I try to keep my critical appraisal separate from my opinions of the man himself. The Ghost Writer was indeed very good and above all I enjoyed the performances, though it’s comparisons to Chinatown was what my mind ultimately rested on simply because it does cover similar ground. Also, the precise way the information was revealed, it works for what was and it isn’t like the movie needed to be more mysterious or complicated or anything, but for me it’s just “thousands of eyes in the CIA and KGB and nobody could figure that simple trick out for themselves?” sort of thing.
—PolarisDiB
I was surprised I enjoyed it as well, still many questions left unanswered..
What I like is that it brings up those themes again, but it isn’t just a simple rehash. It’s more like a variation on the same idea. The great thing about Ewan’s character (which I’ve just realized is only known as “The Ghost” in the movie) is how he is, by his own admission, not interested in politics or in acting as an “investigative journalist.” He just wants to wash his hands of all this stuff, but at the same time, the further he becomes involved in it, the more his skeletal personal ethics become amplified, compelling him to seek the truth. At every step, he makes it clear that he wouldn’t seek to DO much of anything with this truth once he had it, and yet still he’s compelled to find it.
I also loved the almost stationary non-chase “chase scene.” As a piece of the larger chronology of cinema, “The Ghost Writer” constitutes a rather bold statement about suspense and thrills, that a character needn’t be hanging from a cliff in order to be involved in a cliffhanger. In that sense, the film is refreshing.
I didn’t have a problem with “the trick,” really. I got the impression that the CIA, or whomever, had been trying to get their hands on the manuscript, but hadn’t been able to obtain it thus far, since it was under strict lock & key. So it wasn’t that they had the manuscript, but couldn’t crack the easy code. They already knew what the previous ghost writer was trying to leak anyway. What they wanted was to make sure that information never saw the light of day, since it would implicate them in, I guess, having infiltrated, and basically arranged to control the UK with a puppet prime minister.
The one thing I didn’t understand was how this all became such big news on CNN. In reality, it would have been a minor story, after the death of some celebrity, and the kidnapping of some random white girl. :)
Why did Ruth sleep with Ewan?
Did she order the deal of Mike?
I thought it was boring, but I was expecting it to be something akin to Polanski’s ‘70s period, so perhaps it’s my own fault (Chinatown? Really?!?). It had a few “Polanski moments” but all-in-all he was playing it by the book. I didn’t think the mood was creepy necessarily, but yeah I would agree, melancholy and even wistful at times. The comparison to Chinatown is baffling, though there are similarities between the two, they’re very different films – it’d be like comparing Sin City to Chinatown merely because they’re “noir.” Eh, nope don’t see it. I even liked The Ninth Gate better, which it has more in common with (as well as Frantic IMO). It’s not as hard-edged as Chinatown and there’s actually quite a bit of humour in that film that just barely exists in The Ghost Writer.
Putting aside the abomination that is Polanski’s sexual behavior and merely judging the picture on its own merits, I found I liked the film a lot too. Two things struck me about the locations: firstly, that the windswept starkness of the New England coast was symbolic of a sort of “political Siberia”. It indicated just how far from the corridors of power the former PM had fallen. The caretaker, who like Sisyphus, swept up the patio only to have it blown from his barrow back onto the patio seemed to indicate that this was a place of meaningless tasks. Look busy but accomplish little.
Secondly, I was fascinated by the office space the ghostwriter was given. That floor to ceiling window in the right quarter of the frame was always lit so that it never reflected light, ever. The sand abutted that window and it looked as if there was no window at all but merely a large gap in the wall bringing the desolate dunes indoors.
Now, I’ll admit I have been guilty of over-analyzing images before but I think there is no way in God’s creation that a director of Polanski’s sensibility chose this location, framed these shots and had the scene lit to never cast a reflection without wanting to communicate something to his audience. My interpretation of all this is that despite being admitted to the very inner core of the Adam Lang’s world and supposedly privy to ever aspect of his life, the ghostwriter finds himself very much “out in the cold” and with a grossly incomplete picture of the truth about the former PM’s life.
