HopkinsCinemAddicts

The Contaminated Host -- Boon Joon-ho's The Host

When we think about a parasite, we treat it as a harmful organism. But what about the host?

The definition of the host is “an animal or plant on which a parasite or commensal organism lives.” The film The Host (2006, dir. Boon Joon-ho) tells the story of the protagonist Park Gang-du and his family fighting with a monster in the Han River. The monster was created by the toxic chemicals that an American military pathologist commanded his Korean assistant to dump, and the film discusses the culpability of the host, which allows the parasite to thrive.

The protagonist Park Gang-du’s daughter, Hyun-seo, was captured by the monster as he accidentally saved another girl instead of his daughter when fighting with the monster. Then, Gang-du and his family, along with the families of other victims, gather in a basketball court, which the government uses as a refuge for the victims’ families. Each family forms a small circle and sits on the floor, crying and grieving for their lost ones. Behind them is a giant wall of portraits of the victims, but the nonstop camera flashes keep interrupting the last moment between the deceased and their families. While Gang-du and his family grieve in the court, an officer in a high-saturated, yellow full-protected suit with a disinfectant face mask enters the room. The officer’s suit is extremely noticeable under the blue tone and the ragged shirts among the victims’ families, and his power is immediately established as he is the only one standing, physically above everyone else in the frame. However, his appearance doesn’t get anyone’s attention until he slips and falls on the floor. It is also worth noting that the officer’s protective suit suggests the potential virus that the monster might spread, but the government only protects the officer instead of the people in the room. Within a few seconds, the film diminishes the power of this government representative, showing his incompetence during a catastrophe.

Then, the officer asks everyone to report if they were near Han River during the attack, threatening that their families will be affected if they return home. Albeit all of them are the victims’ families, whom the government should protect and comfort, they follow the instructions without hesitation. The room is completely silent, with only the officer speaking, presenting this world of silent people under the absolute control of the government instead of receiving any help. Then, Gang-du’s brother, Hae-il, an unemployed college graduate who is a former political activist, stands up and questions the officer to explain the attack, which is the first and only opposing voice in the room. When Hae-il speakers to the officer, the camera captures the entire wall of the pictures of the victims right behind him and on his shoulder and head level in a long shot; the camera crops the people sitting on the floor with only their heads in the frame, below Hae-il’s knee level. This shot forms a great metaphor that only the deceased people have Hae-il’s back, supporting the only one who speaks a different voice with the government, and the rest of the people just accept their deprived right to know. The blocked information is further revealed when the officer tries to respond to Hae-il by turning on the news on the TV, but none of the TV channels is broadcasting the monster, as if not announcing the monster to the public will erase its existence. Before more people start questioning the situation, a team of officers in identical protective suits rush into the room, spraying disinfecting chemicals without providing any face covering to the victims’ families, treating them like they are also lifeless. The fog formed by the chemicals both blocks the people’s sight and obscures their knowledge of the situation, further revealing the irresponsible and dehumanizing nature of the South Korean government in the film. As the host of this land, Korea shows no mercy to its people and provides this perfect condition to be occupied and controlled by an external parasite.

Soon, Gang-du is under extreme monitoring once he admits that he was in contact with the monster. Gang-du is surrounded by numerous doctors that investigate potential viruses in his body. The camera captures two doctors putting their masks and protective glasses on and turning on the screens to show Gang-du’s brain in a hurry when they see an American researcher walk in, pretending to work for the country's security only in front of the foreign force. The American researcher starts by comforting Gang-du with a different attitude from the Korean representatives, presenting an illusion of the arrival of a savior. But the camera captures their close-ups from a low angle, planting the pressure silently with the cinematography. And their intention is soon revealed when the American researcher tells the translator that there is no virus behind Gang-du’s back. However, Gang-du overhears and understands when the American researcher says “no virus” in his sentence, confirming the dehumanizing and compulsive actions by both the parasite and the host. What is more ironic is that Gang-du, an uneducated man, understands these English words because around 30% of the Korean language is originated from English, and the foreign parasite has been deep in the host’s culture. This scene juxtaposes the host and parasite relationship between the Korean and American governments, which the host is being cheated by the peaceful illusion that the parasite brings without understanding its actual intention. The combination of an ignorant host and an intruding parasite becomes the actual monster that harms Gang-du and other innocent people on the land.

Albeit the film starts with the monster killing and intruding on the country, it explicitly criticizes how the American force takes control over the South Korean government in Korea. When the parasite is the active disrupting force, the host is never inculpable of its blind, incompetent, and indifferent nature. In the end, Gang-du uses his foot to turn off the TV which broadcasts the confession and explanation of both the Korean and American governments on the nonexisting virus. Instead of listening to the fabricated news from the host and parasite, Gang-du grabs his gun, stares into the dark, and protects his uncontaminated mind and body to host his life.

 

 

 

Free Indirect Discourse as Artistic Marxism in Pasolini's The Hawks and the Sparrows

In his 1966 film  The Hawks and the Sparrows, Pier Paolo Pasolini shows viewers a “narrative poem” concerning religion, Marxism and the various social strata present in Italy, here specifically in the outskirts of Rome. As in The Gospel According to St. Matthew (Pasolini, 1964), Pasolini utilizes religious imagery among other “stylemes” and “im-signs” in order to expound on the hypocrisy of capitalism and the shortcomings of religious as well as Marxist ideologies as they pertain to the “real world”. In the film’s second-act digression, a “left-wing intellectual” crow tells Totò and his son Ninetto a story about Franciscan friars tasked with teaching God’s message of love to the hawks and the sparrows. The story is a parable for the futility of religious dogma, as it is in the hawks’ nature to eat the sparrows, regardless of abstract concepts of love. The hawks respond, “we are all God, then”; the sparrows question the value of the friars’ message, as it does not solve their problems of hunger. These themes are repeated later in the film, when Totò and Ninetto travel to different homes in the countryside, further illustrating the presence of an inescapable social hierarchy for which the film proposes the solution of Marxist ideology—a solution that ultimately fails when applied to the characters’ social reality.

In his essay “The Cinema of Poetry”, Pasolini emphasizes the importance of what he terms “free indirect discourse” in poeticizing the medium of film. However, The Hawks and the Sparrows presents distinct points of view through interactions between characters, namely Totò and his son with the people they encounter along their journey. At first, this seems to present a lack of continuity in Pasolini’s argument—a flaw which is definitely present in his essay. But Pasolini’s use of people and animals to embody abstract ideologies turns these characters into semiotic markers rather than concrete personalities. 

This technique is augmented by the presence of the parable in the film, in which Totò and Ninetto also play the 13th-century friars who must spread the gospel to the birds. The crow’s role of ideological lecturer attributes these social lessons to the natural order of the world, and the film’s surrealist imagery and noticeable camera movement (e.g. jump cuts, montage sequences, etc.) fulfill Pasolini’s requirements for “poetic cinema”. 

The film concludes with a callback to the film’s first scene, in which Totò explains to Ninetto the influence of the moon on the tides: “It draws all the garbage to the shore.” Continuing their journey, Totò, Ninetto and the crow come upon a woman named Luna, the Italian for “moon”. Both men feign stomachaches and take turns “swimming” through a cornfield to reach Luna; they each have sex with Luna in the corn. Afterwards, finding the crow pedantic and boring, the two men kill and eat it, leaving its steaming remains on the side of the road and walking onward. This scene is the final, definitive instance of nature winning out over pure ideology: the humans are higher on the food chain than the crow, so they kill him, and the mission of the friars is once again a failure, now with humans proven to be no better than the animals the friars sought to lecture. The previous montage of footage from Italian Communist leader Palmiro Tagliotti’s funeral, the intellectual with whom the crow’s ideology is explicitly aligned, foreshadows this end for the crow. 

The Servant's Cold Comic Irony

Joseph Losey’s The Servant (1963) delves into class conflict with piercingly economical incisions. The most salacious elements of the story are shown from blocked vantage points; we hear the boring edges of conversations about potentially interesting things. The narrative unfolds along prescribed lines: Tony, a young member of the declining British upper crust, seeks to employ a manservant for his new home. Hugo Barrett is well-trained and seems to know his place. Tony impresses his girlfriend, Susan, with vague plans to “clear the jungle” and build a number of cities in Brazil to “fill with people from Asia Minor.” 

Harold Pinter’s script thus matter-of-factly reveals a system of poorly-conceived imperialist idealists nominally clinging to relevance, blissfully and pathetically unaware of the surrounding world’s changing conditions. Tony’s new house, supposedly a mere waystation between adolescence and foreign conquest, becomes with Barrett’s help a last stop on a road toward decadent irrelevance, a tastefully decorated funhouse-brothel-crypt. Pinter and Losey’s application of social conventions to a story about their breakdown emphasizes the irony of such conventions’ strict usage in a society that has largely outgrown the need for them. 

The film’s recurring song, “All Gone,” scores scenes of love and betrayal with mocking detachment: the soul-bearing drama of the lyrics, “can’t love without you, must love without you,” as characters struggle to express themselves beyond allusions to unsavory topics, underscores their repression to an almost comedic level. When Tony visits a beatnik bar, his incongruence with the environment is emphasized by the juxtaposition of Tony’s stiffness with the twangy guitar music. 

Similarly, a scene in which Tony and Susan visit a noble older couple’s manor (unclear whether they are Susan’s parents, Tony’s parents, some other distant relation, or just members of the couple’s milieu) starkly contrasts imposing mise-en-scene with tedious dialogue to point out the ridiculousness of the ruling class. Lady Mounset works at an embroidery hoop while Lord Mounset sips a highball, the two-shot buttressed by neo classical nude statues and spindly, baroque furniture. The high-culture aesthetics of ancient civilizations loom over the elderly couple while simultaneously being relegated to the background, a visual reminder of the imperial powers after which the British Empire models itself. The couple’s leisurely pastimes denote the privilege as well as the frivolity of their class position. Another discussion of Tony’s business prospects in Brazil leads to a disagreement about the meaning of the word “poncho”: Susan defines it as the article of clothing that “drapes down in the front and behind,” while Lady Mounset maintains that it is “what the cowboys are called” in “The Argentine.” Again, the wealthy display their ignorance in matters that extend beyond the drawing-room even as that parlor visually represents the seat of western imperial power. The ease with which Barrett monopolizes Tony’s home and assumes control over his life further exemplifies the paradoxical nature of the class structure in situations that would be comical if not for the overwhelmingly pathetic downfall of Tony; when he writhes on the floor in an alcoholic stupor, we can’t help but pity him.

