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guilt

The Card Counter – Unforgivable?

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Paul Schrader?s The Card Counter is the story of a solitary man hiding from the world. Or more precisely, a man hiding from the sin and guilt that he carries with him.

?William Tell? (Oscar Isaac) plays cards for a living. He?s very good at it.  He knows precisely the advantages the house holds in each game. He counts cards in blackjack (against the rule, but hard to enforce). He stays under the radar by never winning too big and by moving from one small casino to another. He lives in seedy motels. When he checks in, he covers everything with sheets to create a completely featureless world. His life is the personification of Stoicism.

Oscar Isaac stars as William Tell in THE CARD COUNTER, a Focus Features release. Credit: Courtesy of Focus Features / ?2021 Focus Features, LLC

His gambling skills catches the eye of La Linda (Tiffany Haddish), an agent who arranges for backers for gamblers. When the gambler wins, they split the winnings. If they lose, that loss will come out of future winnings. William isn?t moved by the promises of bigger winnings (and the chance of indebtedness). But there is an attraction between William and La Linda. William?s Stoic lifestyle, however, doesn?t have room for romance.

At a law enforcement convention (cops offer a good chance for William to win against them), William wanders into a presentation by Major John Gordo (Willem Dafoe) about a new software program. Also in the room is a teenager, Cirk (Tye Sheridan), who recognizes William and gives him his number to call.

Oscar Isaac stars as William Tell and Tiffany Haddish as La Linda in THE CARD COUNTER, a Focus Features release. Credit: Courtesy of Focus Features / ?2021 Focus Features, LLC

We need some back story at this point. William (PFC William Tillich) served at Abu Ghraib prison during the Iraq War. Under the tutelage of Major Gordo, William tortured the prisoners there. His guilt and moral injury consume him, even after spending eight and a half years in military prison for his actions. Gordo, as a contractor, walked away with no punishment. For William the time in prison was comforting, with its routines and certainties. There he began to read. The book we see him with is Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, a Stoic who became Emperor of Rome. After release, William sets about his life in casinos, perhaps as a way of hiding from his past.

Cirk?s father also served at Abu Ghraib. He ended up killing himself. Cirk is out to avenge his father?s death by kidnapping, torturing, and killing Gordo. He seeks William?s help in this plan, but William knows that such hatred devours the soul and tries to dissuade Cirk. He asks Cirk to travel with him as a sort of prot?g?. William also calls La Linda to start in on the circuit and make more money. As William moves towards the big payday of the World Series of Poker, Cirk become impatient, and William and La Linda generate some sparks. As is often the case in Schrader films, there will have to be violence before redemption is found.

Oscar Isaac stars as William Tell and Tye Sheridan as Cirk in THE CARD COUNTER, a Focus Features release. Credit: Courtesy of Focus Features / ?2021 Focus Features, LLC

In press notes, Schrader define his genre of films as ?they typically involve a man alone in a room wearing a mask, and the mask is his occupation.? William Tell, whether in prison, his spare motel room (his personal prison) or in the midst of a busy casino is such a man alone in a mask. The man behind the mask we only really discover in his thoughts as he journals. Those thoughts are about the weight of the sin that he carries and the lack of the possibility of forgiveness for those sins.

Sin and redemption are key themes in Schrader films. (He directed Hardcore, American Gigolo, and First Reformed. His screenplays also include Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, The Last Temptation of Christ, and The Mosquito Coast.) There are no filmmakers better at dealing with those topics than Schrader.  Schrader?s Calvinist background is often present in his films. It is not explicit in this film, but it is present nonetheless.

Sin here is tied to unspeakable violence. William cannot forgive himself for participating. And we are subtly reminded that he was doing so in the name of America. Perhaps we are willing to look away and move on (without admitting the sin or the need of forgiveness), but the moral weight of what William did is a burden he continues to carry. Here is a man who knows guilt?not as an abstract, but as a daily presence in his life. Even when he was in jail, he was seeking more punishment in a search for expiation. Now he seeks to live behind his mask and be disconnected for the world.

