plastic quality

kundera

2011-04-19T18:02:00.000-07:00

The book is sexuality as apotheosis-definitely not a turn on and definitely not a book with a rich sense of characterization-the characters here merely represent ideas and thesis about human nature-but most certainly a book that is a utopia of European descent

on Kundera

2011-04-19T17:40:00.000-07:00

Why does Kundera have to equivocate everything in The Unbearable Lightness of Being? Isn't it enough just to state things that occur in the book unabashedly. The story could still be about a man in paralysis without the tone indicating this. A reader may not be even aware upon reading the novel of the conflicted state of Tomas, upon the conflicted state of all the characters, because the author suffers from the same conflicts. Conflicts that to the normal unabashed soul don't mean a hill of beans in this town. It's the oh woe is me sensitive nature of the highly literate to not want to commit to anything, even to a bit of fun sexual naughtiness, and to equivocate that banality poetically is what Kundera is all about as a novelist.

on Jonathan Lethem

2011-04-19T17:11:00.000-07:00

Why does he see being a fan as something so unorthodox and weird? Even if he likes fans, why does he have to see that connotation applied to them? His feeling are unorthodox and are going to give an unintended negative connotation to a simple pertinent need we all have within us.

on Adele

2011-04-19T17:03:00.000-07:00

I think it's sneaky that she has a market audience of highly susceptible girls that just broke up with their boyfriends. She's the Bridget Jones of pop. Dowdiness evolved or break up as absolution is her appeal; that appeal is something that is a humdrum everyday occurrence in her case gussied up as something else.

Having Adulation Ride on Your Back

2010-07-25T18:34:00.000-07:00

Why does Rush’s album Moving Pictures have such durability; durability that the band both reaps from and at the same time is haunted by? (They will always be known for this album as if this is the album that defines them.) Maybe it stems from the fact that it is the album that defines not necessarily them (as if any album could do that) but instead what they constitute-which is illusiveness, staying out of the limelight of definition, even when your fan base and your detractors beg for such a definition. Maybe the answer resides in Red Barchetta.
Before I write about this song, a song that all three members of the band say is the one song that never gets old when played live, or when the original recording is simply listened to, consequently inferring that many of their other tunes do when making such a comment, I want to talk about the bands awareness of themselves and what they constitute; it’s this quality that makes me such a fan of theirs. The moment, heavily documented in the Rush documentary, when Rush exhausted themselves as a band simply from overexerting themselves technically as musicians, marks a turning point in their career. What were they going to do; sell out and make radio friendly tunes? Permanent Waves held the answer. The album started with a song that dealt with this conundrum entitled the Spirit of radio, a song that was a critique of their sounds new home. The band doesn’t like their abode at all. This song is the antithesis of that home. It’s the most exuberant thing I’ve ever heard. Yet, there’s a tragic awareness to the music-to the whole album-that gives the sound its depth. It’s the awareness that that home will always be there, no matter how eroded. The song is a view into the future. It’s aware of lady gaga and how Gaga will have more lasting impact than this band ever will have in the general consensus of the listening audience. The tragic awareness is not that that’s a shame because Rush is the better artist. That would be self-indulgent and egotistically biased, but rather that for the sake of the radio, Gaga is a horrible influence. Actually, Rush, as guitarist for the band Alex Lifeson has said, has always benefitted from this strange position of being sandwiched in the middle of adulation and contempt; of you’re the greatest band I’ve ever heard to who are you again? There’s more pressure on a Gaga to go in one direction or the other. Rush is completely free. That’s the sound that I hear on Permanent Waves. The album is the awareness that this wiggle room can’t do anything to influence anybody. There’s tragedy behind the happy go lucky sound of the album. It’s the depth that people who say they don’t like Rush can’t hear. It’s the awareness on the artist’s part that they can’t do anything to stop the impending doom that is the future.
The band’s epiphany (which is Moving Pictures) comes when the band decides to become more radio friendly. Like I stated earlier I love their self awareness because it was a right decision no matter if their loyal fan base got mad or not. The statement from such an act was not that this bands simply about making money but that they are not merely a cult progressive rock band. In other words, that they are not just a band that exists to not make money. In my opinion, what this means is that there’s no guilt in this band’s not trying to change the world like they were trying to do so much in the past. If Hemispheres is the last time that they did try to change the world, and Permanent Waves is the lament over this, then moving pictures is the celebration. There’s a part in Red Barchetta when Alex’s guitar part is the sound that they could never have on their earlier more “complex” albums. It’s the weapon that keeps the picture moving; that is progressive while at the same time making a term like prog rock look trite and too constricting. This band is not just about changing time signatures. When one listens to their music they shouldn’t be saying: ahh I understand completely what they are doing here. What they should be saying is: what am I listening to? Simply talking about their musicianship or their objectivism or whatever, is making them the lie that most rock critics see them as, which is something boring and geeky. The sound of Alex’s guitar on Red Barchetta is the doorway out of this. It’s the car that is outlawed. It’s something taken for granted. Something not talked about properly by either its detractors (the ones who expect too much of them) or its fans (the ones who expect too little). Something unheeded and completely itself. This sound is where the durability of the album stems from. Fans like Billy Coogan and the filmmakers of the rush documentary ask the question: can Rush be the ultimate way in which to save the radio in order to enrich the potentiality of the music form? The song answers: who cares?
The other extremely poignant song off Moving Pictures that I want to write about is Limelight. Limelight is the song that deals with the outlawing of nebbishness; of not ever being able to be completely aloof and completely yourself anymore because of societal pressures (in other words the antithesis to Rush). The plangency that is felt when one listens to the song comes from the fact that there is no red barchetta in this song. There isn’t even any future. Now is the future, which means one has to take action now. What is now in the drummer and lyricist for the band Neil Peart’s eyes? More importantly: where do the constraints come from? Do they come from the accuser, or something much more terrifying to consider, the accused? Now in Neil’s eyes is the feeling that he’s going to lose his integrity because of his fan bases misconstruing what he is. (Suddenly that fan base becomes the person beating up that kid in glasses, while ineptly thinking that it is that kid. It becomes the societal pressure that it thought it was up against.) Its Neil’s depth. What is so shocking about his depth is that it makes one realize that most, if not all, in the limelight don’t have it. It makes Neil himself realize that he could very easily become what he always feared and fought against. His prognosticating skills, his ability to see that the album he’s making that’s turning him on so much creatively might very well be his downfall (because he will forever keep trying to replicate that magic because he will believe what society tells him now that he’s in the limelight; now that he actually has a chance of being influenced by what they say: that this is his best album and he shouldn’t try to make anything better but to simply make the same album over and over again) and his ability to talk about this in one of the songs on the album explicitly is, I think, his true brilliance. This daring song, a song that criticizes the adulation that it’s receiving, is a criticism against the whole album, against even itself.
If there was one sentence that conjures up this band for me it’s: How far can you progress creatively before outlawing yourself and ultimately pleasing everyone except yourself? If Neil’s way of combating this is by being totally cut off from his fans which means not only never meeting them in person but never satisfying their expectations as well, in effect never making Moving Pictures 2 which ultimately makes one realize that he’s a consistently changing viable artist, more power to him. The listener that’s listening to Limelight is hearing Neil’s realization that this is the turning point and that barriers have to be put up in order to cut off the influence of fame; in order so that he doesn’t become another Hemingway. In order so that he doesn’t become a talented individual that’s a lost cause, that’s even made infamous by that lost cause (which is an adherence to the style that everyone wanted him to write in to the point where he couldn’t evolve away from that style). Rush isn’t that kind of band. Rush is a band that has always been destined to draw the line between fame and influence (In other words, even if they are incredibly famous, what they turn out is only influenced by themselves, not by what initially garnered them their fame), and moving pictures is that line. The line that creates durability-that keeps a band going. The line that makes the band realize that it’s done something that they could never improve by making something similar and ultimately better from it. After that line is drawn, for the first time the band doesn’t feel intimidated over the fact that they will never make a better album in their fan bases eyes. Once Neil stops writing fantasy lyrics (once the fantasy is dropped) that band realizes that that flying car was their need to please their fan base without pleasing themselves.
Now that Neil’s deep need to appeal to his fan base in order to understand himself has already been done on this album, for the rest of his career he’ll be an objectivist looking at everyone but himself. His integrity throughout the rest of his career becomes his struggle to stay this way. The struggle that is outlined in Vital Signs, the last song off Moving Pictures: “Everybody got to elevate from the norm” repeated over and over again, which shows how hard it is to maintain this feeling. The struggle is the friction of the day alluded to in Tom Sawyer, the first song off Moving Pictures, which is this band’s existence; which should be all band’s existences. The friction is to stay out of one’s comfort zone in order to evolve creatively even if your fans don’t want you to. Why should one be so adverse to their fans wishes? One should be this way because in actuality, those fans secretly do want you to evolve even if they tell you otherwise.
Once one becomes implicated by this band (that one is comprised of this bands fan base; the one that is considered the norm in Vital Signs), one begins to say, why can’t there be more Moving Picture type Rush albums? The turning point itself is so great. Silly, I presented the answer a couple of paragraphs above. Limelight is terrifying because it knows too well how much you like it.

The Different Forms Of interpretation in Regards to the Threat of Nuclear War

2010-07-25T17:54:00.001-07:00

Fail Safe (1964), a film that came out at the height the fear of the
possibility of nuclear warfare between the United States and Russia, is flawed because it never allows its main characters to be fools. In the context of nuclear Armageddon, politicians and military personal are inevitably fools. Stanley Kubrick, the director of Dr Strangelove: or, How I stopped Worrying and Loved the Bomb (a satiric take on a similar situation in Fail Safe; both films came out at the same time.) talked about this when he stated that:
“But after a month or so I began to realize that all the things I was throwing out (the elements in his treatment of Red Alert that were satiric) were the things which were the most truthful. After all, what could be more absurd than the very idea of two mega-powers willing to wipe out all human life because of an accident, spiced up by political differences that will seem as meaningless to people in a hundred years from now as the theological conflicts of the Middle Ages appear to us today” (Nelson, pg. 85)?
It’s the fact that these officials are so ensnared in their military regulations and technology, in Dr. Strangelove, that they don’t realize how inane their handling of a situation like the possibility of Nuclear Armageddon really is. It’s the regulations that disallow the characters to do anything about the situation. If that’s not Black comedy, I don’t know what is. Yet, Lumet’s Fail Safe doesn’t see the comedy in the situation. Fail Safe is a film that doesn’t allow comical abstraction because it doesn’t allow speculation on why just such an accident would occur. By making his treatment of the threat of nuclear war comic, “…Kubrick…redirect(ed) and expand(ed) the novel’s (Red Alert’s) psychological/thematic emphasis…Kubrick shows a more profound interest in origins, both psychological and philosophical, than does George’s novel (or any film treatment of this type of material at that time)” (Nelson, pg. 87). Kubrick in Dr. Strangelove is examining the reason for why these people are the way they are, not to ultimately poke fun at these characters, but rather to show the audience his worries over how easily a nuclear situation could occur. Characters rely purely on protocol, to the point where their logic exits the situation. Examples constantly persist in the war room. When Air Force General Buck Turgidson (George C. Scott) tells President Merkin Muffley (Peter Sellers) about General Ripper’s (Sterling Hayden) instigating the go code for American fighter pilots to bomb Russia, Muffley is incensed. He says to Turgidson, “When you issued the human reliability tests, you assured me that there was no possibility of such a thing ever occurring.” (He’s referring to a general becoming psychotic, and not being detected by the reliability test in anyway.) Turgidson’s response is that, “Well, I don’t think it’s quite fair to condemn a whole program because of a single slipup, sir.” Some slipup.
Kubrick’s film is actually more terrifying than people realize. The abstract fools in Strangelove are silly to the point of horrific action (or consequences) that has a great deal to do with the context of reality. The actions exhibited in the film could become an eventuality; it’s simply comically presented. (Kubrick’s film is also highly prophetic: another characteristic that Lumet’s film doesn’t have the distinction of exhibiting. When Buck Turgidson (George C. Scott) says to President Merkin Muffley (Peter Sellers) that he feels that the president is too afraid of his perception of what the president will appear like in history books, the scene could very well be Donald Rumsfeld talking to George W. Bush. Lumet’s film is merely dated.) Lumet’s film doesn’t depict this human fallibility in anyway (probably because it’s too afraid to.) The film respects all of its characters to the point where the movie becomes theatrical dramaturgy (and highly unrealistic dramaturgy at that. There are elements in the film, like the bomber pilot having a dream about a bull being hunted down and a woman obsessed with death that are more fake than anything in the abstractions in Strangelove.) Why should a filmmaker respect someone who inadvertently causes nuclear annihilation? Fail Safe is disingenuous probably by accident; by noble intention, which is an error similar to the errors exhibited by the characters in Strangelove. Fail Safe doesn’t deal with the inherent flaws in provisional thinking in anyway. It doesn’t have moments like the one in Strangelove where Turdigson discusses Plan R; an inane provisional maneuver that allows a general to give the go code towards bombing Russia, in case the President is delayed in doing so. Fail Safe doesn’t have the gall to criticize a character like Turdigson; while Kubrick’s satiric structure inevitably criticizes the figure. The problem stems from figures who are in love with provisional thinking, and would never criticize the process, even to the point of nuclear annihilation. When one thinks about it, Kubrick’s film really isn’t that far-fetched, which is actually a more terrifying concept to ponder over. Strangelove posits that military figures are as preposterous as abstract satiric monsters; like Strangelove. Fail Safe doesn’t dare do so, for fear that it will disrupt the status quo; even to the point of nuclear annihilation.
Henry Fonda’s president in Fail Safe is in such contrasts to Sellers president in Strangelove. Fonda’s president, “…impress(es) the audience with…(his) humanity and sense of responsibility; for in the end, it is a problem that we all must share and for which we all must be held accountable” (Nelson, pg. 86). Kubrick’s film logically holds the figures in charge culpable, and that’s because he as a filmmaker believed in the concept of human error, opposed to the easy excuse of mechanical error.
It’s of interest to compare the two telephone conversation scenes between the presidents of the united states and the Russian Premier’s in both films. The president in Fail Safe is not delusional in terms of how confident he is. Rather, he’s a very sensible individual who tries to handle the situation as logically as possible. In Strangelove, Kubrick makes fun of this kind of sanctimonious interpretation of the president’s capabilities. He doesn’t honestly believe that these officials are as in control as we as a country assume that they are, and this has to do with the fact that Kubrick naturally distrusted this image of public officials. If they were that good at their jobs, how could the country get in this mess in the first place? Wouldn’t something like the threat of nuclear war be prevented by a capable politician? Even though Strangelove is satire, it also points to salient concerns on Kubrick’s part. There’s an underlay of realism in all of the fantastical elements of the film; almost as if this nightmare could become an actual reality. (Fail Safe is the inversion of this.) The scene of Fail Safe has both the President and the translator being rather nervous at the prospect of talking to the premier; almost as if the Cuban Missile Crisis never happened before, or they’ve never dealt with a situation of this magnitude before. Doesn’t this take some of the disturbing element out of the scene? Isn’t it more disturbing, and more having to do with the problem, to consider the fact that politicians like the president are so used to this occurrence of the threat of nuclear war that they are bored of it; almost as if it were another form of malaise? That’s the way Sellers performs the scene. Strangelove is a film that counters what Fail Safe does as a film. It’s almost as if sanctimony were being countered by a strange form of realism.
Kubrick wanted to make the ultimate Cold War film, and he did this by countering the common way in which to deal with the subject matter. Most filmmakers like Stanley Kramer and Sidney Lumet dealt with the subject matter in a pat fashion, in which these filmmakers would, …”rather be on the ‘right’ side of a morally complex issue than transform or unsettle an audience’s perception by showing how such a problem, more often than not, originates from deep inside the structures of a social mythology and the paradoxes of human nature” (Nelson, pgs. 86-87). Therefore, Kubrick filmed his Cold War drama in a new style, consisting of new kinds of camera angles and use of lighting—finding the unreality and phantasmagoric in the situation without sacrificing the realism. It’s the idea that there are horrific intentions lurking under all of the apparent orderliness of the military environment. Characters like Turdigson and Ripper and Strangelove have heinous designs lurking underneath their “official” decorum, in order to deceive the public into believing that they are responsible individuals.
Therefore Kubrick felt that, “The real image doesn’t cut the mustard, doesn’t transcend. I’m now interested in taking a story, fantastic and improbable, and trying to get to the bottom of it, to make it seem not only real, but inevitable” (Nelson, pg. 89). Kubrick employed this idea in his aesthetics: “In the B-52, once the “go” code is received, fantasy should take a backseat to both the hard reality of the machine and Kubrick’s cinema verite camera, which, in a cramped atmosphere illuminated only by source lighting, works close-in through quick zooms and jerky motions to document the intricacy of instrument panels and attack profiles. Yet the satiric exaggeration of Kong’s character turns realism towards the fantastic…” (Nelson, pgs. 89-90). If one where to compare this film’s aesthetics to Fail Safe, then they would realize that the style of Fail Safe (or the lack of style) is highly anachronistic; it doesn’t attach any new meaning to the situation of nuclear determent. It’s simply a detached documentary in terms of style. Ultimately, Strangelove is more of a complex film than Fail Safe because unlike Failsafe, Strangelove enters into the nightmarish possibility that our contentment, our belief that the military and government can handle a threat like nuclear war, is ultimately a façade.

Works Cited:
1. Nelson, Thomas Allen. Kubrick: Inside a Film Artist’s Maze. Indiana University Press; Bloomington and Indianapolis, 2000.

The Termite Eating Away At the Detritus

2010-07-25T17:42:00.000-07:00

Manny Farber’s (1917-2008) aesthetic terminology (what he was greatly
known for as a critic) involved movement, rather than just talking about pictorial composition. Farber was like a great ballet critic; he understood the exciting kineticism involved in movies. His favorite filmmakers were the ones, like him, who were aware of the possibilities of kineticism. This form of filmmaking that Farber was invested in writing about had nothing to do with ideology; if anything, ideology (and pat descriptions of aesthetics—devoid of movement) in his opinion distracted the audience from what was really transpiring on the screen. Reading Farber makes one aware that movies are a more pleasurable art form when painters interpret them. Yet, to my mind Manny is the only major film critic who was also simultaneously a painter.
Sometimes, the films that Manny liked had strange ideological points, but that didn’t matter to him. For him, if the ideology of say a Herzog film was hard to fathom and interpret, all the better. In Manny’s opinion, strange elusive immersive films were all that one needed to enjoy the art form. He didn’t like clarified pictures with one obvious theme; to him these types of films were simply too easy to interpret. Ironically enough, the films that Farber didn’t like, because they were simple or “complex” politically, were pretty banal aesthetically as well. Farber was a man who was weary of prestige filmmaking.
Farber felt that everything in a movie, including its politics, was felt in the movement and space of the film. This is a revolutionary concept. If you were a critic, greatly influenced by the way Manny wrote and studied film, you’d have to be like a detective and tunnel your way out in your deductions to figure out why a movie works or doesn’t work. You’re not allowed to have an easy impression of the movie as soon as you come out of the theatre. What Farber would do when watching a movie was start with the parameters (aesthetics) which is a very sensible and grounded form of criticism, and slowly go from there (this greatly gets rid of the necessity to generalize). Because of this unorthodox method of deduction, many find his style of writing difficult to read. Farber worked with what he knew, rather than getting distracted by a concept that was outside of his frame of reference; like the “artistic purpose” of the filmmaker, or the filmmaker’s “statement” in the work. He cared less about prestigious terminology like that, and readers reading him today are unused to this rebellious form of analysis.
Farber had a tendency to write about his love of B movies. This attraction to the Underground sensibility stemmed from his own personality.
Farber wasn’t necessarily trying to please anyone, or trying to cultivate celebrity status in anyway. (This is proven by his never having a consistent period of staying at a regular prestigious post. He wrote for The New Republic, Time, The Nation, New Leader, Cavalier, Artforum, Commentary, Film Culture, Film Comment, and City Magazine. He is one of the only critics I have ever read that was not highfalutin but sensible about the films that he liked. He saw B movies in their proper context, and didn’t over-inflate their importance in anyway; falsifying what those films meant could have taken the spontaneity out of them. Farber wrote in great detail about what bothered him in the movies that he liked, which meant that he kept a proper perspective of the topic at hand. Sometimes this made it hard to interpret his criticism; to figure out whether he liked a movie or not. What Farber was doing in his writing was relating his own puzzlement to a movie to his reader, and he never falsified this emotion in anyway by easily stating that something he saw was “good” or “bad”.
This was a critic who never tried to be different from everyone else; he just naturally was that way. Even though Farber constantly set trends in the critical establishment (like the importance of writing about the director’s style) he would always constantly shift ground and contradict that trend. For the longest time, he wrote about his ardor over B movies. It seems that once he set this trend, he suddenly shifted ground later in his career to write about low budget experimental minimalist films. This hipster attitude of his had to do with his not having a set opinion on a movie or a genre or a filmmaker. Therefore, he made it impossible for others to copy his style.
It’s amazing how Farber never got distracted from what he was looking at. His termite art approach made it impossible for him to be weighed down by obstructions like sentimentality and “quality”. He didn’t like anything that was obvious or “beautiful”. He liked the challenge of writing about films that were tonally constantly changing, and upon initial inspection messy and “disorganized”. Farber felt that if one constantly looked at a painting in different instances and in a new light, surely one could do the same towards a movie. Hence, his constant reappraisal of a film.
Farber wrote about what was exactly in front of him, opposed to getting into generalizations outside of the context of the movie (including, ironically enough, his own opinion.) Farber felt that critics were too obsessed with getting their set opinion on a movie, rather than on how a film actually works. Farber was more interested on figuring out the artist’s process, rather than the actual merit of a movie. He, to quote his own phrase was “process mad”; because he was an artist in his own right, he was more interested in how an artist achieves their effects rather than on whether the movie was “good” or not. Farber felt that opinion could be a detriment towards the more important role of the critic, which is figuring out what one has just seen on the screen. Farber was into the architecture of a given film—he wanted the reader to enter the terrain and talk about what he likes or dislikes, much like a tourist. One doesn’t have the time to talk about matters that don’t concern them. One sees a building in relation to its terrain—not the other way around.
Farber was a very subtle writer, in that there are hints of his own personality in the writing. For instance, one can detect his contempt for people who didn’t follow his subscribed method of analysis. He felt that once one gets away from a rapid and direct tone to whatever it is that they do, one loses their integrity (like John Ford). Farber never let “organization” get in his way; he found his own organization or style as a writer/painter/teacher. (There is subtle organization in the writing, but it’s very hard to detect how the writing flows. It, like his paintings, appears beautifully disorganized and highly original). The writing feels as if it were merely comprised of great observations, divorced of a thesis.
Every sentence is a fantastic observation, and not something that deviates from the films elements. Nobody ever talked about a movie in this practical way which appears odd on the page. Farber wrote about the elements that a director uses to make a scene work rather than what a scene means. In a sentence like, “Few movies (he’s writing about Hawks Scarface) are better at nailing down singularity in a body or face, the effect of a strong outline cutting out impossibly singular shapes” (Farber, pg. 25), the qualifications for liking this film are of the most original variety. There’s no thesis to that sentence because the spontaneity and elusivity of his impressions would be gone if he generalized the writing in anyway.
Farber never followed anyone’s subscribed notion of how to do something. (An example being his never showing a complete film to his students but rather teaching bits and pieces of a movie. Sometimes he would even run a film backwards.) Farber encouraged writers to do their own fresh form of analysis. He basically felt: what are the layers that one notices that no one else is talking about in relation to a work?
Works Cited:
1. Farber, Manny. Negative Space. Da Capo Press, 1998.

Like the Dust That Hides the Glow of a Rose—Film As Anti-Escapist Art

2010-07-25T17:41:00.000-07:00

The film begins with a lullaby being recited to the audience, and
right away Charles Burnett has us enter a world and terrain that we are not accustomed to. Or have we been there before, but simply blocked it from our memory? Killer of Sheep has the audience enter a terrain of listless unawareness, where the audience is as unsure of where they stand as the characters in the film are. Watching the film is a frustrating experience.
Why is there no plot? Where’s the tempo and rhythm in the movie? Burnett does not give the audience that satisfaction. Instead, he wants us to experience what the characters in the film are experiencing, which is a lack of a context for existence. They, like us in life, are simply too distracted (or tired) to really study their own lives. Life is not like a movie; it usually is much less exciting and lacks dramatic context.
Burnett’s film is interested in the root of malaise. As a filmmaker, he questions where this phenomenon stems from. The first scene shows the moment where malaise and dispiritedness enters a young boy’s life. The boy is being berated by his father. The father thinks he’s giving his son sound advice about life, when really he’s just making his son more like him. He says to his son that he’s got no sense. The irony of this moment upon second viewing is that none of the grown-ups in this film make any sense. They’re just like the kids in Killer of Sheep, except they lack the energy that the children have. As soon as the child is slapped by his mother, he realizes that life is not a comforting existence. The audience can see this change of state in the child’s expression; he resembles in great detail the main character of the film by the name of Stan (Henry Gale Sanders). As soon as the film begins, it’s immediately apparent that this film has a revolving pattern, where characters resemble other characters, and actual moments and comments are repeated verbatim as if life were forever revolving and not changing in anyway. We all experience this; we just don’t care to admit it. (That’s why the shot of Stan and his wife (Kaycee Moore) dancing to that sad tune is so potent; it’s a representation of what we’ve been watching; these characters are simply going through the motions in an ever revolving pattern of non-intimacy.)
The film is comprised of very static shots. These shots are what make the movie frustrating to sit through because an audience is generally accustomed to quicker forms of editing in movies. Burnett feels that most films are mere escapism; that they are sensationalistic experiences that don’t really reflect how life actually is (like Black exploitation films that were coming out around this time.)
Even though it may not be particularly “enjoyable” to see characters who are basically just going through the motions, its important for audiences to see that other people are going through what they go through. (I’d be interested in seeing an upper class audiences reactions to the film.) It’s also important that middle and lower class people not delude themselves about how happy they are, simply for the fact that they may never want to attain greater financial goals. Stan doesn’t realize that there are better outcomes out there. All he has to do is try to attain a better job, but he doesn’t realize that there are better options out there in life. He lives in neighborhood content in their being, or at least it appears that way. Maybe everyone in that suburban area are going through what he’s going through but are simply better at hiding their emotions. We don’t see what their life is like behind doors. At one point, he tells his friend that he’s not poor, and the indication of that is that he gives to the Salvation Army. He a’int poor but he a’int rich either, and Burnett’s comment on this middle class state of being is that it’s a limbo state emotionally. You’re neither here nor there; you’re simply going through the motions. The importance of the film is that it acts as a mirror for the middle class audiences watching the film; its an indication of the trajectory that they have in life, in hope that they will try to attain a greater financial position.
Burnett’s study of just how this sort of malaise sets in stems mainly from the intercutting in the film. The film constantly intercuts between the children and the adults in the neighborhood. The children are always idle and playing games to relieve their boredom. Yet, there’s not that much of a difference between them and the adults in the film. The adults are merely getting paid to be idle—it’s idleness as occupation. (When the children play their games, the sound design implemented is not as harsh and metallic as when the adults work at their jobs. The hammering away that some of these adults do is a very disquieting sound; almost as if they were hammering away at their lives. Stan doesn’t realize this predicament that he’s in, because he feels there’s nothing better in life. He doesn’t realize that that’s the reason for why he can’t sleep. Maybe if he saw a similar film like Killer of Sheep (or Killer of the Spirit) he would change the trajectory in his life instead of merely counting sheep. Stan lives a deceptively safe life, free of any dramatic conflict. Yet, that’s the problem; it’s a waking-sleep inducing existence. One’s not aware that they are killing their own spirit, and that’s because their environment is so quiet and comforting. One’s not aware that they are completely emotionally detached from even their loved ones because they are half awake. This is represented by the shots of Stan at his job. When’s he’s shoving the sheep around, he’s not aware that those sheep are a representation of his own existence. Clifford Thompson writes about this when he states that, “The sheep in the slaughterhouse, of course, have no clue about who is responsible for their condition and little perspective on the condition itself. They’re just in it. The same is true of Stan’s peers, who give no thought to the forces dictating the way they live—only to the occasional, doomed efforts to change it” (Thompson, 32-33). Stan is basically the hunter of his own demise, and he doesn’t realize this because he’s not used to contextualizing his life and environment in anyway (just as we’re not used to a movie that doesn’t contextualize.) Like I stated before, the film is a mirror on our own state of existence. It’s showing us that we are not aware of the hole that we are digging for ourselves, because we always use escapism to comfort ourselves and make us forget. No wonder it’s such an unpleasant experience; who would want to see themselves on the screen? The men who approach Stan, and try to get him to work with them in an illicit operation, are living out their own fantasies. Stan’s not like them. He’s in the limbo state of being middle class. He’s aware and yet not aware. He’s basically living a dream like existence like a child. Burnett’s comment on this is that that state of being never ends; it merely becomes more dispirited. The problem has to do with escapism; these characters are not completely conscious that they delude themselves like children do. Children do not lack intimacy and this is apparent when Stan’s child comforts him. Yet Stan’s wife is crying at this moment because she can never be intimate with him. If one continues acting like a child as an adult, they begin to lose their intimate hold on life. An image that has that metaphor implicit in it is when the children are on the roof while the adults are situated below them, grounded in their own “reality”. Even though the emotional states are different between the two groups, they both are living out a fantasy.
The only intimate emotion that Stan experiences is his obsession with his unhappy state of existence. He tells everyone that he can’t get any sleep, and this relating of existence is his only connection with people. (It actually ironically enough makes people not want anything to do with him.) This obsession is a fantasy that makes Stan unaware of the fact that he’s leaving behind his connection to life or the life-force, just like he leaves behind that car engine. Stan’s literally not getting that car started is a metaphor for how he’s completely non-aware of the reason for why he’s impotent both physically and emotionally.
A major moment of awareness in the film is when one of Stan’s daughters stares at her parents not being able to connect in anyway. The expression on her face indicates that she’s aware of the hopelessness of her situation-of her future. Escapism simply leads to a lack of awareness of that bitter pill of reality; yet, it’s important to experience those moments because the realization of where you are in life makes you realize what you can do to amend that problem.
Works Cited
1. Thompson, Clifford. Good Moments in a Tough World-The Films of Charles Burnett. Cineaste, Vol. XXXIII, No.2, 2008.

Bonnie and Clyde-in relation to film criticism

2010-07-25T17:27:00.001-07:00

The problem with Bosley Crowther’s critique of Bonnie and Clyde is that the reviewer is not evaluating the film in any depth.
The reason this doesn’t happen is because the reviewer felt at the time that the film was below the level of proper evaluative criticism. The importance of evaluation is that it inevitably leads to constructive criticism. Constructive criticism is an important tool for a writer to have because it can help the filmmaker’s learn from their mistakes for their future endeavors.
Crowther had such disrespect for Bonnie and Clyde that he simply wrote a scathing review. In my opinion, nothing is learned in the process of simply panning a movie. Personally, I feel one’s opinion of a movie is not relevant. Rather, what is relevant is the evaluative process. I understand that a film can be so bad that it’s not worth discussing in any depth. However, Bonnie and Clyde is not that type of movie. Whether one feels it is a good film or not is irrelevant. Rather, what should be discussed is what a pertinent film Bonnie and Clyde is in terms of the times in which it came out of. Bonnie and Clyde was a very important part of the sociological zeitgeist of the 1960’s, and it should be written as such. It ushered in a new style of filmmaking that was free of censorship constraint, and simple filmmaking convention. To not see this as a critic is ludicrous, and this is where Crowther stubles as a critic and Pauline Kael succeeds. She was perceptive enough to see what a pertinent movie Bonnie and Clyde was, irrelevant of whether or not it was a good or bad film. She saw how the film impacted culture, opposed to simply brushing it off as just another reprehensible movie.
Crowther was simply too much of an old vanguard to realize that a new age of filmmaking was coming in, and that Bonnie and Clyde represented a start to that change. He simply concentrates on how accurate the film is in terms of representing the Barrow gang. His is a simple argument, because it has no basis in terms of what the filmmaker’s statement is in the movie.
Bonnie and Clyde is not a documentary, and quite frankly, how would making the film more realistic add value to the movie in anyway? Another problem with Crowther’s review is that he doesn’t have any interesting salient points whatsoever. He is simply sticking to a one dimensional form of evaluation; the performers are not good in anyway, ect. Kael was trying to get at something deeper in her evaluation of the film. She tried to describe in great detail why the film was so disturbing to someone like Crowther (he certainly couldn’t), and why that disturbing element was what made the film interesting thematically, opposed to it being a reprehensible element. “Suddenly, in the last few years, our view of the world has gone beyond ‘good taste.’ Tasteful suggestions of violence would at this point be a more grotesque form of comedy than Bonnie and Clyde attempts” (The New Yorker, pg. 161). Kael is welcoming change in an artform. She is not restrictive of violence, as long as it pertains to the subject matter at hand. Crowther can’t go outside of his comfort zone in this regard. He does not evaluate the film in any meaningful way because he is not a critic that welcomes change, but rather is condemnatory of what he dislikes and laudatory of what he likes. He doesn’t necessarily want to think about what he dislikes. At the end of Crowther’s review he states that the film, “…leaves an astonished critic wondering just what purpose Mr. Penn and Mr. Beatty think they serve…” (The New York Times). A critic should figure out the filmmaker’s purpose, regardless of whether they agree with the filmmaker’s intentions or not. This man was simply too afraid to do so.
A.O.Scott’s reinterpretation of Crowther’s review is interesting because it has so much more depth than Crowther’s review. The critic is finding the purpose of why the film is disturbing, and more importantly, why the film made such an impact to
the culture. (To not see that the film is pertinent in anyway is ludicrous; this was Crowther’s dilemma at the time, which lead to his firing.) Scott is arguing for the importance of examining whether violence in movies is exploitive or not. Violence, in this day and age and in regards to mass entertainment, is such a given that audiences have become sensitized to it. He basically blames films like Bonnie and Clyde for making violence redeemable for the sake of art. Scott feels that we should question that practice because it has lead to the reprehensible actions of today’s violent filmmakers. I respect Scott’s article because it writes about more pertinent subjects than whether or not Bonnie and Clyde is a good film. However, I don’t agree with Scott’s feeling that Crowther was an innocent victim. Crowther was a critic who didn’t ask the questions that are raised in this article; he merely had initial impressions divorced from any pertinent evaluation. He was very much how many in today’s culture are in relation to the question of violence. He was simply the inverse of that phenomenon; the prude who doesn’t ask the relevant questions.
There is a key sentence in Kolker’s article that struck me and that is when he states that, “Penn is concerned with the contradictions inherent in the representation of violence” (Kolker, pg. 55). Kolker states that Penn is aware that what he is doing in his depiction of violence is unsettling and morally troubling. My response to that, and I feel Kolker would agree with me, is that what Penn does in Bonnie and Clyde is the best way to start a conversation about what is taboo in the arts, which ultimately makes the arts more stimulating and thought provoking. Challenging films are what make the art form more progressive (Kael) rather than retrogressive (Crowther).

Works Cited
1. Kolker, Robert Phillip. A Cinema of Loneliness. Second Edition. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. 2. Kael, Pauline. Bonnie and Clyde. New Yorker. Vol. 43, Oct. 21, 1967. 3. Crowther, Bosley. Bonnie and Clyde. The New York Times. April 14, 1967.

