HopkinsCinemAddicts

His Homecoming (Abby)

As much as I’ve written about the concept of “home” through my own experience, and what this place means to me, the space seems to have pervaded the entirety of my experience this year, including an infiltration into other projects.

For three years, fellow JHU student Michael Nakan and I have been working on a documentary based in Baltimore, which has served as our home during our education here; Mike is from London and I’m from Minnesota.

Originally the project was research-heavy, focusing on the juvenile system in Baltimore and Maryland as a whole. As it developed, we met two young men with experience in the juvenile system: Vernon Crowffey and Justin Felder. The film and project shifted focus to provide insight through their personal experiences, and their stories are now at the forefront of the piece.

As we wrapped up the project this year, most of our time was spent on editing (a very long process for documentaries, especially those with observational elements), and I spent most of my time in editing with Justin, pictured above, and his family. We’ve been in contact with Justin’s mother for several years, but I was only able to meet Justin once, in July of 2013.

Justin was on house arrest when I met him, after being shuffled through the juvenile justice system for nearly a year due to fights and other conflicts he had while in detention. In the juvenile system, sentences restart with each move to a new facility. Justin’s sentence was therefore much longer than expected, and as a result, he spent his 18^th birthday, along with several holidays, in detention.

I’ve had a very close relative face the sentence of house arrest, and I know that this experience can be a strange one; you are home, but your home becomes a place of confinement, only a place of comfort in that it is not jail or detention. Facing mental health issues simultaneously, it was clear that the transition was not an easy one for Justin. Only a few months after getting his ankle bracelet removed, he was arrested as an adult and convicted of first-degree assault over an incident involving a gifted tattoo gun, and is currently serving a ten-year sentence in the Baltimore County Detention Center. He’s due out on parole later this year.

My limited experience with Justin face-to-face serves to note how briefly he’s actually been out of detention and incarceration in the past few years; it has only been a few months over the past summer, which makes me wonder about how he thinks about his own home and family. Justin is an 18 year-old incarcerated in BCDC. When I was 18 I was also away from home, but for college, halfway across the country. He and I represent two very different experiences of what it means to come home, a strange thing to consider given that Justin is a subject of our documentary; being so close in age to him, seeing him as a subject has sometimes been difficult, and I connect with his story more than I might have thought. The connection may sprout from my experience with my relative, or from an idea as abstract (yet common) as coming home. My relationship with his story brings a whole slew of other questions to the forefront, but what I can take away from the experience of making both films is that coming home is oftentimes far from smooth, a displacement, even, but one that we might long for regardless, if for no other reason than as an escape from confinement into a more comfortable form of it.  

 

Sex, Politics and the Second Act (Taylor)

I’ll begin my final blog post for CinemAddicts with a hopefully not too gratuitous personal update: I have recently committed to a masters program at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. As such, I was hoping to review a political show set in Georgetown in order to get my mind right for my educational second act. Unfortunately I couldn’t find one, but the Georgetown connection that I did end up finding is perhaps even better: The Good Wife, which centers on protagonist Alicia Florrick, a tough as nails defense attorney, mother of two teenage children, wife of a corrupt Chicago politician, and a graduate of Georgetown's law school. 

The CBS hour-long drama focuses on the life of Alicia Florrick in the aftermath of a very public sex and corruption scandal that implicates her husband Peter, a former Cook County state’s attorney. In order to provide for her children, Alicia must return to her old job as a litigator after taking 13 years off to be a stay-at-home mom.

The series starts the way that all well written and exciting narratives should start- in medias res. The very first moments of the pilot episode are heart racing. Alicia and her husband Peter stand in front of a mass of flashbulbs. At the podium, Peter admits to sexual misconduct but denies political wrongdoing. Alicia stands behind him, humiliated and ashen faced. From a writing standpoint, it’s a bold and attention grabbing first move, but certainly isn’t one that we haven’t seen before.

In fact, thanks to politicians like Elliot Spitzer, Anthony Weiner, Jonathan Edwards and Bill Clinton, (among many, many others,) there is an extensive Wikipedia page devoted to listing political sex scandals in American federal politics. The list is formatted chronologically, and begins in 1796, going all the way to present day. It seems like as long as humans engage in both sex and politics, the two will periodically mix to produce disastrous results. And lost in the fray of gossip, media chaos and political drama, you can typically find a blindsided spouse who is left to pick up the pieces of a marriage, a family, and most egregiously, the political career of a philandering partner.

And that’s what is so fascinating about The Good Wife. It begins where, for the most part, media attention ends; life after the sheen of tawdry bedroom intrigue fades. The show follows Alicia and her fundamentally corrupt but deeply charismatic husband Peter, as they orchestrate a comeback, a return to normalcy, and ultimately, a second act.

Thematically, I really enjoy the attention that this show is paying to reinvention. In America, you can create a second life and purpose for yourself despite where you have come from or what you have done in the past. Alicia begins the show by evolving out of the necessity of scandal, but by the third season, she’s evolving for internal reasons- she sees the horizon of her potential, and she’s going for it.

The Good Wife has also succeeded in evenhandedly portraying political corruption and moral ambiguities. Typically, shows will idolize or satirize political conduct, but rarely do they portray characters as realistically flawed as Peter, Will (one of the partners of the law firm and another graduate of Georgetown,) and even Alicia. Television has lately been fixated on the antihero, and the main characters on The Good Wife almost seem like less extreme versions of Walter White. Alicia is a defense attorney after all, and the writers do not shy away from conveying the moral ambiguities of that job, or any other for that matter- politician, parent, litigator or spouse.

Watch The Good Wife. Don’t be turned off by its network location. It may not be HBO, but it is on par with any cable show in storytelling, acting and production. On the surface it may be a procedural, but the writers have found a way to blend procedural format with elegant, longstanding plot lines and dynamic, emotionally complex characters. And I’m not just saying that because I have to support my fellow (albeit fictional) Hoyas.

 

Spin-off is the Sincerest Form of Flattery: the Evolution of a Young Norman Bates in the TV series Bates Motel (Helen)

(image licesensed for use in accordance with WikiMedia Commons)

 

    A year ago A&E launched their ambitious television adaptation of film’s most notorious killer, Norman Bates. Fifty-three years after the premiere of Alfred Hitchcock’s iconic thriller Psycho (1960), the concept of the television prequel was met with mixed reviews. The beloved film already suffered three sequels and one truly awful shot-for-shot remake, starring none other than Vince Vaughn. When I had first heard about this television adaptation I was reluctant to watch another ham-fisted attempt at tapping into the original thrill of unraveling the mystery of the Bates Motel. What these sequels failed to do was to get at the heart of what made Psycho interesting: Who/or what made Norman Bates kill? The real terror of the film that lingered long after the credits was not the murder, but the maddening question of the interrogation. Why?

 

    The series begins with a seventeen year old Norman Bates and his young attractive mother Norma, leaving their home in Arizona and Norman’s recently deceased father, for the sleepy town of White Pine Bay and the newly branded Bates Motel. The setting remains intentionally ambiguous in time in the beginning of the pilot, toying with our sensibilities opening on a black and white film on Norman’s television and later transitioning to Norma’s vintage Mercedes. Although it becomes a clear that it's a modern adaptation as soon as Norman takes out his IPhone at the bus stop. This was my first pause for concern. A modern adaptation that was also a prequel for Psycho seemed unnecessarily complex, and perhaps a forced attempt to distance this story from the inspiration. The show similarly has a love-hate relationship with references to the Hitchcock classic. From similar shot compositions, hiding the first casualty of the show behind the shower curtain, to an otherwise pointless dialogue about taxidermy, there seems to be a conflict between a transparent appreciation for the original film and the audience expectation for not-so-subtle homage. Although, that is a somewhat forgettable aside given the very uncomfortable and distasteful sexual assault that occurs between Norma and the disgruntled previous owner of the motel in the pilot. Norman is shaped in part by witnessing the event as well as participating in the murder and subsequent cover up. While I understand the intention of this story arc which drives the first season, the scene in question was one of the most horrific things I've seen on cable television.

 

    The storyline takes a very distinct turn from the film in the second episode when Norman’s older estranged brother Dylan is introduced. His abrupt hatred for his mother seems fairly unbelievable at first, but the complexity of his character and the tension between him and Norman builds as the show progresses.  The first episode struggles with its identity but it comes into its own by the third and develops into a Twin Peaks-esque thriller beyond the coupling of the Bates family to a greater mystery of a seemingly white-picket town with very dark secrets. The general idea of the show seems to be that Anthony Hopkins’ “Norman” as we know and love was not just a product of an overbearing mother and a violent sexual perversion, but of an entire community that indulges in a hidden sex trade among other transgressions. Violence towards young women is not an original motif in murder mysteries on television by any means, but it does add a logical stepping-stone to Norman's progression into the madness that is Norman Bates. Although a secret Chinese sex slave trade in a seaside Oregon town seems somewhat unbelievable, the frightening resonance of sex and violence within the walls of the Bates Motel works surprisingly well with Norman's story arc.

 

    The greatest strength of the series is the strange and often Oedipal relationship between Norman and his mother. While this is the main explanation given for Norman’s behavior in the film, the way it plays out in the series is wonderfully surprising at times. She is controlling and alluring, but also very warm and oddly reasonable most of the time. Perhaps, I like Norman, am easily manipulated by her charms, but I found myself never feeling entirely pulled out of the show by her behavior. Also the uncomfortable sexual chemistry between Norman and his mother is very subdued, which makes it almost creepier. Every time Norma dismissingly utters, "Norman, I'm your mother" in response to a mildly tense interaction between the two of them it makes me shudder. The show straddles the line between a closeness between mother and son that have suffered a mutual trauma, and a protective and possessive behavior mixed with a displaced sexual tension that both fascinates and repulses. The lurid town of White Pine Bay and its cast of unsavory characters ultimately pale in comparison to the engrossing Bates family drama in the center of it all.

The Bates Motel is finishing up its second season with the season finale premiering on A&E on May 5th, 2014.

 

 

Digging Out (Abby)

The end of classes and graduation are approaching, and the familiar anxiety of a big event also draws near, one that connects family, drama, and discomfort. As the title of a previous post suggests, though, there are happy things too. It’s a time for celebration.

Yet that stone of anticipation sitting in one’s stomach is far from easy to digest. Much like before winter break, when I chose to take on this film project, my brain continues to run through potential bad scenarios like an over-stylized melodrama on repeat. Who’s going to be where and what if they see them? How will I split my time evenly? Jesus, even writing this makes me want to slap myself; at some point you just have to throw your hands up and say, “who gives a shit?”

The mood of this anticipation is what brings me here, to this post. The very real anxieties and the very real disavowal of said anxieties are exactly why I suddenly rushed to put the logistics of the project together in the midst of finals last semester, and why I needed to do so.

In fact, as much as the film is about family, and about place – home and geography, and how such factors inform who we are – it’s about the individual’s experiences with these shaping forces. The hooded figure above is one of my sisters, who kindly agreed to help me by appearing in a few shots. Bringing a human into visual representations is vital to the felt experience of the film. The final product may fall into abstraction at points, in addition to being too personal and micro in scope for the audience to connect with (if it even ends up being shared with an audience), but at some level my sister may provide that small hint of universality through the personal, someone through whom an outsider might feel a connection.

And though her face isn’t visible in any of the shots, in the end, her persona has agency.  Though the shaping forces are important, they are not defining; the film is not about things being done to someone while that someone exists a passive blob of human matter, and that’s not what life is about.

It’s about digging out. It’s about saying “F you” to the things you can’t control, and doing your own thing. It’s about understanding where you came from and how that has shaped your view, picking out the things you like about it, and taking a shovel to the rest when you can. It’s about taking the time to say, “who gives a shit” while you try to enjoy something that’s supposed to be good. So, as much as I know I will seesaw back and forth from this claim, I say bring it on, graduation drama. Who gives a shit. 

Tanner '88 (Taylor)

   

 

 I’m going to assume that most of the people reading this haven’t watched or heard of Tanner ‘88. I hadn’t heard of it myself before doing research for this blog. So my goal with this post is to convince you in no uncertain terms to WATCH TANNER 88. Right now. Or as soon as possible. Or over summer vacation. Or whenever you can get your hands on a Hulu Plus account.

    Tanner ’88 is a one season political mockumentary directed by Robert Altman. First broadcast by HBO during the early stages of the 1988 U.S. presidential election, it goes on the campaign trail with former Michigan U.S. representative Jack Tanner, during his bid to secure the Democratic party’s nomination for President of the United States.

    Tanner is an unknown liberal Democrat who struggles to find a voice and make a name for himself during the early stages of the democratic primaries, until his campaign manager, T.J. Cavanaugh, uses an unscripted but passionate hotel-room speech caught on camera to produce an advertising campaign focusing on Tanner’s authenticity. After the success of the ads, which use the slogan, “For Real,” Tanner takes the lead in the polls and begins competing with two high profile, (real life) candidates: Jesse Jackson and Michael Dukakis.

    So what is it exactly that makes Tanner ’88 amazing? For one thing, it provides striking commentary about the artificiality of modern political campaigns, and the truly backbreaking effort involved in taking an obscure politician from low-level public figure to 1600 Penn. For another thing, it’s hilarious.

    Tanner is marketed as an honest, authentic, “what you see is what you get” candidate. His campaign slogan, “For Real,” is slapped on posters, stickers and television ads. However, viewers also get to see all of the focus groups, image consultations, and strategy work that are meant to shape him into a candidate that could actually get elected. Midway through the series, Tanner wearily says, “I feel like I’m becoming an innocent bystander in my own campaign.”

    The show also refreshingly depicts something that isn’t typically covered on television: the political campaign. This might at first seem like dull subject matter, but in the unglamorous, bus-touring world of primary elections, you really get a glimpse into the heart of politics. Because at this stage in the game, the work isn’t always fun and odds are that a candidate is not going to win. Every single campaign is a bootstrap operation and a level playing field at the beginning, with both seasoned politicos and still-green unknowns traveling all over the country, trying to get a leg up on the competition.

    Furthermore, with its faux-documentary style, Tanner 88 really gets at what it means to produce excellent political comedy and satire. A few weeks back on the blog, we discussed the satirical shortcomings of Veep. But it wasn’t until I watched Tanner ’88 that I realized exactly what Veep was missing; Tanner and Veep have many of the same absurd political foils- (image issues, groveling politicians, harebrained staffers, etc) but the verisimilitude of Tanner 88 really raises the stakes and gives the satire more bite. Jokes are the funniest when they’re making fun of real life. And Tanner 88 feels so real that it even fooled Bob Dole.

    In fact, while campaigning in New Hampshire in 1988, Republican candidate Bob Dole ran into an unfamiliar Democratic candidate who was walking around with his daughter and a camera crew. Dole did not recognize the candidate, but because there were cameras around, he greeted the man like an old friend, pretending to know him and wishing him luck before walking away. Unfortunately for Bob Dole, the unknown democratic candidate was Jack Tanner, and Dole had unwittingly earned himself a cameo on the show’s pilot episode.

     It’s this kind of near magic moment that makes Tanner feel like a modern political comedy, despite the scrunchies, pantsuits, obsessive Reagan references (and a young Joe Biden,) that would otherwise make it feel hopelessly dated. 

      Conceptually, it feels like The Office or Parks and Rec, with its guerilla documentary shooting style and deadpan commentary. And all of the political issues being made fun of in 1988 are still very relevant today. The modern election process tends to force candidates to become absurd caricatures of themselves.

       The downside of Tanner 88 is that it only ran for one season. We should have more shows depicting the saga involved with getting someone to the Oval Office. Too often we have a tendency to hide the blood, sweat, and tears that went into major accomplishments; the 110 pound starlet feigning an aversion to the gym and boasting a diet heavy in pizza.  The Dean’s List Johns Hopkins student self-consciously downplaying hours spent in the library before acing a midterm exam.

       Sometimes in life, as in presidential campaigns, you have to spend some time in the trenches in order to win the war. And if you can’t laugh at yourself while you’re doing it, well then, I think I’ve got some House of Cards episodes left on my DVR with your name on them.

 

Masterworks of D.W. Griffith (Bedram)

D.W. Griffith did not invent every cinematic technique employed in The Birth of a Nation, but he no doubt took and focused them into his film, creating a masterful epic. The film, widely criticized for its outrageously racist views, seems to be slowly losing its place in history to Intolerance, the film that Griffith made in response to such claims. While critics might still argue which film is Griffith’s masterpiece, it was undoubtedly The Birth of a Nation that changed cinema forever. Whether one would like to factor in influence or not, the film’s brilliance should not be ignored due to its racist content. To do so would simply be ignoring American movie history.

The film consists of two parts, the first covering the Civil War. Two families are juxtaposed, the Northern Stonemans and the Southern Camerons. The two families are closely linked, as one of the Stoneman brothers, Phil, falls in love with Margaret Cameron, and Ben Cameron becomes infatuated with Elsie Stoneman. When the Civil War breaks out, however, the young men join their respective sides, broken apart by the war. This domestic separation is mirrored in the state of the country itself, the nation divided politically between the North and the South.

The film, rather blatantly, sides with the South, presenting them as courageous underdogs. They lack food, their struggle shown in a close-up shot of parched corn kernels in a pan. Their much needed food train is intercepted by Union forces, and in the battle that proceeds, Ben leads a heroic charge against the Union entrenchment line. The North simply stands behind their own lines, using their greater numbers to their advantage. Ben, despite the loss of his soldiers, carries a Confederate flag during the assault, shoving it inside a Union cannon before collapsing. The South loses the battle, but their honor remains, having given it all against the greater forces of the invaders.

While Griffith definitely tries to establish the theme of Southern honor, he by no means glorifies the war. He includes a shot of numerous dead soldiers, prefaced by a title card that reads, “War’s peace.” War is connected to death, and is viewed as futile – not only for the South, but also for the North. As the numerous extreme long shots of battlefields show, once a battle begins, it simply becomes men fighting for their lives. The tragedies of war, however, go beyond the battlefield. Phil and Ben, good friends before the war, are forced to fight on opposing sides. Promising relationships, such as the burgeoning love between Phil and Margaret, are put on hold.

The second half of the film focuses on Reconstruction, and most of the film’s staunchly racist views are contained in this part. The beginning of the movie depicts the introduction of American slavery, stating that this mixing of races “planted the first seed of disunion.” This theme of racial mixing leading to trouble is further explored in the second half, an example being Gus, a freedman, lusting after Flora, Ben’s sister. He chases her onto a rocky cliff, and to avoid the possibility of being raped, she jumps to her death. This threatened rape, then, symbolizes the emasculation of the whites in the South by the suddenly freed blacks, now threatening the order of society.

The film’s tense climax comes when Ben leads the Klan to the rescue of Elsie from the hands of Lynch, a mulatto, who was planning a forced marriage. This rescue, and the Klan’s rescue of the Cameron family from Lynch’s black militia, goes beyond showing the Klan as saviors of these individual people. The Klan is shown as the protector and savior of white glory and honor. During the next election they intimidate the blacks into not voting, and the aftermath of all this leads to the reunion of the two couples – Phil and Margaret and Ben and Elsie. Order is restored.

Griffith, labeled a racist by his critics after the release of the film, attempted to answer them with his next film, Intolerance. The film tackles four separate stories, all set during different time periods. One recounts the fall of Babylon, another tells the crucifixion of Jesus, a third showcases the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, and the fourth is a modern tale focusing on a couple torn apart by a false murder conviction.  Each story is connected through themes of intolerance and hatred, and the film, rather boldly, alternates between the four stories.

By having four parallel stories, the film forces comparisons to be drawn between the characters and events throughout these different time periods. There is less focus on the Christ story, but Griffith spends enough time to establish the devastating results of intolerance. The St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre story is also a lesser focus, though it establishes the idea of religious intolerance and the abuse of power by authority. The other two stories, the modern tale and the Babylon story, are where the true heart of Intolerance lies.

The modern tale echoes some of the frustrations of early 20^th century, displaying the anxiety surrounding big business and interference by outside, moralist forces. One striking example is the mill owner reducing the wages of his workers by 10%, and crushing the strike that follows. One of his employees turns to crime, but tries to break free after marrying. His ex-boss, however, frames him for theft and he is sent to prison. While he serves his sentence, his wife suffers the taking of their child by reformists, who find her to be an unfit mother. What greater intrusion on a mother than the taking of her child? As for the Babylon story, it tackles the issue of betrayal as well as intolerance. The High Priest of Bel does not worship the same god as King Nabonidus, and sees Babylon’s downfall tied to this wrongful worship. This religious intolerance leads him to betray Babylon, setting up a meeting with Cyrus, the Persian invader. The result is the fall of Babylon.

The Birth of a Nation and Intolerance are perhaps two of Griffith’s finest works, both among the most influential films of all time due to their groundbreaking use of various cinematic techniques, including cross-cutting, moving-camera shot, the close-up, the long shot, and so forth. The Birth of a Nation, however, has often been looked at unfavorably, its racism too much to handle. Nonetheless, its importance was recognized, and it was listed in AFI’s Top 100 movies in 1998. Inexplicably, it was removed in the 10^th anniversary edition of the list, though Intolerance found its way onto the list. By removing the film, the AFI is not dealing with the issues the film raises, and is ignoring a monumental moment in film history. It is frightening how effective and brilliant a film that paints the Ku Klux Klan as heroes is, and that is truly the worst aspect of the film. It is undeniably among the most important films in American history, if not the most important, and deserves to be recognized as such. Intolerance arguably shares that honor, but the legacy of The Birth of a Nation should not be overshadowed by it. Both films deserve the recognition.

Creative Editing (Abby)

In some ways, editing for me can feel removed from the creative process, a barrier existing in the technological realm of knowledge that functions as another medium through which ideas must be filtered. I think this may be why I defaulted to poetry for my last post, even though I’ve never written it before; I needed something more than sifting through footage, marking points, and moving blocks of audio or images into a timeline. 

This is not to say that editing is a process entirely void of creativity. In the past few years I’ve come to appreciate just how important the art of editing is, especially in light of how little attention it receives. It takes someone with a dedication to the craft and an exceptional eye for storytelling to be a great editor, not a seeker of fame or fortune. Maybe a seeker of a steady job, though.

But, again, since I’m not the most skilled editor in terms of technical functions, things take longer for me, and boredom as a result of tedium ensues. I’ve found a new way to address this boredom during the next few weeks, while simultaneously working to balance my footage vs. audio ratio, and incorporating themes of the full piece into the new creative endeavor.

For a film I made last year, I incorporated dirty dub footage of work I had done directly on 16MM film leader. A dirty dub is the cheapest way to “transfer” film into a digital format, especially when you don’t have access to appropriate transferring equipment. What this entails is recording the projection of the 16MM film with a digital camera. It seems like a bit of a crude process, but it works. Here’s a still from that film, which was made by painting india ink on clear film leader and doing a dirty dub of the projection:

 

I’ve discovered a new process in working with 16MM film, which is applicable to my current film. By taking bleach to the emulsion of any film, in this case, black leader, a chemical process dissolves the emulsion. By dotting the film with bleach, I can create clear-ish circles, but not perfect ones – veins of the emulsion remain within them, and it’s actually quite a beautiful process to witness. Lucky for me, the images created can be very easily likened to snow. Only the largest dots are visible here, but the below gives an idea of what I'm doing.