The LA Times called The Servant “the coldest film ever made.” To me, this description is made accurate by the ice inherent in the film’s hints of warmth, by the penetrating winter snow that is almost always visible through the townhouse windows. Warmth emanates from the hearth, lit by a resentful servant in a display of false domesticity; it emanates from glasses of brown liquor and cigarette smoke, vices that pair with and substitute for “intimate” trysts coldly arranged by that same servant. The fickle warmth of the relationship between Barrett and Tony is tinged with cold, boyish competition petrified by stifling class designations. Susan and Tony fail to express their emotions while standing in a snowy field that accentuates their repression. The Servant coldly depicts a social structure in which authentic warmth is made impossible by outdated conventions. The imperial fantasy of developing the global south is an unreachable mirage in the declining era of the empire.

Very Important Persons: Period Satire in The Death of Stalin and The Favourite

In the typical fashion of political satire, monarchies and oligarchies serve as wells of comedy in Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Favourite (2018) and Armando Iannucci’s The Death of Stalin (2017). Its subjects, however, are out of power; The Favourite depicts the court of Queen Anne of Great Britain in the early 18th century, and The Death of Stalin, while recent history, depicts the ruling committee of a now-dissolved nation. From score to costuming to set design, these films embrace period drama conventions and root themselves in history. This genre-melding provides a viewpoint of the human condition that neither contemporary satire nor straightforward historical accounts can access on their own.

Set in the Soviet Union in 1953, The Death of Stalin portrays the central committee’s response to their leader’s demise and their ensuing power struggle, which ends in one member’s execution and Nikita Khrushchev’s rise to power. The committee members are simultaneously old friends and bitter rivals, at times timid and other times ruthless. Comic actors play many of its essential roles, most notably Steve Buscemi as Khrushchev and Jeffrey Tambor as Malenkov, Stalin’s gullible successor. This casting reflects the film’s irreverent approach to depicting historical figures, as it imagines comedic situations and banter within the context of high-stakes political turmoil.

As the audience witnesses mythic figures portrayed as fallible humans, the characters themselves experience the same with Stalin’s passing. The committee finds their leader’s dead body on the floor of his office, collapsed in a puddle of urine. They perform grief, and it’s not clear who the exaggeration is meant to convince — it could be Stalin, the other ministers, even themselves. The film finds humor in this grief; Malenkov proclaims that Stalin is irreplaceable, for example, before pointing out that he’s the successor. “Calamity, calamity,” Khrushchev laments as he casually takes off his coat. As the characters state their distress, the camera remains impersonally distant rather than capturing their faces in close-up as one might expect.

There’s also the running joke of the urine puddle: After his proclamation of grief, Malenkov steps on the wet spot and asks, “Is this?” as the camera tilts down to the puddle. The others make the same mistake and then warn the others, who shuffle around the spot. Each time, the grief is quickly interrupted and abandoned. These trivial asides often occur in long shots where Stalin’s horizontal body remains in frame, rendering him an afterthought, which further minimizes the gravity of death as an individual — what his death means commands much attention. The men then hoist the body off the ground together, shuffling and giving each other commands as though they were transporting furniture.

The levity of this scene seems dissonant with the historical significance of Stalin’s death; the committee’s reactions ask us to consider the difference between what Stalin represented versus Stalin as an individual. His physical body becomes an inconvenience in this scene, and as the ministers deal with the material reality of his death rather than its abstract meaning, the film convinces us of their status as human beings rather than historical concepts.

The Favourite takes a similarly candid approach in representing Queen Anne, its highest-ranking character. I say highest ranking because Anne, while the most powerful character in name, is vulnerable to other characters’ emotional power over her. The film sees Anne most often in a passive role, reacting to her surrounding circumstances. The central conflict occurs between Anne’s trusted confidant and lover Sarah Churchill and her cousin Abigail, whose arrival changes the court’s status quo. While Sarah’s influence over Anne allows her to influence her decision-making, Abigail develops a friendship with Anne that challenges Sarah’s political and emotional power over her.

The value of winning Anne’s favor means that the smallest actions, like a certain intonation or glance, can have significant consequences for the characters’ relationships. Anne’s power — or rather, her title — actually makes her more susceptible to manipulation. She expects to be catered to and cared for, surrendering agency as an exercise of privilege.

Early in the film, Abigail pours Anne hot chocolate, but Sarah stops her, telling Anne it’s unhealthy. Anne protests; the camera captures Abigail, confused, facing the other two on the couch as they argue. She stands with the cup in a low-angle shot, as though from Anne’s vantage point. Though low-angle shots often assign the subject power, this one seems unique. This angle exemplifies the bizarre power dynamic in Anne’s close relationships, as Anne requires her subordinates to dote on her. Sarah, for instance, regulates Anne’s diet to a comical extent; although she allows Anne to drink the hot chocolate, Anne lets the cup sit untouched, signaling her faith in Sarah’s judgment.

The absurdity of this exchange also results from its contrast with Sarah and Anne’s preceding political discussion. As we watch Abigail pour the hot chocolate, the other two talk offscreen about Anne’s raising property taxes to fund the war against France, at Sarah’s insistence. “Are the people really angry about the land tax?” Anne asks. These far-reaching policy decisions take place in the background, speaking to Anne’s limited regard for her actual governing power. Severely detached from the nation she rules, she treats politics as she does interpersonal relationships. Her fickleness and naivety speak to the isolating effect that power can have on a human being, warping their perspective.

As a result, the competition for Anne’s affection is also a competition for power. Her lopsided priorities fuel much of the film’s humor, producing situational irony as the characters assign grave importance to trivial interactions. In this way, The Favourite achieves a similar tone as The Death of Stalin, balancing humor and darkness, but by depicting exaggerated reverence rather than irreverence.

Essential for both The Death of Stalin and The Favourite and distinguishing them from standard cinematic accounts of history is their focus on interpersonal pettiness, which not only brings abstract historical figures to life but makes their humanity plainly visible. The films derive humor from how their neuroses and social blunders fuel political conflict. These foibles aren’t just entertaining, though; they have major consequences for society at large. The contrast between characters’ earthly concerns and their lofty titles and responsibility allows both films to tread a fine line between comedy and darkness. With their faults amplified by considerable power, the ruling class drags subordinates and the public into their internal conflicts, a dynamic neither film allows us to forget.

Saboteur: A Harbinger of Blacklist Paranoia

Alfred Hitchcock’s Saboteur (1942) predates the first official Hollywood blacklist by five years, but its themes of scapegoating, patriotism and paranoia reflect such a period of upheaval in which the seemingly trustworthy are found suspect, and vice versa, as “true Americans'' seek out disloyal enemies on home soil. Barry Kane, a California factory worker, becomes a fugitive from the law after authorities wrongfully peg him as the saboteur who set fire to an aircraft factory. The classic Hitchcock premise - a man falsely accused of a crime, pulled into a world of subterfuge and corruption that goes to the top, accompanied (often unwillingly) by a skeptical but ultimately acquiescent femme noir - takes on a topical meaning: the sabotage of which Barry has been accused is a crime against the war effort, against his fellow workers, against America itself.

Barry first takes off to find Frank Fry, a mysterious factory worker (played by Norman Lloyd, whose friendship with Elia Kazan notably ended after Kazan named him among other actors for the HUAC in 1952) who handed Barry a fire extinguisher containing gasoline when the blaze broke out. Evading the police after they come to question him at the home of his deceased friend, Mason, Barry follows an address he noted from a dropped envelope of Fry’s to an opulent ranch in High Desert. Charles Tobin, the ranch’s owner, lovingly plays with his infant granddaughter as he informs Barry that the police are on their way to arrest him in place of the real saboteur, Fry, a minion of Tobin’s. 

As Tobin has him arrested, Barry laments that “just because you have a big ranch with a pool, everyone will believe what you say.” Tobin agrees, smugly asking, “who are they going to believe? I am an upstanding member of this community.” The recognition of Tobin as such, while an innocent with lower socioeconomic standing is made to take the blame, suggests that the unfair conditions of this world are not unique to Barry’s situation.

When Barry takes refuge in a blind man’s home, he identifies himself as “Barry Mason.” This adoption of the dead worker and friend’s name signifies the working-class solidarity that makes men like Mason and Barry himself expendable in the eyes of the sabotage’s wealthy mastermind. The blind man’s niece, Patricia, is intent on turning Barry in as soon as she sees his handcuffs, claiming it is her “duty as an American” to do so. She remarks that Barry fits the character of a saboteur in a way that Tobin does not, again causing Barry to cite Tobin’s wealth as the source of this misconception. Kane’s primary helpers in his escape are a blind man and a caravan of circus freaks, people marginalized by society in the same way he is as a criminal. 

Saboteur ends with Barry chasing Fry to the top of the Statue of Liberty, where Fry falls to his death: the villain meets his demise, with a poetic nod to the national ideal of “liberty and justice for all.” But Tobin, the financier behind the sabotage, remains unpunished and free to live at his family ranch, suggesting that the trappings of wealth and good social standing are enough to grant one impunity even in a country based on values of justice and equality. Coincidentally, the screenplay was written by Dorothy Parker and Peter Viertel, both of whom were also named on the Hollywood blacklist. I watched this movie with my dad, who dismissed the dialogue as "weird" the way that dialogue in old movies just is weird to modern audiences. I think some of that comes from the need at that time for coded language to get around censors, as well as subversive subtext that exists in any film about a man wrongfully accused of a crime - a criticism of the government, of class, of the system writ large. 

Mr. Robot and The Governance of Consumerism (Katie)

Mr. Robot, a critically acclaimed drama thriller television series authored by Sam Esmail, focuses on the lonely and troubled Elliot Alderson. Elliot is introduced to us as an eccentric cybersecurity engineer, and he becomes an enigmatic vigilante hacker as time goes on, one whose motives are unclear even to us. To complement its labyrinthine narrative, Mr. Robot has a distinct visual style which reinforces the isolation and oppression every character faces, and this artistic approach will be the main focus of my discussion. (However, there is no need to fear for spoilers—I will only be analyzing the first episode of the series.)

