Film portrayals of journalists

A critic’s expertise only goes so far. I cannot say, for instance, whether a giant crane seems to meet OSHA safety standards before it goes haywire and smashes into a high-rise in “Spider-Man 3.” But I can tell you that the gruff newspaper editor played by J.K. Simmons in that movie is only a few degrees removed from bosses I’ve had.

And that Jennifer Westfeldt in “Kissing Jessica Stein” makes a more believable copy editor than Drew Barrymore in “Never Been Kissed,” even though she doesn’t edit much copy on screen. It’s a personality thing.

I note the nuances because I work in the same business as the characters. And frankly, any nuances are welcome, since most reporters are portrayed as vultures sweeping in and out of the frame.

Journalists have always been popular as movie characters. The attraction between the film and news businesses is obvious. Both focus on telling stories. Both entail huge egos, accusations of getting it wrong, ethical dilemmas and, on occasion, spurts of brilliance and demonstrations of true moral fortitude.

Movies about journalists have, not surprisingly, been a mixed bag. For every “Citizen Kane” and “All the President’s Men,” there are 10 films in which a journalist character comes off as callow, shallow or just stupid. Most of the time, an eye roll seems a sufficient critical response.

But as the newspaper industry moves toward a different model incorporating the Internet and other new media, I’ve grown more attuned to, and perhaps protective of, the depiction of traditional print journalists. It’s as if the films containing them aren’t just films but documents of an industry I grew up in — an industry that, at least from a critic’s romanticized perspective, has offered real-life glimmers of “President’s Men” and of the best comedy ever made about newspaper folks, “His Girl Friday.” Sometimes it’s even offered shadings of “Citizen Kane” (that was a really controlling boss).

My chief complaint about most journalism-themed films is the coziness between reporter and subject. In “Interview,” Steve Buscemi plays a political reporter for a news magazine who is unhappy about being assigned to interview a famous starlet (Sienna Miller). Yet he ends up at the starlet’s loft and in compromising positions. Though the setup — getting close enough to a paparazzi darling to determine whether there’s more than air occupying her noggin – intrigues, you wish Buscemi’s character had gained access some other way. Like, maybe as a tech guy called to the actress’s home to fix her computer.

In real life, journalists rarely get involved with the people they cover. And most of those who do immediately jump off, or get pulled off, their beats. But on film, lines are crossed all the time, and usually by women. In the 2006 film “Scoop,” girl reporter/madcap comedian Scarlett Johansson pursues murder suspect Hugh Jackman romantically as well as professionally.

In the 2007 thriller “Perfect Stranger,” the investigative reporter played by Halle Berry is such a loose cannon that she ought to have the newspaper’s attorneys accompany her on all assignments. That’s before she walks away from the paper entirely so she can focus on using her wiles to entrap a businessman (Bruce Willis) she suspects of murder.

But no on-screen female journalist in recent memory has matched Sally Field’s twofer in the 1981 film “Absence of Malice.” Her reporter character not only drags a businessman’s (Paul Newman) name through the mud, but she sleeps with him as well.

As a female journalist, “Absence of Malice” bugs me. As a movie critic, I recommend it. It’s full of drama and terrific performances, especially by Field. I also like another film from 1981 called “Continental Divide,” in which John Belushi’s tough-guy Chicago columnist falls for a Colorado eagle researcher played by Blair Brown. With the first shot of Belushi trying to smoke a high-altitude cigarette, I forget about being the journalism police.

Even better is when a critic need not be mindful because the film already has been. In “A Mighty Heart,” Daniel Pearl (Dan Futterman) comes off as a savvy, committed journalist. But so do his wife, Mariane (Angelina Jolie), and his Wall Street Journal colleague Asra Nomani (Archie Panjabi). Once Pearl goes missing, Mariane and Asra use their own investigative skills to try to figure out what happened. (That Nomani agreed to the project but has publicly criticized the finished film testifies, in a way, to the irrepressible nature of the journalistic spirit.)

The 2007 film “Zodiac,” based on the unsolved Northern California killings of the late 1960s, doesn’t offer a whole lot new or exciting about the case. But Robert Downey Jr.’s portrayal of Paul Avery, a San Francisco Chronicle reporter who later worked at The Sacramento Bee, is tremendously compelling. Charming, funny, tenacious and troubled, this character serves as both inspiration and cautionary tale.

Journalists tend to be quite complex people, after all. That is, except for critics, or at least Hollywood’s version of them. Though Joseph Cotten’s ethical counterpoint to Kane in “Citizen Kane” and the wet-behind-the-ears rock journalist in “Almost Famous” are characters of substance, most on-screen critics are one-dimensionally haughty, or at the very least, entitled.

The most famous on-screen critic, Addison DeWitt (George Sanders) from “All About Eve,” inspires violent ambivalence in a film reviewer. One of the cleverest wits in all of cinema, he’s also a huge creep. It helps to remind myself that he’s a theater and not a movie critic.

Anton Ego, the deathly pale, thin and seemingly dismissive arbiter of quality in the animated film “Ratatouille,” is a food critic. But I have no trouble claiming him as one of my own. During the course of the film, he shows himself to be not heartless but highly discriminating – and a passionate proponent of what meets his standards.

— Carla Meyer — The Sacramento Bee (MCT)