Nudge-Nudge, Wink-Wink: Robert Redford’s The Conspirator
Robert Redford’s movie about the Lincoln assassination, The Conspirator, is one of those nudge-nudge movies. It calls to mind the old Monty Python sketch about the annoying guy on the bench — “nudge-nudge, wink-wink, say-no-more.”
Why doesn’t the guy played by Eric Idle in the Python sketch just come out and say what’s on his mind? (As it turns out, his character wants to know what sex is like.) And why can’t Robert Redford just come out and make the movie he so dearly wants to make — about how the prison at Guantanamo is a national disgrace and how al-Qaeda detainees should be given full Constitutional rights?
The allegory at the heart of The Conspirator is all it has going for it, and it’s the only reason it got made. Shorn of its War on Terror meaning, it’s just a dull, speechy courtroom drama in which every character is more or less stamped “hero,” “villain,” or “victim.”
James McAvoy plays a Union Civil War veteran named Frederick Aiken who is, against his will, assigned the unpleasant task of defending one Mary Surratt, who owns the boarding house where John Wilkes Booth and other conspirators — including, possibly, her own son John, who is missing during an ongoing manhunt — planned the murders of Abraham Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson, and Secretary of State William Seward. (Seward survived a stabbing; Johnson was not attacked).
Mary Surratt is charged along with several clearly guilty and unrepentant conspirators, but her role in the affair is murky. Redford presents her as being the designated witch for hunt, her only morally questionable act being to maintain loyalty to her son John, whose whereabouts she seemingly knows but refuses to divulge.
Aiken, who at first is disgusted by his client but comes to believe that everyone is entitled to a vigorous defense at trial, gradually comes around to the standard 12 Angry Men view that the conventional wisdom is wrong and that his client (played by Robin Wright) is simply an innocent victim of highly politicized hysteria. In case you miss the point, every page of the script groans with stodgy declarations like, “Let us not betray our better judgment and partake in an inquisition” and “You’re so blind with hatred, Mr. Aiken, you can’t even see the truth.” That Mary is being tried in a military, not civilian court, is a nudge-nudge meant to make us think of those poor souls in Guantanamo — the same ones even President Obama now supports trying in military proceedings. This argument is therefore over, and Redford’s film is now embarrassingly too late. The country has moved on.
I’m not an expert on the Lincoln assassination. I’ve read a few books, but I’m more verse on the Civil War. One thing I do know, though, is that Mary Surratt’s guilt is more or less a given now. Thirty years ago, the conventional wisdom was that she was railroaded and executed because she was the mother of one of the conspirators, and because Booth met with the other conspirators at her boarding house–nothing more. She supposedly had nothing to do with the assassination, or the conspiracy that led to it, herself.
However, there are circumstances and pieces of evidence (mostly circumstantial, it’s true, but that’s not neccessarily bad) that she was more closely involved. Most notably, there’s a memoir by a guy named Louis Weichmann, who was a 19-year-old government clerk, and who roomed in Mrs. Surratt’s boarding house. His testimony made it clear that Mrs. Surratt was involved in whatever her son and his friends were up to, though Weichmann didn’t know what was going on (he was initially arrested, but exonerated).
The really odd thing here is that a few years ago, a feminist historian, a young woman with lots of ideals, decided to write a book about this whole controversy, taking the attitude that Mrs. Surratt was railroaded, and somehow concluding that she was executed in some unfair fashion, because she wasn’t involved in the assassination. However, having done her research thoroughly, she changed her mind and came to the conclusion that no, Mrs. Surratt was guilty as charged. The interesting thing is that this book, if I have it correct, is what this movie is based on.
Now I haven’t read the book, and I haven’t seen the movie. But if Redford is taking the line that Mrs. Surratt wasn’t involved in what happened, he’s about 30 years out of date, in terms of what we know historically. Presumably he felt the need to make the more topical political statement, which of course would be meaningless or at least moot if the character were portrayed as guilty.
The issue of whether courts should operate in such a circumstance is one that is going to be a sticking point for years to come, at least until we settle this thing with al Qaeda, if not longer. It’s hard to understand why someone committing violence in our country, while not wearing a uniform from someone else’s armed forces, should be treated differently from a guy robbing a bank, for instance, and what do you do when the terrorist insists that he was doing what he was doing for financial reasons (get out of Iraq, and give me a million dollars while you’re at it)? How do you prevent abuses by the police (give up your co-conspirators or we’ll charge you as a terrorist, if the cop’s honest; if he isn’t, give me a million dollars or I’ll charge you with trumped up charges as a terrorist, and you’ll spend the next six years in Gitmo)? On the other hand, imagine going to war with the understanding that if anyone gets shot by American forces, there need to be lawyers and forensic specialists there, to ascertain if the individual who was killed was an enemy combatant with hostile intent or actions, in each instance where someone is killed by U.S. forces. The whole thing makes your head spin.
