Criterion’s new two-disc edition of Costa-Gavras’ first-rate political thriller, Missing, is an improvement on the mass-market edition that has been in circulation for a much lower price. With Criterion’s product, yes, you will pay about two to three times more for a film, but the quality you get in return is, most of the time, well worth it. With Missing, unfortunately, the results are more of a mixed bag.
The extras, however, aren’t as spectacular as expected. Couldn’t Spacek, the only surviving principal of the production (Costa-Gavras and co-star Jack Lemmon are both deceased), have been more present in the extras disc of the film, considering this was one of her greatest accomplishments? A scene-specific commentary, an interview … anything?
Two comprehensive interviews with Costa-Gavras fill in the blanks about the writing, casting, and filming, but overall, the package isn’t as delicious or complete as most Criterion offerings, right down to the mediocre artwork. There is a lot of background information and historical data about what was going on in Chile under Dictator Augusto Pinochet at the time, but it is not essential to understanding the film, though helpful in an ancillary way.
However, the film itself is well-made and taut, and Criterion’s high-definition digital transfer is meticulously clean. The director, who is also responsible for political thrillers like Z (1969) and Music Box (1989), sets the true story of American filmmaker and journalist Charles Horman, who disappears without a trace, in an unnamed Latin American country during a coup.
It is well known that Horman disappeared in Chile in 1973, at the time of Pinochet’s violent military coup. Missing prompted an official response from the U.S. State Department and caused a mild controversy upon its release. Costa-Gavras said, in an interview included in the Criterion edition, that he wanted to force the audience to participate and play detective. The film’s studio, Universal, wanted the opening scene to read “Chile, September 1973”, but the director astutely points out, “these things are still happening. People are disappearing all over the world.” Twenty-six years later, Missing remains a strong, moving experience and serves as a timely reminder that kidnapping and torture are tools of totalitarianism everywhere.
As we are introduced to the central character, Horman’s wife, Beth (Sissy Spacek), Missing keeps us on our toes by plunging us into a world of tumult, violence, and uncertainty. Gunshots pop off in the background in the middle of the day. There is a strict curfew that, if broken, can be punished by death, and the sequence in which Beth misses curfew and has to cower on the streets at night, watching people get picked off one by one by the police, is explosive.
Recounting the everyday horrors of living through political violence is not a new theme in film, but the way Costa-Gavras sets the action against Americans is, at least for that audience, very provocative. Americans don’t consider themselves the victims in wars, but the aggressors. The director flips this perspective effectively.
Missing‘s story moves fast and doesn’t let up as the search for Charles Horman unleashes at a breakneck pace. His father Ed, a strict Christian Scientist (played brilliantly by Lemmon) flies in from the states to try and be of assistance to his “anti-establishment paranoia” stricken daughter-in-law, and the two of them begin to fight fiercely for the man they both love. Ed’s views, politically, religiously, and morally, are completely the opposite of Charles and Beth’s, but by the film’s end, he must learn to at least respect their choices, although he remains vehemently opposed to their politics.
Ed is used to getting his way in the United States; he is a little macho, a little controlling. He doesn’t like that Beth controls the search; he doesn’t like that a woman has as much knowledge as she does. Often, you can read the embarrassment on his face when he feels as though she is getting “too loud”. Yet, for the sake of his son, he learns to trust her. They create a harmonious duet.
It’s fascinating to watch these actors play off against one another and challenge themselves with something untried. This kind of exploratory bravery is exciting to witness onscreen. The casting of the diametrically opposite Lemmon and Spacek in the leads is inspiring; although the performers couldn’t be from more different worlds, their glaring stylistic differences complement both the characters and the actors.
Both actors are outside of their comfort zones: Lemmon in the serious, timely political thriller, when he was best known for being one of the nicest men in Hollywood, and Spacek, so warm and full of charm in real life, plays a more closed, fiery character than her usual roles. Not an actress to repeat herself, she also hasn’t done anything like Beth in Missing, since.
Spacek, in particular, among the actresses who came to prominence in the late 1970s/early ’80s, is not given her due. Not for this film. Not really in general. With her haunted blue eyes, strawberry blonde hair, beguiling screen presence, and slow Texas drawl, it has been said that she is hard to cast or that she plays into typecasting.
One cursory glance of her resume will quickly reveal a diversity that is rarely seen in American film actresses, in terms of quality and in terms of variety: Badlands, Carrie, Coal Miner’s Daughter, Crimes of the Heart, The Straight Story, and In the Bedroom are but a few of the feathers in her acting cap, yet, now, nearing 60, like many of her counterparts, the once highly-sought after and prolifically talented Spacek is appearing less often films, and this is a crying shame. Someone needs to get her the kind of accessible, high-paying work that seems to be offered only to Diane Keaton and Meryl Streep. She deserves a renaissance. The absence of Spacek in modern film makes Missing a tad bittersweet.
Missing was nominated for four major Oscars. Lemmon and Spacek were up for Actor and Actress, while Costa-Gavras was there for Best Adapted Screenplay (Thomas Hauser wrote the book) and Best Picture (Wolfgang Petersen stole Costa-Gavras’ spot for Best Director for Das Boot). Missing, not unlike its subject matter, walked away empty-handed.