Ay dios dios dios mio. I’ve forgotten to post these links and you’ve been staring at Keira Knightley’s vagina for almost two months.

Below are some articles I’ve written recently for Salon. They’re TV related, but let’s not kid ourselves. You watch a lot of TV too.

Tim and Eric’s Comedy of Repulsion: In their new movie, the cult comics push the limits of human vulnerability — and generate laughs from nerves

TV’s Eerie New Race-less World: In an Obama age, shows like “Parenthood” flatter us into believing race no longer matters — and avoid hard truth.

The Great Sitcom Divide: Once you’ve grown used to adventurous shows like “30 Rock” and “Louie,” the traditional sitcom feels like a relic.

A Dangerous Method opens with the ominous notes of a cello, that, leading out of the opening credits, give way to a horn & string crescendo and the disturbing first scene: Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley) arrives screaming, restrained by men, in a black carriage, drawn by black horses at the Burgholzli Clinic. And as our stomachs vibrate from the bass and the violence of the scene just past, a calm Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) greets his new patient in a beige paneled room with dark parquet floors and bounced light. This is Zurich. It is 1904. Sabina suffers from mental hysteria (with spontaneous orgasms provoked by humiliation). She and Jung eventually begin a sexual relationship.

In these early meetings between Jung and Spielrein, conversation occurs in total silence. That is, without any background atmospheric noise. No cricket or ticking clock gives the stillness form. This is a pure and unnerving silence. Chirping birds add texture to the air, without which the infinity of time and space and the whole weight of the universe weighs down upon you so that it is unthinkable to sleep without the whir of a fan. Hyperconsciousness promotes a focus of such stimulating intensity, it quickly becomes erotic, so at the end of the long road of observations that occur in the first moments of a movie, you find yourself contemplating the details of faces and bodies with growing arousal…

Continue Reading at The New Inquiry

**Update: Accatone is a pain in the ass to see, but it’s on youtube right now. Great quality in one full video. Watch it before it vanishes (make sure to turn on CC)**

Ballila the Fat Thief to Accatone the Starving Pimp:

Did you sell your car? Is all the gold gone? You really look like a beggar. What a bad end!

Hai venduto la macchina? E finito l’oro? Ma tu mi pari proprio un dizgrazato. Che brutta fine!

Che brutta fine! Che brutta fine!

I watched Accatone for the first time eight years ago, and for eight years now I’ve recited those words “Che brutta fine!” with regular regularity. I say them out loud, not to myself, and I do this the most as I walk from one place to another. These days I walk two miles to the coffee shop and two miles back. This allows me thirty three minutes twice a day to call upon “Che brutta fine.“ It is a compulsive and calming habit, like chewing a piece of hair, or fondling the edge of t-shirt. Eva D’Andrea my oldest friend, will attest to this routine. She is an Italian just back from Italy and I especially enjoy saying the sentence around her. It is more authentic with an Italian around. Che brutta fine! The rolling R thrills my tongue.

But behind the seduction of certain phonetics, lies the other reason. The larger, less cheerful explanation behind my attraction to these words and why my mind returns to Accatone repeatedly: My soul, or a portion of it I have yet to resolve, is Accatone’s posture embodied. Shoulders hunched, head down, he stands heavy with the weight of his own immorality.

I think of Accatone with increasing frequency at the end of the warmer months. Summer is the season of debauchery, and I have sinful proclivities. When the lights come up at a nightclub, a noisy crowd turns suddenly sheepish; such is the case with summer’s end. As August passes, guilt, or worse, guilt’s absence, is left in its wake. No time then is more appropriate to watch Accatone.

In Pier Paolo Pasolini’s 1961 film (his first), Franco Citti plays Vittorio, aka, Accatone, a pimp and hopeless bum. When his prostitute/girlfriend Maddalena is jailed, Accatone finds himself free of a woman he despises, but also without a source of income.

Work however, is not an option.

The criminal life is one of uncertainty and danger, but legitimate work for the poor is grueling, the sole benefit of which is honor. This is an integrity laughable to Accatone. What good is honor if the world itself is not just?

War destroys, men starve, and a person as monstrous as himself is allowed to operate. If this is God’s work, God himself must be corrupt. It is in fact the dread of this corruption that drives Accatone to do his scandalous doings.

This is where our affection for Accatone truly begins, for we see he is sad and not bad.

Accatone: Who’ll bet all we’ve drunk tonight that I’ll jump off the bridge.
Short pimp: And die like Tosca!
Accatone: Don’t believe me? Then bet! Clowns. And with my clothes on!
Dancing pimp: Don’t go too far.

Accatone wants to believe in goodness, in an idea of heavenly justice, but life offers him only evidence to the contrary. Each one of his bets then, can be seen as a twisted means of giving God a chance to redeem himself and punish a cocky, sinful, man. The absence of punishment however, means there is no heavenly justice, and if there is no heavenly justice then there is no point in striving for a morality that is now meaningless.

…And so Accatone continues to steal and pimp because nothing physically prevents him from doing so. No hand from heaven holds him back.

One scene in particular illustrates this tension between the physical reality of life and the metaphysical realm of religion and morality; each world making absurd the other: Accatone and his poor friends, faint with hunger, convince Scucchia, their only pal with a real job, to let them cook spaghetti on his stove.

While they wait for the pasta to finish, Accatone takes Scucchia aside:

Accatone: Are you game to screw them? 
Scucchia: What for?
Accatone: Theres eight of us for two pounds of spaghetti.
Scucchia: How can we get rid of them?
Accatone: It’s nothing. You insult us. Call us bums, good for nothings. It’s an offense to our honor! I’ll take care of them. They’ll leave, and we eat the pasta!

Accatone’s plan works and the stupid pimps leave.

But who is right? Should a starving man eat though insulted, or leave hungry and honorable? To which realm do we pledge our allegiance when each argues convincingly for top priority?

This struggle between the actual and abstract is shown beautifully in the camera work, and this is also where Accatone’s influence on Scorsese is most evident. Neo-realist in mood and story, it is a gritty, textured, film whose characters struggle to survive in poverty. Supporting scenes of daily life however, is camera work that evokes something larger. The importance of story, acting, lighting, sound etc, isn’t to be diminished, but the heart of film’s potential to express the transcendent truly lies in the movement of the camera. This is why Tarkovsky is the master of the cinema (let the fighting begin!). In each of the shots in the video above, we are aware of the divine amidst the hard and real.

But, the holy and earthly are an unhappy union, and hosting this eternal battle is wearisome. I suspect Accatone would find solace here:

Ave Maria Gratia Plena

Was this His coming!  I had hoped to see
A scene of wondrous glory, as was told
Of some great God who in a rain of gold
Broke open bars and fell on Danae:
Or a dread vision as when Semele
Sickening for love and unappeased desire
Prayed to see God’s clear body, and the fire
Caught her brown limbs and slew her utterly:
With such glad dreams I sought this holy place,
And now with wondering eyes and heart I stand
Before this supreme mystery of Love:
Some kneeling girl with passionless pale face,
An angel with a lily in his hand,
And over both the white wings of a Dove.

- Oscar Wilde 

Though Accatone’s desperation over God’s apparent leniency is real, it is also a very convenient excuse to deny the possibility of goodness, thereby thwarting any serious attempt at personal responsibility. This cycle of self-loathing/god-challenging so continues uninterrupted until he meets Stella, a blonde and cherubic suggestion that virtue does indeed exist.

Stella is a working girl. She gives all her earnings to her parents, owns one dress, and is ignorant to the world of pimps and hookers. As integrity is all she has, Stella adheres tirelessly, but not loudly, to ideas of rectitude.

Naturally the two get together. But as falling in love is too ridiculous a process for the Roman slums, Stella and Accatone’s shared affection is more agreement than organic blossoming.

Now, anyone acquainted with the daily routine of self loathing can describe the unhappy duty of receiving a loved one’s gaze. The affection is returned, because the self loathing do love others, but accompanying affection is the great shame; a tremendous sorrow that the one you love has the misfortune of loving you. In turn, this shame provokes two contradictory but simultaneous urges; to change the nature of your evil ways and to corrupt the integrity that’s provoked self-reflection. Because the desire to destroy goodness is unconscious in all but the most villainous, when Accatone decides to pimp a compliant Stella out, he believes he does so for money and the protection of his pimply reputation.

…In reality however, he’s testing the strength of a purity that emasculates him in comparison.

When Stella’s virtue proves impenetrable…

Accatone recognizes his trespass.