Becoming a Good Film Critic

2010-07-25T17:23:00.001-07:00

In order to talk about the qualities that make a good film critic, one first has to discuss the qualities that make a bad film critic. A bad film critic is a viewer that never goes outside of his comfort zone; that is never flexible. He is consistently sure of himself; that is, he can never like a film if it doesn’t pertain to his subscribed notions of life. This viewer invariably goes into seeing a film with preconceived notions of whether he will like the film. This is the genteel form of seeing and discussing a film; yet there are dire pernicious consequences that result from such naiveté; hence, the importance of film criticism.
A good film critic is a rebel of this fuddy-duddy approach to aesthetics. (Well, if this film is advertised as merely being an action film for teenagers, then it can’t be any good!) Yet, this is the most popular approach to film criticism; if a film that’s being reviewed doesn’t have any marketing buzz behind it than newspapers editors will frown, and there’s nothing more horrifying in a film critic’s eyes. (Pretty soon an editors merely sneezing could be construed as an indication of the apocalypse). What a critic needs to combat fear, what any artist needs because after all film criticism is an art form, is to have complete confidence in their convictions providing that they have thoroughly analyzed the film. The film critic shouldn’t be afraid to analyze a film in an honest contrarian way. If no critic did so, then the profession would result in every review looking like a clone of it self. This is what I like to call advertising. It takes true dedication to write what you truly feel, especially in this p.c. minded age. Perhaps the p.c. approach to art is what has ultimately made everyone truly afraid to express the way they feel about something.
And for God sakes, have some humor in your piece! This profession has become a night of the living dead of solemnness. A good critic should show that they are a very active viewer, no matter how bad the period they are writing in is. I think Pauline Kael once said that the critic’s job is to get the audience to the movie theatre—period. If we have such a negative opinion of the profession that we are writing about, then why are still writing? We don’t just go to the movies to see good movies; its fun to see and think about bad ones as well. When did we become such a dignified culture that we can’t even bear the thought of seeing a bad movie? (Another rule: Come up with some good topics for an essay or two, which will hopefully stir the pot a little bit. Isn’t that the ultimate aim of criticism: Having some kind of positive impact on the movie industry?)
I think the question should be asked: why does one become a film critic? The answer must surely be that as David Edelstein
rightly stated: film critics become film critics because they have to establish themselves against people, “…who dismiss critics…” The problem with dismissing criticism is that, “…(one) is implicitly saying that a work of art ends the moment it has been consumed—that it’s not supposed to have any kind of after-life. That’s not just wrong: When you’re dealing with a medium as powerfully manipulative as cinema, it’s also dangerous” (Cineaste, pg 33). I feel that Edelstein nailed it right there.
Critics are ultimately fighting against ossification, which is what is leading to the decline in all the arts today. A critic should never forget this important role that they have. A critic should never forget the sensory pleasures that derive from fighting that battle.

Works Cited
1. Edelstein, David. Editorial from Cineaste magazine. New York. 2000.

Differing Views on New York

2010-07-25T17:19:00.001-07:00

In all honesty, I see more similarities between Do the Right Thing and Mean Streets, in terms of style, than Manhattan. Scorsese’s and Lee’s films both deal with lower class individuals, and the debacles that they face in everyday life; opposed to Allen’s self-contained upper class New York. Stylistically, both films share many similarities. Like Do the Right Thing, Mean Streets employs a heightened color scheme all throughout the film, to give the environment that Charlie (Harvey Keitel) and Johnny Boy (Robert DeNiro) live in some kind of tension. The tension that the Italian characters in Mean Streets face have to do with their illicit dealings with the law, and the violence that erupts from simple lower class malaise. Violence of a similar kind also erupts in Mookie’s (Spike Lee) environment in Do the Right Thing, but that violence more has to do with racial tension between the Italians in the neighborhood and the black people in the neighborhood.
There are many similarities between Sal’s pizzeria in Do the Right Thing, and the bar that Charlie hangs out in in Mean Streets. Both areas are where heated violence erupts; and both are filmed in similar heightened fashions. (Both films employ slow motion effects in these key areas.) Also, both spaces have pop music constantly blaring throughout them, giving an impression that these areas are frequented by young people. Yet, there is a difference between the two areas (and between the two films) and that is that the point of view of both movies is told from the perspective of two different ethnicities. In Pauline Kael’s review of Mean Streets, the reader gets a sense that the writer could be talking just as well about Do the Right Thing, except that the pov in both movies is radically different.
In the review, she writes that, “These Mafiosi loafers hang around differently from loafing blacks…these hoods live in such an insulated world that anyone outside of it—the stray Jew or black they encounter—is as foreign and funny to them as a little man from Mars” (Kael, pgs. 169-170). The Italian characters at Sal’s pizzeria are just like the characters in Mean Streets, except the film is not told from their perspective.
Allen’s New York is completely different from both Scorsese’s and Lee’s. His New York doesn’t contain an iota of racial tension, probably because his environment (areas like Manhattan) are more upper class than the areas depicted in Lee’s and Scorsese’s films. Manhattan is stylistically the complete polar opposite of Mean Streets and Do the Right Thing. The film is elegantly shot in black and white by Gordon Willis. The film frames that Allen uses are uncluttered, whereas the frames that Lee and Scorsese utilize are full of mise en scene and bustling activity. Allen’s New York is a non-cluttered one, where there are no epitaphs being uttered and no real racial diversity. Everyone’s white, rich, and eating at sardi’s. The only conflict is the one of couple’s cheating on couple’s, but there’s no real guilt felt by the protagonists (opposed to the huge amount of Catholic guilt felt by Charlie and racial guilt felt by Mookie.) Allen’s New York is like the New Yorker publication, whereas Scorsese’s and Lee’s New York represents everything left out of Allen’s representation. Upper class guilt is so much less stressful on the protagonists than lower and middle class guilt, which has the possibility of turning violent. The worlds in Mean Streets and Do the Right Thing, are much grittier that Allen’s world; in Manhattan the banter is witty and erudite compared to the gruff repartee that occurs in a film like Do the Right Thing. Yet, there’s more sociological information present between Mookie and the Italians that he works for at Sal’s than all of the dialogue in Manhattan.
Allen’s comments upon releasing the film were very revealing, in terms of the tone of the film and how it differs from Scorsese’s and Lee’s takes on New York. “According to Allen, the idea for Manhattan originated from his love of George Gershwin’s music. He was listening to one of the composer’s albums of overtures and thought, ‘this would be a beautiful thing to make…a movie in black and white…a romantic movie’…Allen decided to shoot his film in black and white ‘because that’s how I remember it from when I was small…that’s how I remember New York. I always heard Gershwin music with it, too. In Manhattan I really think that we…succeeded in showing the city. When you see it there on the big screen it’s really decadent” (Wikipedia article on the movie). The New York that Allen is depicting is merely the upper class view of the city, freed from any tension or even realistic conflict.

Works Cited:
1. Wikipedia article on Manhattan 2. Kael, Pauline. Reeling. Atlantic Monthly Press Book; Boston—Toronto, 1976.

Lee’s Criticism of Post 9/11 Culture

2010-07-25T17:06:00.001-07:00

Lee’s Criticism of Post 9/11 Culture
New York Directors 3/31/09
25th Hour is an interesting film in that it deals with the post 9/11 culture, but doesn’t do so in an explicit way. The mournful tone of the film (felt in Terrance Blanchard’s score) is an indication of how the main characters in the movie are at an emotional standstill. These characters are a metaphor for what happened to many New Yorker’s spirits post 9/11. Particularly in the case of Monty" Brogan (Edward Norton), who’s a drug dealer who has one last day of freedom before he has to go to prison.
Monty doesn’t trust anyone anymore. He has lost his allegiance with his best friends and loved ones. This is especially true in the case of his girlfriend Naturelle (Rosario Dawson). When Monty got picked up by the FBI, they made him believe that Naturelle was the one that ratted him out. From then on, Monty has not trusted his girlfriend. What the FBI are doing to Monty is scaring him to confess that he was working with Uncle Nikolai, who’s the person that the FBI is really trying to obtain. They are basically saying to Monty: kill yourself (which is what would basically happen if Monty confessed his allegiance to Uncle Nikolai) or remain unhappy. This is Lee’s metaphor for the scare tactics that the government was beginning to use post 9/11. These scare tactics actually perpetuate the problem. This distrust and lost of allegiance, which is something that makes Monty constantly obsess about the past and his mistakes, is depicted by showing Monty as a character who barely moves. His inertia is in contrast to the rest of the New Yorkers in the film, that are constantly moving (like in the club scene) or jogging. There’s even a very literal image of Monty putting his hand on the couch where the evidence against him was found. Monty’s never letting go of the past could be Spike Lee’s metaphor for how many New Yorkers lost their spirit and allegiance to the city post 9/11. Some simply gave up trying to persevere in their homeland and moved somewhere else, because they were so afraid that the city would never be the same. Monty’s going to the slammer and being tempted to go somewhere far away in the country is a metaphor for this. Lee felt that this is delusional on many New Yorkers part. (Hence, the literal delusional moment where Monty imagines himself living away from the city.)
He feels that one should not let events like 9/11 keep from preserving one’s initial spirit; once a New Yorker always a New Yorker. This is why he has Monty stay in NYC and has him do his time in jail. His friends are trying their best not to be dispirited. Jacob Elinsky (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) misses the youthfulness and vivacity that he once had; hence his need to be attracted to Mary (Anna Paquin), his student. Frank Slaughtery (Barry Pepper) who is working as a Wall Street trader also wants life to go on, and to not think about his friend anymore, but he can’t seem to do so. This attachment to something he’s lost (Monty’s basically a walking ghost in the same way that the lights taking the place of the World Trade Centers were ghost like in appearance), is visually represented in the scene involving Jacob and Frank’s arguing in Frank’s apartment. It’s not merely coincidence that his apartment is situated right outside Ground Zero. Frank wants to believe that he can hang on to the memory of the World Trade centers, but he eventually has to let them go and move on with his life as an energetic New Yorker. An energetic New Yorker is someone who doesn’t worry about their past mistakes (in some strange way Frank blames himself for Monty’s going away) because they simply don’t have the time. Monty has the time. When Jacob castigates Frank for not having manners, this is an indication of Frank’s not really caring about his flaws, like any typical New Yorker. It’s not a coincidence that Frank works for the hectic and loud and energetic stock exchange. This idea of effrontery and vivacity that is in Frank, and how it is quickly whisked away at the thought of Monty (the man who is getting punished for making a fatal mistake), is a metaphor for how many New Yorkers stopped in their tracks post 9/11; they probably felt that the city was paying for its transgressions. I’m sure the government’s fear tactics didn’t help the situation. Yet, most eventually realized that life goes on, and so does Frank. Rules and morals constantly haunt the three male leads in the club scene, which is ironic considering that the club is the ultimate extension of youthfulness and vivacity. These three characters barely move; they remain stagnant ironically enough on a couch that resembles Monty’s couch; a continual visual motif representation of one being haunted by their mistakes. It appears that Monty simply can’t move on his own volition anymore (it’s almost as if he needs his dog with him in the club), whilst the youthful Mary almost floats towards her destination. Pacquin’s transgressing society by flirting with her teacher, and illegally entering the club, is a representation of how it’s healthy to physically learn one’s boundaries; something that it took a post 9/11 culture a long time to re-learn. The statement in this film is what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger; Monty has understandably forgotten this adage. So have the rest of his friends—they are haunted by rules, probably because their best friend is being sent to prison for breaking rules. (If Monty didn’t transgress society, he would have never dated Naturelle, who initially was a minor when he met her.) The shot of the three guys sitting on the couch in the club, barely speaking to one another because they are careful in what they say (which is not a very vibrant NYC quality for one to have), speaks volumes. It appears as if there are reversed horizontal jail bars in the back of the characters. These three do not want to transgress society anymore, for fear that they will be punished for breaking society’s rules. Hence, why Jacob doesn’t want to sleep with Mary, why Monty doesn’t want to be near Naturelle, and why Frank castigates Naturelle for not doing anything about stopping Monty from stopping his habits. These qualities that these men inhabit in this club are not natural in anyway; it’s almost as if they are deluding themselves from their real nature because of fear tactics set off by society. They are losing their New York quality. (An interesting side note: Monty begins to lose his Irish identity, and when Frank mentions that they could always start an Irish bar when Monty gets out, like any other Irish New Yorker, Monty blows him off.) It’s fascinating composition wise, how the two shot of Frank and Naturelle resembles the two shot of Frank and Jacob in Frank’s apartment, except that here Frank is on the right side of the screen, instead of the left side. In the initial scene, Frank was the one being castigated. In the later scene, he’s the judgmental one. This man is beginning to lose his identity because of being fearful of the proper rules. Visually, Jacob makes a stand by getting off the couch to make out with Mary. He has to transgress society in order to find out that he really doesn’t want to sleep with her. By doing so, Jacob won’t be obsessed with his mistakes anymore. Once Jacob does so, he moves freely on his own volition again (in a shot reminiscent of the earlier one of Mary). When Monty meets up with the Russians, a similar amount of fear tactics are instilled into him. They tell him that he’s probably not going to make it in prison because of his good looks. This is a generalized societal belief that does not have one iota of truth in it, and yet Monty believes him because in this stage of the game, he has nothing but society to rely on. In order for Monty to have Frank beat him up, he has to put on a mean performance. This is not Monty’s true nature (It’s ironic that all of this stems from the FBI’s instilling fear tactics in this man, so that he’ll believe anything that society tells him.
This scene is very similar to the one involving the FBI’s coming into Frank’s apartment to obtain him. In both scenes, Monty’s dog is barking.) Monty is shot on a low angle view in relation to Frank, which is a visual representation of the imposing nature of Monty who has an instilled belief given to him by society that he has to get beaten up. He’s consequently becoming a very imposing individual, in relation to Frank. They are not on the same level anymore. It’s interesting how this positioning is reversed once Frank starts beating Monty up; now Frank is shot on a low angle and this is a representation of his now believing the lie instilled by society. The social criticism in this film has to do with Lee’s feelings towards the post 9/11 culture. He stated in an interview that, “…I think that if you look, there’s a lot of anger in 25th Hour. If we wanted to stay in that comfort zone, we wouldn’t have included the 9/11 references at all because Disney did not want us to do any of that stuff…Studios say that they’re doing it out of respect for the audience, but I find that hard to believe. I just think they’re steering clear of anything that might even remotely impact on the bottom line” (Cineaste, 6). Lee’s film is heroic because he doesn’t censor his feelings about the post 9/11 culture, unlike other filmmaker’s at the time. His film is meant to alert an alarmist culture to wake up, and stop being intimidated by society’s social pressures, particularly in regards to what and what is not moral. Lee feels that worrying over such matters results in a dispirited state.

Works Cited:
1. Cineaste, Volume XXVIII, No. 3, 2003.

For Stam Criticism is Inherent—Beyond Fidelity

2010-07-25T01:27:00.000-07:00

Robert Stam’s article, which deals with the question regarding whether or not a film should have complete fidelity to its source material, questions why such a need is there in the first place. Stam argues that because film is a different medium from novels, inherently the adaptation will be different. He feels that readers become disappointed for the wrong reasons. Any kind of description of anything in particular in a novel is always generalized because the novel is not a visual medium. Stam argues that film is inherently specific. (Stam, pg. 55). In that sense, the way someone looks or the way the locale looks will always appear different from how it did in the novel, and the reader’s interpretation of events will have been breached; it’s inevitable.
Therefore, Stam argues than rather try to be as close to interpretation to the source material as possible, a filmmaker should tell the primary tale (the important feeling of the work and a retaining of its ideology) rather than try to stay as close as possible to the version told by the teller. Stam’s argument is that since one is working within two mediums, this need to have absolute fidelity toward a given text is a losing battle. (Stam, pg. 58).
Stam feels that the reason for why there are so many weak adaptations of books doesn’t have to do with the fact that the movie wasn’t being faithful to the book, but rather that the movie was trying too hard to be the book; to be literary. Stam’s feeling is that successful adaptations, for instance Tom Jones, stays true to the source material by using filmic conventions instead of literary ones to retain the feeling of the work. The novel Tom Jones references past literary conventions; the film references past filmic conventions. There was no other way the adaptors could have told their story, Stam argues, because a film is not inherently literary. (Stam, pg. 68). Rather, films are polyrhythmic—i.e. they contain elements from all of the arts—and fragmentary. (Stam, pg. 60). Stam argues that film, rather than being an inherently limited art form, is so rich and has so many elements running throughout it that filmmakers are scared to contradict the novel that they are adapting’s intentions. They are scared to admit to themselves that film may be a better medium to tell the story in than the novel. (Casting can tell a film audience a lot about a text that the text itself could not tell because the text never dealt with performance and interpretation. The casting and performance in a film can make a comment on the text itself, which the text could never do. In fact, because one medium is dealing specifically with another, making a comment in the form of criticism of that medium is inevitable.) (Stam, pg.60). Stam is completely against the bias of fidelity mainly because this notion censors the film medium to try to be a literary medium only. How could one do that to a medium that also contains elements of painting, dance, ect.?
Stam’s ultimate argument is that filmmakers are afraid to alter or even criticize a given text that they are adapting because filmmakers and filmgoers have a bias that literature is the greater medium; therefore films highest aspiration is to be literary and have complete and total fidelity to the text being adapted. (Stam, pg. 59). Ultimately, Stam feels that the primary function of films, when they are adaptations, is to, “…explore the notion of adaptation as demystifcatory critique” (Stam, pg. 63). His argument is that if a filmmaker is required to adapt a book that they disagree with ideologically or even stylistically, do they then have to have complete fidelity to the work and censor their own impressions or beliefs; thereby censoring the art form of movies altogether? Stam feels that this bias known as fidelity is a belief that needs to be done away with for fear that it will make all filmmakers timid towards expressing their own artistic temperament toward a given text that they are adapting. He argues that adaptation gives duration toward the work being adapted (even if it’s criticizing it) because it’s updating (by making a comment on) the initial work, for future generations. (Stam, pgs. 62-63). For him, adaptation is criticism.

Works Cited

Naremore, James, ed. Film Adaptation. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2000.

Subtle Bleakness

2010-07-25T01:19:00.000-07:00

Ghost World, both the book and film, are works that deal with a girl by the name of Enid’s constantly reaching an impasse in her life. In both works Enid is the instigator of those moments of impasse that happen to her; of the moments when she’s not connecting with anyone. However, the difference between both the graphic novel and the film is that Daniel Clowes’ graphic novel never gets inside Enid’s thought processes, while Thora Birch’s Enid in Terry Zwigoff’s film is a much richer characterization. Birch’s performance gives credence to Enid’s view of the world. (An audience can tell that Zwigoff and company truly respect Enid’s individuality.) In the film, it’s not so much that Enid is an isolationist because she’s an unconscionable jerk, but that she’s an isolationist because she’s so unlike everyone else. There’s an opposing dialectic between graphic novel and film: in the graphic novel, Enid is too immature to connect with other people, while in the film Enid’s estrangement from others is her way of becoming an adult.
One of the key differences between both film and graphic novel is both works sense of spirit. In my opinion, the graphic novel is more malicious than the film; not only characterizing both Enid and Rebecca (Scarlett Johansson in the film) as stereotypically hipster criticizers who reject everything in their path, but characters they make fun of are also stereotypically caricatures or composites of “weirdoes” . (It doesn’t help that the work is a graphic novel.) No one gets off easy in Clowes’ universe.
One gets the impression when they read Ghost World that no one can connect in the graphic novel because everyone holds derision towards everyone else in Enid’s town. (I for one would not want to take up residence there.) A scene like the one where the Seymour (Steve Buscemi in the movie) like character goes into the Diner looking for the woman who answered his personal ad, only to find that he’s had a prank pulled on him (Enid was the one who called Seymour) stays a malicious prank in the graphic novel because Enid never gets to apologize to Seymour, like she does in the film. In fact, in the film, Enid goes out of her way to personally know Seymour. She’s fascinated by the man in a way that’s completely a new experience for her, considering that’s she’s not fascinated by anyone else. In the graphic novel, the Seymour type character remains a composite-an image out of a comic book that lacks any dimensionality because the reader doesn’t see any more of him. Actually, the character traits of the Seymour in the film are regulated throughout many different characters in the graphic novel, diminishing the aspect of the man as individual. I think the casting of Steve Buscemi in the film helps the audience gain empathy with a man like Seymour, to the effect that he becomes rather endearing. The audience, like Enid, begins to view this man as a cool unique individual. More than that, he’s a man that shares a common sensibility (and sensibility is the key word here, opposed to the graphic novel) with the protagonist of the film. They both find ideas like the whitewashing of hatred in modern society interesting, while others simply dismiss the idea because it’s so taboo. These criticizers have a one dimensional viewpoint of Enid’s and Seymour’s ideas. (It’s the reverse in the graphic novel. In the graphic novel, a person like Enid sees everyone as one dimensional.) Throughout the movie, both figures occupy the same frame opposed to the comic book where the Seymour type character is relegated to his own comic book frame by Enid’s pov; in a sense being mocked in his own cage like an animal. (In the movie, others mock Enid’s artwork; hence why she maturely becomes an isolationist opposed to the inverse mocking in the graphic novel.)
The color scheme of the graphic novel makes Ghost World a one dimensional work of art-makes it a frigid aqua blue type of graphic novel. The graphic novel is a black and white one dimensional view of the world, whereas the film is in bold primary color denoting the enjoyment and thrill of being an individual. All one has to do to compare both works is to compare the two scenes in the Diner to see that Zwigoff sees individuals like Weird Al the waiter, Seymour, and even Enid as enjoyably eccentric; he imparts the space they inhabit, like the Diner, colorfully with primary reds. Clowes doesn’t.
Yet, there’s a downside to this exuberance of sensibility in the film and that is that it’s ephemeral. After awhile, one cannot share this point of view with others. This is a much more logical viewpoint than the graphic novel’s; the graphic novel’s snide viewpoint that snide people remain forever alone, because they’ve alienated everyone around them, can begin to be rather repetitive by book’s end. Zwigoff subtly imparts this knowledge throughout the movie; in effect taking away the snide tone of the book. In the key scene where Enid is listening to the Blues music that Seymour has lent her, even though this is in a sense Seymour and Enid’s way of connecting, Enid is sharing the moment by herself. Throughout the film, there are other subtle indications of Enid’s isolationist temperament, like when she starts relegating Seymour to her answering machine-a much more subtle form of relegating someone than found in the graphic novel. Is it ironic that the moment when Enid is at her most desperately alone, the color scheme of the bed that she’s lying on while crying is at its most flamboyantly colorful? There is a subtle bleakness to Ghost World and that is that the film shows how true individuality can lead to loneliness.
One of the clever ways that the film has added to the conception of the graphic novel is by a)altering Rebecca’s character in an interesting fashion and b)adding a new love interest for Seymour. In the film, Rebecca’s the one that is basically the influence for Enid to enter the conventional corporate working world, opposed to the instigator of her critical nature, in the graphic novel. In the film, Rebecca tries to convince Enid to get a job so that they can get an apartment together. For Seymour’s character, the person that is pulling him towards normalcy is his new girlfriend. (Both women share similar corporate working places, as well as dull bland apartments lacking the originality of Enid’s and Seymour’s place.) Interestingly enough, both break it off with the two characters and yet still Seymour and Enid don’t get in a relationship with each other. Much of this has to do with the mere idea that the two have some kind of connection to conventionality that they both don’t want to face, as evidenced in the scene where Enid notices that Seymour’s girlfriend bought him conventional jeans; this is the moment when both characters start to share their own frames much like in the graphic novel, i.e. they both become critical of one another. I prefer this form of estrangement opposed to the graphic novel’s. There’s no malicious arguments in the film. Instead, simply other people indicate the flaws in both Enid and Seymour’s relationship. Even though the square world doesn’t understand individuals like Enid and Seymour at all, at the same time individualistic people know each other all too well, and know when they are showing hints at being square. (In the graphic novel these complexities are missing in the Seymour Enid argument scene at the Diner. It’s not even so much of an argument, as a scene where Seymour tells Enid off.) So instead, they simply separate themselves from everyone else (including the audience, i.e. the film ends.)
Yet, Enid is not as callow as she was in the graphic novel, even when being separated from everyone else because of her point of view. Even when Seymour gets incredibly upset at Enid once he finds the first sketch she ever made of him, what he doesn’t see, until Enid shows him, is the other sketches she has made of him once she got to know him better. The surprise of the film is that Enid, like Seymour, is a truly mature person, as indicated visually when she goes home, washes the dye out of her hair and listen’s to Skip James’s Devil Got My Woman. The hipster image was merely a façade, while in the graphic novel it’s only when Enid is tragically alone, because of her own doing, that Clowes gives her an isolated moment away from Rebecca; the one who promulgates her hatred of everyone. (The one non-superficial similarity between graphic novel and film is that Enid’s isolated moments serve as a relief away from Rebecca.) One gets a sense of this if you compare both isolation scenes from the graphic novel and film. An image like the one where Enid has an empowering close up in the film, while listening to Skip James, is in direct contrast to the image on the second panel of page 62 in the graphic novel where Enid in long shot is holding her head down low in tears, basically (and arguably) being criticized by Clowes for her actions.
Yet in the film, no matter all the good intentions from both parties, Seymour and Enid still drift apart. This is an indication of the complexity (and maturity) of Zwigoff’s Ghost World; in the film once one is imparted with the knowledge that they should be themselves, they begin to become isolated. Even though no one gets off easy in Zwigoff’s universe, the filmmaker doesn’t condemn those people either.

Internal Dignity

2010-07-25T00:55:00.001-07:00

It appears that both the film and novel versions of The Sweet Hereafter deal with the mutability of perspective. In both the film and the novel, everyone has their own interpretation on not only the events concerning the bus accident, but also their own actions and morality. Even though little “action” happens in both book and film, Atom Egoyan and Russell Banks want to show the complexity and importance of people being involved in a major accident either wanting or not wanting to investigate what happened to them; this is something that is not presented in a great deal of fiction. Someone like Nicole has a right not to want to seek the “truth”; however, Mitchell Stephens also has a right to seek the “truth”. The problem in this situation is that since nothing can be factually proven in regards to the circumstances of the accident, the “truth” is the different character’s interpretation of events which are always clouded by their moral perspective. I think it’s this complexity that leads to the complex structural choices of both novel and film.
One of the themes that intrigues me about the book of The Sweet Hereafter is the idea of how truly hard it is to interpret whether someone is lying or not, or whether they are guilty or not. The questions that Banks subtly hints at to the audience reading his novel is that we do not live in a black and white world were certain people are designated as good and certain people as evil. Many characters in the novel lie for good reasons, regarding the bus accident that killed many students. A clear example is Nicole Burnell’s account of what happened. In the novel, Nicole realizes that she’s being used as a linchpin in a case that she doesn’t necessarily agree with. (She’s being used this way because she’s the only surviving student on the bus that day.) Also, she feels powerless because she is being used both by the lawyer Mitchell Stevens and her own family, who want to simply win a case where they can obtain money to buy a new computer. She’s trying to win back her individuality from her father who molested her. Nicole feels that the students on that bus never would want to have their case investigated, just like many of their parents don’t want to tread down that road; for a parent like Billy, dragging the whole situation in a courtroom is not the proper private way of mourning his child’s death. The private nobility of characters like Nicole and Billy is in contrast to someone like Mitchell Stevens. Banks is a writer who never wants to have a predisposition towards any one characters viewpoint in his novel. Rather, he’s a writer whom believes in questioning character motivation before coming to a conclusion; even a character he may empathize with. Mitchell Stevens doesn’t do this.
By the end, it’s the reader that has to decide on their own who is right or who is wrong in a situation like this. Is there such an easy answer? Yes, Stevens may be right about making someone pay for the accident. However, Does Stevens have a right to investigate in this matter, considering that those were not his kids who died in the accident? Also, does Stevens have a hidden rationale for doing what he’s doing? The problem with idealists, especially ones without the proper facts who are simply following their gut intuition, is that no one examines why they are so passionate about the cases that they are involved in; no one examines their intentions because they feel that if someone is selflessly trying to find justice that there can’t be any hidden rationale behind such an act. In fiction, the selfless lawyer is always morally right in doing what he/she is doing. Banks shows the reader that Stevens took this particular case so personally because he felt guilty for the fact that he could never save his own daughters life. He’s attributing his victimhood onto the other parents involved in the accident. This is wrong because some parents are not feeling those particular emotions that he’s feeling, and it’s also wrong because once a lawyer is personally involved in a case, they begin to be blinded into believing whatever they want to believe. What makes the book such a complicated one is that Stevens is not necessarily a villain. This quote is an indication of how hard it is to judge someone as selfless as Mitchell Stevens: “But it wasn’t greed that put me there; it’s never been greed that sends me whirling out of orbit like that. It’s anger. What the Hell, I’m not ashamed of it. It’s who I am. I’m not proud of it, either, but it makes me useful, at least. Which is more than I can say for greed” (Banks, pg. 89.) He is someone who also may not necessarily be wrong in doing what he’s doing. No one, including the author, really has any answers in this regard.
What is satisfying about the film is how, in some strange way, all the feelings mentioned above are enhanced to greater effect. Even though the film stays closely attuned to the book, both in terms of tone and plot, there are differences that merely enhance what Russell Banks was getting at in his novel. Banks has admitted this, in relation to the Pied Piper aspect of the story. When one reads the novel, there is a very subtle feeling that Nicole (Sarah Polley) is trying to honor the children of the accident in her own way by not trying to cheapen their names in a legal action. The film literalizes this feeling for the audience by adding the Pied Piper story to the concept. In the Pied Piper metaphor, the piper’s forever wishing that he could have gone with the children who have left the town, crystallizes the idea that Nicole feels that she should separate herself from the people who are inadvertently using her for their own gain. This is her form of closure (Landwehr, pg. 217.); if she doesn’t do so she will forever feel like a walking ghost much like how Billy Ansel (Bruce Greenwood) feels. She has the power that Billy never had. This is in the novel, but it’s not as emotionally powerful or explicit. One does not get a sense that there’s that strong of a connection between Nicole and Billy Ansel, except if they were to consider that their two perspectives are some of the only ones that the reader reads. In the film this connection is more apparent because of Atom Agoyan’s highly ingenious structure, which is not in the novel. When Billy and Nicole have a similar sentiment, Agoyan can cut back and forth between the two of them and create a parallel between the two characters that would be hard to find if the film where told in chronological order, or in the deposition type format found in the novel. Agoyan makes one feel that they are actually watching a town and how citizens of that town connect with one another in times of tragedy, even if they are not in the same scene with one another. The grieving townspeople are emotionally stranded, and at the same time emotionally united. They have an internal form of dignity, and they feel no need to make that public. This enhances the feeling of the book; that feeling is there it’s just not as public about the sentiment.
Both film and novel share a similar purpose in showing the audience/viewer that the world is not as simple as a lawyer’s deposition presents it to a judge. There are many different elements that go into a person’s motivation to do anything. Both Banks and Atom Agoyan don’t believe in showing one character’s viewpoint on a given situation, but instead believe in showing several interpretations of events. A film like A Civil Action or a John Grisham book’s response to anything is to go to court. Once something enters that particular domain, the lawyer becomes the dominating viewpoint for everyone to pay attention to. He’s the writer, and Banks can obviously empathize with this viewpoint. Stevens (Ian Holm), like Russell Banks, phrases his words in a certain way to convince anyone listening to them (Banks a Agoyan section of the DVD); hence the deposition type structure in the novel. What Banks is trying to do in his novel is separate his particular moral standing on his subject matter. He’s trying his best not to be Stevens while at the same time not condemning his actions in anyway. Agoyan concentrates on this complexity in his film and adds another layer; Stevens becomes the film director. (This makes sense considering that film is a visual medium, and that Agoyan is himself a film director.) There’s a love hate aspect to this character that Agoyan has talked about in countless interviews. Stevens in the film is almost manipulating a family to respond a certain way, in much the same way that a director manipulates his actors; it’s all to create a great performance. Yet, he may be doing this for just intentions, just as Nicole is whenever she lies. They are coming at different angles, and yet their actions all amount to the same thing which is simply trying to keep one’s integrity in times of grief; how to empower oneself to get out of grief (Charlie Rose interview with Atom Egoyan.)
What’s wonderful about both the book and film is the fact that the case never reaches the courtroom; the situation never gets a chance to become that fictional. Both the book and film are about being emotionally rooted. The difference between both book and film is that the deposition format is much like a courtroom, in that each party is trying to make their case. Therefore, emotional honesty leaves the picture. In the book, the reader can tell in the case of someone like Dolores Driscoll that she’s trying to make herself look as innocent as possible in the eyes of the lawyer. When she states that:
“No, I am almost sure now that it was an optical illusion or a mirage, a sort of afterimage, maybe, of the dog that I had seen on the Flats and that had frightened and moved me so. But at the time I could not tell the difference. And as I have always done when I’ve had two bad choices and nothing else available to me, I arranged it so that if I erred I’d come out on the side of the angels. Which is to say, I acted as though it was a real dog I saw or a small deer or possibly even a lost child from the Flats, barely a half mile away,” (Banks, pg. 34.) clearly she’s trying to sell an image of herself being responsible that is somewhat farfetched. This doesn’t happen in the film (Dillon, pg. 228.) One is not choosing sides here; it’s more like an emotional tapestry where past, present, and future all commingle to create a character as they actually are; not as what they want to be viewed as.
In the novel, Stevens can create a persona for his reader that paints a false picture of the man. In the film he’s not in charge of how he’s presented. Therefore, the past can interweave in certain points contradicting a given impression that the audience has of him, and that he has of himself. This occurs in the film when Stevens runs into an old friend of his daughter’s. His past that he’s been blocking out of his mind for so long inevitably catches up with him here, and he begins to recount a horrible moment where his daughter almost died from an insect infection. Stephens talking to his daughter’s friend is narrating the shot where Stevens is a young man, holding a knife to his daughter’s throat. He had to do so because if his daughter’s swelling continued, he’d have to perform an emergency tracheotomy on her. This is an indication of how the past present and future are really synonymous moments in this film. Stevens is haunted by this image, because it’s indicative of how he feels a tremendous amount of guilt over being the man who cares so much for his daughter’s life that he will irrevocably damage her in the process. It’s a metaphor for what he’s doing to the dead school children; basically going against their wishes. Before this moment was a scene showing the bus accident; it’s the intercutting that occurs throughout the film, without the adherence to chronological order, that basically blows Mitchell Stevens’ cover in the audience’s eyes. Stevens is trying to create a civil case out of the bus accident out of guilt for the fact that he could never save his daughter.
Another indicative moment is the high overhead shots of a young Stevens in bed with his family which is interspersed throughout the film. It’s a moment of happiness lost, much like what happened in the bus accident. It’s not a coincidence that the one moment occurs after the other; the editing is drawing connections that are not in Banks book. These are moments that show that even though these characters are separated emotionally from one another, they are still connected through their all dealing with grief; this is something the lawyer doesn’t want to remind himself of but is haunted by constantly-hence the constant going back to that particular moment throughout the film. The title shot, which moves horizontally showing Stevens family in bed, is a metaphor for the structure of the film-it’s like a timeline and yet what’s missing on that empty floor that they are laying on is the other grief stricken moments that happen to the others in the film. Hence, the emotional isolation that all these characters are feeling, even if they are experiencing the same emotions. Linear time separates all of them, just as the deposition format separated the characters from the novel.
An interesting dialogue between film and novel occur in the moments when the film differs from the book: examples include the changing of the setting from upstate New York to Canada, and Nicole’s reading of the pied piper of Hamelin story to some of the children who eventually die in the bus accident. For the change of setting, I almost feel that it changes the tone of the story to one of even more mysteriousness than the novel. In my opinion, Canada is a beautifully mysterious place, where the people there are content in the mystery. This would help the feeling of the victims wanting to be left alone with their grief, and not wanting to necessarily know the “truth”. As Agoyan has said, Canada is not as much of a litigious society as the United States is (Charlie Rose Atom Egoyan interview.) They are content in their emotionally frozen states. What’s interesting about this is that Banks writes about this, and its simply more subtly stated and harder to interpret because the reader is so focused in one character’s viewpoint on the situation; unlike the film the reader can’t clearly see a connection between one character’s state and another’s because the viewpoints are not joined together by editing. In the novel, when Billy states that, “The snow continued to fall, and from the perspective of Risa and the others back at the accident site, I must have disappeared into it, just walked straight out of their reality into my own. In a few moments I was utterly alone in the cold snowy world, walking steadily away from everyone else, moving as fast as I could, toward my children and my wife” (Banks, 72.) What he doesn’t realize is that he’s much closer to the townspeople than he thinks; they all share in the same ideal that the lawyer is ostracized from, and the film makes this connection explicit.
No matter the differences between both book and film, the basic emotional core of the story is there and this is what makes The Sweet Hereafter such an interesting case of adaptation. It’s almost as if Atom Egoyan and Russell Banks are looking at the story from different perspectives, and yet both reach the same conclusion. It’s this type of emotional maturity that I think both hope for in a better world; I think this is the message that both are trying to get across to people. It’s also what the story is all about. One doesn’t necessarily have to be on the same page to understand where someone else is coming from. In this instance, The Sweet Hereafter is the perfect book to be adapted into film because it’s all about adapting to someone else’s viewpoint. This is something that the filmmaker and writer and audience go through when encountering this story; moral prejudice about a given character is gone. This is not something that the different characters go through, and that’s because the structure of both book and film have allowed that to be that way. The characters are stranded from each other.
However, even though Nicole and Stevens are contrasting parties in terms of moral beliefs, they are not enemies. Both Banks and Egoyan care more about the integrity of their characters and the sustaining of their integrity, than whether or not they solve their emotional problems in a legalistic manner, because once something enters the courtroom the situation does turn black and white in an instant. Roles have been cast; there’s always a villain and a hero. One shudders to think what this film would be like if it was made in a non-independent vain, with the studio system involved.
This passage by Russell Banks: “They wanted her to stash her pain and guilt where they didn’t have to look at it. But she wasn’t having any of that. Silently, with her head bowed, Dolores was plunking herself down in the exact center of the town’s grief and rage, compelling them by her presence at these funerals to define her. Was she a victim of this tragedy, or was she the cause of it? She had placed herself on the scales of their judgement, but they did not want to judge her. To them, she was both, of course, victim and cause; just as to herself she was both. Like every parent when something terrible happens to his child, Dolores was innocent, and she was guilty” (Banks, 144.) makes me immediately think of the actors in the film. It’s almost as if Sarah Polley and Ian Holm’s faces are synonymous with that novel, and I don’t think this deters from the novels intentions in anyway (usually it’s a bad thing when you read a novel and can’t help but think of the actors in the adaptation because this does take away from the novelist’s intentions.) However, here it’s almost as if these actors were born to play these parts; they basically enhance the book’s intentions. I can’t think of any other actors who could play multilayered characters such as these; they make one aware of how Egoyan and Banks intentions are to not show a black and white world on the screen. Everyone involved in this enterprise has just as much quiet dignity as the roles that they are inhabiting. All one has to do is study the independent nature of Sarah Polley’s career to see that she very much is like the character that she plays in this film. She had a chance to become a big Hollywood actress in Hollywood, and decided to continue making independent films in Canada instead; consequently making much less money than she could have made had she went to Hollywood. The whole idea of this enterprise is independence away from people who think they have your better interests at heart, even if this is the “wrong” thing to do.
Works Cited:
1. Landwehr, Margarete Johanna. Egoyan’s Film Adaptation of Bank’s “the Sweet Hereafter”: “The Pied Piper” as Trauma Narrative and Mise-en-abyme.” Literature Film Quartely, 2008, Vol. 36 Issue 3, pg. 215-222.
2. Dillon, Steven. Lyricism and Accident in the Sweet Hereafter. Literature Film Quarterly, 2003, Vol. 31 Issue 3, pgs. 227-230.
3. Charlie Rose segment on the Sweet Hereafter: Interview with Atom Egoyan.
4. “Before and After The Sweet Hereafter” produced and directed by William M. Patterson and David L. Miller at Roaring Mouse Entertainment Inc.
5. Banks, Russell. The Sweet Hereafter. Harper Perennial, New York, 1991.