  

After just having projected some of the work I’ve done for the first time today, I’m excited by the results and have decided to move forward with bleaching. It’s another thing to tack onto the project, but one that is creative for me. Having this outlet will help me get through the most difficult portion of editing and, in my opinion, make the final product better.

 

The Post 9/11 Homeland (Taylor)

    It has been over twelve years since the towers fell on 9/11. But while the consequences of that terrible day have profoundly permeated and altered the American psyche, they have yet to be satisfyingly addressed by one of our most prominent cultural barometers: the television series. That is, until Showtime’s hour-long drama Homeland aired in 2011.

            Homeland takes place ten years post 9/11. It centers on Carrie Mathison, a young but brilliant CIA operative living with bipolar disorder and an acute sense of guilt over her failure to prevent the attack. Her investigations primarily concern Sgt. Nicholas Brody, a POW held captive for eight years in Iraq by members of Al Qaeda.  Carrie and her mentor, agent Saul Berenson, fear that Brody has been turned into an anti-American terrorist during his time in captivity.

            In my opinion, this show finds tremendous strength in its depiction of post 9/11 consciousness and the very real psychological strains put on those who are, in some way or another, living through the war on terror.  (Which, unfortunately, is everyone.)

            During the first season, Sgt. Brody struggles to integrate himself into family life after spending eight years in a dark hole as a prisoner of war. This storyline brings to light a problem that oftentimes is swept under the rug. Namely that for many soldiers, their most difficult battle begins once the war is over. The VA estimates that in America, a veteran dies of suicide every eighty minutes. Many more veterans live out the remainder of their lives in painful psychological turmoil, as Sgt. Brody does on Homeland. Tragically, the families who’ve endured the horror of having their loved ones returned home from a warzone in a box are not always the only ones who lose a spouse, a parent, a sibling or a child to war.

            Another poignant thematic pillar of Homeland is the depiction of America as a surveillance state. In this aspect, Homeland has been all but clairvoyant in its virtual prediction of the Edward Snowden/NSA revelations. The plot points and tone of the show do much to capture the current national dialogue of privacy rights and the moral ambiguities associated with domestic spying in the interest of “homeland security.” In fact, Carrie’s incredibly invasive surveillance of the Brody family induces borderline repulsion as she secretly watches his most private encounters, from a first dinner at home with children who barely know him, to several failed attempts at making love to his wife. The writers have successfully captured the complexity of this very real dilemma by at once evoking feelings of indignation and paranoia, while also causing viewers to root for Carrie’s continued surveillance so that the perceived “bad guy” might be caught.

    However, for all of Homeland’s successes, there are a growing number of unanswered questions, absurd plot twists, and factual errors that should be cleaned up in the writers room in anticipation of the upcoming fourth season. First of all, who exactly is Carrie, within the construct of her supposed job at the CIA? Homeland has taken a liberty that many spy shows and movies have taken before it, blending together the role of a hands-on operative and the role of a desk analyst in order to speed up the action. This combination isn’t necessarily a problem. Combining the position of operative and analyst makes for more interesting television, and I’m sure there are some real-life examples of jack-of-all-trades agency employees. But going into the second season, if the writers were to pare down her position, it might help to give the runaway train-like plot some much needed structure and focus. If she’s going to be an operative, then send her to Turkey, eliminate some of the emotional drama that has been clogging up the plot in the last season and a half, and let her (and the rest of us) see some action in a dynamic foreign sphere.

    Furthermore, I think the biggest overall failure of Homeland based on the last three seasons is a lack of research during the creation/pilot phase of the show. There are some big factual errors that have unfortunately, been written into the very fabric of the show.

    First is the mental illness factor, and the rabbit hole of emotional drama (including dating a known terrorist) that it has led her down. Although it is a massive part of her character now, it is highly unlikely and borderline impossible that the CIA would allow someone with severe mental illness and a tendency to go rogue to handle such a sensitive case. In fact, she probably wouldn’t even have landed a job at Langley in the first place, because the CIA makes all prospective employees go through a mental health evaluation. Additionally, because the problem is taking place inside the country, it’s actually outside of the CIA’s jurisdiction and would likely be handled by the FBI or the Department of Homeland Security. Perhaps these are subtle errors, but I think they take away from the credibility that such a topically relevant and thematically important show deserves. 

    Right now these problems are big ones, but they can absolutely be fixed. Moving Carrie’s activities to the CIA base in Turkey, (which was hinted at during the Season 3 finale,) would put the narrative back in the clear in terms of agency jurisdiction. And although mental illness has been written into her character already, taking away some of Carrie’s erratic behavior and emotional drama would seriously help restore Homeland’s initial credibility. Ironically, it seems as though the writers of Homeland may not be following some of the CIA’s cardinal rules: stay focused, do your research and don’t start dating known terrorists. 

From Homewood to CERN and Back Again: Search for the Higgs Boson in "Particle Fever" (Helen)

 

3D view of an event recorded with the CMS detector in 2012 at a proton-proton centre of mass energy of 8 TeV

 

Johns Hopkins University's very own theoretical physicist, Professor David E. Kaplan, and director Mark Levinson’s first collaborative documentary Particle Fever (2013) hit the national film circuit this past month. It is first feature length film chronicling the four major experiments of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN and the five-year quest for the discovery of the Higgs Boson. Although Particle Fever had a relatively slow start at the box office, this film is as much of an achievement in aesthetics as it is in documenting one of the biggest scientific events in recent history.  Assisted by such film titans as editor Walter Murch and composer Robert Miller, Levinson follows David Kaplan and his academic contemporaries through the ups and downs of the largest particle accelerator ever constructed. 

I attended the sold out debut at the Charles Theater last Sunday with the entire graduate physics department. David Kaplan also attended the screening, introducing the film to an audience composed entirely of Hopkins PhD students, and one undergraduate film major. To further my anticipatory anxiety, my only academic exposure to basic physics concepts ended sophomore year and I haven’t looked back since. While particle physics may seem a little intimidating to the average viewer, Kaplan’s scientific explanations in the film provided just the right amount of information to help me understand as well as receiving the approving nods of the more qualified audience members. Beyond that, the passion and excitement beaming from the cast of scientists involved in the LHC appeared to be contagious, as I found myself actually sitting up at the edge of my seat.

Besides recording one of the most important scientific events in my lifetime from the ground floor, Particle Fever piqued my curiosity by functioning as a human-interest piece on the top particle physicists in the world. What is perhaps more impressive, is that a group of people operating on such a high level of a subject I knew very little about were so incredibly relatable. Very early on in the film, Kaplan interviews his mentor Dr. Savas Dimopoulos, who explains his motivation behind his work in theoretical particle physics as something between art and science. He explains the process in which he chooses his next research endeavor as such; to put it simply he looks for questions that are intellectually fascinating but also reflect an artistic creativity that sets him apart from other scientists in his field. The film also follows Kaplan’s peers such as Nima Arkani-Hamed, one of the most famous particle physicists not only of his age group but also on a global scale. Levinson manages to capture the finesse and skill of Nima’s chalkboard equations in a way that resembles Leonardo da Vinci and his sketchbook to a particle physicist. My favorite character within the film however, was first year CERN post-doc student Monica Dunford. The film contained many of her own video logs as well as a variety of interviews at her work and home spanning the entire five year journey of the ATLAS project, the most publicized experiment at the LHC. As an experimental particle physicist, she explained the distinction, or really delightfully trash talked, the theoretical side of her field. Playfully begrudged, she admitted the symbiotic relationship between the dreamers and the doers, with a slight bias towards the experimental side.

In addition to inspiring an academic passion I didn’t anticipate, the film also resonated with me as human being who has admired the night sky and wondered about the vast interworkings of the universe. The crux of the film, finding the Higgs Boson, now had a much greater significance than when I originally read about it in the fall of 2012. It wasn’t just another particle discovery; the existence of the Higgs had the entire field of physics hinging on it. Everything we knew up to this point about our world and the infinite space surrounding it was supported by two basic particle theories, “Super Symmetry” and “Macroverse”. Both required the Higgs discovery to be possible, but also, data from the experiment could potentially confirm which theory was correct. The mass of the Higgs Boson particle was the deciding factor. It was projected to be around one of two masses: a lighter ~115 GeV and a heavy ~140 GeV corresponding to “Super Symmetry” and “Macroverse” theory respectively. While this is treading into esoteric territory, the simplified version is that “Super Symmetry” supported the existence of more particles that created a stable and balanced universe. “Macroverse” on the other hand, negated the possibility for the discovery of new particles and perhaps the notion that our universe is unstable and unfortunately temporary. Not only was this a dramatic climax in any ficitional sense, the fact that this was a reality was both exciting and terrifying. To summarize, space is as fascinating as it is potentially lethal and particle physics is 'much' cooler than it sounds.

 

Show Us (Abby)

 

Calm.

TV playing Rudolph,

“Happy Holidays.”

Feels okay.

Feels good.

Dim lights,

Looks warm.

Looks pretty cozy –

Real cozy.

Somewhere to snuggle.

Be normal.

 

 

Maybe not.

 

 

Film, you reveal.

A little mix-up at the lab?

No, intention.

 

 

So literally have you done it

Seeing

All of it

But not quite

Chaos

Movement

Shit.

Everywhere.

3 frames

 

 

Then back to what was.

Or what we thought was.

Be normal.

Feel okay.

 

Political Satire and Veep (Taylor)

   

     It’s spring break here at Hopkins, so I’ve decided to lighten up with a little bit of political satire in the form of Veep, an HBO half hour comedy series created by Armando Iannucci and inspired by his previous political satire, the British comedy show, In The Thick of It.

    Veep, which premiered in April, 2012 with an eight-episode first season, followed by a ten- episode second season, stars Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Selina Meyer, a harried and blisteringly foul-mouthed fictional Vice President of the United States. Veep has garnered lots of acclaim for its humorously critical take on the current state of affairs in our nation’s capitol, receiving several Screen Actors Guild and Critics' Choice awards as well as two Emmy nominations.

    One of the first smart observations made by the show is that in politics, there is no real work-life balance. The lion’s share of scenes take place in Meyer’s offices, and staff members must lie and exaggerate their way into time off.  Her Director of Communications, Mike McLintock, lies about having a dog in order to go home at a reasonable hour every day and even keeps a fake photo of the dog in his wallet as “proof.”

    The show has also made a humorous habit out of lampooning the absurdity of lobby interests and politicians’ tendencies to grovel for approval from big business leaders. During the pilot episode, the Veep finds herself in a hilarious pickle involving her motion to replace plastic utensils with eco-friendly cornstarch ones in all federal buildings. Before she can implement the utensil shift, the “plastics lobby” catches wind of it and chaos ensues. Support for Meyer’s initiative evaporates, and seconds before she is meant to give a speech on her cornstarch aspirations, she receives an unofficial gag-order from the White House.

    “We can’t talk about utensils. Utensils are politicized,” McLintock says urgently.

    “That’s the entire speech, O.K.?” Meyer says frantically, “What’s left here? I have ‘Hello,’ and I have…prepositions.”

    As a Hopkins student, I would be remiss if I didn’t also highlight another episode during the first season, when Vice President Meyer participates in a publicity outing at a frozen yogurt store in order to meet and mingle with ordinary people and show her support for local business owners (with a reporter and photographer present, of course.) The shooting location of the D.C. frozen yogurt store is none other than Dominion Ice Cream on North Charles Street in Baltimore, across from Johns Hopkins University’s Homewood campus. The  Charles Commons Dormitory can be seen in the background of many shots. Much of this episode is concerned with her staff members deciding what flavor of frozen yogurt the Veep should eat in order to convey the right message. They conclude that mint chocolate chip conveys freshness, trust and traditional values, while a swirled flavor promotes racial diversity and willingness to cross the aisle.

    Other jokes include an ongoing off-camera presence of the President as a constant obstacle. During every single episode, Meyer’s enters her office and optimistically asks her staff if the President has called. The answer is always no. During another episode, Vice President Meyer and her college-aged daughter decide to adopt a dog, but are thwarted when the President’s staff hears about it, because the FLOTUS has, herself planned to adopt a dog.

    “The first dog, or FDOTUS, has been planned for weeks. We certainly can’t have your canine overshadowing the FDOTUS,” says Jonah, White House liaison to the Vice President.

    Overall, Veep is an enjoyable watch, with enough satisfying one-liners and guilty-pleasure crudity to hold attention. It is not, however, the kind of satire that satisfies on an emotional level. Truly great satire is meant to vindicate; to speak truth to power and to redden the cheeks of establishment. It’s humor, to be sure, but it’s humor grounded in realism, intelligence, and in the best cases, indignation and rage. Ricky Gervais did it with The Office, Tina Fey did it with 30 Rock, and Stephen Colbert continues to do it on The Colbert Report. So what’s falling short with Veep?

    It pokes fun at the bureaucratic political process, highlights the historical impotency of the Vice Presidency, and uses the basic ineptitude of politicians as a springboard for plot, but it is  a political satire lacking  heart and teeth. The problem with Veep is that it’s lightheartedly cynical when it needs to be angry. But it’s spring break, so this week let’s take a break from being angry, and lighten up with Veep.

    The 3^rd season of Veep is set to premier on April 6^th, with the tagline, “Boldly running for president. Proudly standing for everything.”

 

Visualizing the "Out There" (Abby)

    I took the image above with my phone the other day. I had left the shower running while I went to grab fresh clothes, waiting for the water to heat. When I came back I discovered that steam had filled the room at the perfect moment, just as the setting sun was finding its way through the cracks of the bathroom’s blinds, intensifying the visibility of the rays as they peaked through. This picture doesn’t come close to doing the moment justice, but it had me thinking about the film I’m working on. Something as basic as a window blind with a bit of light peaking through is enough to trigger a memory, whether specific or half-remembered. Here it was specific; I think the images speak for themselves as far as the connection here.

    Maybe I’m reading too much into such a simple action, but for me, looking out of the blinds of the window is an inherently longing action; for what, it’s not always clear. If it’s nice outside, maybe the desire is just to be outside. Or maybe wanting to be outside is part of a larger condition of confinement. Especially in the winter, it’s easy to get a little stir crazy. If the temperature is -40 with wind chill, as it was the particular day these images were shot, really stir crazy (if only out of the necessity to stay warm). But what happens when you mix stir crazy with an omnipresent and very real craziness, and when you can’t escape the home? No matter the weather, you’ll be looking out the window quite a bit.

The Cronenberg Body Horror (Bedram)

There is arguably no bigger name in body horror than David Cronenberg. The Canadian is often credited as one of the originators of the genre, with his notable works including Rabid, Scanners, and The Fly. One of his best explorations into the genre was the 1983 film, Videodrome. While his earlier work, Rabid for example, displayed scientists experimenting on human bodies and the subsequent effects on societal order, Videodrome focuses more on the effects on the individual, though the individual in question can be viewed as representative of the masses.

The film revolves around Max Renn, the president of a television station, who is looking for new material. He is introduced to Videodrome by the man who runs the station’s pirate satellite dish, a show displaying the torture and murder of random strangers. When he asks what the plot is, he is told that there is no plot. The mutilation and murder just goes on for an hour. “Absolutely brilliant” is his response.  He becomes increasingly obsessed with the show, even watching it with his date. She becomes sexually aroused, and the two have sex with it on.

On the surface, one might think that the film is arguing that exposure to sex and violence leads to desensitization. The film does not seem so interested in tackling this issue, however, focusing more on showing that television is a weapon itself rather than the contents that appear onscreen. Max eventually uncovers the secrets around Videodrome, which involves a shady organization (Spectacular Optical) wanting to use the broadcast to manipulate the masses. The head of the organization, Barry Convex, tells him that the violence in the show affects the nervous system, “opening receptors in the brain and the spine” which allows the signal to sink into people, permitting them to be turned into drones. This establishes the idea of television affecting the body, taking it to the extreme and having it go all the way down to our organs and nerves. Max himself becomes a drone, carrying out the will of the organization. If the theme of media being able to influence individuals was not clear enough, Cronenberg includes a scene in which Max has a videotape shoved inside him by Convex, allowing Spectacular Optical to program Max’s mind and control his life. While over-the-top, it gets its message across: television (mass media in particular) programs its viewers.

The film ends with Max taking directions from a television, one that seduces and even shows him how to kill himself. The television is a manipulative object, and once again Cronenberg takes it to the extreme. While sex and violence were the trigger of this entire conflict, they were only a means to a greater end, a vehicle to spread a message. As Max is told, “…it [Videodrome] has something that you don’t have, Max. It has a philosophy, and that is what makes it dangerous.”

David Cronenberg’s foray into body horror is widely believed to have ended with his 1999 film, eXistenZ. His son, Brandon Cronenberg, however, has started from where his father left off. His directing debut, the 2012 film Antiviral, tackled the genre that his father had explored numerous times, taking a social and cultural issue (the power of celebrity culture) and exaggerating it to make a point.

Unlike his father’s films, Antiviral is clearly set in the future, one characterized as extremely sterile. Walls, chairs, clothes, and so forth are almost always stark white, adding to the biologically driven story. While some of David Cronenberg’s films were set in the near feature, they often felt like the present. The future in Antiviral does not feel that way, but at the same time, it does not appear too far away.

In this future, the celebrity-obsessed culture has escalated to unprecedented heights. In order to feel closer to the celebrities they love, people buy the viruses that plagued them, having it injected into their bodies. Syd March, the protagonist of the film, works for one of the companies that acquires and sells the viruses. To make extra money he pirates the illnesses, which involves injecting himself with it, his body serving as an incubator. The obsession over celebrities even carries over to an odd form of cannibalism, in which people can buy meat cultivated from the cells of certain celebrities.  

By combining celebrity culture with something as bodily as viruses, Cronenberg is able to explore the theme of celebrities as ideas and contrast it with the human beings behind those constructs. Syd injects himself with a virus from superstar Hannah Geist, but finds out soon after that she had died from that very disease. Syd is eventually contacted by Hannah’s family, and he learns that Hannah is not yet dead, though she is dying. Syd gets to meet her, and this is one of the very few times she is shown in person. She is simply a sick human being, bedridden and constantly coughing up blood. Her face is drained of its color, bearing no resemblance to the divine, pervading figure plastered on the news and ads across the city. Even when she is finally shown in person, she is emphatically human and not-human due to her ghostly figure.

Both Videodrome and Antiviral use the body horror genre to dissect a part of our culture, taking something already present in our society and exaggerating it. Videodrome is increasingly regarded as having been a couple decades ahead of its time, foreseeing the increasing impact of technology and media, especially with today’s Internet. As for Antiviral, it’s not difficult to imagine that celebrity obsession will continue. At times it appears that celebrity news already takes precedence over more pressing current events. Brandon Cronenberg does take a similar approach to satirical prediction as his father did in Videodrome, but despite his father’s rather grand status in the body horror genre, he manages to display his own unique vision. 

It's Not, But It Can Be (Taylor)

The Newsroom is not the best show on television, but it can be.

Aaron Sorkin’s The Newsroom depicts the lives of journalists at a fictional major news outlet called Atlantis Cable News, (ACN). Most episodes center around the production of its flagship broadcast, News Night, hosted by republican pundit Will McAvoy.

I watched both seasons in two days and absolutely loved it, but found that critics hated it.The New Yorker said it was “artificially intelligent.” Huffington Post and Salon said that the female characters are ditsy, hysterical, and borderline sexist. The Daily Beast said the plot was too “soapy.” I was shocked. But upon reflection, all of those criticisms seemed pretty accurate. Taking a second look, I realized that The Newsroom is a compelling hot mess, with the compelling aspect being the spot-on commentary on the changing, flawed, and endangered state of American journalism.

The Newsroom finds its strength and voice in making poignant observations about how party politics, snark, ire, spin and innuendo have taken the place of actual news on cable television. The unfortunate reality of news today is that it’s rare to flip to a cable news channel and find anything other than a flashy arena for the right and left to duke it out in the obvious interest of ratings and party loyalties.

The Newsroom is both a cautionary tale and an idealistic fantasy about the state of the industry, and what it could become if anchors, producers and network heads refused to be enslaved by ratings, in bed with advertisers and on the leash of “corporate.”

The first episode opens with popular news anchor Will McAvoy participating in a Journalism School panel and responding to a student question, “Why is America the greatest country in the world?” He answers with a rousing stream of conscience. “We used to be, but we’re not anymore.” He recalls America’s history of major news events illustrating, in his opinion, how far we’ve fallen in science,  education,  technology,  political ideology, and ultimately, the world. Meanwhile in the back of the auditorium, Will’s executive producer and love interest MacKenzie McHale is holding up cue cards that read, “It’s Not. But It Can Be,” in response to the student’s question. It’s a provocative bit of television, and a running start out of the gate for the hour-long show.

Sorkin has found smart and compelling ways to address other major issues with the media industry through the lens of News Night plotlines. He takes on sensationalism, and the practice of using “tragedy porn” such as the Casey Anthony trial as viewer bait to spike ratings.

The Newsroom takes on the issue of party-politics, portraying “liberal” and “conservative” news networks as the dangerous slippery slopes that they are. Will McAvoy is known as a conservative republican anchor, so when he takes on the Tea Party, he is chastised by a network executive who fears that ACN’s republican viewership will not want to hear any anti-right sentiment. I think this storyline accurately points out the inherent problem of networks catering to the perceived sensibilities of their viewers, while viewers form sensibilities based on what they’re watching on TV, making for a stagnant and vicious cycle of political disinformation.

In one episode, Will loses the chance to host a republican debate because party leaders feel as though he will be too harsh on candidates. This brings up issues of whether or not journalists are still able to be working members of the 4^th estate, or whether party politics and network interests have reduced news anchors and reporters to the position of right or left lapdogs. Additionally, The Newsroom addresses the fact that the Internet has made the necessary timeline for breaking news much faster, sometimes at the expense of accuracy. 

Finally, and perhaps most compellingly, The Newsroom makes the case for reporters being advocates for, and allies of, the viewers, the readers and the voters, rather than the politicians, the executives and the moneymen. In the first season, an executive explains why Will makes a good anchor. He says, “He was a prosecutor. Before he was an anchor, before he was a reporter, before he was a speechwriter, he was a prosecutor. He graduated college at 19, law school at 21, and signed up for the Brooklyn district attorney’s office where he racked up a 94% conviction record. And the newsroom turned into a courtroom, because I made the decision that American voters need a fucking lawyer.”

I hope that for the 3^rd and final season of The Newsroom, Aaron Sorkin ignores all of the bad reviews, the noise, and the network pressure and does what his characters have been trying to do for two seasons already: create a show that’s worthy of being called the best. 

Dystopian Love Stories: Heartbreak in the Digital Age (Helen)

I usually find romantic film to be a subject that’s all too sugary-sweet, but the sub genre that has been building steam in recent years provides a refreshing, albeit somewhat terrifying, discussion on human intimacy with the ever-evolving technology of convenience. In the same way, generations adapted to telephones, Internet access, and smart phones, these fictional characters must tackle the paradox between having complete access to world from their fingertips and the strange sense of alienation from never having to leave their home to do so. These films ask the question, is such a thing as too much access? Too much information? Is contentment possible when there seem to be infinite options? Is the technology that is made to assist us, perhaps stunting us?