But it sounds like the movie isn’t worth seeing…oh well, better luck next time…
Indeed, why not make the movie he wants to make? Because it would fail miserably, while this one may draw in the curious thinking it’s based on historical fact.
Redford approaches his film like a high schooler who makes a video purporting to be one thing, with contemporary parallels only to be “gotten” by the hip youth . . .
“Impressive debut”? I despise Spike Lee but I wholeheartedly agree with his characterization of “Ordinary People” as “unwatchable”.
And “Ordinary People” over “Raging Bull”? AAAAhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Did a cloud of noxious gas descend from a meteor in 1981 and stun people in CA? Was it a point shaving scheme? IS THE ACADEMY OF MOTION PICTURE ARTS AND SCIENCES COMPOSED OF MORONIC NAZIS FROM MARS?
I’ve never even seen “Tess” and I’m declaring it a better film and all the other nominees that year WERE better.
Even “The Terror of Mecha-Godzilla” is a far better film.
And “Rocky” over “Taxi Driver”? Why don’t you just tear out my ganglia?
Heh. “Do the right Thing” was an intellectual failure as well.
In a recent interview, Redford stated that he wasn’t a liberal. That should give us some notion as to the degree of his self-awareness.
“Ordinary People” was shot in Evanston, IL., the home of uber-lefty MC Jan Schakowsky. To the conspiracy minded, I’m sure that explains something.
Redford’s right: he isn’t liberal — he’s a radical leftist.
Robert Redford declines to admit publically to his leftist stance because, like so many others on that side, he cannot legitimately defend his position by any means other than duplicity, innuendo and lies.
That’s why he and his ilk sneak around and (nudge-nudge, wink-wink) ambush the unwary people on the right. It makes the leftists feel smarter and more clever than the non-elite.
Luckily, the general public is wise to those tactics now. The internet and the breaking of the ABC/NBC/CBS news monopoly has educated the public. Redford apparently didn’t get the memo.
“… the general public is wise to those tactics … breaking of the ABC/NBC/CBS news … educated the public.”
Have you not seen the average 18-40 year old voter? They’re the mouth-breathing gum chewers in the handout lines or behind the girdle counter at Woolworths. Go look at the real “American public”.
They’ll take 10 bucks from an Acorn homeless hustler of a ward heeler and vote for whatever charlatan comes along, the one in the White House now or someone just off Idol, etc.
Sad but true
“Luckily, the general public is wise to those tactics now. The internet and the breaking of the ABC/NBC/CBS news monopoly has educated the public.”
Absolutely right! People are always much smarter than the self-styled elite realize.
This movie script predated 9-11 by about a decade. Redford, et al,picked it up and now we have another war trial movie. Who cares? No thinking person forms their philosophies about life and death issues by watching movies. This is what I find disturbing. Are there people, so ignorant, that they consider the views of an industry noted for fantasy and propaganda, as providing meaningful content? Why would anyone give intellectual weight to a man who once was handsome, and rode a horse?
The daily news is filled with eulogies to some very mendacious person who once was seen on TV, and died today. Other than their family, who cares?
I have no doubt this will occur when Mr. Redford passes, but, he, and his life will not form my judgments about anything. He is an entertainer. Let him strut and fret his hour upon the stage and be heard no more, after we leave the movie and attend to real problems.
No thinking person forms their philosophies about life and death issues by watching movies. This is what I find disturbing. Are there people, so ignorant, that they consider the views of an industry noted for fantasy and propaganda, as providing meaningful content?
Unfortunately, we live in a time when history is very poorly taught. The level of basic historical knowledge is abismal, so if people see something in a movie based on historical events and don’t know any better, they’re inclined to believe it’s true.
If it stimulates a discussion of historical facts, it gives (historians at least) a chance to inform…. that otherwise might not have occurred.
robert redford has been bitter ever since he was called a “pilgrim” by
bear claw
It’s easy to play heroes and villains with Civil War politicians and military officers. There were many brave, capable leaders during that war. There were also a lot of total bastards in the military, the Congress, and the Cabinet. Some, like Stanton, could be both.
