A Female Cabby in Sidi Bel-Abbes

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

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

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

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

“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

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

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.