What makes a masterpiece? I have explored this question several times in recent essays, attempting to determine a set of consistent aesthetic principles with regards to cinema, with most of my efforts resulting in a virtual stalemate. In the end, it remains one of those indefinable terms, those terms untenable at best, that can only be thought of in the words once applied to offensive material: "I know it when I see it." With this in mind, there are a few of us cinephiles who have been avidly awaiting the release of Tarantino's new film Inglourious Basterds and the time has come to respond to Tarantino's wildly provocative claim that this film is his masterpiece (a claim he doesn't hesitate to include in the actual film).
Basterds revolves around the guerrilla antics of Lt Aldo Raine's "elite" group of soldiers, though elite isn't quite the word. No, they are simply Jewish soldiers, not taken for their bellicose abilities, but instead for their ability to exact revenge in an overpoweringly sadistic fashion. Raine infamously demands a hundred Nazi scalps, and he will get those scalps. The other plot (the one that doesn't quite feel like the Tarantino of the 90's, but rather the Tarantino of Kill Bill Vol. 2) follows the story of a beautiful Jewish woman named Shosanna Dreyfus, who takes refuge in Paris, hiding in plain sight by running a local cinema. She finds herself serendipitously in a position to host a film premiere for Nazis only, granting her an opportunity for her own revenge. That revenge stems from the opening scene in which her parents and brother are massacred.
Each plot contributes something very specific to the film, something that he has been trying ceaselessly to attain since he started making films. Tarantino is first and foremost a lover of films, a filmmaker whose love of cinema can be seen in every frame of that visceral 35mm film stock. He quotes images like others quote people. For though this film has frequently been called a revenge fantasy, the emphasis has been erroneously placed on revenge, when in truth this is a highly fantastical film. The action takes place in a mythological landscape, whose denizens are not Greek gods but rather celluloid heroes. Aldo Raine is really Aldo Ray, a veteran and actor who starred in several WWII films. His motley band of semitic misfits are really the Dirty Dozen. To name all the connections, would be a Herculean task, and one that would take a knowledge of cinema much more extensive than mine. A friend thought of Scarface and the Godfather Part III during some scenes. The opening scene alone contains effortless, seamless, and utterly casual throwbacks to films as varied as Grand Illusion (an early French WWI film), the 400 Blows (a sample from the French New Wave), as well as Leon the Professional (a film in the footsteps of Tarantino's early work). In fact his ability to visually quote is rivaled only by his spiritual predecessor, and headliner of the afore mentioned French New Wave, Jean Luc Godard (who directed Band a part, the film from which Tarantino takes the name of his production company).
It is from this love of cinema that this film reaches its richest symbolism. Don't be fooled, this is not a film about war. It is quite simply a film, like the rest of his canon, about the power of cinema. It has the power to make us love Shosanna, hate Hans Landa (the Jew Hunter), pity Frederick Zoller, whoop at the brutal torture of the Nazis. But even within the film, Cinema has the power to let us hide from evil forces. It keeps Shosanna safe in a world that doesn't want her. But it is also a weapon. It is used by Goebbels, the propaganda minister, to spread his ethos. Even in the final scenes film becomes quite literally the weapon used to fight the Nazis. But it is not just a negative force. It is also the thing that Zoller and Shosanna have in common despite their incredibly relevant differences.
But Tarantino doesnt restrict himself to these timeless discussions. He also makes sure to make some points along the way. For instance, there are contrasting adjacent scenes in which Hans Landa discusses the inhumanity of the Jews, and Aldo Raine discusses the inhumanity of the Nazis. This comparison is perhaps the boldest statement Tarantino has ever made, as it points out the fact that robbing anyone of their humanity, even Hitler, is to join his ranks. The Nazis have always had detractors, in fact that is a huge understatement. In reality, they are the most reviled political movement in history. But to deny them proper consideration as humans is a sin too great for words. In a later scene, Raine makes a comment about how seeing Donny go to town on Nazis is the closest they get to going to the movies (torture is even the cinema here) seems strangely relevant in the wake of Abu Ghraib.
So the question still remains: is this film the masterpiece touted with such certainty by the man himself? My answer is yes. It is a masterpiece. It is his masterpiece. It is not a greater film than Pulp Fiction, but it is certainly the best since. Kill Bill was restrained by its own tropes, the characters had to follow their allotted paths in order for the film to work. The Bride had to Kill Bill, she had to get her pound of flesh, but she also needed to have reconciliation. These were all standards of the genres he was toying with. But this film keeps you guessing, because the characters, in spite of being timeless, recognize the infinite permutations of their archetypes. It is never self-indulgent, except perhaps for the last line. The dialogue is consistently great, against all odds, considering four languages are spoken at length in the film. Perhaps the dialogue isnt the Tarantino quick-fire hard-boiled stuff we know and love, but it is consistently taut and well executed. The cinematography, as I mentioned, pops as always with that tangibility that is only ever had on 35mm. But the real reason why this is a masterpiece, is none of these. Or perhaps it is all of them, violently synthesized. The reason it is a masterpiece is because it is the culmination of Tarantino's directorial efforts. He has tapped into film noir, pulp fiction (pun necessary), blaxploitation, spaghetti westerns, samurai flicks, martial arts films, and grindhouse cinema. Each time he has expressed his love for a specific set of films. But only in Basterds does that love become universal. Only in Basterds does he stop the senseless revelry, and maturely recognize that even cinema has its own evil history. Only in Basterds does every frame he has ever shot come all of a sudden into deep focus. And Tarantino forces you to either reject the cinema as the Nazis rejected the Jews, or to instead embrace it, love it as he does, in spite of its shortcomings.
8.01.2009
Cinema as Secular Prayer
There is something mystical about the moment when the lights begin to dim in a crowded movie house. The reel changes from trailer to film with a jarring series of clicks, and in the best of times, the theater goes silent. We sit there in the austere tranquility, drinking up the shadow puppets acting out their play, occasionally contemplating their significances, or otherwise simply existing in a sort of refined ecstasy for 2 hours. It draws us in collectively and yet still personally to partake of a shared experience: the beholding of something that seems in those darkened hours to be greater than ourselves.
In fact, there is not much difference between this cinematic experience and prayer. In the darkened theater, everyone is on the same page, everyone leaves their baggage at the door to delight in the simplicity or complexity, whatever may be the case, of the film being shown. It is as if we are all kneeling to a secular deity, a deity of film, who will take away our worries for awhile, never promising resolution, only offering solace. Our heads are not bowed, instead we stare reverently up at the screen, speaking in silence, seeking community amidst our solitude.
But with this analogy in place, it seems that we have lost something over the years. Instead of allowing the emotion and catharsis to wash over us in a deluge of release, we demand certain reactions and reflections, we insist on feeling a certain way about films. We no longer respect them. When we go to see a standard rom-com, we are either disappointed or elated because it made us laugh and cry all at once. But our attitude towards it is one of superiority, as if we have the right to condemn it for becoming the very thing that our insistence has forced it to become. Filmmakers, if those who churn out the drivel to which I refer can even call themselves that, must make films that appeal to everyone, that elicit a very specific set of emotions, that follow a tried and true method. Little room is given for innovation. But when we walk out disappointed because they don't feel natural, we should insist on originality, not on adherence to a norm. We should foster creativity, not allow functionaries behind a camera to call themselves artists.
In the older cinemas, there was an architectural oddity (that became the standard) that served as a pleasantly coincidental and surprisingly symbolic barometer of our appreciation of cinema in years past, an appreciation that has since become lost in the shuffle, though not irretrievably so. It was usually the case that the screen was situated above the eye-line of everyone except the projectionist. We were forced to be lower than the screen, to perpetuate our gaze of reverence directed upward, recognizing its superiority to us. Now, because it is architecturally and acoustically better, the screen is located at or below our eye-line. We look down on it, as a symbol of our supposed subjugation of it. One difference between Catholics and Protestants is the tradition of kneeling during prayer. When you kneel in the Catholic church you perform an action of only symbolic value, an action devoid of intrinsic meaning, but brimming with implicit significance. If you kneel, you actively recognize God's superior role. You may still be able to make this recognition without kneel, but the constant reminder isn't there. It is the same way with the cinema: having the screen located below us, and not being accustomed to our newfound place in the theater, it is easy to forget the beautiful moments of profound serenity that accompany true emotion, true pathos appearing on that screen.
In fact, there is not much difference between this cinematic experience and prayer. In the darkened theater, everyone is on the same page, everyone leaves their baggage at the door to delight in the simplicity or complexity, whatever may be the case, of the film being shown. It is as if we are all kneeling to a secular deity, a deity of film, who will take away our worries for awhile, never promising resolution, only offering solace. Our heads are not bowed, instead we stare reverently up at the screen, speaking in silence, seeking community amidst our solitude.
But with this analogy in place, it seems that we have lost something over the years. Instead of allowing the emotion and catharsis to wash over us in a deluge of release, we demand certain reactions and reflections, we insist on feeling a certain way about films. We no longer respect them. When we go to see a standard rom-com, we are either disappointed or elated because it made us laugh and cry all at once. But our attitude towards it is one of superiority, as if we have the right to condemn it for becoming the very thing that our insistence has forced it to become. Filmmakers, if those who churn out the drivel to which I refer can even call themselves that, must make films that appeal to everyone, that elicit a very specific set of emotions, that follow a tried and true method. Little room is given for innovation. But when we walk out disappointed because they don't feel natural, we should insist on originality, not on adherence to a norm. We should foster creativity, not allow functionaries behind a camera to call themselves artists.
In the older cinemas, there was an architectural oddity (that became the standard) that served as a pleasantly coincidental and surprisingly symbolic barometer of our appreciation of cinema in years past, an appreciation that has since become lost in the shuffle, though not irretrievably so. It was usually the case that the screen was situated above the eye-line of everyone except the projectionist. We were forced to be lower than the screen, to perpetuate our gaze of reverence directed upward, recognizing its superiority to us. Now, because it is architecturally and acoustically better, the screen is located at or below our eye-line. We look down on it, as a symbol of our supposed subjugation of it. One difference between Catholics and Protestants is the tradition of kneeling during prayer. When you kneel in the Catholic church you perform an action of only symbolic value, an action devoid of intrinsic meaning, but brimming with implicit significance. If you kneel, you actively recognize God's superior role. You may still be able to make this recognition without kneel, but the constant reminder isn't there. It is the same way with the cinema: having the screen located below us, and not being accustomed to our newfound place in the theater, it is easy to forget the beautiful moments of profound serenity that accompany true emotion, true pathos appearing on that screen.
7.30.2009
Pinocchio, Replicants, and the Human Characteristic.
When immigrants enter this country, seeking solace and citizenship, we subject them to a battery of tests before we count them as one of our own. These tests gauge their knowledge of our traditions, customs, history, language and culture. They must know all of these things intimately to be sure that they can interact appropriately with all of us Americans. But if this knowledge is all it takes to be American, if these tests indicate what degree of a citizen one is, then all of the naturalized immigrants have us beat. It is said that most Americans would fail these tests, showing that in a way, these immigrants can sometimes be better Americans than we are. Or perhaps it shows how easy it is to take your cultural heritage, your national pride for granted. The human race is much the same way. We exclude everything else from our elite ranks, be they wooden doll, androids, or the son of Lucifer himself. We exclude these figures from consideration due to their unique histories and origins. But there is something about being human that they are able to see, which we manage to pass over. They are able to see through, interpret and aspire towards our purloined identity, making certain aspects of it apparent and visible. They become human by augmenting these aspects and all of this falls somewhere between the ironic and justified.
Pinocchio, a puppet endowed with anthropomorphic tendencies, seeks out the Blue Fairy in order to become a real boy. He goes on a journey of self discovery, a journey of experimentation and imprisonment where things seem at once within and without his control. He deviates from the criteria that the Blue Fairy set forth, the criteria that would allow his complete transformation into a human, but his deviation is in the form of imitation. He drinks and gambles because of Lampwick, he joins the circus to help out Stromboli. But it is only when Jiminy Cricket brings him home that he realizes what is of value, and chases after that. He saves Geppeto from the whale, and dies in the process. Having now illustrated the characteristics that defined a human to the Blue Fairy (bravery, honesty, selflessness and a good conscience) she rewards him with resurrection as a real boy.
In Bladerunner, Ridley Scott's purported masterpiece, Rick Deckard is of the title profession and, as such, must retire rogue replicants. (For those of you who slept through the last 30 years, replicants are androids that heavily resemble humans. In particular, the ones in question have implanted memories and synthetic emotions so that the line between human and android is so blurred as to make them almost indistinguishable.) These replicants have a 4 year life span, so as to prevent them from discovering that they are not human and becoming dangerous. Deckard successfully chases them all down and retires 3 of the 4. The last, Roy Batty, is the one with whom we eventually sympathize, due to his famous last lines: “I've... seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain... Time to die.” These memories suggest that he was able to tell the difference between actual experience and implanted memory.
Deckard also subjects these replicants to a test to determine how human they are. They must endure what, in one instance, can amount to 6 hours of probing questions. Some of the questions ask what they would do in a given situation, and other attempt to provoke empathy or repulsion. What is suggested, though never carried out, because it would wreck the subtler elements of the film, is to turn the test on a human, to see how a human fares on this gauntlet of gauntlets. If subjected to that test for 6 hours, I don't think I would have the energy to continue. It would almost be possible that passing the test after so long would be proof of being a replicant, because humans could not bear such a series of emotionally violating queries.
So what does this mean for nonhumans? They must access some aspect, some characteristic of humanity that we ignore. To counter their glaring lack of humanity, they must find what we have lost over the years, the heirloom hidden in the closet, covered in dust, they must find this and use it against us. When we envy their selflessness, their honesty, their ability to be more human that we ourselves, they have won the battle. In times of great duress, we will, as we always have, blame it on the outsiders. But for them to even be included among our number, they must follow the footsteps of Hercules. He completed the 12 labors, which were considered beyond the ability of most gods, in order to become one.
If we are going to expound against these outsiders when we feel threatened, we must learn to exude the same human characteristics that they do. We must be able to pass the same tests, to cross the line between human and animal. We must identify those things that we demand of those who aren't members of this elite fraternity, and then become worthy of the title we hold so dear.
Pinocchio, a puppet endowed with anthropomorphic tendencies, seeks out the Blue Fairy in order to become a real boy. He goes on a journey of self discovery, a journey of experimentation and imprisonment where things seem at once within and without his control. He deviates from the criteria that the Blue Fairy set forth, the criteria that would allow his complete transformation into a human, but his deviation is in the form of imitation. He drinks and gambles because of Lampwick, he joins the circus to help out Stromboli. But it is only when Jiminy Cricket brings him home that he realizes what is of value, and chases after that. He saves Geppeto from the whale, and dies in the process. Having now illustrated the characteristics that defined a human to the Blue Fairy (bravery, honesty, selflessness and a good conscience) she rewards him with resurrection as a real boy.
In Bladerunner, Ridley Scott's purported masterpiece, Rick Deckard is of the title profession and, as such, must retire rogue replicants. (For those of you who slept through the last 30 years, replicants are androids that heavily resemble humans. In particular, the ones in question have implanted memories and synthetic emotions so that the line between human and android is so blurred as to make them almost indistinguishable.) These replicants have a 4 year life span, so as to prevent them from discovering that they are not human and becoming dangerous. Deckard successfully chases them all down and retires 3 of the 4. The last, Roy Batty, is the one with whom we eventually sympathize, due to his famous last lines: “I've... seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain... Time to die.” These memories suggest that he was able to tell the difference between actual experience and implanted memory.
