The Caveman's Valentine

While it won't be the subject of the next Jerry Bruckheimer blockbuster, the relationship between genius and madness has not lacked for explorations and explanations in the cinema. However, films dealing with this relationship typically portray genius either flirting with or succumbing to madness, with the understanding that madness can remove a person's genius from the world entirely.

"The Caveman's Valentine," adapted by George Dawes Green from his novel and directed by Kasi Lemmons ("Eve's Bayou"), takes a different tack. Our hero Romulus Ledbetter (Samuel L. Jackson), onetime bright light at Julliard, now lives in a cave in a park and rants about hidden cameras, Y-rays and a mysterious omnimalevolence named Styverson. Yet he still has musical talent and human sympathies, including a painful but fervent love for his daughter Lulu (Aunjanue Ellis). Green and Lemmons resolutely resist the notion that Ledbetter must be either a genius or a crazy man, knowing that he is both at once, and their resolve makes "The Caveman's Valentine" riveting, disturbing, and inspiring.

Admittedly, at the film's opening, we seem to be in standard cinematic crazy-man territory, as Ledbetter bawls out random passersby and suffers the mockery of trendy white youths. However, when Samuel L. Jackson speaks, you have to listen. While we marvel at his commanding tirades, Jackson also sneaks in a hint of the intellect and sympathy that Ledbetter still possesses. Both qualities come into play when Ledbetter discovers a body, dead from exposure, outside his cave. In the classic tradition, the police (including Lulu, a lieutenant) blame the death upon some sort of accident, but Ledbetter suspects foul play. Soon the dreadlocked, shabbily-dressed Ledbetter begins an investigation in which he remembers his pianistic and composition skills and uses them to infiltrate high society, meets a charmingly sinister, ominously secretive shock-art photographer named David Leppenraub (i.e., Robert Mapplethorpe; played by Colm Feore), and tries to gain Lulu's trust so she will give him help.

It's a tall order for a man with moth seraphs inhabiting his mind, and it redounds to Jackson's credit that he never makes it look easy. Every action Ledbetter takes is opposed by a blinding fear. He can never fit in; he is always exposed; all his darkest shadows are on view for a world that doesn't care to see them. Jackson shows us everything in Ledbetter: the shuddering and trembling he must endure while navigating the most banal conversations, the seductiveness of the fantasies that force him to act this way, and the determination that gets him past himself when he needs to - in short, the simultaneous ugliness and beauty of his soul. Jackson's performance is magnetic and intelligent, harrowing and moving, and he should get an award for this.

Ledbetter's investigation raises plenty of issues beyond genius vs. madness, including the nature of reality and perception, the role of pain in artistic creation, and even the very apathy of the film's elite characters towards those who sleep in their streets. (After all, the film suggests, if Romulus had no special gift, he would barely be human to these men and women.) As if that weren't enough, Green and Lemmons also make a valiant attempt to visually and musically portray Ledbetter's madness.

All in all, a difficult task, and it's not surprising that some parts of the film are stronger than others. The plot as such is fairly mundane and extremely predictable, some of the devices Lemmons uses to illustrate Ledbetter's illness are banal (like the monologues from Ledbetter's long-gone wife, for instance), and some of the speeches put into various characters' mouths (especially Leppenraub's) are much too obviously didactic.

However, Green and Lemmons get so much right that "The Caveman's Valentine" transcends its flaws. We never get a pat explanation of how Ledbetter came to be ill, for example; he simply is what he is, and the fact is more powerful without a motivation. Except when adhering to that predictable plot, Green and Lemmons shun pat resolutions or crowd-pleasing turns; because of its refusal to give us what we want, the final scene between Ledbetter and Lulu is unforgettable in its poignance, pain and hope. Much of what Lemmons does in the service of madness is quite effective, too, particularly her depiction of the aforementioned seraphs in all their odd yet forbidding majesty, the ravishing visuals she provides when visualizing the Y- and Z-rays, and her exquisite handling of the film's opening. Terence Blanchard's classical jazz score serves the film well, while Feore and Ellis both deliver fine performances as Ledbetter's primary foils. Finally, Lemmons has a keen instinct for both visual continuity and pacing, giving the film a feeling of overall unity that sustains interest throughout.

