The closer we get, the farther away we slip
In Paul Schrader’s new offering The Card Counter, the venerable writer/director proves that exploring the question of why humans can never quite find real connection will always make for worthwhile, if somewhat challenging viewing.
Here our main character is Bill Tell (or William Tell, or Will Tell, Schrader stays slippery with the name, underscoring that even one’s identity to the world and even one’s self is constantly changing)… More on the metaphorical significance of the name in a moment.
Bill, played with immense static tension by Oscar Isaac, enters the film seemingly whole, all past personal development complete, ready to execute his life’s program of a modest career of blackjack card counting and patiently waiting for his moment to strike in Texas Holdem poker games. Tell plies his trade across the country, one of a handful of solitary souls stalking the easy money at various Indian casino conventions like a Sioux hunter after a herd of buffalo.
Where would one have the time to learn such a trade? In prison of course, and Tell’s narration explains his odd comfort with the routine and discipline of prison life.
Since how he got there isn’t mentioned, Schrader has very efficiently given us both a push to go forward, and a pull to take us backward in Tell’s life, and the film’s narrative.
As the story unfolds, we meet Linda, or La Linda, played nicely against type by Tiffany Haddish, who boldly strides up to Tell after a poker game to offer him a job in her “stable” of gamblers. Tell demurs, but their chemistry is positively attractive.
Flush with his winnings, Tell, having separated conventioneers from their walking around money, ambles through the booths and settles in to watch a presentation on surveillance gadgets given by one Major William Gordo, played as only Willem Dafoe can. A twitchy kid named Cirk (that’s Kirk spelled with a “C”), played by Tye Sheridan sitting in the next seat, whispers that they should meet.
The narrative hands are dealt out, and we learn Tell was a lowly grunt during the Iraq war, and apprenticed under Gordo at Abu Ghraib prison, who also went by different names before finding his calling as an “enhanced interregation techniques expert.” Cirk’s dad also inflicted terror and pain on prisoners. The emotional toll destroyed his marriage, led to his abusing Cirk, and ultimately his commiting suicide. Cirk tells Tell of his goal to avenge his father by kidnapping, torturing, and killing Gordo.
Each of our principles has a past, either described or shown in flashbacks, and each hopes to have a future, but Schrader’s script expands on the moments in the present that, informed by the past, will affect the future.
The artistic problem here, and what makes The Card Counter a quintessential Schrader film, is that the more the characters try to connect with each other, their past, their world, and their future, and the more we try to connect with them, the farther away they recede. It’s a cinematic approach that will either reaffirm your appreciation of his ouevre, or leave you slightly frustrated and full of questions.
Take Tell’s name…William Tell, of arrow-through-the-apple fame. A quick reference in dialog or image would lend the metaphor some weight, just enough to get us thinking about taking big gambles to overthrow tyranny, but the connection only stretches so far. The questions we’re left with are either fun mental puzzles to consider, or something not quite communicated well enough through dialog, or action.
Take also Tell’s penchant for covering every surface in his various hotel rooms with clean, white sheets, his only action to sit bolt upright in a desk chair and scribble away at a journal while sipping whiskey. Cinematgrapher Alexander Dynan, a frequent Schrader collaborator, frames hotel shots much like prison shots, leading us to conclude that Tell needs to recreate his prison environment to be comfortable. But why then apply the same treatment to other people’s houses? We’re denied easy interpretation.
Take also how editor Benjamin Rodriguez Jr., another frequent collaborator, lets shots, especially those of the principals’ faces, linger long after they should, creating tension-filled spaces during dialog scenes, and forcing us to wonder more than a little about how one character’s words are affecting another character’s thoughts, and future actions.
The film only partially operates in the overcrowded gambling film sub-genre. With Martin Scorsese’s name prominently mentioned as executive producer, one would expect a very fluid camera, at least one hideously-violent death, and the ever present mid-career Rolling Stones rocker.
But this is a Schrader film through and through, and so we’re treated to the very un-Sharon Stone-ish Tiffany Haddish, an actor more accustomed to rollicking comedies. One can almost see her straining to bust out of the tightly-controlled lines she delivers, and the resulting tension is very satisfying.
For the plots-in-holes crowd, Schrader demands a large amount of narrative forgiveness, and will probably disappoint. The film asks for a lot of narrative patience, and rewards with ample opportunities for us to consider, turn over, and reconsider the sturdy idea that the selves we present to the world are barely papered-over concealments of our tortured and tormented inner selves.
Speaking of inner torture, Schrader owes much to that great Swedish master of inward pain, Ingmar Bergman. In The Card Counter, as in First Reformed before, and Affliction before that, we see over and over again shades of Winter Light and Wild Strawberries. I’m tempted, however, to argue that Schrader’s more modern setting and less stagy execution could do Bergman one better.
The film’s climax is wholly unexpected, which is somewhat surprising, and handled through sound cues only, forcing us to imagine for ourselves what tortuous dealings are happening just off camera.
The Card Counter is best enjoyed as another, and very strong offering of Schrader’s; it’s not easy or light viewing, but, if we’re patient, we’re rewarded with a reaffirmation of an auteur wholly in control of his craft.
The Card Counter opens today at Bay Area theaters.
