Courtesy of here.

We can use that!

Finally, disciples of Wes Anderson can feel vindicated – not that they ever cared – for their faith in a filmmaker whose efforts seem to hit and miss with the masses (particularly the critics) but which never stop providing constant joys to those blessed with the sight and souls to recognize and to feel the powerful beauties that he is so gifted at producing. (Let the record show that only one sentence was filled with over-the-top praise and swoonery for our friend Wes.)

The Crew

I will try to refrain (note: “try”) from delving into the “metascopic” ramifications of Wes’ films and the fascinating phenomenon of their diverse but predictable receptions into the general public. It’s the film that deserves attention: Fantastic Mr. Fox. Following the release of The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, there was word of Wes’ next project: an adaptation of a Roald Dahl book, the sort of thing one expects Tim Burton to do, not Wes Anderson. The news was that Henry Selick – Burton’s collaborator on The Nightmare Before Christmas – would work with Wes to produce a stop motion animation film geared toward children and featuring a cast composed largely of actors Wes fans have seen and heard before. Some of us were, we confess, worried that good Wes was beginning his move toward selling out. This is the sort of thing directors and actors are good at doing, after all: finding some success with challenging movie work, then producing general-audience crowd-pleasers. At heart, we knew Wes wouldn’t do that sort of thing. The only other person trying was Spike Jonze, whose Where The Wild Things Are back in those days was looking like it would never be made. How does Hollywood successfully wed serious “independent” talent (someone with a unique artistic vision – nay, an “auteur”) with a bankable story intended for audiences young and old alike? We may appreciate Brad Bird and Andrew Hanson, but they’re really not “independent” talent.

His ears were cold.

While we were wondering this, Wes pulled a fast one on us, announcing a film called The Darjeeling Limited. More in the vein of his previous work, this one would be filmed mostly in India, bring Jason Schwartzman back into the fold, and feature real people with no puppets. This was more like it. Let the children grow old waiting for their “Mr. Fox” and let us have our vintage Wes Anderson grub. What we got was something great but something fairly vintage in Darjeeling; not that it didn’t have some great and interesting nuances from the other films. Years later (or longer), the trailer for Fantastic Mr. Fox was released, and immediately after (during, even), some of us confessed our sin of momentary doubt, realizing that this was something remarkable, something wonderful. Blast all those short films the studio subsequently released showing how they set up the puppets, etc., etc. Haven’t watched them, probably won’t for awhile. That would be like reading a book on the techniques of a magician (sorry, an “illusionist”) before, or soon after, going to a magic show. Sometimes it’s better to let beauty be beauty than to understand its inner workings.

I modified this tube sock.

Mr. Fox starts out like a silent film. Of course, it starts out as a book, quite like Rushmore and Tenenbaums, with an intertitle on the first page: “Boggis, Bunce, and Bean. One short, one fat, one lean. These horrible crooks, so different in looks, were nonetheless equally mean.” Unlike those films, though, this one starts without a soundtrack. The cut to Mr. Fox on his hill, then the trademark reverse-shot perpendicular cut to Mrs. Fox about to ascend it, happen without any real sound. The character movements are fast and jagged; it looks a little like Buster Keaton at a distance. This changes, of course, and music figures prominently throughout the film, to our great joy. British Invasion tunes are in sync with Mr. Fox’s invasion of the chicken coop, and the Beach Boys (a new one for Wes) set the new tone when Mr. Fox and the crew prepare to retaliate against “the man” in the disheveled but strangely organized manner of a bunch of West-Coast surfers, each knowing his part. This offsets the opening silence of the film, which stands out even more on the second viewing. Everything about the production of this film has been based on old standards; no computer imagery was allowed, and the stop-motion style itself hearkens back to a dated look. The early nod to silent cinema points to a source for all of Wes’ films that makes sense. He’s always loved staging his scenes as if they were in a play – at times very overtly indeed. This very theater-like mode of filmmaking defined early films, before directors and cinematographers learned new ways of moving cameras around to create something uniquely cinematic. Wes loves cinema enough to wallow in his film-history ruts, from silent cinema to the French New Wave.

The meanest, nastiest, ugliest farmers in this valley

The detail(s) of Mr. Fox is being mentioned a lot, and for good reason. Certainly Wes’ films have been getting progressively more detailed, going along with the “staged” aspect to his filmmaking style. (A personal favorite is the closet scene in Tenenbaums; all those board games…) There is enough detail in this film not to have any idea where to begin. For example, my eyes were somewhere else on the screen during the first viewing when, after which it was mentioned to me, the word “CUSS” appeared in graffiti on a building in the town. (The “cuss” gag, by the way, has to be the most creative way for a film to sidestep profanity and maintain a PG rating that has ever been.) Wes’ protagonists have always enjoyed their style: Dignan (yellow jumpsuits), Max (the hat), Royal (the suits), Steve (the beanie, etc.), and the Whitman boys (custom Louis Vuitton). Mr. Fox is no different in kind but rather in degree: he dresses more like Wes Anderson himself than any other W.A. character. The careful symmetry of the film and the Fox home within the film display all the tell-tale signs of a certain familiar look. However, at the precise moment when the viewer is becoming accustomed to this hyper-perfect surrealism, Mr. Fox sits down for breakfast and shocks the viewer by eating the way a wild animal eats. This and the cussfest between Mr. Fox and Badger (Bill Murray, thank you for returning), along with other scenes, are delightful indications that this film and its characters are really wild at heart.

How'd you get platinum?

Ironic about this film’s reception (and, we’re back into it) is that it’s been embraced as something fresh and different from a director who apparently could only make one kind of film. With no intention of selling short the special beauty of Mr. Fox, it’s worth noting that thematically it is uncannily similar to all of Wes’ previous films. A fearless leader, unhappy with a status-quo life, bands together a small community of outcasts all connected somehow for a particular goal, a goal that serves merely as a façade concealing the desire for togetherness that unites them. I know of no simpler way of boiling down Wes’ main theme than this, and even now the number of little exceptions and nuances in all the films clamor for attention. Mr. Fox is the quintessential Wes Anderson character, this time given a nice touch by George Clooney, whose efforts with the Coen brothers in particular give him all the right stuff for this role. (Think O Brother, Where Art Thou? especially.)