Deckard also subjects these replicants to a test to determine how human they are. They must endure what, in one instance, can amount to 6 hours of probing questions. Some of the questions ask what they would do in a given situation, and other attempt to provoke empathy or repulsion. What is suggested, though never carried out, because it would wreck the subtler elements of the film, is to turn the test on a human, to see how a human fares on this gauntlet of gauntlets. If subjected to that test for 6 hours, I don't think I would have the energy to continue. It would almost be possible that passing the test after so long would be proof of being a replicant, because humans could not bear such a series of emotionally violating queries.
So what does this mean for nonhumans? They must access some aspect, some characteristic of humanity that we ignore. To counter their glaring lack of humanity, they must find what we have lost over the years, the heirloom hidden in the closet, covered in dust, they must find this and use it against us. When we envy their selflessness, their honesty, their ability to be more human that we ourselves, they have won the battle. In times of great duress, we will, as we always have, blame it on the outsiders. But for them to even be included among our number, they must follow the footsteps of Hercules. He completed the 12 labors, which were considered beyond the ability of most gods, in order to become one.
If we are going to expound against these outsiders when we feel threatened, we must learn to exude the same human characteristics that they do. We must be able to pass the same tests, to cross the line between human and animal. We must identify those things that we demand of those who aren't members of this elite fraternity, and then become worthy of the title we hold so dear.
Kurosawa and the Two Classes of Great Films
It seems to be the case that when one lists the greatest films of all time there are two classes into which they must be divided, which for simplicity's sake I will refer to as the technical and the emotional. By the technical I mean those films that exemplify certain filmmaking techniques perfectly, inventing a few along the way. You cannot deny their excellence, but upon repeated viewings, there seems to be something missing. By the emotional I mean a film that may lack certain technical aspects, it my have a diminished level of pacing, or the cinematography could be sub-par. But the experience you have from watching the film, and the experiences the characters undergo within serves a greater purpose, one depicting empathetically the whole of humanity. These films seek to elucidate some hidden truth among the rubble of our lives, to find the elusive diamonds in the rough. Akira Kurosawa, one of the greatest of the Japanese directors, never fails to have his films included in a top 100 list; perhaps it is because he has mastered both forms. In particular, his films Rashomon and Ikiru fit into these categories quite comfortably.
Rashomon is resoundingly in the first category, the technical. It has cinematography that is, for lack of a better word, mind blowing; it has dialogue that, if one were so inclined, could be quoted all day long. The images presented on screen are some of the most poignant ever, not to mention the fact that either Kurosawa or Miyagawa (his cinematographer) had the inspiration to point the camera at the sun, blinding its audiences with an image never before seen. The film is largely about a trial that took place earlier in the day and is being recounted by a character known simply as the woodcutter. The trial seeks to resolve what took place in the woods where a samurai was found dead and his wife raped. The first testimony comes from the bandit, who is proud of having fought and beaten the samurai and raped his wife. The wife then claims that she accidentally killed him. A medium is brought in who, channelling the spirit of the dead samurai, claims that he committed Hara Kiri after his wife's dignity was stolen. Then at the end the woodcutter, who has told us this entire story, has been shown to also be a bit dishonest in his retelling. It is largely a film about truth and justice, with large philosophical ramifications, but it lacks a certain human element. It is about the big ideas, but seemingly avoids more emotional issues. Guilt surfaces once, and the last scene has a human element to it, but the film at large depicts little of this.
Ikiru, on the other hand, is about a man who decided to live deliberately. When he finds out he has stomach cancer, Kanji Watanabe undergoes several stages of coping with it. After he battles the depression that is crushing him, he decides to truly live, to be alive and to feel this life coursing through his veins for one night. After that night, he continues doing things that he has always wanted to do, but it dawns on him that this is only temporal, this will all be forgotten when he dies. So he goes back to his job at the department of public affairs, where nothing ever happens due to the lethargic state of the internal bureaucracy. There he decides to accomplish something, to do something for other people, and he finds a petition for a park to be built over an old sewage dump. He makes it his life goal to get this park built. When it is finally finished, he goes to the park in the middle of winter to die, because at that point his life is complete.
Now both of these films are excellent in their own ways, the determining factor is individual taste. I personally prefer Ikiru, but many of my friends prefer Rashomon. They each have their faults, but so does every film. The question of which one is better is not one that can ever be easily answered, I always say between these that they are two different types of films, and must each be taken as their own thing. They each tap into human truths, they each have philosophical questions and answers, but they differ on a technical level.
It would seem, therefore, to make a film that could exist in both realms, that could spout pearls of wisdom, that could be a fount of human emotion and transcend the boundary between the technical and the emotional. Is this even possible? It seems the only way to prove it is would be to provide some examples. Raging Bull crosses this line, its dialogue and camera movements, its score and De Niro's acting, all raise it to the peak of technical creation, and yet it oozes out a thick tar-like substance that is Jake LaMotta's soul, we peer in and see the bubbling boiling rage inside of him and recognize the human aspects of the character that could have been easily portrayed as pure evil. This film does manage to fuse the two to create a portrait of a man that is astounding in both its precision and sympathy. Does that make this film better? I think it does, but as I have said in a previous essay, the real determining factor in deciding a films greatness lies completely outside of the film itself. It is based solely on how it effects you, the audience, how it complements your experiences, how it outlines your philosophy, how it puts words and images to your thoughts. A film is like a mirror, the greatest ones are the ones that allow you to see more of yourself in them.
Rashomon is resoundingly in the first category, the technical. It has cinematography that is, for lack of a better word, mind blowing; it has dialogue that, if one were so inclined, could be quoted all day long. The images presented on screen are some of the most poignant ever, not to mention the fact that either Kurosawa or Miyagawa (his cinematographer) had the inspiration to point the camera at the sun, blinding its audiences with an image never before seen. The film is largely about a trial that took place earlier in the day and is being recounted by a character known simply as the woodcutter. The trial seeks to resolve what took place in the woods where a samurai was found dead and his wife raped. The first testimony comes from the bandit, who is proud of having fought and beaten the samurai and raped his wife. The wife then claims that she accidentally killed him. A medium is brought in who, channelling the spirit of the dead samurai, claims that he committed Hara Kiri after his wife's dignity was stolen. Then at the end the woodcutter, who has told us this entire story, has been shown to also be a bit dishonest in his retelling. It is largely a film about truth and justice, with large philosophical ramifications, but it lacks a certain human element. It is about the big ideas, but seemingly avoids more emotional issues. Guilt surfaces once, and the last scene has a human element to it, but the film at large depicts little of this.
Ikiru, on the other hand, is about a man who decided to live deliberately. When he finds out he has stomach cancer, Kanji Watanabe undergoes several stages of coping with it. After he battles the depression that is crushing him, he decides to truly live, to be alive and to feel this life coursing through his veins for one night. After that night, he continues doing things that he has always wanted to do, but it dawns on him that this is only temporal, this will all be forgotten when he dies. So he goes back to his job at the department of public affairs, where nothing ever happens due to the lethargic state of the internal bureaucracy. There he decides to accomplish something, to do something for other people, and he finds a petition for a park to be built over an old sewage dump. He makes it his life goal to get this park built. When it is finally finished, he goes to the park in the middle of winter to die, because at that point his life is complete.
Now both of these films are excellent in their own ways, the determining factor is individual taste. I personally prefer Ikiru, but many of my friends prefer Rashomon. They each have their faults, but so does every film. The question of which one is better is not one that can ever be easily answered, I always say between these that they are two different types of films, and must each be taken as their own thing. They each tap into human truths, they each have philosophical questions and answers, but they differ on a technical level.
It would seem, therefore, to make a film that could exist in both realms, that could spout pearls of wisdom, that could be a fount of human emotion and transcend the boundary between the technical and the emotional. Is this even possible? It seems the only way to prove it is would be to provide some examples. Raging Bull crosses this line, its dialogue and camera movements, its score and De Niro's acting, all raise it to the peak of technical creation, and yet it oozes out a thick tar-like substance that is Jake LaMotta's soul, we peer in and see the bubbling boiling rage inside of him and recognize the human aspects of the character that could have been easily portrayed as pure evil. This film does manage to fuse the two to create a portrait of a man that is astounding in both its precision and sympathy. Does that make this film better? I think it does, but as I have said in a previous essay, the real determining factor in deciding a films greatness lies completely outside of the film itself. It is based solely on how it effects you, the audience, how it complements your experiences, how it outlines your philosophy, how it puts words and images to your thoughts. A film is like a mirror, the greatest ones are the ones that allow you to see more of yourself in them.
6.15.2009
Succumbing to the Beast
[A note, first: I took a hiatus for the month of May from watching films. In the mean time, I thought about art and music and literature. This essay is one of several that I wrote on those subjects. I hope you enjoy, despite its change in subject matter.]
Nietzsche speaks, in The Birth of Tragedy, of a moment of such piercing clarity, a moment that is so brimming with understanding that it is as if the viewer is able to see two things simultaneously: the work at hand, and the almost blinding truth behind the work. He calls this the "double look." As we viewers who have experienced the double look can attest to, it is as if you are watching a film on a screen, and all of a sudden you can see through the screen into reality, into truth and you stare it dead in the eyes. The only thing keeping it from killing you is the screen itself.
There is a painting by George Frederic Watts called The Minotaur (above) that almost perfectly exemplifies this pseudo-visual phenomenon. It shows the mythic creature sitting on a balcony, looking longingly to the sea. But the first thing we notice, the screen if you will, is that he is a Minotaur. We notice his brutality and his ability to kill us without a second thought. That is his modus operandi, and our fearful reaction is all too expected. However, as we gaze deeper, as we look closer, we notice the lines of anxiety in his face, the melancholic look in his eyes. We see his human characteristics. And it makes us think of his purpose, or moreover, his dreams. From that look in his eyes, we can tell that he has them, that he hates the labyrinth, and is waiting for someone to free him, to give him a chance. The stories inform us that the Minotaur was half bull, half man, and we have always seen that distinction as purely physical. We have sometimes even see the man half as his cunning nature. But what if the thing that separates us from all other animals is not our ability to reason, but our ability to emote? What if the most human thing we can do is feel something real? That, I think, is what Watts was driving at, trying to get us to understand.
Jorge Luis Borges, the godfather of South American Literature and one of the greatest short story writers of all time, wrote a piece entitled The House of Asterion. It told the story of a man trapped in a place with an infinite number of doors and an infinite number of paths, so intricate that he would never find a way out by himself. So he waited and waited for someone to fulfill the prophecy and free him from his prison (he was, after all the heir the the titular royal house). When people come to visit him, he recognizes the fear in their eyes, and it infuriates him. They shouldnt fear him, they should help him. So he kills them out of frustration. But one day his hero comes and our prisoner can tell that he is the liberator from the look in his eyes. The story ends with Theseus exiting the Labyrinth saying "It was strage, he didn't even put up a fight." This captures that ineffable sense of longing that our Minotaur feels as he stares over the Mediterranean. He is waiting to be freed from his prison, tired of his limited diet of virgins and prisoners. He realizes that he is stuck in an endless loop, a never-ending cycle that leads only to his perpetuated ennui. He is like all of us who are discontent with our lives. We are all the Minotaur: half beast, half man. But if we forget the man, if we forget the emotion, the feeling, in short, everything that is good about life, we have lost the struggle, and succumb to the beast. And then we are only remembered for our brutality.
4.21.2009
Great Films
There is no greater joy in the cinema than the feeling that a film was made uniquely for you. There is something to be said for films that create such an intense bond between subject and object regardless of their technical prowess. Some films may utilize great actors, others great writers, but only the select few are considered great. After a certain point, the acting cannot improve, the writing is superb, the music fits perfectly and it is difficult to distinguish in such quantitative terms between comparably well-made films. One must switch to the qualitative, the emotional, the gut, to determine which films are greater. This is why the great films are so personal, because without that connection they would be dull, lifeless imprints on celluloid.
Take, for example, the difference between Wes Anderson's Bottle Rocket and Rushmore. The former is a techinically crude meditation on innocence, lost and gained, about three friends who can't believe that it is acceptable to just be themselves, and instead turn to a life of crime, something they have picked up from other films. The latter is also a meditation on innocence and individuality, and although it doesnt delve as deeply into those issues, it has a better script and is more “professional,” less crude. Which of these is the better film? It is impossible to tell from any description. The films must connect to the viewer.
Now there are some films which surpass the basic need to affect one person, and affect the world entire. These select few, naturally endowed with a sort of beauty that one cannot help but have a personal connection to the film. Citizen Kane, often cited as the best film of all time, holds that title because of this very fact. It is the story of a man driven by the American Dream, only to find out that he has lost something vital in the twilight of his life. This is something many people connect to, as we have all had lost dreams and regrets.
So, it seems that there is some area between being technically excellent and personally significant, and in this area is where the great films lie. They capture the hearts and the minds of their viewers. Some of the films I personally consider great are Breathless, The Godfather, Raging Bull, The Grand Illusion, Rashomon, Sullivan's Travels, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Royal Tenenbaums, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Pulp Fiction, and Short Cuts. This is by no means an extensive list, but these are all films that I go back and watch, time and time again. Each time my relationship with them is furthered, intensified. They become a part of my being, my experience, they elucidate my understanding of the world. And when I think of how good they are, I go soft in the gut. These are great films. And this is why.
Take, for example, the difference between Wes Anderson's Bottle Rocket and Rushmore. The former is a techinically crude meditation on innocence, lost and gained, about three friends who can't believe that it is acceptable to just be themselves, and instead turn to a life of crime, something they have picked up from other films. The latter is also a meditation on innocence and individuality, and although it doesnt delve as deeply into those issues, it has a better script and is more “professional,” less crude. Which of these is the better film? It is impossible to tell from any description. The films must connect to the viewer.
Now there are some films which surpass the basic need to affect one person, and affect the world entire. These select few, naturally endowed with a sort of beauty that one cannot help but have a personal connection to the film. Citizen Kane, often cited as the best film of all time, holds that title because of this very fact. It is the story of a man driven by the American Dream, only to find out that he has lost something vital in the twilight of his life. This is something many people connect to, as we have all had lost dreams and regrets.
So, it seems that there is some area between being technically excellent and personally significant, and in this area is where the great films lie. They capture the hearts and the minds of their viewers. Some of the films I personally consider great are Breathless, The Godfather, Raging Bull, The Grand Illusion, Rashomon, Sullivan's Travels, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Royal Tenenbaums, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Pulp Fiction, and Short Cuts. This is by no means an extensive list, but these are all films that I go back and watch, time and time again. Each time my relationship with them is furthered, intensified. They become a part of my being, my experience, they elucidate my understanding of the world. And when I think of how good they are, I go soft in the gut. These are great films. And this is why.
4.08.2009
Indiana Jones and the Significance of Cultural Art.
[I reject the new Indiana Jones movie from the discussion.]
Indiana Jones is an almost mythic figure in our modern cultural heritage. He seems a demigod, when it comes down to it. But despite his seemingly pulp status, he, through his actions, makes very astute aesthetic judgments. Though I will only refer specifically to the film trilogy, he even makes these choices in the Young Indiana Jones series. In fact, all of the films seem to be directed toward one thing: possession. The villains all want the artifact for some purpose or design, while Indiana Jones tries to give it to the world. Perhaps there is some degree of selfishness to this, but he prefers to share these culturally significant objects with that culture, instead of having the items locked away or hoarded by some greedy individual. He realizes the significance of cultural art.
In Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indy tries to obtain the Ark of the Covenant, but only after he discovers that the Nazi's are doing it, too. He knows that if they found an object of such magnitude, they would be unstoppable against all the armies of the world. So he sets out on his quest to beat them there. And he does beat them, but they expect him to do so, and lie in wait. The villains let him find the Ark, and then take it from him. After much fighting and whip lashing, Indy gets the Ark back only to have the US government take it from him to put in Area 51. He argues that it belongs in a museum, something that has already and will always escape from his lips.
In Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Indy finds himself in India. A local tribe tells him of a great evil that has stolen their spiritual rock, which he discovers is one of the legendary Shankara Stones. They offer to help him if he will retrieve the stone from the clutches of a great evil man. He tracks down the location of the stone, only to discover that it is held inside a temple in which the menu is comprised of still living reptiles and human flesh. Every night, amidst child slavery and black magic, the high priest Mola Ram, sacrifices another human after ripping out his heart. The slaves are the children of the tribe that begged him for help. Mola Ram has also captured the other Shankara Stones from other neighboring villages, and is using the power that derives from their proximity to exert a certain control over the entire community. If you drink the “blood of Mola Ram” you are immediately under his control. Anyways, Indy saves the day, gets all of the stones back and frees the children. When asked why he doesnt take the stones back to a museum he responds that it would just become “another rock collecting dust.”
In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, his goal is the quest of all quests: the search for the Holy Grail. The Nazi's are after this prize too, but that does not inspire him to chase as much as the fact that his father was recently lost looking for it. Indy finds all the signs, then finds his father, only to be stabbed in the back by his partner, a Nazi spy. He and his father, Henry, have a large abyss between them due to a falling out years ago. But they put that behind them to search for the greatest treasure of all time. Their biggest difference is not one of practice, but of belief. Indy, as a scientist professes no faith in God. Henry, though, is a devout Christian, something he claims is necessary to discovering the Grail. When they get to the end of the line, Henry is shot, and Indiana must proceed in order to save his life with water from the Grail. That is the only way to save him now. So Indiana takes the leap of faith, rather literally, and does discover the Grail. He saves his father, and is almost swept up by its magnetism, but in the end, lets the Grail go, leaving it behind never to be in a museum.
So, you might ask, how do these three endings have something in common? Well, he does what is right for each artifact. When a work of art becomes a part of a culture, is transcends its canvas,, its bronze, its unique fusion of colors, its workmanship. It transcends all of this. It shares a bond with the community that it is a part of. Quite recently it was discovered that the copy of the Thinker present at the University of Louisville was actually the original. It was believed to be a copy made by a student of Rodin's, but it has been tested and traced back, and the conclusion stands. It is the original Thinker. So the art professors and scientists decided to do a restoration of the work, given its significance. During this process, someone suggested that it be relocated to the Speed Museum, a museum that is practically on campus, so as to preserve it better. But they decided against this because there is a mutual symbiosis between the sculpture and the student body. To put it under a glass case would alienate them from each other. The Thinker no longer ponders the Underworld as he did 100 years ago. The Thinker is now an image of the student, constantly perusing books and rethinking ideas, fashioning new thoughts and contemplating its surroundings. It has rubbed off on the students, and the students have rubbed off on it. They share a bond, and to break it would be as wrong as destroying it.
A community that looks upon a work of art and collectively ascribes a certain meaning to it, based on their experiences changes that work of art. It is something new. It is forever changed. To take the Shankara Stone away from the Indian tribe that reveres it would be to remove that great cloak of meaning, to void in it all that is valuable. It would lose those magical properties and become “just another rock.” To not protest the relocation of the Ark of the Covenant would be akin to hiding a bit of someone's faith in the shadows. And to take the Holy Grail with you and show it to the world would be to remove the burden of the leap of faith. To prove God's existence is to remove the power of doubt.
All of these things are enhanced by a certain magical property. The Stones light up and imbue their owner with superhuman abilities. The Ark lets forth the Wrath of God for those who believe. And the Grail offers eternal life and health. As Indy professes, he does not believe in magic tricks like these, so we must take their significance to the next level. These objects are not powerful in and of themselves, they are not powerful because God made them that way, or Ganesh was particularly pleased, they are powerful because we make them that way. If we did not give the objects their power over us, they would just be rocks collecting dust, or boxes filled with the dust of age old tablets, or a cup made of clay. We give them the power to change our lives, and for one person to possess this and not share it with the world is one of the greatest injustices of all.
Indiana Jones is an almost mythic figure in our modern cultural heritage. He seems a demigod, when it comes down to it. But despite his seemingly pulp status, he, through his actions, makes very astute aesthetic judgments. Though I will only refer specifically to the film trilogy, he even makes these choices in the Young Indiana Jones series. In fact, all of the films seem to be directed toward one thing: possession. The villains all want the artifact for some purpose or design, while Indiana Jones tries to give it to the world. Perhaps there is some degree of selfishness to this, but he prefers to share these culturally significant objects with that culture, instead of having the items locked away or hoarded by some greedy individual. He realizes the significance of cultural art.
In Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indy tries to obtain the Ark of the Covenant, but only after he discovers that the Nazi's are doing it, too. He knows that if they found an object of such magnitude, they would be unstoppable against all the armies of the world. So he sets out on his quest to beat them there. And he does beat them, but they expect him to do so, and lie in wait. The villains let him find the Ark, and then take it from him. After much fighting and whip lashing, Indy gets the Ark back only to have the US government take it from him to put in Area 51. He argues that it belongs in a museum, something that has already and will always escape from his lips.
In Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Indy finds himself in India. A local tribe tells him of a great evil that has stolen their spiritual rock, which he discovers is one of the legendary Shankara Stones. They offer to help him if he will retrieve the stone from the clutches of a great evil man. He tracks down the location of the stone, only to discover that it is held inside a temple in which the menu is comprised of still living reptiles and human flesh. Every night, amidst child slavery and black magic, the high priest Mola Ram, sacrifices another human after ripping out his heart. The slaves are the children of the tribe that begged him for help. Mola Ram has also captured the other Shankara Stones from other neighboring villages, and is using the power that derives from their proximity to exert a certain control over the entire community. If you drink the “blood of Mola Ram” you are immediately under his control. Anyways, Indy saves the day, gets all of the stones back and frees the children. When asked why he doesnt take the stones back to a museum he responds that it would just become “another rock collecting dust.”
In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, his goal is the quest of all quests: the search for the Holy Grail. The Nazi's are after this prize too, but that does not inspire him to chase as much as the fact that his father was recently lost looking for it. Indy finds all the signs, then finds his father, only to be stabbed in the back by his partner, a Nazi spy. He and his father, Henry, have a large abyss between them due to a falling out years ago. But they put that behind them to search for the greatest treasure of all time. Their biggest difference is not one of practice, but of belief. Indy, as a scientist professes no faith in God. Henry, though, is a devout Christian, something he claims is necessary to discovering the Grail. When they get to the end of the line, Henry is shot, and Indiana must proceed in order to save his life with water from the Grail. That is the only way to save him now. So Indiana takes the leap of faith, rather literally, and does discover the Grail. He saves his father, and is almost swept up by its magnetism, but in the end, lets the Grail go, leaving it behind never to be in a museum.
So, you might ask, how do these three endings have something in common? Well, he does what is right for each artifact. When a work of art becomes a part of a culture, is transcends its canvas,, its bronze, its unique fusion of colors, its workmanship. It transcends all of this. It shares a bond with the community that it is a part of. Quite recently it was discovered that the copy of the Thinker present at the University of Louisville was actually the original. It was believed to be a copy made by a student of Rodin's, but it has been tested and traced back, and the conclusion stands. It is the original Thinker. So the art professors and scientists decided to do a restoration of the work, given its significance. During this process, someone suggested that it be relocated to the Speed Museum, a museum that is practically on campus, so as to preserve it better. But they decided against this because there is a mutual symbiosis between the sculpture and the student body. To put it under a glass case would alienate them from each other. The Thinker no longer ponders the Underworld as he did 100 years ago. The Thinker is now an image of the student, constantly perusing books and rethinking ideas, fashioning new thoughts and contemplating its surroundings. It has rubbed off on the students, and the students have rubbed off on it. They share a bond, and to break it would be as wrong as destroying it.
A community that looks upon a work of art and collectively ascribes a certain meaning to it, based on their experiences changes that work of art. It is something new. It is forever changed. To take the Shankara Stone away from the Indian tribe that reveres it would be to remove that great cloak of meaning, to void in it all that is valuable. It would lose those magical properties and become “just another rock.” To not protest the relocation of the Ark of the Covenant would be akin to hiding a bit of someone's faith in the shadows. And to take the Holy Grail with you and show it to the world would be to remove the burden of the leap of faith. To prove God's existence is to remove the power of doubt.
All of these things are enhanced by a certain magical property. The Stones light up and imbue their owner with superhuman abilities. The Ark lets forth the Wrath of God for those who believe. And the Grail offers eternal life and health. As Indy professes, he does not believe in magic tricks like these, so we must take their significance to the next level. These objects are not powerful in and of themselves, they are not powerful because God made them that way, or Ganesh was particularly pleased, they are powerful because we make them that way. If we did not give the objects their power over us, they would just be rocks collecting dust, or boxes filled with the dust of age old tablets, or a cup made of clay. We give them the power to change our lives, and for one person to possess this and not share it with the world is one of the greatest injustices of all.
Life is a Cabaret, Old Chum.
It seems hard to imagine a musical, of all things, taking place during 1930's Germany. And, in fact, if it had been about anything else, the film would have been tasteless, tactless, and morally void. However, when push came to shove, Bob Fosse created a film that was not only beautiful, but communicated something very core to the human experience. He showed us what it means to live, to die, to cope, and to understand great tragedy and injustice. His film illuminates the human response to travesty, something felt by everyone who walks this earth.
Cabaret, as its title suggests, revolves around the activities of a nightclub dancer named Sally Bowles. This American girl meets a British writer, named Brian, near the start of the film, and falls in love with him, something not impeded by his later confession of homosexuality. She continues to pursue him as he is sharing an apartment with her, though she makes sure to keep her advances low-key. Eventually he caves and begins a romantic and sexual relationship with her. They also befriend a rich man named Max von Heune, who, one evening, invites them both over for a party. Their relationships are all ambiguous, and we find out later that both Sally and Brian had sex with Max.
At first she and Brian quarrel over this, but then Sally discovers that she is pregnant. She is not sure, however, who the father is. Immediately Brian suggests that they get married and move back to England, but Sally realizes her need to toss caution to the wind would be suppressed there, and instead decides to have an abortion. When he discovers this, he goes back to England, she stays in Berlin, and their lives go on.
If it were not for the sad ending and the shroud of Nazism, this would almost be called a happy film. That is because the characters make their world happy. They are surrounded on all sides by death, torture, injustice and war. In effect, they are surrounded by death. And how can you live in that world? How can you eat, drink or be merry in a world where it is unusual to walk down the street and not see a bloody corpse? How can you stay in your home when people put dead dogs on your doorstep? These are destructive times, and everyone needs an escape.
So Sally, in her great bohemian wisdom, creates that escape. She creates life. Her getting pregnant is simply a metaphor for the German people at that time. She sings and dances on stage, she oozes sexuality from every pore. She is life, or as she puts it near the end, life is a cabaret. Because, you see, the very act of creation does something to stop the destruction. Eventually, this metaphorical love child will be aborted, but the fact that love was there is beautiful enough. It gives them a brief reprieve from the broken world in which they live.
The Cabaret is simply a microcosm for this phenomenon that exists in all times and all places. Whenever we are surrounded by death we create life, and when we are surround by life, we destroy. Look at the 60's, a time when the country was entrenched in the Vietnam War, and there was a romantic bohemian revolution, a sexual revolution, a musical revolution. It was a revolution of life. Look at Adam and Eve: when presented with creation, they had to disobey. It is as if our bodies need to keep the creative and destructive juices in equilibrium. We need to keep our homeostasis, and when presented with a world that is either too good or too bad, we have a psychological need to reduce it to the middle.
I leave you with a quote from another great film, The Third Man: “Don't be so gloomy. After all it's not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”
Cabaret, as its title suggests, revolves around the activities of a nightclub dancer named Sally Bowles. This American girl meets a British writer, named Brian, near the start of the film, and falls in love with him, something not impeded by his later confession of homosexuality. She continues to pursue him as he is sharing an apartment with her, though she makes sure to keep her advances low-key. Eventually he caves and begins a romantic and sexual relationship with her. They also befriend a rich man named Max von Heune, who, one evening, invites them both over for a party. Their relationships are all ambiguous, and we find out later that both Sally and Brian had sex with Max.
At first she and Brian quarrel over this, but then Sally discovers that she is pregnant. She is not sure, however, who the father is. Immediately Brian suggests that they get married and move back to England, but Sally realizes her need to toss caution to the wind would be suppressed there, and instead decides to have an abortion. When he discovers this, he goes back to England, she stays in Berlin, and their lives go on.
If it were not for the sad ending and the shroud of Nazism, this would almost be called a happy film. That is because the characters make their world happy. They are surrounded on all sides by death, torture, injustice and war. In effect, they are surrounded by death. And how can you live in that world? How can you eat, drink or be merry in a world where it is unusual to walk down the street and not see a bloody corpse? How can you stay in your home when people put dead dogs on your doorstep? These are destructive times, and everyone needs an escape.
So Sally, in her great bohemian wisdom, creates that escape. She creates life. Her getting pregnant is simply a metaphor for the German people at that time. She sings and dances on stage, she oozes sexuality from every pore. She is life, or as she puts it near the end, life is a cabaret. Because, you see, the very act of creation does something to stop the destruction. Eventually, this metaphorical love child will be aborted, but the fact that love was there is beautiful enough. It gives them a brief reprieve from the broken world in which they live.
The Cabaret is simply a microcosm for this phenomenon that exists in all times and all places. Whenever we are surrounded by death we create life, and when we are surround by life, we destroy. Look at the 60's, a time when the country was entrenched in the Vietnam War, and there was a romantic bohemian revolution, a sexual revolution, a musical revolution. It was a revolution of life. Look at Adam and Eve: when presented with creation, they had to disobey. It is as if our bodies need to keep the creative and destructive juices in equilibrium. We need to keep our homeostasis, and when presented with a world that is either too good or too bad, we have a psychological need to reduce it to the middle.
I leave you with a quote from another great film, The Third Man: “Don't be so gloomy. After all it's not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”
3.27.2009
The Seventh Seal-The Point of the Game.
As a group of travelers settles down for the night, a man suffering the unimaginable terrors of the black plague appears just beyond their encampment and begs for something to quench his undying thirst. He, in intense agony, expresses his fear of death, a fear so human, we all sympathize with his troubles. But the more harrowing image presented to us in this scene is not this man on the verge of death, but rather the squire Jons as he comments on the futility of helping him. He refuses to give him water claiming, in effect, that the die is already cast. He has contracted the plague and is beyond help. This is a scene from one of the greatest foreign films of all time, The Seventh Seal. The films deals largely in metaphysical questions, the big questions of philosophy, but more importantly, the questions of dying men. Because when it comes down to it, we are all this dying man, we are all, in a manner of speaking, on the verge of death. It is, as they say, simply a matter of time before we check out, which in turn begs the question: Of what use is offering anyone help? We all stand with one foot out the door.
The film begins with a crusader, Antonius Block, and his squire, the aforementioned Jons, as they are on their journey home. The return to Sweden to find their homeland ravaged by the black plague, a constant reminder of the proximity of death. But Block is not reminded of death by the mottled corpses, it is the presence of Death itself. Death, a man in a black cloak without a sense of humor, approaches Block to tell him that his time is up, the die is cast. In a futile attempt to stall Death, to earn a few precious hours on earth, the knight challenges the reaper to a chess match. Block, riddled with doubt doesn't want to die until he can be sure of God's existence. As is the knightly norm, he embarks on a quest.
At first, this quest is a quest for knowledge. But he discovers soon that he will never be sure of God's existence. He will have to take the Kierkegaardian leap of faith. Reason and “knowledge” will just take him to the edge of the cliff. To truly understand he must jump. So he abandons this quest for knowledge and instead searches for some meaning. During one of their chess bouts (Death frequently leaves to go kill some people) Death asks about the knight's new traveling companions, suggesting that because he has brought them along, they too will expire.
