In Clint Eastwood’s sturdy drama “J. Edgar,” American Machiavellianism meets American humanism and old-fashioned moviemaking unites with a postmodern sensibility.
Leonardo DiCaprio will likely get an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of J. Edgar Hoover, the law-enforcement titan whose name remains synonymous nearly 40 years after his death with the governmental agency he did so much to elevate as well as taint: the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
It’s a studied, disciplined performance and DiCaprio is nearly unrecognizable beneath the wrinkles and folds of the still powerful, if paranoid and vindictive, septuagenarian.
“J. Edgar” covers a great deal of terrain — historical but also emotional — from the young Hoover’s role in the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Investigations’ crackdown on radicals in 1919 to his continuing ironclad control of the FBI in the early 70s.
Hardly necessary but resonant just the same, the movie offers cautionary lessons about the danger that personal fiefdoms pose to a democracy.
“J. Edgar” doesn’t vilify the man, even as it shows that the FBI director was obsessed with bringing down Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Hoover targeted the Civil Rights Movement as one more tentacle of Communism.
The film doesn’t ignore Hoover’s abuses, but it also depicts a man with a gift for implementing systems and a deep and game-changing interest in evidence and forensics. He used the infamous kidnapping of Charles Lindbergh’s baby to give the agency interstate powers. He created the nation’s fingerprint database.
Written by Dustin Lance Black — an Oscar winner for best original screenplay for “Milk” — the movie uses Hoover as an unreliable narrator. And the most provocative conversation it inspires will likely be about the depiction of Hoover’s personal life and how it informed the way he ran “his” agency.
Naomi Watts arrives early in the film as Helen Gandy, Hoover’s extraordinarily loyal assistant. Judi Dench portrays his overbearing mother, Annie. But it’s Hoover’s relationship to Clyde Tolson that provides the core relationship.
Armie Hammer (the Winklevoss twins in “The Social Network”) portrays Hoover’s longtime right-hand man. Tall, smart and handsome, Tolson arrives in Hoover’s office relaxed and confident. And Hoover behaves like a man trying not to be nervous on a first date.
Was the nation’s top cop gay? A 1993 biography “Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover” ignited the rumor, fairly suspect, that the FBI director had been a cross-dresser. But as early as the 1940s, there were rumors about Hoover and Tolson’s relationship.
Black’s screenplay takes serious, if speculative, interest in their deep connection. The pair take almost all their lunches and dinners together. And like so many partners in a power couple, Hammer’s Tolson makes DiCaprio’s Hoover more human.
This isn’t a prurient outing of a man who wielded personal (often sexual) information to his advantage. At the core of “J. Edgar” is the sense that no one understands the power of secrets quite the way a man harboring a heart full of them might. No one recognizes a liar so readily as a fellow traveler.
“J. Edgar” captures a man who was deft before the age of ad execs, personal publicists, and spokespersons at controlling information and image. He understood the role of popular culture — movies, comic books and the tabloid press.
And how he hated to be upstaged. Hoover fumes as agent Melvin Purvis grabs headlines for his success in capturing John Dillinger. A moviehouse scene has audiences booing a short by the bureau director and cheering the trailer for the 1931 gangster film “The Public Enemy” with James Cagney and Jean Harlow.
Four years later, Hoover had his sweet payback when Cagney headlined the pro-federal agents flick ” ‘G’ Men.”
Lisa Kennedy: 303-954-1567 or lkennedy@denverpost
“J. EDGAR.”
Directed by Clint Eastwood; written by Dustin Lance Black; photography by Tom Stern; starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Naomi Watts, Armie Hammer, Judi Dench and Josh Lucas. Rated R for brief strong language. 2 hours, 17 minutes. At area theaters.
