"Yes, yes, magic! I try to give that to people. I misrepresent things to them. I don't tell the truth, I tell what ought to be the truth. And if that's sinful, then let me be damned for it! Don't turn the light on."
-Blance DuBois in "A Streetcare Named Desire"
Every movie book or play is filled with lies and misrepresentation. Characters have facades, authors have hidden motives, fiction isn't true and words don't mean what they mean to. Authors sometimes acknowledge this with a wink at the camera (the province of The Simpsons), or sometimes in a speech like Vivien Leigh's above. Lies are what makes the world of literature turn, and as Blanche DuBois suggests, there is 'magic' in these lies. It is magic that allows the worlds of Tolkien, Shakespeare, Vonnegut and Eliot to exist. And like any true magician (Prospero), the mark of good magic is that they bring you into their world, and for a moment, you forget your own. With a real magician it happens in that moment when you might wonder if there really is magic in the world, and for an author, it happens when your imagination takes over and the stark reality of life disappears. It seems, if only for a moment, that the whole world has been consumed by the author's world. Certain books, movies or plays do this to all of us. Watching the Neverending Story still has that effect on me even with all of its flaws. Star Wars is such a wonderful movie because of its immersiveness not, as is often said, because of its fairly stock characters or philosophical musings. While dropped into an immersive world we're not caught off guard by new scenes, sets or characters, because each fits perfectly into this world. The job of the author is to make us accept the initial premise, and then develop a consistent world around it. People probably choose their favorite genres around what premises they are willing to accept. Some people are willing to accept aliens and spaceships, while others are happier with love at first sight. Often we are willing to accept the most ludicrous premise if it offers us a world or life we crave more than any other (See Star Trek V, or really any Star Trek other than late DS9).
So far my examples have been primarily fantastical in nature, but this magic trick happens all the time, and we often accept it without even realizing it. My favorite example is that people often mock musicals because they express emotions by breaking into song and dance, but take, on the other hand, average movie dialogue. Stock plotting in action movies or romantic comedies has characters falling "in love" within moments of meeting or after one date. They express these feelings in short bursts of "meaningful dialogue," but, as anyone who's ever actually had a conversation about life, love or the weather knows, conversations, last longer than 2 or 3 minutes. People don't make grand, vague statements concealing hidden depth and purpose without the recipient of the comment asking about it i. e. "did you just make a reference to your past that the audience knows about, but you've been concealing from me and now you're hinting that you want to tell me but feel too embarrassed to do so? Well I guess I won't ask you about the past that clearly is having an effect on our present relationship so that the movie can go for a full 90 minutes and maintain suspense." Characters in stock romances or action films don't talk to each other, but make statements for the audience to assure to them that the plot is moving. Again, this is not a problem, it's just a lie that we've become so comfortable with we don't even acknowledge it exists. I don't object, because the world where that happens is a nice place to visit from time to time.
Looking for magic in poems or movies is part of the fun. Christopher Nolan's "The Prestige" is a movie, about magic, that announces itself to be lies at the beginning, and uses that to confuse the viewer into accepting them. When I watched it for a second time, I was still so caught up in the tricks that without really noticing, I was sucked into the it and impressed with the magic even though I already knew 'the prestige.' Lies are misrepresentations for the background for nearly all of Hitchcock's work, and when watching his movies its hard to look away. The lies an author presents don't necessarily take us to nice places, but they take us to worlds where we want to spend time. Whether its the adrenaline that flows from a good suspense or a pitter-patter of a heart while Fred Astaire sings "The Way You Look Tonight" to Ginger Rogers with a head full of shampoo (it's actually whipped cream. Lies!)
The authors of these moments agree able to create the most wonderfully immersive places through clever lies, and when everything works, its magical. All that is required to visit is accepting a few falsities, and in return they offer feelings of joy, sadness and, for a moment, escape from the world.
P.S. I think Belle sums up much about why we need these stories here. "I want much more than this provincial life" indeed. The lie in this story is that there is more out there. Most of us will have to be content to create that more in a less tangible way than Belle.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Roger Ebert's Legacy
Recently, Esquire published an article about Roger Ebert, which inspired me to address Ebert, at least for a moment.
http://www.esquire.com/features/roger-ebert-0310-6
The friggin insert link button is all wonky for me, and I'm too lazy to figure it out.
I've only known about film criticism in the times after Roger Ebert was an influential writer, so it's at times difficult for me to imagine what it was like before. He is famous, not for reviewing movies, but writing significant literary criticism about them. At the climax of Ratatouille, there is an essay written by the character Ego, a harsh and stubborn critic.
(I could write a whole post on why I am so affected by that speech. I find it's plea for a return to sincerity disarming and heartbreaking) The reviews Ebert writes, especially in his Great Movies series, are different from what is being spoken of here. His body of work belongs among the great American essayists. His best reviews, or at least the ones I prefer, are not the ones that insist you either see or don't see a particular movies, but the ones where he attempts to delve into the core of a movie, elevating it to art. He has become, in my sojourn through great movies, a near constant companion who often offers a different perspective. He notices things I do not. His level of study over certain movies like Citizen Kane (which someday I'll get up the nerve to address), and Dark City (he did a full length dvd commentary on it), offers true guidance to the novice filmgoer. He said once, "I have here a heartfelt message from a reader who urges me not to be so hard on stupid films, because they are 'plenty smart enough for the average moviegoer.' Yes, but one hopes being an average moviegoer is not the end of the road: that one starts as a below-average filmgoer, passes through average, and, guided by the labors of America's hardworking film critics, arrives in triumph at above-average."
There is an argument you might hear from people who play lots of video games, which is that a gamer uses his brain interactively while playing video games, while a person watching a television is passive. Sometimes that may be true, but when watching a great movie, whether for the first or the twentieth time, it seems silly to call it a passive experience. It takes alertness in all sensory experience to watch a movie because it happens so quickly. There are sounds, dialogue and camera angles. Each is an integral part of film, and I consider it a blessing that I can watch them at home with a remote in hand to pause, rewind and confront what is being shown. My ever increasing knowledge of these things would barely exist without the guidance of Roger Ebert.
