George Clooney

by Mark Browning

  Clooney might look like a Clark Gable figure (although short of six feet) but he does not have the character of a screwball male. His social and sporting position is eroded (the curfew is arranged on the train as he sleeps, and his calls for a night on the town leave him looking lost and alone, the only one not following the fashion for an ostentatious fur coat) but this is not enough to place him in the role of emasculated hero. In the chase sequence he acts as the dominant hero, thinking up the blocking of the door, the swapping of clothes, and the gag of leaping from the building.

  As a screwball hero, there is a problem in the vagueness of Dodge’s background. As his name suggests, he is evasive when asked at the employment office how he has survived for the last 20 years. He speaks with the eloquence of an educated man, at least in comparison to his fellow players (he draws their attention to “tried and tested methods for diverting the defense from the ball carrier”) but exactly where this comes from or what he did in the war, we can only guess. As Dodge corrects a questioner who asks if he went to college, “Colleges” might be seen as a slight echo of Clooney’s own faltering experience with education. A deleted scene in the dining car features him saying that he was shot and taken out early but we have no corroboration for this. In other genres this might not matter, but screwball is closely related to matters of social status and education (in the sense of learning a moral lesson). Lexie rejects Leonard’s advances as clumsy and predictable and yet she ultimately accepts Dodge, although he shows no perceptible character change from first meeting to last. The only aspect of Dodge that is constantly emphasized is his age (by players, at the employment office, in a row with Lexie and Carter, and by a soldier as a provocation before the fight). In the row in the hotel foyer, the question of age surfaces, with Dodge asserting that Lexie (31) is too old for Carter (24) with Lexie retorting that Dodge (admitting to be at least 45) is too old for her.

  However, in screwball terms, it is unclear what he and Lexie have to learn from one another. Neither are brought to question serious aspects about their characters or beliefs, neither have to sacrifice anything (Dodge’s time as a player is up anyway and Lexie’s journalistic integrity is exonerated), and rather than being attracted by her aptitudes, Dodge is drawn to Lexie from some distance in the hotel foyer, simply by looks alone. Likewise, although there is certainly some wit in Dodge’s dialogue and a lack of stuffiness, it is not clear what suddenly makes her feel sufficiently drawn to him to ride off, literally, into the sunset with him. He is handsome but he is so when they first meet.

  In 1925, Lexie might observe to Leonard that there are “no rules,” but when Dodge talks of marriage as a next step for her, she does not question, as might be logical for an intelligent woman in this position, just how Dodge proposes to support her. The “What will become of us?” exchange feels like the epilogue of a Victorian novel, but the list of possibilities, some more frivolous than others (marriage, children, a car, or a spell in jail for tax-related offences) all seem equally possible. In 2008, narratives can hold all these as open choices. However, the final collection of photos includes a slow zoom out from their wedding picture, suggesting narrative closure under pressure of generic expectation. Here is perhaps the crux of the problem. Classic screwball expects a character arc, perhaps a particularly sharp one. Disparate characters are thrown together, learn something about each other, and are changed by the collision with their opposites. Neither Dodge nor Lexie, nor indeed Carter, really changes. What does is wider society, and it is this aspect of the narrative that is more convincing than the characterization.

  Leatherheads is based on a script by sports journalists Rick Reilly and Duncan Brantley from 1993 and had additional uncredited input from Stephen Schiff and Steven Soderbergh. Clooney claimed that all but two scenes bear his hand as writer and that therefore he should get a credit: a position rejected by the Writer’s Guild of America. Consequently, Clooney resigned his position as a voting member of the Writer’s Guild of America but is still a Financial Core Member. The film has a strongly personal element for Clooney and received its world premiere in his hometown of Maysville, Kentucky. However, the lack of detailed DVD extras beyond some deleted scenes, without titles or explanations, feels like this is a project that Clooney put time and energy into, and there seems some residual bitterness about the way he feels he was treated in not being given sufficient (or indeed any) credit for the work he did on the script.

  Up in the Air (Jason Reitman, 2009)

  Craig:

  Do you want to be in the boat?

  Ryan:

  Yeah, alone.

  The opening credits may be intended to reflect a collection of vintage postcards, and Reitman talks on the DVD commentary about trying to avoid identification with a specific era, but the movement of segmented lines and text across quintessential images of the United States also evokes Hitchcock’s North by Northwest (1959) and links the protagonist of Reitman’s film, Ryan Bingham (George Clooney), with that of Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) in the earlier film. It is however only a light nod, as generically, although both are concerned with the identity of the protagonist, the two are very different, underlined by the following voice-over explanation of Ryan in which he clearly explains “Who the fuck am I?” He is a character who almost operates above the realm of mortal men, dropping down to deliver his bad news and then returning to his rarified life of executive travel.