To backtrack a little, this group that is traveling with Block is a portion of a troupe of actors. They make their living by going from town to town making people laugh. But when the masks come off, they somehow manage to stay above the grim cloud of despair that permeates everyone else's existence. Jof and his wife, Mia, and their son, Mikhail, brim with radiance at the world. They are joyous, despite every reason not to be. When one of their number leaves the troupe to pursue a woman, they are left alone. The knight stumbles upon their makeshift encampment and Mia offers him wild strawberries and fresh milk.
Jof somehow realizes that Block is playing chess with Death after a fateful glance from the knight, and realizes that if they wish to survive, they must leave at once. Block seizes the moment, knowing that Death will not notice their departure as he has checkmate in two moves. He knocks over the pieces. As Death places them back where they were, Jof and his family escape Death's clutches. Death, in his elitist drawl asks whether the knight gained anything by the delay. And he did. Meaning.
We are all playing chess with Death. We may not realize it, but we know that one day we will die. That is the nature of life. It enriches life, it empowers life. In fact, death is the only thing that makes life worth living. Yet somehow, when faced in the eye with our own mortality, we cower in fear, hoping it will pass. Death doesn't pass. Man never wins the game. Why then do we play? Because playing the game is winning. Playing the game circumvents Death. We live in troubled times: times of war, drought, AIDS, distrust, and an increasing state of alienation. It feels like the end of times, just as it did during the black plague. But to lay down and let Death take your queen is to let Death win. The outcome of the game does not determine the winners in this world or the next. It all comes down to the way you play the game.
Marcus Aurelius once said, “It is not death that a man should fear, he should fear never beginning to live.” He wants us to pick up the pieces and start a game that we will lose, for we are all mortal, just for the sake of the game. He wants us to look at Jof and his family, a group of people that represent a light in this world. To put out that light, or be responsible for its dousing, would be a nearly unforgivable sin. They give hope, they make people laugh, they offer a reprieve from this world of suffering.
Sullivan's Travels, one of my all-time favorite films, is a meditation on the need for comedy. At the end, Sullivan says “There's a lot to be said for making people laugh. Did you know that that's all some people have? It isn't much, but it's better than nothing in this cockeyed caravan.” This is what Jof does: he makes people laugh. He gives them a raison d'être. He understands why you play the game. For him it's family, for others it is friends. But perhaps the link between all of these is the creation of something beautiful. We must proactively let Beauty into this world. If we don't, we have a Pandora's box full of despair without the grain of Hope. In the end, it is the game of life that we are involved in; as long as we pick up the pieces and play with dignity, we can never truly lose.
The film begins with a crusader, Antonius Block, and his squire, the aforementioned Jons, as they are on their journey home. The return to Sweden to find their homeland ravaged by the black plague, a constant reminder of the proximity of death. But Block is not reminded of death by the mottled corpses, it is the presence of Death itself. Death, a man in a black cloak without a sense of humor, approaches Block to tell him that his time is up, the die is cast. In a futile attempt to stall Death, to earn a few precious hours on earth, the knight challenges the reaper to a chess match. Block, riddled with doubt doesn't want to die until he can be sure of God's existence. As is the knightly norm, he embarks on a quest.
At first, this quest is a quest for knowledge. But he discovers soon that he will never be sure of God's existence. He will have to take the Kierkegaardian leap of faith. Reason and “knowledge” will just take him to the edge of the cliff. To truly understand he must jump. So he abandons this quest for knowledge and instead searches for some meaning. During one of their chess bouts (Death frequently leaves to go kill some people) Death asks about the knight's new traveling companions, suggesting that because he has brought them along, they too will expire.
To backtrack a little, this group that is traveling with Block is a portion of a troupe of actors. They make their living by going from town to town making people laugh. But when the masks come off, they somehow manage to stay above the grim cloud of despair that permeates everyone else's existence. Jof and his wife, Mia, and their son, Mikhail, brim with radiance at the world. They are joyous, despite every reason not to be. When one of their number leaves the troupe to pursue a woman, they are left alone. The knight stumbles upon their makeshift encampment and Mia offers him wild strawberries and fresh milk.
Jof somehow realizes that Block is playing chess with Death after a fateful glance from the knight, and realizes that if they wish to survive, they must leave at once. Block seizes the moment, knowing that Death will not notice their departure as he has checkmate in two moves. He knocks over the pieces. As Death places them back where they were, Jof and his family escape Death's clutches. Death, in his elitist drawl asks whether the knight gained anything by the delay. And he did. Meaning.
We are all playing chess with Death. We may not realize it, but we know that one day we will die. That is the nature of life. It enriches life, it empowers life. In fact, death is the only thing that makes life worth living. Yet somehow, when faced in the eye with our own mortality, we cower in fear, hoping it will pass. Death doesn't pass. Man never wins the game. Why then do we play? Because playing the game is winning. Playing the game circumvents Death. We live in troubled times: times of war, drought, AIDS, distrust, and an increasing state of alienation. It feels like the end of times, just as it did during the black plague. But to lay down and let Death take your queen is to let Death win. The outcome of the game does not determine the winners in this world or the next. It all comes down to the way you play the game.
Marcus Aurelius once said, “It is not death that a man should fear, he should fear never beginning to live.” He wants us to pick up the pieces and start a game that we will lose, for we are all mortal, just for the sake of the game. He wants us to look at Jof and his family, a group of people that represent a light in this world. To put out that light, or be responsible for its dousing, would be a nearly unforgivable sin. They give hope, they make people laugh, they offer a reprieve from this world of suffering.
Sullivan's Travels, one of my all-time favorite films, is a meditation on the need for comedy. At the end, Sullivan says “There's a lot to be said for making people laugh. Did you know that that's all some people have? It isn't much, but it's better than nothing in this cockeyed caravan.” This is what Jof does: he makes people laugh. He gives them a raison d'être. He understands why you play the game. For him it's family, for others it is friends. But perhaps the link between all of these is the creation of something beautiful. We must proactively let Beauty into this world. If we don't, we have a Pandora's box full of despair without the grain of Hope. In the end, it is the game of life that we are involved in; as long as we pick up the pieces and play with dignity, we can never truly lose.
3.26.2009
Death in Venice-The Art of Adaptation
Surrounding the adaptation of any successful novel is an implacable shroud of controversy. Ardent fans disappointed with even the most minute of changes riot and it is accepted as fact that the book is better than the film. What these fans fail to confront, though they must certainly realize it, is the necessity of change during the adaptation process. The filmmakers must include their own voice in the adaptation for it to be of any value as a film. Otherwise, the film lacks soul, lacks heart, lacks motivation, and is little more than banal. It must exist as a work on its own, capturing the director's and screenwriter's vision, while simultaneously remaining true to the original work.
Luchino Visconti illustrates his mastery of the cinema in maintaining this balance in one of his most well respected works, Death in Venice. Based on a German novella of the same name by Thomas Mann, they both revolve around the story of Gustav von Aschenbach, an artist who retreats to Venice and begins obsessing over true Beauty, as it is reflected in a young Polish boy. In the novella, Aschenbach, a famous writer, searches out new experiences and so travels to Venice confronting vicariously through passers-by his own insecurities about art and love, life and death. Much of the novella is spent in a narrated soliloquy, meditating on the aforementioned concepts. In Venice he discovers Tadzio, a boy whose androgynous beauty might be compared to the Mona Lisa. Gustav begins to obsess over the boy, telling himself it is all aesthetic appreciation, but it quickly develops into an increasingly intense infatuation. Gustav discovers that Venice is being plagued by cholera, something the officials are trying to hide, due to the booming tourist trade. In spite of this discovery, he decides to remain in Venice, so as to never be forced to leave the side of his beloved Tadzio. In the end, he deteriorates ferociously until his death, his body ravaged by the cholera, a disease not nearly as dangerous as his unconsummated love.
The changes made between the novella and the film are limited. In the film Aschenbach's retreat is for health reasons, not for a renewed zeal for travel. He is a musician instead of a writer, and specifically addresses this as an example during his heated conversations with a friend. These discussions replace the inner monologues by communicating the same ideas. Tadzio also behaves differently. In the novella, he is simply present, and may not even realize the feelings that Gustav has for him. In the film, there are times where it seems like he is almost posing for Gustav. The feelings of homosexuality are portrayed more in the film than the novella, which, in a way, debases the emotions evoked by a man proud of his intellectualism. Aschenbach can be frequently found pontificating on the virtues of reason, but his attachment to this boy is something that extends beyond any sort of rationale. The suggestion that it is a purely sexual attraction moves it from an aesthetic appreciation to something much more banal.
But these are all symptoms of the curse of adaptation. The major changes between the book and movie were not things of plot. Those changes matter little in the long run. The changes that result in any adaptation are changes in meaning. In this film, Visconti succeeded in translating the mood of the novella, a brooding work that seems to take place outside of the world of dialogue. This is a testament to his ability as a director, that he transfered this feeling of inconsolably intense need through the restrained actions of both Dirk Bogande and the camera. It takes its time, it hesitates, it pauses for reflection; all of this makes it a very patient film, one not rushed by typical conventions. The novella is written in much the same fashion. It is what we would now call a character study, relatively plotless, but diving into the soul of a man to discover the way in which he perceives the world.
However, there was one significant thing that Visconti left out during his translation: ambiguity. It is very difficult in film to be as ambiguous as a work of literature. When images accompany words, the images make concrete what might otherwise have been hallucinated or imagined. In the film Tadzio recognizes Aschenbach because Aschenbach wants him to. But if one has not read the book, it seems like a much more intentional tryst every time their eyes meet. It appears homosexual.
Another effect of the loss of ambiguity is the reduced array of possible interpretations. In the novella, a whole slough of things might have occurred within Aschenbach's head. As the film gives no indication that he might be imagining things, this leads to only one way in which to see the work. There is much more freedom within the novella to explore his particular psyche. The book hints, though never confirms, a possibility that many of the people he meets are simply extensions of himself and, as I said before, his insecurities. In the film, one might get that impression from his arguments with his friend from back home, but they still seem like simple disputes. In the end, Visconti has picked an interpretation of the book and moved forward based on that.
But there, as the bard says, there's the rub. The whole point of adaptation and the older art of retelling told tales, lies in their relevance to today, or altered meanings. When Shakespeare wrote Henry V, it was a retelling of an historical event that was relevant to the British defeating the Spanish Armada. And when Lawrence Olivier performed it in 1940's London, the British had just survived the Nazi's Blitz. When Kenneth Branaugh adapted it into film in the 80's it was about Vietnam. They each changed the story a bit to make it about something new. Not only is this alteration important, it is necessary for an adaptation to be worth anything. It must be recognizable as the old, and yet, at the same time be nakedly apparent as something new, something relevant. In the words of Gustav's filmic profession, it must be a variation on a theme. The theme exists in order for us to become intimate with the work. We recognize the story and allow ourselves to be submerged in this comforting realm of familiarity. But then the artist takes us deeper into something that shatters the veil between the illusion and the reality.
In fact, this moment is not unlike the moment that Nietzsche speaks of in the 21st chapter of The Birth of Tragedy. “The Apollonian illusion reveals its identity as the veil thrown over the Dionysiac meanings for the duration of the play, and yet the illusion is so potent that at its close the Apollonian drama is projected into a sphere where it begins to speak with Dionysiac wisdom, thereby denying itself and its Apollonian concreteness.” The Apollonian is the Mann novella, something we have come to see as a standard of great literature. But when Visconti changes some of the key moments in the book, he changes them intentionally, to make a statement about all of us today, and becomes the Dionysian. Perhaps he is commenting on our collective voyeurism, or the way in which we hold artists above everyone else. He may be saying any number of things.
But such is the nature of adaptation. We are lured into a story we know, only to see it changed ever so slightly. Sometimes this change is out of necessity, due to the book's inability to be translated into film. It could be like Ulysses or On the Road. Both of these have been said to be impossible to adapt. But every so often a great artist comes across a great work and makes it his own.
Luchino Visconti illustrates his mastery of the cinema in maintaining this balance in one of his most well respected works, Death in Venice. Based on a German novella of the same name by Thomas Mann, they both revolve around the story of Gustav von Aschenbach, an artist who retreats to Venice and begins obsessing over true Beauty, as it is reflected in a young Polish boy. In the novella, Aschenbach, a famous writer, searches out new experiences and so travels to Venice confronting vicariously through passers-by his own insecurities about art and love, life and death. Much of the novella is spent in a narrated soliloquy, meditating on the aforementioned concepts. In Venice he discovers Tadzio, a boy whose androgynous beauty might be compared to the Mona Lisa. Gustav begins to obsess over the boy, telling himself it is all aesthetic appreciation, but it quickly develops into an increasingly intense infatuation. Gustav discovers that Venice is being plagued by cholera, something the officials are trying to hide, due to the booming tourist trade. In spite of this discovery, he decides to remain in Venice, so as to never be forced to leave the side of his beloved Tadzio. In the end, he deteriorates ferociously until his death, his body ravaged by the cholera, a disease not nearly as dangerous as his unconsummated love.
The changes made between the novella and the film are limited. In the film Aschenbach's retreat is for health reasons, not for a renewed zeal for travel. He is a musician instead of a writer, and specifically addresses this as an example during his heated conversations with a friend. These discussions replace the inner monologues by communicating the same ideas. Tadzio also behaves differently. In the novella, he is simply present, and may not even realize the feelings that Gustav has for him. In the film, there are times where it seems like he is almost posing for Gustav. The feelings of homosexuality are portrayed more in the film than the novella, which, in a way, debases the emotions evoked by a man proud of his intellectualism. Aschenbach can be frequently found pontificating on the virtues of reason, but his attachment to this boy is something that extends beyond any sort of rationale. The suggestion that it is a purely sexual attraction moves it from an aesthetic appreciation to something much more banal.
But these are all symptoms of the curse of adaptation. The major changes between the book and movie were not things of plot. Those changes matter little in the long run. The changes that result in any adaptation are changes in meaning. In this film, Visconti succeeded in translating the mood of the novella, a brooding work that seems to take place outside of the world of dialogue. This is a testament to his ability as a director, that he transfered this feeling of inconsolably intense need through the restrained actions of both Dirk Bogande and the camera. It takes its time, it hesitates, it pauses for reflection; all of this makes it a very patient film, one not rushed by typical conventions. The novella is written in much the same fashion. It is what we would now call a character study, relatively plotless, but diving into the soul of a man to discover the way in which he perceives the world.
However, there was one significant thing that Visconti left out during his translation: ambiguity. It is very difficult in film to be as ambiguous as a work of literature. When images accompany words, the images make concrete what might otherwise have been hallucinated or imagined. In the film Tadzio recognizes Aschenbach because Aschenbach wants him to. But if one has not read the book, it seems like a much more intentional tryst every time their eyes meet. It appears homosexual.
Another effect of the loss of ambiguity is the reduced array of possible interpretations. In the novella, a whole slough of things might have occurred within Aschenbach's head. As the film gives no indication that he might be imagining things, this leads to only one way in which to see the work. There is much more freedom within the novella to explore his particular psyche. The book hints, though never confirms, a possibility that many of the people he meets are simply extensions of himself and, as I said before, his insecurities. In the film, one might get that impression from his arguments with his friend from back home, but they still seem like simple disputes. In the end, Visconti has picked an interpretation of the book and moved forward based on that.
But there, as the bard says, there's the rub. The whole point of adaptation and the older art of retelling told tales, lies in their relevance to today, or altered meanings. When Shakespeare wrote Henry V, it was a retelling of an historical event that was relevant to the British defeating the Spanish Armada. And when Lawrence Olivier performed it in 1940's London, the British had just survived the Nazi's Blitz. When Kenneth Branaugh adapted it into film in the 80's it was about Vietnam. They each changed the story a bit to make it about something new. Not only is this alteration important, it is necessary for an adaptation to be worth anything. It must be recognizable as the old, and yet, at the same time be nakedly apparent as something new, something relevant. In the words of Gustav's filmic profession, it must be a variation on a theme. The theme exists in order for us to become intimate with the work. We recognize the story and allow ourselves to be submerged in this comforting realm of familiarity. But then the artist takes us deeper into something that shatters the veil between the illusion and the reality.
