Raw L. The Ridley Scott Encyclopedia

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media phenomenon of the term “chick flick” is in itself evi-

dence of the phenomenon. Furthermore, this trend has

developed in conjunction with other female-oriented cultural

forms such as CHICK LIT (the works of writers such as Jane

Green, Freya North, and Helen Fielding) and chicks-televi-

sion (Ally McBeal, Sex and the City, Desperate Housewives).

Examples of recent successful chick flicks include CUR-

TIS HANSON’s IN HER SHOES, produced by Ridley Scott,

based on the novel by JENNIFER WEINER, is another good

example of the genre. Roberta Garrett has discussed the

birth of “POSTMODERN” chick flicks that move away from

the domestic and maternal towards a consistent focus on the

tension between traditional notions of femininity and

female educational and career aspirations. Such films regis-

ter the triumph of the liberal rather than the radical femi-

nist vision of female empowerment. Although she does not

discuss In Her Shoes directly, the film can be approached in

this way.

Reference

Roberta Garrett, Postmodern Chick Flicks: The Return of the

Woman’s Film (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave, 2007).

Bibliography

Jo Berry and Angie Errigo, Chick Flicks: Movies Women Love (Lon-

don: Orion Books, 2004); Samantha Cook, The Rough Guide to

Chick Flicks (London: Rough Guides Ltd., 2006); Brenda Cooper,

“Chick Flicks as Feminist Texts: The Appropriation of the Male

Gaze in Thelma & Louise,” Women’s Studies in Communication 23,

no.3 (Fall 2000): 277–306.

CHICK LIT

A term used to denote genre fiction written for and mar-

keted to young women, especially single, working women in

their twenties and thirties. The genre’s creation was spurred

on, if not exactly created, by Sue Townsend’s Adrian Mole

diaries, originally published in Great Britain in the 1980s,

which inspired Adele Lang’s Confessions of a Sociopathic

Social Climber: The Katya Livingston Chronicles in the mid-

1990s. Later with the appearance of Helen Fielding’s Bridget

Jones’ Diary and similar works; the genre continued to sell

well in the 2000s, with chick lit titles topping bestseller lists

and the creation of imprints devoted entirely to chick lit.

JENNIFER WEINER’s novel In Her Shoes is a good example

of the genre; the book was later filmed by CURTIS HAN-

SON and produced by Ridley Scott.

CHILDHOOD

Several Scott films deal with the subject of childhood. In

ALIEN, the monstrous birth of the alien out of Kane’s

(JOHN HURT’s) chest suggests that children can be some-

how monstrous—especially if their parents are corrupt. By

contrast, LEGEND shows how children can be extraordinar-

ily resilient in the face of adversity: Jack (TOM CRUISE)

manages to resist Darkness’s (TIM CURRY’s) attacks and

emerge triumphant in the end. The same also applies to ALL

THE INVISIBLE CHILDREN—“JONATHAN,” where

groups of children are shown getting on with their lives in

the midst of devastation. Despite the lack of resources, they

understand the significance of group identity, with each

looking out for the other. THE BROWNING VERSION

shows what happens when groups of children—especially

boys—are placed in an unnatural, rule-bound environment

where they have little chance to express themselves. They

grow up inhibited, often incapable of expressing themselves

except through violent means (e.g., bullying). Childhood can

prove problematic even for the cleverest people; in

NUMB3RS we are made well aware that Charlie Eppes

(DAVID KRUMHOLTZ) had a difficult time, particularly

during his teenage years when he attended the same classes

as his elder brother Don (ROB MORROW), even though he

was five years younger. Being a thirteen-year-old prodigy in

college proved equally problematic for Charlie, as he had no

time to develop emotionally. The same could apply to the

teenage boy (TONY SCOTT) in Scott’s early short film BOY

AND BICYCLE—which perhaps helps to explain why he

chooses to take a day off school and go riding instead

around the streets near his home. He seems like a typical

teenager of the early 1960s who seeks freedom from a tradi-

tional type of education (based on singing Christian hymns

such as “Onward Christian Soldiers”) yet remains subject to

his parents’ authority.

Those who try to be different from the herd such as

Taplow (BEN SILVERSTONE) in The Browning Version are

ostracized or dismissed as “sissies.”The theme is continued

in a different way in MONKEY TROUBLE,where Eva’s

(THORA BIRCH’s) parents set an appalling behavioral

example to their daughter. She only learns the true value of

childhood once she establishes a life of her own by looking

after the monkey. IN HER SHOES has the two central char-

acters, Maggie and Ruth (CAMERON DIAZ, TONI COL-

LETTE), recalling the innocence of childhood when their

mother was still alive; Maggie in particular still values the

day her mother brought her a puppy (called Honey Bun) to

look after. Although her father took it away from her (believ-

ing that neither his daughter nor their mother was capable

of looking after it), Maggie never forgets the occasion and,

in one sequence, tries to recreate the magic by borrowing a

dog for herself and renaming it Honey Bun Two. A GOOD

YEAR likewise represents childhood as a time of supreme

happiness, as Young Max (FREDDIE HIGHMORE) enjoys

his holidays in Uncle Henry’s (ALBERT FINNEY’s) château

with no restrictions placed on him as to when to go to bed,

or whether or not to drink alcohol.

■

CHICK LIT

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS

GB 1949 r/t 104 min col. Production Company: Gainsbor-

ough Pictures. Producer: A. Frank Bundy. Director:David

MacDonald. Writers: Muriel Box, Sydney Box, and Cyril

Roberts. Director of Photography: Stephen Dade. Production

Designer: Maurice Carter. Music: Arthur Bliss. Cast: Fredric

March (Christopher Columbus), Florence Eldridge (Queen

Isabella), Linden Travers (Beatriz de Paraza), Francis L. Sul-

livan (Francisco de Bobadilla), Kathleen Ryan (Beatriz),

Derek Bond (Diego de Arana), James Robertson Justice

(Martin Pinzon).

This story focuses on Columbus’s voyage, his struggles

with the Royal Commission, the voyage, the discovery of San

Salvador, the return to Spain, his journey to the country as

Viceroy and his replacement as Viceroy by Bobadilla, the vil-

lain of the piece. The film ends with Columbus being for-

bidden to return to the New World and falling ill. On his

deathbed he sees a vision of his companions on his voyage.

They comfort him by foretelling that a mighty nation is des-

tined to arise in the New World.

The film was conceived as a costume drama with “mag-

nificent settings, rich draperies and intricate decoration. It

brings you the glory of sunlight through stained glass, the

arched perfection of a Renaissance ceiling, a myriad of gor-

geous glowing colours. Here, in this great film, is all the

grandeur and opulence of the court of Spain as only Tech-

nicolor can record it.” The film was reviewed favorably even

if it was not counted as one of March’s best-known roles.

