The Hunger Games

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Jennifer Lawrence in her iconic pose as Katniss in The Hunger Games
How sweet is the taste of a movie with a femaleheroine heralded as the top-grossing non-sequel film debut weekend of all time?  And how sweet is it that The Hunger Games, the adaptation of the first novel in SuzanneCollins’s trilogy about Panem, a dystopian country that sacrifices its childrenfor the amusement of its privileged leisure class, is a faithful, stirring,smart film that doesn’t pander to either sentimentality or sensationalism intranslating Collins’s politically nuanced story to the screen?
Starring Jennifer Lawrence (Winter’s Bone) as Katniss Everdeen, the trilogy’s heroine, The Hunger Games creates a rich materialworld for a story imagined so vividly by so many readers.  Director Gary Ross and his productiondesigners realize the fictional country’s twelve dispossessed districts and itsexcessively decadent capitol in a way that convinced me it was just as I’d picturedit as I read the novel, captivated by Collins’s narrative.
Katniss hails from District Twelve, where coal minesprovide the Capitol with energy and the district’s residents with straitenedlives of near-starvation and strife. Katniss breaks the repressive government’s strict rules by sneaking throughthe district’s boundary fence to hunt for food with her friend, Gale (ahandsome, stalwart Liam Hemsworth).  Herfather died in a mining accident; his sudden death left her mother catatonicwith grief and unable to care for Katniss and her younger sister, Prim.
Katniss the hunter
Ross’s film establishes in deft strokes thatKatniss is an accomplished hunter with a keen understanding of the woods inwhich she and Gale poach.  Wearingthreadbare clothing and scuffed boots, she strides through the hills and trees(Ross filmed around Asheville, North Carolina) and confidently wields a bow andarrow to bag birds and the rare deer. She and Gale have an easy camaraderie that comes less from romanticattraction than from similar survival instincts, the confidence of being goodat what they do, and the imperative that they provide for their families.
Katniss and Gale in the woods before the reaping
In other words, The Hunger Games breaks stereotypes almost immediately byrepresenting a friendship between a young man and woman that’s not based on facileheterosexual romantic rituals.  The stakesfor Katniss and Gale are much higher—they could be killed for leaving thedistrict borders, but they risk their lives to put food on their tables.
Their lasting bond is broken by the annual “reaping,”when two children between 12 and 18 from each of Panem’s districts are chosenat random as “tributes” to compete in the televised gladiatorial competition knownas “the hunger games.”  In DistrictTwelve, the children assemble in the town square wearing their best clothes,shirts and pants and dresses of worn, graying cotton, while the Capitol’s bubble-headedrepresentative, Effie Trinket (Elizabeth Banks), parades before them in garish shadesof pink and red.  Her excessivelycolorful outfit, make-up, and wig set her off as outlandish in the district’s drablandscape.
The garish Effie Trinket (Elizabeth Banks) and Katniss at the reaping
To begin the reaping, Effie plays the videoedreminder that the Games were established to assert the Capitol’s politicalprimacy, after the districts tried unsuccessfully to rebel against its hegemony.  Before she picks the names of the unluckytributes, Effie unctuously pronounces her benediction:  “May the odds be ever in your favor.”
When Prim is selected as the female tribute, Katnissdesperately volunteers to take her younger sister’s place, and is promptlycaught up in the horrifying preparations that propel the tributes into thefabricated arena where the games take place. Along with the male tribute, Peeta (Josh Hutcherson, The Kids are All Right), Katniss travelsby train toward the glittery, surreal capitol.
En route, the two District Twelve competitors aregroomed for the games by Haymitch Abernathy (Woody Harrelson), District Twelve’sonly previous winner.  His drunken apathyis downplayed in the film adaptation; as soon as he recognizes Katniss’sgumption and talent, he’s persuaded to be the mentor he takes much longer tobecome in Collins’s book.
Harrelson as Haymitch
Likewise, Cinna (Lenny Kravitz), the stylist whohelps Katniss and Peeta make an impression on the Capitol denizens and thenation’s audience in the televised interviews before the games begin,demonstrates immediate sympathy for his tributes’ plight.  He signals his antipathy for the brutality ofthe whole proceedings even as he helps Katniss establish her infamy as the “girlwho was on fire” in the pre-games parade.