Similarity and Disparity Never Being Obvious in American Film

2010-07-25T00:40:00.000-07:00

One of the qualities of American film that obsesses me is finding out something on one’s own that has never been mentioned in film scholarship or the history books; in finding connections that no one ever thought of on their own or never wanted to find on their own. It’s much easier to let history do all the talking, but I find that hard to do considering that the film medium is still a very new art form. Therefore, in my opinion, similarities and disparities can never easily be found in American film.
Two conspiracy suspense thrillers that deal with all the ambivalences of paranoia are The Conversation and Blow Out. Even though both films deal with men ensnared in a conspiracy who entangle themselves more and more in danger because of their obsession with that conspiracy, there is a major difference between both films and that is that The Conversation represents the beginning period of paranoia mounting in America during the 70’s, while Blow Out represents the end of that period. That doesn’t mean that Blow Out is a less complex or less disturbing film than The Conversation; I’d actually argue that Brian DePalma’s film is more disturbing than Coppola’s film because Blow Out represents the end of a period that Coppola obviously felt disdain towards and that De Palma revered.
For De Palma, the 70’s was a period where it was right and just for people to feel paranoid; for him this was a form of inquisitiveness on the part of the American people, in terms of distrusting their government, and who could blame them after Watergate? It’s because of the paranoia felt by reporters like Woodward and Bernstein that crooks like Nixon were held accountable for their actions. (Actually, the paranoia felt by the American people was justified considering that Nixon was pardoned by Ford.) For Coppola, the paranoia felt in the 70’s creates creeps like Harry Caul (Gene Hackman) who is obsessed with paranoia only for his own personal satisfaction; he gets off of surveilling others, and the feeling that he himself is being surveilled; he could care less about the victims of his obsessions. For Jack Terry (John Travolta), he becomes obsessed with the conspiracy that he’s entrenched in for the simple reason that he feels that what has been done (a governor running for president was murdered, and the murder was made to look like an accident) is morally repulsive. Therefore, something needs to be done to rectify the situation. Fortunately, Jack recorded the “accident”, so therefore he can hold those responsible accountable. However, Jack didn’t realize that the era where citizens were willing to stick their necks out on the line for the sake of liberty has passed. No one believes his theory and by the time the film ends Jack goes powerlessly mad; reduced to forever being the sound man on schlocky Horror films. (Caul works in a line of work where everyone’s a paranoid bugman-in Blow Out Jack is the lone wolf. Wouldn’t it be a wonderful world if movie technicians started turning on the government?)
This is a brilliant metaphor on De Palma’s part considering that he has often been accused of making schlocky Horror films, but more to the point De Palma’s belief in this film is that empty headed films serve as a distraction away from the grave reality of what’s going on in the real world-which is that everyone is apathetic towards real causes that matter and that society post the 70’s simply loves window dressing. By the end of Blow Out Jack has gone back to the role that society has relegated for him-it’s De Palma’s stating that audiences in the future will keep him away from making another Blow Out, and he was right. Even though by the end of both films both characters end up totally disgruntled and destroyed, in The Conversation Harry brought this onto himself, while in Blow Out society has created another Harry Caul in Jack.
What I find interesting about both films is the casting of the leading men. In The Conversation, Harry is cast indelibly; Gene Hackman is the perfect person to play an obsessive considering that he himself is such a method acting leading man type. What’s odd is the casting of fun lovin’ Vincent "Vinnie" Barbarino/Tony Manero in the part of an obsessive paranoid. However, I think there is a point to this casting choice (not to mention that Travolta is brilliant in the part) and that is that initially Jack shouldn’t be off putting like Harry. It’s only as the film goes on that Jack becomes more and more the stereotypical paranoid, which is just another way for society to castigate him. (In some ways, Blow Out is a subtle critique of The Conversation, which is odd, considering the fact that De Palma was probably highly influenced and enamored by the film.) It’s this sense of being enamored that makes Blow Out a more romantic version of The Conversation; it’s also why a romantic leading man type was cast as Jack. (The Conversation is an all out renunciation of everything in its sight-perfectly fitting for a 1970’s downer of a film, and perfectly fitting for Gene Hackman to play the part.) Jack is in love with the victim of this conspiracy Sally (Nancy Allen) because she represents his love with liberty against tyranny; he wants to keep that ideal/her alive. Harry has no attachment with his victims, other than being obsessed with them-as if they were tabloid figures. However, I find the style of Blow Out to be more disturbing than The Conversation, because of the fall from grace aspect of Jack’s character. It’s reminiscent of the shower scene in Psycho; the audience tragically knows ahead of time what is going to transpire for Jack, while in The Conversation, Harry is lost in his own obsessivness, so that by the time the ending happens it’s a complete shock. I think the reason for this is that Blow Out is the more plangent film; it’s 1980’s statement is one of lament in the form of a question directed toward The Conversation and Coppola-What’s the point of even fighting the system, when you know that it and everyone else is crooked?
Seeking justice in the American landscape is a difficult endeavor; especially in American film. That’s because it’s so difficult to apprehend the motives and rationale behind seeking justice; analysts constantly get it wrong. Even though it’s popular to state that Unforgiven is an example of how Clint Eastwood’s politics have changed as a filmmaker compared to his earlier work, I feel that Eastwood’s ideology is more complicated than that; let’s say for the purposes of argument that his politics have changed and they haven’t changed. If one were to compare Unforgiven to Dirty Harry, one could clearly see that even though both films hold different stances toward violence, both films also hold the law that’s protecting a given area (in Dirty Harry that area is San Francisco, while in Unforgiven that area is Big Whiskey, Wyoming) in contempt. The way both films are different is that both have different takes on why those particular forces should be in contempt, in relation to that particular law system’s views on violence.
If one were to compare both films they could clearly see that both Dirty Harry’s structure and Unforgiven’s structure are similar. In both films the characters that Clint Eastwood plays (Harry Callahan in Dirty Harry and William Munny in Unforgiven) both have to fight the law of the land to seek justice. In Dirty Harry, the police force that Harry Callahan works for won’t charge the mass murder in the film because of lack of evidence and Harry’s unethical behavior in going after him. Therefore, Harry has to go after the killer illegally, in order to stop him. Clearly, the film has an ideological hatred of the ethics of the police force and judicial system in San Francisco circa the 1970’s. Unforgiven has a similar contempt for how the sheriff Little Bill Daggett runs his town. In the film, William Munny (an ex-killer for hire) comes out of his retirement for one last job, which he takes ironically enough because of his ethics. The job concerns killing the man who disfigured a prostitute and was not reprimanded in anyway by Bill Dagget. In Munny’s efforts to seek out this man, he seeks out help from his old partner in crime, Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman); these two are a similar partner team to both Harry and his partner Chico Gonzalez (Reni Santoni) in Dirty Harry. They are lone wolves seeking out justice without the help of the law. Both films share the similar trope of having their middle and end scenes be reversals of each other. In Dirty Harry, when Harry tracks down the killer, the killer one ups Harry by beating him up, and by the end of the film there’s a reversal of roles where Harry beats and kills the killer; the same occurs in Unforgiven.
Yet, there’s a subtle difference between both films and that is that the villain in Unforgiven, the character who resembles Andy Robinson’s Scorpio killer in Dirty Harry, is Gene Hackman’s character. This is clearly Eastwood’s way of stating that even though he still does not trust the Law of the land, at the same time he does not advocate violence like he did in the past. (In Dirty Harry, the police force were keeping Harry from administering violence on the Scorpio killer, while in Unforgiven it’s ironically enough the sheriff who believes in administering violence on people who don’t deserve to be treated in such a harsh way.) There are other indications of Eastwood’s stand against violence (albeit not against vigilantism.) It’s in the characterization of William Munny and how he doesn’t have it in him to kill anymore, even if it’s for justice. It’s interesting that both Eastwood’s character and Hackman’s character used to be murderous gunslingers. Hackman’s character hasn’t changed at all, even though it appears that he’s become a law-abiding citizen; he loves the prestige that he now receives as a psychopathic sherrif while Munny doesn’t want anything to do with the biographer who tries to glorify him by film’s end for killing so many people.
It’s almost as if Eastwood is criticizing the character he played in Dirty Harry for not being a vigilante in the right way; it’s almost as if he’s equating him with the initially psychopathic William Munny who hasn’t reformed. There’s an indicative scene in Unforgiven when Eastwood says to the Schofielfd Kid (who in Dirty Harry would have been the Scorpio killer or another victim of Harry’s like the bank robber at the beginning of the film because he views himself as a pro in unlawful acts) that, “We all have it coming kid,” meaning that everyone will get what’s coming to him in Heaven or Hell. (This Eastwood character is different from Harry Callahan in that he’s religious opposed to viewing himself as the enactor of justice in the world-in Dirty Harry it’s almost as if Callahan’s Magnum gun was a holy religious object-in Unforgiven guns are abhorred by the filmmakers.) If one were to compare this scene to the one at the beginning of Dirty Harry where Eastwood threatens a bank robber by saying, “I know what you’re thinking—“Did he fire six shots or only five?” Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I’ve kinda lost track myself. But, being this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world and would blow your head clean off, you’ve got to ask yourself one question: “Do I feel lucky?” Well, do ya punk?” clearly Eastwood is trying to subvert the Eastwood mythos of being pro-violence and pro-guns.
The scene where in Unforgiven where Morgan Freeman’s character can’t shoot one of the men who disfigured the girl, and Eastwood reluctantly (which is the key style in Unforgiven-everything including the look of the film is reluctant and not quite sure of itself-including the film’s politics) kills the man is perhaps the best part of the film; the scene ends when Eastwood demands that the other men give the person he just shot some water. If one were to compare this scene with the one in Dirty Harry when Eastwood and his partner come down on the Scorpio killer in the middle of the film in the football field, it’s an indication of Eastwood’s distaste in his past films for vigilante justice.
However, there still is that caveat that the law doesn’t help matters in anyway-both films deal with a figure like Hackman’s stripping citizens of his town of their guns so that they can basically be unsafe from him. It’s this version of Eastwood’s politics (perhaps his view on gun control and distrusting of the government) that hasn’t changed. Even though one form of the government in Dirty Harry are pacifists, and one form of the government in Unforgiven are for appearance’s sake pacifists, Eastwood equates both factions as the same reprehensible force; they both don’t believe in protecting citizens from harm’s way but instead mean to merely hide their reprehensibleness behind a set of regulations; it’s always the Eastwood character who is looked down upon by everyone else as being a vigilante. In some ways, Unforgiven isn’t that different from Dirty Harry at all.
Films that do share similar qualities, albeit not obviously, are both Citizen Kane and The Usual Suspects. Both films deal with men who are complete legends because they are so mysterious (Charles Foster Kane (Orson Wells) in Citizen Kane and Keyser Söze in The Usual Suspects.) Both films utilize a highly complex structure of someone else’s perspective on the individual in question. What’s brilliant about The Usual Suspects is that it’s a modernist subversive take on the Citizen Kane idea in that the person being interrogated—Verbal (Kevin Spacey)—is Keyser Soze. Imagine if in Citizen Kane the person being asked on what Rosebud was was actually Kane in disguise! Well, that’s not a bad way to create an alibi for yourself and get away with a crime in the process.
Perhaps the ingeniousness of The Usual Suspects occurs because, unlike Citizen Kane, it was a film made in the 90’s opposed to the Forties; the one good thing you can say about films made in a recent decade is that so many narrative devices have been used throughout the years that films have to become more ingeniousness in their storytelling techniques. For the 40’s Citizen Kane’s use of telling a story (in this case Kane’s life story is the plot) through different interpretations, or viewpoints, of events was a highly ingenious way in which to tell a story, because the audience would be basically receiving information from unreliable narrators, much like in a novel. The audience had to choose which perspective was the correct one for themselves; they never got a hold of the “true” Charles Foster Kane, and that’s because the movie wasn’t told from an omniscient narrator’s perspective. If a person hated Kane, they obviously would make him out to be a jerk; if they loved him he would be viewed as a saint. What makes the ending of The Usual Suspects so shocking is that the whole movie is a lie and the audience isn’t aware of this until the very end of the movie; at least in Citizen Kane the audience was aware that no viewpoint on Kane was the “correct” viewpoint. They weren’t lulled into believing that what they were seeing was actual fact. In The Usual Suspects, the audience is tricked into believing that out of everyone in the movie, what Verbal is saying in comparison to everyone else’s interpretation of events is gospel; by the end of the film it turns out the audience has been duped by the Devil.
Both films not only were influential in terms of their structures, but also were influential stylistically as well. I think in terms of style this is where both movies differ. For Citizen Kane, the film’s use of deep focus shot composition made it so that the audience could see both the figure in the foreground and the background as well. I think this, coupled with the highly flamboyant aesthetics of the film (the camera is constantly making an interesting movement or is constantly showing an event from an interesting perspective) allows the audience to feel that what they are seeing is highly dubious at best in terms of being factually accurate. The Usual Suspects use of slow zooms and non-flashy aesthetics creates an impression, in terms of the audience’s interpretation, that Verbal’s story is factually accurate.
What’s similar about both film’s is Orson Wells and Bryan Singer’s use of the maguffin. In Citizen Kane, the maguffin is Rosebud, while in The Usual Suspects it’s Keyser Söze. Both things are not as important as the journey that the audience goes through to find them; they are just a pretext for a film to exist. Both films deal with trying to extract information on what exactly those things are, yet by film’s end both the reporter from Citizen Kane (William Alland) and the police investigator from The Usual Suspects (Chazz Palminteri) (who are basically surrogates of the audience) don’t satisfactorily receive what they want. (The reporter never finds out what Rosebud is and the police investigator figures out, only too late, that Verbal duped him, and that he really was Keyser Soze. Verbal flees by the end of the film; Rosebud goes up in flames.)
It’s fascinating that both films have very satisfying powerful cathartic endings, and yet at the same time there’s something off about them. I think this has to do with the fact that even when the maguffin is solved by film’s end, the mystery remains the mystery. In Citizen Kane, even though the audience figures out what Rosebud is the audience still doesn’t know why Rosebud was so important to Kane’s life; here’s a man who owned everything and yet the thing he most cared about was this paltry sled? In The Usual Suspects, even though the audience figures out who Keyser Soze is, the question audiences have been asking for years afterwards is, what was fabricated in the film and what wasn’t? Audiences for both films have obsessed over both maguffin’s for years afterwards because both mysteries haven’t quite been completely solved. For years afterwards, audiences have resembled the look on Chazz Palminteri’s face upon recounting The Usual Suspects and Citizen Kane; they are stupefied by both film’s inconclusiveness.
Both The Hangover and The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie share similarities in that they are entirely made up of segments. They are interesting films in that they are both linear and non-linear at the same time. It’s very difficult to follow character progression when trying to study a series of Youtube clips, and the same applies for both films. You might say that they were made for the Youtube generation. If one sketch doesn’t pan out, there’s always another to relieve the disappointment. This isn’t situational comedy so much as it is almost a surreal form of comedy. In Bunel’s film, each segment turns out to be someone’s dream, while in The Hangover moments don’t connect in terms of thematic development and that’s what makes the movie funnier. (I’m thinking of the song number that comes out in the middle of nowhere at one point in the film.) What this type of structure allows the filmmakers to do is to basically please themselves and the audience without worrying about whether or not they are breaking convention; the movie can all of a sudden turn into a musical or a slapstick farce and the filmmakers would be applauded rather than derided for their efforts. I think it’s rather endearing that the young director of The Hangover, Todd Phillips, was inspired by an older directors efforts; I think it’s what makes The Hangover rather touching and surprising.
I feel that what makes The Hangover so fresh is the fact that it appears from the outset to be like another stupid bromance fraternity house type of comedy, and yet it unfolds in such a beautiful manner that it becomes a rather graceful comedy by its conclusion; just like The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie. I think this has to do with the fact that the audience has missed the stupid escapades of the three main protagonists; there’s subtlety in the fact that the movie that the audience was expecting is bypassed by the filmmakers. These guys have to retrace their steps in order to figure out what they did the night before. It’s a sobering experience. I feel this is also greatly inspired by Bunel’s film. In The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, the Bourgeoisie characters that Bunel has aped and made fun of so much in his past films keep trying to attend a dinner but somehow never get to because of one thing or another. The audience in that film is also constantly getting hints of what they are missing and nothing more. I feel this device is supposed to show, in a subtle comical way-and therefore the right way in which to do so, the maturing developmental nature of these characters. Their point of view on matters has to naturally shift because they can’t reach their original traditional (it’s tradition for them to do these kinds of things) goal; in a sense they have to grow up. Stu (Ed Helmes) has to finally realize that his wife is horribly controlling and that he shouldn’t be bossed around by her anymore, just as Rafael Acosta (Fernando Ray) has to realize what a pretentious man he is, and that he shouldn’t put down the poor because he’s just as much, if not more so, of a buffoon than they are. Stu is constantly trying to show how much more mature he is from his friends, only to realize by film’s conclusion that his state of mind is basically a macho fantasy; should one constantly suffer for the sake of being mature? As The Hangover consistently shows, it just a’int worth it because eventually one can’t keep hiding the mess that they have created for themselves-one should rather embrace it.
What makes both films subtle and graceful (almost like a Chaplin comedy) is the fact that both Bunel and Todd Phillips do not condemn or put down their main characters, even though they very easily could have. This must have been hard for Bunel, considering that he always held the bourgeoisie in such contempt in his past films; age cooled him out. He sees their actions as comic and rather endearing in The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, just as Phillips is enamored with his characters, because they begin to embrace their faults. It’s interesting that both films mark drastic departures for both filmmakers. Bunel’s previous films, especially The Exterminating Angel, hold characters like the ones featured in The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie in great contempt. The Exterminating Angel shows the dinner party that the audience misses in The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie; there the audience and the main characters can never leave the dinner that they attend. Bunel hated the bourgeoisie because he was a deeply political man. I don’t know if I would call Todd Phillips a deeply political filmmaker, but there is a similarity to him and Bunel in that his past films like Road Trip and Old School have a contemptible streak in them when it comes to depicting the main characters in the films. Maybe it’s because of the lack of depth in those films and those characters that Phillips had a stupid snide feeling creep into those films; well, Bunel may have been going through a similar process albeit in a more rich manner.
It’s amazing to me that supposed “disparate” films like The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie and The Hangover, and The Usual Suspects and Citizen Kane, have more in common with one another than supposed “similar” films like Blow Out and The Conversation, and Unforgiven and Dirty Harry. I particularly find this shocking, considering that the films that share similarities with one another don’t have the same subject matter at all, while the films that are dissimilar from one another share basically the same exact subject matter and milieu. I think these oddities are a testament to the richness and complexity in American filmmaking, as well as to their deceptiveness. It’s almost as if Blow Out and Unforgiven are subtle critiques, made to look like homage’s, of The Conversation and Dirty Harry. Whereas The Usual Suspects and The Hangover are subtle enhances of the methods, both in terms of style and content, utilized in Citizen Kane and The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie. The irony in the appreciation of American film is that we are comparing the wrong films to one another.

Differing Perspectives on Humbert Humbert

2010-07-25T00:20:00.000-07:00

One of the ostensible differences between the Lolita film version and Nabokov’s novel is that Humbert’s predilection for nymphs is not present in the film; in Kubrick’s version Humbert loves Lolita and Lolita only. One would think that if Kubrick removed this key aspect of the story for his adaptation, the whole structure of the work would collapse. However, Kubrick’s Lolita is a very interesting case of censorship, because rather than wallowing away in conventionality, Kubrick used the constraints of the production code to make a comment on censorship; ironically enough this actually relates to Nabokov’s themes in his novel. What makes the film interesting is that one can’t catch the inherent link between both book and film unless they pay close attention to the offhand moments and comments—the moments of double entendre.
Obviously, the book doesn’t need to use the device of double entendre in order to hint at moments of unconventional sexual promiscuity; the sexuality is right out in the open. Yet, the book still deals with the oppression of sexual freedom. (Ch. 5.) The movie doesn’t; Humbert can’t be shown as a pedophile because of the limitations of the production code. Therefore, the movie deals with something completely different and that is oppression of artistic expression. As time would tell in the case of A Clockwork Orange, Kubrick was certainly a director who believed in the director having complete artistic control of their film, no matter how reprehensible the subject matter may be. Kubrick’s Lolita deals with the horrible pat quality of 60’s culture, particularly in relation to art. It’s almost as if Kubrick felt so dissatisfied with film censorship and the general state of the culture at the time, that he felt that he should make a satire out of the whole situation; the statement that I got upon viewing the film is that, “Look how ludicrous it is to make a Lolita in the era of the 60’s. How can one make a tame version of one of the most risqué books ever written?” Unconventional sexual promiscuity was becoming quite prevalent at that time, in the culture opposed to the counterculture no less, and yet here’s a censored Lolita of all stories. I think Kubrick wouldn’t have it any other way—the difference between Kubrick and Nabokov is that Kubrick sees the hilarity in censorship, while Nobakov sees the torment and longing and frustration that eventually lead to Humbert’s madness because of sexual taboos. Kubrick is in some ways a satirist (especially considering that this film was made in his Dr. Strangelove Peter Sellers period.) He wants to make a Lolita in the most difficult period possible in which to tell that story, (the early Sixities being a time of copious amounts of film censorship being performed,) in order to make a comment on that period-why else does the story take place in the period that its set in, if only to show that the 60’s is in some ways a more conservative time period than the 20’s, in terms of the whitewashing of the sexual truth. It’s this form of frustration that leads to Humbert’s madness in the film.
In the hotel scene, there’s so much double entendre. For example, when Quilty is talking to George swine (an ironic name if ever there was one) the way they talk to each other is highly flirtatious. At one point Swine asks Quilty what he does with his excess energy. Quilty describes what his wife does to him in vague terms when they practice martial arts; he says that, “I sort of lay there in pain, but I love it.” When Humbert asks about the bed situation, Swine says that the double bed is very accommodating; “One night we had three ladies resting in one.” What everyone in that hotel alludes to is so obvious that this makes using double entendre rather ridiculous. However, Kubrick had no choice in the matter because of the censorship edicts of the time. Therefore, Kubrick is making a comment of how ridiculous it is to whitewash the sexual truth, especially in the counterculture era of the 60’s.
Actually, Quilty’s weapon of choice against Humbert is the whitewashing of the sexual truth. When Quilty speaks to Humbert in the guise of the police man, Kubrick has arranged the actors so that Humbert can’t see who’s talking to him. In this scene, as in all the scenes with both Sellers and Mason, Humbert is in such contrast to Quilty; Humbert is stiff while Quilty is very relaxed. In this scene Quilty represents the “official” world that constricts Humbert sexually. Yet, Quilty is the most reprehensible figure imaginable. This is Kubrick’s metaphor for how the whitewashing of the sexual truth and censorship is a joke because the people who do such a thing are far worse than the people being censored or restricted; censorship probably exists in order to make people who do not subscribe to the censorship code (which is a joke as this film clearly shows) look morally reprehensible Metaphorically, Kubrick composes a composition that represents this idea; it’s the close up over the shoulder shot of Quilty and his wife as they are hiding behind the newspaper from Humbert, who is in the background. They and their treacherous ways hide while Humbert is clearly visible. It’s ironic that James Mason is so courtly a gentleman and speaks with great enunciation, and yet he’s the one that’s ostracized from society; whereas Quilty is known by everyone to be a “genius.”
It’s the authoritative figure that Quilty is playing that makes Humbert paranoid; surely Humbert knows in the back of his mind that this man is more reprehensible than he is. It’s this nagging truth that results in his paranoia that his Lolita will be taken from him; in the book the reverse occurs—in the book Humbert is paranoid about what he will do on his own volition to the woman. In fact, the Humbert of the film played by James Mason, is very sympathetic not just because of the performer, but the fact that in the film Humbert loves Lolita and Lolita only. There is no mention of Humbert’s plan to one day have little nymphets with his Lolita for his sexual predilection, as there is in the book. Humbert’s being more sympathetic in the film actually enhances the idea that he’s very much unaware of how dangerous and perverse the real world is. This is felt in the shot where Quilty’s poster is hanging behind Humbert while he’s crying his eyes out in lolita’s room; he’s unawares at the fact that Quilty is Lolita’s true love. In the film, Quilty represents that subterranean reality that is going to take Humbert’s Lolita unawares away from him. Quilty gets away with this because he has been disguised to appear like a normal upstanding citizen. It’s the contrived play that basically kills two birds with one stone by taking Lolita away from Humbert while making him mad in the process-in effect making him look like the social undesirable pervert that Quilty really is. A person like Dolores never will realize this sad fact because she believes in whitewashing the sexual truth as well; this is what makes her death a truly tragic one. You don’t have any of this criticism of society in the book because Humbert truly is that social undesirable pervert.
Quilty is simply not as prominent a character in the book, and when he is the reader may not even be aware of his presence (it seems that the reverse occurs in the film with Peter Sellers great performance. In the film, his wild improvisatory scenes are not censored, while the sexuality in the film is.) The Quilty in the film is so despicable that he actually makes Humbert come off rather well in the film. What ends up happening in Kubrick’s version is that Humbert ends up becoming a tragic character who has been ostracized by society, opposed to snide and repulsive as he is in the book. The Humbert characteristics in the book are actually attributed more towards Quilty in the film. Kubrick’s vision of Lolita is that society allows it for a man like Quilty to get away scot free. (I don’t think the Quilty of the novel really has that much power.) I think it’s this sad fact that gives the film a real emotional substance that bypasses the hip satire elements, as in the scene when Humbert tries to take Lolita out of the hospital but is disallowed by the “official” security officers. Kubrick continually tries to criticize society opposed to criticizing Humbert, and he does this through clever means. In the scene, Humbert is the one who is given close ups that can’t help but build empathy for him, while the security guards are shot in long shot. They are not individualized in anyway. They are the faceless censoring threat of Humbert’s passion. In the book, it’s Humbert Humbert who is the hip satirist with no emotion in him. In the novel, Humbert is the one who condescends towards Lolita’s intelligence (pg. 117), opposed to James Mason’s Humbert who is interested in educating Lolita of the ways of the world, like in the scene where he reads her poetry. It helps that Humbert rarely is the narrator of the film, because we don’t see his view of how everyone is not as perceptive about the ways of the world as he is.
One of the main differences between the two versions is that they are created by artists in two different mediums. In the novel, the reader can’t help but feel a cold antipathy towards Humbert when he makes a comment like, “there she was with her ruined looks and her adult, rope-veined narrow hands and her unkempt armpits, there she was (my Lolita!), hopelessly worn at seventeen, with the baby, dreaming already in her of becoming a big shot and retiring around 2020 A.D…” (pg. 277.) In the last scene in the film, the audience feels sympathy for Humbert because they are not hearing his narration. Without the distraction of the narration, the audience pays more attention to what Humbert is saying in this scene; when he says to Lolita that, “I’m not making fun of you,” it appears as if he means it because he does not make a witty retort in his mind to undercut the sentiment, like in the novel. For what is the primary basis of the narration, but an undercutting of sentiment for defense mechanism purposes? Humbert refuses to show his emotions like someone like Dolores in that last scene in the novel; whereas in the film I for one was not thinking about Dolores in that last scene. I was thinking about how sad and depressing it is that of all people, Humbert is the one that gets short changed by society. Without the narration and the idea of Humbert being a nymphomaniac, Lolita appears very crass when she says, “stop crying,” to Humbert in the last scene; that stop crying is basically society’s reprimand of Humbert showing any uncensored emotion. One begins to lose sympathy for Lolita in the film because she begins to resemble everyone else; she’s simply part of the censoring body known as society.
What’s interesting about the film is that the untrustworthy narrator aspect of the story is not present (Robert Stam article); how could it be considering that Kubrick was not writing a novel? However, this does not necessarily mean that Kubrick’s film is a weak adaptation. Because of the constraits put upon him, Kubrick had an intriguing idea in regards to censorship and stylistic constraint and what it does to an audience’s perception of a person like Humbert. Consequently, the film is completely different from Nobakov’s book, because Nobakov didn’t have to face such considerations.

Garbage Dreams-blurb published in Cineaste magazine

2010-07-25T00:03:00.000-07:00

Mai Iskander’s documentary Garbage Dreams shows how the Zaballeen, a lower class peasant group in the outskirts of Cairo, struggle to survive amid the globalization of their one form of income, garbage disposal. Unfortunately, Iskander’s focus on depicting the Zaballeen’s inability to do anything about their situation and his obsession with making the audience feel his subjects’ sense of exhaustion have the opposite effect: the film feels dull and disassociated. However, one can glimpse certain potentials. There is a moment when one of the teenagers featured in the film, Osama, who has had enough of living in such poor conditions and of being invisible in the eyes of other Egyptians, decides to go to work for the foreign, hi-tech garbage company brought in by Cairo’s city council. When his friends learn that he is holding this job, they “innocently” rough house with him. The audience can see the tension between ambition and loyalty, which is here recast as one between globalization and traditionalism. The film’s point suddenly becomes clear, only to be lost once again when the scene abruptly ends. The experience is akin to skimming a newspaper article on a tragic situation in a foreign land and failing to become incensed enough to do anything about that situation. The main problem with Garbage Dreams is that Iskander fails to make the audience truly indignant at the Zaballeen’s plight. One sees, but doesn’t feel, what is at stake. This is ironic, considering that the filmmaker is so intent on showing the audience the lower classes’ predicament in Cairo.

