The New Classics: First Reformed
Tuesday, July 14, 2020 at 2:00PM
Michael Cusumano here with the most recent film I've yet to induct into this series. Despite its newness, it's one of the titles I'm most confident will earn the label of classic in the course of time.
Can you pinpoint the moment someone crosses the line between faith and fanaticism? Is it even possible to fully define the boundaries between the two? Most reasonable people would agree it’s around the moment someone commits an act of violence in the name of God, but an individual crosses that boundary internally long before he straps on a suicide vest.
That elusive moment of radicalization exists somewhere in the vast gray silences of Paul Schrader’s First Reformed. It passes by so quietly that it is possible to be late into the film and have no inkling of the wild-eyed zealot Ethan Hawke’s Reverend Toller will become in the film’s shocking final movement...
Like the environmental Doomsday scenarios that obsess Toller, the process is incremental to the point of being invisible. By the time the situation is clear, the point-of-no-return has long since been passed.
Watching the film again, the once subtle warning signs become glaring, plainly visible even from the fateful meeting between Toller and Philip Ettinger’s Michael at the film's start.
Scene: A Theological Debate
Mary (Amanda Seyfried, quietly excellent) senses her husband Michael tipping over into an abyss of despair, so she requests Reverend Toller visit and counsel her troubled environmentalist husband. What at first seems like one more chore in this disillusioned priest’s daily routine, turns into a theological debate of surprising depth and complexity. On first viewing, it can feel like the scene throws the film out of balance. Just as we’ve given ourselves over to the deliberate rhythms of Toller’s existence - his drinking, his self-lacerating journal entries, his unfulfilling stewardship of an under-attended tourist trap church - we stop for a lengthy dialogue scene set in a single living room. It’s a short play dropped into a film with no comparable scenes. It’s odd shape is Schrader’s way of tipping its significance. We can feel something momentous shifting out of balance even as Toller remains the picture of sanity.
Both Hawke and Ettinger deftly ride a knife’s edge with their performances. Michael is troubled, yes, his anxiety exacerbated by what appears to be severe depression, but crucially, Ettinger does not play Michael as insane. His underlying coherence forces us to delay our judgment. What exactly would the sane reaction to humanity’s imminent extinction look like anyway? For his part, Hawke has to not only traverse an incredible emotional and psychological journey in a way that tracks logically when we see its full scope, but he has to do so with the transformation concealed underneath Toller’s glacial reserve for the bulk of the film. It’s a titanic performance. Schrader requires Toller to carry the agony of divine judgment in his eyes and Hawke is equal to the challenge.
The strict stylistic restrictions Schrader places on First Reformed mirror Toller’s spare lifestyle. The camera is almost always locked down and the editing simulates a sort of monk-like patience, allowing unusual breathing space at the beginning and end of shots. First Reformed trains the viewer to wait for the subject of shots the way Toller waits for God’s will to reveal itself. Schrader rarely breaks these rules, but such violations always accompany a significant moment. Like the one time Toller’s voice-over briefly interrupts the debate:
“I felt like I was Jacob wrestling all night long with the angel. Fighting in the grass. Every sentence, every question, every response a mortal struggle. It was exhilarating.”
As we hear what we assume is his later recounting of the meeting in his journal, the film allows itself a rare camera move, a push-in to a tight close-up on Hawke’s face. The narration and the zoom act as a fleeting X-ray behind Toller’s placid surface. Far from the functionary he appeared to be at first glance, Toller is a militant in hibernation. Like Travis Bickle, the most famous of Schrader’s Lonely Men, Toller needs to assert his will on a world numb to wickedness. Hawke’s man of the cloth is too sane to disappear into a haze of delusion like Travis, but Michael’s righteous cause presents exactly the fuel that Toller’s flickering embers of extremism need to combust and consume him.
After the voice-over narration the conversation turns to the subject of martyrdom. Michael asks the notorious query...
“Can God forgive us, for what we’ve done to this world?”