Expecting to face Stella’s indignation, he meets only despair and frailty in its place.

Receiving sadness in the place of expected anger unnerves with powerful swiftness. This is exceptionally true if you lean towards self righteousness. Moved by this interaction, Accatone makes a very brief, but very valiant effort to join the squares and go the straight and narrow.

It’s easy to call Accatone lazy, but lost in our initial repulsion to his attitude is the fact that he is right.

It is grueling work, and it is unfair that living should be so difficult.

Stella: Vittorio what’s happened!
Accatone: I’m a dope that’s what’s happened! For 1000 lousy lire I went and killed myself. I should of had a stroke instead of going there.
Stella: Calm down, don’t say that. Listen, let me say something.
Accatone: Skip it, forget it.
Stella: Vittorio if you aren’t up to working, I’m ready to go on the street again, if that’s better.
Accatone: What are you saying? Shut up.
Stella: What do you care about me? No one’s going to cry over me.
Accatone: You on the street? Cut it out. I’ll look after you. You’ll stay home. If I decide something that’s it. Either the world kills me or I kill it!

At the same time however, Maddalena, Accatone’s jailed prostitute, made wise to his new relationship with Stella, takes revenge on her unfaithful pimp and reports him to the police. This unhappy turn of events brings us to the final scene, e che brutta fine, che brutta fine!

Exhausted after one day of work, Accatone reverts to his ways and joins his friends on the hunt.

Accatone: I don’t have a cent, and I tried working
Balilla: Shame on you!
Accatone: What’ll we do?
Balilla: The world belongs to those with teeth.
Accatone: Who do we hit?
Balilla: Why don’t we do like rififi? We just trust to luck.

After hours of searching the men happen upon an unmanned truck full of salami. They steal the meat, and go on their cocky way.

Watching the theft however, are the police, now with cause for arrest. They stop the men, but Accatone runs!

Stealing a motorbike, he races down the street and veers around a corner!

Moments later the screech of tires, a loud crash, and a woman’s scream tell us his bloody fate.

As children misbehave to get an adult’s attention, so does Accatone to feel the lord’s wrath. After repeated provocation, God has finally shown his muscle. There is some justice in the world. There is some order. There is some something.

This then is the ultimate comfort and Accatone is finally at peace, for if God kills you, you’re dead, but at least now you know he’s watching.

Accatone: Aaaah… Now I’m fine!

See parts 2 & 3 of the episode at www.ebertpresents.com

And below are a few of my previous Race in Film posts that elaborate on some of the films and ideas mentioned on the show!

L’eclisse:

In Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1962 film L’eclisse (Eclipse), time is the enemy. For this reason the chronically depressed will understand it implicitly. They will know that a fan turning left to right makes all the more stagnant the air in a room. They will understand that no part of that room, no corner or cushion, can provide relief from the realization that every approaching minute is opportunity for life to prove itself meaningless… (Full post & video)

Shanghai Express:

As evidenced by this very Race in Film series, color is a large part of my life. This is frequently not by choice, as was certainly the case when I was a child… (Full post & video)

Tammy & The Bachelor:

In elementary school, my desire to be white was so strong, I created two imaginary sisters. They were both older and white with red hair and lived in California. One’s name was Gina, and the other’s was Tammy. I named her Tammy after the character in the 1957 film Tammy and the Bachelor directed by Joseph Pevney. Who could be whiter than Tammy? (Full post & video)

The Joy Luck Club:

I know The Joy Luck Club like the back of my hand…Unfortunately.

While I recite lines from The Thin Man Goes Home at the drop of a hat, I carry the script of TheJoy Luck Club in my mind’s eye like the scene of a horrible crime. I cannot shake it. It will not be shook… (Full post & video)

Swing Time & Shall We Dance:

This, more than any previous Race in Film post, gets to the nitty gritty of the whole series, and I am very nervous. It might be strange to get timid nine posts in, but there seems to be no rhyme or reason to what I am comfortable talking and not talking about.

Judy Garland is fair game, but Fred Astaire… Fred Astaire…

He is the man that makes my knees lose themselves… (Full post & video)

Stormy Weather:

The first thing you must realize about Stormy Weather before anything else, is that it is not real.

Of course it isn’t real in the sense that it is a narrative film and as such it is fiction, but it is unreal in another way. It is a  romanticization of African American life offering one-dimensional characters without nuance– in “response” to the one dimensional un-nuanced characters in other films… (Full post & video)

More Race in Film…

*I am traveling right now, and am uneasy and anxious. Interestingly, in the past few days I’ve found myself yearning for the comfort of Juliette Binoche’s breasts in Certified Copy, and so I am reposting*

I watched Certified Copy on a plane. I watched it on my laptop sitting between an older man and an older woman, and so the three of us watched the film together. They in secret glances here and there, and I, aware of their curiosity, in varying states of self consciousness. This is the inevitable consequence of personal movie viewing in public spaces, but as we three watched, these lines appeared and to my horror, I began to cry.

“Look at your wife, who has made herself pretty for you.”

Bearing witness to a stranger’s unexpected emotional vulnerability results in an uncomfortable domino effect of exposure. And so, because my sniffles betrayed me, our whole row became connected in a strange and awkward way. Apart from violence, nothing changes the air more instantaneously than tears shed amongst strangers.

All is ripe for speculation.

And as I did small things to feign non-crying casualness, like coughing and rustling in my bag, I was reminded of a story. Many years ago a friend of my parents needed to phone them following an emotionally upsetting fight with her husband. This was in the age of pay phones and she could not call from home. Dreading being spotted sobbing in a phone booth, she decided to make the call the only place her tears would be perceived as appropriate: The hospital. This story was relayed to me and I have always regarded it as a brilliantly heroic manipulation of perception. This is the same subjectivity of reality that Certified Copy explores.

Juliette Binoche, beautifully soft and rounded, plays a nameless woman. Most ladies, myself included would be happy without this compliment, but Binoche’s face has magnificent texture. It cannot hide any emotion. The slightest upset or joy registers immediately in its tiny spaces (surely this is a better term than “wrinkles”).

Binoche is the (rather cruel) mother of a pre-teen boy, and fan of writer James Miller, played by the dashing William Shimel. James is in town to lecture on his new book of artistic theory “Certified Copy”, and the two spend the day together.

Now, much discussion around the film has been devoted to proving the nature of Binoche and James’ relationship (are they strangers or are they married). This defining is unnecessary however, for both scenarios exist simultaneously; we may choose the one we prefer.

When I watch the movie, I believe that the couple is in fact married, and so my ideas on the film are specific to that understanding, but no framework is “realer” than the other and neither affects the movie’s value. The film’s profundity lies not in the couple’s relationship or lack thereof, but in its ability to lead us to an examination of our own perceptions. What might our deductions, or the evidence we’ve gathered to support our points, reveal about our own desires? For example, what is the bride sitting here (in my favorite shot of the film) thinking? As James exits (he is seen in the doorway), she enters the frame. She breathes heavily but remains silent. Is she frightened? Perhaps about losing her virginity? Is she overcome with happiness, daunted by ceremony, annoyed with her husband, or simply out of breath? The movie gives no explanation.

Returning to the subtitles that ruined a flight:

In this brilliantly raw line is a blatant admittance of needing. Binoche cares deeply what James thinks. To admit that we need approval is a magnificently human display of vulnerability. In one fell swoop walls and walls of exhausting pretense tumble down.

As needing, the requiring of something from someone else, is the antithesis to his theory of no-obligation living, James reacts with hostility. Her desire to please burdens him with sudden responsibility.

This is all the result of one previous action: A hand placed upon a shoulder. An action made all the more aggravating as its enactment, and the resulting behavior of Binoche, exposes flaws in his philosophy.

Binoche, an antiques dealer, has built her life around an allegiance to a conventional perception of “right”. Some things are sacred, some things are not. There is only one reality. She is hostile to any deviance from these rules for if other people are allowed to stray, the life of the rule abider becomes ridiculous. Everybody knows we don’t let children stand in the rain. Everybody knows we get married, we have pretty weddings, we shave on our wedding day, we go to piano lessons on time, we do not drive around aimlessly, we do not stand in the middle of the street, we do not adore stutterers or costume jewelry, and we certainly do not live apart from our families.

James’ book is a reaction to this idea of living and perhaps even written as a shot to Binoche specifically.