I guess my problem with this movie is that Redford isn’t contributing anything new to the debate about “enemy combatants.” It’s like all those other movies about Iraq and Afghanistan and the associated detainees: the public discussion has already covered the same ground and moved on. When I think about these flicks – and Redford’s – the image that always comes to mind is a little kid interrupting a grownup discussion to offer his “insights” or to ask questions that have already been answered. You know he just wants to be included, but after a while it’s annoying and you wish he’d go outside and play. That’s how I feel about Redford and his big, shocking conspiracy picture.
As someone who knows something about the Civil War I can only wish that we actually had someone as capable as Edwin M. Stanton running out own war efforts. Stanton was not a lovable man by any stretch of the imagination. However (after he took over from Simon Cameron as Secretary of War in 1862) he was responsible for creating the Union war machine that others would lead to victory. Stanton was incredibly hard-working and totally ruthless when it came to timidity, sloth and inefficiency. Stanton came to his office despising Lincoln yet, within a short time, came to revere and admire him.
It is important to remember that the Civil War was still going on when Lincoln was shot. Lee had surrendered but several Confederate armies remained in the field. It seemed entirely logical that the Confederates might conspire to murder Lincoln to somehow snatch victory from the jaws of defeat or at least obtain better terms from Andrew Johnson. Lewis Powell’s attack William Seward and his household was especially brutal. Powell nearly killed Seward and his son as well as seriously injuring three other people. Stanton was justified in believing that a major conspiracy was under way and his use of martial law perfectly correct. It is quite obvious today that Mary Surratt knew of the plot and that a good deal of it was laid out at her boarding house.
Redford would have done well by starting with James L. Swanson’s excellent 2006 book, “Manhunt – The Twelve Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer” before making his film. But historical accuracy is obviously not what he was after.
As Harry Warner so famously said in 1926 when his brothers were trying
to convince him to take their Warner Brothers studio into the talkie
era: “Who in the hell wants to hear an actor talk?”
Never more so true than today…
Greetings:
As if to second your point, last night the Progressive (neé Public) Broadcasting System’s “Newshour” program had a multi-minute interview, perhaps to emphasize the importance of Mr. Redford’s film to its viewers, with the film’s screenwriter and it’s military advisor. They seemed aligned as to the protagonist’s victimization but somewhat divided about the allegorical nature of the film, the writer offering that it was written during the Clinton administration and the advisor discounting the Guantanamo connection. But, for sure and forever, this is an IMPORTANT film.
I only see the “Newshour” during “Judge Judy” commercials, which is plenty for me. I don’t recall the last time I came across a similar segment about a newly released movie. As to PBS’s motivations, I would guess that both commercial and political interests were involved.
So Bobby Redford (he recently protested that he really isn’t a wacko leftist) is doing the Oliver Stone thing with history ?
This all gets so tedious.
I will skip this film.
I’ve already had my share of entertainment from this flick from the advertisement, with the “There is no limit to how far the prosecution is willing to go!!!” line at the end, voice rising to a booming crescendo. I burst into laughter every time it comes on.
Sounds like a great subject for a movie to me.
They just didn’t do a very good job making it according to what I’ve read, anyway.
When I saw the movie trailer and learned Robert Redford was the director, I was suspicious. Thanks for confirming. I’ll skip it.
Personally, I would rather see a movie treating on the trial and execution of one Potowatomie John Brown….
When the last of the Lincoln conspirators reached the end of his (or her) short fall from the scaffold, that ended it.
When Brown died, after passing his famous note to his executioners, that became a spark that ignited Civil War.
In any case Deadford is not my first pick for the director job.
David Nicholas writes: “It’s hard to understand why someone committing violence in our country, while not wearing a uniform from someone else’s armed forces, should be treated differently from a guy robbing a bank, for instance, …”
This suggests to me an interesting thought experiment. Why didn’t Redford make a movie about the Quirin spy case? It was my understanding that _In Re Quirin_ was the leading precedent on military tribunals at the time of 9-11. And the Quirin case precisely satisfies Mr. Nicholas’ stipulation. Qurin and his confederates were Nazi saboteurs operating in civilian clothes. Furthermore, they didn’t actually commit any sabotage. Also, what I know about the history of the case is that President Roosevelt was determined to try and execute the defendants quickly as was willing to cut corners to accomplish this.
Was Redford unwilling to make a movie that was sympathetic to Nazi spies? Was he unwilling to criticize President Roosevelt? Was he afraid that a movie on Quirin would harm his cause rather than helping it?
There is one simple thing Redford forgot when he was making this political diatribe: Mary Surratt was an American Citizen; the detainees at Gitmo are not, thus they are not entitled to the same rights as Citizens are. Too bad for Redford he doesn’t read the Constitution or he just might understand the Fifth Amendment and how that would really rock his “nudge, nudge, wink, wink,” liberal worldview!