Tail grab

With the exception of Bottle Rocket, each of Wes’ films has included death at some layer. In Rushmore, the memories of Max’s mom and Miss Cross’ husband surface many times. In Tenenbaums, the family visits the gravesite of Chas’ wife and Royal’s mother; the dog Buckley’s death and Royal’s own at the film’s finale make death particularly integral to that film. The Life Aquatic practically opens with a death scene, seen through a filmstrip showing Steve’s friend Esteban get eaten by a jaguar shark. The death of Steve’s son Ned later in the film is shocking for its rawness; it’s the kind of scene no one expects in an Anderson film. Obviously The Darjeeling Limited has everything to do with death. Some form or another of the word “die” is mentioned many times in Mr. Fox, perhaps surprising some parents who took their children to see it. As animals who steal from humans for a living, their lives are in danger from the first scene, and Mrs. Fox is typically the one to suggest that they may die. The only death that does occur (other than a few silly beagles – they really do love blueberries) is that of Rat. Rat is an interesting character, one easy to take for granted. He functions as a sort of counterpoint to Wolf. Wolf is talked about a few times, usually scaring Mr. Fox by the power of suggestion. Wolf is something transcendent, beautiful, and fearsome. His only appearance gives rise to a wow-sensation, standing there with authority, dignity, and – most importantly in Wes Anderson’s world – independence. He is his own creature, and his ability to survive and thrive on his own means that the characters in the film, just like the audience watching it, will never see him close-up. He is an enigma that Wes himself doesn’t seem to understand, and so how can his characters?

Symmetry

Rat is similar but located on the other end of the spectrum. Instead of beauty and dignity, he’s defined by ugliness and unseemliness. He runs his own show, too, but without the beauty and poise of Wolf, Rat is destined to die, which he does. Mr. Fox and the others pity him as much as they fear him, whether they’re locking him into a chest while they steal cider or are giving him his last sip before his pupils turn into little X’s. When Ash sorrows for Rat and suggests his redemption, Mr. Fox says something to the effect of, “But in the end he’s just another dead rat in a garbage dumpster behind a Chinese restaurant.” Isn’t this like Ari and Uzi giving a BB-gun salute at Royal’s funeral or Max deciding not to fell a tree on Mr. Blume while visiting Max’s mother’s grave? These death scenes in Wes’ films are often punctuated or offset with humor. The effect doesn’t seem to be to dampen the gravity of the scenes, but to lend something human to them. Wes only took the big, humorless risk with two death scenes – in Life Aquatic and Darjeeling, and the latter worked better than the former. Rat’s death in Mr. Fox gives the ugly character some final beauty, as he confesses how all he really wanted was some nice cider.

She's always doom 'n gloom

All of Wes’ protagonists – all of his characters, really – live on the edge. Or, if they’re not, they will be soon. Without the risk of death in some form, there is no life, even in a children’s movie. Just as clear as that, the risk is always taken collectively, never as individuals. At one point in the film, Mr. Fox sets out to sacrifice himself for the cause. He leaves everyone and heads toward the danger, but he’s back in a flash, proclaiming, “Suicide mission canceled,” and proclaiming a new and better plan that maximizes the strengths of everyone (demolitions expert!). The only way an individual succeeds by himself (yes, usually “himself”) is when others are nearby also desperately trying to succeed for the sake of the group. Often the victories are accidental, such as Ash breaking Kristofferson out of his cage, but they’re still victories. There’s no way to put a bottom line to one of Wes’ films, in my book. So, I’ll finish here by shouting out to Jason Schwartzman and  Wally Wolodarsky, whose voices in Mr. Fox provided more delight and laughs than I’ve experienced in a cinema in awhile. Also, these images are great:

Found this originally here, but I guess it originated on the web over here. I have a strange inability to resist these.

1) Second-favorite Coen Brothers movie.

O Brother, Where Art Thou?

2) Movie seen only on home format that you would pay to see on the biggest movie screen possible? (Question submitted by Peter Nellhaus)

Andrei Rublev

3) Japan or France? (Question submitted by Bob Westal)

An impossible question. France for inventing, Japan for transcending.

4) Favorite moment/line from a western.

When Rooster Cogburn saves Maggie at the end of True Grit. The Duke was on his way out, but at least he came out on top and with a belly full of whiskey and corn dodgers. But also, seeing John Wayne and Kirk Douglas paired for The War Wagon was a treat.

5) Of all the arts the movies draw upon to become what they are, which is the most important, or the one you value most?

It should be “…value more,” since photography and music have to be the most integral to cinema.

6) Most misunderstood movie of the 2000s (The Naughties?).

Probably Crash (not Cronenberg’s) or Juno. Many people misunderstood and thought they were good.

7) Name a filmmaker/actor/actress/film you once unashamedly loved who has fallen furthest in your esteem.

Maybe Tim Burton or Steve Martin (thanks to the new Pink Panther movies).

Herbert Lom or Patrick Magee?

Herbert Lom, thanks to the old Pink Panther movies.

9) Which is your least favorite David Lynch film (Submitted by Tony Dayoub)

That I’ve seen? Probably The Straight Story, but it’s been almost ten years.

10) Gordon Willis or Conrad Hall? (Submitted by Peet Gelderblom)

Willis, duh. Who else could’ve shot both The Godfather and Annie Hall?

11) Second favorite Don Siegel movie.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

12) Last movie you saw on DVD/Blu-ray? In theaters?

On Blu-ray, though it wasn’t a “movie” per se: BBC Planet Earth. DVD, The Divorcee. In theaters: The Fantastic Mr. Fox (x2).

13) Which DVD in your private collection screams hardest to be replaced by a Blu-ray? (Submitted by Peet Gelderblom)

Solaris (the good one)

14) Eddie Deezen or Christopher Mintz-Plasse?