Within the show, one of the main antagonizing forces is society itself; Esmail demonstrates how consumerist culture can drive people apart from one another, especially in Elliot’s case.

Consider the following exchange from Mr. Robot’s pilot, "eps1.0_hellofriend.mov,” in which Elliot delivers a fervent speech on the evils of our modern world to his therapist:

                                 KRISTA
What is is about society that disappoints you so much?

                                 ELLIOT
Oh, I don’t know. Is it that we collectively thought that Steve Jobs was a great man, even when we knew he made billions off the backs of children? Or maybe it’s that it feels like all of our heroes are counterfeit. The world itself's just one big hoax. Spamming each other with our burning commentary bullshit masquerading as insight, our social media faking as intimacy.  Or is it that we voted for this? Not with our rigged elections, but with our things, our property, our money. I’m not saying anything new. We all know why we do this. Not because Hunger Games books makes us happy but because we wanna be sedated. Because it’s painful not to pretend, because we’re cowards. Fuck society.

                                 KRISTA (O.S.)
                               (echoing)
Elliot.
                                 (beat)
Elliot. You’re not saying anything. What’s wrong?

                                 ELLIOT
                         (smiling slightly)
Nothing.

(0:12:15 - 0:13:26, formatting and emphases mine.)

In this exchange, Elliot’s estrangement from those he should communicate honestly with is already made clear, and his anger is directed explicitly towards society. Throughout the scene, Krista and Elliot are practically never in the same frame. The only time we see them together is in an establishing shot, one which pits Krista and Elliot on opposite sides of the office, with Elliot’s completely black outfit contrasting heavily with the cream-colored sofa and curtains. However, his outfit is only one aspect which makes Elliot seem out of place. The rest of the time, the two are always in their own close-ups, making both characters seem as visually in their separate headspaces as they are mentally—this being coupled with disorienting cuts to different close-up angles of their faces.

Elliot’s frequent voiceover of his thoughts over this scene only further cement his distance from his therapist, and his monologue on society’s evils is intercut with real-life footage of factory workers, fallen celebrities, and social media feeds. Elliot is not tied down to the visuals of his therapist’s office—that is, not tied down to Krista. It can be said that everything we see and hear about Elliot in the first fifteen minutes of the series has to do with his pained and total aloneness.

Esmail continues to showcase his startling visuals throughout the episode. Later on, when the company Elliot’s cybersecurity firm protects, E-Corp, visits Elliot’s workplace for a briefing on a recent hack, our protagonist meets Tyrell Wellick. Tyrell is a pivotal character later in the season, and the way he is introduced is rife with importance. Our first clear visual of Tyrell places him in a low depth of field close-up, his visage in the far right quarter of the frame as the rest of the shot hovers out of focus. To be clear, when I write “far right quarter,” I mean it:

Elliot’s reaction shot to Tyrell is not unlike this one.

(The actual shots themselves were not included due to copyright reasons.)

Elliot and Tyrell are opposing forces. Both of them occupy spaces in which they are as far as possible from one another, showing their mutual isolation in the world they will eventually unite to combat against. However, even their aforementioned eventual unity is hinted at in these shots. Every background figure and object is out of focus, and Elliot and Tyrell can only clearly see one another. They are destined for a special bond, even if they are both first totally alone when they are introduced to one another. Their future is also foreshadowed in their dialogue; when Elliot’s mental voiceover starts to think an incredulous sentence about Tyrell, Tyrell finishes it for him in open speech. This unites their identities for a single moment. Incidentally, Tyrell finishing Elliot’s sentence also leads to them being in the same frame together for just a second, before extremely distanced close-ups take over once more. (This style of framing is so common in Mr. Robot that Saturday Night Live (SNL) has even remarked on it in a parody of Mr. Robot.)

Esmail’s decisions to frame characters in these ways can be seen in other interactions and scenes of the first episode—as well as for the rest of the series. So far, we have discussed how these visuals portray characters in relation to each other, but Esmail also portrays characters in relation to bodiless presences or omnipresent forces in the world. One of the most telling displays of an abstract force becoming a menacing presence in relation to Elliot comes at the end of the pilot episode.

Elliot is going through a triumphant moment. He strides through Times Square—the setting of Mr. Robot being New York City—as something he has worked for finally comes to fruition. (A spoiler coming for the end of the first episode, now.) A huge first step in his grand plan as an official vigilante hacker is completed when Terry Colby, the CEO of an all-powerful corporation suspected of committing inhumane crimes for profit, is arrested due to Elliot’s hacking.

When we see Times Square with Elliot, nearly every building with a screen is reporting the news, and beneath the gargantuan, towering skyscrapers, Elliot walks into the center of the frame. He changes from being a small figure at the side of the screen into being the dominant visual in its center. The camera even slides into a low-angle position. A huge screen takes up the majority of the background behind Elliot, and the screen displays a news report on Colby’s arrest. It looks like Elliot is in control, and he is, both in the narrative and in the frame.

Elliot slowly pulls down his hood, turns his face up to the light of the screens, and looks around. But there is a subtle shift in the visuals. As he turns, the camera cuts to a different shot of Times Square. Elliot is now level with the camera, and the glaring ads of McDonald’s and Coca-Cola cut off Elliot at both sides of the frame. We can see now that it was only due to our perspective that every building appeared to be broadcasting the news of Colby’s arrest. Even the wide, massive screen that had taken up the majority of the last shot—the screen that reported Elliot’s victory—has become dwarfed by the innumerable amount of advertisements still present in Times Square. Now that the crowd of tourists and city folk is visible, we can see that all of them are indifferent to Elliot’s heroic act.

As the final insult to injury, the camera returns to the first shot of Times Square, where Elliot is seen from a low-angle camera and beneath the enormous screen that reports on Colby’s arrest. That is the shot where he was in control. Elliot throws up his hands and smiles in the genuine joy… and finds out that he has no control at all. Not in the frame, and not in the narrative, because ominous men in black approach the blissful Elliot from behind and threaten him into getting into their car. As this happens, the camera also cuts back to being level with Elliot; this is the Elliot that is bombarded by advertisements. The camera even breaks the 180-degree rule as the men in black accost him, cutting between different men in black circling him, and Elliot has no choice but to comply with his white-collar captors. This disorienting sequence shows how Elliot, even when believing himself to have power, actually has none when combating the force of society.

It is almost as if no act of justice can stop the force of consumerism, the slave-driver that is capitalism; it is almost as if no amount of saving the people from corporate greed will save them from themselves. Elliot tries to be a hero, and he is punished for it. But those are stories for the rest of Mr. Robot to tackle, especially with the neurotic and complicated Elliot as its protagonist. If not for the compelling, twisting, and achingly incisive narrative, one could very easily watch the show simply for its beautiful and dynamic shots, which tell stories and explain relationships without a single spoken word.

 

Works cited in this text:

“eps1.0_hellofriend.mov.” Mr. Robot. USA Network. June 24, 2015. Amazon Prime; Television.

Dr. Strangelove Revisited or How I Learned to Keep Worrying Indefinitely. (Gabe)

For my final post of the semester I want to take a moment to discuss a film that in our current political climate seems as relevant as when it was first released during the Cold War. Stanley Kubrick's 1964 film, Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, is a potent indictment of the ever-growing power of the military industrial complex in America, and a dark assessment of where this may lead us.

When watching this film, I was first struck by the fact that it is shot entirely in black and white. This directoral decision creates a sense of detachment from reality, just by virtue of its color palate. The separation between the world of the film, and our world itself, is misleading, and perhaps intentionally so. By deliberately creating a dimension of fictionality for this black comedy the viewer is freed to enjoy the humor of the piece without being entirely browbeaten by its political themes. In turn, the comic relief creates space for its harder hitting elements, such as the turn to fascism at the film’s conclusion, to resonate with viewers. In so doing, the audience has not been desensitized by the rest of the movie, and the comedy’s juxtaposition with heavier aspects of the plot and subject matter, makes the film as a whole more easily digestible for a wider audience, thereby increasing its chances of disseminating its message.

The next thing to grip me was the decision to cast Peter Sellers in three very different roles. While it is obviously an incredible task for a performer to delve fully into the minds of multiple, competing characters in the same film, I thought that thematically it suggested the blurring of lines between different groups in society, ultimately proposing that the characters might not be so inseparable as they initially seem. The three characters Sellers plays are a British ranking officer, who is utterly ineffectual and does nothing substantial to undo Ripper’s belicosity. Next there is the American president, an effeminate buffoon who can’t control his country’s nuclear arsenal. And finally, Dr. Strangelove himself, a Nazi nuclear scientist who defected to the United States following World War II. While their significance might not be immediately apparent, I thought the decision to cast these three characters with the same actor creates a link between them and suggests a sense of shared complicity in the events that unfold. If all three of these men are ultimately the same actor underneath the makeup and accents, then perhaps the characters themselves might are also not so different from one another. It might not take much for their differences to melt fully away, exposing the single, scared human, who lies beneath.

This connection between characters heightens the film’s disconcerting ending. When all seems lost and the atomic bomb has dropped, triggering the Soviet “doomsday device,” everybody in the Situation Room turns to Dr. Strangelove for guidance. This moment is chilling, for all it takes to make the government of the United States gravitate towards fascism, is fear of death and losing military supremacy. I thought this spoke to the true, insidious nature of fascist ideology. Furthermore, it struck me as an indictment of human behavior as a whole. In the film, these are the people who have been elected to represent the interests of the American public, but when their own lives are imperiled they flock to an unabashed Nazi for comfort and advice, even while he is frantically and uncontrollably saluting Hitler, and leap at the chance to save themselves. When Dr. Strangelove suggests a plan for living underground in mineshafts, they agree. In fact, their cowardly and enthusiastic abandonment of American ideals for the comfort of fascism is so empowering to the wheel-chair-bound Dr. Strangelove, that his legs are healed, prompting him to stand and exclaim the final words of the film, “Mein Führer, I can walk.”

