This film is one of Eastwood's best directorial efforts, with its cool, detached mise-en-scene and muted, paled out monochrome cinematography (not warm colors, but cold, glassy grays and gun metal blues; the period set and costume designs are on target but not at all engaging as is any episode of "Boardwalk Empire", which is as accurate but titillatingly so, and thus the violence in "Boardwalk" is aestheticized like a Smithsonian diorama come to bloody life; I believe "Boardwalk" could have been influenced by "J Edgar"}. Instead, Eastwood makes that verisimilitude of Hoover's world seem like an absolute alien place, somewhat nauseatingly uncanny. This is fitting, since the past literally IS an alien place we did not live in. The violence of "J Edgar," unlike "Boardwalk," is mostly implied (fleeting and few are the scenes that let us see it, such as the savage beating by Hoover's agents of a communist in a bomb factory that the FBI raids), so the violence, I felt, is all the more horrifying because instead of seeing it, we get to FEEL it as it insinuates itself through the prism of a psychotic protagonist into our democracy, souring freedom and liberty and dissent with Hoover's pathetic paranoia and self righteousness. The violence ultimately is not physical but cultural and political: America is taken apart by this man, and we imagine, all the men like him; taken apart piece by piece and one blackmailed president at a time until in the end both Hoover and the United states Bill of Rights are misshapen, twisted, bloated, stiffened to a sclerotic and arthritic crawl across the rooms of the offices shown on the screen.
What a horror film. I was caught off guard by just how horrified it made me feel. DiCaprio is perfect for the role of Hoover, because DiCaprio has always even in the full blush of his brat pack youth (the pansy 'Romeo and Juliette' romp he did years back, for instance and that insipid 'Titanic' crap that made him a celebrity) he always had a barely discernible thickness about the jaw and neck that came to the fore in "Gangs of New York" and then leaped full up in his face in later films), and the weight of his increasing gravitas as an actor (His work with Scorsese, for certain!) comes through roaring as his Hoover characterization ages, thickens, and fills out. It's like the Sinatra transformation America saw from the thin youth-fullness of Frank in "From Here to Eternity" to a hardened, round headed aging Frank in "The First Deadly Sin." It is stunning to see DiCaprio get aged and transformed as Hoover--as if we are looking at DiCaprio tapping into some part of HIMSELF that he will age into naturally in his own future.
Supporting roles are competent here, but the tour de force is DiCaprio, and he carries them all, carries the production itself, across the finish line on his own two shoulders. It seems fitting. The monster who was Hoover did much the same with the real FBI: in his evolution into a golem. This film only benefits from Eastwood's decision to let everything in it, from actors to set and costume design, to soundtrack, to cinematography, revolve around DiCaprio's gradual transformation from a callow, awkward, virgin youth to an old, closeted, shuffling but shrewd manipulator of men's souls.
Yes, I admit, as much as I am raving about this film I punked out, I couldn't finish it; it made me feel so horrified that, like watching the Zupruder film, you might have to turn away before the morbid, terrible end of it when Kennedy's head blows apart and lovely Jackie Kennedy scrambles across the back of the limo, no, NOT trying to save herself but horribly, trying to retrieve the pieces of her husband's head. It's real, it's true, but after a lifetime of seeing the Zupruder film I can no longer watch it all the way to the end. I had to stop watching "J. Edgar" for the same reason--I baied out on the final twenty minutes. I mean that as a tribute to this film, however, not a rebuke. It was so real, so true, so terrible, that I couldn't bear it. What greater achievement can we expect from real art works?
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If you are expecting ridicule, vilification, or even justification, this would be the wrong movie to watch on J. Edgar Hoover.Eastwood delivers a dark brooding, and rather objective look at one of the most controversial and polarizing figures in America. While the story itself may not be overly compelling, it does offer explanations behind some of the motivations that made up the man, John Edgar Hoover. The cinematography was a crucial element in creating and maintaining throughout a sense of secrecy, brooding, alienation, as well as distance. The chronology is disparate and effective: at times we see Hoover dictating his memoirs to an array of journalists and then we are taken back to the time in question, all the while framed in this overcast mood that fits the film and its subject matter perfectly. As a matter of fact, the manner in which this was filmed constitutes, to me, the biggest indication of Eastwood's opinion one way or the other - Hoover was a dark man with some even darker secrets.J.Edgar's homosexuality as well as his proclivity for cross-dressing are only suggested and are handled with the utmost sensitivity. There is one scene which strongly implies his helplessness with his desires to cross-dress that was simply quite touching. And the relationship between Hoover and Tolson was beautifully written. No, I did not come away feeling empathy/sympathy for Hoover at all; neither were any of my perceptions surrounding him challenged in the least. I did leave the film however with surely a more heightened sense of his humanity.This could NOT have been accomplished however, were it not for the positively riveting performance by Di Caprio. This guy can just ACT, okay? The other supporting players were equally excellent, most notably, Judi Dench who played his overbearing mother, Naomi Watts as his faithful secretary, Helen Gandy, and Armie Hammer, as Hoover's lifelong companion, Clyde Tolson. Some of the movie's most compelling scenes involved these three and all three gave powerhouse supporting performances to match Di Caprio.I highly recommend as yet another excellent outing from a very good director.
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