Oh, that reminds me:
LOOOOVVVVEEEEEEDDDD the house most of this was set in. When I’m rich and famous and powerful and can afford overpriced shitty but still in my own opinion amazingly striking and beautiful modern art like that house had hangin’ on its walls, that’s the type of place I want to live in.
Which kind of had a distracting effect on the movie for me because it was supposed to be all tonally dark and cold and mysterious but I just felt, whenever he was inside that house, right at home. It was whenever he left that I was like “Oh, oh right, this is a thriller!”
—PolarisDiB
Deckard:
I compared the two films thematically. If you can’t see the thematic connection, then, well, I think you probably slept through the movie.
Django:
I may be completely wrong about this, but I feel like the landscape (aside from the obvious symbolism of the stormy isle) is actually supposed to, in a way, have kind of this Britain-away-from-Britain vibe to it. I guess maybe I’d have to be British in order to really verify that line of thinking. But I just get the vibe of this ex-PM in a sort of exile, who finds, anyway, a place that carries a sort of familiarity in order to settle down. Even the Americans who live on the island don’t really feel “American.” They have strange, not-often-heard, coastal accents that carry tones from the old country. So it is sort of a political Siberia, but one that resembles “home.” It could easily have been coastal Britain.
Also, if I remember correctly, I think the interior scenes at the house were done in a studio with the outdoors filled in on green screen, which would probably explain why the windows never reflected light.
And the moment when he sleeps with her ruined the movie for me.
My thoughts, I shit you not:
“Dude, you are in that awesome house, sleeping with that beautiful woman. It’s all fake and you’re probably going to die soon. But you know what’s great? You can die happy with that experience.” Powerful women are my thing, too.
Twiddles thumbs
Alright, back to, er, what this movie is actually about.
—PolarisDiB
Bolo, as I said I have a tendency to over-analyze at times so I may have totally missed the mark on all of this but I don’t think so. We seem to certainly agree that whether Lang found himself on that sleepy isle because it reminded him of the Homeland or not it was indeed far, far removed from the life of a number 10 Downing St power broker. And if in fact the interiors were fabricated on a sound stage, all the more reason to suspect that there are clear cut intentions behind how Polanski had the sets configured and lit. My interpretation may well be complete crap but I am SURE that Polanski was revealing something in creating that mise en scene.
“I compared the two films thematically. If you can’t see the thematic connection, then, well, I think you probably slept through the movie.”
What theme are you referring to then? This one? “desiring knowledge of the truth despite its attendant dangers” … isn’t that the theme of practically every Polanski film?
Deckard:
I noted that Polanski made that theme most famous in “Chinatown,” not that it was the only movie in which he’d ever employed that theme, or even that he was the only person, or the first person, to employ it. I don’t understand why you’re going out of your way to be so combative over such a small, yet self-evidently true, point.
Bolo, no one’s being combative, I’m just confused as to why it seems so significant to mention such a theme that’s so self-evident. But anyway, you’re not the only who’s mentioned such a comparison (if I recall, I didn’t address the post specifically to you) on this forum or in the world in general, so apparently it’s so self-evident that everyone feels the need to mention it, heh.
Deckard:
I mention it because I think the parallels are pretty significant. It’s not just the theme of discovering truth, but also the idea that knowing the truth is tragic if, when all is said and done, you can’t do anything about it. The Ghost’s little moment of triumph, where he passes the note to Ruth and holds up his wine glass with a smile before leaving, is an especially interesting point in the movie. Just like in “Chinatown,” the audience is forced to reconcile this brief moment of triumph with the fact that he is certainly powerless to effect any change. We’re almost waiting for “god’s hand” to guide him into some sort of ingenious follow-up to this ballsy move, something that will ensure a hopeful, if not happy, ending. But of course, that doesn’t happen. And at the end, The Ghost is both Gittes himself, as well as the tragedy that Gittes mourns.