Censorship as a Dangerous Form of Constriction

2010-07-25T00:01:00.000-07:00

One of the most dangerous aspects of the 20th century was how the National Board of Censorship and the Catholic Legion of Decency got away with heavily censoring films. Both bodies appeared to be trying to help filmgoers in terms of not being corrupted by what they watched. However, it’s this form of “moralism” that allows organizations to have more power than should be allotted them. The real question that has to be asked is what was the real rationale for why these organizations did what they did? What effect did their actions have of the filmmaking industry? What effect their restraint had on the artists in that industry?
One of my main problems with self censorship is the arbitrary decision of who are the “up-standing citizens” who should be censoring films. The leading member of the National Board of Censorship (a body run by film distributors in order to not have the government dictate what state their films should appear in), Dr. Oberholtzer, felt that the people who comprise the Board that had complete control over whether or not a film could be censored, was any person who was not a criminal or illicit person and not a politician (Saylor, 146). That’s a very generalized group of people. Therefore, say someone feels the need to censor a given movie, that arbitrary person gets power over someone who may actually know what they are doing. That person on the board may simply not like a given scene because they don’t politically agree with it, ect. Therefore, they’ll censor that given movie. The fact that the artist who actually created the product had no say in the matter during the National Board of Censorship’s reign, over an arbitrary person who is dictating the outcome of what happens to the film, is completely anti-Democratic and illogical. Self-censorship was a fake form of Democracy, that was simply window dressing over the fact that censorship itself is an anti-Democratic principle that takes all the power away from the artist. For what is an artist but a symbol of freedom of speech?
The criteria that the Board used during its reign made no sense either. Even though the first two edicts were typical censorship ideology, (films should be censored for their, “obscenity, indecency and inhumanity” and for their “sacrilegious character”) the criteria also included, “Their tendency to present crime in an informatory way” and “Their incitement to riot and attacks upon public order” (Saylor, pg. 146.) Now, these last two edicts are silly, and also indicative of how condescending the censorship board was towards the public populace that went to the movies. The censorship board’s main aim, in my opinion, was to simply dumb down the movies. The third criteria basically shows that the censorship board wanted to take out any form of reality out of a given movie because of fear that the young would be highly influenced by viewing illicitness in movies. The censorship board is basically stating here that movies are entertainment and entertainment only; they should never have the power to show the workings of the real world, because audiences wouldn’t be able to handle this. This doesn’t make any sense, considering that the news certainly shows readers and viewers what the real world is really like. As if simply showing crime in a movie would create an illicit reaction out of someone. Modern audiences see crime all the time in a given movie, and they haven’t rioted the streets. The censorship board during their reign basically stated that audiences couldn’t handle the documentary field in anyway. This censored view of life is a fake blasé view, and many older films during the censorship board’s reign can attest to this. What were the censorship board trying to do? Were they trying to police a world’s populace by trying to show them a fake view of the world, in film? What does this say about the censorship board’s view of the intelligence of the standard film audience; that they were dumb and simply deserved sub-standard entertainment that didn’t make them think a little? The ramifications of the censorship board’s actions were extreme because they limited artistic freedom, thus limiting the potentialities of the film medium.
The shocking edict of that time was that movies were simply entertainment and were sub-standard in importance towards theater, painting, novels, music, ect. Really, what the censorship board’s prime aim was to make cinema the sub-standard art form that they initially felt it always was. Mature themes like violence are an important part of an artist’s vision. If Dostoyevsky were censored there would never be masterpieces of literature like Crime and Punishment and Notes from the Underground. They would be highly botched works, and more importantly they wouldn’t make any sense, had they been censored. They might even have been withdrawn had they existed under conditions like the censorship board. Dostoyevsky’s never got to exist during the early half of the 20th century in film because of self censorship. Yes, there are filmmakers out there who use violence tastelessly and ill morally in their films. However, should their bad judgment be used against filmmakers of exquisite taste? Well, that’s what happened under the censorship board’s reign. They basically used film as instructive moral doctrine for audiences, which is in itself a form of usury. Is it any wonder that the Catholic Church had leeway over filmmaker’s rights?
When the pact between both the National Board of Censorship and the Catholic Legion of Decency occurred, ironies ensued because of the vast differences between both organizations. When Elia Kazan reached a disagreement with the the National Board of Censorship on the rape scene at the end of A Streetcar Named Desire, his reasoning was that, “The rape of Blanche is a pivotal, integral truth in the play, without which the play loses its meaning, which is the ravishment of the tender, the sensitive, the delicate, by the savage and brutal forces of modern society. It is a poetic plea for comprehension” (Brook, 348.) By this time, in my opinion the times were changing and the Board realized that they had to move with the mandate of the times. It’s with A Streetcar Named Desire that the Board finally realized the transgression of their ways, and permitted the rape to be subtly hinted at, for the sake of the initial message that the filmmakers were trying to come through with. They finally realized that moments such as the one with Blanche shouldn’t be censored or else the meaning of the film would be lost; the filmmakers were not trying to sneak pornographic material in the film just for the thrill of it; the illicit material had meaning behind it. Unfortunately, almost as a haunting reminder of the stupid decisions that the Board had pulled in the past for the sake of “morality”, the Catholic Legion of Decency, with the clout that the Board gave them in the past, had final cut over A Streetcar Named Desire. (Brook, 349.)
Naturally, Kazan was outraged. The fact that a filmmaker even has to deal with a Religious body is ludicrous; Tennessee Williams and Catholicism should not be uttered in the same sentence (Brook, 349.) Just as there should be a separation of church and state, there should be a separation of church and art. As mentioned before, what appears illicit may not be merely illicit, if handled by an artist. Well, a body primarily concentrating on simply what is or appears moral doesn’t care about those considerations. If anything, it’s more political than that. The person being affected by this the most, of course, speaks the most eloquently about the situation, because they are experiencing the situation firsthand. Here’s Elia Kazan: “They didn’t give a damn about the beauty or artistic value of the picture. To them it was just a piece of entertainment. It was business, not art. They wanted to get the entire family to see the picture. They didn’t want anything that might keep anyone away. At the same time they wanted it to be dirty enough to pull people in. The whole business was rather an outrage” (Brook, 349). If one didn’t know better they may think that Kazan was describing the National Board of Censorship.
Even though the National Board of Censorship’s intentions were sound, the idea being that self-censorship is the best alternative opposed to government censorship for the sake of the integrity of the artist, they missed the fact the censorship simply shouldn’t exist. The idea that they or the Catholic Legion of Decency had the right to take over an artist’s vision by censoring it is far more immoral than any illicit behavior depicted in the films being censored, as the National Board of Censorship found out, only to late. They were being made irrelevant by an organization that they themselves gave power to. This is the inherent problem when organizations go mad with the idea that they and they alone can enforce morality; they begin to dupe themselves.

It’s all in the subtleties—A teacher’s manual that is trying to make a difference: A review of the new book Teaching Generation M by a member of Gen M

2009-09-14T14:39:00.000-07:00

The editors (Vibiana Bowman Cvetkovic and Robert J. Lackie) and writers (they are too numerous to cite) of Teaching Generation M: A Handbook for Librarians and Educators had the insight to not make this book a compilation of vastly discerning viewpoints. Yes, some of the viewpoints are somewhat different, but this book does not seem to be an academic boxing match in any way and that’s because there’s no time for academic fist fighting when one has to facilitate a better library and classroom environment. The editors of this book had the good sense to know that this digital debate is not about personal preferences in regards to how to teach (the Kindle or no Kindle question is blasé). Rather, the debate revolves around the passionate belief on the librarian’s and educator’s part concerning how to best serve their students’ needs. These educators have good reason to argue. In a sense, Teaching Generation M deals first and foremost with closing the gap, and one can’t do that by getting in a tizzy over the situation.

This book very cogently states the problems inherent in the digital divide without pointing any fingers at anyone, and that’s because it’s a twofold problem. The older generation’s assumption that Gen M consists of “computer wizards” does pose as a falsity, and yet it’s not the complete part of the problem—it more is the starting off point. Once that assumption has been set in the people who constitute Gen M’s minds, they don’t actively try to learn more in the way of better critical media skills, because they are so confident of their skills, which ultimately results in their writing poor papers. Therefore, both parties are wrong in how they conduct their business, hence the digital divide. This is a brilliant point made by most of the writers of this book—there are a few stragglers, but that’s OK.

However, there’s an interesting paradox to that argument that I think the writers of this book know is present, and it’s their saving grace: It’s highly ironic that Gen M doesn’t nearly know as much as older individuals think—and I include myself in that group, as a member of Gen M(edia), or the Millennial Generation, myself. This may sound like a double-sided criticism addressed to both parties. But the reason why I think the writers of Teaching Generation M realize the contradiction is because, throughout the book, they subtly posit that idea in the readers’ heads without belaboring the point. Therefore, the book remains non-judgmental.

I really found this book to be so lucid that is was refreshing. Who would have thought that a handbook or manual for librarians and teachers (and anyone else who deals with Gen M) could be so entertaining to read from the layman’s perspective? On a simple, primal level, what makes the book so exciting to me is simply having the pleasure to read what is on librarians’ and/or teachers’ minds. These educators merely appear recitative, but when they cut loose, they do they have things to say! The book doesn’t really have so much to do with extolling or decrying the growing adherence to technology, especially with regard to doing research. Rather, Teaching Generation M has to do with how to properly facilitate learning in a technological digital age. That’s why it’s a fantastic book for everyone concerned.

Writers such as Patricia H. Dawson, Diane K. Cambell, and Mitch Fontenot, and Robert Lackie, have the good sense to know that technology is here, and one has to simply properly deal with this new situation. It is amusing how some academics act almost as if Wikipedia and Google have just arrived on the scene, so everyone should cower in their seats over this dangerous new way of doing research. They talk about these research tools almost as if they were weapons of mass destruction, and writer Mitch Fontenot sees the hilarity in the situation, without being mean-spirited in any way. You cannot properly facilitate learning when you are angry at the same people that you as an educator are also criticizing. Well, certain academics seem to be acting that way—my opinion. I believe that as a teacher, librarian, trainer, or supervisor, you have to figure out how the relationship between student and teacher has changed, first and foremost, before even setting foot in that library or classroom setting. That form of teaching would subsequently help encourage students to enhance their critical skills, especially in terms of surveying digital information.

Really, even though the young person’s critical thinking and research skills are constantly changing, when one comes right down to it, those skills are still the same primary learning skills, just as no matter how much teenagers change, they still remain teenagers. The philosophical notion behind this book is that no matter how much the classroom’s format changes, it basically still remains a classroom. Therefore, all educators should not worry over the superficial changes that are occurring in terms of how a student conducts research. That’s a very even-balanced argument on the writers’ part. The argument becomes even stronger once the reader realizes that these points are not made from some essayist completely separated from the situation, but rather, it is coming from educators and librarians who see the situation firsthand.

Again, I like the fact that the book is in the guise of just a teacher’s manual or handbook, mainly because I believe this type of format allows the writers of Teaching Generation M to administer a calming even-handed non-argumentative approach to the points that they make throughout the book, and they do it without being condescending. Therefore, any reader can believe in what he or she is reading about, and there are a plethora of points being made that will assist anyone who teaches or works with Gen M students.

However, I think there is a double-layered meaning to this published work. If the book was only a teacher’s manual, than it might have a prosaic tone, which means that the common reader would be turned off. However, I think that Teaching Generation M: A Handbook for Librarians and Educators is exciting because it is subtly addressed to all readers, including members of Generation Media, like myself, which is just another form of bridging the gap. Well done all!

- David A. Brown, Rider University English major, with a concentration in Cinema Studies; and Editorial Intern for Cineaste Magazine: America’s Leading Magazine on the Art and Politics of the Cinema, and a proud member of Generation M(edia).

Contempt

2009-04-26T15:33:00.000-07:00

Contempt-“A Cloud of Unawareness” David Brown
4/21/09
Seminar in Cin.

In the film Contempt, it seems that the love triangle between Camille (Brigitte Bardot) Paul (Michel Piccoli) and Jeremy (Jack Palance) is a subtle metaphor for the decaying film industry. In this film Godard equates failed filmmaking with a failed relationship. He also notes how the two inevitably intercede to destroy one another. It’s almost as if Godard is stating to the audience that films are so contemptible because no one examines in close detail the production aspects that mare a production; just as no one learns from past filmmaker’s mistakes. Godard’s critical stance against passive audiences who merely are indifferent is that they should be indignant towards flawed filmmaking. His feeling is that audiences, and filmmakers, have to study why a production went wrong in much the same way that relationships go wrong. If people are so hungry for the latest tabloid gossip, in terms of what infidelities are going on in the film world, surely they can be as interested on how these celebrities affect the productions that they are in; many times by the infidelities that they are having. (The casting of Brigitte Bardot is perfect, because at that time she was the tabloid goddess.)
Godard’s study of why a production falters stems from the confines of Jeremy’s (the producer’s) way of making a movie, which involves usury and lying. The great amounts of usury and lying on Jeremy’s part actually makes everyone who has to be intrinsically involved with his production have a mistaken view of reality, which ultimately makes that individual lose their integrity. This process begins with Paul’s being bind to the production by signing a contract to do the film; any protestation on Paul’s part will be flawed and illogical because he’s binded by the contract. When Lang, the personal artist, mentions the importance of culture, Jeremy states: “When I deal with culture I get out my checkbook.” Jeremy’s checkbook is his way of eradicating personal vision. Once Jeremy writes out that check, it becomes much easier for Paul to follow Jeremy’s orders.
Jeremy’s rationale for hiring Paul is so he can obtain his wife from him. Really, that is Paul’s job on this movie; no wonder he loses his integrity. He begins to lose his artistic creativity and begins to get distracted. Camille talks about this in a digression about the man who got distracted by an ass; this is in reference to Paul’s being distracted by his suspicions that Camille is sleeping with another man. This is all Jeremy’s fault, which is just another representation of Jeremy’s power in destroying artistic creativity/relationships.
It seems that Godard is arguing that the main creators on the film sets involved with big productions always intrinsically lose their personal vision because they try to mimic, in order to impress, the big hotshot producer producing the international enterprise. It’s almost as if Paul is not consciously aware that he slowly is resembling Jeremy more and more. He’s becoming the vulgar creative male personality, and this is represented by his wearing of that hat throughout the film, and by how he treats women. The audience is aware that this man used to have integrity. Yet, the audience never sees the true Paul in this film. In some strange way, Godard (and Camille) are criticizing Paul more than anyone else in this film because he is the French artist with integrity that sells out. At least Jeremy is consistent in his vulgarity.
There really is no basis on the producer’s part for making a solid production of the story of Odysseus; it might as well be titled what Camille calls it: the movie about the guy that swims. Camille should not be criticized for her indifference to art. After all, Paul’s definition of art is looking at old artwork and finding the nudity stimulating. He trashes antiquity by hitting the ancient nude female object in the flat in the private parts. This is a metaphor for the old dying way for making movies being destroyed by artist’s distraction with mundane sexual affairs. It’s almost as if the artist becoming a crass individual (Paul becoming Jeremy) destroys a filmmaker like Lang’s control over his personal vision.
Camille wants to escape from this barbarity by becoming indifferent to the processes of art. In one scene in a movie theatre, Jeremy finds it intriguing that Camille has no opinion on what should be done about the production. The camera then pans over to Camille’s face as she indifferently watches the screen with the rest of the audience. She wants nothing to do with this production; hence, she has an indifference towards movies and moviemaking.
Camille is a tragic character because she can’t love Paul anymore. She’s well aware that Paul is losing his independence and whoring for the industry. She’s also well aware that he’s the ultimate hypocrite because he wants Camille to remain the way she was, i.e., in love with him. However, he’s not the same man anymore. Camille has an indifference to filmmaking not because she’s vain or lacks integrity, but because the process is so destructive towards relationships. Camille could very well be a metaphor for the indifferent film audience that Godard has empathy with yet criticizes. He has empathy for Camille/the indifferent film audience because they are powerless, yet he also criticizes them because they don’t properly get out of their situation. In a scene in the flat, Camille deplores to Paul that she won’t go meet him and Jeremy (at this point in the film the two sexist prigs); yet she moves around in circles and keeps repeating the line, almost as if she were trapped. She eventually does go meet them.
This sense of constrictedness (and of the main characters being trapped in the confines of Jeremy’s will) is felt in the tiny flats in the film. I find it ironic and humorous that these “fancy” flats that everyone sells their souls to live in are so constricting and unpleasant. This is a representation of Jeremy’s deceitful nature. It appears to these characters that once they sell their soul to Jeremy they will have free will over their lives; that selling their soul is all in the name of making a movie. A perfect representation of this: When Paul is typing away at the script, Camille walks under a ladder, which is a symbol of bad luck.
The way in which the camera constantly moves horizontally from left to right or right to left resembles, in many ways, a tennis match between the figures in the frame. It’s ironic that the people involved in a big production like this can never connect; how are they supposed to have their film connect with their audience in anyway? Their situation is so deplorable that all they can do is fight at one another. Camille’s going with Jeremy at the end of the film is her way of escaping from this constricting area, where everyone’s losing their integrity and individuality.
In the next to final scene in the movie, Godard continues to employ his visual indication of the contradictory nature of Camille. Jeremy’s vulgar red car color matches his sweater perfectly. This man will never change in anyway. Yet, Camille’s sweater in the scene is blue. The color contrasts against Jeremy’s vulgarity; yet Camille is losing her will against this man. Once the truck hits the car and kills the two, their bodies are facing against one another. If these two had not had the language barrier to obstruct conversation, they would have been the ones arguing in the film. Yet, on a multinational production such as this, it’s the people who speak the same language that have contempt for one another. This is the ultimate tragedy in Godard’s eyes. His feeling is that similar cultures (represented by Camille and Paul) should band together (or in Camille and Paul’s case, stay in their relationship), and make films together (like the New Wave group) and not lose their vision just to receive a higher budget for their production. (In the case of Camille and Paul, they should have never been won over by Jeremy.)
Camille’s only escape from Jeremy’s will (almost as if he were an evil creature out of Greek myth) is through death. The shot before the accident, showing Jeremy’s driving very rapidly from the left side of the frame to the right side of the frame, is very similar to the shot where Paul violently pulls Camille, once they have left Jeremy’s villa. Paul’s violent movement, in order to get him and Camille out of the presence of Jeremy and his production, is an example of Paul’s violent protestation against Jeremy’s way of making movies. Yet, Paul’s movement is ultimately rapt, and intense to the point of dissipation. The same sorts of movements happen when Paul becomes violent towards Camille, in the flat. Camille’s rapt decision to leave Paul also ends through violence. These protestations of Jeremy’s way of doing business are faulty, because once Paul signs that contract to write the script for the film (just as Camille decides to get in that car with Jeremy), both of them are ensnared in the confines of Jeremy’s will; escaping that will ultimately proves fatal for both of them. The rapid escape that both characters try to attempt in this movie is the delusion from the truth that Lang (the old pro who’s used to this way of making movies) does not believe in. Lang’s sentiment is felt in one of his last lines at the end of the film: “One has to begin what one starts.”It’s interesting that Contempt was the only high budget multinational film that Godard ever made, and yet this is the film that represents his stance against high budget multinational filmmaking. Perhaps Godard’s reflexive way in which to tell a story is the best way in which to write a critique against the film industry, because it allowed him to experience the situation firsthand. The fact that Godard kept his integrity throughout the filming of Contempt was his way of signaling to other filmmaker’s that there is indeed hope in the film industry; one has to be merely wary of the situation and not give in easily.

The Simplest Means

2009-03-24T06:33:00.000-07:00

David Brown
3/24/09
Seminar in Cinema Studies
Surrealism is one of the most interesting qualities inherently used to great effect in certain films. It’s that slightly off feeling in a Lynch film or a Bunel film that gives an audience member a sense that they have been witnessing a strange view of reality; an almost dream like view that lacks conventional dramatic structure and logic. Perhaps these filmmakers learned a thing or two from one of the greatest surreal directors: Jean Cocteau. Cocteau was a playwright, and therefore knew more about dramatic structure than Bunel or Lynch. However, this didn’t mean that his films were not unconventional. I’d argue that the best way to depart from convention is to first know how to properly tell a conventional story, and then completely imbue that story with unconventional traits. These traits would not seem arbitrary in the slightest, because they would naturally be contingent upon the story being told on screen. For instance, in Jean Cocteau’s Orpheus (1949), even though it doesn’t necessarily make conventional sense that Orphee (Jean Marais) can’t look at his wife Eurydice (Marie Dea) or else she will die, it seems to not be an arbitrary element in anyway extrinsic from the story either. I can’t think of many other filmmakers who posses that quality of surrealism. It’s no wonder that Cocteau is termed a classical avant-gardist.
Possibly, the elements in Orpheus fit so well in place because the movie is based on the classic Greek myth of Orpheus, and how he lost Eurydice. However, Cocteau has elaborated on that myth in adding the final section involving Orphee’s second chance at getting Eurydice back from the dead. The one stipulation is that Orphee is not allowed to look at her ever again; if he does she dies for good. Cocteau takes this dramatic scenario that should be depressing, and makes it comic. This is highly strange thematically for a dramatist to do, because it’s not the normal route for a story like this to take. It’s comic because both parties decide to continue to live with one another. It gets to the point where Heurtebise (Francois Périer), death’s chauffeur of all people, has to constantly remind Orphee to be careful about staring into the mirror, for fear that he will see his wife. (This could be construed as a metaphor for a marriage falling apart, considering that Orphee is falling in love with Death (María Casares).) However, all of this is made comic rather than tragic, and this is an example of Cocteau’s genius. As a filmmaker, he takes his pretentious artistic ideas and magically makes them unpretentious. This feat is a major moment in art. It’s almost as if a Bohemian avant garde artist finally figured out dramatic construction and consequently had no more stumbling blocks in which to trip over.
At some moments, Orpheus resembles a surreal marital comedy. I think the juxtaposition of these elements works because the film has a structure in which to base its wild ramblings on. I’m sure Cocteau wanted to experiment with juxtapositions of surrealism and normality or banality for this film. In order to do that successfully, Cocteau had to have some kind of structure for his dream like film, or else it wouldn’t make any sense to an audience; and what better structure is there other than the Greek myths?
I think the other element that makes Orpheus such an effective surreal film is the fact that it has such a low budget. Usually, one would presume that a low budget would limit a filmmaker from being creative, particularly if their film has many special effects in it. It appears that nothing daunted Cocteau. If anything, he was probably spurred on by having a limited budget. The constrictions probably allowed Cocteau to experiment in highly unconventional ways, and this fit his unconventional avant garde style. For instance, no filmmaker would ever think of showing the entrance to another dimension by simply putting two people in reverse when they walk. However, this effect works, particularly since it’s in slow motion. This effect is what makes the film dream like; it’s not simply an effect because its adds to the movie’s premise. The same could be said for showing Orphee leap into and out of the mirror in order to get to the other dimension, or the way in which he enters through the mirror (Cocteau uses a water effect.) There’s a statement being made in that special effect, and that is that one doesn’t know which side of the mirror is more real. We all could be living in a non-real universe, and the reflection of that reality could be the real reality. (It seems that The Matrix used this idea as well.) Thank heavens Cocteau doesn’t state this pretentious idea outright; it’s merely hidden in the film. It’s this element of grace and ease with which Cocteau presents his ideas, almost as if they were hidden away in special effects, that is truly commendable. He makes the artistic process look as easy as a skip and a frolic, and this is what is lacking from a Lynch or a Bunel.
There’s a line in Orpheus where at the beginning of the film, Orphee says to Heurtebise, “Astonish me!” That’s Cocteau’s way of showing the relationship between the artist and his audience, and how an artist first and foremost is a type of ring master, and not a deep intellectual thinker. (That part for Cocteau came second.) An artist, in Cocteau’s estimation had to truly pleasure an audience, and he correctly learned that one doesn’t do this by simply making deep statements about society. Doing so would show one’s limitations, particularly one’s lack of a budget. Rather, Cocteau felt that filmmaker’s have to primarily dazzle their audience, especially visually. This working method is an example of what separates Cocteau from other low budget filmmaker’s and artists with lack of funds. Cocteau felt that one has to find a way to make their audience enthralled, or else there is no point in showing their vision to an audience. In other words, he felt that an artist should not be daunted in anyway; if an artist is talented he can accomplish anything. This is the magic element of Cocteau’s working process. He makes everything he does look so effortless. His film Orpheus is an example of pulling a rabbit out of the hat. Transposing a Greek myth to French Parisian life in the 40’s is a daunting task enough. However, doing this on a limited budget is even more daunting, and yet Cocteau pulls off the miracle.

Night Of the Living Dead

2009-03-09T19:34:00.000-07:00

I love George Romero's Horror films. Here's a director that not only has great talent at scaring an audience, but also is very politically oriented in the Horror visions that he's showing an audience. What Romero depicts in his films is his prescient fears concerning the direction that this country is headed in. What better way to show those fears then in a Horror film? The Horror framework allows Romero to make his political statements acute to an audience.
His films are not didactic in anyway. Rather, Romero’s films serve as great entertainment. His films are successful attempts at properly scaring an audience, and then making that audience think for a change. It's the interim moments of making an audience squirm where Romero utilizes his social commentary on a given situation. He has a given system of shocking an audience into expectancy and then sharing his criticisms of American existence to that audience. Romero has been well aware since he made his first film The Night of the Living Dead, that the Horror framework hooks an audience member towards the director's argument. An audience member is never bored in a Romero film upon seeing acts of American consumerism, or American sexism, ect. Rather, the audience is experiencing the director's thesis viscerally.
Night of the Living Dead is a masterful Horror film because of the simplicity in which events occur in the movie. For instance, the plot of the film falls into place very easily, which ultimately makes the implications of the film very realistic. The movie doesn’t announce itself in anyway like most Horror films. It begins very innocently, and then thematically becomes more terrifying as day turns into night and more and more zombies start appearing. This structure is highly realistic for a Horror film mainly because so little happens. There isn’t much of a plot or explanation as to why the dead are coming back to life. The television broadcasters are as befuddled as the characters trapped in the house. This attitude of confusion creates a realistic sense of a panic stricken culture. Usually in Horror films, even after the main characters learn why something is the way it is, they still are panicking. In Night of The Living Dead, no one has any answers. This is what makes the film have an authentic sense of dread.
Romero’s political statements in this film are actually very general. Yes, of course, the film deals with the concept of racism. However, the overall arching question that Romero posits to the audience is, what leads to racism? Romero’s answer is a nervous culture. Acute nervousness, in Romero’s eyes, leads to ineffectualness and mental lack of clarity. This is no more apparent then in the actions of Harry Cooper (Karl Hardman), who gets many of the main characters killed in the film. He is so wound up by the onslaught of the zombies outside that he becomes the metaphor for the crazed alarmist culture that Romero fears American citizens are becoming. (The informative tv doesn’t help his state in anyway.) In the movie, he constantly berates Ben (Duane Jones), and yet Ben is right in stating that no one should hide in the basement. Cooper’s lack of mental clarity is what is making him make all the wrong selfish decisions. It’s ironic, and somewhat humorous, that Cooper is trying to protect his daughter, and yet she is a zombie. The zombie metaphor is Romero’s way of addressing his concerns over society’s becoming a brainless culture.
Really, Night of the Living Dead is the ultimate example of the effectiveness of nondescriptness; of having a low budget and using unknown actors. These elements simply make the film creepier. As stated before, the film doesn’t announce itself like other Horror films. It doesn’t initially appear phantasmagorical in terms of its look. Rather, the film has a realistic appearance of nondescriptness; especially the opening cemetery scene. The Horror elements, like the sociological elements, creep up on the audience. The setting of Pittsburgh helps. Here’s a sleepy city basically reawakened by zombies. It’s a city rarely shown in movies; an unknown territory that makes the film have a more original look. If only young Horror filmmakers learned Romero’s attributes! They should try their hand at black and white sometime. Young Horror filmmakers should also come up with original ideas that have something to do with their feelings on society. The Horror framework, as evidenced by Night of the Living Dead, is the perfect framework in which to do so. These young filmmaker’s wouldn’t even have to switch genres in order to make more “serious” socially conscious “message” movies.It’s amazing to consider that Romero already established his directorial style in his first film. For instance, when Ben (Duane Jones) relates to Barbara (Judith O’Dea) about how he felt terrified and powerless upon first encountering the zombies, his soliloquy, as it were, is being told to her just after a frightening moment occurred in the film. Ben’s soliloquy is political in nature. The zombies that Ben mentions are representations of white racist men who set out to kill black men. I feel that the implications that these zombies are brainless individuals, is a statement on Romero’s part, in relation to how murdering racists are not intelligent individuals. Is it a coincidence that the human pact that “accidentally” kills Ben at the end of the film, for fear that he’s a zombie, resembles the zombies in the movie? I think not. It’s Romero’s depiction of human hatred guised in human carelessness that makes Night of the Living Dead a truly terrifying movie.

Heat

2009-02-26T06:48:00.001-08:00

Fastidious Crime
2/26/09 The main difference between the film Heat and other action or heist films is that Michael Mann’s film is much slower paced.
This is actually not a negative element in anyway. On the contrary, the fastidiousness on the filmmaker’s part adds to the tension in the movie. If the audience didn’t know all the details of the characters in the film’s lives, then they wouldn’t be able to understand the psychology of those characters. In other words, the audience wouldn’t be nervous for the characters well being. This is analogous to real life; we worry for the ones that we know and care about. The ingeniousness of the film comes out of the fact that Mann shows the audience, in great detail, both the lives of the LAPD police department and the group of criminals that they are going after. There’s an amazing lack of moral accusation on the part of Michael Mann, particularly for an action filmmaker, and this is because Mann likes to keep the situations in his films complex to the point of tension.
The film involves two groups: a sector of the LAPD Robbery-Homicide Division run by Lieutenant Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino), and a group of criminals run by Neil McCauley. These are not your typical cops and robbers. Both groups are the experts of what they do. This premise, devised by Michael Mann, is exciting because of the prospect of what would happen if the Homicide Division ran into these criminals. This is not Bonnie and Clyde; here both sides are true opponents. This ultimately makes it difficult for the audience to discern which side is going to win the fight. The film is like an elaborate boxing match; the audience decides who they want to root for. Mann does not disappoint; he builds on this basic idea by constantly introducing more and more story elements ultimately to create a basic tapestry of mid 90’s L.A., in terms of its crime and law element.
The film does not merely consist of an antagonistic fight; there’s psychology and complexity added to the equation as well. What’s startling in the film is how similar the two factions really are. What the audience sees in these two, and what ultimately
makes the action scenes in this film much more than mere action scenes, is that both Hanna and McCauley lead a very sad existence away from their “jobs”. They lead sad home lives because they love the thrill of what they do, and therefore, cannot truly get attached to their loved ones. Successfully carrying off a heist (McCauley) and capturing criminals (Hanna) is what they love. This element makes the action scenes thrilling for an audience member to witness, because for the longest time the film merely shows how miserable these characters lives really are. Therefore, the bank heist scene is cathartic for both the characters and the audience. (It’s one of the greatest moments in 90’s cinema.)
That and the scene between DeNiro and Pacino are breathtaking scenes. The heist is complex in terms of its editing and shot composition, whilst the conversation scene is very simple. It consists merely of cutting back and forth between over the shoulder shots of DeNiro and Pacino. The fact that these two acting titans are in a scene together is amazing enough. What makes the moment even better is that the movie these two appear in is rich and complex in its own right. Heat is not just an excuse to put these two in the same film. Heat would have been an interesting film without them. However, the fact that these two complement the movie in such a rich way adds wonders to Mann’s statement on the conflicted intermingling of law and crime. Both of these characters respect for one another (just as DeNiro and Pacino the actors respect one another) is an example of a conflicted relationship, because they have to ultimately hunt one another down (just as one actor has to compete with the other actor in terms of giving the better performance.) These two respect what they do more than anything else.
These two characters are very remote from the people around them, but they have to be in order to be successful at what they
do. As McCauley says to one of the men who works with him, by the name of Chris Shiherlis (Val Kilmer), “You wanna be making moves on the street, have no attachments. Allow nothing to be in your life that you can’t walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you spot the heat around the corner.” Hannah says something very similar when he states to his wife Justine (Diane Venora), in regards to his having to be detached emotionally, “I preserve it because it keeps me sharp, on the edge, where I need to be.” Yet, there is a subtle difference between those two sentences, and that’s apparent in the style in which they are delivered.
Because of his occupation, DeNiro’s character is more careful and restrained in his mannerisms, compared to Pacino’s character. (This creates a very fresh take on dialectical acting between the two titans.) This subtle difference between the two is
analogous to how Pacino’s character is moral, and DeNiro’s is not. It’s that subtle difference that creates the conflict between the two, and basically results in the premise of the movie.
That heat around the corner that DeNiro is talking about is what makes the film suspenseful. While watching the film, the audience knows in the back of their minds that these two will have a showdown. In its staid visual imagery and high concentration on the warrior’s code, Heat is very reminiscent of a Japanese Samurai film. The difference here is that these Samurai are in nicely fitted suits.
The suits are not the only components that make the film look breathtaking. There’s also the great cinematography by Dante Spinotti. He lights the DeNiro side of the story in a very different way from Pacino’s side of the story. McCauley’s nightmare, which he relates to Hannah, is that he’s drowning in his sleep. This is supposed to represent McCauley’s morality catching up to him. It’s his realization that his way of doing things is flawed. Spinotti lights DeNiro’s sections in a very crisp blue, almost as if the actor were drowning. Hannah tells McCauley that he has nightmares about sitting at a banquet table with all of the people that he could not save. This morbidity on Hannah’s part is reflected in the dark lighting that surrounds Pacino throughout the film. Both of these forms of lighting engulf the two actors/characters. It’s an aesthetic form of constriction; a metaphor for the lack of freedom that these two have because of the love for what they are talented at. This statement is really what the film is all about, and it wouldn’t be felt as acutely if it weren’t for the look of the film.
This is what makes Mann’s films so special, and what ultimately separates him from the amateurs. (The same could be said of DeNiro and Pancino’s acting. In fact, all of the acting is fascinating in the film.) It’s this kind of attention to detail that I miss from movies in this day and age.