Kravitz as Cinna in a pre-games benediction
In these preliminary scenes, before Ross brings usto the central agon of games in which 24 children and teenagers are meant tomurder one another until a single victor remains, the director and hiscinematographer show us District Twelve and the Capitol from Katniss’s point ofview.  The reaping, for instance, rushesby in a blur, capturing moments and faces in fragments that seem almost Expressionisticas they look so resolutely through Katniss’s anxious eyes.
The kinetic editing and point-of-view shots helpcreate an atmosphere taut with tension and fear, and beautifully captureKatniss’s confusion and terror (and intelligence) as she’s escorted by Peacekeepers(who look like soldiers from the StarWars films) into the custody of her handlers.
By giving us visual insight into Katniss’semotional vulnerability, Ross humanizes a heroine whose inner dialogue we canno longer hear, as we could reading Collins’s prose.  [Spoileralert.]  Katniss’s strength enablesher to survive the games, but it could also make her appear unsympathetic andimpassive.
In fact, Mahnola Dargis, writing for the Times, found Lawrence’s performance “disengaged”in just this way.  But the film itselfaddresses this quandary; Katniss isn’t cut from gregarious cloth, and refusesto pander to the television viewers even when her life depends on it.  Similarly, Lawrence doesn’t play to Ross's camera; hers is a nuanced and, I think, strong and successful performanceof Collins’s signal heroine.
Instead, Ross uses his camera to bring us closerto Katniss’s feelings, while letting her retain the dignity of her strength andher intelligence and, in some ways, her privacy, despite the intrusions of rabidspectators into her life prior to and during the games.  For example, in moments of duress in the arenafabricated and controlled by the “Gamemaker,” Seneca Crane (Wes Bentley), the televisiondirector who engineers the games much like Ed Harris’s producer character manipulatedthe world of The Truman Show, we seeflashbacks to earlier moments in Katniss’s life that help explain her resolve.
Wes Bentley as Seneca Crane, with his fabulous beard
We see her father descending into the mines, andthen watch a fiery explosion that implies his death.  We see her mother descending into madness.  Wesee Katniss's prior relationship with Peeta, the baker’s son, who defies his hatefulmother by throwing bread meant for their pigs in Katniss’s direction, as shehovers in the rain outside the bakery, hungry and watching.
And when Katniss is stung during the games byhorrifying “tracker jackers,” an insect engineered by the Gamemaker with stingsso painful they bring on hallucinatory episodes and sometimes death, we see thevenom’s effects on Katniss from her perspective.  Blurred, tunneled images capture Peeta’sdistorted voice shouting at her to run, and the woods rushing by in a swirl ofsurreal light and color.  All of these filmicstrategies place us squarely behind Katniss.
Ross and his team tell the story with a dynamicstyle that moves it inexorably forward, even in scenes that might otherwise bestatic.  The whole thing feels like achase film, in which Katniss and the other tributes are being followed andwatched not just by one another, but by the eyes of the state, which are alwaysfocused on them.
For instance, when Katniss first ties herself to abranch high in a tree on her first night in the arena, she hears a mechanicalnoise, and realizes that what she took for a knot in the tree trunk is actuallyan embedded camera.  As she peers into itcuriously, Ross cuts to people watching “at home,” in large crowds outdoors inthe districts, or on make-shift screens in their homes.
The Capitol’s technology invades their livesnot for the pleasure of information and communication, but to insure its ownhegemony.  This is technology as tyranny,the flip side, Collins suggests, of the high tech revolution as empowering.
In the book, Katniss’s inner monologue was protectedfrom the ravages of such state surveillance, so the reader was insured acounter-point to the intrusions of President Snow and his minions’ power.  TheHunger Games on film, though, is also about watching.  The film’s spectators,too, have a kind of power over Katniss and, not insignificantly, over JenniferLawrence, the young actor chosen for a role that will rival Bella’s in the Twilight series for fan and mediaattention.
I read a snarky piece on The Daily Beast that suggested Lawrence was being ungenerous about herfame, self-deprecating and diffident.  Ididn’t see the David Letterman interview to which the article mostly referred,but it sounded to me like Lawrence has taken a page from Katniss’s playbook,which is partly what makes her so wonderful in the role.