 

Spike Jonze’s most recent film, Her (2013), looks into these questions with a slightly different spin in what I would consider to be a fairly convincing realistic look at artificial intelligence and the moral ambiguity of developing a personal assistance technology that is capable of independent thoughts and feelings.  The story follows a recently divorced introvert named Theodore Twombly in the year 2025. The ethical questions raised in this film revolve mostly around his developing romantic relationship with his OS “Samantha”. Although, it is worth noting that there are a lot of interesting moral quandaries for the viewer to consider within the background of the main storyline. For example, Theodore works at a company that ghostwrites romantic letters to the customer’s significant other under the assumption that it was written by their spouse and of course, not contracted out to a stranger. Although this deceit seems to be with the best intentions, that ethical grey area is the crux of the film. Both his career and the OS provide parallel examples of modern services meant to make life simpler that seem to instead desensitize an over stimulated population. Although this film shows the delight and feverish highs of Theodore’s relationship with “Samantha” through beautiful cinematography, it is clear from the start that his love will end in tragedy.

 

One of the most striking scenes in the film is when Theodore goes on a blind date set up by his coworker Amy. The woman he meets, who is never given a name, is played by the stunning actress Olivia Wilde. Although she is awkward at first, the close camerawork is intimate rather than suffocating. Their interaction is slow to spark, but develops into a romantic chemistry. However, when she asks him about permanence and commitment he hesitates and recedes. After his failed date he speaks at lengths to “Samantha” about it. It is a subtle reminder than Theordore is retreating from life itself, comforted by the convenience of technology. As time passes, it becomes clear that more people have begun dating their OS, including his only close friend, Amy who is also struggling with her “human” relationship. Towards the end of the film, Theodore descends down the stairs to the subway, with his blue tooth in ear speaking to “Samantha”. As the camera follows him, the same blue tooth can be seen on the various strangers passing him by. This film is less of a cautionary tale, and more of a discourse on the complexity of human intimacy and desire being swept away in the changing tides of modern advancements.

 

Michel Gondry’s film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) offers another perspective on the romantic drama with a science fiction twist. This film however, begins with the end of a relationship and shows the lengths to which someone will go to forget and suppress their former flame. While the technology in this film is entirely familiar with the exception of the memory-erasing machine from the fictional company, Lacuna Inc. Gondry mixes aspects of life that are entirely relatable into this science fiction story. The film opens completely unremarkably with Joel Barish waking up and commuting to the Long Island Railroad on a Valentines Day like any other, so he thinks. In reality, most of the film is presumed to be Joel’s memories running through his head as he is having them erased. Much of the film is shot in montage with Joel’s narration over top, similarly to how memory is perceived. The non-linear timeline forces to viewer to recall and reorder the scenes to piece together the story just as Joel does.

 

Although the story mostly works backwards through a relationship retroactively, the flashbacks recall moments of genuine tenderness and pain for Joel and the object of his affections, Clementine. However, just as in Her (2013), the technology meant to soothe proves to be harmful for Joel. The oversimplified solution to a breakup is too permanent for fickle human desire. The film raises other ethical dilemmas through the various relationships in addition to Joel and Clementine’s. For example, Patrick, the Lacuna employee that erases Clementine’s memories falls in love with her and begins dating her. He uses Joel’s journal to relive his experiences with Clementine in order to manipulate her affections, knowing she won’t remember them with Joel. Lacuna’s receptionist Mary, also learns that she had an affair with the married doctor that runs the company, but had all of this memory erased. Even though she had her memories erased, the attraction she had for her boss developed again. Proving, that the system is not only traumatic but also ineffective. Learning of their own pasts, Joel and Clementine decided to try their relationship again, with a somewhat optimistic ending. Although, the greater implication is that their relationship is likely doomed to fail again.

 

Both of these films and the subgenre of science fiction romantic dramas address an anxiety between technology simultaneously simplifying our lives, but also making things much more complicated, especially in how we interact with one another. I'm not sure how things will be in ten or twenty years, or if these fever dream ideas will ever be realized, but it's something to keep you up at night. To put it simply in the immortal words of 1986 one hit wonder, Timbuk3, "the future's so bright, I gotta wear shades".

 

 

Wait, There Are Happy Things Too? (Abby)

 

 

    Dwelling on the paradox of home, as I have been, I’ve been searching my footage for stills that I think best visualize its conflicting nature.  I’m not sure if what I’ve included above, comprising one tilt shot, is necessarily the best; it just had the unfortunate fate of being near the beginning of the footage, which ultimately became the criterion for inclusion. Originally I was planning on talking about the contrast of the visuals in these images, the beauty of the sky that evening that wouldn’t be possible without the biting cold that the snowy landscape represents, how this is a metaphor for simultaneous positive/negative connotations of where I'm from, how I wish the blacks of the image weren't so noisy (more visible when you see the video). But after having gone through each shot once again, I'm wandering in a different direction.

    The first time I saw my footage, my mind crept into a dark cave to hide. I didn’t think that any of it was anywhere near adequate, let alone good, and I beat myself up quite a bit about it. Besides a lack of quality I thought that there were so many more things I could have and should have shot. There was the night I was driving my mom and sister home from work during a snowstorm, and the flakes were the biggest I’ve ever seen, nearly half the size of a dollar bill. It was gorgeous, and I feel that the film stock I was using probably could’ve captured the flakes that flurried through the streetlights.  Of course by the time we were home, the storm was over. Or there was our sad little Christmas tree, a free item given to us by my aunt (free Christmas trees are somehow used to incentivize her work as a realtor) which is the closest I’ve seen a tree, in spirit, come to that of Charlie Brown’s:

    Or there was my parents faces, their physical features, and the material objects that make them who they are. I wish I had some of that, though in that case I would have had to explained what I was doing.

    Focusing on these things I don’t have, though, has made me realize what I do. There is some usable film footage to work with, but there’s also a whole swath of content that I’ve captured with my phone. Videos on my phone are not film, and they may not share the same quality, but it’s possible that I could incorporate some of what I captured with my phone over break. Whether this would be jarring for the viewer is unquestionable, but it has the possibility of being jarring in the right way.  While much of the audio I recorded is family drama, some of the videos I have reveal brief spurts of spontaneous happiness and joy, which is something I feel is missing from the project at the moment. As much as I drone on about family conflict and destruction of what is maybe too idyllic a vision of one’s origins, there are happy moments too. Moving forward, I hope to find some lighter moments to shake things up, lighten the tone at times, and provide a fuller picture of my winter break and experience at home.

 

Street in St. Paul, MN. iPhone still from video of dancing in the backseat.

 

“A Leader, Not a Politician”: Geraldine Ferraro: Paving the Way (Ingrid)

             This past Wednesday, the Film and Media Studies Program hosted a screening of Geraldine Ferraro: Paving the Way. Directed and produced by Ferraro’s own daughter, Donna Zaccaro, the documentary offers an intimate insight into the life and legacy of the first woman ever to be nominated as a vice presidential candidate. Zaccaro was among the screening’s attendees, along with Maryland senator, Barbara Mikulski, who appears in the documentary and was a close friend of Ferraro. Mikulski, a trailblazer in her own right, being the first independent Democratic woman to enter office, joined Zaccaro in a Q&A session following the screening.

            The film paints a more complete and humanizing portrait of a figure that was both idolized and misrepresented by the public and by the media. Guided by interviews of her family and childhood friends, by political affiliates and even adversaries, and by Geraldine Ferraro, herself, the documentary uncovers sides of Ferraro that stayed out of the limelight of fame and popularity.

            Ferraro, who points to her father’s early and untimely death as the impetus for her self-motivation and diligence, grew from a difficult and underprivileged childhood in New York. Her scrappy and hard-working character earned her a scholarship and success at Marymount College. She continued her academic career at Fordham Law School, where she graduated in the top ten percent of her class. After joining the D.A. office in Queens County, she went on to make a name for herself as a hardy and determined prosecutor. Ferraro’s entrance into the political scene came at a time where the female representation in Washington consisted of sixteen women in the House and only one in the Senate. I think it’s difficult for our progressive minds to fully understand the set of expectations and limitations she faced. Regardless, she quickly navigated the ranks of the House as the representative for New York, proving herself a smart and formidable presence. Before long, she caught the attention of many other leaders, including her future running mate, Walter Mondale.

            “You can do whatever you want to do. You can be whoever you want to be,” says Ferraro about her personal beliefs. Coming from anyone else, this statement would sound impractical, absurd, and delusional, but when it came out of Ferraro’s mouth, I found myself sincerely believing it. The intrigue of her story lies in the realistic realization of the American Dream. The vice-presidential nomination in 1984 did not simply fall into her lap, and it wasn’t simply symbolic. Her achievement was undeniably hard-won and wholly well-deserved.

            Ferraro took a fresh approach to feminism—one that traded confrontation for savvy and charisma. In effect, she reinvigorated the agency in women across America. It’s for this reason Nancy Pelosi calls her “a leader, not a politician.”

            By the end of the documentary I was stunned to feel tears forming at the corners of my eyes.  When the credits began rolling everyone in the audience held their applause. It was almost as if we all collectively took a moment a silence to honor this truly magnificent figure in history. Geraldine Ferraro: Paving the Way is a powerful and moving tribute to a woman whose impact will continue to be felt in generations to come.

The Sexual Politics of Borgen and Commander In Chief (Taylor)

By now, political tv shows have covered it all. A renaissance of political television has touched on subjects like media culture, race relations, partisanship and globalization. But there is one subject that remains woefully underrepresented in the fictional world of the American White House: that is, the fairer sex as the leader of the free world.

  I suppose it makes sense that the glass ceiling of real life, present day political power structure is naturally reflected in those of their on-screen female character counterparts. Indeed, America remains one of the final democratic countries in the world without a single female leader to boast of. And in the case of both real life politics and television, that isn’t to say we haven’t tried.

 In 1985, ABC dipped their toe into feminist waters with a 30-minute sitcom called Hail to the Chief. The show, cancelled after 7 episodes, depicted a woman’s attempt at balancing the demands of the presidency with the obligations of family life. ABC made a second attempt in 2005, with an hour-long drama titled Commander In Chief.

 Commander In Chief focused on the administration of Mackenzie Allen, where   Allen ascends to the Presidency after the sitting president dies due to a cerebral aneurysm. The show dealt with issues of sexism in politics, and explored the likely triumphs and pitfalls of a woman undertaking the presidency. However, despite its best efforts, Commander In Chief fell flat with both critics and audiences and was also cancelled after just one season.  

 Since then, no American television network has taken on the main premise of a female president. Interestingly however, we can look to Europe and our friends in Denmark to fill this thematic void.  Enter Borgen.

 Borgen is a Danish one-hour drama series that tells the story of charismatic politician Birgitte Nyborg who unexpectedly becomes the first female Prime Minister of Denmark.

 Ostensibly, Borgen and Commander in Chief contain many similarities in premise. Like CIC and its protagonist President Mackenzie Allen, Borgen navigates the world of coalition politics wherein Birgitte copes with the pressures and demands of life in office as a woman. Both protagonists superimpose a strong maternal image, each having a family that is swept along on the wild ride created by the often-impossible conflicts between the roles of mother, wife, and World Leader. Both “First Gentlemen,” Rod Calloway (CIC), and Phillip Christensen (Borgen) are intelligent and capable former career men who struggle to adjust to the role of stay-at-home parent. Both Mackenzie and Birgitte’s children struggle to adjust to their new roles as the children of chronically occupied, famous, politically powerful moms.  

 However, despite all of these plot similarities, there is one significant difference between the two shows: Borgen has enjoyed massive success, winning many awards, enjoying a large viewership, and becoming a hit in both Denmark and the UK, while CIC has not.

 So what has elevated Borgen to critical acclaim and commercial success, leaving Commander in Chief in the dust? It may be that European sentiments and acceptance toward women in positions of power are different from those in the US, but I personally think it all comes down to the writing. In fact, Denmark’s first female Prime Minister was elected in 2011, two seasons into Borgen. Compared to Borgen’s complex depiction of politics and female leadership, the problem is that CIC seems to fall flat.

 The main focus on CIC is not the presidency, but rather the effect that it has on a family. And although this could be a valid angle to take, the simplistic characters- the emasculated “First Gentleman” father, the sullen teenagers, the wide-eyed ten-year old- seem gimmicky against the backdrop of a shallow and half-baked political landscape. Furthermore, CIC’s political oversimplification lessens both the challenges, and the possible solutions and outcomes, giving viewers a less cathartic final payoff.

 Another possible issue with CIC is its lack of realistic villains. Mackenzie Allen’s main antagonist is meant to be Speaker of the House Nathan Templeton.  From the outset, Templeton’s character, a sexist caricature, is reprehensible beyond belief. Eighteen minutes into the pilot, he makes a menopause joke, and by the end of the first episode, he says,  

“She’s a woman. And it’s so easy to deal with women once you remember that they aren’t men.”

I worry that the inclusion of these borderline cartoonish bad guys in a groundbreaking show about the first woman president risks propagating the caricature; generalizing, and stereotyping the subject matter as a whole.

 In sharp contrast to CIC, Borgen’s success seems related to the more serious depiction of Brigitte and the rest of the characters as anything but caricature cartoons. Everyone has their attributes and flaws, including Birgitte, who is prone to making mistakes and needing advice from her staff members, who are mostly men. It’s a teamwork setup, instead of CIC’s us against them scenario that would never play out in real world politics.

The writers also take great care toward not over acknowledging the obviousness that their protagonist is a female prime minister, to the show’s benefit.

Another strength of Borgen is that it refuses to be a one trick pony. During the pilot, the main plot point is that the first female Prime Minister has been elected to Denmark. It is acknowledged as groundbreaking, but isn’t fetishized or treated with too much overt attention.

When it is referenced, it is done so in a subtle way; quietly referencing the pressures put on females in any walk of life, not just the Prime Ministry. As Birgitte prepares for a television interview for example, she becomes distressed because she has gained too much weight due to the stress of the election and none of her clothes fit.

 Gradually, the subject matter rises above the basic novelty of a female prime minister, and the show blossoms into a complex landscape of politics, compromise, ambition, family values, and yes, even feminism. Another main character that helps to accomplish this development is Katrine Fønsmark, a beautiful young news anchor in Denmark. As the episodes progress, Birgitte and Katrine are set up as polar characters in both career moves and life decisions. Early in the first season, we see Katrine go through an abortion because she feels too much pressure to pursue her career; while Birgitte does everything she possibly can to put her family first despite her new role in Denmark. By the end of the first season, Birgitte has made a long list of personal compromises while Katrine quits her job in order to maintain journalistic integrity and have a life she is proud of.

 During the last episode of season 1, Kasper is shown jogging around Borgen while he listens to Kennedy’s inaugural address, known for the line, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” He is looking to this for inspiration for a speech he is writing for Birgitte. The choice of the Kennedy inaugural address is of course ironic. On the cusp of divorce and the deterioration of her family, Birgitte has done everything for Denmark.

But I think this choice of speech is symbolic on another level as well. Later on in the episode, Kasper is talking a secretary through the 3-stage rocket that is Kennedy’s repeated use of the phrase, “Ask not…” He explains that the rhythm and repetition make you feel something not just in your head, but also in your gut and your heart too.

And I believe that is where Borgen finds success. It is a rocket among airplanes; dynamic, complex, emotional, and ultimately explosive. It is the kind of political television that America needs, and hopefully soon we’ll get it. American rights to the series were purchased by NBC in 2011, and Borgen creator Adam Price told the Press Association that “It’s in consideration at HBO and it’s actually BBC Worldwide who is going to produce it.”

Although I look forward to America’s answer to Borgen, I am concerned that already, the remake has fallen into the old pratfalls of America’s former attempts at depicting the female president.

“It will be the story of a political widow,” Price told the Daily Telegraph of its Anglo-Saxon remake, “She was married to a politician who dies, and it is her story of trying to follow in his footsteps.”

To this I would caution that females in politics and television, as well as the viewers at home, are tired of women following in the footsteps of shoes that likely do not fit them. The time has come for them to lead.

 

 

Do You Want To Be Like Me, Or Do You Want To Be Me?: Celebrity Status of Violent Men (Bedram)

Andrew Dominik, a New Zealand-born Australian director and screenwriter, introduced himself to the world in 2000 with Chopper, a film which explored the life of Mark “Chopper” Read. The man was a criminal, and a ruthless one at that, involved in robberies, kidnappings, and even murders – all directed toward others in the criminal underworld of Melbourne. Chopper gained notoriety through his brutal acts of violence, especially after writing numerous books about his experiences.  

The film begins with Chopper watching his own interview on a television set in his cell, in which he declares, “The average man in Australia doesn’t worry about Mark “Chopper” Read. The average man in Australia, he likes me, he couldn’t care less about me. What I do, he applauds.” People are watching this very interview because he’s a “bloody freak show,” an attraction of sorts. Yet, the film does not dwell so much on how he gained fame, but rather why such a character would receive it in the first place. This is a man that declares he is a normal person, “a normal bloke who likes a bit of torture.”

Chopper spent most of his adult life in prison, a place the film drapes in a monochrome blue color, from the walls to the very clothes the prisoners wear. The washed out visuals demonstrates the bland atmosphere of the place, creating a stark contrast to his life outside the prison. Most scenes are highly saturated, the strong colors a manifestation of Chopper’s anxiety and his brash lifestyle.

In one particular scene at a bar, Chopper leads Siam Ozerkam (a drug dealer) outside to the parking lot. Chopper proceeds to ask Siam whose side he is on. Paranoid about the death contract on him, Chopper points a gun at the man, who is not quite sure what to make of his questioning. Chopper grows increasingly paranoid and anxious, the dominating red lighting a manifestation of his mental state. He asks Siam why he brought him out to the parking lot, when the opposite is the case. After an argument arises in which Chopper demands Siam speak English, he shoots the man point blank in the face, enquiring afterwards if he’s okay. Does one laugh or feel for a man who is so terribly inept at controlling his actions? A man whose violence comes across as casual? The man is clearly lost, somewhat delusional, bent on living out his tough-guy fantasy. When the police tell him they have arrested the man that killed Siam, Chopper grows furious, pulling out the murder weapon to prove he was the man that did it. The police still do not believe him, leaving him to proclaim that he has never been so insulted in his life.

The last image of Chopper is back in his cell, watching the very interview from the beginning. He soaks in the attention he receives, not only for being on during primetime, but also from the two guards that watch it with him. He has achieved fame through his life of violence, but once the guards leave, he is alone, sitting on his bed trapped within the four walls of his dull cell. A man worthy of fame?

Dominik continued his examination of the celebrity status of violent men with his second film, tackling a more well-known subject in the 2007 Western, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. The film follows the life of Robert Ford, tackling Jesse James’ celebrity status through Ford’s obsession of the man. Jesse James, a celebrity when alive and a legend after death, was an outlaw, a gang leader that robbed banks and trains, and who claimed to have committed seventeen murders.

After joining the James’ gang on a train robbery, Bob gets to spend some time alone with Jesse. Bob, practically like a child, explains his joy of getting to talk to the man, mentioning all the times he spent in a library reading books about him. Jesse tells Bob they are all lies, clearly dampening his spirits. Does he know the man as well as he thinks he does? The celebrity and the man are not quite the same.  

Jesse allows Ford to stick around, much to his elation. The two spend most of their time together, Bob practically studying Jesse, making note of his gestures and inflections. He even sneaks up on Jesse taking a bath, catching him at his most vulnerable. Bob notes how no one used to be able to catch Jesse off-guard, in addition to having never seen him without his guns. If Jesse appeared immortal and perhaps above other men, he is brought down in this scene; he is clearly mortal, and his naked body definitely human. Jesse, well aware of Bob’s fascination with him, utters, “Do you want to be like me, or do you want to be me?”

The film grapples with this question, yet it never provides a definite answer. When discussing the possibility of killing Jesse with his brother, Charley, he is told that he does not understand the severity of what he is proposing, that life is not just “yarns and newspaper stories.” Bob replies that Jesse is only a human being. Nonetheless he continues his obsession up until the very end of his relationship with Jesse. He rests on Jesse’s bed, feeling on his body the places where Jesse had been shot and pretending that his middle finger was missing the top two knuckles. Here is a childlike man who still is enamored with the famous outlaw, or at the very least the idol he is portrayed as.

Bob finds it impossible to escape Jesse’s shadow after he commits the killing, an ugly and unheroic one. Jesse, in death, arguably becomes a mythic figure, with songs written about him, and pictures of his corpse selling for two dollars each. It comes as no surprise, then, that Bob is eventually murdered, a result of the mass hate for bringing down a legend.

Both Chopper and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford explore the celebrity life of violent men, drawing questions of why these men achieved fame. Assassination presents a compelling look through one man’s obsession of an idol, effectively humanizing a larger than life figure and presenting a deeply flawed and paranoid man seeing enemies on all sides towards the end of his life, perhaps foreseeing Bob’s betrayal. Chopper, while not examining as large a figure, presents a distrustful man whose violence comes naturally, with little to no thought of the consequences of his actions. Both films are complex works that analyze the men behind the violence in society, presenting an honest look at such figures that gain notoriety through their acts of brutality.

Production Diary: Studying "Home" (Abby)

    The recent snowfall in Baltimore reminds me of home, as snow tends to do. It’s not an identical situation by any means (considering that snow typically stays on the ground where I’m from), but it’s something familiar to hold on to, even if the city’s drivers can’t say the same.

    I’ve been dwelling on the idea of home frequently. Winter break is a funny time for college students who attend a school far away from home. For me, going home meant a mix of familiarity and culture shock, which gradually developed into an event that was anticipated with dread.

    Coming from the background that I do - a Midwestern origin and modest means - I’m statistically a minority at Hopkins. It can often feel that way, too. In this regard, home was at first a welcome release from a school that often seems dominated by east-coasters and kids with money. But the idea of “home” takes on an entirely different meaning after living in a new place with new experiences for a long period of time. What was once so familiar to the point of being unconsciously normal is now strange, and a distant familiarity develops. Home is something you were once close to, but which you can never approach in the same way. Without realizing it, you’ve become a different person: holidays are now more chore than celebration, and living far away deepens hidden wounds that resurface at would-be merry gatherings.

    This is a phenomenon – that is, coming back to a family in decay - that I wanted to capture during winter break. I wanted to take a life snapshot, to document my feelings of coming home during my final winter break of my college career, but to also have something tangible that I could then use in the process of creating something new. This “tangible” thing would be represented through audio and visuals. I would try create something about my life at home through film. All of these thoughts came last minute, in the anticipation of going home for break. I was lucky enough to be able to take a 16MM Arri SRII camera and Zoom recorder home with me.

    The plan was loose. I was going to shoot at home, but knowing how camera-shy my family is, this would have to get creative. The audio recordings would be easier to pull off, I knew, because I could easily hide the recorder around my home, which I did. The terrifying part of the project is that I had no knowledge or control over what might happen, but I can tell you that what did unfold I couldn’t have expected, and that it was dramatic, to say the least. Whether I can skillfully edit this raw material into a polished final project is another question.

    What will follow this semester in future posts is a recounting of the process of shooting and recording for this film, as well as a diary of the editing process. The film, at this point, feels like a mix of documentary and fiction. It will be a restructuring of things that did happen (audio recorded with the Zoom and, at critical times, my iPhone) and of somewhat staged situations (visuals recorded on film) to make a hybrid of sorts. In the process, I’ll continue to explore what “home” means for me, especially relevant considering that I’m not quite sure where I’ll be living in a few months post-graduation. The idea of what “home” is and what it connotes will continue to fluctuate for me, I know, but in the end I think this film will represent a very specific time, place, and feeling in my life, especially as it relates to home; a very personal film indeed. 

Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde Go To Washington- Idealism and Cynicism in Politics, The West Wing and House of Cards (Taylor)

    I was watching the State of the Union on Tuesday night and got to thinking, what is it about politics that evokes the best and worst in humanity? No other human endeavor produces more greed, ire, and dishonesty, but also compassion, dedication, and hope for the future. Politics in America represent the quintessential Jekyll and Hyde paradox.

    Few things portray and contrast this paradox more readily than two popular and oppositely oriented political dramas: Aaron Sorkin’s network juggernaut The West Wing (1999- 2006), and Beau Willimon’s new Netflix series House of Cards.

    The West Wing takes place primarily within the White House and depicts the fictional Democratic Presidency of Josiah Bartlett and his senior staff members as they navigate the complicated world of political crises and disputes, public opinion, ethical dilemmas, and personal dramas.

     During each episode, the characters, (along with viewers at home) are presented with moral dilemmas relating to pressing contemporary domestic and world issues.  During the hour, the fearless leader and his hardworking staff think through these difficult problems  using facts, moral code, analysis, and gut-level intuition, only to emerge successfully from each challenge with their moral integrity intact. 

    The West Wing’s liberally idealistic White House is a chalice of heroism, morality, intelligence, and sense of duty. The message, slightly left of center in reality, was ostensibly unpartisan, whereby episode after episode, President Bartlett and his senior staff members considered all sides of an issue, both right and left, before making a decision.  When partisan divides were addressed in Sorkin’s rose tinted White House, it was with an endearing sense of transparency.  In a scene from season one of TWW, Donna Moss, assistant to deputy White House chief of staff Josh Lyman, asks why the President won’t return a budget surplus back to constituents. She says that she wants to buy a DVD player. She promises to buy American. Josh lets her know in no uncertain terms that it’s never going to happen. Why?

 “We don’t trust you,” Josh says.

“Why not?” Donna asks.

“We’re Democrats,” he replies. “You shouldn’t have voted for us.”

    Seven years later with House of Cards, we are presented with an entirely different depiction of the inner-workings of DC power circles. Narrated by House Majority Whip and South Carolina congressman Francis Underwood, the show revolves around the shady congressman, his cold-as-ice wife Claire, and an ambitious, cutthroat, up and coming young reporter name Zoe Barnes. Each of the main characters is primarily concerned with climbing the DC power ladder at the expense of everyone around them.

     It is clear that HOC lacks the warm and alluring appeal of the West Wing from the outset. The first episode begins with a cold opening, darkness, and the visceral sound of a dog being hit by a car. Underwood runs out of his DC brownstone, into the street where the injured dog lies. Crouching over the dog, he addresses the camera directly.

“Moments like this require someone who will act,” he says as he begins to suffocate the dog, “someone to do the unpleasant thing. The necessary thing,”

 The dog dies.

“There. No more pain.” Underwood says. He turns around and walks back into the house. This is just a taste of the utilitarian ruthlessness to come from Congressman Underwood.

    Another strong contrast between House of Cards and the West Wing is in HOC's harsh depiction of the media. In TWW, the press is largely portrayed in terms of in-house reporters who have personal and positive relationships with senior staff members, whereas the HOC media world cuts a more isolated, dissident figure within the offices of fictional newspaper the Washington Herald. Yellow fluorescent lighting casts harshly onto tired looking, rumpled reporters as they fight among themselves and vie for a leg up on their own power ladder.

    Finally, while patriarchal figure President Bartlett is revered for his age and wisdom, HOC seems to touch on clashing themes of aging and irrelevance. During an early episode in the first season, Claire finds herself ordering a coffee from an older woman who cannot operate the electronic cash register. Claire displays mild disgust as a younger woman steps in to take over.

    Later in the same episode, an insane man tries to storm the congressional office building, and police handcuff him to a light post. The man begins to scream in frustration. Exiting the building, Frank Underwood notices the man and approaches, crouching in front of him on the ground. Frank says, “Nobody can hear you. Nobody cares about you. Nothing will come of this.”

    The man begins to cry, perhaps overwhelmed by the futility of his actions. The message seems to be that individuals don’t actually have a voice in the greater scheme of human existence. That is…unless they occupy a desk on Capital Hill.

     So, despite all of this political doom and gloom, why does watching HOC seem like such a cathartic, (albeit cynical) experience?

    In a show-to-show comparison, the contrast appears to be between the idealistic greater good verses the cynical personal agenda. Optimistically, we all want to imagine that our government is being driven by the Lincoln ideal , “of the people, by the people, for the people”. 

      Honestly, I am a bit of a cynic, but even I find myself searching for hope in politics every once in a while. In fact, last Tuesday during the State of the Union, something that President Obama said got me a little teary-eyed: 

 “The America we want for our kids – a rising America where honest work is plentiful and communities are strong; where prosperity is widely shared and opportunity for all lets us go as far as our dreams and toil will take us – none of it is easy. But if we work together; if we summon what is best in us, with our feet planted firmly in today but our eyes cast towards tomorrow – I know it’s within our reach.

Believe it.”

      Seemingly ripped from the pages of a Sorkin script, our President had me, hook, line and sinker. But then the next day I woke up to seemingly scathing fact-checking reports from AP, HuffPost…you name it.

 “False promises!”

 “Stretching the facts!”

“Not without support from congress!”

“No real action!”

 Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde again.

     Ultimately, the historical success of the idealistically minded drama The West Wing seems to indicate that there are still Americans who want to believe in the political idealism of a rising utopian America. 

    However, the growing popularity of Willimon’s political dystopia, House Of Cards seems to represent the other, more cynical portion of America’s constituents, who would perhaps answer Obama’s plea for faith with  “Mr. President, we will believe it…when we see it.”  Too much of our day to day reality seems to align with House of Cards, and much less with The West Wing.

 

                                                                                                              

The Utility of Government and Military Power: Why World War Z Isn’t Your Average Zombie Film (Yasmine)

People of a nation expect their government and other institutions of the law to honor their rights, protect them and, most importantly, to maintain a structured society. Ideally, should a catastrophic event cost the lives of citizens and threaten to crumble social order; people rely on the solidarity of their communities and expect swift and efficient intervention from government powers. Films and television shows depicting the zombie apocalypse such as Night of the Living Dead (1968), 28 Days Later (2002), and the Walking Dead (2010) challenge the notion that the government and military are capable of maintaining order and that communities are able to thrive in chaos. In fact, the zombie apocalypse symbolizes the devolution of civilization and the destruction of governmental, familial, and educational institutions, ultimately depicting a dismal future for humanity while simultaneously revealing the fragility of society. In Marc Forster’s World War Z (2013), Jerry Lane, a former employee of the UN, cooperates with the United Nations military, and the World Health Organization to investigate a possible solution to the zombie epidemic. Whereas an ineffective government and hopeless isolation are typical elements for many zombie films, World War Z illustrates the utility of government and military on a global scale in times of crisis.

             The opening titles, in which images of nature are intercut with shots of day-to-day human society, demonstrates the dichotomous nature of civilization. Shots of undulating ocean waves, clouds floating lazily in the sky, and the sun rising behind a quiet cityscape invoke a sense of tranquility. The film connects the peaceful picture of the natural world to human society with subsequent images of beautiful suburban homes and people commuting on trains, buses, and busy city streets. The juxtaposition of commuters with shots of an ant community marching in an orderly cluster implies social order within a structured, functioning society. As news and TV talk show segments flash on the screen, the sounds of various radio and TV media dialogues overlap. The trivial, less dire media information overshadows a grim message about a possible viral outbreak. In spite of the troubling information the people portrayed appear undaunted, continuing their commute even as reports of the virus become more frequent and prominently featured in the sequence—denoting a collective ignorance of impending danger. As if in response to the gravity of the message, the rhythm of intercutting increases, simulating a frenzied heartbeat, with each cut lasting no more than a second. The sudden onslaught of images represents the way in which social order can rapidly decay. Images of an aggressive ocean current, ants devouring a carcass, and wolves tearing other animals apart, supersede the serenity of nature. The transition from order and tranquility to violence and chaos represents the deterioration of social order and foreshadows the ensuing chaos of the zombie outbreak. The necessary response to the social turmoil—as suggested by the news broadcast on Jerry’s kitchen television—is martial law, which Jerry explains to his daughter is “like house rules, but for everybody.” Jerry’s “house rules” metaphor indicates his belief that government aid and military action can bring peace and order to an unstable world.

When the zombie outbreak occurs later in the film, local authorities prove to be ineffective—their movement restricted by the general chaos of cars and panicking civilians. In contrast, the UN military demonstrates its mobility by moving freely above the pandemonium in secure helicopters. The UN’s apparent mobility compels Jerry to entrust his family’s protection to the military, whose presence and authority Jerry must rely on throughout the film. In other zombie-related tales, a military helicopter extraction is nothing but a pipedream, ultimately leading to disappointment. However, for Jerry and his family the military helicopter signifies salvation, as it not only rescues them from the tumultuous infection site it brings them to a haven completely removed from the outbreak. The haven, a U.S. Navy vessel is an even more unlikely occurrence in the pessimistic zombie genre. Fully stocked with supplies, military personnel, and experts monitoring the outbreak the ship symbolizes the resilience of the government and its attempt to maintain order and control. Even as an officer reports that Washington D.C., the very center of American government, has been wiped out by the outbreak, other naval officers transport paintings and historical artifacts, symbolically preserving American culture. Jerry’s association with the UN and military affords him the mobility to investigate the apocalypse not only locally, but also internationally, making him one of the most mobile protagonists of the zombie apocalypse genre. The support of the United Nations and military combined with Jerry’s ingenuity and determination exemplify the indomitable fortitude of humanity and imply that society’s hope for deliverance is not lost.

           

 

Inside Llewyn Davis: Shattering Illusions, Dodging Expectations (Ingrid)

(2.5.12. Licensed under Creative Commons at Flickr.)   

    Two Thursdays ago, I was lucky enough to attend a pre-release screening at the Charles Theater of Inside Llewyn Davis, the Coen Brothers’ latest project. It isn’t scheduled to hit theaters until December 5^th, but when it does, I say it's definitely worth viewing.

    In all honesty though, it’s an achingly unsatisfying film to sit through. At every turn, I found myself trying so hard to empathize with a character that I just simply could not stand. We catch protagonist, folk musician Llewyn Davis (played by Oscar Isaac), at a fragile stage in his life. Still dealing with the suicide of his partner and the consequent slump in his solo music career, Llewyn couch surfs his way around Greenwich Village, disrupting the lives of superficial old friends and reluctant past lovers, as he fumbles to make ends meet. Cynical and jaded, peevish and tired, Llewyn is a character on the cusp of giving up altogether. The signs of it are everywhere: in his lackluster eyes, his slumped shoulders, his deep sighs.

    As unfortunate his situation is though, I found Llewyn extremely unlikable and self-pitying to an unreasonable degree, wallowing in his misfortune and using it as justification for his lack of motivation. Rather than taking charge, Llewyn resigns to external forces. Sheer coincidence dictates the course of his life: when his friend’s cat slips through a crack in the front door, when he lands a much-needed gig with the help of his best friend, Jim, when the doctor accidentally lets it slip that Llewyn has a son in Akron (the result of a cancelled abortion). It seems a window of hope has opened up for Llewyn when he scores a chance to play for Bud Grossman, music big shot and owner of the famous concert venue, Gate of Horn. But even the way by which Llewyn travels to Gate of Horn is entirely subject to fate; he hitchhikes from New York City to Chicago.

    The film follows his venture to Chicago. It is the middle of winter but Llewyn is too strapped for money to buy a coat. Guitar in tow and thumb in air, he finally hails down a car. But the free ride comes with terribly unpleasant company, a drug-addled jazz enthusiast who spends every waking moment insulting Llewyn and his folk music. After an unbearably long and uncomfortable trek, Llewyn reaches the imposing double doors of Gate of Horn. The trip is set up as a perfect plot arc and this moment, the opportunity for him to turn his career around, is the climax. Conventionally, we expect this kind of success or failure situation to transpire emotionally. But when Llewyn plays for Grossman, it ends in the sinking words, “I don’t see a lot of money here.” Llewyn nods, he understands, says okay, end of scene. There is no uproar, no groveling, no last-ditch cry for reconsideration. Llewyn leaves the venue as quietly as he enters it. It leaves us confounded.

    As viewers, we yearn for progression, for resolution, for things we can predict. It’s only human nature. But the film consistently deflects our notion of a happy ending. After hitting a cat with a car, we expect Llewyn to stop and save it. Instead, he watches the injured cat limp into the shadow and then apathetically drives away. After seeing a road sign pointing to Akron, we expect Llewyn to make the turn, search for and eventually reunite with his son. Instead, he bypasses the city without a second thought. Furthermore, the structure of the film is inherently static. It ends in the same scene it begins with: Llewyn alone in an alleyway, having just been beaten up. This is what I mean when I say the film is unsatisfying. Llewyn spends the entire film drifting, making no headway; he shirks all forms of responsibility, leaving doors unopened, loose ends untied. In a way, the film is almost anti-escapist. It’s unmercifully honest. It’s slice of life.

    And the subtle cinematography honors this reality, capturing all the small details: dust particles in the air illuminated by the harsh morning sunlight, chalky embers drooping from a lit cigarette tip. The camera lingers on close-ups for just the right amount of time, catching the most minute of expressions: an extra blink, a fleeting eye-roll, a brief pursing of the lips, a shiver. Inside Llewyn Davis is as raw and authentic as it gets. 

Until the End of the World (Mina)

        Human beings can never remain indifferent in the face of death. Because we cannot be sure of the existence of afterlife, we always have this vague fear about death. This is why we expect a savior to come save us from this anxiety as we watch films like The Day the Earth Stood Still (dir. Scott Derrickson, 2008) or I Am Legend (dir. Francis Lawrence, 2007). When we see the protagonists fight against the cause of the apocalypse, and eventually save the world from collapsing, we feel peaceful as if we are also saved. However, Lars von Trier’s Melancholia (2011) and Béla Tarr and Ágnes Hranitzky’s The Turin Horse (2011), are different from these classic apocalyptic films. The protagonists from both films remain calm as they see their own world slowly come to an end.

       Melancholia and The Turin Horse begin with an ominous introduction, which reflects the central themes of each film. Melancholia opens with a 8-minute sequence with music from Wagner’s “Tristan and Isolde.” The sequence is mainly comprised of strange dream-like images. We see a bride running through a forest in her wedding dress and a large blue planet Melancholia heading directly towards the Earth. The stillness that comes from the extreme slow-motion images foreshadows an imminent death of the characters. The mournful prelude of “Tristan und Isolde” heightens this sense of crisis, yet at the same time, it also describes death from a different perspective. The music is about a secret love affair between Tristan and Isolde. Realizing that she has to marry a man she doesn’t love, Isolde chooses death over life. Similarly, Melancholia introduces Justine as an unwilling bride. It is soon revealed that the apocalypse, not the extravagant wedding, offers consolation to Justine. Justine becomes more energetic as Melancholia approaches Earth, proving that death is what ultimately offers Justine, as it did to Isolde, a cathartic emotional release.

        The opening scene of The Turin Horse shows a 5-minute long shot of a horse pulling a wagon after a minute of an impermeable black screen. Simultaneously, a voice-over narrates an event which occurred on 1889 in Turin, Italy. We are told that philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche encounters a cabman brutally whipping his motionless horse. Nietzsche stops this scene by throwing his arms around the horse’s neck, sobbing. When returned to his home, Nietzsche likewise lies still for two days until he lets out his last sane words, “Mother, I am silenced.” He spends his remaining life in a state of mental derangement. The reason why Nietzsche cried, collapsed in front of the horse relates to the core message of The Turin Horse. Nietzsche probably would have witnessed deep despair in the eyes of the horse. From birth till death, horses are used for farm work and transport for human being. Thus, the horse’s refusal to follow his owner’s order extends to his refusal of such a life. From this introduction, the theme of loss of will (reflected by the horse and Nietzsche's refusal to move) is constantly conveyed through the protagonists–the horse, the stableman, and the stableman’s daughter.

        Justine and the stableman respond to the apocalypse in a similar way; they both calmly embrace the apocalypse itself. For Justine, apocalypse has already happened. The catastrophic wedding decisively validates her belief that there is nothing to leave behind. By the end of the wedding reception, she entirely withdraws from the world, from its social norms; for example, she doesn’t feel guilty as she has sex with her coworker on her wedding day. Justine remotely says, “The earth is evil. We don’t need to grieve for it. Nobody will miss it.” Moreover, most of the time, the camera is handheld, floating around the space. The camera readjusts its focus as the screen abruptly changes from a tight close-up shot to a long shot and to another. By this unstable movement of the camera, we become detached from the characters and the plot just as Justine becomes detached from Earth. Hence, we are allowed to merely observe.

        The stableman and the stableman's daughter from The Turin Horse are also isolated from the world. There are several scenes capturing the stableman absent-mindedly looking through the window. Through the window, the stableman sees dirt and leaves rustling by–the external world. But he doesn’t seem to be connected to it. The scene then transitions into a larger shot of the living room, showing where the stableman belongs and remains to stay. This withdrawal from the world is displayed more clearly through repetitive scenes of daily lives of the two.

        It is important to notice that the plot is divided into six days; according to the Genesis, the God creates the world in six days. The first day is when the God creates the world out of nothing. But The Turin Horse reverses Genesis, so that time and existence move not from nothing but toward it. Every day, the stableman wakes up, the daughter boils the potato, the two take care of the horse, have a single boiled potato for dinner, and go to sleep. The black-and-white film accentuates the monotony. As the film slowly walks us to the end, the horse gradually refuses to eat, the stableman and the daughter become more and more indifferent. On the first day, the stableman peels and shovels the potato into his mouth as if it’s an obligation. The daughter eats in a much slower pace, but also without passion. Their bluntness culminates on the sixth day, when the daughter won’t eat. The stableman tells her to eat, but even he himself lacks the will to do so. At the end, they just silently stare at their plates.

        The planet Melancholia and the Turin wind are therefore are not a fearful threat to Justine and the stableman. They do not try to overcome death, but their lack of will doesn’t mean total misery or hopelessness. They accept the apocalypse and simply live until it all comes to an end. The apocalypse portrayed in both of the films is as beautiful as it is plaintive.

Apocalypse Soon: Cuaron's Chilling 2027 in Children of Men (Ingrid)

    It is 2027. A baby has not entered the world in 18 years. For unknown reasons, the human race has become infertile. Devoid of hope, of perpetuation, of any perceivable future, many countries have collapsed. Societal institutions have been dismantled. All that is left is a wasteland—a bank in ruins, an abandoned elementary school, a bombed coffee shop, a burning, polluted countryside, trash-lined city streets. In the crisis of barren wombs, the possibility for the most basic, most comforting form of human organization, the possibility for family, has been eliminated. England stands as one of the only countries left with a relatively stable government. But even England, dealing with severe immigration problems, is plagued with violence and police brutality. A militant revolutionary group, the “Fishes,” who advocate immigrant rights, threaten to unleash an uprising. England is on the brink of anarchy.

    This is the dystopian world that director Alfonso Cuaron shapes in his 2006 film, Children of Men. Theo Faron (played by Clive Owen) is our unlikely hero. Theo, an unshaven, rumpled alcoholic who works a government desk job has a defeatist outlook on life; his philosophy on existence being, “why bother if life’s going to make its own choices?” We later learn this is the result of his son’s death and consequent separation from his wife, Julian Taylor (played by Julianne Moore). Unexpectedly, Theo is reunited with Julian, who, since their separation has become the leader of the Fishes. Julian requests his help in acquiring transit papers for a young “fugee” (illegal immigrant) girl named Kee, in exchange for money. Theo obliges but is soon sucked into the backwards politics of the Fishes. Responsibility is forced upon him, as he is the only person trusted to carry out Julian’s plan.

    Children of Men has a chilling realism. The film’s visual style is distinct; it is handheld and relies heavily on long takes. The most impressive of the single-take scenes lasts 247 seconds and is shot entirely from a swiveling camera mounted in the interior of a moving car. In the scene, a car carrying Theo, Julian, and Kee, is ambushed on a country road. A gang comes running out of the forest, clobbering the car with bludgeons. An armed motorcyclist leaps from out of the trees and begins chasing them down. A shot is fired into the car and blood spurts everywhere. All the while, we are anticipating a cut, anticipating release, but Cuaron does not give it to us. The action is real. The chase is real. The violence is unhindered and the camera rotates to capture the characters’ trepidation and desperation.

    Cuaron, the same director that brought Gravity to the big screens this year, has a knack for building alternative worlds with precise realism. 2027 is not a distant future and the reminders of this a present throughout the film. The characters dress in the same way we do and technology has not made much progress. Children of Men’s apocalyptic landscape is constructed to present a scary possibility. Our deepest fears are realized as England devolve before our eyes. We see it become a place where the playful giggles, high-pitched cries, and cheerful chatter of children are replaced with the moaning of the hungry, the wailing of the injured, and the whimpering of the afraid. Humanity is in utter shambles, in violent, emotional, and irrational confusion. The tragedy, in the form of bombs, brutality, and machine gun fire, is ubiquitous and equalizing. Everyone is subject to it; white flags and innocence lose meaning.

    But in the midst of this chaos, Theo finds stability in unwavering human bonds, in the power of trust. The meaningful relationships he once lost are made up for; he rekindles his romance with Julian temporarily and serves as a surrogate father for Kee. It is in his constant fight for survival, that Theo is jolted out of fatalism. His mission gives him purpose and courage and restores his hope for humanity. 

Female Objects of Perversity in Phillip Kaufman's Quills (Yasmine)

Phillip Kaufman’s film Quills (2000) takes place in France during the Napoleonic Era in the early 19^th century and focuses on the activities of the Marquis de Sade, a historical figure infamous for his practice of sexual sadism. Having been committed to the Charenton asylum for his “sexual deviancy,” the Marquis publishes salacious pornographic literature to escape the sexual repression forced upon him by the kindly priest, Abbe de Coulmier, and the sadistic asylum physician, Dr. Royer Collard, who both represent a morally oppressive society. Despite depicting sexually liberal women in his books, the Marquis’ intends his female characters to be used and dominated. When describing the acts of sadomasochism, the women are on the receiving end of perversity—merely serving as a device to actualize the Marquis’ devious fantasies. Through his work the Marquis de Sade reveals “the great eternal truths that bind all mankind,” or what the Abbe de Coulmier calls the “worst of man’s nature,” in order to expose the underlying perversity of society and the woman’s role as the object of that perversity.