Part of what makes this ending so jarring is the sense of inevitability in the prior events. Once things are set in motion there is little chance of stopping the attack, which smoothly transitions to a grateful acceptance of fascist policies. Here it just takes the relatively small push of a single general acting alone, to shift the entire course of human history. While it may seem a ridiculous possibility to the optimistic inhabitants of our modern world, this no longer feels so far-fetched. At the risk of betraying my own political biases, it is worth noting that this film made me seriously consider the checks and balances we have in place for taking unilateral military action, and how, when considered against the reality of a nuclear war’s consequences, they are a very small comfort. This is where, for me, the film finds its greatest success. Years after its creation, Dr. Strangelove provokes sober thought about our current political environment and way of seeing our place in the world. In my opinion, this should be among the goals of filmmakers everywhere: to show the world as they see it, so that others can join them in societal self-examination. Perhaps in so doing we can improve our country and the world at large, but sixty-three years after its creation, this film has not lost a bit of resonance, and I don’t know whether to find that comforting or profoundly alarming.

Bong Joon-ho: Balancing Politics and Cinema (Faith)

When Bong Joon-ho’s Okja premiered at Cannes this year, it was quickly surrounded with controversy. The news circulating was less about the film itself, however, and more about Netflix’s role as a producer. While the future of streaming services in the world of film is an legitimate debate, I was more interested in Okja for its content—specifically, how it would compare to Bong’s previous film, Snowpiercer (2013). Both films take place in the near future, feature ensemble casts, and tackle similar themes, from capitalism to environmentalism. Based on these similarities, I expected Bong’s eccentric and artistic style to convey these themes with equal strength in both films. After watching Okja, however, I realized that this ability to weave politics into cinema was a careful and tenuous balance, one which wasn’t struck properly in Bong’s newest film. When I asked myself what about Snowpiercer enables it to explore some of the same political themes as Okja without feeling incoherent and sanctimonious, the titular setting stood out to me as a possible answer.

Snowpiercer takes place in a post-apocalyptic future, where the last survivors of humanity withstand a new Ice Age in the confines of a train (called the Snowpiercer) where rigid hierarchy separates citizens into different train cars. The train travels immense distances during the film, but its nature as an entirely closed system keeps the characters tightly packed together. This physical immediacy effectively streamlines the social structure within the film world (car passengers increase in social status as one moves toward the engine) as well as the physical action and goals (the tail section must progress through the cars in order to reach the engine and take control). These two elements are so clear, precise, and simple that the film can be comfortably sprawling in other aspects—in particular, Bong is able to explore distinct and heightened visual styles without derailing the narrative or losing sight of the gritty reality of life aboard the Snowpiercer. This ability is particularly clear when the rebellious tail passengers violently storm a series of cars, as the viewer is subject to a series of distinct environments, from a dimly lit car of heavily armed guardsmen, to the bright and clean schoolroom car, filled with the smiling faces of children. These visually disjunct spaces are threaded together with a constant forward movement, as well as the tail passengers themselves—dirty, in drab and threadbare clothes, these passengers act as constant, sinister reminders of the true situation on the train. These characters are also given the crucial freedom to be ambiguous, complex, and contradictory without muddling the political issues that Bong explores. The protagonist and valiant leader of the tail car revolution, Curtis Everett (Chris Evans), is revealed to have a dark and troubled past. A father-daughter pair of genius drug addicts (Song Kang-ho and Go Ah-sung) are driven by pure self-interest, but become vital to the success of the rebellion. None of these or other characters are allowed to remain on the same moral footing that they were introduced on, however, as an increasingly dire situation prompts developments and revelations regarding their personal codes of ethics. Even the real nature of the revolution that Curtis leads, when it is finally explained, utterly upends expectations about good and evil, while the clear imagery about the evils of hegemonic government and the power of fear tactics remain as clear as they were when our knowledge was still limited to the reality of the tail car.

The action in Okja takes place over a much wider space, split evenly between the United States and South Korea. The film follows a young Korean girl, Mija (Ahn Seo-hyun), and Okja, her pet “super pig,” a species created by the sinister Mirando Corporation to make meat production more efficient and (supposedly) sustainable. The plot necessitates an ensemble cast, which is split into two general groups: those working with Mirando, and members of the Animal Liberation Front (AFL). Conflicts between these groups arise through the film, as both attempt to secure their own fate for Okja. As direct as these interactions may be (hijacking a Mirando truck, breaking into their facilities, and disrupting their operations), they lack much of the intimacy and immediacy that made Snowpiercer so visceral. That’s not to say that Okja isn’t violent or jarring at times, but these moments don’t land with the same effective artistry. One of the most violent scenes in Snowpiercer comes in the car of guardsmen, where an utter bloodbath takes place as the train passes through a tunnel. Bong plays with perspective and light here, portraying the violence with an obliqueness that makes it all the more grotesque. In contrast, violence in Okja mostly comes in the form of violence against Okja herself. Bong elects to show these scenes of animal cruelty completely, which serves as important motivation for the AFL but lessens their visual impact. In a similar vein, Okja’s action sequences are rooted much more in realism, further limiting opportunities for Bong to play with the extremes of his visual style, as well as opening a door for more specific political tangents that are ultimately more distracting than it is illuminating. One example of this allusion to modern politics that caught popular interest was a frame featuring the leaders of Mirando grouped around a table, watching a disastrous newscast on the activities of the AFL. The positions and appearances of the characters are designed to mimic the famous photo of the White House Situation Room following the killing of Osama bin Laden. The image is an interesting artifact of satire when viewed in a vacuum, but in the context of the film, however, political statements like this feel less clear—is the film about militarism or corporatism? Is the US government that subject of ridicule, and if not, who is? Because Bong decides to deal with such varied political topics, story coherence is instead found in the consistency of character morals. From the start of the film, those involved in corporate and commercial exploits, particularly the whimsically evil Mirando sisters (Tilda Swinton), have purely impure goals: that is, to continue with the cruel super pig program in order to maximize profit. On the other side of the spectrum are the members of the ALF—a sizable cast in themselves, these characters are almost all on the same page politically, and the complexity of their tactics of direct action are left mostly unexplored. When one member of the AFL makes a morally questionable decision, this is characterized as a personal fault rather than a systematic one among its members, making the reversal of the mistake a simpler narrative task.

Bong Joon-Ho is a filmmaker unafraid to make a statement, whether it be in the form of inventive visuals, eclectic storylines, or controversial politics. While Okja is the film of Bong’s that seems to be making more wave, both in terms of its production and its content, I feel that it’s Snowpiercer which deserves this notoriety. Of course, both films are visually striking and constitute noble forays into an eccentric and stylized world of sci-fi. But when it comes to politics, Snowpiercer is far more effective at delivering the message.

Hollow Glamour: the Mise-en-scène of Fascism (Conor)

           This week I will be analyzing The Great Dictator (dir. Charlie Chaplin, 1940) and Duck Soup (dir. Leo McCarey, 1933) and how both films undermine the mise-en-scène associated with fascism in order to deconstruct the self-importance of the fascist myth.

          The Great Dictator does an excellent job of outlining the ridiculous pomp and circumstance that surrounds Fascism. The Great Dictator gives audiences a limited glance into the life and routine of Adenoid Hinkle, the fascist leader that rules the fictional country of Tomania. Through the mise-en-scène, Chaplin levels a striking critique into the heart of the image that fascism cultivates for itself. Consider the ridged ceremony that accompanies all of Hinkle’s actions: the first time he appears on screen he occupies most of the frame, he wears a sharp uniform obviously inspired by military dress while all of the men seated behind him are dressed almost identically. There is a highly codified ritual associated with his speech, the audience cheers and is silent on command. Fascism in this film is extremely orderly, despite the chaotic violence leveled against the Jewish people in the film, the Fascist forces are depicted as highly organized with incredibly rigid schedules. Hinkle himself compartmentalizes his day into many discrete parts. He has a set time to do everything from playing the piano to sexually accosting one of his secretaries. Hinkle's and the film’s fascism in general cannot even spare an extra minute to examine the supposed innovations being developed by his own government. This extreme fastidiousness manifests itself in the set decoration for Hinkle’s palace. The sets are clean, organized and comprised mostly of sharp and regular lines. Neoclassical busts and statues fastidiously punctuate the sets at regular intervals, adding both an air of historical legitimacy to the palace and a stifling uniformity even in decoration.

           Hinkle’s personal interpreter, who serves as a narrator for some of the film. Gives the viewers a view into what Hinkle must think about himself: he is extremely self-important. Hinkle can be seen as an extension of the mise-en-scène used to characterize his administration. Chaplin then proceeds to undermine the very functionality of fascist fastidiousness in order to show the absurdity of Hinkle’s created image. Hinkle’s efficiency is absurd and manages to accomplish far less than it appears. The “innovations” that his government works on are abject failures, he cannot secure finances for his bloated military and even initially fails to launch an invasion against his neighbors. Nevertheless, Hinkle is both aware of the cosmetic nature of his rule while still buying wholeheartedly into his own myth. His personal filing cabinet is actually a hidden mirror; it holds no files other than Hinkle’s image itself emphasizing the importance of appearances in the film. The fascists are constantly failing to live up to their own myth; Hinkle awards and revokes obscure military honors at will, making a mockery of the entire process of commendation. The ceremony surrounding Napaloni’s visit illustrates this perfectly; first his elaborate arrival is bungled, making him look like a fool. Later Hinkle’s obsession with psychologically manipulating Napaloni displays the fascist obsession with displaying power and the fundamentally silly way in which that power is expressed.

            Similarly, Duck Soup (dir. Leo McCarey, 1933) is another film that manipulates the mise-en-scène of fascism to undermine its attractiveness and authority. Duck Soup was released in 1933, a time in which fascism itself was acceptable enough in America that prominent businessmen planned a fascist coup of the US government. Groucho Marx’s Rufus T. Firefly gives a striking portrait of a fascist leader: he is a populist who manipulates the dissatisfaction of the general population with establishment politics to enact a series of oppressive legal reforms –another situation that feels all too real in today’s America. The musical number "Laws of the Administration” in particular is so eerily accurate to our own political situation that on some level it ceases to be funny. “The last guy nearly ruined this place, he didn’t know what to do with it/if you think this country’s bad off now then wait till I get through with it” sings Firefly. Like The Great Dictator, the Silvanian setting are full of elaborate gilded decorations and are restricted by the elaborate nature of their rituals. Footmen wear either elaborate military uniforms or powdered wigs and many actions Firefly takes are accompanied by literal fanfare.

