--The Catcher Was a Spy
This is a recent film about Moe Greenburg. He was a baseball player who ended up being a spy for the U.S. during WWII.
It stars Paul Rudd with a substantial supporting cast including Jeff Daniels, Connie Nielsen,
Guy Pearce, Sienna Miller, Mark Strong, Paul Giamatti, Giancarlo Giannini and Tom Wilkinson.
By all accounts he was very secretive. To say this man was unique is an understatement. For example, he spoke at least
7 languages, read ten newspapers a day, studied law, was very academic, well-traveled and played major league baseball.
The film is based on a 1994 biography of Moe Berg. There is also a documentary in the works about him that is set to
be ready next year.
This film presents Moe Berg as a closeted gay man. The more info you read about Moe Berg the more that idea makes
perfect sense, but reading some things about the film and a few things about Moe Berg this morning, this has apparently
caused some to declare this aspect as "questionable behind-the-scenes decisions."
In other words, it's the age old problem of "is/was someone gay or not." We all know people seem to view this question
differently and each person has their own scale of belief. Some never believe it. Some only will if the person publicly declares
it. Some will believe a closeted persons denials that they are. Etc. Etc. Etc.
To be clear, this issue as presented is not a major part of this film, it's in some details. But it has now been argued if the detail
is correct or not. As one reviewer wrote: ...the film seizes on scraps of gossip in Dawidoff's book (the biography it's based on) to assert
that he was a closeted gay man whose relationships with women were, even if genuinely loving, mostly a disguise.
[...] Asked through a publicist if his team had evidence beyond the book to justify this characterization, Lewin said "yes...we have used
primary historical sources to inform our depiction of Moe Berg's sexuality." Pressed for details, the director was vague before saying, "We
have not tried to depict Moe as gay. He is shown as a man who genuinely loved women, and who may have engaged with other men.
We have reflected the innuendo that followed Moe, and not tried to prove anything."
The reviewer of this film, who liked it quite well, feels this is a problem because the source material is too vague (to him or everyone?) to
definitively portray Moe Berg as a closeted male. The reviewers explanation: The Catcher Was a Spy feels both like a disservice to Berg and
an insult to historical figures like Alan Turing, who paid a tremendous price for their sexuality after giving everything they had to the war
effort. For decades, big-screen biographies glossed over the private lives of even flamboyant gay men. Taking a very private figure and
inventing a sex life that moviegoers will assume is true is hardly a step forward.
The only quibble I'd have with what the reviewer said is that this is only an issue for those portrayed as gay on flimsy evidence. No one
would care if a man who was gay, but not proven, was to be portrayed as straight. That wouldn't be an issue. Sometimes I believe it's
all right to say, with all that we know, is there the possibility that this was the case? If there's the possibility then I'm okay with it. This
situation reminds me of the same kind of thing talked about with Sandy Koufax, another baseball player, who is still around. It had never
ever occurred to me that he might be gay until a controversy about it came out when a biography was written in the 1990's. Since then,
there are so many puzzle pieces that I've come across that fit together so well, that I'm pretty convinced he is.
At the same time, the notion that Doris Day had an affair with black player Maury Wills of the Dodgers, got very little attention and no one
got into many disputes about that! Doris Day has denied many gossipy things written about her, but she has not denied this.
All of this sidetracks from the fact that I found the film quite interesting. I like films that have different takes on the history we
all know, like WWII intrigue and such. Movies like last year's WWII set The Zookeeper's Wife, for intstance. The trailer and publicity
for the film makes it sound action-oriented, which is why I feel some critics haven't liked it. THe action is way more cerebral than
audiences are used to nowadays.
I'll be looking forward to the documentary and I'll be quite interested in how they present the notion that Berg was a closeted gay man.
With the biography and movie bringing it up, the documentary will surely have to address it in some way. Though, Ken Burns' hours
long documentary didn't address any of that concerning Eleanor Roosevelt.
We shall see, I guess.