[.ca] Human Stain

It's Stained Alright:
What in god's name was Robert Benton thinking? Or Sir Anthony? Or Gary Sinise? Was Ed Harris after the Oscar he was denied last year? This film is a perfect example of a wonderful combination of artists put together & creating a monumental cinematic disaster.. Gary Sinise(narrating here)sounds like he was awakened from a deep sleep, had a microphone shoved in front of him & handed the script to read from. Anthony Hopkins looks like he can't wait for it to be over. I wonder if when he studied acting, he ever thought he'd have to do a scene where he half-heartedly discusses the joys of Viagra. I'm not sure what Nicole Kidman's character was supposed to be...watch her closely..sultry? sexy? femme fatale? I don't think she did either.. This DVD should be free with ANY purchase...Disastrous.....

Big artists, mediocre work:
I was really anxious to see this movie. I have aleays loved Hopkins and Kidman and Harris is a great supporting actor for every film. But this film is really disappointing. Not only for the actors, but for the story which is too confusing and plenty of flashes-back. The accident in the first scene is also a failure, because the film loses all interest. Sinise's part is really strange: he appears in the beginning till Hopkins refuses to continue writing his book; in the middle of the film (I had forgotten of him) he appears in a dinner with Hopkins and Kidman and, then, forgotten. At the very end of the film, Sinise's character is again in the screen and now he plays the main role. Hopkins' play is really decent (I was fed up of dangerous-minds characters), but I think he is over-exploited. Kidman's is really not her best acting: extremely bitter and unexpressive. To sum up, a really boring film and, sometimes, uncomprehensible.

Peak performances:
This film grabs the viewer from the opening scene. Through a winter's bleak landscape, a car's easy progress along the dark road is enhanced by the sedate pace of the background music. Before the credits have stopped running, the car is rolling into the roadside stream, the occupants clearly lost. An oncoming vehicle has driven them off the road deliberately, then continues on. Why has such a murder occurred? Coleman Sylk \oHopkins\c a classics scholar, denies a student's charge of racism as "spectacularly false", yet resigns his college post in protest. He contacts Nathan Zuckerman \oSinise\c to commission him to write the story of his life - the son of "the only Jewish saloon keeper in East Orange". Zuckerman, a writer suffering "block" is reluctant to undertake the task, but as he learns more about Sylk, he becomes fascinated by the man. The unfolding story is far more of "An American Tragedy" than Theodore Dreiser could have ever envisioned. Sylk, whose real story is far more convoluted than that of the "son of a Jewish saloon keeper", is an angry man. His outbursts aren't violent - that aspect of his life is clearly under tight control. But the events of his youth are reflected in his dealings with others in his later life. To explain this, Sylk's early life \oWentworth Miller\c is portrayed as a succession of deceptions, from his struggle to follow his own desires against his father's wishes, to that father's own role in life. Coleman wanted to be boxer - he was good in the ring. But he follows a different path to become a classical scholar. The "first Jew to teach classical literature in America" - according to narrator Zuckerman. The source of Coleman's ire becomes clear when he tells Zuckerman about his first love. While in university, he meets a young woman and invites her home to dinner. The result is an act in a long-term tragedy. A tragedy that has yet to be played out both in the film and in real life. Convoluting Coleman's already bizarre existence is his unexpected encounter with Faunia Farley \oNicole Kidman\c. In what is demonstrably her best role, Kidman is a woman beset by tragic circumstances. Their liaison, which should be completely out of character for both, proves stable and enduring. A cynical farm woman struggling for survival, she should have little to offer the classics scholar. But Coleman's own struggles provide a hidden bond. The two become lovers, mutually reinforcing and restoring a positive approach to their lives. It's easy for Hopkins to impart tension in a film role - he's done it often enough. But here, he displays a new version of that emotion. There is the visible manifestation of self-control. While he can release his rage when he's relating his story to Zuckerman, a whole new aspect appears when he's with Kidman. In turn, while she might simply be grateful for his attention, Kidman becomes enamoured of his qualities. She discovers his strengths and capacities, leading her to develop a sincere affection for this stranger. Together, the endure challenges and overcome them. All but the last one. There are many roles in this film deserving applause. Anna Deveare Smith's depiction of Coleman's mother, Ed Harris as Faunia's ex-husband and, of course, Jacinda Barrett as Coleman's university-days lover stand out well under Benton's direction. Hopkins and Kidman, however, rightly dominate this production. Kidman, in particular, exhibits a capacity hardly promised in her other roles. This film is reminiscent of two of Sean Connery's in which two co-stars, Lorraine Bracco and Catherine Zeta-Jones seem to suddenly blossom out of previous mediocrity. Was there an unforeseen magic between Hopkins and Kidman, or did Benton provide a catalyst needed to bring out the best these two could provide? However the formula worked, the product is something outstanding. \ostephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada\c

