The Conspirator
Mar. 15th, 2013 08:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerI saw The Conspirator! It is SO GOOD, you guys! In a soul-destroying sort of way, because it is about the trial of Mary Surratt, who was accused (according to the movie, on slim evidence) of conspiring to kill Abraham Lincoln and ended up hanging because Edward Stanton basically railroaded her case through the court, so basically it's a movie about the slow unfolding of a show trial that ends in gross injustice.
WTF, EDWARD STANTON. I expected better! There is a scene where he's like "What do you mean the military commissioners gave her life imprisonment? I want the gallows! I demand the gallows! Never mind the evidence!" - never mind, in particular, the fact that the evidence suggests that there's a conspirator still at large who is far more guilty than Mary Surratt. He's decided Surratt is guilty, so dammit, she must be punished.
(This is apparently a big problem with criminal cases. The cops and/or the prosecutors decide that so-and-so is guilty, and nothing in the world including DNA evidence will sway them from this certainty. Apparently hurting someone - I'm not even talking police brutality, just arresting someone and putting them in prison and completely disrupting their life and possibly ruining their reputation - triggers a defense mechanism in a lot of people where they believe to the bottom of their souls that the injured party deserved it.)
And along the way, there's lots of arguing about Principles! And law! And snappy Civil War uniforms and beautiful dramatic 1860s dresses! Our hero Frederick Aiken, the lawyer who defends Mary Surratt, is excellent: he has to be shoved into taking the case, but by the end he's absolutely outrage by the miscarriage of justice - even though he's never completely sure that Surratt is innocent. Even if she's guilty, she deserves a better trial than this.
I also thought Mary Surratt's daughter Anna was excellent. Her mother's in prison, her brother is missing, her family's sole source of support has evaporated: she's barely holding herself together under agonizing stress. She's frosty and caustic to Aiken, especially at the beginning when his heart is clearly not in the case, but often the hint of tears bubbles up under her voice.
And speaking of frosty and caustic - 1860s snark is the best snark, you guys. The Conspirator has some great snappy lines, both in the courtroom and on social occasions, and Lincoln also had some great Congress snark, too. (Actually, possibly I just like historical snark, because Amazing Grace totally brought the Parliamentary snark too.)
And finally: Alexis Bledel is in The Conspirator! Whenever Alexis Bledel is onscreen in anything I am always like "ALEXIS BLEDEL" never mind that I saw some fairly small fraction of Gilmore Girls and am not super impressed by her acting.
She plays Sarah, Aiken's sweetheart at the beginning of the film. Eventually their relationships collapses under the weight of this court case: Sarah can handle the fact that he's defending Surratt, but she can't understand why it's become so important to him.
There's a certain tragedy to it. Sarah has clearly been trained to smooth the social waters (and she's very good at it, witty and charming), and you can see her trying to keep her conversations with Aiken on that light and agreeable note. And Aiken's trying to maintain that agreeability as well - because that's how mixed-sex social interaction is supposed to work in their milieu.
But the fact that they both buy into this set of manners means that they can't set aside their polite sociability to reach the level of painful honesty that would let him explain to her why the case is so important to him. The unjust way it's being rammed through a military tribunal infuriates him - but fury is just not agreeable, so he can't share it with her - so the case consumes him, and she can't understand because he can't explain, and their relationship falls apart.
It's so sad; especially watching it right after Amazing Grace (see, I knew I'd have things to say about it eventually!), where Wilberforce and his sweetheart Barbara do set aside the proprieties and talk about the things that are truly important, and ugly, and hard.
WTF, EDWARD STANTON. I expected better! There is a scene where he's like "What do you mean the military commissioners gave her life imprisonment? I want the gallows! I demand the gallows! Never mind the evidence!" - never mind, in particular, the fact that the evidence suggests that there's a conspirator still at large who is far more guilty than Mary Surratt. He's decided Surratt is guilty, so dammit, she must be punished.
(This is apparently a big problem with criminal cases. The cops and/or the prosecutors decide that so-and-so is guilty, and nothing in the world including DNA evidence will sway them from this certainty. Apparently hurting someone - I'm not even talking police brutality, just arresting someone and putting them in prison and completely disrupting their life and possibly ruining their reputation - triggers a defense mechanism in a lot of people where they believe to the bottom of their souls that the injured party deserved it.)
And along the way, there's lots of arguing about Principles! And law! And snappy Civil War uniforms and beautiful dramatic 1860s dresses! Our hero Frederick Aiken, the lawyer who defends Mary Surratt, is excellent: he has to be shoved into taking the case, but by the end he's absolutely outrage by the miscarriage of justice - even though he's never completely sure that Surratt is innocent. Even if she's guilty, she deserves a better trial than this.
I also thought Mary Surratt's daughter Anna was excellent. Her mother's in prison, her brother is missing, her family's sole source of support has evaporated: she's barely holding herself together under agonizing stress. She's frosty and caustic to Aiken, especially at the beginning when his heart is clearly not in the case, but often the hint of tears bubbles up under her voice.
And speaking of frosty and caustic - 1860s snark is the best snark, you guys. The Conspirator has some great snappy lines, both in the courtroom and on social occasions, and Lincoln also had some great Congress snark, too. (Actually, possibly I just like historical snark, because Amazing Grace totally brought the Parliamentary snark too.)
And finally: Alexis Bledel is in The Conspirator! Whenever Alexis Bledel is onscreen in anything I am always like "ALEXIS BLEDEL" never mind that I saw some fairly small fraction of Gilmore Girls and am not super impressed by her acting.
She plays Sarah, Aiken's sweetheart at the beginning of the film. Eventually their relationships collapses under the weight of this court case: Sarah can handle the fact that he's defending Surratt, but she can't understand why it's become so important to him.
There's a certain tragedy to it. Sarah has clearly been trained to smooth the social waters (and she's very good at it, witty and charming), and you can see her trying to keep her conversations with Aiken on that light and agreeable note. And Aiken's trying to maintain that agreeability as well - because that's how mixed-sex social interaction is supposed to work in their milieu.
But the fact that they both buy into this set of manners means that they can't set aside their polite sociability to reach the level of painful honesty that would let him explain to her why the case is so important to him. The unjust way it's being rammed through a military tribunal infuriates him - but fury is just not agreeable, so he can't share it with her - so the case consumes him, and she can't understand because he can't explain, and their relationship falls apart.
It's so sad; especially watching it right after Amazing Grace (see, I knew I'd have things to say about it eventually!), where Wilberforce and his sweetheart Barbara do set aside the proprieties and talk about the things that are truly important, and ugly, and hard.
