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.
7.30.2009
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.
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