The Old Man and the Gun (2018)

Written and directed by: David Lowery 

Last year Harry Dean Stanton did the retirement film about as memorably as one could. He played an old man learning to be social and pondering his mortality in Lucky. While Lucky may not have officially been a retirement project, Stanton died shortly after the film’s release. Robert Redford’s appearance in The Old Man and the Gun, by contrast, has explicitly been labelled his retirement film. It’s a work that takes on this label more awkwardly than Lucky. Redford’s character lives like a younger man: he goes on dates and fearlessly tempts the law to come arrest him.

Yet what makes The Old Man and the Gun work as a retirement film is the way it focuses on its protagonist. While watching the film, I broke with my usual vernacular and thought of The Old Man and the Gun not as a David Lowery, but as a Robert Redford movie. Redford’s stamp is established early in the film through the facial-focused shots of a warm conversation between the newly acquainted Forrest Tucker (Redford) and Jewel (Sissy Spacek).

Forrest (an actual historical figure) is subsequently pursued by a detective (Casey Affleck) who he calmly confronts along the way. We learn of Forrest’s history in which he has escaped prison 17 times. For the most part, the film is simply a long version of the clash song “Bank Robber” (“My daddy was a bank robber/he never hurt nobody/he just liked to live that way/and he loved to steal your money.”), though it does introduce some complexities along the way (ie the families he started and left behind). The film also remains ambiguous on Tucker’s exact relationship to mortality. There’s a scene early in the film where he says he has a list of things he wants to do, and Jewel interprets this as a bucket list. Forrest’s behaviour later in the film seems to confirm Jewels’ interpretation.

Or does it? Credit Lowery’s solid writing or credit history (which the movies seems to have been relatively true too), but Forrest Tucker’s story is one that ends without ending. Some indie movies feel like they don’t have a conclusion, but The Old Man and the Gun is a clear case of a work that doesn’t-end in an unambiguously poetic fashion. If it is Robert Redford’s final work, it’s a wonderfully subtle note to go out on, but if it’s not it should equally be celebrated as having re-endeared a new generation of viewers to a legend.

Robot & Frank (2012)

Written by: Christopher D.  Ford, Directed by: Jake Schreier

The title of Robot and Frank sets a high bar. The film shares a name with the famous actor who plays its protagonist (Frank Langella) paired bluntly with the plain but inevitably provocative word “robot”. Real robots of course may not be very profound entities: they exist to mundanely reproduce the tasks of humans. Cinematically, however, including a robot amongst your cast is an ambitious undertaking. A character can’t simply be a robot. Robots are attention grabbing: we expect them to be interesting, to break with the conventionality we expect from human characters.

One of the reasons why Star Wars captured my (and no doubt others’) imagination, despite my general disinterest in action films is that it makes use of the right kind of robot. R2-D2 and C3-PO are fully articulate and come across as conscious while nonetheless clearly possessing a different quality of consciousness from their human companions. In existing on this slightly different plane  Star Wars’ droids (inspired by the bickering peasants from Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress)  add a humorous quality to their films, even when they are not outright engaged in a gag.

Star Wars of course, is largely a kid friendly series. This means certain questions about what it actually means to be a droid: to actually exist in an overlapping, but distinct reality, go unanswered. Sure, its sort of implied that the droids aren’t really conscious, yet the main characters are affectionate towards them, presumably because it would be too disturbing for (especially, but not exclusively, young) viewers for them not to be.

Robot and Frank, meanwhile, is not so much a kid friendly movie. But rather than existing in a differential plane from Star Wars, it represents an adult continuation of its logic. The titular robot (voiced by Peter Sarsgaard) implicitly provokes Frank and viewers to ask if it is conscious, while insistently denying that it is. Robot and Frank is a piece where no one character’s voice is reliable, adding depth to this dilemma.

When I call Robot and Frank ambitious I mean several things. For one, I acknowledge, oxymoronically, that it is quite a simple story. Creating a plot that feels profound, but can also be retold in a few sentences is an achievement in its own right. But unlike say, A Ghost Story, or other films of that ilk, Robot and Frank also embodies the characteristics of more conventionally ambitious films: it is set in an imagined near-future and brings together several plot lines. The plot lines are medium to high stakes, yet they manage  not to be over the top. In all, they form a story with the feel of a fable, but without the associated predictability.

