City Hall - Movie Review Example

From almost the beginning of recorded history, men and women who have been political leaders have been part philanthropist and part philanderer: ideally, the opportunity to lead one's fellow people is a chance to serve others, but, more realistically, it is also a chance to profit off them. President Bill Clinton, for example, entered the White House never having owned real estate, as he had spent the previous terms in the governor's mansion in Arkansas. He gave many speeches from the Oval Office claiming to feel the pain of the common American, and yet that did not keep him from sexually exploiting one of those very commoners when she came to work for him as an intern. Perhaps the most famed political leader, when it comes to idealism of purpose, was Cincinnatus. Long before the days when Rome was a far-flung empire, it was a republic clinging to the underbelly of what would be Western Europe. When the Aequi and Volscian tribes began to threaten Rome from the east in 458 B.C., the citizens begged Cincinnatus to take over dictatorial powers and vanquish the threat. He did so, in a mere sixteen days, and then immediately resigned his position of power, returning to his farm. This example of knowing when to yield power was cited by George Washington, after he stepped down after two terms as the first President of the United States ("Cincinnatus"). City Hall, directed by Harold Becker, is just one of a long line of works in American literature and cinema that analyze the slow erosion of an idealistic leader's credibility. One of the first works on this theme was Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men, a scantily fictionalized look at the life of Louisiana's Huey Long. Willie Stark, who is Penn Warren's slightly larger-than-life Huey Long figure, and John Pappas, New York's mayor in City Hall, are two men who have risen to their current power using a similar dichotomy of private and public positioning: outwardly, both men have ridden a populist wave of sentiment to their current posts; inwardly, both men have incurred debts to the corrupt powers that control much of politics, and both ultimately have a price to pay. Both men are closely followed by idealistic staffers - Willie Stark is followed by the aptly named Jack Burden, while John Pappas is followed by Kevin Calhoun. Both of these men have bought into the message that their respective leaders have broadcast to the masses, and both men fervently believe in the men for whom they work. By the end of both stories, both men are disillusioned as to the true nature, and the true source, of political power. The contradictions that revolve around political power primarily have to do with the definition and application of duty. The existence of a "duty triangle" has been asserted, in that, over time, three major approaches to classifying ethical thought have arisen, and these approaches are based on virtue, principle, or consequences. In other words, people make their ethical decisions based on one (or more) of these three ideas. When one considers political leaders, it would be difficult to leave both virtue and principle out of the equation: after all, the lower rungs of political service are not sufficiently lucrative for a purely utilitarian individual to find the situation attractive. There has to be some idealistic motive behind entry into public service, even if, after time, that idealism is worn away and replaced by a jaded faade. The idea of virtue finds definitions for ethical conduct in the behaviors and qualities of the good individual. The idea of principle suggests that universal principles can be used to make ethical decisions. These two are very similar; however, the key difference is that the virtue-based definition uses individuals as its orientation, while the principle-based definition uses a broader base of precedent as its orientation. The idea of consequences looks at the outcomes of actions and uses those outcomes to determine whether or not an action is right or wrong - this is often called a utilitarian perspective, or finding the greatest good for the greatest number, even if the individual is sacrificed. There would be situations where people using all three perspectives would emerge with the same choice in an ethical dilemma; however, there would also be situations where highly divergent answers would emerge. Kevin Calhoun begins the movie as John Pappas' highly motivated, idealistic aide. At the beginning, a detective and a mobster kill each other in a shootout, and a six-year-old black child is shot as well. Questions arise as to why the detective and mobster were even meeting in the first place. The mayor and his staff (including Calhoun) move swiftly to cover up the political damage and move on from the situation. However, Calhoun encounters Marybeth Cogan, who represents the family of the narcotics detective, whose pension is denied because of the apparent criminal activity involved in the meeting with the gangster. Cogan's questions motivate Calhoun to probe deeper into the case, and he discovers that the truth is not what Mayor Pappas has indicated it to be, and he keeps digging until he finds enough evidence to force the mayor to surrender his political career by the movie's end. If one looks at Kevin Calhoun's decision from the virtue-based point of view, one has to start with why Calhoun entered politics. He clearly enjoys the role of the populist and draws enjoyment from the idea of, one day, representing the common people in the marble-floored halls of city, and perhaps later state and national, government. People like John Pappas, whose florid speeches, like the one at the funeral for the slain child, drew Calhoun into politics, infused him with the energy that comes with the chance to make a difference. Men like Pappas, at least initially, could do almost no wrong. However, as the movie goes on, Calhoun's perspective appears to become more principle-based. He uses universal standards of right and wrong to transcend Pappas' view of the situation and to probe further into the circumstances of the slandered narcotics detective. While Pappas points out the utilitarian, or consequentialist, side of the dilemma, Calhoun does not give in, and sticks to his principles, urging Pappas to consider his own principles. Ultimately, because Calhoun does not back down, Pappas has to fall on his own sword as well. The refreshing part of this story is that the whistle-blower does not sell out, that integrity ends up righting things, to some degree, even given the body count (literal and figurative) of the film. In our own time, the lines between political truth and falsehood have become so blurred that the closest we get to men like Kevin Calhoun and John Pappas are former aides who turn into talking heads, like George Stephanopoulos. One wonders when politics will return to an era of meaning, in the midst of this era of mercenaries. Works Cited "Cincinnatus." Accessed 21 April 2007 online at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cincinnatus Read More