Mintz-Plasse

15) Actor/actress who you feel automatically elevates whatever project they are in, or whom you would watch in virtually anything.

Cary Grant/Audrey Hepburn (is that cheating?)

16) Fight Club — yes or no?

Sure

17) Teresa Wright or Olivia De Havilland?

Olivia

18) Favorite moment/line from a film noir.

All of Gilda, despite what some say about its status as a noir. 2nd place is The Maltese Falcon.

19) Best (or worst) death scene involving an obvious dummy substituting for a human or any other unsuccessful special effect(s)—see the wonderful blog Destructible Man for inspiration.

Brad Pitt’s death in Meet Joe Black (worst)

20) What’s the least you’ve spent on a film and still regretted it? (Submitted by Lucas McNelly)

Turned off Slumdog Millionaire 1/3 in and regretted the wasted time.

21) Van Johnson or Van Heflin?

Van Johnson, thanks to 30 Seconds Over Tokyo

22) Favorite Alan Rudolph film.

Don’t have one.

23) Name a documentary that you believe more people should see.

Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred Leuchter, Jr., dir. Errol Morris

24) In deference to this quiz’s professor, name a favorite film which revolves around someone becoming stranded.

Since it’s just “a” favorite film, I’ll say Father Goose and not also add Hell in the Pacific.

25) Is there a moment when your knowledge of film, or lack thereof, caused you an unusual degree of embarrassment and/or humiliation? If so, please share.

The lack thereof, regularly. When I knew so little that I owned and liked Ron Howard movies.

26) Ann Sheridan or Geraldine Fitzgerald? (Submitted by Larry Aydlette)

Ignorant and indifferent.

27) Do you or any of your family members physically resemble movie actors or other notable figures in the film world? If so, who?

Wife sometimes mistaken for Natalie Portman. Darn.

28) Is there a movie you have purposely avoided seeing? If so, why?

Titanic. It’s more fun not to.

29) Movie with the most palpable or otherwise effective wintry atmosphere or ambience.

Doctor Zhivago?

30) Gerrit Graham or Jeffrey Jones?

Gerrit Graham, since he’s not a perv.

31) The best cinematic antidote to a cultural stereotype (sexual, political, regional, whatever).

Critique of politics in Nashville.

32) Second favorite John Wayne movie.

Maybe The Green Beret

33) Favorite movie car chase.

Nazis in motorcycles and Richard Burton & Clint Eastwood in a bus at the end of Where Eagles Dare.

34) In the spirit of His Girl Friday, propose a gender-switched remake of a classic or not-so-classic film. (Submitted by Patrick Robbins)

Oceans Eleven

35) Barbara Rhoades or Barbara Feldon?

Feldon, since I was tyke.

36) Favorite Andre De Toth movie.

Superman: The Movie (he was second-unit director)

37) If you could take one filmmaker’s entire body of work and erase it from all time and memory, as if it had never happened, whose oeuvre would it be? (Submitted by Tom Sutpen)

Michael Bay

38) Name a film you actively hated when you first encountered it, only to see it again later in life and fall in love with it.

Maybe Beau Geste or The Birds

39) Max Ophuls or Marcel Ophuls? (Submitted by Tom Sutpen)

Max, by reputation

40) In which club would you most want an active membership, the Delta Tau Chi fraternity, the Cutters or the Warriors? And which member would you most resemble, either physically or in personality?

I got nothin here.

41) Your favorite movie cliché.

Slow-mo with mood-setting music.

42) Vincente Minnelli or Stanley Donen? (Submitted by Bob Westal)

Donen: not because he was better but because his films have more sentimental value.

43) Favorite Christmas-themed horror movie or sequence.

When Santa kicks Ralph down the slide in A Christmas Story, it always terrifies me.

44) Favorite moment of self- or selfless sacrifice in a movie.

The character of Yamamoto in Red Beard.

45) If you were the cinematic Spanish Inquisition, which movie cult (or cult movie) would you decimate? (Submitted by Bob Westal)

Sadly saw Malibu High before knowing what it was. It deserves torture and death.

46) Caroline Munro or Veronica Carlson?

Not really into either.

47) Favorite eye-patch wearing director. (Submitted by Patty Cozzalio)

John Ford, being ignorant of others.

48) Favorite ambiguous movie ending. (Original somewhat ambiguous submission—“Something about ambiguous movie endings!”– by Jim Emerson, who may have some inspiration of his own to offer you.)

Most of Kieslowski’s The Decalogue, I suppose.

49) In giving thanks for the movies this year, what are you most thankful for?

Those very few moments of wonderfulness in films that make all the rest of them worth watching.

50) George Kennedy or Alan North? (Submitted by Peet Gelderblom)

Definitely Kennedy: Spartacus, The Sons of Katie Elder, Charade, Cool Hand Luke, and Cahill U.S. Marshall.

Slumdog Millionaire is, as J.M. Tyree so effectively put it, a film that fits into that genre all its own, “the Best Picture Picture.” Tyree (in a recent issue of Film Quarterly) and Salman Rushdie (in his infamous lecture at Emory University) have been some of the most thoughtful and articulate opponents of this movie, which did not deserve the credit it received and should rather be condemned for fooling masses of Westerners into feeling good about themselves and the movie itself while functioning as little more than a high-budget exploitation film. Danny Boyle is apparently doing to movies what Fox TV started doing a number of years ago to sports: kicking it up a notch through superficial glitz. Baseball isn’t exciting enough, so stick a microphone in each of the bases for a more explosive sound at each slide. Can’t see the hockey puck on TV? We’ll make it glow orange. Et cetera. Apparently abject poverty also isn’t interesting enough, so Boyle enlists the kinds of effects that make Jerry Bruckheimer (through the CSI franchises) his money. This MTV music video-style of cinematography makes the audience feel like they’re watching something very “cool,” making them feel cool, cultured, and social-justice-minded for watching it.

