Hall has also had an impressive career in films. In 1996, he starred in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Sydney (a.k.a. Hard Eight), in the title role, a strange and generous hitman living in Las Vegas. As the film reaches its violent end, we learn that Sydney killed John’s father, and the revelation deepens his motives into something warped and strange, offering us the first real insight into what kind of person Sydney really is.
One of Philip Baker Hall’s greatest performances came in 2000’s, Magnolia, another film directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. Hall plays Jimmy Gator, the host of a children’s game show who may or may not have molested his own daughter. Part of an ensemble cast that includes some of Hollywood’s biggest names–Tom Cruise, Julianne Moore, William H. Macy, Philip Seymour Hoffman, John C. Reilly–Hall has one of the most effective scenes in the entire film. While reading a question about classical music, he becomes confused and starts rambling and reveals the answer just before collapsing. Though the scene lasts less than two minutes, Hall has complete command of the screen and the full attention of the audience.
It was with these performances in mind that I approached Nic Bettauer’s, Duck. Written and directed by Bettauer, this 2005 film is another in a long line of futuristic (in this case, sort of) tales about the deterioration of the United States. Jeb Bush is President. In Los Angeles, 2009, Arthur Pratt (Philip Baker Hall) a former professor is alone, his wife recently deceased and his son dead long before that. Social security has been abolished, rent control in Los Angeles has ceased and Arthur’s beloved wife’s medical expenses left him with no money. As a result, Arthur finds himself on the street, evicted from his apartment.
Carrying a few belongings in a backpack, a plant and the urn filled with his wife’s ashes, Arthur makes his way across the street from his former apartment to a closed park filled with garbage. Signs are posted all around the vast area announcing the construction of a mega-mall. Arthur takes the sign off the tree he planted in memory of his late son, beds the other tree in its shadow with the ashes of his late wife, and lies down with a canteen of water and a bottle of pills, prepared to end his life. But he’s interrupted by a small, skipping ball of yellow fuzz–a duckling separated from his mother after she was struck down by a car. Arthur decides to take care of the animal, and names it Joe.
Arthur constructs a home in the abandon park by stringing a hammock from his son’s tree. Joe, now fully grown, is Arthur’s constant companion as they wander the city; the duck apparently believing the old man to be its mother. Joe seems happy to swim in a polluted pond and listen to Arthur’s lectures about history.
The Los Angeles depicted in Duck is one George Orwell could appreciate. Kindness and civility are relics of the past; surveillance systems allow one to speak without ever being seen, without ever risking infection. In one scene, a Chinese-food deliveryman is involved in an automobile accident with two cars and a motorcycle. As he lies injured on the asphalt, cartons of food emptied across the intersection, the other drivers exchange apologies and drive away, leaving him wounded and ignored. Appearing from the sidewalk, Arthur crosses into the empty street, helps the man to his feet and, at his request, gathers the bike and bags of food so the man can continue his delivery.
In the end Arthur and Joe decide to head for the beach. En route, Arthur and Joe sleep in parks and encounter an array of other marginalized Angeleno’s including a sympathetic social worker (Starletta DuPois), a cheery blind man (Bill Cobbs), a kind Vietnamese manicurist (Amy Hill), a suicidal geek (French Stewart), a philosophical vagrant (Bill Brochtrup), and someone billed as “Lord of the Garbage” (Noel Gugliemi). They’re all pretty bland. Then again, so is Arthur, with his “transformation” from lost soul to man with a mission appearing more contrived than engaging.
Would a duck really life a man out of Arthur’s level of despair? I can’t say for sure, but it seems unlikely. Duck was made in 2005 and is reaching DVD in 2008, so setting a story involving so many drastic changes in the country in 2009, seems like a cheap shot at the current political climate. And let’s face it, ducks aren’t loaded with personality, so you’ll have to be a pretty big Philip Baker Hall fan to sit through 98 minutes of this one. Watch Magnolia instead.
The DVD includes an audio commentary by Nic Bettauer and Philip Baker Hall, interviews, cast bios, desktop downloads, the theatrical trailer, a photo gallery and a movie poster.