Oscar Isaac stars as William Tell in THE CARD COUNTER, a Focus Features release. Credit: Courtesy of Focus Features / ?2021 Focus Features, LLC

Are William?s sins forgivable? We want to answer yes, but how can we say that without a severe price being paid? And if we see our own culpability in his sins, how can we not wonder the same about our guilt? The real question isn?t about the sin, but how do we find redemption? William sought to survive anonymously, but in the end it will take far more for his life to be redeemed.

The Card Counter is available now on Blu-ray and Digital with the bonus featurette “A High-Stakes World.”

First Reformed – A Pastor’s Dark Night of the Soul

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?Will God forgive us??

A pastor?s grief, guilt, and growing crisis of faith gives rise to First Reformed, from writer-director Paul Schrader. Schrader has delved into faith before in films like Hardcore and The Last Temptation of Christ (for which he wrote the screenplay). He has also sought to plumb the dark places of life with scripts such as Taxi Driver and Raging Bull. In First Reformed all of this comes together.

Ernst Toller (Ethan Hawke) is the pastor of a historic church in upstate New York. It is now little more than a tourist stop with a very small congregation. The church operates under the auspices of a nearby megachurch, Abundant Life. After church one Sunday, Mary (Amanda Seyfried), asks Toller to counsel her husband Michael (Philip Ettinger) who is severely depressed over environmental issues. Although Toller tries to lead Michael to see hope, eventually Michael succumbs to his despair. This adds to Toller?s already dark mood.

Toller had been a military chaplain and had encouraged his son to go into the military as well. After his son was killed in Iraq, Toller has lived with guilt and seems to be trying to live a life of penance. He lives a Spartan existence and seems to put off any who would seek to care for him?especially the choir director at Abundant Live (Victoria Hill) who carries a torch for him. The only person he can find any connection with in his world of darkness is Mary. As Toller?s mood continues to spiral down and his health seems to be failing as well, he decides to take a drastic action to bring attention to the environmental issues that concerned Michael.

At one level,?First Reformed is a study of a crisis in faith faced by an individual. Toller?s struggle with guilt over his son, a pessimism about where the world is headed, and his failure to find happiness in life seems to have cut Toller off from any sense of God. As he journals (which we often hear in voice over) Toller says the things he writes are much like the things he says to God ?when he is listening.? Through all this he must continue to serve the church week after week.

But this film also raises the question of how is the church to act faithfully in a world facing crises. Toller?s little church is about to celebrate its 250th anniversary and Abundant Life is planning a big event. One of the biggest donors is Edward Balq, an industrialist who doesn?t want global warming or the environment talked about. He wants to make sure politics are avoided in the anniversary celebration. Toller is beginning to question how the church cannot be involved in such issues. It falls on Abundant Life senior pastor, Pastor Jeffers (Cedric Kyles) to try to keep Toller in line.

What of the question of political issues in church? It should be noted that First Reformed was a waystation on the Underground Railroad. Obviously political issues have mattered here in the past. But Jeffers, although appreciating where Toller is coming from, must also try to appease those who give generously to the church. This can often be a struggle for those who believe that God?s message speaks to many of the woes that face the world. There are always those who do not want the prophetic voice of the church to be heard.

Pastor Toller?s spiritual anguish, I think, is an exaggeration of a malaise that afflicts much of the church and society. It is not a lack of faith (either for Toller or the church at large). We become so overwhelmed by the griefs and pains of life that we feel paralyzed to address the deep needs of the world around us. After all, we can barely deal with our own problems as we watch the church seeming to be in a death spiral of its own and society falling apart in anger, crudeness, and incivility. This film speaks to the struggle of how to live out the faith we hold to in a time that challenges our faith and values.