In fact, this moment is not unlike the moment that Nietzsche speaks of in the 21st chapter of The Birth of Tragedy. “The Apollonian illusion reveals its identity as the veil thrown over the Dionysiac meanings for the duration of the play, and yet the illusion is so potent that at its close the Apollonian drama is projected into a sphere where it begins to speak with Dionysiac wisdom, thereby denying itself and its Apollonian concreteness.” The Apollonian is the Mann novella, something we have come to see as a standard of great literature. But when Visconti changes some of the key moments in the book, he changes them intentionally, to make a statement about all of us today, and becomes the Dionysian. Perhaps he is commenting on our collective voyeurism, or the way in which we hold artists above everyone else. He may be saying any number of things.
But such is the nature of adaptation. We are lured into a story we know, only to see it changed ever so slightly. Sometimes this change is out of necessity, due to the book's inability to be translated into film. It could be like Ulysses or On the Road. Both of these have been said to be impossible to adapt. But every so often a great artist comes across a great work and makes it his own.
3.24.2009
Nosferatu, Fantasy, and the Death of Horror
In the last 20 years, the horror films genre has gone out the window. Perhaps, to be more specific, I should say that it has changed immensely for the worse. Horror films were one time stylistically astounding, filled with utterly believable special effects, that endowed the audience with a series of particularly haunting images. Now, the horror genre is just an indication that at some point there will be buckets of gore and a strange creature that jumps at you from the darkness. Gone are the twisted angles of Wise’s The Haunting, the twisting head of Friedkin’s The Exorcist, or even the rotting Mrs. Bates in Hitchcock’s Psycho. The actual schism between what is good horror and bad, though, is not age, as many believe; rather, it has more to do with a sort of realism. The reason Psycho is more frightening than Saw, is because the amount of disbelief in need of suspension is greatly reduced. Even when it comes to the films of seemingly supernatural events, such as Nosferatu, the unauthorized adaptation of Dracula, the characters are portrayed so realistically to force the viewer to actually think about whether vampires could exist, and what this would entail. These great horror films are imbued with this realism that carries them past the guards at our brains so that they can secure a place in the depths of our souls.
When discussing these films and their relationship to the horror genre, it is first important to consider its macrocosmic genre, fantasy. In reality, all of these excellent films exist in the fantasy realm. In his book The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre, Tzvetan Todorov defines fantasy as the “hesitation experienced by a person who knows only the laws of nature, confronting an apparently supernatural event.” He goes on to describe the uncanny and the marvelous as the two rational outcomes of a fantasy. Either we view the material as something that is surprising but not unheard of, or as supernatural, something we cannot understand with these laws of nature. The reason these great horror films, especially Nosferatu, are so great lies in their ability to prolong the fantastic hesitation.
In Nosferatu, we are presented with a story that is seemingly supernatural. The problem with viewing this film now, in the 21st century, is that we have seen everything that followed it. Count Dracula (or Orlok) has become a character that is exaggerated, devoid of moral capability, and lacking any ability to be believable. It is immediately discarded as a simple story, something “marvelous” that has ceased to marvel us. But in Nosferatu, we are presented with a physically, mentally, even sexually tormented creature, just to the left of human. There are times in the film where we can see his pain, though we never sympathize with him. He is utterly believable as a Count Dracula, and he more than any other, makes you question the possibility of vampires. It gives the audience a window through which we could imagine this world existing, we can’t tell yet if a vampire is uncanny or supernatural. With its relatively sober set design (compared to The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, its contemporary) it suggests that even this place could exist.
Todorov also suggests in his work that two other conditions are necessary for a work to qualify as fantasy. The first is that a character in the work also must experience the same hesitation that the audience does. This requirement is fulfilled in the character of Thomas Hutter. Hutter rejects the possibility of Orlok at the onset of the film, but as it progresses he begins to believe that such a thing might, in fact be possible. His doubt propels our own doubt as we begin to accept the possibility. This very doubt is the making of the haunting resonance that great horror films possess. Nosferatu leaves you contemplating the presence of vampires outside, whereas Saw is completely unbelievable. You finish that movie and set it aside, knowing that such a thing would never actually happen. The last condition is that the audience must reject all sort of allegorical or metaphorical meaning in the work. It must be approached with a certain attitude. This attitude is the only attitude to take when watching any of the aforementioned great horror films, let alone Nosferatu. One is enveloped in the story of Hutter and Orlok, unable to even think if this film is about something else.
In effect, all of the great horror films fall into the category of fantasy, as they prolong the hesitation of the audience. In The Haunting we are utterly convinced that the house itself was built incorrectly and is partly evil. In Psycho, the twist boggles our mind, but we don’t make something special out of it. In The Shining, Nicholson’s performance as he slowly becomes more and more insane pushes us to care little about the issues we typically hear about this film. The reason modern horror is a defunct and broken genre is that it no longer chills us to the bone. In order for it o be frightening, we must respond to it in a fantastical way. We must be able to believe that it could be true. Otherwise, the film is simply a series of cheap gimmicks meant to catch us off guard.
When discussing these films and their relationship to the horror genre, it is first important to consider its macrocosmic genre, fantasy. In reality, all of these excellent films exist in the fantasy realm. In his book The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre, Tzvetan Todorov defines fantasy as the “hesitation experienced by a person who knows only the laws of nature, confronting an apparently supernatural event.” He goes on to describe the uncanny and the marvelous as the two rational outcomes of a fantasy. Either we view the material as something that is surprising but not unheard of, or as supernatural, something we cannot understand with these laws of nature. The reason these great horror films, especially Nosferatu, are so great lies in their ability to prolong the fantastic hesitation.
In Nosferatu, we are presented with a story that is seemingly supernatural. The problem with viewing this film now, in the 21st century, is that we have seen everything that followed it. Count Dracula (or Orlok) has become a character that is exaggerated, devoid of moral capability, and lacking any ability to be believable. It is immediately discarded as a simple story, something “marvelous” that has ceased to marvel us. But in Nosferatu, we are presented with a physically, mentally, even sexually tormented creature, just to the left of human. There are times in the film where we can see his pain, though we never sympathize with him. He is utterly believable as a Count Dracula, and he more than any other, makes you question the possibility of vampires. It gives the audience a window through which we could imagine this world existing, we can’t tell yet if a vampire is uncanny or supernatural. With its relatively sober set design (compared to The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, its contemporary) it suggests that even this place could exist.
Todorov also suggests in his work that two other conditions are necessary for a work to qualify as fantasy. The first is that a character in the work also must experience the same hesitation that the audience does. This requirement is fulfilled in the character of Thomas Hutter. Hutter rejects the possibility of Orlok at the onset of the film, but as it progresses he begins to believe that such a thing might, in fact be possible. His doubt propels our own doubt as we begin to accept the possibility. This very doubt is the making of the haunting resonance that great horror films possess. Nosferatu leaves you contemplating the presence of vampires outside, whereas Saw is completely unbelievable. You finish that movie and set it aside, knowing that such a thing would never actually happen. The last condition is that the audience must reject all sort of allegorical or metaphorical meaning in the work. It must be approached with a certain attitude. This attitude is the only attitude to take when watching any of the aforementioned great horror films, let alone Nosferatu. One is enveloped in the story of Hutter and Orlok, unable to even think if this film is about something else.
In effect, all of the great horror films fall into the category of fantasy, as they prolong the hesitation of the audience. In The Haunting we are utterly convinced that the house itself was built incorrectly and is partly evil. In Psycho, the twist boggles our mind, but we don’t make something special out of it. In The Shining, Nicholson’s performance as he slowly becomes more and more insane pushes us to care little about the issues we typically hear about this film. The reason modern horror is a defunct and broken genre is that it no longer chills us to the bone. In order for it o be frightening, we must respond to it in a fantastical way. We must be able to believe that it could be true. Otherwise, the film is simply a series of cheap gimmicks meant to catch us off guard.
3.06.2009
Rashomon and the Postwar Burden
In recent times we have found it increasingly easy to assign blame to whomever we choose. We need not even know their level of responsibility in the situation to determine that they are, in fact, responsible. One particular example of note is the OJ Simpson trial. Many of us have somehow come to the conclusion that he is guilty, without actual basis for thinking so. This is part of a larger phenomenon that Akira Kurosawa was tapping into when he wrote and directed Rashomon. It is a film caught up in the nature of justice and truth, but also about blame. Following WW2, there began an onslaught of demonization by the American people, reducing the value of Germans, Communists and the Japanese. We blamed the German people for the actions of an elite minority, the Japanese for the actions of even less, and the Communists for the actions of Stalin. This, says Kurosawa, is not permissible.
Rashomon is about trying to determine actual events based on individual accounts. A samurai is dead, and we are trying to figure out exactly where everyone fits in. At the trial, the famous bandit Tajomaru (Toshiro Mifune) confesses to killing the samurai after having a heroic swordfight. Then his story is contradicted by the wife’s testimony who says that she accidentally did it, and Tajomaru ran away after raping her. Then we hear from the dead samurai, through a medium, and he tells us that it was he who killed himself out of a sense of samurai dignity. His wife had been raped and Hara Kiri was the only way to maintain his sense of honor. Then the woodcutter, who is relating the trial to us while keeping dry under the Rasho Gate, tells us that the samurai was anything but dignified, the bandit lacked any sword fighting ability, and the wife was a bit crazy. So we have all of these contradicting stories, and somehow we are supposed to assign blame to someone. One of them is responsible for the samurai’s death. But true justice is unattainable, and the ability of the court to decide is rather limited, so no one takes the rap.
After the woodcutter is done with his story, he and his audience hear a baby crying nearby. The commoner tries to take the things of value from its makeshift cradle, when the woodcutter stops him. After revealing a flaw in his story and showing the woodcutter is not as innocent as he would like to be seen, the commoner leaves Rashomon, taking his treasure with him. After the rain stops, the woodcutter tells the priest that he wan take care of the child, it wont make a lot of difference.
The commoner says about halfway through “But is there anyone who's really good? Maybe goodness is just make-believe. Man just wants to forget the bad stuff, and believe in the made-up good stuff. It's easier that way.” This is really a symptom of postwar America. We laid blame at the feet of the Japanese, whose sole crime was to be part of a nation that attacked Pearl Harbor and, as we later found out, executed the “Rape of Nanking.” The letter of these two is perhaps deserving of the repulsion in engenders, but the former is something that can be forgiven, at least in light of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. One would think we would be able to bury the hatchet, but the entire western world was against the Japanese. Moreover, we were punishing the sons for the crimes of the fathers. These wartime decisions were made by generals, not the populace, and to force the burden on them is even more repugnant than we made them out to be. In the film, they say that the demon of Rashomon flew in fear of the ferocity of man. This ferocity was not only the fact that we could commit 6 million murders, but that we could blame this horrendous crime on those who had no hand in it.
The truth is that you cannot place blame without fully understanding the circumstances. And when you understand the circumstances, typically there exists some rational explanation. With a rational explanation comes some form of redemption. The Japanese needed some form of redemption to avoid international persecution. They were like the child found at the gate: in need of a friendly hand from someone, a warm bed, a home. Those in charge of Japan during WW2 took away everything they had, and left them to die in the cold. We, the western world, were like the commoner. What little the Japanese had left we took from them. We robbed them of their innocence, stole their humanity, and turned our backs. We left them to die. As the film itself states, “In the end, you cannot understand the things men do.”
Rashomon is about trying to determine actual events based on individual accounts. A samurai is dead, and we are trying to figure out exactly where everyone fits in. At the trial, the famous bandit Tajomaru (Toshiro Mifune) confesses to killing the samurai after having a heroic swordfight. Then his story is contradicted by the wife’s testimony who says that she accidentally did it, and Tajomaru ran away after raping her. Then we hear from the dead samurai, through a medium, and he tells us that it was he who killed himself out of a sense of samurai dignity. His wife had been raped and Hara Kiri was the only way to maintain his sense of honor. Then the woodcutter, who is relating the trial to us while keeping dry under the Rasho Gate, tells us that the samurai was anything but dignified, the bandit lacked any sword fighting ability, and the wife was a bit crazy. So we have all of these contradicting stories, and somehow we are supposed to assign blame to someone. One of them is responsible for the samurai’s death. But true justice is unattainable, and the ability of the court to decide is rather limited, so no one takes the rap.
After the woodcutter is done with his story, he and his audience hear a baby crying nearby. The commoner tries to take the things of value from its makeshift cradle, when the woodcutter stops him. After revealing a flaw in his story and showing the woodcutter is not as innocent as he would like to be seen, the commoner leaves Rashomon, taking his treasure with him. After the rain stops, the woodcutter tells the priest that he wan take care of the child, it wont make a lot of difference.
The commoner says about halfway through “But is there anyone who's really good? Maybe goodness is just make-believe. Man just wants to forget the bad stuff, and believe in the made-up good stuff. It's easier that way.” This is really a symptom of postwar America. We laid blame at the feet of the Japanese, whose sole crime was to be part of a nation that attacked Pearl Harbor and, as we later found out, executed the “Rape of Nanking.” The letter of these two is perhaps deserving of the repulsion in engenders, but the former is something that can be forgiven, at least in light of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. One would think we would be able to bury the hatchet, but the entire western world was against the Japanese. Moreover, we were punishing the sons for the crimes of the fathers. These wartime decisions were made by generals, not the populace, and to force the burden on them is even more repugnant than we made them out to be. In the film, they say that the demon of Rashomon flew in fear of the ferocity of man. This ferocity was not only the fact that we could commit 6 million murders, but that we could blame this horrendous crime on those who had no hand in it.
The truth is that you cannot place blame without fully understanding the circumstances. And when you understand the circumstances, typically there exists some rational explanation. With a rational explanation comes some form of redemption. The Japanese needed some form of redemption to avoid international persecution. They were like the child found at the gate: in need of a friendly hand from someone, a warm bed, a home. Those in charge of Japan during WW2 took away everything they had, and left them to die in the cold. We, the western world, were like the commoner. What little the Japanese had left we took from them. We robbed them of their innocence, stole their humanity, and turned our backs. We left them to die. As the film itself states, “In the end, you cannot understand the things men do.”
2.24.2009
Metropolis and its Discontents
[This the other of two essays about Metropolis I wrote for my class on film. It is of a different style than my others. There are spoilers.]
Metropolis, a film about political and economic unrest made following the German depression, is often seen in the context of its historical time period. This is an apt analysis, but it is often blinded by certain predispositions regarding the work of Karl Marx and the imminent fruition of his philosophies: the spectre of communism that haunted Europe. But this is the wrong way to approach this masterpiece from Fritz Lang. It is important to keep The Communist Manifesto in mind, as it was an influential document, but to ignore later works by other great thinkers is to miss out on some of the real meanings in Metropolis.
The work is called Civilization and its Discontents, a treatise countering The Communist Manifesto in philosophy and psychology, written by the man himself, Sigmund Freud. This book discusses such issues as our societal qualms and their psychological roots. And though it was written a whole two years after Metropolis was released, it is nevertheless relevant in understanding the film. The ideas present in Freud’s work hint at many of the themes present in the film.