James: I’m rather afraid that the alternative title to my book ‘Forget the Original Just Get a Good Copy’ is likely to offend the artistically sensitive… It’s my intention to try and show that the copy itself has worth in that it leads us to the original and in this way certifies its value. And I believe this approach is not only valid in art, I was particularly pleased when a reader told me that he found in my work an invitation to self inquiry to a better understanding of the self.

…this concern about origininality, the notion of the false and genuine has always existed and occupied our ancestors’ minds as much as it does ours today. The word “original” has itself for us very positive connotations: authentic, genuine, reliable, lasting, possessing an intrinsic value. The eytmology of the word too is interesting. The latin root “oriri” means arising or being born and I am particularly interested that the word “original” refers to birth. I would take the idea to its extreme and draw parallels between reproduction in art and reproduction in the human race… Examining original works is therefore a process of questioning origins. Of exploring the foundations of our civilizations…This fascination of one’s culture’s origins is inextricably linked to the fundamental definition of originality, and with originality comes a need for authenticity the need for cultural confirmation…

In stating that a copy’s worth is the same as an original’s, James equalizes art, and, because he applies his theories beyond art, all aspects of life. This is an artistic theory on the surface, but it is also an effective means of stripping people, events, or actions of significance. Though this leads to the appreciation of the overlooked, flawed, and under appreciated, like the beauty of Marie’s husband, for James the two other results of this stripping of significant are where he benefits the most. If we equalize all our relationships and all events in our lives, we 1) relieve ourselves of any special responsibility to these people and places, and 2) disallow them the ability to cause us any special pain. These are the reasons for the book’s creation.

James: “I had to write the book to convince myself.”

And yet he is still uncertain. Life interrupts his theory (as the cell phone repeatedly illustrates) and the day spent with Binoche causes James to waver in his conviction. The largest crack first appears as the two argue over the significance of the a statue.

Binoche: I like it

James: What do you like about it?

Binoche: I don’t see why I have to try and convince you.

James: I wonder how you can convince yourself. You’re a real art expert aren’t you?

Binoche: I don’t see it as a work of art I like its subject…I like the way she rests her head on his shoulder.

James: I can’t believe you’re so sentimental.

Binoche: I can’t believe you’re so irresponsible.

James: Irresponsible? Me? This guy has nothing to do but protect this woman!

Binoche: That’s why he was immortalized.

James: Immortalized? You cant be immortalized for that. It’s ridiculous.

Binoche: Nonsense.

Binoche: Sharing? Do you know what that means? What do you know about sharing?

Binoche’s interpretation of the statue, is in accordance with the rules of his book, but is also in opposition to the theory the book was written to prove legitimate: Man has no duty but to himself. The perception of others is of no importance.

James’ problem however, is that he only believes half way. He wants to live his life with the understanding that man has no obligation, that the perception of others does not matter, and yet he seeks approval. He wants to prove that he is not bad, irresponsible, or lacking in masculinity, and so he writes a book about it disguised as an artistic theory. So when Binoche expresses the opinion that the statue celebrates man’s responsibility, it sends James into a small fury. It is the irritable defensiveness specific to those caught red-handed in a mistake.

James: You’re right. I don’t share this opinion. All you see is a woman resting her head on the shoulder of that monster. Honestly I feel sorry for you.

Binoche: Sorry for me? It’s because he protects her that he’s become eternal. I know what I’m saying. You just don’t want to answer.

Binoche: Then your book is stupid too. I thought what mattered wasn’t the work but how we look at it. I thought your approach was subjective, personal, creative, inventive, but now what matters? The technical skill? The artist’s reputation? How we see it no longer matters? Answer!

James: I don’t want to. What you’re saying makes me hate everything: art, originals, copies, this statue, you, everything.

Binoche: I know you hate me, there’s nothing I can do about that. At least try to be a little consistent.

James: What do you mean?

Binoche: Want me to remind you of your book? Let’s go over to the statue, you tell me of its worth.

James: No, I’ve absolutely nothing to say about its worth. It was you who called it an eternal masterpiece.

The subsequent weakness induced by this kerfuffle allows for the “hand on shoulder” action. In moments of panic and uncertainty, we’re susceptible to emotions that although inconvenient or problematic, are still there. This is even truer if we believe in something unpopular. Suddenly unsure of our stance alone, we take shelter in the safety of tradition. In an agreed perception of the correct way of living. This may last for just a millisecond, but it’s a reminder of how strong our desire is for the approval of others. When James heeds the older gentleman’s advice to place his hand on Binoche’s shoulder, he is, yes, admitting to some degree of love for Binoche, but is also asking the man to approve. To perceive him as “good”.

Because James acted on the advice, the original idea of the older man, his action can be seen as a copy. The idea was not his original. Yet, if we are to abide by his theory, it means, the copy, the influenced action, is of no less value, no different than if it were his original intent. Binoche does not know any of this of course.

She joyfully regards James’ gesture as the real thing, and so bases her actions on the idea that the original intent is there. She draws the conclusion that he has he surrendered. This encourages Binoche to drop all pretense. She giddily rushes to the bathroom to beautify,

only to return to an embarrassed James annoyed not only with her eager entre into tradition (an irritation he disguises as a rant about the convention of ordering wine), but once again, the realization that his theory is flawed when applied to real life.

His action was a hollow gesture, a replication of another’s idea. And so, in his case, the copy is not of the same value as the original.

Or is it?

“A copy leads us to the original thereby certifying its value.”

Maybe James’ action is not actually hollow and has indeed revealed his existing tenderness. The irritation he now feels is due to the still problematic nature of his feelings, suddenly and annoyingly exposed.

Which explanation is it? I’m not entirely sure. I’m inclined to say it is both.

Either way, realizing the ways in which it can be used against him, we see James edging further away from his theory throughout the day, as Binoche, seeing how it can work for her, begins to see value in copies.

Perhaps a copy can be just as good, just as real as the original.

Like a new copy of an old relationship.

Binoche: “If we were a bit more tolerant of each other’s weaknesses we would be less alone. Don’t you think? I know one can live alone, but, did you see that couple next door? I envied them. That old couple. Didn’t you? No?

James: Not so sure.

Binoche: Stay with me. Stay. It’s better. Better for both of us. For you and for me. Give us that chance.

James: I told you. I must be at the station by nine.

marlene

How can I communicate the importance of a film without one dimensionalizing it and destroying its magic? I don’t know.

I never want to discuss cinema in a leaden and academic way, but what other way is taken seriously? Emotional discussion of film is often dismissed as juvenile, and this is unfortunate, but also strange. I have no interest in seeking objectivity through art, and since our idea of the objective in regards to art criticism means “from a white, male perspective”, it has no interest in me either.

Now, let me make this very clear, because there seems to be a little confusion:

This is not a blog about race, and it is not a blog about gender. It is a blog about film.

But because I am a woman, and because I am a woman of color, it will of course be about those things in the same way that a white male writing about a film, whether he knows it or not, cannot divorce his experience as a white male from any essay. Since “white male” is the world’s (and Hollywood’s) default setting, he believes that he moves through life race-less and gender-less, and so quite naturally, many of his reviews will not include mentions of gender or race. So deeply rooted is the white-male default viewpoint, even I find it hard to escape this thinking. When I think about script ideas, very often times I realize that the character I’ve been imagining is unconsciously a white man. From the moment he is born the way a white male sees the world, the way he forms sentences, the angles that catch his eye, will be different from a woman’s or a person of color’s. Of course this is the case for every person, but race and gender, along with class, are the largest dictators of how the world interacts with us, yet speaking explicitly from these experiences (as opposed to the implicit white male speech) has long been diminished or dismissed as a niche. When you write about a film, you write about yourself, and if you are not, it is bullshit.

My ideas, the things that move me inside and out of film, are always to some degree, informed by gender and race. This is the case with everyone. We are shaped by the way the world interacts with us. Trying to escape the confines of those interactions is key. If you are a woman or person of color, this involves asserting the legitimacy of your ideas. Ideas and ways of thinking that may be (because of your experience in the world) radically different from those already in place. So deeply entrenched is racism and sexism that too frequently we don’t even allow ourselves to think, to give weight to our own questions and observations. We know who the people are that have worthwhile thoughts, and we know what they look like. Those that do not experience sexism and racism regularly might consider this discussion wholly unnecessary as the strange idea that the “isms” are no longer an issue is pervasive. But those that do experience this, overtly or off-hand, will understand. It is a daily struggle, to not only prove your legitimacy to the rest of the world, but to yourself, because you will forget, and you will want to fall.

