Respond to these rapid questions in our Hail Caesar quiz and we will tell you which Hail Caesar character you are. Play it now.
It’s been a while since Joel and Ethan Coen made a comedy that’s meant to be taken seriously. In their most recent three films—”A Serious Man,” “True Grit,” and “Inside Llewyn Davis”—the brother team that produces, writes, and directs (and also edits, even though they do so under an assumed name) has, without a doubt, not been short on humorous moments. But “Man” was an apocalyptic riff painted on two inches of ivory, “True Grit” was a rousing adventure that gradually mutated into a memory play about loss and mortality, and “Llewyn Davis” was at least in part a deeply sad story of inescapable existential failure. All three of these films were directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. To put it another way, it’s pretty heavy stuff. Their newest movie, “Hail Caesar!” is an exhilarating departure from their usual style: A humorous parable that manages to be both astutely clever and utterly ridiculous at the same time. It is also, from beginning to end, the happiest and most upbeat movie that the Coen brothers have ever produced. Despite the fact that you probably wouldn’t guess that from the opening shot, which is a sculpture of a Christ figure being crucified inside of a Catholic church. Stay with me here.
Although the movie is meticulously determined in certain ways to be as ahistorical as possible, “Hail Caesar!” depicts 28 or so hours in the life of one Eddie Mannix, who is played here with a beautiful combination of no-nonsense gruffness and tortured tenderness by Josh Brolin. The movie is set in an unspecified period in 20th-century Hollywood some time between the end of World War II and… well, certainly before 1960. The Coen brothers took the name of their character from the real-life name of one of the more villainous figures in the history of backstage Hollywood (he was portrayed by Bob Hoskins in the much darker Tinseltown riff “Hollywoodland”), but this entirely fictional Mannix is a harried ordinary-joe exec who works for a studio called Capitol Pictures as the “Head Of Physical Production.” Capitol is known for producing big movies that are both conscientiously produced and hopelessly schlocky. These films span a variety of genres, ranging from Biblical epics to cornball oaters.
This particular day in the life of Mannix is marked by the presence of a number of significant challenges. The front office wants Mannix to “promote” singing cowboy Hobie Doyle (Alden Ehrenreich) from B-western star to romantic comedy leading man, much to the confusion of the eager-to-please Hobie himself, and to the consternation of his new, exacting director, self-styled studio auteur Laurence Laurentz. Both of these individuals are frustrated by the decision. Scarlett Johansson’s character, the aquatic musical star DeeAnna Moran, is newly pregnant, which makes wearing her mermaid costume uncomfortable. On top of that, she is unsure of whether or not she is interested in marrying the father of her child, which would be a potential public relations disaster for a production company that takes pride in portraying itself as an All-American enterprise. Tilda Swinton plays both of the twin gossip columnists who are demanding answers to embarrassing questions and threatening to go public with an embarrassing story about the studio’s biggest matinee idol, Baird Whitlock (George Clooney). Finally, and most importantly, Whitlock himself has been kidnapped from the set of his Biblical epic by a group of disgruntled Communist screenwriters who call themselves “The Future” in their succinct ransom note. They have demanded a certain amount of money in exchange for his safe return. In the meantime, Mannix has to deal with his own personal demons, such as the fact that he is a devout Catholic who almost compulsively goes to confession, much to the exasperation of his otherwise kind and indulgent confessor. Mannix is a devout Catholic who almost compulsively goes to confession. He is troubled by the fact that he has informed his devoted wife that he is going to give up smoking, and yet he still manages to sneak a few cigarettes in during the course of his hectic day. Eddie is also being aggressively pursued by a recruiter from Lockheed, who is trying to entice him with a vested position, the promise of more reasonable hours, and the opportunity to get involved in something that is considered “serious.” How severe is it? Eddie is shown a photograph of a recent H-bomb test that was conducted at Bikini Atoll by this character. He repeats, “Lockheed was there,” over and over again. Because he always offers Eddie a cigarette whenever they come into contact with one another, you can tell that this character is the devil.
But you shouldn’t waste any more time and start this Hail Caesar quiz.
Because the Coen brothers are the Coen brothers, they cannot, or rather do not, resist the temptation to take what were and continue to be serious matters not very seriously. For example, in their funhouse mirror mashup of 1950s Hollywood, the ostensible Red Scare was not a “scare” at all but rather a Cold War component in which a major Hollywood star could potentially defect to play “Soviet Man” for Mosfilm. Poor George Clooney, playing his fourth idiot for the Coen Brothers, is stuck in a goofy Roman Centurion costume and haircut for the whole movie. Once in the hands of his kidnappers, the affable but boneheaded Whitlock is instructed in Marxist logic by no less a personage than Dr. Herbert Marcuse himself. (All right, he is only ever referred to as “Professor Marcuse,” but the actor John Bluthal is made up to look like the actual figure.) It’s possible that all of this cockeyed revisionist history will inspire frightening thoughts of “1941,” Steven Spielberg’s (ostensibly) disastrous comedy that was released in 1979. And if I’m being completely honest with you, there is a significant amount of broad, blithely unserious japery at play here. One is also reminded of “The Hudsucker Proxy” and “Crimewave,” which was directed by Sam Raimi and co-written by the Coen Brothers. But the Coen Brothers have funnier jokes than Steven Spielberg did, and they also know their real stuff at a level that is almost dangerous. For example, in the new commentary to “Inside Llewyn Davis” on the Criterion Collection disc, writers Robert Christgau and Sean Wilentz marvel at a throwaway Max Schactman reference in the movie that flew over the heads of 99 44/100th percent of viewers, and here they present an American Communist Party membership card complete with a Gus Hall signature
Hail Caesar Quiz
You are able to miss or ignore so many of these details and still enjoy the exquisite clockwork mechanism of the movie’s plot, as well as the various pastiches of old movies it offers up in varying manifestations. This is because the movie is a pastiche of many different films. The goofily, cluelessly homoerotic “No Dames” musical number, which stars a game-as-always Channing Tatum, is a highlight. So is the near-pornographic whale-spouting imagery of the Busby Berkeley-inflected Johansson-showcasing water ballet. Both of these numbers feature Johansson. (Around the time of “The Big Lebowski,” I asked the Coen brothers if they were influenced by the Technicolor musical films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, and they were characteristically cagey in response; however, here they acknowledge their fandom by scoring the water dance to a bit from Offenbach’s “Tales of Hoffmann.”) The acting in this film is uniformly excellent, but Alden Ehrenreich, who plays a completely naive singing cowboy who isn’t nearly as stupid as he seems and isn’t nearly as naive by any stretch of the imagination, practically steals the show.
Also, you will find out which character are you in this Hail Caesar quiz.
The movie makes light of the dialectic as it was explained to Baird by Marcuse, but at the same time, it also, in its own sneaky way, continually invites or compels the viewer to use it. Eddie Mannix is a decent human being who excels at his work, but for some reason, he is in the business of producing low-quality junk. People enjoy schlock, but schlock could be seen as an instrument of The People’s oppression, so… well, there’s no point in continuing the discussion. To say any more would be to go beyond the scope of this review, but suffice it to say that in the universe of the delightful “Hail Caesar!”, acceptance is the key, regardless of the conclusions that dialectical thinking may lead to, and Hollywood, while “problematic,” is more of a force for good than the military-industrial complex can ever hope to be. And finally, doing the right thing is a natural instinct that company men and singing cowboys both possess, for what it’s worth.
For more personality quizzes check this: The 5th Wave Quiz.
