CON AIR (SPOILERS): Garland and Cyrus
Harold Wexler
I saw CON AIR over the weekend and found it entertaining and often
hilarious (favorite moment: Cage staring at the snagged car floating
behind the plane and muttering "You know, on any other day, that might
seem strange"). However, there's been a question in the back of my mind
since I left the theater, a question that has to do with how audiences
are programmed to respond to different characters and what they do or do
not do; namely, why is it acceptable (in fact, imperative) for one mass
murderer (John Malkovich's Cyrus "The Virus" Grissom) not only to be
killed but to be completely destroyed, while it is equally acceptable for
another mass murderer (Steve Buscemi's Garland "The Marietta Mangler"
Greene) to escape punishment altogether and be seen enjoying the high
life in Vegas in the film's crowd-pleasing "kicker"?
It's easier to answer in Cyrus' case: he deserves his fate because he's
THE VILLAIN, and in action films of recent years the mere _death_ of THE
VILLAIN is never enough. Audiences want to see THE VILLAIN really _pay_
for what he or she has done, and so the filmmakers overdetermine the
issue by constantly upping the ante on what these characters do. CON AIR
is certainly no exception; we're told from "The Virus"' first moment
onscreen that he's a "poster child for the criminally insane", a
remorseless killer whose years of incarceration have only sharpened his
violent instincts. He masterminds the brutal takeover of the transport
plane, and over the course of the film we see him personally execute
several people and lead a massive assault at Lerner Airfield that leaves
many federal agents dead. As if that weren't enough, he does a number of
things which personally enrage Our Hero, our surrogate, Nicolas Cage's
Cameron Poe: he cold-bloodedly shoots Poe's lovable buddy Baby-O, he
viciously threatens Poe's daughter, and he even holds a gun to the head
of Poe's precious stuffed bunny rabbit (if there's any justice, "Put the
bunny back in the box!" will be the catchphrase of the summer of '97).
Cyrus The Virus must die, and die GOOD, and so he does, complete with a
coup de grace that will be hard to top in future action pictures.
Garland Greene is a different, and more disturbing, story. In terms of
their crimes, Garland and Cyrus are not too far removed, and in fact
Garland may be even more fearsome: he's given a grand entrance in full
Hannibal Lecter regalia and then some, and even a true badass like Cyrus
bows in reverence ("Love your work!") to the man he refers to only
half-jokingly as "a national treasure". Everyone regards him with
trepidation, and from the vague clues we get about the nature of his
murders ("he made the Manson family look like the Partridge Family"),
they have good reason. So, again (and of course keeping in mind that CON
AIR is merely a cartoonish action movie and not some kind of realistic
social documentary), the question is: Why are we supposed to regard it
as a satisfying thing that a man who brags about wearing the head of a
victim as a hat is a free man running loose in Las Vegas as the film
ends?
The operative reference here, of course, is Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal
Lecter, who is also free as THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS fades out. But
there's a difference in the way these two deviates are depicted. Lecter
may get the film's killer punchline, but for all his wit, intellect,
urbanity, and perverse charm, Hopkins and Jonathan Demme never quite
allow us to lose sight of the man's essential evil nature; we don't even
need the grotesque breakout scene to keep in mind Jack Crawford's
admonition to Clarice to "never forget what he is". We're allowed to
stay at a certain distance from Lecter.
For all intents and purposes, no such barriers exist with Buscemi's
Garland Greene. In some ways, he's the most appealing character in CON
AIR, and he may even (don't laugh) be more of an audience identification
figure than Cameron Poe. After all, he spends most of his time in the
same position as we do -- as a spectator, just along for the ride.
Greene's crimes may be horrendous, but we -- significantly -- never see
him do anything remotely bad onscreen; he's not one of the architects of
the hijacking, he doesn't take part in the massacre at Lerner, and --
most crucially and puzzlingly -- he resists awesome temptation and
decides not to murder the little girl he encounters at the trailer park.
Why doesn't he kill her? Does her innocence awaken something in
whatever's left of his better nature (his dialogue in this scene --
"There is no medicine for what makes me sick" -- indicates that he fully
understands what he is)? Nah, it's simpler than that -- the reason he
doesn't kill her is that if he did, we wouldn't LIKE him anymore. (The
reason that director Simon West shows us the broken teacups long before
reassuring us that the girl is safe is harder to fathom -- I guess
there's a little Cyrus The Virus in everyone.) By the time Garland gets
off his hilariously perceptive Lynyrd Skynyrd joke, we're putty in his
hands. We're on Garland's side, and when we see him sipping his drink
and placing his bets at the very end, we're happy that he's OK. At least
that's the idea.