Perhaps worst of all, you may decide the easier path is to shape your ideas and way of being in the world to conform to the templates built from the white male perspective. By striving to stay personal in my reactions to film, I believe, I hope, I stay truer and perhaps even reach a more “objective” articulation of how the film feels and lives inside me and others.

My two major bugbears are the poetic and the intellectual. Unfortunately they rule the world and drive out the winged world that the poet occasionally succeeds in ensnaring. When I was young I used to sign my drawings and writings Jean l’Oiseleur – Jean the Bird-Catcher.

It was Jean l’Oiseleur who made Le Testament d’Orphee in the hope of touching a few fraternal souls in this sad world. Goethe said: ‘It is when we hug ourselves that we may encounter our soul-brothers.’ This is a dangerous slogan in an age when people are governed by depersonalization, which tries to abolish the differences and contrasts which used to give the universe a human face and succeeded in crushing monotony and automatism.

Here is my wish and my oracle: ‘In the long term, depersonalization will fill people’s souls with such gloom that there will be a new victory of the singular over the plural, that the majority will cease to consider itself the supreme authority, that the sheep will no longer take the place of the shepard and that minorities, abandoning their dream of becoming the majority, will once more become like the priests who guarded the secrets of the temple; in short, the creative spirit, the highest form of the spirit of contradiction, will obliterate the modern “do-as-you-wish” – the false freedom of action that is taught to American children, which deprives children, young people, heroes and artists of their essential motivation: disobedience.’

Jean Cocteau

*I wrote an intro post for Mirror when it began in May ’10. I’ve re-written it a bit here to address certain questions and criticisms*

drive

I am an extremely quiet person, and since quiet constitutions are often regarded with suspicion, I appreciate films with extremely quiet heroes.

The quiet is what I admired most about Drive, at first. There is restraint in dialogue, and stillness in composition. Even Ryan Gosling’s facial features, unusually petite, restrain themselves from reaching a size better fitting the large plane of his face (it takes one big face to know another).

And out of Gosling’s very little mouth comes a very little voice, that says… very little. This muted calm, despite bursts of gory violence, is Drive’s greatest strength. Director Nicolas Winding Refn creates a persistant monotone mood consistent with lifetime long depression or certain drugs, and in this sleepy way it felt very similar to  Gaspar Noé’s Enter the Void. But in its characters’ outward emotional restraint and languid physicality it also reminded me of Bresson. This isn’t too surprising as American Gigolo’s influence is clear from the beginning:

and Paul Schrader is a great Bresson admirer, Gigolo being a remake of sorts of Bresson’s Pickpocket, which also shares interesting similarities with Drive:

“The style of this film is not that of a thriller. Using image and sound the filmmaker strives to express the nightmare of a young man who’s weaknesses lead him to commit acts of theft for which nothing destined him. However, this adventure and the strange path it takes, brings together two souls that may otherwise never have met.”

But Drive doesn’t approach either of these films unfortunately, nor would I liken it to Taxi Driver, the other movie frequently referenced in discussion of the film. If we must compare it to an eighties movie, and Drive insists that we do, I find it to be most similar to Adrian Lyne’s Nine and a Half Weeks. Not in terms of story, though Mickey Rourke too is a sexy, small voiced, mystery man, but rather in unrealized potential: They are both visually satisfying films whose quiet characters suggest complexity but are in fact emotionally simple. The first twenty minutes of both films provoke an excitement that each following second slowly dampens.

An exercise in restraint and the creation of an unusual aesthetic is interesting, but our curiosity goes a short distance if there is no humor, emotional complexity or at least an interesting intellectual idea posited behind it. For example, Drive’s soundtrack enhances its style perfectly. It is echo-y, electronic, and eighties influenced, but there are many moments when the music dilutes the power of the scene.

When Irene (Cary Mulligan) and Gosling suddenly realize their affection for each other, music plays over alternating shots of Irene at her husband’s coming home party, and Gosling paused in work, alone in his empty apartment.

The music heightens the style, but in doing so simplifies the emotion, believing that this one dimensionality is somehow powerful or refreshing in its over simplification. It is not.

When a mainstream film appears to have formal ideas, or takes steps towards something different, it’s extremely exciting. It arouses. But so welcomed is this rare exhilaration that we risk being blind to the film’s secret mediocrity. Drive is interesting. At times it is good, even very good, but unfortunately never great, a fact mourned by all those who have qualms with the film, for it seems no one takes joy in pointing out Drive’s faults.

Despite my criticism, the urge to champion the film remains, and I’m afraid this review is conflicted, for though Drive’s aesthetic is what I criticize, it is also the reason I support it.

There aren’t boatloads of Hollywood action movies with such wide releases that give the same priority to visuals in this particular way. In mainstream cinema, great characters, though also rare, are more easily found than truly dynamic images or attention payed to a precise, cohesive style. It’s important that audiences who might not have interest in, or access to, smaller movies (the audience that probably saw Drive the first weekend), have the chance to see what can be done in a film, not just in an “artsy” film that’s already been compartmentalized as inaccessible, but one full of Hollywood stars. Though Drive is not a great film, it may be a stepping stone. Dare I say, Drive is the gateway drug of movies.

Everyone involved in film in one way or another can recall the one that stirred them to action. Even if you knew everything from Philco Playhouse to Dreyer’s mother’s boyfriend’s short films, chances are it was a contemporary movie that really sparked you to do more than watch, for nothing tops the energy of newness, the realization that the creation of art is not all in the past. Thanks to my parents, I was lucky enough to be surrounded by great movies, still, it was the semi-unspectacular American Beauty that cinched the deal. This shot in particular:

I was suddenly aware of the lighting. And the shot composition. And the music. It was different. After years and years of watching greater films, it was this one that began it all. I decided I would make movies one way or another.

Soon after seeing American Beauty, I had a doctor’s appointment. As she prepared an EKG I had insisted on for imaginary heart palpitations, the nurse asked me what I wanted to do. At that time I wanted to be a DP.

Nurse: So what do you want to do?

Fourteen year old me (see above): Cinematography

Nurse: Oh! What made you decide that?

Me (trying to give shortest possible answer): Uh, some movies look better than others…

Nurse: Really? That’s so smart! (to another nurse) Did you hear that? She said she realized that some movies look better than others!

I wasn’t sure if she was making fun of me or not (no kidding genius some movies look better than others), and I still don’t know, but I think that sums it up. Some movies look better than others and those movies, though unable to move us in greater ways, still play an important role. They are simple and accessible with enough hints at an artistic sensibility to energize… for a moment.

I think Drive will most satisfy teenagers who are discovering and experimenting with the power of aesthetic and style, but who, as they grow older, will abandon it for films revealing greater truths.

streets

On Saturday nights in 1993, the TNT television channel played science fiction movies back to back beginning at midnight. They called this the TNT “Monster Movie Marathon.” As my parents had recently divorced, my sister and I now spent weekends at my father’s house and the Saturday night Monster Movie Marathon quickly became our tradition. We made our bed on the living room floor and taped each movie on the VCR. Them! was a favorite, as was The Day the Earth Stood Still. The Thing, both the 1951 version and John Carpenter’s became beloved, as did The Day of the Triffids and Cronenberg’s The Fly. When I think of great science fiction now, these are a few of the films that come immediately to mind. When my five future children watch sci-fi movies I wonder if my list of favorites will be on their’s. Maybe it will, maybe it won’t but one thing I know is this: they will love Attack the Block with the fervor of their dear mama.

In Joe Cornish’s directorial debut, ruffian teens from a South London council estate (the projects), find their Bonfire Night thievery interrupted by an alien invasion. Lead by boss boy Moses (John Boyega), the boys: Jerome, Pest, Dennis, and Biggz, use their wily and hilarious teenage ways to escape the bad guys (aliens, police, a murderous rapping drug dealer) and defend their home.

Block is a tight, fast, movie, whose pieces (sound, photography, acting, editing, production design, dialogue) fit together in perfect harmony. Energy is palpable in all aspects of production.

Passion is infectious, and after seeing Block, so great was my enthusiasm, that my body, confused by this unusual excitement, grew alarmed and immediately flushed water out my armpits in great rivers.

“Is it hot in here bruv?” I said to the friend beside me.

“Nah blood, it ain’t,” he said. And at that moment I knew. I knew that any movie able to stimulate my glands to such a degree was a fine film indeed.

I luff Attack the Block bruv. Trust.

There are two main reasons behind my adoration. The first is the larger and contains the other: Block is a movie that very happily belongs to our current age, and this feels friendly.