Tyree makes the case that Slumdog “wants to have it both ways by allowing images of actual horror to seep into a Bollywood-like dream and then letting us off the hook by suggesting not only that true love conquers all, but also that personal decency might well result in a multimillion-dollar payday… There is a contradiction between what the film tells us about how the universe operates and what it shows us about abject poverty.” Rushdie, in a similar vein, states that the film “piles impossibility upon impossibility.” He adds, “This is a patently ridiculous conceit, the kind of fantasy writing that gives fantasy writing a bad name.” We who embrace these opinions are bound to make enemies, but it’s remarkable that most moviegoers have failed to realize that images of real poverty are being used for what amounts to an attempt at a fairy tale. The viewer is supposed to watch practices take place which apparently really do take place in India, be disgusted by them, realize that something in that part of the world is very wrong, then draw the conclusion by the end of the film that it’s really all worth it for the sake of the main characters being in love. The protagonists are one-dimensional characters of the most boring kind, to say nothing of the antagonists. Character development is non-existent. Subtlety was gouged out along with the boy’s eyeball early in the film. Good characters are not only good, they’re completely innocent; they’re even seemingly unaware when they’re completely covered in poo. Bad characters are pure evil with not a hope of redemption or realistic change, other than the obligatory exception or two inserted into the narrative like props.

Tyree does well to acknowledge that Wes Anderson’s film The Darjeeling Limited, though also made by an American in India, is a different thing altogether. It conceals the side of India that Danny Boyle wants to desperately to represent, and it is self-proclaimedly made from the point of view of traveling Americans. There is no pretense in that film implying that we’re experiencing India as it actually is. The tourists in Darjeeling are at least as touristy as the majority of spectators would be. Boyle, on the other hand, after trying his hand at films in a variety of genres, flies to India from his home in Britain with the gall to think he can show the rest of the world “India.” Worse, he borrows/steals images of real horror in India for the purpose of entertaining Westerners. The problems going on in India aren’t going to go away or be affected by a movie like this. This is the cinematic equivalent of celebrities throwing cash at charities or adopting African babies with People magazine in tow. Further reading in Peter Brooks’ The Melodramatic Imagination confirms that the narrative and cinematic devices being employed in Slumdog shamelessly adhere to conventional tropes of melodrama, the sort of literature and art designed not to elicit thoughts or ideas but feelings and emotions. It is effects-laden and effects-driven. This sort of thing is anything but uncommon in cinema and literature these days, but by using real images of children in poverty and being tortured, Slumdog takes itself to a different level and provides all the necessary tools for its own deconstruction.

A movie about (shooting at) garbage

The second, and later film from Jane Campion, In The Cut is not quite as “critically acclaimed,” as they say, but it should be. At least, it should be given more credit cinematically, since Campion perfects her already solid technique and creates a really impressive narrative, rich and cohesive, with elements swirling around in remarkable unity despite the appearance of chaos. Not wholly unlike The Piano, In The Cut delights – perhaps even finds its chief meaning – in turning conventionally accepted notions/expectations/commonplaces/pleasures on their heads. The first shot of the film from within Frannie’s (Meg Ryan) apartment shows the ambiguous image of small, lightweight, white objects falling from the sky. The immediate instinct is to assume it’s snow, although they seem too big to be snow. Soon thereafter we come to understand that it couldn’t be snow, considering the time of year and the weather. Later still, Frannie’s sister reveals to Frannie that they’re petal-like leaves falling from trees. Do not believe your eyes; this is largely the message of In The Cut. Appearances are deceiving, things aren’t what they seem, and so on.

Seeing ain't knowing

The strong identification, or character engagement, with Frannie attaches the viewer to her at the outset and almost never strays from her. Exceptions are momentary and wrought by narrative necessity. The suturing is stronger here with Frannie than it was with Ada in The Piano. Since this film adds the component of a whodunit? to its narrative, the film progresses better with the audience basically knowing only what Frannie knows. The dark aura that pervades the film affects the feel significantly, contributing to a post-idealistic urban setting, a dystopic microcosm, bound to highlight the sinister in society. The cops add to this vibe at least as much as anyone else, and rightly so, considering the course of the story. They’re fundamentally no different from any other members of society, as much potential suspects as anyone else, as much scumbags, as much sleep-buddies.

No Blade Runner, but still dark

Frannie and her sister Pauline (Jennifer Jason Leigh) stand as possible opposites, the independent woman and the dependent woman, respectively. Pauline’s pathetic stalking of a married man, her shameless fatal attraction to him leading to a restraining order, contrasts extremely with Frannie, who rarely ever dates and is constituted by a lack of desire for another. Her regular meetings with a handsome and hungry student lead to him punishing her for being a “bitch” – that is, being a woman who will not let herself be desired, will not return the gaze that caters to the desiring man. When Frannie finally does couple with a man, that coupling is defined by a reversal of traditional roles. Malloy (Mark Ruffalo) tells Frannie that he will be “anything you want me to be,” and so on. The relationship exists on her terms, for her pleasure. He willingly submits to her control, and her desire is not a desire for him, but rather for naked fulfillment. In a word, she uses him, and he knows it. All the while, she suspects him of committing the crime that is the catalyst for the film’s central mystery.

Sadistic

Having firsthand knowledge of the key piece of evidence needed to solve the crime, she withholds it. She seems to do this in order (1) to draw out the satisfaction she can experience through Malloy and (2) to solve the crime herself. Regarding the second, her day job as a high school teacher makes her an authority figure, a woman with knowledge and power. The meetings with her student are for the purpose of learning street vernacular from him so that she can give a more accurate portrait of urban life in the book she is writing. This is another instance in which Frannie uses a male for her own ends rather than letting herself be used, rebelling against gender norms. Regarding (1), it is important to note that the pleasure she experiences from Malloy is directly related to her suspicion that he is the murderer. Their romance is marked by sadism. After being mugged in an alley, Malloy has Frannnie re-stage the mugging in her apartment,  with him posing as the mugger. They do not get very far into the reenactment before arousing one another through the suggestion of violence. Toward the film’s finale, Frannie handcuffs Malloy to the wall in her apartment and proceeds to discover what appears to be incriminating evidence in his jacket pocket. The ensuing events leave Malloy stranded, cuffed to the wall like an animal as he becomes angrier and angrier. Once again, there is no question here concerning with whom the power lies. The climax in the following sequence has Frannie seizing the instrument of violence and overcoming the male villain.