The opening of the film featuring the beheading of the female aristocrat juxtaposed with shots of the Marquis scribbling words on parchment indicates a correlation between society’s cruelty toward women and de Sade’s fictional works. In a succession of images, the blood of the beheaded aristocratic woman becomes the ink of the Marquis’ pen, indicating his exploitation of female suffering as he turns the aristocrat’s execution into an erotic fiction. The way the Marquis verbally abuses his wife, whom he thinks must “hold [her] tongue, hoist her skirts” and “put her mouth to its one pleasurable use,” further elucidates his own misogyny but also suggests that women must be silent and submit themselves to humiliation. The erotic tales depicting the abuse of women are an exaggerated reflection of the ways in which the Marquis’ society abuses women, binding them and depriving them of their dignity and freedom. In a similar fashion the Marquis’ impromptu play, “Crimes of Love,” intentionally sheds light on the cruel fate of women in a patriarchal society, by poking fun at Dr. Royer Collard’s scandalous marriage to Simone, a girl young enough to be his granddaughter.

The demonstration of Dr. Collard’s domineering behavior towards young Simone gives evidence to the objectification and marginalization of women in 18^th century France who, as the Marquis’ stories suggest, possess little sexual agency while at the disposal of men’s desires. When the film first introduces Simone, the picture of virginal purity in a white dress, her attention to the statue of the Madonna and her look of content suggest that she finds her life in the cloister gratifying. Dr. Royer Collard, a dark and foreboding figure in his black attire, corrupts this sacred and peaceful space with his imposing figure and requests to take his bride who “has not yet come of age.”  Simone’s desires are literally overshadowed by Royer Collard’s purpose for her. By asking the contractor to make Simone’s bedroom door lockable from the outside and to place bars outside her window, Dr. Royer Collard exercises his control of her—caging her like a pet. The following scene in which Collard rapes Simone, Collard forces his expectations on Simone to engage in sexual acts thereby reinforcing an aggressive stereotype of masculinity. Though the people gossip about Royer Collard “pretending to be a God fearing man” and the disturbing age gap between Simone and the Doctor, no one attempts to dispute the union, not the seemingly pious nuns who cared for her or even the Abbe de Coulmier himself. Given that Dr. Royer Collard symbolizes cultural values of restraint, his indiscretion regarding his lecherous and violent desire for Simone as wells as his apparent pleasure for the pain and torture of his patients’ exposes the deviance buried beneath cultural mores.

The Marquis’ play “Crimes of Love” satirizes the duality of societal customs and what he believes is the ineffectiveness and inanity of religious institutions. To play the part of the nun in his play, de Sade employs the acting talent one of the asylum’s most delusional and simple-witted occupants, which signifies the Marquis’ contempt for religious institutions. In the tale mirroring Simone’s journey from the nunnery to her new station with Dr. Royer Collard, the character representing the Doctor publicly violates the inmate playing Simone in numerous ways, and yet the sophisticated audience laughs without empathy. The levity with which the people view the facsimile of Simone’s humiliation contrasted with their eventual disgust again draws attention to the dichotomous nature of a society torn between an interest in depravity and the suppression of such interests. Dr. Royer Collard’s disruption of the performance denotes society’s reluctance to examine its flaws once brought to light—keeping them hidden to maintain a façade of unquestionable uprightness.

 

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"Stephane?" (Ingrid)

    The Science of Sleep (2006), directed by Michel Gondry, is a depiction of life as an indiscernible mix of dreams and reality. From the very start, we are launched into the mind of protagonist Stephane Miroux, who is in the middle of the dream. Stephane’s dreams are a production, literally. We see him working in his “dream studio,” a one-man television show by the name of “Television Educative.” He plays the show’s theme song on the drums and the piano, sets up all the cameras, and serves as the show’s host. By the opening credits, it is obvious The Science of Sleep will not be a conventional film.

    We soon learn that Stephane is moving back into his mother’s home, also his childhood home, in France. His mother has secured a new job for him at a calendar printing company, a place he hopes to expand his artistic visions. It quickly becomes apparent however, that there is no room at the company for his offbeat creativity; his ideas are rejected and he is stuck performing menial tasks like cutting and pasting logos. Stephane’s frustration manifests itself in his dreams, where he fabricates elaborate schemes to seize the company and publish his drawings. Dreaming is his coping mechanism; a way he can make up for his insecurity and thwarted masculinity.

    Stephane is deeply ensconced in the shelter of his self-imposed innocence and infancy, which results in shortcomings in all his relationships. We see his immaturity most obviously in his room, which I think is fair to say, is a direct extension and reflection of himself. Stephane’s room is frozen in time, still bearing all the remnants of his boyhood. The furniture is painted in primary colors, the tiny twin-size bed is covered with racecar-patterned sheets, the walls are decorated with scribbles, and the bookshelves display homemade toy models.

    Stephane eventually develops an interest in his neighbor, Stephanie, after he discovers their mutual interest in art, designing, and building. The first time they spend time alone together, Stephane quickly gets absorbed in Stephanie’s personal art project—a small felt boat. Like a toddler with ADHD, he is easily excitable and easily inspired. His imagination runs wild, and soon, he is sputtering ideas building a forest inside the boat, creating a sea of cellophane, and making a short, animated film out of the production.

    Stephanie and Stephane seem to be on the track towards a picture-perfect, adult relationship—neighbors that fall in love over shared creative visions and projects. In fact they’re so similar, they practically share the same name. And yet, they fail to move forward. The movie is completely devoid of actual sex; it only happens for Stephane’s omnipotent dream-self. Stephane and Stephanie never come close to consummating their partnership; they never even share a bed. Their stunted relationship can almost be entirely attributed to Stephane’s immaturity. Overall, their romance is frustratingly unsatisfying.

(Spin Art. Licensed under Creative Commons at Flickr.)     

    The last line of the movie is perfectly simple. Stephanie approaches a sleeping Stephane and quietly says, "Stephane?" It's the exact question I was asking throughout the film. Because the film is so immersed in Stephane's mind, it was impossible to determine if something is actually happening or if it is yet another fiction concocted by Stephane's imagination. There were scenes where it seemed like real space and time, but then the rules of gravity would suddenly be suspended or blips in time would occur. I could never be sure. As the whimsical, fantastical film continually traverses dreams, reality, and the muddled region where the two intersect, all concrete delineations are blurred. We follow Stephane as he navigates these worlds seamlessly, opening a door in his dream space and entering a room in real space. In many cases, his dreams often invade his real life because he is a hyperactive sleepwalker. The most prominent example of this is when he slides a letter under Stephanie’s door, asking for the phone number of another girl, while sleepwalking—a rude but unintentional gesture that causes a rift in their relationship. Stephane’s inability to distinguish between dreams and reality translates into our inability, as viewers, to follow his true life events. 

    It is in this complex way, that the film progresses cumbersomely. To make things more convoluted, the characters speak in three different languages, English, French, and Spanish. The characters interchange languages when they speak so subtitles flit on and off the screen inconsistently. These are all constant reminders of the warped, fantasy world Gondry has beautifully constructed. 

The Sovereignty of Technology and Mankind’s Oppression in Gen Urobuchi’s Psycho-Pass (Yasmine)

   Imagine a world where your thoughts and emotions were no longer your own under the watchful eye of a tyrannical system—a world in which the state of your mental health could be enough to label you a criminal for life. Such is the world illustrated in the anime crime-thriller TV series Psycho-Pass. In this futuristic setting crime prevention has become more heavy-handed and exact with the advancement of a technological system called Sybil, a super-computer that acts as judge and executioner for people who demonstrate the psychological potential for crime. To appease the machine’s algorithm, citizens anxiously groom their personalities, avoiding stress and negative experiences—essentially becoming slaves to the oppressive technology. Men and women in the Criminal Investigation Bureau (WPSCIB), tasked with protecting the safety of civilians, regard the system like an omnipotent god, obliging the Sibyl System’s judgment even when it means the incarceration or annihilation of civilians who have not yet committed a crime but display a high criminal potential. Instead of merely serving as a tool to maintain peace and promote national wellness the technology’s authority supersedes human institutions of law, undermines the human experience, and denies the potential for growth.

    The prevalence and power of technology makes itself evident when we first become acquainted with the high-tech Japanese city. With a gritty noir style the opening scene of episode one paints a bleak picture of the nighttime cityscape with high contrast lighting and cuts to ominous back alleys. An areal view reveals a mass of moving cars followed by a shot of robot drones monitoring the streets for potential criminals. By contrast, the initial lack of human presence illustrates the dominance of technology. When crowds of people eventually do appear huddled around a crime scene, a downpour of rain obscures their facial expressions conveying a lack of individuality. Hiding behind holograms of large child-faced dolls, the security drones display their authority, successfully blocking the crowd away from the crime scene. The line of robots forming a barrier in front of the unorganized crowd of dazed humans denotes the efficiency and repressive nature of the robots while also signifying the powerlessness of the people who comply with the robots’ commands. The composition demonstrates that like caged cattle the people are fenced in, repressed as they are pushed to the edge of the frame by the holograms towering over them. The arrival of the protagonist and newly appointed Crime Investigator, Akane Tsunemori further elucidates this point as she rushes into the scene before bowing to the robot—an apology as well as a sign of submission. In the absence of a legal system, Sybil reigns supreme.

    As the show progresses, it becomes clear that in order to maintain a safe and ideal society the officers of the law have become tools of technology, relinquishing their own judgment in favor of the Sybil System's black and white system of justice. If the computer judges someone to be a latent criminal, no matter how upstanding their lives, it orders the removal of that individual from society by either lethal or non-lethal means.  The Sybil System exacts this power through Enforcers, latent criminals forced to apprehend other latent criminals, and Investigators like Tsunemori who keep the Enforcers in check. Arriving to the crime scene in a paddy wagon and kept on a tight leash like prisoners, the Enforcers are regarded as subhuman and “bankrupt of moral character” despite appearing normal—a consequence of the Sybil computer’s tyranny.

 

The Dominator--Weapon of The Sybil System from "Psycho-Pass"

 The computer demonstrates a lack of moral bias that although standardized, can hardly be called just. Having outlawed real guns and deeming human beings (even police officers) too unpredictable and irrational, the Sybil System leaves no room for human error. Instead Enforcers and Investigators wield weapons called Dominators, which have a direct connection to the Sibyl system and only fire when the Sybil system decides an individual is a threat. As its name suggests, the Dominator denotes technology’s dominion over human willpower, rationality, and choice. It becomes apparent that the Sybil system substitutes cold logic for human compassion when the Dominator decides a rape victim’s crime coefficient is a potential threat, ordering Tsunemori and her colleagues to kill the woman in the same way they killed her attacker. Tsunemori, the most empathetic character in the series, appears trapped in a tight frame, which restricts her movement as she watches her peers mindlessly obey Sibyl’s commands. While the police officers can choose whether or not to pull the trigger, not doing so is a violation of societal norms and the nature of their work, and therefore a criminal offense. Consequently, the inability to decide the fate of those they aim to protect and the stigma against utilizing their own moral judgment hinders the Crime Investigation Bureau from exacting justice. As the series progresses Tsunemori must reconcile her compassion and earnest desire to protect innocent lives with a system she knows is a necessary evil.  

 

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The Corruption of Nature and the Metamorphosis of the Human Body in American Horror Story:Coven (Yasmine)

    To experience horror is to be so overwhelmed by fear the feeling is almost painful. When experiencing empathic horror as members of an audience, the visceral aversion to monstrous predators such as beasts, ghosts, murderers and rapists committing heinously gory acts of violence and psychological torture can make our fear for the protagonists just as potent as the fear for our own lives. Horror films and television shows most successful at achieving this terrifying effect on its viewers employ formalistic techniques to create visually striking imagery that engages the viewers in such a way they are forced to undergo a plethora of emotions.

     American Horror Story is a television series that truly exemplifies the horror genre with the depth of its dark, twisted plot structures and characters whose moral depravity drives them to perform unspeakable atrocities. Each season of the show is an anthology of horrific events occurring in a single place: a murder house, an asylum, and a witch coven, portraying a cruel world in which evil always triumphs over good. The homicidal ghosts of Murder House, the sadistic caretakers of Asylum, the vengeful witches of Coven, and other morally ambiguous characters reflect only the worst aspects of humanity.

    While every season has thus far possessed paranormal inclinations, the most recent installment of American Horror Story, involving the practice of witchcraft and voodooism, focuses more intensely on the perversion of nature and the loss of humanity. Through the unconventional use of metric and intellectual montage as well as a frightening expressionistic style, the opening titles of American Horror Story: Coven utilizes an amalgamation of abstract visual motifs to eerily foreshadow its themes: the corruption of nature and the monstrous metamorphosis of the human body.

 Intercutting images of forebodingly dressed witches, with hauntingly bizarre forest imagery, the opening title sequence depicts a dark and colorless world in which the occultists have dominion over nature. By definition witchcraft entails the supernatural manipulation and defiance of the natural world. This is evident in the first of a series of jarringly quick jump cuts: a wide shot of witches entering a forest followed by a sudden burst of white mist overwhelming the frame in a similar shot. In this instance the witches’ presence seems to have a mystical and transformative effect on the forest as the grainy image of trees dirt paths become consumed by the blindingly white mist. Several shots later the witches’ slow procession brings a dark aura to a row of trees backlit by a gray mist. The darkness is so profound that the witches’ black robes blend in with their surroundings suggesting a stronger connection to the landscape. Bent at odd angles the tree silhouettes create eerie shapes, resembling gnarled fingers shooting up from the soil; the tree’s transformation from literal to abstract representation signifies the distortion of nature. The startling appearance of a horned, skeletal, winged, and disturbingly humanoid creature further represents the grotesque melding of nature and the occult.

 The composition and mis-en-scène of shots depicting unnaturally distorted human bodies suggest that the landscape is not the only aspect of nature altered by witchcraft. In fact, the witches’ strange costumes alter the form of their bodies. The long black robes have tall pointed hoods that cover their face except for small eye holes. The ambiguous shape produced by the robes’ formlessness and the bizarrely pointy hood obscures the women’s humanity and gives them an otherworldly appearance. Later an image of a backlit female standing in darkness, except for a halo of light around her body, emerges. Like the hood of the witches, the low key lighting conceals the woman’s human features. On the ceiling above, the woman’s body casts a shadow of a bull-like creature, which literally overshadows her smaller form with its size and position in the frame. The bull’s shadow and the ambiguity of the human imply a transition from human to beast. Immediately after an illustration of a large demon devouring humans signifies the annihilation of humanity and supremacy of evil. Between a close up of two slanted tree limbs a human with a mule’s head—an abomination of nature—ambles across the frame. While the human torso is somewhat hidden by the darkness of the forest, the comparatively brighter tones of the mule head serves as a dominant contrast drawing attention away from the human body. The number and speed of cuts increases close ups of the mule head, further emphasizing the bestial half of the hybrid until the metamorphosis is complete and not a trace of humanity remains. ________________________________________________________________________

The Opening Title Sequence of American Horror Story: Coven

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmRXT7w2C1s

All images licensed under CreativeCommons.

 

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The Collision of Coincidence and Fate (Mina)

        Romantic films generally depict relationships and love in an unrealistic way. The male and female protagonists coincidentally meet each other at the right place at the right time and then they fall in love as if it is their destiny. The couple overcome obstacles and declare their love, and the film ultimately ends with a typical “they lived happily ever after” scene. Isshin Inudo’s 2003 film Josee, The Tiger and The Fish and Marc Webb’s 2009 film (500) Days of Summer also combine themes of coincidence and fate; however they refuse to conform to the convention of romantic genre. They point out how people easily fool themselves to misunderstand coincidence as fate. Mainly through the male protagonist’s perspective, these two films display how romance can fail and how love is reevaluated after the end of a relationship.

        In the opening scenes of (500) Days of Summer an omniscient narrator warns us, “this is a story of boy meets girl. But you should know upfront, this is not a love story”. We are then introduced to the male protagonist, Tom, who looks miserable and devastated due to the breakup with his girlfriend. As a twist on stereotypical gender roles, Tom Hansen is the one who falls in love with Summer Finn at first sight. Tom confesses that he believes in soul mates, yet Summer tells him upfront, that she does not believe in such fantastical concepts. Tom is nonetheless convinced that she is his destiny, and this intense feeling propel him forward and makes him harder to understand why Summer, the girl of his dreams, broke up with him.

        Like most failed relationships, Tom holds onto only the good memories. He recalls, for example, the morning after he spent the night with Summer. The film effectively reflects his happiness through a musical scene. Tom joyfully emerges from his apartment building with the soundtrack “You Make My Dreams” playing in the background. Water jets from the fountain (mirrors his bursting emotions), strangers smile at Tom and shakes hand with him. Tom even dances with the whole crowd of people dressed in blue, a color usually associated with purity and sincerity. For Tom, who grew up believing that he’d never truly be happy until the day he meets the “one”, it seems like the whole universe is encouraging his relationship with Summer.

        Tom gradually learns that he can’t hold onto this fantasy. The complete realization comes when he shows up for a party that Summer is hosting. The plot unfolds in split-screen, contrasting the screen projecting Tom’s hopeful expectations with that of the heartbreaking reality. The gap between the two gradually widens, to the point where Tom hastily leaves the party. He becomes aware of the fact that he and Summer will not reunite. Afterwards, Tom becomes mature and rebuilds himself. Tom stops himself from indulging in self-pity, blaming Summer for failing to be his soul mate and meets another woman. This doesn't necessarily imply that he has given up on true love, he still believes in it. He now knows that any romance can end, no matter how much passionate it was. However, Tom doesn’t hesitate to start a new relationship.

        Josee, The Tiger and The Fish opens with a series of snapshots with a voice-over of the male protagonist Tsuneo. In his retrospective moods, he talks about a trip he went with a girl named Josee. The film then goes back to the time when the two first meet by chance and become close friends. Josee, has been crippled most of her life. She lives with her overprotective grandmother who looks after her but regards her as “damaged goods”. Josee seems to also believe that nothing, not even love, can be done to make her life better. The camera often shows her spending time in a closed closet in close-up shots. A small lamp throws a warm light on her face, emphasizing her content in retreating to her own little world. Yet, confined by the closet walls, and surrounded by stacks of books, she looks lonely at the same time. Tsuneo, a college student in his early twenties, is more like Tom from (500) Days of Summer in terms of inmaturity. Tsuneo is more interested in girls than in his studies. Although Tsuneo has feelings for another girl–Kanae–he met from school, he frequently visits Josee. Tsuneo doesn’t make the final step in starting a romantic relationship with her until Josee’s grandmother passes away. Tsuneo promises to stay with her forever. At least at that time, Tsuneo thinks it’s his responsibility, or fate, to “fix” Josee.

        Although Josee and Tsuneo grow closer, Tsuneo notices that Josee is starting to feel like a burden with the passing of time. He recollects, “There were many reasons why we broke up. But, actually, there was only one. I ran away.” Tsuneo, who has thoughtlessly believed that he can be with Josee forever, runs away and returns to his old girlfriend, Kanae. Despite the sadness, the breakup scene is shot flatly. We see Tsuneo in a long shot, brought to his knees, crying. Cars rapidly pass by him, as if the world doesn’t care about his feeling of loss. Tsuneo faces the harsh reality, his life without Josee and the possibility of never seeing her again. Only after he leaves Jossee behind, Tsuneo fully realizes that his feelings weren’t based on charity, but on true love. Tsuneo has changed; he is is able to differentiate love from lust or charity. He understands true love, and the responsibility that follows it.

      Most of our relationships in the real world do not end up in happy endings such as in Pretty Woman (1990) or Serendipity (2001). We rather find ourselves in (500) Days of Summer and Josee and Josee, The Tiger and The Fish, making the wrong choices or following our instincts and emotions that often results in something we didn't expect.

The Male Gaze in Kill Bill (Ingrid)

    More recently, I’ve become increasingly aware of how my filmic interpretations are informed by my gender. As a female viewer, I often perceive the so-called, “male gaze,” in Hollywood films less from feelings of identification (as a male audience member would perhaps experience), but more so from literature I’ve read, films I’ve studied in class, and general societal observations I’ve made on my own. The topic of the “male gaze” in film is a sensitive one; but I think sometimes people are unnecessarily quick to condemn films for female objectification, subordination, and vulnerability. I also believe female objectification is often overemphasized or mischaracterized as being sexually demeaning; I do not think that is always the case. Moreover, the possibility for a “female gaze” is rarely touched upon.

    In re-watching Kill Bill (Quentin Tarantino, 2003), I found that my understanding of the “male gaze” was complicated. The film follows the vindictive mission of a strong female lead, The Bride (played by Uma Thurman). After waking from a four-year coma caused by a bullet to the head on her wedding day, The Bride vows to find and kill every last member of the assassin squad that betrayed her. Though the cinematic portrayal of the Bride, particularly towards the beginning of the film, suggests male dominance with many tightly framed fetishistic shots, the narrative is one of female empowerment. The Bride also progressively achieves command of the camera.

    The film opens with the most disturbing of diegetic sounds—the uncontrollable panting of a female. Reminiscent of the start of Kiss Me Deadly (Robert Aldrich, 1955), the heavy, ragged breathing of a petrified female protagonist is one of the most visceral and disarming sounds in cinema. Overlaid with the opening credits on black, the female protagonist, who we later realize is “The Bride,” is first introduced to us by her pained gasping. Faceless and voiceless, her character is diminished at the start of the film. The scene then cuts to a black and white shot of the Bride. The harsh, high contrast lighting in the close up of her agonized expression is unflattering. Her face is glistening with inky blood, beads of sweat, and streaks of tears. Following this is a tracking shot of cowboy boots, striding towards the wounded Bride; the Bride’s whimpering is ever-present in the background. When the shot switches back to the Bride, her close-up is intruded by Bill’s boot in the bottom-right corner. Cower as she may, we presume Bill is hovering over her sadistically, with locked eye contact, observing his violent work. He proceeds to patronizingly wipe the blood from her face while apathetically explaining the motives for what he is about to do—shoot her, point-blank, in the head. Pinned to the ground by her sustained injuries, the Bride is unwillingly but completely subject to Bill’s brutality.  

    However, as the film progresses, we encounter a divergence. Along with the developments in the narrative—the Bride has embarked on her vengeful mission—we also see a distinct change in the shooting style. As exemplified by many of the kung-fu sequences, the formidable Bride demands control of the camera, and engages the audience in an awe-inspiring way. The film, which focuses a great deal on professional violence, in particular that of the martial arts, becomes a celebration of the human body. In these blood-gushing, horrific fights sequences, the Bride is superhuman. Wearing a distinct yellow jumpsuit and armed with a lethal samurai sword, she is transformed into a weapon; her agility and rigor are unparalleled. After slaying O-Ren Ishii’s entire horde of protectors, she stands over them victoriously on the railing of the upper level. In a low-angle full shot, she pronounces, “Those of you lucky enough to still have your lives, take them with you! But leave the limbs you have lost. They belong to me now.” She is empowered by the shot; her stature is overbearing and omnipotent. Here, Tarantino shows us how there are instances where the spectacle of the female body is not sexualized, but revered.

    Kill Bill offers a fascinating take on the male gaze in cinema. While the Bride, especially towards the start of the film when she is injured or in a comatose state, is often confined to the pressuring rectangle of the frame, truncated and expressed as parts of her body, she retains control of the camera and restores her agency in many of the impressive kung-fu sequences. The male gaze is undeniably present in Kill Bill, but can be decoded to either uphold, contest, or qualify its standard interpretation.