One thing Freud discusses is the futility of revolution. He effectively says that you can revolt all you want, but it will not change the general malaise affecting the world at large. A revolution will simply empower new tyrants and disenfranchise old ones. This theme is probably the most prevalent in discussing Metropolis. Maria speaks as the future voice of Freud when she persists at telling them that a revolution will only end in blood poorly spent. They will be giving Joh Fredersen (the ruler of Metropolis) a reason to defend himself against them. It behooves them to refrain from action, though they are unable to see this during their times of stress. But she remains convincing enough, promising a mediator, what Freud would say is the only possible cure for the sickness with sociological symptoms. And in the end, this is the solution: Freder joins the hands of Grot, the head worker, and his father. In this act of symbolism, he joins more than hands: he joins hope also, hopes of a world without unrest, a world without a great schism between what are effectively castes. But more than that, they both hope for a society free of its discontents.
His major thesis in the book revolves around the tension between the individual and the civilization. Out of this tension spring forth all evils and discontents that we experience. In order for civilization to work, one must not care about individual success, as this limits the progress of the society in question. Yet at the same time, we all have a desire to succeed, the identical desire that stimulates any creation of society. But this, in turn, brings us down, as it kills the society. So when the workers stop acting as one collective group and start thinking as if they have rights as citizens, they begin to forget their responsibilities to the city. These responsibilities are embodied by the children and the effect that the revolution has on them. They are left behind, forgotten, while the workers rally and rebel. In the mean time, the machines are broken and the children are almost killed as a result. The same happens when they forget their role in creating a civilization: each must hold his own, must do his own job. One cannot compare one’s own success, or lack thereof, to someone else, this only breeds jealousy and corruption, which result in the destruction that almost was in Metropolis.
So when you watch this and feel cheated by the ending, (which admittedly, I did upon the first, second and third watches) remember that it is not a Marxist film. It seems that way, and we want it to be that way, but it is not. It is a film about the impossibility of revolt, and about the general tensions present in society. These tensions are exaggerated by time, as it is a dystopian film set far in the future, but they are no less powerful. This film shows that the result of a evolution is simply more terror, and that only through seemingly naïve and peaceful mediation is change possible.
Metropolis, a film about political and economic unrest made following the German depression, is often seen in the context of its historical time period. This is an apt analysis, but it is often blinded by certain predispositions regarding the work of Karl Marx and the imminent fruition of his philosophies: the spectre of communism that haunted Europe. But this is the wrong way to approach this masterpiece from Fritz Lang. It is important to keep The Communist Manifesto in mind, as it was an influential document, but to ignore later works by other great thinkers is to miss out on some of the real meanings in Metropolis.
The work is called Civilization and its Discontents, a treatise countering The Communist Manifesto in philosophy and psychology, written by the man himself, Sigmund Freud. This book discusses such issues as our societal qualms and their psychological roots. And though it was written a whole two years after Metropolis was released, it is nevertheless relevant in understanding the film. The ideas present in Freud’s work hint at many of the themes present in the film.
One thing Freud discusses is the futility of revolution. He effectively says that you can revolt all you want, but it will not change the general malaise affecting the world at large. A revolution will simply empower new tyrants and disenfranchise old ones. This theme is probably the most prevalent in discussing Metropolis. Maria speaks as the future voice of Freud when she persists at telling them that a revolution will only end in blood poorly spent. They will be giving Joh Fredersen (the ruler of Metropolis) a reason to defend himself against them. It behooves them to refrain from action, though they are unable to see this during their times of stress. But she remains convincing enough, promising a mediator, what Freud would say is the only possible cure for the sickness with sociological symptoms. And in the end, this is the solution: Freder joins the hands of Grot, the head worker, and his father. In this act of symbolism, he joins more than hands: he joins hope also, hopes of a world without unrest, a world without a great schism between what are effectively castes. But more than that, they both hope for a society free of its discontents.
His major thesis in the book revolves around the tension between the individual and the civilization. Out of this tension spring forth all evils and discontents that we experience. In order for civilization to work, one must not care about individual success, as this limits the progress of the society in question. Yet at the same time, we all have a desire to succeed, the identical desire that stimulates any creation of society. But this, in turn, brings us down, as it kills the society. So when the workers stop acting as one collective group and start thinking as if they have rights as citizens, they begin to forget their responsibilities to the city. These responsibilities are embodied by the children and the effect that the revolution has on them. They are left behind, forgotten, while the workers rally and rebel. In the mean time, the machines are broken and the children are almost killed as a result. The same happens when they forget their role in creating a civilization: each must hold his own, must do his own job. One cannot compare one’s own success, or lack thereof, to someone else, this only breeds jealousy and corruption, which result in the destruction that almost was in Metropolis.
So when you watch this and feel cheated by the ending, (which admittedly, I did upon the first, second and third watches) remember that it is not a Marxist film. It seems that way, and we want it to be that way, but it is not. It is a film about the impossibility of revolt, and about the general tensions present in society. These tensions are exaggerated by time, as it is a dystopian film set far in the future, but they are no less powerful. This film shows that the result of a evolution is simply more terror, and that only through seemingly naïve and peaceful mediation is change possible.
Metropolis and the Hero's Journey
[This is one of two essays about Metropolis I wrote for my class on film. It is of a different style than my others. There are spoilers.]
In Metropolis by Fritz Lang, the main character, Freder, begins a journey into the underworld of the titular city. His journey resembles the hero’s journey as depicted in Joseph Campbell’s monomyth theory. First, Freder starts out as a socially ignorant, blinded by his silver spoon, son of the ruler of Metropolis. He then has a great experience with the M-Machine, one that forever changes the way in which he perceives his world. This experience is preceded by his introduction to Maria, the only sensible female in the film, and the only one keeping the citizens from revolting. She opens his eyes to the fact that his “siblings” are the children of Metropolis. He realizes that one day he will be their ruler, and yet he knows nothing of them. His naïveté is advantageous here, where it still allows him to actually care about their experiences, something his father has long since forgotten.
This is all similar to the first stage in the hero’s journey. He voluntarily proceeds to the threshold of adventure, where he encounters the M-Machine. He survives the experience, but it forces him to act upon his vision of Moloch. His father tries to console him, but it is of no avail, as Freder has been forever changed. He now proceeds into the kingdom of the dark, replacing worker 11811. He is tested by fatigue, and relieved by the end of shift. He even receives the magical powers that many heroes receive, though his goes by a different name. He is given the power to love when he comes in contact with Maria. She also gives him, implicitly through her pontifications, the path that he should take. She assists him by showing him not only the way out of the hell-hole, but also the way to fix the hell-hole.
He also experiences a triumph similar to that of the hero, as his apotheosis raises him to the level of mediator. His existence is the most archetypal at this point as he obtains the same degree of perfection as the Messianic hero, or the Herculean hero. He is visible here in his true form, that of the pure savior of the world previously unknown to him. As he makes his return to the worker’s city in order to declare his newfound identity, he discovers that Maria has changed, and the workers are on the verge of a violent revolution.
This, too, fits into the structure of the hero’s journey. Compare it to Frodo’s return to the Shire, Jesus’ return to Jerusalem, Simba’s return to the Pride Lands, or Neo’s return to the Matrix. The situation is filled with tension, and it finally breaks when someone does introduce Freder, though not on his terms. They realize that he is the ruler’s son, and that he is only there to spy on them. He becomes the final catalyst for the revolt, and they storm past him to destroy the machines.
As they destroy the machines, Freder is trapped in the underground city as it begins to flood with the real Maria and the children of Metropolis, those previously introduced as his brothers and sisters. He escapes from the confines of sure death, saving the children and Maria, and comes full circle, having to fight off the actual villain who is behind much of the struggle of the film. Following the rooftop battle, Freder confronts his father and the workers, and with his new identity as the mediator shows them that the only way for head and hands to work together is with the heart. This heart is the symbol of the love that became his special power in defeating the evils.
In Metropolis by Fritz Lang, the main character, Freder, begins a journey into the underworld of the titular city. His journey resembles the hero’s journey as depicted in Joseph Campbell’s monomyth theory. First, Freder starts out as a socially ignorant, blinded by his silver spoon, son of the ruler of Metropolis. He then has a great experience with the M-Machine, one that forever changes the way in which he perceives his world. This experience is preceded by his introduction to Maria, the only sensible female in the film, and the only one keeping the citizens from revolting. She opens his eyes to the fact that his “siblings” are the children of Metropolis. He realizes that one day he will be their ruler, and yet he knows nothing of them. His naïveté is advantageous here, where it still allows him to actually care about their experiences, something his father has long since forgotten.
This is all similar to the first stage in the hero’s journey. He voluntarily proceeds to the threshold of adventure, where he encounters the M-Machine. He survives the experience, but it forces him to act upon his vision of Moloch. His father tries to console him, but it is of no avail, as Freder has been forever changed. He now proceeds into the kingdom of the dark, replacing worker 11811. He is tested by fatigue, and relieved by the end of shift. He even receives the magical powers that many heroes receive, though his goes by a different name. He is given the power to love when he comes in contact with Maria. She also gives him, implicitly through her pontifications, the path that he should take. She assists him by showing him not only the way out of the hell-hole, but also the way to fix the hell-hole.
He also experiences a triumph similar to that of the hero, as his apotheosis raises him to the level of mediator. His existence is the most archetypal at this point as he obtains the same degree of perfection as the Messianic hero, or the Herculean hero. He is visible here in his true form, that of the pure savior of the world previously unknown to him. As he makes his return to the worker’s city in order to declare his newfound identity, he discovers that Maria has changed, and the workers are on the verge of a violent revolution.
This, too, fits into the structure of the hero’s journey. Compare it to Frodo’s return to the Shire, Jesus’ return to Jerusalem, Simba’s return to the Pride Lands, or Neo’s return to the Matrix. The situation is filled with tension, and it finally breaks when someone does introduce Freder, though not on his terms. They realize that he is the ruler’s son, and that he is only there to spy on them. He becomes the final catalyst for the revolt, and they storm past him to destroy the machines.
As they destroy the machines, Freder is trapped in the underground city as it begins to flood with the real Maria and the children of Metropolis, those previously introduced as his brothers and sisters. He escapes from the confines of sure death, saving the children and Maria, and comes full circle, having to fight off the actual villain who is behind much of the struggle of the film. Following the rooftop battle, Freder confronts his father and the workers, and with his new identity as the mediator shows them that the only way for head and hands to work together is with the heart. This heart is the symbol of the love that became his special power in defeating the evils.
2.11.2009
American Beauty and the Demons of Suburbia.
[There will be spoilers. Although, I am of the opinion that only a bad film can be ruined by spoilers. A good film can be watched over and over, and exert the same, if not more, power over you.]
Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) is stuck. He is stuck in the self-perpetuated ennui that comes with compromise. He has sacrificed that which is good for that which is easy, and is reaping those consequences at the beginning of American Beauty. His compromise, though it is present in even his moral decisions stems from one choice he made many years ago: to move to the suburbs. This move can be compared to a retreat, which in war is only useful when accompanied by a fight in the near future. Otherwise, it is not much different from giving up. Unfortunately the suburbs swallows us up, proclaiming from the hilltops its glories while at the same time stripping us of our humanity so that, like an addict, we lack the willpower to continue the uphill battle. Lester Burnham, through a collusion of chance and gall, picks up his weapons and starts to fight. In doing so, he discovers the titular beauty that seems to be missing from this world, and finishes the film with a moment of pure joy.
Lester delivers one of the greatest opening monologues on film as he explains, in an extremely self-deprecating fashion, the meaninglessness of his life. He informs us that he will die, but that this matters little, as he feels dead already. Then he tells us that he has lost something, something very core to the human experience, something that breathes vitality into everything we do. Although he may not know what this is, I would argue that this missing piece is Identity. He has nothing to represent himself but his clothes and his house and his job and his car. He is disoriented because he doesn’t even know who he is. This is a direct result of his compromise. The first thing you give up when you move to the suburbs to begin a “normal” life if your passions and dreams. These are the things that fill your soul to the brim, that give you hope, that help you appreciate the beauty around you. In a non-constricting way, these may even define you. I am not me because of what I do; I am me because of what I yearn for with every ounce of my soul. Lester Burnham gave up his dreams so that he could fit into a cookie-cutter world designed to put us all in little boxes and have us come out all the same.
The catalyst in Lester’s renewed vigor is a boy named Ricky Fitts (Wes Bentley), who not only gives Lester some pot, but introduces him to a certain way of approaching the world. When Ricky and Lester are smoking a joint outside of a catering venue, and Ricky is threatened with being fired, he quits. He lives by a certain code: that you should never abide by the rules that others set for you. His dreams are still fresh in his mind, and one day he might accomplish them. He is willing to even cut himself off from his family in order to be himself, and not subscribe to the societal concept of the norm. In one scene with his girlfriend and Lester’s daughter, Jane (Thora Birch), they admit their eccentricities and decide to move away. Jane’s best friend Angela Hayes (Mena Suvari), petrified of ever being ordinary, still rejects them, because she, too, has been sucked into the vacuum of suburbia. Ricky Fitts, almost a Messianic figure in this way, comes to heal their collective blindness, to let them out of the shackles that they put on their feet, never realizing it was for eternity. He is Hercules and they are Prometheus, being disemboweled by their insecurities and mediocrities. He allows them to appreciate what is actually good in this world. He shows them it is not the cubicle or the opinions of friends, that it is only what it is your heart, in your gut, even in your soul.
Lester also develops an infatuation with Angela, after seeing her perform a cheerleading routine. Nubile, although still childlike, we can almost see through her lavish sex stories told to give herself importance, to fit into the compromise. She also forces a change in Lester, as he begins to work out in order to achieve a sort of sexual gratification that he hasn’t seen in years. She gives him something to fight for. When they finally come together, we the audience can barely watch. We never wanted them to actually have sex, just talk about it. But it leads to the most sublime moment in the entire film. Angela comes out with her virginity, and Lester wakes up and realizes that she is more than just physically attractive. She possesses a beauty that often passes by, leaving us in its dust. He recognizes her innocence, her naïveté, and sees her potential. He may be stuck in the cycle of ennui, but she can still get out, as Ricky has and Jane will. There is hope, and this changes everything.
When he recognizes her beauty, he looks around and sees it everywhere. It’s like one of those magic eye stereograms, once you see the image, you can’t stop seeing it. He used to see through a glass darkly, now his vision is pure, he can see through a lens that allows no flaw. And he realizes that his life was not without joy. He has had this joy that permeates his soul now for as long as he can remember. He was just unable to see it through the compromise. He broke free and saw the love for his daughter and his wife, however bitchy they both are. And this understanding, this great realization served as his psychopomp. He was carried to the underworld bathed in the perfect happiness he had discovered therein. He had found his identity.
I leave with this poem from Langston Hughes:
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow
Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) is stuck. He is stuck in the self-perpetuated ennui that comes with compromise. He has sacrificed that which is good for that which is easy, and is reaping those consequences at the beginning of American Beauty. His compromise, though it is present in even his moral decisions stems from one choice he made many years ago: to move to the suburbs. This move can be compared to a retreat, which in war is only useful when accompanied by a fight in the near future. Otherwise, it is not much different from giving up. Unfortunately the suburbs swallows us up, proclaiming from the hilltops its glories while at the same time stripping us of our humanity so that, like an addict, we lack the willpower to continue the uphill battle. Lester Burnham, through a collusion of chance and gall, picks up his weapons and starts to fight. In doing so, he discovers the titular beauty that seems to be missing from this world, and finishes the film with a moment of pure joy.
Lester delivers one of the greatest opening monologues on film as he explains, in an extremely self-deprecating fashion, the meaninglessness of his life. He informs us that he will die, but that this matters little, as he feels dead already. Then he tells us that he has lost something, something very core to the human experience, something that breathes vitality into everything we do. Although he may not know what this is, I would argue that this missing piece is Identity. He has nothing to represent himself but his clothes and his house and his job and his car. He is disoriented because he doesn’t even know who he is. This is a direct result of his compromise. The first thing you give up when you move to the suburbs to begin a “normal” life if your passions and dreams. These are the things that fill your soul to the brim, that give you hope, that help you appreciate the beauty around you. In a non-constricting way, these may even define you. I am not me because of what I do; I am me because of what I yearn for with every ounce of my soul. Lester Burnham gave up his dreams so that he could fit into a cookie-cutter world designed to put us all in little boxes and have us come out all the same.