The Motion Picture Herald described it as “most elaborately

mounted,” of particular interest to audiences,“even though

few will find it completely satisfactory” on account of the

fact that “almost two-thirds of the film [is] devoted to court

scenes. An hour of running time passes before a ship is

seen.” Although there is no evidence to suggest that Ridley

Scott saw this film, it is nonetheless based on the same

plot—even though, as suggested in the Motion Picture Her-

ald review, the focus here is more on the court scenes rather

than discovering the New World (as in 1492: CONQUEST

OF PARADISE).

References

Pressbook, Christopher Columbus (London: The Rank Organization,

1949), 5; “The Product Digest,” Motion Picture Herald 177, no.3 (15

October 1949): 49.

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS: THE DISCOVERY

(aka CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS )

US 1992 r/t 121 min col. Production Company: Quinto Cen-

tenario. Producers: Alexander and Ilya Salkind. Director:John

Glen. Writers: John Briley, Cary Bates, and Mario Puzo.

Director of Photography: Alec Mills. Production Designer: Gil

Parrondo. Music: Cliff Eidelman. Cast: Marlon Brando

(Grand Inquisitor Tomas de Torquemada), Tom Selleck (King

Ferdinand), Rachel Ward (Queen Isabella), Robert Davi

(Martin Alonso Pinzon), Catherine Zeta-Jones (Beatriz),

Oliver Cotton (Harana), Benicio del Toro (King John of Por-

tugal), George Corraface (Columbus).

A rival film to 1492: CONQUEST OF PARADISE,

Christopher Columbus: The Discovery involved its producers

Alexander and Ilya Salkind in a long legal battle. Originally

they had engaged Scott to direct their film; but Scott left the

production and joined producer ALAIN GOLDMAN on

1492. As a result, Salkind unsuccessfully sued both Scott and

Goldman in an attempt to stop the rival production.

The Salkinds’ film went through endless troubles.

George Pan Cosmatos was originally slated to direct; Timo-

thy Dalton was due to play the title role, but left before the

film’s release. Marlon Brando wanted his name removed

from the credits on account of the film’s inaccurate portrayal

of NATIVE PEOPLES. Local film workers in Malta, Spain

and the Caribbean complained of non-payment. The film

opened in September 1992 to largely negative reviews. Time

Out called it “wretched in most respects,” The Guardian

called it “dead meat” and likened Brando’s performance to

“a giant beetle squirming painfully on a pin.”

References

“Christopher Columbus—The Discovery,” The Guardian, 10 Sep-

tember 1992, 28; “Christopher Columbus—The Discovery,” Time

Out, 9 September 1992, 61.

Bibliography

Brian Case, “Sales Talk,” Time Out (London), 9 September 1992,

14–15; Charles Fleming, “Competing Columbus Pix Hit Rough

Water,” Var iet y, 22 April 1991, 3, 9.

CHURCHILL, SIR WINSTON SPENCER (1874–1965)

Winston Churchill was born on 30 November 1874 at

Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, United Kingdom. In 1908

he entered the British Cabinet as president of the Board of

Trade, becoming home secretary in 1910. The following year

he became First Lord of the Admiralty. He held this post in

the first months of World War I, but after the disastrous

Dardanelles expedition, for which he was blamed, he

resigned. From 1919 to 1921 he was secretary of state for war

and air, and from 1924 to 1929 was Chancellor of the Exche-

quer. The next decade saw his “wilderness years,” in which

his opposition to Indian self-rule made him unpopular

while his warnings about the rise of Nazi Germany and the

need for British rearmament were ignored. This period is

covered in the Ridley Scott-produced film THE GATHER-

ING STORM. When war broke out in 1939, Churchill

became First Lord of the Admiralty. In May 1940, Neville

Chamberlain resigned as Prime Minister and Churchill took

his place. His refusal to surrender to Nazi Germany inspired

CHURCHILL, SIR WINSTON SPENCER (1874–1965)

■

the country. In 1951, he became Prime Minister again. He

resigned in 1955 but remained an MP until shortly before

his death on 24 January 1965.

CLASS DIFFERENCES

The subject is fleetingly raised in BLADE RUNNER when

Deckard describes the REPLICANTS, who are clearly mem-

bers of an inferior social group. It is also central to THE

DUELLISTS, where D’Hubert (KEITH CARRADINE) is an

officer and a gentleman, whose manners, bearing, and edu-

cation contrast violently with those of Feraud (HARVEY

KEITEL). SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME contrasts

Claire Gregory’s (MIMI ROGERS’s) world of privilege with

the modest existence pursued by good cop Mike Keegan

(TOM BERENGER). While the two worlds are shown col-

liding in the film’s central love story, Scott also suggests that

Mike and Claire can never be together. Their background,

education, and sense of social morality prevent them from

doing so. Such concern for social mores is perhaps unchar-

acteristic of mainstream Hollywood films but reflects Scott’s

status as an outsider commenting on 1980s American cul-

ture. A similar thematic preoccupation is evident in 1492:

CONQUEST OF PARADISE, where Columbus (GÉRARD

DEPARDIEU) is always perceived as an outsider despite his

achievements and despite his patronage from Queen Isabel

(SIGOURNEY WEAVER). Robert Thurston’s novelization

of the screenplay has Sanchez reflecting thus: “This man

[Columbus] has clearly forgotten his humble origins . . .

Whence this newfound aristocratic manner? In reality, the

man was just one step above the savages [in the New World]

he was currently describing to his breathless audience, who

seemed to adore him.”

In THELMA & LOUISE, the topic is discussed from a

female perspective. The film focuses on the limitations of

class and gender identity and, beyond that, the possibilities

for change. The only static image of the two women we see

is the photo they snap at the beginning of their journey;

grinning as they operate in a semiotic universe in which

movement invariably means freedom. It is this static image

which appeared in the advertisements and posters for the

film. Lillian S. Robinson suggests that this image is “also the

most working-class image of the two women that we get,

precisely because it is such a static and posed vision of

‘enjoyment.’ The real point is, after all, that these women do

not simply get away for a vacation. They get as far away as

they can from the limits of their class and gender.” Jane

Collings reads this kind of liberation in a negative way; hav-

ing escaped the requirements of their social class, “[they] are

so misunderstood and so relentlessly pursued . . . [that] they

must bow out entirely. They can be seen either to have killed

themselves or, on a more textual level, to have left the film

[and the society it portrays].”

References

Jane Collings, “The Hollywood Waitress: A Hard-Boiled Egg and

the Salt of the Earth,” in The Hidden Foundation: Cinema and the

Question of Class, ed. David E. James and Rick Berg (Minneapolis

and London: University of Minnesota Press, 1996), 271; Lillian S.