In the future when people watch the film, they will understand it as a movie of the 2010s the way we understand L’Eclisse or the Graduate as films of the 1960s. The boys in Block are deep in today’s popular culture: Ninety percent of their speech is South London slang. They have smart phones (used in one scene to light and/or take pictures of the alien). They text, and make references to ebay, American Idol, Naruto, and playing FIFA. Some scenes are even entirely dependent on the fairly recent widespread access to technology: Biggz is trapped by an alien in a dumpster and uses his phone to communicate with the others.

These things, combined with the film’s saturated colors, rapid fire editing, and music by Steven Price and Basement Jaxx, create a sense of immediacy that defines adolescence. With the majority of teens, everything is about the Now. What, after all is more exciting than the culture currently being created around you? What kind of an idiot looks back and not forward?

There is a certain dishonesty and cowardice about nostalgia that teenagers have a keen nose for. It is in fact a privilege of sorts to not have to deal with the realities of modern life, but instead a safe, romantic version of it.  The weakest character in the film, Brewis, a rich white boy visiting the block to buy weed, does exactly this. Brewis listens to older black music (KRS-One, and seventies dub), but is afraid of actual black people: he sings along to “Sound of da Police”, then nervously hides his headphones when the boys approach.

Related to the previous, is the other reason I love the film: The majority of the main characters are black and multi-racial. The hero is a black teenager!  What’s more modern than that? This is a hugely important part of the movie, yet mention of race is strangely missing from many reviews of the film, as though pointing it out would detract from its merits as a great sci-fi picture and turn it into “Something about race.”

This logic however is flawed, and does the film a disservice by ignoring a giant part of its brilliance. No one who watches Block doesn’t notice that the heroes are black, and that this is an anomaly. The characters didn’t magically turn out black by chance, it was Cornish’s conscious decision. If you don’t want your sci-fi movie about kids fighting aliens to have anything to do with race, you make Super 8.  If you do, you make it about black and multi-racial kids in the South London projects. A film’s plot doesn’t have to be explicitly about fighting racism and classism to still be about race or class, and in fact I bet Block does more to encourage awareness than The Help for example.

Consider this exchange between Sam and Pest in the weed room. Yes, the weed room:

Pest: You’re quite fit you know, have you got a boyfriend?

Sam: Yeah.

Pest: You sure about him? Where is? Cuz he aint exactly lookin ouy for you tonight.

Sam: He’s in Ghana.

Pest: You’re going out with an African man?

Sam: No, he’s helping children. He volunteers for the Red Cross.

Pest: Oh is he? Why can’t he help the children in Britain? Not exotic enough is it? No getting a nice suntan.

Folks who exasperatedly dismiss discussion of color with “Not everything is about race,” are usually people who (unknowingly) have the privilege of being viewed as race-less (white). The race-less of course have the freedom to decide what is and isn’t about race. Those that are not seen as race-less (people of color) don’t. Cornish seems to understand what many people don’t want to admit, that a person’s race shapes their experience in the world. Whether it should or shouldn’t, it very much does. Ignoring this fact, even if well intentioned, perpetuates inequality. The boys in Block, as young men of color, are always aware of racial dynamics. So constant is this awareness, neither positive nor negative, that it becomes unconscious, like breathing. It’s always there. The film takes place completely within this understanding. There’s no need to make heavy handed points. Cornish trusts that we are not morons and so we will understand too.

In a scene where Sam, a white female nurse robbed by the boys at the beginning of the film, gives the police information about her robbers, mention of Moses’ race (usually the first thing noted) is very obviously absent from her description. Similarly, when an older white woman living in the block, talks to Sam about her dislike of the kids, she makes no mention of race. We know however exactly what she means: “They’re fucking monsters.”

We also know why a scene where Sam tries to block the boys from entering her apartment is great:

Thuggish black boys force their way into a white woman’s home!

A woman they just robbed.

Her fear is legitimate…

But the boys are running for their lives! Running from aliens bruv! 

Race and class distinctions are absurd in the face of alien invasion!

Just look at Dennis’ face here (standing in the center). It’s perfection.

This scene would not be nearly as funny if the boys were white. Our understanding of its racial implications is what makes it work. Class and race are integral parts of the movie’s comedy.

Toward the end of the film, Moses makes a very poignant speech while hiding with a group of girls in the block. It is seemingly unprompted, but we understand immediately that these feelings aren’t new:

Moses: You know what I reckon? I reckon the feds sent them anyway. The government probably bred those creatures to kill black boys. First they sent drugs to the ends. Then they sent guns. Now they’ve sent monsters to get us. They don’t care man. We ain’t killing each other fast enough so they decided to speed up the process.

Pest: (takes a hit of weed) Believe.

And the girls burst out laughing.

But this laughter is necessary. A teaspoon of humor makes the social commentary go down.

I won’t tell you what the aliens look like, I won’t tell you how much blood is or isn’t shed, and I won’t tell you if anyone kisses anyone else. I won’t tell you anything more except this: Attack the Block is first and foremost a great movie, it is secondly a great sci-fi movie, and lastly, but not leastly, it is great and sly commentary on race and class. It is all three of these things simultaneously, none detracting from any other.

Now go see it yourself and tell me I’m wrong.

Discussing Martin Scorsese’s first feature film while standing in a kitchen.

motherhood

I became aware of my mortality before we had a dining room table. I don’t recall the exact age, I only know the arrangement of furniture, and the dining room then was just an empty space to play in. I can tell you that I was five or six and no older than that. Six however is a world apart from five when you’ve only existed on earth for that many years. And this must have had something to do with it; the realization of how long I had existed. To realize your existence is to also become suddenly aware of how long you have not existed. Of course I had not existed for billions of years before my birth, but that’s too much time to handle, so my brain measures things the way it can. It makes do. I measure time against my parents, my mother most exactly, so for five years I had existed, but for twenty seven years before my mother gave birth to me, I did not exist.

I don’t remember what ushered this revelation in. I had not lost a friend, family member, or pet, but for days afterwards, I refused to go to bed. Every night I hunched inconsolable, sobbing on my mother’s lap repeating, as though a thing could be done, “I don’t want to die.” I pictured very clearly, the ground, the soil, and myself alone in it. To this day I have a very difficult time going to bed. Going to sleep is exactly like dying. This doesn’t make the prospect of death any less terrifying, but sleep all the more so.

But it is sleep however, that I eventually succumb to. There, waiting for me, is a dream that inevitably has something to do with being a kid.

If I were made to take stock of the things I think about most, my childhood would be number one. We seem to be intrigued by the number of times a man thinks about sex in a day, but I wonder how many times in that same day an adult thinks about their childhood. I suspect for most people that number is 987,098,567. Childhood is in everything. In observing the tiny red mites on the front steps, or hearing the buzzing of Cicadas. In brushing your teeth and seeing your father’s freckles in the mirror, or standing over the stove like a flamingo the way your mother did when she cooked.

Few of us can deny the exhausting truth of these words:

“Mother. Father. Always you wrestle inside me. Always you will.”

A truth that releases a waterfall of emotion. It is this energy that propels us through The Tree of Life. A voluptuous, bulging energy shaped and encouraged by sweeping camera movement, ultra wide lenses, lyrical blocking, the safe-harbor of Jessica Chastain’s face, and the vacillation in Hunter McCracken’s. These combine to create scenes that perfectly capture the rapturous feelings of childhood. Sensations evoked when light & dark entwine, and our instinctual knowledge that these things are the same. The gut feeling of seeing a boy’s head ravaged by some scalp disease, or a man having a seizure, is almost indistinguishable from the pleasure of stealing a woman’s silk nightgown. A dead dog on the side of the road shares worlds with the first glimpse of your mother’s vulva. The feelings aren’t similar because they are forbidden topics. Violence is also taboo, but the threat of real-life violence does not thrill. No, sex and death excite because they represent the edges: the two gateways beyond which is unknown. Even to grown-ups.

It’s hard to remember the utter powerlessness that defines childhood. When you are miserable, there is no escape.

When you are happy, you have little control over how long you can continue your happy activity.

There is nothing you can do. Nothing. You will be sad, or you will be happy, but rarely will it be in your control.

If however, you stand at one edge or the other, there is always the prospect of falling in. To go and keep on going. This, wrapped deep inside, past any religious fear, or physical pleasure, is the real thrill they share. Helpless in a world of definites and rules, sex & death represent an overwhelmingly seductive infinity. There is no end to anything. There is no answer to any question. Past these gates, everything is boundless.

The in-between world however, is a very structured place.

