Aria: Cinema Plays with Opera

Roeg

Aria is one of the better-known omnibus films from the 80s, a strange period of film history that almost brought together the likes of Orson Welles, Federico Fellini, Jean-Luc Godard, Woody Allen, Robert Altman, Derek Jarman, and Nicholas Roeg. Minus Welles, Fellini, and Allen, and plus a few others, Aria was constructed with relatively broad formal freedom but strikingly narrow thematic content. Perhaps predictably, many of these segments are very operatic indeed, paired as each of them is with a piece or two from Verdi, Puccini, and others. Considering the caliber of the filmmakers participating, it is surprising how tethered many of the shorts are to traditional operatic content. Jarman’s contribution may experiment most with the wedding of cinema with opera, offering a montage of images somewhat liberated from narrative confines and thereby allowing such a short piece to stand on its own. Roeg’s attempt to integrate narrative (from a classical source, no less) into into such strict temporal constraints results in a rushed product, something that defines neither opera nor cinema; but maybe this was his intention?

Godard

Godard is right at home here, especially following his 80s fare like Passion and First Name: Carmen. In this decade more than ever before, Godard was preoccupied with the fusing of image and sound, in the vein of Renaissance art and music. This means that he’s obsessed with the human form, male and female bodies. Historically, this creates something curiously hybrid. While classical opera may have to do with bodies, Godard’s style is decidedly closer to that of pre-Classical painting, with uncovered figures posing still in order to be admired or, better, worshiped. Godard’s use of male bodies juxtaposing the females here fits nicely into his standard approach to bodies along with everything else: exchange of commodities. The transaction doesn’t take place in the segment; the problem is an imbalance of supply with demand, a Marxist cliché that Godard is only too glad to inject into a series of films supposedly just about art and love. Such pretense is beneath him, effecting what may in fact be the most (retrospectively) comical episode of the bunch, even next to the straightforwardly funny segment with Buck Henry and Beverly D’Angelo.

Temple

Opera is in many ways a romantic medium, in both its form and content. While this probably shouldn’t be debated, Aria fascinates by its general failure to expand on the basic, proverbial romance. Exceptions have been noted above, but tongue-in-cheek and slapstick stand only on their relation to what they mock. It seems that only Derek Jarman’s episode in Aria really does justice to romantic form and narrative while experimenting successfully with a new attempt to blur the classical with the contemporary.

Jarman

Gosford Park: So Classy

Unbalanced

For some reason past viewings of Gosford Park made it difficult to say much about it. Theories abound as to why, but undoubtedly two reign supreme: the slow mental digestion of this viewer, and a wedding – truly a becoming one flesh – of form and content on the part of the filmmaker(s). At this stage in his career, it must be admitted that Robert Altman had primary and probably sole creative control over his projects. So once again, bonjour auteur theory. Despite lame efforts to ignore you, you have again reared your pretty head.

Intrusion

If a viewer struggles to grasp the basic idea overarching and undergirding Gosford Park, look only at the division of actors in the end credits: “Above stairs,” “Visitors,” and “Below stairs.” The class separation within this film, which may seem only as strong as it is in Renoir’s The Rules of the Game, is more fluid, traversed, and transgressed. By virtue of these boundary-crossings, the class differences are highlighted all the more. So overt are the examples of these instances that some characters, usually those below the stairs, discuss them openly. A rule prohibits servants to respond to their own names when downstairs. Instead, they are identified by the names of their masters and mistresses. The servants wonder at what it must be like to be wealthy. When one of them turns out to have been posing and is in fact a wealthy actor, he is shunned and spurned by the servants thereafter. The head servants proclaims the highest dignity to be the one who “knows what they (the elite) want before they themselves do.”

Watching

How this factors into the murder-mystery aspect of the film is more provocative. Whereas Agatha Christie’s novel-films use the class distinction as a tool to suspend the mystery and postpone the answer to the whodunit? question, Altman here switches things, using the murder-mystery to bring us back to his higher concern. That the murder, it turns out, was carried out twice (sort of), makes the crime as ambiguous as the class distinction seems to be upon close inspection. From a distance, we see clearly. Up close, it’s quite clear. But from that arm’s length distance at which most of life is lived, things are quite difficult to make out. The murder has its roots in an early transgression of the boundary: the master sleeps with his servant. The child is given up, the servant remains faithful but grows older, the master finds new and younger playthings, and the child and mother grow bitter as they gain perspective.