And there's something a little bit weird about that idea. Just an
observation.
--
Harold Wexler
Northwestern University, Evanston, IL. USA
hwe...@lulu.acns.nwu.edu
Atreyu
There's a very simple answer to this question. Garland served as
something of a parody to the Hannibal Lektor-type killers that have been
popping up more and more in cinema. And the filmmakers seemed to be
pulling a switch-er-oo on the audience by setting him up to be a horrific
character and then, essentially, having him do nothing horrific for the
entire picture, really. He lets the little girl live . . . he sings . . .
he makes "witty" commentary on the other prisoners . . . and then he
escapes to Vegas in much the same way Lektor escapes prison and is seen in
a tropical paradise at the end of *Silence of the Lambs*.
I did find this slightly disturbing, that the audience laughed at the idea
of a mass-murderer escaping to play Vegas. However, I wonder if the
message wasn't more that Garland would "fit right in at the City of Sin."
I wonder if the significance of his escape at film's end is meant to
suggest that he's right at home in Vegas.
Plus, for those of us who don't care for the idea of mass-murderers
running around playing Casino games, there's always the suggestion that
the cops are -very likely- going to be talking to everyone who survived --
and will pick Garland up and pop him back into his restraints as soon as
he finishes his last hand. He didn't seem like he was going anywhere, and
he hadn't traveled far from the site of the wreck from the looks of
things. I suspect strongly that the police would be tracking him down
even as he played that hand.
Jason C. Charnick
In article <5ni1q4$s...@news.acns.nwu.edu>, hwe...@lulu.acns.nwu.edu wrote:
>
> [some wonderful points snipped]
>
>For all intents and purposes, no such barriers exist with Buscemi's
>Garland Greene. In some ways, he's the most appealing character in CON
>AIR, and he may even (don't laugh) be more of an audience identification
>figure than Cameron Poe. After all, he spends most of his time in the
>same position as we do -- as a spectator, just along for the ride.
>Greene's crimes may be horrendous, but we -- significantly -- never see
>him do anything remotely bad onscreen; he's not one of the architects of
>the hijacking, he doesn't take part in the massacre at Lerner, and --
>most crucially and puzzlingly -- he resists awesome temptation and
>decides not to murder the little girl he encounters at the trailer park.
>Why doesn't he kill her? Does her innocence awaken something in
>whatever's left of his better nature (his dialogue in this scene --
>"There is no medicine for what makes me sick" -- indicates that he fully
>understands what he is)? Nah, it's simpler than that -- the reason he
>doesn't kill her is that if he did, we wouldn't LIKE him anymore. (The
>reason that director Simon West shows us the broken teacups long before
>reassuring us that the girl is safe is harder to fathom -- I guess
>there's a little Cyrus The Virus in everyone.) By the time Garland gets
>off his hilariously perceptive Lynyrd Skynyrd joke, we're putty in his
>hands. We're on Garland's side, and when we see him sipping his drink
>and placing his bets at the very end, we're happy that he's OK. At least
>that's the idea.
I agree with you completely. I definitely think that we're supposed to
identify with the Marietta Mangler, and that's demonstrated by the use of
occasional point-of-view shots from his perspective. Whereas you're
probably right that for the structure of the film it's more important for
him not to kill the girl so we will still like him, I tend to lean more to
the other point that you make that he finally "saw the error of his ways"
so to speak and that the song that he sang with the girl - "Got the whole
world in his hands..." made him realize that he should take better
advantage of his new found freedom, and not risk getting caught again. Of
course, I also considered the possibility that he is not a child
molester/killer preferring adults, and after his little stint in Vegas, he
could go back to "hat collecting." :)
Jason
--
Jason Charnick
E-mail: jason-c...@worldnet.att.net
WWW: http://home.att.net/~jason-charnick/
David Mamet Info Page
http://home.att.net/~jason-charnick/mamet.html
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Skander Halim
Harold Wexler (hwe...@lulu.acns.nwu.edu) writes:
> Greene's crimes may be horrendous, but we -- significantly -- never see
> him do anything remotely bad onscreen; he's not one of the architects of
> the hijacking, he doesn't take part in the massacre at Lerner, and --
> most crucially and puzzlingly -- he resists awesome temptation and
> decides not to murder the little girl he encounters at the trailer park.