  The use of nonactors in the montage segments where we cut between individuals being fired gives those scenes real resonance, at a time when millions of Americans are experiencing similar pain. It would have been very hard with scripted lines to match the sense of reality or range of emotional reactions in which a visit to Chuck E. Cheese becomes an unattainable luxury. Reitman carefully prepared those involved so that they could be fired on camera and the improvised reactions be captured on film. A later section of nonactors, with some figures appearing again, shows responses to the question of how they manage to carry on, which provides a sense of balance, potential hope, and dignity to their situation. By mixing nonactors with professionals, Reitman gains a strong blend of the dramatic with almost a documentary sense. Regular collaborator J. K. Simmons plays Bob, a father seeking the approval of his kids (adding improvised lines about his family with pictures of his actual children) who is won over by Ryan’s appeal not to give up on his dream of becoming a chef (as well as gaining more status for Ryan as someone who makes the process more palatable and who prepares well).

  Walter Kirn’s 2001 novel of the same name begins with a scene in which Ryan befriends a stranger in an adjacent seat, and this is where he explains his whole philosophy. Reitman filmed a version of this, ending with the powerful shot of the other man just about to say goodbye as they walk through departures but abruptly cut off visually by a partition. It is an effective sequence, but by cutting it we see more of Ryan explaining his philosophy himself, and his extraordinariness is emphasized rather than sharing the common experience of a liberating conversation with a stranger. Most of us will have traveled on planes; very few of us do so in the manner or volume of Ryan. Reitman’s script massively expands the role of Alex who represents only a casual sexual exchange in the book. Kirn’s snappy dialogue with a typical fellow male passenger, complete with restaurant tips, is transposed into flirtatious context in the banter with Alex (even with specific terms like the sexually ambiguous question to Alex, “Can you push?”).

  The book is much more unremittingly from Ryan’s point of view, including references to his crumbling health, and it becomes clear in Kirn’s narrative that his character is undergoing some kind of breakdown, almost akin to the schizoid Patrick Bateman in Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho (1991) or Tyler Durden in Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club (1996). Ryan claims to be a victim of identity theft but it becomes clear that this is not true. He denies being in places where he has been sighted, he carries around a piece of luggage claiming it belongs to someone else (but that is revealed to contain his posse
ssions), and most telling, his grand philosophy, entitled “The Garage” (rebranded as the backpack theory in the film), along with the lucrative book deal, collapses when it transpires it was copied, wittingly or not, from someone he met a few years ago. Like Palahniuk’s novel and David Fincher’s 1999 film version, there is even mention of a drop in cabin pressure as reality crashes in on the protagonist.4 The novel is perhaps more overtly existential, with Ryan describing his life in what he terms “Airworld” and describing himself as “a sort of mutation, a new species.”5 Reitman filmed a sequence with Clooney walking through a number of typical sets, dressed in a spacesuit, but ultimately felt that the point about him being disconnected and living in his own world could be made without resorting to such existential devices, breaking the predominant mode of naturalism in the film.

  Kirn’s Ryan is a less empathetic character, clearly reliant on prescription drugs, constantly plotting ways to extort money or air miles from his employer, using random vocabulary from self-improvement tapes, and expending effort avoiding Linda, a well-meaning girlfriend. Reitman shifts her dialogue (“We miss you, Ryan”) and that of another girlfriend Wendy (“You’re awfully isolated, the way you live”) both to his elder sister, Kara, making his connective failures familial rather than romantic.6 In the novel, Alex has to remind him that she was someone he coached through the loss of a job three years ago. For Kirn, Ryan’s mention of aircraft lights as his wingtip passes over is part of a mental breakdown rather than Reitman’s use of the phrase in the film, where it feels like the elegiac bestowing of a blessing on the people below him and represents a character more at peace with himself.7 The novel has Ryan spending time with Julie, his younger sister, as she gets cold feet about her impending wedding. Reitman shifts this to an uncertain bridegroom, and through the more rounded figure of Natalie forces his version of Ryan to adopt an actively positive view of marriage. Reitman’s script takes occasional phrases from the book, like the poetic description of Ryan’s role as “ferrying wounded souls across the river of dread,” but generally uses it as implicit backstory.8

  In Kirn’s novel there is a description of Ryan’s realization that what he had thought of as far away was actually now within reach and that “the world was really one place.”9 In a brave move, Reitman filmed but ultimately cut this speech, involving a near-death experience from Ryan’s youth and being airlifted from an accident by helicopter. It appears to be a key piece of backstory, motivating everything Ryan does, but Reitman manages to convey this in visual terms, especially by compressing Kirn’s opening line (“to know me you have to fly with me”) with his “To know me is to fly with me” montage. This is the most stylized sequence in the film and close to parody with whooshing sound effects as Ryan dexterously whirls his small case on and off the security conveyor belt and passes through security with choreographed ease. It feels like a trailer in itself, condensing Ryan’s whole lifestyle into his well-practiced time-saving routines at airports. There is almost a balletic sense here, and it could be said that through the course of the film, Ryan learns to dance with another (Alex) rather than just move to his own particular rhythm. This is literally so at the party they crash together, but in a wider sense he has to accommodate another individual in his life, which, as he says, is all about moving.