Being watched

Fitting that this film was made in the new century, as it represents a quintessentially postmodern twist on a classic genre of film and literature. The twist is only slight, but it is indisputably present. In the end, two people think themselves the murderer, and only one is right, but both are also right. A familial relation is uncovered between them, but seems to be known by only one. The justification for the murder is rather strong, and no one is “punished” for it in the traditional sense; at least, no one is found out by the authorities. The police enter but have no powers over the world of the upper-class. (This is evident quite literally in the inspector’s inability ever to finish pronouncing his own name, despite numerous attempts.) The spat-upon token American guests (above the stairs) commit the transgression as Americans are best at doing: grabbing and running. The Hollywood producer (perfectly cast: Bob Balaban performs here flawlessly and is a producer of Gosford Park) snags the shamed servant and drives away with her to offer her an acting career. As the crony of the murdered man, she is rewarded for her faux pas while her master remains quite punished. Renoir’s film was something like a moral tale, a social critique. Altman’s is a social critique but a rather amoral tale, more akin to the new world in which it was made than to Renoir’s. Altman’s floating camera remains detached from all the goings-on but constantly interested. The viewer feels like an invisible spy wandering around freely, neither judging the lives it watches nor celebrating them. If the film comes down on anyone, it comes down on everyone. The sins are of omission and commission, ranging from innocent naivete to backstabbing treachery. The biggest problem that the film itself points to, however, isn’t of individuals but of the society that so trains them.

Messy mixture

Oops

Quickies, Vol. II

Anatomy of a Murder (dir. Otto Preminger): Lengthy, but only when you look at the clock after it’s over. Jimmy’s in good form here in 1959, a year before Psycho and foreshadowing cinema’s more audacious acknowledgment of the harshness of the world. Preminger’s insistence on having no auteur style gives a priority to the film rather than the director. Therefore, there’s a deliberateness, a carefulness here that comes only with great films. Let the narrative and characters do their thing, he must have said, and I’ll put it on celluloid.

Dr. T and the Women (dir. Robert Altman): Cameras flowing and swooning throughout, Altman-style. It’s some kind of tribute to the female sex, not to be confused with a misogynistic opera of hysterical woman. Despite a presence of uncontrollable estrogen, Richard Gere’s Dr. T is the most pathetic figure, damned as he is to servicing women even when he thinks he’s been freed from it. Of course, he doesn’t want to be. Also, a beautiful, fitting, Altman-esque ending, right up there with other late-career gems like Gosford Park and Prairie Home Companion.

Touch of Evil (dir. Orson Welles): Ridiculous for its brilliance. Welles’ own self-effacement along with Marlene Dietrich’s aged presence mark this as not merely a late noir but the end of an era and beginning of something else. You have to chuckle at Heston’s lack of Mexican-ness. But it’s covered in the fingerprints of a cinematic genius, so we’re left only to watch and gawk.

Nashville

It took three or four sittings to watch Robert Altman’s Nashville, for no good reason. As I’m working my way through “The List” (which, I realize, I need to make accessible here somewhere as I check them off), sometimes a screening isn’t totally convenient, and though some might argue that it would be better not to watch a film at all than to watch it over four days, I say it’s better than nothing. It’s even possible that an Altman film is a better film to stretch out and divide than most others. They’re generally very segmented, with various “connective tissues” (Altman’s words) used to string together otherwise only thematically-related stories. Plus, I figure I’ve digested the film slower than I would have in one sitting, which could be an advantage.

From the opening credits, there is Altman’s trademark incessant dialog as the film self-consciously opens with an announcement for itself over the credits, even naming the director aloud. As an aside, I am always delighted at such things as this. The film was released in 1975, and you have in it a little technique of the sort that directors are using all the time these days and getting the credit for them. The more you watch stuff any earlier than the 90s, the more you see that these “new auteurs” are often glorified hacks. Even the great Kurosawa was credited with the first direct camera shot at the sun in 1950 in Rashomon. But watch Gustav Machatý’s 1933 film Ecstasy (Ekstase), and there it is, seventeen years earlier.