To write about Ebert at this time is, I know, cliche, but I hadn't seen a picture of him without his lower jaw until he appeared on Oprah. It's difficult to see the man, whose thoughts and optimism I find so admirable, in such a state. Over the past few years he has become a role model of mine up there with Bertrand Russell, and Douglas Adams. Each post, I understand I am writing about what is easily perceived as a pretentious subject, but my aim is to get people as excited as I am about these films, not to look down on those who don't care. Ebert understands that we experience film and books in the same way: We use them as both a means to escape into fantasy for a time, and at others, we use them as a mirror to hold up against ourselves, revealing things that we normally attempt to hide. He wrote once, and I'm sure I could find a better quote, but this will do, "A lot of people these days don't even go to a movie once. There are alternatives. It doesn't have to be the movies, but we must somehow dream. If we don't "go to the movies" in any form, our minds wither and sicken." He should be proud in the twilight of his life, that he encourage so many, myself included, to 'go to the movies' and become sincerely invested in the beauty and artistry of cinema. I will miss him when he is gone, and will always treasure his writings and influence over my life.
http://www.esquire.com/features/roger-ebert-0310-6
The friggin insert link button is all wonky for me, and I'm too lazy to figure it out.
I've only known about film criticism in the times after Roger Ebert was an influential writer, so it's at times difficult for me to imagine what it was like before. He is famous, not for reviewing movies, but writing significant literary criticism about them. At the climax of Ratatouille, there is an essay written by the character Ego, a harsh and stubborn critic.
(I could write a whole post on why I am so affected by that speech. I find it's plea for a return to sincerity disarming and heartbreaking) The reviews Ebert writes, especially in his Great Movies series, are different from what is being spoken of here. His body of work belongs among the great American essayists. His best reviews, or at least the ones I prefer, are not the ones that insist you either see or don't see a particular movies, but the ones where he attempts to delve into the core of a movie, elevating it to art. He has become, in my sojourn through great movies, a near constant companion who often offers a different perspective. He notices things I do not. His level of study over certain movies like Citizen Kane (which someday I'll get up the nerve to address), and Dark City (he did a full length dvd commentary on it), offers true guidance to the novice filmgoer. He said once, "I have here a heartfelt message from a reader who urges me not to be so hard on stupid films, because they are 'plenty smart enough for the average moviegoer.' Yes, but one hopes being an average moviegoer is not the end of the road: that one starts as a below-average filmgoer, passes through average, and, guided by the labors of America's hardworking film critics, arrives in triumph at above-average."
There is an argument you might hear from people who play lots of video games, which is that a gamer uses his brain interactively while playing video games, while a person watching a television is passive. Sometimes that may be true, but when watching a great movie, whether for the first or the twentieth time, it seems silly to call it a passive experience. It takes alertness in all sensory experience to watch a movie because it happens so quickly. There are sounds, dialogue and camera angles. Each is an integral part of film, and I consider it a blessing that I can watch them at home with a remote in hand to pause, rewind and confront what is being shown. My ever increasing knowledge of these things would barely exist without the guidance of Roger Ebert.
To write about Ebert at this time is, I know, cliche, but I hadn't seen a picture of him without his lower jaw until he appeared on Oprah. It's difficult to see the man, whose thoughts and optimism I find so admirable, in such a state. Over the past few years he has become a role model of mine up there with Bertrand Russell, and Douglas Adams. Each post, I understand I am writing about what is easily perceived as a pretentious subject, but my aim is to get people as excited as I am about these films, not to look down on those who don't care. Ebert understands that we experience film and books in the same way: We use them as both a means to escape into fantasy for a time, and at others, we use them as a mirror to hold up against ourselves, revealing things that we normally attempt to hide. He wrote once, and I'm sure I could find a better quote, but this will do, "A lot of people these days don't even go to a movie once. There are alternatives. It doesn't have to be the movies, but we must somehow dream. If we don't "go to the movies" in any form, our minds wither and sicken." He should be proud in the twilight of his life, that he encourage so many, myself included, to 'go to the movies' and become sincerely invested in the beauty and artistry of cinema. I will miss him when he is gone, and will always treasure his writings and influence over my life.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Wonderment In Film
In most of my posts I've scratched around near the surface looking for some basic philosophic premise. Whether I'm sometimes looking for something that isn't there or perhaps simply missing the point is irrelevant to me. Each movie I've written about has affected me in some way, and my writing about them is simply me trying to sort out why they affected me a certain way. Sometimes they overwhelm me with emotion, and sometimes they make me step back and reexamine my beliefs. Other movies, however, have a goal that isn't so philosophical, but rather to create a feeling of wonder. Perhaps the makers of a film would disagree with me, but creating a sense of wonder in a person is a rare thing. Something that all directors should strive for, but few succeed. It requires such precision with every shot and every piece of music. It's the actors hitting the right emotions, the scenery, the prop that fits perfectly into a story. It's the feeling I had when first watching The Lord of the Rings, or 2001:A Space Odyssey. It's what James Cameron spent 300 million dollars trying to do in Avatar, and It's the feeling I most recently felt when watching "The Third Man."
The movie takes place in a post-war Vienna, and was filmed exclusively on location. The city looks torn down and ragged, and the opening narration informs us that the moral character of the town is also in ruins. The city is divided into four parts for each major nationality, and in the center are the international police, who are outnumbered and outwitted by the black market. After the introduction to Vienna, we are introduced to the main character, Holly Martins, who is in town to visit an old college friend named Harry Lime. It turns out, however, that his friend has recently died. From there the plot follows the twists and turns which might be expected from a suspense movie, but there is much more going on in this movie than a typical 40s or 50s thriller. The movie shines in both its cinematography and in its score. The score is primarily jazz guitar, but it sounds almost as though the guitarist is strumming with a dagger instead of a pick. At first that guitarist might seem scary, but sometimes he's funny. He's a paid musician in a public space playing his instrument with a lethal weapon, and surely that can't be good for the guitar. But, if you get close to him, you might find you nerves becoming frayed as harsh notes echo with undertones of danger and fear (that analogy might make no sense whatsoever, but I can't get it out of my head). Here's the theme, it starts at about 55 seconds in.
I'll try not to give away anymore of the film (everything I've mentioned happens in the first few minutes), because I wouldn't want to ruin any of it. But if you do watch it, pay attention to the camera. Most of the time you spend watching the actors at angles, as though the camera had just been knocked off its tripod from a nearby bomb explosion. Every part of the movie screams with the pains and nihilism of a city ravaged by war, and the remaining people living with the guilt of surviving. Still clinging onto life and wealth even if they don't know why. In the midst of this is a cheery visiting American who writes westerner novels and drinks too much.
As the movie climaxes, and the famous scenes build up one after another, we reach, perhaps the pinnacle of the movie in the last shot. It's a long one, and stands against the rest of the movie as the camera sits unmoving and parallel to the ground framed by a line of trees going off into the horizon on either side. I won't put the clip in because it reveals something of the end, and if you don't go out of your way to see any other movie I write about, see this one. Other than being an almost perfect movie, the Third Man feels like the parent of Hitchcock's North by Northwest, which itself fathered nearly every action cliche that exists today. Also it has this gem of a quote said by Orson Wells.
It's only one of many great lines. I'll shut up about it now. Next time you're in the mood for a fun romp through a war torn city with a twinge of despair, Netflix this movie or rent it from a library. It'll grab you from the overture, and won't let you go until you can do nothing but say "wow" after the final scene.
P.S. I don't want to say that there isn't any philosophical merit here, it's just that I didn't love this movie for what it 'meant' to me, but for the sheer pleasure of watching it. The same is true of 2001, but the end of that movie does make it difficult not to ask, "wtf is this movie about. "
The movie takes place in a post-war Vienna, and was filmed exclusively on location. The city looks torn down and ragged, and the opening narration informs us that the moral character of the town is also in ruins. The city is divided into four parts for each major nationality, and in the center are the international police, who are outnumbered and outwitted by the black market. After the introduction to Vienna, we are introduced to the main character, Holly Martins, who is in town to visit an old college friend named Harry Lime. It turns out, however, that his friend has recently died. From there the plot follows the twists and turns which might be expected from a suspense movie, but there is much more going on in this movie than a typical 40s or 50s thriller. The movie shines in both its cinematography and in its score. The score is primarily jazz guitar, but it sounds almost as though the guitarist is strumming with a dagger instead of a pick. At first that guitarist might seem scary, but sometimes he's funny. He's a paid musician in a public space playing his instrument with a lethal weapon, and surely that can't be good for the guitar. But, if you get close to him, you might find you nerves becoming frayed as harsh notes echo with undertones of danger and fear (that analogy might make no sense whatsoever, but I can't get it out of my head). Here's the theme, it starts at about 55 seconds in.
I'll try not to give away anymore of the film (everything I've mentioned happens in the first few minutes), because I wouldn't want to ruin any of it. But if you do watch it, pay attention to the camera. Most of the time you spend watching the actors at angles, as though the camera had just been knocked off its tripod from a nearby bomb explosion. Every part of the movie screams with the pains and nihilism of a city ravaged by war, and the remaining people living with the guilt of surviving. Still clinging onto life and wealth even if they don't know why. In the midst of this is a cheery visiting American who writes westerner novels and drinks too much.
As the movie climaxes, and the famous scenes build up one after another, we reach, perhaps the pinnacle of the movie in the last shot. It's a long one, and stands against the rest of the movie as the camera sits unmoving and parallel to the ground framed by a line of trees going off into the horizon on either side. I won't put the clip in because it reveals something of the end, and if you don't go out of your way to see any other movie I write about, see this one. Other than being an almost perfect movie, the Third Man feels like the parent of Hitchcock's North by Northwest, which itself fathered nearly every action cliche that exists today. Also it has this gem of a quote said by Orson Wells.
It's only one of many great lines. I'll shut up about it now. Next time you're in the mood for a fun romp through a war torn city with a twinge of despair, Netflix this movie or rent it from a library. It'll grab you from the overture, and won't let you go until you can do nothing but say "wow" after the final scene.
P.S. I don't want to say that there isn't any philosophical merit here, it's just that I didn't love this movie for what it 'meant' to me, but for the sheer pleasure of watching it. The same is true of 2001, but the end of that movie does make it difficult not to ask, "wtf is this movie about. "
Monday, March 1, 2010
Should James Cameron Have 2 Best Pictures or None?
Oscar night is approaching fast, and the movie fans everywhere are putting down their bets for who will take home the statue for best director and best picture. The academy has a tendency to choose the dramatic films over the fast paced, action blockbusters, but this year there is really only a two way battle between Avatar, and The Hurt Locker. Both are action movies, but one has broken nearly every box office record, while the other remains largely unseen. The other nominees are heavy underdogs, and as there are eight underdogs this year, I would wager that none will even come close to the frontrunners. What makes this Oscar race special is that Hurt Locker director Kathryn Bigelow was once married to James "King of the World" Cameron himself, and the former spouses will duke it out to the death on March 7, But who will come out on top? and who should?
Let's start with looking at what the Academy tries to do. One of its functions is to promote movies as an art form rather than popcorn entertainment. This is why it tends to ignore movies like Transformers, and favor movies like Precious (which I haven't seen). Even though the Academy is oftentimes egregiously annoying (I still haven't forgiven them for not even nominating The Dark Knight for best picture, which both hurt their credibility and showed open disdain for the public and most critics), still it performs a valuable function which is to make people go out and see movies that they might not otherwise see. Between the months of January and March, many people will find themselves stumbling into the art house theaters to catch a movie which might actually be good rather then showing up to the nearest Regal Cineplex to fork over their money for a movie they're already convinced will be above average at best, below the lowest common denominator more often. If the Academy even gets a few people to take a chance on a good movie every once in a while, it is a positive force in the world, even if it is pretentious and self-aggrandizing.
Another important function of the Academy, is that it might make a viewer reexamine a past movie which he may have shrugged off on first viewing, but it might deserve a second chance. Most recently for myself, that movie was Titanic, and it surprised me a bit. When the movie came out it was over hyped and quickly became such a cultural force that separating the film itself from its surroundings was nearly impossible. Citizen Kane is similar when you watch it for the first time. The position these films occupy in our culture makes it harder to see them for what they are. For Titanic it's cultural position is still too near for me to become objective, and every time the stupid love theme played (you know it, the one by Celine Dion) I shuddered. Still, the movie, if inferior to one of the other nominees from 1997, L.A. Confidential, is a great example of an exciting blockbuster which builds up themes and take them to a satisfying conclusion. Cameron, as he always does, paints his lead characters in absurdly broad strokes. So much so that when Billy Zane's character begins chasing Kate & Leo around the ship, he reminded me most of the hilariously campy villain played by Gary Oldman in "The 5th Element." The lines drawn between people who love money (the rich ones), and people who love people (the poor ones) are so blatant that it's difficult to take them seriously until the end. What the film does well is equalize, for the most part, the good and the bad in people when faced with death. As we watch the characters accept their fates, both rich and poor behave the same. Both struggle to survive, and the ones that do are often the ones who are willing to behave immorally. If only Cameron had spent a little more time painting some shades of gray instead of patronizing poor people by proclaiming their supposed virtues (other rich white people as well as long winded Russian novelists tend to do this. Probably to assuage their guilt about taking advantage of the lower class, but I digress). Maybe it's partly because I love epics, and maybe because the movie is pretty good after all (not great), but I do understand why this movie won its best picture awards, and I approve that the Academy was willing to support a movie which combined blockbuster effects with thematic elements.
I'm not sure if the plot of Avatar holds up in the same way as the Titanic does. Though Avatar has anti-war and environmentalist themes, it lacks any progression of those themes. There isn't the same "oh shit" moment that Titanic has at the horror of watching the boat sink, and the ways in which different characters face their guilt. The closest Avatar has to something like that is the discovery of how the Pandora wildlife is connected like a network of computers, and the obvious point about our own ecosystems that follows.
What Avatar is praised most for is, however, the incredible world and the cgi that brings it to life in 3-D. I felt watching the movie that I was experiencing something similar to what people saw when 2001: A Space Odyssey came out. There has never been a movie made quite like Avatar in terms of special effects, or one that has used the new 3-D technology not as a gimmick, but as an essential part of bringing a director's vision to life. The problem with Avatar is, that without it's 3-D trappings, it wouldn't have even gotten a nomination, and preserving the film for posterity might be difficult because our current TV's and computers can't display the new digital 3-D. If Avatar's plot isn't half good enough to win a best picture, and it's legacy may never be a film to watch over and over again but instead only known for its box office records, then there might not be any purpose in giving this movie a Best Picture Award.
It probably won't win anyways, and if the Hurt Locker wins, the Academy has done well by me. Maybe when the Hurt Locker does win people will actually go see it.
Oh, and if the title still needs to be answered, I'm okay with the Titanic winning, but I don't think Avatar should.
Let's start with looking at what the Academy tries to do. One of its functions is to promote movies as an art form rather than popcorn entertainment. This is why it tends to ignore movies like Transformers, and favor movies like Precious (which I haven't seen). Even though the Academy is oftentimes egregiously annoying (I still haven't forgiven them for not even nominating The Dark Knight for best picture, which both hurt their credibility and showed open disdain for the public and most critics), still it performs a valuable function which is to make people go out and see movies that they might not otherwise see. Between the months of January and March, many people will find themselves stumbling into the art house theaters to catch a movie which might actually be good rather then showing up to the nearest Regal Cineplex to fork over their money for a movie they're already convinced will be above average at best, below the lowest common denominator more often. If the Academy even gets a few people to take a chance on a good movie every once in a while, it is a positive force in the world, even if it is pretentious and self-aggrandizing.
Another important function of the Academy, is that it might make a viewer reexamine a past movie which he may have shrugged off on first viewing, but it might deserve a second chance. Most recently for myself, that movie was Titanic, and it surprised me a bit. When the movie came out it was over hyped and quickly became such a cultural force that separating the film itself from its surroundings was nearly impossible. Citizen Kane is similar when you watch it for the first time. The position these films occupy in our culture makes it harder to see them for what they are. For Titanic it's cultural position is still too near for me to become objective, and every time the stupid love theme played (you know it, the one by Celine Dion) I shuddered. Still, the movie, if inferior to one of the other nominees from 1997, L.A. Confidential, is a great example of an exciting blockbuster which builds up themes and take them to a satisfying conclusion. Cameron, as he always does, paints his lead characters in absurdly broad strokes. So much so that when Billy Zane's character begins chasing Kate & Leo around the ship, he reminded me most of the hilariously campy villain played by Gary Oldman in "The 5th Element." The lines drawn between people who love money (the rich ones), and people who love people (the poor ones) are so blatant that it's difficult to take them seriously until the end. What the film does well is equalize, for the most part, the good and the bad in people when faced with death. As we watch the characters accept their fates, both rich and poor behave the same. Both struggle to survive, and the ones that do are often the ones who are willing to behave immorally. If only Cameron had spent a little more time painting some shades of gray instead of patronizing poor people by proclaiming their supposed virtues (other rich white people as well as long winded Russian novelists tend to do this. Probably to assuage their guilt about taking advantage of the lower class, but I digress). Maybe it's partly because I love epics, and maybe because the movie is pretty good after all (not great), but I do understand why this movie won its best picture awards, and I approve that the Academy was willing to support a movie which combined blockbuster effects with thematic elements.
I'm not sure if the plot of Avatar holds up in the same way as the Titanic does. Though Avatar has anti-war and environmentalist themes, it lacks any progression of those themes. There isn't the same "oh shit" moment that Titanic has at the horror of watching the boat sink, and the ways in which different characters face their guilt. The closest Avatar has to something like that is the discovery of how the Pandora wildlife is connected like a network of computers, and the obvious point about our own ecosystems that follows.
What Avatar is praised most for is, however, the incredible world and the cgi that brings it to life in 3-D. I felt watching the movie that I was experiencing something similar to what people saw when 2001: A Space Odyssey came out. There has never been a movie made quite like Avatar in terms of special effects, or one that has used the new 3-D technology not as a gimmick, but as an essential part of bringing a director's vision to life. The problem with Avatar is, that without it's 3-D trappings, it wouldn't have even gotten a nomination, and preserving the film for posterity might be difficult because our current TV's and computers can't display the new digital 3-D. If Avatar's plot isn't half good enough to win a best picture, and it's legacy may never be a film to watch over and over again but instead only known for its box office records, then there might not be any purpose in giving this movie a Best Picture Award.
It probably won't win anyways, and if the Hurt Locker wins, the Academy has done well by me. Maybe when the Hurt Locker does win people will actually go see it.
Oh, and if the title still needs to be answered, I'm okay with the Titanic winning, but I don't think Avatar should.
Monday, February 22, 2010
The Big Bad Woolf
"Truth, Illusions, what's the difference?"
-George in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf
I'm tired of people being proud of not being afraid. I'm not talking about the fear of public speaking, or of heights, but one the most basic fears we have as social human beings is that one day, we'll be found out. Somebody, somewhere will discover what lies beneath the personas we put on day to day. We need to put on a persona because our inner lives are so convoluted and corrupt that it needs to be hidden away, and we do this by creating a public image, much like presidential candidates and actors do. As people not in the public eye, however, we are not stuck in one public image, but instead we shift from one character to the next. Around my employers, or my students I behave one way, but around my friends or my family I might behave entirely differently. Each person will come to know me as a certain person, but none will see me exactly the same as the next, because I behave differently around all of them. This could be interpreted as being creepy, but really it's just the nature of being friendly and empathetic. The series of personas we put on forces us to consider which one is the "real" one. Which persona is Joe qua Joe? This question is at the heart of the movie/play "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf," and yes, it scares me.
The story focuses on the witty and cruel banter between George and Martha, a husband and wife who both love and hate each other. They take turns attacking each other in what seems to be their weakest points. After a dinner party they invite over a newlywed couple and immediately begin to argue in front of them. They play extravagant roles for this couple, and the newlyweds, like the viewer, can never seem to figure out if George and Martha are in love or if they hate one another. This question, it turns out, is meaningless. Martha strongly comes onto her young attractive guest, while George berates his wife in every manner possible. We all come to understand eventually that this is just one of the many "games" the happy couple plays. For each game they play, George and Martha put on a certain face. In some games George plays the role of the offender, in others the offended. Neither persona suits them better than the other, and they switch back and forth seamlessly between the two. As the evening wears on, it starts to become clear that their terrible behavior is not, as it first appears, out of cruelty, but rather, it is a final effort to distract each other. They spend so much of their lives focusing on their spouse, who they love and hate, because so long as they focus on this other, they can avoid dealing with their own self who they fear and loathe more than anything else.
This is what a "distraction" is. So long as we have a persona which we can build up, and so long as we have an 'other' to compare our personas to, we can pretend that the illusions of our personae are real and we hope that the persona is more "real" than the horrific being that we know lurks in the depths of our mind. In Who's Afriad of Virginia Woolf the most disturbing thing, is realizing this, and seeing how cruel George and Martha are willing to be just to avoid facing themselves. When we learn that the very foundation of their relationship is an illusion, though it shouldn't come as a surprise, it does reveal just how far they are willing to go to avoid looking at themselves in earnest. And when that illusion is destroyed in public, as happens in the movie, the couple is left by themselves. The young man comes to see through so many layers of the couple that each layer is just another level of illusion built up to protect the vulnerable sadness, and evil beneath. What's worse is that he sees himself in this pair. That even if he pretends to be better than them he is merely playing a part. Putting up another illusion to be inevitably peeled away. When all the layers are gone, who knows what horrible being remains. Before the end credits we are left with these harrowing lines:
George: "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" (sung to the tune of Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf)
Martha: I am.
And she should be.
P. S. If you're wondering about the title, the question of perception and personae is the central theme of "To the Lighthouse," but I'm convinced that the treatment of the subject is even darker in this play than it is in Woolf's book. Maybe the play isn't "darker," just a little more French.
-George in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf
I'm tired of people being proud of not being afraid. I'm not talking about the fear of public speaking, or of heights, but one the most basic fears we have as social human beings is that one day, we'll be found out. Somebody, somewhere will discover what lies beneath the personas we put on day to day. We need to put on a persona because our inner lives are so convoluted and corrupt that it needs to be hidden away, and we do this by creating a public image, much like presidential candidates and actors do. As people not in the public eye, however, we are not stuck in one public image, but instead we shift from one character to the next. Around my employers, or my students I behave one way, but around my friends or my family I might behave entirely differently. Each person will come to know me as a certain person, but none will see me exactly the same as the next, because I behave differently around all of them. This could be interpreted as being creepy, but really it's just the nature of being friendly and empathetic. The series of personas we put on forces us to consider which one is the "real" one. Which persona is Joe qua Joe? This question is at the heart of the movie/play "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf," and yes, it scares me.
The story focuses on the witty and cruel banter between George and Martha, a husband and wife who both love and hate each other. They take turns attacking each other in what seems to be their weakest points. After a dinner party they invite over a newlywed couple and immediately begin to argue in front of them. They play extravagant roles for this couple, and the newlyweds, like the viewer, can never seem to figure out if George and Martha are in love or if they hate one another. This question, it turns out, is meaningless. Martha strongly comes onto her young attractive guest, while George berates his wife in every manner possible. We all come to understand eventually that this is just one of the many "games" the happy couple plays. For each game they play, George and Martha put on a certain face. In some games George plays the role of the offender, in others the offended. Neither persona suits them better than the other, and they switch back and forth seamlessly between the two. As the evening wears on, it starts to become clear that their terrible behavior is not, as it first appears, out of cruelty, but rather, it is a final effort to distract each other. They spend so much of their lives focusing on their spouse, who they love and hate, because so long as they focus on this other, they can avoid dealing with their own self who they fear and loathe more than anything else.
This is what a "distraction" is. So long as we have a persona which we can build up, and so long as we have an 'other' to compare our personas to, we can pretend that the illusions of our personae are real and we hope that the persona is more "real" than the horrific being that we know lurks in the depths of our mind. In Who's Afriad of Virginia Woolf the most disturbing thing, is realizing this, and seeing how cruel George and Martha are willing to be just to avoid facing themselves. When we learn that the very foundation of their relationship is an illusion, though it shouldn't come as a surprise, it does reveal just how far they are willing to go to avoid looking at themselves in earnest. And when that illusion is destroyed in public, as happens in the movie, the couple is left by themselves. The young man comes to see through so many layers of the couple that each layer is just another level of illusion built up to protect the vulnerable sadness, and evil beneath. What's worse is that he sees himself in this pair. That even if he pretends to be better than them he is merely playing a part. Putting up another illusion to be inevitably peeled away. When all the layers are gone, who knows what horrible being remains. Before the end credits we are left with these harrowing lines:
George: "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" (sung to the tune of Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf)
Martha: I am.
And she should be.
P. S. If you're wondering about the title, the question of perception and personae is the central theme of "To the Lighthouse," but I'm convinced that the treatment of the subject is even darker in this play than it is in Woolf's book. Maybe the play isn't "darker," just a little more French.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Sophie's Choice and Meryl Streep
Sophie's choice is a movie that, when considering watching it for the first time, is daunting. If you know anything about the book or movie I would expect it to seem daunting for these three reasons: 1.) It's almost 3 hours long. 2.) It seems like it's one of those stuffy dramas that only uptight fancy-boy filmgoers will enjoy (I'm not implying homosexuality here, just the artsy types, you know, those types), and 3.) It's a real bummer of a film. While I cannot deny that the length of the film is quite long, the other claims(which of course I just made up. Take that straw man!), were negated by what happened when I actually watched the film.
The movie was not the slow paced melodrama I expected, but rather an lively coming of age tale about love, loving life and, what always follows, death. That description makes this movie sound like Garden State, and it is surely not Garden State. Had the plot been conceived today, it would be easy to take it as a rebuttal to the traditional indie flick. Rather than starting with a character who is bored with life and looking to die, early in the movie Sophie and her lover seem to be happy and in love. Rather than learning to love and live, the characters in Sophie's Choice learn that these things are exactly what they can no longer do. Perhaps now I'm describing the difference between a comedy and a tragedy, but there are three main characters in Sophie's Choice, and even while two of its characters hurtle toward an unhappy end, the third is coming into his adulthood, and it is through his lens that we view the entire story. If his story is the main one, then maybe Sophie's choice is more like an indie flick, and perhaps has the most in common with the birth mother of all indies, Harold and Maude. Both movies interweave their dramatic stories with laughter, and there is so much joy in parts of each that when the tragic parts are revealed, the sadness that comes with them is felt more deeply.
The performances as well as the story quickly earn goodwill towards the characters, and that goodwill is used to add weight to Sophie's story of her time in a concentration camp. What, perhaps stupidly, I didn't see until the end, was that each of the moments both in the past and present was a series of choices made by each of the characters sending them down their different paths. Each of these choices, whether they are the seemingly insignificant ones of moving into a pink apartment, or the large ones of choosing which child you love more, affect us in ways we cannot predict. For Sophie and Nathan, her lover, they have, by some combination of fate and choice, been led to such a place that they cannot bear to remember themselves. The cheeriness they have at the beginning is not what we are originally led to believe. Their cheer is a mixture of drugs, alcohol and most importantly, their over emotional, over dramatic love for each other. Every fight, every fuck is a chance for them to forget the choices they made which brought them to every moment.
It's terrifying to ponder that we constantly make these choices, and slowly our destinies are written out. Each choice is made by what we believe to be the best decision, but oftentimes it is not. Sophie, as she is waiting outside of Auschwitz is harassed by a German officer. She remains silent, and so he walks away. As he is leaving, she thinks she sees an opportunity for her to be freed, so she calls out to him in an attempt to charm him. What the sadistic officer gives her is not a chance to live, but rather a choice between sacrificing one child or the other. Colloquially, Sophie's Choice refers to the second decision she has to make. It means an impossible choice that must be made. What, perhaps it should refer to is the decision to call back the officer. It was not entirely bad luck and ill fate that made her choose between her children, but that moment when she called back the officer, that put her in that position. It's a sad fact that each day we stumble through thousands of choices, and each day we hope they work out in our favor. Still, no matter how well thought through a choice is, it always might end up being a poor decision which causes you to walk right into an impossible choice.
But what separates this movie from perhaps any other film is how much weight falls upon Meryl Streep, and how well she handles it. There have been many great performances in the history of movies. Peter O'Toole in Lawrence of Arabia comes to mind first, but I don't think I've ever seen a movie where my opinion of it would change so much without the addition of a single actor. Lawrence of Arabia might not be as good of a movie without Peter O'Toole, but I think I would still enjoy watching it. I'm almost certain that without Meryl Streep, Sophie's Choice would whither and die. Her accent and difficulties speaking English seem perfectly natural, as does every emotion she feels throughout the film, and she goes through an extensive range of emotions. Her expressions allow us to understand why she loves a sometimes abusive schizophrenic man, and take us past the dialogue into understanding each of the decisions she makes that lead her to her fate.
Acting is a thing that a movie can harness in a way no other medium can. In plays it is impossible for an actor to pull off a perfect performance, but because of the ability to shoot and re-shoot scenes of a movie, the meticulousness of the actors and directors can come through in a way unlike any other format. Silent movies perhaps prove this more than any other. Look at Buster Keaton's facial expressions during any of his movies. He has a determined, strong expression which dares anyone, or anything to get between him and his goal. The expression tells us more about the character than any of the brief dialogue. Pulling that off in a play isn't possible. A play requires exaggerated gestures because the audience is further away than in film. In this post and the last, i suppose what I've been driving at is that cameras in film allow for an intimacy with the actors and the characters that cannot be replicated by a play. I'm not attempting to say that movies are superior than plays, but I am trying to explain how movies are able to explore humanity in ways that plays cannot, and explain to myself what I am even looking for in a movie that would make me call it great.
The movie was not the slow paced melodrama I expected, but rather an lively coming of age tale about love, loving life and, what always follows, death. That description makes this movie sound like Garden State, and it is surely not Garden State. Had the plot been conceived today, it would be easy to take it as a rebuttal to the traditional indie flick. Rather than starting with a character who is bored with life and looking to die, early in the movie Sophie and her lover seem to be happy and in love. Rather than learning to love and live, the characters in Sophie's Choice learn that these things are exactly what they can no longer do. Perhaps now I'm describing the difference between a comedy and a tragedy, but there are three main characters in Sophie's Choice, and even while two of its characters hurtle toward an unhappy end, the third is coming into his adulthood, and it is through his lens that we view the entire story. If his story is the main one, then maybe Sophie's choice is more like an indie flick, and perhaps has the most in common with the birth mother of all indies, Harold and Maude. Both movies interweave their dramatic stories with laughter, and there is so much joy in parts of each that when the tragic parts are revealed, the sadness that comes with them is felt more deeply.
The performances as well as the story quickly earn goodwill towards the characters, and that goodwill is used to add weight to Sophie's story of her time in a concentration camp. What, perhaps stupidly, I didn't see until the end, was that each of the moments both in the past and present was a series of choices made by each of the characters sending them down their different paths. Each of these choices, whether they are the seemingly insignificant ones of moving into a pink apartment, or the large ones of choosing which child you love more, affect us in ways we cannot predict. For Sophie and Nathan, her lover, they have, by some combination of fate and choice, been led to such a place that they cannot bear to remember themselves. The cheeriness they have at the beginning is not what we are originally led to believe. Their cheer is a mixture of drugs, alcohol and most importantly, their over emotional, over dramatic love for each other. Every fight, every fuck is a chance for them to forget the choices they made which brought them to every moment.
It's terrifying to ponder that we constantly make these choices, and slowly our destinies are written out. Each choice is made by what we believe to be the best decision, but oftentimes it is not. Sophie, as she is waiting outside of Auschwitz is harassed by a German officer. She remains silent, and so he walks away. As he is leaving, she thinks she sees an opportunity for her to be freed, so she calls out to him in an attempt to charm him. What the sadistic officer gives her is not a chance to live, but rather a choice between sacrificing one child or the other. Colloquially, Sophie's Choice refers to the second decision she has to make. It means an impossible choice that must be made. What, perhaps it should refer to is the decision to call back the officer. It was not entirely bad luck and ill fate that made her choose between her children, but that moment when she called back the officer, that put her in that position. It's a sad fact that each day we stumble through thousands of choices, and each day we hope they work out in our favor. Still, no matter how well thought through a choice is, it always might end up being a poor decision which causes you to walk right into an impossible choice.
But what separates this movie from perhaps any other film is how much weight falls upon Meryl Streep, and how well she handles it. There have been many great performances in the history of movies. Peter O'Toole in Lawrence of Arabia comes to mind first, but I don't think I've ever seen a movie where my opinion of it would change so much without the addition of a single actor. Lawrence of Arabia might not be as good of a movie without Peter O'Toole, but I think I would still enjoy watching it. I'm almost certain that without Meryl Streep, Sophie's Choice would whither and die. Her accent and difficulties speaking English seem perfectly natural, as does every emotion she feels throughout the film, and she goes through an extensive range of emotions. Her expressions allow us to understand why she loves a sometimes abusive schizophrenic man, and take us past the dialogue into understanding each of the decisions she makes that lead her to her fate.
Acting is a thing that a movie can harness in a way no other medium can. In plays it is impossible for an actor to pull off a perfect performance, but because of the ability to shoot and re-shoot scenes of a movie, the meticulousness of the actors and directors can come through in a way unlike any other format. Silent movies perhaps prove this more than any other. Look at Buster Keaton's facial expressions during any of his movies. He has a determined, strong expression which dares anyone, or anything to get between him and his goal. The expression tells us more about the character than any of the brief dialogue. Pulling that off in a play isn't possible. A play requires exaggerated gestures because the audience is further away than in film. In this post and the last, i suppose what I've been driving at is that cameras in film allow for an intimacy with the actors and the characters that cannot be replicated by a play. I'm not attempting to say that movies are superior than plays, but I am trying to explain how movies are able to explore humanity in ways that plays cannot, and explain to myself what I am even looking for in a movie that would make me call it great.
Monday, February 8, 2010
The Greatness of Movies
For some time now I've been watching as many of the greatest movies ever made as I can. Years ago I became interested in reading film criticism, mostly off of the A.V. Club website, and then in Roger Ebert's film reviews. He is famous for writing scathing reviews of hackneyed movies, but more interestingly, he writes about movies from a pop philosophical perspective. Many of his reviews reach beyond what we might think of as film criticism and act as stand alone essays. An example is this one of Synecdoche, NY, which is a baffling movie when first watched, but on repeat viewings becomes one of the best movies I've ever seen. I purposively say "best" rather than favorite. Without his review ( http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081105/REVIEWS/811059995 ) I think I might never have gone back to watch it a second time, but his writing made the movie sound so appealing, I had to see it again. Like Ebert, I'm not done with it, and will watch it again (.
His ongoing project is to review many of his old favorites in the "Great Movies" section of the Chicago Times Website, and oftentimes his reviews will make me work harder to understand why these movies is so revered. Like the AFI, I do feel like there is a bias towards older films, and even after trying to enjoy some of these movies I still found them quite boring and pointless. Still, because of this list, and because of these reviews, and have stumbled upon some movies which have expanded what I even thought possible to do with a movie.
This is the first of hopefully many posts in which I record, and process my thoughts about cinema (using the words cinema and film instead of movies is how to make yourself sound smart!), and explain why film can be not just entertaining, but as rewarding as reading a great book, or going to the opera, or watching a play. So here we go.
To make movies a valid art form there needs to be a specific reason as to why a story needs to be told using a camera rather than any other method. I imagine that the early plays were popular because they were able to do something that traditional storytelling was not, which was to provide a living embodiment of a character with which the audience could empathize with more immediately. A character is no longer something in the imagination, but has taken a physical form and can speak to the audience directly, or interact with his fellow characters. The empathy of the viewer becomes more engaged as the emotions and pains of the actor are more real than in story form. There may be other advantages to using the form of a play over story, but it seems that the main one is to draw out the emotions of the audience even more than stories.
I feel that the above paragraph doesn't even come close to doing justice to the topic, and perhaps I'll explain more later. For now, it'll have to do.
Movies, then it seems, have to be able to express something, or bring some preexisting aspect of storytelling to the foreground that can't be done as well in plays, poems, stories or novels. While thinking about this, I again stumbled across the Hitchcock movie "Notorious," and it revealed to me a small portion of how movies can do something unique among storytelling formats (I'll talk more directly about Notorious in a different post). As silly as it sounds, my revelation about movies was this: they use a camera to make them. The wonderful invention of the camera let's the viewer quite literally see what a character sees. It allows the director to focus in on tiny details, and microscopic reactions in the faces of characters without dwelling on any of them. In a novel, when a detail is pointed out it can throw off the rhythm of the story, while in a movie, if a camera lovingly flickers over a key being passed off between two people while maintaining the action at a constant pace. When a glimmer of a smile passes across an actor's face oftentimes the viewer won't even be sure he saw it. Or as an example, near the end of the movie, "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner," while Spencer Tracy (who in real life was ill and dying) was giving a final, long speech about love and race and everything, in the back of the shot his wife, played by Katherine Hepburn, begins to well up. The light glistens off each tear as she stands silently in the background, not even in focus. In a movie i found otherwise unaffecting, seeing those tears in her eyes overwhelmed. The beauty of that shot could go unnoticed because of its subtlety. Later, Robert Osborne (The guy who hosts most TCM things) informed me that those tears were not planned, but actually Katherine Hepburn realizing she was witnessing perhaps the last time anyone would ever see Spencer Tracy acting. That fact made it even more interesting to me that I found the shot so incredible.
These little moments, which continually I find to be the most affecting parts of movies, are one reason why movies do something no other genre can do. It might not seem like much, but never before movies, were actors able to bring so much to a story without drawing attention to themselves. These powerful moments, lurking in the background of great movies are something that cannot be replicated. Plays might try, but think about this. In the movie Rosencrantz and Guildernstern are dead, Gary Oldman (whichever he was), throughout, was discovering the laws of physics through accident, and when he did so it was briefly acknowledged by the camera and then passed over. This wasn't part of the script for the play on which the movie was based. If, even in a play a director tried to accomplish this, it would require that he draw attention to that behavior. Because of the virtues of movies, however, Stoppard was able to show us this display (which is the most memorable part of the movie for me). It's often been quoted to me from somewhere, that there's no such thing as subtlety in filmmaking. I think that's wrong, and that subtlety tends to exist in films in a way that it cannot exist anywhere else.
This only seems to cover a tiny portion of why film is great, and I hope to expand on this post in the next.
It's getting late, and I'm getting tired. Good night y'all.
His ongoing project is to review many of his old favorites in the "Great Movies" section of the Chicago Times Website, and oftentimes his reviews will make me work harder to understand why these movies is so revered. Like the AFI, I do feel like there is a bias towards older films, and even after trying to enjoy some of these movies I still found them quite boring and pointless. Still, because of this list, and because of these reviews, and have stumbled upon some movies which have expanded what I even thought possible to do with a movie.
This is the first of hopefully many posts in which I record, and process my thoughts about cinema (using the words cinema and film instead of movies is how to make yourself sound smart!), and explain why film can be not just entertaining, but as rewarding as reading a great book, or going to the opera, or watching a play. So here we go.
To make movies a valid art form there needs to be a specific reason as to why a story needs to be told using a camera rather than any other method. I imagine that the early plays were popular because they were able to do something that traditional storytelling was not, which was to provide a living embodiment of a character with which the audience could empathize with more immediately. A character is no longer something in the imagination, but has taken a physical form and can speak to the audience directly, or interact with his fellow characters. The empathy of the viewer becomes more engaged as the emotions and pains of the actor are more real than in story form. There may be other advantages to using the form of a play over story, but it seems that the main one is to draw out the emotions of the audience even more than stories.
I feel that the above paragraph doesn't even come close to doing justice to the topic, and perhaps I'll explain more later. For now, it'll have to do.
Movies, then it seems, have to be able to express something, or bring some preexisting aspect of storytelling to the foreground that can't be done as well in plays, poems, stories or novels. While thinking about this, I again stumbled across the Hitchcock movie "Notorious," and it revealed to me a small portion of how movies can do something unique among storytelling formats (I'll talk more directly about Notorious in a different post). As silly as it sounds, my revelation about movies was this: they use a camera to make them. The wonderful invention of the camera let's the viewer quite literally see what a character sees. It allows the director to focus in on tiny details, and microscopic reactions in the faces of characters without dwelling on any of them. In a novel, when a detail is pointed out it can throw off the rhythm of the story, while in a movie, if a camera lovingly flickers over a key being passed off between two people while maintaining the action at a constant pace. When a glimmer of a smile passes across an actor's face oftentimes the viewer won't even be sure he saw it. Or as an example, near the end of the movie, "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner," while Spencer Tracy (who in real life was ill and dying) was giving a final, long speech about love and race and everything, in the back of the shot his wife, played by Katherine Hepburn, begins to well up. The light glistens off each tear as she stands silently in the background, not even in focus. In a movie i found otherwise unaffecting, seeing those tears in her eyes overwhelmed. The beauty of that shot could go unnoticed because of its subtlety. Later, Robert Osborne (The guy who hosts most TCM things) informed me that those tears were not planned, but actually Katherine Hepburn realizing she was witnessing perhaps the last time anyone would ever see Spencer Tracy acting. That fact made it even more interesting to me that I found the shot so incredible.
These little moments, which continually I find to be the most affecting parts of movies, are one reason why movies do something no other genre can do. It might not seem like much, but never before movies, were actors able to bring so much to a story without drawing attention to themselves. These powerful moments, lurking in the background of great movies are something that cannot be replicated. Plays might try, but think about this. In the movie Rosencrantz and Guildernstern are dead, Gary Oldman (whichever he was), throughout, was discovering the laws of physics through accident, and when he did so it was briefly acknowledged by the camera and then passed over. This wasn't part of the script for the play on which the movie was based. If, even in a play a director tried to accomplish this, it would require that he draw attention to that behavior. Because of the virtues of movies, however, Stoppard was able to show us this display (which is the most memorable part of the movie for me). It's often been quoted to me from somewhere, that there's no such thing as subtlety in filmmaking. I think that's wrong, and that subtlety tends to exist in films in a way that it cannot exist anywhere else.
This only seems to cover a tiny portion of why film is great, and I hope to expand on this post in the next.
It's getting late, and I'm getting tired. Good night y'all.
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