Communist Writers -Hail, Caesar! (2016)

The Coen Brothers’ Hail, Caesar! (2016) is a remarkably fun look at Hollywood during the height of the studio system in the 1950’s. The film focuses on Josh Brolin’s character Eddie Mannix as he works behind the scenes of Capitol Pictures, solving problems related to the studio’s star performers. The most significant problem is the disappearance of George Clooney’s Baird Whitlock, the lead actor in Capitol’s newest feature, also titled Hail, Caesar!. It is revealed that Whitlock was essentially kidnapped by a group of communist screenwriters, working to infiltrate Hollywood and impose their socialist ideals. Interestingly, one of their main points is the unfair distribution of money throughout the film industry, which is remarkably relevant today in light of the recent WGA strike. One of the most interesting things I found about the group was the presence of recognizable character actors like David Krumholtz, Fisher Stevens, and Fred Melamed. I found this aligned with Mathijs’ thoughts from “Referential Acting and the Ensemble Cast” about how “ensemble casts hit a nerve with cinephiles… in part due to the obsessive character of these audience, whose commitment to and investment in cinema leads them to seek out lesser-known actors as objects of devotion.” More importantly to their role in the film, however, Mathijs goes on to say that “More often than not, ensemble casts… stress a sense of collectivity and community at odds with the structure of protagonism that otherwise characterizes Hollywood cinema”. In this way, the Coen’s use the group of writers to starkly contrast the Hollywood standards evident elsewhere in the film. This is echoed in the themes of the film-within-the-film, as it depicts Jesus Christ “challenging the house of Caesar”, as described in the opening voiceover. Religious connotations aside, the film builds on his historical role as a counter-cultural figure and mirrors this in the way the communists attempt to challenge Hollywood itself.

Work Cited

Mathijs, Ernest. “Referential Acting and the Ensemble Cast.” Screen, vol. 52, no. 1, 2011, pp. 89–96. EBSCOhost, https://doi-org.ezproxy.tru.ca/10.1093/screen/hjq063.