The Sound of Music

 

One of the songs that didn't make it into the film version of The Sound of Music (1965) is a trio in which the Baroness Schraeder, the impresario Max and Captain Von Trapp bemoan the inevitability of the rise of the Reich.

The baroness and Max are tunefully fatalistic, intoning that political domination and social disruption are as routine and predictable as a sunrise. The only thing one can do is keep your head down and go with it.

(Baroness)
A crazy planet full of crazy people,
Is somersaulting all around the sky.
And everytime it turns another somersault,
Another day goes by.
And there's no way to stop it,
No, there's no way to stop it.
No, you can't stop it even if you tried.
So, I'm not going to worry,
No, I'm not going to worry,
Everytime I see another day go by.
...
(Baroness and Max)
And there's no way to stop it
No, there's no way to stop it
If the earth wants to roll around the sun
You're a fool if you worry
You're a fool if you worry
Over anything but little number one

The captain humors them, but is determined to resist.

The Broadway production debuted in '59, and no doubt WWII was still fresh in the minds of many, so maybe the sting of the song's cynical egoism was viewed differently then. Neither the baroness nor Max were particularly lovable characters, redeemed by their less oily depictions in the film.
Still, for me, Rodgers and Hammerstein were onto something truly resonant with this bubbly number of selfish expediency -- something relevant for today's world.

Who would have thought the United States, historically a defender of freedom and justice, would be feared and despised by other nations as a marauding behemoth, threatening its neighbors; persecuting its citizens; rounding up, deporting or imprisoning undesirables; stifling speech, truth and information; erecting vain totems, destroying art and literature and rewriting history?

All while too many folks within its borders shrug their shoulders, crouch low and whistle away their days until the chaos passes.

Shameful.

 

By Any Means

 

Elegance Bratton's cinematic telling of an actual FBI pairing of a mob enforcer who is also a government asset (Mark Wahlberg) and a Black special agent (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) in Mississippi in the '60s is a brutally visceral presentation of a wide gray line walked by law enforcement in pursuit of justice in a hostile and unjust region.

The film opens with Wahlberg's Greg Scarpa putting a baseball bat to the body of a known Klansman to extract information on the location of the bodies of missing Civil Rights workers Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner. Scarpa is clearly a sadist who derives great joy from the bashing. That he is able to pull the needed information is almost an incidental by-product.

When Abdul-Mateen's Wayne Strider is pulled into the case of the firebombing and murder of a local NAACP organizer (Giancarlo Esposito), he has been sitting idle in the field office for a while, stifled by administrative indifference and the Klan's terrorism.

As one would expect, Strider doesn't trust Scarpa or his methods at first, but eventually comes around to seeing that the hit man's ways, while criminal in themselves, are effective.

An early conversation between the two revolves around the film's title statement, attributed to Malcolm X, whom Scarpa sees as a more serious threat to embedded racism than Martin Luther King Jr.'s peaceful resistance. When Strider's own home is fired upon by Klansman, he is given more reason to adopt more forceful methods.

"By Any Means" is not a film about a questionable ethical code. It's more a rationalization for fighting fire with fire, one which many members of the audience will embrace ... possibly seeing contemporary applications, as well.