            Every character in the film is obsessed with getting Firefly to conform to the visual and ritual rigidity of fascism except Firefly and Chico and Harpo’s Chicolini and Pinky. In fact, the brothers seem dead set on undermining the importance of ritual at every given moment. In two of the musical numbers, “Laws of the Administration” and “This Country's Going to War,” the Marx Brothers even violate the elaborate choreography of the numbers themselves. Firefly ends up impersonating a footman, to everyone’s embarrassment, in the former, while in the latter the Brothers end up desecrating the uniforms of their own men by cutting the plumes off their helmets. Later, Firefly wears a different military uniform across every single cut in a battle sequence, co-opting and subverting the attractiveness of military aesthetics ranging from Imperial French to American Confederate. Simply put: Firefly’s actions reveal the silliness inherent to fascist pomp and circumstance. By reducing the fascist image to its barest and most absurd form the Marx Brothers reveal the almost hilarious sense of self-importance that permeates fascist thought.

            Both films do excellent work stripping the terror from fascism in order to expose its silliness-–although Chaplain’s film I must admit does an equally excellent job of describing precisely what that terror is and how it manifest itself for oppressed people. The dictators here are devoid of their public images, the audience sees them not as gods or geniuses, but as fools who cannot see their own shortcomings. By not allowing the fascists to create their own iconography and iconology surrounding their ideology, these films expose that ultimately all fascists are people and that their power comes not from their righteousness or their rituals, but from their monopoly on violence. Extending this logic to the Trump administration, it is plain that the very seriousness with which it takes itself exposes its ridiculous shortcomings. Every bombastic catchphrase or plan is accompanied by a bungled press conference, every so called serious achievement is coupled with a patent display of ridiculousness. Now it seems apparent that Trump is rattling the saber of the American war regime in an attempt to cement a more serious image for himself. Whether he is successful or not, these two films suggest that it is better to challenge fascists than let them create their own narratives on their own terms.  

It Did Happen Here, Part Two: Conformity and Violence in Fascist Governments (Conor)

    The November election of Donald Trump will undoubtedly prove to be one of the more significant events in recent American memory. We Americans are now standing in a unique place in history: we are living under a regime that inarguably has fascist characteristics and now must decide how best to face that threat. Films can give us both insights into fascism and the way it affects human beings and potential appropriate responses to fascism. This week I will be examining Come and See (1985, dir. Elem Klimov) and The Conformist (1970, dir. Bernardo Bertolucci) to examine the violent and non-violent strength of Fascism.

    Come and See is a profoundly dirty film. Everyone down to the last extra is absolutely caked in filth for the entire movie. The sound of buzzing flies and a profound sense of decay can be found in almost every scene. The effects of the German occupation of Belorussia on the bodies and souls of the peasants manifests itself through this filth; the evil perpetuated by the roaring tide of fascism is so extreme it makes the entire world unclean. Come and See is unique for its singularly accurate and unglorified depictions of the war on the eastern front. Civilians are massacred, an entire village is herded into a church then burned alive while a female SS officer eats lobster. There is no glory fighting for the Soviet partisans either; they are forced to steal from villagers and conscript young boys into their ranks just to survive. Worst of all they cannot protect Florya, the young protagonist, from the absolute horror and atrocity of the fascist occupation.

    The oppressiveness of the world in Come and See is largely expressed through the manipulation of sound. Dialogue in the film is often drowned out by sounds that would normally be insignificant background noises. When Florya and Glasha are eating in Florya’s house after the rest of village has been massacred, the sound of flies becomes so overpowering that it is almost impossible to hear anything else. The frantic unnaturalness of this effect mirrors the ever more frantic and deteriorating mental state of the characters. Similarly, an earlier scene uses an incredibly loud ringing noise, meant to mimic hearing loss after a bomb goes off, to show the total disorienting effect of violence on the protagonist. The overwhelming sounds amplify the feeling of helplessness and fear that permeate the entire film.

    The world of the film is constantly unpinned. Most of the camerawork is handheld and shaky, and many of depictions of the atrocities are done in long takes. The disorienting cinematography, the misplaced sounds, and even the appearance of the film itself–as it was shot on tape–all bely the intense distorting effect of fascism on the world of the villagers. Fascism is not some abstract evil for these people, it is destroying the physical and psychological fabric of their lives. The formal construction of the film constantly reminds its viewers of how devastating fascism is for a population. A captured SS officer tells the villagers to their faces that they must be eliminated: “some nations have no right to exist” he calmly explains to the faces of the survivors from a village freshly razed by the Nazis.

    Contrasted with this, The Conformist explores the nonviolent strength of fascism, and outlines a very different set of concerns regarding fascism than Come and See. The protagonist, Marcello Clerici, wants nothing more in his life than to be normal. The film often portrays him as an outcast, he is frequently following or spying on others, always looking from the outside in. He even marries a woman he does not especially care for just so he can raise a family in order to more closely conform to societal norms. This drive to go unnoticed and not upset the status quo traps him into becoming a fascist.

     The film expresses this largely through Clerici’s relationship to the setting, and more specifically to the fascist architecture of Italy. He is constantly going to meetings in enormous marble chambers that resemble giant mausoleums. The walls of these buildings are decorated with neoclassical Italian frescos and Italian Futurist murals, demonstrating the fascist obsession with a mystical past and the drive towards a more efficient and technical future. Clerici is completely dominated by these alien fascist landscapes. They limit his movement, ensuring he walks only in straight lines with a short, almost shuffling step. Fascism here enacts a subtler violence against the individual: instead of destroying the body it confines it and forces it to adhere to certain guidelines. Here Clerici’s will to conform can only result in his active collaboration with the fascist system. The desire not to upset the status quo can only result in explicit support for dominant fascist system.

    Because of this it is easy to condemn Clerici for ordering the assassination of his old college professor and his wife, a former prostitute who is also Clerici’s lover. Even though Clerici refuses to actively participate in the murder, leaving it up to his fascist cronies instead, his guilt is palpable. He may not have ordered the assassination, but he provided the assassins with the information they needed to get the job done. The film makes a strong statement that being involved with fascist bureaucracy is morally equivalent to murdering people in the name of fascism. Clerici’s desire to conform ultimately dooms him by associating him with the fascists. There are no innocents, even those who do not directly pull triggers are still equally complicit in fascist violence than those who do.

    Come and See lays out the explicit danger inherent to a fascist regime and shows how fascist atrocities destroy the physical and emotional lives of their victims. The Conformist reveals that those atrocities are only made possible through legions of otherwise innocent civilians who cooperate with fascism out of complacency or a desire to conform to social norms. The great violent evils that fascism is capable of are supported through the nonviolent desires of individuals to conform and be accepted.  The Trump administration has begun normalizing racist, xenophobic, and nationalistic behavior, and if the American people do not explicitly reject this behavior and continue protesting the rightward shift in America, they may become implicit supports of fascist violence.

It Did Happen Here: Now What? (Conor)

 

    The November election of Donald Trump will undoubtedly prove to be one of the more significant events in recent American memory. We Americans are now standing in a unique place in history: we are living under a regime that inarguably has fascist characteristics and now must decide how best to face that threat. It is absolutely critical that in the very near future we develop strategies for coping with the damage the Trump administration has already done, mitigating the future damage he has planned to cause, and ensuring that something like this cannot happen in America again for a very long time. Looking films that deal with the rise of fascism and responses to it can provide us with interesting and topical information on how best to understand and respond to the fascism presented to us in the present day.

    A Face in the Crowd (1957 dir. Elia Kazan) offers a sobering and realistic take on the potential rise of a fascist or proto-fascist leader. Andy Griffith’s Lonesome Rhodes is a fiery blues and country artist who, upon being discovered in prison by a small radio program uses his considerable rhetorical and musical talent to grow his influence and power to extreme heights. The film portrays Rhodes slide into Fascism in a brutal and unflinching way. Easily the most relevant and disturbing aspect of his transition is how silently every other character in the film takes it. Anthony Franciosa’s Joey DePalma best voices this frustrating inaction in a short piece of dialogue towards the end of the film: “all those months he was calling me ‘Vanderbilt ‘44’ and ‘Frontal Lobe’, I should’ve been punching him in the nose”. But DePalma does not punch Lonesome and so he is free to continue spewing his vitriol on the public airwaves.

    DePalma plans to reveal the truth about Rhodes in a book he is writing, but even this proves insufficient. It is Lonesome’s poor manipulated manager/girlfriend Marcia Jeffries who takes him down by directly interfering with his show, exposing him to the masses for what he really is. Even then Marcia’s responses to Rhodes earlier in the film are so detestable that her final action is not nearly enough to absolve her. When she is trying to rationalize her tacit acceptance of fascism to DePalma she finally remarks: “and well, there’s an awful lot of money at stake”. Jeffries and DePalma allow Rhodes to continue on his trajectory because it is profitable to them. At the end of the day, Marcia’s desire to stay with Rhodes in order to help reign in his wilder impulses only enables Rhodes to grow to further and further heights. The film condemns both Rhodes and the milquetoast response to his growing influence. Collaborating with fascists, even in an attempt to control them, is hardly a worthwhile pursuit. Think of how easily the democratic party and the #nevertrump republicans folded and either demanded that the public give Trump a chance or ended up voting to appoint his disastrous cabinet choices. This is a perfect example of precisely what the film warns against: you cannot expect to reform fascism from the inside, and that anyone who collaborates with a totalitarian government is ultimately doing it out of their own self-interest and cannot be trusted to lead any sort of effective political resistance to fascism. Going with the flow, or attempting to keep out of trouble tacitly supports the status quo; when the status quo is dangerously nationalistic, xenophobic, oppressive, and violent then supporting it is one of the most dangerous things anyone could do.