There is mother.

There is father.

There are sons.

Father is hard, mother is soft. The world celebrates the masculine, while emotions, nature, fluidity, and intuition are diminished. This is a dynamic Malick fights against in both subject matter and structure. He hails the feminine, and I suspect that criticisms of the film, perhaps being of the opposite mindset, are uncomfortable with, maybe even resent this hyper-feminine style. As extremely white and male as The Tree of Life is, it is also very much a slap in the face of White American Masculinity.

And since White Maledom is what we measure the worth of everything against, since it is our deeply ingrained default point of view, it is easy to dismiss that which strays as being pretentious. Even a movie explicitly about a White American boy, can be difficult to accept if it strays too far from the standard form, standard being, of course, white male.

But like all his characters, Malick is a white man trying to escape the confines of white maledom because for all the earth-controlling privileges it awards, to be white and male is not only to be in a prison, but to be the prison itself. This could be eye-rolling inducing; the last person we need to have sympathy for is a White American Man, but through his films, particularly through The Tree of Life’s form, Malick encourages us to rebel against the confines of this deadly default. He knows what many have yet to realize: whiteness and maleness destroy us all.

In the face of nature and the cosmos, human life is at once ridiculous and adorable in its absurdity. We are very much like mice. Mice dressed in suits and hard soled shoes. It isn’t necessary of course. Mice don’t need hard soled shoes, and so because it’s a step away from believing in the inherent simplicity of it all, it is unfortunate.

But,

Isn’t a mouse wearing a suit also a beautifully earnest thing? The suited mouse is trying to make sense of it the way he can.

James Baldwin said “I dislike anyone who is earnest about anything,” and I believe this sentiment is shared by many. I very often feel a similar repulsion, and one scene in particular both provoked and calmed this judgement.

The beginning of the film includes a fantastically long montage detailing the creation of life on Earth. From the pre-planet space particle level, all the way to the evolution of dinosaurs.

Yes, dinosaurs.

Lulled deep into a trance by images like this:

And this:

I was not expecting this:

When I did however see what I saw, two things happened in quick succession. I immediately rolled my eyes, eager to pounce on this ridiculous CGI inclusion, and then I immediately calmed down.

The dinosaur wasn’t doing anything crazy.

It wasn’t a clever girl.

It was just there. And it stayed chewing calmly for a few moments. A moment long enough for me to relax, and I was suddenly taken by a feeling of great tenderness and calm. I don’t completely understand why I felt this, but the inclusion of these CGI dinosaurs struck me as an particularly affectionate and loving decision.

Terrence Malick believes in his audiences, and has faith that we also can believe.

It’s the feeling of your mother brushing the hair off your forehead as she tells you a bedtime story. You protest because she’s changed a part of the usual tale, or it’s not the way you want it to be, but smiling, she says “Shhh shhh. Just listen.”

Celebrating Terrence Malick for Ebert Presents! Now get out of here and go see Tree of Life.

Person : Movie is a Mirror special series. Watch more here!

The other night, in a sleepless mania not unfamiliar to me, I rummaged through all my old school papers. They were abysmal, as unfortunately all academic writing is, but I paused self-beration to read one paper in particular. I remember it was handed in for extra credit in a last attempt to pass Dramaturgy. In it I reviewed theatre and film director (Marat/Sade) Peter Brook’s fantastic book The Empty Space and his categorizations of the theater: Holy, Deadly, Rough, Immediate. And as I trudged through my soulless, double spaced writing it suddenly occurred to me that these categories could be applied to the cinema. With the exception of the Immediate, they really are applied quite neatly, and I admit this gives me great pleasure. When things click together, the feeling is one of such satisfaction, it tips into sordidness. When this happens suspicion is the key in saving yourself from obnoxiousness. Fitting pieces of a puzzle together is satisfying, but always mock your vulgar fondness for completing puzzles in the first place.

I will try to split the word [theatre] four ways and distinguish four different meanings—and so will talk about a Deadly Theatre, a Holy Theatre, a Rough Theatre and an Immediate Theatre. Sometimes these four theatres really exist, standing side by side, in the West End of London, or in New York off Times Square. Sometimes they are hundreds of miles apart, the Holy in Warsaw and the Rough in Prague, and sometimes they are metaphoric: two of them mixing together within one evening, within one act. Sometimes within one single moment, the four of them, Holy, Rough, Immediate and Deadly intertwine. The Deadly Theatre can at first sight be taken for granted, because it means bad theatre. As this is the form of theatre we see most often, and as it is most closely linked to the despised, much-attacked commercial theatre it might seem a waste of time to criticize it further. But it is only if we see that deadliness is deceptive and can appear anywhere, that we will become aware of the size of the problem.

In this post (part one) I’ll discuss the Deadly and Holy Cinemas. In part two the Rough and Immediate. Can the Immediate be applied to Cinema? I am not so sure. We will see.

***

In considering deadly art, and Deadly Cinema we must first understand our definition of good art and its purpose in the world. Thoughts on this will of course vary widely, but here is my belief: The primary function of art is to bring us into the present, a goal it achieves by providing opportunity for the experiencing of emotion. For those of us who haven’t reached enlightenment nothing is more present, present because it is by nature transient, than emotion. Experiencing art, whatever the medium, means sidestepping mundanity to reenter ourselves. Time no longer matters. All that exists is emotion.

When we turn on a song, read a book, look at a painting, a sculpture, a play, or a film, we yearn for that great triumph of emotion. The conquering of time. Sure we might intend to think about the piece, yes, understand and analyze, yes, but it is emotion we seek, consciously or not, first and foremost. The experiencing of emotion, even anger and grief, is the process of opening. It is an emotional disrobing. And this is the point of it all. We can better understand ourselves and others without the layers of lies and bullshit that art helps pull away. The more effective a piece is at pulling away layers, the greater its worth to humanity.

A film that seeks to pull no layers, or mimics the pulling, pandering to emotion, is a deadly film.

If we talk of deadly, let us note that the difference between life and death, so crystal clear in man, is somewhat veiled in other fields. A doctor can tell at once between the trace of life and the useless bag of bones that life has left; but we are less practiced in observing how an idea, an attitude or a form can pass from the lively to the moribund. It is difficult to define but a child can smell it out.

Deadly Cinema is the cinema of conventionalities. An uncritical and reassuring cinema that reveals no truth. It is the cinema of celebrated mediocrity supported by the Deadly Spectator, a person who prefers the comfort of an unchallenging film (this is very often me). Though the Deadly Cinema can be easily equated with commercial cinema this deadliness can seep into fringe avant-garde production or even those of the greatest grandeur.

The King’s Speech is a movie that comes immediately to mind. Films that pretend to be above deadliness are the most deadly of all. The King’s Speech is not a bad movie. It was efficiently directed, acted, and even enjoyable. Yet it remains deadly. Nothing emphasizes this deadliness as much as its cinematography; a style very much resembling alternative music videos from 1991.

In his description of a French classical actor’s search for realism, Brook describes what I suspect to be the impetus of the film’s DP and Director:

In France there are two deadly ways of playing classical tragedy. One is traditional, and this involves using a special voice, a special manner, a noble look and an elevated musical delivery. The other way is no more than a half-hearted version of the same thing. Imperial gestures and royal values are fast disappearing from everyday life, so each new generation finds the grand manner more and more hollow, more and more meaningless. This leads the young actor to an angry and impatient search for what he calls truth. He wants to play his verse more realistically, to get it to sound like honest- to-God real speech, but he finds that the formality of the writing is so rigid that it resists this treatment. He is forced to an uneasy compromise that is neither refreshing, like ordinary talk, nor defiantly histrionic, like what we call ham. So his acting is weak and because ham is strong, it is remembered with a certain nostalgia.

And what about art that does indeed peel?

After music, I believe that film maintains the most direct connection to our emotions, so it is the Cinema that peels most effectively and The Holy Cinema most of all.

In 1928, Federico Garcia Lorca, in his writings on poetry stated: “The poet is in a sad state of wanting and not being able. He hears the flow of great rivers, passing by in silence, with no one else to hear their music. On his brow he feels the coolness of the reeds, swaying in their No Man’s Land. He wants to feel the dialogue of the winds that tremble in the moss…He wants to penetrate the music of the sap running in the dark silence of huge tree trunks…He wants to press his ear to the sleeping girl and understand the Morse code of her heart…He wants…But he cannot.” So too does the Holy Cinema. A cinema that desires, as Lorca, to understand and make visible the invisible. To explore the philosophical and spiritual. It might be more appropriate to discuss an individual film’s relation to a category, as directors produce work in different styles. David Lynch, Lars Von Trier, and Fellini for example belong to both the Holy and Rough Cinema. However the greatest artists of the Holy Cinema consistently explore themes unique to this category. This is the cinema of, among others, Bergman, Bresson, Ozu, Kurosawa, Dreyer, and Tarkovsky. The latter’s work being perhaps the holiest of the group.