A Different Take on Dreams and Nightmare in 1988's Alice (Steven)

Jan Švankmajer’s 1988 film Alice, one of many adaptations of Lewis Carroll’s well-known work, mixes stop-motion and live action footage to depict an unsettling, dream-like Alice in Wonderland. Jan’s Wonderland is an old house. Both timeless and inconstant, it’s a place where cracked walls repair themselves and threadbare creatures sew holes back up. Each shot is cramped and detailed. Jan focuses on objects and poses rather than vistas or facial expressions. The Wonderland house resembles a twisted I Spy book with its piles of wooden toys, bones, tattered cloth, sawdust, and leaves.

Unlike many dream-inspired films, the sensations in Alice are rooted and immediate. There are no psychedelic washes of color or vague mists here: it’s a world of sharp sounds and sharp corners. Jan achieves strangeness not through otherworldly imagery but by placing and attaching familiar things in unfamiliar ways. This collage-like method reflects the laziness of our subconscious. Rarely are dreams original creations of our minds; instead, they steal ideas and images from our waking lives and put them together in often nonsensical ways.

Jan is eerily in tune with the tones of our childhood dreams, and he’s not afraid to present an honest portrait of them. There’s no shortage of nightmare in the film. The sounds, which, of course, can’t be traditionally produced due to the stop animation, always feel a little louder and more staccato than they need to be. Even in the cases where a normal recording of the sounds of the scene could have been used, Jan often uses a similar sound from a completely different origin, as when Alice claps her hands and produces a noise much harsher and shriller than a normal clap. This sharp soundtrack heightens the unease of creepy moments, but the unfamiliarity also makes the watcher listen more consciously to sounds which might otherwise have gone unnoticed. There’s no score outside of the title credits, but sometimes these noises approach musique concrète in their rhythmic insistency.

While there are no jump scares or gore, the film does not have a dearth of visual creepiness, either. Death, decay, and violence reoccur as motifs. Skulls hatch from chicken eggs and scuttle into the shadows, skeletal chimeras march along dirty floors, and a flank of steak flops to a new hiding spot when disturbed. The “Drink Me” bottle not only makes Alice small, it also turns her into an uncanny doll. In one scene, the minified Alice is forced by dead animals to walk the plank into a pot of milk, which turns out to be another transformative liquid with an unsettling effect: Alice grows again, but instead of a girl or a doll she becomes a girl entombed alive in a doll-shaped sarcophagus.

Taste, or more accurately hunger, is also a consistent theme both in Jan’s adaptation and in the original book. In Alice, the white rabbit is introduced as a taxidermied specimen in Alice’s room. It creaks itself free of the supports and chatters incessantly through big yellow teeth. It greedily licks sawdust from the timepiece it keeps lodged inside its own body cavity. Once in Wonderland, Alice tries to eat anything that looks edible, but jelly jars are filled with tacks and nails sprout from loaves of bread, and most of the things she does manage to consume coincide with the size-changing substances from the book. Her narration is frequently paired with extreme close-up shots of her mouth pronouncing the words. Hunger is an astute choice from Lewis Carroll, as young children think about it quite often, both inside and outside of sleep. Jan Švankmajer makes sure to point out that they also think of death and violence more than most adults would like to admit.

Alice manages to marry creepiness with wonder in its surrealist exploration. As with most of Jan’s work, the film carries with it a dose of absurdist humor. He breaks the fourth wall early in the film with an odd bit of narration from Alice’s lips: “Now you will see a film… made for children. Perhaps.” A film for brave children, perhaps, or a film for adults to think and dream and have nightmares as kids for an hour.

Losing Self, Redefining Self (Ingrid)

    Rust and Bone (2012) is a penetrating meditation on the physical human body—what constitutes it and what it contributes to our psyche. The film consistently fixates on body parts: in a tightly framed extreme close-up of a woman's nape, in a truncated view of a man's muscular torso, in an all-exposing shot of a breasts, in an extreme close-up of battered fists. All these merciless truncations give us a consciousness of our bodies’ physical limitations. While our bodies’ are ours’, they are just as much subject to our environment.

    The first time we are introduced to the woman, Stéphanie (played by Marion Cotillard), she is lying on the concrete, the result of a bar fight. The high-angle shot is only of her legs, accentuated by her black, strappy heels. The scene then cuts to a close-up of her. Despite her bloody nose and dazed expression, she is undeniably attractive—a complete image of a sexy woman.

    That is, until an accident changes everything. She loses her legs, knees-down and embarks a wandering journey of acceptance, with the help of an unexpected friend, Ali (played by Matthias Schoenaerts). Prior to the accident, Stéphanie is emphatically physical. An orca trainer at an oceanarium, she spends her days commanding with hand signals and performing elaborate routines for visitors. From the impression we get when we first meet her, we can assume she spends her nights at clubs, dancing with strangers.

(Girl's Barefoot Legs. Licensed under Creative Commons at Flickr.)    

    The accident creeps up on us. In the middle of show, an orca hurls its six-ton body onto the stage. The stage crumbles and submerges into the water. Along with it, goes Stéphanie. In a horrifying underwater shot, wires and grates sink out of the frame. What’s left behind is a sole human body, eerily silhouetted, surrounded by unnaturally blue water and floating debris. From the angle it is shot, Stéphanie’s body is completely warped, her limbs appear alien and blood darkens the water around her. It’s a grisly and isolating shot.

    When Stéphanie awakes in the hospital, her realization is heart wrenching to watch. After frantically groping around for her missing legs and falling off her hospital bed, we see the overwhelming emotion in her twisted expression. It is an utter sadness that is terrifyingly out-of-body, a disbelief that is paralyzing. Her tragedy brings her back to infancy in a way, back to Lacan’s mirror stage. Her constitution of self is irrevocably altered. She has to redefine the boundaries of her body and accept a new set of physical possibilities. On top of that she has to learn how to move in her new condition, how to maneuver a wheelchair, and eventually, how to walk using prosthetic legs.

    The first time Ali and Stéphanie spend time together after the accident unravels into a beautifully transcendent scene. Up until Ali’s visit, Stéphanie has been cooping herself up in her apartment for weeks. After seeing her state, Ali insists they go outside. He takes her to the beach. Although Stéphanie is hesitant at first, she eventually enters the water with Ali’s help. The shot that follows is in striking contrast with the disturbing underwater shot from the accident. Here, the rippling water is dazzling in the sunset. Stéphanie is overjoyed, floating on her own, her leg stumps bobbing in water. This isolation has a completely different feel than the previous shot; it is a one of liberation and release. We see in her, a distinct transformation as she begins to gain an awareness of her body in another way.

     Rust and Bone takes us on a gritty, emotional ride as it tries to understand not just what it means to lose something but what it means to lose something that is so inherently, so biologically, yours. It is perhaps the hardest experience to go through. Stéphanie’s revival is definitely a struggle worth watching. 

Diseased Love: The Perils of Codependency in William Friedkin’s Bug (Yasmine)

The ideal romantic relationship involves mutual understanding, interdependence, and personal growth. However, to love is to risk one’s own identity, for loving another is often a transformative experience.  Those willing to fall in love may find their sense of self so thoroughly entwined with another’s, their own wants, needs, and aspirations become secondary to their partner’s. In William Friedkin’s psychodrama, Bug, a lonely waitress and former victim of domestic abuse named Agnes becomes romantically involved with Peter, a brooding, intellectual war veteran whose unconventional thoughts and behavior gradually alter Agnes’ view of the world.  Prone to codependency and wanting to escape her world of loneliness and fear, Agnes allows Peter’s ominous obsession to subsume her own identity.

The visual tone established in the first few scenes that introduce Agnes’ character reveals her loneliness and vulnerability. In an aerial shot the camera gradually glides over a vast and empty landscape before honing in on a small motel isolated in the middle of the desert. With the exception of the occasional car driving on a nearby road, the area seems to be devoid of human life until Agnes’ tiny figure becomes more visible. A subsequent wide angle shot of her standing alone outside of her motel room, further emphasizes her isolation. The overwhelmingly empty surroundings, the trees surrounding the motel, and the building itself seem to obstruct Agnes’ connection to the outside world. A blue neon light envelops the entire area including Agnes’s body, setting a somber tone and signifying her unhappiness. Extremely small compared to other elements in the frame Agnes’ faceless form seems insignificant and devoid of an identifiable self. While leaning on one of the motel’s columns, staring up at the sky she gives the impression that she lacks the ability to stand on her own. The dark sky above and the ground below which dominate the frame imprison in this desolate reality. After entering her small living space, Agnes she is plagued by passive aggressive phone calls from her violent ex-husband, who only breathes on the other line. Agnes’s inability to ignore these messages and the increasingly tight framing of shots which ultimately becoming extreme close-ups focusing on the terror in her eyes demonstrate Agnes’s fear, lack of agency, and susceptibility to manipulation. Undoubtedly in need of rescuing and a resurgence of self-esteem Agnes invites Peter and mysteriously dark presence into her life, body, and mind.   

When Agnes is introduced to Peter for the first time, the shifting proximity of the characters illustrate the hasty development of their relationship, while the dark atmosphere foreshadows a foreboding union between them.  Initially, Agnes makes her mistrust of Peter apparent when she says she “[doesn’t] know him” and that “he could be an axe murderer.” A succession of shot reverse shots between Agnes and Peter accentuate the personal distance between them, as neither character shares the same space. By the time Agnes and Peter do share space in the frame, Peter stands in the background a blurry, enigmatic figure bathed in the blue light of the motel exterior, while Agnes stands in the foreground, untouched by the blue light, far away, and seemingly oblivious to his presence. Agnes’ progression toward Peter in the medium two shot places her in the blue light, marking the beginning of their emotional connection. Peter admits that he wants to see Agnes again after they have both moved to a secluded and dark area obscured by trees. In this moment the high contrast lighting shrouds Agnes in darkness while casting large, harsh shadows on Peter’s face, suggesting that Agnes is literally in the dark about Peter’s mysteriously ominous disposition. The abrupt cut from a close-up of Peter’s face to a painting in Agnes’ motel room indicates a relationship between Peter and picture. This painting at first glance seems to depict a sun setting on a house by an ocean with beautiful flowers. However, closely examining the picture, one might notice that the ocean is full of sharks and in context appears to be blood red rather than sunset-colored. As Peter says, the painting “has hidden stuff in it” very much like his own seemingly quiet and withdrawn persona. Unfortunately, Agnes does not take the time look hard enough, and invites Peter to stay with her, having known him for less than a day.  

The juxtaposition of shots in the film’s only love scene between Peter and Agnes fuses the characters together in a bizarre way and exhibits the beginning of their shared obsession. Flashes of flesh and overlaid shots of limbs superimposed on top of each other appear disturbing rather than sensual, accentuating the construction of Peter and Agnes’ shared identity. Peter’s hands are a dominating force, which manipulate Agnes’ movement and most importantly the placement of her head, alluding to Peter’s power over her mind. An overhead fan, overlaid on top of the lovers’ joined bodies, whirls in a circular, choppy motion as though it is both blending and cutting Agnes and Peter to pieces. Their minds and lives are now irrevocably intertwined. The love scene ends with an extreme close-up, a non-diegetic insert of an insect emerging from a cocoon, indicating the birth of Peter’s obsession with “the bug” and his parasitic attachment to Agnes.  Having established their relationship, Agnes sees what Peter wants her to see, a world of paranoia and fear.The development of Agnes and Peter’s bizarre romance insinuates that love can be a contagious disease binding two lovers in a dark and twisted reality.

 

 

Motion as a Foundation: Len Lye's Free Radicals (Steven)

Len Lye, an artist from New Zealand, endeavored to treat motion as a foundational element of art, much like color or sound. With this idea in focus, he created works in a number of mediums, including kinetic sculpture, poetry, painting, and film. In many of his films, he employed direct animation: manually scratching or painting the film. While he wasn't the first to use this technique, he was largely responsible for its rise out of complete obscurity following his release of A Colour Box in 1935.

In the four-minute short Free Radicals, which Lye first released in 1958 and then finished in 1979, white etchings in black film leader throb to a drum and vocal solo performed by the Bagirmi tribe of Chad. Free radicals are unstable and reactive chemical species. Of course, the title can also be read as radicals who are free, and Lye's attempt to realize a new movement-based medium is certainly non-traditional. Lye's frames are bonded to the tradition and regularity of the music, but, at the same time, such a rhythmically-focused art form may also have been different and new to many in his audiences. As the title might suggest, the forms Lye creates are incessantly unstable. They writhe and contort until blinking into blackness, lasting between several seconds and a single frame. 

Lye complements the tones and timbres of the music with his animation. The vocals are accompanied by long, swaying lines which reach from the bottom to top of the screen, reflecting the rich, full tones of the vocalist. The more staccato drumbeats receive smaller jagged lines. Lye uses many different instruments to scratch the film, and the resultant textures also tie in to the associated music, with vocal lines being smoother than drum lines.

The most striking element of the film is the hypnotically convincing animation of the forms. Curved lines are projected into space through the emulation of rotation: narrowing sections become more and more foreshortened until they disappear and appear again, reversed, on the other side of the form. Even without the rigid constraints of perspective drawing, simple lines are given shape and mass. The lines bulge and twist around one another, responding and reacting to the beat of the music. Shortly after the halfway point in the film, the only line currently on screen grows and explodes into dozens of tiny strokes, which give way to yet more lines, these sinuous and fat.

In the last minute of the film, events begin to pass more hurriedly. Lines rush towards each other from either side of the screen and meld into one, asterisk-like constructs warp from location to location and then disintegrate into toothy lines, and brushy textures coalesce into dots. There's a sensation of ritualistic intensity and the indeterminate scope of the forms becomes evident: are these forms subatomic particles, bolts of lightning, or galaxies? Foremost, they are motion and light, and anything else is more suggestion than symbolism.

For the most part, Lye's other films employ a greater variety of colors and shades. There is a particular rawness and power to his approach in Free Radicals, though. The dichromatic, spare style strips away everything but the sensation of movement and sound, yet the film is far from the austere perfectionism of many minimalists. It's a primeval, kinesthetic minimalism, closer to cave paintings than to Piet Mondrian. The gritty, imperfect scratches reinforce the idea that this film represents the first few stumblings into a new artform, or rather, one which had always been hiding in film, waiting for Len Lye to recognize, extract, and purify it.

Life is Cinema (Mina)

    Leos Carax's Holy Motors (2012) is a film about a film. But what exactly is "film?" How can we define cinema? Carax tries to answer these questions by blurring the boundary line between real life and film, between the real and the imaginary through Holy Motors. When the two intersect we are able to realize that our life, our reality is essentially a performance.

    Carax believes the essence of film is acting and performing by using one's physical body. From 19th century Etienne-Jules Marey's chronophotographic gun to today's ditigal technology, the cinema has been developing for over 130 years. The improvement of machinery enabled mass production in the film industry, makeing more films accessible to the society. The epilogue of Holy Motors starts with brief clips of a running man. Next we see a mysterious man waking up and discovering a secret door hidden in the wall in his apartment room. He enters a crowded, yet silent movie house. The eyes of the audience are closed, their bodies stiff; they almost look dead. The opening clips in the beginning of the epilogue belong to Etienne-Jules Marey, a French physiologist who conducted numerous studies on human body and motion. His clips thus convey a tone of nostalgia of earlier days of the film industry. Unlike the passive, mechanical movements of the audience, the man in the clips carries out active physical performancs. The mystery man (played by Carax, the director himself) looks feeble, so small in front of the huge movie screen. In all, I believe the epilogue celebrates the development of the cinema, but simultaneously points out the lack of physical movement in today's digitalized films and the passiveness of the audience.

    Carax's affection for pure physical performance continues to be shown in the character named Oscar in the next nine episodes (divided into Act I and Act II). Act I of the episodes focuses on portraying the beauty of performing. Oscar comes out of his luxurious house, posing himself as a wealthy businessman. His assistant Céline is waiting for him in a limousine. She tells Oscar that he has nine "appointments" in that day. For his first appointment, Oscar dresses up as an old beggar in the streets. We directly see Oscar combing a wig and putting makeup on his face before he act. In the next sequence, he is a motion capture actor who vividly performs a simulated sex with an actress (which once again underlines the digitalized technology in film). The importance of the use of body constantly reappears in the sequences.

In Act II, acting starts to pervade the real life. Act II, the boundary line that differentiates the real world and the cinema fades away. In the fifth and sixth sequence, for example, Oscar "kills" people who look identical to him and Oscar himself also gets "murdered" by others. At the end, however, Oscar returns to the limousine, alive, and gets ready for his next appointment as if nothing happened. When we saw the sequences in Act I, where he assumes the role of a beggar or a motion capture actor, we were fairly certain that what Oscar is doing is “acting”; in other word, it is not real. Now, we are no longer certain if this is real or not. We now recall the first time Oscar we met in Holy Motors. We believed that when he walked out of his house, he was the true version of Oscar. Every role Oscar has appears looks real and unreal at the same time. The act of making distinction between reality and film becomes useless. The prologue of Holy Motors further completes the identification of the real world and the unreal world. Céline drives the limousine to the Holy Motors garage then she places a mask as if she readying herself for a performance. As soon as we believe this eventually might be the end of the fantasy, another fantasy appears. The reality is then inseparable from the cinema, the fantasy.

    Oscar transforms into a different person each time he gets out of his limousine; the limousine is the movie theater, and also the place where film is made. Moreover, at the end of the prologue, the limousines talks to one another, expressing their fears that they may be considered outdated and unwanted. As we hear the discription, "outdated", we might be able to think about the Lumière Brothers’ train. In the 19th century, the screening of a train itsef was an exciting spectacle for the audience. But now, trains are "outdated". They are old, bulky, just as the limousines. Ultimately the limousines represent the one of the earliest cameras, the earliest period of the cinema history. Taking Oscar from one place to another, the whole travel and distance indicates the passage of time in the film industry.

    Through the prologue and epilogue which starts and ends Holy Motors, we realize we are the lifeless audience from the prologue. We also realize life is a mask, a mask is an act, an act is a movement, and movement is the "motor" of cinema, the causation which makes film appear beautiful. Within this interconnection, we find deep awe and beauty. Life is cinema.

Hushpuppy's Search for Sense and Strength (Ingrid)

     I watched Beasts of the Southern Wild a month after it came out in the summer of 2012. I’ve seen it probably five times since, and every time, without fail, it warms my heart. Every shot brings out the enchanting simplicities and eccentricities of an unconventional family living in very gritty destitution.

     Hushpuppy (played by Quvenzhané Wallis), a young member of a bayou community called the Bathtub, narrates the film. She lives there with her father, Wink (played by Dwight Henry), whose untraditional, borderline negligent, parenting style molds her into a passionate, perceptive, strong young spirit. Hushpuppy’s beloved Bathtub is cut off from civilization and untouched by commercial industry. Its people are self-sufficient; living off the land. As Hushpuppy says, “We is who the Earth is for.”

     But besides the physical levee isolating Hushpuppy from the rest of the world, there also exists a more intangible divide—a fundamental difference in character that could never assimilate. Her wildness and free spirit belong and thrive only within her vivacious, isolated community. Hushpuppy cannot be more than five or six years old. Her youth comes out in the imperfections in her movements, skinny limbs, and slurred speech. She still possesses a natural, child-like clumsiness as she stumbles around pants-less in her oversized boots. But despite her youth, Hushpuppy is extremely tough. There’s a primitive ferocity in her eyes and her lion-mane hair and piercing screech reveal something feral in her. The camera often lingers on extreme close-ups of her. In dignified silence, she is able to convey a wide range of genuine emotions—fiery determination, meditative serenity, and unshakable confidence.

     The film is driven by pure emotions. The people in this film, stripped bare of all material things, experience forms of organic fear, willpower, and untainted love that are reflected by the distinctive shooting style. The handheld camera shots reflect a level of realism that I particularly appreciated. It’s not perfect; there are shots that are unorganized, blurry and sometimes even indistinguishable, but they emulate a child’s stream of consciousness and occasional feeling of disorientation.

     Hushpuppy’s universe comes crumbling down when Wink is struck with a debilitating illness. As she rushes for help, her situation is worsened when she receives news of an impending storm that threatens to flood her home. While other members of the Bathtub are quick to evacuate, Wink, despite his sickness, insists on staying, and attempts to convince some neighbors to hold their ground as well. Over night, Hushpuppy and Wink’s tiny wooden shack is rattled by the rumbling thunder and pelted by ruthless rain. When they awake in the morning, the scene is heartbreaking; the Bathtub is completely swamped. But what the post-disaster Bathtub lacks in material luxuries is made up for in incontestable solidarity and teeming spirit. An unspoken social contract and a strong sense of ownership bind the group together.

     “The whole universe depends on everything fitting together just right,” Hushpuppy says. Even without a formal education, she has a penetrating intuition that is well beyond her years. She also has an uncanny connection with any and all living beings and spends her time constantly pondering and deciphering their heartbeats. Her constant search for patterns and sense in the universe align with her acceptance of her father’s ailing condition. In this journey, she is lead towards self-awareness and responsibility, self-reliance and identity.

     The entire film resolves in a beautiful and magical metaphor. The Beast of the Southern Wild is manifested in many different forms throughout the film. It is the melting icecaps of the South Pole that submerge the Bathtub under water. It is the awakened Auroch, a ruthless mythical creature that comes for you the moment it smells weakness. By the end of the film, it is Hushpuppy that emerges as the Beast of the Southern Wild, the King of the Bathtub—steadfast, independent, and strong. 

Attack On Titan: The Preservation and Destruction of Social Order (Yasmine)

A society is typically formed by a group of individuals interconnected by shared values, norms, and culture.  Members of a society maintain social order by reinforcing established customs to keep its members in check and ensure stability.  In the emotionally charged Japanese anime, Attack on Titan, humanity struggles to keep its society in tact as humanoid giants called Titans relentlessly devour humans, forcing mankind to hide behind fifty-meter walls to save themselves from extinction. In the beginning of the series, the idealistic protagonist, Eren Yeager dreams of a free life outside the walls, contradicting the mores of his society which prefers a life of containment to certain death.  The barriers which humans have erected to escape annihilation become both a sanctuary and a prison for the kingdom, signifying society’s propensity toward social constraint and fear of that which disrupts social order.

The three walls: Wall Maria, Rose, and Sina exemplify the way in which societies rely on social structure for stability and containment of its members. The story’s narrator explains that since its creation not a single Titan has been able to infiltrate Wall Maria, thus inspiring social tranquility.  With its immense height and enduring structure made of solid stone, the one-hundred-year-old wall epitomizes permanence and security. An aerial view of the Zhiganshina District enclosed in Wall Maria reveals a somewhat medieval society with an organized collection of homes and markets.  The carefree social interactions amongst the townspeople, the trading of goods in the market, presence of families, children playing, and a laid back police force give evidence to the sense of peace and stability humanity experiences within the walls.  In contrast, the outside world and the Titans who rampage in it are equated with chaos and cultural genocide.

