Jesse Plemons is a brilliant actor. He’s also one of our most memorable stars. It’s not that he’s particularly expressive – quite the opposite. He is usually quite quiet and almost hesitant in his statements. He takes his time. But whether he plays a shy everyman The power of the dog or season 2 of Fargo or a courageous law enforcement officer Judas and the Black Messiah or Game nightThere’s always something going on behind his narrowed, watchful eyes. His silence, his pauses and his simple, unvarnished way of speaking seem like an attraction that captivates the camera and other actors. He is also, in a reserved way, extremely funny.
A still of Plemons in his 10-gallon Stetson Flower Moon Killer, standing motionless in the doorway of the Leonardo DiCaprio character’s house, has become internet shorthand for calmly and sincerely calling bullshit. “I was sent here from Washington DC to check on these murders.” “Look, what about them?” (A slight pause, just long enough to be noticeable.) “Look who’s doing it.”
This scene was used the trailer for the film, and Plemons’ masterful tone brought it to life. Less than a year later he was at it again the first trailer for Alex Garland Civil War, with another pause and another matter-of-fact delivery that lingered in the memory even longer than Garland’s sober, button-pushing images of war-torn America. Plemons, wearing a military uniform, bright red sunglasses with red lenses and a rifle in his hand, interrogates the film’s journalist heroes. “There’s some kind of misunderstanding here,” says Wagner Moura’s character Joel. “We’re Americans, okay?”
“Okay,” says Plemons, briefly scratching his stubbly cheek. “What Art of American are you?”
The entire scene has much of the same impact on the final film, and the question posed by Plemons’ unnamed character continues to dominate the entire enterprise long after the credits roll. For me, this was the moment when Garland’s expertly made, exciting but somewhat understated film finally showed its teeth.
Civil War was criticized for not clearly articulating the root causes of the conflict he depicted, or for having his fun and eating it up by combining an unyielding political stance with intentionally provocative imagery. I won’t get into the arguments for or against here – Garland has been very clear in interviews about why he approaches the story this way, and the polarized reactions to the film tend to say more about the audience than the film.
Civil War is essentially a road movie that follows a team of journalists on a dangerous odyssey to meet America’s fascist president before he is overthrown by an alliance of independent states. As the devastated landscape passes by, Garland stages a series of Apocalypse now
This also applies to the Plemons scene to a certain point. The scene takes place just past the halfway point of the story; Young photojournalist Jessie (Cailee Spaeny) and Bohai, another reporter, have been separated from their friends and captured by Plemons’ small militia team. The soldiers – it is not clear which faction they belong to, if any – throw a truck full of bodies into a mass grave. Joel, Lee (Kirsten Dunst) and Tony (Nelson Lee) come together to negotiate the release of their friends. At the beg inning, Plemons’ character shoots Bohai. Then he asks his question.
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Image: A24
On a simple level, the scene works so well because it shows us a clear villain – perhaps the only one in the film – played by a great, charismatic actor. This has always been one of the purest cinematic pleasures. plemons, which was only cast a week before filming after another actor exits is extremely menacing without destroying the film’s subdued, realistic tone. His red sunglasses – a real stroke of genius from the costume department – give him an iconic on-screen look. The scene is shocking and suspenseful, taking an already captivating film a step further. It’s also a dramatic pivot point for most of the film’s characters, none of whom are the same.
But this is also the first and perhaps only moment in Civil War as its troubling subtext about our current times sears to the surface. “What kind of American are you?” Is Plemons asking which side of the conflict the reporters belong to, or something else? Joel senses the danger in this question and replies that he is from Florida. “Hmm, one central “American,” Plemons replies doubtfully. Lee and Jessie are from Midwestern states, so they get a pass. It is no coincidence that they are also white. “That’s American.” Tony, crying in fear, admits that he is from Hong Kong and is immediately shot in the head.
It’s racism; It always comes back to racism. With the truck and the ditch full of conspicuously non-white corpses in the background, Garland suggests that the evil of ethnic cleansing almost always follows war. But the implications of Plemons’ interrogation are even broader and more frightening. While he accepts Lee and Jessie’s legacy, he also mocks them for their rootless distancing from it. When a frightened Jessie admits that she doesn’t know why her home state of Missouri is called the “Show-Me State,” Plemons responds with a chilling, barking, mocking laugh. (The question was improvised; Spaeny is really from Missouri and really doesn’t know why people call it that.)
When he asks “what kind of American,” Plemons’ character isn’t just implying something about race. It asks a fundamental question of identity: How do you perceive your Americanness and how deeply rooted are you in it? An answer that is less than completely convincing will not pass the test. In this scene, and in this scene alone, Garland gets to the heart of the matter – the frightening, polarized essentialism that can drive a country to tear itself apart, and it’s all too easy to see in the current moment. All of its menace and terror are contained in one of Jesse Plemons’ little breaks.
