Fahrenheit 451

Fahrenheit 451 is a not a perfect film, but it's imperfections can be overlooked simply because it is so interesting, visually and philosophically. I haven't read the book in years, so I can't be sure how much of this to contribute to Ray Bradbury, and how to much to Truffaut. I do think Truffaut added quite a bit of his own ideas to this film. As a result, it comes across as experimental and playful. Certainly, it is an interesting experiment on how to thoughtfully criticize the media of which you are a part. The film ends up being a small statement on the nature of postmodern art. Art, no matter what kind, is volatile and dangerous as well as completely necessary.

Given the subject matter of the story, it is fascinating subject matter to take on, particularly in Truffaut's able hands. The drone-like, fascistic world where books are illegal is punctuated instead by mass communication, creating sort of a postmodern milieu. In every room of the house in which protagonist Montag (Oskar Werner) lives with his wife, Linda (Julie Christie) there is a different television screen. Montag's wife is a superficial and somewhat aloof drug-addict (which does not seem to be abnormal in this society). She is hardly seen apart from the television set to which she clings, hanging on the various programs. In one of these, the characters feign interaction with the home audience by pausing and waiting for them to respond to the images. In this program, the characters speak Linda's name and stare into the camera, as if looking at her directly. As Montag notes, they are talking to anyone who happens to be named Linda. Thus, the television reduces society into one entity, erasing the individual from its all-encompassing design.

In this film about images have usurped the written word. As such, it is interesting that the two opposing female roles are both played by Julie Christie. Their nearly identical appearances hide two extremes. In an interesting parallel, books are hidden, lurking in the houses, unseen. In an environment where images have proliferated to the point that they have taken over, essentially erasing any depth from the world; intellectualism and individuality are muted. Books represent the emotional depth and variety of humanity, as well as its ability to question the state of things--all of which are waning in the present society. In one scene, Montag reads aloud to Jane's clone-esque friends. In the beginning of the scene, they are shot from a distance, disallowing the engagement of the viewer. Montag's reading incites an emotional response from all of them, and the camera moves in closer. Throughout the film, there are many shots in which people caress themselves, almost as if to make sure they are alive amid the flux of static imagery.

Montag is eventually able to escape when the news fakes his death, which essentially becomes real, since it was on television. There are some interesting little Easter eggs that Truffaut leaves in the book-piles, such as a copy of the Cahiers du Cinema, and a copy of Lolita that bears an image from the Kubrick film on the front. Even while the subject matter reviles the censorship and burning of the novels, the camera lovingly rests on the fire and the curling pages of the books as they are consumed.

Truffaut uses the abilities of the camera to meditate on the ills of a society with only thoughtless media like television. I still find this an interesting story to tell through the medium of film, but it works. Truffaut seems to be making the case that film is art, as long as it maintains the individuality and philosophical self-criticism of true authorship.

Where the Wild Things Are

I was basically unimpressed by Where the Wild Things Are. People say that it is not a film for children, which is true. Unfortunately, it doesn't really seem to be for adults either. I was, at first entranced by the wandering, episodic tale. At its opening, the film is really promising. Max's (Max Records) snow-romp is shown in pieces-- a montage hewn together in jerky, mis-matched shots. The depiction of Max's home is realistic and unsentimental. He is a typically maladjusted kid, with typical familial disagreements. There is nothing truly wrong in his life, except that it is not what he wants it to be, and he is reaching the age where imperfections become tragically apparent. I honestly liked the beginning of the film, which is a relatively brief prologue before the film erupts into incoherency.

Like I noted before, the film is quite entrancing, until the Wild Things themselves enter the scene. To me, they are pathetically unimaginative creatures. Aside from their titan appearances, they are just annoying children. This might not be totally bad, but they are undeveloped as characters. I never became attached to any of them. Also, they just never say anything remotely interesting. Their dialogue seems practically improvised. Not in a good, spontaneous way, but as if they are all enrolled in a beginner's acting class. There is no wit or insight to these wild things. What begins as a really interesting idea--a child battling the adversity of his imperfect world through the images of his subconscious--unravels very quickly into a series of shots of Max leading the yowling things on runs through the trees.

