+ interview with Ted Demme, director of Blow
+ another review of Blow by Cynthia Fuchs
"Daddy's a Fuck Up"
Blow is based on the true story of an "American
kid," George Jung (Johnny Depp), who grows up to be
the biggest cocaine importer of the 1970s and '80s. He
claims in voice-over to have imported over 85% of the
coke in the country, with the help of his Colombian
connection, Pablo Escobar (Cliff Curtis). The film
examines that brief era when coke was glamorous, the
drug scene at Studio 54 was hip, and crack had not yet
ripped the inner cities apart. Like Traffic, it
reveals the real individual costs of selling and using
drugs, and how "everyday" folks get swept into the
huge machine of the drug business. Demme and
screenwriters David McKenna and Nick Cassavetes weave
together the epic scope of international drug
smuggling and George's intimate experiences as
husband, father, and son, to create a cautionary tale.
Demme's movie brilliantly captures the exhilaration of
George's life through a variety of cinematic methods
-- intimate love scenes illuminated by a golden glow;
a couple's insularity highlighted by a spinning camera
that puts them at the center of the universe; good
times recalled through collages of snapshots and
snippets of home movies. Energy builds through
stop-action and slow motion shots, and Mark Bridges'
costumes, spanning four decades of fashion, are so
true that the viewer is never jerked out of the moment
by misrepresentations of the eras. And hey, it doesn't
hurt that Depp makes a leisure suit look good.
Fortunately, all this visual potency doesn't sidetrack
Demme. He uses it to highlight social and personal
questions, for instance, what creates a drug dealer? A
rotten childhood? Poverty? The movie answers by
showing George's early days in the Massachusetts
suburbs. He has stable parents, not perfect, but able
to provide a solid working-class home despite money
problems. Though his mother (Rachel Griffiths) is
demanding and ambitious (okay, she's a harpy), his
father (Ray Liotta) is warm-hearted and loving.
George's childhood is basically uneventful, which
means that we can't rely on standard narratives of
deprivation to understand why he takes up drug
dealing.
Still, he wants out. After weathering cold winters and
his demanding mother, George heads to Manhattan Beach,
California during the 1960s in search of warmth. A
fledgling hippie, he finds the laid-back atmosphere
more to his liking, though, as his friend Tuna (Ethan
Suplee) says, the two of them face one problem: "What
we're gonna do for money and all, being as we don't
want to get a job and what not." George's new
California girlfriend Barbara (Franka Potente, of Run Lola Run) solves that puzzle for him when she
introduces him to the local source for pot, a
hairdresser named Derek Foreal (Paul Reubens). George
discovers that selling pot is an easy way to finance
the party life, where every day is a merry-go-round of
sex, drugs, and sun. He can avoid the money troubles
of his parents and the hard work of his father that
never seemed to pay off. At this stage, George's new
"career" is perhaps most understandable. He loves his
girlfriend, he doesn't cheat his customers, and nobody
gets hurt selling pot.
But in 1972, George gets busted with 660 pounds of
marijuana, a quantity the authorities frown on, and he
makes his first trip to jail. This is pivotal for
George. As he notes, "Danbury wasn't a prison. It was
a crime school. I went in with a B.A. of Marijuana and
come out with a Ph.D. of Cocaine." Tension builds as
the film's focus shifts from pool-side parties in
Acapulco to George's first visit to Colombia, where he
meets some really bad dudes, in particular, Escobar,
for whom he becomes the main U.S. contact. George gets
off on the danger: he refuses to play by the rules, an
outsider who thrills at the risks and huge benefits of
his move from pot to coke.
But the danger and excitement of George's life aren't
enough to create a credible, sympathetic interest in
his life. Without Depp, it would be just another sad
story of a man who bites off more than he can chew.
Throughout his career Depp has brought nuance to his
portrayals of characters who can't or won't fit the
norm. Hollywood is full of gorgeous leading men, but
none can match Depp's odd comic genius.
Yet, Blow isn't a vehicle for Depp's wackiness
(though he does manage to work in a small tribute to
Ed Wood, involving a pair of lacy women's panties).
No, he plays George seriously, capturing his
working-class New England accent, his mannerisms,
desire for wealth and excitement, and his inability to
see what these "attainments" cost those around him.
His performance as the hedonistic, but amiable and
well-meaning George, is first rate, perhaps even a
career best. He portrays George's slow realization
that he missed what his father was trying to teach him
in a way that is completely engrossing. His dad told
him as a young boy that "money isn't real," but George
doesn't get it until he is forcibly separated from his
parents and daughter. His heartfelt goodbye to his
father is gut wrenching His heartfelt goodbye to his
father is gut-wrenching, as George speaks his last
message to dying father into a tape recorder, unable
to go to him because he's in prison and his mother
won't support a furlough. The pain he expresses at
being separated from his family moved the preview
audience to audible sniffles. (Even the guy next to
me was crying.) It isn't every day that an actor can
make viewers care so deeply about the fate of someone
so self-centered.
In the end, the film asks us to examine the personal
price George pays for being such as slow learner,
refusing to give neat answers about him. It takes
George himself a good forty years to learn his lesson.
Is he evil? Is he simply blind to the larger
ramifications of his actions? Is he just a guy who
enjoyed his work? George has difficulty answering
these questions for himself. For much of the film,
George is blind to the costs of his high life. He
doesn't much notice when his second wife Mirtha
(Penelope Cruz) is wasting away from cocaine. He loves
his daughter, but doesn't think much about her future.
He certainly never thinks about the human costs of
drug production in Colombia -- the health problems of
workers exposed to huge amounts of coca, the murdered
policemen and dealers, the families afflicted by the
loss of members murdered or jailed. George focuses
instead on the gaiety and affluence around him -- the
parties, the money, the sex. He lives according to his
own rules and it is up to us determine just what kind
of person that makes him. And hey, call someone you
love right now: don't let yours be a life of regrets.
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