Robinson, “Out of the Mine and into the Canyon: Working-class

Feminism, Yesterday and Today,” in The Hidden Foundation: Cin-

ema and the Question of Class, ed. David E. James and Rick Berg

(Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 1996),

185; Robert Thurston, 1492: Conquest of Paradise Based on a Screen-

play by Roselyne Bosch (London: Penguin Books, 1992), 126–27.

Bibliography

Sean Redmond, “Purge! Class Pathology in Blade Runner,” in The

Blade Runner Experience: The Legacy of a Science Fiction Classic,ed.

Will Brooker (London and New York: Wallflower Press, 2005),

173–90.

CLAY PIGEONS

Germany/ US 1998 r/t 104 min col. Production Companies:

IMF Internationale Medien und Film GMBh & Co Produk-

tions KG, Intermedia Films, Polygram Filmed Entertain-

ment, and Scott Free. Producers: Ridley Scott, Chris Zarpas,

Chris Dorr, Audrey Kelly, and Carrie Morrow. Director:

David Dobkin. Writer: Matt Healy. Director of Photography:

Eric Alan Edwards. Production Designer: Clark Hunter.

Music: John Lurie. Cast: Joaquin Phoenix (Clay Bidwell),

Vince Vaughn (Lester Long), Georgina Cates (Amanda), Scott

Wilson (Sheriff Mooney), Janeane Garofalo (Agent Shelby),

Vince Vieluf (Deputy Barney), Monica Moench (Kimberly).

The idea for Clay Pigeons began with screenwriter

MATT HEALY, who according to the production notes

wanted to write a film whose opening scene contained a

coup de théâtre that “springs a surprise on the audience and

at least one of the characters ...From there,I was able to

very quickly plot out the rest of the story.” He entered the

screenplay for a contest, which he eventually won, and from

thence managed to obtain an agent from ICM (International

Creative Management).

Clay Pigeons marked the screen debut of DAVID

DOBKIN, who hitherto had only worked on commercials

for RSA, Ridley Scott’s commercial producing arm. SCOTT

FREE, the company set up to produce films, bought the

screenplay for him. Dobkin said in the production notes that

he liked Healy’s idea “because it breaks a lot of boundaries.

It’s at once very dark and very funny. It’s a very risky film.

When you’re riding on the edge of what’s socially acceptable,

you often find the funniest stuff.” In another interview with

Eye Weekly he claimed to be inspired by the Coen Brothers—

especially FARGO (1996), which “took a classic, rather shal-

low situation and turned it into something new . . . you

always have a sense that these people [the characters] have

■

CLASS DIFFERENCES

rich, full interior lives, a true philosophical depth, even if

they live in a little town, even if they talk differently from

you or I.”

Casting for the production was based on the assump-

tion that, as the production could not afford to pay large

salaries, the actors would participate because they liked the

script. At least, this was JOAQUIN PHOENIX’s view, accord-

ing to the production notes, when he agreed to play Clay

Bidwell: “I got on with him [Dobkin] immediately. His pas-

sion, his excitement about the film—suddenly I realised,

‘Wow, this could be amazing.’” JANEANE GAROFALO con-

curred: “I remember thinking [the script] was weird, but I

also felt it was important to have a strong lead character [FBI

Agent Dale Shelby] in a movie where there’s some violence

against women. I felt that it was important that I partici-

pated, to try and take the edge off that.” VINCE VAUGHN

seized the opportunity to play a character who himself “plays

different roles, different things, depending on what he wants

from someone, or what he’s after. He [Lester] is a man with

no conscience. Nevertheless, Lester is a charmer—women

love him, and men easily become his friends.”

The script (originally titled “In Too Deep”) went

through a few changes before it reached the screen. Certain

scenes were removed—for example, a short sequence involv-

ing Sheriff Mooney and his deputy Barney, where Barney is

seen filling in a crossword puzzle; and a sequence where

Mooney visits the local train station in search of Gloria and

encounters two local staff—Tom, the station manager; and

Max, the oldest resident of the town of Mercer. Both Tom

and Max were deleted from the final script. Other deletions

included a long telephone conversation between Clay and

Amanda and another plot-driven scene in which Glen the

bartender tells Clay that Shelby has been asking too many

questions. The only major rewrite took place at the end,

where director Dobkin created a new scene at a roadside café

in which Clay and Lester meet up once again and Lester

drinks a milk shake, followed by a final sequence which fol-

lows the outlines of the original script (where Lester goes off

with a middle-aged man with a trailer carrying a horse) but

transforms the man into a disguised Sheriff Mooney.

Although not yet aware of it, Lester will be brought to jus-

tice: in the original script he just escapes into the distance.

Dobkin also adds another scene where Clay gets into his car

and hits the open road, having escaped at last from the

SMALL-TOWN values of Mercer, Montana.

The six-week shoot took place on location in northern

Utah. Apparently the shoot was a happy one, with the actors

warming to playing opposite one another as they worked

with Healy’s screenplay: “‘It was really a group effort,’

GEORGINA CATES remembered in the production notes:

. . . there were ‘such different energies in there. Most of the

time, a scene would be five different things, all going on at

once.’” While filming took place, Dobkin worked hard to

create an effective soundtrack: “Music is so much of a direc-

tor’s signature ...Martin Scorsese was a huge influence for

me.” Phoenix observed again in the production notes that

Dobkin “has a great sense of rhythm, with music and

imagery combined. From the beginning of rehearsals, we

would sit down and talk about a scene, and play different

songs to launch the scene.”

The film was released first at the Toronto Film Festival

on 15 September 1998, with an American premiere a week

later. As an independent film, it was released only on nine-

teen screens, and reviews were few and far between. The Vil-

lage Voice hated it: “This is the kind of movie asinine enough

to believe that the mere juxtaposition of sadistic violence

and a jaunty tone on the soundtrack is, in itself, clever. That

said, the main problem with Clay Pigeons isn’t even ques-

tionable taste . . . the film has trouble establishing a tone, and

gets progressively more flaccid.” Entertainment Weekly

observed that “every scene is powered by a cut from a

soundtrack available from a CD bin near you. In other

words, it’s young-Hollywood-driven business as usual in this

derivative, nasty, and ultimately empty drama.” Screen Inter-

national provided the one favorable review, commending

Vaughn on his “nicely understated job as the goofy and

frighteningly charismatic Lester.” However the journal also

noted—rightly as it turned out—that “the unusual tone and

the absence of hot young stars will limit the film’s theatrical

potential.” The film cost $8 million to produce; by Novem-

ber 1998 it had only grossed just over $1.7 million at the US

box office. It was released five months later on DVD.

Despite its reception, Clay Pigeons remains a fascinat-

ing text incorporating direct references to Scott’s earlier

work. The opening scene involving Clay and his bosom

buddy Earl (Gregory Sporleder) directly parodies the con-

ventions of MASCULINITY in WHITE SQUALL and G.I.

