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Movie Takes
The Ghost Writer
So you think it’s the CIA that fingered Roman Polanski?
At one point in Roman Polanski’s The Ghost Writer, his hero — who is never named but known only as “the Ghost” (Ewan McGregor) — has a chance encounter on what is supposed to be a desolate Martha’s Vineyard beach with a grizzled old man played by the great Eli Wallach, age 95. The Ghost mentions to him that he is working on the memoirs of a former British prime minister, now living locally, who is known in the movie as Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan) but who is intended to be Tony Blair in all but name. The old man says of the Ghost’s employer that “He seems like an intelligent man. Now why did he get himself mixed up with that idiot in the White House?”
The Ghost replies: “That’s what everyone wants to know.”
It is a revealing moment. There is no danger, I take it, of anyone’s being bewildered by the change of administration into wondering exactly which idiot is being referred to here. The trope is too much a commonplace of the European as of the American left. But it is still the question that Mr. Polanski’s film tries to answer — a question that only left-wing European anti-Americans could possibly want to know the answer to. And even they may find themselves less than satisfied with The Ghost Writer’s answer to it.
In fact “everyone” doesn’t want to know how Tony Blair got mixed up with George W. Bush — not even “everyone” in the same sense in which the Ghost had used the term earlier by saying that “Everyone voted for him” — that is, for Lang/Blair. “Everyone” here really means those of the British élites for whom Mr. Blair was once an object of almost Obama-like veneration, the man who in 1997 led the Labour Party back into power after an 18-year exile, until the “tragedy” of his involvement, together with that of President Bush’s America, in the Iraq war. For these people, Mr. Bush’s involvement was emphatically not a tragedy. That’s because he was an idiot. Or an evil genius. Or both. They have never been troubled by any sense of contradiction between the two things. In other words, Mr. McGregor’s “everyone” means “everyone who is likely to see this movie.” It’s not a large number of people.
The Ghost is employed to work on Adam Lang’s memoirs when the previous collaborator, a long-time political associate of the ex-P.M, dies, apparently the victim of an accidental drowning. The Ghost’s arrival at the former prime minister’s compound coincides with a decision by the latter’s successor in office and former ally, Robert Rycart (Robert Pugh), to turn over to the International Criminal Court in the Hague evidence of his involvement in unspecified “war crimes.” Lang for the most part retains a tense insouciance about this, as he knows he has a safe haven among his American benefactors, including a sinister, Halliburton-type company called Hatherton, on whose private jets he flies about the country, giving lectures and making money. But he is clearly rattled. His domestic situation is also a source of tension, as his wife, Ruth (Olivia Williams), is constantly hostile and bitter towards him and full of angry jealousy about what she assumes is his adulterous relationship with his secretary (Kim Cattrall). Mr. Polanski chooses not to enlighten us as to whether her suspicions are true, but he hints that they are.
The Ghost soon finds what he takes to be evidence not only of Lang’s guilt in the matter of the war crimes but also that his now-dead predecessor was killed shortly after discovering Lang’s long association with the CIA. Following up the dead man’s leads, he swiftly concludes that Lang was actually a CIA agent while serving as British prime minister. “Name one decision Lang made in ten years as prime minister that wasn’t in American interests,” Rycart says, and the heads of a hundred thousand (at least) former admirers of Tony Blair nod in agreement. The case against Lang/Blair appears overwhelming, but Mr. Polanski works in a twist at the end, as the Ghost finds out the real truth by a device worthy of a Hardy Boys mystery. Can he now escape his predecessor’s fate at the hands of the CIA? What would be your guess?
Mr. Polanski and his co-writer, Robert Harris, on whose novel the film is based, naturally feel they can assume that the movie-going culture will share their politics, and The Ghost Writer is shot through with the fashionable left-wing anti-American and anti-Bush assumptions that are so common among the intellectual classes in Europe that they have also become common among the intellectual classes here. Under these circumstances, I suppose Mr. Polanski should be congratulated for not being completely predictable in his portrayal of Lang/Blair. He also has, in my view, a crisp narrative style in telling a story on screen — even if it is a stupid and ideologically tendentious story — that carries us along with him. This makes him one of the last practitioners of what is becoming, as I have noted before, almost a lost art in Hollywood, but it’s not really very much to hang onto when everything else is so predictable.
About the Author
James Bowman, our movie and culture critic, is a resident scholar at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He is the author of Honor: A History and Media Madness: The Corruption of Our Political Culture, both published by Encounter Books.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (53) | Leave a comment
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Alan Brooks| 3.22.10 @ 8:32AM
"That's because he was an idiot. Or an evil genius. Or both. They have never been troubled by any sense of contradiction between the two things."