I do think Jonze's visuals redeem the film to a great extent. When the story becomes boring, there is usually something pretty to look at: sun-speckled woods, vast expanses of sand, the home-spun stick fortress. Plus, Catherine Keener is in it. Several idiosyncratic moments are entertaining because of their sheer inanity. In one of these, R.W. (voiced by Lauren Ambrose) swallows Max to hide him from the marauding Carol (James Gandolfini). It is true that in certain parts, the film does a decent job of capturing the dreamy imaginative world of pre-adolescence. But these moments are not able to salvage it.

Image from here

a few things

I got a membership to the Little Theatre for my birthday (which I'm completely thrilled about, by the way!) This entails, among other things, a free film on my birthday, which means I'll probably be seeing Where the Wild Things Are tonight.

I've been a bit lax about updates lately, but I'm going to try to get back on it. Right now I'm still attempting to settle into a new work schedule, and find free time to study for the GRE, too.

Also, I ordered a few Michael Powell films from the library. I also ordered Truffaut's Fahrenheit 451. If these ever come, I should be viewing them, and writing on them soon.

The Lady Eve

I don't get into older comedies much. I mean, I have a hard time convincing myself that I will be interested in them. Then, as soon as I press play, I immediately wonder why I was so skeptical. The Lady Eve still seems very fresh today. It is also happens to be incredibly sexy despite the restrictions of the Hay's code. That is one thing that always does manage to impress me about older films--the way the subtleties used to circumnavigate the code actually produce more intriguing results. Despite the fact that sexuality is never directly mentioned at all, it is so obvious what is going on that I'm surprised Mr. Hays wasn't upset by some moments in this film.


This is a classic screwball, a classical confrontation of differing classes and genders. The most interesting thing about this film is the power relationships between Jean Harrington (Barbara Stanwyck) and the men who surround her. The basic story is that she attempts to seduce Charlie Pike (Henry Fonda) for the purpose of getting her hands on some of his money; she ends up falling in love with him instead. Both are anomalies. She is a lady crook; he is an academic wanderer with no real interest in his family's ale inheritance. In a stark contrast to the Humphrey Bogart-type masculine ideal, Pike seems to attract accidents of all sorts. He is slow and gullible, while Jean is adept and wily.

In one scene, her father (Charles Coburn) tries to swindle Charlie Pike by fixing the deck of cards, but Jean fixes it right back, in Pike's favor. These criminals take matters of power into their own hands. In their world, you do not necessarily have to live with the hand you have been dealt. Living outside of the rules of society, they make their own. As a renegade living among them, Jean has the power and the knowledge to manipulate reality the way she sees fit. She also lives outside of the conventions of love and marriage. In the scene depicted above, she narrates the images that are reflected in her mirror, as if creating them herself. From the beginning, she leads the bumbling Pike around by the nose.

I found it interesting the way Jean is constantly placed between the male characters on the screen. More often than not, it is because she is controlling them, though this is not always the case. Here she is between Pike and her father, trapped between an old life and a new one. No matter what the scenario, the framing and positioning makes the gender struggles apparent.

The film opens in the Amazon, where Pike is returning home after a successful scientific excursion. From then on, the film takes place in a number of different transient settings, including a boat and a train. The characters always seem to be in-between, as if there is no home for them in a traditional space. They must return to the ship, Amazon-bound, in order to consummate their relationship, and to truly reconcile.


The business about the Amazon is something I find sort of troubling. There are frequent references to the Amazon, especially in association with Pike. Which means, consistently lurking on the periphery of the film is some kind of exotic otherness. This place is also associated with sexuality, making it some kind of mislaid Eden. Pike returns from this expedition with a snake, which seems to be representative of more than his fondness for animal research. While it is a clearly a literalization of the bible story, it is also seems to embody a metaphor of sexuality. Jean seems to find this oddly frightening, despite her apparent lasciviousness. Or perhaps, in a reversal of Eve's story, she is simply afraid of falling from her position of manipulative, seductive power into the more subdued position of a wife.