JANE. While both films celebrate the virtues of male bond-

ing, in Clay Pigeons Earl decides to shoot himself, even

though Clay is his best friend. Clay strikes up a friendship

with Lester Long (VINCE VAUGHN), but finds himself

ruthlessly exploited. Clay makes several futile attempts to

escape, but Lester keeps close to him, protesting all the while

that “after things die down, maybe we can get together . . .

You meet a lot of people in life, Clay. But friendships like this

are special.” So special, in fact, that Lester tells Clay in no

uncertain terms that if he dies, he will take Clay with him.

The film incorporates a sequence where Clay disposes of

Earl’s body by driving Earl’s truck to the edge of a cliff,

jumping out at the vital moment and then watching the

truck somersault down the hill before finally coming to rest

and bursting into flames. The sequence directly calls to mind

a similar moment at the end of THELMA & LOUISE,where

the two women at last escape from patriarchal power. In Clay

CLAY PIGEONS

■

Pigeons, however, Earl’s death signals the beginning of Clay’s

troubles, as he is wrongfully accused of two murders and

becomes involved with a serial killer.

Clay Pigeons incorporates a direct visual quotation

from ALIEN, when Agent Shelby hits the play button on the

video-recorder in her hotel room and watches the famous

“chest-bursting” sequence in which the alien bursts out of

Kane’s (JOHN HURT’s) stomach. Suddenly the picture goes

to snow; a couple of seconds later a homemade video comes

on showing graphic footage of Clay and Amanda having

sex. The sequence is reshown in the sheriff’s office as Shelby

and Mooney ask Clay to describe his relationship with

Amanda. As in Alien, Dobkin uses it to emphasize mon-

strosity; only this time it is explicitly identified with the

female. Early on in Healy’s script Amanda is described thus:

“Amanda is white trash, but she’s cute white trash.” One

character observes at one point that, while not wanting to

speak ill of people, she can never understand why Earl mar-

ried such a woman. When Amanda meets Clay in his bed-

room following her husband’s death, she tells him to “kick

off those boots and come to Mama.” By agreeing to be

filmed while having sex, Clay willingly subjugates himself

to this monstrous female’s rule.

Such references create the impression that Clay Pigeons

is fundamentally about misogyny. Lester congratulates Clay

for having struck Amanda across the face: “you handled her

right tonight ...I guarantee she won’t be so quick to open

her mouth the next time.” The script has Lester reaching into

the water at Bear Lake to handle the corpse of a dead

woman; and he remarks later on that he knows “how to han-

dle women. Besides she [Amanda] really ain’t a bad piece of

ass.” Having stabbed Amanda to death several times with a

kitchen-knife, Lester tries to convince Clay that “I did the

world a great service” by disposing of her: “She was vile . . .

You should have heard some of the shit she was saying.”

Dobkin makes great comic play out of the contrast

between the SMALL TOWN values of Mercer, Montana, and

the metropolitan values of Agent Shelby. Mercer is a sleepy

place of 1,134 people (down from 1,135 after Earl’s death),

where life unfolds at a leisurely pace. The coroner is not

around to identify Earl’s body, being on holiday in

Wyoming. When Agent Shelby accompanies the local police

force into Amanda’s house to identify the body, she has to

reprimand Sheriff Mooney’s assistant Barney (Vince Vieluf)

for accidentally standing in a pool of Amanda’s blood.

Shelby subsequently asks Mooney why the room is so full of

people—state police, the fire chief, and a couple of council-

men. Mooney replies truthfully: the fire chief came because

he had done some police work before, while the councilmen

just wanted to come. Exasperated at what she perceives as

small-town inefficiency, Shelby just frowns and lamely

requests that nobody touches anything.

Barney is well-meaning yet hopelessly inefficient, with

a tendency to fall asleep at the wrong moments. He fails to

hear Clay’s cries for food; and when he does respond, he car-

ries the tray right into Clay’s cell, allowing Clay to escape and

lock Barney in. Such behavior is contrasted with that of

Agent Shelby, who describes herself as very good at her job

and meticulously goes about her task of bringing the mur-

derer to justice. Screenwriter Healy describes the clash

between small-town and metropolitan values thus: “Agent

Shelby and Mooney stare at each other; Agent Shelby star-

tled at the sight of the small-town sheriff, and Mooney con-

founded by the prospect of a female FBI agent.” The last

sentence helps to explain why the script might be misogy-

nist in tone: small-town males believe it is their right and

privilege to assume patriarchal authority over women.

However, SMALL-TOWN values can also be approached

positively. Mooney, having known Clay all his life, trusts Clay

implicitly, and tells Shelby that Clay is not the kind of per-

son likely to commit murder. When Lester proves the guilty

party, Mooney’s faith is vindicated. Mooney exploits the

small-town resident’s tendency to take people at face value:

disguised as just another middle-aged man with a pickup

truck, he offers Lester a lift, which the latter willingly accepts.

Although we do not see it, we expect the sheriff to make a

swift arrest.

Eric Alan Edwards’s photography vividly captures the

film’s small-town setting; the lonely diners, isolated shops,

and shabby garage where Clay earns a living as a mechanic.

In the production notes Dobkin cited a pictorial influence

of “Edward Hopper paintings—the lighting and the colours.

The interiors in the daytimes are all lit from the windows

and are never [light-] source driven. I thought, the brighter

and punchier and more colourful the film is, the more it’s

going to create a unique and original mood . . . The daylight

lets people get a little bit more comfortable.” The soundtrack

incorporates frequent examples of country music—a genre

which, while appreciated by the locals, Agent Shelby posi-

tively abhors. At one point she is sitting in the bar while Pat

Boone’s “Why Baby Why” trills away on the radio. She

frowns, and Lester responds: “Country’s an acquired taste.”

However, Dobkin also suggests that, while there are definite

social and cultural distinctions between metropolitan and

small-town characters, they are all powerless in the face of

the elements. This is evoked by frequent pans of the Mon-

tana landscape taken at various times of the day—dawn,

sunset, nighttime—with the clouds scudding by. None of the

characters have any control over their destinies; as in WHITE

SQUALL, they are subject to the vagaries of an impersonal

fate. At one point, when accused of Carol Pierce’s murder,

Clay exclaims: “This is crazy, Mooney, tell her [Shelby] that

this is crazy.” Shelby responds without a hint of irony: “Talk

about coincidences. You find the body of one victim, you

■

CLAY PIGEONS

were sleeping with another, and you dated somebody else

who’s missing.”