Anyway. Nashville is remarkable for having politically-charged subject matter but being quite apoliticial at heart. The film is more of a commentary on politics in the USA and its social effects. Like anyone with a proper interest in politics, Altman is more concerned with the welfare of the people that politics promises to protect and serve, rather than the fine points of political discourse. By injecting political ramblings into the film in the form of a campaign van with a recording on loudspeaker, Altman points out that even the sorts of promises Americans most want to hear from its prospective politicians are usually impersonal at heart and not much more than a broken record.

But of course, this film is really about the music, the musicians, and the aspiring musicians (that pretty much covers everyone and everything in the film). Toward the beginning, the film implies a contrast between the white and black styles of making music in Nashville. A white group is in a studio recording, and a black group is in another. Cuts between the two groups demand a comparison/contrast. The white musicians are led by Haven Hamilton, a domineering, middle-aged godfather of mid-70s Nashville. His contribution to the music consists in crooning in his own booth and telling everyone else how not to play. He has a fit and leaves the studio because an out-of-town hippie named “Frog” isn’t playing piano right. Meanwhile, a black choir full of gospel soul sings and dances in unison, with Lilly Tomlin taking part not only in the choral singing but in a brief solo. Her out-of-place-ness (and unfortunate vocal contribution) doesn’t phase the rest of the choir. Perhaps this is taking it a step too far, but the black choir’s music is a celebration of life, whereas the white choir’s lyric material had a strongly defensive tone to it, with a chorus of, “We must be doin’ somethin’ right to last 200 years.”

The BBC woman claiming to make a documentary of Nashville was arguably the most interesting character in the film. Not that the character herself was particularly profound, but her status as a true outsider and self-mocking stand-in for Robert Altman offered some fascinating scenes. She sees the people of Nashville exactly as they present themselves: a spectacle. She completely buys into the idea of their music as performance as she voyeuristically pries into every person, place, and thing she can set her sights on. She only loses interest when someone begins to open up in a vulnerable, honest way. Only the juicy and sensational are worth her reporting. Her constant commentary on everything she sees and hears may serve more as Altman’s preemptive strike at the critics of this film rather than as his own stand-in. Her wordy diatribes are inherently empty and pretentious, and though the film’s final tragedy doesn’t directly result from her reporting, there is an undeniable connection. She scoffs at anything that is less than attractive or successful, as shown when she is taken aback and rendered speechless when Lilly Tomlin’s character tells her that both of her children are deaf and therefore could not have a career in music.

Apparently 1970s Nashville didn’t smile upon Altman’s film or the music that it contained. It’s difficult for me to comment on this with anything like objectivity. I’ve experienced a lot of Tennessee, including Nashville, and the time gap separating the present day from the era of this film seems insignificant. Perhaps it’s because I’m “west coast,” but Altman’s Nashville and the one I’ve seen don’t seem very different. Not that Altman was going for a documentary, but he was surely attempting to capture the place and time realistically. When a people presents itself on a stage, you have little choice but to see them that way: on a stage, as Altman’s many wide shots of the performers on wide stages show. In this way, Altman’s eye is not a voyeuristic one – he didn’t have to find a hole in the door. His interest in such things continued to the very end of his career in A Prairie Home Companion, which took advantage of another group of musical performers who enjoyed the stage.

Altman had a gift for a detached camera that has a humanlike expression to it, like a person’s face. He moves and point the camera in a way similar to how a person communicates with a smirk or eyebrow. Because of his technique, it doesn’t feel like one is watching a mere documentary – especially one claiming to be neutral. Once again, a camera and a gift for editing can say much more than pages of dialog. But in case there was any question, the style and lyrics of the country songs say a lot. This is bound to offend both Southerners and fans of this genre, but there is a simplicity to these country songs that doesn’t translate well to a mass audience and commercialism. Bluegrass music (at least in the old days) was full of rural wisdom, and it said things in such a way that the listener actually was better for having heard it. Many songs on this soundtrack are full of blind pride, arrogant pretense, and stupid patriotism. We are who we are and we’re the best and God put us here to always be the best, is the idea. The subculture depicted in A Prairie Home Companion, ironically, is much closer to old-school southern wisdom and humor than the world of Nashville.