Role-playing and doubling are emphasized in this film, both in the plot-lines and the extensive use of mirror images. Halfway through the film, Jean takes on the role of the Lady Eve. She slips so easily into this alter ego, that it is hard to believe she is role-playing at all. It seems more as if she is accessing a different side of herself. As Pike notes, she is so similar to the woman he left behind, she could not be Jean at all. It is accessing this alter-ego that inevitably leads to the reconciliation of the two lovers. Jean does seem to be pitted against herself. One half of her desires to fall in love, to settle down, while the other remains a willfully independent seductress. When Pike and Jean do come together, it is on the Amazon-bound boat, where they first met. Once more, they are sailing to that far away Eden.

Quills

I owe a lot to this movie. I think it is partially responsible for shaping my taste, and helping me to realize my devotion to more deranged cinema. At the very least, it helped me realize my love of cinema that is not merely escapism, and is, in fact, too gut-wrenching and disturbing to ever be considered as such. I'm not sure I could say what made me adore this movie so much when I first saw it, which was just a little after it came out in 2000 (this would put me at about age 12 or 13). Partly, it could be the way it moves so seamlessly from the satirical into the disturbing--so smoothly that you aren't sure what happened. Now, I have seen the film so many times that it is almost more difficult to pick it apart, as I do whenever I watch a film now. Quills made a big critical splash at the time and is part of Philip Kaufman's rather impressive oeuvre, alongside his remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Unbearable Lightness of Being.


Quills is essentially a parable about self-expression, both artistic and sexual. And every film about art usually has a confluence of the two (is art possible without sex? Is sex possible without art? Is art sex? Is sex art? Would my parents have allowed me to rent this if they actually knew what it was about?) Nearly every exchange in the movie is sexualized in some aspect; every conversation is a power-play. This is, after all, a film about the origins of sado-masochism. Madeleine (Kate Winslet, who always rules) is a laundry-maid in a mad-house, caught between two men who are completely polarized in their attributes. The Marquis de Sade (Geoffrey Rush, who usually rules) is as full of perversions as the stories he is illegally publishing from within his mad-house prison. The Abbe (Joaquin Phoenix, who is okay when he is not Johnny Cash) is pious, virtuous, and gentle, and practically effeminate as a result. He oversees the asylum residents, attempting to use varying sorts of humane therapy (painting, theatre, choir) to keep them in check. The characters abide in a subtle balance until the entrance of Dr. Royer-Collard (Michael Caine) whose reactionary methods unleash a tidal wave of suck.

Sort of reminiscent of this seminal image, no?


Long story short: Abbe's repressed sexuality eventually drives him insane, putting him into the same cell that the Marquis had previously occupied. Despite the myriad disgusting fantasies pulsing through his mind, the Marquis is, seemingly, more aroused by the process of putting them to paper. His most poignant sexual act is writing, just as Madeleine's is reading. Both sex and art are complementary functions of human individuality. Neither can be repressed without egregious results like insanity or death, at least, if you happen to live in an insane asylum in Revolutionary Era France.


Naturally, there is a lot of voyeurism as well, which brings to mind the scopophilia of cinema in general. According to Freud, scopophilia is already an erotic tendency, a fundamental part of human sexuality. Particularly when a large part of the subject matter of the film is already related to sexuality, the look becomes even more eroticized. Whether or not Kaufman is intentionally bringing this out, it remains in the subtext. There are many close-ups on key-holes and watching through holes in the wall. In one particular scene, Abbe and Royer-Collard watch the Marquis through a rectangular window in his door, while he carries on as if he is an actor caught in the middle of a screen-performance. Coincidentally, he is rehearsing the theatre group. We, as an audience, witness the many sexual scenes, unfolding in a hermetic world that is unknowing of our presence. We are made voyeurs over and over.


Upon being confronted about leaking the de Sade's manuscripts to the publisher, Madeleine describes how she placed herself in the stories, allowing herself to play out her fantasies. This moment is descriptive of human interaction with any narrative art-form, cinema included. To put oneself into a narrative is almost a sexual act in itself, as reader and writer intermingle to create something new--an experience that is unique to the reader (or viewer). Certainly, being able to enter this world for a few hours is transportative, exactly the way cinema should be.