Clay Pigeons has attracted little comment since its orig-

inal release. In a 2000 interview, Vince Vaughn made every

effort to dissociate himself from his previous roles: “I’d like

to make it clear that I don’t want to be branded ‘the serial

killer guy.’ I have no fascination with those guys ...I’ve been

that way [obsessive] with certain things, to a degree.” Despite

this, the review for the British magazine Empire observed that

it has “been undeservedly on the shelf [since 1998]. The

‘quirky’ small-town crime comedy-drama has been over-

worked, but the rethink of Patricia Highsmith themes in a

modern Western setting is fresh, funny and creepy.”

References

David Dobkin, interviewed in Eye Weekly (1998) reproduced on

the Wikipedia website, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clay_Pigeons

(accessed 8 November 2008); John Hazelton,“Clay Pigeons,” Screen

International 1178 (2 October 1998): 29; Matt Healy, David

Dobkin, Georgina Cates, Joaquin Phoenix, Janeane Garofalo, Vince

Vaughn, interviewed in “Production Notes: Clay Pigeons,” included

on the European DVD release of the film (Frankfurt: BY Interna-

tionale Medien und Film, 1998); Matt Healy, In Too Deep (Draft

Script dated 7 January 1997) (Beverly Hills, CA: Scott Free, 1997);

Dennis Lim, “Clay Pigeons,” Village Voice, 6 October 1998, 123;

“Kim Newman’s DVD DTV Dungeon,” Empire, February 2006,

152; “No More Mr. Nasty Guy,” The Guardian: The Guide, 16–22

September 2000, 13; Lisa Schwarzbaum, “Fowl Play,” Entertainment

Weekly 452 (2 October 1998): 45.

COBB, RON (1937– )

Cobb began his career as an animator and political cartoon-

ist. His first film assignment was Dark Star (1974) directed

by John Carpenter and written by DAN O’BANNON. He

also worked (uncredited) as a creature designer on Star Wars

(1977).

Cobb was hired by O’Bannon to work on ALIEN in col-

laboration with designer Chris Foss. Their work is clearly

evident in the designs for the spaceship NOSTROMO, which

went through several incarnations before Scott was satisfied

with the final version. Paul Scanlon and Michael Gross’s The

Book of Alien shows how this process was completed. Cobb

also designed the spaceship interiors; the spare, almost

shabby structures revealing that this is a working craft char-

tered by the Company to bring the alien back for tests. The

designer observed in an interview in 1979 that in such an

environment “the crew . . . is almost empty as are the astro-

nauts in [Kubrick’s] 2001.”

References

Phil Edwards,“Ron Cobb on Alien,” Starburst 16 (November 1979):

5–9; Paul Scanlon and Michael Gross, The Book of Alien, ed. Charles

Lippincott (London: Star Books, 1979): 8–30.

COCHRANE, RORY (1972– )

Born in Syracuse, New York, Cochrane’s first major film role

was as Jeff Goldblum’s son in Fathers and Sons (1992). Other

films include Dogtown (1997) and Right at Your Door (2006).

Cast as Yevgeny Tsipin in THE COMPANY, Cochrane

plays the role of a Yale University-educated Soviet spy pass-

ing as an American. Although he admires the American peo-

ple and their way of life, Yevgeny “cannot ignore their faults

or their shortcomings. Americans are trapped in a system

which brings out the worst in them. They are raised to

believe that democracy is the ideal, yet they turn a blind eye

to the twenty-five million Americans that go to bed hungry

every night.” He prefers to work for a system believing “that

all should be equal without poverty, crime, racist hatred,

without all the things that make America the grotesque giant

it is.” However, Yevgeny’s loyalty proves misplaced, as he dis-

covers that the Soviet system in which he believes has con-

signed his Jewish girlfriend Azalia (Erika Marozsán) to a

labor camp for nearly twenty years. Eventually Yevgeny

returns permanently to the Soviet Union where he attempts

to rebuild his life with her in spite of her sufferings.

COLD GUINNESS—IT’S NOT BAD—GOOD

GB 1974 Commercial r/t 30 sec col. Production company:

RSA Films. Director: Ridley Scott.

The advertisement shown on British television opens

with a young man (Robert Lindsay) standing in a pub; the

landlord asks him “Guinness, sir?” The man takes the glass

and drinks from it, repeating,“That’s good, that’s so, so good”

over and over again. He finishes his beer and resumes the con-

versation with the landlord: “I could tell you, that was really,

really . . . ” The landlord interjects “Good?” Scott cuts to a

close-up of the young man who responds: “Oh, it was much

better than that,” as he finishes his beer and wipes his mouth.

COLLETTE, TONI (1972– )

Australian actress who made her name in Muriel’s Wedding

(1994), followed by international hits such The Hours (2002).

Cast as Rose in the Ridley Scott-produced adaptation

of the JENNIFER WEINER novel IN HER SHOES,Collette

put on twenty-five pounds to increase her weight for the

role. In an interview she explained that this was done to

show how the character is not satisfied with herself despite

having a successful career as a lawyer: “I think the most

interesting thing about any story is when the character is

confronted and goes through some kind of change. Being

stagnant in life or at work is not too good ...I don’t think

that Rose does choose between work and a life, actually. I

think that what she chooses to do is to let go of the respon-

sibility she feels for everybody else in her life and start tak-

ing care of herself. And leaving her job is kind of a

bi-product of that.” Rose resembles many characters in Scott

COLLETTE, TONI (1972– )

■

films faced with the conflict between LOVE VS. DUTY. At

first she throws herself into her work as a way of consciously

forgetting about her personal life; but as the film unfolds she

gradually comes to realize the importance of putting herself

first. She leaves her job and takes on an ad hoc job, similar

to those pursued by her sister Maggie (CAMERON DIAZ),

as a freelance dog-walker. Although happy professionally,

her personal life remains confused; she is so afraid of the

dark that she cannot bear making love to Simon Stein

(MARK FEUERSTEIN) unless the light is on. Rose only

learns to trust people at the end of the film, when she is rec-

onciled with Maggie and her grandmother Ella (SHIRLEY

MACLAINE), and can trust in her sister to choose her wed-

ding dress.

Collette was congratulated by Mike Goodridge in Screen

International for her ability to “bring an audience to tears

with just one look, and [she] does so on several occasions in

CURTIS HANSON’s In Her Shoes. As the smart, successful

Rose who struggles with her weight problems, she com-

manded the screen—not an easy task when Cameron Diaz

and Shirley MacLaine are among your co-stars.”

References

Mike Goodridge,“Women on Top,” Screen International 1528 (16–22

December 2005): 20; Rebecca Murray, “In Her Shoes,” about.com

10 January 2005, http://movies.about.com/od/inhershoes/a/shoestc

100105.htm (accessed 8 August 2008).

