Terence Nugent

The Killer’s Kiss is one of the early cinematic forays of the auteur Stanley Kubrick. While generally viewed as merely a flash of the brilliance which would come to fruition in film classics such as 2001: A Space Odyssey, it deserves more respect. While the cinematography is duly recognized for Kubrick’s unique elements of style including solaresque dominant points of light and extreme long shots juxtaposed with claustrophobically extreme close-ups reflecting the still photographic origins of his long visual art career, the narrative, while created in the Hitchkockian mode of beginning with scenes in the mind of the art director to be strung like pearls in a plot, actually had quite an elegant parallel narrative structure, which should be but is not credited to the screenwriter. The plot tells the tales of two urban strugglers who live in shabby apartments across from each other in Manhattan’s asphalt jungle—a washed up prizefighter boxer and an aspiring ballerina slumming as a dance hall girl. Both of their lives are cheap imitations of their glorious ambitions. Ironically, he must take the subway to his Waterloo in the ring while she rides in style with her gangster boss. Both of their lives are violently upended—the dancers’ by her boss’ sexual predation, the boxer by TKO in the ring. Their paths cross when the fighter sees the dancer being attacked and comes to her physical and emotional rescue. In spite of a betrayal, together they escape from New York to an agrarian Arcadia. Apparently Kubrick had a darker ending in mind but in the mid-50s happy ones were commercial imperatives. Had the film been made later in the century, the dance hall might have been a brothel, and the protagonists life might have been knocked out just as his career was in the ring. As it stands, we are left with an uplifting denouement of the sort that is a quaint relic of a time when art sought to lift spirits rather than pummel them into oblivion and bludgeon out joi de vivre to death with ceaseless blows of shame, guilt, deconstruction and self-loathing that grant us reprieve only in the sense of making departure from this mortal plane seem as merciful as a TKO.

The most remarkable thing aboutThe Loudest Voice is that it took three episodes for it to dawn on me that Russell Crowe stars as Roger Ailes. That is either the ultimate compliment to Crowe’s performance or an indictment of my discernment. In regard to the content, it is based on a similarly named book by an arch critic of Mr. Ailes and his work so it is by definition vulnerable to critiques that it has the same vices it of which accuses its subject. However this is fictionalization not documentary whereas Fox brands itself as news. Ailes inarguably has serious character flaws if he #metoo kind, as did at least one of his stars (Bill O’Reilly), although it is easy to do a “what about” turnabout citing the likes of William Jefferson Clinton and Charlie Rose. To the extent that the screenplay is accurate though, there are some intriguing insights into why Ailes was the way he was as expressed in his network. Allegedly he had a rough childhood as a hemophiliac with a physically abusive father, a bizarrely traumatic combination. That sort of youth can result in PTSD that expresses itself in anger management issues and a generally emotional vs rational temperament. I have a theory (untested) that it may be predictive of conservatism. Hitler had a horribly abusive father. I cite this with trepidation as I abhor slanderous comparisons of anyone with him, and no such imprisonments is intended, but he was a conservative who used negative emotions to rule. The miniseries takes a negative view of Ailes and his network, but it is ironically fairly fair and balanced. It portrays Ailes as a charismatic true believer who is very good at what he does. There is an element of cynicism and certainly a view that the ends justify the means, but at the core he is a true conservative of conscience, confident in the rightness of his rightness, a messianic who sincerely sees himself as saving the world from Communism, terrorism and other external and internal threats to his country. It also demonstrated the internal turmoil that emotional appeals create, setting friends against friends, neighbors against neighbors. Today, cable networks on both sides of the aisle feed this negative emotional frenzy, as do social networks, creating powerful fault lines in our politics that make us vulnerable to foreign manipulation. Ailes and Fox certainly didn’t invent this trend, but it’s hard to deny thAt they were an accelerant, generating more heated argument than enlightened debate. I personally watched more Fox News during the 90s through 2006 than most people who are not fans. I observed that Fox was not entirely biased. There were some progressive voices even though in many cases they were mere fools for he protagonists. Fox did cover some inconvenient truths that more liberal media avoided. On the negative side, many of the talking heads were pretty empty, and the productions were almost soft pornnfor conservatives die to casting, wardrobe and camera angles. From that perspective, The Loudest Voice is compelling viewing to help understand the Fox phenomenon.