  The character of Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick) is not overtly present in the novel but is possibly inspired by Lisa, a minor character, new to Ryan’s firm, who is small, dark-haired, and an expert in a form of management consultancy that can be carried out electronically. Reitman’s character is reflected in her name as an ambitious, driven individual who attacks her keyboard (typing “with purpose” as she calls it) and who favors new technology as a way to make the firing process more efficient. Her buttoned-down nature is made literal in her costume, a business suit, which she wears in every scene in which she appears. Such attention to detail is also reflected in the fact that Clooney’s character wears only what might be realistically packed in the kind of small suitcase that he carries in the movie.

  Reitman’s film is based on the triangular relationship of Ryan, Alex (Vera Farminga), and Natalie, but Ryan is very much at the apex of that triangle. The two female parts, though interesting in themselves, matter only insofar as they relate to Ryan, who occupies almost every scene on screen. The triangle constitutes an alternative family, with both women representing a challenge to Ryan’s hermetically sealed lifestyle. Alex, as a romantic diversion, is a quasi-wife, and Natalie is a daughter figure (stating on the phone that Ryan is not a potential figure of attraction, especially since “He’s old”). She is a challenge in a different sphere, his career, looking to supersede the previous generation.

  The initial meeting of Alex and Ryan, swapping views about loyalty cards, may seem a little like two nerdy kids in a playground transposed to a more glamorous setting. Alex initially may seem one-dimensional, describing herself as an overt reflection of his desires (“think of me as yourself, only with a vagina”), but in his discovery of such an apparent ideal, Ryan fails to notice that she is compartmentalizing her life, just as he does his, and she admits to having done a little research on him. The revelation of a husband and family, a whole secret other life, should hardly come as a surprise. In her longest speech to Natalie about what is important in seeking a husband or long-term partner, she mentions family. When the question “How do you sleep at night?” is thrown at him at the outset, an implicit answer is that he does not have a family or children to whom he has to explain himself. By contrast, Natalie finds that she cannot do the job easily in person (with Ryan) or via a screen to the weeping Mr. Samuels (Steve Eastin), a real individual. Given to forming romantic bonds and without Ryan’s emotional hardness, she is upset by the firing process.

  Although Ryan denies his connections to other people, he does have them, and it is through Alex that his backstory, so to speak, is teased out. He shows her his old school, with photos of himself as a college athlete (with real shots of the young Clooney) and iconic spots around the school site. Ryan has developed to the point where he can reveal these connections, thereby making himself vulnerable, and the smile that he and Alex exchange at the basketball practice might suggest that they are on the way to forming a more permanent relationship. Clooney’s improvised calling “I’m lonely” after Alex leaves him underlines the fragility of his emotional state. Inexperienced in involved relationships, he leaps straight to the nesting stage, buying and furnishing an apartment in Omaha in an elaborate sequence, ultimately cut from the finished film, only for Alex to fail to show up, prompting his uninvited appearance at her house.

  The opening of the film underlines the heartlessness of Western capitalism in Ryan’s delivering of unwelcome news. If viewers are affected by Clooney’s charm, the pill is sweetened but his character remains fairly dark. He makes promises he knows he will not keep, stating to fired employee Steve (Zach Galifianakis) “This is just the beginning,” knowing full well he will never see him again. Ryan is avoiding responsibility, most obviously in his family and personal life but also professionally. He flies in, delivers devastating news, and flies out again. When the possibility arises that an employee has committed suicide, he is brutally dismissive of following up on what people do after being laid off (“No good can come of that”). The appearance of Natalie and Alex force him to start to take some responsibility, to edge out into the world of risk taking, and although he is still living a nomadic lifestyle at the end, he has been shaken out of his comfort zone. Reflected in the question that he mishears (“Would you like the can, sir?”), his inescapable mortality lies just beneath his pampered existence.

  There are cinematic precursors to such a role. In Pretty Woman (Garry Marshall, 1990), Edward Lewis (Richard Gere) flies around the United States buying up companies and breaking them up to be resold at a greater profit. Both films, although part romantic comedy, have at their core a good-looking hero delivering unpalatable news about the fate of companies and individuals at th
e hands of a ruthless economic market. Like Ryan, Edward also is avoiding commitment by a life of wealth and privilege, which is challenged when he meets a woman (Vivian, played by Julia Roberts) who makes him reappraise his views. Like Clooney, Gere is an actor whose performances have been criticized as being based on facial twitches and good looks alone (also subject to sporadic gossip about his sexuality) and who inspires fierce loyalty and dislike in equal measure.

  We hear only the opening rhetoric of Ryan’s backpack speech. It seems like an inversion of E. M. Forster’s mantra, “Only connect,” but without explaining how. Away from the gradually increasing scale and glamor of the lighting and stylized shots of Ryan’s conference speeches, the blunt truth of his philosophy is less beguiling. He explains to his older sister, Kara (Amy Morton), that “I tell people how to avoid commitment,” prompting a bemused reaction: “What kind of fucked-up message is that?” When Natalie confronts Ryan, while taking one of the photos for his sister, she describes him as a 12-year-old, and there is arguably something emotionally retarded about a man in his 40s who has never made a home for himself.