COLONIALISM

The subject is raised in BLADE RUNNER in the treatment

of the REPLICANTS. Brian Carr remarks that “the futurity

implies by 2019 LOS ANGELES operates ritualistically

through the past, particularly in the representational nexus

of slavery, inhumanity, and the discursive possibilities by

which the boundaries of the ‘human’ are imaginable.” In

1492: THE CONQUEST OF PARADISE, the subject is ana-

lyzed at length. Towards the beginning of the film the city of

Grenada is shown being taken over by the Spaniards, who

drive out the occupying Muslims into the wilderness. Robert

Thurston’s novelization of the screenplay explains: “It was

one thing to defeat the [Islamic] opposition, but to openly

deride their religion seemed unnecessary . . . ‘These people

built Granada, centuries ago,’ Santangel said, sadly. ‘It is a

great victory over the Moors, Don Colón, and yet what a

tragedy it is.’” A similar sequence appears in WHITE

SQUALL, where the youthful crew lands on the Galapagos

Islands, bare-chested, dressed in shorts and carrying spears.

Chuck Gieg (SCOTT WOLF) observes that they were about

to lay claim to the land as their own. Although their pres-

ence on the land is only temporary, they feel that they have

matured sufficiently to consider themselves as following in

Columbus’s footsteps nearly four centuries earlier.

1492: The Conquest of Paradise reinforces colonialist

assumptions: the Indians are presented either as strange or

as objects of sexual desire. A dream sequence, included in the

novelization but deleted from the film, makes this point clear:

“Around a curve he [Columbus] came upon an Indian girl

standing in the water. She was not at all embarrassed at being

viewed by a man, even a clothed man. Columbus, suddenly

barefoot, walked toward the girl, who in turn came toward

him. She reached toward him and, hand in hand, they walked

through the shallow waters together.” Such tropes are char-

acteristic of European (or American) cinema’s reconstruc-

tion of the colonies. Graham Harper comments: “Film has

for over a century promoted/encouraged a European view of

beauty, an aesthetic sense, and how this had fed ideas about

the uses of figurative and non-figurative images, dialogue,

music and sounds, and all film’s attendant aspects of move-

ment, color and shape, carrying along with it at least some,

if not a great many, elements of story, theme and subject.”

In G.I. JANE the colonialist elements are more overt, as

Scott represents the Libyan troops as animal-like, almost

brutal, speaking their own language (which is not given the

benefit of subtitles for non-Arabic speaking filmgoers). This

foreshadows a similar portrayal of the Somalis in BLACK

HAWK DOWN, who are consistently called “skinnies” by

the American troops. Their basic inhumanity is underlined

when Durant (Ron Eldard) is “kicked, spit on, uniform

ripped at, [the] crowd trying to pull him apart.” They even

deny him the right to pick up a photograph of his family

that falls from his grasp; one man stamps on his hand and

kicks it away. The fact that the Somalis are shown to be bru-

tal, but not the Americans, has led some critics to accuse the

film of bias; in reality the American soldiers (like the United

Nations peacekeepers) were equally guilty of cruelty and

abuse. The same criticism could be leveled at BODY OF

LIES, where the extremist leader Al-Saleem (ALON

ABOUTBUL) is shown torturing Roger Ferris (LEONARDO

DICAPRIO) in a sequence reminiscent of Midnight Express

(1978).

In KINGDOM OF HEAVEN Scott portrays the Chris-

tian colonizers as barbaric, massacring innocent Muslim cit-

izens in their quest to defeat Saladin (GHASSAN

MASSOUD). However, the film suggests that tolerance

between different races is possible so long as everyone

respects each others’ cultures. Saladin offers the Christians

a safe passage out of Jerusalem—“every soul; the women, the

children, the old, and all your knights and soldiers and your

queen”—so long as he can have control of the city, once they

have departed. He has been impressed by the example set by

King Baldwin (EDWARD NORTON); as he remarks earlier

on to Guy de Lusignan (MARTON CSOKAS): “A king does

not kill a king. Were you not close enough to a great king to

learn by his example?”

■

COLONIALISM

References

Brian Carr,“At the Thresholds of the ‘Human’: Race, Psychoanaly-

sis and the Replication of Imperial Memory,” Cultural Critique 39

(Spring 1998): 136; Graeme Harper, “They’re a Weird Mob: Euro-

pean Cinema Beyond Europe,” Spectator 23, no.2 (October 2003):

20; Ken Nolan, Black Hawk Down: The Shooting Script (New York:

Newmarket Press, 2002), 90–91; Robert Thurston, 1492: Conquest

of Paradise Based on a Screenplay by Roselyne Bosch (London: Pen-

guin Books, 1992), 48, 109.

Bibliography

Alberto Elena, “Spanish Colonial Cinema: Contours and Singular-

ities,” Journal of Film Preservation 63 (October 2001): 29–36.

COLUMBUS, CHRISTOPHER (1451–1506)

Columbus was an Italian navigator, colonizer, and explorer

whose voyages across the Atlantic Ocean led to general Euro-

pean awareness of the American continents in the Western

Hemisphere. His reputation has varied widely in recent

years. For the British writer Max Faber, writing an unpub-

lished screenplay about his life in 1938, he was a hero, who

was “able to display his knowledge of the sea, and by a

strange happening is able to distinguish himself through dis-

playing precise action during a severe part of the expedi-

tion.” He returns to Spain, having gathered sufficient proof

of his discovery of the New World, and “is proclaimed a

national hero and Pope Alexander VI lauded him in public

and declared all lands a hundred miles west of the Azores to

be discovered as crown property.”

More recently, however, Columbus’s reputation has

been questioned. The writer Kirkpatrick Sale says that he

never discovered a New World; “all [he] ...ever found was

half a world of nature’s pleasures and nature’s peoples that

could be taken, and they took them, never knowing, never

learning the true regenerative power there, and that oppor-

tunity was lost. Theirs was indeed a conquest of Paradise,

but as is inevitable with any war against the world of nature,

those who win will have lost—once again lost, and this time

perhaps forever.” Ridley Scott’s 1492: CONQUEST OF PAR-

ADISE follows Sale by presenting Columbus’s voyage as a

colonialist enterprise with very little result, except to show

Columbus’s obsessive nature. A historian in the British film

journal Empire complained that Scott’s interpretation only

sustained “the trappings of historical veracity around yet

another fictitious Columbus ...The legacy ofviolence and

treachery actually begun by Columbus is blamed on Mox-

ica, a fictitious and frustrated noble who is supposed to have

introduced the commonplace practice of amputating Indi-

ans’ hands when they failed in their mission to fill a hawks-

bell with gold-dust . . . five hundred years on from this

highly unequal exchange, we are being offered more of the

same—the adventurer-as-hero in place of the true story of

one man’s impact on the course of history . . . On one point

alone, the film hits the nail on the head, with the best line of

the script being, ‘There was always faith, hope and charity,

but greater than any of these is banking.’”

