Hail Caesar! The Coen Brothers Faith in Film

God, Hollywood, and Homerpalooza

Note: Each scene of the Coen Brothers Hail Caesar! is so fun that to talk about the specifics of this movie at all can be a kind of a spoiler, so just go watch it.

Nice. That was fast. Welcome back.

Hail Caesar! is a fun, fast-paced, interestingly shot, delightfully acted, brilliantly edited, and persistently funny dramatization of a day in the life of Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin), a 1950’s Hollywood film producer, a “fixer”, who must solve problems to keep production on track for several films at once. There’s an “aquatic picture,” a synchronized swimming mermaid film where the lead actress (Scarlett Johannson) needs a husband in real life to cover for a scandal. There’s a drawing room drama, “Merrily We Dance,” with transplanted popular cowboy actor, the horse-riding, roping tricking, stunt man, Hobie Doyle (Alden Ehrenreich), who is still getting used to “talkin’ . . . with all those cameras lookin’” while working for stuffy director Lawrence Laurenz (Ralph Feinnes). There’s a musical dancing sailor film with a scheming lead actor (Channing Tatum). Then there is the most important of the projects—the grand biblical epic, “Hail Caesar! A Tale of The Christ”—where the lead actor, Baird Whitlock (George Clooney) has been kidnapped by actual Hollywood communists (including the “philosopher” Herbert Marcuse). All these problems and more develop and must be resolved in one day in the life of Hollywood fixer Mannix who is himself in the midst of a crisis of faith. Mannix has been offered a job, one that would take him out of Hollywood, away from the “circus” and into the “serious” work of the military industrial complex. The unfolding of all of these stories in a short period of time is fodder for dozens of brilliantly executed, genuinely comic scenes. The rapid-fire movement of this film through these productions and storylines creates a nonstop pace that brings a must-keep-watching tension rarely found in a comedy. Yet there are serious themes lurking under the madness that unfolds in Hail Caesar!

The biblical epic under production in the film is called “Hail Caesar: A Tale of the Christ,” and it tells the story of a Roman centurion’s conversion to Christianity. Hail Caesar!, The Coen Brothers movie we are watching, places the audience at the foot of the cross as the film begins. After gazing upon the crucifix, we are then placed inside a confessional where Eddie Mannix is holding his rosary and making his confession–a daily practice for him. He returns to the confessional at the end of the day (and the end of the film) as he faces a crisis of faith, not in God, but in the movie business. He has a competing job offer from Lockheed, a company that could use a problem solver like Mannix. The job would have better hours, better pay, and would put him in proximity to the further development of the atomic bomb. He brings this crisis to the priest in the confessional at the end of the film, seeking and receiving the direction he needs.

A central–and hysterical–scene shows a rabbi, a protestant pastor, an eastern orthodox prelate, and a Catholic priest giving Mannix notes on the Christ-centered film. Mannix needs to know if the film will offend “any reasonable American” while the leaders end up squabbling over theological points, and the Orthodox priest seems most concerned about the believability of the stunts. While Mannix is not an expert and gets confused during the theological discussion, in the script he chimes in on the important point when the priest is describing the Trinity: “Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,” Mannix fills in the blank [this was apparently left on the editing room floor, however].

Near the conclusion of the movie, Clooney’s (Whitlock’s) character, the Roman centurion, appears at the foot of a cross. He gives an impassioned speech at the moment of his conversion. The power of his speech converts not just the other character actors on set, but the director, and the cameraman, and the gaffer, and a guy with a clipboard, and probably the key grip. The actor’s words carry off the set and into reality. Whitlock himself, however, is so divorced from the meaning of his speech that he can’t remember the final word, “faith.” His lapse ruins the shot and the moment is played for laughs. Yet the moment, for Mannix, is the result of his work day. He has literally ransomed Whitlock back from the communists and then set him straight regarding his faith in film:

You are gonna give that speech at the feet of the penitent thief and you’re gonna believe every word you say. . . You’re gonna do it because the picture has worth and you have worth if you serve the picture and you’re never gonna forget that again.

If the movie is about faith in moviemaking, then what is it saying–is it saying anything?–about faith in God? “The picture has worth and you have worth if you serve the picture.” Are we asked to rephrase those lines: “Christ has worth and you have worth if you serve Christ”? No one lives up to the standard of Christ. In that we are all like the actors who fail to live up to the lives expected of them. It is interesting that Whitlock’s character is described as at the foot of the “penitent thief” not at the foot of Christ Himself. The penitent thief is like us in that he was a real criminal, not an innocent man. Whitlock’s character is converted by the example of a convert, the act of faith made by the penitent thief. Hail Caesar!, the Coen brothers film, is also showing a conversion of sorts through a recommitment of an imperfect man, Mannix, to his faith . . . in film. Could the Coen brothers have made a film here that genuinely celebrates returning to faith, not just in film, but in God—and in Jesus Christ?

It sounds like a stretch when I say it like that.

The Coen brothers are the filmmakers who placed this disclaimer before the beginning of Fargo: “This is a true story. The events depicted in this film took place in Minnesota in 1987. At the request of the survivors, the names have been changed. out of respect for the dead, the rest has been told exactly as it occured.” That wasn’t true, but it established additional dramatic gravity for the film. The opening shot of Hail Caesar! is that of a Crucifix. No context. No titles. Just a large shot of a crucifix. The next shot is of rosary beads. Are the Catholic elements in Hail Caesar! Just another device like that intro to Fargo? Or is there something more to it?

A friend recently lamented that we Catholics are so starved for recognition or positive portrayal in mainstream entertainment that we tend to over-celebrate any crumbs that fall our way. Could that be the case here?

In The Simpsons episode “Homerpalooza,” Homer joins a touring rock festival as part of the opening act “freakshow” where he takes a cannonball into his stomach on stage without sustaining an injury.

Two teens are watching and one says, “There’s Homer, he’s cool.” The other says, “are you being sarcastic or not?” The first winces, looks stressed, and responds, “I don’t even know anymore.”

That bit is a version of the harshest critique I could level at the Coen Brothers in general and this film in particular (if I were trying to think up a harsh critique). Are they serious or not? Do they even know?

Yes, I think they do. The Catholic faith is central to this film because it carries dramatic weight—for a reason. Are the Coen brothers secret Catholics who have made an overtly Catholic movie? No, I won’t go that far, but they are not mocking the Church—or faith in general—in this film.

There’s much more to love about this film that I haven’t mentioned. The communist writers group that meets in a luxury seaside mansion (and can’t consider sharing the ransom with their hostage). The blurring of lines between the filmmaking in the film and the filmmaking of the film we are watching—the use of 1950’s style special effects and the fact that the narrator of the film-within-the-film narrates the movie we are watching as well. The competing twin sister gossip columnists (both played by the same actress, Tilda Swinton). The bizarre near-tragic cameo by Frances McDormand as the editing room reel operator. Hobie Doyle’s unlikely role as off-screen sleuth and hero. There’s more, and all of which is why I will watch this movie again (and again), sometimes to ponder those “big questions” but just as often, just to enjoy the ride.