You pegged the great contradiction of Bush's detractor's. First they said Bush was a coke-damaged frat boy, sitting on Cheney's lap. Later they said Bush was a Hitler. But Hitler was no imbecile.
Contrarian| 3.22.10 @ 8:38AM
Actually, there's no contradiction -- an idiot (in Hitler's case, syphilis-damaged) surrounded by evil advisors fits both scenarios.
Patriot| 3.22.10 @ 6:00PM
" A syphilis-damaged idiot surrounded by evil advisors--sounds just like Obama.
Alan Brooks| 3.22.10 @ 11:42PM
Bowman is my favorite writer at AS, he gives you political and entertainment critique.
Bowman got it just so-- how the visceral and double-minded anti-Bush message backfired ("blowback" one might say).
Bowman knows how dodgy these people are, how their ocillations negate their message--
whatever the given message may be at the moment.
Whatever the transitory, bait-and-switch 'In Thing' is.
Alan Brooks| 3.22.10 @ 8:42AM
...(detractors, not detractor's).
As Geo. F. Will wrote, Bush's detractors-- a nice way of saying enemies-- had a "visceral" dislike of him, whereas LBJ, whose misdeeds were much greater than Bush's, was more or less forgiven for his role in the 1965- '68 botching of the Vietnam War, a war that killed not 5,000 Americans, but 55,000.
Alan Brooks| 3.22.10 @ 8:46AM
"Actually, there's no contradiction -- an idiot (in Hitler's case, syphilis-damaged) surrounded by evil advisors fits both scenarios."
You are seriously comparing Hitler, whose armies invaded over a dozen nations, killing about 40 million,
to Bush? You ARE a contrarian.
cuban pete| 3.22.10 @ 8:55AM
My wife and I wasted $16 on this tiresome, predictable offal and all we got was a box of buttered popcorn. I have vowed I going to wait for the DVD release of current movies but I relented and paid the price. Paint by numbers drivel from a child molester. What was I thinking!?!
Seek| 3.22.10 @ 11:51AM
I saw "The Ghost Writer" two weeks ago, and was unquestionably one of the most sophisticated political thrillers ever. Polanski doesn't know how to make a bad film.
WJ| 3.22.10 @ 2:23PM
"Sophisticated", REALLY??? You've got to be kidding!
"The evil CIA did everything bad in the world" plot is sophisticated??
Tyler| 3.22.10 @ 6:01PM
Seek is easily swayed, WJ.
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OllieK| 3.22.10 @ 1:23PM
I found this film to be somewhat amateurish and the political commentary sophomoric. Kim Cattrall turns in a distractingly bad college dram club level performance. Polanski has lost any skill that he may have ever possessed. This is a highly flawed film on many levels.
Janice| 3.22.10 @ 6:02PM
Cattrall always plays the whore--why is that?
Typecasting?
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Conservative Bob| 3.22.10 @ 6:26PM
I read the transcripts of Polanski’s victim, I read his allocution.
His is an admitted vile despicable child molester, who should pay the full measure for his crimes.
A 40 plus year old man drugging and abusing a 13 year, and being protected, defended and even celebrated by the elites as a genius.
What a disgusting comment on our rudderless times.
Alan Brooks| 3.22.10 @ 11:31PM
Wish I'd never heard of sex, except for procreation; the Bible has been shown to be correct yet again-- it only took 2,000 years. Sex is turning into something revolting, like the smell in an 'Adult' (adolescent) shop.
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Tim| 3.23.10 @ 3:15PM
I thought they extradited that pervert Polanski to stand trial for his rape of a 13 year old girl?
Johnno| 3.24.10 @ 3:09AM
Those stupid European bastards? Hell no, they celebrate perverts over there.
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Thogs| 3.29.10 @ 5:37PM
"... Polanski has lost any skill that he may have ever possessed. This is a highly flawed film on many levels. "
Forget the politics, it was a supremely well made movie: it looked great, the acting was great and the directing was great. And look Ma, no superfluous special effects or thumping soundtrack. Maybe you should just go watch Avatar again. That drivel sounds more up your alley.
Save the republic| 8.14.10 @ 1:48AM
Thank God I found this link! I was so disgusted after watching this film. It wasn't until I watched the credits and learned that the ass-rapist of a 13 year old girl was the director was the director that I understood why the the very evident anti Bush-Blair was so obvious. Polanski can rot in hell.
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Well, opinions seem to be all over the place on this one.
I thought it was a very pretty picture; the star being that oceanside house.
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