Photos courtesy of A24

Aftermath – Two Lives Connected by Tragedy

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Two lives are torn apart by a catastrophic event. When two airliners collide in midair killing everyone on both planes, Roman Melnyk (Arnold Schwarzenegger) loses his wife and daughter. For air-traffic controller Jacob Bonanos (Scoot McNairy) who was on duty when the crash occured, the guilt (whether deserved or not) eats away at him and is rapidly destroying his marriage and his life. Aftermath tells their stories in storylines that we know will converge just as the two airliners did. Will it bring redemption or be yet another life altering calamity?

Both Roman and Jacob struggle in the face of the terrible event. Roman is nearly paralyzed by his grief, which gives way to anger. He doesn?t seem to be concerned about the monetary settlement offered by the airlines. He wants someone to look at the picture of his family and say they are sorry. Jacob, on the other hand, must face the legal and moral issues around his part in the tragedy. While everyone seems to be concerned about him, there is also the sense that his superiors are just as concerned to cover their own liabilities. Both men have some support in friends and family, but in many ways each must face their pain alone. They do not build walls, but their suffering becomes a wall that it difficult to get through. As the two men, whose stories we alternate between, continue their descent into darkness, both come to the verge of suicide.

Schwarzenegger and McNairy both do excellent jobs of portraying the pains that take control of their lives. Both characters have very complicated journeys through their emotional upheaval. We are drawn to both men, even when we see that they turn away from some who would seek to ease their struggle. The film?s themes of grief, guilt, vengeance, and the possibility of overcoming all of those things to find balance and peace all play out in the film.

The last third of the film moves ahead to a time when both men have had a chance to settle into the post-tragedy life. Roman seems to have come to terms with life alone. Jacob has moved away and changed his name and career. We know that eventually the two must meet to bring any kind of closure to their issues. But that meeting has its own surprises, which are really not settled until a denouement in the final scene, some time later. That final scene provides the hope that even the darkest event of one?s life can still not completely overwhelm.

Photos courtesy of Lionsgate Premiere

On the Blu-ray and DVD versions, available today, special features include the audio commentary with Director Elliott Lester and Producer Eric Watson, as well as interviews with Lester and?Director of Photography Pieter Vermeer.

Germans & Jews: Can They Live Together?

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?What did his grandfather do??

Does it seem odd that the fastest growing Jewish community in Europe is found in Berlin? When filmmaker Tal Recanati (a Jewish American) traveled to Germany and found a vibrant Jewish community that has grown in the seventy years since the Holocaust, she thought there was a story here that needed to be discovered. Germans & Jews is the personal stories of both Jewish and non-Jewish people living in Germany reflecting on the commonalities and differences they face.

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The film includes a brief history of the rise of Nazism and the Holocaust, but for the most part, it is made up of individual interviews of mostly young adults who are two generations separated from those events. A few of the Jews are from families that returned to Germany right after World War II, others have come from Israel or Russia in more recent years. The gentile Germans have had an education that includes much information about the Holocaust as a way of dealing with their national past. With seventy years having passed, can these two groups coexist in their nation? Is seventy years long enough for such deep wounds to heal and trust to be established? Must new generations carry the guilt of their grandparents (regardless of their ancestors? actual participation or non-participation)? Can there be reconciliation between peoples who have such a violent and oppressive history?

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As an American watching the film, I felt a bit like an outsider. To be sure, the Holocaust is a part of our cultural awareness?but often just as a point in history that continues to have influences in world affairs. But for those we meet in the film, the Holocaust is an ongoing part of their culture whether or not they are Jewish. As more Jews move into Germany (although they still make up only 0.2% of the population) the relationship between Jew and non-Jew will continue to be a growing phenomenon. The key question is to what extent can these peoples find reconciliation and begin to live not just side by side, but actually be in community together? That is the question that seems to be central not just to the film, but may also be a question that the whole world needs to consider in the many ways national, religious, and cultural divides occur.

Photos courtesy of First Run Features