Perfect! That’s what I was looking for, an explanation! Sorry about the rigmarole, but now we’re getting to the heart of this discussion. I still can’t say I wholly agree (that’s just my own stubborn preferences), but it’s certainly a valid stance no doubt. Well said.
The comparisons to Chinatown would appear valid — Polanski seems to be making a wry reference to his earlier film in the form of a Chinese groundskeeper. I think the groundskeeper even says at one point, in The Ghost Writer, “bad for glass.”
It’s my favorite documentary of the year so far.
I enjoyed the writing, especially in the first hour. I thought the ending was really contrived. And I thought the big conspiracy was a bit too Oliver Stone.
So he figures the mystery out. He could keep quiet, he’s safe. He could protect himself first then have it published, he’s in danger but has a chance. Instead, he does the one thing that will guarantee bad things happening to him immediately. It’s like he did what he did at the end for the sole purpose of proving Darwin wrong.
Noone has yet mentioned the obvious product placement? I found that really distracting. Coca Cola, BMW, California Wine… sometimes it was even written into the script, like when the ex-PM’s wife was talking about the wine or when the grounds-keeper was vanting the greatness of the BMW SUV.
On the whole, I found the movie a bit contrived. The conspiracy plot didn’t please me at all, and the sudden twist ending reminded me of Agatha Christie. Hitchcockian development is great, but a sudden piece of information never before mentioned and suddenly revealed in the last five minutes is just lame.
…as for Polanski’s personal history, I don’t think his misactions or his film past should have anything to do with how we rate The Ghost Writer. Don’t be leniant because it’s Polanski and don’t be harsh because it’s Polanski, either.
Jirin:
That ending is what makes the movie interesting! Why does he reveal his hand, even when, knowing what he knows, he can probably slip back into his normal existence? My own feeling is that he does it in order to gain some sort of control over these chaotic events he’s been part of. Throughout the film, he’s portrayed as the kind of person who doesn’t want to involve himself too deeply in the nuts and bolts of politics, but he also has a strong sense of personal justice. He can’t stand being lied to, not because he cares about it on a political level, but because it interferes with the one thing that makes him who he is (his superlative ability to convey events without conveying his own existence). And at the end, that’s exactly what he does. He hands “the truth,” through a dozen people, to the person who most needs to know that HE KNOWS, and watches her reaction from afar, his actions anonymous to everybody but her, the central figure of the story.
I thought that the conspiracy angle was layered enough that it was satisfying. There was definitely that “one step more,” the extra twist that pulls it together, at least for me. It wasn’t a loud conspiracy story, that’s for sure. It was subtle. Nothing of “nuclear war” proportions. But that’s what I liked about the movie in general, that it didn’t carry the same stakes as other political thrillers, and that it didn’t push its narrative (I’m thinking of the “chase” sequence) in the same way either.
Anonymouse:
That’s the thing. I’m NOT being lenient just because it’s Polanski. I was actually surprised I ended up enjoying “The Ghost Writer” as much as I did. I don’t usually think of Polanski as a guy who’s doing great work anymore (I liked “The Pianist” somewhat, but then again, it was kind of just a holocaust movie, which … meh, something about that just makes it fall apart in my mind, and meld together with all the other holocaust melodramas that have been put out). And I’m not saying it’s a masterpiece, by any means, but it definitely had that quality of lulling me into this safe sense of what went on, and then coming back to gnaw on me later, upon further reflection.
ALSO! THE BIG QUESTION FOR EVERYBODY!
What happened at the very end? Did he throw himself in front of the car, knowing that he wouldn’t survive having made his knowledge public to Ruth, or was the car an intentional “hit” on him? The ending gives the impression that it was the latter, and that’s probably the case, but when I first saw it, I had the distinct feeling of ambiguity there. Either way, The Ghost has to have known that he signed his death warrant by revealing his knowledge in that way. But then again, the very ending implies that, whether he told Ruth or not, he was going to “get it” (since the car was clearly waiting for him already), so maybe telling Ruth was literally “the best he could do” in his situation. And there is sort of an odd triumph in that, isn’t there? A tragic triumph?