    Casablanca (1942 dir. Michael Curtiz) provides a much more concrete example of acceptable responses to fascist or totalitarian regimes. The antagonists in the film are literal Nazis, so there are absolutely no disguised or muddied definitions here: they are explicitly fascist. Like A Face in the Crowd, most of the people appear to tacitly accept the existence of fascism. Humphrey Bogart’s Rick spends most of the film trying to keep his head low. He profits directly from the terror the Nazi’s inflict on the refugees there by selling them exit visas despite his history as a committed anti-fascist. Captain Renault is far, far worse, using his position of influence and power to extort money and sex from helpless refugees while not hesitating to sell any of them out to the Germans.

    However, there is a much stronger undercurrent of rebellion in Casablanca than in either of the other films. Rick’s jaded cynicism is eliminated by his connections with other human beings, most notable Ingrid Bergman’s Ilsa Lund and Paul Henreid’s Victor Laszlo. Laszlo, an escapee from a German concentration camp, is open about his desire to escape occupied Europe so he can more effectively lead resistance against the Nazis; he continually acts in the best interests of the oppressed even when it endangers his life. It is Laszlo’s revolutionary conviction and Ilsa’s profound love for others that convince Rick to take the fight to the fascists. Rather than be cowed or act in his own self-interest Rick risks his life to ensure that the resistance leader can escape and in a striking act of moral fortitude he does not hesitate to shoot the Nazi Major Strasser when he attempts to interfere.

    While Rick does delay in deciding to help fight, it is only for a few days and not for a few years like in A Face in the Crowd. Bogart identifies the fascist menace and takes the necessary steps to ensure that it is weakened. In the face of a more and more tyrannical state Casablanca reminds viewers of the power of human connection and interaction. In essence, Casablanca proves the necessity of strong personal action in the face of fascism while remembering that these actions are more effective if they are organized and directed. By betraying the fascists, Rick immediately joins a huge community of others who oppose fascism. Even the crooked Renault is somewhat absolved by Bogart’s cleansing violence. He orders his men to carry Strasser’s body away without reporting Rick, putting his responsibility to fight fascism above his own desire for personal greed.

    In order to effectively combat Trump’s fascism, we will need to place our own moral responsibility over many of our other desires. As Casablanca and A Face in the Crowd suggest, if you are not actively making trouble for the fascist state you are implicitly supporting it. There is no longer an option to stay uninvolved, you either openly oppose fascism and are willing to organize against it or you tacitly support fascism by supporting the fascist status quo. Trump’s America is both cruel in its message like Lonesome Rhodes’ television shows, and oppressive in its action like the Vichy regime in Casablanca. Effective resistance can only be achieved through concrete organization with other people and a willingness to engage fascism not just within the system but outside of it too. It is not enough to, like Marcia Jeffries or Joey DePalma, let fascist action slide in order to avoid making waves or losing money. Trump is a bully; he is obviously smart enough to manipulate an enormous part of the country to support him and his message is increasingly violent and dangerous. In order to oppose him it is imperative that we act more like the active and organized heroes of Casablanca and take the fight directly to fascism every day and in every way we can.

Art in the Age of Corporate Cynicism (Conor)

    I am not really interested in superhero movies. The last one I saw was Guardians of the Galaxy (2014 dir. James Gunn) and for one reason or another I never ended up seeing another one after that. Well I broke my personal embargo to watch Captain America: Civil War (2016 dir. Anthony and Tony Russo). Ultimately the film was neither entertaining nor challenging. It was a completely standard and boring superhero flick that failed to excel in any category. It was too long, confusing, completely devoid of substance and poorly constructed with the exception of the ending twist and the appearance of Spiderman; both of which served as welcome breaks to the monotony and the incredible lack of nuance in the film’s politics.

    The Marvel Cinematic Universe has become a beast so great that preserving it has overtaken the studio’s desire to actually make compelling cinema. Because an audience would potentially need to see twelve other films and One hundred twenty four episodes of television to get a full idea of the background for Civil War it is impossible for the film to effectively build tension or suspense, do justice to its characters, or adequately wrap up a narrative in this film or in any of their future films. It is almost impossible to follow the meaning of the narrative or the growth of the characters because it is spread pretty thin among an absolutely immense amount of material.

    The natural extension of this of course, is to introduce a character in these movies to entice viewers to watch other movies both past and future to learn more about them. In this way Spiderman, while entertaining, is also one of the worst parts of the film: he is nothing more than a huge advertisement for a future Spiderman film. Worst of all, this model of filmmaking has made such an astronomically huge amount of money for Marvel that other studios are falling in line and copying it. Both the Harry Potter and Star Wars series already have myriads of interconnected spin-offs and sequels planned. This entirely profit motivated model has overtaken the entire industry and it appears that we will be trapped within it for years to come.

    Ideologically, the film is a mess, boring, and sickeningly pro-status quo. It attempts to play at the only truly interesting question surrounding the superhero genre today: is it responsible to have super powered individuals intervening in world politics wherever they see morally fit? The Avengers in this film are a clear stand-in for American military interventionism. The opening scene outlines an action scene that could very well be in any American military movie, and one of the superheroes might as well actually be called “Captain Drone,” considering how his talents are used and the completely impersonal way in which he indiscriminately kills bad guys from a position of safety.

    While the film comes frustratingly close to examining whether or this kind of arrangement is moral it never actually develops the opposing opinion to a point where it would threaten the ideological safety of the superhero universe. The film makes a clear stand on which side is morally in the right and with absolutely no surprises it is Captain America (Steve Rodgers) and his rag tag band of underdogs who of course represent all the forces of American military intervention. The film even ends with Tony Stark, the Iron Man–who represents the bureaucracy of the state but also its responsibility to regulate itself–allowing Captain America to break his fellow super-conspirators out of prison, clearly indicating that Rodgers’ methods and plans are the right ones.

    By having Captain America–-who is the living embodiment of American values and the American state in the Marvel universe–-as the lead the film even manages to dissociate the cruelty perpetrated by the state in the film from a notion of the “True America.” The moral cowardice exhibited by the American government in the film is not really a part of America but the result of bloated bureaucracy run by people out of touch with the “true American values.” Separating a state from the politics of the state is ideologically dangerous and allows the film to use the horrors perpetrated by the state not as criticism but to support the American military interventionist policy embodied in Captain America and his cronies; like the only solution to combatting politics is letting a group of super powered ideologues wreak havoc in other sovereign nations.

    The ideology expressed in the film is inextricably linked to the corporate model in which it was made. A system of filmmaking based entirely around profit is not equipped to discuss actual social issues. In order for these films to make money they have to be as ideologically “safe” as possible. This is cynicism of the highest order.  We live in a time where police indiscriminately kill people of color in this country and put down peaceful protests with incredible violence. A protofascist has been elected to the highest political office in the country and the enormous ideological divides that have been hidden away for so long have angrily and disgustingly boiled over to the forefront of the American political reality.

    Instead of attempting to address these issues through art Hollywood continues to churn out boring politically safe films that re-affirm the corrupt fantasy of a wholesome and powerful America that is rightfully enforced by a group of incredibly unfairly powerful few who should be accountable to none because they are more profitable. Superhero movies and their insidiously corrupt corporate model are destroying the film industry and failing movie watchers around the globe. An art that has so much potential to entertain, inspire and challenge is now relegated to only challenging the status quo in ways that are ultimately unimportant and meaningless.

Reproductive Rights, Camera, Action: Abortion on the Big Screen (Madison)

Some of you may know that the Supreme Court will be hearing a landmark abortion case, Whole Women’s Health vs. Hellerstedt, this March, one that will consider the constitutionality of a Texas law imposing restrictions on abortions in that state.  I encourage you, if you haven’t already, to do a little research on this case, and lend your voice to the conversation. My own interest in it inspired me to write a post on movies featuring abortion; today’s list includes Juno (2007) dir. Jason Reitman, Vera Drake (2004) dir. Mike Leigh, Citizen Ruth (1996) dir. Alexander Payne, and Obvious Child (2014) dir. Gillian Robespierre.

It is not my intention to get too political on this site—after all, this is a film blog, and I’m here to talk to you about movies. Still, with this legal action pending, my mind has been very much on women: their bodies, their rights, and the way conversations about what they should or should not do are framed. Films provide a helpful and often critical lens with which to view our society; this, of course, includes the political issues that so sharply divide us.  

It occurred to me, watching these films, that there are two ways to make a movie about abortion: you can either make the audience cry, or make them laugh. Most of the films I watched in preparation for this post chose the latter. I wondered, why is it that these directors chose comedy to speak on such a serious topic? And what is different, cinematically, between a somber abortion film and a comedic one?

It might seem silly to even write the words “funny abortion film”; still, I can’t deny that I laughed out loud at these movies. In Obvious Child, Donna Stern, the main character, opens the movie with a joke about her panties “[looking] like they army crawled through cream cheese” by the end of the day; the punk-y receptionist at the Women Now clinic in Juno says “[these condoms] make my boyfriend’s junk smell like pie” with a deadpan sincerity; Ruth, in the eponymous Citizen Ruth, shrieks at a smiling nurse at an emergency pregnancy center “Are you people fucking deaf?! I want an abortion!”

These moments of humor are often, somewhat necessarily, uncomfortable—or at least, they deal with the realities of womanhood in a way that most movies shy away from; they are surprising simply by virtue of being presumed inappropriate. It is the candidness of these moments that makes them so funny. The women in these films speak with an almost alarming frankness that occasionally verges on un-likeableness (particularly in Citizen Ruth); it seems to me that, in this way, the women very much are the movie. That is to say, no film can successfully deal with abortion without being honest, and that honesty is almost always coming directly from the mouth of the woman whose body forms the contested political ground.

 

 

To briefly say more about the body: I noticed that the camera and its gaze had a complicated relationship with the female form in these films. In some, the women are put on display: Donna in Obvious Child dances in her underwear; in Citizen Ruth, Ruth bends over the sink as the camera pans over her bottom, landing on the thong peeking over the edge of her sweatpants. Of course, this gaze is fairly neatly subverted shortly after we are treated to it: we see the underwear Donna danced in crumpled up on a pillow, dirty now; the same night Ruth bends over the sink, she huffs spray paint and faces the audience with her mouth and chin covered in black pigment. The convention of objectifying the female form (through partial nudity, the segmenting of the body into sexualized parts, the slow pan that mimics the erotic gaze) is used, certainly, but also mocked and worked through; these films are fluent, it seems, in the cinematic technique of blockbusters, but repurpose them to tell women’s stories in a funny and revolutionary way.