The Titans’ place on the fringe of society, their incomprehensibly monstrous behavior, as well as their unorthodox appearance makes them the antithesis of civilization and societal control. Though the Titans resemble bipedal humanoids, their gargantuan size, nudity, and deformity immediately sets them apart from the civilized humans inside the walls. Despite shambling about aimlessly in groups, the Titans do not conform to any preconception of a uniformly functioning community. The Titans’ zeal for devouring people and wiping out humanity for no discernable reason makes them a hideous blight on human progress and a potential disruption of social order. Since Titans do not need to consume people to sustain their own existence, humanity assumes the Titans’ singular motivation is the eradication of human life and culture. With Titans possessing neither a complex language system, nor a means of governing themselves their actions are unpredictable and symbolically anarchistic. In this sense Titans are more than just a threat to human lives; the terror they instill jeopardizes the social glue that keeps society from falling apart.  The Titans’ resemblance to humans makes their murderous actions more disturbing, suggesting that without social control and stability the illusion of peace would falter and humanity would succumb to an existence of endless conflict and violence amongst its own members. To spare society from the Titans’ negative influence, humanity heavily guards what is left of its customs, placing an exaggerated emphasis on the necessity for containment within the walls to keep curious members from the lawless world beyond.

Although the three walls surrounding this human civilization safeguard the communities from the uncivilized outside world, they also imprison them, limiting their perceptions. The dynamics of the insular kingdom demonstrate how the walls are heavily embedded within the social structure of humanity’s sequestered survivors. A priest travels the districts of Wall Rose shouting praises and personifying the wall as though it were a savior and a god, exhibiting the wall’s influence on the citizens’ religious and cultural life. It becomes evident that any mention of life beyond the wall is considered culturally taboo when Eren’s friend Armin expresses a desire for humanity to explore territories outside the wall and is consequently harassed by a group who accuses him of heresy. This shaming ritual and other methods of social correction: such as ridicule and shunning perpetuate an isolationist mentality, a fear of change, and a dangerously irrational optimism. As Eren says, humanity’s fear of the outside world has made it like “ignorant cattle” merely “surviving” but unable to live or control the terms of its existence.  Like cattle the inhabitants of Wall Maria were unprepared for the slaughter.

The sudden appearance of the first 60-meter “Colossal Titan” looming menacingly over the wall literally paralyzes society, as citizens of Wall Maria stand still and helpless beneath the Titan’s powerful gaze.  With a mighty kick, the Colossal Titan breaks the barrier, instantly mangling the carefully constructed society. As citizens scramble to escape the horde of Titans, homes, families, and social order are destroyed as Wall Maria crumbles. This indicates humanity's lack of control, the inevitability of change, and society’s need to adapt to it. Once again humans must flee the Titans; the “humiliation of being kept in a cage” intensifies as they retreat to the more confining inner walls, desperately seeking structure which, like Wall Maria, has fallen apart almost beyond repair. In order to save themselves, the people must learn to accept and face the threat of the Titans head on if they ever hope to reclaim what they have lost. 

Stroszek: Truth and Power (Steven)

Stroszek, Werner Herzog's 1977 tragic comedy, concerns the lives of three friends: Bruno, a street musician; Eva, a prostitute; and Scheitz, an older retiree. It begins with Bruno's release from prison in Berlin and an attack from Eva's pimps and tracks the friends as they try to make a new life in Wisconsin, where Bruno becomes employed with Scheitz's nephew Clayton. While Scheitz is an old eccentric, Bruno comes across as innocent (in both the usual sense and the more archaic meaning of mentally ill), if we can ignore the inherent ridiculousness of using that term to describe an alcoholic who has lived through prison and learned how to get by as an accordion player in Berlin's grimy squares. Eva has a more average outlook, but as the bills in Wisconsin pile up she becomes increasingly apathetic and depressed, spending many of her shots eating on the bed or couch or being forced back into her old job as prostitute. The hopeless defiance with which she thrusts one of their last payments at the man who collects their bills contrasts harshly with the happiness we saw when she got the money for the trip to America. Both of these sums come from what seems like the only way the impoverished friends can make any upward strides against their debts: Eva's prostitution. Bruno certainly never appears to make much money at all, and it's possible Clayton is underpaying him.

In Stroszek, Herzog explores the boundary between truth and fiction in an unusual way. While he implements many documentary-like techniques, such as a lack of saturation, a quick and low-budget shooting, a cast of non-professional actors who often play as themselves, an impartial, almost indifferent gaze, and a tarnished, peeling-paint realism, the plot is bizarre and dream-like and the characters, especially Bruno and Scheitz, bring with them an atmosphere of unpredictability. This juxtaposition lets a bleak film double as a very watchable comedy. In one scene, Scheitz walks along a grain-surrounded fence, testing the wood with a voltmeter. He comes across two American hunters and asks, in German, whether he can test a strange theory about “animal magnetism”. The bemusement we share with the hunters, who react naturally (and were probably not actors), is what makes the scene so humorous. They play along, not understanding German, but we know that even if they did it wouldn't matter since Scheitz's theory is so incomprehensible.

A Farm in Wisconsin. Licensed under CC at wikimedia commons.

When viewing Stroszek as a documentary, we naturally search for a slant. The most obvious one is its indictment, perhaps not of capitalism itself, but of its tendency to build and reinforce income and power inequalities. To build upon this premise, Herzog inverts many of the promises of America and wealth. The friends' tragic arc is a sad shadow of the American dream, and the predatory tendencies brought about by power are revealed through pimps' harassment, through an immigration office's confiscation of Bruno's bird (which occurs off-screen and gives Bruno yet another darkly funny line), and through the gleam from the gold rings of a painfully apologetic “man from the bank”. The auction, a staple representative of citizens' purchasing power, acts as a ruthless reminder of these cruelties. Rather than the fine art or antiques auctions so often portrayed in film, this one is for the humble prefabricated house on which Bruno and Scheitz have been unable to keep up with the payments. As the auction ends, Bruno walks aimlessly backwards with his usual inscrutable expression, homeless, while dogs cross the scene looking for food or attention. It's winter still and everything is a dull brown smeared with white and the trees are leafless against the drab sky. 

So Many Firsts (Ingrid)

    

    There’s nothing glossy about The Charles Theater. Look up, and you’ll see exposed rafters and piping. Look left and right, and you’ll see water-damaged brick walls, worn-out furniture, and antiquated film equipment. The decorations—the larger-than-life sized penguin statue and the smaller-than-life sized stuffed leopard donning sunglasses—do not make much sense. The Charles is not glamorous; it doesn’t pander. Its aura suggests history. It’s authentic, it’s simple; it exists for quality film.

    Last weekend was a weekend of firsts for me. I did something I do, well, never. I ventured beyond the Hopkins bubble and dabbled in the Baltimore film community. I regret not having done so earlier. In fact, this was my first real theater experience in Baltimore (a pathetic confession from a Film and Media Studies major).

    How coincidental that on a weekend of firsts for me, I chose to watch a movie all about firsts. The Spectacular Now (2013), directed by James Ponsoldt, centers around Sutter Keely (played by Miles Teller) and Aimee Finecky (played by Shailene Woodley), two seniors in high school, who, during this limbo period of life, find each other. The film highlights their coming-of-age events: Aimee’s first sip of alcohol, her first time having sex, Sutter’s first encounter with his estranged dad, his first identity crisis, and their first tastes of independence and responsibility, their first experience with true love. But it’s not a perfect love. Sutter is far from sure about a single aspect of his life. His relationship with Aimee is no exception. His confusion is one we all can remember; a confusion we’ve all resolved at some point in our lives in the same way Sutter does—with the motto, “living in the now.” It’s a naiveté everyone can relate to.

    At every stage in life, your perception of time is constantly morphing. During childhood, every day is a countdown to the next birthday, the first day of school, the next performance, musical recital, or little-league game. When it comes time for high school, you anticipate new things. Life becomes measured by part-time jobs, by proms, by relationships. But at the same time, your life begins to feel like a waiting game, qualified by the impending reality of college and of the future. “I don’t see what’s so great about being an adult. Are you happy?” Sutter says to his geometry teacher, who is reprimanding him on his failure to perform in class. It’s a strange thing to have to accept—to have to grow up and learn when things like high school geometry seem inapplicable to real world situations.

    A big part of what makes this film so convincing is the casting. Sutter Keely and Aimee Finecky look like us. They could have easily been in our high school class. Shailene Woodley is not made-up. Her long, unkempt hair is tied up messily for half the film; her clothing is bland, and almost always wrinkled. On top of that, her performance is believable. In tight close-ups, we notice every slight change in expression. We see her nervous eyes darting around, every spasm in her cheeks, her insecure gestures; we hear the uncertainty in her voice, her timid giggles between sentences. Our heart goes out to Aimee when we discover her dad passed away from a drug overdose and she works six days a week running a paper route for her mother to pay half the bills. Despite her dreams of moving to Philadelphia and attending college there, she is pressured to stay at home to help support her family. The overall depiction is stunningly real.

    Opposite Aimee, is Sutter, a character who I found extremely interesting. At eighteen, he is still a boy in every sense of the word. His carefree youth is apparent: his baby cheeks, his acne, his voice cracks, his early and irresponsible predilection for whiskey. He comes from a broken family; a home where his mom works double-shifts and keeps any information about his missing dad and the divorce away from him. Despite this, Sutter has an adolescent cockiness, an easy-going, class-clown attitude that makes him undeniably charming. It’s intriguing because he puts on this devil-may-care, invincible façade and yet is arguably the most clueless, troubled, and emotional character in the film. He avoids conversations about the future at all costs. It takes an unlikely companionship with Aimee and an eye-opening encounter with his dad to help him find direction.

    One particularly touching scene for me is the long take of Aimee and Sutter’s conversation through the woods. Their stream of consciousness conversation begins innocent but deepens, as they share their hindered desires and unstable familial relationships. It develops into a beautifully natural and awkward exchange about their experiences with relationships and ends with their first kiss. This stereotypically epic and pivotal moment is instead, portrayed with subtlety, composed of only diegetic sounds and crafted in a way that doesn’t linger or exaggerate. This is one of the many sweet and true moments of the film.

    The emotional climax is when Sutter reconnects with his long-lost dad. Sutter’s hopes are high. His idolization of his dad manifests in a built-up fantasy based on all the good memories from his childhood. The meeting, however, is disappointing from the start. When Sutter shows up at his dad’s shabby condo, a disheveled, unshaven, tapped-out man answers the door. Sutter’s dad openly forgets that they had made plans over the phone and appears unexcited to be reunited with his son. It only goes downhill from there. Their conversation continues at a local bar, where his dad remains uninterested the whole time. When Sutter asks about what went wrong with his parents’ marriage, his dad admits to having cheated and having left voluntarily. To make matters worse, Sutter’s dad justifies by saying, “I don’t live in the past, I live in the now.” In that jarring moment, Sutter realizes his dad is a selfish, unmotivated washup. Sutter sees his own life mantra, “living in the now,” play out abysmally in a man he had admired throughout his childhood. In learning about his past and reconstructing a more accurate image of his dad, Sutter is finally able to yank himself out of complacency.

    The Spectacular Now was like chicken noodle soup—soothing and comforting in a way very few romantic dramas and comedies have been for me. It was a complete departure for the string of meaningless, unwitty, unrealistic movies of this genre that have plagued theaters in the past few years. For a jaded viewer, it is a breath of fresh air—pure, genuine, and inspiring. Above all, this movie was perhaps the first time in a while I have felt this strong of a connection to the characters. I came out of the movie thinking, “they understand; someone understands.” And maybe that’s because it speaks to something that’s still fresh in my memory; I only have two years between high school and right now. But I think on some level, everyone can look back and relate to The Spectacular Now. It’s real characters, real dialogue, and real circumstances appeal to a universal experience. 

From Mother to Monster: The Burden of Motherhood and the Perversion of a Household in An American Crime (Yasmine)

The film An American Crime (2007) portrays the horrific abuse of sixteen-year-old Sylvie Likens by her temporary caretaker Gertrude Baniszewski in a small Indiana town circa 1966. Although it dramatizes testimonies from the actual court case reflecting on the events leading up to Sylvie’s torture and murder, the depiction of Sylvie’s anguish, though potent, does not propel the story forward. Instead the film focuses its lens on the middle-aged Gertrude, examining her evolution from an overburdened mother to a monster. Though the 1960s “was a time of deep cultural changes altering the role of women in American society”^[1] the primary goal of a mother was to assume the role of caregiver to her children, cultivating an environment of emotional stability and security for the members of her household “amidst the pressures of modern life.^[2] Gertrude’s frustration with her deteriorating household and inability to escape the unfortunate circumstances of poverty and single-motherhood in her homebound life are evident in the film’s mise-en-scene and manifest themselves in her megalomania which ultimately leads to the captivity and degradation of a helpless girl.    

The confining atmosphere surrounding Gertrude throughout An American Crime illustrates her imprisonment within her role as a single mother and within the physical manifestation of the home sphere. In the midst of a chaotic and shallow living space—children running around, bills scattered next to bottles of pills and alcohol—Gertrude tirelessly irons in the corner of the room denoting an unstable home life as well as a constant struggle of working without the regular support of an archetypal male breadwinner. Whether she is managing her seven children, supporting her twenty-something-year old ex-lover, Andy, or doing menial housework to make a living, Gertrude rarely occupies the outside world, signifying the ways in which her daily routine binds her to the house. Even when outside the house, Gertrude’s presence often seems crowded by the multitude of children who tend to occupy more physical space in the composition than she does in several shots. Andy also serves as a contrast to Gertrude’s limited lifestyle as he seems able to traverse between home life and the freedoms of the outside world; though he may on rare occasion visit Gertrude’s world, his visits are brief, destructive, and lacking the responsibility indicative of an ideal father figure.

The tight framing of Gertrude’s close-up shots and the way in which her clothing blends in with the peeling wallpaper and dingy furniture further emphasizes her inseparable connection to her house, which has become central to her identity. A high-angle long shot in which Gertrude lies crying on the couch, partially consumed by darkness and dwarfed by the furnishings in her home, reveals the hopelessness of her situation. In essence, Gertrude has few options and her life does not belong to her; instead she belongs to her household, for which she sacrifices everything to keep her tentative home life from ruin. Though the house may be Gertrude’s prison, it is also the realm in which she can maintain an illusion of order and control.

 The ambiance inside the Baniszewski house darkens as Gertrude's fears of inadequacy and helplessness reach a peak. Gertrude’s monstrous transition becomes apparent as her face is increasingly obscured by the deep shadows and she transforms into a tyrannical, dark force.  Only after she percieves Sylvie to be a threat to her dysfunctional family and most importantly to her facade of control, does Gertrude makes it her mission to subdue Sylvie's agency.In a scene moments before she intensifies her abuse of Sylvie, Gertrude looms above her in a two-shot and asks her children “Who’s in charge?”—a rhetorical question meant to affirm her dominance. Gertrude is no longer the picture of frailty and despair, but rather the judge and jury of her household. The children prove their acquiescence to Gertrude's sovereignity in a reverse shot, with their undivided attention, staring unblinkingly at their mother. Whereas Gertrude limits the mobility of her children using verbal commands and intimidation, she treats Sylvie as little more than an object, pushing and pulling her about the house. By contrast Gertrude’s mobility increases as a previously static camera follows her about in a more loosely framed tracking shot, indicating that she draws strength from Sylvie's oppression and the children’s submission.

When Sylvie is tied up and confined to a dark room, where she endures a long process of dehumanization--literally becoming a fixture of the house--she loses posession of her life in the same way that Gertrude has. With every mark of Gertrude's discipline Sylvie's body becomes the canvas of  Gertrude's shame and failings as a mother.  Ironically, the violent and oppresive means by which Gertrude “[keeps] her family together” and “holding [their] heads high,” secretly shames and pervert her household with monstrosity unbefitting the ideal structure of family life. 

___________________________________________________________________________

[1] “The 1960s: A Decade of Change For Women” U.S. News 12 March 2010

[2] "Marriage and Family" American Decades: 1960-1969 Ed. Vincent Tompkins. Vol. 7. Gale Cengage 1994  eNotes.com 8 Sep, 2013 

Defiance - An Adventure in Transmedia (Sophie)

Transmedia, specifically transmedia storytelling is the art of telling a single story or exploring a single world across different media. It is closely associated with the idea of a story world, a more abstract concept referring to a single narrative world that exists across different works of narrative art.

 

In the summer of 2011, Syfy announced an upcoming transmedia collaboration with gaming company Trion Worlds. The result is a two-part project that premiered this year in April with a long-form TV science-fiction political action drama and a corresponding multi-platform MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game).

 

    This is the background of the world they share. In the year 2046, arks carrying survivors of a dying alien solar system carrying an entire ecosystem arrive on Earth, causing war and a complete restructuring of the planet’s surface, society, and biosphere. The show takes place after this, in a town called Defiance, following the myriad political and social struggles resulting from the mix of alien and human cultures and agendas. To some degree, the show relies on tried-and-true plot tropes, such as Romeo and Juliet-style love stories, cultural and spiritual tensions, and classic science fiction elements like alien-on-alien battles, spacecrafts, blue glowy things, and futuristic energy weapons which account for most of Syfy’s budget on the show.

 

    The goal of the project was to extensively link the shared world of the game and the show. They take place in the same area at the same time, and the two branches of the project promise future crossovers, ranging from the ability of the player’s character in the game to appear in the show to large scale players’ actions influencing the show’s narrative future. At the moment, however, the crossover is limited to similar storylines and characters and timed missions in the game that must be completed by the next episode’s airing. The two development teams both made concessions for such a project to become a reality. While, for example, the gaming team thought the alien races known as “Voltan” should bring with them flying car technology, Syfy’s television crew told them that was right-out too expensive.

 

    Meanwhile, Syfy’s conceptual team thought horses or similar pack animals would fit the setting. The logistical team for the video game informed them that pack animals interfere with combat in games like the one they were designing. I admit to having not played the game, but I do have exposure to both television and games of this genre – and the mutual influence is clear.

 

    The TV show brings several well-recognized actors, including Grant Bowler, (known for his previous work in Ugly Betty and True Blood,) and Julie Benz, from (Angel and Dexter). Of course, the television actors served as the live models for their digital doubles in the game. The actors, along with the visual decisions for the various races in the world, had to be decided on several years in advance than they would have been for a typical science fiction show for like this without a collaborating video game team. On the other hand, while video games can relatively easily create very non-human aliens, a TV show has more limitations, meaning Defiance’s aliens look remarkably human. The collaboration has a kind of lowest common denominator effect, where both media have to take into account the limitations of the other.

 

However, transmedia collaboration is not without its strengths. Despite several obvious archetypes and standard genre elements, the extensive world-building is obvious from the very first episode. Because the show is free to tell for of its mythology in the setting of the game, the world feels like it has even more depth. There are two complete languages for the show and game, constructed by David J. Peterson, who also worked on Dothraki, the constructed language from Game of Thrones. Though we don’t see much of some of the alien races, as not all are represented in the main cast, each has distinctive cultural characteristics, evident in their speech patterns, dress, and attitudes, even in minor roles.

 

The races are also original in that the cultures seem to have been built from the ground up, rather than borrowed from Earth cultures and pasted onto alien species, a welcome relief to a veteran viewer of the genre (though some play it a little close at times).

    The show promises a world full of conflict and tensions, some which are more television arc-worthy, others of which could easily permeate throughout the show and game worlds (such as racial tension and environmental dangers). The show has recently been renewed for a second season, hopefully bringing the promised crossovers closer to reality.

It's not over 'til it's over (Janice)

Over the past few weeks, my group and I have been working very hard to piece our film together smoothly and succinctly. We had a slight problem exporting our footage during last week’s critique and that presented a problem. There was no way for our professors to give us feedback without us having something to present. Our professors were concerned that we would not have time to incorporate their suggestions.

But it all worked out fine. It took us a while to get our footage into the hands of our professors, but overall they really liked what they saw. Matt Porterfied (name dropping) said that our film was “well directed” among other great things. That was the highlight of class for me! Everything that we have worked so hard to accomplish is finally almost ready to be exhibited. Sure, there are things (minor things) that still need to be worked on, but we are well on our way to completion -- very soon.

We are currently in the process of color correcting our footage and we are also sound mixing and incorporating our score into the soundtrack. Color correction is a very time consuming process. Our DP has his hands full applying his corrections to each and every scene. Thankfully, he’s almost done. Our score was composed and performed by our writer’s father. We were also able to get a student from Peabody to accompany his pre-recorded tracks. Together, their music sounds phenomenal! Her father began composing a few piano melodies after reading his daughter’s script, which is based on the passing of her great-aunt. As a group, we wanted to hear another artist respond to and accompany his music to give it more depth. I can’t wait for people to hear it!

In my previous blog post I mentioned some of the unavoidable hardships that are a part of the collaborative process, but all’s well that end’s well. And the hardships that we’ve endured have made our project and us stronger.

 

This is my final blog post. My journey here and this particular project is drawing close to an end. But I shall leave you with one final exciting update. Upon completion, we will begin looking into local and big name festivals into which we’d like to submit our short film. Sundance, SxSW, and Cannes –here we come! (Maybe… hopefully…)

See you in the movies!  

Are Films a Pretext for Social Dialogue? (Nour)

Until recently, film had been synonymous with spectacle or entertainment: in a word, it was one more consumer good.

                                "Towards a Third Cinema," a manifesto

 

Paris is Burning is a 1990 documentary film by Jennie Livingston. This documentary explores the gay ballroom, drag culture in Harlem. Most of the people interviewed in the film achieved a fair degree of celebrity after its release. In the April of 1993 following the death of the mother of the house of Xtravaganza, Angie Xtravaganze, the New York Times ran a piece titled "Paris Has Burned," an essay about Angie. Here is a paragraph from the essay that is worth quoting at length,

Though she was only 27, Angie had been a mother more than a dozen times. Not in the usual way; she was biologically male. "But a mother is one who raises a child, not one who borns it," Hector [a member of the house of Xtravaganza] pointed out. And as mother of the House of Xtravaganza, Angie had taken many rejected, wayward, even homeless children under her wing; she had fed them, observed their birthdays, taught them all about "walking the balls." Competing in categories like High-Fashion Eveningwear and Alexis vs. Krystle, Angie was legendary, a Queen among queens, achieving in fantasy what the world had denied her in reality.

The characters of these house mothers and the nature of the relations they foster within their houses are relevant to any reading of Paris is Burning. Angie died from an AIDS-related liver disease. She was on hormones to maintain a soft feminine appearance. In the film there is a scene in which a group of men, some of them drag queens but not all, suckle on her breasts. The camera captures a run-down, shabby neighborhood, and then a group of men proclaiming Angie their mother. In fact in Paris is Burning  Angie could easily be mistaken for a woman.

When I watched this film, I became really interested in the house of Xtravaganza because of Angie and also because of Venus Xtravaganza. Venus was killed during the period in which Livingston was making the film. She was a transgender in NYC  who worked as a prostitute in order to save enough money to undergo a sex-change surgery. She was found in a hotel room four days after her death. Livingston interviews Venus only once in the film. During this interview, Livingston asks Venus about her dreams for the future. Venus' reply is arguably understandable, but also surprising. Venus tells Livingston that when she is fully female, she wants to get married, live in the suburbs, have a washing machine. She dreams of the typical bourgeois life. The life-style that she is too different—as a transgender, poor, non-white—to embody.

