The phantom of the apparat

A few issues ago, I passingly referred to graphic novel writer Alan Moore as “the Thomas Pynchon of the genre.” And Moore himself has cited Pynchon as an influence, so it may not be entirely coincidence that “V for Vendetta,” the title of what many would regard as his first major work, echoes that of Pynchon's first novel, “V.” Both writers cram a lot of elements on a broad canvas, with multiple POVs, a taste for dark conspiracies and a mingling of “high art” and pop culture. Neither is fond of conventional resolutions or, for that matter, making things easy for the reader in general.

All of which means that they are tough candidates for screen adaptations. No one has even attempted Pynchon, save a mysterious 2002 German production — “Prüfstand VII” — allegedly based on parts of “Gravity's Rainbow”; and those to have attempted Moore have (in the author's mind) failed badly enough to make him isolate himself from any credit for the results, good or bad.

Moore thus refused to have anything to do with the film version of “V for Vendetta” and dismissed at least one draft of the script as “rubbish.” He has even insisted on his name being removed from the film — costing him money — which means that the “based on” part of the credit block mentions only illustrator Dave Lloyd and publisher Vertigo/DC. The high ethical ground on which he stands is mixed with a sense of personal offense … making the central character of “V for Vendetta” appear more autobiographical than one might otherwise have assumed.

The film is set in England in the relatively near future. The world order has shifted. Early on, a TV personality refers contemptuously to “the former United States” as having fallen into savagery. England itself is in a state worse than savagery — fascism. Several years earlier, a plague threw the country into chaos, giving ambitious politician Adam Sutler (John Hurt) the opportunity to assume dictatorial powers. Now the government monitors everything, controls the media and responds to disagreement with sudden covert violence.

After a brief prologue about 17th-century Gunpowder Plot conspirator Guy Fawkes, we meet Evey (Natalie Portman) — the character also narrates — who works at the government TV network, where commentator Lewis Prothero (Roger Allam) — seemingly channeling Bill O'Reilly — covers up government misdeeds and stirs fear over Sutler's strawman threat du jour. Orphaned at 7 as a result of her parents' political activism, she is a good, law-abiding worker drone. Late one night, she is rescued from government enforcers by V (Hugo Weaving), a heroic, caped mystery man, who refuses to reveal the face behind his omnipresent Guy Fawkes mask.

V is an obsessed firebrand, who blows up the Old Bailey early in the film and is threatening to do the same to Parliament. His obsession is ideological, but its force comes from the need to avenge himself over the unspeakable things he was subjected to, years earlier, by the current leaders and their surrogates.

He takes Evey to an underground lair filled with books, art and just plain cool stuff, including a jukebox — in short, every adolescent geek's dream retreat. If the jukebox is anything to go by, V's musical taste is so hip it's transcended hip: no thrash or metal here, but rather the torchy emotionality of Julie London singing “Cry Me a River” and the bachelor-pad coolness of Stan Getz playing “Girl From Ipanema.”

V awakens something in her, which may or may not be partly romantic — despite the fact that we are invited to suspect that V is Evey's supposedly deceased father. (The film is less explicit about this possibility than the graphic novel.)

Much of the story crosscuts between Evey and Police Inspector Finch (Stephen Rea), who, while tracking down V, begins to realize that he's on the wrong side. They are our onscreen surrogates, learning through hard experience that fascism oppresses everyone, whether active member of the government apparat or passive enabler.

Moore drew on a multitude of sources in writing “V for Vendetta.” From the Phantom of the Opera, V gets the grotesque mask, the presumably disfigured face, the semi-romantic mentoring of a young woman; from Edmond Dantes, the Count of Monte Cristo, he gets his swashbuckling style and sense of personal vengeance.

All of this is faithfully recreated on the screen, as is most of the graphic novel's plot. Some subplots have been removed or only hinted at; and the pacing of the ending is much more efficient and conventional. In the original, the head fascist barely appears and is known only as The Leader. Here he's become a major presence, constantly appearing on huge, flat-panel TV screens like a giant ranting Oz head. (That these scenes clearly invoke “1984” is amusing since Hurt, playing Winston Smith, was similarly harangued in Michael Radford's 1980 film version.)

If anything, the film is more notable for what it hasn't changed. Twenty-five years ago, Moore and artist Lloyd were responding to the Thatcher government and the populace that continued to elect it. Here, producer/screenwriters Andy and Larry Wachowski and director John McTeigue — who served as their first assistant director on the Matrix trilogy — are clearly thinking about the Bush administration, 9/11 and the PATRIOT Act. At one point, we glimpse a poster for “The Coalition of the Willing” with a swastika on it. The vocabulary, the techniques, the spin — all suggest the Bush/Cheney regime taken to its logical extreme. When the story brings up the possibility that the Sutlerites created the plague as a pretense for establishing ironfisted control, is it possible to avoid thinking of the darkest notions some people entertained after 9/11?

Ironically, it's a beautiful endorsement of capitalism that “V for Vendetta” is being released by Warner, part of an empire that has contributed financially to the growth of the ultra-rightwing movement. As always, the short-term bottom line still rules, even if the long-term goal is subverted by the product; that Fox Broadcasting was built on the success of “The Simpsons” is perhaps the greatest example. “A capitalist,” I was once told, “will eagerly sell you the rope with which to hang him.”

Of course, that assumes that a film like “V for Vendetta” might have any noticeable political impact, which it won't. Its greatest failing is not a watering-down of Moore's original concept, but rather the way in which it simplifies and oversells it. The book is more visually stylized, which makes it easier to accept V's abilities, which verge on the supernatural; he is half human being, half abstract idea made concrete. The film feels more realistic, which undercuts our suspension of disbelief.

Even if the central concepts have been kept intact, the transferral to the big screen has made them less effective. The final scenes, meant to be more inspirational than Moore would likely embrace, try too hard. We could use more mystery and less Braveheart-style speechmaking.