Imprisoned

That climax is the second scene in which Frannie interacts with blood to a rather heavy degree. In the first, she enters a space that is extremely bloody, a space that happens to be the most intimate space of her sister’s, the bathroom where she has been murdered. This room is a sort of primal cave, penetrated through a violation of the worst kind, perhaps even on par with a violation into the womb. The bathroom already figures as the most personal, intimate space in a domicile. When Frannie enters it, not only is the evidence of the murder spread everywhere for her to see, but her sister is literally spread everywhere for her to see. This is an intrusion of the most violent sort, and Frannie walks straight into it, voluntarily surrounding herself with the bloody evidence. She is distraught, but also fearless and angry. In this way, the scene is somewhat reminiscent of the “castration” scene in The Piano.

Violated

It’s also reminiscent of that scene in another way, however. Right off, perhaps the main difference between the two scenes is that in The Piano, the act of violence is being done to Ada herself, whereas in In The Cut the act of violence has been done to Frannie’s sister. Returning, however, to the earlier point about Frannie and Pauline acting as opposites on the feminine spectrum (in terms of established archetypes or stereotypes), could they not essentially “be” the same person? There is, after all, a blurry line separating an opposite from a double. Consider not only the idea of two warring sides of a person embodies in two separate persons (something that wouldn’t be original to this film), but also the otherwise strange plot element of Pauline’s murder. Why, exactly, is she murdered? She and the murderer have never met and have no reason to meet. Their encounter only takes place as a direct result of Frannie getting a lift to her sister’s apartment. Pauline’s murder is an act supremely premeditated not only in terms of the murder itself but also in terms of the murdered person’s identity. Unless Frannie and Pauline essentially constitute two sides of the same person (from a thematic point of view), Pauline’s murder is a hole in the plot; it makes little or no sense.

Faker

If she – Frannie/Pauline – is the same person, however, then Malloy and Rodriguez (his partner) are also the same person. The two cops are partners. They work together and even hang out at the bar together. Frannie and Pauline are sisters – stepsisters, to be exact. They share the same father and spend a good deal of time together. Within the film, they’re defined in terms of one another; their identities are only clear in relation to one another. The same applies to the two cops. It’s in the bar that the difference between the two cops becomes most apparent. It’s there in the bar where Malloy tells Frannie how he’s willing to be whatever she wants him to be. Moments later Rodriguez makes some shockingly misogynistic comments (to say the least) about women that stand in polar opposition to Malloy’s words. Perhaps most importantly, it is their shared tattoo that creates the main misunderstanding fueling the film’s mystery.

Incriminated

Further still, recount the sadistic relationship that Frannie and Malloy share, and how that sadism plays out in their desires. Perhaps in this case, seeing Frannie-Malloy as “polar opposites” of Pauline-Rodriguez isn’t appropriate. Rather, significant overlap between the different couples makes them in some ways more similar than different. Another one of these overlaps concerns the guns of the two officers. We learn earlier in the film that Rodriguez carries a bright yellow squirt gun on his belt in place of a real firearm on account of losing his gun privilege due to – NB! – his wife taking the gun and using it. After cuffing Malloy to the wall, Frannie takes his gun with her (a second theft of a police gun by a woman) and rides off in Rodriguez’s car, though he is unaware that she is carrying. Her victory over him by means of a gun not only concludes the cycle for Rodriguez’s character of losing his gun to a woman (yes, folks, that’s castration), but Frannie’s theft of the gun from Malloy solidifies his status, already strongly hinted at, of being a male without an instrument of power.

Coming out bloody & on top

This is the kind of frustrating yet gratifying film that feeds on its own interpretation. The more that one sees in it, exponentially more will spring up before one’s eyes. Precious few films can submit to – what a terrible word; how about, “permit” – this kind of a reading without having violence done to them. In The Cut is a deceptively simple film, one that appears disturbing and complex but that is in fact very tight and coherent. It’s as much a Western as anything else, except in reverse. There are a hero and a villain, but instead of knowing who they are at the beginning, we aren’t fully sure until the end. Someone saves the day, but instead of fortifying established norms, the film challenges them and turns them over. At this point I’m struck with the realization that I’ve said nothing here about Frannie’s very interesting and imagined “flashbacks” to her father’s proposal to her mother and how violence fits into those. We could point to the identification between the primal, blood, and the woman that was already explored in the bathroom scene. Certainly issues of parenthood are of importance to this film, not only via the proposal flashbacks and constant talking about their father but also through the bracelet Pauline gives Frannie, suggesting Frannie as a mother. That the baby carriage breaks off of her bracelet while Frannie overcomes her mugger seems to solidify the possibility that Frannie is abandoning the maternal notion of Woman for something more powerful and independent. While there’s plenty more to discuss about this, time and space presently forbid it.

Castrated mother?

She came, she saw, she conquered

Two from Jane Campion, in order from older to not-as-old. The Piano is one of those films that peppers syllabi throughout film studies courses, functioning as it does as a textbook case of numerous cinematic motifs and psychoanalytic themes. As a plus, it’s a somewhat “feminist” film, in the vein of a Mildred Pierce or something. At least some of Campion’s other efforts are also in this vein. The point isn’t so much to create a feminist world as to depict the plight of women in a decidedly non-feminist world and allow a woman to come up out of the water, as it were (and in The Piano, it were).

First viewing of this film was only a clip or two, in order to illustrate the notion of castration. Ada (Holly Hunter) is mute by voice but quite eloquent via her piano. Thus the removal of her instrument from her life constitutes the removal of what voice she has; perhaps not quite true, since she does have her daughter (note, not a son) to interpret her signs and vouch for her when she is being wronged, as she often is. The identification of woman with the o/Other, the foreign, the exotic, is confirmed by her romantic affair with Baines, a man who has adapted to the Maori ways completely. Ada’s staged marriage is bound to be unhappy; her husband does not respect her voice but rather instructs her to teach Baines how to play – as if a woman’s voice is good only for amplifying a man’s. Baines’ lack of interest in playing may seem sweet of him, and the film seems to want it to seem sweet, but the moves he makes on Ada makes her the instrument of his happiness. Unless he can fully “have” her, however, his happiness cannot thrive.