McCabe and Mrs. Miller

2008-12-19T15:55:00.000-08:00

The brilliance of a film like McCabe and Mrs. Miller is that it is indeed a revisionist Western, and yet it’s very undefined in terms of the point that the director Robert Altman is trying to put across to the audience. For a Western, the film is very artsy. It’s almost as if the director were saying, in a situation like the one in this film, where’s the beauty and mystery in the material? Altman infuses those qualities in not necessarily the plot (what plot?) but more in the details; in the way the actors convey their character traits through improvised dialogue and “gimmicks” like the way McCabe (Warren Beatty) mutters to himself in times of crisis. Those times of crisis are basically present throughout the whole duration of the movie, and yet there is such a calm tone present throughout; a tone of almost trippy elliptical confusion on both the characters and the audience’s part.
For a non-mainstream art film, McCabe and Mrs. Miller is about as unpretentious as a film can be. (It’s over before you know it.) Altman loves his characters that inhabit this town, and makes us the audience come to love them as well. I think this is because all the actors here are fully inhabiting shantytown characteristics. It’s great seeing Julie Christie gussied up a bit, because she becomes more ethereal in the process. (The same can be said for Warren Beatty-I think the beard helps bring out his eccentric side). I think Altman’s theory on beauty is that beauty is more defined when it is submerged and hidden. McCabe and Mrs. Miller is an art film with low-down humor. (The cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond is so evocative, it’s almost as if Carvaggio shot the movie in the muck.)
McCabe and Mrs. Miller is highly ambiguous personal filmmaking. McCabe’s wanting to have complete control over the whorehouse is always being thwarted by business men who want to take over the property. They eventually threaten his life if he doesn’t give in. McCabe is not allowed to make he deal in the way that he deems fit, and before he knows it the ground crumbles from underneath him. (That man who is experiencing inner turmoil and muttering under his breath might as well be Robert Altman.) This is a metaphor for Robert Altman’s wanting complete artistic control over his films and being thwarted by the movie business executives financing his endeavors. The fact that this thesis is highly ambiguous is the way that it ought to be. The meanings are hidden and submerged in the work in order to not get in the way of the audience’s enjoyment of the film. Altman’s way of telling a story cinematically is analogous to how a beautiful tree is covered in rain. (One of the shots in the film.) Ironically today’s audience may be so unused to this apparent negligence that they may not respond to the film at all. I feel that this makes the work even more mysterious.
The way that the town is depicted, gives an audience member a wonderful sense of the geography of Presbyterian Church. An audience member is aware of the places that are safe and not safe to traverse in, like in any other town, only those emotions are made more drastically vivid. Every detail is wonderfully elaborated here. The whorehouse is so playful and fun that ultimately you the audience member want to take residence there. It’s a place to stay warm from the harsh cold elements outside (both literally and metaphorically.) Each character that enters Presbyterian makes the town more interesting, and one begins to know the town like the back of their hand. Every single inhabitant has their own wonderful quirkiness. Eventually, the audience feels that we are taking up residence in this town, and that’s because we can imagine what it would be like once we have left it. We can imagine what goes on away from our prying eyes. The audience get this sense because we merely overhear or see certain events and miss others. This creates expansiveness of imagination; creates curiosity and frustration and interest in this town, almost as if it were a real place. We want that to be preserved by McCabe; we are both worried for the town and also are worried for McCabe’s well being. There’s freedom in the filmmaking here, because it seems as if real humans take residence in Presbyterian. What can be suggested or merely guessed at is what makes an audience member watching these characters love them exponentially. That sense of discovery might as well have died with McCabe.
For a brief period of time, McCabe and Mrs. Miller are the movers and shakers of the town. The film’s tone is tenuous because of McCabe and Mrs. Miller’s grip that they have on Presbyterian, which is constantly dissipating. The couple’s doom is written in the wind, and the two of them want to try to forget this sad fact. All of these plangent qualities are felt in Leonard Cohen’s evocative music. The songs in this film both portend the future and make one enjoy the present.
I feel that McCabe and Mrs. Miller is one of the most romantic films ever made, and that’s because we don’t really see the intimacy between the two protagonists. Their love can only be left to our imaginations, and besides, unrequited love is the most romantic kind of love presented on the screen because it’s of a tragic nature. (All though I do think they sleep together.) The fact that we can imagine what their relationship was like is a blessing rather than a curse. The void in their relationship is the entire film; because of this McCabe and Mrs. Miller has a wonderful feeling and tone to it that can only be accurately described as Canadian provocative. In the end, the town turns their back on McCabe, and it’s great that this isn’t stated outright. In other words, it’s not made depressing in anyway, much like how the personal feeling in the work is not stated outright. Altman does not want his audience to despair, but rather to enjoy the surroundings of the film. It’s great that the audience has hope for McCabe by the end of the film, and hope in his relationship with Mrs. Miller. We do not want them to be forgotten or lost; and yet they are.

Sicko

2008-12-13T09:05:00.001-08:00

Sicko is a depiction of how the American health care system is a shambles. Michael Moore’s film shows, especially the American middle and lower class who are the ones that suffer the most from this situation, what the health care system is like in the rest of the world. The results are shocking and against our favor. In places like France and England, and even a place like Cuba (!), going to get an operation costs nothing. There is a wide margin here between the freedoms that foreign citizens in countries other than the U.S. receive in terms of free health care, compared to the health care prices here. The form of incense that Moore as a filmmaker transposes onto the audience come from the fact that doctors can and do live very comfortably financial lives in those countries; what’s the excuse for H.M.O.’s to be jacking up the health care prices here? The answer can only be greed and heartlessness. One has to be heartless if they do not perform a life saving operation on someone, just because they receive benefits from H.M.O. companies. That gonzo journalist Michael Moore, as always, stays true to his form of filmmaking (by falsifying facts and making certain individuals, like in the case of this film doctors, appear to be fools) and yet this time the gonzo journalism theatrics seem to be justified because of the imperative importance of this particular topic. How can one not joke in amazement over the fact that many of the firefighters who helped in the relief effort of 9/11 can be better treated medically (many have breathing issues) over in Cube (where Moore takes them) than in their own homeland? It’s a sick joke, and yet its reality. That joke has an underside of deep human caring and concern over the whole American health care situation and the people being affected by it.
I already knew that our health care system was a mess. Who doesn’t; everyone is affected by the enormous amount that one has to pay in order to have an operation and everyone implicitly knows the greed of the insurance companies. What I didn’t know was what initiated this mess. I learned from this film that John Ehrlichman convinced Richard Nixon to create a care system based on the belief that hospitals should give less care to their patients in order to obtain a greater profit. However, its one thing to already know something; it’s quite something else to actually see some of the worst examples of how innocent people are being affected by the high costs in health care. This is almost like fully exploring your feelings and concerns, which are in themselves highly upsetting emotionally. I feel that the reason Moore shows you cases like the one involving a retired couple who loses their home because of the expenses that they paid for dealing with multiple heart attacks and cancer (not to mention the many deaths that result from the insurance companies heartlessness), is to make you, the audience member, strife with anger against the system, so much so that we as a society cannot not deal with the high cost of health care anymore and, thus, ultimately try to fight the system in order to abolish this problem. This is what kept my interest not only during the movie, but long afterward as well. It’s a film that stays with you, and how can it not? The problem that’s in this film is always present in our daily lives. Moore ultimately wants that problem to go away. Moore’s desperate need to ultimately vanquish this problem is what makes him a successful director; his actually deeply caring about the people being affected by this, i.e. the audience. We are not left out of the implications of this film like we were in Moore’s other movies.
The filmmaker’s relationship to those being filmed is very interesting. He, like the audience, is incredulous upon finding out how affordable it is to just plain live, not let alone survive, in Europe and other foreign countries in the U.S. His relationship to the victims is entirely different. It’s almost one of care and consideration and great calm; examples of reassurance that this system will not last forever and something will be done about the situation.
One particular scene in the film that reflects the spirit of the movie is when Moore learns that in France, everyone is allowed six months paternity leave along with paid leave if they are facing a grave illness. Even though this is a minor scene, and really has nothing to do with the health care system, it shows the caring that is generally allocated to European citizens which is something that is not felt in America. It really is a shock to the system when an American audience hears this. Why doesn’t the government care about us over here?
The socio political context of this film is one of the system being rigged. Here’s an example: ex-congressman Billy Tauzin’s saying to Congress that they must pass a senior-citizens drug bill. Once Congress does, Billy Tauzin makes millions lobbying for drug companies. What kind of example does this illicit behavior set for this country? There is a plangent quality to this film, because it simply appears that in this country the poor and middle class lose and lose only. This is felt in the people being interviwed’s behavior, in the way the film is edited, the way it is shot, the narration, ect. Yet, there is also uplift as well, which is the ultimate American spirit. Moore does not want anyone in this country, this includes the insurance bigwigs, to forget what this country was based in: care for everyone along with voicing of one’s independence. Moore wants us to change the system and to not let us forget that we can.

RIZE

2008-12-13T09:04:00.001-08:00

The narrative being told in the film of RIZE, is one that deals with how exactly a community rises above restrictions like poverty and even death. It’s not so much that the groups that dance in the poor areas depicted in this film become more economically rich because of their dance skills. Rather, they become more psychologically enriched from what they do, which in a sense is emoting through dance rather than through violence. The dance communities in RIZE emote their frustrations as well as their sadness.
I feel that the filmmaker was very successful in connecting the situations that these people as a poor community encounter, with that of dancing in order to get rid of their frustrations through art. If this connecting method on the filmmaker’s part didn’t occur, then the audience wouldn’t quite understand why it is so important that this community have a need to dance; the importance is that the dance is the means by which the community stays together as a functioning unit, no matter what the circumstances are. I know see not only how a community like the ones in poorer parts of California cope, but I’ve learned for my own needs how to cope; how to energize myself so that nothing negative affects me. Really, that’s what the communities in RIZE do; everything for them is a mindset.
The filmmaker’s successes were the fact that they got such good footage; footage that someone like myself never has seen before because I don’t live in any areas were krumping and the like is done. Te dance footage is simply exhilarating; what’s amazing is that the footage remains exhilarating even after the audience learns of certain deaths in the neighborhood. Krumping prevails over anything. I was also amazed that the interview footage was so good. These dancers tell you exactly what they meant to convey by their dance moves; something that other more “professional” dancers have a very hard time of conveying. Maybe it’s so easy for these dancers to express themselves because what they are experiencing is genuine and is a very urgent need, rather than a means to simply show off and gain prestige. Also, the great interview footage may have to do with the ease with which the filmmaker’s have with these individuals. He almost seems to be one of them, and the joking that both interviewer and interviewee partake in is very refreshing to hear because poorer individuals, especially in movies are never depicted at ease in any way which is somewhat insulting.
One particular scene that depicts the movie’s spirit for me is when the man who has started these dance contests learns that his house has been broken into. At first he is overwrought with emotion; he can’t believe that someone would rob the home of a man who is not only a good man at heart, but wants to spread his cause as well. One of his friends says to him that he shouldn’t worry; this is merely one more indication that he should move on to bigger and better things with his cause. There is something so realistic about this moment; these are two human beings actually having a conversation with each other in a movie and one is so not used to this that they may be overwrought with emotion as well. It also depicts what this film is all about; overcoming one’s repressions and feats of sadness in order to live and spread your cause-make your individual mark. The clown man’s cause is actually coming back and helping him out as well, which is the ultimate sign that his cause is important. The film aesthetically is very musical. I felt as if each and every shot was edited to the great pulsating dance beat that these individuals listen to. I wanted to start to dance like them; even though I knew that I ultimately just didn’t have their talent. Some shots are very raw and beautiful much like the spirit of these people.

Jesus Camp

2008-12-13T09:02:00.001-08:00

The documentary Jesus Camp is a depiction of the Evangelical Christian religion, and the disturbing fundamental aspect of that ideology and how it impacts children raised in an Evangelical household. The film shows how children who have Evangelical parents are not really allowed to express their own opinion, and are not even really taught reality. They do not attend school, but rather are home schooled in order so that they do not learn anything that counters the Evangelical beliefs. It’s highly disturbing how these children are given such a distorted view of religion. This religion speaks of how anyone who doesn’t believe in the Evangelical faith is a sinner and will be forever damned. The audience feels sympathy for these children who attend these camps, because the audience is well aware that this belief system is indoctrinated so much so into these children’s subconscious that they will subsequently have messed up adult lives; much like how the preachers of Evangelical Christianity are disturbed in personality. The film was obviously made for people who are not aware of what a disturbing phenomenon this really is; made for people who are not aware how these people are politicians (especially the modern Republican party’s) stool pigeons for votership. I wasn’t even aware at how this virus, as it were, is spreading; ¼ of Americans are Evangelical Christians, which is very disturbing and which is more of a reason for the importance of this documentary being made in the first place.
The filmmaker was extremely successful in keeping my interest. The rabid nature of the participants of this religion are almost out of a Horror movie; there doesn’t even need to be any narration to enliven the film in anyway. The footage speaks for itself; the corrupt nature of what’s going on here is so easily apparent. Kids around the age group of the ones attending the camp’s critical factors are so easily bypassed at a young age, and the corrupt Evangelical leaders and preachers know this. One is supposed to find religion for themselves, and not the other way around. I know realize after seeing this film, why this religion is spreading so rapidly; many Evangelicals simply don’t have a choice-they are not given a proper education and are basically deprived individuals. It’s shocking to consider that ¼ of all Americans are stuck in this predicament of being ensnared in a cult. The filmmaker was successful in capturing all of this because of the amount of empathy that the audience has for some of these children; they are naturally bright individuals and yet all of that is gone to waste. (Many want to use their talents to become preachers.) There were no challenges on the film makers part in depicting what they wanted to depict; the obviousness of the situation sadly is only apparent to anyone outside of this religion’s participants. Because of this, not only the filmmaker’s but the whole outside world seems withdrawn and separated from these people. The filmmaker’s merely document the footage and get out as fast as they can.
One particular scene that reflects this film’s spirit for me is when the preachers in the camp perform the ritual as it were of taping all of the kid’s mouths. These kids are not allowed to speak for themselves in anyway, and this fact (like the scene) is highly disturbing. A depiction of this is the home schooling scene, where its obvious that the children’s childhoods are obviously rigged and set up for one out come and one out come only; they have to be obedient servers of the Evangelical religion. (It’s shocking how even all of the children’s pop cultural references-even the drawings that they draw and the songs that they sing-all pertain to Christ. Evangelical’s excuse for this lack of freedom-the excuse that they always give-is that they don’t want pop culture, i.e., the normal way to grow up, to easily corrupt the children in a sinful manner.) There are very many close ups of the children. These are present in the film in order to emphasize the caring nature that we should have towards these individuals who are trapped; we the audience can subtly read their need to escape-their unhappiness-in their facial expressions. They all look like hypnotized zombies. The sounds that emanate these children when they prey are terrifying gobbledygook; they are not uttered in a wholly manner but more in a Satanic fashion. Everything about this religion, and the ways it is depicted aesthetically by the filmmakers, reeks of trouble.

the Dark Knight updated

2008-12-13T08:56:00.000-08:00

Here's a quote from Manny Farber:"Continuation involves constant attempts to stretch out the moment--as in L'Amour Fou--expanding its parameters step by step. In the Rivette, it involves moving back from a romantic discussion between two neurotics to see the space they occupy, then to perceive the space as a stage, then their discussion as a rehearsal, and so on; Altman does it with more and more layers of voices on the soundtrack.Continuation is about entry. It's anti-conclusive, it stresses involvement, and it grows out of the termite notion. You keep moving forward and extending the time element as you go"

This is what Christopher Nolan does with the Dark Knight. The film almost has an epic length, and newer and newer details are constantly introduced, consistently changing the audience’s perception of the characters that they are watching. Basically, this approach is rebellious against the whole notion of adequate movement of time and space in film; particularly a superhero genre film such as this one. So what? And yet, so many of my favorite critics writing today disparage of this idea. (They guise this in their description of the film being anarchic. Is this classy subtle film, which merely suggests anarchy as a possible outcome for Gotham's future, really that negative in spirit? For God's sake, the film encourages helping one another out, even at the risk of your own life. These critics are merely priggish in regards to even the slightest mention of anarchy, almost as if the concept didn't even exist.) It makes sense that the filmmakers of the Dark Knight want to rebel against the common way to make a superhero film. Batman is the ultimate superhero rebel; he's the badass of DC comics. My argument with the critics who don't like the film, has to do with their finding the movie too long, and too realistic; as if realism was not allowed to be an aspect of the superhero genre. Gotham is a troubled contingent society, and this wouldn't be felt in any sophisticated way unless the film were long in length. It also allows the film to have something called tension; ah, I was missing that for awhile! (An unsophisticated way of depicting a city in danger would be showing characters in desperate need of help in only a few scant scenes). I loved the movie because it was shot in Chicago, instead of a "great" fake looking Gotham set, which is programmatic. I couldn't leave my seat, even though I had to go to the bathroom the whole time. The deft use of space in this film ends up making the Dark Knight a conception piece: An ever-enveloping extended work that's progress is interrupted by a menace.

I was terrified of Heath Ledger; it was as if Laurence Olivier were playing the part. Our generation's James Dean was a much greater actor than James Dean ever was. It's a very inventive performance, with the most perfect vocal interpretation of the Joker you will ever hear. Ledger gave the film an Underground B movie sensibility, which so fits a high budget extravaganza such as this. I felt as if he were some insane kid who one day dropped everything he was doing, and decided to have some irresponsible fun with Gotham City. (This movie is not for kids—maybe that’s why it was such a good film.) This kid’s nerves are fried; it’s actually kind of funny. At some moments this crazed person is amazed himself that he is getting away with this; bringing Gotham to its knees overnight and having Batman in his grasp. At one point in the film, the Joker enters terrain very similar to a John Waters picture (although much more aesthetically pleasing), or something directed by Samuel Fuller out of the 1950's--you know what I mean? It’s enthralling to watch and is also a first for a superhero movie. It also may be the last time we see anything like this again--this anarchic blissfulness in a cop out genre. The termite approach can only exist (in this time period) in a continuous movie.

Christopher Nolan: "Taking on a sequel is actually quite liberating. Normally, however you're arranging the material, you have to show certain movements in the narrative in the first third to get to a particular point. With a sequel you don't have to do any of that. You can just jump straight in." Nolan takes that tone for the whole film. That tone applies to even the other characters that we as an audience never had the pleasure to meet; characters who hadn't appeared in the first film. He keeps everyone a mystery, and that's intellectually stimulating--a first for a superhero film. Superhero characters are so psychologically interesting anyway--no one should rob any of them (and in the Dark Knight that means any of them)--of their riches. Nolan is trying to make a work of art here--and he's not going to let anything, including franchise normative film making conventions, get in his way.

This film felt as if it were directed by Nicolas Roeg, and I was amazed that it was so good. (It’s similarly edited and also retains that Roegish Gothic feel.) It's the only Batman story I have ever seen or read that made me realize that Batman is not merely a crime fighting detective--that's him on his flawed days. Batman, and this is why we love him so, is a symbol that will do whatever he can to make the city he guards a hopeful place; whatever the cost. And that he does indeed have limits. That’s the inherent tension in this movie; he’s both human and non-human, and the Joker realizes this weakness and tries to exploit it. It’s hilarious that Batman influenced the creation of this monster, and the Joker knows this as well. So does the flawed plangent Batman. That's termite art. It's ever enveloping--ever extending; unresolved. This terrifyingly philosophic movie (Seeing the space these two--Batman and the Joker--occupy is very interesting visually. Imagine one character looking like a punk Francis Bacon image trying to psychologically unhinge someone who looks and acts like a black anvil) gives hope to every filmgoer that there are reasons to see a big budget movie. This would not have happened unless the filmmakers were of a rebellious nature. They are rebelling against all the detritus of movies out there, and against the studios that are causing the mess, and at the same they are using the studios money. Who would poo poo that form of revenge? This film fills in the gaps of the first Tim Burton Batman, and does it feel so good.
Postscript:
For once, we actually have real sentiment and emotion at this award show. Usually, the Oscars is an award show replete with fake tears; tears that represent actors, in particular, congratulating themselves rather than their fellow peers. (In many instances for awards that they didn't deserve.) Here is the exception; the moment when everyone there and everywhere else felt emotional towards someone else. Wasn't that the point of Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker (and the point of that film)? Ledger's simply wanting to join his fellow peers in being nominated resulted in something much greater. His acting career represented the notion of prospering a dying industry, and tonight I finally realized he succeeded. The rest of the show was superfluous.

Fifty Words is Not Enough

2008-12-13T08:54:00.001-08:00

The subject of a couple breaking up is a difficult topic for any art form to handle, much less the theatre, where all subject matter is compressed onto one stage. The whole workings of a relationship, including its tribulations and successes, has to be implicitly understood through limiting means. That doesn’t necessarily mean that the topic of marital strife cannot be done on the stage. I merely mean to imply that it’s a much harder task for a playwright and theatre actors and director to handle than say if the topic were shown in a movie. If one were to compare Michael Weller’s Fifty Words to a film like Alan Parker and Bo Goldman’s Shoot the Moon, then one can very well see the problems implicit in a stage setting when the topic of divorce is being discussed.
Fifty Words, which deals with only the couple and not their child (he’s merely a concept), is a far different work than Shoot the Moon. Yet, both works deal with the same topic. Ultimately, it comes down to which work has more artistic merit because their topics are so similar, and yet their handling of this topic is so vastly different. In Shoot the Moon, George (Albert Finney) and Faith’s (Diane Keaton) divorce is handled very beautifully because the audience sees how this relationship is under strain, because we have instances when we can see how their relationship affects other people, including their children. We have a real sense of the inherent tragedy of this couple and how this relationship can’t last, even though they deeply love each other; it’s simply a too chaotic and harmful form of love but its love alright. I feel that film is the most realistic example of a depiction of the strife inherent in a relationship than probably anything else before or after it. (More on the reasons for that later). The complexity in Fifty Words is much more limiting, because of the structure imposed by the playwright Michael Weller.
The inherent flaw in the play is the fact that it takes place within a day (or the evening and then the morning.) A relationship is a complex thing to depict, and I do feel that the audience has to, in the end, in some strange way understand the couple in front of them. How else are they supposed to have any empathy and emotional understanding of their situation? Fifty Words is simply one gigantic argument, while Shoot the Moon is the slow disintegration of a relationship. In Fifty Words, the audience has to see the strain that their relationship has had on them over the years. One night and a day does not give you that. Shoot the Moon is therefore a more complex work that constantly surprises like any relationship. I was not surprised in anyway by Fifty Words and I was not moved either. I felt as if I was being assaulted by the actors playing Jan (Elizabeth Marvel) and Adam (Norbert Leo Butz). This is not meant to be a negative appraisal of their performances (Although I did feel that Marvel overdid her anger scenes. If you compare her to Diane Keaton, than she is sunk. Her anger is inadequate to the situation.) Rather, I am criticizing the limiting structure of the argument. Everything is condensed so that there is anger and reconciliation and then anger again, like in any relationship. That means that the audience has to be trapped in this debacle, rather than having a reprieve in which to think about what we just saw. (The reprieve’s in the play come in the form of verbal silences.) It’s the contemplating about what just happened that makes one understand the sadness that is connected with the trials and tribulations of a relationship. We have to see this couple away from one another, like in Shoot the Moon, in order to see how lonely they are without one another. That inherent need is what makes a relationship that is not meant to work out a tragic one. We don’t see that inherent need in Fifty Words; the whole play is verbal abuse and consequently the audience feels intimidated by this couple. They are supposed to be intimidated by each other.
It’s interesting how similar both works are to one another. Yet their implications are entirely different. Yes, in both works there is the scene where the wife realizes that her husband is cheating on her, and starts throwing objects like plates. However, in Shoot the Moon, we the audience are initially confused by this form of violence. We are always confused by George’s actions, and then understand them after the fact. I feel that George realizes this too; this reconciliation is always too late and that’s a metaphor for troubled relationships. I didn’t feel that in Fifty Words. I saw the plates being thrown a mile away, and that’s where my dislike for these characters began. Their arguments are too much justified; these two understand each other like the back of their hand and can’t wait to assault one another. That in itself is an insulting form of characterization. The yelling and reconciliation scenes should be more petty and inane; the arguments should be over stupid little objects that have no significance, like in real life. We should initially back away from them, and then by play’s end want them to stay together. We can’t feel that way if we feel as if we are being verbally assaulted as well. Grace leads to more pain because grace doesn’t last. Scenes should reverberate, like in real life.
The house should be a representation of the couple’s marriage, because verbal abuse is initially so hard to understand. The house in Shoot the Moon is George and Faith’s relationship. Faith has a tennis court built, which is a representation of her moving on. George hates that tennis court, because it’s a representation of how he’s losing his house, his family, and his identity. That tennis court is built by Faith’s new man. We don’t get any of that complexity in Fifty Words; all of the themes in the relationship are forced upon us by an argument. The house in Shoot the Moon is the only way for the audience to understand these two people yelling at each other. It’s an example of the stakes that always eventually appear in a relationship and in a break up. Who’s going to take care of the house? Who’s going to take care of the family? (Why this play doesn’t show how this relationship affects their child is anybody’s guess.) There’s no contrast between the scenic beauty and the painfulness in the relationship, like there is in Shoot the Moon. I know that what I am saying is a little unfair, considering that the play form can’t possible contain these considerations (the stage format is too limiting) but I also feel that this is the type of play that makes one aware of the limitations of the stage format.
We as an audience are also aware of the showboating in the writing. These actors talk to each other theatrically, opposed to how people talk in real life. That line of Jan’s, where she says, “Give me back my power,” is an example of what I am talking about. The audience should understand what’s underneath the words. A couple that is experiencing problems in their relationship, experience them because they can’t outright articulate their feelings toward one another. The way things are articulated in Fifty Words makes what the work means obvious, opposed to this conversation in Shoot the Moon:
Faith: Just now for an instant there—I don’t know—you made me laugh George—you were kind.
George: You’re right, I’m not kind anymore.
Faith: Me neither.
George: You’re kind to strangers.
Faith: Strangers are easy.
My ultimate main problem with Fifty Words is that we don’t see how this couple interacts with other people. We should see that they can’t put up a front, which is the final example of disintegration. This is what ultimately makes the couple tragic and romantic. If Fifty Words were a movie, than it would be cut very rapidly like a Borne film. There would be camera angles emphasizing the actor’s ferocious anger towards one another. The problem with the play is the fact that there are no family members getting in the way of their lunges toward one another. This, ironically enough, makes the situation less depressing and more contrived. You have to feel other people’s pain as well, in order to feel your own. In Fifty Words, the audience daydreams because all we are doing is looking at this couple, and the actors yell at us to wake us up. When a divorce happens, nothing is the same afterwards. A line has been crossed, which is what leads to violence. One partner has a need to tear themselves back into the relationship, when family is involved (that would be George). Because there is no family present in Fifty Words, the audience doesn’t understand the violence. Why was it the playwright and the director’s (Austin Pendleton) choice not to show the son in this play? He would have made the audience torn up about the situation. The least the playwright could have done would have been to show that there’s calm before the storm in a troubled relationship (this leads to tension, which is a quality that this play desperately tries to get at). In Fifty Words, all that’s given to us is tempestuous storm, and what’s ultimately lost is despair.

We Are Going to Melt Them Down For Pills and Soap

2008-12-12T08:46:00.002-08:00

Elvis Costello’s Pills and Soap is a brilliant song. It’s probably the greatest Costello tune about what he most feared as an artist: subtle annihilating oppression. Costello was always singing about that concept, especially on his album Armed Forces. A listener could always hear that terror in the back of his voice; almost as if someone were pointing a gun at the back of his head. Costello’s voice is one of trepidation against how his homeland of England is being run and managed. The reason I like his vocal voice more than say the English punk rebels of the 70’s is that it has more weight to it—there’s more of a vocal range there, which means emotions like fear and anger (especially of the political variety) are made more acute and real. This artist is not faking his emotions. The strange thing about Pills and Soap is that the song is incredibly calm and soothing to listen to; almost like a great Jazz record. It’s only after the audience realizes what Costello is singing about that the tune becomes truly terrifying. What he is singing about is manipulation of the highest order; manipulation with a smiling face.

Many great musical artists of the time (at least the ones that showed they cared an inch about politics) were afraid of the implications of Reagan’s politics, and how many were buying his message. The English equivalent was fear against Margaret Thatcher. Artists like Costello feared that this woman was ushering in an age of subtle fascism; the kind that supposedly accommodates everyone, when in reality it turns those noble spenders and consumers and hard workers into products. The co modification of flesh is what Costello sung about in his early songs. However, it’s ironic that in Pills and Soap Costello sings the tune as if he were responding to this whole procedure in a soothing way. That’s what the song’s about; the comfort that this form of propaganda gives to the working class individual, and how this sort of phenomenon is unexplainable. Costello’s anger is startling because it is so calm.

The song is incredibly catchy; almost as if it were a child’s ditty. That’s where the song gets its terrifying nature from. Costello’s propagandistic statement is that Fascism can be so endearing, so comforting a statement. This is a much more complex song that punk songs of protest of previous years, ant that may be because it doesn’t sound like a form of protest. It sounds like a song of transfixation; almost as if you are under Thatcher’s spell. The singer sings as if he is under that spell, in order to alert others to wake up. Costello’s form of propaganda is a subtle one, in much the same way that Thatcher’s form of propaganda was subtle. That’s what truly makes this song terrifying. This is now the only way to fight the beast, is what Costello is basically telling his listener.

“They talked to the sister, the father and the mother
With a microphone in one hand and a chequebook in the other
AND THE CAMERA NOSES IN TO THE TEARS ON HER FACE
The tears on her face
The tears on her face”

Right away, the singer is telling the listener what the situation is. There is no situation; it’s just business as usual, and that’s what’s so terrifying about updated fascism. Our notions of reality are becoming simply commonplace forms of usury. Costello is singing about how he can’t really do anything about the situation. The only thing he can do is lament about it; this song is Costello’s last ditch effort before he gets sucked in to this mess. (That’s not really what actually happened to the singer; he still remained very political, but that is how the song’s tone feels). He’s not singing songs of protest anymore; he’s simply watching this scene on television like everyone else, and trying his best in his zombified state to sing about the injustice of the situation. This song is the subtlest form of propaganda—the subtlest form of anger—that I have ever heard. The singer loses himself in the role of the working class stiff being used, in order to fully embody that stiff’s feelings. The song is propagandistic and yet its not, because the singer loses himself in the process. That’s really the ultimate statement of propaganda, in my opinion. “You can put them back together with your paper and paste, but you can’t put them back together You can’t put them back together.” The song is a modernist statement on its subject matter; it shows that even the singer can lose out to the concept that he is against.

Here’s an interesting fact to learn: the song was released in England in 1983 around the time that Thatcher was reelected as Prime Minister. The song was withdrawn from circulation on election day. However, what really interests me is that this song also came out around the same time that Prince Charles and Diana married. There’s our “lord and lady muck.” Who’s our lord and lady muck now? A popstar/neurotic by the name of Britney Spears. It seems that as this song becomes older, the meanings behind it become more true because our culture becomes more debased; there are greater and greater instances of distraction to keep us from looking at the truth. Our forms of royalty have boiled down to an even worse commodity product. How does this affect our self esteem as a culture? It doesn’t, and that’s the whole point of Costello’s song.

Donne Updated

2008-12-12T08:46:00.001-08:00

Oh, to no end…Donne’s Need for Continual Religious Contradiction

If one were to closely analyze Donne’s Holy Sonnet number 16, and compare that poem to some of Donne’s other poetry, then that reader may realize that their reading of the poem may counter what sonnet 16 is supposed to be about. This contradiction or paradox of analysis correlates with the way that Donne saw the world. The problem with the paradox or contradiction is eventually that contradiction will reflect upon itself and create a new contradiction which will then create a new contradiction, etc. This form of imagery of copies and reflections is a device that Donne wholeheartedly believes in. Sonnet 16 is essentially an argument for how humanity’s need for more is what makes humanity exciting.

However, first let’s discuss the initial popular way of viewing this poem. Holy Sonnet number 16 is deemed highly controversial by readers because it depicts Donne’s desperate need to be conquered in a sexual way by God for the purposes of becoming a more devout being. It appears that Donne wants to transcend his state because humanity in general is so despicable.

It’s ironic that Donne needs violent aid in order to transcend. Why does Donne’s aid have to be violent? The answer could be that Donne continually needs life’s thronging temptations. It appears that this poet enjoys this process of ecstasy like transformation much more than the prospect of becoming a more devout individual. This is no more felt than in the end of the poem when Donne exclaims to God, “Take me to you, imprison me, for I/Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,/Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me” (lines 12 through 14 of Holy Sonnet 16). The problem here is Donne’s need to go beyond spiritual devoutness to a much higher plain. The confusion that a reader may feel upon reading this poem is the concept of Donne’s feeling sinful for merely being devoutly spiritual. How more spiritual can a human being be? Donne will always feel that he is damning God’s name, because of his need for continual religious conflation, as in the sentence where Donne states that, “That I may rise, and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend” (line 3 of Holy Sonnet 16). Why does Donne think that man is too weak to receive redemption on his own, through prayer?

In order to realize why there is a contradiction in Donne’s argument, one should examine Donne’s secular poetry. In The Flea, Donne is frustrated by always being played the unrequited love card. The only thing that Donne receives from the women that he tries to fall in love with is simply flirtation and that is all. Donne becomes so desperate that he invents this argument for consummation based on a flea. In The Damp, Donne metaphorically writes about his frustrations over constantly finding facades inherent in his relationships; Donne would love to strip these facades bare in order to receive the truth. Donne feels that lovers should be equal beings and should not be involved in conquests and wars and “poor victories” (line 9 of The Damp). However, warfare cannot be separated from sexuality, no matter how hard one tries to do so. Façade or conquest and inequality are inherent in human nature. This is why Donne deems it fit to criticize human nature

Interestingly, Donne’s efforts to separate warfare from sexuality in his secular poetry lead to his criticizing humanity and wanting to move beyond to a higher state in his religious poetry. However, in order to evolve, Donne would have to be an unequal in the relationship with God, which Donne equates to a sexual relationship. The contradiction is that Donne has to be conquered by God in order to not be conquered anymore. This is a highly illogical argument. Perhaps one should read and interpret Donne’s frustration in another way. What if Donne, without fully realizing it in his secular poetry, enjoyed being shut out by his paramour? Isn’t this a very human impulse that one would not care to admit? In unrequited love situations, there is always some strange form of hope on the part of the one pursing the uncommitted party; almost as if that person enjoyed the chase more than the actual consummation. It’s apparent from his poetry that Donne has a highly ambitious nature which never ceases. His need is to encompass more and more and to never be satisfied. What Donne writes about in his poetry is a very human impulse. This is interesting, considering that it appears upon first reading of sonnet 16 that Donne is criticizing humanity.

All of this is intrinsic in Donne’s Holy Sonnet number 16. Donne’s asking God to conquer him would inevitably lead to the ecstasy of that moment ending and Donne being metamorphosised. Does Donne really want this to happen? Isn’t it exciting to believe that we want to metamorphosise, when in reality we merely want to look for that beyond and not find it, and ultimately tell everyone about our experience? That’s what Donne does in his poetry. If one were to compare the way God is depicted here (the dispassionate creator who only acts through the two person trinity and not the third (Paglia, pg. 31)) to the passionate Donne, than one would realize that what Donne is writing about in this poem is the exciting aspect of human nature. Donne ultimately feels that if one’s needs are not fulfilled then that makes life more exciting; there is never an end to this process, because one is always searching for new possibilities. This is felt when Donne says , “…but oh, to no end” (line 6 of Holy Sonnet 16). What appear to be criticisms of human nature may not be criticisms at all. Donne, in actuality, is very much in sync with human nature.

There is a similarity here between sex and religious devotion. Donne enjoys being shut out by the one that he loves in much the same way as he enjoys not seeing God’s face; in not transcending to a higher state of being. He doesn’t want the ecstasy of the moment to ever end. Donne may indeed realize this, and this is why he constantly experiences religious guilt, like many other religiously devout people. This is a man who never wants to be fully formed; he never wants to find the final answer to a question. There is a similarity here to Good Friday, Riding Westward. Religion is very enjoyable to Donne because he can never see God’s face; just as in this poem Donne never really wants to see his transformed self. This occurs in the poem when Donne states that, “Yet dare I’ almost be glad I do not see/That spectacle of too much weight for me” (lines 15 and 16 of Good Friday, Riding Westward). Donne’s form of complexity; his always finding his own answers to his questions with another related question, may be present because he can’t make a touching moment of admission like this obvious, or else the moment would become maudlin and false. There is a flaw in this man’s nature; it’s what makes Donne stay a human being.

Marvell

2008-12-12T08:43:00.001-08:00

The Complications of Rebellion

In examining Andrew Marvell’s different poems, there is a constant elaboration of the poet’s main theory on life. The greatest case of this occurred in 1681, when Marvel hit an epiphany in his observations. This epiphany first occurred in Marvell’s Mower poems, and were thus elaborated and given final shape in To His Coy Mistress.