Paris is Burning enters a space at the fringes of mainstream American society. The expected reaction to have as a spectator watching these atypical modes of existence unfold is to feel uncomfortable, find the images indigestible. The spectator should feel disturbed by sights of awkward bodies that cannot be defined,  movements and gestures that do not fall neatly into the repertoire of appropriate female or male movements and gestures. However, this is not the reaction one gets. It is likely that people come out of the movie-theater feeling that these black (or Latino) gay men are victims. In fact the undertone of the Livingston's remarks on the film reveals that she thinks she is doing them a service. Here is another quotation from the Times "drag queens can't. "If they wanted to make a film about themselves, they would not be able," said Ms. Livingston, who grew up in Los Angeles and is a graduate of Yale University." Livingston is a white lesbian film director. She, however, still has the white-man burden mentality as these comments reveal.

bell hooks wrote about Paris is Burning in her book Race and Representations. Here is one point hooks made about the film:   

 

Watching Paris is Burning, I began to think that the many yuppie-looking, straight-acting, pushy, predominantly white folks in the audience were there becausethe film in no way interrogates "whiteness." These folks left the filmsaying it was "amazing," "marvelous," "incredibly funny," worthy of statements like, "Didn't you just love it?" And no, I didn't just love it. For in many ways the film was a graphic documentary portrait of the way in which colonized black people (in this case black gay brothers, some of whom were drag queens) worship at the throne of whiteness, even when such worship demands that we live in perpetual self-hate, steal, lie, go hungry, and even die in its pursuit.  (149)

hook's observations shed light on the meanings of Venus' dream of living the bourgeois life. Livingston's work in constructed in such a way that she does not "interrogate" whiteness. As such, Livingston does not completely oppose the System, the hegemonic modes of thinking. This is an important assertion in the face of the wide-held belief that Livingston is a radical filmmaker whose films testify to social injustices. This is not to discredit the film, however. Instead, it reveals a necessary aspect of cinema's function in society.

            The film interrogates gender in an interesting way, which undoubtedly has something to do with Livingston's own interests. It reveals some of the causes underlying social injustices. The film might have changed the trajectory of some people's lives by making them celebraties even if briefly. Yet, at the same time the film also has helped maintain a particular relation of power. As hook's comments reveal, this film reproduces ideology in an important way. Cinema's role in society is interesting to explore. Away from close text filmic analysis, it is rewarding sometimes to step away and ask how cinema contributes to the creation and maintenance of social power relations. Although this might not be the most interesting conclusion to some people, it is worth it to remind oneself of the necessary political and historical dimensions of film-making, and film distribution. Let me end with a quotation from Marx: "it is not sufficient to interpret the world; it is now a question of transforming it."

Ten Under 15 (Natasha)

    I have a bit of a thing for people's top ten lists.  Favorite films (though I rarely read all the way through lists that include Avatar, The Boondock Saints, The Departed and other "meh" movies posing as triumphs), favorite travel destinations, sushi rolls, lipsticks--anything, really.  There's something appealing about the brevity and finality of such a limited list when "favorite" status is at stake.  But unlike most list-makers, I will endeavor to defend my top three choices, and perhaps the explanation will give a sense of how I chose the group and why each of these kids deserves multiple viewings.  So here is my ten-best list of children's performances in film (the eponymous Ethan of "Laughing Baby Ethan" was excluded solely because that's more of a documentary short):

I.  Quvenzhané Wallis – Hushpuppy, Beasts of the Southern Wild - age 6, first role

II.  Tatum O’Neal – Addie Loggins, Paper Moon – age 9, first role

III.  Jean-Pierre Léaud – Antoine Doinel, The 400 Blows (Les 400 coups) – age 14, first role

IV.  Henry Thomas – Elliott, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial – age 10, third role

V.  Drew Barrymore – Gertie, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial – age 6, fourth role

VI.  Mary Badham – Scout, To Kill a Mockingbird – age 9, first role

VII.  Natalie Portman – Marty, Beautiful Girls – age 14, fourth role

VIII.  Shirley Temple – Marthy Jane, Little Miss Marker – age 4, twenty-fourth role

IX.  Hugh O’Conor – young Christy Brown, My Left Foot – age 14, fifth role

X.  Elle Fanning – Ruth Cole, The Door in the Floor – age 4, sixth role

I.   In this astounding film—the first for “Venzhané,” Dwight Henry (as her father Wink) and director Benh Zeitlin—the powerhouse performance by the absurdly cute Louisiana Kindergartener is a revelation.  While New Orleans pastry chef Dwight Henry’s debut performance is beautiful and heartrending, this is Hushpuppy’s tale and the preternaturally talented Quvenzhané never misses an opportunity to carry the film.  Hushpuppy is tough, but her lineless face is the hardened front that hides a child's curiosity, an artistic spirit and a fascination with animals.  Yet Hushpuppy rises to the tasks of bolstering her father’s declining health, weathering a devastating hurricane and flood, escaping the mandatory evacuation rescue center, staring down mythic beasts, sharing a hard-won, nostalgic last meal with her father and becoming an orphan in only a few days.  All the while, Quvenzhané rises to the even greater task of realizing Hushpuppy, the heroine of the decade.  (Extra points to her for how many times she’s had to spell her name for interviewers since the film’s release.)

II.   If Hushpuppy is tough, Addie Loggins is pure steel, ranking Tatum O’Neal a very close second to Quvenzhané.  Tatum’s groundbreaking Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress is one of the most deserved Oscars ever awarded (not that that’s saying much--and she definitely should have been considered lead actress), for in her first role ever she stars across from her real-life atrocious father Ryan O’Neal, playing somewhat atrocious father figure “Moses Pray” to her powerhouse orphaned heroine.  Her disapproving frown is so penetrating it makes you want to hide under a rock til the end of time, yet her constant squint makes it seem like she’s always on the verge of smiling, softening her flinty affect just a bit.  Though she learns the literal tricks of the trade from lost-boy conman Moses, Addie soon comes to beat him at his own game; her conning acumen and inexorable resolve to collect debts distinguish her as the savviest, least childlike kid in cinema.  She is an absolute wonder.  Too bad her parents didn’t appreciate her.

III.   I had a hard time ranking Jean-Pierre third here, because his first role is one of the most harrowing in all cinema and his face of abandonment is enough to break your heart, but perhaps the 14-year-old wouldn't mind taking bronze after a couple of elementary school girls (I think J-P would be un gentilhomme about it).  A misguided, mistreated boy with only one friend in all of Paris--René (played by the incredible one-film wonder Patrick Auffay, who should probably be on this list), Antoine's well-dressed, businesslike partner in cutting their punitive school and going to the movies.  Since Antoine Doinel is a vaguely autobiographical character for director/film devotee François Truffaut, the shot of the two boys gazing in wonder at the cinémathèque screen speaks volumes about Truffaut's childhood relationship with movie houses; but the image also reveals what a talent Jean-Pierre really is.  The utter fascination on his face, his obvious enthrallment with the film prove what a joy it is for Antoine to escape his own disheartening life for a few hours.  Berated on all sides, he has no respite from psychological torture, abusive hands or shrieked insults--all the world seems to raise one voice to tell him he's a failure.  So in the tragic, jarring final scene, when he runs away from his destructive "correctional" boarding school and makes it to the shore, in that last zoom towards his face as he recognizes that nothing has changed, that he still has absolutely nowhere to go, we see both Antoine's hopeless desperation and Jean-Pierre's outrageous thespian skill.  No wonder they put that shot on the poster.

 

 

~ Natasha Hirschfeld

Voyeurism in Cinema: Rear Window and The Conversation (Yeirim)

The term ‘voyeurism’ originally means an act of “[gaining] sexual pleasure from watching others when they are naked or engaged in sexual activity (Oxford Dictionary, Oxford University Press) However, it is often used to indicate a general interest in spying at other people’s private activities or moments. Voyeurism has often been a subject in cinema. In fact, watching a movie itself may also be a voyeuristic activity in its nature in that the audience seeks pleasure in looking at lives of other people.

Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window and Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation are two of many films that talk about voyeurism. In Rear Window, its main character Jeffrey seeks pleasure in looking at his neighborhood while sitting still in a chair all day long with his broken leg. In The Conversation, the protagonist, Caul takes part in a voyeuristic activity with his job as a surveillance expert. However, voyeurism is dealt in a significantly different way in each of these two films.

In Rear Window, Jeffrey’s voyeuristic activity is mainly engaged with vision. His sight is the primary sense that is used. The story evolves from what he ‘sees’. This visual aspect of Jeffrey’s voyeuristic experience is effectively shared with the audience throughout the film. The audience sees the neighborhood only through Jeffrey’s window, binoculars, or lenses, purely from Jeffrey’s point of view. This way, they automatically take his position as a voyeur, and become part of his voyeurism. This sharing also draws parallel with their voyeurism with the experience with cinema itself, in that the audience peeps at his personal life through the screen just like Jeffrey peeps at his neighborhood through his window. 

By sharing this voyeuristic activity with the audience, Rear Window shows Hitchcock’s view on voyeurism that it is a universal pleasure that all human beings pursue. In the story of the film, Jeffrey’s spying of his neighborhood starts off as his private hobby, but it eventually becomes a shared experience with his fiancé, Lisa, and his nurse, Stella. They are wary of the ethical issue with peeping at first, but later, they become more enthusiastic with finding out about Mr. Thorwald’s murder case than Jeffrey has been. Through this sharing, Jeffrey and Lisa even develop a fonder feeling with each other. Outside the story, Hitchcock further expands this excitement onto the audience and makes their interest in watching a film also a kind of voyeurism. Therefore, in Rear Window, voyeurism is not as much as an unhealthy desire, but a very natural one that normal people also can possess.

While the voyeuristic activity in Rear Window is mostly carried out by vision, it is mostly carried out by sound in The Conversation. Instead of looking at other people, the main character, Caul, secretly ‘listens’ to them. Again with The Conversation, the audience goes through Caul’s experience purely from his point of view. They therefore share his voyeuristic activity but at the same time also his faulty interpretation of the situation. To eavesdrop, Caul relies on technology and he never doubts its accuracy. Since the audience accesses the story only through his perspective, they also take in the information without any doubt. Thus, when the truth is revealed and it is found that the technology actually hindered Caul from gaining the right knowledge, it is striking both for him and for the audience. Regarding this, voyeuristic activity in this film is not a powerful tool that can take advantage of other people by prying on their secrets. It is rather a flawed, one-sided information with which it is very dangerous to make judgments based on it.

Voyeurism in The Conversation is therefore not a pleasure. It is depicted rather as a violation that acts as a burden for the protagonist. As a surveillance expert, Caul has been continuously haunted by his guilt that he has put people whom he eavesdropped in danger.  The guilt that spurs from his past deeds as a voyeur, pushes him forward to rise up and stop the mischief, but eventually fails him by making him oblivious to the fact that the information may be completely different from what he is already expecting. Through this voyeuristic activity, Caul only discovers the presence of a huge power in the society that he, as an individual, cannot simply defy, as opposed to Jeffrey, who overcomes a dead-end in his relationship with his fiancé and renews it successfully through his voyeuristic experience. Thus, while voyeurism helps the characters escape from immobility in Rear Window, it only defeats the protagonist even more and deprives of his ability to move forward in The Conversation. 

Just Keep Swimming... (Janice)

We are still knee deep in editing, but as always, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. We’ve hit the point of no return in the semester and it is now crunch time to the 99^th power. Things are moving along nicely, but there is just an overwhelming concern time. While I understand these concerns, I expect and would appreciate patience on behalf of my other crewmembers. There was a great deal of patience displayed during our re-writing and shooting processes. What no one seems to realize though outside of his or her realm of specialty and responsibility is that each facet of this process is an artistic institution and deserves the appropriate amount of respect and time. (The composer analogy from my last post seems ever befitting right now). With this being said, it is very true that we have a very real deadline approaching in the next two weeks, but we’re honesty on target for the most part. I’m not worried because our rough cuts, which will be finished very soon, are polished and well conceived/received.

 

The filmmaking process, I imagine, is a lot different when it is not housed in an academic institution for a grade. It becomes more of a democracy than it should be because everyone’s grade is on the line. I’m not saying that the process shouldn’t be democratic in some regards, for it is nothing if not collaborative, but dangerous and unproductive to have too many opinions and requests floating around simultaneously all the time. Also we are granting liberties that don’t actually exist in real life industry situations. And for our purposes and limitations we’ve been very inclusive to everyone at every stage of the game – which in reality rarely happens. I also didn’t want to push my crew over the edge after our Spring Break marathon and we’ve slowly picked back up the pace – although I admit the speed should have been amplified a tad and I accept responsibility for that.

Right now, we are jumping over the final hurdles and I am trying to keep up the morale. But the sentiment for my group, on this day, is to have patience – with a dash of trust because that’s the only way this works. Again, I really appreciate their diligence, passion, and their concerns. We’re almost there and looking good! And yes, it’s all worth it!   

Points from a Screening (Natasha)

    John Huston's 1948 epic of avarice Treasure of the Sierra Madre felt like the fastest 2 hours and 6 minutes I've spent before a screen.  The film blew by in a sandstorm from one hopeless desert vista to the next, leaving me with only cursory first impressions and a total sense of wonder.  The film may have inspired too much awe for me to comprehend it after only one viewing, so for now here's what remained when the sand settled:

I.    Humphrey Bogart's Fred C. Dobbs follows a sordid trajectory unlike that of most morally compromised Bogart characters.  Dobbs is so far from heroic he barely passes for antihero before the gold quest, and once he starts mining he begins to tread a villainous path hitherto unknown to Bogey:  He goes insane and suffers an unavenged murder alone in the desert.  It is thrilling to see what Humphrey can do when he swaps his tux for filthy rags.  This is Bogart at his cruelest and most evil, his wildest and most deranged, and it is outstanding.  When he finally reveals his most hidden talent, that maniacal chuckle, it's hard to understand why this man was not simply typecast as a crazed villain--his mad cackle is the absolute archetype of evil laughs.

II.    The endlessly wise, affable Howard, played by the director's father Walter Huston, is a hugely successful instance of cinematic nepotism.  Whether the flashes of paternal nature in the old prospector stem from his thespian talents or the director's own experience, Howard emerges as the only truly grounded figure in the film, surviving the unfortunate Dobbs through vast knowledge of the terrain and man's psyche and a rare capacity for altruism.

III.    The shootout between the Americans on the train and the bandits by the tracks immediately recalls a similar general arrangement in Alfred Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes, released ten years earlier.  Though here the heroic marksman wears a sharp necktie instead of a soiled neckerchief, Michael Redgrave's Gilbert bears a striking resemblance to Dobbs in the wild-eyed delight he takes in picking off his enemies.  The train is no stranger to cinema, but here the traincar plays the unusual role of battlefield trench in both films, separating besieged passengers from very hostile environments while still immobilizing them on the tracks in an exceedingly easy target.

 IV.    Another influential desert saga, Mel Brooks's Blazing Saddles from 1974 pays homage to Treasure during the recruitment of Mexican bandits for the enemy's forces.  "Badges?  We don't need no stinking badges!" the first bandit exclaims as Hedley Lamarr (Harvey Korman) offers him an initiation pin, similar to El Jefe's (Manuel Donde) angry retort to Dobbs before their magnificent mountainside shootout. The villains in this desert are scarcely more comical than those galloping over the Sierra Madre, whose grotesque cartoonish faces grow even more perverse in sweaty, toothy low-angle close-ups; but the senseless acts of the cackling desert assassins who lay Dobbs and his treasure to waste elicit a different kind of laughter, less riotous guffaw than defeated, baffled chuckle.

    What a film!

 

 

~ Natasha Hirschfeld

 

The Night Porter: eroticism and sadomasochism (Nour)

The Night Porter (dir. Liliana Cavani) is doubtlessly controversial. When it came out in 1974 it had a very positive reception in Europe, but in the US it was hailed as a piece of junk. For example, the great Roger Ebert started his essay in the Chicago Sun-Times on February 10^th, 1975 by writing

"The Night Porter" is as nasty as it is lubricious, a despicable attempt to titillate us by exploiting memories of persecution and suffering. It is (I know how obscene this sounds) Nazi chic. It's been taken seriously in some circles, mostly by critics agile enough to stand on their heads while describing 180-degree turns, in order to interpret trash as "really" meaningful.

Ebert thought the film did not approach its subject matter in a very fruitful way. It was alarmingly reveling in sadomasochistic impulses and sadomasochistic scenes. According to Ebert, The Night Porter offered a dangerously romanticized view of doom and death. It was disturbing but with style—"Nazi chic" as Ebert puts it. I find The Night Porter confusing if nothing else. One aspect of the film that I find particularly confusing is the connection that the film draws between doom, death, suffering and eroticism.

            The Night Porter is a story about Max a previous S.S. concentration camp officer and Lucia a former prisoner at the camp where Max was stationed. When they were in this unidentified concentration camp, Max used to film Lucia often in extremely humiliating situations. Since it was prohibited that an officer would have any sympathy toward, let alone love, one of the inmates, Max repressed or tormenting denied his feelings toward Lucia. In one scene, Max wounds Lucia's arm using a surgical instrument. He does not sew up the cut, instead he licks it. It becomes the site of erotic bliss.  

        Thirteen years after the end of the war, Max and Lucia run into each other in a hotel in Vienna. Max works in the hotel as a night porter. Lucia is now married to an American orchestra conductor, but she stays behind after her husband leaves. She moves into Max's apartment. One scene that is often cited in this part of the film is the one in which Lucia locks herself in the bathroom. She breaks a bottle of perfume and then invites Max in. He at first accidentally steps on the broken glass, but when Lucia puts her hands under his heel, he steps sharply on the glass. The camera shows Max taking pleasure in the pain and so does Lucia. In the apartment, Max and Lucia live the past. Eventually Max puts on his Nazi officer suite and Lucia puts on a pink dress so similar to the one Max had given her to wear in the camp, they go out of the apartment and are shot to death.  

            A scene which particularly brings up the relation between eroticism, suffering and sadomasochism is the cabaret scene from which the film's most popular poster image is taken. In this scene Lucia seems to enjoy her humiliation. She voluntarily exhibits herself and furthers her pain and victimization. She is half naked in the scene and moves around a room full of Nazi officers, including Max. After the dance is over, Max gives Lucia the head of another officer who bothered her earlier. Max has decapitated him for her sake. Eroticism, suffering, and violence all intersect in this scene.

            If you ever saw Gerhard Richter's Atlas and particularly panels 16-23, you know that he too, as did Liliana Cavani in this film, saw a relation between the horrors of Auschwitz and prostitution. In these panels, Richter combines dreadful photographs of people in concentration camps, starved and on the verge of death, with photographs of prostitutes (or at least women photographed as if they were). For me, the relation between the two is hard to figure out. Beside feeling stunned as my eyes scan the panels, it is hard to see the reason why Gerhard Richter chose to relate the two. Some say that in doing so he has feminized death and doom. 

        Maybe death is related to the feminine because of the trauma of birth. Famously, Otto Rank (1924) argued that the moment of birth is a separation from the perfect union with the mother and that the violent circumstances of the moment of birth make it traumatic. Death too represents a separation. I think, Richter's juxtaposition of images of death and prostitution might be a way of referencing the past state of harmony with the mother and the traumatic separation which is the basis of the human experience. Human life is truncated by two severely traumatic experiences of separation—birth and death. The view of life which this outlook creates makes it more understandable, perhaps, that people are sadomasochistic.

            Although Cavani creates an intentionally unrealistic space for the film, The Night Porter inhabits a space so similar to that of actual life. The film ends with death, and starts with a state which is comparable to the traumatic separation of birth. Lucia and Max were separated from each other for thirteen years after they had lived together in relative harmony with most basic needs gratified. Max and Lucia's nostalgic desire to return to the past motivates the whole film. Yet, this past might be in fact the moment before birth, before the original trauma. It might be a wish to live again in perfect harmonious unity with a protective mother (or whatever can stand for "mother"—for example a nation can be "mother"). 

Call of Duty (Janice)

    My group and I decided that shooting over Spring Break was the most conducive option availble to suit our individual schedules – and it was the best decision we could have made. It is worth noting that our film was pseudo complex in nature, but our crew and our writer’s family donated a lot of time, energy, and talent into our project, which made life a lot easier!

    Our first day of shooting was probably the most complex of them all. This scene was shot in a forested area in North Point State Park. And one of the biggest obstacles that we encountered was managing time. We only had one of our actors (an eight year old superstar named Ava) for the duration of this one shoot because of scheduling conflicts – third grade is very difficult to reschedule. Although we made huge strides in staying on schedule, we lingered on too many individual shots, conversations about different techniques, and had too much down time in between set-ups. Although day one was one of our longest days, we collected a lot of good footage despite the many weather scares.

    For the most part, all of our shoots were for exterior scenes, which created some very interesting incidents. Most of them were altercations involving neighbors of the properties we were shooting, who were being unsympathetic, unreasonable, and belligerent. Mais c'est la vie – we had permission for each location! We shot quite a bit of establishing shots and driving scenes, which are difficult to manage. It is very hard to tame the area immediately surrounding your set when you are a small-scaled student production. But we certainly learned a lot! Also, the weather was very conducive to both our story and our shoots. The fluctuations of sunshine and overcast on various shooting days corresponded perfectly with the emotional appeal of the story. It was freezing though!

    Of all six of our shooting days, we only had one day of shooting interior scenes. They all took place in our writer’s grandfather’s home. (NOTE: Her grandfather is actually the main character of our film. Think the first four minutes of Up, but live action – that’s our film.) There were a lot of different scenes to shoot, many different angles, our film takes place during the course of one day and we only had during daylight hours to shoot, and a few of the interior scenes contained important dialogue and blocking. In addition to these things, there were many creative things that we wanted to try out. We played around with angles, depth of field, natural light, camera positions/movements, etc. And these things were very time consuming and began to steer us off schedule. During long shoots, people’s attitudes change and they become antsy and moody. And a huge part of my job was keeping people motivated, comfortable, and on task. One of the many things that we are very proud of from this shoot is that we manufactured the appearance of twilight through a window to extend our shooting time after the sun set. This worked out great and saved us an extra day of shooting.

    From the beginning, we jumped right into logging and organizing video and audio files for editing. This is definitely coming in handy as we speak, for we are knee deep in the editing process. Working during Spring Break gave us a leg up. We had adequate time to shoot/reshoot and develop ideas and visions. But for me, this week was another bout with my old question of what makes a good director. Again it’s difficult to mimic a studio director because there are a lot of different tools and people that were not at our disposal. Our team was a lot more limited and we needed to double up on roles depending on the needs of the situation. But my question, if a good director like a composer, was heavy on my mind. The composer creates the structure of the music and steers it, he/she does not produce it themsleves -- the musicians do that. A great deal of my journey is learning to trust others with my vision. Is it my responsibility to acquire the best talents for the project and facilitate a space in which they can flourish in their individual roles/styles collectively? Or am I as the director supposed to be a lot more demanding, pushing my team towards a vision that is oriented in the ways in which I think, see, feel, dream?  Maybe to some extent, both? As a new director my greatest fear is being irreproachable to criticisms/suggestions and unsympathetic to the creativity of others. But I'm learning.

    Overall, our actors (all 5 of them) were absolute naturals and I am very fortunate to have such an amazing and extraordinarily talented crew. This was quite an experience and reaffirmed that directing is the path that I was to venture down. There are so many meticulous calculations, plans, and usage of imagination that goes into filmmaking and it is very refreshing – with childlike splendor. With a clear understanding of what we did exceedingly well, our faults, and the hunger I have for personal improvement – I am well on my way to finding my voice. This was an excellent opportunity from which we shall all learn and grow.