The Coen Brothers pay tribute to and send up the Golden Age of Hollywood in the madcap light comedy Hail, Caesar. Hail, Caesar!'s title is also that of one of the films being filmed within the film: a prestige picture a la Ben Hur starring A-list actor and hapless dimwit Baird Whitlock (George Clooney) as a Roman Centurion who finds faith at the foot of Christ's cross. Shortly before filming the climactic scene, Whitlock goes missing - drugged and kidnapped by a group of Communist script-writers called "the Future". It falls to Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin), the studio's "fixer", to find him and keep the picture from being derailed.
The title card for the biblical epic within the film reads: Hail, Caesar! A Tale of the Christ. I hardly expected that to be characteristic of the main feature itself, and yet in a very real way it is. Or perhaps more accurately A Shadow of the Christ. Joel and Ethan Coen are Jewish, and their films (such as O Brother, Where art thou?, No Country for Old Men, and True Grit) have a definite Old Testament flavour to them. Most apparent is the influence of the book of Ecclesiastes, where an aged King Solomon recounts a life busily spent seeking ever-fleeting satisfaction in all the wrong places. That same misguided quest reappears here, taking viewers on a drive-by tour of the places where people seek their satisfaction: fame and fortune, politics and philosophy, work and relationships. But these are just means to an end. What Hail, Caesar!'s character's really seek is perfection.
Mannix seeks perfection - he is trying to give up smoking but sometimes gives in and tries to hide it from his wife. He makes confession to a Roman Catholic priest with a regularity and frequency that leads the priest on the other side of the confessional booth to say, "It's really too often". But Mannix doesn't think so - he feels guilty and needs to expunge that guilt.
The same can be said for the panoply of colourful characters we are introduced to as Mannix goes about his day.
A panel of religious leaders (a Roman Catholic priest, a Greek Orthodox patriarch, a Protestant reverend, and a Jewish rabbi) is convened to critique the biblical epic of the title. The discussion turns to "onscreen depictions of the Godhead" and "the parentage of Christ", with various deficient or less than articulate statements about both put forward. These imperfect theologians finally agree that there is nothing flagrantly offensive in the film, although the consensus remains that it is imperfect.
Hobie Doyle is simple, sincere, and skilled at one role: a singing but otherwise mostly silent acrobatic cowboy. After shooting what looks like a seamless scene, he offers to shoot it again as he feels he could do better. When he's moved to another type of role and movie altogether, he fails miserably to deliver his first six lines. Enter Laurence Laurentz (Ralph Fiennes), Hobie's new director, who will not move on from a scene unless it is filmed to perfection. Laurentz spends a couple of minutes trying to get Hobie to say his line correctly: "Would that it were so simple", they repeat back and forth so many times it's ridiculous. We later find out that the script was changed to accommodate Hobie and move on with filming.
Another story-line involves DeeAnna Moran (Scarlett Johansson), who is filming a synchronised swimming sequence to perfection until she emerges from the water with a smile that is more gassy than glowing. Cut. Not good enough. She's also pregnant out of wedlock, which spoils her hitherto good-girl image.
Channing Tatum plays Burt Gurney in a song and dance routine from a Navy-themed picture. Of all of the film sequences we see being produced, this looks the most perfect, but it still is not good enough: almost unnoticeably, Gurney places a dish-towel on the head of the bartender for comedic effect, which the director argues will distract the audience from Gurney's character. They have to do it over again.
The script-writers who have kidnapped Whitlock are a part of a "study group" that meets to discuss the imperfections of Capitalism and to groan about alleged financial inequity in the film industry. The money should go to the people, not to the system they argue. Later, with no awareness of the irony, they contribute $100,000 (in 1950s money!) to the Communist cause via an actor joining the Soviets, throwing it away (literally, as viewers will see) to another system more imperfect than the first.
Whitlock finally returns to the studio and - still clothed in his Roman centurion regalia - begins regurgitating the Communist propaganda ingested during his time with the script-writers. He rambles on and gesticulates with the arrogant assurance of a conspiracy theorist cult devotee until Mannix picks him up by his breastplate and slaps him to his senses. He's commanded to go out and perform his part to perfection and as with the other films depicted, we are immersively drawn in as he does so. He talks about human sin and wickedness. He speaks passionately about Christ and the bearing of sins. There is more gospel in his speech than in many sermons, and as far as movies go, more than apparently is present in the upcoming Easter epic "Risen" (which reportedly does not address sin or repentance at all). He then begins to talk about the light of the world, and eternal truth: "a truth we could see if we had but...but..." He forgot the key word: "faith". Cut. Whitlock roars in frustration.
While the film does a good job of showing the imperfection of lost humanity, it also contains a hint of hope - the shadow of Christ that I referred to earlier. Even as the Old Testament points to the need for and hope of Christ without actually revealing the good news, Hail, Caesar! is littered with various Christ-figures and allusions.
Mannix's job as a fixer involves cleaning up and preserving people's reputations and images. Production problems are laid at his feet and personal messes are placed on his shoulders. He is tempted to lay aside his role of studio sin-bearing, to take up the offer of a high profile executive position with the Lockheed Corporation but finally resists their pleas and bribes and presses on to achieve his responsibility.
Even more obvious is a detail in the DeeAnna Moran subplot. A bizarre plan is concocted for Moran to withdraw from the public eye, give birth, hand her child over to a foster carer, reemerge into the public eye, then adopt a random child: her own. Enter surety-agent Joseph Silverman (Jonah Hill). Silverman takes on whatever role is required of him and he will be the foster-parent of the child. We are told that he (seemingly unlike everyone else) performs his role faithfully to perfection, and that he once even took on the identity of a troubled actor: he was arrested, tried, found guilty, and imprisoned for six years in the actor's place. Ultimately we learn that something better happens that both protects Moran's reputation while also giving her a husband and the child a father. For those familiar with the biblical concept, the themes of propitiation and adoption are hard to miss.
Of course, Christ is a character in the Baird Whitlock epic, but we only see him once, and that from behind. He is a tall, lean, and laughably glowing figure with long ludicrously blonde hair before whom Whitlock's centurion cowers as multiple takes are made with the director's instruction heard in the background: "Squint. Squint. Squint against the grandeur". Whitlock's grimaces are absurdly contrived and the scene is a terrific send up of the artificiality and inadequacy of all attempts to portray Christ's glory - as opposed to just his humanity - on screen. Hail, Caesar! does not pander to those seeking cinematic Messiahs, but in a light and subtly substantial way, it portrays humanity's need and searching for a Saviour other than our own imperfect selves. It lives in a world where (as one editorial card states) "the Divine Presence is yet to be filmed", and so remains stuck in the shadows of human schemes and religious rituals. As the credits begin to roll though, at least some of us will remember the words of Scripture: "These are a shadow of what was to come; the substance is the Messiah" (Colossians 2:17, HCSB).
Christians, lets point people from the vanity of imperfect shadows not to a blonde movie Jesus, but to the biblical Messiah Jesus. He is perfect.
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