Respond to these rapid questions in our A Most Violent Year quiz and we will tell you which A Most Violent Year character you are. Play it now.
Directors who grew up in the 1980s and 1990s while viewing that type of movie on cable TV and home video find a certain 1970s American film to be catnip. It has a gloomy aesthetic and a distinctly masculine theme. It features Rembrandt lighting and a paper-bag brown, burnt yellow, leprous emerald, and dirty cream color scheme that dominate. There is talk of honor, integrity, and tradition; of the departure of ancient ways and the rise of a new way that is meaner, pettier, and more disorderly. It is a movie about organized crime, a family drama, a nightmare of a huge metropolis, or all three of those things at once. Nobody in it is very endearing. Despite some reluctance to sell what’s left of his soul, the hero eventually realizes that in order to succeed in this world, one must be cold and calculating and rid themselves of illusions. That kind of film is “A Most Violent Year,” a 1981 New York historical drama written and directed by J.C. Chandor (“All is Lost,” “Margin Call”). Oh, my, is that a movie of that kind. For what it is, it’s actually rather good. But the phrase “for what it is” proves to be a little irritating.
The main character, Abel Morales, is portrayed by Oscar Isaac. He succeeded his father-in-law in running a heating oil business. He recently acquired a port property, and he has one month to round up enough investors to cover the entire purchase price; else, he would have to fork over the down payment and go bankrupt. It’s a big risk that could pay off handsomely if a few crucial things go his way, but in this kind of movie, the “ifs” rarely get in the way of the hero. He is being investigated for, umm, business issues, and the D.A. (Selma actor David Oyelowo) is riding him like a rickety dray horse. As if that weren’t enough, rival businesses are also exerting pressure on Abel’s business. The opening scene shows him and his lawyer Andrew (Albert Brooks, slick and clever and almost unrecognizably unrecognizable, as is often the case these days) presenting the down payment when they discover that someone has started robbing his trucks.
Who is responsible for the violence against Abel’s business is unknown to us. We only know that he is rushing to complete this deal with only one month to spare, and that his wife Anna (Jessica Chastain, who pulls off a convincing Brooklyn accent), is not helping matters. She is a shrewd bookkeeper as well as a tough-as-nails confidante who tells another character, “My husband is an honest man; don’t confuse his honesty for weakness.” However, she also resembles Lady Macbeth to a point and frequently criticizes her husband for not being as tough as he should be given the harsh, dark, and nasty streets of this world. The movie follows Abel and/or Anna as they look for funding to keep their joint venture afloat. Conversations between scowling men seated across tables in poorly lit rooms probably make about a third of the story. Up to a point, this is mesmerizing because of Isaac’s cinematically borrowed but still palpable magnetism, the coiled intensity of the supporting actors, and the lighting by cinematographer Bradford Young, which gives conversations about money and interest, respect and disrespect, a purgatorial gloom.
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The title of the movie refers to a real statistic: 1981 saw 1,841 homicides, making it the most violent year in New York City history up to that date (the number climbed through 1991 before starting to level off). It all feels like a romanticization of a past that, in the eyes of a twenty-teens-old American middle-class filmmaker, looks like a Brigadoon of urban ethnic machismo. The film is a dirty business movie, a crime film, a crusading New York DA story, and a visual homage to cinematographer Gordon Willis (“The Godfather,” “The Conversation”), among other ’70s-film signifiers. The film is so morbid that at times it seems like a memorial service—not just for a particular type of American drama, but also for the male heroes who played them. It provides a glimpse into one of the last cultural eras in which American men were still allowed to act like men—with two fisted, furrowed brows, and whispered threats.
A Most Violent Year Quiz
With a more contemplative pace, American director James Gray has also created this type of sly homage, drawing inspiration from Sidney Lumet’s “Serpico,” the big-city thrillers of Sidney Lumet and Martin Scorsese, as well as their gangster films and Francis Coppola’s mafia movies. Gray’s “The Yards,” which was a cross between “On the Waterfront” and “The Godfather,” and his follow-up, the gangster film/undercover cop thriller “We Own the Night” (which, like “A Most Violent Year,” is fitfully excellent but occasionally tries too hard to be a K-Tel Greatest ’70s Macho Movie Hits album), are both reminiscent of certain parts of this film.
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However, Chandor’s film eventually has its own vibe, which is no small accomplishment given the significant legacy it carries. The performances and appearance carry it. There is excellent use of New York locations, some deftly produced violence and tension, and clever use of TV newscasts as a largely unnoticed Greek chorus. Even when the detailed discussions of customs and rules and the financial discussions grow tiresome, and even though Chastain is only somewhat underused, “A Most Violent Year” leaves an impression.
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Even so, “Inherent Vice,” a meandering yet vibrant film that appears to have fully absorbed all the various works of popular art that influenced writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson’s aesthetic, is still the best homage to American New Wave cinema currently playing in theaters. This is because Anderson’s film has nothing to prove and is content to simply be. Although it’s kinder, presented from a female perspective, and set further back in time than Gray’s “Godfather II,” “The Immigrant” is similarly great and entrenched in post-Vietnam American movie traditions. Chandor, in comparison, struggles to exercise the same creative freedom in “A Most Violent Year,” but he has the potential to be a tremendous artist. If this movie airs on television, you’ll probably watch the majority of it, but there’s a high possibility that there will be a few moments when you wish you were watching the movies that served as its inspiration.Also, you must try to play this A Most Violent Year quiz.
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