{"id":403,"date":"2011-04-15T14:01:10","date_gmt":"2011-04-15T18:01:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/?p=403"},"modified":"2011-04-15T14:02:36","modified_gmt":"2011-04-15T18:02:36","slug":"a-roundup-of-reviews-for-the-conspirator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/2011\/04\/15\/a-roundup-of-reviews-for-the-conspirator\/","title":{"rendered":"A roundup of reviews for &#8220;The Conspirator&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"e26b170012445c56d240655bdd03f7bf\" data-index=\"1\" style=\"float: left; margin: 10px 10px 10px 0;\">\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"><!--\r\ngoogle_ad_client = \"ca-pub-5595881567027133\";\r\n\/* Medium Rectangle *\/\r\ngoogle_ad_slot = \"8584504377\";\r\ngoogle_ad_width = 300;\r\ngoogle_ad_height = 250;\r\n\/\/-->\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"\r\nsrc=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/show_ads.js\">\r\n<\/script>\n<\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"269\" data-permalink=\"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/2011\/03\/06\/savannah-stopover-preview-7-sanders-bohlke\/window-17\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/window6-e1299440530555.jpg?fit=67%2C77\" data-orig-size=\"67,77\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;4.8&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;NIKON D40&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;1244646881&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;38&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;200&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0.033333333333333&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"window\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/window6-e1299440530555.jpg?fit=67%2C77\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/window6-e1299440530555.jpg?fit=67%2C77\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/window6-e1299440530555.jpg?resize=67%2C77\" alt=\"\" title=\"window\" width=\"67\" height=\"77\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-269\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/>I already posted my own review of <em>The Conspirator<\/em> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/2011\/04\/12\/a-review-robert-redfords-the-conspirator\/\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>I thought it would be interesting to look at few other reviews.<\/p>\n<p>In <em>The New Yorker<\/em>, Anthony Lane complains a bit about the overly obvious parallels to today: &#8220;one wishes that the director had found the grace to touch upon, rather than belabor, the parallels between the conspirators of 1865 and the present-day inmates of Guant\u00c3\u00a1namo: the humiliating hoods that they are forced to wear, and the adjudicating presence of a military tribunal instead of a civilian jury.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Lane mocks the soft lighting and mistiness of many of the scenes and complains that James McAvoy doesn&#8217;t have enough to do as Frederick Aiken. But Lane has much good to say about the film:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Still, despite these disappointments credit is due to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Conspirator.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d It may never supply the more troublesome, hard-bitten version of events that is there for the asking, but it does trace a minor, absorbing tributary of the vast Lincoln story, hitherto explored by specialists alone; whether Mary Surratt, for instance, will rate a mention, let alone a sequence, in Steven Spielberg\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s forthcoming Lincoln movie remains to be seen. Robin Wright is drawn and dignified in the martyrish role, and you believe in her heart-torn response as Aiken attempts to rescue her, late in the day, by incriminating her son. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>At <em>The New York Times<\/em>, A. O. Scott ultimately sees The Conspirator as a &#8220;well-meaning, misbegotten movie&#8221; that ironically feeds into a larger &#8220;Dixie sentimentality&#8221; by making Surratt so stoic and the federal government so hapless, while ignoring the entire issue of slavery:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Dixie sentimentality is woven into the fabric of American culture. But it is curious that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Conspirator,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d while it includes a scene in which Mary speaks with tragic, misty eloquence about \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the cause,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d declines to note, even in passing, that her cause was the defense of a way of life built on the labor of human chattel. If you think I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m nit-picking or being politically correct, try to imagine a movie about the Nuremburg trials that never mentioned Jews, or a film about modern terrorism from which the word Islam was banished. <\/p>\n<p>The omission matters because it undermines the film\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s integrity, helping to turn what might have been a vivid and thoughtful ethical drama into a flat, tendentious history lecture. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Ty Burr with <em>The Boston Globe<\/em> has even <a href=\"http:\/\/www.boston.com\/ae\/movies\/articles\/2011\/04\/15\/redford_jumps_on_soapbox_with_the_conspirator\/\">more objections<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;The Conspirator\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 is an important film, on an important subject, that has had the life beaten out of it by Robert Redford, a man who should know better. How is it possible that the moving force behind the Sundance Film Festival, an event ostensibly dedicated to keeping the cinema young, has made such a stodgy, ham-handed waxwork?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Christy Lemire with the AP has similar <a href=\"http:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/Entertainment\/wireStory?id=13361103\">complaints<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Redford&#8217;s film, based on a script by James D. Solomon, is stately and respectable to a fault: It&#8217;s too safe. It feels the need to bang us over the head with how important it is. And Redford is trying way too hard to make these events from a century and a half ago seem like a relevant metaphor for where we are as a nation post-9\/11.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Karina Mitchell with CBS News <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/8301-31749_162-20054295-10391698.html\">doesn&#8217;t much like<\/a> the movie either:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;The Conspirator&#8221; gets bogged down by meticulous attention to historical facts and political tone. Add the philosophical undercurrent that delves into the justice system and prevailing ethics and Redford&#8217;s film feels like it belongs more in a high school lecture hall than on a big screen.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>It will be interesting to see how the film does at the box office.<\/p>\n<!--CusAds0-->\n<div style=\"font-size: 0px; height: 0px; line-height: 0px; margin: 0; padding: 0; clear: both;\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I already posted my own review of The Conspirator here. I thought it would be interesting to look at few other reviews. In The New Yorker, Anthony Lane complains a bit about the overly obvious parallels to today: &#8220;one wishes&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"more-link-p\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/2011\/04\/15\/a-roundup-of-reviews-for-the-conspirator\/\">Read more &rarr;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[5,8],"tags":[29],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1gN9R-6v","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}