Ada’s husband Alistair (Sam Neill) understandably doesn’t like the backdoor shenanigans and decides to make the quintessentially castrating gesture: chop off Ada’s finger, thus rendering her handicapped to play. The role her daughter Flora (Anna Paquin) has to play in the discovery of Ada’s guilt is highlighted by the somewhat excessive squirt of blood from Ada’s digital stub that lands on Flora. Ada’s silence even after this event is of course consistent with her additional loss of voice, but her emotional resilience in the face of violence and blood works as another instance of the woman’s reign over blood territory. This theme will be highlighted and explored much more fully in Campion’s later film In The Cut.

So many overt signs in this film distract the viewer from what is a pretty complex web of meaning below the surface. One gets the strong impression that Campion knows the tools with she is working very well, particularly since the project is, in many ways, Woman. The way filmmakers in recent years have created decidedly feminine portraits of women staged in eras of male dominance keeps the feminist presence bumping into the glass ceiling. It forces a level of restraint that a contemporary setting would not have to respect. This is fitting, since the contemporary world has plenty of active proponents doing the sorts of things Campion wants to happen; the main problem now isn’t so much “the now” as the history of suppression and voicelessness that have defined women for ages upon ages. Campion and others are retroactively giving a voice to the voiceless throughout history.

Voices aside, though, what The Piano reveals in its big picture is an intuitive fact the has certainly dominated history, no matter how white or male are the historians: events, from the greatest events (think Cleopatra) to the least significant, are what they are because of women, even if the women are given no acknowledgment in the history books. This isn’t to say that women “control” history, but it is to say that men certainly don’t, either. It is Ada’s presence in the filmic setting of The Piano that provides the drama. She is the catalyst for every male action, whether chauvinist or not. The film could have easily been shot from a different point of view, reducing Ada to the level of a pawn in a war between two men. Instead, the men become something like pawns of hers, and she is able to remove the socially-inflicted crutch of an object petit a (the piano),  though it nearly drowns her, on her own without any male assistance. This is a structured and restructuring deconstruction of the heretofore prevailing idea that men are the power-holders. In the all too a priori world of psychoanalysis this may always be the case (with regard to the phallus), a film like The Piano shows men without any real power and woman as the one who has only to release herself from herself – not from man – in order to possess it.

The second, and decidedly superior product, from Robert Benton last weekend. In the recent Feast of Love, Benton traded in the solid, veteran cast from his previous film Twilight for a set of young and sexy pawns to cater to navel-gazing empty-headed philosophes. This film, however, takes major advantage of its L.A. setting, incorporating the right sites and sights of those sites (and corresponding implications about L.A. and its inhabitants) to construct a solid “neo-noir” (as they’re calling it) that would make the old boys proud. If Hollywood movies have taught us anything, it’s that there is nothing good, moral, or hopeful to be found in Los Angeles. It’s a doomed city, as it was from its earliest days when a bunch of capitalist idealists decided to settle in an area when a soon-to-be-depleted water supply, no harbor, and virtually no chance of survival at the onset of the Industrial Revolution. The area had no life in it, but they forced life into it, anyway.

L.A. hills

The newspapers were infamously responsible for a good chunk of this forced growth, acknowledged by Jack Ames (Gene Hackman), who says that what the L.A. Times says is good enough for him, truth-wise. This acknowledgment commits that famous error of noir characters, conflating or confusing truth with fact. (Ames is referring to a supposed murder that the Times claimed was a suicide.) Ames’ poor health fits the bill of the castrated patriarchal figure who finances and initiates the investigation, which of course turns out to implicate him and those close to him.

He has the cancer

Speaking of castration, the opening scene almost castrates Harry Ross (Paul Newman), as 17-year old Mel Ames (Reese Witherspoon) accidentally puts a bullet into his inner thigh. As a result, the police force mistakenly believes this P.I. has lost his manhood when in fact he’s quite virile, especially for a senior citizen. The diegetic “audience” (basically the police force and James Garner’s character Raymond Hope) assume him to be no threat, having lost his instrument of power. Hope even asks Ross point blank if he’s still got it. The same point correlates to Ross’ ability to invade the intimate spaces of women without them feeling threatened. At their first encounters in the film, both of the Ames women (daughter and mother) are fully undressed when Ross penetrates their hotel room and swimming area, respectively. Though Mel is disappointed to see him and Catherine (Susan Sarandon, the chief femme fatale) delighted, neither is phased in the slightest at encountering this particular male figure while bodily exposed.

Unphased

That Harry has no space of his own – forced to live with his client and client’s attractive wife – fits with the down-and-out nature of his character and the nature of noir’s glory days: always in the past (or always the stuff of dreams). The sinister characters – whether directly implicated in the crimes or guilty by association – dwell without exception in those notorious Modernist style cliff homes overlooking the L.A. Basin. These are the homes of the successful, and to be successful in L.A. involves a lack of scruples (at least in the movies). The P.I. character may not have many scruples, but he does have some. He’s interested not in ascending but in surviving. He may temporarily disregard conventional morals (such as destroying evidence, breaking and entering), but only for the pragmatic greater good. Harry’s days are bygone days or attempts to re-enter bygone days. The same can be said of his clients and his nemesis. At the same time, there’s a “I can’t go back to that” element that is undeniable, but only in moments of intense duress. Noir’s defeatist fatalism must admit in moments of clarity that even the past was no more glorious than the present. Harry’s past includes a divorce and alcoholism. Raymond’s past returns him to the flat Basin from the jagged cliffs. Raymond’s last name, “Hope,” and his eventual death capture the inevitability of the dark world of L.A. success and the crime that must accompany it. The ironically hopeful ending for Harry returns him to a liminal past – not the distant past but further back than the present. He returns to a vacation spot, a dream, a temporary escape from all that is unavoidable in his life. As is often the case with noir protagonists, however, Harry is an amnesiac, forgetting this film’s opening setting and his almost-castration, which took place at a vacation spot in Mexico.

