Review: Invictus
If there is one scene in Clint Eastwood’s Invictus that is sure to provoke derisive laughter from cynical viewers, it is that which occurs just before the film’s long climactic sequence detailing the events of the 1995 Rugby World Cup final between South Africa and New Zealand. In this scene, President Mandela (Morgan Freeman) touches down in a helicopter on the Springboks’ training field, while they are going through their final drills the evening before the big match. As the President makes his descent, a simpering American pop ballad (by some band with the imbecilic name of Overtone) spells out the film’s themes of racial reconciliation and the unifying power of sport in thuddingly unsubtle terms: “It’s not just a game, you can’t throw me away / I’ve put all I had on the line… I’m colourblind.” Eastwood here once again shows his total unconcern for any possible accusations of hokiness, much as he did on last year’s Gran Torino when he chose to play his own half-sung, half-croaked rendition of the title song over the closing credits.
But the cynic’s scoffs at this moment may prevent him from hearing the crucial sound that persists throughout the rest of the scene, after Overtone’s dreadful song has melted away: this sound is the whirring of the propeller of Mandela’s helicopter, as it gradually slows down after landing. This loud, irritating whirring forces Mandela and his main interlocutor, the Springboks captain Francois Pienaar (Matt Damon), to speak loudly, and we ourselves find we have to strain a little to catch every word. These two elements of the sound design of this scene – the hokey, casual insertion of this stupidly obvious but at the same time bizarrely incongruous song, and the emphatic rendering of the propeller’s whirring – are, in their close entanglement, emblematic of the film’s central dichotomy: between bombastic release and the close detailing of the particular elements that contribute to this release, this bombast.
The use of the helicopter is a paradigmatic example of this detailing of elements, through whose functioning the entire narrative of Invictus is constituted. It’s common enough for helicopters to appear in movies, and for the characters to have to speak loudly to be heard over them. But when this happens, it is invariably imbued with a sense of urgency – usually, the hero is about to take off so as to escape, or catch up to, something or someone. In the scene from Invictus, Mandela has just touched down, and there is no urgency about him; the whirring of the propeller does not signify any such hurried need for heroic exploits. Rather, it is there as a reminder of the enormous network of staff that Mandela has behind him – his helicopter pilot, his bodyguards, his ministerial and domestic staff.
The whirring propeller is metonymic of this entire network of people, technology and energy that make the presidential office function – and it is such networks that one is never shown in mainstream films, where attention is always diverted from the mechanics of how people get from one place to another, how much money things cost (when Pienaar’s maid learns he will be meeting the President, she immediately tells him he must ask Mandela to make the buses in her area cheaper and more efficient), how much time it takes for a single event to reach its completion (for a helicopter propeller to wind down after landing, or for the ball to fall out of a rugby scrum), and how these repeated actions and social gestures inflect individual and group identity. Eastwood has given us a mainstream film that is alive to all these questions, a film whose sentimentality is offset but also joyously enhanced by its elemental detailing. It is an imperfect film, but a film of true, startling beauty and conviction. The cynics may be too busy rolling their eyes to see it – but, as Slavoj Zizek says, the cynics are wrong.
helicopter pilot training
12/02/10 - 11:00 AM
I don’t believe I have ever read such a detailed piece on the use of a helicopter in a movie scene. Thank you for in sites!
Walter D. Wright
31/07/10 - 7:25 PM
Dear Conall Cash. I understand you are co-editor of the ‘large readership’ of the Screen Machine. I as well, studies Music Theatre and spent 25 years in the film and instructional design area. I wrote scripts and producted training and motion pictures as well as occasionally in front of the lense.
I will take issue to you comments. As you are aware, the arts are very subjective. I believe a critic job is to pick apart a movie – even good ones. After all look at the sloppy piece of work which won the Oscar over “Invictus.” A story about a drunken cowboy singer. Oh, how original. Oh, how trite. You were so much looking for every detail, you missed the magic and message of the picture. As we were constantly reminded in my trade, “Don’t let your message get lost in the method.”
In simplicity, whether an American pop music was used as the helecopter landed is totally irrelevant. The movie’s message: One man’s suffering because of standards, we do not understand in America, which is totally different that South African Standards. And because you attended the Monash University, does not necessarily make you an expert in South African problems. As far as I know, you could be very bigoted.
Nelson Mandella was imprisoned for 30 years, yet came out, a forgiving man. He tried hard to pass that trait on, not by legislation, as Americans do; but by the simplist of means. Uniting a people, Black and White in a common cause of Sports.
It was not his fault if many of the citizenry were like your mindset, and continued to blame each other’s ancestors’ for the ills of years ago, and held on to hatred. That had nothing to do with Clint Eastwood’s reason for the film. Did it ever cross your mind that Clint did not pick out the music “Colorblind?” And even if he did, we need that message in todays’ world.
Colorbindedness is not just pigment in the skin; but has to do with inward belief systems, who a person is.
Think, or ‘over thinking and over analyzing’ is what is causing issues and killing in the Middle-East. Over 4.5 thousand of years of hatred. When will it stop. Films as “The Kingdom,” an excellent one; but I am sure you will find offensive, was meant to educate and show why the conflict exists. Both people on each side of the issue love their families and want the best for them. Both love their countries. Some are trying to change the hatred, while others are building a bonfire. The terrorists are not more Islamic than the KKK are Christian. I have lived there and have close friends in Syria, Iraq, Iran, Ba-rain, Egypt, Lebanon, and Israel. I do not pretend to understand the problems. But I know them better than you do. You may be from South Africa, and yet are still critical for a story and culture you should know something about.
Walter D. Wright
31/07/10 - 7:32 PM
Something for you to tear apart:http://eplapool.blogspot.com/
Kristal
02/08/10 - 12:09 AM
I couldnt agree more. Its like the scene from independance day where the president gets everybody together and builds up everybodys inner spirit as a human race. in that movie, people thought about how dumb the aliens looked but rly its all about humanity and the presidents speech:
” In less than an hour, aircraft from here will join others from around the world, and you will be launching the largest aerial battle in the history of mankind. Mankind. That word should have new meaning for all of us today. We can’t be consumed by our petty differences anymore. We will be united in our common interests. Perhaps it’s fate that today is the Fourth of July, and you will once again be fighting for our freedom. Not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution… but from annihilation. We’re fighting for our right to live. To exist. And should we win the day, the Fourth of July will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day when the world declared in one voice: We will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight! We’re going to live on! We’re going to survive! Today we celebrate our Independence Day!”
-kristal xoxo <3
Hans
16/02/11 - 11:06 AM
Why would choice of music not be important in a movie? Do you really think Lost in Translation would be a good movie if it had Meat Loaf and Abba songs playing all the time? I don’t..
These are mistakes I’d be happy to forgive old movies, like the horrible slapstick jokes in awesome 70’s japanese kungfu movies, from directors who are experimenting. but this movie doesn’t experiment.
It uses a whole lot of cliché’s (such as the fade-in effect on the prison scene.. my god!).
The movie contains too much mistakes I think, while the story is just aiming right for the Oscars.
Just my two cents :)