The Mower poems and To His Coy Mistress both are similar in that they deal with a man (who is a stand in for Marvell) suddenly discovers that nature is a more freeing environment that the one that man has created. The mower is against gardens because they impose an artificial organization of nature, which inevitably imposes on man as well. This mower realizes that he has to rebel against societies norms which are artificial, and which keep him restricted in terms of expression. Unfortunately, along with this realization comes the more negative implication that very few people share in this viewpoint. This fact is what makes Damon believe that he can’t have a lover. He doesn’t want his viewpoint to be corrupted by anyone. However, Damon can’t be an isolationist because he realizes that, “…there is no escape from love’s tyranny within the bounds of time” (Berthoff, pg. 133). In To His Coy Mistress, Marvell still has realized that he has to rebel against societies norms, but his rebellion has become elaborated to the point where time is included as one of the concepts that he has to rebel against. To His Coy Mistress is a more hopeful poem than the mower poems, because Marvell actually has the belief that he can defeat the constraints of time, opposed to wallowing away in those constraints.

The tragedy inherent in Damon’s position (the reason for why he becomes an isolationist) occurs because, “Damon the Mower seeks freedom not from time but from love, for it is love which has destroyed the ground of his being, his life in nature” (Berthoff, pg. 132). This sentiment is felt when Damon states, “How happy might I still have mow’d,/ Had not love here his Thistles sow’d” (Damon the Mower, lines 65 and 66)! Marvell has run into the problem of expressing his feelings to the reader because, “Though only an authentic countryman could cite the real joys of country life, only a poet would be free to express the joy” (Berthoff, pg. 133). Marvell has lost that innocent feeling that he can express his thoughts to anyone, because his thoughts are of such a negative nature. The writer at the point of writing Damon the Mower doesn’t realize why this is so.

Marvell’s epiphany of man’s relation to nature should be joyful to read, and yet it isn’t because the concept of sharing one’s insights is left out of the equation. Ego naturally has to occur if there’s no one around to share your sentiments. Part of the problem might be that Damon, “…fancies life in all its forms and can see himself in any role” (Berthoff, 134). He would have to in order to basically keep any self integrity in his isolationism. There’s something off in a stanza like the one where Damon states that:

“My mind was once the true survey/Of all these Meadows fresh and gay;/And in the greenness of the Grass/Did see its Hopes as in a Glass/When Juliana came, and she/What I do to the grass, does to my thoughts and me” (The Mower’s Song, lines 1 through 6).

It makes sense that this man would naturally be put off by a person if he were rebelling against how society negatively affects nature. However, who does this man interact with? This first stanza in the poem makes the reader worried for the Mower’s well being, particularly in relation to his mental state. Subconsciously the reader is aware that this mower has to try to fall in love with Juliana, and this is because he simply feels inadequate in his isolation. The mower’s time is running out, and because of this limiting device, he doesn’t realize that there are ways to share his viewpoint in a way that will win over the one that he loves. The mower doesn’t realize any of this because he is rushing to beat the oppressive clock; time is a concept that the mower is never aware that he can rebel against. The mower thinks that, “…love has no place in the scheme of…paradise (Berthoff, pg. 139). This sadness is felt when the mower states that, “For She my Mind hath so displac’d/That I shall never find my home” (Berthoff, pg. 139). What the mower doesn’t realize is that love not only has a place in paradise, but that love is the most important concept for one to uphold if they wish to live in paradise.

The problem with the lack of a brotherhood concept is that once one dies the only consolidation given to an isolationist is not adequate enough. The consolidation doesn’t renew the isolationist’s belief in life. Ann E. Berthoff explains this perfectly when she states that, “This bleeding (the mower’s bleeding) can be staunched by herbs and flowers, but the wounds of love are closed only in death. The sweet address—‘For Death thou art a mower too’—is delivered as if to a brother. It is the only consolidation left to him, the thought of the sympathy like that shown by the Sun himself in greener days” (Berthoff, pg. 139). It doesn’t help that, “Damon is lost and withered, but the meadows flourish” (Berthoff, pg. 139).

An example of this is when Damon states that:

“Unthankful Meadows, could you so/A fellowship so true forego,/And in your gawdy May-games meet,/While I lay trodden under feet” (The Mower’s Song, lines 13-16)?

All of this sadness results because the Mower never believes in passion.

In To His Coy Mistress, Marvell realizes that non-artificial excitement in an ideal can only result from a belief in humanity. It is artificial to not believe in humanity. Marvell realizes in writing To His Coy Mistress that a concept like time is the ultimate societal construct repressing freedom. This concept even subverted Marvell’s ideological beliefs in his mower poems, so that he feels that the only way he can rebel against society is to become an isolationist. Marvell wakes up in To His Coy Mistress.

As soon as Marvell figures out the pertinence of believing in love (and not just as a concept, but as a whole-hearted action) he realizes that there are ways to share his viewpoint in a way that will win over the one that he loves. This concept is the stumbling block that the mower constantly trips over, and doesn’t realize he is missing. The belief in love leads to the realization that one should have a logical argument to back up what they have to say, because one inevitably has to learn to explain the concept that they believe in to someone else. This explanation makes the explainer more confident of their own ideas, because explaining one’s ideas makes that person’s argument more logical in the process. The mower can never explain his beliefs to anyone because he is isolated. The belief in love is what leads Marvell to realize that he needs to utilize the syllogism, in order to win over his lover. The syllogism is what eventually convinces Marvell’s lover that they as a couple need to rebel against society.

Marvell also realizes that the quality that is missing from his rebellion against societal constructs is passion. Passion is not only what the mower lacks; it’s also what the lady who Marvell is trying to seduce lacks. This is what connects the two lovers; they suffer from similar deficiencies that they realize they have to overcome. The lady’s deficiency is, “The lady’s coyness—her reserve, distance, or affectation of disdain—is not merely a frustration for the poet but a ‘crime’: we must make the most of life’s gifts” (Paglia, 49). The carpe diem message results in the poem because of Marvell’s realization of the importance of love. Finding a lover who believes in what you believe in is the same concept as seizing the day, in Marvell’s eyes. This idea is what finally gives Marvell that passion that he was lacking in his mower poems.

Marvell’s rebellion becomes more intricate and grand (along with being more logical) in the processes of the realization that he needs to include passion and a lover in his rebellion against societal norms. It’s almost as if as soon as Marvell realizes that he shouldn’t be an isolationist anymore, he consequently realizes the many different societal constructs that he has to rebel against. Not only is time one of them, but the seduction format is one as well. Marvell realizes in To His Coy Mistress that there is a way to write a seduction poem that completely counters the typical way to write a seduction poem. The seduction poem is intrinsically sexist because the woman being seduced is always the powerless character. Consequently, the woman has to believe that she should be coy, just as Marvel believes that he has to be an isolationist. These assumptions in how one should act exist because of societal norms, and To His Coy Mistress rebels against this concept. This new way of writing a seduction poem occurs because there’s cultural criticism involved in what Marvell is writing about. He’s not simply writing about seduction. Also, “…normally, it is men who blithely roam and women who pine and wait. The couple would defy time too” (Paglia, pgs. 49 to 50). These are qualities not apparent in the mower poems.

The idea of vegetable love is key to what is being discussed in this paper. Now that Marvell believes in brotherhood and love, he uses a metaphor to not only entice his lover to believe in his ideals, but to also spread his cause. When Marvell states that he feels that his, “…vegetable Love should grow/Vaster than Empires, and more slow” (To His Coy Mistress, lines 11 through 12), what he is stating is that his and his lover’s ideals should be spread throughout the land, possibly in the forms of a child. This idea is completely the opposite of an isolationist’s, and is also more successful in terms of creating societal differences. The rebellion is in that this couple will not be deterred in anyway, even though the societal patriarchy deems it fit that they should. Marvell’s rebellion, like his vegetable love, has expanded beyond the parameters that he sets in his mower poems. The rebellion, which initially only deals with society’s artificial norms, has now been expanded to a rebellion against time and a rebellion against how a couple should act. This couple is one made of equals, which is the ultimate form of rebellion on Marvell’s part.

However, first Marvell has to entice this woman to share his viewpoint. The strongest instance of this occurs in stanza 2, where Marvell shows the woman he’s enticing what time does; what in a sense being coy and not consummating love does to the body. Marvell is basically saying to the woman that he is enticing: “…why let life go to waste” (Paglia, pg. 51) as I (previously in the form of the mower) have done in the past? He’s basically saying; don’t make the mistake that I have made in the past, in believing that love does nothing for me. This makes the poem a truly romantic work, opposed to a typical seduction poem which deals with simple usury. This is felt in To His Coy Mistress; particularly when Marvell states:

“And your quaint Honor turn to dust,/And into ashes all my lust:/ The grave’s fine and private place,/But none, I think, do there embrace” (To His Coy Mistress, lines 29-32).

As mentioned earlier, in regards to the mower’s poems, the consolidation is not adequate enough if one is an isolationist; if one is coy and doesn’t believe in love.

The last stanza is a revelatory moment for Marvell because he finally has a partner that believes in his ideals. Now, there’s a lot of work to be done, and the couple know this. They have to beat the oppressive nature of the clock. This is something that Damon the Mower never does. He consequently suffers because of his inaction and because of his not realizing that time is the problem.

The couple’s rebellion is complete in the last stanza. They become what they have always been afraid of becoming, which are “amorous birds of prey” (To His Coy Mistress, line 38). The couple in To His Coy Mistress do not care about the consequences of their actions, and this is because they are of a passionate nature. They aren’t worried in anyway. They are not afraid of the determents in lines 35 and 36; they actually use the “instant fires” to their advantage, in the form of passionate sensuality. They even feel that the limited time accorded them makes their passion more essential, because there is no time to be wasted here. They will devour time, rather than having time devour them (Paglia, pg. 52). The couple won’t let the iron gates of life, or the fact that the Sun never can stand still, get in the way of their accomplishing their goal. Even if their actions don’t prove fruitful for them, the couple will not even let this fact get in their way. The couple’s feeling is that their passion can change the world; can convince people to not be deterred in anyway, like they were in the past.

The Glass Cage

2008-11-09T14:19:00.000-08:00

The Glass Cage deals with the McBanes, an Edwardian upper class family who share a one sided view of the world. Unless you are white and come from prestigious money than you do not fit into their equation. That is at least until the three siblings of the rebel in the family, by the name of Charlie, (who of course isn’t alive anymore), enter the picture. The play basically begins with these siblings being allowed to visit the more upper class McBane clan, in the hopes of making peace between the families. These siblings, by the names of Jean (Jeannie Serralles), Angus (Saxon Palmer), and Douglas (Aaron Krohn), all have come to visit their relatives, unbeknownst to them, in order to receive the deed for their father’s share of the family business. However, David (Gerry Bamman), Malcom (Jack Wetherall-David’s brother), and Mildred (Robin Moseley-David’s wife) all know that that’s exactly what they came for, and that’s because they never trusted Charlie. (How can these people hope to ever make peace with the rest of the family, if they always suspect them of being up to no good?). The three siblings have very irascible temperaments, compared to the waspier McBane clan. They may at first seem fresh to the audience (I mean in the form of relief; they are initially exciting to watch because of their rebellious nature against their devout pure minded relatives). However, neither this nor the pure quality of the upper class McBane’s lasts and this is because everyone’s true colors come up once the play has reach its duration. That color is one of grey.

The subtlety of The Glass Cage results from the fact that the three siblings don’t actually want the money owed to their father. The scene where Douglas tears the deed is shocking because the audience realizes that what the siblings really wanted was a strange form of revenge, that makes their relatives realize that their actions led to the death of their father. They want their relatives to realize that they are, in fact, better than them because they, like their father, were not greedy like they are. By the end of the play, the siblings each separately have their own epiphanies where they realize how wrong they were in the assumptions of their relatives. They realize that they are inappropriately placing all the blame on David when David never knew that his brother was shorted on the money owed to him. At the same time that this happens, David realizes that his brother and wife (the people in his life that he upmost cares about because they are complete opposites from people like Charlie and his three children) knew all along that they were shorting his brother on his end of the bargain. The whole family realizes that their presumptions were false. They realize that they should be more open to someone who is different, especially in terms of class and race.

The acting that is in this play is very exciting to witness. (The direction, and everything related to the production of The Glass Cage is solid—it’s amazing that the whole play takes place around a sitting room. The aesthetics are solid with the exception of the way that the set resembles a glass cage. The theme of the play becomes too obvious in this instance and too modernist as well. Modernism is something that Priestly was rebelling against upon writing The Glass Cage—he was against the notion of the modern young man rebelling against the system, which was a popular theatre conceit at that time, because of the presumptions implicit in that action.) The Mint theatre company has done a great job of utilizing their actors, particularly the three siblings. All of the main actors in this play change characteristics and emotional traits by the time the play ends. These characters have all learned something about themselves.

I am just going to discuss one scene in terms of the acting aspect of this production. It involves the three siblings when they have a moment of peace away from their upper class relatives. They start to sing and dance to a Canadian tune; the way that these people suddenly become animated is in such stark contrast to the acting in other plays that I have witnessed. They are actually inventive in the ways that they dance to this jig; in the ways that they play their parts. That jig represents on the actors end their rebellion against the ways in which a part should be played, in much the same way that the three siblings rebel against the ways in which they should behave in this household. The acting in this play is inventive, and adds layers to Priestley’s initial intentions.

The first appearances in this play are very deceiving: In the beginning of the play the audience assumes wrongly that the three siblings are merely greedy, when in fact they are entirely not, and the purpose of this on the playwright J.B. Priestley’s part is to show that first appearances are not appropriate ways to characterize someone. To begin with, the play initially appears to be merely a very entertaining Edwardian farce. By the end of the play, I was glad that it transposed into something else entirely; something that was very moving. The Glass Cage becomes a type of play where every character that constitutes this family’s pretensions and facade’s leave them. This proves to be a highly emotional experience for this family because these facades where all that they lived by. Their lies were their identity and once the three siblings enact out everything that they have been working towards, they realize how inadequate their point of view really was. These characters realize by the end of the play that the reason for why they held a false view of the world (the false view being there in the first place because the siblings were so disguised that they even forgot how to view the world in the proper way) was what got in the way of their being successful financially. It’s a false view for one to have because it’s not logical in anyway. One should not make themselves suffer financially, in order to rebel against (supposed) greedy people who in their pasts have made others suffer financially. The three siblings, by the end of the play, realize that everything that their mother taught them was false because living simply to act out revenge begets the problem, and ultimately promulgates it for future family members. In the process of acting out revenge you begin to view everyone who doesn’t conform to your viewpoint negatively as well. Revenge is not the adequate means of doing something, if it deprives you and your loved ones in the process. All of this goes through Jean, Angus, and eventually Douglas’ mind by the end of the play. What’s great about The Glass Cage is that this goes through their mind implicitly rather than it being merely stated to the audience.

If an audience member doesn’t pick up the subtleties of the play, then I can very well see why they don’t get The Glass Cage; they want a more obvious form of class warfare depicted on the stage. These people who don’t get J.B. Priestley’s sensibility, are living in their own glass cages and they don’t realize it. They don’t want to see a play where the characters double back on their form of revenge. They want to see the revenge carried out to its fullest potential, for entertainment purposes. The problem with this is that an audience member, in my opinion, doesn’t learn anything about their own consequences if the material isn’t presented in a subtle fashion. The Glass Cage is the type of play where “action” doesn’t get in the way; doesn’t distract an audience member from the implications being directed towards them. What happens in the process, is that J.B. Priestley is basically pointing his finger on all of us for simply using inadequate (for being merely based on presumption) base judgments on people. We all have done this in the past, and that’s why certain people don’t like the play; they don’t want to reflect on their own flawed actions. These audience members who say that the play is too classical (who say that the play is just another Edwardian play that’s too negligent in terms of characterization) don’t learn anything in the process, because they are shutting themselves off from the experience. They merely want to go on hating their relatives. Shouldn’t these fickle people realize that this play has a happy ending (or do they want to merely witness “deep” tragedy where nothing is resolved at the end?). I’m sorry, but I would rather take classical dramaturgy, and so would I feel the actors playing these parts. This is what I feel was going on in the actress Jeanine Serralles’ mind; she was teary eyed by the end of this play (and moved beyond comprehension by the writing of J.B. Priestley) because people weren’t getting it. How more modern can a play be?

Buffy in relation to Freud’s Belief in the Id, Ego, and Superego

2008-10-29T22:00:00.000-07:00

The statement in chapter 5 on the book on Freud that discusses, “Freud’s pursuit of the byways of sex and aggression…becom(ing) transmuted into a cosmic vision of opposing forces of good and evil…” (Freud packet, pg. 68) is basically the template for the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer and specifically the episode from season 3 entitled Bad Girls. What’s so important about this episode is that it pertains to this idea of sex and aggression and how it resembles the fight between good and evil, or rather the fight between the ego, id, and superego of the psyche.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a show that deals with how different characters obtain power. In order to obtain power, one has to (at least on this show) start to question who they really are as an individual. The mission statement of Buffy the Vampire Slayer is that a slayer has to know who she is in order to fight the demons of the world. Buffy season 3 is a particularly interesting season of the series. It represents the last year that the Scoobies attend high school, so in a sense the season represents a very strange juncture in particularly Buffy’s life. By the time of season 3, Buffy (and I presume the Scoobies as well) are in a state of limbo emotionally where they don’t really know who they are, or are discovering who they really are. This confusion on the Slayer’s part is represented by her boyfriend Angel-the Vampire with a soul. Buffy can’t sleep with her boyfriend because he has a gypsy curse on him that disallows him from experiencing true happiness. If he does, he will return to his evil ways as Angelus. Buffy being torn between sleeping with her boyfriend and not is something that teenagers in her age group can relate to. It’s a representation of being torn between being a responsible child and being an independent adult. This limbo state is a form of being torn between the ego and the id. It’s the crux of this season, and possibly the crux of the whole series; being subservient and being independent. Willow, Buffy’s best friend, is experiencing similar turmoil where she is torn between being a full on Wicca (or witch) and holding her powers in check and being a responsible, watchful, and morally guided individual.

Throughout the season Buffy is trying to figure out what Freudian stage she is in. She feels, and so does the audience, that she is a representation of the ego, because as the slayer she has to ultimately be in control of her emotions and intercede between the id and superego. She, in a sense, is not allowed to exploit her strength at the same time that she is not allowed to enforce her opinion. The way that the male hierarchy of the Watcher’s Council is set up (the Council that looks after the Slayer) all of those qualities mentioned above are only allowed to be exploited by the Watcher looking after the Slayer. However, as the audience watches this season it appears that Buffy is very much attracted to the freeing id state, in the representation of the new slayer in town by the name of Faith.

(In the episode before the one about to be discussed, Giles Buffy’s Watcher, was fired for letting the Slayer think on her own and decide her own actions. A watcher by the name of Wesley replaces Giles position. Luckily Giles gets to keep his job as high school librarian, where the Scoobies have their meeting place.)

Bad Girls is the ultimate representation of Buffy’s attraction to Faith. She basically becomes enticed by Faith to share her viewpoint of the world. This viewpoint involves totally lack of subservience to anyone or any guiding principle. Faith’s only rule in life is to obtain pleasure. The episode revolves around Buffy and Faith basically searching for this medallion that’s a giant maguffin; really the episode is about Faith’s spiraling down the wrong road morally, which ultimately repels Buffy away from her. Faith accidentally kills a human being, and rather than listening to Buffy and notifying the authorities she takes care of the evidence. The villain of the season, Mayor Wilkins, ascends to a state where he is immortal (because of the medallion) and the vampire who initially tried to obtain the medallion warns Buffy before he dies that she wishes that he killed her, because what she is about to face (i.e. the Mayor but also Faith as well) will destroy her and Sunnydale.

If one were to run through this episode in a specific and systematic fashion, then they will see that Bad Girls really primarily has to do with the id, ego, and superego. Bad Girls opens up in a typical enough fashion for this show: Buffy and Faith are both dusting vampires in the Sunnydale graveyard. Faith as a character seems feisty and aggressive in a sexually innocent enough way; she talks to Buffy about Xander’s sex life (a Scooby that she slept with two episodes before). The interesting thing to note in this opening moment is how different the Slayer’s fighting techniques are. Buffy plans ahead before she attacks, while Faith just plunges right in for the kill. Faith says that Buffy thinks too much, meaning she should let go of her controlling instincts that hamper her as an individual. We as an audience then enter the library and encounter the new Watcher Wesley. The contrasts between Wesley and Giles are startling; this is ironic considering that Giles on this show used to be the stiff upper lip father figure to Buffy. He’s much more liberal in his nature compared to someone like Wesley. This is an indication of how the super ego state is not as simple as some people think it is. It is an ever fluxing state (Willow goes through similar set of circumstances in this season). One eventually moves out of that state, unless you’re part of the Watcher’s council.

The next scene is a very telling one in terms of the Slayer’s character. I will quote it basically in verbatim:

Faith: “You’re actually going to take orders from him?”

Buffy:”It’s the job. What else can we do?”

Faith: “Whatever we want. We’re slayers girlfriend. The chosen two. Why should we let him take all the fun out of it?”

Buffy:”Tragic. Taking the fun out of slaying, beheading.”

Faith: “Oh, like you don’t dig it?”

Buffy:”I don’t.”

Faith: “You’re a liar. I’ve seen you. Tell me staking a vamp doesn’t get you a little bit juiced? C’mon say it. You can’t fool me. The look in your eyes after I see you kill; you get hungry for more.”

Buffy:”You’re way off base.”

Faith: “Slaying is what we were built for. If you’re not enjoying it, than you’re doing something wrong.”

What initially appears merely harmless in Faith, her sexual nature (a quality that Freud feels initially appears in the id state), is actually something that is very complex and eventually, once this episode reaches its conclusion, a characteristic that is very dangerous. The innocence that appears in this conversation is much more heinous and telling, concerning Faith. It also is very telling in terms of Buffy’s nature as well. The fun that Faith talks about, in terms of slaying, has to do with her id states need for pleasure and pleasure only; pleasure without any moral considerations. Faith truly does have an obsession with this concept of obtaining pleasure. Isn’t pleasure something that should come easily to one? Faith’s “obsessional neurosis” (Freud packet, 59) need of pleasure is something that is not really normal. She does not notify the authorities about the person that she killed. Unlike Buffy’s need to save other people, which is an indication of Buffy’s ego, “…affirming that love of others was self-love turned outward” (Freud packet, pg. 58) Faith has no need for anyone else because they represent “outpouring of stimuli” (Freud packet, pg. 59) which is something that is too much for her to handle. Her pleasure drive is a way to shut out the rest of the world; it has to eventually cancel out or get rid of the outside world if it ultimately manifests fully and completely. Hence Faith’s need to team up with the Mayor; here is someone who shares in her point of view.

However Faith is right about one thing concerning her basic enticing of Buffy to share her point of view, and that is that these two are connected. They are Slayers after all, and this is a representation of how the ego, which is narcissistic like the id, “…is originally derived from the id” (Freud packet, pg. 62). The connection that Faith talks about in relation with Buffy is what tempts Buffy to become like Faith because Buffy is not really sure who she is at this point in the show. The scene where Buffy and Faith are outside the manhole containing vampires is very telling about these two Thelma and Louise like characters. In reference to the manhole Buffy says to Faith, “It’s a manhole. Tight space; no escape.” This reference to a tight dark space is very important because this space is where Buffy and Faith both enter in this show. It’s the space without any moral boundaries guiding one. It’s the space that Buffy eventually leaves, and the space where Faith remains. Buffy then says to Faith: “You’re just going to go down there? That’s you’re plan?” and Faith responds with, “Who said I had a plan?” So far, nothing appears to be new in terms of the development of these characters. Faith is the ever, “primitive, unorganized, and emotional” slayer (Freud packet, pg. 60). She is, “…a chaos, a cauldron full of seething excitations…filled with energy reaching…from…instincts, (that) has no organization, produces no collective will, but only a striving to bring about the satisfaction of instinctive needs subject to the observance of the pleasure principle” (Freud packet, pg. 61). Faith at one point in the episode says to Buffy that, “Life of the Slayer is very simple. Want, take, have.” She is in “…contrast to the ego” (Freud packet, pg. 61) or Buffy. Or is she? Here’s Faith’s response to Buffy: “If you don’t come in after me, I might die.” Buffy is putty in Faith’s hands and this is because the ego is intrinsic from the id.

If one were to read into the first diary entry that Giles wrote about Buffy, and which Wesley recites to Giles, than the viewer will see everything they have to about Buffy’s nature. The entry reads: “Slayer is willful and insolent.” This is the connecting link that Buffy shares with Faith. She certainly appears insolent to Wesley, who is the ultimate super ego character. (It seems that the Slayer’s ultimate goal-both the ego and id-is to be insolent to paternalistic authority figures). However, I feel that Giles’ response to this statement is even more telling. He says to Wesley that, “You have to get to know her.” Throughout this episode, it almost seems that all the psychological states are in flux. Giles, who really is a form of the superego, in a sense moves out of his position, i.e. does not get into Buffy’s way, in order to let her enact her id daydream in order to let her realize on her own that she is not like Faith, and is not ultimately id based.

However, first Buffy has to tread down Faith’s viewpoint in order to ultimately be repelled by her. Buffy’s change of state happens when she, in a sense, goes down that rabbit hole or manhole. In the manhole, she is temporarily drowned by a vampire, and in a sense for the time being becomes re-born. When Faith says to Buffy, “Tell me you didn’t get off on this?” Buffy responds by saying, “Didn’t suck.” Buffy even starts to wear a black coat in this episode. However, I feel that in the back of her mind Buffy knows that she is merely trying on this role for the time being. She is always in control; forever a representation of the ego. When Giles asks her if she is ok after the manhole incident, Buffy responds: “…Had to get the sewer out of my hair. But I’m good; thanks for asking.” This is an example of what I stated earlier about Buffy’s and Giles relationship, and how this metaphorical father figure basically lets his daughter discover who she is on her own. In a sense, Buffy and Faith’s Slayer relationship is very similar to Giles and Wesley’s Watcher relationship. The one is the extreme case of the other, reminding the other that they are not what they fear.

This not being able to differentiate night from day that Faith has (Buffy: “What’s up?” Faith: “Vampires.” Buffy: “Uh, unless there’s a total eclipse in the next five minutes. It’s daylight.”) is what ultimately proves to be Faith’s downfall morally. She can never escape her id state. Freud felt that the id, “…ignores the categories of time and space, and treats contraries like dark/light or high/deep as if they were identical” (Freud packet, pg. 61). This is what ultimately leads to Faith’s mistaking a human for a vampire, and what ultimately leads to Faith’s downfall. This is the primary difference between Faith and Buffy. Buffy, who is a representation of the id, “…represent(s) consciousness. (She) employs secondary process: that is, reason, common sense, and the power to delay immediate responses to external stimuli or to internal instinctive promptings” (Freud packet, pg. 61-62). The difference between Buffy and Faith is that Buffy ultimately feels guilt over the innocent person’s death. We the audience never see Buffy wash her hands of the blood from the innocent victim, while we endlessly see Faith washing the blood off of her shirt.

I think the comment that is the true essence of this episode comes from the commentary of this episode by Doug Petrie. He states concerning Willow that, “She feels like she is being left out, or that the dynamic is shifting. And she’s right. She knows that she is being left behind because she a’int got superpowers. Faith never liked Willow much. But Faith missed a lot. Willow feels things.” This episode is, finally, a representation of how the super ego and ego states are undervalued and how they shouldn’t be, and that the id state is ultimately a very over-valued and dangerous state for one to be in. The question that is implicit in the tv series is: yes, power is a great and liberating concept, but how far can one go in terms of obtaining power before one loses control? Buffy’s (and the character’s in this show’s) questioning of her identity is the tension that is always implicit in this show; what moral road will she eventually end up at? Will she ultimately lose control like Faith? The characters emotions are much scarier than the monsters that figure in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

A Female Cabby in Sidi Bel-Abbes

2008-10-18T22:32:00.000-07:00

A Female Cabby in Sidi Bel-Abbes is a documentary that deals with the only woman taxi driver in Algeria. The reason for why her being a taxi driver is so significant and controversial has to do with the fact that the government is highly restrictive of the female sex obtaining their rights; they try to postpone female empowerment as much as possible and frown upon the female sex in general. The audience can sense this whenever there are images of the men looking upon the female protagonists of this film. The suspense in this film is felt very acutely, even though barely anything happens in the movie. All the audience sees throughout the movie is the woman cabdriver and her friends chitchatting about how ridiculous the situation is over there in Algeria. The audience gets a sense that these heroic figures are constantly looking over their shoulders to make sure that no one but us (the audience) are watching them tell their tales of plight. That’s all these women are doing. It’s ridiculous to believe that what these women are doing is so heinous; but that’s what the men over in Algeria feel.
It’s a terrifying movie because we as an audience do not know why we are so on edge until we hear of the deaths of the teachers. This is a metaphor for how one cannot do anything about the situation in Algeria until it’s too late. That’s certainly what these women feel, and yet they perservere anyway even with threats against their lives. This certainly kept my interest going, even though there wasn’t much “action” in the film. But isn’t that the whole point of what is going on politically in Algeria. This imposition, as it were, is something that is very hard to fight against because it is so subtle in appearance. It’s only simple ignorance as it were on the men’s part, right? That is the terrifying quality that is in this film. There are no resolutions in this movie because the story in that region is just starting to emerge for one to fully comprehend and do something about politically. The great quality of particularly the woman cab driver is that she always knows what to do and is not intimidated in the least bit by the male opressors in Algeria.
The problems that the filmmakers faced must have been trying to get some kind of flow in the footage that they shot. After all, all these filmmakers could shoot is the testimonials from the women. How does this build up suspense? Yet, I feel that A Female Cabby in Sidi-Bel-Abbes is one of the most suspenseful films I have ever seen. The suspense is the kind that is ever pervading and not really apparent. It’s like an invisible monster that is slowly seeping to the surface and killing all of the oppressed in its sight.
Really, I didn’t detect so much of a relationship between the filmmaker’s and the people on the screen. For the most part, there is simply a camera placed in the taxi and that is all. Perhaps this builds up suspense as well; it definitely provides a sense of cool detatchment on the part of the filmmakers. I think this actually adds to the films quality.
One particular scene that is truly terrifying is when the taxi driver hears that there is a rumour that she has been killed by someone. This strong heroic woman starts to cry in front of camera. Her whole purpose for being in this documentary in the first place, for showing how one fights oppression-for encouraging action-just went out of the window at this moment and she knows it. These oppressive men are crushing this woman’s spirit without even being present and she also realizes this as well and stops crying.

Favela Rising

2008-10-18T22:21:00.001-07:00

The documentary Favela Rising focuses on Anderson Sa; a remarkable man who singlehandedly through his music (aided by the other members of his group AfroReggae) lowered the crime rate and drug dealing done in his homeland of Rio De Generio. It’s amazing, considering the amount of information given in the film of how much the area was swimming in drugs and violence, how through simply music and a good role model public image a whole area can clean up its act. That this all was done because of one man’s efforts is extraordinary. The film details this man’s struggles through his life, as well as Rio De Generio’s troubles, and how they both ceased after AfroReggae.
> The film was extremely successful in capturing my attention. First, through making me as an audience member extremely on the edge of my seat, watching how terrible the situation was over there. However, eventually this feeling left me and was replaced by uplift and happiness over the creation of AfroRegae and the ceasing of the problems in Rio De Generio. Anderson’s determination, after everything that he had been through, and then him finally seeing his plan come into fruition, was awe inspiring. I guess I was much like the citizens of Rio De Generio at that point—initially anxious and then simply in awe of Anderson Sa. I also learned a great deal about Rio De Generio and AfroReggae, which I knew nothing about before watching the film.
> The filmmaker’s challenge must have been documenting how dangerous it was over in Rio De Generio. After all, they can’t be privy to a drug deal with out fear of being killed in the process. However, the filmmaker’s seemed to have caught many moments of strife through the use of surveillance film cameras. That general feeling of initially paranoia is very much felt in the film (probably due to simply documenting the citizen’s faces). As I stated earlier, once AfroReggae comes into fruition this feeling is replaced by confidence, happiness, and hope. The audience perfectly understands what Rio De Genrio’s citizens are going through. The filmmaker’s are simply in awe of the members of AfroReggae. These members are living heroes that the filmmaker’s are lucky enough to have documented with their cameras. One feels that these filmmakers are particularly in awe of Anderson Sa, as they should be.
> The one particular scene that I feel epitomizes this film is the whole section detailing Anderson’s paralysis due to his surfing accident. One immediately gets a sense of this man’s knowing how important he is to Rio De Generio. I almost got a sense that Anderson is like the land and if he is paralyzed, Rio De Generio’s people would be also and the land’s progress would come to a halt. This is the section where the audience becomes completely in awe of Anderson. He eventually walks again and continues AfroReggae. Why aren’t there more inspiring karma-imbued men like Anderson?
> The film initially is edited and shot in a very rough fashion, which very much reflects the turmoil that Rio De Generio is going through. Once AfroReggae comes into fruition the film’s tone becomes more calming and peaceful and more beautiful to look at. The shots of the sea that Anderson frequents in, combined with the happiness on the faces of Rio De Generio’s citizens inspires hope for a better future—a future that is already happening.
> The way the members of AfroReggae move in their dance moves is very much a reflection of their feelings and the hope and confidence that they want to project to the rest of the citizens of Rio De Genrio. It’s amazing that this music has so much power. What AfroReggae does for Rio De Genrio is almost a subconscious process. All music should have this impact and power.

Divorce Iranian Style

2008-09-16T20:32:00.000-07:00

The documentary Divorce Iranian Style documents women’s struggle in Iran to divorce their partners. This struggle on their part is due to the fact that Iran is and has been for some time a male patriarchy. The intended audience for this movie surely has to be citizens outside of Iran, who really have no concept of the hardships over there. Yes, its one thing to read about the particulars of the situation over there; it’s another thing entirely to actually see how unfair the system is over there. The film is very simply directed (possibly because there are no visual distractions from what is going on; the topic is simply to pertinent to be “entertaining” visually). However, the situation itself, the frustration of these women over the basic rigged setup of the male dominate divorce court, is such an important concept for American audiences to consider and think about. It’s a reminder that freedoms should never be taken for granted, or else they may be whisked away from us. It’s startling how easy it is for these men to display their sexism—the system in Iran allows them to do so.

The film was extremely successful in capturing my attention. I think it’s because of the heroism of these women. Yes, the movie is depressing because we as an audience know that these women will not have a chance in separating from their partners. However, this doesn’t thwart the women’s efforts of trying. I think these women, knowing that the film camera is on them, become more heroic than ever in their stature. They know that audiences from around the world will be watching, so they become the most heroic women. They really are some of the most heroic characters ever documented in a film in my opinion, because even though they know that their situation is bleak they keep on fighting anyway, in order to remind the women of the world that they all should stand up to male oppression in any subtle guise that it takes. After seeing this movie, no one has an excuse to simply follow orders.

The filmmakers relationship to those being filmed (they were all women) is almost one of sisterhood, and great empathy. My favorite moment of the movie is when the one Iranian woman is so frustrated about the situation that she tears up a court order. When the male judges of this particular divorce court ask the filmmakers if she tore up the report, the filmmakers say that she did not. It’s a justified gotcha moment.

The only challenges that I can think of on the filmmakers part, besides staying out of the situation and being detached professional filmmakers (I’m sure it must have been hard considering that these men are such jerks) is to not have any really great aesthetic imagery—it would have distracted the audience from the situation like so many dumb American movies today. Movies with no political motivation whatsoever.