I like watching Polanski, but the source material is nothing more than a Grisham-level thriller novel so the film never quite excels it. Polanski allows mediocre writing to pass, sometimes. He needs Kubrick’s literary standards. That said, I liked the film.
Miasma:
For me, the source material felt sub-Grisham in a lot of ways, but that’s what I liked about it. It wasn’t an over-the-top thriller about matters of immediately pressing importance. All of the significance of the plot was about stuff that had already happened (the torture/killings of British nationals, which ended up not being the central conflict after all, and the fact that the CIA had essentially had an ex-PM as their puppet). That “The Ghost” had so little to gain from knowing the truth is what makes his quest to find it so interesting, in my view.
@Bolo Tie: I honestly didn’t think it was a hit at all, just a simple accident. Really, even the CIA can’t plan a hit in a foreign country in like what… the three minutes after he showed what’s her the note? Supposing it was pre-planned, why would they want to kill him? He didn’t know anything up until that point (which she knew) and had pretty much given up on it. I imagine the book openning was sometime after the assassination of the PM.
Anonymouse:
I reviewed the ending of the movie a few minutes ago, and it doesn’t seem as ambiguous as I’d thought it was at first. He walks out into the street, and a parked car that already had its lights on comes flying down the street fairly fast and hits him.
That said, I still think there’s a hint of ambiguity to it. It wouldn’t really be ambiguous if it shut out the possibility of a “hit” either. Both conclusions have to appear to be possible, and in this case, I think they are.
In defense of the “hit” theory, I think it’s highly possible that they’d want to clear up any “loose ends” once and for all. After all, while they didn’t know, at least on an organizational level, that he knew the secret about Ruth, they knew that he was aware of certain, demonstrable, historical discrepancies which could give away the truth. In other words, I don’t think the “hit” would have been brought on by his revelation to Ruth, but rather something put in motion, and destined to happen, no matter what he’d done at that book party.
That sounds probabale. I’ve only seen the movie once, and never noticed the car was parked. In any case I don’t think it’s going to be life changing, it’s just a thriller.
Yeah, I’m pretty convinced that it was a hit. Like whoever mentioned it before in this thread, the car was parked and then “just so happens” to pull out of its parking spot and suddenly speed forward, missing every single pedestrian except for Mr. McGregor … sounds like a hit to me. It may not make sense on a narrative level, but hey, that’s part of my problem with the script.
I think the possibility (extremely slim – we could say that McGregor just didn’t “act” the scene very well, but despite what some people may think, I think McGregor can at least pull off some “ballpark emotion”) that McGregor’s character threw himself in front of the car is, quite frankly, ludicrous. Just watch the way he plays that character the entire film and there’s nothing to suggest that he’d rather commit suicide than face the inevitable – this, if anything, would be a valid comparison with Nicholson’s character in Chinatown – facing and accepting the inevitable.
What Miasma means, I think, is not that it mirrors Grisham’s writing style or his penchant for the melodramatic necessarily, but simply the level of emotional involvement that is drawn from the audience. I believe it was intentional on Polanski’s part to “distance” the audience a bit with this film, but I also think it was a misstep. I really find myself disagreeing with a lot of Polanski enthusiasts because I really liked The Pianist and what elevates the mediocre script (as mediocre as The Ghost Writer IMO) is the emotional involvement that it surprisingly generates.
bolo tie
I just watched this today, and I have to say, I was surprised I liked it as much as I did. The mood/atmosphere were spot-on. Great cinematography. I feel like the setting was supposed to come off as moderately creepy, but being that I grew up in New England, I was struck more by its sad beauty. Polanski dredges up the motif of desiring knowledge of the truth despite its attendant dangers, a theme he made classic in “Chinatown,” but this time it’s projected rather smartly onto a dramatization of current events.
The critical appraisal of this movie felt coldly positive, as though people were acknowledging that Hitler had, indeed, baked a good pie. Many will dismiss it entirely because of Polanski’s history, and that’s sad.
Thoughts?