The catalyst in Lester’s renewed vigor is a boy named Ricky Fitts (Wes Bentley), who not only gives Lester some pot, but introduces him to a certain way of approaching the world. When Ricky and Lester are smoking a joint outside of a catering venue, and Ricky is threatened with being fired, he quits. He lives by a certain code: that you should never abide by the rules that others set for you. His dreams are still fresh in his mind, and one day he might accomplish them. He is willing to even cut himself off from his family in order to be himself, and not subscribe to the societal concept of the norm. In one scene with his girlfriend and Lester’s daughter, Jane (Thora Birch), they admit their eccentricities and decide to move away. Jane’s best friend Angela Hayes (Mena Suvari), petrified of ever being ordinary, still rejects them, because she, too, has been sucked into the vacuum of suburbia. Ricky Fitts, almost a Messianic figure in this way, comes to heal their collective blindness, to let them out of the shackles that they put on their feet, never realizing it was for eternity. He is Hercules and they are Prometheus, being disemboweled by their insecurities and mediocrities. He allows them to appreciate what is actually good in this world. He shows them it is not the cubicle or the opinions of friends, that it is only what it is your heart, in your gut, even in your soul.
Lester also develops an infatuation with Angela, after seeing her perform a cheerleading routine. Nubile, although still childlike, we can almost see through her lavish sex stories told to give herself importance, to fit into the compromise. She also forces a change in Lester, as he begins to work out in order to achieve a sort of sexual gratification that he hasn’t seen in years. She gives him something to fight for. When they finally come together, we the audience can barely watch. We never wanted them to actually have sex, just talk about it. But it leads to the most sublime moment in the entire film. Angela comes out with her virginity, and Lester wakes up and realizes that she is more than just physically attractive. She possesses a beauty that often passes by, leaving us in its dust. He recognizes her innocence, her naïveté, and sees her potential. He may be stuck in the cycle of ennui, but she can still get out, as Ricky has and Jane will. There is hope, and this changes everything.
When he recognizes her beauty, he looks around and sees it everywhere. It’s like one of those magic eye stereograms, once you see the image, you can’t stop seeing it. He used to see through a glass darkly, now his vision is pure, he can see through a lens that allows no flaw. And he realizes that his life was not without joy. He has had this joy that permeates his soul now for as long as he can remember. He was just unable to see it through the compromise. He broke free and saw the love for his daughter and his wife, however bitchy they both are. And this understanding, this great realization served as his psychopomp. He was carried to the underworld bathed in the perfect happiness he had discovered therein. He had found his identity.
I leave with this poem from Langston Hughes:
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow
1.29.2009
Taxi Driver and the Pursuit of the Norm
I believe that a person should become like other people-Travis Bickle
Normal. A word we all use everyday to describe something that we don’t fully understand. I mean, after all, what does normal even mean? It would seem to be the average member of the subgroup being discussed. But none of us are actually normal. We perceive ourselves as something that sticks outside of the vein of normal activities, normal diet, and normal ideas. And we constantly seek to be a member of this normal group that does everything in a normal way. Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver is also one of these people. He just wants to be like other people. The blatantly obvious flaw in this desire is that he can never be himself, and thereby, can never be really satisfied. All of his actions in the films are motivated by this urge to be a part of some larger community, to end his increasingly depraved alienation by acting normal. Unfortunately, his perspective on the world is not conducive to this endeavor. And this leads to his eventual downfall.
The movie begins with Travis applying for a job as a taxi driver, a job that might help cure his insomnia, a job that might allow him to meet new people, but mostly a job that allows him to be normal. He is one of several hundred, if not thousand taxi drivers in NYC. He is suddenly no longer alone. But a taste is not sufficient to sate his hunger. He falls for Betsy (Cybil Sheppard), a campaign worker for the democratic nominee for president, and one day gets the courage to ask her out. They go to a diner where he orders apple pie and she a salad. We, the audience, know that his conversation is anything but sincere, rather it is a façade that he puts up, trying to convince her that he is not a whack job. She finds his bumbling cute and agrees to another date with him. This is when things go sour.
He takes her to a porn theater. It sounds a lot worse than it actually is. I actually find it quite adorable (and will go down in history for calling Travis Bickle by such an adjective). The only thing he knows about dates is that it includes a movie, and that he sees people go on dates to the afore-mentioned theater. All he wants to do is something that seems to be normal, but his limited perspective on normal stunts his ability to get along in the world. He can’t cope when her rejection stems from something he has seen done a thousand times. He reacts like a puppy that is being punished. He didn’t know any better. After she storms off and he gets back into his taxi, he has his first encounter with Iris (Jodie Foster). As they say, when one doors closes, another opens.
Iris becomes his new project, as he continues to deal with the rejection from Betsy. Iris is a 12 year old prostitute. The first time he is given a 20 by her pimp (Harvey Keitel) and told to forget it. The second time, he almost hits her with his cab. After that he seeks her out and procures her services in order to convince her to get away. His primary complaint with her activities is that they do not fit into his perception of normal. He thinks, as do most of us that 12 year olds should be in school instead of strutting their stuff on a street corner.
The third chapter to this story begins just after meeting her. He decides that he needs to get back into shape. His muscles are not what they used to be, and he needs something to protect himself. So he works out when he is off duty, and purchases several handguns. He also takes apart basic household objects to reduce the amount of effort required to draw said guns. It is around here that he has his famous “You talkin’ to me?” speech. This speech is a continuation of the normality that he pursues. He inflates himself with a sort of pseudo-machismo trying to be some sort of superhuman. As the bard will tell us, there’s the rub. Because when it comes down to brass tacks, normality is a fantasy. It’s really a rehash of the Platonic theory of forms. There is some form that is beyond our comprehension that we are all based upon and seek to become. We all wish to be this Ubermensch of Nietzschean proportions. We stare into the abyss of normality, and the abyss stares back.
Effectively we are all Travis Bickle. We live in a world devoid of reason, devoid of morals, and devoid of truth. We can go to the street corner to sleep with Iris, or get an instant hamburger, made with only 10 % beef and 90 % plastic. The irony of the last scene in this film, and I’ll try not to ruin it, is that it is extremely surreal. Things happen that would not normally happen. Perhaps this is a symptom of some medical condition, or it is his idea of heaven, but his actions are understood for the heart behind them instead of the extent to which he broke the law. For that matter, vigilante justice is never looked highly upon, and Bickle would go to prison for what he did, but instead he lives a happy life and even gets to see Betsy again in a positive light. In all actuality his actions would be condemned, and he would be called a madman. Also, certain authorities would recognize him, and he would spend many years in jail. As it is, everything ends happily. The point here is that the world could be better. Someone could do something good outside of the laws and be recognized for it. But its not, and they won’t be. We are all tragically alone in this world. Unfortunately, we too are stuck in a downward spiral, a spiral that leads to only one destination, that of the abyss.
Normal. A word we all use everyday to describe something that we don’t fully understand. I mean, after all, what does normal even mean? It would seem to be the average member of the subgroup being discussed. But none of us are actually normal. We perceive ourselves as something that sticks outside of the vein of normal activities, normal diet, and normal ideas. And we constantly seek to be a member of this normal group that does everything in a normal way. Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver is also one of these people. He just wants to be like other people. The blatantly obvious flaw in this desire is that he can never be himself, and thereby, can never be really satisfied. All of his actions in the films are motivated by this urge to be a part of some larger community, to end his increasingly depraved alienation by acting normal. Unfortunately, his perspective on the world is not conducive to this endeavor. And this leads to his eventual downfall.
The movie begins with Travis applying for a job as a taxi driver, a job that might help cure his insomnia, a job that might allow him to meet new people, but mostly a job that allows him to be normal. He is one of several hundred, if not thousand taxi drivers in NYC. He is suddenly no longer alone. But a taste is not sufficient to sate his hunger. He falls for Betsy (Cybil Sheppard), a campaign worker for the democratic nominee for president, and one day gets the courage to ask her out. They go to a diner where he orders apple pie and she a salad. We, the audience, know that his conversation is anything but sincere, rather it is a façade that he puts up, trying to convince her that he is not a whack job. She finds his bumbling cute and agrees to another date with him. This is when things go sour.
He takes her to a porn theater. It sounds a lot worse than it actually is. I actually find it quite adorable (and will go down in history for calling Travis Bickle by such an adjective). The only thing he knows about dates is that it includes a movie, and that he sees people go on dates to the afore-mentioned theater. All he wants to do is something that seems to be normal, but his limited perspective on normal stunts his ability to get along in the world. He can’t cope when her rejection stems from something he has seen done a thousand times. He reacts like a puppy that is being punished. He didn’t know any better. After she storms off and he gets back into his taxi, he has his first encounter with Iris (Jodie Foster). As they say, when one doors closes, another opens.
Iris becomes his new project, as he continues to deal with the rejection from Betsy. Iris is a 12 year old prostitute. The first time he is given a 20 by her pimp (Harvey Keitel) and told to forget it. The second time, he almost hits her with his cab. After that he seeks her out and procures her services in order to convince her to get away. His primary complaint with her activities is that they do not fit into his perception of normal. He thinks, as do most of us that 12 year olds should be in school instead of strutting their stuff on a street corner.
The third chapter to this story begins just after meeting her. He decides that he needs to get back into shape. His muscles are not what they used to be, and he needs something to protect himself. So he works out when he is off duty, and purchases several handguns. He also takes apart basic household objects to reduce the amount of effort required to draw said guns. It is around here that he has his famous “You talkin’ to me?” speech. This speech is a continuation of the normality that he pursues. He inflates himself with a sort of pseudo-machismo trying to be some sort of superhuman. As the bard will tell us, there’s the rub. Because when it comes down to brass tacks, normality is a fantasy. It’s really a rehash of the Platonic theory of forms. There is some form that is beyond our comprehension that we are all based upon and seek to become. We all wish to be this Ubermensch of Nietzschean proportions. We stare into the abyss of normality, and the abyss stares back.
Effectively we are all Travis Bickle. We live in a world devoid of reason, devoid of morals, and devoid of truth. We can go to the street corner to sleep with Iris, or get an instant hamburger, made with only 10 % beef and 90 % plastic. The irony of the last scene in this film, and I’ll try not to ruin it, is that it is extremely surreal. Things happen that would not normally happen. Perhaps this is a symptom of some medical condition, or it is his idea of heaven, but his actions are understood for the heart behind them instead of the extent to which he broke the law. For that matter, vigilante justice is never looked highly upon, and Bickle would go to prison for what he did, but instead he lives a happy life and even gets to see Betsy again in a positive light. In all actuality his actions would be condemned, and he would be called a madman. Also, certain authorities would recognize him, and he would spend many years in jail. As it is, everything ends happily. The point here is that the world could be better. Someone could do something good outside of the laws and be recognized for it. But its not, and they won’t be. We are all tragically alone in this world. Unfortunately, we too are stuck in a downward spiral, a spiral that leads to only one destination, that of the abyss.
1.25.2009
The 40-Year-Old Virgin's Assault on Modern Masculinity.
We are in the middle of a paradigm shift. These occur once every 20 years or so, sometimes even less frequently, but it is happening again. Our perception of what it means to be a man is rapidly changing. Films such as Fight Club and American Beauty tackled the new face of masculinity in today’s culture, and they succeeded to a point. I prefer them over The 40-Year-Old Virgin. I do not, however, think they did a better job at showing what has become of the modern American male. This is not an essay on ethics, on whether or not premarital sex is good or bad; rather it is here to discuss how we perceive and cope with it in the new century. Whereas Fight Club and American Beauty were gritty with comic relief, The 40-Year-Old Virgin deals with these issues using jokes that nowadays mostly appeal to the 16-25 demographic. But if you fail to recognize the undercurrent of this humor, you miss the point of the movie.
Andy (played wonderfully by Steve Carell) is the titular character who works at a seemingly local electronic store. One night he is invited to play poker with the guys and they begin an innocent conversation about the nastiest, raunchiest, dirtiest things that they have done to their sexual partners. But when it is Andy’s turn, he struggles to come up with a realistic story, and they figure out that he has not yet done the deed. And so it begins that his buddies at work try to get him laid. From waxing his chest and responding in the form of a question, to “tackling drunk [women],” Andy attempts everything, but can’t quite follow through. One day he meets the attractive, but intentionally not stunning, Trish (Catherine Keener) and really does fall for her. Now he must figure out whether to act with his heart, or follow his friends’ increasingly ludicrous suggestions.
Sex is not something that is important for Andy. As he relates at the poker table, he tried when he was young, and as it didn’t work out, more time passed, and he just stopped trying. The thing that makes it important to him is his friends. He just wants to be one of the guys, so he’s willing to go along with their plan for so long, but at one point he makes them stop because now he’s smitten with Trish. And he just wants to do this his own way. She likes him for who he is, and even challenges him to 20 dates without sex, a request with which he is more than willing to comply. He would rather not have sex. But she, as is implicit in her challenge, knows that that is what all men want. And when he doesn’t even want sex on the night of their 20th date, this very fact frightens her. She becomes so paranoid as to accuse him of being a sexual predator and using mentos as roofies. I mean who wouldn’t want to have sex. Sex is something expected of our culture today. The adults expect it and the teens who haven’t done it are growing into a small minority. I am not condemning this, I am simply pointing out that this is different for the popular understanding as of 20 years ago.
People have sex, but this movie points out that sex does not just make you a member of the largest fraternity on the planet. It is not just one of the stepping stones. It has become the most important. To have sex now means to become a man. Nothing else is required.
There are also two other scenes that are relevant to the masculinity issue, although they are on a different note. The first is the running joke told between David (Paul Rudd) and Cal (Seth Rogen), which is comprised of “Know how I know you’re gay?” and an appropriate response. But what do they really mean? Do they mean gay as in homosexual? Perhaps, but I think it goes deeper than that. Namely, if a man is gay and, thereby, does not have sex with women, how can he be a man, in the masculine sense? So these guys have endowed the word gay with a sense of castration. And there are certain attributes that are considered synonymous with being castrated. One of these is being a virgin, as is pointed out at the poker game. Before they deduce that he is a virgin, they think he must be gay. There is little difference in popular opinion. Also doing such things as listening to Coldplay, liking Maid in Manhattan, and being “celibate” confirm your apparent gay-ness.
The other scene in one in which Andy takes Trish’s daughter to a birth control clinic. At the meeting, the fellow participants discuss their fabricated sex lives. Despite the fact that they are all under the age of 17, they claim a diverse set of experiences which seem as if they could only come from a pornographic film. These teens have seen them and brag about being able to perform as well as Ron Jeremy. Teens used to brag about their cars and how fast they could go (which Freud would say is not very different), but now they talk of their respective abilities. Rank has always been determined by something comparable to the amount of testosterone or libido that an individual had, but not since the influx of Christianity has the Western world, of which we as America make up only a small part, based the threshold between man and boy on sex.
Andy (played wonderfully by Steve Carell) is the titular character who works at a seemingly local electronic store. One night he is invited to play poker with the guys and they begin an innocent conversation about the nastiest, raunchiest, dirtiest things that they have done to their sexual partners. But when it is Andy’s turn, he struggles to come up with a realistic story, and they figure out that he has not yet done the deed. And so it begins that his buddies at work try to get him laid. From waxing his chest and responding in the form of a question, to “tackling drunk [women],” Andy attempts everything, but can’t quite follow through. One day he meets the attractive, but intentionally not stunning, Trish (Catherine Keener) and really does fall for her. Now he must figure out whether to act with his heart, or follow his friends’ increasingly ludicrous suggestions.
