The three for all

By Tom Shone

"I'm gonna smoke everybody involved in this op," snaps Maya, the cool-headed CIA analyst played by Jessica Chastain in "Zero Dark Thirty", Kathryn Bigelow’s thriller about the hunt for Osama bin Laden. Rattling off Arabic names like someone ordering takeaways, her room plastered with mugshots of the men she seeks, Chastain’s Maya is the Christian soldier heading up the Western jihad — Joan of Arc in cargo pants. She has no love interest, no back-story, and sheds no tears until the final reel. They steal over her like an almost physical reaction, like a bout of flu that hits you the minute you stop working. She makes Clarice Starling look like Oprah Winfrey.

Is Chastain channelling her director? At the New York Film Critics Circle awards, I was struck by the visual rhyme between the two women: two tall beauties, their long hair tented and swaying as they talked afterwards. It wouldn’t be the first time. I’m teaching a course on the history of film at NYU, which means I’ve spent the last few months getting up close and personal with classics like "On the Waterfront", "Vertigo", "The 400 Blows", "The Graduate", "The Godfather" and "Raging Bull". I have come out with three observations to share: 1) "The 400 Blows" is as close to perfection as anything touched by a human hand. 2) James Stewart can’t kiss a woman convincingly. 3) Great films arise when there is a triangulation between director, actor and protagonist — when all three share a spiritual umbilicus.