References

Max Faber,“Christopher Columbus: An Original Film Story Based

on His Early Life and His Voyage of Discovery to the West Indies

and America,” Unpub. script dated 2 June 1938, 1–3; Amanda Hop-

kinson, “Conquest of History?” Empire, November 1992, 90; Kirk-

patrick Sale, The Conquest of Paradise: Christopher Columbus and

the Columbian Legacy (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1991), 370.

THE COMPANY

US 2007 TVM 3 ⫻ 95 min episodes col. Production Compa-

nies: Turner Network Television, Scott Free, Sony Pictures

Television and John Calley Productions. Executive Produc-

ers: Ridley Scott, Tony Scott, Cary Brokaw, David W. Zucker,

David A. Rosemont, and John Calley. Producers:Robert

Bernachi, Jonas Bauer, Rola Bauer, Ron Binkowski, Tim

Halkin, and Nick Witkowski. Director: Mikael Salomon.

Writer: Ken Nolan from the book by Robert Littell. Cine-

matography: Ben Nott. Production Design: Marek Dobrowol-

ski. Music: Jeff Beal. Cast: Chris O’Donnell (Jack McCauliffe),

Alfred Molina (Harvey Torriti/ The Sorcerer), Michael Keaton

(James Angleton), Tom Hollander (Adrian Philby), Alessan-

dro Nivola (Leo Kritzky), Rory Cochrane (Yevgeny Tsipin).

A miniseries tracing the development of the CIA over a

fifty-year period based on the best-selling THE COMPANY

(NOVEL) by Robert Littell. The series came about when pro-

ducer JOHN CALLEY contacted KEN NOLAN about writing

a screenplay. Having collaborated with Scott on BLACK

HAWK DOWN, Nolan brought him in on the project. The

original plan was to film The Company for the cinema, but

Sony Pictures balked at the potential cost, so Calley and Scott

took it to TNT as a television miniseries. The three two-hour

films were to be directed by different people (including Scott);

but eventually it was agreed that MIKAEL SALOMON—

whose television work included The Grid (2004)—would

assume responsibility for the entire project. Salomon

expressed considerable enthusiasm for the project, comment-

ing in an interview that “being able to create it [the miniseries]

as a six-hour limited series instead of a two-hour feature, as

originally envisioned, allows us to go into much greater

depth and detail. In many ways, television has assumed the

role of independent cinema, and this is a great example. It’s

exciting drama that addresses essential Cold War questions

of, ‘What was it all about? What was achieved?’”

Filming took place in various locations, including

Toronto (which stood in for scenes at Yale, New York, and

Washington, DC), Budapest (the scene for the restaging of

the Hungarian uprising, as well as providing the backdrop

THE COMPANY

■

for sequences in Moscow and Tel Aviv), and Puerto Rico

(which set the stage for the Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba and

Guatemala). The location work in Budapest took place dur-

ing the commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the

Hungarian Uprising in October 1956: co-producer David

Rosemont commented that at this point filming “had a cer-

tain ‘truth is stranger than fiction’ ring to it ...It affected

several aspects of our production, not the least of which was

securing locations and tank permits.” Some of the sequences

were quite dangerous to film: one involved the central char-

acter Jack McAuliffe (CHRIS O’DONNELL), and uprising

leaders Arpad Zelk (Misel Maticevic) and Elizabet Nemeth

(Natascha McElhone), fleeing from a pursuing tank, which

was meant to burst straight through a tramcar. As O’Don-

nell and McElhone glanced back at the fast-closing tank, and

then rushed ahead, the look of alarm on their faces was gen-

uine. McElhone subsequently recalled that at this point the

cast genuinely feared for their safety. Shooting took five

months, from June 2006 onwards.

The series was screened on TNT on consecutive Sunday

evenings, beginning on 5 August 2007. Reviewers were gen-

erally enthusiastic: The New York Times described it as “a look

back in sorrow, but also in muffled fondness, at an era that

by post-9/11 standards seems enviably unambiguous and

navigable.” Rather like George Clooney’s film Good Night and

Good Luck (2005), The Company recalled a period in Ameri-

can history “when the lines of battle were clearly drawn, and

the enemy played by the same rules and was easy to spot.”

The series was likened to the BBC drama TINKER TAILOR

SOLDIER SPY (1979) in its depicting of “the same shadowy

netherworld” of spying. An online reviewer particularly liked

MICHAEL KEATON’s performance as James Angleton,

“whether coldly interrogating a suspect or offering a ram-

bling, seemingly deluded critique of the CIA as a mere

shadow of its once shadowy self.” Although the series “regu-

larly overplays its mood music,” it was nonetheless “an ambi-

tious, accomplished and overall enthralling effort that saves

its very best for those riveting closing hours [in Part 3].”

Although the story of the six-hour series is continuous,

covering a period of four decades from the early 1950s to

1991, each of the three episodes focuses on different themes.

The first concentrates on the so-called “Great Game,” a term

originally used to describe the rivalry between the British

Empire and the Russian Empire in Central Asia. In

Salomon’s drama it refers to the rivalry between the CIA and

the KGB for control of hearts and minds during the Cold

War period. Jack McCauliffe (O’Donnell) describes it thus:

“We [the Americans} are engaged in a life-or-death crisis

with the Communists. When it’s over, only one side will sur-

vive. I’ve been asked to join the battle.” His superior Frank

Wisner (Ted Atherton) employs similar language in his

address to the fledgling CIA agents earlier on: “A very thin

line of patrols mans the ramparts [in West Berlin]. We need

men and women who are aggressive, willing to take risks,

who can plunge into the unknown without worrying how

to get back out.”

To participate in this Great Game, agents on both sides

are expected to be dedicated to their respective ideological

causes (democracy or communism). The Soviet spy Yevgeny

Tsipin (RORY COCHRANE) is informed in no uncertain

terms by his superior Starik Zhilov (Ulrich Thomsen) that

he should give up his Jewish girlfriend Azalia (Erika

Marozsán) and devote himself to “Mother Russia.” Only

then will Yevgeny understand how men like his father,

grandfather, and Starik himself have “spilled blood” on

Yevgeny’s behalf to ensure that he has had a good education

at Yale University. Starik puts a stark choice between LOVE

VS. DUTY for Yevgeny: a world of “simple domesticity with

a woman who will never allow you to rise in the party ranks,

or a life of changing the world.” Needless to say, Yevgeny

chooses the second option. If the KGB works in the cause of

“Mother Russia,” the CIA’s agenda is dictated by Angleton,

codenamed “Mother.” As in ALIEN, individual self-determi-

nation is no longer important: every employee of the Com-

pany on the Russian and the American sides (the parallels

between the two films here is deliberate) must subject them-

selves to the dictates of a higher authority.

