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| Sam Mendes, Auteur? prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | next Ricky, the compulsive videographer in Beauty, even considers death to be beautiful. And there is certainly a lot of death in Road to Perdition. Mike Sullivan is the "Angel of Death," carrying out hits for boss and surrogate father John Rooney. Though his use of violence has been far decreased from Max Collins' graphic novel on which Perdition is based, it is still very much a part of his life and character. Perdition is a movie about gangsters, but it is not a traditional gangster movie. Violence is not glamorized (though it is beautiful, in a way, due to Conrad Hall's cinematography), and Sullivan doesn't want gangland power, only protection for what remains of his family. In his introduction to the novel, Collins noted the impact that Bonnie & Clyde had on him when he first saw it as a teenager. His father had been to the scene of the final massacre when he had been a boy.1 We see the first shootings in Perdition through the eyes of 12-year-old Michael Sullivan. The gunshot sounds are not muted, as they are in most movies. The flashes of light from the tommy guns are sharp and bright. Though there have been much more bloody and disgusting scenes of violence in movies since Bonnie & Clyde, not until Road to Perdition has there been anything as traumatizing as this. Gangland warfare is about as ugly a scene as America can come up with; we've had no modern wars here, and the Civil War is too far removed from us to be very real. But Mendes has experience with the ugliest time and place in modern history: Hitler's Berlin circa 1935. His 1998 Broadway revival of Cabaret won many Tony Awards and universal praise. Staged in an actual nightclub setting, this Cabaret involved its audience to a much higher degree than had previous versions, both explicitly (the Emcee has audience members dance on stage) and implicitly (though they may not act, they are in the Cabaret, and thus are part of the world of it). This seems innocuous enough at the beginning, filled with raunchy songs and budding romances, but soon takes a darker turn, as the Nazi threat looms larger and larger. By the finale, when the Emcee reminds us that our troubles are forgotten and everything is beautiful in the Cabaret, it has become a vicious irony. The orchestra continues gaily, but is undercut by a growing chord of fear and terror that is positively demoralizing. And I've only heard the soundtrack! Mendes pushes the limits of what the audience can take in his work. American Beauty perhaps demands more from us, asking us to accept that Lester, after two hours of fighting, fantasizing, masturbating, and smoking pot, is at last grateful for his life and at peace about it. Perdition is more conservative, merely asking us to believe that Sullivan can be both a killer and a loving father. Cosmo Landesman of the London Times Culture Supplement believes this is an easy thing to believe2 — and indeed, other movies have tread this ground before. Where Landesman is wrong is in his assumption that when Sullivan teaches his son not to become a killer, Sullivan is redeemed. Sullivan is not redeemed, as Rooney makes very clear in an earlier scene-no one in this movie is going to heaven, except for possibly Michael Jr. And it is his salvation that drives the story. In a way, this is the most disturbing thing about Perdition. We are not supposed to believe that Sullivan is somehow saved at the end despite all the evil he has done. We must accept that he is beyond redemption, and yet understand why Michael still loves him. The fact that Tom Hanks plays Sullivan makes it easier to do the latter — it is difficult not to love Tom Hanks — and harder to do the former — Hanks is almost too likable to be damned. Still, his sincerity is what makes scenes like the final shootout work. We have to believe that Sullivan really loves Rooney like a father, and yet is willing to kill him in order to get to Connor and avenge and protect his family. 1. Collins, Max. Introduction to Road to Perdition. prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | next Page last updated 8/1/04. |
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