Comix Friday: We’ve got ‘Spirit’

If you're not already going to the discussion of Harvey Pekar's "The Quitter" in San Jose on April 26, you'll want to check out Lehrhaus Judaica's Bible by the Bay in Palo Alto that afternoon. Rabbi David Booth, of Palo Alto's Congregation Kol Emeth, will be leading the workshop "Jewish Superheroes: Literature and Legend," which will look at how Jewish history and teachings influenced the creation of characters like Superman, the Green Lantern and the X-Men.

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I know I promised something awesome for this week, and it's still coming - but you'll have to wait one more week. For this edition of Comix Friday, I really have to talk about "The Spirit."

This movie, written and directed by Frank Miller and based on the character created by comic god Will Eisner, came out in December, and if you blinked (like I did) you probably missed its theatrical run. The movie came out on DVD and Blu-ray on Tuesday, and by the grace of Netflix I was able to see it on Wednesday in beautiful high-def.

The film of "The Spirit" is quite different from Will Eisner's creation. The biggest departure is that in the original comics, the Spirit does not have superpowers, while in the movie he has a healing factor. Also, in the comics only the gloves of the Octopus (the Spirit's nemesis) are seen, never his face, whereas in the film he is played by Samuel L. Jackson and seen in full.

"The Spirit" got pretty terrible reviews when it came out. Peter Hartlaub at the Chron gave it one of the worst (or best?) pans I've ever read, and Roger Ebert said that "to call the characters cardboard is to insult a useful packing material." I'd agree with that, but also argue that creating deep characters isn't the point of the movie. Neither is the plot, which is so idiotic I don't even remember it, and even if I did, I wouldn't dignify it with a summary (it's something about the blood of Hercules and world domination).

No, this is a Frank Miller movie, which means it is first and foremost about style (it seems to be an attempt to make a stylistic sequel to "Sin City," but the two are very different). It took me about 20 minutes to realize that I needed to give up trying to see the movie as "good" or "bad" in the traditional sense, and simply give myself over to its satirical zaniness. (I do agree with Hartlaub about the cell phones, though. And was that an Aquafina bottle on Ellen's desk?)

Gabriel Macht. photo/variety

...Where was I? There are also several Jewish characters, like a cop named Leibowitz (played by Frank Miller) and an eager rookie officer named Morgenstern (played by Stana Katic, who had a brief role on the TV show "Heroes" as a former Mossad agent named Hana Gittelman).

With a big Star of David around her neck, Morgenstern is the most overtly Jewish character in the film. In one scene an older Jewish character calls himself an "alterkocker" and Morgenstern asks what that is. "Old fart," the man explains, then grumbles about young Jews and how they don't remember the past.  Kind of a throwaway line, but a rather unexpected one.

Oh, and don't get me started on the Nazi sequence with the Octopus and Silken Floss...

"The Spirit" is proof that once in a while I'm willing to dispense with the idea that a movie needs a coherent plot to be a decent evening diversion. (Granted, probably 85 percent of my enjoyment of the film came from the Jewy visage of Gabriel Macht, but still.) I wonder if Eisner would have enjoyed it as a (very, very) loose interpretation of his creation, or whether he would have gone Alan Moore on Frank Miller.

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Comix Friday is published in the Art Scene blog every Friday, and focuses on Jewish comic artists and Jewish-themed comix. If you know of anything I should be blogging about in Comix Friday, let me know!

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