On the other hand, films like Vera Drake don’t use or subvert the (normative, sexualizing) gaze of the camera at all; indeed, the main character in that film bustles around in housedresses, or else swathed in her green coat. It is made clear to us that power, for Vera Drake, does not come from anything close to nudity: in fact, one of the lowest points in the film takes place when Vera is symbolically disrobed, and asked to remove her wedding ring upon entering her jail cell. Perhaps this is one of the differences between a comedy about abortion and a drama about abortion: sex, in the former, is still on the table. The woman’s body, while the site of struggle and stress, is also a place for pleasure and levity.

It is interesting to note that the leading women in these films don’t look the way we necessarily expect our movie stars to look. One is a homeless woman, often shown onscreen with paint on her face, dazed and red nosed from getting high; another is a well worn, middle-aged, working class woman; one is unabashedly Jewish (and no, her main concern is not getting a nose job); and one, of course, is pregnant, with her belly button popping out and a 64 oz. blue slushie in her hand.

 

 

It would be unwise to ignore that these women are not necessarily part of the demographic that is deemed normatively attractive. This is not to insult the actresses, who are all beautiful; rather, I want to make the point that these movies, which aim to tell female stories, cast a wider variety of women than we see in most box office films. This is a space where the woman’s body cannot merely be a sex object; it has to be made real, seen, understood as vital to the plot, which often means it must be flawed, or at least rendered convincingly, with all its attending oddness.

I would also like to point out that these films create a unique opportunity to depict communities of women. I will take a moment here to say that the movies I watched for today are flawed in that they only represent the white, straight, cisgendered female experience; I was disappointed to see that there were so few women of color cast (indeed, I can only recall two: one, who goes unnamed in Vera Drake and appears only briefly, later referred to as a racial slur; the second, Su-Chin in Juno, is onscreen for all of thirty seconds and gives the impression of being rather stupid.) Still—and this is not to push away concerns of whitewashing, merely to say that there is a positive among the negative—the films did bring women together in convincing, moving ways.

 

 

Be it Donna climbing into her mother’s bed in tears to hear about the illegal abortion she had in the 60s; or Vanessa holding Juno’s stomach in the midst of a Midwestern mall; or Vera comforting a panicked young woman by telling her that she will be “right as rain”, it is clear that the women in these movies care for one another in an important, even radical way. They are not depicted as rivals, as is more typical in film, but as companions. The love they have for one another seems to be uniquely feminine, not by nature of their biological characteristics, but because of the deep sympathy and compassion they have for one another as people trying to make it in a world that can be at best androcentric, and at worst nakedly oppressive.

Truthfully, it is a little misleading to group these movies together and try to speak about all of them at once; even amongst the comedies there is a wide variation in style and message. This could be due to the directors; men directed three of the four films I watched for today (I’ll refrain from commenting further, and allow you to conduct your own analysis of this bit of trivia.) The fourth film, Obvious Child, directed by Gillian Robespierre, is the one that seems to me the most blatantly political of the comedies. It manages to be funny, but also informative; Donna asks if the procedure will hurt, if her friend regrets getting an abortion, how much it will cost, etc. The goal of that film, it seemed to me, was to allow abortion to appear in mainstream conversation, rather than be relegated to women’s bedrooms to be spoken of in shamed whispers.

 

 

The other comedies didn’t necessarily share that sentiment: in fact, Citizen Ruth casts an equally scathing gaze on both pro-life and pro-choice parties. Both become caricatures fighting what they call a “war”, which includes acts of elaborate costume and deception, armies of followers standing on opposite sides of a barbed wire fence, and expensive (dare I say military grade?) private transportation (see Jessica Weiss’ helicopter, Blaine Gibbons’ private jet.) That film concludes with Ruth escaping a women’s clinic through its bathroom window, walking right through a crowd that has gathered outside, ostensibly to speak with her. None of them see her, even as they shout her name and wave signs; both groups are rendered utterly ridiculous.

Juno, too, is funny without taking a firm political position. On the one hand, the women’s clinic Juno visits is a dark, dirty place with lazy employees, and Juno seems to find abortion immoral; on the other, she is able to speak freely and openly with her friends and parents about her reproductive health and planning, and the decision to have the baby then give it up for adoption is her own.

I will note one last, important detail before I conclude this post (I’m afraid I’ve gone on a bit long already); one of the greatest differences, in my opinion, between a funny abortion flick and a sad one is its relationship to place and setting. Vera Drake is shot almost entirely indoors: in bedrooms, hospital rooms, jail cells. The farthest outside we go is the tenement block. Films like Juno, Citizen Ruth, and Obvious Child, on the other hand, chose not to maintain that internal focus and brought the viewers out to face the landscape: Juno bikes under blue sky and flowering cherry trees; Donna walks through the bustle of New York city; Ruth drives down a snowy, unvariegated Midwestern plain.

 

 

The movies that refused to be sad were the movies that allowed their women out of doors and into the real world, that confronted the tradition of domesticity and broke their characters out of it. This isn’t to suggest that the women’s relationship to the outside world is uncomplicated, by any means; I merely want to bring attention to the physical space these women are allowed to inhabit.

I will leave my considerations there, for now. It is hard for me to conclude this post; to do so seems to suggest that I have said everything I wanted to say about abortion, and about the way it is pictorialized, which is not the case. Still, I can only hope that this post has encouraged at least some of you to find more: more films, more articles, more passion (and, probably, more arguments.) Abortion is something that, however uncomfortable, however political and divisive, needs to be spoken of, particularly in the weeks ahead. I hope you take a look at some of these movies; and then, I hope you take a look past them, and into the lives of real women. I think it will be an eye opening experience. 

What Exactly Is Going on with White and Black Relations in Contemporary Cinema? (Ian)

I recently found a BBC article while web surfing entitled "A Renaissance of Black Cinema?"  The article pointed to the trend of growing variety of "black-narratives" in film, or basically movie narratives featuring African American characters and protagonists that revolve around something other than crime or drugs.  It pointed to several examples released just last year (2013): Fruitvale Station, The Butler, and 12 Years a Slave, in an effort to support their hypothesized trend.  They ultimately claimed that because the independent film scene (not the Hollywood film scene, the article makes clear) is producing more films featuring African Americans on screen, and because these films revolve more around said African Americans' lives, rather than than simply the circumstances of their settings, that we're supposed to swallow the idea that black cinema has recently experienced an exponential increase in authority, presence, and integrity.

Well, no offense to my pals over at BBC, but I wholeheartedly disagree.  Let's explore why:

I'm not saying black cinema hasn't made any growth--increased visibility in the cinema scene is a victory.  Yet, a simple increase in more black protagonists, does not a film renaissance make.  I argue that, despite increased visibility, the dynamics between the audience and black protagonists, and between black protagonists and their white-character counterparts, have not changed as radically as BBC would like us to believe.  Until these dynamics do begin to change no true renaissance can occur.

The particular dynamic I'm interested in here is the interactions between the white and black characters in these so called "black" films.  I suspect that, despite BBC's valiant protests, black characters are still very much at the mercies of white characters; basically, the current paradigm is white people have to help black people, even in "black cinema".  Irony of ironies, most of BBC's examples provide some of the most damning proof of this trend.  Let's take a look:

First, we'll examine one of the movies BBC didn't mention, 2011's The Help, a movie I personally enjoyed.  Nevertheless, the film received kick-back for being a tale of white people helping black people.  

Ironically, I think that The Help is probably the least culpable of this criticism out of all the films talked about here.  Indeed, if anything, I see the relationship between Emma Stone's and Viola Davis' characters as symbiotic, as they help re-awaken one another back into an existence of purpose--neither gains any particular tangible reward by the film's end (before you say it, they split the profits from the book).  However, one can't help but notice that it was Emma Stone who rallied the fearful maids into telling their stories--without them, the maids would have remained silent and decentralized.  So, yes, there is a certain element of Emma-Stone-savior-Manifest-Destiny-something.

Turning to a much juicier example.

Steve McQueen's third flick 12 Years a Slave, winner of the 2014 Academy Award for Best Picture, was a fantastic movie important for its unflinching look at the horrors of slavery.

Until one point: let's call this point "The Brad Pitt Fiasco."  (Spoilers follow)

In the film's last half-hour of the film Brad Pitt appears, seemingly out of the blue, as a hired hand on the vicious Michael Fassbender's plantation.  Pitt works alongside our hero, Solomon, to build a house (shed? something? it doesn't matter); one day, when Fassbender offers Pitt a swig of booze, Pitt declines and then proceeds to go on to deliver a semi-lengthy monologue to Fassbender about the importance of racial equality and how, for his abuse of his slaves, Fassbender will face religious punishment post-mortem etc etc.  In a film that stares so unflinchingly at the horrors of slavery, that examines so thoroughly the utter nihilism felt by those enslaved, Pitt's speech produces a tonal shift in the film so jarring you almost feel like you've suddenly entered a slightly risque episode of Barney and Friends.  Ultimately, Solomon asks Pitt to deliver a letter to his family, which would allow him to re-gain his freedom.  And Pitt's character makes this so.

The Brad Pitt Fiasco illustrates not only one of the most egregious instances of producer-abuse I've seen in a film--Brad Pitt's production company produced the film, so it makes sickly sense that Pitt would cast himself in the savior role--but it's also a horribly explicit admission by the film that, without the world's most one-dimensional white person, Solomon would've remained in slavery forever.  That sounds an awful lot like white people helping black people to me.  While I would hardly call 12 Years an inspirational tale (it's simply too sad to be one), the majority of the narrative stands as a testament to Solomon's morality, strength, and altruism in the face of inhumane horror.  The fact that all of Solomon's strife is solved by a white dude after having two conversations feels not only too convenient, but it tarnishes the very message the film means to bestow upon our hero.  All I can say is, something smells rotten in New Orleans.