"The Caveman's Valentine" is too flawed to be a masterpiece, but due to Lemmons' astuteness and Jackson's fearlessness, it is nonetheless honest, brave and compelling. This isn't escapist cinema in the least, but if you're looking for outstanding Hollywood filmmaking, you need to go see this film.

A LONG, RAMBLING NOTE ABOUT THE MUSIC USED IN THIS FILM

I said in the review that "Terence Blanchard's classical jazz score serves the film well." That's true. It's also true that Blanchard's score is mediocre music as such. I cannot honestly imagine someone with the genius ascribed to Ledbetter composing music that thoroughly vapid. It's pretty but pointless, like most movie music; in its context, it's effective, but I expected more at that point in the film.

Howcum, you ask? Because it had been so good about music earlier, especially when lawyer Anthony Michael Hall attempts to show up Ledbetter's knowledge of classical music after Ledbetter informs Hall of his Julliard training. Hall asks him about "SCREE-a-bin," which Lebetter rightly informs him is pronounced "scree-AH-bin," and then proceeds to make some extremely perceptive comments about Alexandr Scriabin's "Poem de l'extase" which sum up very quickly why I don't like Scriabin. Says Ledbetter, "Divinity must come from within a chord. It cannot be imposed from without." True that.

Jackson also went to enough of his pre-film piano lessons that he actually looks somewhat like he knows what he is doing at the keyboard. This is interesting because he is costarring with Colm Feore, who of course played famous eccentric pianist Glenn Gould in "Thirty-Two Short Films About Glenn Gould," in which Feore never touched a keyboard. Really. The other interesting thing about Jackson's piano playing is that it is actually done by the pianist who most closely resembles Romulus Ledbetter - yes, my man Awadagin Pratt! Bonus! Admittedly, Pratt wins the look-like-Ledbetter competition on points, as there are not a whole bunch of dreadlocked, black classical pianists out there, and it should be pointed out that Pratt's face is way more oval than Jackson's. Pratt probably got the job because this film is a black thing, production-wise, but hey, Awadagin Pratt should get all the money he wants.

In the review, I was going to talk extensively about the opening of the film but found out that I couldn't do it in less than 150 words or so, which was too many. Anyway, it begins with these weird, lumbering noises that sound ominous and low and foreboding. Shapeless forms drift across the screen. The camera and the microphone picking up the noises move as well; we cannot find out bearings; we are in the man's brain. Gradually, the visual images become colored and less fuzzy, and it becomes apparent that the noises were actually highly distorted snatches of unabashedly tonal music. Eventually, the music resolves into something that sounds vaguely like a Bach cantata, while the images have resolved into the chamber of seraphs—and we realize that the ability to perceive has not, in fact, aided our understanding of what is going on in the world at all. Then Lemmons shows us a cold, flat shot of dirty snow and dusty sky, slapping us back into the "real" world. A marvelous opening. Go have a look, when this comes out.

I honestly don't see the huge quality difference between this film and "A Beautiful Mind," which of course won a bunch of awards and renown for Russell Crowe and Ron Howard. It was fairly deserving of those awards, and it's a bit better than "The Caveman's Valentine," but not all that much. But this one just fell off the screen completely. I think this is partly because the cast is almost entirely black, which unfortunately doesn't require much explanation, and partly because the film was released in March, which is not when, for some reason, people think good movies are supposed to be released. (The latter problem is affecting the chances of "Last Orders," which is better than either of the films mentioned in this paragraph, to pick up some awards at the 2003 Hollywood self-congratulations sessions.) The idea some studio had to release pictures for special award considerations at the end of the year has had the unfortunate effect of denying awards to most other films that aspire to art in their methods. It's not a good thing. Of course, neither is institutional racism. Have a look at this film if you're all all interested, is what I feel the need to say again.

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