Living in a crime scene

Tampering

Echoes of Sunset Boulevard

Power overlooking

Wasn’t planning on posting this now, but an historic moment has arrived: my first blog post while airborne, thanks the the good people at Google and Virgin America. Too bad the movie sucks.

Two from Robert Benton, two days in a row, starting with the more recent of the two: Feast of Love. A weird film; one would expect something quite a bit more substantial and not so stacked with sophistry from an experienced director and pretty solid cast. Morgan Freeman is basically “God” again, offering the hollow voiceover about the Greek gods and how they invented love, what a mess it turned out to be, etc., etc. Could be argued that the camera work is trying to mimic the way in which Greek gods might observe us silly human lovers: constantly moving in and out, side to side, giving that transient quality to everything it sees. Life occurs, then rinses itself off, then repeats. The movement isn’t as fluid as an Altman or as jagged as a Cuarón; seems overall noncommittal, confused. The film professes to profess wisdom, and thanks to Freeman it might well get away with it for gullible audiences. The actors, the clichés, and the nudity factor are likely to keep plenty interested in this truly uninteresting film. Hard to value something for pointing out facts that a day in the real world with an ounce of common sense makes quite obvious. Sounds like the definition of “pretentious”.

Not “a” childhood favorite, but “the” childhood favorite: The Sting. Taught me everything I needed to know about the blurry area between “right” and “wrong.” Is it really unethical to steal from someone who steals for a living? Is it immoral to lie to a guy who had your best friend killed? Yeah, they’re all perpetuating criminal activity in a world overrun with it, but it’s every man for himself when the cops are as dirty as the big-con bosses. This is the type of film that appeals to the crook in all of us – not unlike the previous Newman-Redford film from George Roy Hill, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. They are designed to elicit enormous pleasure from their audience, and they deliver. As good as the poker scenes are in the recent Casino Royale, they have none of the charm of Paul Newman or the joy of seeing Robert Shaw’s face when someone cheats him better than he cheats. With a face and an accent and a posture like Shaw’s who needs the villain’s eye to weep blood? This is one of those films that doesn’t encourage its viewers to think as much as to feel. On the other hand, something is being said about class. Luther’s retirement offers him the occasion to push Hooker toward the big con, insisting that he has what it takes – including the skin tone – to succeed at a higher level. Henry Gondorf is reduced to operating a merry-go-round, lying low until an opportunity like this arises to hit one of the big guys where it hurts. The film is shot completely from the shabby point of view of the lower class. Attention is even given to the little guys who want in on the big heist. The film revels in leveling class structures by transgressing hypocritical moral boundaries. Characters do what they do because they have to and because society doesn’t really expect them to do differently. These are not the Ocean’s Eleven guys, pretty boys who wear Versace, frost their hair, wax their chests, and blow their dough on attempts to climb the capitalist ladder. They’re beautiful enough that they’re content to couple with sub-par dames and wear suspenders over their wife-beaters.

Waterloo Bridge (dir. James Whale, 1931): A refreshingly different pre-code film from the afore-discussed Red-Headed Woman and Baby Face, this one sticks to your basic melodrama motifs, very D.W. Griffith style but minus the epic scope. WWI bombs dropping on London form the catalyst for the melodrama, ending up with feel reminiscent of A Farewell to Arms (which came a year later) and the like.

The Dangerous Thread of Things (dir. Michelangelo Antonioni, 2004): Typical but atypical Antonioni. Great to see some of those big shots of alienation and juxtaposition again, along with perfectly square and perfectly diagonal angles like only a Neorealist who loves Eisenstein can pull off. Dialogue is atrocious. This probably would have worked better not as a silent film, but without any talking. Hard to see what the big guy is getting at, but apparently he sees his “sickness of eros” as having some kind of hedonistic cure.

Broken Blossoms (dir. D.W. Griffith, 1919): A case study of any issue within a hundred miles of gender, this one is a tight, cohesive, and theoretically pornographic (in its etymological sense) excuse to watch a bunch of people die: the macho male “ideal,” the helpless damsel, and the aww-aren’t-you-sweet foreigner who attempts to rescue said damsel before coming to his own pathetic end. So much for proselytizing Buddhism and spreading world peace; the poor devil goes from missionary to creep, in the end making life even worse for poor Lucy and her pure-evil father/husband figure Battling Burroughs. We have Griffith to thank or to blame for so many of these now-common features of narrative cinema. Check it out here.

The pre-code should’ve-been classics Red-Headed Woman (1932) and Baby Face (1933) share the same basic narrative, revolving around a bad-girl woman who decides, hey screw it, I can make use of my goods and services to move up in the world. A novel idea in the 30s – at least novel-ish to feature it in a film – each of these stories ends with the woman getting punished and put back in her “rightful” place. This is to say nothing of the fact that the only way the women could ascend the social ladder at all was by means of men allowing it, one way or another. Ironic perhaps that these films gave birth to the Hays Code, in order to prevent undesirable ideologies from sprouting up in otherwise good American viewers. Films like His Girl Friday more subtly allow women a foot in the door of the business world without exploiting her body in the process. The reasons for suppression and censorship seem to be that the films put ideas in the viewers’ heads that were best kept swept under the rug (even if the ideas were punished), and that they created a basic world in which women could quite easily make men do whatever they wanted by means of sex. Interestingly, in this world it’s the men who have no power at all (at least none they can manage to hang on to) and become forced to stifle woman-power by appealing to their maternal instincts. In Baby Face, Barbara Stanwyck’s character only stands by her man rather than running off with her new-found wealth because he’s terribly injured and needs her help. Ironies infest these stories like maggots in garbage: while the filmmaker’s patriarchal intent seems to be to put the woman back in her place, after creating a narrative exposing the powerlessness of men, he can only reduce Woman back to her previous status by essentially re-castrating the man. This conveniently concludes the stories with both Man and Woman stripped of power; or, the man only has power by virtue of the woman’s unavoidable return to her self as maternal.