The aesthetics of the movie are very simple. Actually, the colors are mainly the white imprisoning bleak bare walls that surround these women, and the women’s black robes. Actually, the color scheme is very similar to the color scheme of Persepolis; a film that depicts a situation very similar to this one’s. Perhaps the filmmakers are making a comment on how the government is over there in Iran; one that is indeed black and white and not complex in anyway. It’s like males saying to women that we are one color and you are the other; it’s a terrible drawing of the line in the sand.

The great women in this film’s main purpose must have been stating to the audience that, “If we can’t do anything about this situation, at least we can document it and make fun of these fools."

Reduction of Human Possibilities

2008-09-08T20:49:00.001-07:00

The mechanization of society is a frightening idea because the average person knows that conditioning is involved in the process. In the past, there have been both positive and negative forms of conditioning a society, or the forcing of constant repetition by an instructor or some kind of official for the purpose of achieving a goal. Two books that deal with the negative out comes of conditioning are Hard Times and Brave New World. These books deal with different types of ecosystems and how they both interrelate in terms of how they are run. At the same time, the specific processes of conditioning a society in each book differ from one another. Both books go into great detail on how that particular process leads to dire results for a society, by homing in on specific human lives. These human lives go through the turmoil of living in a mechanized society where logic is the prevalent tool, and those lives generally end in a tragic way because of the restrictions imposed on them.

This idea of running a society simply through logic or cold hard facts is prevalent throughout Charles Dickens’ Hard Times. The book details a state of reduction on people’s lives in England. The setting is a fictional town by the name of Coketown, where free will for the citizens residing there has been vanquished. It’s a very subtle process of constant repetition of facts without any elaboration or thought process involved. This kind of conditioning is first seen by the reader in chapter 2, where a young school girl by the name of Sissy Jupe can’t seem to get a handle on the instructions given to her by Mr. Gradgrind who has established the school she is attending. He wants her to simply define a horse, through the process of just stating fact. Sissy doesn’t have an answer because she knows that hers would be too original and elaborate. A boy in the class by the name of Bitzer gives the precise answer that Gradgrind was looking for and then defines how a person should answer a question in this society by stating that, “You are to be in all things regulated and governed…by fact… You are not to have…what would be a contradiction in fact… You must use…mathematical figures which are susceptible of proof and demonstration… This is fact. This is taste.” What’s apparent here is that this conditioning process happens at a young age.

It’s a very subtle process because a person would never realize that they might be losing something. By reinstating the learning of nothing but fact, what a person like Sissy Jupe could eventually possibly lose is her imagination. An example of this is when Gradgrind sees his two children looking at the circus by their home. Gradgrind is furious and says to his son Thomas that, “…you, to whom the circle of the sciences is open…who may be said to be replete with facts…you, who have been trained to mathematical exactness; Thomas and you, here…In this degraded position. I am amazed.” What becomes apparent to anyone surveying this society is that imagination ceases to exist because it leads a person to experience free will, which is not a logical and precise process. Free will could get in the way of getting the job done in the society, which is basically keeping the factories running. Later Gradgrind, along with a friend by the name of Bounderby who ironically runs many factories in Coketown, agrees that it was probably Sissy Jupe who led the children to the circus. They decide that she needs a strict upbringing and so Bounderby looks after her for many years. What’s ironic here is that Sissy was not just there for leisure, but instead tried to find her father who works at the circus. She wanted to take care of him because he is an alcoholic without really any money. What Gradgrind and Bounderby do not realize is that what may be construed as leisure is also done for an important purpose.

Why this particular society is tragic because of the restrictions imposed on it are shown in the details presented later in the book, when the Gradgrind children grow up. Gradgrind’s daughter Louisa is being forced by her father to marry Bounderby. Because Louisa has been conditioned to believe that she doesn’t have any free choice, she acccepts the offer. However, a reader can see that this was not at all what she wanted because she’s attracted to a man by the name of James Harthouse, who means to seduce her. Louisa doesn’t even get a chance to experience what her and Harthouse would be like as a couple because she can’t stand her fathers strict policies any more, and decides to confront him and tells him in chapter 12 of the second book what she feels about her upbringing. She states to him, “How could you give me life, and take from me all the inappreciable things that raise it from the state of conscious death? Where are the graces of my soul? Where are the sentiments of my heart…if you had known that there lingered in my breast, sensibilities, affections, weaknesses…defying all the calculations ever made by man…would you have given me the husband whom I am now sure I hate…Would you have robbed me…of the immaterial part of my life…my refuge from what is sordid and bad in the real things around me…” What Louisa is basically stating to her father is that she really is left with nothing in the end, because she’s trapped in an existence where she is not free and is constantly looked after, and she can’t even have some leisure to take her mind off her problems. Why Gradgrind never allowed his daughter to explore other possibilities is because he felt that if she experienced a little harmless fun, she would start to have free will and begin to imagine what her life would be like if it were different. What’s ironic and makes this story a satire on the mechanization of society, is that Louisa rebelled against her father anyway and came to the realization that she’s being burdened by him.

Another person who comes to the realization that they do not have any free will is a poor hand who works at the factories by the name of Stephen Blackpool; his story is even more tragic than Louisa’s. He constantly experiences the trappings of society; whether it’s the refusal from Bounderby for allowing him to divorce his wife in chapter 11 of the second book, or the expulsion from Coketown because he was fired from his job for not agreeing to join the union in chapter 4 of the second book. What’s apparent here is that in both Louisa’s case and Blackpool’s, their life is tragic because in the particular society that they live in, there should be no deviation from the rules at hand. This is what the conditioning process has ultimately led to; a lack of freedom.

Another rebel in the family is Thomas, who robs the bank that Bounderby owns. In chapter 8 of the second book it’s believed that Blackpool is the one that commited the crime, because he was seen outside the bank. Blackpool decides to forever stay out of Coketown and leave his love Rachael behind. He is eventually found by Sissy, Rachael, and Louisa in a well where he has fallen (chap 6 book 3). Even though he is retrieved, Blackpool dies. What he has to say right before he succumbs is very appropriate for what all the characters who lack free will in Coketown feel but cannot express and that is, “…aw a muddle! Fro’ first to last, a muddle!” This muddle that Blackpool describes has resulted from the conditioning that everyone in Coketown has experienced, of never being allowed to wonder.

A similar situation is present in A Brave New World, only under a new context. Because the story takes place in the future, the processes of conditioning this particular society are much more elaborate than they were in Hard Times. What’s present in this society are conditioning centers, where ova that is fertilized produces human beings. This is done for the purpose of getting rid of the family structure. Parenthood is no longer required, because in this society it’s deemed as being too strong of a relationship factor. Relationships in the brave new world are seen as being detrimental to the society.

There’s also a caste system present in the society. Each fetus is determined as being an alpha, beta, gamma, delta, or epsilon. The alpha children, which are deemed the most intelligent caste, have to also work the hardest, while the betas do not have to work as hard, even though they are more intelligent than the gammas, deltas, and epsilons. There’s also the actual conditioning process, given to young children known as hypnopedia. This is a process where children are asleep but still receive suggestions from a voice coming from an electronic instrument. It’s a basic indoctrination technique which is alluded to in chapter 2. The description of the hypnopedia process can make a reader who has read Hard Times believe that this society is just a further extension of the one in the previous book; it’s just more scientifically based and stricter. In actuality, it is somewhat different because now the new adage that the resident world controller has given to the citizens of the world state is that no one is allowed to “leisure from pleasure.”

The only rule of the brave new world is to experience pleasure; if a person is ever depressed they should take the soma drug, they should constantly be hedonistic and not stay in a serious relationship. Sex is actually the only so-called religious experience that the citizens of the brave new world experience. In chapter 5, the character Bernard (an Alpha who is more altruistic than the rest of the inhabitants of the brave new world) goes to a solidarity service where hymns play and soma is passed around, resulting in an orgy. Any reader reading this section is well aware that this is not religion and because of this, it’s a very disturbing passage.

This question of religion and how it fits into the new world is answered by the resident controller Mustapha Mond when he talks to the main character in the book by the name of John. John is known as the savage because he comes from a reservation area that’s basically a wasteland, filled with people who are very different from the denizens of the new world. Bernard and a woman that he cares for by the name of Lenina were visiting there and brought John back with them. Bernard did this for selfish reasons in order to make himself a celebrity in the new world, while Lenina actually cares for the savage and wants to have a relationship with him.

John is incredibly repulsed by the new world because of the careless pleasure seeking that he witnesses. In his mind, there is no actual striving for human knowledge or for something beyond oneself. At one point in the story he gets in trouble with the law for throwing soma out of a window. This soma belonged to delta workers and consequently what he did was a grave offense. Once John sees the resident controller in chapters 16 and 17, all his questions about this society are answered, and yet John remains unsatisfied.

What John learn is that with religion, the process of going beyond oneself and being altruistic, runs against the notions of the brave new world. The resident controller says to John that, “The greatest care is taken to prevent you from loving any one too much…you’re so conditioned that you can’t help doing what you ought to do…so many of the natural impulses are allowed free play, that there really aren’t any temptations to resist.” The resident controller goes on to talk about the importance of soma in contrast to religion when he states to John that, “And then there’s always soma to calm your anger…to make you patient and long-suffering. In the past you could only accomplish these things by making a great effort and after years of hard moral training…Anybody can be virtuous now. You can carry at least half your mortality about in a bottle. Christianity without tears—that’s what soma is.” After this comment, all the strange procedural workings of the new world make sense, including the process of electro-shocking babies and conditioning them into hating books and nature, which is done so that art, where deep concentration and thought are present, are consequently done away with in the society. A reader can see what the resident controller Mustapha Mond is saying in that deep thought can lead to aggression and other unsavory emotions, and still not agree with him. That “great effort” that he mentions is very reminiscent of the great effort to imagine in Hard Times. It’s an unsavory emotion that is very important to have and should not be withheld.

John’s tragic life ends when he begins to whip himself for atonement, and while he’s not looking is filmed without his consent. This religious act is made into a porno otherwise known to the people of the brave new world as feelies. Because John feels exploited and also ashamed for shunning Lenina away, he commits suicide.

It’s that tragic element in both stories that connects them, instead of the actual processes of conditioning. Even the ideologies in both books are different, although they both share the similarities of being superficial. In Brave New World, altruism and passionate thought are discarded in order to not get in the way of consumerism, while in Hard Times imagination is discarded because it gets in the way of logic and the processes of being a diligent hard worker. Leisure is looked down upon in Coketown, while in Brave New World it’s encouraged. However, both processes of mechanizing society ultimately lead to the citizens lack of striving for a higher purpose. It is feared by the rulers of both societies that once a person receives the attribute of going beyond oneself, they will rebel against the system. What’s ironic and what makes these stories satires is that people like Stephen Blackpool and John the Savage rebel anyway. It’s ultimately tragic because not only do their lives end in a horrible fashion, but the rest of the citizens of both societies never even realize that they lack free will. It’s tragic that leaders like Mustapha Mond and Bounderby will never realize that they have conditioned a society to always remain in “a muddle.”

Some more film noir stuff

2008-09-08T20:45:00.001-07:00

“We steadily accumulate a kind of narrative-cinematic gestalt or “mind set” that is a structured mental image of the genre’s typical activities and attitudes. Thus all of our experiences with Western films give us an immediate notion, a complete impression, of a certain type of behavioral and attitudinal system.” (Film Genres and the Genre Film, pg. 3). Those two sentences define the generalized definition of what exactly a film genre is. These sentences do not necessarily define setting, but rather are more generalized and truer definitions of what audience’s define film genre as. Their notion of what film genre is, as well as the writer’s, is an important notion because the audience ultimately constitute the audience groupings that go to these movies. In other words, there is the film noir genre audience, and then there’s the musical audience, ect. Crowds ultimately determine what kind of movies these films are, especially when it comes to this genre because the filmmakers at that time didn’t necessarily know that they were making film noir movies. The genre was only termed film noir once a general patterned emerged, and the reason why there was a pattern was because producers liked the notion of an audience knowing their boundaries and knowing the accessibility of what they were watching, in order to entice that particular kind of audience to go to another film that had the same style and sensibility that they preferred. Especially in regards to the post World War II audience, who were probably very much affected by the war and probably had darker sensibilities to begin with, these film noir films spoke to the male audiences of the time, and the male audience helped determine the genre as a whole. Film Noir is a genre, rather than being a cycle of films, mainly because the genre contains tropes that define these particular films, and also because while the genre is ever-evolving there still remains the same basic thematic ideological rationale behind the filmmakers intentions.

As stated before, these filmmakers didn’t necessarily know that they were making film noir movies. Rather, they were following a guideline (possibly because the producers asked them to based on box office response) on how to make sophisticated, dark subversive films by following 4 processes. The first is the notion of the femme fatale. The second is the character trope of the disenfranchised and cynical male characters who want to transgress the system and rebel against their middle class lives. This is the trope that would entice the post World War II audience. The third is the aesthetic qualities that separated these films from “family entertainment” pictures. Film Noir’s aesthetic style consistently derived from German Expressionism. Last but not least was the sexually tinged double entendre-like dialogue that distinguished these films from others. Isn’t that all that one needs to define a genre film? Does setting really play a permanent role in the process? I don’t believe that it does, because after all the musical film and the gangster film has had many different settings, and the same can be said for the film noir genre. An audience member can determine what exactly a genre film is whenever that film contains characteristics contiguous to that genre alone and to no other genre. Genre films are films whose aspects are completely original to that type of film, and to that type of film only; no matter how much that type of film borrows from other types of film. My own personal belief is that a genre film is also the type of film where there are at least 3 or more tropes present. The argument that film noir films do not constitute a genre, but rather comprise a cycle of films is wrong in my opinion because a cycle of films never contained so many genre tropes as film noir does.

The first trope of the genre, the femme fatale, emerged mainly due to the fact that once men were shipped off to war during World War II, women had to take their place and fulfill the sexes job requirements. This afforded women new freedom of say that they as a sex had never experienced before. The femme fatale is an expression of that independently-minded woman. Even though they are typically represented as evil and malign characters in their movies, the fact that these women characters are depicted as strong individuals is much better than the typical representation of woman at that time of being the “happy housewife” who didn’t have any say. (War and Peace, Fanning the Home Fires, pg. 5). These women were typically depicted as being gloriously evil. Janey Place writes about how film noir was, “…one of the few periods in film in which women are active, not static symbols, are intelligent and powerful, if destructively so, and derive power, not weakness, from their sexuality” (Place, pg. 47). However, Place also writes about the double side of the coin in terms of the femme fatale image. She reminds her readers that, “Film Noir is a male fantasy, as is most of our art...” and that femme fatales, “…suggest a doppelganger, a dark ghost, alter ego or distorted side of man’s personality which will emerge in the dark street at night to destroy him. The sexual, dangerous woman lives in this darkness, and she is the psychological expression of his own internal fears of sexuality, and his need to control and repress it” (Place, pgs. 47, 51, 53). There is no other type of film where this kind of woman is apparent; where the kind of complexity with which the sexes deal with each other is present, which means that these types of movies are so original that they have to be designated as constituting a genre.

The second trope or genre touchstone of film noir is the disenfranchised and cynical male characters. This negativity on the male sex’s part reflects the time period that they were coming out of which was World War II. The family paradigm of the past was disappearing due to the, “…displacement of the values of family life.” (Harvey, pg. 38). This was due to the outbreak of war, where men had to say goodbye to their family for many years. In some ways, going to war is almost like a jail sentence because time with ones family is lost. Therefore, a man can’t see how his children grow up. It doesn’t also help that a sense of displacement occurs due to the changes of women’s status post World War II. The idea of the threat of the independent woman to the male’s sense of status is what makes film noir movies so distinctive and sophisticated in style. No other film genre dealt with these complex issues concerning sex. Only in film noir is this type of characteristic of the male sex apparent. The reason why males in film noir typically want to transgress and beat the system is because they want to get away from their humdrum middle class lives. Most of the men coming out of war had to basically start anew in terms of finding a job; these men had to adjust to the new monopolistic economic system that made it harder and harder to raise a family. In a sense, the male film noir character is someone who wants to get away from the family paradigm because it is not working for him anymore. (Harvey, pg. 36).

The third trope is the film noir style derived purely from German Expressionism. Besides the Horror films throughout the years, film noir is the only other genre that has such dark lighting and Expressionistic set design. This style of film is depicted aesthetically through the processes of, “…high contrast, chiaroscuro lighting where shafts of intense light contrast starkly with deep, black shadows, and where space is fractured into an assortment of unstable lines and surfaces, often fragmented or twisted into odd angles” (Spicer, pgs. 11-12). This style is apparent due to the fact that once the family unit is missing, then the whole world becomes off-kilter, which is the feeling that many Americans were experiencing post World War II. (Harvey, pg. 36-37, pg. 42, pg. 45). This is why the genre is so irrational; the purpose of Expressionism is to depict the psychology behind people who critique the state of being bourgeois or middle class. (Spicrer, pg. 11).

The fourth trope is the double entendre dialogue so distinctive to film noir. Because of the production code of the time, sexually explicit dialogue could not be put into a film. Filmmakers however found a very clever way to still have sexual dialogue through the use of the double entendre, where one thing is being said but there is a hidden sexual meaning behind what is being said. Because these films primarily dealt with the conflict between the sexes, no other film genre of the time so overtly but appropriately used this style of talking before. No other genre of film so overtly and appropriately used this style of dialogue post the 1950’s period as well, due to the end of the production code, which is another indication of how original this genre of film really is. All of the cultural touchstones mentioned above are what make the genre so unique, and what ultimately make film noir designated as a fully developed genre.

An indication that a film is a genre film is if there are, “…interrelated character types whose attitudes, values, and actions flesh out dramatic conflicts inherent within that community.” (Film Genres and the Genre Film, pgs. 21-22). Sometimes this notion leads to cross-referential scenes from film to film, hence why for instance Linda Fiorantino’s character in the last seduction makes several references to the term double Indemnity, which is the name of a film noir very similar to that film referencing it, and being inspired by it. This is an indication of a genre pattern being present throughout two films separated by a wide space of time, and yet having very similar themes and associations.

No matter what locale the film takes place in, a film noir film can be identified as such because those four touchstones are always present. This pattern as it were could be deemed not a conducive way to make a film, considering that each movie will eventually lack originality and begin to look like every other film in that particular genre. However, the genre mode of art is a very rich organic process. The genre’s ideology (in film noir’s case the ideology is the battle of the sexes and the battle of the individual against society due to the prevailing change post World War II) can change throughout time. This is not an indication that a series of films is merely a cycle but rather is an indication of these films constituting a genre. Even though a genre may change in terms of its conventions due to the pressures of time, the ideology of that particular genre remains the same. Two good examples are the differences between film noir and Neo Noir as exemplified by Double Indemnity and The Last Seduction.

In Double Indemnity, the duplicitous femme fatale Phyllis Dietrichson truly constitutes being a femme fatale; she’s utterly heartless. The visual design in which she is depicted alerts the audience that this is no ordinary woman. Janey Place writes about the femme fatale and Phyllis Dietrichson when she states that, “The iconography is explicitly sexual, and often explicitly violent as well: long hair (blond or dark), make-up, and jewellery. Cigarettes with their wispy trails of smoke can become cues of dark and immoral sensuality…” (Place, pg. 54). Place goes on to write about how the cigarette also represents femme fatales, “…unnatural phallic power” (Place, pg. 54). She then goes on to write about how Phyllis’ legs entice Walter Neff in the film and about how, “The strength of these women is expressed in the visual style by their dominance in composition, angle, camera movement and lighting. They are overwhelmingly the compositional focus, generally centre frame and/or in the foreground, or pulling focus to them in the background.” An example of this is the shot of Phyllis in the background when her husband is, unbeknownst to him, signing the accident insurance. Walter Neff is also in the foreground, and yet both males are not the dominant characters in the frame because they are facing away from the camera. Phyllis is the one that is dominating these men without their realizing it. “They control camera movement, seeming to direct the camera…irresistibly with them as they move” (Place, pgs. 54-55). This occurs whenever Phyllis paces back and forth, contemplating her next move. She goes on to write about, “The insistence on combining the two (aggressiveness and sensuality) in a consequently dangerous woman is the central obsession of film noir, and the visual movement which indicates unacceptable activity in film noir women…” (Place, pg. 57). This is the reason for why Phyllis face is always objectively brightly lit; it’s a representation of her passion which can never be contained, not even by the spider like widow’s veil that surrounds her face after her husband has been murdered by her own doing. She will never feel regret over what she has done for fear that she will lose the battle between her and her husband; she wants to transgress that emotional vulnerability. Walter Neff should have been wary of Phyllis right from the start. There are so many visual clues importing information related to Phyllis’ duplicitous nature. Place writes about this when she states that, “The independence which film noir women seek is often visually presented as self-absorbed narcissism: the woman gazes at her own reflection in the mirror, ignoring the man she will use to achieve her goals. This attention to herself instead of the man is the obvious narrative transgression…” (Place, pg. 57). What all of this has to do with Double Indemnity and film genre is that the ideological conventions implicit in the film are the ideological conventions in all film noir movies. Hence, why these films constitute being a film genre rather than merely being a cycle of films. The aesthetic elements mentioned above all relate to the basic concept of the independent woman trying desperately to transgress her repressed status and consequently becoming the femme fatale; the woman that emasculates the middle class man that ironically enough wants to transgress his own boundaries.

This basic concept of film noir is very much apparent in the neo-noir The Last Seduction. The only difference now is that the female is afforded more power due to changes in society, yet still wants to go beyond her original intentions of transgression to something along the lines of total usurpation of the male sex’s power position. This is merely an adjustment to the femme fatale image and nothing more. She still is very similar imagistically to Phyllis Dietrichson. Visual elements that are an example of Bridget’s femme fatale façade are when she’s first introduced mysteriously in the beginning of the film through the processes of shooting below her face, giving the woman a strange ominous almost un-human like quality. The shot of Bridget looking in the mirror in the girl’s bathroom is very similar to the shot of Phyllis looking in the mirror. The long shot of Bridget waiting on her couch for Clay to bring home the bacon is a very femme fatale type of shot composition. The only difference is that this femme fatale wins in the end and doesn’t die a morally corrupt death, due to the fact that she is a lot smarter and less crazed than Dietrichson. She’s not doing what she is doing merely for greedy aspirations; she’s doing what she is doing all in order to gain all women’s power position. (An example of this visually is the close up of Bridget’s hands when she grabs Mike’s pool ball before it goes in the pocket). This is the difference between the film noir’s of the past and neo-noirs. (Straayer, pgs. 152-153). However, these are still films dealing primarily with the frustration between the sexes in terms of power position, and this is the link that connects these films, not to mention the stylistic similarities present.

Something must also be mentioned in relation to the alterations in the genre throughout the 1950’s, specifically exemplified in The Big Heat. The fact that Dave Bannion (Glenn Ford) is a subversion of the typical male figures in film noir is fascinating. Bannion, unlike film noir males of the 40’s, cares more about social justice than his on personal needs. Bannion is still a rebel of the Establishment so to speak, only this time he survives and like Fiorentino is looked up upon by the audience rather than down upon. However, all is not well in this particular environment. Even though the male character survives in the end, he has lost much in the process. His wife is blown up in a car bombing in the film. This idea of violence entering the homefront has to do with the paranoia throughout the 50’s regarding the Red Scare. The Big Heat primarily deals with the idea that no one can get away from oppression, even in their own homefront environment. Even though Bannion’s home appears to be an idyllic family environment, the film’s style alerts the audience that it isn’t. The homefront itself is particularly small and cramped. Consequently, the close ups are a little too tightly pushed in on Bannion’s family, almost giving the audience a sense of claustrophobia. Even the editing is quick and violent. In a sense, the film noir world is still a very dangerous environment. It will never not be subversive, which is ultimately why these films are genre films. No matter how grey the characterizations are becoming in more modern Noir’s, there’s still the implicit message that no one can be a non-conformist in the environment that we live in, no matter how many freedoms afforded us.

Heart of Darkness—Psychoanalytic Criticism

2008-09-08T20:41:00.000-07:00

Works of art, in terms of the psychoanalytic critics’ perspective, are interesting precisely because they contain reticence and repression, which are both forms of shame. This theory stems from Freud’s psychological beliefs. Therefore, this form of literary criticism involves the study of the id (the unrepressed sexual state), the superego (the repressed state), and the ego (a commingling of the two states). The writer, in Freud’s estimation, hides their sexual goals by concentrating on larger themes, in the form of a social context. However, psychoanalytic critics feel that those repressed feelings do come out; in this sense, writing is an unconscious expression of the artist’s personal feelings. A book is basically, if the reader examines the work deeply enough, a form of a dream.

When a reader reads Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, they immediately feel that they are in a dream-like state (or that the main character Marlowe is). Anyone that picks up the book, and reads a sentence like this one, “…you lost your way on that river as you would in a desert, and butted all day long against shoals, trying to find the channel, till you thought yourself bewitched and cut off for ever from everything you had known once—somewhere—far away—in another existence perhaps,” knows that they as readers are reading fictional accounts of a psychological journey, and that the work itself is primarily a psychoanalytic one. The book does, indeed, deal with repression and reticence. Heart of Darkness is about a blasé confused person (Marlowe) who needs to repress the outside world around him: that of the Congo. Marlowe does this because he’s torn between believing whether or not what the Europeans were doing to the land was a good thing or not; he doesn’t necessarily know, so in effect he doesn’t want to deal with that reality.

Here’s an example of Marlowe being torn in terms of ideological belief: this is when he describes Kurtz’s report, “I’ve seen it. I’ve read it. It was eloquent, vibrating with eloquence, but too high strung, I think. Seventeen pages of close writing he had found time for! But this must have been before his—let us say—nerves went wrong, and caused him to preside at certain midnight dances ending with unspeakable rites, which—as far as I reluctantly gathered from what I heard at various times—were offered up to him—do you understand?—to Mr. Kurtz himself. But it was a beautiful piece of writing. The opening paragraph, however, in the light of later information, strikes me now as ominous. He began with the argument that we whites, from the point of development we had arrived at, ‘must necessarily appear to them (savages) in the nature of supernatural beings—we approach them with the might as of a deity,’ and so on and so on.” (pg. 66) At first Marlowe feels that Kurtz’s writing is “eloquent.” Then, he says that the writing is too “high strung” which is a negative word that distracts the reader from the real reasoning in Kurtz’s report. In other words, Kurtz’s writing doesn’t necessarily have to be well written to be politically sound. Marlowe then returns to his initial belief that Kurtz’s writing is “beautiful.” He then goes on with more usages of negatives like ominous, which is another dream like word that distracts the reader from the real matter at hand. What is really transpiring throughout this book is the sensation of a character who for the first time in their life meets their id, in the form of another person. The reader knows that Marlowe will always stay within the confines of European ideology (the superego), even though he wants to join Kurtz in his supposedly “peaceful” quest (the id). Either way, both states of being lead to forms of racism, and Marlowe doesn’t necessarily want the listener listening to his story to know that. All throughout the book, Marlowe will distract the listener (or the reader) through the process of his sang-froid descriptions of his journey. They are beautiful descriptions, but they conceal the hidden truth, the horror in Kurtz’s estimation, of hypocritical racism.

Brechtian Filmmaking in Do the Right Thing

2008-09-08T20:29:00.000-07:00

Dialectical oppositions frequently occur in movies, but they have never been used to such a great extent as they have been in Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing. The reason for this style of story telling in the film is to basically show ideological and cultural opposition. The film primarily deals with the racial tensions that many different ethnicities were experiencing in New York throughout the 1980’s. What’s unique about the film is the fact that the movie depicts racial tensions inside not only different ethnic communities, but also within the same groups. Lee achieves this realistic morally complex construct through the means of stylization of shot composition and mise-en-scene.

The dramatic interplay of different races (and partially the same races) interconnecting and colliding with one another is all for the purposes of showing the tensions that result when different races live in the same neighborhood. There can either be complete apathy towards the person of the opposite race, or something in the opposite extreme. Generally, the person that wants to get along with the opposite race tries to cease the arguments that other people from his or her race have with that person. In this film, this figure (Da Mayor played by Ossie Davis) is a Martin Luther King type of individual, and he is someone who is more altruistic than a person like Buggin Out (Giancarlo Esposito) who believes that the only way to solve the racial tensions of that part of the neighborhood, by the name of Bedford-Stuyvesant, is to incite violence against the opposing race. Buggin Out represents the Malcolm X characteristic of a man. All of this drama revolves around Sal’s Pizzaria, which is owned by a racist by the name of Sal (Danny Aiello). It’s Mookie (Spike Lee) the only black man who works at Sal’s who is in the middle of this difficult situation. He’s not exactly an interlocutor between the two races; he’s more confused and ambivalent about just exactly how he feels about the situation.

The ways the shots are composed in the film are the aesthetic devices that Lee utilizes in order for the audience to understand the different ideological positions that each person in the neighborhood has. The framing of the shots and the way they are composed also alert the audience to the tensions in the neighborhood; when two different races make their points to each other in the movie, their “conversation” to one another is not merely a conversation but rather a very tense shouting-match that always feels like it’s going to spill over into violence. Mookie is merely just trying to get through the day, and just trying “to get paid.” He’s not a stagnant character, and the way the camera tracks when he walks through the streets of his community, emphasize this quality of Mookie’s. He doesn’t have time to become incensed about the situation that he is in; he’s merely trying deliver the pizzas so he can eventually make enough money to get out of the community. The camera never tracks for any other character (until the end of the film when the whole situation has gotten out of control). This is a depiction of how these individuals (basically everyone in the film) are content with their estimation of the other ethnic communities in the area.

Mookie is more ambivalent about Sal and his sons’ racist tendencies; at the same time he does side with Buggin Out’s estimation that there should be pictures of some black people on the wall of Sal’s pizzeria. After all, mostly black people do eat at that establishment. However, believing in someone’s beliefs and actually physically doing something about it, in other words carrying out the belief, are two different things completely. Mookie leaves his fellow brother hanging and kicks him out of the place, because his boss made him.

The framing and particularly lighting of the shot is particularly important. “Do the Right Thing employs an array of lighting techniques that at first may seem naturalistic but through the course of the film are directional in particularly dramatic ways. Especially through the lighting, heat becomes a palpable feature of this mise-en-scene.” (Corrigan/White, page 63). The way the shot is composed, along with the lighting by Ernest Dickerson, conveys the conflicts and torn attitude that Mookie is feeling at that moment. The shot is a deep focus image of Mookie and Sal inside the pizzeria, while Buggin Out is in the background of the frame, outside in the sweltering heat. The dark lighting inside the pizzeria, opposed to the bright look outside conveys the conflicts in Mookie’s character; that of cool white apathy and black passion. The same moment is much more subtly conveyed when Mookie is delivering a pizza. He comes up the stairs and leans against the apartment building’s wall out of sheer exhaustion. The lighting on one portion of Mookie’s face is a dark, while the other half of his face is illuminated from the light coming from the stairwell. This is another aesthetic example of Mookie’s inherent confusion in terms of doing the right thing. Is he exhausted from the heat, or is it because of the danger that he is feeling towards the whole racial upheaval in his neighborhood?

A person who does know how he feels about the situation is Da Mayor. He wants to help his fellow man out, which does not include any class distinctions. He’s usually shot in medium shot to close up shot proximity, and this is for the purposes of not showing the environment around Da Mayor. The implication that Lee raises in this film is that altruistic black people, despite their good intentions cannot fully face the sad aspects of black culture, a culture that’s ultimately ensnared by the white culture, or else they would not be as caring towards the other race.

Both mother sister (Ruby Dee) and Mister Senor Love Daddy (Samuel L. Jackson) are also very respectful to the white race, but ironically enough are always confined by their spaces; either the radio booth or the apartment. They never face Bedford-Stuyvesant and the troubles contained in the town out of fear that they may indeed change their viewpoint of the white culture residing there (along with the Puerto Rican and Asian culture also residing there). They may even start to become hateful, and this conflict of emotion is conveyed in a very similar shot from the previous two mentioned above. Mother Sister is sitting in the windowsill of her apartment; the inside of her apartment is shot very darkly while the outside environment appears very bright. Rather than staying inside like the previous two shots, Lee has the camera track forward out of the apartment. Lee simply doesn’t want to deal with Mother Dee’s particular insight into believing that nothing can be done; he wants her and all black people to face the outside world and all the horrors implicit in that vision. It’s only after the destruction of Sal’s place and the death of Radio Raheem (Bill Nunn) when Mother Sister comes out of her house for the first time in the film.

Da Mayor experiences racial tensions from his own ethnic group when they say that he should get a job. The black people in the neighborhood respect Mookie’s position because even though he works for white people, at least he’s making a profit from them. They become incensed towards Da Mayor because he doesn’t have an excuse for liking white people.

Characters who are very vocal about their hatred of white individuals (or at least racist ones) are both Buggin Out and Radio Raheem. Especially in the case of Radio Raheem, he’s usually shot in low canted angle shots that make him look frighteningly imposing and dangerous, not to mentioned incensed. A person would assume that Lee would not make Raheem look as terrifying as he does, considering the fact that as a filmmaker he is on his side. Radio Raheem eventually becomes a senseless victim of police brutality and is killed. However, what Lee attempts in this film is a complex form of Brechtian filmmaking; that is, showing the audience an exaggerated form of a character without giving them in a sense humanistic tendencies. This caricature rather represents an ideological element or idea. The idea present in the depiction of Radio Raheem is that this is the way the white culture view him, and their assumption of his character is false. After all, Raheem wears both hate and love knuckle guards. Lee is setting up this dialectic of instilling into the audience base assumptions; if they fall for them than they are indeed racist. Other instances of dialectical elements in the film occur whenever there are spray painted messages on the brick walls behind characters, and whenever there are instances of humor in the film. These elements all pertain to the idea that points are deliberately noticeable in the film, all in order for the audience to notice them.

The way the different races stare into each others faces is highly embellished and disturbing to the audience, because characters like Radio Raheem and Sal are staring at the audience just as much as they are staring at our opponents. When Sal says to Radio Raheem, “You are disturbing me! You are disturbing our customers,” the disturbing element of the scene is that he is staring right at us. Lee at this moment is trying to break racial tensions in the audience. Everyone feels Sal’s vindictiveness and it doesn’t matter what color their skin is. These and the racial monologues in the movie, are the only instances when Lee ironically enough doesn’t strive for finding dialectical opposition in his film.

The clincher in Do the Right Thing is that it’s not so much the racial opposition that Lee is trying to dialectically depict, but rather the opposition of the police to the black people in the community (make that any community). When Radio Raheem is killed, he for the first time is shot in normal angles, and in medium shot rather than close up. When he falls to the ground, it’s the police that are shot in low angles; Lee is saying to the audience that these are the monsters we should be looking at. The tragedy of the story is that Raheem realizes this too late and ultimately dies. Lee must have come to the realization while making this film that while races may never peacefully co-exist, the more prescient issue is that the police force is the destructive element to his culture. What Lee as filmmaker is declaring to the black people watching the film is that they have to do the right thing and fight the power i.e. police force. The only way to do that, to not in a sense get distracted, is to “chill out” in Mister Senor Love Daddy’s words in terms of fighting other races.

