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.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
The Termite Eating Away At the Detritus
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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