Robert De Niro
The Good Shepherd

An American literature professor in the tumultuous 1950s once said that no nation lacking a particularly complex class system can ever expect to create great spy literature. The United States of America is a perfect example.

The most amusing thing about "The Good Shepherd" (Robert De Niro's latest directorial endeavor) is that a film like this serves no purpose: it doesn’t awaken the comatose consciences that I'm forced to live with, inherited from the last century; it doesn’t unearth the real skeletons in the CIA’s closet, or the secret services in general, their misdeeds, errors, and horrors; and it doesn’t even succeed (despite desperately trying) to insert the word espionage between great and literature. The story of the world’s most powerful agency as seen through the eyes of a man who never existed serves absolutely no purpose.

Nothing serves until it confronts the system with a shove so powerful that it overturns it.

Eric Ambler (English author considered a pioneer of politically sophisticated thrillers), Graham Greene (a writer torn by the contradictions of morality and politics, "to whom it happened to be Catholic": this splendid definition), John Le Carré, and Len Deighton (masters of espionage) are all in it.

A plot is even in there: Edward Wilson, a member of the secret society Skull and Bones, is recruited by the Office of Strategic Services (which later became the CIA); he soon becomes aware of a series of strange paranoias and cruelties, which he believes are due to the terrible influence of the Cold War on fragile human minds. His passion and goodwill do not prevent everything from collapsing and destroying: his ideals, his loved ones, his life, while the world around him (and its governing principles) continues to devour.

In the opinion of the writer, Christopher Walken playing Russian roulette in the swamps of Charlie represents the absolute peak reached by a camera facing a man (Walken won an Oscar for this scene). Meanwhile, I hear he's back from Vietnam, several decades have passed, and he frequents Saturday Night Live whenever he wants. In “The Deer Hunter,” Walken shared loves and war with Robert De Niro: it was De Palma who introduced him to Cimino and Scorsese, and although they grew up in the same neighborhood, they didn't get along very well (the only thing uniting them was respect) and shortly thereafter, Scorsese turned him into Johnny Boy, a brilliantly analyzed psychological portrait, a modern, violent, and self-destructive Raskolnikov engaged in changing the world by accumulating debts. A beautiful film, "Mean Streets," and after nearly 35 years, I wholeheartedly recommend the special edition on DVD, with fine commentary by Scorsese and various delicacies.
It’s worth rediscovering, if only to skip Saturday Night Live.

"The Deer Hunter" says more in five minutes than "The Good Shepherd" does in one hundred sixty-seven.

In any case, winter is over in the city, and it was probably trained by the CIA: we've learned the "Cold Cell" technique - the prisoner is left in the solitude of streets at 10 degrees Celsius; daily, the man and his solitude are drenched with cold water to remind that there is no nice season anymore (including good cinema). In the subway, we have learned the "Water Boarding" technique: the traveler is paralyzed in a seat and forced to endure a wave of bad thoughts, like if I see something suspicious, I hope I'm not next to the hero. The prisoner is assaulted by the fear of dying by bombing, leading to voluntary confessions in hopes of ending his life.

Nothing serves until it confronts the system with a shove powerful enough to overturn it, but we can always have a laugh and forget how tragically wrong we were: if we woke up every morning and everything around was real, it would have been better to make a comedy about it.