Byron's A Vision of Judgement

2008-09-08T20:13:00.000-07:00

Lord Byron’s A Vision of Judgment is an example of the writer’s understanding of the complexities of given actions, and the irony and humor that is sufficed in certain circumstances. The complexities that Byron examined were in regards to civil liberties, and how they can easily be vanquished by certain artistic works. After George III’s death, poet laurite Robert Southey wrote his A Vision of Judgment in remembrance of the deceased king. Byron took great offence to this work because it was written in the style of the Lake Poets of the time. The Lake Poets, particularly Southey were successful writers who, “…construct(ed) some half-baked theory, and then (wrote) in accordance with it.” (pg. 219, Rutherford). The half-baked theory that Byron had such distaste for was that George III entered heaven after he died, while his main opponents were banished into hell. (Pg. 221, Rutherford).

The reason why Byron held such distaste for the work was the fact that the poem, “…gave…a completely false impression of George III’s reign, and of George III himself. It was an outrageous attempt to whitewash him.” (Pg. 220, Rutherford). George III’s tyrannical rule during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars resulted in many deaths on both sides, unto the point of extremity. (Wikipedia entry on George III’s career). However, certain writers held discerning viewpoints regarding this issue. “Southey saw (Waterloo) as the highest point of Britain’s military glory.” (Pg. 224, Rutherford). A reader knowing this information could easily see why Byron was so incensed by this particular loyalist’s declarations.

Byron ultimately hated Southey’s Vision because, “…Southey arrogated to himself the functions of the deity, attributing to God and the whole celestial hierarchy the views of political conservatives in the early nineteenth century.” (Rutherford, pg. 222). Byron combated Southey’s offensive poetic work by writing his own Vision; one that was sufficed with satire.

Right from the opening two stanzas, a reader can detect that this poem doesn’t take itself as laboriously seriously as Southey’s does. Byron’s heaven is much more blessedly realistic. The first stanza begins with Saint Peter falling asleep, due to the fact that Heaven has not been very active as of late. “The devils had ta’en a longer, stronger pull…which drew most souls another way.” (Byron, stanza 1). It’s the “wanton” quality of the angels in Heaven that makes Byron’s poem so refreshing. “…wild colt of a comet, which too soon Broke out of bounds o’er th’ ethereal blue, Splitting some planet with its playful tail, As boats are sometimes by a wanton whale.” (Byron, stanza 2). The unholy attitude that is pertained throughout the work is a relief to the reader; especially considering that a highly intelligent moral person is describing events that are not usually described in that vein.

It’s the event of Waterloo that changes matters drastically, and which makes the poem become an indictment of war. “Each day too slew its thousands six or seven, Till at the crowning carnage, Waterloo, They threw their pens down in divine disgust—The page was so besmeared with blood and dust.” (Byron, stanza 5). It’s Byron’s modulating of emotions that gives the reader emotional understanding of the situation; a quality that Southey’s poem never dared attempt. (pg. 224, Rutherford).

It’s the unpretentious rationality of George III’s funeral which is an indication of the thematic opposition that Byron’s poem is in relation to Southey’s. In Southey’s Vision, particulary in his dedication to George IV, the conservative Loyalist kings reigns are looked up upon by Southey in a very literally praiseworthy way; almost as if these kings were gods. Byron counters this by depicting George III’s funeral in a very mocking tone; it’s one of the most comical and historically accurate moments in the Vision. “He died! His death made no great stir on Earth; His burial made some pomp...Of all The fools who flocked to swell or see the show, Who cared about the corpse? The funeral Made the attraction…” (Byron, stanzas 9 and 10.) “The anomalies that (Byron) now describes are not ridiculous but horrible, and his tone is grimly ironic as he explores the discrepancies between appearance and reality in the royal funeral—the appearance of public concern and grief, the reality of vulgar curiosity or indifference; the appearance of glory and riches, the reality of death and bodily decay.” (pg. 225, Rutherford). There’s an emphasis on reality, unlike Southey’s interpretation of events.

Even the tone of Byron’s poem is made up of, “…informal, conversational verse-meditation,” particularly in stanzas 13, 14, and 15. (pg. 225, Rutherford). It’s ironic that Byron’s tone is so calm at this point in the poem, considering that these three stanzas are indications of why Byron is so infuriated with Southey. This has to do along the lines of Southey’s considering himself the functionary of the deity.

The idea of eternal damnation of George III’s enemies, otherwise known as the unco guid, did not sit well with Byron because as a writer and political thinker, “…he reacted violently against certain aspects of the Calvinism he had known in his youth, and the idea of perpetual damnation was especially repugnant to him.” (pg. 221, Rutherford). “…not one am I Of those who think damnation better still…I know this is unpopular; I know ‘Tis blasphemous; I know one may be damned For hoping no one else may e’er be so; I know my catechism…Not that I’m fit for such a noble dish, As one day will be that immortal fry Of almost everybody born to die.” (Byron, stanzas 13, 14, 15). Byron’s calm rational manner during certain moments throughout these stanzas should not be overlooked, or considered blasphemous. Rather, he as a writer, “…condemns intolerance and bigotry, implying that the most humane and gentlemanly thing to do is to hope for other men’s salvation—not their damnation.” (pg. 226, Rutherford). Byron’s writing indicates that heaven and hell are not made entirely out of fire and brimstone. In the end, Byron is a moralist and this is apparent in his casual denunciations, opposed to Southey’s offensively righteous moral tone, or sanctimonious false Christian writing.

It’s the indictment of George III which probably gave Byron more pleasure than anything else he had written in his Vision, because that is the moment when George III’s true colors are present, and when his past illicit deeds are out in the open for the reader to know. “…if in the course of this satire the author could shock the pious English reader or expose his hypocrisies, so much the better.” (pg. 236, Marchand). In Byron’s estimation, George III’s reign “…produce(d) a reign More drenched with gore, more cumbered with the slain. He ever warred with freedom and the free: Nations as men, home subjects, foreign foes, So that they uttered the word ‘Liberty!’ Found George the Third their first opponent. Whose History was ever stained as his will be With national and individual woes?” (Byron, stanzas 44 and 45). Even though the information presented is very damning, it’s also very circumstantial like in a trial. Byron’s statement here is that God’s workings are more practical and clear minded than anything else, and that freedom means, “…freedom from foreign rule, freedom from despots, freedom of speech, freedom of political action, freedom, finally, to worship God as one pleases without suffering civil disabilities…” (pg. 231, Rutherford). This is the reason why Byron wrote his Vision; to restate to the reader civil liberties that should never be vanquished in favor of the king’s tyranny.

The opposition of tyranny against the king is symbolized by Wilkes and Junius’ redemption. Unlike in Southey’s poem, they are allowed into Heaven, “But then I blame the man himself much less Than Bute and Grafton…I have forgiven, And vote his ‘habeas corpus’ into heaven.” (Byron, stanza 71). When it comes time to decide George III’s fate, Southey enters and interrupts the proceedings. This is the most humorous passage in Byron’s Vision because it so blatantly attacks Southey, the man responsible for instigating this work in the first place. “Byron’s triumph throughout is in lighting Southey’s solemnities with a human and a humorous touch.” (pg. 238, Marchand). This is a chance for Byron to get some much needed revenge, and that’s what makes stanzas 86, 88, 90, and 96-99 so humorous. It’s almost as if Byron was more infuriated by Southey then he was by George III. He’s not the only one; eventually Saint Peter strikes the poet down in stanza 105, and in all the commotion George III does escape, upon his own will, into Heaven. “All I saw farther, in the last confusion, Was, that King George slipped into Heaven for one; And when the tumult dwindled to a calm, I left him practicing the hundredth psalm.” (Byron, stanza 106.)

The reason why Byron’s Vision has withstood the test of time has nothing to do with the quarrel between Southey or between George III and Byron. Rather, what makes the work so unique and special is the fact that it’s more altruistic than anything else. It’s ironic that a satire is first of all written in the romantic style of ottava rima, and that a satire shows Byron’s, “…love of liberty, (and his) hatred of oppression, and of war, (along with Byron’s) respect for courage and for passionate love.” (pg. 215, Rutherford). Those are not qualities typically associated with the Satire form. The question becomes: Why didn’t Byron just write a serious form of poetry? However, it’s perfectly rational why Byron would write a Satire concerning George III; it’s all for the purpose of disrupting the sanctimonious way in which that king was depicted by many writers, not just Southey.

Byron’s poetry, unlike Southey’s, requires that the work presents, “…the author’s comic-realistic view of human life, and (also) a record of his own increased self-knowledge and maturity.” (Rutherford, pg. 215). Byron doesn’t pander to the reader in anyway, unlike other poets of the time. However, the poem is very humanistic. This “maturity” cannot be accomplished without the application of humor. Even though Byron’s Vision is a satire, it’s a satire that is an example of, “…detestation of all forms of cant.” (pg. 215, Rutherford). In other words, all forms of sanctimonious falsities that are in opposition to historic truth. The difference between Byron’s satire, and other satires written at the time, is that his work was written for a very specific purpose, which was the maintaining of liberty. Byron’s A Vision of Judgment is not merely just comical and funny; those jokes at the expense of Southey and George III are there for a purpose, and that’s the difference.

Underrated great directors rock! Part 1

2008-09-08T20:00:00.001-07:00

Twisted

This is the start of a couple series of posts on probably the most underrated great director out there--Phillip Kaufman.
In Twisted, starring Ashley Judd and Andy Garcia, everyone acts their age. It’s not really that the stars are getting older—it has to do more with the fact that they are receiving roles that require them to be mature, to be strong or stronger then they have been in the past. The film is Serpico-like only because it deals with a strong cop who’s on everyone’s case. Because the question is put to the main character that maybe she was the one who committed the crimes, it’s a story that’s infinitely more complex.

The beginning of the movie shows Ashley Judd’s character being threatened by a man with a knife. That’s what the whole movie is about. Jessica Shepard is running throughout the entire picture from rapists. Being a cop, much less a woman turns men on. It’s the idea that they can take care of themselves and at the same time be vulnerable. Shepard feels like she’s being followed throughout the entire film. Sometimes when Jessica comes to her apartment, she likes to look at the apartment across from hers. The men that work with Jessica like to look at her. There are even moments of peaking into peepholes. The sexuality that is in this film comes out in basically every scene, since the spying that goes on is a form of play. Shepard’s sexuality never really amounts to gratification; it just keeps Shepard constantly on her toes in an alert way—drudgingly going through life. Mike Delmarco is played by Andy Garcia, who basically sleepwalks through the role. However, Garcia is an actor who has charisma—he likes to be watched. His character works at Homicide where Jessica is now working full time. The day before Shepard leaves regular police work, she has a get-together with some cops. She gets a little tipsy as do the rest of the police. You wonder if they do this every weekend. Samuel L. Jackson’s character joins them later in the night. He plays the police commissioner who also happened to have been Jessica’s father’s partner. He also trains Jessica to be the best that she can be.

Shepard has psychological problems. Jessica’s father died along with her mother supposedly in a car accident. She can’t get their deaths out of her head. She starts to see a psychiatrist who really doesn’t help her much. She in effect has a drinking problem. There’s copious amount of drinking in this movie; a lot of covering up your sorrows for your job. Ashley Judd plays the role well mainly because she has the strength for a cop. It’s not just that she is in good shape—she has this double side to her character. At one point she feels like she’s being followed in a building’s garage. She goes to her car and gets startled by a rat. However, when it comes to putting some guy behind bars— she doesn’t flinch. She’s also a smart character; she knows when she is close to death. The strength that’s present in this actress reminds me of Charlize Theron. When she notices that the cops are looking at her simply because of her beauty, she has a wink like Shirley Temple.

Later in the story, (the movie moves along at a fast pace), Shepard and Delmarco find a pattern in the murders they are getting lately. The victim’s hand appears to have a cigarette burn on it. Also the face is bashed in. Jessica starts to feel a connection with the murders and herself—she feels that she slept with all the victims. After that night with the cops at the bar, she met some guy and had sex with him. She really can’t remember much after that because she always boozes out. Maybe she’s the one that committed the murders?

The screenplay by Sarah Thorp is very well thought out in terms of plot development but not in terms of characterization. The problem is she can’t add any sustenance to her script; really, she only has an interest in plot necessities. What the director Phillip Kaufman tried to do with the material was loosen it up. Kaufman, the director of such movies as Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Right Stuff, and The Unbearable Lightness of Being, tries his best to make something worthwhile in all his movies. He tries to give whatever project he tackles conviction, whether it be a commercial film or not. To add a fillip to every single one of your films is no small feat. He’s a really great director. One who directs a sex scene like no other. And yet he doesn’t try hard enough on this one. The film does have a style; it breaths but it breaths heavily. Throughout the whole movie you get bashed with little flashbacks; two second shots that are superfluous. I don’t know whose fault it was but I did feel that this was a way to compress the film for the affect of suspense. What Twisted should consistently be is a stylish thriller.

What makes this movie unique is the fact that it does have a style. It has that glazed look dyed in blue. When Ashley Judd goes back in her mind to what happened one night, the bar is bathed in red. The style achieves the effect of expressionism. The movie does have that glazed look and yet the style of it is not glazed. If anything the movie has a drunk feel. (That stuff should be illegal for Shepard.)

Twisted ends up becoming towards the end an obligatory thriller. You can feel how flawed the script is; characters like Samuel L. Jackson’s simply disappear. Yes he is acting more grown up in this movie, yet he acts like a grouchy baby. He doesn’t want to be seen. The movie itself also follows the formula of the script; Veronica Cartwright appears for a brief instant. The triumphs of the movie are when you feel the fear that this strong woman feels. She’s in basically every frame. When the rapist is in her apartment you want to scream. You hate those lowlifes.

The flaws of the movie are what the studio likes in it. They like the fact that it’s presentable. It’s probably what directors like Phillip Kaufman hate in a movie. However, there are good ideas that appear throughout. There’s the idea that the hippie partying notion of life has been updated. Now it’s date-rapes; a much more dangerous concept to consider. I love the opening title sequence, with the Golden Gate Bridge resting above the clouds and the heavenly Jazz music that eminates from it. You see little aspects of San Francisco through Ashley Judd’s eyes. She’s merely sight-seeing before she’s about to be raped. It’s jazzy.

The fact is Phillip Kaufman’s not suited for the thriller genre. He just hasn’t had enough experience with it. I think Kaufman understands this and that’s why his sensibility seeps out of the movie at the end. It’s like a type of dovetailing action. Twisted is an episode of Law and Order directed by Kaufman. The reason the movie is important is because it shows what a valueless show Law and Order is. It’s really making fun of that type of quality of show, and it does this by out-classing it. In the end, Kaufman gets the last laugh. He’s laughing because by barely trying he made a good thriller.

a little note on The X Files: I Want to Believe

2008-08-11T17:52:00.000-07:00

I just love the fact that after all the crazy intricate to the point of obsessive to the point of obnoxious plot points or conspiracies that the X Files as a show had under its belt, the new film I Want to Believe really just intimately contains these two characters. After all these two lovers have been through together, the story simply ends with just the two of them in, as always, very deep contemplation.

The Ballad of Jack and Rose

2008-08-11T17:41:00.000-07:00

Where the “Heart” Is

Don’t you hate it when films take themselves so seriously that they become pretentious and in the process lose what they were talking about? It always has to be the good qualities that they lose. In The Ballad of Jack and Rose, a family picture about losing your family, the movie constantly tries to push the emotional ante; it consistently separates Jack (a man with a huge inheritance contracted from his father), and Rose (his daughter who’s been secluded from the rest of the world because of her father’s bidding). The movie’s about the two characters innocence but it wasn’t innocent for me. I became deprived watching the picture.

The movie’s plot is simplified from what an audience is usually used to because Rebecca Miller (the writer and director) wants to show the care-free peacefulness of the land, but that’s not necessarily a good thing in this context. It’s actually a joke because the movie barely gets a chance to breathe a little. The first couple of minutes work because it’s carefree and has weight. Jack completely objects to what’s going on to his land. (It’s not actually his land but that’s okay.) Colonial homes are being built where Jack doesn’t want them and so he says to the builders that if they don’t abide to his rules, he will have to tear the homes down. The film begins with Jack and Rose lying down on the grass of their home without a care in the world except for love.

You realize right away that he’s a domineering father but also that he will never hurt her. You also find out that he’s dying, so free time in effect is precious. Okay, that’s good theater. Then Jack wants to get some revenge. He walks over to a site where a house is being built and orders that all the men get out. While he’s doing this, he gracefully recites to his daughter why he’s doing what he’s doing. He says the builders are destroying the land. Jack then gracefully lands on a piece of wood and lies down in the incomplete house. Okay, that’s good theatre. While these early scenes are going on a Bob Dylan song is being played in the foreground. This movie is obviously in love with Dylan; hey, at least it’s in love.

However, from then on the film is a shambles. It starts out so right; The Unbearable Lightness of Being in bloom—in America. In The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Daniel Day-Lewis’ character Tomas felt abandonment whenever his girl Tereza left him. The movie did blame Tomas but it didn’t hold him in disdain. This film is not that subtle; it’s really not that bright. Whenever a happenstance happens like when Jack’s old girlfriend Kathleen (Catherine Keener) decides to move in with her other children, Rose will not abide and so she decides to get a shotgun out to murder her father. After he saves himself, Jack doesn’t really reprimand her. First of all, I find it ridiculous that she would do something like that in the first place; a young girl who really doesn’t have a problem with what her father does (she doesn’t complain of her shut-in life) suddenly gets up and does this because he’s dating someone other than his former wife. Moreover, the movie says that what she did wasn’t a big deal because she’s a village idiot. It doesn’t blame Jack for not taking her to school, as if this would happen to someone who never went to school. The actress who plays Rose (Camilla Belle) plays the part the way it’s written. Rose will stay the village idiot; an epilogue shows her alive in a rest in peace state.

The movie really is a bore. Rebecca Miller who’s the daughter of Arthur Miller doesn’t have an ear for dialogue; it’s crude prose. This film is a theatre movie (that house is like a stage—let’s get outside). What this movie lacks that Miller’s writing had was that New York quality. All throughout this film, I was thinking about Rebecca Miller and how she’s the type that doesn’t want to admit that she’s religious, but she can’t help herself. Fate causes all the problems in this movie. Jack’s idealism is foolish and the film doesn’t say that what he’s doing is wrong. It gets to a point where I realized that this movie is so foolish that the writer gets the quality she’s striving for: its romantic beautiful.

There is a reason to go see The Ballad of Jack and Rose and that is for Daniel Day Lewis’ performance. I felt like I was constantly being thrust in whenever he came into a scene. I’m glad that Day-Lewis is married to Miller because he’s cast as the domineering father; the dominating character. Daniel Day-Lewis is right at home here and playing an ill person allows him to snuggle up to uninhabited covers (Kathleen leaves him). We truly care for the character he’s playing. Even when Jack becomes ornery, its smooth anger that he’s showing. His Irish accent or voice is gruffer here and not in the least bit hackneyed. Unsettled scenes become fully complete because of Day-Lewis’ dictation and respect. You have the feeling that Jack’s a very nice man which is what this story needs; it’s a folk story about a monster that never wants to let go. Day Lewis plays it so that he’s both harsh and lenient.

The movie is not in the least bit flexible. An actress I liked, by the name of Jena Malone, barely registers on the screen and I don’t know why she was given so little screen time. I would have definitely preferred her playing Rose than the other girl who does. There are only a couple of scenes where this charming actress gets to shine (she was the 17 year old main character in Saved!) and they really are awful scenes. A crucial moment that features all the kids and Day Lewis in a tree house where Rose wants to confront her father about his drug induced past, ends in tragedy when Jack gets so mad that he accidentally pushes one of Katherine’s sons out of the clubhouse and the boy gets seriously injured. It’s a pious tree house. It got me thinking that the mealy mouthed kids besides Jena Malone look very much inferior to Daniel Day-Lewis’ passion. I think I hated the movie in the end because there’s all this beauty in the air, but the audience can never get away from the sadness. Daniel day-Lewis adds to the atmosphere of the movie; happiness keeps breaking into Jack’s life. That’s why he wears the wide grin.

Most actors never deliver their lines the way Daniel Day-Lewis does. There’s true conviction when Jack says to Rose “Don’t you ever say that again.” The scene works because of the actor. A scene towards the end when Jack confronts the project manager of the housing development (a nice part by Beau Bridges) is a truly tragic one. Day-Lewis reminds me of a dying tree and he’s not ostentatious in the least bit, even with all those rings on his wrist and earring in his ear and grey hair. (If you want ostentation, watch Daniel Day-Lewis' performance in that life affirming masterpiece There Will Be Blood. Grand in the wrong sense of that term.). It was the way he looks that kept thrusting me in. When Jack’s body burns at the end of the film, his earring will still be there. It will see everything. Daniel Day-Lewis is omnipresent in this movie—he’s staring over a stale bowel of cereal and in the process getting immersed in it.

Kojack Variety

2008-07-17T22:43:00.000-07:00

A Crooner’s Soul

Elvis Costello’s ‘Kojck Variety’ (it’s not just his variety; music legends like James Burton, Marc Ribot, Jim Keltner, Jerry Scheff, Larry Knechtel, and Pete Thomas all play on the album) acts as the softest punch to a listener in the face of music history. It’s like an Irish kiss but made American through the art of covering a song (to perfection, I might say) of what I like to call classic b tunes. In this case, the most romantic—the best pop songs ever written. EC acts as a guide for the listener to show them roads that they may have never explored before. His young listeners will most likely be bewildered and upset upon listening to it because EC doesn’t appear to be angry anymore. They will say he’s mellowed which is the worst term you could tag onto him. Can’t they hear the anger in a song like “Must You Throw Dirt in My Face”? What they don’t realize is that by singing the song in a quieter, more beautiful fashion EC has healed himself in the process. These are not just merely cover songs. EC goes back to the tunes he must have been listening to in his younger supposedly angrier years; he most likely believed more in these songs then the punk movement of the late 70’s. He was really a crooner in the end and now he truly admits it. He’s transcending himself by not taking credit for the whole thing—by not writing any of the lyrics.

There’s a song on this album called “Remove This Doubt” which I will always have with me. It’s stuck in my somnambulistic state. The whole album feels as if it was sung in the wee hours when no one was paying attention. He’s still a great rocker, too, and songs like “Strange”, “Leave My Kitten Alone” and “Payday” are proof of that. However, it is really the ballads that get to me. They’re devout pop songs all about how a woman specifically broke the singer’s heart. He’s obsessed with a woman that he can’t come into possession of. They are very well written songs because of the specifics. That’s something that pop music has forgotten all about these days. Wouldn’t you like it if Chet Baker (who EC reminds me of) sang a Bob Dylan song or Little Richards’ “Bama Lama Bama Loo”? EC is, if anything, more original here than ever.

Jackie Brown

2008-07-17T21:57:00.000-07:00

Funky Willingness

Jackie Brown begins with the title character moving on an airport walkway. While she’s standing and moving at the same time, the song Across 110^th Street is playing, not in the background, but in the foreground. It’s pressed right against our ears just as all the rest of the music in the film is. The music acts as the characters’ motivation—it’s their walking music. While Jackie continues to move on that belt, the titles for the film appear over her in true black exploitation style. The difference here is not just that Pam Grier has gotten older (she still looks great) but that this is an exploitation scene done by a white man.

It makes sense then that the director who’s pulling this off is none other than Quentin Tarantino. I think that an audience might be baffled during this opening credits movement mainly because the question pops up, when has Tarantino ever been this pro-feminine? If anything, I was feeling confused since I felt that Tarantino was great at being pro-male and macho. In Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, it seemed that he had mastered a cheap art—the threatening man picture. He made those movies with real grit. That’s something that really has never been done before, or at least not to the extent at which Tarantino tackled it. Nonetheless, these were very male pictures. I at first could not believe the opening for Jackie Brown. Then I thought back to Pulp Fiction and his choice for casting Bunny in the heist sequence. Amanda Plummer was his choice. This actress is a very mature woman who also appears to be a little crazy in all her roles. That’s her brilliance—she’s a little bit more real than most actresses. A truly scary performer who also happens to be brilliant, she fit in perfectly in Pulp Fiction. I got the title sequence at that point since it then seemed to me that Tarantino really does understand women. I also got why he chose this sequence for his opening—it was shocking not just for the audience but also for his fans.

Jackie Brown marks a turning point in Quentin’s career. Not only does he sustain this energetic womanly feeling throughout the whole film, but he has also stepped into new ground. This is his first mature movie. And I do not mean that the young audience will not get it; I just feel that not only does he understand women but he understands grown- ups as well. These characters become exciting on the screen, just like the characters in Bonnie and Clyde and Dog Day Afternoon became exciting. This is a heist movie in the best sense. That grittiness that helped Tarantino on his first two features, most likely helped him tremendously to adapt Elmore Lenord’s Rum Punch to the screen. He not only goes into this world of characters and brings them to the screen—he embellishes and makes them his own.

The change of the main characters race shows a wild embellishment; Jackie Brown is a black airline stewardess who doesn’t make a whole lot of money. The fact that the character is changed from a white woman (the way it was done in the book) into a black woman, was most likely for the reason of casting Pam Grier. Quentin has wanted to work with her for years. However, I think there is more to this decision then most fans of the book may realize. By changing the characters race, perhaps Quentin felt that she would be more interesting then if a white actress were used. Besides, it would bring some life to the piece that a regular white noir story might not have. I know it sounds shallow, but I think it’s a brilliant type of shallow that only movies can posses. Movies are the one form of art where adaptation is a key to its survival. Screenwriters run out of ideas fairly quickly; they need books to fuel their art. That doesn’t mean that that writer will faithfully follow the plot elements from the book that he is adapting. Jackie Brown does not suffer from changing the main characters race. I think it’s actually a rarity; this act does not take anything away from the book, but at the same time flaws are apparent in the conception.

Pam Grier is better here then she has been in years. You can see that she feels young and alive playing this part. Certain scenes stay in the mind: Jackie with Max (Robert Forrester), her bail bondsman who also becomes a friend, when they are in her small dinky house; it’s a quirky black woman’s place decorated like it was situated in the seventies. The rarity in Jackie’s comment about Max’s coffee that she is making, “Might be a little black.” is such a nice detail. That line, both the way it’s written and delivered will always stay in my mind.

Jackie with Ordell, (Samuel L. Jackson), her person that she delivers cocaine to so he can then deliver it to someone else, meet in a distinctive bar called the Cockatoo Lounge. He finds out from her that she’s messing up his original plan of getting half a million dollars in a deal. She went to the ATF after they picked her up from shipping some of Ordell’s cocaine. She complied with their wishes and told them that not only was it Ordell that gave her the cocaine, but also that he has half a million coming in and that she will be picking up at the Del Amo Mall. The new plan Jackie tells Ordell, is that she will tell the two detectives who plan to get him that they will do a test run where only 10,000 dollars will be given to a woman in a shopping mall bag. By doing this they can see how Ordell usually gets his money, so when the real time comes—the half a million is being given to that same girl—then the ATF will follow her to Ordell. Meanwhile, Jackie will give the real money (the other bag is a fake) to another one of Ordell’s women. It seems that Ordell has a regular harem around. What’s so right in the scene of Jackie explaining her plan is that Ordell keeps his cool. You think this menace would be pissed having a woman tell him what to do. Instead, he goes along with the plan but not before asking her if she gets in on the deal. She feels she should get at least 15 percent since she is his manager. He says she’s only going to get 10 percent and after much arguing about the subject, she agrees. I think if it were not for Sam Jackson and the way he responds to her orders, we would never believe that Pam Grier is his manager. He makes her respond in a way where you hear her jive talk come out. He really gets her mad for a second or two. It’s her funky willingness to survive that makes her respond so strongly. This scene really works between the two players; actually all the scenes between Sam Jackson and Pam Grier work well since two black talents are coming together. It’s like putting two of the same atoms together—they understand each other all too well. In one scene in Jackie’s place, she’s yelling her orders at Ordell. No one can get away at yelling at a threatening man the way Pam Grier can. When she starts giving her orders, memories of her past roles come to mind. You remember how much fun she gave you. Even if you were a white person, you dug her authority. You could even laugh at it in joy.

The problem with the performance is the moment when you realize that you miss the old Pam Grier. Even though the movies were worse then this one, she was stronger. Maybe the trash elements helped her performance in more ways than we can imagine. She really gave you the spooks and you loved her. Tarantino, casting a very well written part for Grier has gotten rid of the trash elements—it’s all in order to make her performance better, yet we’re missing what made her so much fun. When Jackie tells Max her real plan, to really give the fake bag to Ordell so she can keep the money (she plans to get Max involved by giving him the real money) air seems to go out of the movie. Jackie’s gazing into the camera when she says her true feelings—her real plan—makes you want to cringe. Besides, why would she want to get involved with Max anyway? He’s such a bore. Robert Forrester is being acclaimed in the press; everyone’s saying how he comes away with the best performance. I don’t believe that. He’s definitely a sweet guy in this movie; his willingness to help Jackie is touching. But he always reminds me of that other supposed “great” actor Gregory Peck. These are always the actors who play the true characters; the ones who are always the up standing citizens. They always have to be perfect. It’s not that Forrester’s performance is bad; neither was Peck’s in most of his pictures. It’s that he has to be so passively perfect, as if passivity were the right characteristic for a person. Jackie sure isn’t passive; she tells her plan to anyone who will listen and we like her more for it. Robert Forrester’s balding spot is his saving grace.

The images in the film are brilliant, when they seem planned. At one point, Ordell is giving Melanie, one of his girls played by Bridget Fonda, his menacing look telling her that she has to answer his phone. The beach that is shown behind him is so beautiful, it’s made tactile. Other images are not so lucky. Especially the ones around Jackie, where you feel that the camera is a dead weight around her. Maybe this was a way for Quentin to try to make Grier look stunning, but there was no need for that—she’s already supplying the looks. There are also problems of construction, but these are understandable. They are the complicated plot points, made so formidable that you are not allowed to laugh at them. There’s only one moment when Tarantino allows you to—the first money exchange section is titled Money Exchange—trial run. When the real exchange happens, the title for the section is Money Exchange—for real this time.

Despite those defects, the rest of the movie is a triumph. Tarantino has a real great troupe of actors working for him here. You can see how excited all of them are to be in a Tarantino movie, saying Tarantino lines. But I don’t think I got as much surprise from the other actors as I did from De Niro. This is not to say that his is the best performance in the film (and it’s not) but the surprise of seeing him come through in this way was for me exciting. De Niro really has not come through in at least a decade. I think I know why. His passivity in the 80’s and 90’s was different from Robert Forrester’s. He took great joy in being passive; an actors type of exhilaration. He would craft “great” performances, in parts of him playing depressed, dispirited characters. He got so much into these roles that not only did we become depressed watching him, he also became dispirited. He was running out of breath. That doesn’t mean that he’s not breathing heavily in this picture (At one point Melanie offers him a hit off her bong, when he accepts, he smokes it and then starts coughing and panting; afterwards he says to her that he’s getting old.), he just doesn’t take it as seriously. His poor white man red neck role is perfected here; he’s allowing us to laugh at him, which he did not let us do in Jackknife. You’re allowed to laugh at his method acting. There’s a tribute to Taxi Driver, and a De Palma split screen effect is used. As usual, we see Tarantino’s love for 70’s movies. But what makes him original is he’s using that love for his 90’s essay. When the title appears Del Amo Mall—Torrance California—largest indoor mall in the world, and as your reading it you hear the bland mall music in the background, you know he’s using that title mockingly. He’s looking down on all those people who spend all day at the mall and shop like mad. But Tarantino also loves the 90’s and he respects those shoppers. When the trial run happens and Max watches the money like a hawk, his amusement and thrill at seeing that the plan could work is then amplified by the mall music. The music becomes louder and we actually like what we’re listening to; the part that’s used anyway. It’s a brilliantly worked out series of shots; it shows the fun that can be had at a mall. Tarantino also loves the 90’s surfer girl Melanie. Bridget Fonda is the funky white woman. Tarantino infuses her with a lot of quirky attributes. Fonda also helps. She plays the evil white woman with real deviltry. She may not be Amanda Plummer, that scary/brilliant performer, but that’s ok.

There should be more of Michael Keaton. He plays one of the detectives on Ordell’s tail. His baffled sort of disappointed look (which is probably what much of the audience gets when they watch this picture. I definitely heard groans) is so great that you want more of it. Same goes for the other detective played by Micheal Bowen. He provides some nice touches to his role including his sharp chin which looks a lot like Tarantino’s. The best performance that comes out of this picture is Samuel Jackson’s and that’s no shock. He is an actor that always comes up with the best performances when he is at his blackest. Ordell is the perfect role for him. What makes Ordell so interesting to an audience is how funny he is. There’s more to the laughter; an audience loves to fear him. What’s so great about Samuel Jackson in Jackie Brown is the fact that he becomes scarier as the picture moves along. He intensifies and blows the rest of the stars away, both literally and figuratively. He’s a menace. The young actor Chris Tucker also gives the film good vibes. I always felt that he was Eddie Murphy done better; here he proves it. When Sam Jackson and Chris Tucker talk, their banter may seem offensive. There’s a lot of the use of the n- word here. There is justification for it since its two black men saying it to each other. Who are they trying to offend? More then that, Tarantino likes the way they talk. He’s anything but a racist. When at one point Jackson and Tucker go to a car and Jackson hands him a gun to point at some guys, Tucker’s response made me laugh out loud so hard I almost fell out of my chair. His response is, “You catch your n- off guard with this s-!”

The outrageousness probably offends some people (it shouldn’t), but why don’t the offended admit that there was not a whole lot of violence in this picture—it’s hidden. At the same time the violence is shocking. Maybe George Lucas can learn a thing or two about not showing blood. The violence that is in this picture is a brilliant use of trash. Its such good trash that you don’t want anymore of it. Although I do want more trash in general in the movie. Not the violent forms, but the funny lines and shots and ideas. Yes, there are a boat load of them, but not like in Pulp Fiction which was a cornucopia of trash. The movie needs more of that; that’s why sometimes Pam Grier seems so smug in the film.

You can feel the energy that went into the cinematography. The film was shot by Guillermo Navarro, and parts of the movie, like when Jackie at the beginning walks through the airport that she works at, have a real soiled look. The film has basically the same look as From Dusk Till Dawn, which was shot by the same cinematographer, but this film’s different. This material is not the pulp that From Dusk Till Dawn was. That movie was trash taken overboard. Still I wanted more trash. Maybe this is why the audience is so confused. They don’t know what they want from a Tarantino movie anymore; it either has to be a grown up movie or a trashy movie; it can’t be both. I wish they learned that both elements con co-exist in a work, because they are missing out on a brilliant film.

They’re even missing out on the best sustained sequence that Tarantino has ever filmed. This is the Money Exchange—for real this time section which really gets an audience member enthralled while watching. The great R and B song Street Life is being played while Jackie and Max (going in separate cars) are meeting up at the mall. The camera shots showing them in profile complement their looks. Not only that, but it also heightens Forrester and Pam. They become living marquee-billboard stars. Ordell does not have that satisfaction. While the song is spelling out Jackie’s character, we in the audience do not have time to the think about that—we’re just watching a beautiful aging goddess and loving her and the shots she’s in. Then the section has its scarier side to it. Once Jackie switches the money, she walks out of the dress department that she was in, and walks in a panic. We’re reminded of an earlier scene with Jackie and Max when Jackie said that she wasn’t afraid of Ordell. That was a lie. She’s running in fear, knowing that Ordell could be right behind her, and as the music in the foreground is playing the score to Coffy, we share her fear. Ordell will always be there.