> Why doesn't he kill her? Does her innocence awaken something in
> whatever's left of his better nature (his dialogue in this scene --
> "There is no medicine for what makes me sick" -- indicates that he fully
> understands what he is)? Nah, it's simpler than that -- the reason he
> doesn't kill her is that if he did, we wouldn't LIKE him anymore.
I agree completely. The scene between Garland and the little girl really
stuck in my craw: not only was it superfluous story-wise, its tone was far
too unsettling and _real_ for a dopey Jerry Bruckheimer movie. The fact
that they didn't even have the courage to carry the scene to its natural
conclusion just made it all the more repugnant. It reminded me of that
scene in War of the Roses where Kathleen Turner says she made pate out of
the dog, then they cut to the dog barking.
I suppose the big "joke" with the Garland character is that he's a serial
child killer who also happens to be one of the sanest people in the movie.
You're right, though: it's not a very funny joke.
--
Skander Halim
http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/~ba547/
"On any other day that might seem strange."
Dan Bongard
Skander Halim (ba...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA) wrote:
: I suppose the big "joke" with the Garland character is that he's a serial
: child killer who also happens to be one of the sanest people in the movie.
Is he a serial _child_ killer, though? I thought he was just a serial
killer. The only reference I can recall to children was Buscemi starting
in on "this one girl I killed", but I had figured "girl" probably just
meant "young woman".
-- Dan
Gregory Kam
Jason C. Charnick <see-m...@for.my.real.address> wrote:
>In article <5ni1q4$s...@news.acns.nwu.edu>, hwe...@lulu.acns.nwu.edu wrote:
>>
>> [some wonderful points snipped]
>>
>>For all intents and purposes, no such barriers exist with Buscemi's
>>Garland Greene. In some ways, he's the most appealing character in CON
>>AIR, and he may even (don't laugh) be more of an audience identification
>>there's a little Cyrus The Virus in everyone.) By the time Garland gets
>>off his hilariously perceptive Lynyrd Skynyrd joke, we're putty in his
>>hands. We're on Garland's side, and when we see him sipping his drink
>>and placing his bets at the very end, we're happy that he's OK. At least
>>that's the idea.
>
>I agree with you completely. I definitely think that we're supposed to
>identify with the Marietta Mangler, and that's demonstrated by the use of
>occasional point-of-view shots from his perspective. Whereas you're
>probably right that for the structure of the film it's more important for
>him not to kill the girl so we will still like him, I tend to lean more to
>the other point that you make that he finally "saw the error of his ways"
>so to speak and that the song that he sang with the girl - "Got the whole
>world in his hands..." made him realize that he should take better
>advantage of his new found freedom, and not risk getting caught again. Of
>course, I also considered the possibility that he is not a child
>molester/killer preferring adults, and after his little stint in Vegas, he
>could go back to "hat collecting." :)
Was the Mangler also the one who commented on the insanity of "normal"
life?
My take on it was that his meeting with the girl was an awakening for
him that he *is* in fact sick and needs to change his ways. It could
also be that the girl reinstated some sense of being and, dare I say
it, religion, into this mass murderer ("Why aren't you singing?").
We know that he despises work ethics, so we see him in the final scene
getting on with his own life obtaining money a different way; by
gambling.
Greg
Harold Wexler
In article
<Pine.GSO.3.96.97060...@gladstone.uoregon.edu>,
atr...@gladstone.uoregon.edu says...
>Plus, for those of us who don't care for the idea of mass-murderers
>running around playing Casino games, there's always the suggestion that
>the cops are -very likely- going to be talking to everyone who survived
>he finishes his last hand. He didn't seem like he was going anywhere,
>and he hadn't traveled far from the site of the wreck from the looks of
>things. I suspect strongly that the police would be tracking him down
>even as he played that hand.
Then why not _show_ him being caught? In the novelization of CON AIR --
which is most likely based on the original shooting script -- the final
scene has Greene being picked up at the table by Vince Larkin. It's very
simple: Larkin says "You're coming with me", and Garland answers, "Sure.
