THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND (2006, Kevin Macdonald)

 

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When a restless young Scottish doctor takes a job in Uganda, he finds himself embroiled in the reign of dictator Idi Amin.

Starring  Forest Whitaker, James McAvoy, Kerry Washington, Simon McBurney, Gillian Anderson  

Written by  Peter Morgan, Jeremy Brock

Produced by  Charles Steel, Lisa Bryer, Andrea Calderwood   

Duration  123 minutes   

 

William Friedkin (THE EXORCIST, THE FRENCH CONNECTION) and Paul Greengrass (THE BOURNE SUPREMACY, CAPTAIN PHILIPS) started out directing documentaries, before pivoting to features. Martin Scorsese and Werner Herzog are thought of as narrative guys first and foremost, but still make docus as well.

Some directors, meanwhile, like to blend documentary and fiction at the same time, overlaying a story onto the real lives of non-actors. Steven Soderbergh tried this with BUBBLE; other filmmakers make it their modus operandi, like Harmony Korine (GUMMO, BABY INVASION), Chloe Zhao (THE RIDER, NOMADLAND) and many of recent ANORA Oscar-winner Sean Baker's movies: famously THE FLORIDA PROJECT and RED ROCKET, but also his early efforts like TAKE OUT and PRINCE OF BROOKLYN.

Todd Haynes is an interesting one. He made I’M NOT THERE, ostensibly a biopic of Bob Dylan, but one that cast six multi-gendered actors to portray the musician. Before that, Haynes had made VELVET GOLDMINE, set in glam rock's heyday but following fictional rockers, rather than the Velvet Underground themselves. And then, 20 years later, he went and made a straight-up documentary named THE VELVET UNDERGROUND, which was explicitly about the band!

Then you have those filmmakers who are making pure fiction, but want it to be as realistic as possible. Like the abovementioned Greengrass or Michael Mann (in particular with THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS.)

All of this is to say that the lines between fiction and real life, between depiction and dramatization, and between biopic and inspiration, can be pretty vague.

THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND's Kevin Macdonald is one of those director who started out in non-fiction and then pivoted to feature narratives (although, like Scorsese and Herzog, he does dip his toe back into the documentary waters from time to time). When he moved into narrative feature-making, it was with TOUCHING THE VOID, a docudrama about the near-fatal exploits of two mountain climbers. Now, let’s look a little closer at that genre classification, 'docudrama'. It’s a documentary, and it’s also a drama. It’s a reconstruction, but is it also a dramatization? Inevitably to a degree, but presumably drama-ed up as little as possible.

Interestingly, TOUCHING THE VOID has no screenplay credit. It mentions Joe Simpson, the climber who wrote the book that inspired the film, but not with an adaptation credit, just a mention of him being the book's author. Suggesting that there was no screenplay! But surely Macdonald didn’t drag hundreds of cast and crew up a mountain with a copy of the paperback and then flick through the pages telling them to act bits out on the spot?

What's irrefutable is that the goal with VOID was authenticity – to put us alongside the climbers as if we were there during their ordeal. However, when it came to Macdonald’s next film, THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND, things got a little more complicated.

Here, we have another true story. At least, kind of. The central figure is real-life Ugandan army commander Idi Amin, who did indeed overthrow the president in a 1971 coup d’etat. Amin was the subject of a 1998 novel of the same name by journalist Giles Foden, who was not in Uganda at the time. The novel was then adapted by acclaimed screenwriters Peter Morgan and Jeremy Brock, both of whom have CVs littered with fictionalized accounts of real-life people: THE QUEEN, FROST/NIXON and THE DAMNED UNITED, and MRS BROWN, I AM A SLAVE and DIANA AND I, respectively. To further complicate matters, their screenplay is described as 'considerably different' to its literary source.

THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND isn’t a biopic of Amin; he’s not even the main character. An early caption tells us "This film is inspired by real people and events", and then we open with our actual protagonist: James McAvoy as newly qualified doctor Nicholas. It's 1970 and his dad wants him to practice at home in boring old Scotland, but instead eager-for-adventure Nicholas spins his bedside globe and pokes his finger on Uganda.