Sex is not something that is important for Andy. As he relates at the poker table, he tried when he was young, and as it didn’t work out, more time passed, and he just stopped trying. The thing that makes it important to him is his friends. He just wants to be one of the guys, so he’s willing to go along with their plan for so long, but at one point he makes them stop because now he’s smitten with Trish. And he just wants to do this his own way. She likes him for who he is, and even challenges him to 20 dates without sex, a request with which he is more than willing to comply. He would rather not have sex. But she, as is implicit in her challenge, knows that that is what all men want. And when he doesn’t even want sex on the night of their 20th date, this very fact frightens her. She becomes so paranoid as to accuse him of being a sexual predator and using mentos as roofies. I mean who wouldn’t want to have sex. Sex is something expected of our culture today. The adults expect it and the teens who haven’t done it are growing into a small minority. I am not condemning this, I am simply pointing out that this is different for the popular understanding as of 20 years ago.
People have sex, but this movie points out that sex does not just make you a member of the largest fraternity on the planet. It is not just one of the stepping stones. It has become the most important. To have sex now means to become a man. Nothing else is required.
There are also two other scenes that are relevant to the masculinity issue, although they are on a different note. The first is the running joke told between David (Paul Rudd) and Cal (Seth Rogen), which is comprised of “Know how I know you’re gay?” and an appropriate response. But what do they really mean? Do they mean gay as in homosexual? Perhaps, but I think it goes deeper than that. Namely, if a man is gay and, thereby, does not have sex with women, how can he be a man, in the masculine sense? So these guys have endowed the word gay with a sense of castration. And there are certain attributes that are considered synonymous with being castrated. One of these is being a virgin, as is pointed out at the poker game. Before they deduce that he is a virgin, they think he must be gay. There is little difference in popular opinion. Also doing such things as listening to Coldplay, liking Maid in Manhattan, and being “celibate” confirm your apparent gay-ness.
The other scene in one in which Andy takes Trish’s daughter to a birth control clinic. At the meeting, the fellow participants discuss their fabricated sex lives. Despite the fact that they are all under the age of 17, they claim a diverse set of experiences which seem as if they could only come from a pornographic film. These teens have seen them and brag about being able to perform as well as Ron Jeremy. Teens used to brag about their cars and how fast they could go (which Freud would say is not very different), but now they talk of their respective abilities. Rank has always been determined by something comparable to the amount of testosterone or libido that an individual had, but not since the influx of Christianity has the Western world, of which we as America make up only a small part, based the threshold between man and boy on sex.
1.24.2009
Being John Malkovich-Or Anyone Else
“Consciousness is a terrible curse. I think, I feel, I suffer.” These words are spoken by Craig Schwartz (John Cusack) early in this film, a film about escaping the confines of your own world view. It is a film about the grass on the other side, and whether or not it is as green as they say. But more importantly it is a film of human emotion in the face of very real shortcomings, the ineptitude of us all as we seek to do something of value in this world. We try for what is important, but can never quite make it there. Fortunately, and in a more optimistic tone, in this odyssey we discover things of immutable truth and beauty, realizing that the notions we held previously did not represent something worth chasing, and if we take the time to notice them, and look past the impossible fantasies we have for ourselves, then maybe we can achieve true happiness. The problem lies in recognizing what is good.
Craig is a puppeteer whose life reflects little of his preferred occupation. As a puppeteer, he seeks to control, but in actuality his wife Lottie (Cameron Diaz, in her best performance yet) is the breadwinner as he constantly works on perfecting his art as “there’s no room for puppeteers in today’s wintry economic climate.” She does, however finally convince him to go job hunting, and he finds the most bizarre and life-changing job anyone has ever had. He applies at Lestercorp, a company that specializes in meeting your filing needs. The ceilings are a whole 5 ½ feet tall, the receptionist has a degree in speech impedimentology from Case Western and can’t understand anything that is said to her, and the orientation video presents an explanation for the low overhead, that is beyond fantastical. He also meets Maxine, a foxy young employee at another business on the 7 ½ floor. After a couple days of stumbling around asking her out, he finally convinces her to go get a drink with him. She abruptly leaves as soon as she finds out that he is a puppeteer. The next day is when he discovers the portal.
The portal is an even smaller door that is located behind some filing cabinets, as if the floor weren’t already claustrophobic enough. As soon as Craig goes through the door and down a dirt tunnel, he is rushed into the mind of John Malkovich (played by John Malkovich). One of the great ironies of this film occurs in the 15 minutes he spends in Malkovich’s mind. As celebrity, and one of the great actors of the 20th century, we would expect him to be doing something amazing. In fact, we can’t even tell that it is someone out of the ordinary until we see his face, and even then, he still behaves like a “normal guy.” His taxi driver recognizes him and has a brief conversation with him, but Malkovich just like you and me. He is simply eating toast and going to work. In fact, it is interesting to note that only when Craig learns how to possess John Malkovich does he begin to do thing out of the ordinary. Prior to that, he is reading Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, picking out hand towels, taking a shower, and rehearsing for his performance of Shakespeare’s Richard III. He is just like us non-celebrities, except for that very distinction. He is famous, and none of us are. We wish we were perhaps, but only he is. This very celebrity status, when combined with Craig’s puppetry allows Craig to do what he has always wanted, or at least the dream he thought was true. He also wants to sleep with Maxine and Malkovich is the easiest way to do that. Lottie discovers herself in Malkovich, and sees being him as the most natural way to become male.
This film also flips the actor/character relationship on its head. John Malkovich is an actor who possesses a sort of immunity with his characters. He is able to be exactly who he wants to be, eliminating his shortcomings and becoming for a moment, however brief, perfect. We all, at sometime, naively seek this perfection as well, so it is easy to understand the desperate need to be the actor, because this gives you the immunity also. The character of Craig Schwartz seeks Malkovich, because through Malkovich his idea of perfection can become a reality. After 8 months, he realizes that this all comes crumbling down around his feet. Despite Malkovich’s resemblance to a superhero, with complete power and no accountability, he has no real powers. No one does. We are all simply human, simply flawed. And the romantic ideal that we seek is beyond unattainable, it is simply not present.
Craig, although he is the protagonist, is not the person we should look at in this film. Instead we should look at Lottie and Maxine. Two people, confronted with a surreal experience are able to look past what each of them thinks they need and realize what brings happiness. They are a part of the lucky few who make it in this world.
Craig is a puppeteer whose life reflects little of his preferred occupation. As a puppeteer, he seeks to control, but in actuality his wife Lottie (Cameron Diaz, in her best performance yet) is the breadwinner as he constantly works on perfecting his art as “there’s no room for puppeteers in today’s wintry economic climate.” She does, however finally convince him to go job hunting, and he finds the most bizarre and life-changing job anyone has ever had. He applies at Lestercorp, a company that specializes in meeting your filing needs. The ceilings are a whole 5 ½ feet tall, the receptionist has a degree in speech impedimentology from Case Western and can’t understand anything that is said to her, and the orientation video presents an explanation for the low overhead, that is beyond fantastical. He also meets Maxine, a foxy young employee at another business on the 7 ½ floor. After a couple days of stumbling around asking her out, he finally convinces her to go get a drink with him. She abruptly leaves as soon as she finds out that he is a puppeteer. The next day is when he discovers the portal.
The portal is an even smaller door that is located behind some filing cabinets, as if the floor weren’t already claustrophobic enough. As soon as Craig goes through the door and down a dirt tunnel, he is rushed into the mind of John Malkovich (played by John Malkovich). One of the great ironies of this film occurs in the 15 minutes he spends in Malkovich’s mind. As celebrity, and one of the great actors of the 20th century, we would expect him to be doing something amazing. In fact, we can’t even tell that it is someone out of the ordinary until we see his face, and even then, he still behaves like a “normal guy.” His taxi driver recognizes him and has a brief conversation with him, but Malkovich just like you and me. He is simply eating toast and going to work. In fact, it is interesting to note that only when Craig learns how to possess John Malkovich does he begin to do thing out of the ordinary. Prior to that, he is reading Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, picking out hand towels, taking a shower, and rehearsing for his performance of Shakespeare’s Richard III. He is just like us non-celebrities, except for that very distinction. He is famous, and none of us are. We wish we were perhaps, but only he is. This very celebrity status, when combined with Craig’s puppetry allows Craig to do what he has always wanted, or at least the dream he thought was true. He also wants to sleep with Maxine and Malkovich is the easiest way to do that. Lottie discovers herself in Malkovich, and sees being him as the most natural way to become male.
This film also flips the actor/character relationship on its head. John Malkovich is an actor who possesses a sort of immunity with his characters. He is able to be exactly who he wants to be, eliminating his shortcomings and becoming for a moment, however brief, perfect. We all, at sometime, naively seek this perfection as well, so it is easy to understand the desperate need to be the actor, because this gives you the immunity also. The character of Craig Schwartz seeks Malkovich, because through Malkovich his idea of perfection can become a reality. After 8 months, he realizes that this all comes crumbling down around his feet. Despite Malkovich’s resemblance to a superhero, with complete power and no accountability, he has no real powers. No one does. We are all simply human, simply flawed. And the romantic ideal that we seek is beyond unattainable, it is simply not present.
Craig, although he is the protagonist, is not the person we should look at in this film. Instead we should look at Lottie and Maxine. Two people, confronted with a surreal experience are able to look past what each of them thinks they need and realize what brings happiness. They are a part of the lucky few who make it in this world.
1.17.2009
Gran Torino-the Death of Americanism.
There was a time, far beyond the memory of any living person, in which the doors of America were wide open. All who wished to be free of the chains of other nations were free to dock in our ports. Our culture was still in its formative years and we had little to represent us as a whole. But at some point this changed. Our doors slammed shut and we became afraid of everything foreign. Perhaps this is linked to the last century of international relations, soiled by massive wars and paranoia. I don’t know when it occurred. But we became very definitely American. In fact, anyone who does not subscribe to a very specific set of tenets is declared Un-American. This is difficult to comprehend, considering the creation of this country. It was meant to be a haven for all running from tyranny. In fact in New York’s harbor stands the Statue of Liberty where these word are inscribed: “Give me your tired, your poor/Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free/The wretched refuse of your teeming shore/ Send these, the homeless, tempest toss to me/I lift my lamp beside the golden door.” My point is that this very spirit of fraternity with the oppressed of the world was crushed by the last century. And Clint Eastwood, in his new film Gran Torino, is bringing that to our attention.
If there was ever a man more American than Walt Kowalski (Clint Eastwood’s character), I could not imagine him. He only drives Ford. He served his country in Korea. He makes it a part of his daily routine to drink PBR and sit on his front porch for several hours. He also uses more racial epithets than a Spike Lee film. He is the very incarnation of the modern American spirit. The film opens at his wife’s funeral, the last thing that kept him really going. All that he has left is his dog and his vintage mint condition 1972 Gran Torino. What infuriates him the most is that he is now the last "American" in his ghetto. They are encroaching from all sides to take the last vestige of dignity that he has. His son wants to put him in a nursing home and the neighbors hate him. It seems that the only reason he has left to live is to hold down the fort and protect it from these "gooks."
The ennui is broken when Thao, the boy next door is pressured into joining the local gang. His initiation is to steal the old man's prized Gran Torino. This is, ironically, the beginning of a beautiful friendship. After Walt catches him, Thao offers to make up for it by working for Walt for a week, during which time he takes a certain satisfaction out of making him do everything in the neighborhood. But the great part is that Walt starts to see Thao as a person. Despite the wave of slurs thrown at him like confetti, Thao is more than just a "damn zipperhead." Thao proceeds to get a job in construction and go legit. When the local gang notices this they attack him, making him feel like a kid again, and almost nullifying everything that Walt did to build his self esteem.
Walt realizes through his encounters with his neighbors, that there is no way out for them. They are stuck in a certain cycle that will either lead to their death or imprisonment. He begins to realize that the enemy is not a wave of immigrants, for these people have just as much a right to live here as we do.(These in particular helped the US in Vietnam, which may account for much of the sympathy Walt has for them). Rather there are deeper problems at the very heart of our society that we miss when we look at meaningless surface issues. The presence of this gang, for example, is rotting away the ghetto. Thao's sister, Sue, makes the insightful comment that the girls go to college and the boys go to jail. But the problem is not the presence of a gang. It is instead the fact that a gang can still do all sorts of evil, and get away with it. There is no one who has the nerve to break the stasis and do what is right, instead of what is easy. That is, until Walt Kowalski comes to town.
I havent yet spoken of the titular character, and it is a charcter. Though the Gran Torino only makes 10 appearances throughout the film, it remains the greatest catalyst and symbol in the film. It exists as Walt's manifestation of his raging Americanism. He sits around all day waxing it, making it beautiful, just to see how good it looks. But what good is a car if no one drives it. What good is a country that offers religious and personal freedom, if it is limited to the contemplation of an elite few? One of the great, albeit underplayed, scenes in the film is when Walt, without any suggestion, tells Thao to take the Gran Torino to his date that evening. It represents what I feel is at the very core of this film, namely, that freedom is meaningless if you can't share it with the disenfranchised.
If there was ever a man more American than Walt Kowalski (Clint Eastwood’s character), I could not imagine him. He only drives Ford. He served his country in Korea. He makes it a part of his daily routine to drink PBR and sit on his front porch for several hours. He also uses more racial epithets than a Spike Lee film. He is the very incarnation of the modern American spirit. The film opens at his wife’s funeral, the last thing that kept him really going. All that he has left is his dog and his vintage mint condition 1972 Gran Torino. What infuriates him the most is that he is now the last "American" in his ghetto. They are encroaching from all sides to take the last vestige of dignity that he has. His son wants to put him in a nursing home and the neighbors hate him. It seems that the only reason he has left to live is to hold down the fort and protect it from these "gooks."
The ennui is broken when Thao, the boy next door is pressured into joining the local gang. His initiation is to steal the old man's prized Gran Torino. This is, ironically, the beginning of a beautiful friendship. After Walt catches him, Thao offers to make up for it by working for Walt for a week, during which time he takes a certain satisfaction out of making him do everything in the neighborhood. But the great part is that Walt starts to see Thao as a person. Despite the wave of slurs thrown at him like confetti, Thao is more than just a "damn zipperhead." Thao proceeds to get a job in construction and go legit. When the local gang notices this they attack him, making him feel like a kid again, and almost nullifying everything that Walt did to build his self esteem.
Walt realizes through his encounters with his neighbors, that there is no way out for them. They are stuck in a certain cycle that will either lead to their death or imprisonment. He begins to realize that the enemy is not a wave of immigrants, for these people have just as much a right to live here as we do.(These in particular helped the US in Vietnam, which may account for much of the sympathy Walt has for them). Rather there are deeper problems at the very heart of our society that we miss when we look at meaningless surface issues. The presence of this gang, for example, is rotting away the ghetto. Thao's sister, Sue, makes the insightful comment that the girls go to college and the boys go to jail. But the problem is not the presence of a gang. It is instead the fact that a gang can still do all sorts of evil, and get away with it. There is no one who has the nerve to break the stasis and do what is right, instead of what is easy. That is, until Walt Kowalski comes to town.
I havent yet spoken of the titular character, and it is a charcter. Though the Gran Torino only makes 10 appearances throughout the film, it remains the greatest catalyst and symbol in the film. It exists as Walt's manifestation of his raging Americanism. He sits around all day waxing it, making it beautiful, just to see how good it looks. But what good is a car if no one drives it. What good is a country that offers religious and personal freedom, if it is limited to the contemplation of an elite few? One of the great, albeit underplayed, scenes in the film is when Walt, without any suggestion, tells Thao to take the Gran Torino to his date that evening. It represents what I feel is at the very core of this film, namely, that freedom is meaningless if you can't share it with the disenfranchised.
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