Why not?" No muss, no fuss, no rock-crushers, and perfectly in keeping
with the essentially passive nature of the Mangler we've come to know and
love; whereas Cyrus and company continue to wreak havoc in their stolen
fire truck, Garland simply slinks away unnoticed and plants himself at a
gaming table for some amusement before the inevitable recapture. If the
movie had ended this way, we'd have our cake and eat it too; it's one
thing to be satisfied that Garland remains unscathed, but it's quite
another to take pleasure in the knowledge that a dangerous serial killer
is on the loose. Leave us smiling, but by all means lock the guy up
again!
Skander Halim
Dan Bongard (dbon...@netcom.com) writes:
I believe there's a reference to Garland having killed "families," which
presumably includes small children. He's not _exclusively_ a child killer
then, but the bottom line is, he's not a very nice man.
Patton75
well I think another part of the "joke" of Garland was that he is built up
as the most dangerous man in the world...even Cyrus is in awe of him,and
when we actually get to see Garland...he is Steve Buscemi...a man who
looks only slightly more dangerous than the bunny rabbit. So basically he
is just a joke character,nothing more than light relief,delivering
sporadic one-liners to keep us amused during the non-action scenes.The
part with the little girl was probably meant to screw with the audience a
lot...because we had become used to Garland being a joke character,and
suddenly he becomes the most dangerous man in the world again,and for me
this was the most suspenseful sequence in the movie...so its all adding to
the general entertainment of the movie.
As for his escape,I thought it was the perfect punchline to the
movie...whereas the heroes are more concerned with chasing relatively
low-grade nuts like Cyrus and Diamond dog,Garland gets away...but then
again we suspect that because he didnt kill the girl,he is reformed
anyway...he is smart enough to know what he is,and his experience with the
girl has changed him.
Ah what the hell its just a fun summer movie!! But its got some of the
most memorable characters Ive seen in a long time.I do think that the
names such as Cyrus the Virus and the Marietta mangler were a dig at
Hannibal the Cannibal...I mean,come on what are the odds of not only
actually being called hannibal..not exactly a common name...but actually
being a cannibal too? seems rather convenient to me!
phil
Cathy Weeks
Skander Halim (ba...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA) wrote:
: too unsettling and _real_ for a dopey Jerry Bruckheimer movie. The fact
: that they didn't even have the courage to carry the scene to its natural
: conclusion just made it all the more repugnant. It reminded me of that
: scene in War of the Roses where Kathleen Turner says she made pate out of
: the dog, then they cut to the dog barking.
The idea was that Turner's character was verbally vicious, not an animal
killer. She was downright tender with her cat, and I don't think she had
it in her to kill an innocent dog to hurt her husband. However, I think
she had no qualms about letter her husband THINK the dog was dead.
Actually killing the dog would have been out of character and gratuitous.
Cathy Weeks
Scott Mendelson
Skander Halim wrote:
>
> Harold Wexler (hwe...@lulu.acns.nwu.edu) writes:
>
> > Greene's crimes may be horrendous, but we -- significantly -- never see
> > decides not to murder the little girl he encounters at the trailer park.
> > Why doesn't he kill her? Does her innocence awaken something in
> > whatever's left of his better nature (his dialogue in this scene --
> > "There is no medicine for what makes me sick" -- indicates that he fully
> > understands what he is)? Nah, it's simpler than that -- the reason he
> > doesn't kill her is that if he did, we wouldn't LIKE him anymore.
>
> stuck in my craw: not only was it superfluous story-wise, its tone was far
> that they didn't even have the courage to carry the scene to its natural
> conclusion just made it all the more repugnant.
> child killer who also happens to be one of the sanest people in the movie.
>
I personally believe that Greene didn't kill the kid because he was a
"third-person" killer. In other words, he would simply jump someone
wile jogging, kill or knock them out quickly and be done with it. The
"first-person" killer is the kind that methodically tortures, both
pyshically and emotionally, his victims prior to death. For them, the
expression of fear, horror, pain, etc. of the victim is what turns them
on. Killing is just a step to prevent capture(well, sometimes it is).
Having actually met the child, and having seen her as a person and not
a knife-sharpener, he found it harder to slice her up. As far as him
not doing anything bad in the film, how the hell do you think he got the
suit and the gambling chips at the films conclusion? Obviously, he
killed at least one person.
Scott Mendelson