He jumps on a plane to East Africa to join up with another white doctor and his wife, played by Gillian Anderson – trying out her Mrs Thatcher English accent years before The Crown. Before long, Nicholas is doling out injections to the villagers, playing street football in the dust, that sort of thing.  "You've certainly come at an interesting time," Anderson remarks: Amin's coup has literally just taken place. And soon the new prez is visiting their village, proving to be a charming and popular figure, orating a lot of propaganda about what he's going to do for Uganda. Anderson is sceptical, since the deposed president said the same things  – and turned out to be totally corrupt. Ominous.

Nicholas soon gets a chance to find out first-hand the truth behind the rhetoric. During a chance encounter on the road, Amin is impressed both by the medical assistance he receives from Nicholas and by how the young man grabs his handgun and pumps two .45 calibre rounds into a dying cow. Plus he has a thing for Scots, for some reason. And so the usurping general invites Nicholas be his personal physician.

This is a 'seduced by charismatic evil' movie. Nicholas is taken under Amin's wing, and is at first happy about his swanky apartment, vintage company car and elevated status. He defends Amin against people who doubt his benevolence, such as Simon McBurney's English Foreign Office correspondent. But Nicholas soon realises that his new boss is, in fact, a paranoid, philandering despot, with a hair-trigger temper from which even those closest to him aren't safe. Nicholas's life in Uganda spirals out of control, to the point that it comes down to kill or be killed. So, worse even than the streets of 1970s Glasgow.

Forest Whitaker famously won a Best Actor Oscar for playing Amid, in a rare case of award recognition for an established character actor. It was well-deserved, and Whitaker's ably matched by McAvoy, who puts in a star-making turn as the idealist hardened and changed by harsh reality.

However close THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND may be to what really happened in Uganda 50 years ago, it tells a story that's well worth your two hours. And that's the only kind of truth necessary, as far as I'm concerned.

Four stars out of five.

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  The actual last monarch of Scotland, as opposed to Great Britain as a whole, was Queen Anne (1702 to 1707).

What would a movie called THE FIRST KING OF SCOTLAND be about?  BRAVEHEART? I reckon?

 

Previously:  THE LAST ANGRY MAN

Next time:  INSIDIOUS: THE LAST KEY

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

THE LAST ANGRY MAN (1959, Daniel Mann)

 

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A cantankerous New York City doctor unwittingly becomes the first ever reality TV star.

Starring  Paul Muni, David Wayne, Betsy Palmer, Luther Adler, Claudia McNeil, Joby Baker

Written by  Gerald Green

Produced by  Fred Kohlmar

Duration  100 minutes

 

 

In 1998, a new sitcom aired on BBC 2 called The Royle Family. Written by two of its stars, it centred around the everyday lives of a 'normal' working class family in the North of England.

This sitcom was a little different. Not only did the action mostly take place in the Royles' house, we hardly ever left the living room, where the family would chat while lounging around watching television.

Critics rounded on the concept. Who on Earth is going to sit watching their telly when all it's showing is people sat watching their own telly? Nevertheless, The Royle Family was a big hit. Being well-written, funny and having a talented cast certainly helped.

Fast-forward to 2013. Channel 4 introduces a new reality show named Gogglebox (an antiquated British term for the television). In this show, which is still going strong today, 'normal' people sit around watching TV and making comments while we watch them from the television's POV. Much like The Royle Family, the viewer feels like a fly on the wall; or, more accurately, a fly that's landed on the TV screen and sits there staring out at the viewers.

But there are three key differences between The Royle Family and Gogglebox. The first is that we cut between clips of the shows (or movies or documentaries or news broadcasts) they've been watching and the goggleboxers' quippy, allegedly spontaneous reactions. Secondly, we visit multiple households, as if we ourselves are channel surfing. (Which is a good thing to start doing whenever Gogglebox comes on, but I digress.)

It's the third difference that's the most crucial. Gogglebox is not well-written or funny and the people on it are not gifted comedic actors. They're obnoxious, witless and charmless, offering only banal and trite observations, delivering these non-insights in ways that seem designed to be as annoying as possible.

Gogglebox is a clear low point in popular culture. Its existence suggests a reverse-evolution theory for the human race. Obviously, reality TV is always garbage. But Googlebox is garbage that's been left out in the sun for several weeks.

But what kicked off the journey that led us to this nadir of nadirs? I don't mean what was the first reality show; that was probably MTV's The Real World in 1992. I mean, who was the first to speculate that perhaps there could even be a beast as hideous as reality TV?