Films of the Holy Cinema might be considered the “difficult movies”, and this judgment is correct. These films are in fact difficult, however this is not because the ideas are hard to grasp. Movies aren’t made for movie scientists. Anyone can understand any film if they are open to it. I firmly believe this. There is no correct way to understand a movie, even if the director believes there is. In reality a movie is difficult because of our resistance to it. We resist these films because they peel. Peel when very often we’d prefer to keep our layers intact. I battle with myself about this everyday. Andrei Tarkovsky’s The Mirror is a film I’ve seen several times, and I can state without hesitation that it is the most profoundly meaningful film I’ve experienced thus far. Having said that, it’s the absolute last movie I ever want to watch. I will put on anything over The Mirror, usually a comedy I’ve worn threadbare. It’s a miracle that I’ve seen the film at all. Now this is complete absurdity. The Mirror is cathartic and each viewing results in a deeper, quieter, connection with myself that lasts for days. I am exhilarated, energized, and full of ideas. It makes my life better. And yet, in full knowledge of the intense pleasure and peacefulness the film gives me, more often that not I refuse to watch it. The peeling of layers disrupts routine living and thinking. And though this disruption is vital, it takes enormous mental and emotional strength to allow it.

There are times I’ve had to take a sedative in order to watch Holy Cinema, my defenses railed so strongly against it. But of course after each viewing the feeling was the same; that of surfacing. The relief of spotting the cave’s exit or a loose nail in the coffin.

And here is the matter reduced. I suggest that Death separates the Holy from the Deadly.

The Holy Cinema in one way or another always reveals Death’s presence and our movements around it. In every frame it reveals this. Because Time is hand in hand with Death, it is often through time that awareness of death is embraced and indeed many difficult films fall also into the category of slow cinema. This isn’t at all grim, it is true. To quote Lorca yet again:

No one when giving a kiss
fails to feel the smile of faceless people.
No one who touches a newborn child,
forgets the immobile skulls of horses.

The Deadly Cinema however denies Death’s existence. Of course a deadly film may show the process of dying or the point of physical death (adept at emotional pandering they frequently do), but this is meaningless. This is dull. The Deadly Cinema simplifies or dismisses altogether the quiet relationship of light and dark. This simplification is overwhelmingly attractive. It is a petting. I am lured by it damn everyday. We watch Deadly films to escape, and this is why Notting Hill is frequently found in my DVD player. But through Hugh Grant’s adorable blinking I know that this escape is a lie. I am not escaping. I am fleeing. To escape is to break free of confinement, but a Deadly film traces boundaries, and it does so thickly. It opens the door to the living room from the office, while keeping the one to the world locked shut. A Deadly film is not freedom and so it is not escape. Escapism is a word that is bullshit. To flee, to run from danger, is much more fitting. We run like the dickens from thought, vulnerability, and unmanageable emotion, run straight to the arms of Gossip Girl the Motion Picture. The Deadly Cinema encourages this mass exodus out of life. For every hour we spend with a deadly film, we spend outside of life. For every hour spent with a Holy film we spend inside ourselves, in the present, which is a tackling of life. Would I go so far as to say the Deadly Cinema hates life and the Holy loves it? Perhaps. It depends on how brave I am feeling.

“The problem of the Deadly Theatre is like the problem of the deadly bore. Every deadly bore has head, heart, arms, legs: usually, he has family and friends: he even has his admirers. Yet we sigh when we come across him—and in this sigh we are regretting that somehow he is at the bottom instead of the top of his possibilities. When we say deadly, we never mean dead: we mean something depressingly active, but for this very reason capable of change.”

***

While the Holy Cinema deals with the invisible, the Rough Cinema deals with the very visible.  This is a rebellious and anti-authoritarian cinema. It belongs to, among many others, Godard, Dogme, Fellini, Pasolini, John Waters, Herzog, Lynch, Tarantino, the Marx bros, and perhaps even all good comedy. What an eclectic mix it is. So stay tuned for part two, since this is already far too long.

“Of course, it is most of all dirt that gives the roughness its edge; filth and vulgarity are natural, obscenity is joyous: with these the spectacle takes on its socially liberating role, for by nature the popular theatre is anti-authoritarian, anti-traditional, anti-pomp, anti-pretense. This is the theatre of noise, and the theatre of noise is the theatre of applause.”

Lucille Ball

Carole Lombard

Judy Holliday

Haley Mills?

Sure Haley Mills.

Mills was a fabulous comedian. Her timing was magnificent. Two little scenes in Disney’s That Darn Cat (1965) will either back me up on this or expose my stupid sense of humor.

“Well I was away… on my holiday… to Mexico… on a bus.”

It gets me every time.

Excuse the long-winded voiceover. Allergies are fogging my brain.

Dear Kartina,

I was surfing around the channels today and came upon “At The Movies” just in time to see your piece on “The Thin Man Series”. Your passion for the old movies really shows, you did a great job. I wanted to tell you about my dad and Myrna Loy…

My dad died when I was 2 years old (I am now 59). As a teenager my mom gave me a box of things that were my dad’s. In the box I found a sketch of this woman who my mom told me my dad had draw back in the 1940′s. The story goes that my dad was on a train in England when he met Miss Loy. He asked her if he could sketch her and she agreed. In 1974 I sat down and draw a copy and hung it next to my dad’s a month later my house burnt to the ground and I lost every thing but my drawing and this is that drawing (below). I thought you would like to see it and if you like you can print it out for your personal use. I have searched the internet and have never found a photograph that match’s it so I must believe the story. I read that they are going to remake the Thin Man and Johnny Depp wants to do it, have you heard of this?  Thanks for the memories Kartina.

-Brian Malcolm Seymour

Introducing a new special series:

Person : Movie

The idea is a simple one. I persuade a person (friend, family or willing stranger) to tell me something about a movie.

Anything about any movie.

A character, a moment, a line of dialogue, a film’s relation to a memorable moment in life etc. No observation is too precious or inane, but spontaneity is integral. And so my hope is this: to capture the recalling of an electricity.

That is all. The less said the better.

First up:

This is my friend Jacob Berendes, a genius artist and musician currently residing in Providence, RI. I’ve known Jacob since I was fourteen year old anarchist. He is a truly exceptional man about town.

In this video Jacob remembers a scene from the 1980 film Fame.

If this video doesn’t want to make you check out Jacob’s online art store and subscribe to his monthly newspaper, then I don’t know what to do with you.

**Watch my “Ebert Presents” segment on “I Am Love” here**

In Luca Guadagnino’s I Am Love Tilda Swinton plays Emma Recchi, a Russian woman who marries into a wealthy Italian family and finds herself moving (somewhat unwillingly) into the role of matriarch. Dissatisfied with a soulless life of planning dinner parties, Emma finds love with a younger man, one with the earthiness she needs to remedy her stale aristocratic life. Now this is a movie about many things: family, legacy, death, birth, incest, and definitions of love and loneliness among them, but what I like most about the film is its size. I Am Love isn’t a movie that minimizes itself. Though we associate this kind of grandeur with melodramas of old, mainly pre-1970‘s, given the current popular styles of filmmaking, which often cast the theatrical and poetic as false, Guadagnino’s decision to make a grand, operatic film is actually a radical one.

I recently read a review of the film by one of my favorite film critics, The New Yorker’s Richard Brody. Even when I disagree with Brody’s thoughts on a movie, I am always intrigued by his reasons. Brody was not especially fond of Guadagnino’s film. He tore it a new one. But what fascinated me this time was that the reasons he gave were the exact reasons I hated Sofia Coppola’s Somewhere, a movie he loved. And Brody loved Somewhere for the reasons I loved I Am Love. They are two films with relatively similar stories (dissatisfied elite person finds happiness in the unexpected), done in completely opposing styles. Their titles even represent this contradiction: I AM LOVE vs. somewhere.

And as I thought more about I Am Love I thought more about what it represented to me and how my love for it is very much related to my dislike of Somewhere.