Red-Headed Woman should perhaps be distinguished from Baby Face. Red-Headed Woman lets its female protagonist escape from her suitors, taking their wealth with her. Not before being reduced to a hysterical, pathetic, and infantile brat, the woman gets away not in Thelma and Louise style but rather as a child on the lam. The only ingredient lending believability to her new independence is the dual presence of men with her in the car – one of them driving, of course – as the film ends. One man is a young, attractive plaything and the other an old, rich father figure. It may take two men to keep this unruly woman under control, but she is back in her place. And more than ever, she is still well-off only through feeding off of male power and capital. With no possibility of finding and submitting to her maternal nature, she instead is babysat – two men and a little lady. The unjust depictions of women in these films would be outdone only by the unjust depictions of men, except that the focus happens to be on women. (And also, aside from gender, people can be pretty wretched in reality.) If the women are just vixens, temptresses, and seductresses, the men are animals, puerile at best and like ravenous dogs at worst. Their complete and shameless inability to resist the slightest bit of attention or, as it were, legs, boils them down to something worse than biology. It’s really an insult to animals to call these guys “animals.”

Despite a less subtle ending, Baby Face is a better film than Red-Headed Woman. Not only does Stanwyck hold up better than Jean Harlow (she’s more coy, more premeditated), but cinematically Alfred Green directs Baby Face with an eye for cinema. It feels less like an exploitation film, even if the dialogue within it literally discusses the exploitation of women. Settings are staged prior to scenes, giving a context to them and giving the screen a more centrifugal nature, at least when Stanwyck isn’t at its center. Then there’s the racial element, apparently another reason why the film was suppressed by the Code. Lily’s African-American maid Chico is her best friend. They talk like peers, even if their social statuses aren’t allowed equality. As Lily moves up in the world, so does Chico. No drama is injected into their relationship (it would now be obligatory, though more realistic, to insert jealousy into it). The more cash Lily has on hand and spends on nice clothes and accessories, same with Chico. How all of this fits together – sexual liberation, willing female exploitation, racial equality (on a certain level) – is intriguing. These films may not have “intended” to break boundaries of class, race, and society, but as one boundary starts disintegrating, so do others. This happens not only within the film’s diegesis but to the film itself, through the Code. Now these films seem tame by movie standards, but at least some of them couldn’t be shown on broadcast television. The extra-diegetic element has been removed, but the intentional or unintentional – conscious or subconscious – gender dynamics and the assumptions that underlie them are still alive, well, and only sometimes challenged.

First, Red-Headed Woman:

Come and get me!

Look what I found!

I SAID kiss me!

Whaddayathink?

Come and get it!

"I've got 'im where I want 'im!"

Just me and my boys

Now, Baby Face:

Industrial context

Man's world

Getting bored

Violated

Nietzsche doth teach us...

Lowering the lights

Male innuendo

We can do it...together

Don't mind me

Whatcha doooin?

Know your enemy

For all you who missed it

Wealth destroyed

Order restored

A really beautiful film, one that does what cinema does best. It uses images – both cinematographic and photographic – to create a world and an aura and something much more than just a mood or a feeling. Long shots and close-ups are “juxtaposed,” except in a way that sustains their balance, their harmony. (Why should juxtaposing always imply “opposites”?) What is a landscape without an insect? Dropping other names like Lean, Antonioni, and Bertolucci is probably standard regarding a movie like Walkabout. Colors aren’t just depicted but somehow rendered in all their earthy textures. The “story” begins where so many of the Neorealist (and neo-Neorealist) films ended, with an inexplicable but all too real kind of self-inflicted tragedy. Lawrence of Arabia begins with its concluding tragedy, but Walkabout begins with its only tragedy. An innocence is being posited here, and perhaps not unfairly. Certainly the hippy element is clear. A reverse fall into sin takes place and gives birth to a kind of Eden, though the new paradise is located in a fallen environment. Once tamed, though, the Outback becomes a perfect world. The girl still seeks an escape, not realizing until years later the irony of it all. The boy, the less tainted and stained of the two, still being taught British manners and forced to wear his suit while trudging through the sand, integrates his old world with his new one and only gives incidental concern for what has brought about their walkabout. Mores, customs, conventions are not fully abandoned until the retrospective. The Aboriginal man is the anti-serpent from Genesis. When she refuses to give in to his freedom (the anti-temptation, the anti-sin), he hangs himself on the tree of knowledge, arms outspread as if on a cross. His death redeems and liberates her.

As has been well documented, The Men Who Stare At Goats is no Dr. Strangelove, but then it isn’t trying to be. A satire in the vein of Kubrick’s masterpiece, it differs in part by having a more-or-less straight man (Ewan McGregor) at its center who narrates the film through voiceover and serves at first to allow characters like George Clooney and Jeff Bridges seem even more bizarre. Part of the point of the film is how a slow, gullible, but otherwise normal guy can get sucked into new age hysteria when he’s cornered on every side by the insanity of warfare. The film sets its mood early, showing us television footage of (1) an early speech by George W. Bush attempting to inspire his audience in a time of crisis and (2) Bush’s infamous victory speech on board that big boat following a fighter jet escort. The ridiculousness that follows keeps in line with the foolish optimism that defined the early Bush era and that a surprisingly high percentage of the population at some point put their hope in. Coincidence follows coincidence and is proclaimed proof after proof of the idiotic but well meaning delusions that are only actually given any visual credence when Clooney is narrating his own flashbacks. Dubious. Upon the film’s conclusion, the general vibe of the small audience was summed up by one man, who asked, apparently rhetorically, “So who else is going to be asking for their money back?” We, however, laughed throughout this film, enjoying everything from Clooney’s silliest and perfectly timed vocal inflection to the overarching meta-absurdity of this pretty wise but unassuming film. (It’s also great that Clooney’s character and Bridges’ character derive somewhat from their roles in the Coen brothers’ films O Brother, Where Art Thou? and The Big Lebowski, respectively.)