Vampyr

The Dryden is a Rochester theatre connected to the George Eastman House. This institution is devoted to showing older films on the big screen, and they often have retrospectives with various themes. Leading up to Halloween, they are hosting a number of vampire films. These range from silent to contemporary ones, like Let the Right One In. Although many of them are at totally inconvenient times for me, I vowed that I would make it to at least one, which I did. I hope to go to a few more, at least. I'm dying to see Nosferatu, for instance. We'll see if I can accomplish that.

Carl Dreyer's Vampyr is totally beautiful. Parts of it don't make much sense, and at times during my viewing, the (minimal) sound was off from the picture, but neither of these things distracted much from the experience. Although it is a talkie, Vampyr retains the feeling of a silent film. None of the dialogue is necessary; the story is told almost entirely out of the imagery and camera work. Dreyer makes every frame count. Through most of the first half of this hour-long film, David Gray** is literally chasing shadows, and the shadows always precede that which casts them, if we are ever privy to the source at all. Gray wanders through an ethereal dream gauze, encountering countless unsettling images-- a peg-legged man, a man with a scythe. The vampire herself hobbles on a cane, making her movements even odder. Dreyer seems to have a fascination with bodily extensions, or extraneous objects that become part of the figures who carry them.


The camera seems to take on a life of its own, at times. It will follow normally, only to veer off on its own trajectory before snapping back abruptly. In several places it does so, only to catch the characters off guard. In one scene, the camera pans from Gray (who has just come up through a door in the floor) across a trail of cut-up paper, before sliding back around to Gray who is just slipping out the door on the other side of the room. The camera-eye is not omniscient, and neither is it Gray's perspective. It seems to be something else entirely.

My favorite scene is when Leone (Sybille Schmitz) gets bitten by the vampire. Her transformation is signified by a look of psychotic possession. In some moments, her new found blood lust borders on the erotic, which is interesting, since all the vampires in this film are women. The vampire, or the Old Woman from the Cemetery (Henriette Gerard), apparently obtained this condition by being sinful in some way. I could only assume this had to do with extramarital relations or something of that nature. In this universe, the fallen woman takes on a new meaning, and vampirism might be the manifestation of some fear of feminine sexuality.

Then, in the final sequence, the evil doctor accomplice (Jan Hieronimko) experiences death by flour suffocation--a scene which is inter-cut with the escape of David Gray and Gisele, Leone's sister (Rena Mandel). Every time the camera returns to him, he is more covered until only his hands remain, grasping the cage.

Seeing this on a big screen with a relatively small audience of like-minded nerds was a great experience, and one I hope to relive soon. It is great, for once, to see older movies the way they were meant to be seen, and not on my television or computer screen.

** okay, there is some discrepancy here. Some films feature Allan Grey as the protagonist, while mine was David Gray. Also, I think the actor who was credited in the role is not the one who inevitably ended up starring in it, so I will avoid crediting him myself until I figure that one out.

The pictures are from Criterion and Deeperintomovies.net

Inglourious Basterds part 2

Inglourious Basterds was equally great the second time, especially since I was treated by my parents. Free!

It's a bit of a different experience the next time--a little less tense, a little more funny. I was allowed the luxury to giddily anticipate some of my favorite moments. Stiglitz!

This time, I got the sense of how much everyone is role-playing throughout this film. The double agent whose profession is actress is not acting any more or less than Colonel Landa, or the basterds who have infiltrated the cinema. Also, there is a self-conscious feeling throughout, as if characters are launched on a narrative trajectory, following a set path towards a set end, like Rosencratz and Guildenstern. The plot holes are glaring, but it almost seems as if Tarantino left them intentionally untied. With chapter titles and random narration from an unknown source, this film never attempts to convince us that it is anything but fiction. When Landa allows Shoshanna to escape, it is almost as if he knows that he will meet up with her later on. Landa seems practically omniscient--so brilliant that he orchestrates the events of the entire film.

My favorite scene is the one in the bar, a playful, lengthy experiment in tension. I especially like when they are playing the card game. In their game, fictional characters and real historical figures carry equal weight. Von Hammersmarck makes a comment about whether the nationality of a character depends on the setting of their narrative or the nationality of those who created the character. Could this be a reference to the film? Aha!

I would see it again, too.