Previously, I'd believed that it was Albert Brooks, with his brilliant 1979 satire REAL LIFE. But now I'm thinking that maybe the first artistic work to propose the reality concept was actually 1959's THE LAST ANGRY MAN.

In his final screen performance, former SCARFACE Paul Muni plays grouchy but dedicated neighbourhood GP Dr Sam Abelman. A pair of local hoodlums trust him enough to drop their injured ladyfriend on the doorstep of his Brooklyn brownstone in the early hours one morning. The neighbours get out of bed to watch the doc be surly ("You still owe me for your father's hernia operation!") while at the same time acting as the beating heart of the community. He clearly cares for all who cross his threshold – no matter the hour, affliction or the patient's capacity to pay.

The next day, we meet a television producer with the painful-sounding name of Woody Thrasher (David Wayne, THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN). Woody is desperate to thrash out a fresh angle for the TV show he's been pitching to his higher ups, and is intrigued when he reads an article doc Abelman's reporter nephew has published about last night's doorstep drama.

He tracks the good doctor down and proposes that he be the subject of a new programme. "Live television, from your house!" Thrasher gushes. "We'd visit with you – your family, your patients."

In the best hero's journey refusal-of-the-call tradition, Abelman won't play ball. But luckily, his enterprising nephew can better smell the opportunity and is determined to make a TV show with his 'Uncle Doc' happen.

Back in the TV station's offices, we get a flavour of how Thrasher wants his show – named Americans, USA – to play out. "Real people doing real things," he tells his boss. "Useful, dramatic lives! People whose every waking minute is drama!"

Ol' Thrash is a career man, but he seems honest enough. He's drawn to Abelman's passion, the man's integrity and dedication. He genuinely thinks that this physician will make great TV. But his paymasters, the studio's sponsor Gattling Pharmaceutical, instead see a chance to peddle their drugs using the eccentric but trusted medicine man as a vessel. Thrasher feels uneasy, but is pragmatic and moves forward with the plan.

So into Doc Abelman's home come the director and his crew, along with their '50s-era cameras and audio equipment. Thrasher has to explain to the family and sick people that they aren't playing parts or expected to act, but that they should just be who they are and do what they usually do. This is definitely an alien concept for everyone involved – including the movie's 1950s audience. 

As a result, and through no fault of its own, THE LAST ANGRY MAN is pretty slow and laboured in its set-up. It reminded me of when you read a classic novel like Dracula or The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and have to patiently wade though pages of people speculating about exactly what this strange new creature could possibly be.

When they get to the actual filming, it doesn't look much different to a standard TV programme. There's blocking, sound checks, multiple cameras, retakes ... it's really more like a news broadcast. There's little attempt to lead the subject, and a presenter fronts the action, interviewing Abelman and then talking straight to camera. They don't just start rolling and let the events unfurl. But at the same time, there isn't any of the selective editing or participant manipulation that we've come to expect from the modern reality genre.

Anyway, Americans, USA has barely been on air five minutes before the good doctor is going off script and badmouthing the pharmaceutical companies he's supposed to be praising, calling them peddlers of unnecessary medicines who are only concerned with lining their own pockets. Which doesn't go down well. Gattling Pharmaceutical wanted someone on TV who's 'real'; Dr Abelman is just too damn real!

And when Thrasher's conscience catches up with him and he warns the doc to change his tune or the network pulls the plug, which would deny Abelman the spoils coming his way (the network promised him a new house as payment), the principled GP tells the TV man to stuff his programme, and the same to all the 'galoots' who are behind it.

The movie turns out not to be a satire, which of course I never expected – how can you satirise reality TV before it's even been established? In the end, THE LAST ANGRY MAN is less about reality vs fiction and the mechanics of television than it is a two-hander between Muni and Wayne, playing a pair of very different men who learn a lot from each other and both grow as a consequence. I liked it.

Which is just as well, because if I'd've come away having drawn a direct line between it and Gogglebox, we'd be talking about Last Movie Reviews' first zero-star verdict. Maybe minus stars.

Four stars out of five.

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  Our principled doc does seem to represent a dying breed, in the face of the unethical standards of TV and his fame-hungry nephew. So, he's the last something.

What would a movie called THE FIRST ANGRY MAN be about?  In terms of the most angry man, also in a movie that's also about television, you'd have to go for Peter Finch as derenged broadcaster Howard Beale in NETWORK (1976).

 

Previously:  LAST NIGHT

Next time:  THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND 

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com