The Man Who Wasn’t There
Throw a mix of Beethoven sonatas into the soundtrack, get rid of the colour (black and white is the only way to make a movie about the earlier times feel real), let Billy Bob Thornton do both the lead role and the narrational voice, and then sit back and watch the master at work. I have to tell you about a movie I watched this afternoon, because it was actually much better than I would have expected. A gestalt effect, where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
Billy Bob is an iconoclast. Although he sounds like the kind of neighbour that would be frightening, when it comes to putting on his working clothes and “doing a picture”, there are few in his class. This one, The Man Who Wasn’t There is a Coen & Coen masterpiece, made around the same time as O Brother, Where Art Thou? Even a very young Scarlett Johansson plays a role where she seems to suck all the black and white light into her persona.
The period flavour, unfortunately, sits completely in the automobiles, but the sound of a barber’s clippers, working behind the ear, brought back a certain set of memories from an earlier time in my own life. The IMDB trivia file avows that California has never sent a man to “the big chair”, so I’ll let that little inaccuracy stand as a director’s whim.
Murder, mayhem, policemen that don’t do anything, lawyers that do even less, and Billy Bob making his way through the day with nary a smile. I like this one. And the soundtrack is timeless.
