HOFFA
A ten-step film review by Ron Hogan
Copyright 1993 Ron Hogan
1) Readers of my review of GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS know about how I took to a description of David Mamet as our "goombah Pinter." We're somewhat fortunate to have two Mamet-scripted films released so closely together, but even a Mamet fan such as myself has to admit that this isn't his strongest work. Though I think that part of the reason that this is the case is that Mamet is either writing against his best qualities or that those qualities were ignored during the transformation from script to screen. As I noted before, one of Mamet's best assets is the ability to show character not through grand action, but naturalistic dialogue. And while some scenes of HOFFA display that asset, most notably the framing sequence outside the diner on the last day of Hoffa's life, there are many other cases in which characters prove themselves through speaking not as a natural outflow of the situation, but as mouthpieces for some position or standpoint.
2) In his book ON DIRECTING FILM, Mamet calls for the same minimalism is film technique that he does in writing. He describes film as "a succession of images juxtaposed so that the contrast between these images moves the story forward in the mind of the audience," and argues that "you should always be striving to make a silent movie." He directly acknowledges his debt to Eisenstein for this notion of film art. Which becomes relevant to the discussion of HOFFA not only because of Mamet, but because HOFFA, like Einsenstein's best films, is about the politics of labor and class struggle (which I'll address more fully in #7). On the stylistic level, Danny DeVito does seem to borrow some visual tropes from Eisenstein, especially in the strike scenes. I'm thinking of the trial sequence in particular, told primarily through overlapping close-ups and other purely cinematic flairs: dissolves et al. Getting the story told through the way that the shots are connected, rather than having everything explained. As Mamet says, "the audience requires not *information* but *drama*," and HOFFA provides more of the latter than the former.
3) But since this is a biographical film, information is required. I have noticed a very strong resurgence in the biographical film within the last few months. Early in the fall, of course, we had the Columbus films, then MALCOLM X, now HOFFA and CHAPLIN. As these films, and the biographical films of Oliver Stone (to pick another recent example) show, a biographical film is *always* a political film. Of course, any film is a political film in that it presents an ideological position, but this is especially true of films that make a claim to represent history. They are equivalent to saying "this *is* the way the world is." Because of film's powerful mimetic qualities, the images in historical/biographical films attain a certain level of reality within our culture.
4) In my review of MALCOLM X, I mentioned that the film was positioning Malcolm as a role model, a positioning that is fairly standard within the biographical film. If a film doesn't call for direct emulation of its biographical subject, it generally calls for appreciation. I caught some flak for this from one reader, on the argument that Malcolm X isn't his idea of a great role model. I imagine that if I were to make the same claim in the same way for Jimmy Hoffa, I would receive the same kind of complaints. So I'll have to say that while the historical Jimmy Hoffa leaves a lot to be desired as a role model, the protagonist of HOFFA is clearly meant to have heroic qualities that the audience is intended to appreciate. He's a tough guy, a nobler version of the characters I was talking about in earlier reviews--capitalist warriors.
5) And not just a warrior, but a general, an organizer of the army of workers. In this respect, I see a very strong parallel with MALCOLM X: both protagonists organize a disenfranchised group in the struggle to, as Hoffa puts it, "get what we came down here for." The scene in which Hoffa makes his, "In every conflict there are casualties" speech feels a lot like the scene in MALCOLM X in which Malcolm organizes the show of force outside the police station and the march to the hospital. In both cases, it's an issue of "what has been lost? what has been gained?" And, as the police officer says of Malcolm, Hoffa is dangerous precisely because of the amount of power he holds--"that's too much power for one man." Odd that both men had to be deposed from their positions of power, and then silenced by assassination.
6) The thing about Hoffa is that he "a man who isn't afraid to get his hands dirty." His particular claim to power in HOFFA is that he is a working man, like the working men that he represents. But even more so. "I'm gonna do what I gotta do"--takin' care of business isn't just a job for Hoffa, it's the core of his being. Arguably, he is not only the leader of the forces of labor, but the archetype of Labor itself. As I said, though, this point is open to a lot of debate.
7) Now, on to the issue of class struggle. The banquet speech in which Hoffa claims that the Teamsters have brought the workers into the middle class is one of the most telling of the film. It starts with the riot outside the factory, where the capitalist overlords look down on the rabble from the top floors of their "castle." (By the way, one of the most classically Eisensteinian sequences of the entire movie) At that point, the workers *are* just the rabble, but Hoffa and the Teamsters struggle to raise the class level of labor. Pensions for laborers and so on, culminating in visions such as retirement villages for Teamsters.
8) Robert Kennedy makes a very interesting statement with regard to this point: the statement that there is a danger of "co-option of the field of labor" by Hoffa and his cronies. So what Hoffa sees, and the audience is supposed to see, as the liberation of the working class, is characterized by its opponents as a "co-option." RFK becomes a figure representing the "ruling classes" holding the workers in ideological bondage, and becomes a quasi-"bad guy" within HOFFA because of his opposition to the methods in which Hoffa attempts to liberate the working class--or is that opposition not just to the methods, but to the very concept of a liberated field of labor?
9) Politics enters into play again with Hoffa's pardon by Nixon, and the special deal worked out between Teamster leaders and Charles Coulson, Nixon's special counsel. I don't have enough of a background in Nixon history to comment too much on this, but the power dynamics-- further connection between government and labor--point in interesting directions.
10) I've saved the ending of the film for the end. Since this is a biographical film, and everybody knows Hoffa is dead, I don't consider that revelation a spoiler, though I will refrain from revealing the means posited within the film. I will say, however, that any historical film has to deal with the issue of portraying that which is known and that which is not known about its subject, and the creation of an effective (i.e., narratively seamless, in the Classical Hollywood Cinema tradition) union of the two. By that nature, all historical films are conjectural, as is all history for that matter. Interesting historical criticism on these points includes Hayden White, Michel de Certau, Simon Schama, and Carlo Ginzburg. As for specific discussion of biographical film, I'd recommend George Custen's BIOPICS. A useful introduction to the issues at stake in biographical motion pictures, though it limits itself to the heyday of the studio system, and makes the (in my humble opinion) mistaken claim that the biographical film has since diminished in importance. As I said in point #3, it's very strong now, and I feel it's here to stay.
Ron Hogan rhogan@usc.edu comments welcome
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