To play the Great Game successfully, every agent must

understand that nothing is what it seems to be. The CIA

informant Lilli (Alexandra Maria Lara) actually turns out to

be a Soviet agent, who supplies disinformation to Jack and

Harvey Torriti (ALFRED MOLINA). The senior MI5 advi-

sor Adrian Kim Philby (TOM HOLLANDER) likewise turns

out to be working for the Soviets. At one point Jack narrowly

escapes an attempt on his life by the Soviet agent Borisov

(Hristo Mitzkov); he later discovers that it was nothing more

than a charade designed to drive him closer to Lilli (and

thereby reveal CIA secrets to the Russians). Early on in the

episode we see Jack, Yevgeny, and Jack’s future colleague Leo

Kritzky (ALESSANDRO NIVOLA) completing their educa-

tion at Yale. They are apparently inseparable members of a

rowing team celebrating their success with beer and late-

night talks. It is only later on that we discover that Yevgeny

is on the Soviet payroll, while Kritzky, who adopts the code-

name Sacha, is a high-ranking mole within the CIA who

passes on secrets to the Soviets. The idea of male bonding as

the source of MASCULINITY—a theme common to several

Scott films—is here reduced to a charade. A quotation from

Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, used as a preface to this

episode, sums up the world of the Great Game: “‘How do

you know I’m mad?’ said Alice. ‘You must be,’ said the Cat,

‘or you wouldn’t have come here.’”

The second episode of The Company depicts two valiant

if futile military conflicts—the Hungarian Uprising of 1956

■

THE COMPANY

and the Bay of Pigs invasion five years later. Both sequences

depict freedom fighters seeking to liberate their respective

countries. As things turn out, however, that support does not

materialize and the Hungarian and Cuban rebels are ruth-

lessly crushed. As in Black Hawk Down, the focus of atten-

tion centers on a group of people left to fend for themselves

against impossible odds—although they have been military

assistance from the American government, it never material-

izes. The reason for this is chiefly self-interest: America did

not want to be seen to be intervening in another country’s

affairs. Salomon’s narrative concentrated on notions of

HONOR—the Hungarian rebels fight for their honor

against a Soviet regime determined to crush them while the

Cubans remain dedicated to their cause, however futile it

might be. Jack tries to restrain them, but the Cuban leader

Roberto Escalona (Raoul Bova) tells him to leave: “We don’t

need America’s help any more. Castro will capture you . . .

He’ll tell the world my men died for America, not for Cuba

...Don’t take away our dignity. It’s the last thing we’ve got!”

The CIA is equally concerned with sustaining its honor:

Angleton tells Jack that one of the reasons it should not

become involved in the Cuban crisis is that any action would

“cripple the Company for years to come.” However, the film

suggests that perhaps the CIA sacrificed its honor in favor

of long-term goals. Wisner delivers a passionate speech to

that effect in the wake of the Hungarian crisis: “Everyone

here in this room, hell, everyone in Washington itself is cul-

pable in the deaths of these freedom fighters. We will, all of

us, have blood on our hands.”

Perhaps the agents should have learned from the exam-

ple of Elisabet Nemet—an English woman dedicated to

another country’s political cause. Jack asks her why she

remains on the field of battle, refusing to return home. Elis-

abet replies: “[Hungary] is my daughter’s country. And I’ll

fight for her freedom, for her future so that she doesn’t have

to live in fear of imprisonment and torture. And I’ll stand at

her father’s side to do that.” Although the CIA agents remain

equally committed to the cause of freedom, their involve-

ment in the Great Game renders them unable to participate

in such honorable causes. They are imprisoned by their

work—a fact underlined throughout the second episode

through visual imagery; for example, Jack looking through

the doors of his cell while being interrogated by the Soviets.

The third episode focuses more directly on issues of

identity, as indicated in the prefatory quotation from Alice

in Wonderland: “Who am I, then? Tell me that first, and then,

if I like being that person, I’ll come up. If not, I’ll stay down

here till I’m somebody else.” In the world of spying, there is

no such thing as a stable identity. Kritzky is jailed on suspi-

cion of being the CIA mole Sasha, but later released on

account of insufficient evidence. He is given a hero’s wel-

come back into the Company family and told that everyone

owes him a debt of gratitude. In response, he quotes JOHN

MILTON’s famous line “They only serve who also stand and

wait” (from Sonnet XIX “When I consider how my Light is

Spent”), suggesting that standing still and waiting for an

order is just as important as obeying it. It would seem that

Kritzky has reestablished his credentials as an ideal Com-

pany man, but in the end this proves nothing more than

another illusion, as Kritzky explains that he became a dou-

ble agent “because [he] believed in serving a country whose

system of government offered the best hope for the future.”

Forced to live in the Soviet Union under an assumed name

for his own safety, he discovers to his cost that the socialist

ideal he fought for no longer exists, as Gorbachev makes

strenuous efforts to democratize the nation. Philby likewise

has to sacrifice his identity as a master spy supporting the

Soviet cause; forced to spend the rest of his life in a shabby

apartment in Moscow, shadowed twenty-four hours a day

by Soviet minders who monitor his every move, his passion-

ate commitment to communism and Marxism comes to

naught. Although a dyed-in-the-wool English patriot, he can

never return to his country. Yevgeny, for all his loyalty to the

Soviet ideals, discovers that once his profession as a spy has

been revealed, the KGB has no further use for him. All he

can do is return to the Soviet Union and try to reconstruct

his old identity as a lover and a gentleman with Azalia.

According to Angleton, people like Yevgeny, Philby, and

Kritzky have only themselves to blame, having worked to

implement the Soviet “master plan, feeding layer upon layer

of disinformation to the wishful thinkers of the west to make

them think we are winning the Cold War ...[They] have

made certain the world view of America has shifted from a

beacon of hope and justice to a tyrannical, power-mad colo-

nialist juggernaut.” While this cynical view of the Cold War

and its effects on AMERICANISM makes for good drama (as

Angleton bids farewell to his CIA career), the film suggests

that the spying game as a whole deprives its practitioners of

the security of knowing who they are or what causes they are

supposed to fight for. This is brought out in the film’s final

scene, in which Jack and Harvey are on the golf course look-

ing back on their careers in the CIA. Jack asks: “[Do you]

think we made a difference, Harvey? Any difference at all?”

and Harvey responds confidently, “You and me, kid, we put

our warm bodies on the firing line, and we turned them [the

Soviets] back ...Something like the Cold War has to have a

moral, otherwise what was it all about?” Jack believes that “it

was about the good guys beating the bad guys”; but asks,

“Which side were we on, Harvey?” Harvey can only reply:

“We won, didn’t we?”—a statement that poses more ques-

tions than it answers. Did the Americans actually win the

Cold War? And if so, what difference did it make to the

world? Do the spies actually understand the distinctions

between right and wrong, good and bad, or have they been

THE COMPANY

■