Lawrence is rarely off screen during The Hunger Games.  But her emotional presence is carefullymodulated.  Rather than playing a moreconventional girl—although the dystopian Panem begs the question of what a “conventional”girl would look or act like in such a hard-scrabbled existence—Lawrence playsKatniss as tensely coiled and focused physically and mentally on outsmartingthe other tributes and, eventually, the Capitol’s manipulators.
Katniss in the arena
In Lawrence’s keen interpretation, Katniss is areluctant heroine.  She won’t pander tothe Capitol’s media or its cameras in the ways that Haymitch, her perceptivementor, suggests might be necessary for her to actually win the games.  If spectators empathize with or come to favora tribute, they send help into the arena, little metal parachutes with containersfull of much-needed medicine, food, or supplies.
Katniss is forced to think through the costs ofher refusal to perform as a more typical, coy, feminine girl, but her continuedunwillingness to capitulate makes her an important role model for what will nodoubt be legions of the film’s teenaged girl fans.  Ross carefully establishes Katniss’sfoils—the girly-girl tributes from the other districts who interview with thegames’ television host, Caesar Flickerman (a terrifically campy Stanley Tucci,in a blue wig and practically Elizabethan garb).
Although they prove themselves to be quite toughin the arena, for their interviews most of the other girls wear sexy dressesand assume flirtatious manners. And during the games, they combine forces withthe alpha males, playing the Bonnies to their Clydes.  These female tributes are alsolethal—especially Clove (Isabelle Fuhrman), who throws knives—but they’rerepresented in relation to their young men.
Katniss can’t even fathom such gender performancesor alliances.  Her subsistence-level lifehas taught her only to survive, and has stripped away the niceties of human interactionto a central, necessarily suspicious core. Gale is the only person she trusts, with whom she can briefly let downher guard as they talk, before the reaping, in the woods.
But even there, Ross disallows any hint of romance. Theirs is a relationship built on trustand need and a long-standing regard and love. Only when Katniss leaves for the games, and her relationship with Peetais broadcast around Panem, does Gale realize he’s jealous.  His own embarrassment and confusion makes himsweet and rather feminine himself.
Peeta, on the other hand, quickly understands thatplaying to the crowd might curry important favor.  He waves to the Capitol fans who watch theirbullet train enter the city, crafting a charismatic smile to wear forthem.  (Hutcherson’s appealing, low-keymagnetism is perfect for the self-deprecating Peeta.)
He insists on takingKatniss’s hand and raising it in a show of victory as their chariot rollsthrough the gigantic presentation hall at their pre-games debut.  As their clothing flames behind them, hetells Katniss the fans will love their daring, and he’s right.  Katniss suspiciously jerks her hand from his,but he persuades her otherwise.
Katniss and Hutcherson (as Peeta) train for the games
When, during his own interview with Flickerman,Peeta declares his love for Katniss, it’s not immediately clear if he’s playingto the cameras again or if he means it.  Therest of the film hangs on this ambiguity.
But if Peeta is wily about winning through anappeal to spectators, Katniss’s survival skills keep her firmly enmeshed in theimmediacy of the arena’s challenge.  Howwonderful to watch this girl-hero read the woods, feeling the soil for moisture,crushing leaves in her hand and releasing them to see how the wind blows, usingher bow and arrow to bag food and, in the end, to protect herself and Peetafrom the remaining tributes.
How lovely to see Peeta hang back behind her asthey move through the forest, Katniss with an arrow cocked in her bow for theirmutual protection.  How amusing the hearPeeta joke that he’ll take the bow to hunt, and to watch Katniss’s incredulous reaction.  How nice to see the girl save the boy,helping him into a sheltered cave when he’s hurt, risking everything to getmedicine for him, and masterminding the actions that in the end will save themboth.
Lawrence plays these actions with an understatedperformance that’s alive with nuance. Her face registers everything, but in subtly expressive ways—with thetwitch of an eye, a small compression of her lips, a hard-won smile, a flickerof confusion.  Her pre-games interviewwith Caesar Flickerman is a marvel of acting as reaction.  Katniss is startled and confused by theaudience’s uproarious response to her answers to his questions, but she doesn’thave the vaguest idea how to play to their affections, as she’s been tutored.