When we are introduced to Frank, it is made clear that his is a story of an old man who has issues taking care of himself. I say issues because the real world is not so black and white. Is he “incapable” of taking care of himself? Is it fair to talk about his age? In the film’s opening scene we are introduced to Frank as he eats a bowl of cereal in his somewhat cluttered house and finds the milk has gone bad.  So Frank is not 100% on top of things: but he still clearly knows that things aren’t ok thus allowing the protectiveness of his two children (Liv Tyler and) particularly his son (James Marsden) to come across as condescending.

Robot and Frank presents us with such situations, leaving it up to viewers to determine exactly who is in the right and wrong. Frank is a morally ambiguous in addition to being ambiguous in his role as a source of perspective. This is what justifies the robot’s place in his story. Though for different reasons, the robot’s degree of morality and degree of self-awareness are also left open for interpretation.

I suppose this is why Robot and Frank feels, almost, like a fable. It’s about an unlikely “couple” who overcome their limitations and learn to be empathetic toward one another. And that’s about all the film offers in terms of a message. Its moral, I suppose, is
“be empathetic,” but since that is such a simple, unpretentious idea, Robot and Frank does not come across as preachy. What matters with Robot and Frank is not so much its message, but how it builds it via meditations on technology and change.

Robot and Frank manages to be a lot of things over the course of its simple narrative. It arguably offers critiques of modernity and hipster capitalism.  It is a tragic work, but barely, as it ends ringing with a restrained optimism: one that suggests reconciliation between generations and worldviews is possible. Robot and Frank can be appreciated for finding this artistically pleasing tonal balance, but I suppose its true importance is in the robot cannon. As I said, robots cannot simply be: they need to be robots for a reason: and in the case of this story, screenwriter Christopher Ford sure found a reason.

Lucky (2017)

Directed by: John Caroll Lynch. Written by: Logan Sparks and Drago Sumonja

Lucky’s story is simple, so there is little one can say about it without giving too much away. That is not to say, however, that the film is unenjoyable. Lucky can be described as being in the same, broad style as Jim Jarmusch’s Paterson, but is far more accessible than the 2016 film. Both works follow characters through the repetitive mundanity of their days, and in both films audiences are challenged to glean enjoyment by identifying heavily with the realist lives of their protagonists (for example exchanging pleasantries with the quirky folks at one’s local watering hole), rather than looking for some fantastical escape. Unlike Paterson, a film with almost no plot )save for some poetically-quaint tragedy at its end), Lucky is quick to introduce viewers to a weighty point of struggle in its protagonist’s life: his bout with mortality.

“He who’s not busy being born is busy dying,” Bob Dylan reminds us in “It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding).” For many of us that way of thinking is an ever-present but subtle demon in our heads. Death may come, but not for an eternity. Lucky (Harry Dean Stanton)’s dilemma is he does not know what head space to put that thought in. He is lucky in that despite being a very thin, pack-a-day-smoker at an advanced age, he passes his health exams with flying colors. His miracle body is as healthy as it has ever been. This means that on the one hand he can put the thought of death in the back of his mind with much of the rest of us. On the other hand, however,  he is old, so despite Lucky’s general good health, his doctor nonetheless feels compelled to put existential thoughts into his head. Lucky thus exposes the ultimate limits of luck. A person can be “lucky” in the sense of living for a long time, yet even such “lucky” people must exist with the burden of knowing that each time a new day arrives, they are one day closer to death. This tension contributes to Lucky’s subtle, but compelling dilemma. He is a steadfast socially awkward man who must decide whether he is in a hurry or not to overcome his shortcomings and be at peace with his eventual demise.

 

When I watched the film I did not realize its star, Harry Dean Stanton, had died two weeks previously. While it would be a mistake to project an actor’s personality onto a superficially similar character he portrays, that knowledge will no doubt allow viewers to appreciate the film with an additional degree of depth. Lucky is the light and sometimes funny story of a man contemplating his ultimate legacy, so Stanton’s playing the role is poetically fitting. If simple, multi-tonal, gently-existential filmmaking is of interest to you, or if you simply like David Lynch and tortoises, check out Lucky in theatres today!