson shared a common interest in contemporary art and decided to reference the work of David Hockney throughout L.A. Story. For example, a swimming pool scene referenced his painting “California,” which depicted two figures floating on a raft in a pool.

L.A. Story received mixed reviews from critics. Roger Ebert gave the film four out of four stars and wrote, “It isn't thin or superficial; there is an abundance of observation and invention here, and perhaps because the filmmakers know they have so much good material, there's never the feeling that anything is being punched up, or made to carry more than its share.” In his review for the Washington Post, Hal Hinson wrote, “What saves L.A. Story is its soft-centered sweetness. The movie is a bonbon; it delivers a little sugar jolt. Instead of savaging the Angeleno vacuousness, Martin … embraces the town's space case innocence.” The Globe and Mail’s Rick Groen wrote, “Gracefully, wittily, charmingly, Martin reveals its dark truths while honouring its bright wish.”

However, in his review for The New York Times, Vincent Canby wrote, “The movie is less a narrative than an accumulation of gentle gags about smog, fads, freeways, dress, earthquakes, mating habits and trendy restaurants.” Entertainment Weekly gave the film a “B” rating and Owen Gleiberman wrote, “Martin, who supplies the rather doleful narration, certainly wins your empathy, but he spends too much time reining himself in … L.A. Story would have been funnier and more exhilarating if Martin had admitted that, in his wild-and-crazy way, he really belongs there.” USA Today gave the film two-and-a-half stars out of four and Mike Clark wrote, “L.A. Story is a mass of contradictions: an unexpectedly ambitious comedy that's not ambitious enough, a Steve Martin love poem to wife Victoria Tennant that serves her badly, and an oft-insane Martin script that needs a second creative madman behind the camera.”

Much like the characters in Manhattan, the ones in L.A. Story get into messy relationships but with the exception of Harris spend little to no time agonizing over them like in Woody Allen’s film because they have already got another affair going on the side. Sara offers a refreshing perspective for Harris, which he finds very attractive. For all of the satirical jabs Martin takes at L.A. one gets the impression that he also has a lot of affection for it and this comes through in the budding romance between Harris and Sara. Amid all of the superficiality of the city’s culture that surrounds them they can make a meaningful connection. At times, it feels like he’s making an epic statement about L.A. but the film also adopts a more intimate vibe during the scenes between Harris and Sara. “Why is it that we don’t always recognize the moment when love begins but we always know when it ends?” Harris says late in the film. It is a telling observation with a lot of truth to it. L.A. Story’s message is that there is someone for everyone – even in L.A.

SOURCES

Benenson, Laurie Halpern. “Steve Martin Targets L.A.” The New York Times. February 3, 1991.

Horn, John. “Steve Martin Has Eye for Los Angeles in L.A. Story.” Associated Press. February 5, 1991.

Murphy, Ryan. “Life’s No Joke for Shy Comic Martin.” The Advertiser. February 23, 1991.

Portman, Jamie. “Steve Martin Pens Comic Valentine to Favorite Town.” The Record. February 7, 1991.

Yakir, Dan. “L.A. Story.” Globe and Mail.” February 15, 1991.