Flawed but Interesting:
During WWII, millions of Jews whose only crime in the eyes of some where their being Jewish. Thousands to over millions were sent into concentration camps where few survived and many were murdered, even the innocent of innocent, the children. Those Jews who managed to escape did so by fleeing to hopeful safe harbors in other countries, or, they passed. Far from passing to gain material wealth, power, and a share in the decadence of the predominant group, these Jews simply sought to survive and see another day. One cannot help but admire those who spent the rest of their lives, whenever possible, challenging racism and bigotry and injustice. The titled character in the HUMAN STAIN is far from being admirable and sympathetic. Coleman Silk is a black man who chooses to pass as white to enjoy the privileges of being white. He doesn't care to fight the injustices that deny his people their humanity, but instead chooses to cater and bow down in honor and the keeping of such injustice against his own people. Ironically, at the time he passes, those Jews who where unable to pass were being killed, entire families. Even more ironical, Silk chooses to pass as Jewish. He turns his back on his family, even after his mother in the movie pleads with him in what has to be the best emotionally intense moment in the movie. Seemingly without much conscious to morals, Silk starts his life new as a white man without anyone ever suspecting him as being anything other than this. He marries a white woman, begins a career as a college professor, lives the American dream of freedom without roadblocks. Life is pretty good until his wife dies and two black students accuse him of using a racial slur against them which is accidental and unintentional, but Silk so long denying his heritage does not realize the power and mistake of the word he has used. At this point, his mask begins to fall off and his past comes back to haunt him and it is not forgiving. The main problem with this film is the way the story is told. The makers would have done better to tell the story from the perspective of the young Silk instead of the old Silk who is played by Anthony Hopkins. Moreover, the character played by Nicole Kidman, who Silk begins a May/December relationship with in the midst of the Clinton sex scandel with a young intern, seems to pollute the storyline and burden it down. Kidman plays her part well, as the entire cast is excellent, but her character should have been exercised from the story on the big screen all together. It is the young Coleman Silk and his family who are the really interesting characters deserved more time on screen instead of only being seen in flashback scenes. The press for this movie was a lesson in the racial divide that is growing in the U.S. The press took more of an interest in seeing how quick the guy who played young Silk, Wentworth Miller, would distance himself from being black than they did in the moral questions raised in the movie or book of the same name by a white man. Sadly, they may have gotten what they wanted. I hope that I am wrong. I would take great pride in being wrong!!!!! and offer an apology for the misunderstanding of Miller. Rather than understanding the diversity of the black American community, that is, that black Americans are a multi-cultural people whose blood roots extend not just in Africa but also Europe and even Asia and all those places in between, regardless of the complexion of skin or of the skin or race of one or both parents--the cause of the huge color spectra among black Americans and blacks from North America to South America--, and, that black Americans are a people proud of their ancestry in all its diversity regardless of what only a handful of extremely bigoted afro-centralist don't want admitted and many white Americans refuse to take time to learn and understand, the press has played to its own blind and ignorant liberal bias that divides blacks Americans into dangerous social stratas of ethnicities. For his part, Miller, who doesn't deny his heritage like he has done in playing earlier roles in his career until the HUMAN STAIN, has shown a proclivity not to correct his interviewers and has legitimized their prejudices that the one drop rule of blood applies to all but a few of black Americans who have one non black American parent, political correctness at its most perverse and dangerous. Miller doesn't understand or doesn't want to understand that he is legitimizing racist fallacies. To those who choose to watch the movie, or even, read the book, keep in mind that the story is written from the view point of those or one person not in the know to all the nuances, diversity, complexity, pride, heartache and tragedy, joy, sometimes embarrassment, anger, struggle, bloodlines, and stories to the black American community no matter how sympathetic and understanding they claim to be.

A man's stormy, unhappy life's journey:
This film is certainly enjoyable and worthwhile if you can accept the premise that Anthony Hopkins' character has buried his secret for his entire adult life and now confesses all to his spunky, unlettered lover Faunia \oNicole Kidman\c. The movie is told in many flashbacks and will be hard to follow for those who don't pay close attention. Professor Silk's problems at his college that lead to his tribunal before the faculty and subsequent resignation are filled with irony but it doesn't seem that it is Hopkins who bears the insecurity, shame and humiliation of being in denial all his life as much as Wentworth Miller does who plays the younger Coleman Silk. The vignettes tell tragic and unhappy stories but reveal the Silk family as proud and dignified and they are represented by a wonderful cast of talented actors. Hopkins and Kidman, as expected, are great as partners in a May-December affair.