Back stage

SASA MAJUMA | Friday August 30, 2013 00:00

The Place Beyond the Pines (2012) is now showing at the New Capitol Cinemas. It is perhaps the best movie playing this season at the New Capitol Cinemas.

It is a serious and intelligent film, rooted in human foibles and the tragedies that befall people. It cuts across gender, race and class with penetration and understanding. It encompasses generational views of life and changes and it confronts police corruption head on. The Place Beyond the Pines is the original Native American Mohawk name for Schenectady, New York, where most of the film was made.  This small town provides a reflection on some of the contradictions and tensions that confront people absorbed in surviving against overwhelming odds. The tale is told in three distinct chapters and through the perspective of three men. The film opens in a travelling carnival (filmed at Altamont, New York, fairgrounds). It has returned to Schenectady after nearly two years of absence.  Watch the back of Luke (acted by Ryan Gosling) as he walks to his performance as a motorcycle stunt man in the Cage of Death.  The promotion of the film has focused on Gosling, because he is a star and will attract audiences.  It really belongs to Bradley Cooper who plays Avery Cross, a policeman with a conscience who tries to be a whistle blower.  Avery is in all three chapters, but the second chapter belongs to him.

In the first chapter, he is a rookie policeman, just a year in the service.  He is motivated by altruistic ideals and his father, Al Cross (played by Harris Yulin) to become a policeman.  Avery is not your ordinary policeman because he has been to college and graduated from law school.  He is also ambitious and sees starting at the bottom as a way up.  He does not want to take too long to get to the top.The chance to become a hero is his avenue up and out.  Are his actions premeditated?  That he does not use the radiophone on his belt to call for back-up as he pursues a bank robber suggests he knows what he is doing.  What is another dead criminal to you when he can become your stepping-stone up?  He can become your albatross if you have a conscience.When last in town, Luke had a fling with young Romina (Eva Mendes).  When they meet again in the amusement park, the magnetism is still there.  But she is both attracted and repulsed by him.  When he learns that he has a one-year-old son, his life is transformed.  He wants to be responsible for his baby, Jason (acted by Anthony Angelo Pizza Jr-yes this baby can act).  That Romina, who works as a waitress at a diner, is already in a long-term relationship with an African American, Kofi (played by Mahershala Ali), makes no difference to Luke.  He is subconsciously racist and assumes he can just push Kofi out and take over.

Luke has one problem.  When he quits the travelling show, he has no money.  Then by accident, he meets Robin (Ben Mendelsohn) who has a garage out in the woods.  He offers Luke a home in an empty trailer and a job as a mechanic.  Ben has a wry smile and takes him in like a younger brother.  But when Luke confesses that he needs more money than he is getting, Ben jokes about robbing banks.  Luke laughs.  Ben explains how it can be done, but insists that they must stop after four banks.  They devise an ingenious getaway scheme and Luke becomes the black invader.  When he confronts Romina, he discovers that she wants nothing to do with either him or his stolen money.  Then Luke dies in the third bank robbery but his spirit lives on, both in his son Jason and in the guilty conscience of Avery Cross.

The second chapter explores how a hero is treated by others and how corrupt policemen acquire loot.  Avery has a number of unusual confrontations with the chief of police who can hear what he is saying, but who maintains his loyalty to his other officers.  Avery has a wife, Jennifer Cross (Rose Byrne) and a one-year-old son called AJ.  What is happening in Avery's head as he becomes challenged and remote undermines the marriage.  She leaves with AJ to live in Troy, south across the Hudson River near Albany.

The third chapter is set 15 years later. AJ Cross (now acted by Emory Cohen) moves back to Schenectady to spend his senior year of high school there with his father. At his school, he meets and befriends Jason (now played by Dane De Haan). AJ already belongs to a delinquent culture and is destined to get into trouble.  His father is running for elected office as New York State's Attorney General.  AJ has no idea that his father had killed Jason's father.  Jason, until now, accepted Kofi as his father.  What will Jason do when he learns the truth?

The Place Beyond the Pines is two hours and 20 minutes long. It is rated 16+ (there is violence and drugs, Ecstasy and Oxycontin). The director is Derek Cianfrance who was last here in Blue Valentine. It is based on a story by Derek Cianfrance and Ben Coccio. The script is by Derek Cianfrance, Ben Coccio and Darius Marder. The cinematographer is Sean Bobbitt who loves the pines. The editors are Jim Helton and Ron Patane. The music is by Mike Patton with his band Faith No More. sasa_majuma@yahoo.co.uk