I will probably get more crap from everyone for this post than I’ve ever gotten for any other.
I watched the film Armageddon tonight and it totally rejuvenated my love of film, and my desire to someday try to live my dream. Most people would refer to Armageddon as the ultimate popcorn movie, dumb and loud (and for the record, it is most certainly the loudest movie I’ve ever seen in the theater, my ears rang all the next day like I’d been 2nd row at a rock concert). Even those who love the movie say that it’s just plain fun without much else. And while I’m not necessarily going to say they’re wrong, I will say that Armageddon represents most of the things that I love about movies.
First let me talk about the quality of the film, before I get into why I like it. Even Armageddon’s detractors highly praise its visual effects, sound editing and mixing, and set design (the filmmakers were allowed the use of many restricted areas at both NASA centers, and the asteroid set was the largest indoor set ever constructed). The film is fast paced in terms of both storytelling and editing, with each cut lasting an average of 1.5 seconds, and with a running time of 2:31, never gets dull. The story is, of course, ridiculously unbelievable, as are all such disaster prevention movies (Deep Impact, The Core and most likely the upcoming Sunshine), and it is a strain for even the most tolerant of viewers to suspend disbelief when faced with such absurdity. The characters are one-dimensional, the editing is choppy and the direction is overt. Why, then, does it have a grade of A in my movie Excel spreadsheet, and why does it hit me so emotionally hard that I find myself weeping from a mix of emotions in multiple places?
Yes, Armageddon makes me cry.
Are you done laughing? Ok, I’ll wait…
Yep, it makes me cry. Add it to the long list. It’s not a Schindler’s List kind of crying, or a Requiem for a Dream kind, but I’d put it in the same vein as films such as E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, The Natural, Hook and even parts of The Lord of the Rings. I think a study of the scenes that make me cry might shed some light on what it is that I find so wonderful about Armageddon. Aside from the obvious scenes such as the character Harry’s death, and the other melodramatic scenes of strong emotion involving deaths or reunions, are a number of smaller scenes. The best examples of this are the 3 scenes involving the character Chick and his ex-wife and son. In the first of these 3 scenes, Chick shows up at her doorstep on his last night before the mission, and he encounters her and their son on the front porch. The son asks who he is and she tells him that Chick is a salesman and sends the boy inside. After a quick reproach from her, he apologizes for the wrongs he’s done, and asks her to give the boy a toy space shuttle saying that she doesn’t have to say who it’s from. The next scene is really a moment of a larger scene. As the two crews depart to board the shuttle, they are surrounded by reporters and onlookers as we are treated to the President’s speech in voiceover. The film intercuts their walk to the shuttles with shots of people from around the world listening to the speech and watching the launch coverage on TV. Chick’s ex-wife and son get about 5 seconds in this montage, during a pause in this speech. The music (interestingly like something out of Titanic) swells and we see the son watching TV with the toy shuttle in his hand while the ex-wife is on the phone. The boy sees his father and says, “Mommy, that salesman’s on TV.” The wife drops the phone and rushes to see. It then cuts to a shot of her with her arms around their son saying, “That man’s not a salesman, that’s your daddy.” The final scene is part of the reunions as the survivors are greeted by friends and family after returning to Earth. As Chick watches others embracing their loved ones, and is feeling disappointed, his son comes running out from behind a car and leaps into his fathers arms. Thus, in 3 short scenes, adding up to no more than 2 minutes of screen time, a story is created that has the ability to absolutely rip my heart out and tear it to shreds, in the best way possible. The “Mommy, that salesman’s on TV” line even gets me choked up while I sit here typing this.
So what am I driving at with all this (other than the fact that I’m easily incapacitated by the cheesiest of melodrama)? Is what I love about this movie the fact that it wears its heart on its sleeve? Or that it only gives the characters one emotion to feel at a time, so that things are simple and more visceral? I think it’s something beyond that, and its something that movies like E.T. and Hook also have.
They are pure.
Sure, the best movies are usually complex and deep and intricate. And certainly many people would call those films I call pure things like simple, shallow, or even boring. But in no other art form can you create something so pure. It’s something that “only celluloid can deliver” (a dollar to whoever can name what movie that quote is from, without cheating). Sure music can be pure, or the visual arts, but nothing compares to cinema. That is what I love about Armageddon. There is no pretense, no falseness, no bullshit. Every card is laid out on the table for all to see. Yes, you are told what to feel in a particular scene. You’re practically hit over the head with it. Many people find this insulting, but if you were to let yourself feel those feelings, instead of turning up your nose at them, then you would have an experience unlike anything you’ve felt before. To call it beauty would not be fair to things which are beautiful, but it is much the same feeling as is caused by beauty (and in the case of films like E.T and Hook, it is beauty too).
Now, that is not to say that just because something is “pure” that it generates the same feelings. The pure I refer to is more than just “purity”. It requires everyone involved to be completely dedicated to the work. Even in the most deep and interesting film, one can usually find a line of dialogue or a moment of emotion that feels or looks forced or awkward. It is easy to imagine the awkwardness on set when someone is having to deliver a line that they don’t agree with, that they feel doesn’t fit, or that is just poorly written, or when they have to act in a way that is embarrassing, unrealistic, or silly. What Armageddon does that so few films manage to do is deliver performances completely devoid of any embarrassment, awkwardness, or the feeling of being forced. The best example of this is the “Leaving on a Jet Plane” scene (the animal cracker scene is another good example), where Ben Affleck’s character A.J. begins to sing this sappy song to his fiancée as they say goodbye before the mission. It is a moment that caused severe embarrassment among those in the theaters the times that I saw the film. There was nervous laughter, shuffling of positions in the seats, and general noisemaking that was meant to cover up the embarrassment. What made it so embarrassing for most in the theater was that there was no sign of embarrassment from any of the actors for having to perform the scene. It was the same sort of situation as when your friend does something that embarrasses you in public and shows no signs of having any embarrassment or shame of his/her own. The actors in the scene, and the movie as a whole, completely committed to what they had to do, and that shows a tremendous amount of trust in each other and in the director to know what he is doing. That is something rarely found in films and the world around us. Trust. Trust allowed all of those involved in the film to look past its many shortcomings and to work together to make something for the enjoyment of others.
So to wind this up I guess I’ll just sum up the other things that make this movie so enjoyable for me. It is very funny in places, and the writing (if not the story itself) has some wonderful moments. Bruce Willis, who is one of my favorite actors, shines in this film, getting to show off both his dramatic presence and his wonderful comedic abilities, both of which made the Die Hard films so spectacular. The rest of the cast dives headfirst into their roles, completely committing themselves. Ben Affleck is a vastly underrated actor, as Hollywoodland showed us last year, and it’s easy to see how he was capable of that performance looking back at this one. The music is perfect, I think, with the two main themes weaving together nicely, and easily rousing the emotions they are meant to conjure. I must also add that the only #1 single of Aerosmith’s career, “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing,” is one of the best songs ever written for a non-musical motion picture.
So I hope that if you’ve never seen Armageddon before, that maybe this will have convinced you to give it a try, and if you have seen it before that it will remind you of its better qualities. I don’t expect anyone to react to it in exactly the same way as me (which is what makes film wonderful, everyone reacts differently), but at the very least it is an extremely enjoyable movie that I would recommend to anyone.