Toller’s response is the reasonable one. He shakes his head in gentle dismissal
“Who can know the mind of God?”
What, after all, is a fanatic but one who believes he knows exactly what God wants? The steady rationality of Toller’s arguments would suggest he has a comfortable distance from such a rigid outlook. But then the intensity of that X-ray hints of the different, altogether more unsettling story about to unfold.
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Reader Comments (17)
Great film, that I wish was just a *tad* less beholden to its European auteurist forefathers (Bresson, Bergman, Tarkovsky). In any case, Hawke's snub still stings as one of the most egregious of this century.
It's funny - while he is absolutely walking in the footsteps of those old masters, one of the touchstone inspirations Schrader mentions most frequently is Pawlikowski's Ida from a few years back.
Michael -- you have an uncanny ability to choose scenes that unlock the best element of the movie. Well done. I can't believe Philip Ettinger wasn't instantly offered everything after this.
This movie is so so good and Ethan incredible.
Fond as I am of Hawke, including in this picture, the film otherwise left me completely cold.
Not a fan of the film, but it's well acted and Ettinger is great in it.
Excellent choice - one of the great films and performances of the 21st century. I expect it to age extremely well.
Look forward to the "Almost There" article for Ethan Hawke as well. He was better than the bulk of the nominees that year, imo.
Thanks for another intriguing article, Michael. This is a great series.
With this, there are only THREE untouched eligible years for this series: 2000, 2002 and 2006. I hope a film from one of those years is your finale. Assuming this season is the same length as the first, you have ten episodes left. Note: Having no eligible years untouched at the end of the season would be great.
For 2000 i'd request Requiem for a Dream and an Almost There Connelly.
Definitely one of the best films I had seen in recent years as it definitely owes a lot to not just Tarkovsky, Bergman, and Bresson but also Yasujiro Ozu.
I usually don't like Ethan Hawke, but he's amazing in this little great movie.
I like the film enormously. Schrader goes for it and delivers, from first frame to last. The whole cast is solid, Ettinger and Seyfried are excellent, and Hawke should have won that year.
Ethan Hawke's best performance ever was in Maudie, which also features an exquisite performance by Sally Hawkins (even better than her fine work in Shape of Water). Sadly an all-too overlooked gem of a film.
mark: My preferred list for 2000 would be your suggestion, plus Songs From the Second Floor, Battle Royale, Almost Famous, Snatch and American Psycho. Though, there are also scenes I'd REALLY want a breakdown of from High Fidelity, Wonder Boys and Unbreakable. 2002: Far From Heaven, City of God, Talk to Her, 28 Days Later, (not joking) MAYBE Death to Smoochy, Russian Ark and The Bourne Identity. Discussion worthy scenes are in Ten, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Lilo & Stitch and Road to Perdition. 2006: Pan's Labyrinth, Casino Royale, United 93, The Prestige, The Lives of Others, Children of Men and Half Nelson. (I like Fleck and Boden, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but I'm curious what happened behind the scenes that Marvel doesn't want them back. My suspicion is they ultimately turned in a relatively straight 2.5-3 hour action-drama (no Goose the Cat, no ham-handed, and, frankly, WRONG, use of Just a Girl (hi, allow a Badass Normal female action franchise that more easily justifies it to use that song cue, please and thank you), much more Annette Bening as a mentor, flashbacks more evenly spaced throughout), and Feige balked at what they turned in and the reshoots there were to make it still be comprehensible and be more of a "normal" Marvel movie.)
Saw in theatres thanks to Nathaniel's raves and I really liked it. Saw it again not long ago and I really feel it should have been in more Top 10.
So glad that Michael included this. It certainly makes my list for best of the new century. I had a chance to finally see it a second time recently. It was very different experience in some aspects-- small screen at home, very late at night/early morning, during a new pandemic and period of isolation at home. The movie really holds up to repeat viewing a few years after release. It has amazing formal technical work and just feels so relevant to the moment. Maybe even more now in 2020. Maybe it will feel (if possible) even more relevant and of its time with each passing year.