![]() ![]() He threw a life of promise away for a life of ease.Īs the film winds down, Monty’s father, James ( Brian Cox), delivers a rejoinder of sorts to Monty’s monologue. Even as he starts, he knows that when he runs out of ethnic groups and geographical moments to cast aspersions upon, he’ll still be the one left standing, holding the bag. Because Monty knows the fault lies with himself. It’s profane, it’s bigoted, and, most interestingly, it feels half-hearted. Norton, as strong as he’s ever been, spits hate from inside a mirror, seeking anyone to blame but himself for why he’s going to prison. The film will return to this idea of the promise and pain of the United States time and again. Angry, confused, deeply wounded, but not ready to die. ![]() Audience, meet America after 9/11, personified by a dog named Doyle. This wrecked animal still has a lot of fight in him. However, when he gets close, the pooch snarls and snaps. Monty, fancying himself as an unsentimental but kind man, plans to mercy kill the dog. Abandoned by a dogfighting ring, the canine lies on its side, broken and bleeding. In what we’ll soon learn is a flashback, we meet Monty and his bodyguard/muscle, Kostya ( Tony Siragusa), as they come across a wounded dog. Lee, never one for subtlety, makes the film’s thesis clear in the first ten minutes. But life inside the slow-motion isolation chamber of pandemic gives everything a different kind of glow. Yes, it’s strange to say this about a tale of a man about to lose most of his thirties to life in a Federal Correctional Institute. While the gift of hindsight tells us that Lee’s vision of post-9/11 America is optimistic compared to what we got, it nonetheless provides hope. ![]() As we live through the darkest national tragedy since then, it’s hard not to see the parallels.ĭirector Spike Lee and writer David Benioff (adapting his first novel into his first screenplay) make it as much about a battered New York City-and the United States by extension-picking itself off the mat as it is about drug dealer Monty Brogan’s ( Edward Norton) last day of freedom. Released in December 2002 but filmed and set even closer to the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, it lives in that time’s wounded and confused Manhattan. Watching 25 th Hour at this moment in history is an uncanny experience. For March, we celebrate the birthday (and the decades-long filmography) of one of America’s most pioneering Black filmmakers, Spike Lee. Read the rest of our coverage here. Every month, we at The Spool select a filmmaker to explore in greater depth - their themes, their deeper concerns, how their works chart the history of cinema and the filmmaker’s own biography. ![]()
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