About I Am Love Brody states:

“There’s no point to speculating whether Guadagnino is capable of imagining his characters’ inner lives and the diverse forms of their expression; in any case, he clearly has no interest in doing so. Just now, tooling around a bit online, I found the following nugget of wisdom in an interview with the director, in Time Out New York:

‘The class we describe is beyond decadence already; they’re like frozen statues. This is like a George Romero movie: They’re dead and they believe that they’re still alive!’

In its attitude toward its characters and toward sex, “I Am Love” is a vapid and demagogic entertainment, a work of mere and minor sensation that drums its subjects vulgarly and unequivocally.”

Replace Guadagnino with Coppola, and there are my reasons for hating Somewhere.

Brody praised Somewhere as “conjuring the tension of banality and wonder that is the essence of the movie” , and that “More than any filmmaker in Hollywood, Coppola looks around and films what she sees; it’s that forthright affirmation of what a camera is made for that enables her to reach such heights of inner experience.”

Here Brody and I agree. Coppola does film what she sees, but her vision is limited to exactly that: What she sees. It stops immediately at the recognition of the mundane, the rote. As though a line has been drawn in her head and she dares not cross. It is exactly this examination of  the “tension between banality and wonder” that I dislike  in Coppola’s work, and many indie films these days.

The banality of the surface is an attractive and easy subject to explore successfully for those wishing to create art, but who, for whatever reason, are unable to think about the metaphysical ideas that make great film great films. This is because they have vulgarized trying. They are minimizing. For lack of better articulation at the moment, I will awkwardly call it the “Countersignaling” movement or aesthetic.

In Coppola’s films, and films that share a similar style (I hesitate to use the term mumblecore because it’s farther reaching than that), trying is not only vulgar but unenlightened; trying to be sexy, fancy, feminine, masculine, or successful. Trying to do anything big is bad. In a small way this is good; there is no shortage of awful hollywood blockbusters that promote ridiculously plastic ideas that confine. But whereas Dogme 95 opposed this in a brilliant way with films of great emotional intensity (Festen) and complex ideas (Idioten), these movies do not. Theirs is an adolescent rebellion. Offering scraggly hair and skinned knees in opposition to their mother’s chignon. T- shirts and torn shoes vs. their father’s suits, the presence of Chris Pontius vs. anyone else and saying little about why.

Countersignaling is an aesthetic unique to the very privileged. Of the young, white, educated, liberal, upper middle/middle class. It isn’t a celebrated attitude of poor Americans, or the children of immigrants, or Americans of color of any economic class. It isn’t an attractive aesthetic to those who have already been minimized by the world and fight against that to assert their value.

But as much as I dislike the aesthetic I do understand why it exists. Countersignaling is a reaction to plasticity. Money grants automatic importance and for many liberal, artistic, educated folk, that privilege leads to discomfort and guilt. But a caving to that guilt instead of true examination, turns the artist’s work into a constant minimizing. The result then is false: If it were actual minimization the film itself would not exist. The very act of making something is, to to varying degrees, asserting your voice, asserting your importance, trying.  So the film is reaching. Reaching in every way for diffidence (shot composition, costume, music, casting, etc) when real diffidence is not actually there.

The mundanity of our realities and the moments we escape numbness are actually extremely interesting. Appealing because they have both light and dark sides, but Coppola only makes small comments on the surface of these moments. She never delves deeper. I don’t want to see characters sweetly discovering and experiencing these moments. I’d much rather see characters creating escape like Kit in Terrence Malick’s 1973 film Badlands. When Kit interrupts the routine of his work by standing on top of the dead cow, it says it all. From an older post on Badlands:

This is similar to the fantasy-world-building that Johnny and Cleo seek to do in Somewhere, only interesting. Interesting because Malick doesn’t turn away from blackness. The recognition of that darkness is important. These small moments (both sweet and strange) are the product of tiny imperceptible struggles to escape. In all struggles there is violence. There is darkness. But Coppola’s characters, and the characters in similar films do not really reflect this. They are sad sweet people, good people underneath it all, but boring one dimensional people who move within a very narrow spectrum of pastel emotions.

Brody calls Somewhere “one of the most radical films ever made in Hollywood, if the root of the cinema is the conjuring of inner life through outer particulars.” I say, in 2011 the truly radical American indie film could be one that does not see intensity of emotion as vulgar and the theatrical as unable to reveal truth.

I Am Love is in some way a reaction to this, or perhaps I would just like to think it is. The film has its flaws (I wasn’t a fan of the long back to nature sex scene) but it dares to be grand. The movie was great, but what excited me most was what it represented; it was large in idea, emotion, and execution. From the magnitude of its title, to its aristocratic poster, it spits in the face of countersignaling.

Brody says it best, (even if he’s talking about the wrong movie here):

“Most of the drama, such as it is, concerns their fluctuating emotions and moods, and Coppola Guadagnino conjures them with a calm, clear, contemplative attention to their behavior, their surroundings, their very presence. The entire film seems internalized: at the same time as the shots show a reality accessible to all, they seem wrenched from the psyches of the characters. Which is to say that it’s an intensely emotional film”

“The emotion is evoked not by the actors emoting intensely but by exquisite, even preternatural, control of tone, mood, and detail.”

“I emerged from the theatre feeling as if I had just been cruising around in a high-powered vehicle for an hour and a half, experiencing a strangely original ride through familiar grounds, a peculiar and delightful blend of the grippingly concrete and the dreamily abstracted.”

Guadagnino speaks through the language of classical cinema: There is sweeping camera movement, careful shot composition, silences that magnify the god awful presence of time, and the careful use of color and costume. It is through costume that Guadagnino asserts the film’s largeness most obviously.

What can by mistaken as simply a nostalgia for olden days, is in fact a longing for timelessness. All characters are dressed in simple clothes that prevent them from being identified with any particular time period. Belonging to one year is small. Belonging to all is large. The film’s costume also display Guadagnino’s careful use of color. The autumnal tones are frequently used to underline connections between characters. Emma has a special relationship with her daughter Betta and in several scenes the two wear colors previously worn by the other. In this scene Betta wears tan while her mother wears burgandy:

And in the previous scene here Emma wears tan, while in the next room Betta wears burgandy:

Ida the housekeeper also has a close relationship with the family members, especially Emma’s son. And here the orange juice she pours matches shirt.

Everything in the Recchi home is in it’s place. Even the leaves on the plant are the precise shade of green to compliment the walls and furniture. This kind of extremely planned composition could be too heavy handed. It could ruin the story, but it doesn’t and this is for two reasons:

1.

The first is the earth shattering person that is Tilda Swinton. She is the very necessary ingredient. Like the addition of vinegar to something that’s too creamy, that needs a tang to counteract the richness. Swinton brings a sharpness that prevents the movie from straying too far into melodrama. This is because she is magnificently unusual. No one, man or woman is more sexually exciting than Swinton. Her allure cannot be defined. It is raw without any accessories. Ageless, sexless, and has no boundaries. She is androgynous, ethereal, womanly and reptilian all at once.

Hers isn’t a conventional appeal, but that’s precisely why it’s necessary in a film of such classical grandeur and drama. The film remains expansive while she makes it real. It should be noted that this isn’t just the accidental product of good casting. Guadagnino and Swinton developed the film together for a decade. The two are organic to one another. They are wrapped around each other.

2.

Like this carefully organized household, I Am Love is unabashedly built on careful choices; clear decisions that indicate an idea unites all components of the film. And Guadagnino wants us to be aware of this.

“Discipline is disliked in Italy. And I think this is a very disciplined movie. It’s very consistent in keeping a sort of rigour in achieving its goals. It’s good quality, you know? It’s like leather.”

- Guadagnino

There is a reason for this shot and that one. For that dress and that light. We might not understand intellectually what Guadagnino’s idea is, but we don’t need to. We understand it emotionally. The more certain a director is in his beliefs regarding both life and artistic theory, the more honest his choices will be to the story (this is why Bresson’s are some of the most truthful films ever made). When there is truth there is no reaching. Reaching destroys movies because reaching is emptiness. You are grasping for something that is not there.

It is the risk of reaching that scares filmmakers like Coppola, and this is boring and cowardly. It’s not easy to come out into the world with something big. Present a small idea, and you only risk being revealed as a small fool. If you’ve got the nerve to have a big idea people can accuse you of being a big fool. But who the hell cares? I’d much rather see 100 people trying to think about big things and failing than 100 people saying small things successfully.

“I have no problem with authorship. No ego problem. No problem with my virility.”

- Guadagnino

—

There is one scene I admired in Somewhere: