Tlog Bitle

Week End

2008-12-06T18:48:00.007-05:00

Godard's Week End sidesteps the conventional mode of filmmaking and narrative. It works slightly through what would be called the "road film." This road film is a little bit different from most road films in that it deconstructs the "genre" to the point of complete disjunction. The paranoiac and erratic journey takes the characters through a wide range of non sequiturs all connecting in that they follow a path, or a journey. The hodological device of the road allows us to move and sequence ourselves according to given paths and routes. We are told what lines to follow to get to a given destination. This is about speed. How do we conquer any given distance in a timely fashion? With technology. With speed. Moving is money. The film makes this apparent. It is a deconstruction of technological currency. Godard, however, shows both ends of the spectrum. When it comes to the cannibal community life is moved off-road, it is somewhere in the woods. Does this suggest that where there is no path there is danger? Perhaps. Or, it explores the idea that without paths there is a (potentially) dangerous autonomy. Without laws or morals, perhaps, there is an any-thing-goes tendency, which propels people into irrational behavior to the point of selfish and inhumane killing. For the cannibal community could easily have become an agrarian community. So why portray the outside, the off-road, as being cruel, brutal, and bloodthirsty? This is not de Sade's mechanical move through irrational sexual tendencies, but it does work to expose the same principle. We are creatures of morals, creatures of paths, a "civilized" society. Yet, perhaps, our behaviors are merely accidental; our moral grounding falls in and out, changes from space to space, changes from time to time, picks up and puts down new connections that fall in the categories "right" and "wrong". Godard makes these changes and the susceptibility/possibility for change quite clear. The diatribes from the garbage-men make these varying perspectives and moral incompossibilities of the world more apparent. These things do not "gel," and yet they tend to flow through culture, through our behaviors; to, again, quote from one of Lang's lines in Contempt "the illogical borrows from the logical." Things do not make much sense in our world and yet some how we rationalize all of these irrationalities. Perhaps I am taking this too far, but this seems to be precisely what Godard is hinting at, what he is saying without directly addressing it. He could go on a diatribe, a bit like I have (above), but that would merely confuse, it would only speak (with language/logic) of these issues; instead, he visualizes these discontinuities, he takes us out of our element in order to turn the mirror on us, as the subjects of this irrational behavior. Take Week End for a (filmic) "comic-strip" if you will; it is the comic strip which displays the hyperreality of everyday life, slices out a moment of life and displays its discontinuities and banalities in order to allow a moment for reflection, it is a morbid humor (without all the gore and violence, which Godard uses, but with good reason; to shock, to startle!).

2 or 3 Things I know About Her

2008-12-03T15:41:00.008-05:00

In the film 2 or 3 Things I know About Her Godard moves further into a critical and overtly political position. He reveals all the gruesome details about the commodities which have slowly dominated Western culture, more specifically in and around Paris. Take for instance the man who both watches the children and, at the same time, lends rooms to the prostitutes. He is paid in commodities: canned goods, beverages, foods, etc. Commodities have become the main circulatory source/force for Western culture. The city itself loses itself to the force of the image. Signs, as he shows, are "drowning reality" against the imagination. The garage shows how cars, these objects, have become little centers of our attention. We care for these objects as much as we would care for another individual. These commodities are our reality. Our encounter with the American goes one step further when he has the two women wear the bags, displaying corporate airline logos, over their heads. This moves us from becoming reliant upon these objects to us fetishizing these objects/signs/logos (these commodities/commodified-images themselves become the object of kind of prostitution). This also becomes clear when we peruse the clothing stores with Juliette. Godard, however, reverses this attack on the image, on the sign, when he displays the horrific images from the War in Vietnam. The power of the image can allow us to be conscious of our surroundings. By displaying these explicitly graphic images Godard imposes on us a move toward Global thinking. This is a rather young idea when it comes to the masses, or rather mass conscientiousness/consciousness. Conquest and conscious understanding of the world were little known to the masses until these “mass-technological” devices were developed. This brings the outside and distanced world to the inside, which forces us to think and feel (about that which fills the image). However, in modern society these world-conscious images are stuffed away in favor of commodity images. It is not the trauma of these countries but the travel to these countries that we see everywhere. These banal images/signs/commodities do not supply us with expressions or passions. Juliette describes this lack of passion when she describes the feeling that something is missing (perhaps she yearns for a creative/authentic experience). These commodities and images are banal because we reproduce what comes from them. We do not create, instead we accumulate. Everyday mundane life is suffocated by these images; we desire these images, and yet once they are attained there is another image to replace the last, another desire, in an endless stream of images/commodities and desires. This might be why Juliette describers herself as feeling scattered. She is so fragmented by these images and the hodological space that they carve into our lives, into our culture, that she loses herself.

Contempt

2008-12-01T17:41:00.012-05:00

Godard's film Contempt is a film that works through the making of a film. He takes us through the process of production, from producer to director and scriptwriter. But the film is not only a comment on the multifarious roles of these individuals; it is primarily a film centered around the woman character, the potential arbiter of the scriptwriter's musings and their anonymous tango with emotional animosity. Godard opens the film with her in a most primeval state, laying prostrate in the nude. This laying-bare of her whole body is juxtaposed with a dialog that fragments her body. Camille (Bardot) asks Paul if he likes parts of her body, all separate parts, and never the whole. The camera follows these parts, tearing away from the unity of her body. This "making-apparent" the assemblage of the body opens up the topic of language. It is words themselves which tear apart and bring things together. He attends to the furtive nature (/the shifting appearance) of language through the various language barriers between characters in the film. But he also brings forth this dimension of the emotional, of body language. This is clearly expressed in the relationship between Paul and Camille, both of whom struggle to cope with their emotional differences. These differences prompt erratic behavior in the two main characters. Life between these two is like a fold or a tide that swallows the action. Instead of acting, they wallow in their indecisiveness, their love loses its potency, its desirous capacity. This emotional landscape, this directionlessness, has a tendency to fold in on ones "frame" of reference. Both Camille and Paul feel the emptiness, and yet they fail to comprehend their emotions. As humans, we try to solidify love, to put it into “truth”. But it is as invisible as the language that speaks of it, it is an emotion. This brings me to Lang’s comment about God, he says, “Now it's no longer the presence of God, but the absence of God, that reassures man.” It is his absence that reassures us, but what fills up this absence other than faith, passion, or emotion? This is precisely the same case for love. Despite the fact that you can “act” love, or show love, it is an intangible unity. It is passion or emotion for something or someone that fills the “frame” with its potencies, its potentials. But in the case of Camille and Paul, this feeling within the “frame” seeps out, and they wonder where it has gone, how they can reclaim it. This seeping finds its way out from the efficacy and assemblage of the fold. New events and “indiscernibles” let loose parts of the fold. We cannot contain within ourselves a single mode of being. There are constantly internal and external stimuli which mold and shape the way we are attuned to other stimuli (including memories, feelings, objects, etc.), so that there is this constant flux. This instability of the individual also brings us back to the instability of truth. Jerry belies the “stability of truth,” he dominates, he wants reactions (he provokes), and furthermore he negates creation. He forces the ills and illusions of “power” over other individuals. Is he not the force behind the rupture between Paul and Camille? Despite the fact that we cannot point to an exact reasoning for this, or a precise moment in the film, we get the sense that Jerry is the wedge between the two main protagonists. Also, Jerry frequents a little book the size of his palm, reading from it various proverbs. This authority of the proverb brings to light how much text and logic add to our own indecisive or “in-between” states and the erratic or "being-lost" behavior that results. This brings to mind the comment of Lang’s that says “the illogical borrows from the logical”. These words (speech, dialog, etc.) “battle” the on-earth of our connections; our inability to express frustrates, and accentuates our earthly being-there/here, our position in the world without relying on language to define our status, our percepts. Godard uses distant shots in order to empty the image of emotion, of passion. This distance has the effect of alienation, we too do not quite know where to place our emotions, so we keep them at a bit of a distance. The few shots that are close-up come at moments of intense emotion. Take for instance, the scene where Paul slaps Camille across the face. Thereafter, Godard cuts to a close-up of her turning her face, which is hiding against the wall at first and slowly turns to reveal itself in all its potency. Camille expresses her desire for newness, spontaneity and potential, and yet, she can not escape; she is folded in, not just into a relationship with Paul, but a social relationship with everything that connects with Paul: the house, the clothes, these items of culture. Overall, Godard shows us that both language and feelings struggle to work together. He shows how language has a tendency to dominate in our culture, to the point where it tries to replace or label our emotions, so much so to the point where we lose touch with emotions and do not know how to respond to them.

Pierrot Le Fou

2008-11-29T11:50:00.003-05:00

Godard's 1965 film Pierrot Le Fou is different from his earlier films in that he moves beyond deconstructing/mutating genres. Instead, for him, it is about capturing the essence of mutation itself. This leads me to believe that Godard, in this film, works in what Deleuze would call the ballade/ballad (trip/ballad). Deleuze explains that the mutation that comes from the trip/ballad is a sort of "weakness of the motor-linkages, the weak connections, that are capable of releasing huge forces of disintegration." We see this when the characters come into or arrive at situations that challenge their sensory-motor responses, and lead to dislocated movements (sometimes acts, sometimes observations/"seeing", at any rate a happening). Ferdinand does not know what to expect from the trip, instead, he comes into it head on; there is no perception of the action, it is just movement through events opening up to him. The center of attention is not Pierrot or Marianne but rather each event of the film, each new obstacle, becomes a center in itself. The situations themselves become the "characters" looking for action to fill them up, sometimes action arrives and other times it is nowhere to be found. This brings me to the passage Ferdinand reads about Velasquez. Like Velasquez Godard "drift[s] around things like air, like twilight, catching unawares in the shimmering shadows the nuances of color that he transformed into the invisible core." This also speaks of the ballad aspect of the film, which moves through music/song in order to "transform" the events and their relation to the objects (including the characters) at hand. The relationship between Marianne and Pierrot is no different. Details about Marianne spill out onto the scene without any cause, transforming the event without any connectives. For instance, it is revealed that her so-called brother is actually her lover. Also, the relationship unfolds to separate the two characters' behaviors. Pierrot, along the trip, discovers his literary ambitions anew. Marianne, on the other hand, follows her urge to be free, her desire to move away from words and responses, she is about spontaneity and action. These little divisions are little creations/potentials that birth through/in the film. What Godard is filming here, as abovementioned, are these mutations and transformation, and not the concrete (instead, a non-normative storyline, non-solidified characters, etc). He takes this as far as moving through different artistic references outside of film history. Take for instance the color, the primary colors of Piet Mondrian seem to flow through the scene, seamlessly affecting the aura/tone of both the settings and the characters. At the end when Ferdinand paints his face, making an artistic creation of himself (with his face as the canvas), the "International Klein Blue" of Yves Klein richly colors the expression and "faceity" of the scene (especially in the close-up shots of his face). We move through "high art" references without ever seeing a direct re-presentation of the artists' works. These colors become something other, they are a mutation of their original form. But these mutations create new potentials, new combinations; they flow through new spaces, new objects, completely unlike their original space (the stretched canvas).

Some notes: Deleuze - Cinema 2
pp.19: [Characters] of the trip/ballad are unconcerned (they are 'mutants') [...] it is precisely the weakness of the motor-linkages, the weak connections, that are capable of releasing huge forces of disintegration...

pp.19: Godard says that to describe is to observe mutations. Mutation of Europe after the war, mutation of Americanized Japan, mutation of France in '68 [...] cinema [...] becomes completely political, but in another way...

pp.20: A new type of actor [...] professional non-actors [...] 'actor mediums', capable of seeing and showing rather than acting...

pp.20: [Even] metaphors are sensory-motor evasions, and furnish us with something to say when we no longer know what to do...

pp.22: [Elements] of the image enter into internal relations which means that the whole image has to be 'read', no less than seen, readable as well as visible [...] The cinema is going to become an analytic of the image...

Alphaville

2008-11-06T17:47:00.010-05:00

Godard's Alphaville is an exquisitely oblique take on two genres, science fiction and film noir. It was brought up in class that perhaps the film is prophetic, in that it was about the future of our world. But is the film actually about the future? It seems to me that he uses and skews these two genres to create a new world. He uses Lemmy Caution to create a legend. It is what Vonbaun says upon meeting with Caution, "You'll become a legend Lemmy Caution," which adds to the fiction of the world we view, we see myth in the making. The world contains many disjointed and parodic gestures. This parodic aspect can be viewed in several ways. For one, it can be quite unsettling for the viewer, and at the same time it carries a comic element that draws us into the world, but at the same time keeps us from identifying with the characters. We relate to the forces of this cinematic world, but the characters are so abstrusely designed that we are unaffected by them, or do not know precisely how to feel about them. This parodic element also has an element of reflexivity in response to the world, and to ideology. Godard essentially, as abovementioned, creates his own universe in order for the viewer to juxtapose it with our own. This ultimately entrenches us in a new world, with new gestures, new modes of experience, as it is explored through the world of hyper-logic. But this new world allows us to distance ourselves from our own reality, our truth. From this film we can take this distance and look back on our own gestures, and see that they too can appear to be artificial; or that our sense of logic and religion can appear to be quite comic if we see what ritualistic habits they maintain. We get a sense that our own world is perhaps as artificial as Alphaville. The people of Alphaville do not see this in their world, they take reality for truth, "logic" as absolute. It is not until the system collapses that the artificiality is revealed. By then the people become baseless, their hyper-logic grounding collapses, and a crisis emerges. The people are empty, they become tactile, their sensory perception is new to them, it is no longer a trained instrument of action. Lemmy the legend understood this, his otherworldliness allowed him to see, like the viewers, that this is a strange place. Henry on the other hand was carried away by the world of Alphaville. He tried hard to maintain his otherworldliness (his "Outlandness") by looking for love, etc., but ended up forgetting himself, for instance, wondering what the word "why" meant (for it was not in the Alphaville bible). At any rate, Alphaville's relative proximity to our own world allows us to draw intimate connections between it and our own world. As it was mentioned in class, the buildings, the cars, the clothing, etc. are all very similar to our own. It is particularly the idea of Alphaville that takes us out of our worldly element. We see that the characters' behaviors are starkly different from our own. The freeway becomes an interstellar pathway between galaxies. The Alpha 60 computer, this "truth machine", heads the technocracy. The people become as affectless as their "ruler", the computer. Godard uses and construes our everyday objects and spaces to build false truths into this new world, Alphaville. It is precisely this making false of everything that reveals the "idea" of Alphaville. Godard exposes the nihilism of Alphavillean ideology, and Vonbaun's will-to-dominate, as opposed to will-to-power. It is nothing of the will-to-power. Instead, it prohibits creative potential, and adheres to the strict circulation of "logical" rhetoric. And affects or forces become numbed and/or exploited for Alphaville's own negative means.

Deleuze:
It is what Nietzsche called the stages of nihilism, the spirit of revenge in various shapes. Behind the truthful man, who judges life from the perspective of supposedly higher values, there is the sick man, 'the man sick with himself,' who judges life from the perspective of his sickness, his degeneration and his exhaustion.
pp. 141 Cinema 2

By raising the false to power, life freed itself of appearances as well as truth. . .
pp. 145 Cinema 2

Les Carabiniers

2008-10-31T16:39:00.011-05:00

Despite its political convolution, Godard's 1963 film Les Carabiniers (The Riflemen) is a movement toward the politics of war, and more specifically that of the conquest (which relates obliquely to our present predicament of Globalization). What stands out most is the secondary relationship between the various techniques and themes of the film to that of the work of Nietzsche (specifically ideas surrounding the will to power and the eternal return). The film works through various simulations. Take, for instance, that of the social figures whom are called upon by some higher force, the government or, in this case, the king. The two men, or riflemen, Ulysses and Michelangelo become docile figures in a game of conquest. They are mesmerized into the atrocities of subjugation via social and political illusions. But where does the grandeur of these illusions come from? The two men find more Passion in these illusive possessions (monuments, vehicles, women, animals, etc) than they have for the innocents of whom they selflessly massacre. Dare I say that Godard is suggesting that we are living in a world of sycophants? God is dead. We have replaced god with two complicit illusions: objects wearing opulent masks, i.e. powerful objects of illusion, and supposed higher-values of humanity, in other words subservience to the word of the King, of the government, to law. Godard works further on the theme of simulation from the stand point of the image. In the end, these dupes, these "higher men," are in visible possession of their illusions, they possess the simulacral content of their desired objects, images, or imagined figures (it is all something, something other than the actual object, only virtually connected to the actual object... perhaps an imprint). This is reflexive of the process that leads them to their desires in the first place, they desire their illusions through the illusions of their milieu. For this is what Nietzsche is talking about when he describes nihilism. After the death of God, Nietzsche explains that the "higher man" finds himself in a position to react; this reaction is only an affirmation of the products of nihilism. Negation and reaction prevent the One from becoming the multiple, a multiplicity of heterogeneity. Instead, we follow the one, the King, that is responsible for our milieu. This reactionary position leads to a vicious cycle of circulation and thwarts any action from flowing through life as it is. There is a blockage, transmutation cannot and will not exist if we succumb to the illusion, if we follow the King's hegemonical homogeneity. Our identities are byproducts of this blockage, our being is simple, it reacts and negates. Thus the potential for creation is lost. Instead, we, like the two riflemen, bask and bath in the illusion of the image, an unthinking process then tends toward this repetitive circulation of signs and desires. Such that these atrocious desires, these illusions, lead the two men to rank human relations with an inferiority (and, thus, primacy to these given objects of desire, illusions). The film moves us into thought, indirectly addressing this need to reestablish a connection with Dionysus, with creation and compassion. The will to power, as Deleuze reads it, is about a reciprocity and affirmation between the forces of the multitude, to simultaneously command and obey. The strength of affirmation, of creative potential, is nil in the face of the many reactive forces that internally subtract from such actions in all directions. It stifles our ability to become, and thus repudiates multiplicity ("practical joy of the diverse"). It is thus the One that prevails. Like in Les Carabiniers, we visualize the many in regards to the One -- the being that is made up of one, a Higher value -- that of the King's word. His word, his illusion engulfs these civilians whole, it is a contagion, and if you are not one then you are the enemy; and, furthermore, if you are the enemy then you are dead. This is total negation. Although Godard does not necessarily directly imply action, or revolution for that matter, by essence of what he shows and how he shows it, the invisible call for action (the force toward thought) is there. And, as his work progresses we can see this tendency toward action becomes more and more forthright and explicit.

Vivre se Vie

2008-10-30T16:35:00.004-05:00

Godard's third film, Vivre se Vie (My life to Live), is a dispersive movement toward pure expression. When Nana declares "I think life should be easy" she ultimately describes the inexpressible nature of patriarchal society. This works in tandem with Godard's subversive use of affection images, the many close-ups of Nana's face, which become expression-in-itself. She passes through the order of things in order to survive. This brings me back to A Woman is a Woman, when Karina's character wants to have a child. She wants to be maternal. For it is this affectual desire that takes the place of the order of things. She is more attuned to these natural relations. The same goes for Nana, the complexity of order is enough to make her want to escape it. But even the escape is an act. She plays a double role here, both actress (of the film) and aspiring actress (in the film). Godard gets at this idea of prostitution through these models of acting. We are prostitutes of our milieu. We sell ourselves until death. These moments of pure expression and moments of contemplation (such as her discussion with the philosopher) explore the limits of language and of the image. When Nana's body circulates through the hands of all these men, the "customers," the pimp, her boyfriend, and even the spectators of the film itself, it is about a circulation of money. Time is money. This is reflexive of the film, as well, where time and money mark and make the image. He reveals for us the status of time. And even the one piece by Poe (at the end of the film) which Godard reads (dubbed) is about gaining time. What is Godard trying to imply? Nana, as abovementioned, is the face of expression, and furthermore is the face of time. She is there to experienced, and there to read for what it is worth. She is both the image and expression that goes beyond language, she is a glimpse of time, in all its simplicity.

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg

2008-10-23T17:31:00.005-05:00

Jacques Demy's second film, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, works in between the artifice and the actual. He subverts the musical genre, and creates an unhinged operatic spectacle. The film's naturalistic storyline works in tandem with the artificiality of grandiose musical elements (constant song, choreographed movements, unnatural color schemes, etc). The mundane (everyday banality) becomes spectacle. But precisely what effect does this have on the film overall? These hyperreal elements of the film provoke a tendency for thought in the viewer. These striking oppositions, artificiality and naturalism, are conflated together in order to illuminate particular things about our own world in relation to the world on the screen. It calls into question "realness" itself. In our world, the "real" has become something "more-than-real," and yet we tend to let this illusion of "realness" elude our sense everyday. But, the fact of the matter is, we are surrounded by all of this artificiality, of these copies and models. The film, as bittersweet as it is (because of its bitter reality i.e., the Algerian war and the repetitive banality of middle class life, and the sweetness which comes from the colorful and melodic spectacle), references these models and inflates them into a sort of spectacle (fantastical) world. The naturalism of the film is brought together with its artificial counterpart, but only in order to bring about elements of contrast in order to promote thought regarding the status of reality, both external and internal to the film. This forces us to ask questions about the "realness" (or "hyperrealness") of models in our society: of patriotism, marriage, family, sexuality, gender, class, institutions, etc. It plays with clichés to expose the world of clichés, questioning them in order to threaten them and the loose facade that they create, multiply, and thrive on.

My Night at Maud's

2008-10-19T16:07:00.004-05:00

Eric Rohmer's third moral tale, My night at Maud's, explores and visualizes the individual desire to practice what one preaches in the face of everyday hardships and relationships. It is a film with little action. It moves in the form of text that is experienced. The film follows the conversational dialogs in three of the four main characters. The interconnectedness of these characters brings together the characters' differing worldviews and the way in which they practice their given philosophies. It revolves around Jean-Louis' moralizing in the face of love and lust, and how these two things birth from rituals and moral perpetuated onto him from his (Catholic) milieu. The other characters, namely Vidal and Maud, challenge his worldview of the milieu with their philosophies, and their own lifestyles and upbringings (especially Maud's). This film humanizes ("practicalizes") the philosophies of these characters. It shows how they live around the ideologies that they advocate. For Jean-Louis this comes in the form of a sort of midlife crisis where he struggles between his beliefs and his desires. He works through the barriers of the milieu, and yet never really goes beyond them. This struggle, which is encompassed in a brief relationship with Maud, starting with his first night with her and then the subsequently short-lived relationship they have thereafter, shows how even his (perhaps) curious (or perhaps fervent) desires cannot vie or challenge his Catholic rhetoric. Because she does not practice, she is not worthy of his love; instead, she is a threat. It is as though he fears that if she tears down one of his moral walls, then she will begin to tear away at the fabric of his moral consciousness (and thus damn him to an afterlife without salvation). This moral threat frightens Jean-Louis to the point that he will not even sleep in bed next to Maud, and later, when he finally does move next to her, he wraps a barrier (a blanket) around himself so as not to be penetrated by her (or her worldview). But is it really about her? Or, is it Jean-Louis' fear of his own weakness, and furthermore his fear of change that has him react in this manner? She does not force herself upon him, in fact, she does her best to show him that he has the power to make the choices that he does. He takes her comforting demeanor for charming lust. Is this idea of seduction not perpetuated by the Catholic rhetoric with which he lives by? His fears are a product of the worldview with which he has been indoctrinated by. And yet, despite his denial of it, he feels as though he is the innocent. This blind-eye pushes him away from her. Instead he is lured in by Francoise. He finds his love at church, in the milieu where he feels most comfortable, because it does not threaten his worldview. But is not the way in which he pursues her rather odd? After he sees her in church he, unbeknownst to her, follows her, and on frequent subsequent occasions he continues to do the same. He is trying to take control of his fate and hers. It is no longer a Pascalian wager with chance. It becomes a game of cat and mouse with Francoise in the crosshairs. This pursuance brings him back to Earth, he is no longer wagering on an invisible infinite potential; nor is he allowing predetermination to take the helm and direct him toward his infatuation. In this sense the film plays on many contradictions between theory and practice. The lust (potentially love, but nonetheless “sinful”) Francoise has for Maud's husband is instantly forgiven because in theory (as a practicing Catholic) she fits Jean-Louis’ ideal. Yet, her seduction is in fact more scornful than that of Maud's honesty and hospitality. This constant back-and-forth of ideal and "real" is precisely the "problem" that Rohmer puts forth all throughout the film. It is this philosophizing that Rohmer encourages in the viewer, not only as we watch the film but even thereafter. He promotes an image that provokes thought, which is why this film (and the set of the five other moral tales for that matter) is so remarkable.

Cleo from 5 to 7

2008-10-16T16:34:00.000-05:00

Varda's 1962 film Cleo from 5 to 7 takes us through a defining slice of life in the main protagonist, Cleo. The film plays out in "real time" with the events lasting the duration of the film, approximately two hours (from 5 pm to 7 pm). The opening scene of the film outlines the situation of the film, she is ill and her illness (cancer) spells death. The film, however, hardly goes beyond its original situation, instead it saunters in the conditional status of emotional shifts, from denial to lamentation to anger to acceptance. I suppose one might say the situation becomes something new when in the end she presses upon herself an acceptance of her fate. Here we might remark on what, for her, this acceptance means, and what forces she is acting and against as she struggles with her fate. Cleo is a pop singer, her songs play on the radio, and people are at her service around the clock. This is not enough. In her move to stardom she has moved beyond herself, she has become a myth. The film works through this struggle, from a woman of myth to her eventual self-demythologization. She loses herself to her sound and image; she becomes a product of her replicated self, many times over, and divided many places over. This multiplicity, this mythic graduation to something(s) larger than life is contested by realization that her fate is one of death. Her myth will outlive her life. This threatens her illusions, her unrealized desire for immortality. She is no longer a "goddess", but rather she is human. She is brought back down to her origins. And when she peruses the city, she rediscovers herself, her roots (the bohemian cafe, her stories with her friend, etc). When she goes to the bohemian cafe and plays her song, the lack of response brings her closer to home, closer to humanity. This fall from myth to man is not an easy move, and that is why the emotional spirit of Cleo from 5 to 7 works so well. It does not bore us because we are affected by these internal and external struggles. And Varda's constant juxtaposition between Cleo's struggle and the on going war in Algeria is no accident. For one, war in itself generally has a mythological status, seen and heard from a distance, it is something based on and perpetuated by a plane of authority which purports itself onto a level above humanity, that is government. Of course, as word of the realities spread the myth deflates, and people protest. With Cleo, her myth too is built up from a distance, she is not the same person as her songs or images, she is myth built up by the recording/entertainment industry. In her case, the myth deflates when she realizes her mortal fate, that she is not the eternal goddess of sound and image, of iconography. This is realized, as abovementioned, in the cafe, also from the new song that she sings in her bedroom, and lastly in the relationship she acquires with the soldier that is supposed to leave for Algeria that day. She feels again, which allows her to finally accept the fact that she has cancer, that she is human.

Last Year at Marienbad

2008-10-07T15:48:00.019-05:00

Falling back on what Professor Shaviro mentioned in class, I have a tendency to see Resnais' Last Year at Marienbad in somewhat Deleuzian terms. The film works as a sort of "apparatus-brain" where a type of thought-image is constructed. The film works in terms of a "presence" that amalgamates (and conflates) various elements (space, time, movement, objects, etc). The film's ambiguities, and disjointed false continuities resemble that of a thought-image (i.e., something akin to the so-called day-dream, an abstract internalized image, a mental image). It is not so much a reconstruction of remembrance, although it appears that way on the surface, but rather a film that works in terms of image construction. The film works to display these thought possibilities and thought constructions through the way it works with the ensemble of elements. Take, for instance, the way the many outside or supporting models (actors) freeze in the various scenes. This frozen pose is similar to that of a constructed thought-image. The apparatus-brain conceives of these events in terms of the main characters, the man and the woman (at times her "husband"), and not these other figures of the film. These figures are mere setting, there are embedded in the space, as much as the statues and paintings of the mansion. This idea of the mansion, with its various doors and corridors, is analogous to the dark recesses of the mind, the constructions and memories of the mind. Yet, there is veracity in these main characters according to the apparatus-brain; this is because, as it is in the thought-image, we have, like the apparatus-brain, a sort of invested affection and conviction for our own thoughts, whether they are fictitious constructions or not. As an apparatus-brain, in the thought of the image, there are tendencies for us to try and perfect our constructions. We may, for instance, conceive of things and then later erase them because maybe they are not the perfect thought-image we want. It is this constant reconstruction of the thought-image that cycles through the film over and over. Secondly, the images, the supposed "memories", are being worked out in this apparatus' "presence". It is in a sort of "real time" that the images are composed in tandem with the voice over. So that when the male or apparatus mentions that the woman's hand was resting on the balcony she moves her hand toward the balcony and rests it there. The thought-image is a strange phenomenon. It uses our own milieu to take us away from it, and to create it anew (perhaps hoping for an ideal or perfected situation). This resolves itself in the end when the thought image reaches its pinnacle, the man and the woman leave together. The apparatus-brain reaches its own ideal scenario. The false constructions like that of a day-dream end up in a void (the black screen), they are complete, the dream is over, the desire to recreate the ideal is done. It is from this point that we end up with an absence (the supposed internal "desire"/ideal is no longer desired). Like a day-dream we do not merely ponder the same privileged images over and over ad infinitum, and if we do then our ideal or our desire is merely unattainable (which is not to say that our ideals are attainable, but in thought we can sometimes attain those things, those "ideals", which we may not be able to in any external world). This visual perusal of the internal world of the thought-image is precisely what Resnais captures. And he finishes off the whole bit with a finally perfected ideal; the apparatus-brain achieves what these so-called "memories" strived for, the union, the embrace.

Perhaps for some this seems like a far-fetched reading. However, to me, it seems a fairly reasonable read for such an abstruse film as this one.

Hiroshima, Mon Amour

2008-09-23T17:45:00.028-05:00

[This is not the most thorough reading. . . and my understanding of Deleuze has yet to be worked out. . .]

Resnais' Hiroshima, Mon Amour explores a new cinematic approach to the progression and integration of dispersive elements in space and time. The film itself speaks at once of the differential and unifying elements that compose our spirit. Resnais evokes the spirit in two different, but convergent ways. In one way, it seems, Resnais works with what Deleuze would call "liquid perception," and in a second sense, sometimes separately and others simultaneously, with a maximum quantity of movement. A film so radical as this does not necessarily seem to invoke the same systems or perceptions that would come from the "French school," but it nonetheless uses these two characteristic modes in its own way. The film claims these elements in order to speak of the subjects’ (i.e., the events of Hiroshima and the event of loss in the face of love) unjustifiable and unachievable reclamations. It is impossible to realistically form an image or narrative that embodies the essence of these issues/events. What one can do is attempt to recognize these events in abstract, artificial, and poetic terms. This, if anything, extracts from these events a sense that we can consider these experiences, yet at the same time, we can never accurately describe their realities. The truth is that both of these events (Hiroshima and the woman's loss) work in more reconstructive terms. For Hiroshima is a blank slate, the events are not rendered first hand, they are secondary, just as the story is secondary, it is artificial; and, the woman's account of the events is secondary, it is in relation to artifacts and news/broadcast reels. For the woman is also a part of this blank plate. Her inability to move beyond her bereavement tends to leave her at a loss, an emptiness. This is a gap that she fills with the things of the world around her. She replaces her (past and present) understandings with "remembrances," with objects and locations, with acting (becoming someone else). She claims that she knows Hiroshima through the objects she has seen (presumably at the museum, and other monuments or spaces in the city); the man however denies this. She does not know Hiroshima, she knows the artifacts of Hiroshima. Her tendency to engulf these objects, and further, to be swallowed by these objects and images is expressed in the cinematography of the film. Here the idea of liquid perception comes into play. When she says "I am afraid everywhere," Resnais cuts to shots (close-ups) of objects and spaces around her. There, we move "to a liquid state, where the molecules move about and merge into one another," and where her fears are embodied in these objects, the entire experience gains this auratic spiritual element. Deleuze says of liquid perception, that "by putting the center of reference itself into movement, the movement of the parts [is] raised to the set (ensemble); that of the relative to the absolute; that of succession to simultaneism" -- this is precisely what her character embodies, a movement toward simultaneism. She is the blank center, and yet, as abovementioned, everything she encounters she engulfs (and vice versa), she becomes; it is this characteristic that ties her blankness to the image; it is a tendency toward simultaneity, even as she becomes her “remembrance-images,” -- she is simultaneously past, present, and imagined past -- she is objects, and she is space. In addition to that, we experience this simultaneity all the more when we encounter a maximum quantity of movement in the image. Resnais maximizes the slowness, the fastness, and the “direction-ness” (max. friction) of the image. Think about the scene where they are walking through the Hiroshima memorial parade (which is a scene in the film within the film), this movement swallows the two characters into the elements that oppose their direction. Or, there are the scenes where the present (of the film) is nuanced by a slowness of objects (and models) to a maximum capacity so that we feel this slowness (emptiness). It is also a maximum slowness (emptiness) that exists in order to maximize a fullness of the image. This opposition creates a sort of rupture of the image. I am thinking here of the scene where the woman is sitting on the bed and she screams to forget. Her scream shatters the fragility of the successive images of slowness that came before it, those images which quantitatively added up in order to build this qualitative fragility, all of course in order to present this rupture; because if she would have screamed without the existence of these nuanced subtleties (the slowness) such an event would not have created a rupture, it would have been a stand alone scream, an impotent wail. This rupture in turn unifies these “maximum” elements because of their reciprocity for one another; and furthermore, because of her reflexive stillness (in the image of her), she is inscribed by the (quantitative) movements and the images around her, which unifies her presence, and the story, in this movement toward simultaneity (and reciprocity). It is much like the (fragmented) embrace that entangles the two in the beginning, fragments come together in an abstracted unification...

[Edit - More thoughts:]
Also, there seems to be an occasional move toward a gaseous perception. The best example is when Resnais cuts between images of (locations in) Hiroshima and images of Nevers. These city elements cut in and connect any-space-whatevers, which allow us to freely associate one image with the next at any-point-whatever...

Furthermore, when Deleuze speaks of any-space-whatevers he speaks of the post-war condition of "deconnected or emptied spaces," saying, independent of the cinema there was "the post-war situation with its towns demolished or being reconstructed, its waste grounds, its shanty towns, and even in places where the war had not penetrated, with its undifferentiated urban tissue. . ."

And in post-war cinema there is "a crisis of the action-image: [where] the characters were found less and less in sensory-motor 'motivating' situations, but rather in a state of strolling, of sauntering or of rambling which defined pure optical and sound situations. The action-image then tended to shatter, whilst the determinate locations were blurred, letting any-spaces-whatever rise up where the modern affects of fear, detachment, but also freshness, extreme speed and interminable waiting were developing. . ."

Pickpocket

2008-09-19T17:24:00.009-05:00

Bresson's Pickpocket takes us in and out of space and time, in a constantly fluctuating experience of fluency and distaciation. The most defamiliarizing shot in the film is the close-up. It renders the particular hand gestures and actions of Michel as something of importance to the narrative and mise-en-scene. However it also takes the scene out of its element, out of its coordinates in space and time in order to shock us. For instance, in the end we only see Michel’s hand being cuffed by the officer. Prior to this every other close-up of his hands exhibits his ability to freely pick-pocket--moving into some unknown space and connect back to world of things--where he would slyly enter contact with someone empty handed and exit with some new object (whether it be a wallet, money, etc). However, this final occasion does the exact opposite. The officer enters contact with him and grabs his hand as the newly acquired object. Our desire to see him succeed and grab the man’s (officer’s) cash is immediately destroyed (de-automatized). Here Bresson takes the pattern, or the automatization, of the close-up shot (i.e., the meaning involved in them, the model’s movements, and the shot composition, etc, which form their own conjunctions) and subverts it with its dialectical opposite, which is him getting caught. This forces the spectator to think about these “codes” implanted in the close-ups of the film, noting in particular the hierarchy that these shots receive in the overall shot analysis. The spectator also has to render with his own thoughts the events of the film, consciously thinking about such things as authority, property, power, etc in relation to particular objects in themselves.
The story of the film is subverted, or deformed, by the filmic elements that he employs in tandem with the film's plot. He creates a poetic language out of certain shots, e.g., as abovementioned, the use of close-ups and the actions within them. He gives life to these “codes” which he provides in the close-up shot. He then uses the deformation of these “codes” to create a de-automatizing effect. Also, when he is sent to prison there is no ability to follow him around anymore, instead we are as trapped as he is. This order of mise-en-scene subverts the pace and space of the film; the time is slower and less intense, and the space is smaller and more claustrophobic, creating a sense of impotence. The entire film works on our perceptions, the way in which we feel these figural elements (speed, movement, spatial arrangement, etc) and how they influence our thought and preconceived notions of movement, space, and time.

Bob le flambeur

2008-09-19T17:24:00.001-05:00

Jean-Pierre Melville trumps the typical conceptualization of the classic noir and gangster film. He takes these genre out of their element and colors them with a visually lyrical piece of work. His visual play of elements such as lines, stripes, and sharp contrasts give the film a particular auratic quality--a hovering feel of emptiness and fullness, a push and a pull. We constantly juxtapose differences in light and color. From Bob's white hair pinned against his black suit, or at times his gray trench coat to the checkers on the wall of the bar, the film speaks more in tones than in text. The de-dramatized characteristic that run through most of the film work through these contrasts. The film works in vagueness despite the lyrical contrasts of the set. Melville clouds the scene. He wants us to feel the ambiguities, to bathe in sustained moments of puzzlement. The narrative is relatively simple, composed basic plots that move along. However, the film's overall vagueness and simplicity emphasizes the peculiarity of the main character, Bob, and the relationships at hand. Bob's code of ethic is worked out in his actions, e.g., the way he takes in the young girl from the streets, or when he leaves Paolo and the girl to rest at his place. In these moments, it is his sincerity that leads him. When he finally runs out of money he is left to fend, as any man would. In Hell, fending is about lying, cheating, and stealing, which all tend rest on one thing: chance. This brings Bob back to a history he must rekindle. It is this reaching back to his old ways that leads the way for him. The old way, the idea of a heist, launched him into a new element. The game now is much grander, the stakes much larger. As the film peaks, when these various ties to Bob (the cop, the girl, Paolo, the man and his wife) pull Bob into a multitude of directions, he escapes. He gets away by trying his luck, trying his hand. His solace in the game, in gambling, reminds him that it is all luck: the game, the heist. Give or take, Bob is in for it. The fortuitousness of the end, that is, Bob's final win with chance, materializes these cinematic contrasting elements. It is either win or lose, black or white. Bob takes the win in the end, after chance settles the score. He counts his losses (Paolo, possible jail time) and contrasts it with his winnings. There is no game chancier than life. Bob lives the gamble, and for that reason alone he is Bob the gambler. Not for his gaming habits, but for his living habits.

Breathless

2008-09-16T17:09:00.002-05:00

Jean Luc Godard's entrance into the cinematic landscape marks a peculiar point in the history of cinema. Not only is the mirror turned on the gamut of practices and conventions, but the entire fashion is swallowed into a fissure of artificiality. What strikes me as the most remarkable aspect of Breathless, and even Godard's cinematic oeuvre for that matter, is his contentiousness with certain cinematic codes, i.e., operating within a given framework and rarely ever escaping it. His remarks toward the cinema are not scathing, he quotes his professors (with all of his allusions to B-movie and classic Hollywood directors/films), and weaves in and out of genre, but as is abovementioned, he turns the mirror, and furthermore skews it a little. In fact the film is more synesthetic than anything; it's visual jazz, pure and simple. Breathless marks Godard as one of the most enigmatic (cinematically) lyrical improvisers ever. His genius, like that of Coltrane or Davis, is in the way he careens and caresses the nodes of each cinematic turn, all the while making you feel the verve and spontaneity of the experience. In his case, the film is not the script, the film is an explicit liberation of text; it says, "I can cover everything text does and more, I can move you like no text can move you; watch how I play with these elements." It is precisely in this play of elements where Godard achieves his glorious pet, and charms us with his horn. His disjunctive methods-- the jump cuts, the interlaced and jarring dubbing, the narrative jump from action to affect and back again-- these all render a new and inventive cinematic practice (and potential). Even his lighting, with its maximization of natural light, calls attention to the artificiality of classical cinema, which tries to sell itself as seeming natural. All of this runs against the grain of things prior, as far as cinematic conventions are concerned. He is making the classic seem so much more artificial, and his work so much more self-referential that it creates a sort of schism. Professionalism of classical cinema is precisely that, a type of "professional" code with which to render the entire cinematic experience. Godard debunks that, he denaturalizes the whole breadth of it, and laughs at it, much in the way Michel addresses the camera, when he is driving into the city from the provincial freeway, "If you don't like the sea/ and don't care for the mountains/ and don't like the big city either/ go fuck yourself!" and that is that.

400 Blows

2008-09-09T17:20:00.020-05:00

Francois Truffaut's 1959 feature film 400 Blows is one of those films that resonates with you long after it is over. The film takes an unconventional approach for its time, both narratively and stylistically. Truffaut uses the camera to write a story near and dear to him. The various autobiographical elements confer with the spectator ideas about what it takes to make a film something prodigious. The film is a testament to many of the concepts that are contained in the cinema itself; and Truffaut explores this reciprocity and reflexivity, not just in narrative content, but also in terms of cinematic content.

Truffaut reincarnates his adolescence through the experiences of Antoine, played by young actor Jean-Pierre Leaud. First of all, this alone is quite a unique reference to the cinema's close relation to memory, history, and identity. It is the cinema which remarks on and re-enacts recollection, remembrance. The cinema is in its very nature like that of a memory. It is composed of various elements (various times, spaces, rhythms, etc) which are condensed/conflated and assembled to create an experience. The film much like the memory is not one long continuous (uninterrupted) stream of experience, it is composed of multifarious elements, which both enter into and exit out of remembrance (and conscious experience). Yet, all the while, as spectators we are able to encounter the cinema as we would a memory. The memory, so close and yet so distant, is something of a challenge to consult with. Nevertheless, Truffaut sets up a film where we can both enter the characters and at the same time see them from a distance, much in the same way that we experience memories.

What is remarkable about the character Antoine is his reluctance to speak. His internal experience rarely reveals itself directly to the viewer. This inability to latch on to a verbalized expression forces the external to compose the character. All things external--the composition of the scene, the gestures of Antoine, the music, the rhythm of the camera--spell out the experience and memory of adolescence. The one time when Antoine verbalizes himself is when he talks to the woman at the reformatory. This moment is peculiar because of the way in which the sequence is revealed and Antoine's awareness is divulged. We never see the woman speaking, she is an acousmatic voice, filling the screen with her invisible presence. She is a rupture, she is a surrogate, and she is omnipotent as far as we are concerned. He reveals himself to that which we cannot see. She is both a presence and an absence. But why, why would Truffaut compose the sequence in this manner? As Michel Chion notes in Voice in the Cinema, it is the acousmetre that "brings disequilibrium and tension," as it is something of a mystery. The only other woman that Antoine interacts with is his mother, who in both her words and actions betrays her responsibility and love for him. This other woman, however, has no attachment to him, she is a mere assessor. As an assessor, she takes no authority over him, instead she allows Antoine to freely express himself. In order to learn more about Antoine's awareness we must work with the acoustmetre, as Chion says of the acousmetre, it is she that "invites the spectator to go see, and (s)he can be an invitation to the loss of the self, to desire and fascination," which in our case it is to discover not herself, but Antoine. That is the difference. For Anointe's mother is always commanding and manipulating him for her own needs, she leaves no room for expression. Adolescents do not necessarily grasp all of what is around them, but there are many things which a young person senses and grasps without it seeming so. Such is the case between Antoine and his mother. Truffaut explores this, for instance, when the mother comes in late one night and we see her legs enter into the screen as she quietly walks through Antoine's room, across his bed. And then following that there is the offscreen (acousmatic) bickering between the parents, which he witnesses aurally, when Antoine should be asleep. He uses a scene like this to communicate to us indirectly the experience of adolescence.

Another important aspect of the film is the way in which he conveys the experience of adolescene through cinematic techniques. The entire film is composed around a relationship between adult characters (models) and confining spaces (sets). These two figures are linked together to convey a feeling of oppression. His parents, the teachers, the police, are all confining him to tight quarters. They are also restricting him to mechanical and conforming movements, explored both through cinematic techniques and acting. His somber mood in and around their presence also adds to this oppressiveness. Against all of this however, Antoine is secretly desiring autonomy. We see this in his actions, i.e., in his constant desire to escape these people and environments. In particular, there are two scenes that rupture the entire pace and space of the film. One occasion is on the day Antoine and Rene skip school, and venture out into the streets of Paris. The first time we actually see Antoine happy is when he is spinning around on the "rotor" amusement park ride. Cinematically there is a rupture, when the elements on screen free up from the rigid confines of a set, of a room. The ensemble of props, the models, and Antoine all become a swirling blur. The rhythm of elements is no longer the same as it was throughout the film up to that point. Although walls are still surrounding him, Antoine manages to escape his situation through both movement and affect. He no longer has to express himself, or do anything for that matter, instead he gives himself to the movements and feelings experienced by the "rotor" ride. You can really see and feel the freeness of this moment, especially when Antoine manages to move himself upside-down, thus rendering his world in a completely new and autonomous light. The other moment where a sort of rupture occurs is at the very end. He escapes the reformatory, he runs and runs, until he finally meets the water. There all the walls (those ever confining walls) drop down. There he is truly free. Unlike the "rotor," where through cinematic elements he becomes rhythmically free, there at the beach he is spatially free. No longer do walls, or bars, or persons get in the way of his freedom. And I think this is his most genuine expression. He never really verbalizes himself, because his true expression, his true desire is this autonomy which cannot be rendered in words or scathing complaints, it is rendered in action, an action which meets a point of complete openness. An openness that one might say resembles those things which words, and consciousness cannot even begin to explain. In sum, it really seems to me to be about truly living: living as expressiveness, living as creative potential, and thus, potentially freeing, liberating.

Michel Chion, Voice in the Cinema (pp.24)

Damnation

2007-04-23T12:45:00.000-05:00

Bela Tarr’s Damnation is a mundane exploration of life. The film’s long shots force the viewer to ponder each doleful portrait that Tarr paints. The main character, whose name is unknown to us, is very hard to approach. This confusion comes from his action and emotion. He is oppressed by a fate that he seems to loathe. This might possibly be an economical, social, or familial issue within the main character, an issue that we never really get to the bottom of. By the end of the film, in his distraught disposition, the main character is reduced to an animalistic behavior, barking at a pack of dogs and circling them on all fours.

Tarr pays meticulous heed to the shyest details. This visual and temporal depth that Tarr emphasizes comments directly on life. The film’s narrative layout is extremely unique. He supports his simple narrative with abstruse poetic dialogue. The dialogue is sparsely spread across film. The long shots do not manipulate us in the way a rapid succession of shots might. Here we are forced to observe the main character rather than replace (or become) him. This detachment makes this film all the more foreign to us. The film not only separates us via the dominance of long shots, but also from Tarr’s use of a dark and despotic setting, which is often flooded with rains that visually mute the physical details of characters and the setting. The setting is characterized as a sort Beckett-esque landscape that is desolate and deprived of life’s vivacity.

Throughout the film there is an eeriness that peruses each scene. This strange shadow of despair forces the viewer to confront the many metaphysical questions of life. Tarr never provides us with a resolute conclusion; he only steps into this brief moment, a slim fraction, of life. What do we experience from this? All of these questions in the film force us to make phenomenological juxtapositions and connections. Despite the fact that Tarr never directly imposes his own metaphysical opinion onto the viewer, he does compel us with the bleakness of reality in this fraction of time (and person’s life) that he has decided to portray.

Another important aspect of the film is in the sound. Sound is important because it is the emotional counterpart to the film's dialogue. The film, for the most part, is diegetically scored. For example, music comes from the woman's singing, or a man playing the accordion. This aural pan from non-diegetic sound to a realization that it is diegetic (i.e., seeing the musician) is important. It creates a metaphor for wisdom and experience (this layerage of knowing/expecting). Half way through the film we are conditioned to this diegetic extension (or diegetic surprise) and before we even see the musician we are already wondering where the artist might appear in the scene.

The Wounds

2007-04-19T18:13:00.000-05:00

The film The Wounds (1998) by director Srdjan Dragojevic’s is an extraordinary depiction of the internal struggles of crime and corruption in Serbia. The fantastical nature of The Wounds exploits the glorification of violence in the media and society in general. The two main characters of the film, Pinki and Kraut, go down the narrow path of crime. They are influenced by the work of Dickie, a gangster, who uses and abuses the boys in order to toughen them up. The film opens up with Pinki and Kraut driving in the midst of a parade. Most of the film toggles from the past and cuts to them in the parade. After we travel through their history we arrive back at the festival. This takes us to the film’s final location, the cemetery. Pinki and Kraut, like all of the other gangsters in the film, resolve their issues with absolute violence. They impose a very chaotic rationale onto the viewer’s perception. Their complete disregard for everything reaches violent extremes; we see them as vessels of power and destruction that, in the end, turn destruction in on themselves.

This destructive and distorted point of view is further emphasized by the camera work and editing of the film. The rapid succession of cuts, distortion of time, and constantly burgeoning intensity all support the film’s dramatic nature. The film’s explosive impulsivity rejoins the mindset of the two main characters. The synthesis between action and construction embody the intensity of the perceptive present. It tunes into the vivacity of survival when every moment seems to be endangered. Dragojevic emphasizes this despondent aspect of the film, which reflects that generation, one that is forced to become more animalistic, fighting and killing one another for power and survival. This discontent also comments on the ethnic tensions in Serbia.

Pinki and Kraut idealize the criminal lifestyle. This dangerous behavior and carelessness is what ultimately ends up killing them. What stands out most for me is the media’s interference in the criminal issues. This explores the appalling veneration toward violence and crime in America, whose media influences a large portion of the world (via the news media, and Hollywood films). What we witness is a reflection of how these fictional (Hollywood stylized) accounts of violence vie for a real account (in some foreign countries). When Kraut and Pinki go on the talk show they exploit the exploiters by creating a horrifically violent scene over public television. This blatant depiction of the horrors of crime counteracts the show’s adoration of crime. It also shows how the media will expose anything that sells, even if that means glorifying criminals, so long as it generates a large enough audience. These criminological ideals of power and destruction are a way to repress peoples of society. What it masks are the numerous political problems of the Serbian government, and it emphasizes the replication of a criminal mass (of those who are criminal and those who are dominated by criminals).

The Death of Mr. Lazarescu

2007-04-15T19:27:00.000-05:00

Cristi Puiu’s most recent film, The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (2005), is a bleak and enduring look into the conditions of the Romanian health system. The film opens up to Mr. Lazarescu looking nauseous and weak. Lazarescu’s headache dominates the pain and suffering that he’s forced to bear throughout the film. The pain begins in his stomach and eventually consumes his mind. His aching stomach leads him to believe that it is an ulcer problem because he has a medical history, specifically a surgery, involving a stomach ulcer. His self-diagnosis however is constantly ignored because each person he encounters has his or her own “medical” opinion about his condition. Many people (nurses, doctors, family, neighbors) resolve that the issue is not his stomach ulcer but instead correlated to his drinking habits. Lazarescu’s visceral illness shows how the body affects the mind. For instance, as his condition worsens his “mind” output also deteriorates. We witness this deterioration as we impatiently wait with him and the nurse in these various hospitals. We are forced to contemplate not only his suffering but also our own temporal fate.

We learn that throughout the day Lazarescu uses both medication and alcohol in attempts to suppress his nauseating condition. The attempts however are ineffective, and by the end of the night Lazarescu is calling for an ambulance. The peculiar thing about this part of the film is that his desire to receive treatment isn’t at all urgent. He never directly asks for an ambulance to arrive right away; instead it is his neighbor who has to finally call, demanding an ambulance, and acknowledging the seriousness of Lazarescu’s illness. Lazarescu’s patience might be because he is accustomed to the third rate medical assistance provided to citizens in Romania. The film on a whole addresses these issues of debt, power, and bureaucratic dysfunction that exist in Romania.

The long takes and lengthy duration of the film exposes us to this sense of hopelessness that many Romanians are forced to live under day in a day out. The film’s intensity lies in our impatience toward the system of bureaucratic hierarchy and social destitution made apparent in the film. This reality Puiu emphasizes both cinematographically and narratively. The film directly comments on the stereotypical medical film or show. In these depictions the medical world is glamorized and the doctors and nurses are glorified for their devoted contributions. This however is not the reality, doctors and nurses are as much human as Lazarescu, and they also have everyday problems both at work and at home. The long takes (shots) of the film don’t just emphasize Lazarescu long lugubrious wait but also the long and exhausting hours that doctors and nurses invest in their jobs, which are often under-paying and or under-staffed, making shifts more strenuous and workers tenuous (again, an instance where physical deterioration influences the mind or psychology of a person). Another important cinematographic element of the film is Puiu’s use of hand-held camera movement. The rigid and jerky camera movement creates a sort of uneasiness within the viewer. This in effect creates a very visceral experience and influences the viewer to feel as discomposed as Lazarescu.

Lazarescu’s character is important because his character is average. The various faults and vices of Lazarescu at times hinder his treatment and service provided for him. Puiu uses this character to generate sympathy, not because Lazarescu is a “good guy”, but because Lazarescu is an ordinary elder. This demographic is a dominating part of the population that Puiu is trying to voice about. Moreover, he emphasizes the numerous troubles and tribulations of Lazarescu, which relates the audience to their problems as well. Lazarescu is a human being, and should not deserve to be tossed from one health institution to the next. However, the reality is that he is a living, breathing, dying individual who is being ignored and such is the case for so many others.

The Oak

2007-04-15T18:50:00.000-05:00

In the film The Oak Romanian director Lucian Pintilie explores those last stages of the slowly waning and degenerating Romanian Communist system. This film is extremely unique because it is a fresh glance into Romanian arts and culture, which for the most part is relatively hard to find. In the world of visual and performing arts Pintilie is most known for his direction in theater. Made in 1993, The Oak takes place in the ‘80s, in the late years of communism. Romania was one of the last countries to dissolve the harsh Stalinist policies. The film provides an examination of the (Ceausescu’s) internally repressive and economically deteriorating regime. We trail the main character, Nela, on a sort of pilgrimage that she has following the death of her father.

The narrative of the film takes us from the death of Nela’s father to the end when she buries her father’s ashes next to an oak tree. From one angle of the film, Pintilie examines the territory between male and female. In this perspective we weave together and set apart the relationships between Nela and Mitica, Nela and her father, and the relationship between Nela’s parents. The relationship between Nela and Mitica begins in the hospital, when Nela finds out that Mitica arrived in her defense while she was being raped by a group of ruffians. Both characters seem to commonly contain the same aversion toward their political state of affairs. This behavior prompts them to vividly display their aggravation and discontent. For example, in the opening scene, Nela at the death of her father reacts in a moving outburst against her sister, against her father, and even against herself. Here she shouts furiously at her sister and sets a fire in front of the door of her father’s apartment. Pintilie shows how many Romanian are forced to displace their anger because the weight of oppression and financial deficit is so much to bear.

For Nela, discontent arrives when the government refuses to assist her father with the costs for his medication. This is Pintilie’s comment on Ceausescu’s inability to properly provide Romanian peoples with adequate health services and medicine. He comments further on the system when we learn about Mitica. Mitica is exact opposite of the procedures instituted by the strange bureaucracy of the regime. His compassion compels him to attend to the needs of those around him despite the lack of supplies available to him. Throughout the film he argues and criticizes the decisions of his higher-ups. This behavior gets him into some trouble; however, ironically the same hierarchy of bureaucrats who jail him end up releasing him as a returned favor for his services as a doctor.

Another aspect of the film is how Pintilie explores the emotional efficacy of family and, in Nela’s case, the importance of her relationship with her father. Throughout her pilgrimage, Nela carries along with her the ashes of her father, which happen to be stored in a Nescafe container. The Nescafe container is a clear representation of commodification and the capitalist system; it is an emblem of what her father initially fought to resist against, consequently in the name of a regime that does little for him. We learn about the powerful relationship Nela had with her father. We learn that when her parents divorced she went with her father, and her sister went with their mother. Her attachment explores the importance of communication and union involved in the human condition. The communist ideology is about community and connectivity, however despairingly this film shows how the social and political conditions are quite the opposite. This emphasizes the discreet severity of the violence that manifests in the system, a system that ignores ethics in the concern for maintaining power. This is explicitly depicted in the end when a busload of children are sacrificed (murdered) by their government, the very institution that is supposed to be in their defense, in order to minimize conflict issues with terrorist groups and the spread of revolutionary ideas. We see how the government’s duty does not lie in serving its people; instead the people are submissive to the government. The Oak ends in an odd manner when Nela and Mitica remark on their disinterest in the “normal,” saying they hope they have a child who is not normal. This is an idea that is embraced throughout the film. Take for instance Nela’s job with children who are not seen as normal but regarded as special. Pintilie sees the future in the hands of the youth. And if they are to adhere to the “normal” then they would accept all of the hegemony and deceit that goes along with the Ceausescu regime. But Pintilie, as abovementioned, resolves this by closing the film with the Nela and Mitica’s powerful revulsion for these “norms”.

Lunacy

2007-04-01T21:12:00.000-05:00

The 2005 film Lunacy is Jan Svankmajer’s surreal examination of ideological extremes. Prior to the film Svankmajer, himself, addresses the audience prefacing the story’s distinct exposition of what he sees as the three models of extremes. The first extreme is absolute freedom; the second extreme is of absolute authority; and the final model is a combination of two, a mélange of extremes, which he states is “the madhouse that we live in today.”

He portrays these extremes using none other than the infamous Marquis de Sade. The instability of the characters, such as Marquis, brings into question the veracity of perception. Svankmajer shows how the way in which we perceive is hinged off the system we adhere to, i.e. our ideological stance. As the film develops sanity becomes more and more detached, and the depersonalizing nature of the film becomes more knowable as it evolves. We see how complete anarchy and complete authority pan out in the ideological scheme of things.

Our understanding of Marquis’ purpose in relation to Berlot is rather trivial throughout the entire film. Marquis explains that because their childhood experiences are alike he feels inclined to communicate with Berlot. This attempt to associate with Berlot however actually involves him exposing Berlot to a bizarre, anarchistic lifestyle. We go through the entire film with Marquis and yet we never become attached to his character, instead we distance our emotions from him.

Marquis’ sadistic, hyperrational logic dominates the first two-thirds of the film. Here we see his mental instability conflicts with his idea of liberty. He feels that complete liberty is the only rational way to live. However, absolute liberty is a paradox because if complete liberty exists then people have liberty to hinder or harm the liberty of others thereby creating a situation where someone does not have complete liberty; this ultimately suggests survival of the fittest.

The concept of anarchy is further exhibited within the mental hospital. At first glance, when we enter the hospital, it seems like the hospital is run amok. However, soon thereafter, we learn that the hospital’s philosophy encourages complete anarchy; this is then debunked when we later learn the frenzy isn’t the hospital’s ideology but the rather the patients’. Marquis and the actual doctor both exploit the two extremes of absolute freedom, and absolute authority. Svankmajer displays for us the uncanny practice involved in the extremes of power (independent or authoritative power).

The Marquis psychologically manipulates the patients, using his hyperrational logic to brainwash the others into accepting complete anarchy. A good example of this is when Marquis does a tableau vivant of a Delacroix’s painting “Liberty leading the people”. At this time, he also has a monologue where he reiterates his perverse and twisted logic of absolute freedom. Marquis also, in his anarchistic rationale, tests people faith by denigrating the existence of God, using the problem of evil as partial basis for his argument.

Svankmajer’s concoction of stop-motion with live action uniquely displays the film’s surreal content. He orchestrates his stop-motion sequences using many fleshy and meaty materials. These emphasize how much the body influences the mind. The body here seems to be represented by these pieces of meat, along with a mix of other anatomical features. These animated materials seem to summarize in short sequences the acts that precede it. Svankmajer contextualizes human action in these interludes, metaphorically representing the physiological aspect of human nature, which involves physical desires. These physical desires however are often conflicted with and influenced by socio-political institution. Take, for instance, the system of complete control. Svankmajer displays this when the slabs of meat are attached to strings like marionettes, this displays the lack of freedom in a system of authority. Overall Svankmajer seems to use these short sequences to portray human actions from a detached point of view, looking at our behavior from a symbolic perspective where our actions become the actions of normal inanimate objects, pieces of meat (which at one time contributed to the animation of an animal, as muscle).

A Short Film About Killing

2007-03-31T15:14:00.000-05:00

A Short Film About Killing (1988) is Kieslowski’s feature film, which originally came out of his Decalogue series. The film focuses on particular moral dilemmas attached to both the law, and human nature. Human action and human responsibility are brought to forefront of the film. Kieslowski forces us to pass judgment over the issue. The film’s bleak content frames the film with a particular harshness that imposes the issue of capital punishment on the film. Throughout the film we are forced to apply our own ethics to the characters’ actions.

The film’s aesthetic content reveals a second level to the film. Aspects such as cinematography, color, lighting, editing etc support the film’s distinct mysteriousness. Take for instance the film’s tint, which saturates different forms of light with a greenish coloring. The tint doesn’t necessarily distort any of the features of the film, but rather it sets a particular tone. The film contains this very tainted green, almost polluted looking wash that furthers the film’s gloomy aura. The colors also work simultaneously with Kieslowski’s particular use of lighting. He focuses on shadows and shading in order to frame the film as though it is almost unreal, even nightmarish. Here Kieslowski limits our perception so that we can’t quite make out certain peripheral details. This speaks specifically to the film in that it focuses on individual perception as opposed to cultural (or collective) perception, on such topics as ethics. We are provided with certain details some of which people do not normally witness. Take for example, the five minute long act of killing itself. Other details of the film are muddled and or distorted in symbols.

Kieslowski uses symbols and motifs throughout the film. Take, for instance, the cat that is hanged in the beginning of the film. This opens up the film’s harsh and cold portrayal. The film ends with Jacek, the main character, hung. Should we imply that his hanging is in someway analogous to that of the cat? Why invite these connections? Kieslowski seems to be framing chance images that invite the viewer to create connections between symbols and motifs. Another instance of this indistinct symbolism is the devil-head that swings from the taxi’s rear-view mirror. Many of these symbols however are either lost in their cultural context, or ambiguously representative of multiple connections.

Kieslowski camera work is also very specific and effectively adds to the film’s intensity. Many of his shots are at skewed angles, or tangled behind objects. This gives us a very voyeuristic feel, as if we are peeking in on the characters in the film. Many of the tight and cluttered shots work together with the emptiness of the green filters and limited lighting to add to that mysterious emotion that Kieslowski imposes on the viewer. These tight shots also create a more intimate relationship between the viewer and the film. For instance, Kieslowski, in numerous shots, has Jacek’s face dominate the entire shot. This tight attention to Jacek’s emotion, or lack thereof, links us closer to the issue Kieslowski is trying to display. He seems to be trying to capture the essence of the unsympathetic reality of not only homicide but also of life and death in general. The taxi driver, although he was a rude person, did not in any way deserve to die. And even after Jacek is dead we do not really feel resolved, instead we feel very empty because we come out of the film realizing how bleak the world actually is.

Provincial Actors

2007-03-31T15:04:00.000-05:00

Angieszka Holland’s 1979 film Provincial Actors intimately explores the numerous struggles between a cast of actors under the harsh censorship policies in Poland at the time. We see this repression throughout the film as the director unabashedly chops lines out of the play. The main character of the film, and lead role in the play, Chris, however frequently counters the director’s censorship. His role embodies that late 70s sentiment of laboring resistance against the political disparity. This is also what ultimately led to the Solidarity movement, which formed in 1980. The movement was hinged on national pride, non-violence, and advocating social change.

Chris uses his popularity and position in the play to question the director’s exhibition of power and censorship. He tries to convince the rest of the cast about the issue however they are unresponsive to it. Even his wife ignores his complaints. This is either because she knows that nothing will change because they are just provincial actors, or because she is oblivious to his concerns. I can’t imagine that his wife is completely numb to the political atrocities. It seems, perhaps, that she feels so oppressed by the system that their reaction against it will only afford them trouble. In the end Chris continues to battle censorship issues in the theatre. We know this because the director confronts Chris about reciting lines that were edited out. The director in response belittles Chris saying that his resistance is worthless because no one even notices the significance of the lines he’s reciting. This could imply that the majority is deceived by governmental hegemony.

Another important aspect of the film includes the relationship between Chris and his wife, Anna. This explores more intimately how communist oppression effected the population on an individual level. The play ultimately forces the couple apart. This is because Chris is so preoccupied with the political conditions and pressures for him to conform to the censorial oppression. Anna’s only response to his reaction against the play is when she suggests that he should leave the play. She’s not quite keen on the system he is trying to undermine. This might suggest her reluctance to become resistant herself; this is because she is as oppressed as everyone else in the film. However, despite her reluctance, she does have a strong social role in the film. She independently resists Chris whenever he shows dominance over her. For instance, we he orders her to make sandwiches she directly confronts him about it. In another scene, Chris, in an exhibition of power, slaps her on the face. Here, he loses control of his emotions. All of the pressure that he feels he is bearing to conform forces him to buckle and he inflicts his pain onto his wife.

The elder neighbor is a brief but important character. He seems to be an active embodiment of such themes as aging and temporality, as well as social and generational differences. His suicide is displayed in a very bleak and abrupt manner. We only get a quick glimpse of his plummeting body through the apartment window. His death ultimately remarks on the human condition in relation to the social and political system. Holland explores the desolate, despairing and wreak mystery that is our existence.

My Twentieth Century

2007-03-31T13:51:00.000-05:00

Ildiko Enyedi’s 1989 film, My Twentieth Century, is an extremely complex movie whose narrative functions to explore the embodiment of modernity at the turn of the century. The film simply peruses and catalogues the visual and social changes in history. The film does not really adhere to a formal plot structure. Instead, we are enigmatically tossed around a time-scape that lends itself to the life of Dora and Lili. The film explores various themes that replicate and journey through turn of the century events and sentiment.

Enyedi, through a mixture of episodic events, melds together different factions of the past in order to synthesize a complete picture of the changes at hand. These juxtapositions allow us to learn more about the main characters, who seem to stand for social issues, history and technology. Take for instance the great exhibition of lights that are displayed at the film’s opening sequence. This particular image (this sequence) provides us with particular ideas which we are forced to juxtapose with every scene that follows. A technological advancement, such as the light bulb, represents for instance, progress.

In the beginning of the film we witness the birth of both Dora and Lili. The scenes following then explore the separation between the twins. The young girls grow up in two different environments. This dichotomy explores the different social and economical condition in which they find themselves representative. Dora grows up to become materialistic. For instance on the train she’s wearing a very elegant black dress, drinking wine, etc. Lili, on the other hand, finds solace in life that is committed to political activism.

Accordingly, Enyedi provides us with the presence of notions purported Weininger, which the film explicitly presents claiming women as either whores or virgins. I think what Enyedi is trying to explore is this fork in the road where women decided what factors will dominate their perception. Dora finds her autonomy represented in the material goods that she consumes, and despite the fact that men try to appeal to her with their power, which is defined in status (wealth, etc), she pay them little heed, and seems more amused by the exchange of goods for pleasure. To Lili this exchange is foreign; instead, she is more interested in a greater good, a purpose that is representative of something beyond her own amusement or pleasure. In the end, the film seems to embody a whole slew of ideas and aspects related to (temporal) progress including social, political, economic, technological and sexual issues.

Who is Singing Over There

2007-02-26T23:24:00.001-05:00

One of the most popular films in Yugoslavia is Slobodan Sijan’s 1980 classic comedy Who is Singing Over There? and it’s not hard to see why. The film goes along the course of a bus route. Here a group of citizens composed of all different eccentricities journey together to get to Belgrade. Sijan sketches out each character’s personality; he finds their quirks, and their various reactions to one another and the particular problems that arrive during the course of the trip. The bus takes us through the rural Yugoslavian landscape where the route ends in Belgrade. What we encounter on the trip are many conflicts that are witty and comical in the way they arise and or result.

All of the characters in the film exhibit a wide spectrum of particularities. Sijan emphasizes these particular character types. These “types” he uses to create metaphors for the different people amongst the different political and socio-economical strata of society. The numerous people who are picked up are forced to cooperate amongst one another. Here they create groups or allies while maintaining what is in their general interest. This same idea can be applied to humanity on a whole, that we associate with people who we feel work with what is in our general interest (not necessarily best interest however). For instance, near the film’s end, when the man’s purse ends up missing the Germanophile assumes that the gypsies stole it. This cultural and social stereotype has the group of people on the bus unanimously agree with the Germanophile where they then accuse and abuse the two boys for something they didn’t do. It is never revealed to the characters that their assumption about the boys was wrong, however Sijan decided to show the audience that detail. This emphasizes the social lack of empathy amongst the group. There are numerous instances when he shows these differences between classes and social behaviors. Another example of this comes when the young married couple goes into the woods to have sex while the others, in a voyeuristic-manner, watch. The Germanophile comments on the uncouth behavior and remarks on the obscenity of it, however, his watching them in the act is no less perverse than the act itself.

We also go through the film watching the characters develop. This in many ways involves the growing attachment and or affection between characters. This is specifically the case between the bus owner and his son. The son’s childish behavior doesn’t limit him as a character. He seems to be the most honest character, and the only one who ever enjoys himself. The son joins the resistance army, this forces the bus owner (his father) to separate from his son. Not only that but from the film’s context we are aware that his son is probably going to end up in the war (which means his son may die). This detail like the detail about the wallet is knowledge that we have and the characters don’t. This information forces us to ponder the worth of these relationships. It also influences us to think about the value of human relationships, and human temporality. Sijan explores human destruction and differentiation on a personal scale and juxtaposes it with the destruction of the war, which is what ends up concluding the movie.

WR: Mysteries of the Organism

2007-02-26T16:33:00.000-05:00

Makavejev’s experimental 1971 film, WR: Mysteries of an Organism, explores, as a filmic collage, an assortment of social and political issues. The film explores the counter-culture emphasis against the social norms of oppression over sexuality. Makavejev also exercises cinematic autonomy by filming numerous sexually explicit scenes, which leave no anatomical details behind.

The film first aligns us with doctor Wilhelm Reich, which is presumably what “WR” may stand for among other suggested acronyms such as World Revolution. The documentary-like beginning informs us of Reich’s orgone box, which he is eventually prosecuted for, and his particular school of therapy. The film uses many Freudian devices and symbols to constantly juxtapose human behavior, sexuality, and politics. Makavejev exploits the commoditization of capitalism and the restrictive elements of communism. Under communism the individual is treated as insignificant. That means that a person’s appointed role is in the best interest of the group; and that creative (artistic) and sexual energy are seen as destructive, unproductive elements in society.

Makavejev’s collage of symbols, and allusion has us questioning every image the film presents. The film gets caught up in a series of events, which may not be temporally simultaneous, but reveal a concurrent exhibition of scenes whereby the idea is about exercising liberation. For instance, Tuli Kupferberg, from the underground band the Fugs, is walking around New York stroking a toy gun, awkwardly walking around businessmen and other people all the while the song “Kill for peace” is playing. Another display of this new liberation is when he visits the office of Screw magazine, or when we, in the narrative portion of the film, see the nude young couple chasing each other around the room promiscuously exploring one another.

The overall coherence is only secondary to the visual demonstration of images and ideas that Makavejev finds schematically important in understanding the contemporary international social and political issues of the day. He employs phallic references throughout the many images and ideas he proposes, as device that symbolizes among other things, a sort of masturbation. For instance, in one scene Kupferberg is standing on a bridge, wearing army fatigues, stroking his toy machine gun. This symbolic reference shows war and violence as a form of masturbation. The same idea is true for capitalism, having Tuli walk all around New York city through these crowds of people who, for the most part, buy into the materialism and commodity that capitalism sells, which also exploits another form of masturbation. These non-necessitous actions, such as commercialism and materialism, are all capitalistic frauds that occupy our time. Juxtaposed, however, with what Makavejev says about communism takes us from one extreme to another. The communist ideal reinforces a group mentality, while the capitalist ideal enforces mass consumption as means of exploring individualism (but really, it enforces a norm of materialism, which the group or society is encouraged to follow).

The Witness

2007-02-26T15:03:00.001-05:00

The film The Witness (1969) by Hungarian director Peter Basco is a satirical exploration of the communist regime during the harsh paranoiac Stalin fueled era of communism. The film takes place during the most oppressive era in Hungarian history (’48-’56). Here we get a glimpse of an infrastructure built on grounds where any and everyone is a suspicious subject in the communist eye. This system is exploited and explored throughout the entire film. The films derisive humor obviously didn't go over well, which is why it was banned in Hungary until '81.

The story focuses mainly on Joszef Pelikan and his experience under the communist system. His run around starts when he’s arrested for illegally killing his pig in order to feed his family. However, instead of making an example out of Joszef they use him as a tool for their different ploys, including scripted show trials. When he’s released from prison he finds out that his offense no longer exists. Here we see the power of the government, and their ability to simply erase events from history however they please. This startles Joszef because he fesses up to slaughtering the pig, but the officials respond to him saying their never was a pig.

This same ride of satirical events continues as the film progresses. Virag, who pulled strings to get Joszef released from prison, now wants him to test against Zoltan, a so-called spy. The trial however isn’t hinged on any valid reason for suspicion; the trials are scripted. These show trials are a harsh reality of the communist regime where many officials were forced to say they were spies, fascists, etc. The show trials birthed out of Soviet paranoia of the 1930’s. Joszef’s experience in the show trial didn’t quite pan out as most trials did. He ends up confusing details, and emphasizes his limited capabilities. For example, his common response was to say, “I’m just an idiot” or “I don’t understand.” The ironic thing is that there wasn’t much to understand. Many of the decisions made by officials, and many of the trails, were hinged on trivial details, and non-sense.

Verag’s character adds a lot to the mordant wit of the film as well. He is physically worn away. His character almost seems like a robot where someone behind the scenes is pulling his strings. This is true, someone is obviously controlling him or else he wouldn’t be so worried about manipulating Joszef. However we never actually see who or what controls or influences Verag’s decision-making process. He also doesn’t eat much because of an ulcer, which is presumably affected by the amount of stress that is imposed on him from the party. Much like Joszef’s emphasis on his being an “idiot”, Verag is constantly emphasizing his paranoia saying “how can you be sure” or “not being suspicious is suspicious.” This distinct association shows that party as paranoid and the common man as unknowing.

The film overall really shows how the common man in his own way is a hero. Even though Joszef doesn’t quite understand the arbitrary actions of the party he consciously questions the validity and veracity of them. His run around with the party, going in and out of prison, reflects the instability of the communist infrastructure. The film doesn’t necessarily explore the horrors of communist oppression but attacks the historical issues in a mocking sardonic scope that allows the viewer to overcome the harsh past and learn from the experience.

The Shop on Main Street

2007-02-26T13:48:00.000-05:00

Elmar Klos and Jan Kadar together, in The Shop on Main Street, provide an example of the traumatic and paranoiac experience of Slovakia life under Fascist oppression (specifically anti-Semitism). The film displays everyday hardships typical to common peoples, such as those in the main character, Tono Brtko. Kadar focuses on human relationships and the human exhibition of power (social and or political). For instance, when the Tono and his brother in-law Mark are together with their wives at Tono’s Mark, with confidence, displays his power and abilities, those of which have been provided to him through the Fascist Slovakian party.

Tono, however, doesn’t have power to rely on; he’s weak in his marriage, and his closest friend is his dog. His confidence only extends so far throughout the film. Tono knows his abilities and uses them where he can; in his case, it is carpentry. He builds and refurbishes things, such as, the old woman, Mrs. Lautmann’s furniture (i.e. her dresser and mirror, etc). His other project is the Fascist monument that is being built in the middle of town.

Once he’s appointed the Aryan operator of Mrs. Lautmann’s shop he realizes the shop is only a front. His only brother in-law scammed him by giving him a shop that won’t provide him with any profit, oppressing his ability to succeed (exhibiting his power over Tono). At the shop Brtko is instructed by Kucher to let the woman still live and work at the shop while the Jewish community pays to support both Tono and her. This arrangement endangers Tono, Lautmann, and Kucher. Throughout the film we see the relationship between Tono and Lautmann, and Tono and Kucher grow. Tono finally develops a sense of responsibility. When he’s confronted about by his wife, Tono responds aggressively.

The Fascist set up a mass deportation of the Jews. This increases the films terror and intensity. Not only that, but the location where they gather the Jews is at the monument outside of the Lautmann’s shop. The paranoia increases as the film gets more claustrophobic. The tight and uncomfortable feeling that Tono is experiencing, from hiding Lautmann, emanates clearly throughout the end scenes of the film. His alcohol-ravaged mind is also tossing back and forth frantic dizzying ideas about whether or not to send poor old Mrs. Lautmann out to the square for deportation. However juxtaposing this with Mrs. Lautmann’s contentment and naivety toward the whole situation creates an awkward tension where even the viewer begins to get anxious.

In the end, all of the paranoia, chance and drama got Tono nowhere. And what are we supposed to feel about Tono? The pity that might arise does so because his hysteria was a product of the Fascist pressures and oppression. The film over all employs a more realistic aesthetic. Kadar’s character selection, and particular focus on common actions poses realistic questions about human nature, power, and perception.

The Red and The White

2007-02-25T19:27:00.001-05:00

The 1968 Hungarian film The Red and the White is Jansco’s exploration of war. He takes advantage of the liberal attitude in Hungary. His difficult, and abstract filmic narrative is influenced by the modernist ideologies; his impulse is to force the viewer to look the film’s form. The story surrounds the war between the reds and the whites. Jansco’s photographic form concentrates on wide, distanced shots. He usually has long enduring shots. These filmic elements alienate the viewer from character attachment. Through these distanced shots, and lack of character attachment Jansco portends that war is void of identity.

Jansco shows how insignificant the individual is in the overall efforts of war. Not only that, but Jansco shows how meaningless the war is, and how trivial victory really is. Who wins in war where people and cultures on both sides are harmed, and even destroyed? Jansco presents both armies, red and white, as bad. He emphasizes the unnecessary and trivial choices made during war. For instance, many of the so-called victories involved senseless acts of humiliation against people of the opposing army.

The arbitrary rules of war achieve nothing. In fact, the war seems much like any ordinary board game, whose rules make little sense and only apply to the game, outside of the game these frivolous rules are completely insignificant. He shows how unstructured both armies are. However, in the midst of all this chaos Jansco adheres to strict filmic patterns. These patterns affect our perception of the film. His long shots detach us from the war. It is precisely in this detached state of mind where we are forced to question the actions of the film on whole. If the film surround a few main characters are our understanding of war would be muddle in character stories where we’d become preoccupied with the individual. Jansco makes it perfectly clear that he doesn’t want to impose this attachment to characters. It is even sometimes hard to pinpoint which army is which. This I think further detaches us, because we don’t even assess the validity of each army. Instead we confine our thoughts to war in its most basic and fundamental level of raw conflict.

The wide shot at the film’s end is clear example of how Jansco avoids any instance of emotional attachment. The characters in both armies are almost presented as like pieces or figurines in board game. This sequence blatantly depicts war as a sort of game. Overall, the lack of emotion and attachment is a form of manipulation in itself. This behavior, or mind set, influences us as viewers to lose a sense of hope. In the futility and sadness, Jansco focuses on the selflessness of war. He juxtaposes this harsh negative condition of war with a tranquil rural landscape. On the whole, he seems to be trying to show how unnatural war is, and show how our human condition is not based on those arbitrary rules and actions that result in murder and humiliation.

The Joke

2007-02-25T19:09:00.000-05:00

The 1969 film The Joke, credited to both Jaromil Jires and Milan Kundera, was banned soon thereafter it was released. The film is influenced by the nature of Kundera’s writing. His frequent use of dark humor is an elemental contribution to the film. The main character, Ludvik, cannot come to grips with his reproachful past. Throughout the film Jires toggles between Ludvik’s flashbacks of his oppressive past and contrasts it with his present state of living. Jires portrays the extremely oppressive state of communism. He makes it clear to point out that Ludvik is not a bad guy; he’s an ordinary citizen who unfortunately became the victim of the political and social oppression. Jires explores the pretentiousness of communism by exploiting the triviality of numerous public celebrations, which only really exist to suppress mass counterrevolutionary movements, instead this portray the image of false patriotism.

The story unfolds starting with Ludvik’s relationship to Margaret. Their relationship seems to fade when Margaret decides to attend an extracurricular course on politics. This is obviously reflexive of the sentiment at the time, which promoted patriotism. This sort of behavior is ingrained even in the young children of the society who in their patriotism become much like a boy scout; however this sort of patriotism, and attachment to the party continues to grow with age. This loyal and subservient behavior to the government forces citizens to turn on its own people, including family and friends, in the name of patriotism for the government. Such is the case for Margaret who turned on Ludvik, who in a letter to Margaret passed a joke about Trotsky. His joke however was not treated as a joke; it was treated with the utmost scrutiny, inevitably resulting in a six year sentence at an army labor camp, and thereafter labor working mines.

Jires tries to effectively, and realistically explore Ludvik’s tragic fate. The story emphasizes how much his distant past influences his everyday life. Jires, by interspersing flashbacks with the present, shows how real Ludvik’s past is. Ludvik is often seen, after a flashback, responding to his flashbacks—talking to himself, making gestures as if he is responding to his flashbacks, etc. This intangible past obviously goes unaffected by Ludvik’s responses and unfortunately tortures him throughout the film. Jires provides a vivid picture of Ludvik’s tormented psychology. He constantly relives a past that he wishes he could’ve eschewed sometime ago.

Since he can’t reclaim this past of his, and change the course history he tries his hand at revenge. This attempt, however, results in a distorted and pretentious love scheme. This attention to relationships, and the influence of age, love, and desire all come laced with Kundera’s definitive dark humor. It isn’t necessarily that Kundera intends to portray sad and embarrassing relationships instead he is trying to capture the essence of reality (that is, what it is to be human and to fault as humans do). The story ends with Helena embarrassed because Ludvik uses her. She desperately yanks his arm, and falls to her knees in hopes that he might take her back however he doesn’t. This leads her to attempt suicide, however in the humorous manner akin to Kundera, her attempt at suicide fails because what she eats are laxatives. In the end Helena’s assistant defends her by picking a fight with Ludvik; the fight ends when Ludvik beats the young man to the ground. Ludvik stands over the young man and confessing the beating isn’t meant for him. It’s obviously implied that his reaction came out of his repressed anger toward the communist oppression that ruined his life (that is, he lost his education, his companion, and time spent on so many years wasted in the army and mining camps).

Daisies

2007-01-30T17:38:00.000-05:00

Vera Chytilova’s 1966 film Daisies is an incredibly peculiar modernist film out of the Czech new wave. She distinctively explores film as a medium. It might be best to look at Daisies as a film collage. Chytilova uses experimental editing techniques, which include numerous montage sequences, nonlinear editing, and several discontinuities. The film also goes through a series of color and tint changes. One might question the arbitrariness of her meddle with colors; however, it appears to represent, for the viewer, the artificiality of film.

Several times throughout the film she makes us conscious of the fact that the film is precisely that, just a film. An instance of this comes when the two main characters, Marie I and Marie II, use their scissors to not only cut themselves apart but also the film itself apart. Scissors are a reoccurring symbol; the main characters use them to cut food, sheets, paper, themselves, etc. The scissors are able to edit, erase, cut and create anew. The objects and images, which are cut out or cut up, are then brought into a new context. For example, one Marie cuts a picture of a steak out of an advertisement and eats it; she takes a picture and turns it into food. Whether or not it has nutritional value is irrelevant. What is important is that Chytilova questions the use and practicality of everyday things such as food, magazines, or even gaudy dinnerware.

Her excessive use of absurd and or arbitrary objects can be read as Dada inspired; however, this can also be read as an experimental exhibition of the symbolic. The film opens with a machine that’s running interspersed with war footage. We closely examine the cogs of the machine, and its rhythm. What is this machine, and furthermore, why is this combined with war footage? It seems to me that Chytilova is hinting at the communist ideology; she shows how individual cogs work together, much like people of the “group” should in communist ideology, to achieve a common output. This machine is purposeless, and arbitrary; however, when this juxtaposed with the communist system it reflects how many of the people worked together in the system, the "cogs", did so for no purpose at all but to work for the sake of working. It is through these vague metaphors and symbols that Chytilova inspires the viewer to look for deeper meaning in the film. This isn’t the only method to which she approaches the film; she also includes multiple sequences that have the main characters out with men of the bourgeois. Through these sequences she exploits the bourgeois, and has the main characters trick and use them emotionally, economically, and presumably sexually for their own good.

Closely Watched Trains

2007-01-27T20:49:00.000-05:00

Juri Menzel, among other Czech film directors including Milos Forman, is a key contributor to the Czech New Wave. This new wave of art films comes in period after the French New Wave. These Czech directors, Menzel included, emulate the same urge to change as occurred in France several years prior. This newly found liberalization, which is largely influenced by the new lightening of control (namely less censorship) over the arts, begins in the mid-1950s. It is in this new wave of cinema that plots often contain strange, and dark humor. The films contain a distinct quirk about them, mostly because they write their many characters to have eccentric habits.

In Closely Watched Trains Menzel melds comedy with pathos. For young Milos it is a constant struggle with his sexuality. He’s confronted by his own physiological dysfunction, premature ejaculation, which he thinks prevents him from becoming a man. This film responds to the call for identity. At a time when the political system influences people to focus on the group, as opposed to the primary focus being the individual. Menzel turns the mirror back onto the people to reflect the many issues involved in daily life. Although the story surrounds the life of Milos, the main character, we’re introduced to a large number of characters. We are not only introduced to these characters but we also get a feel for their quirks; we begin to understand their habits, their interests, what makes the tick, etc.

The story never really becomes completely unordinary. And the plot never becomes unbelievable. However, when Milos goes to the brothel to commit suicide we finally get a glimpse of that mordant, and almost absurd humor. This melancholic humor resonates throughout many Czech films. Suicide in the youth culture also appears to be significant. In both Closely Watched Trains and in Forman’s Loves of a Blonde the main characters are both unsuccessful at committing suicide. Is this to suggest a suicide epidemic in society at the time? Or might this be referring to the generation as being lost, to the point where they cannot even control the extent of their own deaths. These Czech new wave films are particular about their content material, which limits them to a very dark but conspicuous humor that mimics the issues that are sad, and possibly embarrassing, but most of all they are real.

Knife in the Water

2007-01-27T20:35:00.001-05:00

In Roman Polanski’s drama Knife in the Water power is strangely and subtly expressed as a dominating theme. The story begins when Andrzej and Krystyna pick up a young hitchhiker. The story opens up with questions about trust and power. Do they trust this man that they’ve just picked up? In the car ride to the docks Polanski focuses on many details, which set up the film’s psychological eccentricity. He uses silence, close up shots, and subtle gestures between characters to introduce the obscure issue of power between individuals. The three character are separated by their age, gender, and different classes.

Once Polanski takes us away from the docks, he also takes us away from domestic issues. As a statement Polanski limits himself to three characters. Throughout the film Polanski has us questioning the role of each character, wondering who is in control. Andrzej uses his confidence to exhibit his reign of power over the two others. However Krystyna slyly assert herself in areas she sees necessary, taking control over situations she’s particularly interested in. For instance, her affair with the young hitchhiker reaffirms her autonomy over her husbands subtly domineering role. The young hitchhiker deceives the man, and presumably has an affair with his wife. These three people feed off of one another for power. This could be a metaphor about society on the whole. Each of the characters are divided by three factors: sex, age, and class. The issue of power between the young and the old generation shows, as Krystyna mentions, how the younger generation is trying to emulate the older generation; the goal of course is to try and achieve success, and more importantly power, which comes from money.

Power is defined through the sexuality of each character. Andrzej asserts his power using commands of dominance, which are exhibited in his mannerisms. It can be suggested that he uses an excessive amount of dominance to because he impotent in other areas of his life. Krystyna uses sex as a way to reassure herself of her own autonomy. She is able to deceive her powerful husband, and use the young hitchhiker for her own pleasure. The young man also uses sex to show that he has what Andrzej has, and by fulfilling Krystyna he is taking Andrzej’s dominance away, and using it for his own power and personal esteem. The knife is a reoccurring phallic symbol that represents the competition between characters. When the knife finally falls in the water it is then that each character resolutely changes their roles. Andrzej is no longer making commands; he’s busy trying to find the young man. Meanwhile the young man and Krystyna are exploring their dominance (which comes from their sexual autonomy) over Andrzej.

Bad Luck

2007-01-27T20:16:00.000-05:00

Bad Luck is Polish director Andrzej Munk’s slapstick comedy, which addresses many social and political issues. Through his sardonic lens he focuses on and brings into perspective the social and political implications of conformity. He effectively portrays anti-Semitism in the Polish society, linking humor to the amoral position. Munk uses this bleak history in combination with comedy in order to oppose the Polish tradition of story telling. Instead of bringing light to a story about nobles, he uses a common character with a humorous role.

Munk deconstructs the Polish myths of heroism. The main character, Piszcyck (Bogumil Kobiela) who is your “average Joe”, goes through great lengths to assimilate; his futile attempts often times lead to a mistake or disaster. Munk demonstrates through Piszcyck’s oblivion that life can exist without politics; this in many respects is a type of resistance, which takes the audience away from the historical atrocities and tragedies. Piszcyck, however, is unlike the majority because his sincerity is exaggerated. Munk captures the pother of Piszcyck, who is too blind to see his disasters are not because of fate. Instead his misfortune is due to his frequent lying, hyper-sincerity, and his indecisiveness. Throughout the film he’s confronted with situations that require him to take one side or the other, however, he doesn’t autonomously (or consciously) choose a side or a path. For example, when Piszcyck attends a political rally, one group is pro-government and the other fascist, he finds himself alternating between groups, yelling and rooting. Piszcyck’s position is often times based on chance.

The audience will never know whether or not Piszcyck’s accounts are accurate, or if he is exaggerating the truth. But it is possible to assume, from his narcissistic and mischievous behavior and the frequent contradictions in his stories, that some of his past is also shrouded in fictional details. As a statement this suggests that people should question the veracity of stories. The film also questions the validity of fate, and more specifically how much so does fate influence a person. Piszcyck’s story, which asks for pity, in this case from the prison warden, instead shows that fate hasn’t burdened his past but rather it is all of the lies and indecisiveness that has affected his history.