Let's now look briefly at Fruitvale Station, which I saw and enjoyed last summer.  I'm sorry BBC, but drugs and crime are very much a part of Fruitvale, even if they don't seem like they are.  True, the climax of the film deals with the martyrdom of Michael B. Jordan's Oscar, via his death at the hands of white police--here, Oscar is the victim of a crime, rather than the perpetrator.  Okay, one stereotype broken.  However, before that?  Before the film's third act, he majority of the narrative focuses with Oscar debating between whether or not to re-enter the (you named it) drug-dealing business in order to pay that month's rent.  While ultimately Oscar does overcome the temptation to sell a bag of weed the size of a dentist's treasure chest, that doesn't change the fact that the movie, which revolves around an African American male deals largely with the repercussions and temptations of his formerly criminal, drugged ways.  So unfortunately, I believe that one of BBC's key pieces of rhetoric fails here.

Ultimately then, I think BBC's suggestion that Black Cinema is undergoing some form of renaissance is largely misguided.  Nevertheless, I am left with a troubling question--after examining the plots of all these different films, I wonder how contemporary American cinema will manage to make a film featuring a black protagonist that isn't subjected to any form of analysis concerning racial implications, and is simply examined as would be every other film.  I agree with BBC, that perhaps the first step is to simply portray black-protagonists outside of inherently extremely dramatic situations (ie slavery, servitude, drugs, etc); I just don't think that movement has started yet.  Meanwhile, I also can't help but wonder if the whole concept of "black cinema" does more harm than help.  Why not just "cinema" that happens to feature black characters?  Although, then again, this seems to feel wrong, too, as it would mean overlooking the great trials the African American population has faced, and the triumphs they have gained.  It's a head-scratcher.  If anything, I agree with BBC that "Black Cinema" will only truly be integrated into our film culture if its presence increases in the minds of movie-goers.

(You can read the full BBC article here: http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20130718-a-renaissance-of-black-cinema)

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.

 

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.

 

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. 

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.”

 

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. 

“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.

 

 

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.

 

                                                                                                              

Uneasy Atmospheres (Natasha)

    Bernardo Bertolucci's 1970 triumph Il conformista (The Conformist) is ill-described as a "political drama."  While the antihero Marcello's role as spy/assassin for Mussolini's fascist government motivates the plot, that plot is by far the least important aspect of the film.  Instead its paramount feature is cinematography, followed closely by the character study of the truly baffling personal history and desire for (the appearance of) normalcy that make up Marcello Clerici.  An incomplete man who knows his desires but not himself, Jean-Louis Trintignant's Marcello ultimately makes us wonder whether his threatening colleague Manganiello is not his sometime enemy but a creation of Marcello's divided mind, a reflection of his hollow and changeable morals (he is, after all, the conformist).

     The noted cinematographic inspiration for The Godfather Part II and surely an unrecognized inspiration for many films of the 70's, Il conformista bears the hallmark of Italian cinema in favoring the symbolic visual language of setting and light over a linear narrative based in plot and action. Windows abound, obscured by colored glass or shutters, looking out on the roofs of Rome and the ankles of women passing by.  Dark stone interiors chill a conspicuously empty government office building whose mile-high ceilings remind us how unjustly exalted the fascist cause once was; a similarly angular marble platform sets the stage for a Clerici family reunion where humanity is neither shared nor even acknowledged.  The film begins and ends with rhythmic and obfuscating lighting constructs, the first being a red light flashing on Marcello through shaded hotel windows and the last, the white lights of the anti-fascist revolution that approach, then abandon him, shining between columns in the street.  These scenes highlight a visual trend in the film:  Shots that let us know Marcello is physically there, but not who he is or what his presence amounts to.  And then there are shots when he simply is not there. I'm not sure what his absence amounts to in the scene where Manganiello directs a speech at Marcello, who is clearly nowhere in the area.

    There is an untouchable enigma behind the striking visuals in this film, a mysteriousness of purpose that lifts all burden of explanation off the dialogue without offering us meaning we may interpret to any specific end.  We are not preoccupied with trying to figure out the conformist or Il conformista; instead, we are overwhelmed by uneasy atmospheres, surreal camera angles, by the unexpected outbursts of eroticism mixed with such innocent desperation to take care of someone or to be taken care of. As if Marcello and his every surrounding bypassed our conscious mind, the film elicits not thought but emotion, visually and so quietly. The world it shows us makes us feel--feel what, we may not be sure--so acutely just by setting a recognizable world slightly off kilter, whether with canted framing or blind revelers, sunlight blazing between leafless trees or litters of puppies nuzzling the morphine-addled Clerici matriarch.

    Two big screen viewings have not begun to tell me what exactly I should make of these visceral feelings or the film that elicits them, and I would rather not see past the enigma--it's too beautiful to look at.

 

 

~ Natasha Hirschfeld

Battle in Seattle: An Emotional View of the 1999 WTO Conferences (Alexandra)

In 1999, protesters opposing the World Trade Organization’s ministerial conference on American soil blockaded Seattle’s downtown.  These demonstrators were trying peacefully to make their voices heard concerning the problems with conglomerate globalization.  But peaceful protests became violent riots when anarchist groups took over, police brutality broke out, civil rights were defied, and mass illegal arrests were made.  These events that occurred in late November were a rude awakening to many.  Though the protests were overall successful in stopping the WTO conference, the events that transpired created much controversy over how the city reacted to the protesters.  Many were appalled by the governmental response.  Similar to the riots at the Democratic National Convention in 1968, the protests in Seattle have been an important part of history.  And just as Haskell Wexler made Medium Cool (1969) about the DNC riots, budding director Stuart Townsend made Battle in Seattle (2007).

Irish actor, Stuart Townsend, successfully makes his directorial debut with this film.  Townsend addresses the WTO conferences through the lens of many different people, all of whom are effected differently by the convention.  There are the activists.  These are the characters that have been organizing the peaceful protests against the WTO to raise awareness about the risks of globalization in Third World countries.  There are the politicians.  These are the ones who are at the heart of the convention, mainly Seattle’s mayor Jim Tobin (Ray Liotta).  There are the policemen.  The ones who are on the streets making sure that peace ensue.  And lastly, there is the media, which is responsible for how the convention and protests are portrayed to the general public.

The meshing and crossing paths of each type of character is engaging but since there are so many important roles, none of the relationships among them get enough playing time.  It seems that the audience is only allowed to go a little bit under the surface of many of the characters.  Leader of the activists, Jay (Martin Henderson), is constantly fighting against corporation expansion, but also seems to be fighting something that is within him.  The viewers (and even some of the other characters) learn what troubles Jay in snip-its, but never fully come to grips with what bothers him.  Even when a reporter covering the convention turns sides and joins the protests, her actions seem somewhat half-hearted and the audience is not only left asking why she did this, but also wanting to know more about her.  These characters and others’ stories are intriguing, but many of them are flat.  They are little more than plot devices.  A policeman’s wife, Ella (Charlize Theron), is attacked by his fellow officers, but her character’s purpose doesn’t go much further than that.  She is simply a plot device to show another side of police brutality, to show that everyone was a target during the riots.  Many of these character portrayals are only snapshots, a disadvantage to having so many characters.

But that’s not to say that aren’t any characters in the film that have meaning.  Mayor Jim Tobin, the fictionalization of former Mayor Paul Schell, is continually at odds with how to save his city from violence while doing what is right.  Often shot behind objects (obscured by glass, items on his desk, or someone else), Tobin struggles with his past as a Vietnam protester and his current political position.  These shots make him appear as though he is lost behind a sort of barrier that constricts him from making proper decisions.  He tells the protesters to “be tough on your issues, but be gentle on my town,” but when they don’t abide he calls in the National Guard to assuage the government’s nerves.   On the other side of the issues is Ella’s husband, police officer Dale (Woody Harrelson), who is forced to patrol the streets though dealing with life-altering home issues.  The audience sees Dale in heavy protective garb, wearing a helmet, and holding a billy club while crying.  The discord of a powerful, strong man weeping is an emotion that resonates quite strongly.  The image makes it clear that not everyone involved in the five-day protest wants to be there, not everyone agrees with what is being done, but still many have no choice.

The most poignant and heart-wrenching character though may be the one who has the least amount of screen time.  Dr. Maric (Rade Sherbedzija), a physician representing Doctors Without Borders, depends on the WTO conference to inform and get support from the delegates so he can raise money for the prevention and treatment of disease in Third World countries.  But as the activists work to stop the convention, Dr. Maric is left without an audience to plead to.  His silent desperation is saddening.  It’s an emotion that is furthered by the shot of Maric in is his empty lecture hall looking dolefully out the window at the protesters and rioters.  They are making their point on the outside, while he is trying to make the same point on the inside.

It is more the composition of shots than the film’s characters that truly make the movie what it is.  In order to keep the movie’s pace at a steady, heart-palpitating, and utterly nerve-racking rate, shots are never very long.  Townsend is incessantly cutting from shot to shot in order to show many different types of action and perspective, but also to keep the viewers alert.  The quickness of the camera imitates the high tensions, stress, and nerves of those involved - even the governmental officials in their offices with large desks and leather-bound books, move at a fast, anxious speed.

Another interesting technique Townsend employs is the use of actual footage from the 1999 protests.  Just as other historical fiction films before it (such as Emilio Estevez’s Bobby [2006]), Battle flawlessly weaves this live footage of the events into its storyline.  This creates an even more urgent sense to the film. The viewers realize that what is being depicted fictionally actually occurred.  Along with this emotional intensity created by the footage, realism is created with statistics.  The film’s opening credits roll as a voice over explains what the WTO is and how it’s gotten to Seattle.  The viewers are thrust into what they believe to be a illusory story, while all the while being constantly reminded that what is happening was, at one time, real.  And though the audience sighs a breath of relief when the WTO conferences are officially canceled and the activists seem to have won, there is an ominous afterword.  Words move menacingly across the screen reminding the viewers that the WTO still exists, that conglomerates are still ruining Third World countries, animals are still being killed, and these same protesters are still fighting an uphill battle.

Battle’s character’s may not be developed enough for our liking, but the emotion that trickles out of them along with the sentiments that the film’s cinematography creates is enough to make Townsend’s film a triumph.  It’s a movie that should be seen as a reminder of not only what happened on the rainy streets of Seattle many years ago, but also as a reminder of the passion that protesters hold within them, even those in today’s political forum.