Tucci as Flickerman and Katniss in her pre-games interview
Lawrence works for every smile Katnissmusters.  Wearing her red,off-the-shoulder gown, offering to model its fiery train for Flickerman,wearing make-up that’s alien on her face and a hairstyle that’s foreign to her,Katniss looks like a girl in the drag of femininity, trying to work it asridiculously as Sandra Bullock playing Miss Congeniality, but with much lesscomedy and much higher stakes.
Katniss’s final confrontation with President Snow(Donald Sutherland, oily and reptilian as ever) models a chilly resistance andpromises quite a David v. Goliath confrontation as the trilogy buildsmomentum.  Lawrence’s performance is clearand strong; she does Katniss justice by acting with economy and reserve.  Katniss’s inscrutability serves her wellamong her enemies and the film’s spectators; it keeps her mysterious,unpredictable, and interesting.
Much has been made of the story’s violence,especially among young people forced to murder one another by heartlessmanipulators.  Although the film is tensewith the sounds and ever-present threat of bloodshed, remarkably little of itis actually seen on screen.
The initial bloodbath at the cornucopia, when thetributes are first delivered to the arena, is cut in rapid sequences in which,once again, the briefly pictured parts—of faces, limbs, actions, objects—come tostand for the whole without directly representing the killing. 
Occasionally, one of the more vicioustributes is seen murdering someone, but usually at a remove.  Katniss and Peeta are rarely shown directlyinflicting violence; their humanity is always evident and operative.
Ross also keeps sentiment at bay, even in the moreemotional, moving scenes. Katniss takes young Rue (Amandla Stenberg), a tributefrom District Eleven, under her wing, after Rue helps her escape from the “career”tributes who’ve surrounded the tree in whose branches Katniss keeps herselfsafe.  Their relationship mirrors that ofKatniss and Prim.  Lawrence and Stenberg playtheir scenes together beautifully, creating a warmth and connection that beliestheir murderous environment.
Amandla Stenberg as Rue
That Katniss cares for Rue until her bitter end, anduses the occasion of her tragic death to gesture in solidarity to her comradesin District Eleven, begins the insurgency that grows through the rest of the trilogy.  Here, too, Lawrence productively underplays Katniss’sdefiance, emphasizing her hesitant heroism.
In addition to its progressive and nuanced take ongender, The Hunger Games alsopresents a sophisticated view of an entirely multiracial future society.  Those with the most state power continue tobe white—President Snow (pun intentional, I assume), Seneca Crane, CaesarFlickerman, and the others are all white (and male).
But in the Capitol and in the districts, Rosshas careful cast the extras and other characters in a multiracial array.  Every crowd shot is full of people of coloras well as people who look white, enough so that the racial and ethnicdiversity of appearance is notable.
When Katniss’s alliance with Rue provokes a revoltagainst the Capitol in District Eleven, Ross films their riots in a style reminiscentof footage of 1960s American civil rights demonstrations.  The Peacekeepers subdue the protesters with watercannons.  People of various races,working together, overturn dumpsters and destroy property.
The scene is shot in a palette of black andwhite, and the protestors’ anger and determination, along with the Peacekeepers’might and the general confusion of social rebellion, look very much like imagesfrom the 60s.
In addition to its admirable representations ofgender and race, heterosexual romance is muted profitably in The Hunger Games.  Katniss’s tenderness is reserved for Rue; their sweet, more emotionally expressive momentsare lovely and moving.  Katniss’s rageand grief when Rue dies is her most overt emotional moment during the games.
She also grows attached to Peeta, but because they’reboth aware that they’re playing to the cameras, the authenticity of theirromantic involvement is always in doubt.
Although by the film’s end, it’s clear that Galeis jealous of Katniss’s relationship with Peeta, and that the sincere andearnest Peeta very much wants to continue the romance they’ve performed,reducing these relationships to “Team Gale” and “Team Peeta” to parallel theTeam Edward/Team Jacob triangle of the Twilightfranchise is just silly.  The Hunger Games is about much more thana young girl choosing between two very different suitors; it’s about fascism andrebellion, about hope and social critique.
I find myself delighted by the amount of press thisfilm has already generated, most of it positive, for a screenplay co-written(with Billy Ray) by a woman based on her novels, about a young woman whoseethical humanity, physical strength, and emotional intelligence is a terrificmodel for us all.
Looking forward to the second film (scheduled forThanksgiving 2013).
The Feminist Spectator