September 24, 2009
ARTS
Page 17
The Informant! an exploration of psyche The Informnt! Steven Soderbergh [Warner Brothers]
M
ark Whitacre does not look like an FBI informant. The slightly chubby and mustached workaholic doesn’t fit the Hollywood archetype of a paranoid mobster who rats out his pals, or a sexy undercover agent taking out a crime syndicate from the inside. But the white-collar executive from Illinois in Steven Soderbergh’s new film The Informant! is full of surprises. He wears a wire, taps phone conversations and videotapes secret meetings to catch higher-ups at agricultural conglomerate Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) fixing global prices. But although The Informant! is based on a true story, this is not a black-and-white aggrandizing biopic. Whitacre is a most perplexing man. Sure, on the whole he seems like a decent chap. He has a loving wife and family, an amiable personality, and enough of a guilty conscience to inform the FBI about corporate malfeasance. But as nice of a man as he is, there are discrepancies in his character. He lies repeatedly, even when it’s unnecessary to do so. He spontaneously acts illogically and in ways that could very well endanger himself and his mission. And even though he works with the government to stop price-fixing, it soon becomes apparent that he might be involved in dirty dealings himself. A solid corporate crime drama is one half of The Informant!; figuring out what exactly the deal is with this guy is the other. ADM and Mark Whitacre may be familiar to those who know corporate scandal from the early ’90s. For those who aren’t so learned (such as myself), this tale of capi-
talist skullduggery makes for a ripping cinematic yarn. The movie begins with Whitacre (Matt Damon, who gained thirty pounds to play the role) working at ADM as BioProducts Division President. He is in the process of investigating a virus stymieing the production of the food additive lysine, when he is informed by a rival company that they have a mole working at ADM who is contaminating the product. The FBI is brought into the picture to work with Whitacre to prevent extortion. But when his wife (Melanie Lynskey) goads him into emptying his conscience, Whitacre informs Agent Brian Shepard (Scott Bakula) that far more is going on than extortion at ADM. It turns out the conglomerate has been working with other companies around the globe in a price-fixing scheme. Before he knows it, the agent convinces Whitacre to become an undercover informant for the feds. Whitacre is so memorable in the movie, not because of his undercover work but rather because his character is so realistic. There is a uniquely diegetic narration in The Informant!, a combination of Whitacre’s absent-minded wonderings and actual commentary. This stream-of-consciousness is too hilariously relatable. There is a scene where Whitacre gets out of Shepard’s car after divulging the fact that ADM fixes its prices, and watches the agent drive away. All the while, his disembodied voice intones: “I hope he doesn’t mind my calling him Brian instead of Agent Shepard. I might try ‘Bri’ out. I can see us going fishing. He’s a good listener. Those are rare to find.” Another favorite of mine, as the plot has thickened and Whitacre faces possible federal indictment: “I like to floss in the shower while the conditioner sets in. It adds up to significant time savings.”
It is the kind of commentary that you laugh with, not at. How human to think about the little meaningless details that we subconsciously deem important, such as flossing teeth while in the shower. It made me very happy that Soderbergh did not try to “midwestern-ize” Whitacre a la Fargo. The characters from the Coen Brothers’ movie embodied northern culture almost to the point of caricature, and you ended up laughing at their silly yet alienating accents and customs. Whitacre is much more believable. You can certainly tell he is an Illinoisan, but there is never any need to pepper his speech with nasalized a’s and “you betchas.” But of course this relatability is problematized by the unraveling of Whitacre’s web of lies and inconsistency. The big doozy comes when it is discovered that Whitacre may be an embezzler of company funds. What does this imply about his character? He can’t quite be called an unreliable narrator because whether what he does is “narration” per se is questionable. Nevertheless, the juxtaposition of his innocent inner monologue and suspect action is jarring. Even when a possible explanation for the discrepancies are revealed, it is hard to watch such a seemingly-nice guy morph into a miscreant. The Informant! does a lot of things right besides Matt Damon’s portrayal of Whitacre, but without him the movie would have been half as good. Soderbergh, who also directed the Ocean’s Eleven movies and Traffic, knew what he was doing when he framed the movie around Whitacre’s intriguing psyche. Leave it to documentaries and Sixty Minutes to tell stories about the epic nihilism of corrupt CEOs. This movie tells the story of a troubled man caught in the middle of it all. —Erik Lorenzsonn ’12 is writing a bi-weekly column on movies and their meanings. He is the Arts Editor.
Directing workshops thoughtful, farcical Esther Clowney
I
Guest Reporter
t’s 7:50 p.m. when we arrive to the Shiva Theater. Callie, my female companion, makes small talk with a frightened girl. The house is abuzz with chatter. Someone keeps asking if this is the Shiva Rave. 7:58 p.m.: Two Drama 102 sightings. There are so many people here that some are sitting on the floor. 8:00 p.m.: We are asked to avoid text messaging during the performance. How will I live blog? A new crop of directors made their Vassar theater debut on Thursday, presenting six one-act plays in front of a full house. “This is better than the Shiva Rave!” I heard an audience member remark, perhaps the same one who was asking about the rave before. Later on when a production utilized glowsticks and Justice music, I couldn’t help but think back to that quote. The annual Philaletheis Directing Workshops are remarkable for giving many younger students and those new to student theater the chance to gain experience and the opportunity to direct for Vassar’s oldest student organization, the drama group Philaletheis. In comparison with a regular Philaletheis production, the Directing Workshops pose only a small time commitment. The point is to allow fresh acting and directing talent to simply dip their toes into the theatrical pool. All rehearsing takes place in the two weeks before the short plays are performed over the course of two nights, each night delivering its own batch of dramatic goods. “On a Particle of Dust,” written and directed by Daniel Rajunov ’12, stood out for its originality of vision. Rajunov anthropo-
morphized sub-atomic particles to create a commentary on the (in)significance of human life. Jenel Moliere ’12 and Annabeth Carroll ’12 touched hearts as a thought-provoking electron, which was also where the glow sticks came into play. It’s like the Buddha says, “If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change.” The most controversial act of the night was the Facebook-inspired comedy, “Face-
The actors went six innings with zero error, and they did it with spunk. book,” written, directed and titled by Lia Dykstra ’12. In the play, An over-excitable young lady (Faren Tang ’13) gets the wrong message when a dork, played by Daniel Gilberg ’10, decides to “poke” all of his Facebook friends. She asks him out on a date and spends all week preparing for it, spurred on, according to the sweater-vested on-stage narrator, by estrogen. The boy, meanwhile, plays video games. The sketch definitely entertained the audience, but I just couldn’t suspend my disbelief that a girl who appears to be reading Women, Race and Class by Angela Davis would ever accept an invitation to a Transformers movie. Maybe Vassar isn’t as uniformly repelled by heteronormativity as
you might think. Gilad Thaler ’13 directed a scene from the “The Dining Room,” by A.R. Gurney. Comedies of manners like this one, about the ironies and constraints of WASP culture, seem popular at Vassar. Thaler brought the script to life with lively stage direction, turning a table into a therapy couch and bouncing his actors around the stage. The evening began with dialogues between two sets of women: “Watermelon Boats,” directed by Violet Edelman ’12, jumps between the same girls as elementary-school kids and as young adults who are trying to puzzle their way through issues of sexuality; “Dinner with Friends,” directed by Hannah Ehrenberg ’13, was a dramatic piece about the forces behind the destruction of two marriages. Hint: It’s not the gays. Sophomore Isabella Batts wrote and directed “At Least a Place to Visit,” a drama about the importance of visiting family and, most of all, the importance of leaving. Charlie, the main character is surprised when his mother shows up at his apartment. He is even more surprised when he finds out that she has to stay due to the foreclosure of her home. I was overcome with a palpable feeling of guilt after Charlie refused his mother’s gift of a washbasin, protesting (fairly) “I already have a sink!” It felt like the Christmas when my Grandma gave me a battery organizer. Day two of the Philaletheis Directing Workshops was still to come, with a new round of directors and plays. Thursday’s show was very well produced, going off without a hitch, and the actors were well prepared, going six innings with zero errors. More importantly, they did it with spunk.
MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE
“The XX. They’re great.”
Joseph Redwood Martinez ’11
“The Decemberists. Live. In New Jersey. I just got back.”
Evan Ross ’12 “I listened to classical music last night while I was studying. It helped drown out the noise my neighbor was making.”
Emily Beer ’12
“There’s a German concert that I’m going to. It’s Sebastian Krumbiegel from Die Prinzen.”
Scott Cloverfield ’13
“Wuthering Heights by Kate Bush. ‘I’m so co-oh-oh-ohoh-oh-ld.’”
Gretchen Eng ’12
“Honestly? Vintage Dave Matthew’s Band.”
Katie Interlichia ’11 —Carrie Hojnicki, Assistant Arts Editor